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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34825-8.txt b/34825-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..61fbab4 --- /dev/null +++ b/34825-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10496 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of She Buildeth Her House, by Will Comfort + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: She Buildeth Her House + +Author: Will Comfort + +Illustrator: Martin Justice + +Release Date: January 2, 2011 [EBook #34825] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE BUILDETH HER HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + + She Buildeth Her House + + By Will Levington Comfort + + Author of "Routledge Rides Alone," etc + + + With a Frontispiece By + Martin Justice + + Philadelphia & London + J. B. Lippincott Company + 1911 + + COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY + + Published May, 1911 + + PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY + AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS + PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. + + + A BOUGH BROUGHT WITH SINGING + TO THE FEET OF + HER + WHO CROSSED THE SANDS ALONE + IN ADORING PILGRIMAGE + FOR HER SON + + +[Illustration: HE REACHED THE CURBING OF THE OLD WELL WITH HIS BURDEN] + + + + +Contents + + +FIRST CHAPTER. PAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT, +AND HEARKENS TO THE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF + +SECOND CHAPTER. PAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND +THE MYSTERIOUS MADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE ZOROASTER + +THIRD CHAPTER. CERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT +OF NARRATIVE--ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID + +FOURTH CHAPTER. PAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND +TELLS OF A STARRY CHILD SOON TO BE BORN + +FIFTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS +AND WRITES A LETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER + +SIXTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR "F" OF THE MAIDSTONE WHERE THE +BEYOND-DEVIL AWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS + +SEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME +NESTOR'S REVELATIONS, AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT + +EIGHTH CHAPTER. PAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER +HEART-COUNTRY, AND IS DELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK + +NINTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS DRAWN INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY +WOOED THROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST + +TENTH CHAPTER. PAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN +APARTMENT NEXT MORNING IS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY + +ELEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE +HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS + +TWELFTH CHAPTER. CERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS +MOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE, ACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA + +THIRTEENTH CHAPTER. "NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND +SPOIL HIS GOODS, EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN" + +FOURTEENTH CHAPTER. THE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER +HASTENS EAST TO FIND A QUEER MESSAGE AT THE GRANVILLE + +FIFTEENTH CHAPTER. QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW +BATTLE-GROUND, EACH LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS + +SIXTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA, FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER +CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT INTO THE NIGHT + +SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF +SAINT PIERRE, WHERE LA MONTAGNE PELÉE GIVES WARNING + +EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT +PIERRE AND THE PANTHER CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL + +NINETEENTH CHAPTER. QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF +PELÉE, AND ENCOUNTERS A QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER + +TWENTIETH CHAPTER. CHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN +THE WYNDAM WOMAN AND SKYLARK MEMORIES + +TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER. CHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND +CONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE OF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL + +TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER. CHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF +PELÉE--ONE LAST DAY DEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS + +TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER. CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE +IN THE NIGHT, AND THE WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE PALMS + +TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER. HAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE +ASCENSION, WHEN THE MONSTER, PELÉE, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH + +TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER. THE SARAGOSSA ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS +FROM PELÉE EIGHT MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE + +TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER. PAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE +ENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD THAT DRIVES THE WORLD + +TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE +HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY + + + + +She Buildeth Her House + + + + +FIRST CHAPTER + +PAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT, AND HEARKENS TO +THE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF + + +Paula Linster was twenty-seven when two invading giants entered the +country of her heart. On the same day, these hosts, each unconscious of +the other, crossed opposite borders and verged toward the prepared +citadel between them. + +Reifferscheid, though not one of the giants, found Paula a distraction +in brown, when she entered his office before nine in the morning, during +the fall of 1901. He edited the rather distinguished weekly book-page of +_The States_, and had come to rely upon her for a paper or two in each +issue. There had been rain in the night. The mellow October sunlight was +strange with that same charm of maturity which adds a glow of attraction +to motherhood. The wonderful autumn haze, which broods over our zone as +the spirit of ripening grains and tinting fruits, just perceptibly +shaded the vivid sky. A sentence Paula had heard somewhere in a play, +"My God, how the sun does shine!" appealed to her as particularly +fitting for New York on such a morning. Then in the streets, so lately +flooded, the brilliant new-washed air was sweet to breathe. + +Paula had felt the advisability the year before of adding somewhat to +her income. Inventory brought out the truth that not one of her talents +had been specialized to the point of selling its product. She had the +rare sense to distinguish, however, between a certain joyous inclination +to write and a marked ability for producing literature; and to recognize +her own sound and sharp appreciation of what was good in the stirring +tide of books. Presenting herself to Reifferscheid, principally on +account of an especial liking for the book-page of _The States_, she never +forgot how the big man looked at her that first time over his +spectacles, as if turning her pages with a sort of psychometric faculty. +He found her possible and several months won her not a little +distinction in the work. + +Reifferscheid was a fat, pondrous, heavy-spectacled devourer of work. He +compelled her real admiration--"the American St. Beuve," she called him, +because he was so tireless, and because he sniffed genius from afar. +There was something unreservedly charming to her, in his sense of +personal victory, upon discovering greatness in an unexpected source. +Then he was so big, so common to look at; kind as only a bear of a man +can be; so wise, so deep, and with such a big smoky factory of a brain, +full of fascinating crypts. Subcutaneous laughter that rested her +internally for weeks lingered about certain of the large man's sayings. +Even in the auditing of her account, she felt his kindness. + +"Now here are some essays by Quentin Charter--a big man, a young man and +a slow worker," he said. "Charter's first volume was a thunderer. We +greeted it with a whoop two years ago. Did you see it?" + +"No," Paula replied. "I was too strong for literary trifles then." + +"Anyway, look out for Charter. He didn't start to appear until he was an +adult. He's been everywhere, read everything and has a punch like a +projectile. An effective chap, this Charter. He dropped in to see me a +few weeks after my review. He confessed the critics had made him very +glad.... 'I am doing a second book,' he confided to me. 'Down on my +knees to it. Work-shop stripped of encomiums; no more dinner-parties or +any of that fatness. Say, it's a queer thing about making a book. You +never can tell whether it's to be a boy or a girl....'" + +Paula smiled reservedly. + +"I asked him what his second book was to be about," Reifferscheid went +on. "'Women,' said he. 'How novel!' said I. He grinned genially. +'Reifferscheid,' he declared, in his snappy way, 'women are interesting. +They're doing the thinking nowadays. They're getting there. One of these +mornings, man will wake up to the fact that he's got to be born again to +get in a class with his wife. Man is mixed up with altogether too much +of this down-town madness. Women don't want votes, public office, or +first-hand dollars. _They want men!_' ... I always remembered that +little bit of stuff from Charter. He says the time will come when classy +girls will get their heads together and evolve this ultimatum, which +will be handed intact to adorers: 'No, boys, we can't marry you. We +haven't any illusions about celibacy. It isn't nice nor attractive, but +it's better than being yoked with hucksters and peddlers who come +up-town at night--mental cripples in empty wagons. Go away and learn +what life means, what it means to be men--_what it means to us for you +to be men_! Learn how to live--and oh, boys, hurry back!'" + +"Splendid!" Paula exclaimed. + +"Oh, yes, Charter is a full deck and a joker. He's lived. He makes you +feel him. His years are veritable campaigns. He has dangled in the +vortices of human action and human passion--and seemed to come out +whole!..." Reifferscheid chuckled at a memory. "'Women are interesting,' +Charter finished in his dry fashion. 'I just got to them lately. I wish +I could know them all.'" + +"I love the book already," Paula said. Reifferscheid laughed inwardly at +the feminine way she held the volume in both hands, pressing it close. + +"It's the only book on my table this morning that I'd like to read," he +added. "Therefore I give it to you. There's no fun in giving something +you don't want.... Are you going to hear Bellingham to-night?" + +She was conscious of an unaccountable dislike at the name, a sense of +inward chill. It was almost as reckonable as the pleasure she felt in +the work and personality of Quentin Charter. + +"Who's Bellingham?" Paula swallowed dryly after the first utterance of +the name. + +"Mental magician. I only mentioned him, because you so seldom miss the +unusual, and are so quick to hail a new cult or odd mental specimen." + +"Magician--surely?" she asked. + +"He comes rather stoutly recommended as such," Reifferscheid replied, +"though personally mine is more than a healthy skepticism. There's a +notice this morning of his lectures. He recently hypnotized a man to +whom the medical profession was afraid to administer an +anaesthetic--held him painless during a long and serious operation. Then +Bellingham is the last word in alchemy, feminine emotions, causes of +hysteria, longevity, the proportions of male and female in each person; +also he renews the vital principle, advises unions, makes you beautiful, +and has esoteric women's classes. A Godey's Ladies' man. Some provincial +husband will shoot him presently." + +Paula took the surface car home, because the day was so rare and the +crowd was still downward bent. The morning paper contained an +announcement of Quentin Charter's new book, and a sketch of the author. +A strange, talented figure, new in letters, the article said. The +paragraphs had that fresh glow of a publisher's perennial high hope. +Here was the book of a man who had lived; who drew not only upon art, +history, and philosophy for his prisms of thought, but who had roamed +and worked and ridden with men, keeping a sensitive finger ever at the +pulse of nature; a man who had never in the most insignificant degree +lowered the import or artificially raised the tension of his work to +adjust it to the fancied needs of the public. In spite of the +enthusiastic phrasing, everything about Charter fascinated her; even the +make-up of the unread book in her hand, and the sentences that gleamed +from the quickly turned pages. + +She had ridden many squares, when the name of Dr. Bellingham stood out +before her eyes in the newspaper. The chill in her arteries was +perceptible as before, when Reifferscheid spoke the name. It was as the +latter had said--the famous healer and telepathist was to start a series +of classes for women. + +Paula lived alone in a small apartment at the _Zoroaster_, "Top-side o' +Park." Few friends, many books, within a car ride of the world's best +fruition in plays, lectures, music, and painting--yet the reality of it +all was the expansion of her mind in the days and nights alone. The +subtle relations of things encroached upon her intelligence with a +steady and certain trend. She never had to pass, like so many of cruder +nature, through the horrid trials of materialism; nor to be painfully +bruised in mind from buffeting between manhandled creeds and the pure +ethics of the Lord Christ. Hers was not an aggressive masculine +originality, but the complement of it--that inspiring, completing +feminine intelligence, elastic to a man's hard-won concepts and ready +with a crown for them. + +Something of this type of woman, the big-brained brothers of men have +written and chiselled, painted, sung and dreamed of, since human thought +first lifted above the appetites. There must be a bright answer for each +man's particular station of evolution in the world's dumfounding snarl +of the sexes--one woman to lighten his travail and accelerate his +passage to the Uplands. For we are but half-men, man and woman alike. +The whole is two, whose union forms One.... This is the key to Nature's +arcanum; this, the one articulate sentence from all the restless +murmuring out of the past; this, the stupendous Purpose weaving the +million thrilling and truant activities of the present hour--the clean +desire for completion--the union of two which forms One. + +The search for this completing woman is the secret of man's roving in +the gardens of sense. His frequent falls into abysmal depravity are but +results incidental to the occultations of his Guide Star. From reptiles +in the foul smoke of chaos, to the lifted spines of manhood on a rising +road, Man has come; and by the interminable torture of the paths which +sink behind, he has the other half of eternity to reach the Top. + +From a child whose fairies were only enchanted into books for day-time +convenience, darkness to Paula meant visions, indeed. Often now at +night, though she never spoke of it, the little apartment was peopled by +the spirits of her reading and her ideals--mystics, priests, prophets, +teachers, ascetics. To the congenial dark they came--faces unlike any +she had ever seen, but quite unmistakable in her dreamings. Once when +she pampered a natural aversion to meat for several months, soft +foot-falls and low voices (which had nothing whatever to do with her +neighbors across the hall, or the elevator-man in any passage) began to +rouse her in the night. New York is no place for such refinements of +sense, and she checked these manifestations through physical exercise +and increased diet. She was seldom afraid, but there was a tension in +all her imaginings, and she grew marvellously in this twenty-eighth +year--furnishing her mind more sumptuously than she knew. Reifferscheid +saw this in her eyes and in her work. + +Throughout the swiftly passing day, Paula realized that she would go to +Prismatic Hall in West Sixty-seventh Street, where Dr. Bellingham was to +organize his lecture-course that night. Against this foreknowledge was a +well-defined distaste for the man and his work. Between the two, the +thought of the evening crowded frequently into mind until she became +impatient with herself at the importance it assumed. It was with a +certain feminine manipulation of conscience, so deft as almost to be +unconscious, that she excused her own curiosity on the ground that her +disfavor for the doctor and his message would be strengthened by the +first meeting, beyond the need of further experience. + +One concession she made to her natural aversion--that of going late. She +was in a mood poignantly critical. The real Paula Linster, she fancied, +was at home, "Top-side o' Park"; here was just a sophisticated +professional surface, such as reporters carry about. The Hall was packed +with women; the young and the jaded; faces of pup-innocence; faces +bitten from terrible expeditions to the poles of sense; faces tired and +thick from the tread of an orient of emotions; slow-roving eyes which +said, "I crave--I crave! I have lost the sense of reality, but seven +sick and pampered organs crave within me!" + +The thought came to Paula--to be questioned afterward--that man's evil, +after all, is rudimentary compared to a worldly woman's; man's soul not +so complicated, nor so irrevocably identified with his sensual organism. +She could not avoid pondering miserably upon woman's innate love for far +ventures into sensation, permitting these ventures to be called (if the +world would) searches for the holy grail. The inevitable attraction for +women which specialists of the body possess, actually startled her. +Bellingham was one of these. On the surface of all his sayings, and all +comment about him, was the bland, deadly insinuation that the soul +expands in the pursuit of bodily health. About his name was the mystery +of his age, whispers of his physical perfection, intimations of romantic +affairs, the suggestion of his miraculous performances upon the +emotions--the whole gamut of activities designed to make him the instant +aversion of any normal member of his own sex. Yet the flock of females +had settled about him, as they have settled about every black human +plague--and glorious messiah--since the birth of days. + +The thrilled, expectant look on several faces brought to Paula's mind +the type of her sisters who relish being shocked; whose exaltations are +patently those of emotional contact; who call physical excitement the +glorifying of their spirit, and cannot be persuaded to confess +otherwise. Woman as a negation for man to play upon never distressed her +before with such direct and certain pressure. Here were women intent +upon encountering a new sensation; women who devoutly breathed the name +of Motherhood next to Godhood, and yet endured their pregnancy with +organic rebellion and mental loathing; women who could not conceive of +love apart from the embrace of man, and who imagine a "message" in +deformed and salacious novels, making such books popular; women of +gold-leaf culture whose modesty fastens with a bow--narrow temples of +infinite receptivity.... + +Why had they come? In the perfect feminine system of information, the +whisper had run: "Bellingham is wonderful. Bellingham tells you how to +live forever. Bellingham teaches the renewal of self and has esoteric +classes--_for the few_!" They had the sanction of one another. There was +no scandal in being there openly, nor any instinct, apparently, to warn +them that secret classes to discover how to live forever, had upon the +surface no very tonic flavor. The digest of the whole matter was that +revelations sooner or later would be made to a certain few, and that +these revelations, which would be as fine oil upon the mental surfaces +of many women near her, would act as acid upon the male mind generally. + +In the sickening distaste for herself and for those who had to make no +concession to themselves for coming, inasmuch as society permitted; and +who would be heartfully disappointed in a lecture on hygiene that did +not discuss the more intimate matters of the senses, Paula did not +appraise the opposite sex at any higher value. She merely reviewed +matters which had come to her vividly as some of the crowning frailties +of her own kind. The centre of the whole affair, Dr. Bellingham, was now +introduced. + +He looked like a Dane at first glance. His was the size, the dusty look +and the big bone of a Dane; the deep, downy paleness of cheek, the +tumbled, though not mussy hair. He was heavy without being adipose, +lean, but big-boned; his face was lined with years, though miraculously +young in the texture of skin. The lips of a rather small and feminine +mouth were fresh and red as a girl's. In the softness of complexion and +the faintest possible undertone of color, it was impossible not to think +of perfected circulation and human health brought to truest rhythm. The +costliest lotions cannot make such a skin. It is organic harmony. +Exterior decoration does not delude the seeing eye any more than a +powder-magazine becomes an innocent cottage because its walls are +vine-clad.... Directly behind her, Paula now heard a slow whisper: + +"I knew him twenty-five years ago, and he is not a moment older to look +at." + +She seemed to have heard the voice before, and though the sentence +surged with a dark significance through her mind, she did not turn. +Bellingham's words were now caressing the intelligence of his audience. +To Paula, his soft mouth was indescribably odious with cultured passion, +red with replenishment, fresh with that sinister satisfaction which +inevitably brings to mind a second figure, fallen, drained. His presence +set to quivering within her, fears engendered from the great occult +past. Strange deviltries would always be shadowed about the Bellingham +image in her mind.... Here was a man who made a shrine of his body, +invested it with a heavy hungering God, and taught others--women--to bow +and to serve. + +To her the body was but a nunnery which enclosed for a time an eternal +element. This was basic, incontrovertible to her understanding. All that +placated the body and helped to make fleshly desires last long, was +hostile to the eternal element. Not that the body should be abused or +neglected, but kept as nearly as possible a clean vessel for the spirit, +brought to a fine automatic functioning. It was as clear to Paula +Linster as the faces of the women about her, that the splendid sacrifice +of Jesus was not that He had died upon the Cross, but that He put on +flesh in the beginning for the good of infant-souled men.... To eat +sparingly of that which is good; to sleep when weary; to require +cleanliness and pure air--these were the physical laws which worked out +easily for decent minds. Beyond such simple affairs, she did not allow +the body often to rule her brain. When, indeed, the potentialities of +her sex stirred within, Paula felt that it was the down-pull of the old +brood-mother, Earth, and not the lifting of wings. + +Bellingham's voice correlated itself, not with the eyes and brow, but +with the Lilith mouth--that strangely unpunished mouth. It was soft, +suave. There was in it the warmth of breath. The high white forehead and +the tousled brown hair, leonine in its masculinity--seemed foreign as +another man's. She hearkened to the voice of a doctor used to women; one +who knows women without illusion, whom you could imagine saying, "Why +bless you, women never say 'no.'" + +The eyes were blue-gray, but toned very darkly. The iris looked small in +contrast to the expanse of clear white. They were fixed like a bird's in +expression, incapable of warming or softening, yet one did not miss the +impression that they could brighten and harden, even to shining in the +dark. Heavy blonde brows added a look of severity. + +Paula's spirit, as if recognizing an old and mortal enemy, gathered +about itself every human protecting emotion. Frankly hateful, she +surveyed the man, listening. He talked marvellously; even in her +hostility, she had to grant that. The great sunning cat was in his +tones, but the words were joined into clean-thought expression, rapid, +vivid, unanswerable. He did not speak long; the first meeting was +largely formative. Paula knew he was studying his company, and watched +him peer into the faces of the women. His mouth occasionally softened in +the most winsome and engaging way, while his words ran on with the +refined wisdom of ages. And always to her, his eyes stood out cold, +hard, deadly. + +Finally, she was conscious that they were roving near her; moving left +to right, from face to face, as a collection-plate might have been +passed. Her first thought was to leave; but fear never failed to arouse +an impulse to face out the cause. The second thought was to keep her +eyes lowered. This she tried. His words came clearly now, as she stared +down into the shadow--the perfectly carved thoughts, bright and swift +like a company of soldiers moving in accord. As seconds passed, this +down-staring became insufferable as though some one were holding her +head. She could not breathe under repression. Always it had been so; the +irresistible maddened the very centres of her reason--a locked room, a +hand or a will stronger than her own. + +Raising her head with a gasp, as one coming to the surface from a great +depth of water, she met Bellingham's glance unerringly as a shaft of +light. He had waited for this instant. The eyes now boring into her own, +seemed lifted apart from all material things, veritable essences of +light, as if they caught and held the full rays of every arc-lamp in the +Hall. Warmth and smiling were not in them; instead, the spirit of +conquest aroused; incarnate preying-power, dead to pity and humor. Here +was Desire toothed, taloned, quick with every subtle art of nature. +Something at war with God, his eyes expressed to her. Failing to master +God, failing to foul the centres of creative purity, this Something +devoured the souls of women. Continually his voice sought to drug her +brain. The fine edge was gone from her perceptions; dulled, she was, to +all but his sayings. There was a chill behind and above her eyes; it +swept backward and seemed to converge in the coarser ganglia at the base +of her brain. Once she had seen a bird hop and flutter lower and lower +among the branches of a lilacbush. On the ground below was a cat with +head twisted upward--its vivid and implacable eyes distending. Paula +could understand now the crippling magnetism the bird felt.... Finally +she could hear only the words of Bellingham, and feel only his power. +What he was saying now to her was truth, the unqualified truth of +more-than-man. + +When his eyes turned away, she felt ill, futile, immersed in an +indescribable inner darkness. Her fingers pained cruelly, and she +realized she had been clutching with all her strength the book in her +hand--Quentin Charter's book--which she had begun since morning. She +could not remember a single one of his sentences which had impressed +her, for her brain was tired and ineffectual, as after a prolonged +fever, but she held fast to the bracing effect of an optimistic +philosophy. Then finally out of the helplessness of one pitifully +stricken, a tithe of her old vitality returned. She used it at once, +rose from her seat to leave the Hall. Into the base of her brain again, +as she neared the door, penetrated the protest of his eyes. Had she been +unable to go on, she would have screamed. She felt the eyes of the +women, too; the whole, a ghastly experience. Once outside, she wanted to +run. + +Not the least astonishing was the quick obliteration of it all. This was +because her sensations were the result of an influence foreign to her +own nature. In a few moments she felt quite well and normal again, and +was conscious of a tendency to make light of the whole proceeding. She +reached home shortly after ten, angered at herself--inexplicable +perversity--because she had taken Bellingham and the women so +seriously.... That night she finished one of the big books of her +life--Quentin Charter's "A Damsel Came to Peter." When the dawn stole +into the little flat, her eyes were stinging, and her temples felt +stretched apart from the recent hours. + + + + +SECOND CHAPTER + +PAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND THE MYSTERIOUS +MADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE _ZOROASTER_ + + +Paula had never felt such a consciousness of vitality as the next +forenoon, after three or four hours' sleep. She was just _un_rested +enough to be alive with tension. Her physical and mental capacities +seemed expanded beyond all common bounds, and her thoughts tumbled about +playfully in full arenic light, as athletes awaiting the beginning of +performance. She plunged into a tub of cool water with such delight as +thoroughly to souse her hair, so it became necessary to spend a +half-hour in the sunlight by the open window, combing and fanning, her +mind turning over wonderful things. + +If you ever looked across a valley of oaks and maples and elms in the +full morning glow of mid-October, you can divine the glory of red and +brown and gold which was this fallen hair. One must meditate long to +suggest with words the eyes of Paula Linster; perhaps the best her +chronicler can do is to offer a glimpse from time to time. Just now you +are asked for the sake of her eyes to visualize that lustrous valley +once more--only in a dusk that enriches rather than dims. A memorably +beautiful young woman, sitting there by the open window--one of the +elect would have said. + +The difficulty in having to do with Linster attractions is to avoid +rising into rhapsody. One thinks of stars and lakes, angels and autumn +lands, because his heart is full as a country-boy's, and high +clean-clipped thinking is choked. Certainly, once having known such a +woman, you will never fall under the spell of Weininger, or any other +scale-eyed genius. There is an inspiring reach to that hard-handled +word, Culture, when it is used about a woman like this. It means so pure +a fineness as neither to require nor to be capable of ostentation; and +yet, a fineness that wears and gives and associates with heroisms. You +think of a lineage that for centuries has not been fouled by brutality +or banality, and has preserved a glowing human warmth, too, to retain +the spirit of woman. When men rise to the real and the worthy, one by +one, each will find his Paula Linster, whom to make happy is happiness; +whose companionship inevitably calls forth his best; whom to be with +constantly means therefore that all within him, not of the best, must +surely die. Clearly when a man finds such a woman, all his roads are +closed, save one--to the Shining Heights! And who can say that his royal +mate will not laughingly unfold wings for him, when they stand together +in the radiant altitude? + +She was thinking of Charter's book as she brushed her hair dry. His +sentences played brightly in her mind, fastening themselves to comment +of her own for the review. Deep was the appeal of the rapt, sunlit face, +as she looked away across the rear-court. The colored hall-boy of her +own house might have missed the exquisite lines of lip, eyelid, nostril, +brow, temple and chin, but his head uncovered in her presence, and the +choicest spirit of service sprang within him. In all about her, +to an enlightened vision, was the unconscious repression of +beauty--art-stirring lines of mental and spiritual awakening; that look +of deep inner freshness and health, the mere sight of which disgusts a +man with all he has done to soil and sicken his body. Full and easily +she breathed, as one who relishes sweet air like the taste of pure +water. You could imagine Paula exclaiming with joy at the tonic delight +of a wind from the sea, but not from the steaming aroma of a grill. It +was all an æsthetic attraction--not an over-rounded arc, not a tissue +stretched shiny from uneven plumpness, not a drowsy sag or fold to +suggest the easy content of a mere feeding and breeding animal. + +The rear-view of a great granite-ridge of rooming-houses across the +court had often fascinated her with the thought of the mysteries within. +Once she had spoken to Reifferscheid about the splendid story of New +York yet to be written by someone who watched, as she often did, one of +these walls of a hundred windows. + +"Yes," he had said. "It's great to be poor. Best blood of New York is in +those back rooms. Everyone needs his poverty-stage of growth--about +seven years will do. It teaches you simplicity. You step into your +neighbor's room and find him washing his stockings with shaving-soap. He +explains that it is better than tooth-powder for textile fabrics. Also, +he intimates that he has done a very serious thing in wetting down these +small garments, having looked in his bag since, and learned that he has +not another pair. However, he wrings them very tight and puts them on +with the remark that this is a certain way to prevent shrinkage." + +Even now, a man stood by his window in a sleeveless garment and a ruff +of lather, shaving with a free hand, and a song between strokes. His was +a shining morning face, indeed.... A bare feminine arm leaped quickly +forth from behind a tightened curtain nearby and adjusted a flower-pot +better to the sunlight. From somewhere came a girlish voice in Wagner's +_Walkure Call_. There was not a thought of effort in her carrying that +lofty elaborate music--just a fine heart tuned to harmony on a rare +morning. The effect is not spoiled by the glimpse of a tortured feminine +face igniting a cigarette over a gas-flame that has burned all night. +The vibrations of New York are too powerful for many, but there is more +of health and hope than not.... A good mother cleanses a sauce-pan from +her water-pitcher and showers with the rinsing a young heaven-tree far +below. Then she lifts in a milk-bottle from the stone ledge--and blows +the dust from the top.... + +Often at night when Paula awakened she could hear the drum of a +typewriter winging across the precipice--one of the night-shift helping +to feed the insatiable maw of print. Had New York called him? Would the +City crush him into a trifler, with artificial emotions, or was this a +Daniel come to interpret her evil dreams?... In a corner-room with two +windows, sat a lame young man before an easel. Almost always he was +there, when there was light. Heaven be with him, Paula thought, if his +picture failed.... And in one of the least and darkest, an old man sat +writing. Day after day, he worked steadily through the hours. To what +god or devil had he sold his soul that he was thus condemned to eternal +scrivening? This was the harrowing part. The back-floors of New York are +not for the old men. Back-rooms for the young men and maidens, still +strong in the flight of time and the fight of competition--back-rooms +for young New York. Nature loses interest in the old. Civilization +should be kinder. + +From an unseen somewhere a canary poured out a veritable fire-hose +torrent of melody; and along one of the lower window ledges opposite, an +old gray cat was crouched, a picture of sinister listening. Here was a +dragon, indeed, for small, warm birds. + +Directly opposite a curtain was lifted, and a woman, no longer young, +appeared to breathe the morning. Many New Yorkers knew this woman for +her part in children's happiness. There was a whisper that she had once +been an artist's model--and had loved the artist.... There was one woman +long ago--a woman with a box of alabaster--who was forgiven because she +loved much.... The lady across the way loved children now, children of +most unhappy fortunes. To those who came, and there were many, she gave +music lessons; often all day long helping grimy fingers to falter over +the keys. So she awakened poetry and planted truth-seedlings in shaded +little hearts. To the children, though the lady was poor as any--in +spite of her piano and a wall of books--she was Lady Bountiful, +indeed.... Paula smiled. Two windows, strangely enough side by side, +were curtained with stockings out to dry. In one, there were +many--cerise and lavender, pink and baby blue. In the next there were +but two pair, demurely black. What a world of suggestion in the +contrast!... So it was always--her wall of a hundred windows, a changing +panorama of folly, tragedy, toil that would not bow to hopelessness, +vanity, art, sacrifice. Blend them all together above the traffic's +roar--and you have the spirit of young New York. + +She put on the brass kettle at length, crossing the room for an +occasional glance into the mirror as she finished her hair.... The +strange numbing power she had felt the night before crept suddenly back +from her eyes now to the base of her brain, striving to cripple her +volition. Bellingham was calling her.... The sunlight was gone. There +was a smell of hot metal in the air, as if some terrific energy had +burned out the vitality. Her heart hurt her from holding her breath so +long. Beyond all expression she was shocked and shamed. The mirror +showed now a spectral Paula with crimson lips and haggard eyes.... An +indescribable fertility stirred within her--almost mystic, like a +whisper from spiritland where little children play, waiting to be born. +She could have fallen in a strange and subtle thrall of redolent +imaginings, except that thought of the source of it all, the +occultist--was as acid in her veins. + +She drank tea and crossed the street to the Park for an hour. The +radiance of autumn impressed her rarely; not as the death of a year, but +rather as a glorious pageant of evening, the great energies of nature +all crowned with fruition and preparing for rest. Back in her room, she +wrote the Charter critique, wrote as seldom before. The cool spirit of +the essayist seemed ignited with a lyric ardor. In her momentary power +she conceived a great literary possibility of the future--an effulgent +Burns-vine blossoming forth upon the austere cliff of a Carlyle. She had +finished, and it was dusk when Madame Nestor called. + +For several years, at various philosophical gatherings and brotherhoods, +Paula, invariably stimulated by the unusual, had encountered this +remarkable woman. Having very little to say as a rule, Madame Nestor was +a figure for comment and one not readily forgotten because of occasional +memorable utterances. In all the cults of New York, there was likely no +individual quite so out of alignment with ordinary life. Indefinitely, +she would be called fifty. Her forehead was broad, her mouth soft. The +face as a whole was heavy and flour-white. There was a distention of +eyeballs and a pulpy shapelessness to her body which gave the impression +of advanced physical deterioration--that peculiar kind of breaking down, +often noticeable among psychics of long practice. Her absolute +incapacity to keep anything of value was only one characteristic of +interest. Madame Nestor's record of apparently thoughtless generosity +was truly inspiriting. + +"I had to see you to-day," she said, sinking down with a sigh of relief. +"I sat behind you last night in Prismatic Hall." + +The younger woman recalled with a start--the whisper she had heard. She +leaned forward and inquired quickly: "So it was you, Madame Nestor, who +knew--this Bellingham"--she cleared her throat as she uttered the +name--"as he is now--a quarter of a century ago?" + +"Yes. How very strange that you should have heard what I said.... You +will join one of his classes, I presume?" + +"I can imagine doing no such thing." + +"Dear Paula, do you think it will really turn out--that you are to have +no relation with Bellingham?" + +Paula repressed the instant impulse to answer sharply. The fact that she +had already felt Bellingham's power made the other's words a harsh +irritation. + +"What relation could I have? He is odious to me." + +"I suppose I should have been a cinder long since, dear, if these were +days for burning witches," Madame Nestor said. "When I saw Bellingham's +eyes settle upon you last night--it appeared to me that you are to know +him well. I came here to give you what strength I could--because he is +the chief of devils." + +"I'm only one of the working neuters of the human hive," Paula managed +to declare. + +The elder woman said a strange thing: "Ah, no. The everlasting feminine +is alive in your every movement. A man like Bellingham would cross the +world for you. Some strong-souled woman sooner or later must encompass +his undoing, and last night it came to me in a way to force my +conviction--that you are the woman." + +Paula bent toward her. Darkness covered the centres of her mind and she +was afraid. She could not laugh, for she had already met the magician's +will. "But I loathe him," she whispered. "About the very name when I +first heard it yesterday was an atmosphere which aroused all my +antagonism." + +"Even that--he has overcome, but it may help you to endure." + +"What does the man want?" + +"He wants life--life--floods of young, fine vitality to renew his own +flesh. He wants to live on and on in the body which you have seen. It is +all he has, for his soul is dead--or feeble as a frog's. He fears death, +because he cannot come back. He renews his life from splendid sources of +human magnetism--such as you possess. It is Bellingham's hell to know +that, once out of the flesh, he has not soul enough, if any, to command +a human body again. You see in him an empty thing, which has lived, God +knows how many years, hugging the warmth of his blood--a creature who +knows that to die means the swift disintegration of an evil principle." + +"Do you realize, Madame Nestor," Paula asked excitedly, "that you are +talking familiarly of things which may exist in books of ancient wisdom, +but that this is New York--New York packed about us? New York does not +reckon with such things." + +"The massed soul of this big city does not reckon with such things, +Paula. That is true, but we are apart. Bellingham is apart. He is wiser +than the massed soul of New York." + +"One might believe, even have such a religious conviction, but you speak +of an actual person, the terrible inner mystery of a man, whom we have +seen--a man who frightened me hideously last night--and to-day! You +bring the thing home to a room in a New York apartment ... Can't you see +how hard to adjust, this is? I don't mean to stop or distract you, but +this has become--you are helping to keep it so--such an intimate, +dreadful thing!" + +Madame Nestor had been too long immersed in occultism to grasp the +world's judgment of her sayings. "Listen, Paula, this that I tell you is +inherent in every thinking man. You are bewildered by the personal +nature it has assumed.... To every one of us shall come the terrible +moment of choice. Man is not conceived blindly to be driven. Imagine a +man who is become a rapidly evolving mind. On the one side is the +animal-nature, curbed and obedient; on the other, his gathering +soul-force. The mind balances between these two--soul and body. The time +has come for him to choose between a lonely path to the Heights, or the +broad diverging highway, moving with pomp, dazzling with the glare of +vain power, and brooded over by an arrogant materialism which slays the +soul.... The spirit of man says, 'Take the rising road alone.' The old +world-mother sings to him from the swaying throng, 'Come over and be my +king. Look at my arts, my palaces, my valiant young men and my glorious +women. I will put worship in the hearts of the strong--for you! I will +put love in the hearts of the beautiful--for you! Come over and be my +king! Later, when you are old and have drunk deep of power--you may take +the rising road alone.'" + +Paula invariably qualified a dogmatic statement as a possibility in her +own mind; but something of this--man reaching a moment of choice--had +always appealed to her as a fundamental verity. Man must conquer not +only his body, but his brain, with its subtle dreams of power, a more +formidable conflict, before the soul assumes supremacy in the mind, and +man's progress to the Uplands becomes a conscious and glorious ascent. + +"You put it with wonderful clearness, Madame Nestor," she said. + +"I am an old woman who has thought of these things until they are clear. +This is the real battle of man, beside which victory over mere appetites +of the body is but a boyish triumph. The intellect hungers for power and +possession; to hold the many inferior intellects in its own despotic +destiny. Against this glittering substance of attraction is the still +intangible faith of the soul--an awful moment of suspense. God or +Mammon--choose ye!... Listen, Paula, to New York below--treading the +empty mill of commerce----" + +"New York has not chosen yet?" + +"No, dear, but hundreds, thousands, are learning in preparation for that +moment of choice--the falseness and futility of material possessions." + +"That is a good thought--an incorruptible kind of optimism!" Paula +exclaimed.... "You think this Bellingham has made the evil choice?" + +"Yes. Long ago." + +"Yet to have arisen to the moment of choosing, you say he must have +conquered the flesh." + +"Yes." + +"But you depict him--I find him--Desire Incarnate!" + +"Exactly, Paula, because he has reverted. _The animal controls his mind, +not the soul._ Bellingham is retracing his way back to chaos, with a +human brain, all lit with magic! Out of the gathered knowledge of the +ages, he has drawn his forces, which to us are mystery. He uses these +secret forces of Nature to prolong his own life--which is all he has. +The mystic cord is severed within him. He is a body, nothing but a +body--hence the passion to endure. Out of the craft of the past, he has +learned--who knows how long ago?--to replenish his own vitality with +that of others. He gives nothing, but drains all. Ah, Paula, this I know +too well. He is kin with those creatures of legend, the _loup-garou_, +the vampire. I tell you he is an insatiable sponge for human magnetism." + +"Past all doubt, can't Bellingham turn back?" Paula asked tensely. "With +all his worldly knowledge, and knowing his own doom, can he not turn +back--far back, a lowly-organized soul, but on the human way?" +Hopelessness, anywhere, was a blasting conception to her. + +"No. I tell you he is a living coffin. There is nothing in him to +energize a pure motive. He might give a fortune to the poor, but it +would be for his own gain. He could not suffer for the poor, or love +them. Dead within, he is detached from the great centres of virtue and +purity--from all that carries the race forward, and will save us at the +last. You see his frightful dependence upon this temporal physical +instrument, since all the records of the past and the unwritten pages of +the future are wiped out? Isn't it a sheer black horror, Paula,--to know +that from the great tide of hopeful humanity, one is set apart; to know +that the amazing force which has carried one from a cell in the ooze to +thinking manhood must end with this red frightened heart; to be forced, +for the continuance of life, to feed upon the strength of one woman +after another--always fairer and finer----" The look of hatred in the +speaker's face had become a banner of havoc. + +"Can he not stop that kind of devouring?" Paula exclaimed. "Would there +not be hope--if he battled with that--put _that_ vampirism behind?" + +Madame Nestor regarded the other steadily, until all distortion of +feature had given away to her accustomed mildness. Then she uttered an +unforgettable question: + +"_Can a tiger eat grains?_" + +Vast ranges of terrible understanding were suggested. + +"It is my duty, if I ever had a duty," the caller went on, "to make you +know Bellingham as I know him. You must have no pity." + +"Is there really no fact by which his age can be determined?" + +"None that I know. Twenty-five years ago, when he left me hideously wise +and pitifully drained, he looked as he does now." + +"But why, oh why, do you always think of me with Bellingham?" Paula +asked hopelessly. + +"I watched his face when he regarded you last night. I knew the look." + +"What is to prevent me from never seeing him? He cannot force himself +upon me here--in the flesh.... Certainly you would not tell him where I +am, where I go--if I begged you not to!" + +Madame Nestor shuddered. "No, Paula. It is because you are frightened +and tormented that such a thought comes. It is I who am showing you the +real Bellingham. He menaces my race. None but big-souled women are +useful to him now. He is drawn to them, as one hungry, as one always +hungry. It is he first who is drawn. Then they begin to feel and respond +to his occult attraction. The time might have come when you would +worship him--had I not warned you. I did. I was quite his--until I +learned. A woman knows no laws in the midst of an attraction like this. +No other man suffices----" + +"But why--why do you prepare _me_? Do you think I cannot resist?" Paula +asked furiously. She felt the bonds about her already. The blood rose +hot and rebellious at the thought of being bound. It was the old hideous +fear of a locked room--the shut-in horror which meant suffocation. + +"If I thought you could not resist, Paula," Madame Nestor said, "I +should advise you to flee to the remotest country--this moment. I should +implore you never to allow from your side your best and strongest +friend. But I have studied your brain, your strength, your heart. I love +you for the thought that has come to me--that it is you, Paula Linster, +who is destined to free the race from this destroyer." + +Often in the last half-hour had come a great inward revolt against the +trend of her caller's words. It passed through Paula again, yet she +inquired how she could thus be the means. + +"By resisting him. Bellingham once told me--trust him, this was after I +was fully his--that if I had matched his force with a psychic resistance +equally as strong--it would mortally have weakened him. So if he seeks +to subvert your will and fails, this great one-pointed power of his, +developed who knows how long--will turn and rend itself. This is an +occult law." + +Paula could understand this--the wild beast of physical desire rending +itself at the last--but not the conception of hopelessness--Bellingham +cut off from immortality. The woman divined her thoughts. + +"Again I beg of you," she said in excitement, "not to let a thought of +pity for him insinuate itself in your brain--not the finest point of it! +Think of yourself, of the Great Good which must sustain you, of the +benefit to your race--think of the women less strong! Fail in this, and +Bellingham will absorb your splendid forces, and let you fall back into +the common as I did--to rise again, ah, so bitterly, so wearily!... But +I cannot imagine you failing, you strong young queen, and the women like +me, the legion of emptied shells he has left behind--we shall canonize +you, Paula, if you shatter the vampire's power." + +Thoughts came too fast for speech now. They burned Paula's mind--a +destructive activity, because ineffectual. She wanted to speak of the +shameful experience of the morning, but she could not bring the words to +confession. + +"I had almost forgotten," she said lightly at length, "that it is well +for one to eat and drink. Stay, won't you please, and share a bite of +supper with me, Madame Nestor? We'll talk of other things. I am deadly +tired of Bellingham." + +A hungry man would have known no repletion from the entire offering +which sufficed for these two, forgotten of appetite. Wafers of dark +bread, a poached egg, pickles, a heart of lettuce and a divided melon, +cake and tea--yet how fully they fared!... They were talking about +children and fairy tales over the teacups, when Paula encountered again +that sinister mental seizure--the occultist's influence creeping back +from her reason to that part of the brain man holds in common with +animals.... The lights of the room dimmed; her companion became +invisible. Bellingham was calling: "Come to me--won't you come and help +me in my excellent labors? Come to me, Paula. We can lift the world +together--you and I. Wonderful are the things for me to show you--you +who are already so wise and so very beautiful. Paula Linster,--come to +me!" + +Again and again the words were laid upon her intelligence, until she +heard them only. All the rest was an anterior murmuring, as of wind and +rivers. The words were pressed down upon the surfaces of her brain, like +leaf after leaf of gold-beaters' film--and hammered and hammered +there.... He was in a great gray room, sitting at a desk, but staring at +her, as if there were no walls or streets between--just a little bit of +blackness.... She seemed to know just where to go. She felt the place +for her was there in the great gray room--a wonderful need for her +there.... But a door opened into the room where he sat--a door she had +not seen, for she had not taken her eyes from his face. A woman came in, +a pale woman, a shell of beauty. The huge tousled head at the desk +turned from her to the woman who entered. Paula saw his profile alter +hideously.... + +Her own bright room filled her eyes again, and the ashen horror on the +countenance of Madame Nestor, who seemed vaguely to see it all. + +"I think I should have gone to him," Paula murmured, in the slow, flat +tone of one not yet quite normally conscious. + +"There is but one way, you poor distressed child--to build about you a +fortress of purity--which he cannot penetrate----" + +"I think I should have known the car to take--the place to enter," Paula +went on, unheeding, "the elevator entrance--the door of the room----" + +Madame Nestor continued to implore her to pray. Paula shivered finally, +and stared at the other for a few seconds, as if recalling the words the +visitor had spoken, and the past she had lived with Bellingham. Her +terrible rage toward herself spread and covered Madame Nestor. Did not +the latter still dip here, there, and everywhere in the occult and +weird? Might she not have something to do with the projectiles of +Desire? + +"I think I'd better be alone now," she said hoarsely. "One does not feel +like invoking the Pure Presence--when one is chosen for such +defilement." + + + + +THIRD CHAPTER + +CERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT OF +NARRATIVE--ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID + + +In the week that followed, Paula's review of Quentin Charter's new book +appeared. As a bit of luxury reading, she again went over "A Damsel Came +to Peter." It stood up true and strong under the second reading--the +test of a real book. The Western writer became a big figure in her mind. +She thought of him as a Soul; with a certain gladness to know that he +was Out There; that he refused to answer the call of New York; that he +had waited until he was an adult to make his name known, and could not +now be cramped and smothered and spoiled. There was a sterilized purity +about parts of his work--an uncompromising thunder against the fleshly +trends of living--to which she could only associate asceticism, +celibacy, and mystic power. He was altogether an abstraction, but she +was glad that he lived--in the West and in her brain. + +Also her mind was called to lower explorations of life; moments in which +it seemed as if every tissue within her had been carried from arctic +repressions to the springing verdures of the Indies. A sound, an odor, a +man's step, the voice of a child, would start the spell, especially in +moments of receptivity or aimless pondering. Thoughts formed in a lively +fascinating way, tingling dreamily over her intelligence, dilating her +nostrils with indescribable fragrance, brushing her eyelids +half-closed,--until she suddenly awoke to the fact that this was not +herself, but Bellingham's thirst playing upon her. Beyond words dreadful +then, it was to realize this thing in her brain--to feel it spread +hungrily through her veins and localize in her lips, her breast, and the +hollow of her arms. Bellingham crushed the trained energies of his +thought-force into her consciousness, rendering her helpless. Though he +was afterward banished, certain physical forces which he aroused did not +fall asleep.... Frequently came that malignant efflorescence. Her name +was called; the way shown her. Once when she was summoned to the 'phone, +she knew that it was he, but could not at first resist. Reason came at +the sound of her own hoarse and frightened voice. Again one night, +between nine and ten, when Bellingham was in power, she had reached the +street and was hurrying toward the surface-car in Central Park West. Her +name was jovially called by Reifferscheid. He accompanied her through +the Park and back to her door. He said he thought that she was working +too hard, confessed himself skeptical about her eating enough. + +One thought apart from these effects, Paula could not shake from her +mind: Were there human beings with dead or dying souls? Did she pass on +the street men and women in whom the process of soul-starvation was +complete or completing? Could there be human mind-cells detached from +hope, holiness, charity, eternity, and every lovely conception; infected +throughout with earth's descending destructive principle? The thought +terrorized her soul, so that she became almost afraid to glance into the +face of strangers. To think of any man or woman without one hope! This +was insufferable. Compared with this, there is no tragedy, and the +wildest physical suffering is an easy temporal thing. She felt like +crying from the housetops: "Listen to pity; love the good; cultivate a +tender conscience; be clean in body and humble in mind! Nothing matters +but the soul--do not let that die!" + +Then she remembered that every master of the bright tools of art had +depicted this message in his own way; every musician heard it among the +splendid harmonies that winged across his heaven; every prophet stripped +himself of all else, save this message, and every mystic was ordered up +to Nineveh to give it sound. Indeed, every great voice out of the +multitude was a cry of the soul. It came to her as never before, that +all uplift is in the words, _Love One Another_. If only the world would +see and hear! + +And the world was so immovable--a locked room that resisted her +strength. This was her especial terror--a locked room or a locked +will.... Once when she was a little girl, she released a caged canary +that belonged to a neighbor, and during her punishment, she kept +repeating: + +"_It has wings--wings!_" + + * * * * * + +Liberty, spaces of sky, shadowed running streams, unbroken woods where +the paths were so dim as not to disturb the dream of undiscovered +depths--in the midst of these, Paula had found, as a girl, a startling +kind of happiness. She was tireless in the woods, and strangely slow to +hunger. No gloomy stillness haunted her; the sudden scamper of a +squirrel or rabbit could not shake her nerves, nor even the degraded +spiral of a serpent gliding to cover. Her eyelids narrowed in the midst +of confinements. School tightened her lips; much of it, indeed, put a +look of hopeless toleration in her eyes, but the big, silent woods +quickly healed her mind; in them she found the full life. + +At one time, her father essayed to lock her in a closet. Paula told him +she would die if he did, and from the look upon the child's face, he +could not doubt.... He had directly punished her once, and for years +afterward, she could not repress a shudder at his touch. She would serve +him in little things, bring him the choicest fruits and flowers; she +anticipated his wants in the house and knew his habits as a caged thing +learns the movements of its keepers; invariably, she was respectful and +apt--until her will was challenged. Then her mother would weaken and her +father passed on with a smile. "Paula does not permit me to forget that +I have the honor to be her father," he once said. + +Reading grew upon her unconsciously. There was a time when she could not +read, another when she could. She did not remember the transition, but +one afternoon, when she was barely five, she sat for hours in the parlor +still as a mole, save for the turning leaves--sat upon a hassock with +Grimm. It was _The Foster Brother_ which pioneered her mind. That +afternoon endured as one of the most exquisite periods of her life. The +pleasure was so intense that she felt she must be doing wrong. + +Grimm explained the whole world, in proving the reality of fairies. The +soul of the child had always been awake to influences her associates +missed. Wonderful Grimm cleared many mysteries--the unseen activities of +the woods, the visitors of the dark in her room before she was quite +asleep; the invisible weaving behind all events. Later, books inevitably +brought out the element of attraction between man and woman, but such +were the refinements of her home that nothing occurred to startle her +curiosity. It was left to the friendly woods to reveal a mystery and +certain ultimate meanings.... She was sick with the force of her +divining; the peace and purity of her mind shattered. The accruing +revelations of human origin were all that she could bear. She rebelled +against the manner of coming into the world, a heaven-high rebellion. +Something of pity mingled with her reverence for her mother. For years, +she could not come to a belief that the Most High God had any interest +in a creature of such primal defilement. Queerly enough, it was the +great preparer, Darwin, who helped her at the last. Man having come up +through dreadful centuries from an earth-bent mouth and nostril, to a +pitying heart and a lifted brow--has all the more hope of becoming an +angel.... + +There was something of the nature of a birthmark in Paula's loathing for +the animal in man and woman. Her mother had been sheltered in girlhood +to such an extent that the mention of a corsage-ribbon would have +offended. Very early, she had married, and the first days of the +relation crushed illusions that were never restored. The birth of Paula +ended a period of inordinate sorrow, which brought all the fine threads +of her life into wear, gave expression to the highest agony of which she +was capable, and ravelled out her emotions one by one. As a mother, she +was rather forceless; the excellent elements of her lineage seemed all +expended in the capacities of the child. Her limitations had not widened +in the dark months, nor had her nature refined. It was as if the heart +of the woman had lost all its color and ardor. The great sweep of +Paula's emotions; her strangeness, her meditative mind and heart-hunger +for freedom; her love for open spaces, still groves and the prophylactic +trends of running water--all expressed, without a doubt, the mysterious +expiration of her mother's finer life. But something beyond heredity, +distances beyond the reach of human mind to explain, was the lofty +quality of the child's soul. Very old it was, and wise; very strange and +very strong. + +Paula never failed afterward in a single opportunity to spare younger +girl-friends from the savagery of revelation, as it had come to her. The +bare truth of origin, she made radiant with illimitable human +possibilities.... Her dream beyond words was some time to give the world +a splendid man or woman. Loving, and loved by a strong-souled, +deep-thinking man; theirs the fruit of highest human concord; beautiful +communions in the midst of life's nobilities, and the glory of these on +the brow of their child--such was her dream of womanhood, whitened +through many vicissitudes. + +Her mother died when Paula was twenty. The call came in the night. In +the summons was that awful note which tells the end. Her mother was on +the border and crossing swiftly. Paula screamed. + +There was no answer, but a faint ruffle on the brow that had been +serene. + +"Mother!... Mother!" a last time--then the answer: + +"Don't--call--me,--Paula! Oh, it--hurts--so--to be--called--back!" + +After that, the dying was a matter of hours and great pain. Had she come +to her in silence, the tired spirit would have lifted easily. So Paula +learned, by terrible experience, the inexpressible value of silence in a +room with death. She had been very close to the mystery. Holding her +mother's hand and praying inaudibly at the last, she had felt the final +wrench to the very core of her being.... Departure, indeed; Paula was +never conscious of her mother's spirit afterward. It is probably futile +to inquire if a child of one's flesh is invariably one's spiritual +offspring.... An ineffectual girl, the mother became a hopeless woman. +In the interval, out of the grinding of her forces, was produced a +fervent heat.... Did blind negative suffering make her receptive to a +gifted child, or did Paula's mother merely give, from her own lovely +flesh, a garment for a spirit-alien from a far and shining country? + + * * * * * + +Three or four mornings after the Charter critique, Paula brought further +work down-town. Reifferscheid swung about in his chair and stared at her +fully thirty seconds. Then he spoke brusquely, possibly to hide his +embarrassment: + +"Take these three books home, but don't bother with them to-day. I want +you back here at four o'clock. You are to go out to supper with me." + +The idea was not exactly pleasant. She had seen Reifferscheid only a few +times apart from his desk, where she liked him without reservation. She +had always pictured him as a club-man--a typically successful New +Yorker, with a glitter of satire and irreverent humor about all his +sayings. The thought of a supper with Reifferscheid had a bit of supper +heaviness about it. The club type she preferred to know from a sort of +middle distance.... + +"Won't you, please?" + +His change of manner was effective. All brusqueness was gone. Paula saw +his real earnestness, and the boyish effort of its expression. There was +no reason for her to refuse, and she hesitated no longer. Yet she +wondered why he had asked her, and searched her mind to learn why she +could not see him at leisure, apart from a club-window's leather chair; +at some particular table in a grill or buffet, or enlivening a game of +billiards with his inimitable characterizations. One of the finest and +most effective minds she had ever contacted belonged to this editor. His +desk was the symbol to her of concentrated and full-pressure +strenuousness; in his work was all that was sophisticated and +world-weathered, but she could neither explain nor overcome the +conviction that his excellence was in spite of, rather than the result +of his life outside.... She met him on the stroke of four in the +entrance to _The States_ building, and he led the way at once to South +Ferry, where they took the Staten Island boat. She felt that he was not +at ease in the crowds, but it was a fact, also, that he did not appear +so huge and froggy in the street, as in the crowded office she knew so +well. + +"Yes, I live over yonder," he said, drawing two stools to the extreme +forward of the deck. "I supposed you knew. The nearest way out of New +York, this is. Besides, you get full five cents' worth of sea voyage, +and it's really another country across the bay. That's the main +thing--not a better country, but different." + +Little was said on the boat. It was enough to breathe the sea and +contemplate the distances. She scarcely noticed which of the +trolley-cars he helped her into at the terminal; but they were out of +town presently, where there were curving country roads, second-growth +hills, and here and there a dim ravine to cool the eye. Then against the +sky she discovered a black ribbon of woods. It was far and big to her +eyes, full of luring mysteries that called to her--her very own +temples.... Turning to Reifferscheid, she found that he had been +regarding her raptly. He coughed and jerked his head the other way, +delightfully embarrassed. + +"Guess you like it here," he said after a moment. "I knew you would. I +knew I ought to make you come, somehow. You see, you're a little too +fit--drawn just a trifle too fine. It isn't that you're out of +condition; just the contrary. When one's drawn so fine as you are, one +wears--just from living at joy speed.... We get off here." + +"It's incredible that you should have a house all to yourself!" + +They were walking on the grass that edged the road. It had taken an hour +and a half to come. Dusk was beginning to crowd into the distances. +Ahead on either side of the road were a few houses with land between. + +"Whatever you call it," said Reifferscheid, "it's all in one piece. +There it is yonder--'A wee cot, a cricket's chirr--Sister Annie and the +glad face of her----'" + +"A little white house under big trees!" Paula exclaimed joyously. "And +what's that big dug-out thing behind?" + +Reifferscheid chuckled. "Dug-out is excellent. That's the aquarium and +the lily-lakes. I made those Sierras and clothed their titanic flanks +with forests of sod." + +"Don't ask me to speak.... All this is too wonderful for words...." To +think that she had imagined this man-mammoth sitting in a club-window. +In truth, she was somewhat perturbed for wronging him, though delighted +with the whole expedition. Sister Annie was startling, inasmuch as her +face was as fresh and wholesome as a snow-apple, and yet she could not +leave her invalid's chair unassisted. She was younger than +Reifferscheid. + +"I'm so glad to have you come, Miss Linster," she said. "Tim was really +set upon it. He speaks of you so frequently that I wanted to meet you +very much. I can't get over to the city often." + +"Tim." This was the name of names. Paula had known nothing beyond "T. +Reifferscheid." One after another, little joys like this unfolded. + +"It will be too dark after supper," the sister added. "Tim won't be +content until you see his system of ponds. You better go with him now." + +Reifferscheid already filled the side-door. Evidently inspection was the +first and only formality demanded of the guest at the cottage. Paula +followed him up a tiny gravel path to the rim of the top pond--a saucer +of cement, eighteen inches deep and seven or eight feet across. It was +filled with pond-weed and nelumbo foliage. Gold fish and stickle-backs +played in the shadowed water. + +"It isn't the time of year, you know," he said apologetically. "The +lilies are through blossoming, and in a week or two, I'll have to take +my fishes back to winter-quarters. You see my water supply comes from +Silver Lake. The great main empties here." (Paula followed his finger to +the nozzle of a hose that hung over the rim of cement on the top pond.) +"The stream overflows in Montmorency Falls yonder,"--(this, a trickle +down the gravel to the second pond)--"from which, you can hear the roar +of the cataracts into the lower lake, which waters the lands of plenty +all about." + +His look of surprise and disappointment at her laughter was +irresistible. + +"The saurians are all in the depths, but you can see some of my snails," +he went on. "You'd be surprised how important my herd of snails is in +the economy of this whole lake country." + +He picked up a pebble from the edge of the water, pointing out the green +slime that covered it. "These are spores of a very influential +vegetable, called _algæ_, which spreads like cholera and vegetates +anywhere in water that is not of torrential temperament. Without my +snails, the whole system would be a thick green soup in a month. It's +getting a little dark to see the stickle-back nests. They domesticate +very curiously. Next year, I'll have a fountain.... The second-tank +contains a frail, northern variety of water-hyacinths, some rock bass, +and a turtle or two. Below are the cattails and ferns and mosses. In the +summer, that lower pond is a jungle, but the lilies and lotuses up here +are really choice when in blossom. The overflow of water rejoices the +bugs and posies generally. Annie likes the yard-flowers." + +Paula would not have dared to say how enchantingly these toy-lakes and +lily-beds had adjusted, in her mind, to the nature of the big man beside +her, whose good word was valued by every sincere and important literary +worker in the country. Tim Reifferscheid turning out his tremendous +tasks in New York, would never be quite the same to her again, since she +had seen him playing with his hose in his own back yard, and heard him +talk about his snails and lilies, and the land posies that Sister Annie +liked. Down-town, he had always stimulated her, but here with his +toy-engineering and playful watersheds, he was equally bracing and just +as admirable. + +Darkness was covering them. "I must see it all again," she said. "I want +to come when the lilies are blossoming. I could watch the fishes and +things--for hours. Really, I will never call it a dug-out again." + +She saw him grinning in the dusk. + +"Come in to supper," he said. "You see, anything smaller than a Staten +Island back-yard would hardly do for me to play in. Then there's a +stillness about here that I like. It makes your ears ache a little at +first. You wake up in the middle of the night and think you're under the +earth somewhere, or disembodied. Finally it comes to you that there's +nothing to be afraid of except the silence. A man's head gets to need it +after a time. As a matter of fact, there's no place across the bay for a +fat man after working hours." + +"Miss Linster," called Sister Annie as they entered. + +Paula followed the voice into a speckless spare room. + +"Supper will be served in a moment," the other said. "I just wanted to +tell you--Tim will take you back to the city to-night, grateful for the +chance, but do you really have to go? This little room is yours, and you +can go over together in the morning. Then a night in this stillness will +calm you back into a little girl. Tim doesn't know I'm asking you. +Please do just as you want----" + +Paula didn't have the heart to drag the big brother back to town. + +"Why," she said laughingly, "I'd much rather stay than not. Think how +good this all is to me! I didn't have an idea when he asked me, other +than a restaurant somewhere in New York." + +"I am so glad.... Tim----" + +He tried not to look relieved at the announcement. "Really, I didn't put +Annie up to this, but if you are content to stay, I think it will smooth +you out a bit." + +After supper the three sat out in the yard. There was a heavy richness +in the air, a soft sea-wind flavored with wood-fires and finished +fields. Reifferscheid smoked his pipe and did most of the talking. + +"I glanced over Bertram Lintell's new book--out to-day," he said. "It +sort of hurts. Two or three months ago, I dropped in on him while he was +doing it.... I have always had a certain interest in Lintell because I +accepted his first story seven or eight years ago, as a magazine +reader.... You may not know that nine-tenths of the unsolicited fiction +material in a magazine's mail is a personal affront to intelligence at +large. Nowhere does a man show the youth of his soul so pitifully as +when first alone with white paper and an idea. He shakes down a crow's +rookery and believes in his heart it's an eagle's nest. That there are +men in the world paid to open his package, inspect and return same +respectfully--and do it again--is an uncommercial peculiarity of a most +commercial age. Editors rely upon the more or less technically flawless +products of the trained, the "arrived"; writers who have forgotten their +dreams--rung the bell once or twice--and show a willingness to take +money for the echoes. + +"An expensive reading staff is not necessary for these contributors; +their stuff goes to the heart of things at once. But what sorry caravans +halt in the outer courts of a magazine-office; what sick, empty, +unwashed confusion is impounded there! Yet a company of men moves ever +through and about, peering into the unsightly, unsavory packs--ever +ordering away, ever clearing the court, lest the mess rise to heaven.... +But perfect pearls have been found in these restless, complaining +trash-heaps, and will be found again. Men are there to glance at all, +because one of these pearls is worth a whole necklace of seconds. +There's no way out of it. To make lasting good in the literary game, one +must be steeled to reverses--long, ugly corroding reverses. This is the +price which a man pays for the adjustment of his brain and hand to the +needs of the time. As flesh needs bone, he needs these reverses. They +clear the fat from the brain; increase the mental circuits, and lend to +the fibres that firm delicacy which alone can carry live hot emotions +without blowing out, and big voltage ideas swift and true to their +appointed brilliance of expression. + +"I'm gabbing a lot, but I was going to tell you about Bertram Lintell. I +was first in the office to get his manuscript, and I raised the cry of +'Pearl.' It was faulty, but full of the arrogance of unhurt youth. The +face of Twenty-one with all its unlined audacity stared out from the +pages, and every page was an excursion. Here was a true subconscious +ebullition--a hang-over from a previous incarnation, like as not. It was +hard, glassy, but the physical prowess of it stimulated. Frank, brutal +boyishness--that was the attraction. I shouldn't have taken it." + +"You what?" Paula asked. + +"It was a shame to take it," Reifferscheid mused, "but someone else--the +next man, would have. You see, he needed buffeting--seven years at +least. I knew he didn't have the beam and displacement to stand making +good so young. It was doing him an evil turn, but we sent him the brass +tag that shines like gold. Lintell was not adult enough to twig the +counterfeit, not mellowed enough to realize that nothing is so sordid, +nothing labeled so securely to Failure, as conscious success. As I say, +I saw him at work two or three months ago. He was a patch-haired, baby +lion still, dictating stories first draft to a stenographer, supplying +demand like a huckster--the real treasure-house of his soul locked for +life and the key thrown away.... Even money turns the head of the +multitude, but money is small beer compared to the fiery potential wine +of literary recognition. Long hammering, refining reverses, alone +prepare a man for this. Quentin Charter said something of the kind: that +a young writer should live his lean years full length, and if he really +craters the mountain, he will praise every god in the Pantheon because +his achievements were slow. + +"Lintell's present stuff is insufferable. The point is he may have had +in the beginning no less a gift than Charter's. That's why the new book +sickens me so.... By the way, I got a letter from Charter this +afternoon. I meant to bring it along, but I'll pass it over to you in +the morning. It's yours, Miss Linster, though he did me the honor to +think that I had written his critique. He says you crawled right inside +his book. We don't usually answer letters of this kind. There are +writers, you know, glad to turn a review office into an Admiration +Exchange. But you'll want to write to Charter, I'm sure. He's different." + +Paula did not answer, but she was pleased and excited that her review +had been a joy to this thunderer of the West, and that he had answered +her tidings of high hope for the future. + + + + +FOURTH CHAPTER + +PAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND TELLS OF A STARRY +CHILD SOON TO BE BORN + + +Paula went upstairs to the editorial rooms with Reifferscheid the +following morning for Charter's letter. This she carried into the +city-office to be alone. Forenoon is the dead time of a morning +newspaper. The place seemed still tired from the all-night struggle to +spring a paper to the streets. She thrust up a window for fresh air and +sat down in a reporter's chair to read.... The letter was big with +boyish delight. "When a man spends a couple of years growing and +trimming a pile of stuff into a sizable book," he had written, "and the +first of the important reviews comes in with such a message of +enthusiasm, it is the heart's 'well-done' long waited for." Beyond this, +there was only a line or two about the book. It had been in the +publisher's hands six months, and he was cold to it now. _The States_ +had interested him, however, because there was an inclination in the +article to look at his work to come. In fact, some of the thoughts of +the reviewer, he wrote, were sympathetic with the subject-matter +simmering in his mind. Naturally, the coincidence had thrilled him. +Charter, believing that Reifferscheid had done the work, wrote with +utmost freedom. This attracted Paula, as it gave her a glimpse of a +certain fineness between men who admire each other. The issue was not +closed.... She wanted to answer the letter then and there at the +reporter's desk, but Reifferscheid knew she had not gone. He might come +in--and laugh at her precipitation. + +After a night of perfect rest, Paula's mind was animated with thoughts +of work--until she reached the _Zoroaster_. Something of Bellingham's +tormenting energy was heavy in the atmosphere of her rooms. When passing +the full-length mirror, she turned her face away in fear. Impatiently +she caught up one of the new books (and Charter's letter for a marker), +and hurried across to the Park. The fall days were still flawless. + +It was not yet ten in the morning, and few people were abroad. She sat +down upon one of the weathered knobs of Manhattan rock which had worn +through the thin skin of soil, and allowed herself to think of the +formidable affliction. To all intents, the magician had dispossessed her +of the rooms, identified for years with her personality and no other. +She could not put away the truth that the full forces of her mind were +at bay before the psychic advances of the dreadful stranger. This was +not long to be endured. Inasmuch that his power did not harmlessly +glance from her, she felt that there must be great potentialities of +evil within herself. This conviction made her frightened and desperate. +She should have known that it was her inner development, her +sensitiveness which had made her so potent an attraction for Bellingham. +The substance of her whole terror was that there had been moments under +his spell, when she had not been at all the mistress of her own will. + +The suggestions which he projected had seemed to her the good and proper +actions. She knew it as a law--that every time her own divine right to +the rule of her faculties was thus usurped by an evil force, her +resistance was weakened. Yet there was a shocking unfairness in the +thought that she was not given a chance. In the throne-room of her mind, +she was not queen. All the sacred fortifications of self seemed broken, +even the soul's integrity debased, when Bellingham crushed his way in +and forced her to obey. This is the great psychological crime. When one +has broken into the sacred precincts, the door is left open for other +malignant, earth-bound entities foully to enter and betray.... + +There was no one in whom she could confide, but Madame Nestor. Almost +any professional man, a physician especially, would have called her +revelations hysterical.... Her constant and growing fear was of the time +when she should be called by Bellingham--and nothing would supervene to +save her. Some time the spell might not be broken. She became ill with +tension and shame as this unspeakable possibility seethed through her +mind.... Better death than to continue in being passion-ridden by this +defiler, in the presence of whom she became so loathsome in her own +sight--that she dared not pray.... + +Somewhere far off children were talking. Their voices warmed and +cleansed her mind. There was a stimulating thud of hoofs on the +turf-roads. She tried to read now. Her eyes travelled dutifully along +the lines of her book, without bringing forth even the phase of a +thought from the page of print. A swift step drew her glance down the +foot-path. Bellingham was approaching. His shoulders were thrown back, +his long arms swinging so that every muscle was in play, striding +forward at incredible speed. He filled his lungs with every cubic inch +of morning air they could contain, and expelled the volume with gusto. +She had once seen a rugged Englishman take his exercise as seriously as +this, on the promenade of an Atlantic liner before the breakfast-gong. +To all appearances, Bellingham did not have a thought apart from his +constitutional. + +Paula sat very still on the rock. Her slightest movement now would +attract his attention. It occurred to her afterwards that she had been +like a crippled squirrel huddled in the fork of a tree--the hunter and +his dog below.... + +At the point where the path was nearest her, he halted. The thing +happened exactly as she might have conceived it in a story. For a moment +he seemed to be searching his mind for the meaning of his impulse to +stop. An unforgettable figure, this, as he stood there with lifted head, +concentrating upon the vagary which had brought him to a standstill.... +Paula may have been mistaken in her terror, but she never relinquished +the thought that her proximity was known to him--before his face turned +unerringly to the rock and his bright gray eyes filled with her +presence. + +"You are Miss Linster?" he asked, smiling agreeably. + +She nodded, not trusting her voice. + +"You attended the first of my Prismatic Hall lectures ten days ago?... I +seldom forget a face, and I remember asking one of my committee your +name." + +Paula found it rather a unique effort to hold in mind the truth that she +had never spoken to this man before. Then the whole trend of her mental +activity was suddenly complicated by the thought that all her past +terrors might be groundless. Possibly Madame Nestor was insane on this +subject. "It may be that her mad words and my stimulated imagination +have reared a monster that has no actuality." + +The bracing voices of the children, the brilliance of mid-forenoon, the +man's kingly figure, agreeable courtesy, and commanding health--indeed, +apart from the eyes in which she hardly dared to glance, there was +nothing to connect him even vaguely with the sinister persecutions which +bore his image. The whole world-mind was with him. What right had she to +say that the world-mind was in error and she normal--she and the +unreckonable Madame Nestor?... Paula recalled the strange intensity of +her mental life for years, and the largeness of her solitudes. The +world-mind would say she was beside herself from much study.... More +than all, no power was exerted upon her now. Who would believe that this +Bellingham, with miles of the metropolis between them, had repeatedly +over-ridden her volition, when she felt no threatening influence at the +present moment, almost within his reach--only the innate repulsion and +the fear of her fears? + +"I hope to see you again at the meetings, Miss Linster." + +"They do not attract me." + +"That is important, if unpleasant to learn," he remarked, as if +genuinely perturbed. "I have been studying for a long time, and perhaps +I have taken a roundabout road to discovery. It is quite possible that +the values of my instruction are over-estimated by many.... Do you mind +if I sit down a moment? I have walked a hundred squares and will start +back from here." From his manner it was impossible to imagine irony +covert in his humbleness. + +"Certainly not, though I must return to my apartment in a moment.... I +did not like the atmosphere--the audience--that first night," Paula +added. + +"Nor did I, altogether," he said quickly. "But how can one choose the +real, if all are not admitted at first? With each lecture you will find +a more select company, and there will be very few when the actual +message is unfolded." + +He glanced away as if to determine the exact point through the trees +from which the children's voices came. His profile was unquestionably +that of an aristocrat. The carriage of his head, the wonderful +development of his figure, his voice and the gentle temper of his +answers, even the cut of his coat and the elegance of his shoes +suggested an unconscious and invariable refinement which controverted +the horror he had once seemed. + +"It may be that I am not quite like other people," she said, "but I +cannot think of physical perfection as the first aim in life." + +"Nor can I," he answered; "still I think that after the elimination of +poisons from the physical organism, one's mental and spiritual powers +are quickened and freer to develop." + +"Do you always shape your philosophy to meet the objections of your +disciples--so?" + +"You are stimulating, Miss Linster, but I have made no concession to +adapt myself to your views. I only declared that I weed out my classes +before real work begins, and that physical disease retards mental +growth. I might add that I do not lecture for money." + +"Why do you teach only women?" + +"There are several reasons," he replied readily enough. "I have found +that a mixed audience is not receptive; there is a self-consciousness, +sometimes worse, something of a scoffing spirit, which breaks the point +of my appeal. Women are aroused to interest when a man appeals directly +to them. They do not like to betray a profound interest in any subject +apart from the household--when their lords are present. Man +instinctively combats any source which tends toward mental emancipation +on the part of women. It is only a few decades ago that women were +forced to abide entirely within their domestic circle. Instead of using +a superior physical strength now to keep her there, man's tendency is to +ridicule her outside interests. So I have found that women prefer to +study alone." + +Bellingham answered thus circuitously, but his manner suggested that he +was grateful for the inquiry, since it gave him an opportunity to +express matters which had only been half-formed in his mind. Paula, +whose every question had come from an inclination to confound him, began +to realize that the spirit was unworthy and partook of impertinence. + +"I believe in automatic health," she said impatiently. "It seems to me +that refinement means this: that in real fineness all such things are +managed with a sort of unconscious art. For instance, I should not have +health at the price of walking twice a hundred blocks in a forenoon----" + +"The point is eminently reasonable, Miss Linster," Bellingham remarked +with a smile. "But what I find it well to do, I rarely advise for +others. I am from a stock of powerful physical men. My fathers were +sailors and fishermen. They gave me an organism which weakens if I +neglect exercise, and I seem to require about five times as much +physical activity as many men of the present generation. I have +absolutely no use for this tremendous muscular strength; in fact, I +should gladly be less strong if it could be accomplished without a +general deterioration. The point is, that a man with three or four +generations of gentle-folk behind him, can keep in a state of glowing +health at the expense of about one-fifth the physical energy that I +burn--who come from rough men of mighty outdoor labors." + +This was very reasonable, except that he seemed far removed in nature +from the men of boats and beaches. She had dared to glance into his face +as he spoke, and found an impression from the diamond hardness of his +eyes, entirely different from that which came through listening merely. +But for this glance, it never would have occurred to her, that her +questions had stretched his faculties to the slightest tension. She +would have arisen to go now, but he resumed: + +"I cannot bear to have you think that my energies are directed entirely +in the interests of lifting the standards of health, Miss Linster. +Really, this is but a small part of preparation. It was only because I +felt you ready for the important truths--that I regretted your absence +after the first night. Do you know that we live in the time of a +spiritual high-tide? It is clear to me that the whole race is lifting +with a wonderful inner animation. In the next quarter of a century great +mystic voices shall be heard. And there shall be One above all.... I +tell you people are breaking down under the tyranny of their material +possessions. After desire--comes the burden of holding. We are +approaching the great _ennui_ which Carlyle prophesied. There is no +longer a gospel of materialism. The great English and German teachers +whose work was regarded as supreme philosophy by the people ten years +ago, are shown to be pitiful failures in our colleges to-day--or at +best, specialists of one particular stage of evolution, who made the +mistake of preaching that their little division in the great cosmic line +was the whole road. Materialism died out of Germany a few years +ago--with a great shock of suicide. The mystics are teaching her now. I +assure you the dawn is breaking for a great spiritual day such as the +world has never seen. Soon a great light shall cover the nations and +evil shall crawl into the holes of the earth where it is dark.... There +is shortly to be born into the world--a glorious Child. While He is +growing to celestial manhood--New Voices shall rise here and everywhere +preparing the way. One of these New Voices--one of the very least of +these--is Bellingham to whom you listen so impatiently." + +Every venture into the occult had whispered this Child-promise in +Paula's ears. There was such a concerted understanding of this +revelation among the cults, that the thought had come to her that +perhaps this was a delusion of every age. Yet she had seen a Hindu +record dated a hundred years before, prophesying the birth of a Superman +in the early years of the Twentieth Century. There was scarcely a +division among the astrologers on this one point. She had even been +conscious in the solitudes of her own life of a certain mystic +confidence of such a fulfillment.... She dared not look into +Bellingham's face at such a moment. The ghastly phase of the whole +matter was to hear this prophecy repeated by one to whom the illustrious +prospect (if he were, as she had believed) could become only an awful +illumination of the hell to which he was condemned. It was--only +unspeakably worse--like hearing a parrot croak, "Feed our souls with the +bread of life!..." Paula stirred in her seat, and Charter's letter +dropped from the book in her lap. She seized it with a rush of grateful +emotion. It was a stanchion in her mind now filled with turbulence. + +"There never was a time when woman's intelligence was so eager and +rational; never a time," Bellingham went on, "when men were so tired of +metals and meals and miles. The groan for the Absolutely New, for the +utmost in sense and the weirdest of sensations, for speed to cover +distances and to overcome every obstacle, even thin air--all these +express the great weariness of the flesh and make clear to the prophetic +understanding that man is nearing the end of his lessons in three +dimensions and five senses. There is a stirring of the spirit-captive in +the worn mesh of the body." + +The woman traced her name with her forefinger upon the cover of the book +in her lap; again and again, "Paula--Paula--Paula." It was a habit she +had not remembered for years. As a little girl when she fought against +being persuaded contrary to her will, she would hold herself in hand +thus, by wriggling "Paula" anywhere. All that Bellingham said was +artfully calculated to inspire her with hope and joy in the world. So +marvelously were the words designed to carry her high in happiness, that +there was a corresponding tension of terror in remembering that +Bellingham uttered them. Yet she would have felt like a lump of clay had +she not told him: + +"What you say is very wonderful to me." + +"And it is the women who are most sensitive to the Light--women who are +already unfolding in the rays, yet so far-flung and dim." Bellingham's +voice was a quick emotionless monotone. "Perhaps you have noted the +great amalgamation of clubs and classes of women which each year turns +its power to more direct effort and valuable study. Another thing, let +the word Genius be whispered about any child or youth, and he becomes at +once the darling of rich matrons. What does this mean--this desire of +woman to bring out the latent powers of a stranger's child? This veiled, +beautiful quality is the surest sign of all. It is the spirit of +Rebecca--which, even in the grief for her own dead babe, turns +thrillingly to mother a wayfarer's Starry Child. Verily, when a woman +begins to dream about bringing prophets into the world--the giants of +those other days are close to her, crowding closer, eager to be born +again." + +Paula turned to him and arose. His face was not kindled. It was as if he +were an actor reading lines to memorize, not yet trying to simulate the +contained emotions. There is a glow of countenance where fine +thought-force is in action, but Bellingham's face was not lit with the +expiration of mind-energy, though his eyes glittered with set, bird-like +brightness. + +"I must hurry away now," she told him hastily. "I must think upon what +you have said." + +"I truly wish," he added softly, and with a kindness she felt, because +her eyes were turned from him, "that you would join one of my wiser +classes. You would be an inspiration. Besides, the little things that +have been given me to tell--should be known by the very few who have +reached your degree of evolution." + +"Thank you," she faltered. "I must think." + +"Good-by, Miss Linster." + +Reaching the street in front of her apartment house, she turned just in +time to see him disappear among the trees. He strode forward as if this +were his world, and his days had been a continuous pageant of +victories.... Her rooms were all cleared of disorder, her mind refreshed +and stimulated.... That night between eleven and twelve she was writing +to Charter. There were a half dozen penned pages before her, and a smile +on her lips. She poured out a full heart to the big Western figure of +cleanliness and strength--wrote to the man she wanted him to be.... The +day had been strange and expanding. She had suffered no evil. The +thoughts remaining with her from the talk in the Park were large with +significance, and they had cleared slowly from the murkiness of their +source. These, and the ideal of manhood she was building out of +Charter's book and letter and Reifferscheid's little sketch of him, had +made the hours rich with healing. She was tired but steady-nerved as she +wrote.... There was a faint tapping at her hall-door. + + + + +FIFTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS AND WRITES A +LETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER + + +Paula thrust the sheets of the letter in her desk drawer and admitted +Selma Cross, an actress whose apartment was across the hall. These two +had chatted together many times, sometimes intimately. Each had found +the other interesting. Hints of a past that was almost classic in the +fury of its struggle for publicity, had repeatedly come to Paula's ears, +with other matters she greatly would have preferred not to hear. Selma +Cross was huge to look upon, and at first thought without grace. There +was something uncanny in her face and movements, and an extraordinary +breadth between her yellow eyes which were wide-lidded, slow-moving and +ever-changing. She was but little past thirty, yet the crowded traffic +of her years was intricately marked. + +"I saw the light under your door, and felt like coming in for a few +minutes," she said. "I must talk to some one and my maid, Dimity, is +snoring. You see, I'm celebrating for two reasons." + +"Tell me, so I can help," Paula answered. + +"Vhruebert has taken a play for me. You know, I've been begging him to +for months. The play was made for me--not that it was written with me in +mind, but that I just suit it. Selma Cross is to be carved in light over +a theatre-entrance, twenty seconds from Broadway--next April. It will be +at the _Herriot_--Vhruebert's theatre. We run through Hartford, +Springfield, Rochester and that string of second cities earlier in the +Spring." + +Paula rose and gave both her hands. + +"Oh, I'm so glad for you," she said. "I know something about how you +have worked for this----" + +"Yes, and the play is _The Thing_. I am an ugly slaving drudge, but have +all the emotions that the sweet _ingenue_ of the piece should have, and +the audience watches me deliver. Yes, I've waited long for this, and yet +I'm not so glad as I thought I should be. I've been pretty sure of it +for the last year or two. I said I was celebrating for two things----" + +"Pray, what is the other?" + +"I forget that it might not interest you--though it certainly does me," +Selma Cross said with a queer, low laugh.... "He wasn't ugly about it, +but he has been exacting--ugh! The fact is, I have earned the privilege +at last of sleeping in my own respectable apartment." + +Paula couldn't help shivering a bit. "You mean you have left your----" + +"Oh, he wasn't my husband.... It's such a luxury to pay for your own +things--for your own house and clothes and dinners--to earn a dollar for +every need and one to put away.... You didn't think that I could get my +name above the name of a play--without an angel?" + +"I didn't know," Paula said, "I saw you with him often. It didn't +exactly occur to me that he was your husband, because he didn't come +here. But do you mean that now when you don't need him any longer--you +told him to go away?" + +"Just that--except it isn't at all as it looks. You wouldn't pity old +man Villiers. Living God, that's humorous--after what I have given. +Don't look for wings on theatrical angels, dear." + +It was plain that the woman was utterly tired. She regarded Paula with a +queer expression of embarrassment, and there was a look of harsh +self-repression under the now-drooped eyelids. + +"I don't apologize," she went on hastily. "What I have done, I would do +again--only earlier in the game, but you're the sort of woman I don't +like to have look at me that--I mean look down upon me. I haven't many +friends. I think I must be half wild, but you make the grade that I +have--and you pay the price.... You've always looked attractive to +me--so easy and finished and out of the ruck." + +There was a real warming sincerity in the words. Paula divined on the +instant that she could forever check an intimacy--by a word which would +betray the depth of her abhorrence for such a concession to ambition, +and for the life which seems to demand it. Selma Cross was sick for a +friend, sick from containing herself. On this night of achievement there +was something pitiful in the need of her heart. + +"New York has turned rather too many pages of life before my eyes, +Selma, for me to feel far above any one whose struggles I have not +endured." + +The other leaned forward eagerly, "I liked you from the first moment, +Paula," she said. "You were so rounded--it seemed to me. I'm all +streaky, all one-sided. You're bred. I'm cattle.... Some time I'll tell +you how it all began. I said I would be the greatest living +tragedienne--hurled this at a lot of cat-minds down in Kentucky fifteen +years ago. Of course, I shall. It does not mean so much to me as I +thought, and it may be a bauble to you, but I wanted it. Its +far-awayness doesn't torture me as it once did, but one pays a ghastly +price. Yes, it's a climb, dear. You must have bone and blood and +brain--a sort of brain--and you should have a cheer from below; but I +didn't. I wonder if there ever was a fight that can match mine? If so, +it would not be a good tale for children or grown-ups with delicate +nerves. Little women always hated me. I remember, one restaurant cashier +on Eighth Avenue told me I was too unsightly to be a waitress. I have +done kitchen pot-boilers and scrubbed tenement-stairs. Then, because I +repeated parts of plays in those horrid halls--they said I was crazy.... +Why, I have felt a perfect lust for suicide--felt my breast ache for a +cool knife and my hand rise gladly. Once I played a freak part--that was +my greater degradation--debased my soul by making my body look worse +than it is. I went down to hell for that--and was forgiven. I have been +so homesick, Paula, that I could have eaten the dirt in the road of that +little Kentucky town.... Yes, I pressed against the steel until +something broke--it was the steel, not me. Oh, I could tell you +much!..." + +She paused but a moment. + +"The thing so dreadful to overcome was that I have a body like a great +Dane. It would not have hurt a writer, a painter, even a singer, so +much, but we of the drama are so dependent upon the shape of our bodies. +Then, my face is like a dog or a horse or a cat--all these I have been +likened to. Then I was slow to learn repression. This is a part of +culture, I guess--breeding. Mine is a lineage of Kentucky poor white +trash, who knows, but a speck of 'nigger'? I don't care now, only it +gave me a temper of seven devils, if it was so. These are some of the +things I have contended with. I would go to a manager and he would laugh +me along, trying to get rid of me gracefully, thinking that some of his +friends were playing a practical joke on him. Vhruebert thought that at +first. Vhruebert calls me _The Thing_ now. I could have done better had +I been a cripple; there are parts for a cripple. And you watch, Paula, +next January when I burn up things here, they'll say my success is +largely due to my figure and face!" + +As she looked and listened, Paula saw great meanings in the broad big +countenance, a sort of ruffian strength to carry this perfecting +instrument of emotion. The great body was needed to support such +talents, handicapped by the lack of beauty. Selma Cross fascinated her. +Paula's heart went out to the great crude creature she had been--in pity +for this woman of furious history. The processes by which her brain and +flesh had been refined would have slain the body and mind of an ordinary +human. It came to Paula that here was one of Mother Nature's most +enthralling experiments--the evolution of an effective instrument from +the coarsest and vaguest heredity. + +"They are all brainless but Vhruebert. You see, unless one is a beauty, +you can't get the support of a big manager's name. I mean without +money--there are managers who will lend their name to your stardom, if +you take the financial risk. Otherwise, you've got to attract them as a +possible conquest. All men are like that. If you interest them +sexually--they will hear what you have to say----" + +"Isn't that a reckless talk?" Paula asked, pale from the repulsiveness +of the thought. "You say it without a single qualification----" + +Selma Cross stared at her vacantly for a few seconds, then laughed +softly. "You don't actually believe--to the contrary?" + +"Let's pass it by. I should have to be changed--to believe that!" + +"I hope the time will never come when you need something terribly from a +strange man--one upon whom you have no hold but--yourself.... Ah, but +you--the brighter sort would give you what you asked. You----" + +"Please don't go on!" Paula whispered. "The other part is so +interesting." + +Selma Cross seemed to stir restlessly in her loose, softly-scented +garments. "I suppose I'm too rough for you. In ninety-nine women out of +a hundred, I'd say your protest was a cheap affectation, but it isn't so +with you...." + +"It's your set, smothery pessimism that hurts so, Selma," Paula declared +intensely. "It hurts me most because you seem to have it so locked and +immovable inside.... You have been so big and wonderful to win against +tremendous obstacles--not against ugliness--I can't grant that. You +startled me, when I saw you first. I think women have held you apart +because you were uncommon. You show a strange power in your movements +and expression. It's not ugliness----" + +"That's mighty rare of you. I haven't had the pleasure of being defied +like that before. But you are not like other people--not like other +women." + +"You will meet many real men and women--wiser and kinder than I am. I +think your pessimism cannot endure--when you look for the good in +people----" + +"The kind I have known would not let me. They're just as hateful now--I +mean the stuffy dolls of the stage--just as hateful, calling me 'dear' +and 'love' and saying, 'How tremendous you are, Selma Cross!....' +Listen, it is only a little while ago that the same women used to ask me +to walk on Broadway with them--to use me as a foil for their baby faces! +Oh, women are horrible--dusty shavings inside--and men are of the same +family." + +"You poor, dear unfortunate--not to know the really wonderful kind! You +are worn to the bone from winning your victory, but when you're rested, +you'll be able to see the beautiful--clearly." + +"One only knows as far as one can see." + +This sentence was a shock to Paula's intelligence. It was spoken without +consciousness of the meaning which drove so deep into the other's mind. +It suggested a mind dependent altogether upon physical eyes. Paula +refused to believe that this was the key to the whole matter. + +"They have been so cruel to me--those female things which bloom a year," +Selma Cross continued. "Flesh-flowers! They harried me to martyrdom. I +had to hate them, because I was forced to be one with them--I, a big +savage, dreaming unutterable things. It's all so close yet, I haven't +come to pity them.... Maybe you can tell me what good they are--what +they mean in the world--the shallow, brainless things who make the stage +full! They are in factories, too, everywhere--daughters of the coolies +and peasants of Europe--only worse over here because their fathers have +lost their low fixed place in society, and are all mixed in their dim, +brute minds. They have no one to rule them. You will see a family of +dirty, frightened, low-minded children--the eldest, say a girl of +fifteen. A dog or a cat with a good home is rich beside them. Take this +eldest girl of a brood--with all the filth of foreign New York in and +about her. She is fifteen and ready for the streets. It is the year of +her miracle. I've seen it a score of times. You miss her a few months +and she appears again at work somewhere--her face decently clean, her +eyes clear, a bit of bright ribbon and a gown wrung somewhere from the +beds of torture. It is her brief bloom--so horrid to look at when you +know what it means. All the fifteen years of squalor, evil, and +low-mindedness for this one year--a bloom-girl out of the dirt! And the +next, she has fallen back, unwashed, high-voiced, hardening, +stiffening,--a babe at her breast, dull hell in her heart. All her +living before and to come--for that one bloom year. Maybe you can tell +me what the big purpose of it all is. Earth uses them quite as +ruthlessly as any weed or flower--gives them a year to bloom, not for +beauty, but that more crude seeds may be scattered. Perpetuate! Flowers +bloom to catch a bug--such girls, to catch a man--perpetuate--oh God, +what for? And these things have laughed at me in the chorus, called me +'Crazy Sal,' because I spoke of things they never dreamed." + +"Yes," Paula said quickly, "I've seen something like that. How you will +pity them when you are rested! It is hard for us to understand why such +numbers are sacrificed like a common kind of plants. Nietzsche calls +them 'the much-too-many.' But Nietzsche does not know quite so much as +the Energy that wills them to manifest. It is dreadful, it is pitiful. +It would seem, if God so loved the world--that He could not endure such +pity as would be His at the sight of this suffering and degradation.... +But you have no right to despise them--you, of all women. You're +blooming up, up, up,--farther and farther out of the common--your +blooming has been for years because you have kindled your mind. You must +bloom for years still--that's the only meaning of your strength--because +you will kindle your soul.... A woman with power like yours--has no +right but to love the weak. Think what strength you have! There have +been moments in the last half-hour that you have roused me to such a +pitch of thinking--that I have felt weak and ineffectual beside you. You +made me think sometimes of a great submarine--I don't know just +why--flashing in the depths." + +"I don't think you see me right," Selma Cross said wearily. "Many times +I have been lost in the dark. I have been wicked--hated the forces that +made me. I have so much in me of the peasant--that I abhor. There have +been times when I would have been a prostitute for a clean house and +decent clothes to cover me, but men did not look at _The Thing_--only +the old man, and one other!" Her eyes brightened, either at the memory +or at the thought that she was free from the former.... "Don't wince and +I'll tell you about that angel. You will be wiser. I don't want you for +my friend, if I must keep something back. It was over three years ago, +during my first real success. I was rather startling as Sarah Blixton in +Heber's _Caller Herrin_. It was in that that I learned repression. That +was my struggle--to repress.... Old man Villiers saw me, and was wise +enough to see my future. 'Here's a girl,' I can imagine him saying, 'who +is ugly enough to be square to one man, and she's a comer in spite of +her face.' He showed where his check-book could be of unspeakable +service. It was all very clear to me. I felt I had struggled enough, and +went with him.... Villiers is that kind of New Yorker who feels that he +has nothing left to live for, when he ceases to desire women. In his +vanity--they are always vain--he wanted to be seen with a woman +mentioned on Broadway. It was his idea of being looked up to--and of +making other men envious. You know his sort have no interest--save where +they can ruin. + +"Then for two winter months, Villiers and I had a falling out. He went +South, and I remained here to work. During this time I had my first real +brush with love--a young Westerner. It was terrific. He was a brilliant, +but turned out a rotten cad. I couldn't stand that in a young man.... +You can pity an old man, much the worse for living, when he is brazenly +a cad--doesn't know anything else.... When Villiers came back from the +South I was bought again. I put it all nakedly, Paula, but I was older +than you are now, when that sort of thing began with me. Remember that! +Still, I mustn't take too much credit, because I didn't attract men.... +If you don't abhor me now, you never will, little neighbor, because you +have the worst.... Sometime I'll tell you a real little love story--oh, +I'm praying it's real! He's a hunch-back, Paula,--the author of _The +Thing_.... Nobody could possibly want a hunch-back but me--yet I'm not +good enough. He's so noble and so fine!... The past is so full of +abominations, and I'm not a liar.... I don't think he'd want me--though +I could be his nurse. I could _carry him_!... Then there is a long-ago +promise.... Oh, I know I'm not fit for that kind of happiness!..." + +There was an inspiration in the last. It was strong enough to subvert +Paula's mind from the road of dreary degradation over which she had been +led. From rousing heights of admiration to black pits of shame, she had +fallen, but here again was a tonic breath from clean altitudes. The +picture in her mind of this great glowing creature tenderly mothering +the poor crippled genius of _The Thing_--was a thrilling conception. + +"There is nothing which cannot be forgiven--save soul-death!" Paula said +ardently. "What you have told me is very hard to adjust, but I hope for +your new love. Oh, I am glad, Selma, that the other is all behind! I +don't know much of such things, but it has come to me that it is easier +for a man to separate himself from past degradations and be clean--than +a woman. This is because a man gives--_but the woman receives her sin_! +That which is given cannot continue to defile, but woman is the +matrix.... Still, you do not lie. Such things are so dreadful when +matted in lies. We all carry burdensome devils--but few uncover them, as +you have done for me. There is something noble in looking back into the +past with a shudder, saying,--'I was sick and full of disease in those +days,' but when one hugs the corrosion, painting it white all +over--there is an inner devouring that is never appeased.... All our +sisters are in trouble. I think we live in a world of suffering +sororities. You are big and powerful. Your greater life is to come.... I +am glad for what you have put behind. You will progress farther and +farther from it. I am glad you are back across the hall--alone!" + + * * * * * + +For many moments after Selma Cross had gone, Paula sat thinking under +the lamp. At last she drew the sheets of the letter to Charter from the +desk-drawer, and read them over. The same rapt smile came to her lips, +as when she was writing. It was a letter to her Ideal--the big figure of +cleanness and strength, she wanted this man to be. Even a line or two +she added. No one ever knew, but Paula.... At length, she began tearing +the sheets. Finer and finer became the squares under her tense +fingers--a little pile of _confetti_ on the desk at last--and brushed +into a basket.... Then she wrote another letter, blithe, brief, +gracious--about his book and her opinion. It was a letter such as he +would expect.... + + + + +SIXTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR "F" OF THE _MAID-STONE_ WHERE THE BEYOND-DEVIL +AWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS + + +Paula felt singularly blessed the next morning wondering if ever there +existed another woman into whose life-channel poured such strange and +torrential tributaries. The current of her mind was broadening and +accelerating. She was being prepared for some big expression, and there +is true happiness in the thought. Reifferscheid, since her pilgrimage to +Staten Island, had become a fixture of delight. Selma Cross had borne +her down on mighty pinions to the lower revelations of the City, but had +winged her back again on a breeze of pure romance. Madame Nestor had +parted the curtains, which shut from the world's eye, hell unqualified, +yet her own life was a miracle of penitence. Not the least of her +inspirations was this mild, brave woman of the solitudes. Then, there +was the commanding mystery of Bellingham, emerging in her mind now from +the chicaneries of the past ten days; rising, indeed, to his own +valuation--that of a New Voice. Finally, above and before all, was the +stirring figure of her Ideal--her splendid secret source of +optimism--Charter, less a man than a soul in her new dreams--a name to +which she affixed, "The Man-Who-Must-Be-Somewhere." + +Just once, the thought came to Paula that Bellingham had designed a +meeting such as took place in the Park to soften her aversion and clear +from her mind any idea of his abnormality. She could not hold this +suspicion long. Attributing evil strategies to another was not easy for +Paula. The simpler way now was to give him every benefit, even to regard +the recent dreadful adventures with an intangible devil--as an outburst +of her neglected feminine prerogatives, coincident with the stress of +her rather lonely intellectual life. As for Madame Nestor, might she not +have reached a more acute stage of a similar derangement? Paula was not +unacquainted with the great potentialities of fine physical health, nor +did she miss the fact that Mother Nature seldom permits a woman of +normal development to reach the fourth cycle of her years, without +reckoning with the ancient reason of her being. + +She now regarded early events connected with Bellingham as one might +look back upon the beginning of a run of fever.... Could he be one of +the New Voices? + +Paula loved to think that Woman was to be the chief resource of the +Lifting Age. Everywhere among men she saw the furious hunger for +spiritual refreshment. Words, which she heard by mere chance from +passers-by, appalled her. It was so tragically clear to her how the life +led by city men starves their better natures--that there were times when +she could hardly realize they did not see it. She wanted someone to make +the whole world understand--that just as there are hidden spaces between +the atoms of steel which made radioactivity possible, so in the human +body there is a permeating space, in which the soul of man is built day +by day from every thought and act; and when the worn-out physical +envelope falls away--there it stands, a record to endure.... She wanted +to believe that it was the office of woman to help man make this record +beautiful. Just as the old Anglo-Saxon for "lady" means "giver of +bread," so she loved to think that the spiritual loaf was in the keeping +of woman also. + +Paula could not meditate without ecstasy upon the thought that a great +spiritual tide was rising, soon to overflow every race and nation. The +lifting of man from greedy senses to the pure happiness of brotherhood, +was her most intimate and lovely hope. Back of everything, this lived +and lit her mind. There were transcendent moments--she hardly dared to +describe or interpret them--when cosmic consciousness swept into her +brain. Swift was the visitation, nor did it leave any memorable +impression, but she divined that such lofty moments, different only in +degree, were responsible for the great utterances in books that are +deathless. The shield was torn from her soul, leaving it naked to every +world-anguish. The woman, Paula Linster, became an accumulation of all +suffering--desert thirsts, untold loves, birth and death parturitions, +blind cruelties of battle, the carnal lust of Famine (that soft-treading +spectre), welted flesh under the screaming lash, moaning from the +World's Night everywhere--until the impassioned spirit within rushed +forth to the very horizon's rim to shelter an agonizing people from an +angry God. Such is the genius of race-motherhood--the ineffable spirit +of mediation between Father and child. + +One must regard with awe the reaction which follows such an outpouring. + +These are the wilderness-wrestlings of the great-souled--the +Gethsemanes. Out of the dream, would appear the actual spectacle of the +City--human beings preying one upon the other, the wolf still frothing +in man's breast--and then would crush down upon her with shattering pain +the realization of her own hopeless ineffectuality. To a mind thus +stricken and desolated often, premonitions of madness come at +last--madness, the black brother of genius. There is safety alone in a +body strong and undefiled to receive again the expanded spirit. From how +many a lustrous youth--tarrying too long by the fetid margins of +sense--has the glory winged away, never to return to a creature fallen +into hairy despoliation. + + * * * * * + +Paula had returned from down-town about noon. Reifferscheid, who had a +weakness for Herman Melville, and annually endeavored to spur the +American people into a more adequate appreciation of the old sea-lion, +had ordered her to rest her eyes for a few days in _Moby Dick_. With the +fat, old fine-print novel under her arm, Paula let herself into her own +apartment and instantly encountered the occultist's power. She sank to +the floor and covered her face in the pillows of the couch. In the past +twenty-four hours she had come to believe that the enemy had been put +away forever, yet here in her own room she was stricken, and so +swiftly.... Though she did not realize it at once, many of the thoughts +which gradually surged into her mind were not her own. She came to see +Bellingham as other women saw him--as a great and wise doctor. Her own +conception battled against this, but vainly, vaguely. It was as if he +held the balance of power in her consciousness. Without attempting to +link them together, the processes of her mind quickly will be set into +words. + +Her first thought, before the tightening of Bellingham's control in her +brain, was to rush into his presence and fiercely arraign him for the +treachery he had committed. After blaming Madame Nestor and deforming +her own faculties to clear him from evil, the devilishness of the +present visitation overwhelmed. And how infinitely more black and +formidable now was his magic--after the utterances in the Park! This was +her last real stand.... A cry of hopelessness escaped her lips, for the +numbness was already about her eyes, and creeping back like a pestilence +along the open highways of her mind. + +"Come to me. The way is open. I am alone. I am near.... Come to me, +Paula Linster, of plentiful treasures.... Do you not see the open +way--how near I am? Oh, come--now--come to me now!" + +Again and again the little sentences fell upon her mind, until its +surface stirred against reiteration, as one, thoroughly understanding, +resents repeated explanations.... It was right now for her to go. She +had been rebellious and headstrong to conjure such evils about the name +of a famous physician. The world called him famous. Only she and Madame +Nestor had stood apart, clutching fast to their ideas of his deviltry. +He had taken the trouble to call her to him--to prove that he was good. +The degradation which she had felt at the first moment of his +summons--was all from her own perversity.... Clearly she saw the street +below, Cathedral Way; a turn north, then across the Plaza to the brown +ornate entrance of _The Maidstone_.... There was no formality about the +going. Her hat and coat had not been removed.... She was in the hall; +the elevator halted at her floor while the man pushed a letter and some +papers under the door of the Selma Cross apartment.... In the street, +she turned across the Plaza from Cathedral Way to _The Maidstone_. The +real Paula Linster marshalled a hundred terrible protests, but her voice +was muffled, her strength ineffectual as Josephine's beating with white +hands against the Emperor's iron door. Real volition was locked in the +pitiless will of the physician, to whom she hastened as one hoping to be +saved. + +She inquired huskily of the man at the hotel-desk. + +"The Doctor is waiting on the parlor-floor--in F," was the answer. + +Paula stepped from the elevator, and was directed to the last door on +the left.... The sense of her need, of her illness, hurried her forward +through the long hall. Sometimes she seemed burdened with the body of a +woman, very tired and helpless, but quite obedient.... The figure "F" on +a silver shield filled her eyes. The door was ajar. Her entrance was not +unlike that of a lioness goaded with irons through a barred passage into +an arena. She did not open the door wider, but slipped through sideways, +gathering her dress closely about her.... Bellingham was there. His face +was white, rigid from long concentration; yet he smiled and his arms +were opened to her.... The point here was that he so marvelously +understood. His attitude to her seemed that of a physician of the soul. +She could not feel the fighting of the real woman.... Dazed and broken +for the moment, she encountered the soothing magnetism of his hands. + +"How long I have waited!" he quietly exclaimed. "Hours, and it was +bitter waiting--but you are a wreath for my waiting--how grateful you +are to my weariness!... Paula Linster, Paula Linster--what deserts of +burning sunshine I have crossed to find you--what dark jungles I have +searched for such fragrance!" + +His arms were light upon her, his voice low and lulling. He dared not +yet touch his lips to her hair--though they were dry and twisted with +his awful thirst. Craft and patience altogether feline was in the art +with which he wound and wove about her mind thoughts of his own, +designed to ignite the spark of responsive desire.... And how softly he +fanned--(an incautious blast would have left him in darkness +altogether)--until it caught.... Well, indeed, he knew the cunning of +the yet unbroken seals; and better still did he know the outraged forces +hovering all about her, ready to defeat him for the slightest error--and +leave him to burn in his own fires. + +"This is peace," he whispered with indescribable repression. "How soft a +resting-place--and yet how strong!... Out of the past I have come for +you. Do you remember the rock in the desert on which you sat and waited +long ago? Your eyes were weary when I came--weary from the blazing light +of noon and the endless waning of that long day. On a great rock in the +desert you sat--until I came, _until I came_. Then you laughed because I +shut the feverish sun-glow from your strained eyes.... Remember, I came +in the skin of a lion and shut the sunset from your aching eyes--my +shoulders darkening the west--and we were alone--and the night came +on...." + +Clearly was transferred to hers, the picture in his own brain. One of +the ancient and mystic films of memory seemed brought after ages to the +light--the reddening sands, the city far behind, from which she had fled +to meet her hero, deep in the desert--the glow of sunset on his +shoulders and in his hair, tawny as the lion's skin he wore.... The +heart quickened within her; the savage ardor of that long-ago woman grew +hot in her breast. Strong as a lion he was, this youth of the Sun, and +fleet the night fell to cover them. She ate the dried grapes he gave +her, drank deep from his skin of wine, and laughed with him in the swift +descending night.... She felt his arms now, her face was upraised, her +eyelids tensely shut. Downward the blood rushed, leaving her lips icy +cold. She felt the muscles of his arms in her tightening fingers, and +her breast rose against him. This was no Twentieth Century magician who +thralled her now, but a glorious hero out of the desert sunset;--and the +woman within her was as one consuming with ecstasy from a lover's last +visit.... + +And now Bellingham changed the color and surface of his advances. It was +his thought to make such a marvellous sally, that when he retired and +the mistress once again commanded her own citadel, she would perceive +the field of his activities strewn, not with corpses, but with garlands, +and in their fragrance she must yearn for the giant to come yet again. +The thing he now endeavored to do was beyond an ordinary human +conception for devilishness; and yet, that it was not a momentary +impulse, but a well considered plan, was proven by the trend of his talk +of the day before.... The flaw in his structure was his apparent +forgetting that the woman in his arms breathing so ardently, in her own +mind was clinging to a youth out of the sunset--a youth in the skin of a +lion. + +"Wisdom has been given to my eyes," Bellingham resumed with surpassing +gentleness. "For years a conception of wonderful womanhood has lived and +brightened in my mind, bringing with it a promise that in due time, such +a woman would be shown to me. The woman, the promise and the miracle of +its later meaning, I perceived at last were not for my happiness, but +for the world's awful need. You are the fruits of my wonderful +vision--you--Paula Linster. You are the quest of my long and weary +searching!" + +His utterance of her name strangely disturbed her night-rapture of the +desert. It was as if she heard afar-off--the calling of her people. + +"On the night you entered the Hall," he said, and his face bent closer, +"I felt the sense of victory, before these physical eyes found you. My +thoughts roved over a world, brightened by a new hope, fairer for your +presence. And then, I saw your fine white brow, the ignited magic of +your hair and eyes, your frail exquisite shoulders.... It seemed as +though the lights perished from the place--when you left." + +The word "magic" was a sudden spark around which the thoughts of the +woman now groped.... She had lost her desert lover, passion was drained +from her, and there was a weight of great trouble pressing down ... +"Magic"--she struggled for its meaning.... She was sitting upon a rock +again, but not in the desert--rather in a place of cooled sunlight, +where there were turf roads and grand, old trees--a huge figure +approaching with a powerful swinging stride--yesterday, Bellingham, the +Park--the Talk!... Paula lifted her shoulders, felt the binding arms +around them and heard the words uttered now in the meridian of human +passion: + +"Listen, Paula Linster, you have been chosen for the most exalted task +ever offered to living woman. The Great Soul is not yet in the world, +and He must come soon!... It is you who have inspired this--you, of +trained will; a mind of stirring evolution, every thought so essentially +feminine; you of virgin body and a soul lit with stars! You are brave. +The burden is easy to one of your courage, and I should keep you free +from the world--free from the burns and the whips of this thinking +animal, the world. All that I have won from the world, her mysteries, +her enchantments, I shall give you, all that is big and brave and wise +in song and philosophy and nature, I shall bring to your feet, as a +hunter with trophies to his beloved--all that a man, wise and tender, +can think and express to quicken the splendor of fertility----" + +Paula was now fully conscious--her self restored to her. The Yesterday +and the To-day rose before her mind in startling parallel. Her primary +dread was that she might lose control again before Bellingham was put +away. The super-devilishness of his plan--hiding a blasphemy in the +white robe of a spiritual consecration--had changed him in her sight to +a ravening beast. The thing which he believed would cause her eagerly to +bestow upon him the riches of her threefold life had lifted her farther +out of his power that moment, than even she realized. Bellingham had +over-reached. She was filled with inner nausea.... The idea of escape, +the thought of crippling the magician's power over her forever--in the +stress of this, she grew cold.... She was nearest the door. It stood +ajar, as when she had entered. + +"Meditation--in the place I have prepared," he was whispering, +"meditation and the poetic life, rarest of fruits, purest of white +garments--cleansed with sunlight and starlight, you and I, Paula +Linster,--the sources of creation which have been revealed to me--for +you! Wonderful woman--all the vitalities of heaven shall play upon you! +We shall bring the new god into the world----" + +She pushed back from his arms and faced him--white-lipped and loathing. + +"You father a son of mine," she said, in the doorway. "You--are +dead--the man's soul is dead within you--you whited sepulchre!" + +His face altered like a white wall which an earthquake disorders at the +base. White rock turned to blown paper; the man-mask rubbed out; Havoc +featured upon an erect thing, with arms pitifully outstretched. + + * * * * * + +Paula, alone in the long hall, ran to the marble stairs, hurried down +and into the street--swiftly to her house. There, every thread of +clothing she had worn was gathered into a pile for burning. Then she +bathed and her strength returned. + + + + +SEVENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS, +AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT + + +In mid-afternoon Paula obeyed an impulse to call upon Madame Nestor. She +wanted to talk with the only human being in New York who could quite +understand. Madame's room was west of Eighth Avenue in Forty-fourth +Street--the servant's quarter in a squalid suite, four flights up. The +single window opened upon a dim shaft, heavy with emanations from many +kitchens. There was not even a closet. Madame's moulted plumage was hung +upon the back of the outer and only door. Books were everywhere, on the +floor, in boxes, on the cot. + +"My dear Paula, you felt the need of me?... I should have come to you. +This does very well for me, but I dislike my poverty to be known, dear. +It is not that I am the least proud, but the psychic effects of pity are +depressing." + +"Please, Madame Nestor, don't think of me pitying anybody! I did feel +the need of you. The day has been horrible. But first, I want to tell +you that I am very sorry for what I said--when you were in my rooms the +other day----" + +The elder woman leaned forward and kissed Paula's dress at the shoulder. +There was something sweet and mild and devotional in the action, +something suggestive of a wise old working-bee pausing an instant to +caress its queen. + +"You have been impelled to go to him, Paula?" + +"Yes. It came over me quite irresistibly. I could not have been +altogether myself.... I think I shall leave the city!" + +Madame Nestor asked several questions, bringing out all she cared to +know of Paula's experience that day. Her eyes became very bright as she +said: + +"I dare not advise you _not_ to go away. Still, don't you see it--how +wonderful was your victory to-day?" + +"I can't always defeat him!" Paula cried. "His power comes over me and I +move toward him--just as reptiles must follow a blind impulse started +from without. Each time I follow, I must be weaker." + +"But, Paula, each time something happens to restore you to yourself, +thwarting his purpose, his projections are weakened." + +"But if I should go far away?" + +"He could only put it in your mind to return." + +When Paula remembered the accidents which had preserved her, even when +in the same city with the Destroyer, she could not doubt the salvation +in putting a big stretch of the planet's curve between her and this +dynamo.... Certain unfinished thinking could only be cleared through a +friend like Madame Nestor. + +"This physical consciousness which he has made me feel seems +indescribably more sinister in erect human beings than the mating +instinct in animals and birds," Paula declared with hesitation. "Can it +be that women in general encounter influences--of this kind?" + +"It is man's fault that women have broken all seasons," the Madame said +bitterly. "Man has kept woman submerged since the beginning of time. +Always eager to serve; and blest--or cursed--with the changeless passion +to be _all_ to one man--her most enduring hope to hold the exclusive +love of one man--woman has adapted herself eagerly to become the +monogamic answer to man's polygamic nature. Bellingham is but the +embodiment of a desire which exists in greater or less degree in every +man. This desire of man has disordered women. We have lost the true +meaning of ourselves--I mean, as a race of women--and have become merely +physical mates." + +"I can hardly believe it--that even women of the streets should ever be +degraded by such a horrible force," Paula said desperately. "And the +sweet calm faces of some of the women we know----" + +"Behind the mask of innocence, often, is a woman's terrible secret, +Paula. For most women obey. Even the growth of the maid is ruthlessly +forced by hot breaths of passion, until motherhood--so often a domestic +tragedy--leaves the imprint of shame in her arms. The man of unlit soul +has made this low play of passion his art. Woman as a race has fallen, +because it is her way to please and obey. Man has taught us to believe +that when he comes to our arms, we are at our highest.... And, listen, +Paula, certain men of to-day, a step higher in evolution, blame woman +because she has not suddenly _unlearned_ her training of the +ages--lessons man has graven in the very bed-rock of her nature. In the +novelty of their new-found austerity, they exclaim: 'Avoid woman. She is +passion rhythmic. It is she who draws us down from our lofty regions of +endeavor.'" + +Terrific energy of rebellion stirred Paula's mind. "But the promise is +that woman's time shall come!" she exclaimed. "The Child, Jesus, said to +his Mother, 'Thy time is not yet come,' but it is promised that the heel +of woman shall crush the head of the Serpent. We have always borne the +sin, the agony, the degradation, but our time must be close at hand! I +think this is the age--and this the country--of the Rising Woman!" + +Madame Nestor arose from the cot and stood before Paula, her eyes +shining with emotion. + +"Bless you, my beloved girl, my whole heart leaps to sanction that! I +have symbolized the whole struggle of our race in your personal +struggle--don't you see this, Paula?... Bellingham is the concentrate of +devourers--and you the evolved woman who overcomes him! My hope for the +race lies in you, and your victory to-day has filled my cup with +happiness!... You say you do not dare to pray. I tell you, child,--the +God of women gave you strength to-day. He is close to harken unto your +need--for you are among the first of the elect to bring in the glory of +the new day!... The animal in man has depleted the splendid energies of +the Spirit. Passions of the kind you defeated to-day are overpowering +women everywhere at this hour--lesser passions of lesser Bellinghams. +Man's course to God has been a crawl through millenniums, instead of a +flight through decades, because woman has bowed--obeyed. God is patient, +but woman is aroused!... Above the din of wars, the world has heard the +wailing of the women; out of the ghostly silence of famine and from +beneath the debris of fallen empires--always the world has heard her cry +for pity--her cry for pity now _become a Voice of Power_! All her +tortured centuries have been for this--and the signs are upon us! +Woman's demand for knowledge, her clamor for suffrage, her protest +against eternally paying for man's lust with unblessed babes--all these +are signs! But you, Paula Linster,--and what I know of this day--is the +most thrilling sign of all to me!... Ah, woman is evolving; she is +aroused! How shall she repay man for brutalizing her so long?" + +"By bringing him back to God!" Paula answered. + +They wept together and whispered, while the night fell about and covered +the squalid room. + + * * * * * + +It was one of her emancipated nights. Paula's spirit poured out over the +city, for her mind was lit with thoughts of the ultimate redemption of +her race. Bellingham could not have found her in his world that hour.... +Emerging from Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, at eight in the evening, +she passed under the hot brilliance of a famous hotel-entrance. As it +never would have occurred to her to do in a less exalted moment, Paula +glanced at a little knot of men standing under the lights. The eyes of +one were roving like an unclean hand over her figure. Suddenly +encountering her look, a bold, eager, challenge stretched itself upon +his face. In the momentary panic, her glance darted to the others +instinctively for protection--and found three smiling corpses.... Here +were little Bellinghams; here, the sexual drunkenness which has made +Man's course "a crawl through millenniums" to God, instead of a flight +through decades. What a pitiless revelation!... She clung to her big +Ideal in the West. It came to her for a second like a last and single +hope--that Charter was not like that.... "God is patient and woman is +aroused!" she whispered. + +And farther up, a little way into Forty-seventh, Paula found a Salvation +Army circle under the torch. A man with a pallid, shrunken face turned +imploring eyes from one to another of the company, exclaiming: "I tell +you, man's first work here below is to save his soul! I pray you--men +and women, here to-night--to save your souls!" + +Paula tossed her purse upon the big drum, as she passed swiftly. Luckily +there was carfare in her glove, for she had not thought of that. Never +before had she felt in such fullness her relation to the race.... + +A hansom-cab veered about the edge of the Salvation circle, swift enough +to attract her eye. The horse had started before the driver was in the +seat. The latter was fat and apoplectic. It was all he could do to +regain his place, so that the reins still dangled. The possibility of a +cab-horse becoming excited held only humor for the crowd, which parted +to let the vehicle by. The horse, feeling his head, started to run just +as the driver seized one of the lines and jerked his beast into the +curb. There was an inhuman scream. A strange, boneless effigy of a man +with twisted, waving arms--went down before the plunging horse, so +suddenly swerved.... A hush seemed to have fallen upon the noisy +Broadway corner. Paula was not blind in the brief interval which +followed, but the world seemed gray and still, like a spectral dawn, or +the unearthly setting of a dream. + +"The shaft bored into him, and the horse struck him after he fell," a +voice explained. + +They lifted him. There was particular dreadfulness in the quantity of +fluid evenly sheeted on the pavement as from a pail carefully +overturned. Startling effrontery attached to the thought of man's +heaven-aspiring current swimming like this upon a degraded city road. +The horse, now held by the bit, snorted affrightedly at the odor. They +had carried the unfortunate to the sidewalk under the lights of a +tobacco-shop window. The upper part of his head and face was indefinite +like a crushed tin of dark paint. But mouth and nose and chin of the +upturned face left an imperishable imprint upon her mind. It was +Bellingham.... Paula fled, her lips opening in a sick fashion. It seemed +hours before she could reach the sanctuary of her room, where she sobbed +in the dark. + + + + +EIGHTH CHAPTER + +PAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER HEART-COUNTRY, AND IS +DELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK + + +The morning paper stated that Dr. Bellingham had suffered a fracture of +the skull and internal injury, but might live. A note to Paula from +Madame Nestor late the next day contained the following paragraph: "I +called at the hospital to inquire. A doctor told me that the case is +likely to become a classic one. Never in his experience, he stated, had +he witnessed a man put up such a fight for life. It will be long, +however, before he is abroad again. He must have been following you +quite madly, because there never was a man more careful in the midst of +city-dangers than Bellingham. Why, a scratched finger completely upset +him--in the earlier days. Inscrutable, but thrilling--isn't it, my dear +Paula?" + + * * * * * + +"Did you follow _Moby Dick's_ whale tracks around the wet wastes of the +world?" Reifferscheid asked several mornings later, as Paula entered. + +Her face was flushed. A further letter from Quentin Charter had just +been tucked into her bag. "Yes, and Mr. Melville over trans-continental +digressions," she answered. "He surely is Neptune's own _confrère_." + +"Did you get the leviathan alongside and study the bewildering chaos of +a ninety-foot nervous system?" Reifferscheid went on with delight. + +"Exactly, and colored miles of sea-water with the emptyings of his vast +heart. Then, there was an extended process of fatty degeneration, which +I believe they called--blubber-boiling." + +They laughed together over the old whale-epic. + +"They remember Melville up in Boston and Nantucket," he added, "but he's +about as much alive as a honey-bee's pulse elsewhere. The trouble is, +you can't rectify this outrage by law. It isn't uxoricide or +sheep-stealing--not to know Melville--but it's the deadly sin of +ingratitude. This is a raw age, we adorn--not to rock in the boat of +that man's soul. Why, he's worthy to stand with the angels on the point +of the present." + +The big editor always warmed her when he enthused. Here, in the midst of +holiday books pouring in by scores, he had time to make a big personal +and public protest against a fifty-year-old novel being forgotten. + +"But isn't Melville acknowledged to be the headwaters of inspiration for +all later sea-books?" Paula asked. + +"Yes, to the men who do them, he's the big laughing figure behind their +work, but the public doesn't seem to know.... Of course, Herman has +faults--Japan currents of faults--but they only warm him to a white +man's heart. Do you know, I like to think of him in a wide, windy room, +tearing off his story long-hand, upon yard square sheets, grinning like +an ogre at the soul-play, the pages of copy settling ankle-deep upon the +floor. There's no taint of over-breeding in the unborn thing, no curse +of compression, no aping Addison--nothing but Melville, just blown in +with the gale, reeking with a big story which must be shed, before he +blows out again, with straining cordage booming in his ears. He +harnesses Art. He man-handles Power, makes it grovel and play circus. +'Here it is,' he seems to say at the end. 'Take it or leave it. I'm +rotting here ashore.'" + +"You ought to dictate reviews like that, Mr. Reifferscheid," Paula could +not help saying, though she knew he would be disconcerted. + +He colored, turned back to his work, directing her to take her choice +from the shelf of fresh books.... On the car going back, Paula opened +Charter's letter. Her fingers trembled, because she had been in a happy +and daring mood five or six days before when she wrote the letter to +which this was the reply. + + ... Do you know, I really like to write to you? I feel + untrammelled--turned loose in the meadows. It seems when I + start an idea--that you've grasped it as soon as it is clear to + me. Piled sentences after that are unnecessary. It's a real joy + to write this way, as spirits commune. It wouldn't do at all + for the blessed multitude. You have to be a mineral and a + vegetable and an animal, all in a paragraph, to get the whole + market. But how generous the dear old multitude is--(if the + writer has suffered enough)--with its bed and board and + lamplight.... + + I have been scored and salted so many times that I heal like an + earth-worm. Tell me, can scar-tissue ever be so fine? + Fineness--that's the one excellent feature of being human! + There's no other reason for being--no other meaning or reason + for atomic affinity or star-hung space. True, the great + Conceiver of Refining Thought seems pleased to take all + eternity to play in.... + + You've made me think of you out of all proportion. I don't want + to help it. I'm very glad we hailed each other across the + distance. There's something so entirely blithe and wise and + finished about the personality I've builded from three little + letters and a critique--that I refresh myself very frequently + from them.... I think we must be old playmates. Perhaps we + plotted ghost-stories and pegged oranges at each other in + Atlantean orchards millenniums ago. I begin to feel as if I + deserve to have my playmate back.... Then, again, it is as + though these little letters brought to my garret window the + Skylark I have heard far and faintly so long in the higher + moments of dream. Just a note here and there used to come to me + from far-shining archipelagoes of cloud-land. I listen now and + clearly understand what you have sung so long in the + Heights.... You are winged--that's the word! Wing often to my + window--won't you? Life is peppering me with good things this + year, I could not be more grateful. + +Letters like these made Paula think of that memorable first afternoon +with Grimm; and like it, too, the joy was so intense as to hold the +suggestion that there must be something evil in it all. She laughed at +this. What law, human or divine, was disordered by two human grown-ups +with clean minds communing together intimately in letters? Quentin +Charter might have been less imperious, or less precipitous, in writing +such pleasing matters about herself, but had he not earned the boon of +saying what he felt? Still, Paula would not have been so entirely +feminine, had she not repressed somewhat. She even may have known that +artful repression from without is stimulus to any man. Occasionally, +Charter forgot his sense of humor, but the woman five years younger, +never. The inevitable thought that in the ordinary sequence of events, +they should meet face to face, harrowed somewhat with the thought that +she must keep his ideals down--or both were lost. What could a mind like +his _not_ build about months of communion (eyes and ears strained toward +flashing skies) with a Skylark ideal?... She reminded Charter that +skylarks are little, brown, tame-plumaged creatures that only sing when +they soar. She could not forbear to note that he was a bit sky-larky, +too, in his letters, and observed that she had found it wise, mainly to +keep one's wings tightly folded in New York. She signed her next letter, +nevertheless, with a small pen-picture of the name he had given +her--full-throated and ascending. Also she put on her house address. +Some of the paragraphs from letters which came in the following weeks, +she remembered without referring to the treasured file: + + ... Bless the wings! May they never tire for long--since I + cannot be there when they are folded.... Often, explain it if + you can, I think of you as some one I have seen in Japan, + especially in Tokyo--hurrying through the dusk in the + Minimasakurna-cho, wandering through the tombs of the + Forty-seven Ronins. or sipping tea in the Kameido among the + wistaria blooms. Some time--who knows? I have made quite a + delightful romance about it.... Who is so wise as positively to + say, that we are not marvellously related from the youth of the + world? Who dares declare we have not climbed cliffs of Cathay + to stare across the sky-blue water, nor whispered together in + orient casements under constellations that swing more + perilously near than these?... We may be a pair of foolish + dreamers, but Asia must have a cup of tea for us--Asia, because + she is so far and so still. We shall _remember_ then.... + + And so you live alone? How strange, I have always thought of + you so? From the number, I think you must overlook the + Park--don't you?... It may strike you humorously, but I feel + like ordering you not to take too many meals alone. One is apt + to be neglectful, and women lose their appetites easier than + men. I used to be graceless toward the gift of health. Perhaps + I enjoy perfectly prepared food altogether too well for one of + inner aspirations. The bit of a soul in which you see such + glorious possibilities, packs rather an imperious animal this + trip, I fear. However, I don't let the animal carry _me_--any + more. + + I see a wonderful sensitiveness in all that you write--that's + why I suggest especially that you should never forget fine food + and plentiful exercise. Psychic activity in America is attained + so often at the price of physical deterioration. This is an + empty failure, uncentering, deluding. Remember, I say in + America.... Pray, don't think I fail to worship + sensitiveness--those high, strange emotions, the sense of + oneness with all things that live, the vergings of the mind + toward the intangible, the light, refreshing sleep of + asceticism, subtle expandings of solitude and the mystical + launchings,--anything that gives spread of wing rather than + amplitude of girth--but I have seen these very pursuits carry + one entirely out of rhythm with the world. The multitudes + cannot follow us when there are stars in our eyes--they cannot + see. + + A few years ago I had a strange period of deep-delving into + ancient wisdom. A lot of big, simple treasures unfolded, but I + discovered great dogmas as well--the steel shirts, iron + shields, mailed fists and other junk which lesser men seem + predestined to hammer about the gentle spirit of Truth. I + vegetarianed, lived inside, practiced meditate, and became a + sensitive, as it seems now, in rather a paltry, arrogant sense. + The point is I lost the little appeal I had to people through + writing. It came to me at length with grim finality that if a + man means to whip the world into line at all, he must keep a + certain brute strength. He must challenge the world at its own + games _and win_, before he can show the world that there are + finer games to play. You can't stand above the mists and call + the crowd to you, but many will _follow_ you up through + them.... I truly hope, if I am wrong in this, that you will see + it instantly, and not permit the edge and temper of your + fineness to be coarsened through me. You are so animate, so + delicately strong, and seem so spiritually unhurt, that it + occurs to me now that there may be finer laws for you, than are + vouchsafed to me. I interpreted my orders--to win according to + certain unalterable rules of the world. Balzac did that. I + think some Skylark sang to him at the last, when he did his + Seraphita.... + + I cannot help but tell you again of my gratitude. I am no + impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to + me.... Isn't this an excellent world when the finer moments + come; when we can think with gentleness of past failures of the + flesh and spirit, and with joy upon the achievements of others; + when we feel that we have preserved a certain relish for the + rich of all thought, and a pleasure in innocence; when out of + our errors and calamities we have won a philosophy which makes + serene our present voyaging and gives us keen eyes to discern + the coast-lights of the future?... With lifted brow--I harken + for your singing. + +Paula knew that Quentin Charter was crying out for his mate of fire. She +remembered that she had strangely felt his strength before there were +any letters, but she could not deny that it since had become a greater +and more intimate thing--her tower, white and heroic, cutting clean +through the films of distance, and suggesting a vast, invisible city at +its base. That she was the bright answer in the East for such a tower +was incredible. She could send a song over on the wings of the +morning--make it shine like ivory into the eyes of the new day, but she +dared not think of herself as a corresponding fixture. A man like +Charter could form a higher woman out of dreams and letter-pages than +the world could mold for him from her finest clays. Always she said +this--and forgot that the man was clay. A pair of dreamers, truly, and +yet there was a difference in their ideals. If Charter's vision of her +lifted higher, it was also flexible to contain a human woman. As for +hers--Paula had builded a tower. True, there were moments of flying fog +in which she did not see it, but clean winds quickly brushed away the +obscurations, and not a remnant clung. When seen at all, her tower was +pure white and undiminished. + +Of necessity there were reactions. His familiarity with the petty +intensities of the average man often startled her. He seemed capable of +dropping into the parlance of any company, not as one who had listened +and memorized, but as an old familiar who had served time in all +societies. In the new aspect of personal letters, his book revealed a +comprehension of women--that dismayed. Of course, his printed work was +filled with such stuff as her letters were made of, but between a book +and a letter, there is the same difference of appeal as the lines read +by an actor, however gifted, are cold compared to a friend's voice. +Though she wondered at Charter giving his time to write such letters to +her, this became very clear, if his inclination were anything like her +own to answer them. All the thinking of her days formed itself into +compressed messages for him; and all the best of her sprang to her pen +under his address. The effort then became to repress, to keep her pages +within bounds, and the ultimate effort was to wait several days before +writing again. His every sentence suggested pleasure in writing; and as +a matter of fact, he repressed very little.... Was it through letters +like hers in his leisure months that Charter amassed his tremendous +array of poignant details; was it through such, that he reared his +imposing ranges of feminine understanding? This was a question requiring +a worldlier woman than Paula long to hold in mind. In the man's writing, +regarded from her critical training, there was no betrayal of the +literary clerk dependent upon data. + +"I am no impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to +me." There was something of seership in his thus irrevocably affixing +his ideal to the human woman who held the pen.... His photograph was +frequently enough in the press--a big browed, plain-faced young man with +a jaw less aggressive than she would have imagined, and a mouth rather +finely arched for a reformer who was to whip the world into line. And +then there was a discovery. In a magazine dated a decade before, she ran +upon his picture among the advertising pages. Verses of his were +announced to appear during the year to come. He could not have been over +twenty for this picture, and to her it was completely charming--a boy +out of the past calling blithely; a poetic face, too, reminding her of +prints she had seen of an early drawing of Keats's head now in +London--eager, sensitive, all untried!... It was not without resistance +that she acknowledged herself _closer to the boy_--that something of the +man was beyond her. There was a mystery left upon the face by the +intervening years, "while the tireless soul etched on...." Should she +ever know? Or must there always be this dim, hurting thing? Was it all +the etching of the _soul_--that this later print revealed?... These were +but bits of shadow--ungrippable things which made her wings falter for a +moment and long for something sure to rest upon, but Reifferscheid's +first talk about Charter, the latter's book, and the letters--out of +these were reconstructed her tower of shining purity. + +There were times when Paula's heart, gathering all its tributary +sympathies, poured out to the big figure in the West in a deep and +rushing torrent. Her entire life was illuminated by these moments of +ardor. Here was a giving, in which the thought of actual possession had +little or no part. Her finest elements were merged into one-pointed +expression. It is not strange that she was dismayed by the triumphant +force of the woman within her, nor that she recalled one of the first of +Madame Nestor's utterances, "Nonsense, Paula, the everlasting feminine +is alive in every movement of you." Yet this outpouring was lofty, and +noon-sky clear. An emotion like this meant brightness to every life that +contacted it.... But ruthlessly she covered, hid away even from her own +thoughts, illuminations such as these. Here was a point of tragic +significance. Out of the past has come this great fear to strong +women--the fear to let themselves love. This is one of the sorriest +evolutions of the self-protecting instinct. So long have women met the +tragic fact of fickleness and evasion in the men of their majestic +concentrations--that fear puts its weight against the doors that love +would open wide. + +Almost unconsciously the personal tension of the correspondence +increased. Not infrequently after her letters were gone, Paula became +afraid that this new, full-powered self of hers had crept into her +written pages with betraying effulgence, rising high above the light +laughter of the lines. How she cried out for open honesty in the world +and rebelled against the garments of falsity which society insists must +cover the high as well as the low. Charter seemed to say what was in his +heart; at least, he dared to write as the woman could not, as she dared +not even to think, lest he prove--against the exclaiming negatives of +her soul--a literary craftsman of such furious zeal that he could tear +the heart out of a woman he had not seen, pin the quivering thing under +his lens, to describe, with his own responsive sensations. + +So the weeks were truly emotional. Swiftly, beyond any realization of +her own, Paula Linster became full-length a woman. Reifferscheid found +it harder and harder to talk even bossily to her, but cleared his voice +when she entered, vented a few booky generalities, and cleared his voice +when she went away. Keen winter fell upon his system of emptied lakes; +gusty winter harped the sound of a lonely ship in polar seas among the +naked branches of the big elms above his cottage; indeed, gray winter +would have roughed it--in the big chap's breast, had he not buckled his +heart against it.... For years, Tim Reifferscheid had felt himself aloof +from all such sentiment. Weakening, he had scrutinized his new assistant +keenly for the frailties with which her sex was identified in his mind. +In all their talks together, she had verified not one, so that he was +forced to destroy the whole worthless edition. She was a discovery, +thrillingly so, since he had long believed such a woman impossible. Now +he felt crude beside her, remembered everything that he had done amiss +(volumes of material supposed to be out of print). Frankly, he was +irritated with any one in the office who presumed to feel himself an +equal with Miss Linster.... But all this was Reifferscheid's, and no +other--as far from any expression of his, as thoughtless kisses or +thundering heroics. + + + + +NINTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS DRAWN DEEPER INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY WOOED +THROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST + + +Selma Cross frequently filled the little place of books across the hall +with her tremendous vibrations before the trial trip of her new play on +the road. Paula liked to have her come in, delighted in the great +creature's rapture over the hunch-back, Stephen Cabot, author of _The +Thing_. There was an indescribably brighter luster in the waxing and +waning of romantic tides, than the eyes of Paula had ever before +discovered, so that the confidences of the other were of moment. Selma +was terrified by some promise she had made years before in Kentucky. It +was gradually driven deep into the listener's understanding that no +matter how harsh and dreadful the intervening years had been, here was a +woman to whom a promise meant a promise. Paula was moved almost to tears +by the other's description of Stephen Cabot, and the first time she saw +him. + +"I wonder if the long white face with the pain-lit eyes could ever mean +to any one else what it does to me?" Selma whispered raptly when they +talked together one Sunday night. "Why, to see him sitting there before +me at rehearsal--the finest, lowest head in all the chairs--steadies, +exalts me! I hold fast to repression.... It It was Vhruebert who brought +me to him, and the first words Stephen said were: 'Your manager is a +wizard, Miss Cross, to get you for this. Why, you are the woman I wrote +about in _The Thing_!'" + +"Tell me more," Paula had whispered. + +"We met in Vhruebert's office and forgot the manager entirely. I guess +two hours passed, as we talked, and went over the play together that +first time. Vhruebert sent in his office-boy finally to remind us that +he was still in the building. How we three laughed about it!... Then as +we started out for luncheon together, Stephen and I, Vhruebert took his +place at the door before us, and delivered himself of something like +this: + +"'You two listen to the father of what you are to be,'" Selma Cross went +on, roughening her voice and tightening her nasal passages, to imitate +the old Hebrew star-maker. "'Listen to the soulless Vhruebert, who +brudalizes the great Amerigan stage. You two are Art. Very well, listen +to Commerce. It took me twenty-five years to learn that there must be +humor in a blay. This _T'ing_ would not lift the lip of a ganary-bird. +It took me twenty-five years to learn there must be joy at the end of a +blay--and wedding-bells. This _T'ing_ ends just about--over the hills to +the mad-house. Twenty-five years proved to me what I know the first +day--that women of the stage must be beautiful. Miss Gross is not. I say +no more. Here I have neither dramatist nor star. I could give the blay +by Gabot to Ellen Terry--or to Miss Gross, if Ibsen write it. As it is, +I have no name. There are five thousand people in this country writing +blays with humor and habby endings. There are ten thousand beautiful +women exbiring to spend it on the stage. Yet you two are the chosen of +Vhruebert. When you look into each other's eye and visper how +von-der-ful you are, with rising inflection; and say, "To hell with +Gommerce and the Binhead Bublic!" remember Vhruebert who advances the +money!'" + +"And did you remember Vhruebert in that fairy luncheon together?" Paula +asked happily. + +"No, I only saw the long white face of Stephen Cabot. I wanted to take +him in my arms and make him whole!" + +For ten weeks Bellingham lay in one of the New York hospitals. "A woman +attends him," Madame Nestor informed. "She is young and has been very +beautiful. How well do I know her look of impotence and apathy--that +look of unresisting obedience." To Paula, the magician seemed back among +the dead ages, although Madame Nestor did not regard the present lull +without foreboding. Paula could not feel that her real self had been +defiled. The dreadful visitations were all but erased, as pass the +spectres of delirium. What was more real, and rocked the centres of her +being, was the conception of this outcast's battle for life. She could +not forget that it was in pursuing her, that he had been injured. Facing +not only death, but extinction, this idolater of life had, as one +physician expressed it, held together his shattered vitality by sheer +force of will, until healing set in. The only thought comparable in +terror to such a conflict, had to do with the solitudes and abject +frigidity of inter-stellar spaces. + +The Skylark Letters, as she came to call them, were after all, the +eminent feature of the fall and winter weeks. There was a startling +paragraph in one of the December series: "I think it is fitting for you +to know (though, believe me, I needed no word regarding you from +without), that I am not entirely in the dark as to how you have +impressed another. I know nothing of the color of your hair or eyes, +nothing of your size or appearance,--only just how you _impressed +another_. This information, it is needless to say, was unsolicited...." +Just that, and no further reference. It was as though he had felt it a +duty to incorporate those lines. Portions of some of the later letters +follow: + + Did you know, that without the upward spread of wings--there + can be no song from the Skylark? This, for me, has a fragrant + and delicate significance. It is true that the poor little + caged-birds sing, but how sorry they are, since they have to + flutter their wings to give forth sound, and cling with their + claws to the bars to hold themselves down!... I think you must + have been a little wing-weary when you wrote your last letter + to me. Perhaps the dusk was crowding into the Heights. No one + knows as I do how the Skylark has sung and sung!... You did + not say it, but I think you wanted the earth-sweet meadows. It + came to me like needed rain--straight to the heart of mine that + little plaint in the song. It made me feel how useless is the + strength of my arms.... You see, I manage pretty well to keep + you up There. I must. And because you are so wonderful, I + can.... An enthralling temperament rises to me from your + letters. I love to let it flood through my brain.... + + I do not feel at all sure that you know me truly. What a man's + soul appears to be, through the intimations of his higher + moments, is not the man altogether that humans must reckon + with. Nor must they reckon with the trampling violences of + one's past. I truly believe in the soul. I believe it is an + essence fundamentally fine; that great mothers brood it + beautifully into their babes; that it is nourished by the good + a man does and thinks. I believe in the ultimate victory of the + soul, against the tough, twisted fibres of flesh which rise to + demand a thousand sensations. I would have you think of me as + one _lifting_; happy in discoveries, the crown of which you + are; conscious of an integrating spirit; that sometimes in my + silences I answer your song as one glorified. But then, I + remember that you must not judge me by the brightest of my + work. Such are the trained, tense bursts of speed--the swift + expiration of the best. I think a man is about half as good as + his best work and half as bad as his most lamentable leisure. + Midway between his emotions and exaltations--is indicated his + valuation.... All men clinging to the sweep of the upward + cycle, must know the evil multitude at some time. Perhaps few + men have met and discarded so many personal devils as I, in a + single life. But I say to you as I write to-night, those devils + cast out seem far back among cannibal centuries. I worship the + fine, the pure,--thoughts and deeds which are expanded and + warmed by the soul's breath. And you are the anchorage of this + sweeter spirit which is upon me. Now, out of the logic which + life burns into the brain, comes this thought: (I set it down + only to fortify the citadel of truth in which our momentous + relation alone can prosper.) Are there fangs and hackles and + claws which I have not yet uncovered? Am I given the present + serenity as a resting-time before meeting a more subtle and + formidable enemy? Has my vitality miraculously been preserved + for some final battle with a champion of champions of the + flesh? Is it because the sting is gone from my scar-tissues + that I feel so strong and so white to-night? I cannot think + this, because I have heard--because I still hear--my Skylark + sing. + +The personal element of the foregoing and the hint of years of "wrath +and wanderings," which she saw in his second photograph, correlated +themselves in Paula's mind. They frightened her cruelly, but did not put +Charter farther away. Remembering the effect of the passion which +Bellingham had projected into her own brain, helped her vaguely to +understand Charter's earlier years. His splendid emancipation from past +evils lifted her soul. And when he asked, if his present serenity might +not be a preparation for a mightier struggle, the serious reflection +came--might she not ask the same question of herself? The old +Flesh-Mother does not permit one to rest when one is full of +strength.... Paula perceived that Quentin Charter was bravely trying to +get to some sort of rational adjustment her ideal of him and the blooded +reality--and to preserve her from all hurt. Doubts could not exist in a +mind besieged by such letters.... One of her communications must have +reflected something of her terror at the vague forms of his past, which +he partially unveiled, for in answer he wrote: + + Do not worry again about the Big Back Time. Perhaps I was over + assertive about the shadowed years. The main thing is that this + is the wonderful present--and you, my white ally of nobler + power and purpose. A gale of good things will come to + us--hopes, communions and inspirations. We shall know each + other--grow so fine together--that Mother Earth at last will + lose her down-pull upon us--as upon perfumes and sunbeams. You + have come with mystical brightening. You are the New Era. There + is healing in Gethsemanes since you have swept with grace and + imperiousness into possession of the Charter heart-country so + long undiscovered. The big area is lit, redeemed from chaos. It + is thrilling--since you are there. Never must you wing away.... + Sometime you shall know with what strength and truth and + tenderness I regard you. The spirit of spring is in my veins. + It would turn to summer if we were together, but there could be + no reacting winter because you have evolved a mind and a + soul.... Body and mind and soul all evenly ignited--what a + conception of woman! + +Paula begged him not to try to fit such an ideal of the finished +feminine to a little brown tame-plumaged skylark. Since they might some +time meet, she wrote, it was nothing less than unfair for his mind, +trained to visualize its images so clearly, to turn its full energies +upon an ideal, and expect a human stranger--a happening--in the workaday +physical vesture (such as is needed for New York activities) to +sublimate the vision. She told him that he would certainly flee away +from the reality, and that he would have no one but himself to blame. +Visions, she added, do not review books nor write to authors whom they +have not met. All of which, she expressed very lightly, though she could +not but adore the spirit of ideality to which she had aroused his +faculties. + +At this time Paula encountered one of the imperishable little books of +the world, bracing to her spirit as a day's camp among mountain-pines. +Nor could she refrain from telling Charter about "The Practice of the +Presence of God," as told in the conversations of Brother Lawrence, a +bare-footed Carmelite of the Seventeenth Century. "No wilderness +wanderings seem to have intervened between the Red Sea and the Jordan of +his experience," she quoted from the preface, and told him how simple it +was for this unlearned man to be good--a mere "footman and soldier" +whose illumination was the result of seeing a dry and leafless tree in +mid-winter, and the thought of the change that would come to it with the +Spring. His whole life thereafter, largely spent in the monastery +kitchen--"a great awkward fellow, who broke everything"--was conducted +as if God were his constantly advising Companion. It was a life of +supernal happiness--and so simple to comprehend. Charter's reply to this +letter proved largely influential in an important decision Paula was +destined to make. + + Yes, I have communed with Brother Lawrence--carried the little + volume with me on many voyages. I commend a mind that is fine + enough to draw inspiration from a message so chaste and simple. + You will be interested to hear that I have known another + Brother Lawrence--a man whose holiness one might describe as + "humble" or "lofty," with equal accuracy. This man is a + Catholic priest, Father Fontanel of Martinique. His parish is + in that amazing little port, Saint Pierre--where Africa and + France were long ago transplanted and have fused together so + enticingly. Lafcadio Hearn's country--you will say. I wonder + that this inscrutable master, Hearn, missed Father Fontanel in + his studies.... I was rough from the seas and a long stretch of + military campaigning, when my ship turned into that lovely + harbor of Saint Pierre. Finding Father Fontanel, I stayed over + several ships, and the healing of his companionship restores me + even now to remember. + + We would walk together on the _Morne d'Orange_ in the evening. + His church was on the rise of the _morne_ at the foot of _Rue + Victor Hugo_. He loved to hear about my explorations in books, + especially about my studies among the religious enthusiasts. I + would tell him of the almost incredible austerities of certain + mystics to refine the body, and it was really a sensation to + hear him exclaim in his French way: "Can it be possible? I am + very ignorant. All that I know is to worship the good God who + is always with me, and to love my dear children who have so + much to bear. I do not know why I should be so happy--unless it + is because I know so very little. Tell me why I live in a state + of continual transport...." I can hear his gentle Latin tones + even now at night when I shut my eyes--see the lights of the + shipping from that cliff road, hear the creoles' moaning songs + from the cabins, and recall the old volcano, _La Montagne + Peleé_, outlined like a huge couchant beast against the low, + northern stars. + + Father Fontanel has meant very much to me. In all my thinking + upon the ultimate happiness of the race, he stands out as the + bright achievement. At the time I knew him, there was not a + single moment of his life in which the physical of the man was + supreme. What his earlier years were I do not know, of course, + but I confess now I should like to know.... The presence of God + was so real to him, that Father Fontanel did not understand at + all his own great spiritual strength. Nor do his people quite + appreciate how great he is among the priests of men. He has + been in their midst so long that they seem accustomed to his + power. Only a stranger can realize what a pure, shining garment + his actual _flesh_ has become. To me there was healing in the + very approach of this man. + + Dear Father Fontanel! All I had to do was to substitute "Higher + Self" for "God" and I had my religion--the Practice of the + Presence of the Higher Self. Does it not seem very clear to + you?... To me, God is always an abstraction--something of + vaster glory than the central sun, but one's Spiritual Body, + the real being, integrated through interminable lives, from the + finest materials of thought and action--this Higher Self is the + Presence I must keep always with me, and do I not deserve that + It should stand scornfully aloof, when, against my better + knowledge, I fall short in the performance?... I think it is + his Higher Self which is so lustrous in Father Fontanel, and + the enveloping purity which comes from you is the same. About + such purity there is nothing icy nor fibrous nor sterile.... + You are singing in my heart, Skylark. + +The picture Charter had drawn of Father Fontanel of Saint Pierre +appealed strongly to Paula; and her mind's quick grasp of the Charter +religion--the Practice of the Presence of the Higher Self--became one of +her moments of illumination. This was ground-down simplicity. True, +every idea of Charter's was based upon reincarnation. Indeed, this +seemed so familiar to him, that he had not even undertaken to state it +as one of his fundamentals. But had she cared, she could have discarded +even that, from the present concept. So to live that the form of the +best within be not degraded; the days a constant cherishing of this +Invisible Friend; the conduct of life constantly adjusted to please this +Companion of purity and wisdom--here was ethics which blew away every +cloud impending upon her Heights. Years of such living could not but +bring one to the Uplands. As to Charter, God had always been to her The +Ineffable--source of solar, aye, universal energy--the Unseen All. +"Walking with God," "talking with God," "a personal God," "presence of +God,"--these were forms of speech she could never use, but the Higher +Self--this white charioteer--the soul-body that rises when the clay +falls--here was a Personal God, indeed. + + + + +TENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN APARTMENT NEXT MORNING +IS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY + + +Selma Cross did not reach New York until the morning of the opening day +at the _Herriot Theatre_. She was very tired from rehearsals and the +try-outs along the string of second cities. There had been a big +difference of opinion regarding _The Thing_, among what New Yorkers are +pleased to call the provincial critics. From the character of the first +notices, on the contrary, it was apparent that the townsmen were not a +little afraid to trust such a startling play to New York. Mid-forenoon +of an early April day, the actress rapped upon Paula's door. + +"I have seen the boards," Paula exclaimed. "'Selma Cross' in letters big +as you are; and yesterday afternoon they were hanging the electric sign +in front of the _Herriot_. Also I shall be there to-night--since I was +wise enough to secure a ticket ten days ago. Isn't it glorious?" + +"Yes, I am quite happy about it," Selma Cross said, stretching out upon +the lounge. "Of course, it's not over until we see the morning papers. I +was never afraid--even of the vitriol-throwers, before. You see, I have +to think about success for Stephen Cabot, too." + +"Is he well?" Paula asked hastily. + +"Oh yes, though I think sometimes he's a martyr. Oh, I have so much to +say----" + +"You said you would tell me some time how Vhruebert first decided to +take you on," Paula urged. + +"Before I got to the gate where the star-stuff passes through?" Selma +Cross answered laughingly. "That was four years ago. I had been to him +many times before he let me in. His chair squeaked under him. He looked +at me first as if he were afraid I would spring at him. I told him what +I could do, and he kept repeating that he didn't know it and New York +didn't know it. I said I would show New York, but unfortunately I had to +show him first. He screwed up his face and stared at me, as if I were +startlingly original in my ugliness. I know he could hear my heart beat. + +"'I can't do anything for you, Miss Gross,' he said impatiently, but in +spite of himself, he added, 'Come to-morrow.' You see, I had made him +think, and that hurt. He knew something of my work all right, and +wondered where he would put a big-mouthed, clear-skinned, yellow-eyed +amazon. The next day, he kept me waiting in the reception-room until I +could have screamed at the half-dressed women on the walls. + +"'I don't know exactly why I asked you to come again,' was his greeting +when the door finally opened to me. 'What was it, once more, that you +mean to do?' + +"'I mean to be the foremost tragedienne,' I said. + +"'Sit down. Tragedy doesn't bay.' + +"'I shall make it pay.' + +"'Um-m. How do you know? Some brivate vire of yours?' + +"'I can show you that I shall make it pay.' + +"'My Gott, not here! We will go to the outskirts.' + +"And he meant it, Paula. It was mid-winter. He took me to a little +summer-theatre up Lenox way. The place had not been open since +Thanksgiving. Vhruebert sat down in the centre of the frosty parquet, +shivering in his great coat. You know he's a thin-lipped, smile-less +little man, but not such a dead soul as he looks. He leaks out +occasionally through the dollar-varnish. Can you imagine a colder +reception? Vhruebert sat there blowing out his breath repeatedly, +seemingly absorbed in the effect the steam made in a little bar of +sunlight which slanted across the icy theatre. That was my try-out +before Vhruebert. I gave him some of Sudermann, Boker, and Ibsen. He +raised his hand finally, and when I halted, he called in a bartender +from the establishment adjoining, and commanded me to give something +from Camille and Sapho. I would have murdered him if he had been fooling +me after that. The bartender shivered in the cold. + +"'What do you think of that, Mr. Vite-Apron?' Vhruebert inquired at +length. He seemed to be warmer. + +"'Hot stuff,' said the man. 'It makes your coppers sizzle.' + +"The criticism delighted Vhruebert. 'Miss Gross, you make our goppers +sizzle,' he exclaimed, and then ordered wine and told me to be at his +studio to-morrow at eleven. That was the real winning," Selma Cross +concluded. "To-night I put the crown on it." + +Paula invariably felt the fling of emotions when Selma Cross was near. +The latter seemed now to have found her perfect dream; certainly there +was fresh coloring and poise in her words and actions. It was +inspiriting for Paula to think of Selma Cross and Stephen Cabot having +been accepted by the hard-headed Vhruebert--that such a pair could eat +his bread and drink his wine with merry hearts. It was more than +inspiriting for her to think of this vibrant heart covering and +mothering the physically unfortunate. Paula asked, as only a woman +could, the question uppermost in both minds. + +"Love me?" Selma whispered. "I don't know, dear. I know we love to be +together. I know that I love him. I know that he would not ask me to +take for a husband--a broken vessel----" + +"But you can make him know that--to you--he is not a broken vessel!... +Oh, that would mean so little to me!" + +"Yes, but I should have to tell him--of old Villiers--and the other!... +Oh, God, he is white fire! He is not the kind who could understand +that!... I thought I could do anything, I said, 'I am case-hardened. +Nothing can make me suffer!... I will go my way,--and no man, no power, +earthly or occult, can make me alter that way,' but Stephen Cabot has +done it. I would rather win for him to-night, than be called the +foremost living tragedienne.... I think he loves me, but there is the +price I paid--and I didn't need to pay it, for I had already risen out +of the depths. That was vanity. I needed no angel. I didn't care until I +met Stephen Cabot!" + +"I think--I think, if I were Stephen Cabot, I could forgive that," Paula +said slowly. She wondered at herself for these words when she was alone, +and the little place of books was no longer energized by the other's +presence. + +Selma started up from the lounge, stretched her great arm half across +the room and clutched Paula's hand. There was a soft grateful glow in +the big yellow eyes. "Do you know that means something--from a woman +like you? Always I shall remember that--as a fine thing from my one fine +woman. Mostly, they have hated me--what you call--our sisters." + +"You are a different woman--you're all brightened, since you met Stephen +Cabot. I feel this," Paula declared. + +"Even if all smoothed out here, there is still the old covenant in +Kentucky," Selma said, after a moment, and sprang to her feet, shaking +herself full-length. + +"Won't you tell me about that, too?" + +"Yes, but not now. I must go down-town. There is a dress-maker--and _we_ +breakfast together.... Root for me--for us, to-night--won't you, dear +girl?" + +"With all my heart." + +They passed out through the hall together--just as the elevator-man +tucked a letter under the door.... Alone, Paula read this Spring +greeting from Quentin Charter: + + I look away this morning into the brilliant East. I think of + you there--as glory waits. I feel the strength of a giant to + battle through dragons of flesh and cataclysms of Nature.... + Who knows what conflicts, what conflagrations, rage in the + glowing distance--between you and me? Not I, but that I have + strength--I do know.... By the golden glory of this wondrous + Spring morning which spreads before my eyes a world of work and + heroism blessed of the Most High God, I only ask to know that + you are there--_that you are there_.... While eternity is yet + young, we shall emerge out of time and distance; though it be + from a world altered by great cosmic shattering--yet shall we + emerge, serene man and woman. + + You are there in the brilliant East. In good time I shall go to + you. Meanwhile I have your light and your song. The dull dim + brute is gone from me, forever. Even that black prince of the + blood, Passion, stands beyond the magnetic circle. With you + _there_, I feel a divine right kingship, and all the black + princes of the body are afar off, herding with the beasts. I + tell you, since I have heard the Skylark sing--there is no + death. + +That day became a vivid memory. Charter reached the highest pinnacle of +her mind--a man who could love and who could wait. The message from the +West exalted her. Here, indeed, was one of the New Voices. All through +the afternoon, out of the hushes of her mind, would rise this pæan from +the West--sentence after sentence _for her_.... No, not for her alone. +She saw him always in the midst of his people, illustrious among his +people.... She saw him coming to her over mountains--again and again, +she caught a glimpse of him, configured among the peaks, and striding +toward her--yet between them was a valley torn with storm.... It came to +her that there must be a prophecy in this message; that he would not be +suffered to come to her easily as his letters came. Yet, the strength he +had felt was hers, and those were hours of ecstasy--while the gray of +the Spring afternoon thickened into dark. Only _The Thing_ could have +called her out that night; for once, when it was almost time to go, the +storm lifted from the valley between them. She saw his path to her, just +for an instant, and she longed to see it again.... + +Paula entered the theatre a moment before the curtain rose, but in the +remaining seconds of light, discovered in the fourth aisle far to the +right--"the finest, lowest head" and the long white face of Stephen +Cabot. If a man's face may be called beautiful, his was--firm, delicate, +poetic,--brilliant eyes, livid pallor. And the hand in which the thin +cheek rested, while large and chalky-white, was slender as a girl's.... +In the middle of the first act, a tall, elderly man shuffled down the +aisle and sank into the chair in front of Paula, where he sprawled, +preparing to be bored. This was Felix Larch, one of the best known of +the metropolitan critics, notorious as a play-killer. + + +The first-night crowd can be counted on. It meant nothing to Vhruebert +that the house was packed. The venture was his up to the rise of the +curtain. Paula was absorbed by the first two acts of the play, but did +not feel herself fit to judge. She was too intensely interested in the +career of Selma Cross; in the face of Stephen Cabot; in the attitudes of +Felix Larch, who occasionally forgot to pose. It was all very big and +intimate, but the bigger drama, up to the final curtain, was the battle +for success against the blasé aspirations of the audience and the +ultra-critical enemy personified in the man before her. + +The small and excellent company was balanced to a crumb. Adequate +rehearsals had finished the work. Then the lines were rich, forceful and +flowing--strange with a poetic quality that "got across the footlights." +Paula noted these exterior matters with relief. Unquestionably the +audience forgot itself throughout the second act. Paula realized, with +distaste, that her own critical sense was bristling for trouble. She had +hoped to be as receptive to emotional enjoyment as she imagined the +average play-goer to be. Though she failed signally in this, her +sensibilities were in no way outraged, nor even irritated. On the +contrary, she began to rise to the valor of the work and its +performance. The acting of Selma Cross, though supreme in repression, +was haunting, unforgettable. Felix Larch had twice disturbed her by +taking his seat in the midst of the first and second acts. She had heard +that he rarely sat out a whole performance, and took it therefore as a +good omen when he returned, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, as the final +curtain rose. + +By some new mastery of style, Selma Cross had managed, almost +throughout, to keep her profile to the audience. The last act was half +gone, moreover, before the people realized that there were qualities in +her voice, other than richness and flexibility. She had held them thus +far with the theme, charging the massed consciousness of her audience +with subtle passions. Now came the rising moments. Full into the light +she turned her face.... She was quite alone with her tragedy. A gesture +of the great bare arm, as the stage darkened, and she turned loose upon +the men and women a perfect havoc of emptiness--in the shadows of which +was manifesting a huge unfinished human. She made the people see how a +mighty passion, suddenly bereft of its object, turns to devour the brain +that held it. They saw the great, gray face of _The Thing_ slowly rubbed +out--saw the mind behind it, soften and run away into chaos. There was a +whisper, horrible with exhaustion--a breast beaten in the gloom. + +Felix Larch swore softly.... _The Thing_ was laughing as the curtain +crawled down over her--an easy, wind-blown, chattering laugh.... + +The critic grasped the low shoulders of a bald, thin-lipped +acquaintance, exclaiming: + +"Where did you get that diadem, Lucky One?" + +Paula heard a hoarse voice, but the words of the reply were lost. + +"Come over across the street for a minute. I want a stimulant and a talk +with you," Felix Larch added, wriggling into his overcoat. + +There was a low, husky laugh, and then plainly these words: "She makes +your goppers sizzle--eh?... Wait until I tell her she has won and I'll +go with you," added the queer little man, whom Paula knew now to be +Vhruebert.... + +The latter passed along the emptied aisle toward Stephen Cabot, who had +not left his seat. Paula noted with a start that the playwright's head +had dropped forward in a queer way. Vhruebert glanced at him, and +grasped his shoulder. The old manager then cleared his throat--a sound +which apparently had meaning for the nearest usher, who hurried forward +to be dispatched for a doctor. It was very cleverly and quietly done.... +Stephen Cabot, who could see more deeply than others into the art of the +woman and the power of his own lines, and possibly deeper into the big +result of this fine union of play and player--had fainted at the +climacteric moment.... A physician now breasted his way through the +crowd at the doors, and _The Thing_ suddenly appeared in the nearest box +and darted forward like a rush of wind. She gathered the insensible one +in her arms and repeated his name low and swiftly. + +"Yes," he murmured, opening his eyes at last. + +They seemed alone.... Presently Stephen Cabot laughingly protested that +he was quite well, and disappeared behind the scenes, assisted by the +long, bare arm that had so recently hurled havoc over the throng. Paula +waited for a few moments at the door until she was assured. + +Driving home through the Park, she felt that she could not endure +another emotion. For a long time she tossed restlessly in bed, too tired +to sleep. A reacting depression had fallen upon her worn nerves. She +could not forget the big structure of the day's joy, but substance had +dropped from it.... The cold air sweeping through her sleeping-room +seemed to come from desolate mountains. Lost entirely was her gladness +of victory in the Selma Cross achievement. She called herself spiteful, +ungrateful, and quite miserably at last sank into sleep.... + +She was conscious at length of the gray of morning, a stifling pressure +in her lungs, and the effort to rouse herself. She felt the cold upon +her face; yet the air seemed devitalized by some exhausting voltage, she +had known before. There was a horrid jangle in her brain, as of two +great forces battling to complete the circuit there. A face imploring +from a garret-window, a youth in a lion's skin, a rock in the desert and +a rock in the Park, the dim hotel parlor and the figure of yesterday +among the mountain-peaks--so the images rushed past--until the tortured +face of Bellingham (burning eyes in the midst of ghastly pallor), caught +and held her mind still. From a room small as her own, and gray like her +own with morning, he called to her: "Come to me.... Come to me, Paula +Linster.... I have lived for you--oh, come to me!" + +She sprang out of bed, and knelt. How long it was before she freed +herself, Paula never knew. Indeed, she was not conscious of being +actually awake, until she felt the bitter cold and hurried into the +heated room beyond. She was physically wretched, but no longer +obsessed.... She would not believe now that the beyond-devil had called +again. It was all a dream, she told herself again and again--this rush +of images and the summons from the enemy. Yesterday, she had been too +happy; human bodies cannot endure so long such refining fire; to-day was +the reaction and to-morrow her old strength and poise would come again. +Quite bravely, she assured herself that she was glad to pay the price +for the hours of yesterday. She called for the full series of morning +papers, resolving to occupy her mind with the critical notices of the +new play. + +These were quite remarkable in the unanimity of their praise. The +Cross-Cabot combination had won, indeed, but Paula could extract no +buoyancy from the fact, nor did black coffee dispel the vague +premonitive shadows which thickened in the background of her mind. The +rapping of Selma Cross upon her door was hours earlier than ever before. +She, too, had called for the morning papers. A first night is never +finished until these are out. Paula did not feel equal to expressing all +that the play had meant to her. It was with decided disinclination that +she admitted her neighbor. + +Selma Cross had not bathed, nor dressed her hair. She darted in +noiselessly in furry slippers--a yellow silk robe over her night-dress. +Very silken and sensuous, the huge, laughing creature appeared as she +sank upon the lounge and shaded her yellow eyes from the light. So +perfect was her health, and so fresh her happiness, that an hour or two +of sleep had not left her eyes heavy nor her skin pallid. There was an +odor of sweet clover about her silks that Paula never sensed afterward +without becoming violently ill. She knew she was wrong--that every fault +was hers--but she could not bear the way her neighbor cuddled this +morning in the fur of the couch-covering. Selma had brought in every +morning newspaper issued and a thick bundle of telegrams besides. Paula +told her, literally forcing the sentences, how splendidly the play and +her own work had appealed to her. This task, which would have been a +pure delight at another time, was adequately accomplished only after +much effort now. It appeared that the actress scarcely heard what she +was saying. The room was brightening and there was a grateful piping of +steam in the heaters of the apartment. + +"So glad you liked it, dear," Selma said briefly. "And isn't it great +the way the papers treated it? Not one of them panned the play nor my +work.... I say, it's queer when a thing you've dreamed of for years +comes true at last--it's different from the way you've seen it come to +others. I mean there's something unique and a fullness you never +imagined. Oh, I don't know nor care what I'm drowning to say.... Please +do look over these telegrams--_from everybody_! There's over a hundred! +I had to come in here. I'd have roused you out of bed--if you hadn't +been up. The telephone will be seething a little later--and I wanted +this talk with you." + +Big theatrical names were attached to the yellow messages. It is a +custom for stages-folk to speed a new star through the first performance +with a line of courage--wired. You are supposed to count your real +friends in those who remember the formality. It is not well to be a day +late.... + +"And did you notice how Felix Larch uncoiled?" + +Paula looked up from the telegrams to explain how this critic had been +the object of her contemplation the night before. + +"He hasn't turned loose in that sort of praise this season," Selma Cross +added. "His notice alone, dear, is enough to keep us running at the +_Herriot_ until June--and we'll open there again in the fall, past +doubt." + +Paula felt wicked in that she must enthuse artificially. She forced +herself to remember that ordinarily she could have sprung with a merry +heart into the very centre of the other's happiness. + +"Listen, love," Selma resumed, ecstactically hugging her pillow, "I want +to tell you things. I wanted to yesterday, but I had to hurry off. +You've got so much, that you must have the rest. Besides, it's in my +mind this morning, because it was the beginning of last night----" + +"Yes, tell me," Paula said faintly, bringing her a cup of coffee. + +"I was first smitten with the passion to act--a gawky girl of ten at a +child's party," Selma began. "I was speaking a piece when the impulse +came to turn loose. It may have been because I was so homely and +straight-haired, or it may have been that I did the verses so +differently from the ordinary routine of speaking pieces--anyway, a boy +in the room laughed. Another boy immediately bored in upon the scoffer, +downed his enemy and was endeavoring hopefully to kill him with bare +hands, when I interfered. My champion and I walked home together and +left a wailing and disordered company. That's the first brush. + +"My home was Danube, Kentucky. They had a dramatic society there. Eight +years after the child's party, this dramatic society gave _A Tribute to +Art_. Where the piece came from is forgotten. How it got its name never +was known outside of the sorry brain that thrust it, deformed but +palpitating, upon the world. Mrs. Fiske couldn't have made other than a +stick of the heroine. The hero was larger timber, though too dead for +vine leaves. But, I think I told you about the Big Sister--put there in +blindness or by budding genius. There were possibilities in that +character. Danube didn't know it, or it wouldn't have fallen to me. +Indeed, I remember toward the end of the piece--a real moment of windy +gloom and falling leaves, a black-windowed farmhouse on the left, the +rest a desolate horizon--in such a moment the Big Sister plucks out her +heart to show its running death. + +"I had persisted in dramatic work, in and out of season, during those +eight years, but it really was because the Big Sister didn't need to be +beautiful that I got the part. I wove the lines tighter and sharpened +the thing in rehearsals, until the rest of the cast became afraid, not +that I would outshine them, but that I might disgrace the society on the +night o' nights. You see, I was only just tolerated. Poor father, he +wasn't accounted much in Danube, and there was a raft of us. Poor, dear +man! + +"Danube wasn't big enough to attract real shows, so the visiting drama +gave expression to limited trains, trap-doors, blank cartridges and +falling cliffs"--Selma Cross chuckled expansively at the memory--"and I +plunged my fellow-townsmen into waters deeper and stormier than +_Nobody's Claim_ or _Shadows of a Great City_. Wasn't it monstrous?" + +Paula inclined her head, but was not given time to answer. + +"A spring night in Kentucky--hot, damp, starlit--shall I ever forget +that terrible night of _A Tribute to Art_? All Danube somebodies were +out to see the younger generation perpetuate the lofty culture of the +place. Grandmothers were there, who played _East Lynne_ on the same +stage--before the raids of Wolfert and Morgan; and daddies who sat like +deans, eyes dim, but artistic, you know--watched the young idea progress +upon familiar paths.... The heroine did the best she could. I was a +camel beside her--strode about her raging and caressing. You see how I +could have spoiled _The Thing_ last night--if I had let the passion +flood through me like a torrent through a broken dam? That's what I did +in Danube--and some full-throated baying as well. Oh, it is horrible to +remember. + +"The town felt itself brutalized, and justly. I had left a rampant thing +upon every brain, and very naturally the impulse followed to squelch the +perpetrator for all time. I don't blame Danube now. I had been bad; my +lack of self-repression, scandalous. The part, as I had evolved it, was +out of all proportion to the piece, to Danube, to amateur theatricals. I +don't know if I struck a false note, but certainly I piled on the +feeling. + +"Can you imagine, Paula, that it was an instant of singular glory to +me--that climax?... Poor Danube couldn't see that I was combustible +fuel, freshly lit; that I was bound to burn with a steady flame when the +pockets of gas were exploded.... My dazed people did not leave the hall +at once. It was as if they had taken strong medicine and wanted to study +the effect upon each other. I came out from behind at last, up the +aisle, sensing disorder where I had expected praise, and was joined by +my old champion, Calhoun Knox, who had whipped the scoffer at the +child's party. He pressed my hand. We had always been friends. Passing +around the edge of the crowd, I heard this sentence: + +"'Some one--the police, if necessary--must prevent Selma Cross from +making another such shocking display of herself!' + +"It was a woman who spoke, and the man at her side laughed. I had no +time nor thought to check Calhoun. He stepped up to the man beside the +woman. 'Laugh like that again,' he said coldly, 'and I'll kill you!' + +"It seemed to me that all Danube turned upon us. My face must have been +mist-gray. I know I felt like falling. The woman's words had knifed me. + +"'_Oh, you cat-minds!_' I flung at them. Calhoun Knox drew me out into +the dark. I don't know how far out on the Lone Ridge Pike we walked, +before it occurred to either of us to halt or speak," Selma Cross went +on very slowly. "I think we walked nearly to the Knobs. The night had +cleared. It was wonderfully still out there among the hemp-fields. I +knew how he was pitying me, and told him I must go away. + +"'I can't stand for you to go away, Selma,' Calhoun said. 'I want you to +stay and be mine always. We always got along together. You are beautiful +enough to me!' + +"I guess it was hard for him to say it," the woman finished with a +laugh, "I used to wish he hadn't put in that 'enough.' But that +moment--it was what I needed. There was always something big and simple +about Calhoun Knox. My hand darted to his shoulder and closed there like +a mountaineer's, 'You deserve more of a woman than I am, Calhoun,' I +said impetuously, 'but you can have me when I come to marry--but, God, +that's far off. I like you, Calhoun. I'd fight for you to the death--as +you fought for me to-night and long ago. I think I'd hate any woman who +got you--but there's no wife in me to-night. I have failed to win +Danube, Kentucky, but I'll win the world. I may be a burnt-out hag then, +but I'll come back--when I have won the world--and you can have me and +it.... Listen, Calhoun Knox, if ever a man means _husband_ to me--you +shall be the man, but to-night,' I ended with a flourish, and turned +back home, 'I'm not a woman--just a devil at war with the world!'" + +"But haven't you heard from him?" Paula asked, after a moment. + +"Yes, he wrote and wrote. Calhoun Knox is the kind of stuff that +remembers. The time came when I didn't have the heart to answer. I was +afraid I'd ask him for money, or ask him to come to help me. Help out of +Danube! I couldn't do that--better old Villiers.... But I mustn't lie to +you. I went through the really hard part alone.... So Calhoun's letters +were not answered, and maybe he has forgotten. Anyway, before I +marry--he shall have his chance. Oh, I'll make it hard for him. I +wouldn't open any letter from Danube now--but he shall have his +chance----" + +"What do you mean to do?" + +"Why, we'll finish the season here--and Vhruebert has promised us a +little run in the West during June. We touch Cincinnati. From there I'll +take the Company down to Danube. I've got to win the world and Danube. +After the play, I'll walk out on the Lone Ridge pike--among the +hemp-fields--with Calhoun Knox----" + +"But he may have married----" + +"God, how I hope so! I shall wish him kingly happiness--and rush back to +Stephen Cabot." + +Paula could not be stirred by the story this morning. She missed, as +never before, some big reality behind the loves of Selma Cross. There +was too much of the sense of possession in her story--arm-possession. So +readily, could she be transformed into the earthy female, fighting tooth +and claw for her own. Paula could hardly comprehend in her present +depression, what she had said yesterday about Stephen Cabot's capacity +to forgive.... She was glad, when Selma Cross rose, yawned, stretched, +and shook herself. The odor of sweet clover was heaviness in the +room.... The long, bare arm darted over the reading-table and plucked +forth the book Paula loved. The volume had not been hidden; there was no +reason why she should not have done this, yet the action hurt the other +like a drenching of icy water upon her naked heart. + +"Ho-ho--Quentin Charter! So _A Damsel Came to Peter_?" + +"I think--I hear your telephone,--Selma!" Paula managed to say, her +voice dry, as if the words were cut from paper. + +"Yes, yes, I must go, but here's another story. A rotten cad--but how he +can write! I don't mean books--but letters!... He's the one I told you +about--the Westerner--while the old man was in the South!" + +The last was called from the hall. The heavy door slammed between them. + +Paula could not stand--could not keep her mouth from dropping open. Her +temples seemed to be cracking apart.... She saw herself in +half-darkness--like _The Thing_ last night--beating her breast in the +gloom. She felt as if she must laugh--in that same wind-blown, chattering +way. + + + + +ELEVENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES +A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS + + +Paula wrote a short letter to Quentin Charter in the afternoon, and did +not begin to regret it until too late. It was not that she had said +anything unwise or discordant--but that she had written at all.... Her +heart felt dead. She had trusted her all to one--and her all was lost. A +little white animal that had always been warm and petted, suddenly +turned naked to face the reality of winter,--this was the first sense, +and the paramount trouble was that she could not die quickly enough. The +full realization was slow to come. Indeed, it was not until the night +and the next day that she learned the awful reaches of suffering of +which a desolated human mind is capable. It was like one of those +historic tides which rise easily to the highest landmarks of the +shore-dweller, and not till then begin to show their real fury, +devastating vast fields heretofore virgin to the sea. Along many coasts +and in many lives there is one, called The High Tide.... Paula felt that +she could have coped with her sorrow, had this been a personal blow, but +her faith in the race of men, the inspiration of her work, her dream of +service--all were uprooted. + +She did not pretend to deny that she had loved Quentin Charter--her +first and loftiest dream of a mate, the heart's cry of all her +womanhood. True, as man and woman, they had made no covenant, but to her +(and had he not expressed the same in a score of ways?), there had been +enacted a more wonderful adjustment, than any words could bring about. +This was the havoc. She had lost more than a mere human lover. She dared +now to say it, because, in losing, she perceived how great it had +become--the passion was gone from her soul. Her place in the world was +desolate; all her labors pointless. As a woman, she had needed his arms, +less than an anchorage of faith in his nobility. And how her faith had +rushed forth to that upper window across the States! + +_Words_--the very word was poison to her. Writing--an emptiness, a +treachery. Veritably, he had torn the pith out of all her loved +books.... Bellingham had shown her what words meant--words that drew +light about themselves, attracting a brilliance that blinded her; words +that wrought devilishness in the cover of their white light--but +Bellingham had not assailed her faith. This was the work of a man who +had lifted her above the world, not one who called from beneath. +Bellingham could not have crippled her faith like this--and left it to +die.... Almost momentarily, came the thought of his letters--thoughts +_from_ these letters. They left her in a dark--that was madness.... + +And if they were false, what was the meaning of her exaltations? Night +and morning she had looked into the West, sending him all the graces of +her mind, all the secrets of her heart. He had told her of the strange +power that had come to him, of the new happiness--how, as never before, +he had felt radiations of splendid strength. She had not hurried him to +her, but had read with ecstasy, believing that a tithe of his new power +was her gift.... Words, desolate, damnable words.... "And I had thought +to heal and lift New York," she exclaimed mockingly, looking down into +the gray streets after the age-long night. "New York holds fast to her +realities--the things she has found sure. It is well to be normal and +like New York!" + +The day after the door had shut upon Selma Cross, Paula was a betrayed +spirit wandering alone in polar darkness. She had not slept, nor could +she touch food. Twice the actress had rapped; repeatedly the telephone +called--these hardly roused her. Letters were thrust under her door and +lay untouched in the hall. She was lying upon the lounge in the little +room of books, as the darkness swiftly gathered that second day. All the +meanings of her childhood, all the promises for fulfillment with the +years, were lost. The only passion she knew was for the quick end of +life--to be free from the world, and its Bellinghams. + +"God, tell me," she murmured, and her voice sounded dry and strange in +the dark, "what is this thing, Soul, which cries out for its +Ideal--builds its mate from all things pure, from dreams that are +cleansed in the sky; dreams that have not known the touch of any earthly +thing--what is this Soul, that, now bereft, cries with Rachel, 'Death, +let me in!...' Oh, Death, put me to sleep--put me to sleep!" + + * * * * * + +Voices reached her from the hall: + +"You can knock or ring, sir, if you like," the elevator-man was saying, +"but I tell you Miss Linster is not there. She has not answered the +'phone, and there is one of the letters, sticking out from under the +door, that I put there this morning, or yesterday afternoon." + +"When did you see her last?" The voice was Reifferscheid's. + +"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives +in this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday +morning." + +"The point is that she left no word--either with you or with us--before +going away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck----" + +The bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed +against it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer--but facing +Reifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called +from below. + +"No use," Reifferscheid said finally. "Here's a coin for your trouble. +I'll call up the first thing in the morning----" + +She heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the +car, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at _The +States_ for four or five days. She had intended going down-town +yesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless +kindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling +for the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter +recurred to her--and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women +she had known. All about him was sturdy and wholesome--a substance, +this, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell +asleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie, +big trees and solid friends. + +She awoke in a different world--at least, a world in which tea and toast +and marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the +depression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope. +It was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would +have her letter now, or soon--that letter written seven eternities ago +in the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have +written in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had +not let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to +high-tide in her soul--there had been no words for him. Would she ever +write again?... + +Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma +Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men--and had +asked less a few years ago--that to have her call one "cad" with an +adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known +Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True, +he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter +delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was +black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he +wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau +to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that +the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom +them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted +in his letters, was a song--bright as his open prairies, and pure as the +big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended +periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart +answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific +abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added +sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to +say--and what Quentin Charter may add?..." + +The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring, +because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an +accumulation of mail upon the floor--two from _The States_; one from +Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one +of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and +she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had +been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony. + + I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in + a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A + sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing + came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the + invisible connections between us were deranged--as if there had + been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when + the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours, + began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously + active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a + few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich + and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the + gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you--but this + last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please? + +She was not given long to ponder upon this strange proof of his inner +responsiveness; yet the deep significance of it remained with her, and +could not but restore in part a certain impressive meaning of their +relation. Selma Cross called, and Reifferscheid 'phoned, as Paula was +just leaving for down-town. It had been necessary, she explained, to the +literary editor in his office, for her to make a sorry little pilgrimage +during the past few days. She was very grateful it was over. +Reifferscheid said abruptly that pilgrimages were nefarious when they +made one look so white and trembly. + +"The point is, you'd better make another to Staten Island," he added. +"Nice rough passage in a biting wind, barren fields, naked woods, and +all that. Besides, you must see my system of base-burners----" + +"I'll just do that--when I catch up a little on my work," Paula said. +"I'm actually yearning for it, but there are so many loose ends to tie +up, that I couldn't adequately enjoy myself for a day or two. Really, +I'm not at all ill. You haven't enough respect for my endurance, which +is of a very good sort." + +"Don't be too sure about that," Reifferscheid said quickly. "It's +altogether too good to be hurt.... Do you realize you've never had your +hat off in this office?" + +"I hadn't thought of it," she said, studying him. Plainly by his bravado +he wasn't quite sure of his ground. + +"There ought to be legislation against people with hair the color of +yours----" Reifferscheid regarded her a moment before he added, "wearing +hats. You must come over to Staten--if for no other reason----" + +"Oh, I begin to see perfectly now," Paula observed. "You want to add me +to your system of base-burners." + +He chuckled capaciously. "Early next week, then?" + +"Yes, with delight" + +He did not tell her of being worried to the point of travelling far +up-town to ring the bell of her apartment. She could not like him less +for this.... There was a telegram from Charter, when she reached home. +In the next two hours, a thought came to Paula and was banished a score +of times; yet with each recurrence it was more integrate and compelling. +This was Saturday afternoon. Selma Cross returned from her matinée +shortly before six and was alone. Paula met her in the hall, and +followed into the other's apartment. + +"I have just an hour, dear. Dimity has supper ready. Stay, won't you?" + +"Yes," Paula forced herself to say. "I wanted to ask you about Quentin +Charter. You were called away--just as you were speaking of him the +other morning.... I have not met him, but his two recent books are very +wonderful. I reviewed the second for _The States_. He thanked me in a +letter which was open to answer." + +Selma Cross stretched out her arms and laughed mirthlessly. "And so you +two have been writing letters?" she observed. "I'm putting down a bet +that his are rich--if he's interested." + +Paula had steeled herself for this. There were matters which she must +learn before making a decision which his telegram called for. Her mind +held her inexorably to the work at hand, though her heart would have +faltered in the thick cloud of misgivings. + +"Yes, there is much in his letters--so much that I can't quite adjust +him to the name you twice designated. Remember, you once before called +him that--when I didn't know that you were speaking of Quentin Charter." + +"I'll swear this much also," Selma Cross said savagely, "he has found +your letters worth while." + +"Is that to the point?" + +"Why, yes Paula," the other replied, darting a queer look at her. "If I +am to be held to a point--it is--because, as a writer, he uses what is +of value. He makes women mad about him, and then goes back to his +garret, and sobers up enough to write an essay or a story out of his +recent first-hand studies in passion." + +"You say he was drinking--when you knew him?" + +"Enough to kill another man. It didn't seem to make his temperament play +less magically. He was never silly or limp, either in mind or body, but +he must have been burned to a cinder inside. He intimated that he didn't +dare to go on exhibition any day before mid-afternoon." + +Paula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: "I wish +you would tell me _just_ what Quentin Charter did to make you think of +him always--in connection with that name." + +"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate +before you--also supper, which won't stay hot." Selma Cross spoke with +some tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly, +and it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of +her admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature. +".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe +that he was passionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in _Caller +Herrin_,--my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an +exceptionally good play. It took his eye--my work especially--and he +arranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this +formality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue +was greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was +peculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain.... +The man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room, +not that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he +was drinking--and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working +knowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed--of every +book. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing +himself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it +was merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I +wasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight--to me. He used to +send notes in the forenoon--things he thought of, when he couldn't +sleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early +hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving +for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way +home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for +me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he +said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me +believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since." + +Paula began to breathe a bit more freely. "Didn't he write?" + +"Yes, at first, but I saw at once he was forcing. Then he dictated an +answer to one of mine--dictated a letter to me----" Selma Cross halted. +The lids narrowed across her yellow eyes. + +"He had said he loved you?" Paula asked with effort. + +"By the way," Selma Cross retorted, "did you notice that word 'love' in +either of his recent books--except as a generality?" + +"Since you speak of it, I do recall he markedly avoided it," Paula said +with consuming interest. + +"No, he didn't use it to me. He said he never put it in a man's or +woman's mouth in a story. Ah, but there are other words," she went on +softly. "The man was a lover--beyond dreams--impassioned." + +"About that dictated letter?" Paula urged hastily. + +"Yes, I told him I didn't want any more that way. Then Villiers was +back, and beckoning again. The last word I received was from Charter's +stenographer. She said he was ill. Oh, I did hear afterward--that he was +in a sanatorium. God knows, he must have landed there--if he kept up the +pace he was going when I knew him." + +In the moment of silence which followed, Paula was hoping with all her +might--that this was the end. + +"Oh, I know what you're thinking!" Selma said suddenly. "He has +fascinated you, and you can't see that he's a rotten cad--from what I've +said so far. A woman can never see the meanness of a man from another +woman's experience with him. She forgives him for calling forth all +another woman has--and then shaking her loose like a soiled bath-robe +when one's tub is ready. But it's different when she's the discarded +woman!... He was so deep, I can't believe he didn't know that episodes +were new to me. Likely, he's had so many around the world, that he can't +take them more seriously from the woman's angle--than from his own.... +Quentin Charter was the first man to arouse all my dreams. Can't you see +how it hurt when he turned out to be--well, that name you refuse to +utter?" + +"Yes, of course, yes, but you suggest more, Selma!" + +"He used me for 'copy,' as they call it. His article on the 'acting of +stage-folk after hours,' appeared in a magazine a few weeks later. He's +always a saint in his garret, you know. The article was filled with +cutting cynicism about stage-matters, many of which he had discovered in +the two weeks with me--and laughed over with his wine. I could have +forgiven that, only he made me believe that there was not a thought +apart from Selma Cross in his mind when we were together.... Oh, what's +the use of me lying? I could have forgiven that, anyway!" + +"What was it, you could not forgive?" Paula's face was bloodless. + +"He told it all about--how easy I had proved in his hands!" the actress +revealed with suppressed fury. + +The other shrank back. + +"That's where the expression comes in, Paula--the expression you hate. +Drunk or sober--cad's the word. What a woman gives to a _man_ is put in +his inner vault forever. What she gives to a _cad_--is passed on to his +friends." + +Paula arose, tortured as if branded within. Here was a defection of +character which an entire incarnation of purity could not make whole. It +was true that in her heart, she had not been mortally stricken before; +true, as Selma Cross had so bitterly declared, that a woman is not +stayed from mating with a man because a sister has suffered at his +hands. + +"I have nothing to say about the word, if that is true." Paula spoke +with difficulty, and in a hopeless tone. + +"Please, eat some supper, dear----" + +There was heart-break in the answer: "I cannot. I'm distressed, because +I have spoiled yours.... You have answered everything readily--and it +has hurt you.... I--feel--as--if--I--must--tell--you--why--I--asked--or +I wouldn't have dared to force questions upon you. His letters made me +think of him a great deal. When you picked up his book the other morning +and said _that_--why, it was all I could stand for the time. His work is +so high and brave--I can hardly understand how he could talk about a +woman whose only fault was that she gave him what he desired. Are you +sure he cannot prove that false?" + +Selma Cross left her seat at the table and took Paula in her arms. + +"How can he?" she whispered. "The old man knew all about us. One of his +friends heard Charter talking about the easy virtue of stage women--that +there were scarcely no exceptions! Charter hinted in his article that +acting is but refined prostitution. Villiers said because I had a name +for being square Charter had chosen to prove otherwise!... Then see how +he dropped me--not a word in three years from my memorable lover! And +Villiers knew about us--first and last!... I could murder that sort--and +to think that his devil's gift has been working upon you----" + +"You have told me quite enough, thank you." Paula interrupted in a +lifeless voice. "I shall not see him." + +Selma Cross held her off at arms' length to glance at her face. "You +what?" she exclaimed. + +"He is on the way to New York and will be at the _Granville_ to-morrow +afternoon, where he hopes to find a note saying he may call here +to-morrow night. There shall be no note from me----" + +"But did you write to him, Paula?" the actress asked strangely excited. + +"Yes--a little after you left me the other morning. It was silly of me. +Oh, but I did not tell him what I had heard--or who told me!... Finish +your supper--you must go." + +"And how did you learn of his coming?" + +"He telegraphed me to-day. That's why I bothered you at your supper----" + +"What a dramatic situation--if you decided to see him!" Selma Cross said +intensely. "And to think--that to-morrow is Sunday night and I don't +work!" + +Paula felt brutalized by the change in the other's manner. "I have +decided not to see him," she repeated, and left the apartment. + + + + +TWELFTH CHAPTER + +CERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS MOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE +ACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA + + +Charter had come a long way very swiftly in his search for realities. If +it is required of man, at a certain stage of evolution, to possess a +working knowledge of the majority of possible human experiences, in +order to choose wisely between good and evil, Charter had, indeed, +covered much ground in his thirty-three years. As a matter of fact, +there were few degrees in the masonry of sensation, into which he had +not been initiated. His was the name of a race of wild, sensual, +physical types; a name still held high in old-world authority, and +identified with men of heavy hunting, heavy dining and drinking. The +Charters had always been admired for high temper and fair women. True, +there was not a germ of the present Charter mental capacity in the whole +race of such men commonly mated, but Quentin's father had married a +woman with a marvellous endurance in prayer--that old, dull-looking +formula for producing sons of strength. A silent woman, she was, a +reverent woman, an angry woman, with the stuff of martyrdoms in her +veins. + +Indeed, in her father, John Quentin, reformer, there were stirring +materials for memory. His it was to ride and preach, to excoriate evil +and depict the good, with the blessing of a living God shining bright +and directly upon it. A bracing figure, this Grandfather Quentin, an +ethereal bloom at the top of a tough stalk of Irish peasantry. First, as +a soldier in the British army he was heard of, a stripling with a girl's +waist, a pigeon breast, and the soul's divinity breathing itself awake +within. His was a poet's rapture at the sight of morning mists, +wrestling with the daybreak over the mountains; and everywhere his +regiment went, were left behind Quentin's songs--crude verses of a minor +singer, never seeking permanence more than Homer; and everywhere, he set +about to correct the degradations of men, absolutely unscared and +grandly improvident. A fighter for simple loving-kindness in the heart +of man, a worshiper of the bright fragment of truth vouchsafed to his +eyes, a lover of children, a man who walked thrillingly with a personal +God, and was so glorified and ignited by the spirit that, every day, he +strode singing into battle. Such was John Quentin, and from him, a +living part of his own strong soul, sprang the woman who mothered +Quentin Charter, sprang pure from his dreams and meditations, and +doubtless with his prayer for a great son, marked in the scroll of her +soul.... For to her, bringing a man into the world meant more than a +bleak passage of misery begun with passion and ended with pain. + +Her single bearing of fruit was a solitary pilgrimage. From the hour of +the conception, she drew apart with her own ideals, held herself aloof +from fleshly things, almost as one without a body. Charter, the +strongly-sexed, her merchant-husband, the laughing, scolding, joking +gunner; admirable, even delightful, to Nineteenth Century men of hot +dinners and stimulated nights--showed her all that a man must _not_ be. +Alone, she crossed the burning sands; cleansed her body and brain in the +cool of evenings, expanded her soul with dreams projected far into the +glistening purple heavens and whispered the psalms and poems which had +fed the lyric hunger of her father. + +It glorified her temples to brood by an open window upon the night-sky; +to conceive even the garment's hem of that Inspiring Source, to Whom +solar systems are but a glowworm swarm, and the soul of man mightier +than them all. Sometimes she carried the concept farther, until it +seemed as if her heart must cease to beat: that this perfecting fruit of +the universe, the soul of man, must be imprisoned for a time in the womb +of woman; that the Supreme seemed content with this humble mystery, nor +counted not æons spent, nor burnt-out suns, nor wasting myriads that +devastate the habitable crusts--if only One smile back at Him at last; +if only at last, on some chilling planet's rim, One Worthy Spirit lift +His lustrous pinions and ascend out of chaos to the Father. + +The spirit of her own father was nearer to her in this wonderful +pilgrimage than her husband, to whom she was cold as Etruscan glasses in +the deep-delved earth (yet filled with what fiery potential wine!). He +called her Mistress Ice, brought every art, lure, and expression in the +Charter evolution to bear upon her; yet, farther and farther into +heights he could not dream, she fled with her forming babe. Many +mysteries were cleared for her during this exalted period--though +clouded later by the pangs of parturition.... Once, in the night, she +had awakened with a sound in her room. At first she thought it was her +husband, but she heard his breathing from the next chamber. At length +before her window, shadowed against the faint light of the sky, appeared +the head and shoulders of a man. He was less than ten feet from her, and +she heard the rustle of his fingers over the dresser. For an instant she +endured a horrible, stifling, feminine fright, but it was superseded at +once by a fine assembling of faculties under the control of genuine +courage. The words she whispered were quite new to her. + +"I don't want to have to kill you," she said softly. "Put down what you +have and go away--hurry." + +The burglar fled quietly down the front stairs, and she heard the door +shut behind him. Out of her trembling was soon evolved the consciousness +of some great triumph, the nature of which she did not yet know. It was +pure ecstasy that the realization brought. The courage which had +steadied her through the crisis was not her own, but from the man's soul +she bore! There was never any doubt after that, she was to bear a son. + +There is a rather vital defect in her pursuing the way alone, even +though a great transport filled the days and nights. The complete +alienation of her husband was a fact. This estranged the boy from his +father. Except as the sower, the latter had no part in the life-garden +of Quentin Charter. The mother realized in later years that she might +have ignored less and explained more. The fear of a lack of sympathy had +given her a separateness which her whole married life afterward +reflected. She had disdained even the minor feminine prerogative of +acting. Her husband had a quick, accurate physical brain which, while it +could not have accompanied nor supported in her sustained inspiration, +might still have comprehended and laughingly admired. Instead, she had +been as wholly apart from him as a memory. Often, in the great weariness +of continued contemplation, her spirit had cried out for the sustenance +which only a real mate could bring, the gifts of a kindred soul. Many +times she asked: "Where is the undiscovered master of my heart?" + +There was no one to replenish within her the mighty forces she expended +to nurture the spiritual elements of her child. A lover of changeless +chivalry might have given her a prophet, instead of a genius, pitifully +enmeshed in fleshly complications. In her developed the concept (and the +mark of it lived afterward with glowing power in the mind of her +son)--the thrilling possibility of a union, in the supreme sense of the +word, a Union of Two to form One.... + +Charter, the boy, inherited a sense of the importance of the "I." In his +earlier years all things moved about the ego. By the time of his first +letter to Paula Linster, the world had tested the Charter quality, but +to judge by the years previous, more specifically by the decade bounded +by his twentieth and thirtieth birthdays, it would have appeared that +apart from endowing the young man with a fine and large brain-surface, +the Charter elements had triumphed over the mother's meditations. To a +very wise eye, acquainted with the psychic and material aspects of the +case, the fact would have become plain that the hot, raw blood of the +Charters had to be cooled, aged, and refined, before the exalted spirit +of the Quentins could manifest in this particular instrument. It would +have been a very fascinating natural experiment had it not been for the +fear that the boy's body would be destroyed instead of refined. + +His mother's abhorrence for the gross animalism of drink, as she +discovered it in her husband (though the tolerant world did not call him +a drunkard), was by no means reflected intact in the boy's mind. A vast +field of surface-tissue, however, was receptive to the subject. Quentin +was early interested in the effects of alcohol, and entirely unafraid. +He had the perversity to believe that many of his inclinations must be +worn-out, instead of controlled. As for his ability to control anything +about him, under the pressure of necessity, he had no doubt of this. +Drink played upon him warmly. His young men and women associates found +the stimulated Charter an absolutely new order of human enchantment--a +young man lit with humor and wisdom, girded with chivalry, and a delight +to the emotions. Indeed, it was through these that the young man's +spirit for a space lost the helm. It was less for his fine physical +attractions than for the play of his emotions that his intimates loved +him. From his moods emanated what seemed to minds youthful as his own, +all that was brave and true and tender. An evening of wine, and Charter +dwelt in a house of dreams, to which came fine friendships, passionate +amours, the truest of verses and the sweetest songs. Often he came to +dwell in this house, calling it life--and his mother wept her nights +away. Her husband was long dead, but she felt that something, named +Charter, was battling formidably for the soul of her boy. She was +grateful for his fine physique, grateful that his emotions were more +delicately attuned than any of his father's breed, but she had not +prayed for these. She knew the ghastly mockeries which later come to +haunt these houses of dreams. Such was not her promise of fulfilment. +She had not crossed the deserts and mountains alone to Mecca for a +verse-maker--a bit of proud flesh for women to adore.... Charter, +imperious with his stimulus, wise in his imagined worldliness, thought +he laughed away his mother's fears. + +"I am a clerk of the emotions," he once told her. "To depict them, I +must feel them first." + +And the yellow devil who built for him his house of dreams coarsened his +desires as well, and wove a husk, fibrous, warm, and red, about his +soul. The old flesh-mother, Earth, concentred upon him her subtlest +currents of gravity; showed him her women in garments of crushed lilies; +promised him her mysteries out of Egypt--how he should change the base +metal of words into shining gold; sent unto him her flatterers calling +him great, years before his time; calling him Emotion's Own Master and +Action's Apostle; and her sirens lured him to the vine-clad cliffs with +soft singing that caressed his senses. Because his splendid young body +was aglow, he called it harmony--this wind wailing from the barrens.... +As if harmony could come out of hell. + +Old Mother Earth with her dead-souled moon--how she paints her devils +with glory for the eye of a big-souled boy; painting dawns above her +mountains of dirt, and sunsets upon her drowning depths of sea; painting +scarlet the lips of insatiable women, and roses in the heart of her +devouring wines--always painting! Look to Burns and Byron--who bravely +sang her pictures--and sank. + +There are vital matters of narrative in this decade of Charter's between +twenty and thirty. Elements of the world-old conflict between the animal +and the soul are never without human interest; but this is a history of +a brighter conquest than any victory over the senses alone.... Even +restless years of wandering are only suggested. Yet one cannot show how +far into the heights Charter climbed, without lifting for a moment the +shadow from the caverns, wherein he finally awoke, and wrestled with +demons towards the single point of light--on the rising road. + + + + +THIRTEENTH CHAPTER + +"NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND SPOIL, HIS GOODS, +EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN" + + +Charter had always been able to stop drinking when thoroughly disgusted +with its effects, but his final abandonment, three years before the +Skylark letters, had lasted long--up the Yangtse to the Gorges, back to +Shanghai, and around the Straits and Mediterranean to New York, where he +had met Selma Cross; indeed, for many weeks after he had reached his own +city in the Mid-West. He had now fallen into the condition in which work +was practically impossible. In the early stages, he had known brief but +lightning passages of expression, when his hands moved with magical +speed upon his machine, and his thoughts even faster, breaking in upon +achievement three or four times in a half-hour to snatch his stimulant. +Always in the midst of this sort of activity, he felt that his work was +of the highest character. The swift running of his brain under the whip +appeared record-breaking to the low vanity of a sot. It was with shame +that he regarded his posted time-card, after such a race. Yet he had +this to say of the whole work-drink matter: When at his brief best under +stimulus, a condition of mind precarious to reach and never to be +counted upon, the product balanced well with the ordinary output, the +stuff that came in quantities from honest, healthy faculties. In a word, +an occasional flashy peak standing forth from a streaky, rime-washed +pile reckoned well with the easy levels of highway routine. + +During his first days at home he would occupy entire forenoons in the +endeavor to rouse himself to a pitch of work. Not infrequently upon +awakening, he swallowed a pint of whiskey in order to retain four or +five ounces. Toward mid-afternoon, still without having eaten, he would +draw up his chair before the type-mill to wait, and only a finished +curse would evolve from the burned and stricken surfaces of his brain. +If, indeed, passable copy did come at last, Charter invariably banished +restraint, drinking as frequently as the impulse came. Clumsiness of the +fingers therefore frequently intervened just as his sluggish mind +unfolded; and in the interval of calling his stenographer out of the +regular hours, the poor brain babes, still-born, were fit only for +burial. + +Often, again (for he could not live decently with himself without +working), he would spend the day in fussy preparation for a long, +productive evening. The room was at a proper temperature; the buffet +admirably stocked; pipes, cigars, and cigarettes at hand; his +stenographer in her usual mood of delightful negation--when an +irresistible impulse would seize his mind with the necessity of +witnessing a certain drama, absolutely essential to inspiration. Again, +with real work actually begun, his mind would bolt into the domains of +correspondence, or some little lyric started a distracting hum far back +in his mind. The neglected thing of importance would be lifted from the +machine, and the letters or the verses put under weigh. In the case of +the latter, he would often start brilliantly with a true subconscious +ebullition--and cast the thing aside, never to be finished, at the first +hitch in the rhyme or obscurity in thought. Then he would find himself +apologizing slavishly for Asiatic fever to the woman who helped +him--whose unspoken pity he sensed, as hardened arteries feel the coming +storm. Alone, he would give way to furious hatred for himself and his +degradation, and by the startling perversity of the drunken, hurry into +a stupor to stifle remorse. Prospecting thus in the abysses, Charter +discovered the outcroppings of dastardly little vanities and kindred +nastiness which normally he could not have believed to exist in his +composite or in the least worthy of his friends. A third trick drink +played upon him when he was nicely prepared for a night of work. The +summons which he dared not disregard since it came now so +irregularly--to dine--would sound imperiously in the midst of the first +torture-wrung page, probably for the first time since the night before. +In the actual illness, which followed partaking of the most delicate +food, work was, of course, out of the question. + +Finally, the horrors closed in upon his nights. The wreck that could not +sleep was obsessed with passions, even perversions--how curiously untold +are these abominations--until a place where the wreck lay seemed +permeated with the foulest conceptions of the dark. What pirates board +the unhelmed mind of the drunken to writhe and lust and despoil the +alien decks--wingless, crawling abdomens, which, even in the shades, are +but the ganglia of appetite!... A brand of realism, this, whose only +excuse is that it carries the red lamps of peril. + +At the end of months of swift and dreadful dissipation, Charter +determined abruptly to stop his self-poisoning on the morning of his +Thirtieth birthday. Coming to this decision within a week before the +date, so confident was he of strength, that instead of making the end +easy by graduating the doses in the intervening days, he dropped the +bars of conduct altogether, and was put to bed unconscious late in the +afternoon of the last. He awoke in the night, and slowly out of physical +agony and mental horror came the realization that the hour of +fighting-it-out-alone was upon him. He shuddered and tried to sleep, +cursed himself for losing consciousness so early in the day without +having prepared his mind for the ordeal. Suddenly he leaped out of bed, +turned on the lights, and found his watch. With a cry of joy, he +discovered that it was seven minutes before twelve. In the next seven +minutes, he prepared himself largely from a quart bottle, and lay down +again as the midnight-bells relayed over the city. Ordinarily, sleep +would have come to him after such an application in the midst of the +night, but the thought assumed dimensions that the bells _had_ struck. +He thought of his nights on the big, yellow river in China, and of the +nearer nights in New York. There was a vague haunt about the latter--as +of something neglected. He thought of the clean boy he had been, and of +the scarred mental cripple he must be from now on.... In all its +circling, his mind invariably paused at one station--the diminished +quart bottle on the buffet. He arose at last, hot with irritation, +poured the remaining liquor into the washbasin, and turned on the water +to cleanse even the odor away. For a moment he felt easier, as if the +Man stirred within him. Here he laughed at himself low and +mockingly--for the Man was the whiskey he had drunk in the seven minutes +before twelve. + +Now the thought evolved to hasten the work of systemic cleansing, begun +with denial. At the same time, he planned that this would occupy his +mind until daylight. He prepared a hot tub, drinking hot water at the +same time--glass after glass until he was as sensitive within as only a +fresh-washed sore can be. Internally, the difference between hot and +cold water is just the difference between pouring the same upon a greasy +plate. The charred flaccid passages in due time were flushed free from +its sustaining alcohol; and every exterior pore cratered with hot water +and livened to the quick with a rough towel. Long before he had +finished, the trembling was upon him, and he sweated with fear before +the reaction that he had so ruthlessly challenged in washing the spirit +from his veins. + +Charter rubbed the steam from the bath-room window, shaded his eyes, and +looked for the daylight which was not there. Stars still shone clear in +the unwhitened distances. Why was he so eager for the dawn? It was the +drunkard in him--always frightened and restless, even in sleep, _while +buffets are closed_. This is so, even though a filled flask cools the +fingers that grope under the pillow.... Any man who has ever walked the +streets during the two great cycles of time between three and five in +the morning, waiting for certain sinister doors to open, does not cease +to shiver at the memory even in his finer years. It is not the +discordant tyranny of nerves, nor the need of the body, pitiful and +actual though it is, wherein the terror lies,--but living, walking with +the consciousness that the devil is in power; that you are the debauched +instrument of his lust, putting away the sweet fragrant dawn for a place +of cuspidors, dormant flies, sticky woods, where bleared, saturated +messes of human flesh sneak in, even as you, to lick their love and +their life.... That you have waited for this moment for hours--oh, +God!--while the fair new day comes winging over mountains and lakes, +bringing, cleansed from inter-stellar spaces, the purity of lilies, new +mysteries of love, the ruddy light of roses and heroic hopes for clean +men--that you should hide from this adoring light in a dim place of +brutes, a place covered with the psychic stains of lust; that you should +run from clean gutters to drink this hell-seepage. + +He asked himself why he thirsted for light. If every door on his floor +were a saloon, he would not have entered the nearest. And yet a summer +dawn was due. Hours must have passed since midnight. He glanced into the +medicine-case before turning off the lights in the bath-room. Alcohol +was the base in many of the bottles; this thought incited fever in his +brain.... He could hardly stand. A well-man would have been weakened by +the processes of cleansing he had endured. The blackness, pressing +against the outer window, became the form of his great trouble. "I wish +the day would come," he said aloud. His voice frightened him. It was +like a whimper from an insane ward. He hastened to escape from the +place, now hateful. + +The chill of the hall, as he emerged, struck into his flesh, a polar +blast. Like an animal he scurried to the bed and crawled under cover, +shaking convulsively. His watch ticked upon the bed-post. Presently he +was burning--as if hot cloths were quickly being renewed upon his flesh. +Yet instantaneously upon lifting the cover, the chill would seize him +again. Finally he squirmed his head about until he could see his watch. +Two-fifteen, it said. Manifestly, this was a lie. He had not wound the +thing the night before, though its ticking filled the room. He recalled +that when he was drinking, frequently he wound his watch a dozen times a +day, or quite as frequently forgot it entirely. At all events, it was +lying now. Thoughts of the whiskey he had poured out, of the drugs in +the medicine-case, controlled. He needed a drink, and nothing but +alcohol would do. This is the terrible thing. Without endangering one's +heart, it is impossible to take enough morphine to deaden a whiskey +reaction. A little only horrifies one's dreams. There is no bromide. He +cried out for the poison he had washed away from his veins. This would +have been a crutch for hours. In the normal course of bodily waste, he +would not have been brought to this state of need in twenty-four hours. +He felt the rapping of old familiar devils against his brain. He needed +a drink. + +The lights were turned on full in his room. The watch hanging above his +head ticked incessant lies regarding the energy of passing time. He +could lose himself in black gorges of agony, grope his way back to find +that the minute hand had scarcely stirred.... He lay perfectly rigid +until a wave, half of drowsiness, half of weakness, slowed-down the +vibrations of his mind.... Somewhere in the underworld, he found a +consciousness--a dank smell, the dimness of a cave; the wash of fins +gliding in lazy curves across the black, sluggish water; an _eye_, +green, steadfast, ashine like phosphor which is concentrated decay,--the +eye of rapacity gorged. His nostrils filled with the foreign odor of +menageries and aquariums. A brief hiatus now, in which objects altered. +A great weight pressed against his chest, not to hurt, but to fill his +consciousness with the thought of its cold crushing strength; the weight +of a tree-trunk, the chill of stone, the soft texture of slimy flesh.... +Full against him upon the rock, in his half-submerged cavern, lay the +terror of all his obsessions--the crocodile. Savage incarnations were +shaken out of his soul as he regarded this beast, a terror so great that +his throat shut, his spine stiffened. Still as a dead tree, the creature +pressed against him, bulging stomach, the narrow, yellow-brown head, +moveless, raised from the rock. This was the armed abdomen he feared +most--cruelty, patience, repletion--and the dirty-white of nether +parts!... He heard the scream within him--before it broke from his +throat. + +Out of one of these, Charter emerged with a cry, wet with sweat as the +cavern-floor from which he came--to find that the minute-hand of his +watch had not traversed the distance between two Roman numerals. He +seized the time-piece and flung it across the room, lived an age of +regret before it struck the walnut edge of his dresser and crashed to +the floor.... The sounds of running-down fitted to words in his brain. + +"_Tick--tick!... tick-tick-tick._" A spring rattled a disordered plaint; +then after a silence: "I served you--did my work well--very well--very +well!..." Charter writhed, wordlessly imploring it to be still. It was +not the value, but the sentient complaining of a thing abused. Faithful, +and he had crushed it. He felt at last in the silence that his heart +would stop if it ticked again; and as he waited, staring at it, his mind +rushed off to a morning of boyhood and terrible cruelty.... He had been +hunting at the edge of a half-cleared bit of timber. A fat gray squirrel +raced across the dead leaves, fully sixty yards away--its mate following +blithely. The leader gained the home-tree as Charter shot, crippling the +second--the male. It was a long shot and a very good one, but the boy +forgot that. The squirrel tried to climb the tree, but could not. It +crawled about, uncoupled, among the roots, and answered the muffled +chattering from the hole above--this, as the boy came up, his breast +filling with the deadliest shame he had ever known. The squirrel told +him all, and answered his mate besides. It was not a chatter for mercy. +The little male was cross about it--bewildered, too, for its +life-business was so important. The tortured boy dropped the butt of his +gun upon the creature's head.... Now the tone changed--the flattened +head would not die.... He had fled crying from the thing, which haunted +him almost to madness. He _begged_ now, as the old thoughts of that hour +began to run about in the deep-worn groove of his mind.... + +Andas he had treated the squirrel, the watch--so he was treating his own +life.... + +Again he was called to consciousness by some one uttering his name. He +answered. The apartment echoed with the flat, unnatural cry of his +voice; silence mocking him.... Then, in delusion, he would find himself +hurrying across the yard, attracted by some psychic terror of warning. +Finally, as he opened the stable-door, sounds of a panting struggle +reached him from the box-stall where he kept his loved saddle-mare. +Light showed him that she had broken through the flooring, and, +frenziedly struggling to get her legs clear from the wreck, had torn the +skin and flesh behind, from hoof to hock. He saw the yellow tendons and +the gleaming white bone. She was half-up, half-down, the smoky look of +torture and accusation in her brown eyes.... + +Finally came back his inexorable memories--one after another, his nights +of degraded passion; the memory of brothels, where drunkenness had +carried him; songs, words, laughter he had heard; pictures on the walls; +combs, cards, cigarettes of the dressing-tables, low ceilings and +noisome lamps; that individual something about each woman, and her +especial perversion; peregrinations among the lusts of half the world's +ports, where a man never gets so low that he cannot fall into a woman's +arms. How they had clung to him and begged him to come back! His +nostrils filled again with sickening perfumes that never could overpower +the burnt odor of harlot's hair. Down upon him these horrors poured, +until he was driven to the floor from the very foulness of the place +wherein he lay, but a chill struck his heart and forced him back into +the nest of sensual dreams.... + +Constantly he felt that dry direct need for cigarette inhalation--that +nervous craving which makes a man curse viciously at the break of a +match or its missing fire--but his heart responded instantly to the mild +poisoning, a direct and awful pounding like the effect of cocaine upon +the strong, and his sickness was intensified. So he would put the +cigarette down, lest the aorta burst within him--only to light the pest +again a moment later. + +He could feel his liver, a hot turgid weight; even, mark its huge +boundary upon the surface of his body. Back of his teeth, began the +burning insatiable passage, collapsing for alcohol in every inch of its +coiled length; its tissues forming an articulate appeal in his brain: +"You have filled us with burning for weeks and months, until we have +come to rely upon the false fire. Take this away suddenly now and we +must die. We cannot keep you warm, even alive, without more of the fuel +which destroyed us. We do not want much--just enough to help us until we +rebuild our own energy." And his brain reiterated a warning of its own. +"I, too, am charred and helpless. The devils run in and out and over. I +have no resistance. I shall open entirely to them--unless you strengthen +me with fire. You are doing a very wicked and dangerous thing in +stopping short like this. Deserted of me, you are destitute, indeed." + +Charter felt his unshaven mouth. It was soft and fallen like an +imbecile's. A man in hell does not curse himself. He saw himself giving. +He felt that he was giving up life and its every hope, but the fear of +madness, or driveling idiocy, was worse than this. He would drink for +nerve to kill himself decently. The abject powerlessness of his will was +the startling revelation. He had played with his will many times, used +it to drink when its automatic action was to refrain. Always he had felt +it to be unbreakable, until now. He was a yellow, cowering elemental, +more hideous and pitiable than prohibition-orator ever depicted in his +most dreadful scare-climax. There is no will when Nature turns loose her +dogs of fear upon a sick and shattered spirit--no more will than in the +crisis of pneumonia or typhoid. + +He wrapped the bed-clothes about him and staggered to the medicine-case. +There was no pure alcohol; no wood-alcohol luckily. However, a quart +bottle of liver-tonic--turkey rhubarb, gum guaiac, and aloes, steeped in +Holland gin. A teaspoonful before meals is the dose--for the spring of +the year. An old family remedy, this,--one of the bitterest and most +potent concoctions ever shaken in a bottle, a gold-brown devil that +gagged full-length. The inconceivable organic need for alcohol worked +strangely, since Charter's stomach retained a half-tumbler of this +horrible dosage. Possibly, it could not have held straight whiskey at +once. Internally cleansed, he, of course, responded immediately to the +warmth. Plans for whiskey instantly awoke in his brain. He touched the +button which connected with his man in the stable; then waited by a rear +window until the other appeared. + +"Bob," he called down shakily, "have you got any whiskey?" + +"The half of a half-pint, sir." + +"Bring it up quickly. Here--watch close--I'm tossing down my latch-key." + +The key left his hand badly. He could have embraced Bob for finding it +in the dark as he did. Charter then sat down--still with the bed-clothes +wrapped about him--to wait for the other's step. He felt close to death +in the silence.... Bob poured and held the single drink to his lips. +Charter sat still, swallowing for a moment. Part remained within him. + +"Now, Bob," he said, "run across the street to Dr. Whipple, and tell +him I need some whiskey. Tell him he needn't come over--unless he wants +to. I'm ill, and I've got to get out of here. Hurry back." + +He dared not return to bed now--fear of dreams. To draw on parts of his +clothing was an heroic achievement, but he could not bend forward to put +on stockings or shoes without overturning his stomach, the lining of +which was sore as a festering wound. His nostrils, with their continual +suggestions, now tortured him with a certain half-cooked odor of his own +inner tissues. The consciousness of having lost his will--that he was +thirty years old, and shortly to be drunk again--became the nucleus for +every flying storm-cloud in his brain. He knew what it would be now. He +would drink regularly, fatten, redden, and betray every remnant of good +left within him--more and more distended and brutalized--until his heart +stopped or his liver hardened. And the great work? He tried to smile at +this. Those who had looked for big things from his maturity had chosen a +musty vessel. He would write of the loves of the flesh, and of physical +instincts--one of the common--with a spark of the old genius now and +then to light up the havoc--that he might writhe! Yes, he would never +get past that--the instantaneous flash of his real self to lift him +where he belonged--so he would not forget to suffer--_when he fell +back_.... "I'll break that little system," he muttered angrily, as to an +enemy in the room, "I'll drink my nerve back and shoot my head off...." +But bigger, infinitely more important, than any of these thoughts, was +the straining of every sense for Bob's step in the hall--Bob with the +whiskey from his never-failing friend, Dr. Whipple.... Yes, he had +chosen whiskey to drive out the God-stuff from his soul. What a dull, +cheap beast he was! + +The day was breaking--a sweet summer morning. He wrapped the bed-clothes +closer about him, and lifted the window higher. The nostrils that had +brought him so much of squalor and horror now expanded to the new life +of the day--vitality that stirred flowers and foliage, grasses and skies +to beauty; the blessed morning winds, lit with faint glory. The East was +a great, gray butterfly's wing, shot with quivering lines of mauve and +gold. It shamed the hulk huddled at the window. Bob's foot on the stairs +was the price of his brutality. + +"Great mornin' for a ride. Beth is fit as a circus. I'd better get her +ready, hadn't I, sir?" + +"God, no!" Charter mumbled. "Help me on with my boots, and pour out a +drink. Bring fresh water.... Did Doctor----" + +"Didn't question me, sir. Brought what you wanted, and said he'd drop +over to see you to-day." + +Charter held his mouth for the proffered stimulant, and beckoned the +other back. + +"Let me sit still for a minute or two. Don't joggle about the room, +Bob." + +Revulsion quieted, the nausea passed. Bob finished dressing him, and +Charter moved abroad. He took the flask with him, lest it be some +forgotten holiday and the bars closed. A man who has had such a night as +his is slavish for days before the fear of being _without_. He was +pitifully weak, but the stimulus had lifted his mind out of the hells of +obsession. + +The morning wind had sweetened the streets. Lawns, hedges, vines, and +all the greens seemed washed and preened to meet the sun. To one who has +hived with demons, there is something so simple and sanative about the +restoring night--the rest of healing and health. He could have wept at +the virtue of simple goodness--so easy, so vainly sought amid the +complications of vanity and desire. Well and clearly he saw now that +mild good, undemonstrative, unaggressive good--seventy years of bovine +plodding, sunning, grazing, drowsing--is a step toward the Top. What a +travesty is genius when it is arraigned by an august morning; men who +summon gods to their thinking, yet fail in the simple lessons that dogs +and horses and cats have grasped! All the more foul and bestial are +those whom gods have touched within; charged with treason of manhood by +every good and perfect thing, when they cannot rise and meet the day +with clean hearts. Charter would have given all his evolution for the +simple decency of his man, Bob, or his mare, Beth. + +The crowd of thoughts incensed him, so he hurried.... Dengler was +sweeping out his bar. Screen-doors slammed open, and a volume of dust +met the early caller as he was about to enter. Dengler didn't drink, and +he was properly pleased with the morning. Lafe Schiel, who was scrubbing +cuspidors for Dengler, drank. That's why he cleaned cuspidors. Dengler +greeted his honored patron effusively. + +"Suppose you've been working all night, Mr. Charter. You look a little +roughed and tired. You work while we sleep--eh? That's the way with you +writer-fellows. I've got a niece that writes. I told you about her. +She's ruined her eyes. She says she can get her best thoughts at night. +You're all alike." + +"Have a little touch, Lafe?" Charter asked, turning to the porter, who +wiped his hands on his trousers and stepped forward gratefully. + +Bottles were piled on the bar, still beer-stained from the night before. +Dengler put forward clean, dripping glasses from below, and stroked the +bottle with his palm, giving Lafe water, and inquiring of Charter what +he would have "for a wash...." Dengler, so big-necked, healthy, and +busy, talking about his breakfast and not corrupting his body with the +stuff others paid for; Lafe Schiel in his last years--nothing but +whiskey left--no thought, no compunction, no man, no soul, just a +galvanic desire--these three in a tawdry little up-town bar at five in +the morning--and he, Quentin Charter, with a splendid mare to ride, a +mother to breakfast with, a world's work to do; he, Quentin Charter, in +this diseased growth upon the world's gutter, in this accumulation of +cells which taints all society. + +Charter drank and glanced at the morning paper. The sheet still damp +from the press reminded him of the night's toil in the office down-town +(a veritable strife of work, while he had grovelled)--copy-makers, +copy-readers, compositors, form-makers, and pressmen--he knew many of +them--all fine fellows, decently resting now, deservedly resting. And +the healthy little boys, cutting their sleep short, to deliver from door +to door, even to Dengler's, this worthy product for the helpful dollar! +Ah, God, the world was so sweet and pure in its worthier activities! God +only asked that--not genius, just slow-leisured decency would pass with +a blessing. God had eternity to build men, and genius which looked out +upon a morning like this, from a warm tube of disease, was concentrated +waste! Charter cleared his throat. Thoughts were pressing down upon him +too swiftly again. He ordered another drink, and Dengler winked +protestingly as he turned to call Lafe Schiel. The look said, "Don't buy +him another, or I won't get my cuspidors cleaned." + +So Charter felt that he was out of range and alignment everywhere, and +the drink betrayed him, as it always does when in power. Not even in +Lafe Scheil was the devil surer of his power this day. The whiskey did +not brighten, but stimulated thought-terrors upon the subject of his own +shattering.... Dengler found him interesting--this man so strangely +honored by others; by certain others honored above politicians. He +wondered now why the other so recklessly plied the whip.... The change +that came was inevitable. + +"There now, old fellow," Dengler remonstrated familiarly, "I don't like +to turn you down, but you can't--honest, you can't--stand much more." + +This was at seven-thirty. Charter straightened up, laughed, and started +to say, "This is the first----" + +But he reflected that once before this same thing had happened +somewhere: he had been deemed too drunk to drink--somewhere before.... +He wabbled in the memory, and mumbled something wide to the point of +what he had meant to say, and jerked out.... That buttoning of his coat +about his throat (on a brilliant summer morning); that walking out +swiftly with set jaw and unseeing eyes, was but one of many landmarks to +Dengler--landmarks on the down-grade. He had seen them all in his twenty +years; seen the whole neighborhood change; seen clean boys redden, +fatten, and thrive for a time; watched the abyss widen between young +married pairs, his own liquors running in the bottom; seen men leave +their best with him and take home their beast.... Dengler, yes, had seen +many things worth telling and remembering. They all owed him at the +last.... In some ways, this man, Charter, was different. He tried to +remember who it was who first brought Charter in, and who that party of +swell chaps were who, finding Charter there one day, had made a sort of +hero out of him and tarried for hours.... The beer-man, in his leather +apron, entered to spoil this musing. He put up the old square-face +bottle, and served for a "chaser" a tall shell of beer.... Even beer-men +could not last. Dengler had seen many who for a year or two "chased" gin +with beer at every call. There was Schultz, a year ago about this time. +He'd been driving a wagon for a couple of years. Schultz had made too +many stops before he reached Dengler's that day. A full half-barrel had +crushed him to the pavement just outside the door. + +"Put two halves in the basement, and leave me a dozen cases of pints," +Dengler ordered. + + * * * * * + +Charter was met at the door by his mother. She had expected to find him +suffering from nerves, but clean. He had always kept his word, and she +had waited for this day. She did not need to look at him twice, but put +on her bonnet and left the house. She returned within an hour with three +of Charter's men friends. Bob, whom she had left to take care of her +son, reported that he had a terrible time. Charter, unable to find his +six-shooter, had overturned the house and talked of conspiracy and +robbery. He had fallen asleep within the last few minutes. Strange that +the mother had thought to hide the six-shooter.... + +The men lifted him to a closed carriage. Charter was driven to a +sanatorium. One of the friends undertook to stay with him for a day or +two. Charter did not rightly realize where he was until evening. He +appeared to take the news very quietly. Whiskey was allowed him when it +was needed. Other patients in various states of convalescence offered +assistance in many ways. That night, when the friend finally fell asleep +in the chair at the bedside, Charter arose softly, went into a hall, +_where a light was burning_, and plunged down into the dark--twenty-two +brass-covered steps. His head broke the panel of the front door at the +foot. His idea was the same which had made him hunt for his six-shooter +the morning before. Besides the door, he broke his nose, his arm, and +covered himself with bruises, but fell short, years yet unnumbered, from +his intent. Under the care of experts after that, he was watched +constantly, and given stimulus at gradually lengthening intervals--until +he refused it himself on the seventh day. Three weeks later, still, he +left the place, a man again, with one hundred and twenty needle +punctures in the flesh of his unbroken arm. + + + + +FOURTEENTH CHAPTER + +THE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER HASTENS EAST TO FIND +A QUEER MESSAGE AT _THE GRANVILLE_ + + +Charter, three years after the foregoing descent into realism, was +confessedly as happy a man as the Mid-West held. He accepted his +serenity with a full knowledge of its excellence, and according to his +present health and habits would not have been excited to find himself +still among those present, had the curtain been lifted thirty or forty +years away. In the year that followed the sanatorium experience, Charter +in reality found himself. There were a few months in which work came +slowly and was uncertain in quality. In his entire conception, nothing +worse could happen than an abatement of mental activity, but he did not +writhe, knowing that he richly deserved the perfect punishment. So +slowly and deeply did physical care and spiritual awakening restore the +forces of mind, however, that he did not realize an expansion of power +until his first long work had received critical and popular acclaim, and +he could see it, himself, in perspective. So he put off the last and +toughest shackle of King Fear--the living death. + +As for drinking, that had beaten him. He had no thought to re-challenge +the champion. In learning that he could become abject, a creature of +paralyzed will, he had no further curiosity. This much, however, he had +required to be shown, and what a tender heart he had ever afterward for +the Lafe Schiels of this world. There were other vivid animals, strong +and agile, in his quiver of physical passions, but he discovered that +these could not become red and rending without alcohol. Such were +clubbed into submission accordingly. With alcohol, Charter could travel +any one of seven sorry routes to the gutter; without it, none. This was +his constant source of thankfulness--that he had refined his elements +without abating their dynamics. The forces that might have proved so +deadly in mastery, furnished a fine vitality under the lash. + +All was sanative and open about him. Charter knew the ultimate dozen of +the hundred and forty-four thousand rules for health--and made these his +habit. The garret, so often spoken of, was the third-floor of his +mother's mansion. Since he slept under the sky, his sleeping-room was +also a solarium. There was a long, thickly-carpeted hall where he paced +and smoked meditatively; a trophy-room and his study and library. +Through books and lands, he had travelled as few men of his years, and +always with an exploring mind. In far countries, his was an eye of quick +familiarity; always he had been intensely a part of his present environ, +whether Typee or Tibet. Then, the God-taught philosophers of Asia and +Europe, and our own rousing young continent, were the well-beloved of +his brain, so that he saw many things with eyes lit by their prophecies. +As for money, he was wealthy, as Channing commends, rather than rich, +and for this competence of late, he had made not a single concession, or +subverted the least of his ideals, selling only the best of his +thoughts, the expression of which polished the product and increased the +capacity. He fitted nothing to the fancied needs of marketing. His +mother began truly to live now, and her external nature manifested below +in fine grains and finished services. Between the two, the old Charter +formalities were observed. She was royal steel--this white-haired +mother--and a cottage would have become baronial about her. Where she +was, there lived order and silence and poise. + +After this enumeration of felicitous details, one will conclude that +this has to deal with a selfish man; yet his gruelling punishments must +not be forgotten, nor the Quentin spirit. It is true that he had emerged +miraculously unhurt from many dark explorations; but his appreciation of +the innate treachery and perversion of events was sound and keen. By no +means did he challenge any complication which might strip him to +quivering nakedness again. Rather his whole life breathed gratitude for +the goodly days as they came, and glided into untormented nights. Next +in importance to the discovery that his will could be beaten was this +which the drinking temperament so hesitatingly grants--that there are +thrilling hearts, brilliant minds, memorable conversations, and lovely +impulses among men and women who will not tarry long over the wine. +Simple as this seems, it was hard for a Charter to learn.... As he +contemplated the full promise of his maturity, the thought often +came--indeed, he expressed it in one of the Skylark letters--that this +was but a period of rest and healing in which he was storing power for +sterner and more subtle trials. + +Such is an intimation of the mental and moral state of Quentin Charter +in his thirty-fourth year, when he began to open the Skylark letters +with more than curiosity.... He knew Reifferscheid, and admired him with +the familiar enthusiasm of one who has read the editor's work +intermittently for years. Charter, of course, was delighted with the +review of his second book. It did not occur to him that it could have +been written by other than the editor himself. Reifferscheid's reply to +Charter's letter of thanks for the critique proved the key to the whole +matter, since it gave the Westerner both focus and dimension for his +visioning. + + I haven't read your book yet, old friend, but I'm going to + shortly. Your fine letter has been turned over to Miss Paula + Linster, a young woman who has been doing some reviews for me, + of late; some of the most important, in which lot your book, of + course, fell. The review which pleased you is only one of a + hundred that has pleased me. Miss Linster is the last word--for + fineness of mind. Incidentally, she is an illumination to look + at, and I haven't the slightest doubt but that she sings and + paints and plays quite as well as she writes book notices. If + she liked a work of mine as well as she likes yours, I should + start on a year's tramp, careless of returns from States yet to + be heard from. The point that interests me is that you could do + a great book about women, away off there in the Provinces--_and + without knowing her_. + + You may wonder at this ebullition. Truth is, I'm backing down, + firmly, forcefully, an inclination to do an essay on the + subject. This is the first chance I ever had to express matters + which have come forth from the Miraculous in the past year. All + that she does has the ultimate feminine touch,--but I'll stop + before I get my sleeves up again about this new order of being. + Perhaps you deserve to know Miss Linster. You'd never be the + same afterwards, so I'm not so sure whether I'd better + negotiate it or not. I'm glad to see your book has left the + post so perfectly. Always come to see me when in town. Yours + solid, Reifferscheid. + +And so she became the Skylark to Quentin Charter, because she was lost +in the heights over by the seaboard, and only her singing came out of +the blue.... There were fine feminine flashes in the letters Charter +received, rare exquisite matters which can be given to the world, only +through the one who inspires their warm delicacy and charm. The circuit +was complete, and the voltage grew mightier and mightier. + +There was a royal fall night, in which Charter's work came ill, because +thoughts of her monopolized. Life seemed warm and splendid within him. +He turned off the electric bulb above his head, and the moonlight burst +in--a hunting moon, full and red as Mars. There was thrilling glory in +the purple south, and a sense of the ineffable majesty of stellar +management. He banished the night panorama with the electric button +again, and wrote to the Skylark. This particular letter proved the kind +which annihilates all sense of separateness, save the animal heaviness +of miles, and makes this last, extra carking and pitiless for the time. +It may have been that Charter would have hesitated to send this letter, +had he read it over again in the cool of morning, but it happened that +he yearned for a walk that night--and passed a mail-box, while the +witchery of the night still enchanted. + +He felt dry, a bit burned the next morning, and saddled for a couple of +hours, transferring the slight strain of nerves to his muscles. There +was a note from the Skylark. She had found an old picture of his in a +magazine and commented on it deliciously.... "I wonder if you think of +me as I am--plain, _plain_?" she had asked.... No, he did not. Nor was +it Reifferscheid's words to the contrary that prevented him. It is not +in man to correlate plainness with a mystic attraction. She had never +appeared to him as beautiful exactly, but fine, vivid, electric--a +manifestation of eyes, lips, mind. All the poundage part of a human +being was utterly vague in his concept of the Skylark.... Charter +naturally lost his perspective and penetration in dealing with his own +interlacing emotions. + +The present letter thralled him. It was blithe in intent, but +intuitively deep and keen. In a former letter, he had asked if there +were not a strain of Irish in her lineage, so mercurial did her +temperament play in all that she wrote. "No Irish," she had answered. +"Dutch--straight Dutch. Always New York--always Dutch. I praise +Providence for this 'monkey-wrench to hang upon my safety valve.'" + +The "red moon" letter seemed to have caught her on the wing--at her +highest and happiest--for she answered it in fine faith and lightness. +Though it had carried her up and up; and though the singing came back +from golden azure, yet she had not forgotten her humor. There was a +suggestion of world-wisdom here, or was it world-wear? + +For hours at a time, Charter was now stripped of his capacity for work. +This is fine torment. Mostly there was a sheet in his type-mill, but his +fingers only fluttered the space-bar. Let him begin a letter to the +Skylark, however, and inspiration came, indeed. His thoughts marshalled +like a perfect army then, and passed out from under his hand in flashing +review.... He ate little, slept little, but his vitality was prodigious. +A miracle matured in his breast. Had he not been more than usually +stubborn, he would have granted long before, that he loved a woman for +the first time in his life--and this a woman he had never seen. + +By New Year's there was no dissembling. No day passed now in which he +did not battle down an impulse to take a train for New York. This was +real living. The destiny which had ruled him through so many dark +wanderings, had waited until his soul was roused to dominance, before he +was permitted to enter earth's true treasury. It was now that he +remembered his past, and many a mile and many an hour he paced the dim +hall--wrestling to be clean of it. This was a Soul which called. He did +not dare to answer while a vestige of the old taints lingered.... He was +seldom troubled that she might prove less inspiring than he pictured. He +staked every reliance in that he had lived thirty-three years and +encountered nothing comparable with this before. Passions, fascinations, +infatuations, were long put behind; these were classed now in his mind +beneath decent and frictionless partnerships between men and women. + +The vision which inspired his romantic loneliness was all that +Reifferscheid had suggested, and infinitely more which his own dreamings +had supplied. She was an adult frankly challenged by the mysteries of +creation; often shocked by its revelations, never above pity nor beneath +humor, wonderful in her reality of culture, and wise above men with a +woman's divination. But particularly, her ultimate meaning was for +_him_; his quest, she was; his crown, to be. The world had preserved her +singing, until he was ready; and though singing, she must ever feel the +poverty of unfulfilment in her own breast, until he came. This was the +stately form of the whole enchantment. + +That there existed in creation a _completing_ feminine for all his +lonely and divided forces; that there lived one woman who could evenly +ignite his body, brain, and spirit; that there was hidden in the +splendid plan of things, a Union of Two to form One; all this which had +been drifting star-stuff before, became sparks now for new and terrific +energies of mind; energies, however, which could be trained and directed +only in her presence. + +Man cannot live altogether in the altitudes. There were brief periods +wherein Charter remembered the mad, drink-tainted trifler with lyrics +and women. It had been a past, surely, filled with soul-murdering +illusions. Those who had known him then, would have had to see him now +to find faith. There had been letters about his recent books from men +and women who had known him in the darker, less-spacious days. Failing +to adjust this new and lusty spirit with the man they had known, they +had tried to bring a laugh from him and answers to futile questions. + +Charter could not forget that there come to the desk of a review-editor +many personal notices concerning one whose work is being talked about. +Indeed, such are handled as a matter of routine. The Skylark could not +be expected always to wing aloof from these. All that was vague and +indefinite did not matter; such might even be accounted as admirable +specializations in life, but his acquaintance had been prodigious, and +many clippings came home to him which he was not pleased to read.... +Still, in the main, he relied upon Paula's solid sense of justice; and +every fresh letter lifted him higher and higher. In his own letters, he +did not fail to incorporate a buffer against indefinite revelations. +Moreover, he had never ceased to call it wonderful--this capacity, of +even the purest women, to lock the doors against the ugliest +generalities of a man's past, and to reckon only with specific +instances. It is here that the mother looks out through the eyes of a +maid. + +One April morning, he encountered a depression more formidable in +vitality than ever before. Beth had just had her shoes set, and Charter +tried to ride off the blue devil. He steadied his mount out of town, +until she struck the ringing country road. The instant she felt her +calks bite into the frosty turf, the mare flirted her head, took the +bit, and became a veritable glowing battery of beautiful energy. Twelve +miles he gave her, but the blue devil rode equally well and sat down +again with Charter in his study. It was like a desert-island loneliness, +this which beset him, as if his ship were sinking into the horizon; only +it was a more poignant than physical agony--a sense of spiritual +isolation. + +This study had become to him the place of his dearest revelations of +life. Here, of late especially, he had found refuge from every discord, +and here invariably were opened the letters from the Skylark. The place +of a man's work becomes a grand, quiet solace as he grows older, but +calm and poise were wrested from the room to-day. He fought the +depression with every trained faculty, but was whipped by it. Color and +sunlight were gone from within; the zeal from future work, the warmth +from every promise, the changing lustre from words, and the excellent +energy of thought which impels their weaving. Twilight in mid-afternoon. +He turned on the lights impatiently. Meaning and beauty were bereft from +all his possessions, as buoyancy was gone from his own breast. There was +something pitifully boyish in the trophies he had treasured--so much of +the college cub, and the youth who refuses to permit his travels to be +forgotten. He regarded his past work, as one grown out of it, regretting +that it had ever attracted the materials of permanence. Smugness in his +teachings; cold intellectuality brazen in all his attainments; +everything about him suddenly become sinister from the old life!... He +looked into the East--his country of singing, of roses, cedars, and +fountains--but the gray-black twilight was a damnable intervention.... +It was in this spirit, or lack of it, that he wrote the letter which +revealed to Paula his inner responsiveness, as she was tossed in The +High Tide. + +The letter which she had written almost at the same time, reached him on +the second morning thereafter; and his suffering in the interval he +could only liken to one of the old sieges of reaction after dissipation. +The fine, angular writing, which he never regarded without a sense of +the darting swiftness of her hand; the thin, tough sheets that crinkled, +came like bounty to the starving; yet he was deathly afraid. + + Something of the long ago has just come to me--to my very + rooms. It would not have been believed, had I sought it. I + might have endured it, if _you_ had told me. It is dreadful to + play with illusions. Oh, why must we keep our gods so far + away--lest we lose them? Had I waited longer, I could not have + written. It seems now that you have a right to know--before my + pride dries up all expression. You are not to blame--except + that you were very reckless in adding happinesses one upon the + other. It was all quite ridiculous. I trusted my + intuition--allowed myself to think of a table spread in the + wilderness of the world with you. My intuitions! I used to be + so proud of them. I see now that sometimes they're quite as + fallible as plain thinking, after all. + + I always felt you alone. I seemed to know your voice after + centuries. Yes, I am sure it was that which affected me so + deeply in your work and made me answer your letters with such + faith. _I knew your voice._ I thought of you alone--your spirit + hungry.... It makes one feel so common, when one's intuitions + betray this way. The heart for writing further is cold and + heavy. Once, down the wind, came a fragrant pollen, but the + blowing summer is gone from my garden.... + +No signature. + +She had not penned a skylark with a folded or broken wing. Charter sat +thinking for several moments, but only because he knew there was ample +time to catch the noon-train for New York. That he should do this had +formed in mind before he had read five lines of the letter. This thought +of action steadied him; and the proof that he had sensed her agony and +reflected it throughout the past forty-eight hours made the call of the +East instant and irresistible. It did not come to him at first that he +was now entering the greater conflict, for which Nature had trained him +in tranquillity and fed his soul unto replenishment during three +years.... His first quick thought came out of old habits of mind: _An +hour with her, and her heart will be healed!_ Here was the old trifler. +He suffered for this instant faltering of the brighter manhood. Man's +fineness is not accentuated by the fact that a woman sacrifices her +power within him, when she falls to pleading a little. Charter could +have torn out the old mental fibres upon which played the thought of her +swiftly renewed happiness by his presence. + +The reality of her suffering slowly penetrated his mind. He perceived +that she could not express the actuality; that her thoughts had winged +ineffectually about the immovable disorder--like bees over the clumsy +corpse of a rodent in the hive. It was not to be lifted, and the +inspiration hermetically to seal the monster and resume activities as +well as possible, had not yet come.... "I might have endured it, if +_you_ had told me!" + +He wasted no energy trying to think exactly what had happened. It was +all he could bear to grasp the full meaning that this inspiring creature +who had soared and sung so long, was crushed and cold. Every sentence in +her letter revealed the bruise of her heart, the absence of +spontaneity.... She was as different from other women he had known--the +women who had been healed by his word or his caress--as he was different +in this attraction. He telegraphed that he was coming, begged that she +would see him the following evening, and instructed her to leave word +for him at the _Granville_. Then he packed his bag and told his mother. +She laughed quietly. + +"On the spur of the moment as usual, Quentin.... It will be good for +you. You've been home a long time. Are you going--beyond New York?" + +"I haven't a thought now of going farther, Mother," he answered.... + +Again twilight in mid-afternoon--as he crossed the river from Jersey. It +had been a day and night to age the soul--with its inexorable stretch of +material miles. New York had a different look, a different atmosphere, +than ever before. Huge and full of horrible grinding; sick with work and +sick with damp--but above this, the magic of her presence was over all. +It was only four in the afternoon, and he had not asked to see her until +seven. Might she not have watched for him or be near him now? She would +know him from his pictures, and observe him as a stranger, but he had +only his visions. + +On the Cross-town to the _Granville_, emotions played upon him of a kind +that he could not have understood in another man a few months before. +Moreover, he felt himself giving way before the vibrations of the big +city. Harried and shrunken, he was, like a youth from the fields; and +the voice he had raised so valiantly from afar against this tremendous +massed soul, seemed now but the clamor of a boy in the safety of his own +door. To and fro along his inflamed nerves crept the direct need of a +drink and a cigarette--old wolves forever on the watch for the spent and +the wounded.... Actually terrorized, he was, at the thought she might +not see him; that there might be no note for him at the _Granville_. +What a voyage in the dark. + +For the time, his excellent moral balance had deserted shamelessly. An +adequate perception of his own position and attitude in the eyes of high +womanhood had unhelmed him, quite properly. Nature had finally found a +hot retort which just fitted his case--and in he went.... No purely +physical ardor could have called Quentin Charter out of his study and +far across the continent. Lesser loves than this have plunged nations +into war, and broken the main trend of history into pregnant +digressions. The more penetratingly one regards the man in his present +consuming, the more formidable becomes the conviction that the human +cosmos in the beginning was cleft in twain: one to grope to the light, a +male; the other to suffer the way, her burden, the curse of Eve. When +these mates of fire fulfil their divided destinies and sweep into the +zone of mutual attraction, woe to the satellites and asteroids in the +inevitable cataclysm which follows.... Yet it is out of such solar +throes that gods and prophets are born.... He gave his bag to a boy at +the _Granville_ entrance, and stepped forward to the desk, clearing his +throat and repeating his question.... The clerk rushed through the +letters in "C." + +"No, Mr. Charter,--not a letter, but wait just a moment; there was a +telephone-call." + +A chill had swept through him as the man spoke. It had not occurred to +him that the word would come in other than her handwriting. This was an +unsigned note, written by the telephone-girl: + + Mr. Quentin Charter: A lady who says you will understand, + 'phoned that she will be home at seven to-night--if you think + it wise and kind to come to her. + +The message was dated at two P. M. Both chill and burning were in the +words. It was strangely unlike her; yet in passing through the +operator's mind, it might have become routine. The word "kind" was a +torturing curb. It placed him on ugly quaking ground. How weak, how +ancient and commonplace, is the human lord after all, when in doubt +regarding his lady's reception of him! Where is his valor now, his +taking of cities, his smiling deaths for honor? Most of all times, he is +man, the male; not man, the soul. Half-way out on the surface-car, he +discovered one of the big "Selma Cross" bill-boards. It was intimate, +startling, an evil omen--great black letters out of the deathless +past.... He stood on the fourth floor of the _Zoroaster_. The +elevator-man had shown him a certain door which was slightly ajar. He +was ill, breathless, and his heart sank strangely with the lights in the +shaft from the descending car.... He tapped on the designated door, and +a deep melodious voice, instantly identified with ancient abandonments, +called gently: + +"Come in!" + + + + +FIFTEENTH CHAPTER + +QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACH +LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS + + +Charter was seized with vertigo. It was his sorry thought that the old +scar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going, +could not endure a crux like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock to +his spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in a +room filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions had +culminated in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an inner +wrench, which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like a +stroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting the +Skylark spirit to the eminent flesh of this old plaything of his, left +him drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into a +deep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as if +it could not grip the blood locked in his veins. + +He sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running through +his brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but something +was wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousness +that he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again one +of his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst. +In the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he felt +the old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of his +mind with all the impish exultation of that lower self. Pride asserted +itself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! He +should always remember with shame this coming to New York--a youthful +Marius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness--coming to this +city (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with an +abortive conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fell +upon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were in +shadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall and +mantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all was +so pervading--as his blood began to move again--that he laughed aloud. + +"Do you know," Selma Cross said softly, "I thought at first you had been +drinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tell +you what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor so +unsteadily--looking so white?" + +"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing for +middle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little later +in your new play, but not here--to-night----" + +"That is what I thought--that incurable thing. You seem floored. I +didn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you were +adaptable--if nothing else." + +His collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in his +lungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now how +Skylark had been stricken. The real devastation was that she belonged to +this sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, this +trap. It was all so different from the consummate fineness, the +pervading delicacy, of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to the +trick, _might she not be listening_?... He did not mind her hearing; +indeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know--but that +she should listen! He writhed. This was not his Skylark at all.... It +was hardly Charter's way now to plunge into the centre of things. There +was a feline elegance in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; she +seemed so delightfully at ease, that he was willing to make it a bit +harder for her. + +"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly," he said slowly. "It is +something, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has made +good so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I had +read all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounter +your stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to find +you here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle. +As for your work--few know its quality better than I." + +She studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. "As for +that, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too," she said finally. "I +never doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I feared +that whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfully +changed--so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you went +away; what else have you been doing?--I mean, to change you so finely." + +"Garret." + +Her brow clouded at the word. It was as if she had expected to laugh at +him long before this. "Did any woman ever tell you that you're rather a +mean sort, Quentin Charter?" + +"Doubtless I have deserved it," he answered. "What are you thinking?" + +"I was thinking of your garret--where you gather your victims for +vivisection." + +"That's put very clearly." + +"Do you think this is big-man stuff?" + +"My case is rather an ugly one to look back upon, truly," Charter +granted. "For a long time, it appeared to me that I must learn things at +first-hand. With first-water talents, perhaps this is not necessary." + +"A woman finally brings a man face to face," she said with sudden scorn, +"and he becomes limp, agrees with everything she says.... 'Yes, it is +quite true, I was an awful beast. What else, dear?'--ugh!" + +Charter smiled. She was very swift and deft in supplying a man's evil +motives. It is a terrible feminine misfortune--this gift of +imputing--and happy women do not possess it. Few men, incidentally, are +deep enough to avail themselves of all the crafts and cunnings with +which they may be accredited. + +"I have no intention of destroying the slightest gratification you may +draw, Selma, from questioning me," he said. "If I appear limp, please +remember that I'm a bit in the dark as yet. I came to this floor on a +different errand. I had this errand in mind--not self-examination. +However, I'll attend now in all sincerity. You were speaking of my +victims for vivisection in the garret." + +She appeared not to trust him in the least. "I've always wanted +to know if you believed--what an apprentice I really was in +love--give-and-take--when you came?" + +"That was easily believed, Selma----" + +"Then you grant I wasn't acting--when I gave myself to you?" + +"I didn't think you were acting----" + +"Then _you_ were acting, because when the time came--you dropped me +quite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased to +feed." + +"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, and +certainly not acting altogether, until----" + +"Enter--the wine," she said with a sneer. + +"Yes, if you will." He was irritated for a second, having meant to say +something entirely different. + +"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon his +drinking!" + +"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the whole +life that the drinking carried me into--that I had such horror for when, +when I became well." + +"You got well very suddenly after you left me," she told him. Her huge +face was livid, and her lips dry. + +"On the contrary, I was a long time ill." Her temper chilled his +attempts at sincerity. + +"It looked so from those first few--letters, is rather a dignified +word." + +"I say it with shame, I was practically unable to write. I was burnt out +when I left here. I had been to Asia--gone from home seven months--and +the returning fool permitted the bars to welcome him----" + +"You seized a moment to dictate a letter----" + +"Silence would have been far better," he said. "I see that now. My only +idea was to let you hear. Writing myself was out of the question by that +time." + +"You wrote an article about stage people--with all the loftiness of an +anæmic priest." + +"That was written before I left here--written and delivered----" + +"All the worse, that you could write such an article--while you were +spending so much time with me." + +"I have never belittled what you gave me, Selma. I could praise you, +without admiring the stage. You are amazingly different. I think that's +why New York is talking about you to-night. I had made many trips to New +York and knew many stage people, before I met you. If you had belonged +to the type familiar to me, I should have needed a stronger stimulus +than drink to force an interest. Had there been others like you--had I +even encountered 'five holy ones in the city'--I should not have written +that stage article, or others before it." + +"You were one with the Broadway Glowworms, Quentin Charter. Few of them +drank so steadily as you." + +"I have already told you that for a long time I was an unutterable fool. +Until three years ago, I did not begin to know--the breath of life." + +Selma Cross arose and paced the room, stretching out her great arms from +time to time as she walked. "You're getting back your glibness," she +exclaimed, "your quick little sentences which fit in so nicely! Ah, I +know them well, as other women are learning them. But I have things +which you cannot answer so easily--you of the garret penances.... You +find a starved woman of thirty--play with her for a fortnight, showing +her everything that she can desire, and seeming to have no thought, but +of her. I discover that there was not a moment in which you were so +ardent that you forgot to be an analyst. I forgive that, as you might +forgive things in my day's work. You put on your gray garret-garb, and +forget the hearts of my people, to uncover their weaknesses before the +world--you, so recently one of us, and none more drunk or drained with +the dawn--than you! Such preaching is not good to the nostrils, but I +forgive that. You are sick, and even the drink won't warm you, so you +leave me at a moment's notice----" + +"There was another reason." + +"Hear me out, first," she commanded.... "To you, it is just, 'Adios, my +dear'; to me, it is an uprooting--oh, I don't mind telling you. I was +overturned in that furrow, left naked for the long burning day, but I +remembered my work--the work you despise! I, who had reason to know how +noble your pen can be, forgave even those first paltry letters, filled +with excuses such as a cheap clerk might write. I forgave the dictation, +because it said you were ill--forgave the silences.... But when you came +to New York six months afterwards, and did not so much as 'phone or send +me a card of greeting--Selma called in her silly tears." + +"It was vile ingratitude," he said earnestly. "That's where my big fault +lay. I wonder if you would try to understand the only palliation. You +were strangely generous and wonderful in your ways. I did not cease to +think of that. Personally, you are far above the things I came to abhor. +No one understands but the victim, what alcohol does to a man when it +gets him down. I tried to kill myself. I became convalescent literally +by force. Slowly approaching the normal again, I was glad enough to +live, but the horrors never leave the mind entirely. Everything +connected with the old life filled me with shuddering fear. I tell you +no one hates alcohol like a drunkard fresh in his reform." + +"But I did not make you drink," she said impatiently. "I'm not a +drink-loving woman." + +Charter's face flushed. The interview was becoming a farce. It had been +agony for him to make this confession. She would not see that he +realized his ingratitude; that it was his derangement caused by +indulging low propensities which made him identify her with the days of +evil. + +"I know that very well, Selma Cross," he said wearily, "but the stage is +a part of that old life, that sick night-life that runs eternally around +the belt-line." + +She hated him for reverting to this point. Holding fast to what she +still had to say, the actress picked up a broken thread. "You said there +was another reason why you left New York so suddenly." + +Charter expected now to learn if any one were listening. He was cold +with the thought of the interview being weighed in the balances of a +third mind. + +"You've made a big point of my going away," he essayed. "The other +reason is not a pretty matter, and doubtless you will call any +repugnance of mine an affectation----" + +"Repugnance--what do you mean?" she asked savagely, yet she was afraid, +afraid of his cool tongue. "I never lied to you." + +"That may be true. I'm not curious for evidence to the contrary. The day +before I left for the West, a friend told me that you and I were being +watched; that all our movements were known. I didn't believe it; could +not see the sense--until it was proved that same night by the devious +walk we took.... You doubtless remember the face of that young +night-bird whom we once laughed about. We thought it just one of those +coincidences which frequently occur--a certain face bobbing up +everywhere for a number of days. I assured myself that night that you +knew nothing of this remarkable outside interest in our affairs." + +Selma Cross, with swift stealth, disappeared into the apartment-hall and +closed the outer door; then returned, facing him. Her yellow eyes were +wide open, filled with a misty, tortured look. To Charter the place and +the woman had become haggard with emptiness. He missed the occasional +click of the elevator in the outer-hall, for it had seemed to keep him +in touch with the world's activities. The old carnal magnetism of Selma +Cross stirred not a tissue in him now; the odor of her garments which +once roused him, was forbidding. He had not the strength to believe that +the door had been shut for any other reason than to prevent Skylark from +hearing. The actress had not minded how their voices carried, so long as +_he_ was being arraigned.... The air was devitalized. It was as if they +were dying of heart-break--without a sound.... It had been so +wonderful--this thought of finding his mate after the æons, his +completion--a woman beautiful with soul-age and spiritual light.... + +Selma Cross was speaking. Charter stirred from his great trouble. She +was changed, no longer the clever mistress of a dramatic hour.... Each +was so burdened with a personal tragedy that pity for the other was slow +to warm between them. + +"Do you mean that old Villiers paid the night-bird to watch us--to learn +where we went, and possibly what we said?" she was saying hoarsely. +Selma Cross felt already that her cad was exploded. + +"Yes, and that was unpleasant," Charter told her. "I didn't like the +feel of that procurer's eyes, but what revolted me was Villiers himself. +I took pains to learn his name the next day--that last day. There isn't +a more unclean human package in New York.... It was so unlike you. I +couldn't adjust the two. I couldn't be where he had been. I was sick +with my own degradation. I went back to my garret." + +Selma Cross was crippled; she saw there was no lie in this. At what a +price had been bought the restoration of faith for Paula Linster!... She +had heard after their compact about Villiers' early days. There had been +times when her fingers itched to tighten upon his scrawny throat. To +have Quentin Charter hear this record was fire in her veins; it embraced +the added horror that Stephen Cabot might also hear.... There was +nothing further with which to charge the man before her. She nursed her +wrath to keep from crying out. + +"Was it a man's way to give me no chance to explain?" she demanded. + +"Broadway knew Villiers." + +"I did not!" + +"Anyway, I couldn't get it straight in my mind, then," Charter said +hastily. "You're no vulgar woman, mad after colors and dollars. You love +your work too much to be one of those insatiable deserts of passion. Nor +are you a creature of black evolution who prefers the soul, to the body +of man, for a plaything.... You were all that was generous and normally +fervent with me.... Let's cut the subject. It does not excuse me for not +calling when I came to New York. You were nothing if not good to me." + +"Then Villiers paid to find out things about us," she said slowly. "He +said you bragged about such matters to your friends." + +Charter shivered. "I fail to see how you troubled about a man not +writing--if you could believe that about him." + +"I didn't see how he could know our places of meeting--any other way. I +should never have seen him again, if he hadn't made me believe this of +you." + +Charter scarcely heard her. The thought was inevitable now that the +actress might have represented him to Skylark as one with the loathed +habit of talking about women to his friends. The quick inclination to +inquire could not overcome his distaste for mentioning a dear name in +this room. The radiant, flashing spirit behind the letters did not +belong here.... His brain ached with emptiness; he wondered continually +how he could ever fill the spaces expanded by the Skylark's singing.... + +In the brain of Selma Cross a furious struggle was joined. Never before +had she been given to see so clearly her own limitations--and this in +the high light of her great dramatic triumph. Her womanhood contained +that mighty quality of worshiping intellect. This, she had loved in +Charter long ago; in Stephen Cabot now. The inner key to her greatness +was her capacity to forget the animal in man--if he proved a brain. +There is only one higher reverence--that of forgetting brain to worship +soul. Perceiving the attitude of Quentin Charter to her old life, it was +made clear to her that she must preserve a lie in her relation with +Stephen Cabot; if, indeed, the playwright did not learn outside, as +Charter had done. It was plain that he did not know yet, since he had +not run from her--to a garret somewhere. What a hideous mockery was this +night--begun in pride! Distantly she was grateful that Paula Linster was +at hand to be restored, but her own mind was whipped and cowed by its +thoughts--so there was little energy for another's romance.... Charter +had made no comment on her last remark. She realized now that his +thoughts were bearing him close to the truth. + +"You say they forced you to cast out your enemy," she declared hoarsely. +"I cast out mine of my own accord. If there is palliation for you, there +should be for a woman in her first experience. You asked me to stretch +my imagination about a drink-reaction making you avoid me. I ask you, +how is a woman, for the first time alone with a man--to know that he is +different from other men? Add to this, a woman who has come up from the +dregs--for years in the midst of the slum-blooms of the chorus? What I +heard from them of their nights--would have taxed the versatility of +even Villiers--to make me see him lower than I expected! I ask you--how +did I know he was an exception--rather than the rule among the +Glowworms?" + +"I'm rather glad you said that," Charter declared quickly. "It's a point +of view I'm grateful for. Do you wonder that the life from which you +have risen to one of the regnant queens has become inseparable in my +mind with shuddering aversion?" + +In the extremity of her suffering, her mind had reverted, as an artist's +always does when desperately pressed, to thoughts of work--work, the +healer, the refuge where devils truly are cast out. Even in her work she +now encountered the lash, since Charter despised it. Literally, she was +at bay before him. + +"Always that!" she cried. "It is detestable in you always to blame my +work. I broke training. I should have won without the damned angel. You +degraded yourself for years in your work, but I don't hear you blaming +art for your debaucheries! You have sat alone so long that you think all +men outside are foul. You sit high in your attic, so that all men look +like bugs below!" + +"There is something in what you say," he answered, aroused by her +bigness and strength. "Yet in my garret, I do not deal with rootless +abstractions. Everything has its foundation in actual observation. I +moved long among the play-managers, and found them men of +huckster-minds--brainless money-bags, dependent upon every passing wind +of criticism. I tell you, when one talked to them or to their +office-apes--one felt himself, his inner-self, rushing forth as if to +fill something bottomless----" + +"You do not know Vhruebert----" + +"Eliminate him. I am not speaking of any particular man. I do not mean +all playwrights when I say that I found playwrights as a class, not +literary workers--but literary tricksters. I am not speaking of _The +Thing_, nor of its author, of whom I have heard excellent word--when I +say that plays are not written, but rewritten by elementals, who, +through their sheer coarseness, sense the slow vibrations of the mob, +and feculate the original lines to suit." + +"Bah--an idea from one of your nights, when you tried to drown the blue +devils! It broods over all your thinking! You forget the great army, +that silent army, which is continually lifting itself artistically by +writing one after another--impossible plays. You forget the great hearts +of the players--men and women who pull together for big results." + +"I am not speaking of the vast library of manuscript failures, but of a +small proportion which get into the sinister glare of Broadway----" + +"My God, Broadway is not New York!" + +"For which I am powerfully glad," he answered with energy. "As for warm +human hearts--there is warmth and loyalty, genuine tears and decent +hopes in every brothel and bar--yet the black trends of their existence +course on. This was so hard for me to learn, that I have it very +clearly.... I remember the opening night of Martha Boardman as a +star--telegrams pouring in, critics besieging her dressing-room. Even +her manager didn't know what he had, until the critics told him the play +would stay in New York a year--yet his name was on the boards above the +star and bigger than the author's. I watched the bleak, painted faces of +the women and heard their false voices acclaiming the new star. What +they had in their hearts was not praise, but envy. Their words were +sham, indecency and lying. Eternally simulating--that's the stage life. +Pity the women--poor Maachas, if you will--but their work is damnable, +nevertheless. It is from such unhappy creatures evading motherhood that +youths get the abominable notion that real manhood lies in the loins." + +"Poor youths--go on! When you have finished I shall tell you something." + +"Don't misunderstand me, Selma Cross. No one knows better than I--how +the sexes prey upon each other--how they drag each other to the ground. +Only I was thinking of the poor things in ties, canes, cigarettes and +coatings--out catching!... I saw the whole horrid, empty game of the +stage. You have come wonderfully and differently into the glare, but let +me ask where is Martha Boardman to-night--a few short years later?" + +"Yes, she was tired, her energy burned out, when she finally arrived. +It's a stiff grade," Selma Cross said gently. + +"I would explain it, that she was prostituted from _excessive +simulation_--season after season of simulation--emotion after emotion +false to herself! The Law says, 'Live your own life.' The Stage says, +'Act mine,'--so pitiably often a poor playwright's abortive sensations! +What can happen to a body that continually makes of itself a lying +instrument? Like the queen-bee whose whole life is made up of +egg-laying--the brain of this poor purveyor of emotions becomes a waxy +pulp. As for her soul--it is in God's hands--let us hope." + +"It is good to laugh at you, Quentin Charter. You have another appetite. +You wanted alcohol when I knew you first--now you thirst after purists +and winged women. I have a lover now who can live among men, soar just +as high as you do, work with just as much greatness and strength, +without ever having degraded himself or believed all human creatures +vile. The stage has its shams, its mockeries, but its glories, too. It +is not all deranged by money-bags. The most brilliant of your writers +give us our lines--the most wonderful of your mystics. It is true we +simulate; true that ours is a constant giving; but call in your +garret-high logic now, Sir Prophet: Look at the tired empty faces of my +company, look at mine, after we have finished _The Thing_; then look at +the strengthened grip on life and the lifted hopes which, each night, +the multitude takes from out our breasts--and call ours a prostitution, +if you can!" + +Charter arose and extended his hand, which she took gracelessly, but was +instantly sorry that she had misjudged his intent. + +"Can't you see, Selma Cross, that you and I have no difference, no point +for argument, if the general run of plays were like _The Thing_--as you +make me see it? We had eliminated this from the discussion, but I have +nothing but praise for Vhruebert, nothing but enthusiasm for Mr. Cabot +and for you--if the combination gives the people an expansion of hope +and a lifted ideal. Do that, and you need not reckon with critics." + +Instantly she changed her point of view again, so that he was both +chilled and puzzled. "I should have been glad to come out in any +successful play," she said wearily. "_The Thing_ just happens to have an +uplift----" + +"So much is accomplished for you, then. You will never be content again +with a play that has not. Oh, I don't mean ostensible good, +melodramatically contrasted with obvious bad, but the subtle inspiration +of real artists--that marvellous flexibility of line and largeness of +meaning that fits about every life! Just as you can draw fresh strength +again and again from a great poem; so, in performing a great play--one +does not act, but lives!" + +"Are you going?" she questioned absently. + +"Yes, I confess I haven't been so consumed in years----" + +She drew close to him.... "It has been dramatic, if not literary, hasn't +it?" Her nostrils dilated and her lower lip was drawn back between her +teeth. + +He smiled. + +"I feel burnt out, too," she went on softly. "It has been strange +to be with you again--almost like--those early mornings.... Did you +ever hear me calling you--'way off there in the West? I used to lie +awake, all feverish after you went away, calling in a whisper, +'Quentin--Quentin!...' It seemed you must come, if you were alive. There +were times after you went away, that I would have given this week's +victory, which I saw from afar,--to have you rush in for just one +hour!... In God's name," she cried suddenly, "is there really this sort +of honor in living man--is it because you hate me--or do you have to +drink to take a woman in your arms? You, who used to be--singing +flames?" + +Charter was not unattracted, but his self-command was strangely +imperious. There was magnetism now in the old passion--but a flutter of +wings broke the attraction.... Darkness covered the wings, and the song +was stilled; yet in that faint rustling, was enchantment which changed +to brute matter--these open arms and the rising breast. + +"I'm afraid it is as you said--about the anæmic priest," he muttered +laughingly.... And then it occurred to him that there might have been a +trick to her tempting.... From this point he was sexless and could pity +her, though his nerves were raw from her verbal punishments. It was +altogether new in his experience--this word-whipping; and though he had +not sharpened a sentence in retaliation, he could not but see the +ghastly way in which a woman is betrayed by her temper, which checks a +man's passion like a sudden fright. Between a woman given to rages and +her lover--lies a naked sword. Consummate, in truth, is the siren who +has mastered the art of silence.... Selma Cross sank back into a chair. +The world's wear was on her brow and under her eyes, as she laughed +bitterly. + +"You always had a way of making me sick of life," she said strangely. "I +wonder if ever there was a humiliation so artistically complete as +mine?" + +This was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not be +quite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating had +been the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically an +actress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was not +prepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman, +Selma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that his +theory was amazingly strengthened here--the theory that moral +derangement results from excessive simulation. + +"You--would--not--kiss--me," she repeated. "For my own sake, I'd like to +believe--that you're trying to be true to some one,--but it's all rot +that there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you--you +spook!" + +"You said you had a lover----" + +She shivered. "You left me unfinished." There was a tragic plaint in her +tone, and she added hastily, "There was a reason for my trying you.... I +think the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, is +that you have refused to ask why I brought you here--refused even to +utter the name--of the woman you expected to see--_in my presence_.... +You may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a God +resurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you--or both--to +the point of death! Either way--remember this--I'll be square as a +die--to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what I +mean--to-morrow, I think...." + +He was at the door. "Good-night," he said and touched the signal for the +elevator. + +She called him back, "Come and see me--at my best--at the +_Herriot_--won't you?" + +"Yes----" + +"But tell me what performance--and where your seat is----" + +"... Good-night." + +The car stopped at the floor. + + + + +SIXTEENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT +INTO THE NIGHT + + +It was after eight that Sunday night, when Paula emerged from the +elevator in the upper-hall of the _Zoroaster_, and noted that the door +of the Selma Cross apartment was ajar.... The interval since she had +parted from the actress the evening before had been abundant with +misery. Almost, she had crossed the bay to visit the Reifferscheids; +would have done so, indeed, had she been able to 'phone her coming. Her +rooms had become a dismal oppression; Bellingham haunted her +consciousness; there were moments when she was actually afraid there +alone. + +All Saturday night she had sleeplessly tossed, knowing that Quentin +Charter was speeding eastward, and dreading the moment when he should +arrive in the city and find no welcoming note from her. She dared not be +in her rooms after he was due to reach the _Granville_, lest he call her +by telephone or messenger--and her purpose of not seeing him be +destroyed by some swift and salient appeal. She had waited until after +the hour in which he had asked to call, to be sure that this time he +would have given up all hope of seeing her. The prospect now of entering +her apartment and remaining there throughout the night, challenged every +ounce of will-force she possessed.... + +Battling with loneliness and bereavement, as she had been for hours, +Paula was grateful to note, by the open door, that the actress was at +home, even though she had left her the evening before, hurt and +disappointed by the other's swift change of manner upon learning that +Quentin Charter was to be in New York to-day.... It was with a startling +but indefinable emotion that she heard the man's voice now through the +open door. Stephen Cabot was there, she thought, as she softly let +herself in to the place of ordeals, which her own flat had become. + +In the dark and silence of the inner hall, the old enemy swept into her +consciousness--again the awful localizations of the preying force! The +usual powers of mind scattered, as in war the pith of a capital's +garrisons rush forth to distant borders. By habit, her hand was upon the +button, but she did not turn on light. Instead, she drew back, steeling +her will to remember her name, her place in the world, her friends. +Harshly driven, yet Paula repressed a cry, and fought her way out into +the main hall--as from the coiling suction of a maelstrom. Even in her +terror, she could not but repress a swift sense of victory, in that she +had escaped from the vortex of attraction--her own rooms. + +The man's voice reached her again, filled her mind with amazing +resistance--so that the point of the occultist's will was broken. +Suddenly, she remembered that she had once heard Stephen Cabot, +protesting that he was quite well--at the end of the first New York +performance of _The Thing_, and that his tones were inseparably +identified with his misfortune. The voice she heard now thrilled her +like an ancient, but instantly familiar, harmony. It was not Stephen +Cabot's. She stood at the open door, when the vehemence of Selma Cross, +who was now speaking, caused her to refrain from making her presence +known. The unspeakable possibility, suddenly upreared in her mind, +banished every formality. The full energies of her life formed in a +prayer that she might be wrong, as Paula peered through the inner hall, +and for the first time in the flesh glimpsed Quentin Charter. + +She was standing before the elevator-shaft and had signaled for the car +eternities ago. Selma Cross was moving up and down the room within, but +her words though faintly audible, had no meaning to the woman without. +Paula's mind seemed so filled with sayings from the actress that there +was no room for the interpretation of a syllable further. One sentence +of Charter's startled her with deadly pain.... She could wait no longer, +and started to walk down. Half-way to the main-floor, the elevator sped +upward to answer her bell.... She was very weak, and temptation was +fiercely operative to return to her rooms, when she heard a slow, firm +step ascending the flight below. She turned from the stairs on the +second floor, just as the huge, lean shoulders of Bellingham appeared on +the opposite side of the elevator-shaft. + +The two faced without words. His countenance was livid, wasted, but his +eyes were of fire. Paula lost herself in their power. She knew only that +she must return with him. There was no place to go; indeed, to return +with him now seemed normal, rational--until the brightly-lit car rushed +down and stopped before them. + +"Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Miss Linster," the elevator-man +said, "but I had to carry a message to the rear." + +In the instantaneous break of Bellingham's concentration, Paula +recovered herself sufficiently to dart into the car. + +"Down, if you please," she said hoarsely. "The gentleman is going up." + +Bellingham, who had started to follow, was stopped by the sliding-door. +The conductor called that he would be back directly, as his car slid +down.... In the untellable disorganization of mind, Paula knew for the +moment only this: she must reach the outer darkness instantly or expire. +In that swift drop to the main floor, and in the brief interval required +to stop the car and slide the door, she endured all the agony of +tightened fingers upon her throat. There was an ease in racing limbs, as +she sped across the tiles to the entrance, as a frightened child rushes +from a dark room. She would die if the great door resisted--pictured it +all before her hand touched the knob. She would turn, scream, and fall +from suffocation. Her scream would call about her the horror that she +feared. + +The big door answered, as it seemed, with a sort of leisurely dignity to +her spasm of strength--and out under the rain-blurred lamps, she ran, +ready to faint if any one called, and continually horrified lest +something pluck at her skirts--thus to Central Park West. An Eighth +Avenue car was approaching, half a square above. To stand and wait, in +the fear lest Bellingham reach the corner in time for the car, assailed +the last of her vitality. It was not until she had boarded it, and was +beyond reach of a pedestrian on Cathedral Way, that she breathed as one +who has touched shore after the Rapids. Still, every south-bound cab +renewed her panic. She could have made time to South Ferry by changing +to the Elevated, but fear of encountering the Destroyer prevented this. +Fully three-quarters of an hour was used in reaching the waiting-room, +where she was fortunate in catching a Staten Island boat without delay. +Every figure that crossed the bridge after her, until the big ferry put +off, Paula scrutinized; then sank nearly fainting into a seat. + +Bellingham's plot was clear to her mind, as well as certain elements of +his craft to obviate every possibility of failure. He had doubtless seen +her enter the house, and timed his control to dethrone her volition as +she reached her rooms. Since the elevator-man would not have taken him +up, without word from her, Bellingham had hastened in and started up the +stairs when the car was called from the main floor. His shock at finding +her in the second-hall was extraordinary, since he was doubtless +struggling with the entire force of his concentration, to hold her in +the higher apartment and to prepare her mind for his own reception. It +was that moment that the elevator-man had saved her; yet, she could not +forget how the voice of Quentin Charter had broken the magician's power +a moment before; and it occurred to her now how wonderfully throughout +her whole Bellingham experience, something of the Westerner's spirit had +sustained her in the crises--Quentin Charter's book that first night in +Prismatic Hall; Quentin Charter's letter to which she had clung during +the dreadful interview in the Park.... + +As for Quentin Charter rushing immediately to the woman of lawless +attractions, because he had not received the hoped-for note at the +_Granville_--in this appeared a wantonness almost beyond belief. Wearily +she tried to put the man and his base action entirely out of mind. And +Selma Cross, whose animation had been so noticeable when informed of +Charter's coming, had fallen beneath the reach of Paula's emotions.... +She could pity--with what a torrential outpouring--could she pity "that +finest, lowest head!" + +She stepped out on deck. The April night was inky-black. All day there +had been a misty rain from which the chill of winter was gone. The +dampness was sweet to breathe and fresh upon her face. The smell of +ocean brought up from the subconscious, a thought already in tangible +formation there. The round clock in the cabin forward had indicated +nine-forty-five. It seemed more like another day, than only an hour and +a half ago, that she had caught the Eighth Avenue car at Cathedral Way. +The ferry was nearing the Staten slip. In a half-hour more, she would +reach Reifferscheid's house. Her heart warmed with gratitude for a +friend to whom she could say as little or as much as she pleased, yet +find him, heart and home, at her service. One must be terrified and know +the need of a refuge in the night to test such values. A few hours +before, she had rejected the thought of going, because a slight +formality had not been attended to. Hard pressed now, she was seeking +him in the midst of the night.... At the mention of the big man's name, +the conductor on the Silver Lake car took her in charge, helped her off +at the right road, and pointed out the Reifferscheid light. Thus she +felt her friend's kindness long before she heard the big elms whispering +over his cottage. The front-window was frankly uncurtained, and the +editor sat within, soft-shirted and eminently comfortable beside a +green-shaded reading-lamp. She even saw him drop his book at her step +upon the walk. A moment later, she blinked at him laughingly, as he +stood in the light of the wide open doorway. + +"Properly 'Driven From Home,' I suppose I should be tear-stained and in +shawl and apron," she began. + +He laughed delightedly, and exclaimed: "How could Father be so +obdurate--alas, a-a-las! Lemme see, this is a fisherman's hut on the +moors, or a gardener's lodge on the shore. Anyway, it's good to have you +here.... Annie!" + +He took her hat and raincoat, wriggling meanwhile into a coat of his +own, arranged a big chair before the grate, then removed her rubbers. +Not a question did he ask, and Sister Annie's greeting presently, from +her chair, was quite the same--as if the visit and the hour were exactly +in order. + +"You'll stay a day or two, won't you?" he asked. "Honestly, I don't like +the way they treat you up there beyond the Park.... It will be fine +to-morrow. This soft rain will make Mother Earth turn over and take an +eye-opener----" + +"The truth is, I want to stay until there's a ship for the Antilles," +she told him, "and I don't know when the first one goes." + +"I hope it's a week at least," he said briskly. "The morning papers are +here with all the sailings. A sea-voyage will do you a world of good, +and Europe doesn't compare with a trip to the Caribbean." + +"Just you two--and one other--are to know," Paula added nervously. + +Reifferscheid had gathered up a bundle of papers, and was turning pages +swiftly. "There isn't a reason in the world why everybody should know," +he remarked lightly, "only you'd better be Lottie or Daisy +Whats-her-name, as the cabin lists of all outgoing ships are available +to any one who looks." + +"Tim will be delighted to make everything easy for you," Sister Annie +put in. + +Thus mountains dissolved. The soulful accord and the instant sympathy +which sprang to meet her every word, and the valor behind it all, so +solid as to need no explanation--were more than Paula could bear.... +Reifferscheid looked up from his papers, finding that she did not speak, +started with embarrassment, and darted to the buffet. A moment later he +had given her a glass of wine and vanished from the room with an armful +of newspapers. The door had no sooner closed upon him than Paula +discovered the outstretched arms of Sister Annie. In the several moments +which followed her heart was healed and soothed through a half-forgotten +luxury.... + +"The twin-screw liner, _Fruitlands_,--do you really want the first?" +Reifferscheid interrupted himself, when he was permitted to enter later. + +"Yes." + +"Well, it sails in forty-eight hours, or a little less--Savannah, +Santiago de Cuba, San Juan de Porto Rico--and down to the little +Antilles--Tuesday night at ten o'clock at the foot of Manhattan." + +"That will do very well," Paula said, "and I'd like to go straight to +the ship from here--if you'll----" + +"Berth--transportation--trunks--and sub-let your flat, if you like," +Reifferscheid said as gleefully as a boy invited for a week's hunt. +"Why, Miss Linster, I am the original arrangement committee." + +"You have always been wonderful to me," Paula could not help saying, +though it shattered his ease. "This one other who must know is Madame +Nestor. She'll take care of my flat and pack things for me--if you'll +get a message to her in the morning when you go over. I don't expect to +be gone so long that it will be advisable to sub-let." + +"Which is emphatically glad tidings," Reifferscheid remarked hastily. + +"You'll want all your summer clothes," said Sister Annie. "Tim will see +to your trunks." + +"Sometime, I'll make it all plain," Paula tried to say steadily. "It's +just been life to me--this coming here--and knowing that I could come +here----" + +"Miss Linster," Reifferscheid broke in, "I don't want to have to +disappear again. The little things you need done, I'd do for any one in +the office. Please bear in mind that Sister Annie and I would be +hurt--if you didn't let us do them. Why, we belong--in a case like this. +Incidentally, you are doing a bully thing--to take a sail down past that +toy-archipelago. They say you can hear the parakeets screeching out from +the palm-trees on the shore, and each island has a different smell of +spice. It will be great for you--rig you out with a new set of wings. +You must take Hearn along. I've got his volume here on the West Indies. +He'll tell you the color of the water your ship churns. Each day farther +south it's a different blue----" + +So he jockeyed her into laughing, and she slept long and dreamlessly +that night, as she had done once before in the same room.... The second +night following, Reifferscheid put her aboard the _Fruitlands_. + +"It's good you thought of taking your cabin under a borrowed name, +Miss--er--Wyndam--Miss Laura Wyndam," he said in a low voice, for the +passengers were moving about. "I'll write you all about it. You have +famous friends. Selma Cross, who is playing at the _Herriot_, wanted to +know where you were. I thought for a minute she was going to throw me +down and take it away from me. Quentin Charter, by the way, is in town +and asked about you. Seemed depressed when I told him you were out of +town, and hadn't sent your address to me yet. I told him and Miss Cross +that mail for you sent to _The States_ would get to you eventually. Both +said they would write--so you'll hear from them on the ship that follows +this." He glanced at her queerly for a second, and added, "Good-by, and +a blessed voyage to you, Tired Lady. Write us how the isles bewitch you, +and I'll send you a package of books every ship or two----" + +"Good-by--my first of friends!" + +Two hours afterward Paula took a last turn on deck. The spray swept in +gusts over the _Fruitlands's_ dipping prow. The bare masts, tipped with +lights, swung with a giant sweep from port to starboard and back to port +again, fingering the black heavens for the blown-out stars. She was +lonely, but not altogether miserable, out there on the tossing floor of +the Atlantic.... + + + + +SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF SAINT PIERRE, WHERE +_LA MONTAGNE PELÉE_ GIVES WARNING + + +Wonderfully strengthened, she was, by the voyage. Sorrow had destroyed +large fields of verdure, and turned barren the future, but its devouring +was finished. Quentin Charter was adjusted in her mind to a duality with +which Paula Linster could have no concern. Only to one mistress could he +be faithful; indeed, it was only in the presence of this mistress that +he became the tower of visions to another; in the midst of the work he +worshipped, Quentin Charter had heard the Skylark sing. Paula did not +want to see him again, nor Selma Cross. To avoid these two, as well as +the place where the Destroyer had learned so well to penetrate, she had +managed not to return to her apartment during the two days before +sailing.... There would never be another master-romance--never again so +rich a giving, nor so pure an ideal. Before this tragic reality, the +inner glory of her womanhood became meaningless. It was this that made +the future a crossing of sterile tundras,--yet she would keep her +friends, and love her work, and try to hold her faith.... + +Bellingham did not call her at sea, but he had frightened her too +profoundly to be far from mind. The face she had seen in the hall-way +was drawn and disordered by the dreadful tortures of nether-planes; and +awful in the eyes, was that feline vacancy of soul. Once in a dream, she +saw him--a pale reptile-monster upreared from a salty sea, voiceless in +that oceanic isolation, a shameful secret of the depths. The ghastly +bulk had risen with a mute protest to the sky against dissolution and +creeping decay--and sounded again.... + +To her, Bellingham was living death, the triumph of desire which rends +itself, the very essence of tragedy. She gladly would have died to make +her race see the awfulness of _just flesh_--as she saw it now.... His +power seemed ended; she felt with the Reifferscheids and Madame Nestor, +that her secret was hermetic, and there was a goodly sense of security +in the intervening sea.... + +And now there was a new island each day; each morning a fresh garden +arose from the Caribbean--sun-wooed, rain-softened isles with colorful +little ports.... There was one tropic city--she could not recall the +name--which from the offing had looked like the flower-strewn gateway to +an amphitheatre of mountains. + +The _Fruitlands_ had lain for a day in the hot, sharky harbor of +Santiago; had run into a real cloudburst off the Silver Reefs of Santo +Domingo, and breathed on the radiant next morning before the stately and +ancient city of San Juan de Porto Rico--shining white as a dream-castle +of old Spain, and adrift in an azure world of sky and sea. She spent a +day and an evening in this isle of ripe fruits and riper amours; and +took away materials for a memory composite of interminable siestas, +restless radiant nights, towering cliffs, incomparable courtesy, and +soft-voiced maidens with wondrous Spanish eyes that laugh and turn away. + +Then for two days they had steamed down past the saintly +archipelago--St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Kitts; then Montserrat, +Guadeloupe, Dominica, and a legion of littler isles--truncated peaks +jutting forth from fragrant, tinted water. There were afternoons when +she did not care to lift her voice or move about. Fruit-juices and the +simplest salads, a flexible cane chair under the awnings, a book to rest +the eyes from the gorgeous sea and enchanted shores, somnolence rather +than sleep--these are enough for the approach to perfection in the +Caribbean, with the Lesser Antilles on the lee.... Then at last in late +afternoon, the great hulking shape of Pelée loomed watery green against +the sky; in the swift-speeding twilight, the volcano seemed to swell and +blacken until it was like the shadow of a continent, and the lights of +Saint Pierre pricked off the edge of the land. + +At last late at night, queerly restless, she sat alone on deck in the +windless roadstead and regarded the illumined terraces of Saint Pierre. +They had told her that the breath from Martinique was like the heavy +moist sweetness of a horticultural garden, but the island must have been +sick with fever this night, for a mile at sea the land-breeze was dry, +devitalized, irritating the throat and nostrils. + +There was no moon, and the stars were so faint in the north that the +mass of Pelée was scarcely shaped against the sky. The higher lights of +the city had a reddish uncertain glow, as if a thin film of fog hung +between them and the eye; but to the south the night cleared into pure +purple and unsullied tropic stars. The harbor was weirdly hot. + +Before her was the city which held the quest of her voyaging--Father +Fontanel, the holy man of Saint Pierre.... _Only a stranger can realize +what a pure shining garment his actual flesh has become. To me there was +healing in the very approach of the man...._ This was the enduring +fragment from the Charter letters; and in that dreadful Sunday night +when she began her flight from Bellingham, already deep within her mind +Father Fontanel was the goal.... Paula set out for shore early the next +morning. The second-officer of the _Fruitlands_ sat beside her in the +launch. She spoke of the intense sultriness. + +"Yes, Saint Pierre is glowing like a brazier," he said. "I was ashore +last night for awhile. The people blame the mountain. Old Pelée has been +acting up--showering the town with ash every little while lately. It's +the taint of sulphur that spoils the air." + +She turned apprehensively toward the volcano. _La Montague Pelée_, over +the red-tiled roofs of Saint Pierre, looked huge like an Emperor of the +Romans. Paled in the intense morning light, he wore a delicate ruching +of white cloud about his crown. They stepped ashore on the Sugar Landing +where Paula found a carriage to take her to the _Hotel des Palms_, a +rare old plantation-house on the _Morne d'Orange_, recently converted +for public use. + +The ponies were ascending the rise in _Rue Victor Hugo_, at the southern +end of the city, when Paula discovered the little Catholic church she +had imaged for so many weeks, _Notre Dame des Lourdes_, niched away in +the crowded streets with a Quebec-like quaintness, and all the holier +from its close association with the lowly shops. From these walls had +risen the spiritual house of Father Fontanel--her far bright beacon.... +The _porteuses_, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident, +wore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails, +steadying the baskets upon their heads. The pressure of the heat, and +the dispiriting atmosphere revealed their effects in the distended +eyelids and colorless, twisted lips of the burden-bearers. + +The ponies at length gained the eminence of the _Morne d'Orange_, and +ahead she saw the broad, white plantation-house--_Hotel des Palms_. To +the right was the dazzling, turquoise sea where the _Fruitlands_ lay +large among the shipping, and near her a private sea-going yacht, nearly +as long and angelically white. The broad verandas of the hotel were +alluring with palms; the walls and portcullises were cooled with +embroidering vines. Gardens flamed with poinsettias and roses, and a +shaded grove of mango and India trees at the end of the lawn, was edged +with moon flowerets and oleanders. Back of the plantation-house waved +the sloping seas of cane; in front, the Caribbean. On the south rose the +peaks of Carbet; on the north, the Monster. + +Paula had hardly left the veranda of magnificent vistas two hours later, +when the friendly captain of the _Fruitlands_ approached with an elderly +American, of distinguished appearance, whom he presented--Mr. Peter +Stock, of Pittsburg. + +"Since you are to leave us here, Miss Wyndam," the captain added, "I +thought you would be glad to know Mr. Stock, who makes an annual cruise +around these Islands--and knows them better than any American I've +encountered yet. Yonder is his yacht--that clipper-built beauty just a +bit in from the liner." + +"I've already been admiring the yacht," Paula said, "and wondering her +name. There's something Venetian about her dazzling whiteness in the +soft, deep blue." + +"I get it exactly, Miss Wyndam--that 'mirage of marble' in the Italian +sky.... My craft is the _Saragossa_." His eyelids were tightened against +the light, and the voice was sharp and brisk. His face, tropically +tanned, contrasted effectively with the close-cropped hair and mustache, +lustrous-white as his ship.... Paula having found the captain's courtesy +and good sense invariable during the voyage, gladly accepted his friend, +who proved most interesting on the matter of Pelée. + +"I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual," he told her, +pointing toward the mountain, "to study the old man yonder. Pelée, you +know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of +Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present +disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell--I use the word to +signify a geological stratum--is very close to the surface down here. +All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great +subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time +under the Caribbean--and rub out our very pretty panorama." + +"You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?" Paula asked. + +The vaguest sort of a smile passed over his eyes and touched his lips. +"Pelée and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of +these islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the +archipelago--Pelée's present internal complaint, for instance,--should +be taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this +morning--except for the heavy rain before dawn." + +"You mean volcanic ash?" + +"Exactly." + +"That explains the white scum I saw in the gutters, driving through the +city.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to +behave this way?" + +"From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelée has had a +session of grumbling." + +"I mean as a usual thing----" + +He turned to her abruptly and inquired, "Didn't you know that there +hasn't been a sound from Pelée for twenty years before the month of +April now ending?" + +This gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now, +but after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda. + +"Ever been in Pittsburg?" he asked. + +"No." + +"I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air--to think I'm back +among the steel mills of the lower Monongahela." + +"The moon looks like beaten egg," Paula said with a slight shiver. "They +must be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelée, Mr. +Stock, please tell me more about him." + +He had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet +peaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics, +but was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. "It's the +ash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen," he +explained. "We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain." + +They turned to the north where a low rumbling was heard. It was like +distant thunder, but the horizon beyond Pelée was unscathed by +lightning. + +"Are you really worried, Mr. Stock?" + +"Why, it's as I said. The fact that Pelée is acting out of the ordinary +is quite enough to make any one skeptical regarding his intentions." + +He discussed familiarly certain of the man-eaters among the mountains of +the world--Krakatoa, Bandaisan, Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, Ætna, calling them +chronic old ruffians, whom Time doesn't tame. + +"A thousand years is nothing to them," he added. "They wait, still as +crocodiles, until seers have built their temples in the high rifts and +cities have formed on their flanks. They have tasted blood, you see, and +the madness comes back. Twenty years is only a siesta. Pelée is a +suspect." + +"I think I should prefer to hear you tell the treachery of volcanoes +outside of the fire-zone," she declared. "It's like listening to ghost +stories in a haunted house." + +Pelée rumbled again, and Paula's fingers involuntarily started toward +his sleeve. The heavy wooden shutters of the great house rattled in the +windless night; the ground upon which they stood seemed to wince at the +Monster's pain. She was conscious of the fragrance of roses and magnolia +blooms above the acrid taint of the air. Some strange freak of the +atmosphere exerted a pressure upon the flowers, forcing a sudden +expulsion of perfume. The young moon was a formless blotch now in the +fouled sky. A sigh like the whimpering of many sick children was audible +from the servants' cabins behind the hotel.... Later, from her own room, +she saw the double chain of lights out in the harbor--the _Saragossa_ +pulling at her moorings among the lesser craft, like a bright empress in +the midst of dusky maid-servants; and in the north was Vulcan struggling +to contain the fury of his fluids. She was a little afraid of Pelée. + +Very early abroad, Paula set out on her first pilgrimage to _Notre Dame +des Lourdes_. Rain had not fallen in the night, and she regarded a white +world, as Stock had promised, and the source of the phenomenon with the +pastelle tints of early morning upon his huge eastern slope. She had +slept little and with her face turned to the north. A cortege had passed +before her in dream--all the destroyers of history, each with a vivid +individuality, like the types of faces of all nations--the story of each +and the desolation it had made among men and the works of men. + +Most of them had given warning. Pelée was warning now. His warning was +written upon the veins of every leaf, painted upon the curve of every +blade of grass, sheeted evenly-white upon the red tiles of every roof. +Gray dust blown by steam from the bursting quarries of the mountain +clogged the gutters of the city and the throats of men. It was a moving, +white cloud in the river, a chalky shading that marked the highest reach +of the harbor tide. It settled in the hair of the children, and +complicated the toil of bees in the nectar-cups. With league-long +cerements, and with a voice that caused to tremble his dwarfed +companions, the hills and _mornes_, great Pelée had proclaimed his +warning in the night. + + + + +EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT PIERRE AND _THE +PANTHER_ CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL + + +Father Fontanel was out in the parish somewhere. One of the washer-women +told her this, at the door of the church. There were many sick in the +city from the great heat and the burned air--many little children sick. +Father Fontanel always sought the sick in body; those who were sick in +soul, sought him.... So the woman of the river-banks, in her simple way, +augmented the story of the priest's love for his people. Paula rested +for a few moments in the dim transept. Natives moved in and out for a +breath of coolness, some pausing to kneel upon the worn tiles of the +nave. Later she walked among the lower streets of the suffering city, +her heart filled with pity for the throngs housed on the low breathless +water-front. Except when the wind was straight from the volcano, the +hotel on the _Morne d'Orange_ was made livable by the cool Trades. + +The clock in the _Hopital l'Militaire_ struck the hour of nine. Paula +had just hired a carriage at the Sugar Landing, when her eye was +attracted by a small crowd gathering near the water's edge. The black +cassock of a priest in the midst drew her hurrying forward. A young man, +she thought at first, from the frail shoulders and the slender waist.... +A negress had fallen from the heat. Her burdens lay together upon the +shore--a tray of cakes from her head, and a naked babe from her arms.... +A glimpse at the priest's profile, and she needed not to be told that +this was the holy man of Saint Pierre. + +Happiness lived in the face above the deep pity of the moment. It was an +attraction of light, like the brow of Mary in Murillo's _Immaculate +Conception_; or like that instant ethereal radiance which shines from +the face of a little child passing away without pain. The years had put +an exquisite nobility upon the plain countenance, and the inner life had +added the gleam of adoration--"the rapture-light of holy vigils kept." + +Paula rubbed her eyes, afraid lest it were not true; afraid for a moment +that it was her own meditations that had wrought this miracle in clay. +Lingering, she ceased to doubt the soul's transfiguration.... Father +Fontanel beckoned a huge negro from a lighter laden with +molasses-casks--a man of strength, bare to the waist. + +"Take the little mother to my house," he said. + +A young woman standing by was given charge of the child.... "Lift her +gently, Strong Man. The woman will show you the way to the door." Then +raising his voice to the crowd, the priest added, "You who are +well--tell others that it is yet cool in the church. Carry the ailing +ones there, and the little children. Father Pelée will soon be silent +again.... Does any one happen to know who owns the beautiful ship in the +harbor?" + +His French sentences seemed lifted above a pervasive hush upon the +shore. The native faces wore a curious look of adulation; and Paula +marvelled in that they seemed unconscious of this. She was not a +Catholic; yet she uttered his name with a thrilling rapture, and with a +meaning she had never known before: + +"Father Fontanel----" + +He turned, instantly divining her inspiration. + +"Mr. Stock, who owns the ship yonder, is staying at the _Hotel des +Palms_," she said quickly. "I have a carriage here. I was thinking that +the sick woman and her child might be taken to your house in that. +Afterward, when she is cared for, you might wish to ride with me to the +Hotel--where I also live." + +"Why, yes, Child--who are you?" + +"Just a visitor in Saint Pierre--a woman from the States." + +Her arrangement was followed, and the negro went back to his work. +Father Fontanel joined her behind the carriage. + +"But you speak French so well," he observed. + +"Not a few Americans do. I was grateful that it came back to me here." + +"Yes, for I do not speak a word of English," he said humbly. + +They walked for a moment in silence, his head bowed in thought. Paula, +glancing at him from time to time, studied the lines of pity and +tenderness which shadowed the eyes. His mouth was wonderful to her, +quite as virgin to the iron of self-repression as to the soft fullness +of physical desire. This was the marvel of the face--it was above +battle. Here were eyes that had seen the Glory and retained an unearthly +happiness--a face that moved among the lowly, loved, pitied, abode with +them; yet was beautiful with the spiritual poise of Overman. + +"It was strange that you did not meet Lafcadio Hearn when he was here," +she said at length. + +He shook his head, asked the name again and the man's work. + +"A writer who tarried here; a mystic, too, strange and strong." + +"I know no writer by that name--but how did you know that I did not meet +him, Child?" + +"I was thinking he would write about you in his book of Martinique +sketches--had he known." + +He accepted the explanation innocently. "There was a writer here--a +young man very dear to me--of whom you reminded me at once----" + +"Of whom I reminded you, Father?" she repeated excitedly. "You mean +because I spoke of another writer?" + +"No, I saw a resemblance--rather some relationship of yours to my +wonderful young friend.... He said he would come again to me." + +She had spoken of Hearn in the hope that Father Fontanel would be +reminded of another writer whose name she did not care to mention. His +idea of relationship startled her to the heart; yet when she asked +further, the good man could not explain. It had merely been his first +thought, he said,--as if she had _come_ from his friend. + +"You thought much of him then, Father Fontanel?" + +He spoke with power now. "A character of terrible thirsts, Child,--such +thirsts as I have never known. Some moments as he walked beside me, I +have felt him--like a giant with wolves pulling at his thighs, and +angels lifting his arms. Great strength of mind, his presence endowed +me, so that I would have seen more of him, and more,--but he will come +back! And I know that the wolves shall have been slain, when he comes +again----" + +"And the angels, Father?" she whispered. + +"Such are the companions of the Lifted, my daughter.... It is when I +meet one of great conflicts that I am suffused with the spirit of +worship in that I am spared. God makes my way so easy that I must wonder +if I am not one of His very weak. It must be so, for my mornings and +evenings are made lovely by the Presence. My people hearken unto my +prayers for them; they love me and bring their little children for my +blessing--until I am so happy that I cry aloud for some great work to do +that I may strive heroically to show my gratitude to God--and lo, the +doors of my work are opened, but there are no lions in the way!" + +She knew now all that Charter had meant. In her breast was a silent +mystic stirring--akin to that endearing miracle enacted in a +conservatory of flowers, when the morning sun first floods down upon the +glass.... The initial doubt of her own valor in suffering Selma Cross to +shatter her Tower, sprang into being now. Father Fontanel loved him, and +had looked within. + +That the priest had perceived a "relationship" swept into the woman's +soul. Low logic wrought from the physical contacts of Selma Cross +trembled before the other immaterial suggestion--that Quentin Charter +would come back to Saint Pierre triumphantly companioned, his wolves +slain.... She forgot nothing of the actress's point of view; nor that +the Westerner did not reach her floor in the _Zoroaster_ and encounter +an old attraction by accident. He was not one to force his way there, if +the man at the elevator told him Miss Linster was not in. All of these +things which had driven her to action were still inexplicable, but final +condemnation was gone from the evidence--as the stone rolled away. + +Bellingham?... The mystery now, as she stood within this radiant aura, +was that any point of his desire could ever have found lodgment within. +Her sense of protection at this moment was absolute. She had done well +to come here.... Again swept into mind, Quentin Charter's silent part in +saving her from the Destroyer--the book, the letter, the voice; even to +this sanctuary she had come through a sentence from him. For a moment +the old master-romance shone glorious again--like a lone, valiant star +glimpsed in the rift of storm-hurled clouds. + +They had reached the low street door of Father Fontanel's house, a wing +of the church. A native doctor had been summoned and helped to carry the +woman in. She was revived presently. + +"Father," Paula said, remembering the words of the washer-woman, as they +emerged into the street, "when one is sick of soul--does one knock +here?" + +"One does not knock, but enters straightway," he answered. "The door is +never locked.... But you look very happy, my daughter." + +"I am happy," she answered. + + * * * * * + +They drove together to the _Hotel des Palms_. Paula did not ask, though +she had something of an idea regarding the priest's purpose in asking +for Peter Stock. Though she had formed a very high opinion of the +American, it occurred to her that he would hardly approve of any one +directing arteries of philanthropy to his hand. He had been one of those +ruffian giants of the elder school of finance who began with the axe and +the plow; whose health, character and ethics had been wrought upon the +anvil of privation; whose culture began in middle life, and, being +hard-earned, was eminent in the foreground of mind--austere and +inelastic, this culture, yet solidly founded. Stock was rich and loved +to give, but was rather ashamed of it. Paula could imagine him saying, +"I hate the whining of the strong." For twenty years since his +retirement, he had voyaged about the world, learning to love beautiful +things, and giving possibly many small fortunes away; yet he much would +have preferred to acknowledge that he had knocked down a brute than +endowed an asylum. Mr. Stock was firm in opinion, dutiful in +appreciation for the fine. His sayings were strongly savored, reliant +with facts; his every thought was the result of a direct physical +process of mind,--a mind athletic to grip the tangible, but which had +not yet contracted for its spiritual endowment. In a word a splendid +type of American with which to blend an ardently artistic +temperament.... Paula, holding something of this conception of the +capitalist, became eager to see what adjustment could follow a meeting +with his complement in characteristic qualities--her revered mystic. Mr. +Stock was pacing up and down the mango grove. Leaving Father Fontanel on +the veranda, she joined the American. + +"I found a holy man down on the water-front, mildly inquiring who owned +the _Saragossa_," she said laughingly, "and asked him to share my +carriage. He has not told me what he wants, but he's a very wonderful +priest." + +She noted the instant contraction of his brows, and shrank inwardly at +the hard, rapid tone, with which he darted the question: + +"Are you a Catholic?" + +"No, Mr. Stock." + +"Yes. I'll see him." It was as if he were talking to his secretary, but +Paula liked him too well to mind. They drew near the veranda. + +"... Well, sir, what is it?" he spoke brusquely, and in French, studying +the priest's upturned face. Mr. Stock believed he knew faces. Except for +the years and the calling, he would have decided that Father Fontanel +was rather too meek and feminine--at first glance. + +"What I wished to ask depends upon your being here for a day or two," +the priest said readily. "Father Pelée's hot breath is killing our +children in the lower quarters of the city, and many of the poor women +are suffering. The ship out in the harbor looked to me like a good angel +with folded wings, as I walked the water-front this morning. I thought +you would be glad to let me send some mothers and babies--to breathe the +good air of the offing. A day, or a night and a day, may save lives." + +Paula had felt a proprietary interest in Father Fontanel's mission, no +matter what it proved to be. She was pleased beyond measure to find that +he was entirely incapable of awe or cringing, before a man of stern and +distinguished mien and of such commanding dignity. Moreover, he stated +the favor quite as if it were an advantage which the American had not +thought of for himself. So interested was she in the priest's utterance, +that when her eyes turned from his face to Stock's--the alteration there +amazed her. And like the natives of the water-front, the American did +not seem to be _aware_ of the benign influence. He had followed the +French sentences intently at first, but caught the whole idea before the +priest was finished. + +"Did you know I wasn't a Catholic?" he asked. The question apparently +had been in his mind before he felt himself responding to the appeal. + +"No," Father Fontanel answered sincerely. "The truth is, it didn't occur +to me whether you were or not." + +"Quite right," Mr. Stock said quickly. "It has no place, whatever, so +long as you don't think so. You've got a good idea. I'll be here for a +day or two. You'll need money to hire boats; then my first officer will +have to be informed. My launch is at the Sugar Landing.... On second +thought, I'll go back down-town with you.... Miss Wyndam--later in the +day--a chat with you?" + +"Of course." + +Father Fontanel turned, thanking her with a smile. "And the name is +'Wyndam,'" he added. "I had not heard it before." + +Paula watched them walking down the driveway to the carriage which she +had retained for Father Fontanel. The inclination was full-formed to +seek the solitude of her room and there review the whole delightful +matter.... She was glad that the priest had not asked her name, for +under his eyes--she could not have answered "Wyndam." + +It was not until the following evening, after a day of actual physical +suffering from Pelée and the heat, even on the _Morne_, that she had the +promised talk with Peter Stock. + +"I like your priest," he said, "He works like a man, and he hasn't got a +crook in his back. What he wants he seems to get. I have sent over a +hundred natives out yonder on the _Saragossa_, negotiated for the town's +whole available supply of fresh milk, and Laird, my chief officer, is +giving the party a little cruise to-night----" + +"Do you know--I think it is splendid?" she exclaimed. + +"What?" + +"The work--your ship filled with gasping unfortunates from the city!" + +"Do you happen to know of any reason why an idle ship should not be used +for some such purpose?" + +"None, whatever," she said demurely, quite willing that he should adjust +the matter to suit himself. His touchiness upon the subject of his own +benefactions remanded her pleasurably of Reifferscheid. Her inward joy +was to study in Peter Stock the unacknowledged influence of Father +Fontanel--or was it an unconscious influence? The American's further +activities unfolded: + +"By the way, have you been reading the French paper here--_Les +Colonies_?" + +Paula had not. + +"The editor, M. Mondet, is the smug authority for a statement yesterday +that Saint Pierre is in absolutely no danger from the mountain. Now, of +course, this may be true, but he doesn't know it--unless he should have +the Dealer in Destiny on the wire. There is always a big enough +percentage of foolish virgins in a city, so it peeved me to find one in +the sole editorial capacity. My first impulse was to calk up the throat +of M. Mondet with several sheets of his abominable assurances. This I +restrained, but nevertheless I called upon him to-day. His next issue +appears day after to-morrow, and my idea is for him to print a vigorous +warning against Pelée. Why, he could clear the town of ten thousand +people for a few days--until the weather settles. Incidentally, if the +mountain took on a sudden destroying streak--just see what he would have +done! Some glory in saving lives on that scale." + +"Vine leaves, indeed," said Paula, "Did M. Mondet tell you he would +print this warning?" + +"Not exactly. He pointed out the cost of detaching a third of the city's +inhabitants. I told him how this cost could be brought down within +reason, and showed myself not unwilling to back the exodus. I'm a +practical man, Miss Wyndam, and these things look bigger than they +really are. But you never can tell what a tubby little Frenchman will +do. It's atrocious for a man in his position to say that a volcano won't +volcane--sorely tempting to old Father Pelée--a sort of challenge. It +would be bad enough to play Pilate and wash his hands of the city's +danger--but to be a white-lipped, kissing Judas at the last supper of +Saint Pierre----" + +"Did you tell him that?" Paula asked hastily. + +"Not in those words, Miss Wyndam, but he seemed to be a bit afraid of +me--kept watching my hands and pulling at his cravat. When he finally +showed me to the door, his was the delicacy of one who handles dynamite. +At all events, I'm waiting for his next issue to see if my call 'took!' +I really do wish that a lot of these people would forget their clothes, +chickens, coals, coins, and all such, for a few days and camp somewhere +between here and Fort de France." + +Paula was thrilled by the American's zeal. He was not content, now that +he had begun, to deal with boatloads, but wanted to stir the city. She +would have given much to know the exact part of Father Fontanel in this +rousing ardor of her new friend. "And you really think Pelée may not +hold out?" she asked. + +"I'm not a monomaniac--at least, not yet," he replied, and his voice +suggested a certain pent savagery in his brain. "Call it an experiment +that I'm sufficiently interested in to finance. The ways of volcanoes +are past the previsions of men. I'd like to get a lot of folks out of +the fire-zone, until Pelée is cool--or a billion tons lighter. This +ordered-up-to-Nineveh business is out of my line, but it's absorbing. I +don't say that Pelée will blow his head off this week or this +millennium, but I do say that there are vaults of explosives in that +monster, the smallest of which could make this city look like a leper's +corpse upon the beach. I say that the internal fires are burning high; +that they're already playing about the vital cap; that Pelée has already +sprung several leaks, and that the same force which lifted this cheerful +archipelago from the depths of the sea is pressing against the craters +at this moment. I say that Vesuvius warned before he broke; that +Krakatoa warned and then struck; that down the ages these safety valves +scattered over the face of the earth have mercifully joggled before +giving way; that Pelée is joggling now." + +"If M. Mondet would write just that," Paula said softly, "I think you +would have your exodus." + +She sought her room shortly afterward. Pelée's moods had been variable +that day. The north had been obscured by a fresh fog in the afternoon. +The ash and sulphur fumes, cruel to the lungs on the breezy _Morne_, six +miles from the craters, gave her an intimation of the anguish of the +people in the intervening depression where the city lay. The twilight +had brought ease again and a ten-minute shower, so there was real +freshness in the early evening. Rippling waves of merriment reached her +from the darky quarters, as the young men from the fields came forth to +bathe in the sea. Never before was the volatile tropic soul so strongly +evidenced for her understanding, as in that glad hour of +reaction--simple hearts to glow at little things, whose swift tragedies +come and go like blighting winds which, though they may slay, leave no +wound; instant to gladden in the groves of serenity, when a black cloud +has blown by. + +Her mind was sleepless.... Once, long after midnight, when she fell into +a doze, it was only to be awakened by a dream of a garrote upon her +throat. The ash had thickened again, and the air was acrid. The hours +seemed to fall asleep in passing. From her balcony she peered into the +dead-black of the North where Pelée rumbled at intervals. Back in the +south, the blurred moon impended with an evil light. A faint wailing of +children reached her from the servants' cabins. The sense of isolation +was dreadful for a moment. It seemed to rest entirely with her that time +passed at all; that she must grapple with each moment and fight it back +into the past.... + +The _Panther_, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint +Pierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the passing of time, +determined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day, +if morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision, +for she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched +and brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The glass showed her a +pallid face, darkly-lined. + +The blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it +touched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered +in that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down +through the city to the Landing she found the _Rue Victor Hugo_ almost +deserted. The _porteuses_ were gone from the highway; all doors were +tightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes +were stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little +island mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely +moved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she +imagined the smell of death. + + * * * * * + +"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years," the captain said, as +she boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had +fallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre +that day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately +after dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with +the dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the +volcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she +perceived the lights of a big liner lying near the _Saragossa_. There +was no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be the +_Panther_ with letters from New York. According to her schedule, the +steamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after the _Fruitlands_. +Paula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails +would be distributed. + +"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the +Hotel?" the clerk inquired. + +"Yes." + +"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. The _Panther_ +anchored at two this morning." + +"Please send any letters for me to my room at once," she told him, and +went there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame +Nestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon +another, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his +care to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma +Cross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself. + +The latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big +envelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account +of those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work +and a hope for her health--the whole, brief, fine and tonic--like her +friend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of +emotions: + + This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have + ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten + you that I searched, but because I think if you understood + entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had + better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she + has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her + those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the + truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter. + I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I + had the heart yet to see _The Thing_. Reifferscheid tells me + that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I + counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now + with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for + one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and + subtly terrifying--this ordeal for which I have been prepared. + I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What + I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you + suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you + to-night--sweet gift of the world to me. + + Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy + complications--and you will bring back a splendid store of + energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written + so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me + drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity--but I + have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and + it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning. + + I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without + you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go + away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary--when I + decide upon it--at the _Granville_. Some time soon I shall hear + from you. All shall be restored--even serenity to your + beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business + of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through + and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to + make you wiser, happier,--to keep you _winged_. This, as I know + the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you.... + + My window at the _Granville_ faces the East--the East to which + I have come--yet from the old ways, I still look to the East + for you. New York has found her Spring--a warm, almost vernal + night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths + are fluttering at the glass--softly, eagerly to get at the + light--as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for + the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the + electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... but _you_ would + not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the + light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, + but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame.... + + One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table + like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way + in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance.... + + Bless your warm heart that brims with singing--singing which I + must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease + to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless--as + I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the + heart of Quentin Charter. + +She was unconscious of passing time, until her eye was attracted by the +heavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon a _Herriot Theatre_ envelope. This +communication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose +intrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it +seemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to +write, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives. + + I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the + hall _that night_, because I saw your hat as you started to + walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made + me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him + come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been + hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home + that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I + sent a telephone-message to the _Granville_ for him to call. + He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would + not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, + he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man + at the _Zoroaster_ had orders from me to show a gentleman + inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment. + + My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in + what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that + night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall--to hear at + once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that + _we_ had arranged--that you were somewhere in the apartment + listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words--there is so much, + and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The + woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat + so helplessly against a wall. + + But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. + Villiers had a spy watching all our movements--and was thus + informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter + had talked to men--all the things that his spy had learned. He + did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. + Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is + not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he + would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that + if it is not you--some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart + and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic + possibility of calling him to the _Zoroaster_ blinded my + judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have + the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old + neighbor--who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the + world, but who meant to be square with you. + +Paula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment +with healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched +arms, poured forth an ecstasy of gratitude for his sake; for the +restoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her +womanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat +occurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease +of mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for +New York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when +Madame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first +line brought back old fears: + + I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard + that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two + hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang + and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes + and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,--the + desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he + had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost + instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control + was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was + gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed + by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was + gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will + help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the + interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your + place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost + unbearable that I should be forced to tell him--when I love you + so--if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered + terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his + powers--that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not + formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into + mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to + be the victory. He is breaking up or he would not _come to + you_.... + +For a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelée, and the gray menace +that charged the burnt-out air. + +Then came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never +locked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising +vibration--until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized +again.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the +key in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling +Charter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new +mental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the +balustrade for the repetition of a voice that an instant before had +thrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from +the Voice. Peter Stock was now replying: + +"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor," he said striding +up and down the lower hall in his rage. "A few days ago I called upon +him, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy +for him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of +insufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the +flakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall +have to call upon him again." + +Paula heard the low laugh of the other and the words: + +"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the +mountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a +line about Pelée's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed +at once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see the _Saragossa_ +lying familiarly in the roadstead----" + +Trailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her +way back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked. + + + + +NINETEENTH CHAPTER + +QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF _PELÉE_, AND ENCOUNTERS A +QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER + + +Charter did not find Paula Linster in the week of New York that followed +his call at the _Zoroaster_, but he found Quentin Charter. The first +three or four days were rather intense in a psychological way. The old +vibrations of New York invariably contained for him a destructive +principle, as Paris held for Dr. Duprez. The furious consumption of +nerve-tissue during the first evening after his arrival; a renewal of +desires operating subconsciously, and in no small part through the +passion of Selma Cross; his last struggle, both subtle and furious, with +his own stimulus-craving temperament, and the desolation of the true +romance--combined, among other things, worthily to test the growth of +his spirit.... The thought that Skylark had fallen into the hands of +Selma Cross, and had been given that ugly estimate of him which the +actress held before his call, as he expressed it in his letter, "drove +straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity." Over this, was a +ghastly, whimpering thing that would not be immured--the effect of +which, of all assailants to rising hope, was most scarifying: That Paula +Linster had suffered herself to listen to those old horrors, and had +permitted him to be called to the bar before Selma Cross. No matter how +he handled this, it held a fundamental lesion in the Skylark-fineness. + +Charter whipped his wastrel tendencies one by one until on the fifth day +his resistance hardened, and the brute within him was crippled from +beating against it. His letter to Paula Linster was a triumph of +repression. Probably one out of six of the thoughts that came to him +were given expression. He felt that he had made of Selma Cross an +implacable enemy, and was pursued by the haunting dread (if, indeed, the +conversation had not been overheard), that she might think better about +"squaring" him. It was on this fifth day that for a moment the mystic +attraction returned to his consciousness, and he heard the old singing. +This was the first reward for a chastened spirit. Again and +again--though never consciously to be lured or forced--the vision, +unhurt, undiminished, returned for just an instant with a veiled, but +exquisite refinement. + +The newspaper account of Pelée's overflowing wrath immediately +materialized all his vague thought of voyaging. His quest had vanished +from New York. Had Selma Cross been true to her word; at least, had any +part of their interview been empowered to restore something of the faith +of Paula Linster--there had been ample time for him to hear it. He was +afraid that, in itself, his old intimacy with the actress had been +enough to startle the Skylark into uttermost flight. Reifferscheid's +frigidity had required only one test to become a deep trouble. His hint +that Miss Linster would be away two or three months rendered New York +and a return to his own home equally impossible. Father Fontanel held a +bright, substantial warmth for his isolated spirit--and the _Panther_ +was among the imminent sailings. + +He bought his berth and passage on the morning of the sailing date, and +there was a matinée of _The Thing_ in the meantime. Charter did not +notify Selma Cross of his coming, but he liked the play unreservedly, +and was amazed by the perfection of her work. He wrote her a line to +this effect; and also a note of congratulation and greeting to Stephen +Cabot.... It was not without a pang that he looked back at Manhattan +from The Narrows that night. + +For several mornings he had studied the gaunt, striding figure of a +fellow-passenger, who appeared to be religious in the matter of his +constitutional; or, as a sailor softly remarked as he glanced up at +Charter from his holy-stoning, "He seems to feel the need av walkin' off +sivin or eight divils before answerin' the breakfast-gong...." In +behalf of this stranger also, Charter happened to overhear the +chief-steward encouraging one of the waiters to extra-diligence in +service, Queerly, in the steward's mind, the interest seemed of a deeper +sort than even an unusual fee could exact--as if he recognized in the +stranger a man exalted in some mysterious masonry. And Charter noticed +that the haggard giant enforced a sort of willing slavery throughout the +ship--from the hands, but through the heads. This strange potentiality +was decidedly interesting; as was the figure in itself, which seemed +possessed of the strength of vikings, in spite of an impression, +inevitable to Charter when he drew near--of one enduring a sort of +Promethean dissolution. Charter reflected upon the man's eyes, which had +the startling look of having penetrated beyond the formality of +Death--into shadows where inquisition-hells were limned. It was not +until he heard the steward address the other as "Doctor Bellingham," +that the fanciful attraction weakened. His recollection crowded +instantly with newspaper paragraphs regarding the Bellingham activities. +Charter was rather normal in his masculine hatred for hypnotic artists +and itinerary confessionals for women. + +The _Panther_ ran into a gale in that storm-crucible off Hatteras. +Charter smiled at the thought, as the striding Bellingham passed, doing +his mileage on the rocking deck, that the roar of the wind in the +funnels aloft was fierce energy in the draughts of this human furnace. +While his own interest waned, the other, curiously enough, began to +respond to his unspoken overtures of a few days before. The _Panther_ +was a day out from San Juan, steaming past the far-flung coral shoals +off Santo Domingo, when Charter was beckoned forward where Bellingham +sat. + +"This soft air would call a Saint Francis down from his spiritual +meditations," the Doctor observed. + +The voice put Charter on edge, and the manner affected him with inward +humor. It was as if the other thought, "Why, there's that pleasant-faced +young man again. Perhaps it would be just as well to speak with him." As +he drew up his chair, however, Charter was conscious of an abrupt change +in his mental attitude--an inclination to combat, verbally to rush in, +seize and destroy every false utterance. His initial idea was to compel +this man who spoke so glibly of meditations to explain what the word +meant to him. This tense, nervous impatience to disqualify all the other +might say became dominant enough to be reckoned with, but when Charter +began to repress his irritation, a surprising inner resistance was +encountered. His sensation was that of one being demagnetized. Thoughts +and words came quickly with the outgoing energy of the current. +Altogether he was extraordinarily affected. + +"These Islands are not particularly adapted for one who pursues the +austerities," he replied. + +"Yet where can you find such temperamental happiness?" Bellingham +inquired, plainly testing the other. His manner of speech was flippant, +as if it were quite the same to him if his acquaintance preferred +another subject. + +"Anywhere among the less-evolved nations, when the people are warm and +fed." + +The Doctor smiled. "You will soon see the long, lithe coppery bodies of +the Islanders, as they plunge into the sea from the Antillean cliffs. +You will hear the soft laughter of the women, and then you will forget +to deny their perfection." Sensuality exhaled from the utterance. + +"You speak of the few brief zenith years which lie at the end of youth," +Charter said. "This sort of perfection exists anywhere. In the Antilles +it certainly is not because the natives have learned how to preserve +life." + +"That's just the point," said Bellingham, "Add to their natural gifts of +beautiful young bodies--the knowledge of preservation." + +"Take a poor, unread Island boy and inform him how to live forever," +Charter observed. "Of course, he'll grasp the process instantly. But +wouldn't it be rather severe on the other boys and girls, if the usual +formula of perpetuating self is used? I mean, would he not have to +restore his vitality from the others?" + +Bellingham stared at him. Charter faced it out, but not without cost, +for the livid countenance before him grew more and more ghastly and +tenuous, until it had the effect of becoming altogether unsubstantial; +and out of this wraith shone the eyes of the serpent. The clash of wills +was quickly passed. + +"You have encountered a different fountain of youth from mine," the +Doctor said gently. + +"Rather I have encountered a disgust for any serious consideration of +immortality in the body." + +"Interesting, but our good Saint Paul says that those who are in the +body when the last call sounds, will be caught up--without disturbing +the sleep of the dead." + +"It would be rather hard on such bodies--if the chariots were of fire," +Charter suggested. + +He was inwardly groping for his poise. He could think well enough, but +it disturbed him to feel the need to avoid the other's eyes. He liked +the shaping of the conversation and knew that Bellingham felt himself +unknown. Charter realized, too, that he would strike fire if he hammered +long enough, but there was malevolence in the swift expenditure of +energy demanded. + +Bellingham smiled again. "Then you think it is inevitable that the end +of man is--the clouds?" + +"The aspiration of the spirit, I should say, is to be relieved of feet +of clay.... Immortality in the body--that's an unbreakable paradox to +me. I'm laminated, Harveyized against anything except making a fine +tentative instrument of the body." + +"You think, then, that the spirit grows as the body wastes?" + +"Orientals have encountered starvation with astonishing results to +philosophy," Charter remarked. "But I was thinking only of a body firmly +helmed by a clean mind. The best I have within me declares that the +fleshly wrapping becomes at the end but a cumbering cerement; that +through life, it is a spirit-vault. When I pamper the body, following +its fitful and imperious appetites, I surely stiffen the seals of the +vault. In my hours in which the senses are dominant the spirit shrinks +in abhorrence; just as it thrills, warms and expands in rarer moments of +nobility." + +"Then the old martyrs and saints who macerated themselves wove great +folds of spirit?" + +The inconsequential manner of the question urged Charter to greater +effort to detach, if possible, for a moment at least, the other's Ego. +"In ideal," he went on, "I should be as careless of food as Thoreau, as +careless of physical pain as Suso. As for the reproductive devil +incarnated in man--it, and all its ramifications, since the most +delicate and delightful of these so often betray--I should encase in the +coldest steel of repression----" + +"You say, in ideal," Bellingham ventured quietly. "... But are not these +great forces splendid fuel for the mind? Prodigious mental workers have +said so." + +"A common view," said Charter, who regarded the remark as +characteristic. "Certain mental workers are fond of expressing this. You +hear it everywhere with a sort of 'Eureka.' Strength of the loins is but +a coarse inflammation to the mind. A man may use such excess strength, +earned by continence, in the production of exotics, feverish lyrics, and +in depicting summer passions, but the truth is, that so long as that +force is not censored, shriven and sterilized--it is the same jungle +pestilence, and will color the mind with impurity. It is much better +where it belongs--than in the mind." + +"You do not believe in the wild torrents, the forked lightnings, and the +shocking thunders of the poets?" + +"I like the calm, conquering voices of the prophets better.... +Immortality of the body?... There can be no immortality in a substance +which earth attracts. We have vast and violent lessons to learn in the +flesh; lessons which can be learned only in the flesh, because it is a +matrix for the integration of spirit. It appears to me that, in due +time, man reaches a period when he balances in the attractions--between +the weight of the body and the lifting of the soul. This is the result +of a slow, refining process that has endured through all time. +Reincarnation is the best theory I know for the process. That there is +an upward tendency driving the universe, seems to be the only cause and +justification for Creating. Devolution cannot be at the centre of such a +system.... The body becomes more and more a spotless garment for the +soul; soul-light more and more electrifies it; the elimination of +carnality in thought may even render the body delicate and transparent, +but it is a matrix still, and falls away--when one's full-formed wings +no longer need the weight of a thorax----" + +"What an expression!" Bellingham observed abruptly. He had been staring +away toward a low, cloudy film of land in the south. One would have +thought that he had heard only the sentence which aroused his comment. +Charter was filling with violence. The man's vanity was chained to him +like a corpse. This experience of pouring out energy to no purpose +aroused in Charter all the forces which had combined to force the public +to his work. The thought came that Bellingham was so accustomed to +direct the speech and thought of others, mainly women, that he had lost +the listening faculty. + +"Let me express it, then," Charter declared with his stoutest +repression, "that this beautiful surviving element, having finished with +the flesh, knows only the attraction of Light. It is the perfect flower +of ages of earth-culture, exquisite and inimitable from the weathering +centuries, and is radiant for a higher destiny than a cooling planet's +crust----" + +"My dear young man, you speak very clearly, prettily, and not without +force, I may say,--a purely Platonistic gospel." + +Charter's mental current was turned off for a second. True or false, the +remark was eminently effective. A great man might have said it, or a +dilettante. + +"In which case, I have a firm foundation." + +"But I am essentially of the moderns," said Bellingham. + +"Perhaps I should have known that from your first remark--about the +brown bodies of the Islanders, rejoicing in the sunlight and bathing in +these jewelled seas." + +"Ah, yes----" The softening of Bellingham's mouth, as he recalled his +own words, injected fresh stimulant into the animus of the other. As +Charter feared the eyes, so he had come to loathe the mouth, though he +was not pleased with the intensity of his feelings. + +"Do you honestly believe that--that which feels the attraction of earth, +and becomes a part of earth after death--is the stuff of immortality?" +he demanded. + +"By marvellous processes of prolongation and refinement--and barring +accident--yes." + +"Processes which these poor Islanders could understand?" + +"We are moving in a circle," Bellingham said hastily. + +For the first moment, Charter felt the whip-hand over his own faculties. + +"I've noted the great, modern tendency to preach _body_," he said, +inhaling a big breath of the fragrant air, "to make a religion of bodily +health--to look for elemental truth in alimentary canals; to mix prayer +with carnal subterfuge and heaven with health resorts. Better Phallicism +bare-faced.... I read a tract recently written by one of these +body-worshippers--the smug, black devil. It made me feel just as I did +when I found a doctor book in the attic once, at the age of ten.... +Whatever I may be, have done, may feel, dream or think below the +diaphragm--hasn't anything to do with my religion. I believe in health, +as in a good horse or a good typewriter, but my body's health is not +going to rule my day." + +"You are young--to have become chilled by such polar blasts," Bellingham +said uneasily, for he now found the other's eyes but without result. + +"I came into the world with a full quiver of red passions," Charter said +wearily, yet strangely glad. "The quiver is not empty. I do not say that +I wish it were, but I have this to declare: I do not relish being told +how to play with the barbs; how to polish and point and delight in them; +how to put them back more deadly poisoned. I think there are big +blankets of mercy for a natural voluptuary--for the things done when +tissues are aflame--but for the man who deliberately studies to recreate +them without cost, and tells others of his experiments--frankly, I +believe in hell for such men-maggots. Oblivion is too sweet. The essence +of my hatred for these Bodyists is because of the poison they infuse +into the minds of youths and maidens, whose character-skeletons are +still rubbery.... But let such teachers purr, wriggle, and dilate--for +they're going back right speedily to the vipers!" + +Bellingham's eyes had been lost in the South. He turned, arose, and +after a pause said lightly, "Your talk is strong meat, young man.... +I--I suffered a serious accident some months ago and cannot stay too +long in one place. We shall talk again. How far do you go with the +_Panther_?" + +"Saint Pierre." + +Charter already felt the first pangs of reaction. His vehemence, the +burn of temper for himself, in that he had allowed the other's +personality to prey upon him, and the unwonted aggressiveness of his +talk--all assumed an evil aspect now as he perceived the occultist's +ghastly face. In rising, Bellingham seemed to have stirred within +himself centres of unutterable torture. His look suggested one who has +been drilled in dreadful arcanums of pain, unapproached by ordinary men. + +"I think I must have been pent a long time," Charter said in his +trouble. "Perhaps, I'm a little afraid of myself and was rehearsing a +warning for the strength of my own bridle-arm--since we're swinging down +into these Isles of Seduction." + +"You'll find a more comfortable coolness with the years, I think, and +cease to abhor your bounding physical vitality. Remember, 'Jesus came +eating and drinking----'" + +Charter started under the touch of the old iron. "But 'wisdom is +justified of all her children,'" he responded quickly. + +They were at the door of Bellingham's cabin, which was forward on the +promenade. The doctor laughed harshly as he turned the key. "I see you +have your Scriptures, too," he said. "We must talk again." + +"How far do you go with the _Panther_?" Charter asked, drawing away. His +eyes had filled for a second, as the door swung open, with the +photograph of a strangely charming young woman within the cabin. + +"I have not decided--possibly on to South America." + +Charter felt as he walked alone that he had shown his youth, even a +pertness of youth. He recalled that he had done almost all the talking; +that he had felt the combativeness of a boy who scents a rival from +another school--quite ridiculous. Moreover, he was weary, as if one of +his furious seasons of work had just ended--that rare and excellent kind +of work which gathers about itself an elemental force to drive the mind +as with fire until the course is run.... He did not encounter Bellingham +during the rest of the voyage. + +Long before dawn the _Panther_ gained the harbor before Saint Pierre, +and Charter awoke to the consciousness of a disorder in the air. Alone +on deck, while the night was being driven back over the rising land, he +was delighted to pick out the writhing letters of gold, "_Saragossa_," +through the smoky gray, a few furlongs to the south. Peter Stock, an +acquaintance from a former call at Saint Pierre, had become a solid and +fruitful memory.... + +Father Fontanel was found early, where the suffering was greatest in the +city. The old eyes lit with gladness as he caught Charter with both +hands, and murmured something as his gaze sank into the eyes of the +younger man--something which Charter did not exactly understand, about +wolves being slain. + +"What have you been doing with Old Man Pelée, Father? We heard him +groaning in the night, and the town is fetid with his sickness." + +"Ah, my son, I am afraid!" + +Had all the seismologists of civilization gathered in Saint Pierre, and +uttered a verdict that the volcano was an imminent menace, Charter would +not have turned a more serious look at Pelée than he did that moment.... +At the _Palms_, he found Peter Stock and a joyous welcome. They arranged +for luncheon together, and the Capitalist hurried down into the city.... +That proved a memorable luncheon, since Peter Stock at the last moment +persuaded Miss Wyndam to join them. + +Charter was disturbed with the thought that he had seen her before; and +amazed that he could have forgotten where. He could only put it far back +among the phantasmagoria of drinking days. Certainly the sane, restored +Charter had never met this woman and forgotten. His veins were dilated +as by a miraculous wine. + +"The name is new to me, but I seem to have seen you somewhere, Miss +Wyndam," he declared. + +"That's the second time you've said that, young man," Mr. Stock +remarked. "Don't your sentences register?" + +"It's always bewildering--I know how Mr. Charter feels," Paula managed +to say. "I'm quite sure we were never introduced, though I know Mr. +Charter's work." + +"That's good of you, indeed," he said. "I don't mean--to know my +work--but to help me out with Friend Stock. It is bewildering that I +have forgotten. I feel like a boy in an enchanted forest. Pelée has been +working wonders all day." + +"I can't follow you," the Capitalist sighed. "Your sentences are +puckered." + +They hardly heard him. Paula, holding fast with all her strength to the +part she had planned to play, sensed Charter's blind emotion, distinct +from her own series of shocks. To her it was that furious moment of +adjustment, when a man and his ideal meet for the first time in a +woman's heart. As for this heart, she feared they would hear its +beating. Instantly, she knew that he had not come to Saint Pierre +expecting to find her; knew that she was flooding into his +subconsciousness--that he felt _worlds_ and could not understand. She +found the boy in his eyes--the boy of his old picture--and the deep +lines and the white skin of a man who has lived clean, and the brow of a +man who has thought many clean things. He was thinking of the Skylark, +and "Wyndam" disturbed him.... Always when he hesitated in his speech, +the right word sprang to her lips to help him. She caught the very +processes of his thinking; his remoteness from the thought of food, was +her own.... For hours, since she had heard his voice below, Paula had +paced the floor of her room, planning to keep her secret long. She would +play and watch his struggle to remember the Skylark; she would weigh the +forces of the conflict, stimulate it; study him among men, in the +presence of suffering, and in the dread of the mountain. All this she +had planned, but now her whole heart went out to the boy in his +eyes--the boy that smiled. All the doubts which at best she had hoped +for the coming days to banish were erased in a moment; she even believed +in its fullness the letter from Selma Cross--because he was embarrassed, +brimming with emotions he could not understand, quite as the boy of her +dreams would be. She lived full-length in his silences, hardly dared to +look at him now, for she felt his constant gaze. She knew that she was +colorless, but that her eyes were filled with light.... Presently she +realized that they were talking of Father Fontanel. + +"He's a good old man," said Peter Stock. "He works day and night--and +refuses to call it work. Just think of having a servant with a God like +Father Fontanel's to make work easy!" + +"He's even a little bit sorry for Pelée," Charter said. "I'm never quite +the same in Saint Pierre. Many times up in the States, I ask myself, if +it isn't largely in my mind about Father Fontanel's spirit and his +effect upon me. It isn't. Stronger than ever it came to me this morning. +You know him?" He turned the last to the woman. + +"Yes, I found him down on the water-front----" + +"And brought him to me," said Mr. Stock, and added: "You know what +bothered me about priests so long--they seem to have it all settled +between them that theirs is the only true Air-line Limited to God. +Fontanel's down in the lowlands, where life is pent and cruel, where +there are weak sisters and little ones who have to be helped over hard +ways--that's what gets Peter Stock." + +"You don't know how good that is to hear," Paula said softly. "I have +thought it, too, about some men in holy orders--black figures moving +along in a 'grim, unfraternal' Indian file, with their eyes so occupied +in keeping their feet from breaking fresh ground--that it seems they +must sometimes lose the Summit." + +Charter looked from one to the other. Peter Stock regarded their plates. +Paula made a quick pretense of eating, and was grateful when Charter +broke the silence: "Yes, Father Fontanel has found one of the trails to +the Top--one of the happy ones. Sometimes I think there are just as many +trails, as an ant could find to the top of an apple. Wayfarers go +a-singing on Father Fontanel's trail--eyes warm with soft skies and +untellable dreams. It's a way of fineness and loving-kindness----" + +Mr. Stock had risen from the table and moved to a window which faced the +North. All was vague about them. Paula had been carried by Charter's +voice toward far-shining mountains.... In the silence, she met the +strange, steady eyes of _the boy_, and looked away to find that the room +had darkened. + +"It is getting dark," he said. + +She would have said it, if he hadn't. + +The mountain rumbled. + +"The North is a mass of swirling grays and blacks," Peter Stock +announced from the window. "It isn't a thunderstorm----" + +A sharp detonation cleaved the darkening air, and from the rear of the +house the answer issued--quavering cries of children, sharp calling of +mothers, and the sullen undertone of men. A subdued drumming came from +the North now, completing the tossing currents of sound about the house. +The dismal bellowing of cattle and the stamping of ponies was heard from +the barns. All this was wiped out by a series of terrific crashes, and +the floor stirred as if intaking a deep breath. The dining-room filled +with a crying, crouching gray-lipped throng of servants. A deluge of ash +complicated the half-night outside, and the curse of sulphur pressed +down. + +Paula arose. Charter had taken his place close beside her, but spoke no +word. + + + + +TWENTIETH CHAPTER + +CHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WYNDAM WOMAN +AND SKYLARK MEMORIES + + +In the _Rue Rivoli_ there was a little stone wine-shop. The street was +short, narrow, crooked, and ill-paved--a cleft in Saint Pierre's +terrace-work. Just across from the vault-like entrance to the shop, the +white, scarred cliff arose to another flight of the city. Between the +shop and the living-rooms behind there was a little court, shaded by +mango-trees. Dwarfed banana-shrubs flourished in the shade of the +mangoes, and singing-birds were caged in the lower foliage. Since the +sun could find no entrance, the wine-shop was dark as a cave, and as +cool. One window, if an aperture like the clean wound of a thirteen-inch +gun could be called a window, opened to the north; and from it, by the +grace of a crook in the _Rue Rivoli_, might be seen the mighty-calibred +cone of Pelée. + +Pere Rabeaut's wine was very good, and some of it was very cheap. The +service was much as you made it, for if you were known you were +permitted to help yourself. In this world there was no one of station +too lofty to go to Pere Rabeaut's; and since those of no station +whatsoever drank rum, instead of wine, you would meet no one there to +whom it was not a privilege to say "_Bon jour_." + +"Come and see my birds," the crafty Rabeaut would say if he approved of +you. + +"Where do you live?" you might ask, being a stranger. + +"In the coolest hovel of Saint Pierre," was his invariable answer. + +And presently, if you were truly alive, you would find yourself in the +little stone wine-shop, listening to the birds and looking over the +stalled casks, demijohns, and bottles, filled with more or less +concentrated soil and sun. In due course, Soronia would appear in the +shadowy doorway (it would seem that the bird-songs were hushed as she +crossed the court), and she would show you a vintage of especially long +ago. After that, though you became a missionary in Shantung, or a +remittance-man in Tahiti, you would never forget the bouquet of the +Rabeaut wines, the cantatas of the canaries, nor the witchery of +Soronia's eyes.... If the little stone wine-shop were transplanted in +New York, artists would find it, and you would be forced to fetch your +own goblet and have difficulty in getting in and out for the crowd o' +nights. + +Thither Charter went the next morning and sat down in the cherished +coolness. Peter Stock had reminded him of their former talks there, over +a particular wine of Epernay, and had arranged to meet him this +morning.... In the foreground of Charter's mind a gritty depression had +settled, but throughout the finer, farther consciousness, where +realities abide, there hung a mystic constellation, which every little +while (and with a shock of ecstasy, so wonderful that his _mere_ brain +was alarmed and called it scandalous), fused together into a great, +glowing ardent Star of Bethlehem.... + +Again, the _mere_ brain said: "What have you done with your three years? +The actress knew you better than you knew yourself. All your letters, +and the spirit of your letters, have fallen into ruin before the first +woman you meet down here in a dreamy, tropic isle. How can you--you, who +have lived truly for a little while, and seemed to have felt the love +that lifts--sink into the fragrant meshes of romance, through the +beautiful eyes of a stranger to your world and to your ways? And what of +Skylark, the lovely, the winged?..." And the soul of the man riding at +its moorings in the bright calm of wisdom's anchorage, made laughing +answer: "This is the Skylark--ah, not that Wyndam is Linster,--but this +is the veiled queen who has waited so long for the House of Charter to +be ready. This is the forever-fairy that puzzled the nights and mornings +of the long-ago Charter boy. It was her wing that held the last dart of +light in the gardens of boyhood before the frowning thunders came. It +was her songs that made the youth's mind magic with lyrics, certain ones +so very clear that they fitted into words. It was to find her dazzling +brow that lured him to prodigious wanderings, until he fell fainting in +the dust of other women's chariots. It was the rustling of her wings +that he heard from without, when he lay in the Caverns of Devouring, +where the twain, Flesh and Death, hold ghastly carnival; the flash of +her wings again that lifted his eyes to the Rising Road. It was her +spirit in the splendid East whose miracles of singing and shining made +glorious, with creative touch, his hours by the garret window.... It was +she of exquisite shoulder and starry eyes and radiant sympathies--before +whom the boy, the man and the spirit, bowed in thankfulness +yesterday...." + +And so he sat there thinking, thinking,--glimpsing the errant centuries +in the same high light of memory that this very morning recurred--an +hour or two ago, when he had walked with her through the mango-grove in +the coolness following a dawn-shower that had washed the white weight of +Pelée's ash-winter from the trees.... "What a chaos I must be," he +murmured in dull anguish, "with the finest of my life plighted to a +vision that is lost--while I linger desolate in the presence of wondrous +reality!" ... Some one was moving and whispering in the little room +across the court of the song-birds.... Peter Stock entered, his white +hair and mustache dulled with ash; his eyes red and angry. + +"Well, I think I've got Father Fontanel frightened," he said, sinking +down across the little round table. "He's telling the people to shut up +their houses and go to Fort de France. Sixty or seventy have started, +and many more have gone up to Morne Rouge and Ajoupa Boullion, where it +happens to be cool, though they're just as close to the craters. +Fontanel has come into a very proper spirit of respect for Pelée's +destructive capacity. By the way, did you hear what happened yesterday, +during the darkness and racket while we were at dinner?" + +"Not definitely. Tell me," Charter urged. + +"The extreme northern end of the city, or part of it, was flooded out +like an ant-hill under a kettle boiling over. The River _Blanche_ +overflowed her banks, and ran with boiling mud from the volcano. Thirty +people were killed and the Usine Guerin destroyed." + +"I didn't think it was so bad as that." + +"I hope I'm wrong, but the Guerin disaster may be only a preliminary +demonstration--like the operator experimenting to find if it is dark +enough to start the main fireworks. Nobody can complain to Saint Peter +that Pelée hasn't warned." + +"There's another way to look at it," Charter said. "The volcano's +overflow into the River _Blanche_ might have eased the pressure upon the +craters. I wonder if there is any authority or precedent for such a +hope?" + +"If Pelée's fuse is burning shorter and shorter toward a Krakatoan +cataclysm," Peter Stock declared moodily, "it's not for man to say what +spark will shake the world.... I tried to see Mondet this morning--but +couldn't get in. You wouldn't think one white, small person could +contain so much poison. I am haunted with the desire to commit physical +depredations." + +"I think I'll take a little journey up toward the craters to-morrow," +Charter confided, after a moment. "They say that the weather is quiet +and clean to the north of the mountain. One might ride up and try to +reason with _Pere Pelée_----" + +At this juncture Soronia entered the wine-shop from the little court, to +fill the eyes and the goblets of the Americans. A dark, ardent, alluring +face; flesh like dull gold, made wonderful by the faintest tints of ripe +fruit; eyes that could melt and burn and laugh; a fragile figure, but +radiantly abloom, and as worthily draped as a young palm in a richly +blossoming vine. She made one think of a strange, regal flower, an +experiment of Nature, wrought in the most sumptuous shadow of a tropic +garden.... She was gone. Charter laughed at the drained look in Peter +Stock's face. + +"An orchid----" the latter began. + +"Or a sunlit cathedral window." + +"Will the visitation be repeated? Do I wake or sleep?" + +"The years have dealt artistically in the little wine-shop," +said Charter. "They say old Pere Rabeaut married a _fille de +couleur_--daughter of a former Governor-General of Martinique." + +"Some Daphne of the Islands, she must have been, since Pere Rabeaut does +not seem designed to father a sunset.... It's my first glimpse of +Soronia this voyage. She was beautiful in a girlish way last year.... +She's in love, or she couldn't glow like that. I met Pere Rabeaut down +in the city----" + +Charter arose. "Perhaps the lover is across the court. I heard a +whispering through the bird-songs--and one could not fail to note how +she hurried back.... I must go on. The water is no better here than +elsewhere." + +"But the wine is," said Peter Stock. "Wait luncheon for me at the +_Palms_.... By the way, how'd you like to take a little cruise--feel the +_Saragossa_ under you, running like a scared deer to hitch herself to +the solid old Horn, built of rock and sealed with icebergs----" + +"A clean thought, in this air--but the eventualities here attract. When +Father Fontanel grows afraid for the city, well, it may not be +scientific, but it's ominous.... I wanted to ask if it ever occurred to +you that even the _Morne d'Orange_ might fall into the sweeping range of +Pelée's guns?" + +"In other words--if the mountain won't recede from Miss Wyndam, we'd +better snatch up Miss Wyndam and make a getaway from the mountain?" + +From far within a "Yea" was acclaimed, yet there was a sullen Charter +integrity which had given its word to Skylark, and feared the test of +being shut on the same ship with a woman who endowed him with such power +that he felt potent to go to the craters and remonstrate with the +Monster. + +"It might be well to ask her," Charter replied gloomily, "but I'm rather +absorbed in the action here and Father Fontanel's work. I want to look +at the craters from behind----" + +"Twice you've said that," said Peter Stock, "and each time it reminds me +that I'm old, yet there's a lure about it. I'm thinking----" + +Their heads were together at the little round window for the mountain +had rumbled again, and they stared beyond the city into the ashen +shroud. + +"Grand old martyr," Charter muttered, "hang on, hang on!... The flag of +truce still flies." + + * * * * * + +Paula at the _Palms_ reflected the Charter conflict that morning. She +had seen it in his eyes and felt it in his heart, as they had walked +together in the mock-winter of the mango-grove before breakfast. Away +from him now, however, she could not be sure that "Wyndam," representing +the woman, altogether satisfied his vision of Skylark. Very strange, he +was, in his struggling, and it became harder, and a more delicate thing +than she had believed, to say, "I am Paula Linster." She had felt this +great restlessness of his spirit vaguely in the early letters--a stormy, +battling spirit which his brain constantly labored to interpret. She had +seen his moments of calm, too, when the eyes and smile of the boy +rendered his attractions so intimate to her, that she could have told +him anything--but these calms did not endure even in her presence. She +did not want the woman, Wyndam, despised, nor yet the Skylark put from +him. It became a reality, that out of his struggle Truth would rise; +meanwhile, though not with the entire sanction of a certain inner voice, +she withheld her secret, remaining silent and watchful in the midst of +the greatest drama the world could bring to her understanding.... + +Paula did not fail to note that Peter Stock was somewhat surprised when +she refused for the present his invitation to spend the nights at least +out in the cool Caribbean. She saw, moreover, that Quentin Charter was +beginning to fear the mountain, because she remained at the _Palms_. +Indeed, it was hard for all to remember that in form, at least, they +were mere acquaintances, so familiar had they become to each other in +the pressure of Pelée. Above all this, she was almost continually +conscious of Bellingham since the receipt of Madame Nestor's letter. It +was not that his power was formidable enough to disorder the unfolding +of the drama, but she felt his nearness, his strategies--all the more +strange, as there had been no sign of him since the arrival of the +_Panther_. If for no other reason, she would have found it difficult to +disclose her real name to Quentin Charter, while her mind was even +distantly the prey of the black giant. + +These were tremendous hours--when but a word from her withheld two +hearts from bursting into anthems. Bravely, she gloried in these last +great refinings--longings, fears, exaltations, but never was she without +the loftiest hope of her life. The man who had come was so much that +_the man_ should be. She saw his former years as the wobblings of a top +that has not yet gained its momentum. Only at its highest speed does the +top sing its peace with God.... Had not the finest glow of his powers +been reserved until her coming?... + +In such moments as these, she could look back upon her own agonies with +gratitude. She had needed a Bellingham. Should she not be thankful that +a beyond-devil had been required to test her soul? In the splendid +renewals of her spirit, Paula felt that she could look into the +magician's eyes now and command him from her. She was even grateful that +she had been swept in the fury of The High Tide, nor would she have had +that supreme night of trial when she fled from the _Zoroaster_, stricken +from her past. Just as Quentin Charter, of the terrible thirsts, had +required his years of wrath and wandering, so her soul had needed the +test of a woman's revelations and man's sublimated passion. Deep within +lived a majestic happiness--earned. + +At one o'clock, as she was going below for luncheon, the sun gave up +trying to shine through the ash-fog, but volumes of dreadful heat found +the earth. The _Saragossa_ was invisible in the roadstead; there was no +line dividing shore and sea, nor sea and sky. It was all an illimitable +mask, whose fabric was the dust which for centuries had lain upon the +dynamos of Pelée. + + + + +TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER + +CHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND CONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE +OF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL + + +"Do you know what I discovered this morning?" Peter Stock asked, after +the three had found a table together. "M. Mondet is trying to keep the +people in town for political reasons. It appears that there is to be an +election in a few days. All my efforts, and, by non-parishioners, the +efforts of Father Fontanel, are regarded as a political +counter-stroke--to rush a certain element of the suffrage out of the +town.... This is certainly Ash-Wednesday, isn't it?" + +Charter laughed. "My theory that the Guerin disaster might relieve the +craters and give surcease to Saint Pierre--doesn't seem to work out. The +air is getting thicker, even." + +"It isn't really ash, you know," explained Mr. Stock, "but rock, ground +fine as neat in the hell-mills under the mountain and shot out by steam +through Pelée's valves----" + +"Intensely graphic," said Paula. + +"It has been rather a graphic morning," Charter remarked. "Friend Stock +is virile from his activities with Father Fontanel." + +"Well, I didn't make a covenant with the mountain--as you did this +morning in the wine-shop. You should have seen him, Miss Wyndam, staring +away at the volcano and, muttering, 'Hang on, old chap, hang on!....' My +dear young woman, doesn't a ride on the ocean sound good for this +afternoon? You can sit on deck and hold the little black babies. The +_Saragossa_ takes another load to Fort de France in two or three hours." + +She shook her head. "Not just yet. You don't realize how wonderful the +drama is to me--you and Father Fontanel, playing Cassandra down in the +city--the groaning mountain, and the pity of it all. I confess a little +inconvenience of the weather isn't enough to drive me out. It isn't very +often given to a woman to watch the operations of a destiny so big as +this." + +The capitalist turned to Charter. "You know Empress Josephine was born +in Martinique and has become a sort of patron saint for the Island. A +beautiful statue of her stands in the square at Fort de France where our +refugees are encamped. I was only thinking that the map of Europe and +the history of France might have been altered greatly if our beloved +Josephine had been gifted with a will like this--of Miss Wyndam's." + +Her pale, searching face regarded Charter for a second, and his eyes +said plainly as words, "Don't you think you'd better consider this more +seriously?" + +"Maybe you'll like the idea better for the evening, when the _Saragossa_ +is back in the roadstead again, comparatively empty," Peter Stock added +presently. "Father Fontanel and I have a lot to do in the meantime. Can +you imagine our first parents occupying themselves when the first +tornado was swooping down--our dear initial mother, surpassingly +wind-blown, driving the geese to shelter, propping up the orchards, +getting out the rain-barrels, and tightening tent-pins?" + +"Vividly," said Paula. + +"That's just how busy we are--Father Fontanel and I." + +It was to be expected that a sophomoric pointlessness should +characterize the sayings of the two in the midst of Peter Stock's +masculinity and the thrilling magnitude of the marvel each was to the +other.... They were left together presently, and the search for treasure +began at once: + +"... The present is a time of readjustment between men and women," he +was saying. "It seems to me that the great mistake people make--men and +women alike--is that each sex tries to raise itself by lowering +the other. It hardly could be any other way just now, and at +first--with woman filled with the turmoil of emerging from ages of +oppression--fighting back the old and fitting to the new. But in man and +woman--not in either alone--lies completion. If the two do not quite +complete each other, a Third often springs from them with an increased +spiritual development." + +"Yes," she answered, leaning forward, her chin fitted to her palms. "The +_I-am_ and the _You-are-not_ will soon be put away. I like to think of +it--that man and woman are together in the complete human. There is a +glorious, an arch-feminine ideal in the nature of the Christ----" + +"Even in the ineffable courage," he added softly. "That is woman's--the +finer courage that never loses its tenderness.... His Figure sometimes, +as now, becomes an intimate passion to me----" + +"As if He were near?" + +"As if He were near--still loving, still mediating--all earth's struggle +and anguish passing through Him and becoming glorified with His pity and +tenderness--before it reaches the eyes of the Father.... There is no +other way. Man and woman must be One in Two--before Two in One. They +must not war upon each other. Woman is receptive; man the origin. Woman +is a planet cooled to support life; man, still an incandescent sun, +generates the life." + +"That is clear and inspiring," she said. "I have always wanted it said +just like that--that one is as important as the other in the evolution +of the Individual----" + +"And for that Individual are swung the solar systems.... Look at +Job--denuded of all but the Spirit. There is an Individual, and his +story is the history of an Initiation.... We are coming to a time when +Mind will operate in man and woman _conscious_ of the Soul. When that +time comes true, how the progress to God will be cleared and speeded! It +will be a flight----" + +"Instead of a crawl," she finished. + +They were alone in the big dining-room. Their voices could not have +reached the nearest empty table. It was like a communion--their first +communion. + +"I have felt it," she went on in a strange, low tone, "and heard the New +Voices--Preparers of the Way. Sometimes it came to me in New York--the +stirring of a great, new spiritual life. I have felt the hunger--that +awful hollowness in the breasts of men and women, who turn to each other +in mute agony, who turn to a thousand foolish sensations--because they +do not realize what they hunger for. Their breasts cry out to be +filled----" + +"And the Spirit cries out to flood in." + +"Yes, and the Spirit asks only for Earth-people to listen to their inner +voices and love one another," she completed. "It demands no macerations, +no fetters, no fearful austerities--only fineness and loving kindness." + +"How wonderfully they have come to me, too--those radiant moments--as I +sat by my study window, facing the East," he whispered, not knowing what +the last words meant to her. "How clear it is that all great and good +things come with this soul-age--this soul-consciousness. I have seen in +those lovely moments that Mother Earth is but one of many of God's +gardens; that human life is but a day in a glorious culture-scheme which +involves many brighter and brighter transplantings; that the radiance of +the Christ, our Exemplar, but shows us the loveliness which shall be +ours when we approach that lofty maturity of bloom----" + +A waiter entered with the word that a man from the city, Pere Rabeaut, +desired to see Mr. Charter. Each felt the dreadfulness of returning so +abruptly to sordid exterior consciousness--each felt the gray ghost of +Pelée. + +"I shall go and see what is wanted, Miss Wyndam, and hurry back--if I +may?" he said in a dull, tired tone. + +It was the first time he had said "Wyndam," and it hurt cruelly at this +moment.... "No, no," she said rising hastily. "It would spoil it to come +back. We could not forget ourselves like that--so soon again. It always +spoils--oh, what am I saying? I think our talk must have interested me +very much." + +"I understand," he said gently. "But we shall talk again--and for this +little hour, my whole heart rises to thank you." + +Pere Rabeaut was waiting upon the veranda. Peculiarly, at this moment he +seemed attached to the crook of wine-shop servitude, which Charter had +never noticed with such evidence among the familiar casks. Moreover, +disorder was written upon the gray face. + +"_Mon Dieu_, what a day, M. Charter!--a day of judgment! Soronia's +little birds are dying!" + +Charter regarded the sharp, black eyes, which darted over his own face, +but would not be held in any gaze. + +"I heard from my daughter that you are going to the craters of the +mountain," the old man said. "'He will need a guide,' said I at once. +'And guides are scarce just now, for the people are afraid of Pelée. +Still, he's an old patron,' I said to Soronia. 'He cannot go to the +mountain without a guide, so I shall do this little thing for him. He +must have our Jacques.'" + +Charter drew him away. He did not care to have it known at the _Palms_ +that he was projecting a trip to the summit. Perhaps the inscrutable +Pere Rabeaut was conferring a considerable favor. It was arranged that +if he decided to make the journey, the American should call at the +wine-shop for Jacques early the following morning. Pere Rabeaut left him +none the poorer for his queer errand. + +Charter avoided Miss Wyndam for the rest of the day. Beyond all the +words of their little talk, had come to him a fullness of womanhood +quite beyond the dreamer. As he remembered the lustrous face, the +completion of his sentences, the mutual sustaining of their thoughts, +their steady, tireless ascent beyond the need of words; as he remembered +her calms, and the glimpses of cosmic consciousness, her grasp, her +expression, her silences, the exquisite refinement of her face, and the +lingering adoration in her eyes--the ideal of the Skylark was so clearly +and marvellously personified that for moments at a time the vision was +lost in the living woman. And for this, Quentin Charter proposed to +suffer--and to suffer alone. + +So he supped down-town, and waited for Father Fontanel at the +parish-house. The priest came in during the evening and Charter saw at +once, what the other never could have admitted, that the last few days +had borne the good man to the uttermost edges of his frail vitality. +Under the lamp, the beautiful old face had the whiteness of that virgin +wax of Italian hives in which the young queens lie until the hour of +awakening. The tired, smiling eyes, deeply shadowed under a brow that +was blest, gazed upon the young man with a light in his eyes not +reflected from the lamp, but from his great love--in that pure +fatherhood of celibacy.... + +"Ah, no, I'm not weary, my son. We must have our walks and talks +together on the _Morne_ again.... When old Father Pelée rests once more +from his travail, and the people are happy again, you and I shall walk +under the stars, and you shall tell me of those glorious saints, who +felt in the presence of God that they must put such violent constraint +upon themselves.... When I think of my suffering people--it comes to me +that the white ship was sent like a good angel--and how I thank that +noble lady for taking me at once to this great rock of an American, who +bluffs me about so cheerily and grants all things before they are asked. +What wonderful people you are from America! But it is always so--always +these good things come to me. Indeed, I am very grateful.... +Weary?--what a poor old man I should be to fall weary in the midst of +such helpers...." + +Charter sat down beside him under the lamp and told him what an arena +his mind had become for conflict between a woman and a vision. Even with +the writer's trained designing, the tale drew out with an oriental +patience of weaving and coloring. Charter had felt a woman's need for +the ease of disclosure, and indeed there was no other man whom he would +have told. He had a thought, too, that if by any chance Pelée should +intervene--both the woman and the Skylark might learn. He did not tell +of his plan to go to the mountain--lest he be dissuaded. In his mind the +following day was set apart--as a sort of pilgrimage sacred to Skylark. + +"Old Pelée has shadowed my mind," Father Fontanel said, when the story +was done. "I see him before and between all things, but I shall meditate +and tell you what seems best in my sight. Only this, my son, you may +know, that when first the noble lady filled my eyes--I felt you near +her--as if she had come to me from you, whom I always loved to +remember." + +Charter bowed and went his way, troubled by the shadow of Pelée in the +holy man's mind; and yet glad, too, that the priest had felt him near +when he first saw Miss Wyndam. It was late when he reached the _Palms_ +yet sleeplessness ranged through his mind, and he did not soon go to his +room. The house and grounds were all his own. He paced the veranda, the +garden paths and drives; crossed the shadowy lawns, brooded upon the +rumbling mountain and the foggy moon high in the south.... At the side +of the great house to the north, there was a trellis heavily burdened +with lianas. Within, he found the orifice of an old cistern, partially +covered by unfixed planking. A startling thought caused him to wonder +why he had not explored the place before. The moonlight, faint at best, +gave but ghostly light through the foliage, yet he kicked away a board +and lit a match. A heavy wooden bar crossed the rim and was set stoutly +in the masonry. His mind keenly grasped each detail at the exterior. A +rusty chain depended from the thick cross-piece. He dropped several +ignited matches into the chamber. Slabs of stone from the side-walls had +fallen into the cistern, which seemed to contain little or no water.... +From one of the native cabins came the sound of a dog barking. A shutter +clicked in one of the upper windows of the plantation-house. + + + + +TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER + +CHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF _PELÉE_--ONE LAST DAY +DEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS + + +Charter left the _Palms_ early to join his guide at the wine-shop. He +had kept apart from Peter Stock for two reasons. The old capitalist +easily could have been tempted to accompany him. Personally, Charter did +not consider a strong element of danger, and a glimpse into the +volcano's mouth would give him a grasp and handling of the throes of a +sick world, around which all natural phenomena would assume thereafter +an admirable repression. To Peter Stock it would be an adventure, +merely. More than all this, he wanted to go to the mountain alone. It +was the Skylark's day; and for this reason, he hurried out of the +_Palms_ and down to the city without breakfast.... A last look from the +_Morne_, as it dipped into the _Rue Victor Hugo_--at a certain upper +window of the plantation-house, where it seemed he was leaving all the +bright valiant prodigies of the future. He turned resolutely toward +Pelée--but the Skylark's song grew fainter _behind_. + + * * * * * + +Pere Rabeaut's interest in the venture continued to delight him. +Procuring a companion was no common favor, since inquiries in the town +proved that the regular guides were in abject dread of approaching the +Monster now. Soronia, Pere Rabeaut, and his new servant awaited him in +the _Rue Rivoli_. The latter was a huge Creole, of gloomy visage. They +would not find any one to accompany them in the lower part of the city, +he said, as the fear there was greater than ever since the Guerin +disaster. In Morne Rouge, however, they would doubtless be able to +procure mules, food, and other servants if necessary, for a day's trip +to the craters. All of which appeared reasonable to Charter, though he +wondered again at the vital interest of Pere Rabeaut, and the general +tension of the starting. + +The two passed down through the city, and into the crowd of the +market-place, where a blithesome little drama unfolded. Peter Stock had +apparently been talking to the people about their volcano, urging them, +no doubt, to take the advice of Father Fontanel and flee to Fort de +France, when he had perceived M. Mondet passing in his carriage. Charter +saw his friend dart quickly from the crowd and seize the bridle. Despite +the protestations of the driver, the capitalist drew the vehicle into +view of all. His face was red with the heat and ashine with laughter and +perspiration. Alarm and merriment mingled in the native throng. All eyes +followed the towering figure of the American who now swung open the door +of the carriage and bowed low to M. Mondet. + +"This, dear friends," Peter Stock announced, as one would produce a +rabbit from a silk hat,--"this, you all perceive, is your little editor +of _Les Colonies_. Is he not bright and clean and pretty? He is very +fond of American humor. See how the little editor laughs!" + +M. Mondet's smile was yellowish-gray and of sickly contour. His article +relative to the American appealed to him now entirely stripped of the +humor with which it was fraught a few days before, as he had composed it +in the inner of inner-offices. This demon of crackling French and +restless hands would stop at nothing. M. Mondet pictured himself being +picked up for dead presently. As the blow did not fall on the instant, +the sorry thought tried him that he was to be played with before being +dispatched. + +"This is the man who tells you that Saint Pierre is in no danger--who +scoffs at those who have already gone--who inquires in his paper, 'Where +on the Island could a more secure place than Saint Pierre be found in +the event of an earthquake visitation?' M. Mondet advises us to flee +with all dispatch to the live craters of a volcano to escape his +hypothetical earthquake." Peter Stock was now holding up the Frenchman's +arm, as a referee upraises the whip of a winning fighter. "He says +there's no more peril from Pelée than from an old man shaking ashes out +of his pipe. I proposed to wager my ship against M. Mondet's rolled-top +desk that he was wrong, but there was a difficulty in the way. Do you +not see, my friends of Saint Pierre, that, if I won the wager, I should +not be able to distinguish between M. Mondet's rolled-top desk and M. +Mondet's cigarette case in the ruins of the city----" + +There had been a steady growling from the mountain. + +"Ah!" Stock exclaimed after a pause, "Pelée speaks again! 'I will +repay--verily, I will repay!' growls the Monster. Let it be so, then, +friends of mine. I will turn over my little account to the big +fire-eater yonder who will collect all debts. I tell you, we who tarry +too long will be buying political extras and last editions in hell from +this bit of a newspaper man!" + +Charter laughingly turned away to avoid being seen, just as M. Mondet +was chucked like a large, soft bundle into the seat of his carriage and +the door slammed forcibly, corking whatever wrath appertained. In any of +the red-blooded zones, a foreigner who performed such antics at the +expense of a portly and respected citizen would have encountered a +quietus quick and blasting, but the people of Martinique are not swift +to anger nor forward in reprisal. + +Charter's physical energy was imperious, but the numbness of his scalp +was a pregnant warning against the perils of heat. There were moments in +which his mind moved in a light, irresponsible fashion, as if obsessed +at quick intervals, one after another, by mad kings who dared anything, +and whom no one dared refuse. Somehow his brain contrived with striking +artifices to keep the Wyndam-Skylark conflict in the background; yet, as +often as he became aware of old Vulcan muttering his agonies ahead, just +so often did the reality rise that the meaning and direction of his life +was gone, if he was not to see again the woman at the _Palms_. + +Jacques, his guide, followed in sullen silence. They crossed the +Roxelane, and presently were ascending toward Morne Rouge. Saint Pierre +was just still enough now to act like a vast sounding-board. Remote +voices reached them, even from the harbor-front to the left, and from +shut shops everywhere.... It was nearly mid-day, when he rode out from +Morne Rouge, with three more companions. + +The ash-hung valley was far behind, and Charter drank deeply of the +clean, east wind from the Atlantic. There was a rush of bitterness, too, +because the woman was not there to share these priceless volumes of +sunlit vitality. All the impetus of enterprise was needed now to turn +the point of conflict, and force it into the background again.... They +pushed through Ajoupa Boullion to the gorge of the Falaise, the +northward bank of which marked the trail which Jacques chose to the +summit. + +And now they moved upward in the midst of the old glory of Martinique. +The brisk Trades blowing evenly in the heights, wiped the eastern slope +of the mountain clear of stone-dust and whipped the blasts of sulphur +down into the valley toward the shore. Green lakes of cane filled the +valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms, so distant and so orderly +that they looked like a city garden set with hen and chickens.... +Northward, through the rifts, glistened the sea, steel-blue and cool. +Before them rose the vast, green-clad mass of the mountain, its corona +dim with smoke and lashed by storm. Down in the southwest lay the +ghastly pall, the hidden, tortured city, tranced under the cobra-head of +the volcano and already laved in its poison. + +The trail became very steep at two thousand feet, and this fact, +together with the back-thresh of the summit disturbance, forced Charter +to abandon the animals. It transpired that two of the three later guides +felt it their duty, at this point, to stay behind with the mules. A +little later, when the growling from the prone, upturned face of the +Monster suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the flesh and outraged the +senses of man, Charter looked back and found that only one native was +faltering behind, instead of two. And this one was Jacques, of the +savage eyes. Pere Rabeaut was praised again. + +Fascination for the dying Thing took hold of him now and drew him on. +Charter was little conscious of fear for his life, but of a fixed terror +lest he should be unable to go on. He found himself tearing up a +handkerchief and stuffing the shreds in his ears to deaden the hideous +vibrations. With the linen remaining, he filled his mouth, shutting his +jaws together upon it, as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on an +incline. + +The titanic disorder placated his own. He became unconscious of passing +time. From the contour of the slope, remembered from a past visit, he +was aware of nearing the _Lac des Palmists_, which marked the +summit-level. Yet changes, violent changes, were everywhere evidenced. +The shoulder of the mountain was smeared with a crust of ash and seamed +with fresh scars. The crust was made by the dry, whirling winds playing +upon the paste formed of stone-dust and condensed steam. The clicking +whir, like a clap of wings, heard at intervals, accounted for the scars. +Bombs of rock were being hurled from the great tubes. Here he shouted to +Jacques to stay behind; that he would be back in a few moments. There +was a nod of assent from the evil head. + +That he was in the range of a raking volcano-fire impressed with a sort +of laughing awe this ant clinging to the beard of a giant. Up, knees and +hands, now, he crawled--up over the throbbing chin, to the black, +pounded lip of the Monster. Out of the old lake coiled the furious tower +of steam and rock-dust which mushroomed in high heaven, like a primal +nebula from which worlds are made. It was this which fell upon the city. +Pockets of gas exploded in the heights, rending the periphery, as the +veil of the temple was rent. Only this horrible torrent spreading over +Saint Pierre to witness, but sounds not meant for the ear of man, sounds +which seemed to saw his skull in twain--the thundering engines of a +planet. + +The rocky rim of the lake was hot to his hands and knees, but a moment +more he lingered. A thought in his brain held him there with thrilling +bands. It was only a plaything of mind--a vagary of altitude and +immensity. "Did ever the body of a man clog the crater of a live +volcano?" was his irreverent query. "Did ever suicidal genius conceive +of corrupting such majesty of force with his pygmy purpose?" + +There he lay, sprawled at the edge of the universal mystery, at the +secret-entrance to the chamber of earth's dynamos. The edge of the pit +shook with the frightful work going on below, yet he was not slain. The +torrent burst past and upward with a southward inclination, clean as a +missing bullet. The bombs of rock canted out from sheer weight and fell +behind. That which he comprehended--although his eyes saw only the gray, +thundering cataclysm--was never before imagined in the mind of man. + +The gray blackened. The roar dwindled, and his senses reeled. With a +rush of saliva, the linen dropped from his open mouth. Charter was sure +there was a gaping cleft in his skull, for he could feel the air blowing +in and out, cold and colder. He tried to lift his hands to cover the +sensitive wound, but they groped in vain for his head. With the icy +draughts of air, he seemed to hear faintly his name falling upon bare +ganglia. For a second he feared that the lower part of his body would +not respond; that he was uncoupled like a beast whose spine is +broken.... It was only a momentary overcoming of the gas, or altitude, +or the dreadful disorder, or all three. Yet he knew how he must turn +back if he lived.... His name was called again. He thought it was the +Reaper, calling forth his ghost. + +"Quentin Charter! Quentin Charter!" + +Then he saw the Wyndam woman on the veranda of the _Palms_, her face +white with agony, her eyes straining toward him.... Turning hastily--he +missed death in a savage, sordid reality. Jacques had crept upon him, a +maniac in his eyes, dog's slaver on his lips. A rock twice as large as +his head was upraised in both arms. With a muscular spasm one knows in a +dream, Charter's whole body united in a spring to the side--escaping the +rock. Jacques turned and fled like a goat, leaping from level to level. + +Charter managed to follow. He felt weak and ill for the time, as though +Pelée had punished him for peering into matters which Nature does not +thank man for endeavoring to understand.... The three natives pressed +about him far down on the slope. Jacques had vanished. The sun was +sinking seaward. Charter mounted his mule, turning the recent incident +over in his mind for the manieth time. His first thought had been that +the indescribable gripping of the mountain had turned mad a decent +servant, but this did not stand when he recalled how Pere Rabeaut had +importuned him to accept Jacques, and how the latter had fled from his +_failure_. Yet, so far as he could see, there was no reason in the world +why a conspiracy to murder him should have origin in the little +wine-shop of _Rue Rivoli_. It was all baffling even at first, that a +rock had been chosen, when a knife or a pistol would have been +effective. This latter, he explained presently. There was a possibility +of his body being found; a smashed head would fall to the blame of _Pere +Pelée_, who was casting bombs of rock upon the slopes; while a knife or +a bullet-wound on his body would start the hounds indeed. + +He rode down the winding trail apart from the guides. Darkness was +beginning, and the lights of Ajoupa Boullion showed ahead. The mountain +carried on a frightful drumming behind. Coiling masses of volcanic +spume, miles above the craters, generated their own fire; and lit in the +flashes, looked like billows of boiling steel. Charter rode upon sheer +nerve--nerve at which men had often wondered. At length a full-rigged +thought sprang into his mind, which had known but the passing of +hopeless derelicts since the first moment of descent. It was she who had +called to save him. The woman of flesh had become a vision indeed. The +little Island mule felt the heel that moment.... Charter turned back to +the red moiled sky--a rolling, roaring Hades in the North. + +"I can't help it, Skylark," he murmured, "if you _will_ merge into this +woman. She may never know that a man fled from her to the mountain +to-day, and is hurrying back--as to the source of all beauty!... +Charter, Charter, your thoughts are boiling over----" + +He rode into the streets of Morne Rouge, so over-crowded now with the +frightened from the lower city, that many were huddled upon the highway +where they would be forced to sleep. Here he paid the three guides, but +retained his mule.... On the down trail again, he re-entered the bank of +falling ash and the sulphurous desolation. Evil as it was, the taint +brought a sense of proximity to the _Morne_ and the _Palms_. Saint +Pierre was dark and harrowingly still under the throbbing volcano. The +hoof-beats of the mule were muffled in ash, as if he pounded along a +sandy beach. Often a rousing fetor reached the nostrils of the rider, +above the drying, cutting vapor from Pelée, and the little beast shied +and snorted at untoward humps on the highway. War and pestilence, +seemingly, had stalked through Saint Pierre that day and a winter storm +had tried to cover the aftermath.... He passed through _Rue Rivoli_, but +was far too eager to reach the _Palms_ to stop at the wine-shop. The +ugly mystery there could be penetrated afterward. Downward, he turned +toward the next terrace, where the solitary figure of a woman confronted +him. + +"Mr. Charter!" she cried. "And--you are able to ride?" + +"Why, what do you mean, Miss Wyndam?" he said, swiftly dismounting. +"What are you doing 'way up here alone--in this dreadful suffocation?" + +"I was looking for a little stone wine-shop----" She checked herself, a +scroll of horrors spreading open in her brain. + +"It's just a little way back," he said, in a repressed tone. "I have an +errand there, too. Shall I show you?" + +"No," she answered shuddering. "I'll walk with you back to the _Palms_. +I must think.... Oh, let us hurry!" + +He lifted her to the saddle, and took the bridle-rein. + + + + +TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER + +CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE IN THE NIGHT, AND THE +WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE _PALMS_ + + +Peter Stock was abroad in the _Palms_ shortly after Charter left for the +wine-shop to join Jacques, for the day's trip. The absence of the +younger man reminded him of the project Charter had twice mentioned in +the wine-shop. + +"I can't quite understand it," he said to Miss Wyndam as he started for +the city, "if he really has gone to the craters. He had me thinking it +over--about going along. Why should he rush off alone? I tell you, it's +not like him. The boy's troubled--got some of the groan-stuff of Pelée +in his vitals." + +The day began badly for Paula. Her mind assumed the old dread +receptivity which the occultist had found to his advantage; terrors +flocked in as the hours drew on. One pays for being responsive to the +finer textures of life. Under the stimulus of heat, good steel becomes +radiant with an activity destructive to itself, but quite as marvellous +in its way as the starry heavens. What a superior and admirable +endowment, this, though it consumes, compared to the dead +asbestos-fabric which will not warm. Paula felt the city in her breast +that day--the restless, fevered cries of children and the answering +maternal anguish, the terror everywhere, even in bird-cries and limping +animals--that cosmic sympathy. + +She knew that Charter would not have rushed away to the mountain without +a "good morning" for her, had she told him yesterday. She saw him turn +upon the _Morne_, look steadily at her window, almost as if he saw the +outline of her figure there--as the call went to him from her inner +heart.... She had reconstructed his last week in New York, from the +letter of Selma Cross and his own; and in her sight he had achieved a +finer thing than any warrior who ever broadened the borders of his +queen. Not a word from her; encountering a mysterious suspicion from +Reifferscheid; avoiding Selma Cross by his word and her own; +vanquishing, who may know how many devils of his own past; and then +summoning the courage and gentleness to write such a letter as she had +received--a letter sent out into the dark--this was loyalty and courage +to woo the soul. With such a spirit, she could tramp the world's highway +with bruised feet, but a singing heart.... And only such a spirit could +be true to Skylark; for she knew as "Wyndam" she had quickened him for +all time, though he ran from her--to commune with Pelée. She felt his +strength--strength of man such as maidens dream of, and, maturing, put +their dreams away. + +"... as I sat by my study window, facing the East!" Well she knew those +words from his letters; and they came to her now, from the talk of +yesterday in the high light of an angelic visitation. Always in memory +the dining-room at the _Palms_ would have an occult fragrance, for +she saw his great love for Skylark there, as he spoke of "facing the +East." How soon could she have told him after that, but for the evil old +French face that drew him away.... "You deserve to suffer, Paula +Linster," she whispered. "You let him go away,--without a tithe of your +secret, or a morsel of your mercy." + +Inevitable before such a conception of manhood--Paula feared her +unworthiness. She saw herself back in New York, faltering under the +power of Bellingham; swayed by those specialists, Reifferscheid in +books, Madame Nestor in occultism; and, above all blame-worthily, by +Selma Cross of the passions. She seemed always to have been listening. +Selma Cross had been strong enough to destroy her Tower; and this, when +the actress herself had been so little sure of her statements that she +must needs call Charter to prove them. Nothing that she had done seemed +to carry the stamina of decision.... So the self-arraignment thickened +and tightened about her, until she cried out: + +"But I would have told him yesterday--had not that old man called him +away!" + +Peter Stock returned at noon, imploring her to go out to the ship, for +even on the _Morne_, Pelée had become a plague. He pointed out that she +was practically alone in the _Palms_; that nearly all of Father +Fontanel's parishioners had taken his word and left for Fort de France +or Morne Rouge, at least; that he, Peter Stock, was a very old man who +had earned the right to be fond of whom he pleased, and that it +seriously injured an old man's health when he couldn't have his way. + +"There are big reasons for me to stay here to-day--big only to me," she +told him. "If I had known you for years, I couldn't be more assured of +your kindness, nor more willing to avail myself of it, but please trust +me to know best to-day. Possibly to-morrow." + +So the American left her, complaining that she was quite as inscrutable +as Charter.... An hour or more later, as she was watching the mountain +from her room, a little black carriage stopped before the gate of the +_Palms_, and Father Fontanel stepped slowly out. She hurried +downstairs, met him at the door, and saw the rare old face in its great +weariness. + +"You have given too much strength to your work, Father," she said, +putting her arm about him and helping him toward the sitting-room. + +"I am quite well," he panted. "I was among my people in the city, when +our amazing friend suddenly appeared with a carriage, bustled me in and +sent me here, saying there were enough people in Saint Pierre who +refused to obey him, and that he didn't propose that I should be one." + +"I think he did very well," she answered, laughing. "What must it be +down in the city--when we suffer so here? We cannot do without you----" + +"But there is great work for me--the great work I have always asked for. +Believe me, I do not suffer." + +"One must not labor until he falls and dies, Father." + +"If it be the will of the good God, I ask nothing fairer than to fall in +His service. Death is only terrible from afar off in youth, my dear +child. When we are old and perceive the glories of the Reality, we are +prone to forget the illusion here. In remembering immortality, we forget +the cares and ills of flesh.... I am only troubled for my people, +stifling in the gray curse of the city, and for my brave young friend. +My mind was clouded when he asked me certain questions last night; and +to-day, they say he has gone to the craters of the mountain." + +"What for?" she whispered quickly. + +"Ah, how should I know? But he tells me of people who make pilgrimages +of sanctification to strange cities of the East--to Mecca and +Benares----" + +"But they go to Benares to die, Father!" + +"I did not know, my daughter," he assured her, drawing his hand across +his brow in a troubled fashion. "He has not gone to the mountain for +that, though I see storms gathering about him, storms of the mountain +and hatreds of men. But I see you with him afterward--as I saw him with +you--when you first spoke to me." + +She told him all, and found healing in the old man's smile. + +"It is well, and it is wonderful," he whispered at last. "Much that my +life has misunderstood is made clear to me--by this love of yours and +his----" + +"'And his,' Father?" + +"Yes." + +There was silence. She would not ask if Quentin Charter had also told +his story. Father Fontanel arose and said he must go back, but he took +the girl's hands, looked deeply into her eyes, saying with memorable +gentleness: + +"Listen, child,--the man who cannot forget a vision that is lost, will +be a brave mate for the envisioned reality that he finds." + +At intervals all that afternoon she felt the influence of Bellingham. It +was not desire. Dull and impersonal, it appealed, as one might hear a +child in another house repeatedly calling to its mother. Within her +there was no response, save that of loathing for a spectre that rises +untimely from a past long since expiated. She did not ask herself +whether she was lifted beyond him, or whether he was debased and +weakened, or if he really called with the old intensity. Glimpses of the +strange place in which he lodged occasionally flashed before her inner +mind, but it was all far and indefinite, easily to be banished. To her, +he had become inextricable from the reptiles. There was so much of +living fear and greater glory in her mind that afternoon, that these +were but evil shadows of slight account. + +The torturing hours crawled by, until the day turned to a deeper gray, +and the North was reddened by Pelée's cone which the thick vapor dimmed +and blurred. Paula was suffered to fight out her battle alone. She could +not have asked more than this. A thousand times she paced across her +room; again and again straining her eyes northward, along the road, over +the city into the darkness, and the end of all things--the mountain.... +There was a moment in the half-light before the day was spent, in which +she seemed to see Quentin Charter, as Father Fontanel had told her, +hemmed in by all the storms and hates of the world. Over the surface of +her brain was a vivid track for flying futile agonies. + +The rumbling that had been incessant was punctuated at intervals now by +an awesome and deeper vibration. Altogether, the sound was like a steady +stream of vehicles, certain ones heavier and moving more swiftly than +others, pounding over a wooden bridge. To her, there was a pang in each +phase of the volcano's activity, since Quentin Charter had gone up into +that red roar.... She did not go down for dinner. When it was eight by +her watch, she felt that she could not live, if he did not return before +another hour. Several minutes had passed when there was a tapping at her +door, and Paula answering, was confronted by a sumptuous figure of +native womanhood. It was Soronia. + +"Mr. Charter is at the wine-shop of Pere Rabeaut in _Rue Rivoli_," she +said swiftly, hatefully, as though she had been forced to carry the +message, and would not utter a word more than necessary. "He has been +hurt--we do not think seriously--but he wants you to come to him at +once." + +"Thank you. I will go to him at once," Paula said, turning to get her +hat. "Pere Rabeaut's wine-shop in the _Rue Rivoli_?... You say he is not +seriously hurt----" + +She had not turned five seconds from the door, but the woman was gone. +There was much that was strange in this; many thoughts occurred apart +from the central idea of glad obedience, and the fullness of gratitude +in that Pelée had not murdered him.... The _Rue Rivoli_ was a street of +the terraces, she ascertained on the lower floor; also that it would be +impossible to procure a carriage. Mr. Stock had been forced to buy one +outright, her informer added, and to use one of his sailors for a +driver.... So she set out alone and on foot, hurrying along the sea-road +toward the slope where _Rue Victor Hugo_ began. The strangeness of it +all persistently imposed upon her mind, but was unreckonable, compared +to the thought that Quentin Charter would not have called for her, had +he been able to come. From this, the fear of a more serious wound than +the woman had said, was inevitable. + +Paula had suffered enough from doubting; none should mar her performance +now. Unerringly, the processes of mind throughout the day had borne her +to such an action. She would have gone to any red-lit door of the torrid +city.... Vivid terrors of some dreadful crippling accident hurried her +steps into running.... + +Pelée, a baleful changing jewel in the black North, reminded her that +Charter would not have gone up to that sink of chaos, had she spoken the +word yesterday. The thought of that wonderful hour brought back the +brooding romance in tints almost ethereal. Higher in her heart than he +had reached in any moment of the day's fluctuations, the image of +Charter wounded, was upraised now and sustained, as she turned from _Rue +Victor Hugo_ into the smothering climb to the terraces. All she could +feel was a prayer that he might live; all the trials and conflicts and +hopes of the past six months hovered afar from this, like navies +crippled in the roadstead.... + +She must be near the _Rue Rivoli_, she thought, suddenly facing an empty +cliff. It was at this moment that she heard the soft foot-falls of a +little native mule, and encountered Quentin Charter.... + +Quickly out of the great gladness of the meeting arose the frightful +possibilities from which she had just escaped. They were still too +imminent to be banished from mind at once. Again Charter had saved her +from the Destroyer. She would have wept, had she ventured to speak as he +lifted her into the saddle. Charter was silent, too, for the time, +trying to adjust and measure and proportion. + +Constantly she kept her eyes upon him as he walked slightly ahead, for +she needed this steady assurance that he was there and well. She felt +her arms where his stiffened fingers had been, as he lifted her so +easily upon the mule. She wanted to reach forward and touch his helmet. +They had descended almost to _Rue Victor Hugo_, when he said: + +"As I looked down the fiery throat of that dragon up there to-day, +everything grew black and still for a minute, like a vacuum.... Will you +please tell me if I came back all right, or are we 'two hurrying shapes +in twilight land--in no man's land?'" + +His amusing appeal righted her. "I have not heard of donkey shapes in +twilight-land," she answered.... And then in the new silence she tried +to bring her thoughts to the point of revelation, but she needed light +for that--light in which to watch his face. Moreover, revelations +contained Bellingham, and she was not quite ready to speak of this. It +was dreadful to be forced to think of the occultist, when her heart +cried out for another moment such as that of yesterday, in which she +could watch his eyes and whisper, "I am very proud to be the Skylark you +treasure so...." + +"Do you think it kind to frighten your friends?" she asked finally. +"When they told me you had gone to the craters--it seemed such a +reckless thing to do----" + +"You see, I rode around behind the mountain. It's very different to +approach from the north. I wished you were there with me in the clean +air. Pelée's muzzle is turned toward the city----" + +"I sent you many cheers and high hopes--did they come?" + +"Yes, more than you know----" He checked himself, not wishing to +frighten her further with the story of Jacques, "You said you were +looking for the little wine-shop. Did some one send for you?" + +"Yes." + +"Some one you know?" + +"They told me you were there--hurt. That's why I came, Mr. Charter." + +He drew up the mule and faced her. "I was there this morning, but not +since.... There's something black about this. Pere Rabeaut was rather +officious in furnishing a guide for me. I'd better find out----" + +"I don't want you to go back there to-night!" she said intensely. "I +think we are both half-dead. I don't feel coherent at all. It has been a +life--this day." + +"I am sorry to have made it harder for you. Certainly I shall not add to +your worry to-night. I was thinking, though, it's rather a serious thing +to call you out alone at this hour, through a city disordered like +this--in my name." + +"There's much need of a talk. We shall soon understand it all.... That +must be Mr. Stock coming. He has the only carriage moving in Saint +Pierre, they say." + +Charter pulled the mule up on the walk to let the vehicle pass, but the +capitalist saw them and called to his driver to stop. + +"Well," he said gratefully, "I'm glad to get down to earth again. You +two have had me soaring.... Charter, you don't mean to tell me you +called Miss Wyndam to meet you in the wine-shop?" + +"No. There's a little matter there which must be probed later. I had the +good fortune to meet Miss Wyndam before she reached there." + +Paula watched Charter as he spoke. Light from the carriage-lamp fell +upon him. His white clothing was stained from the saddle, his hair and +eyebrows whitened with dust. His eyes shone in a face haggard unto +ghastliness. + +"I'd go there now," Stock declared, after asking one or two questions +further, "but I have to report with sorrow that Father Fontanel is in a +very weak condition and has asked for you. I just came from the _Palms_, +hoping that you had returned, and learned that Miss Wyndam was +mysteriously abroad. My idea is to make the good old man go out to the +ship to-night. That's his only chance. He just shakes his head and +smiles at me, when I start in to boss him, but I think he'll go for you. +The little parish-house is like a shut-oven--literally smells of the +burning.... The fact is, I'm getting panicky as an old brood-biddy, +among all you wilful chicks.... Miss Wyndam has promised for to-morrow, +however." + +Her heart went out to the substantial friend he had proved to every one, +though it was all but unthinkable to have Quentin Charter taken from the +_Palms_ that night. + +"I'll go with you at once, but we must see Miss Wyndam safely back.... +She'll be more comfortable in the carriage with you, and we can hurry," +Charter declared. + +He held his arms to her and lifted her down. + +"How I pity you!" she whispered. "You are weary unto death, but I am so +glad--so glad you are safely back from the mountain." + +"Thank you.... You, too, are trembling with weariness. It would not do, +not to go to Father Fontanel--would it?" + +"No, no!" + +At the hotel, Charter took a few moments to put on fresh clothing. Paula +waited with Peter Stock on the lower floor until he appeared. The +capitalist did not fail to see that they wanted a word together, and +clattered forth to see the "pilot of his deep-sea hack." + +"You'd better go aboard to-morrow morning," Charter said. + +"Yes, to-morrow, possibly,--we shall know then. You will be here in the +morning--the first thing in the morning?" + +"Yes." There was a wonder-world of emotion in his word. + +"And you will not go to the wine-shop, before you see me--in the +morning?" + +He shook his head. His inner life was facing the East, listening to a +Skylark song. + +"There is much to hear and say," she whispered unsteadily. "But go to +Father Fontanel--or I--or you will not be in time! He must not die +without seeing you--and take my love and reverence----" + +They were looking into each other's eyes--without words.... Peter Stock +returned from the veranda. Charter shivered slightly with the return to +common consciousness, clenched his empty left hand where hers had been. + +"The times are running close here," he whispered huskily. "Sometimes I +forget that we've only just met. Father Fontanel alone could call me +from here to-night. Somehow, I dread to leave you. You'll have to +forgive me for saying it." + +"Yes.... But in the morning--oh, come quickly.... Good-night." + +She turned hastily to the staircase, and Charter's remarks as he rode +townward with the other, were shirred, indeed.... + + + + +TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + +HAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE ASCENSION, WHEN THE +MONSTER, _PELÉE_, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH + + +The old servant met them at the door with uplifted finger. Father +Fontanel was sleeping. They did not wish to disturb him but sat down to +wait in the anteroom, which seemed to breathe of little tragedies of +Saint Pierre. On one side of the room was the door that was never +locked; on the other, the entrance to the sleeping-room of the priest. +Thus he kept his ear to the city's pulse. Peter Stock drowsed in the +suffocating air. Charter's mind slowly revolved and fitted to the great +concept.... The woman was drawn to him, and there had been no need of +words.... Each moment she was more wonderful and radiant. There had not +been a glance, a word, a movement, a moment, a breath, an aspiration, a +lift of brow or shoulder or thought, that had not more dearly charmed +his conception of her triune beauty. + +The day had left in his brain a crowd of unassimilated actions, and into +this formless company came the thrilling mystery of his last moment with +her--a shining cord of happiness for the labyrinth of the late days.... +There had been so much _beyond words_ between them--an overtone of +singing. He had seen in her eyes all the eager treasure of brimming +womanhood, rising to burst the bonds of repression for the first time. +Dawn was a far voyage, but he settled himself to wait with the will of a +weathered voyager whose heart feels the hungry arms upon the waiting +shore. + +The volcano lost its monstrous rhythm again, and was ripping forth +irregular crashes. Father Fontanel awoke and the _Rue Victor Hugo_ +became alive with voices, aroused by the rattling in the throat of the +mountain. Charter went into the room where the priest lay. + +"Come, Father," he said, "We have waited long for you. I want you to go +out to the ship for the rest of the night. You must breathe true air for +an hour. Do this for me." + +"Ah, my son!" the old man murmured, drawing Charter's head down to his +breast. "My mind was clouded, and I could not see you clearly in the +travail of yesterday." + +"Many of your people are in Fort de France, Father," the young man +added. "They will be glad to see you. Then you may come back here--even +to-morrow, if you are stronger. Besides, the stalwart friend who has +done so much for your people, wants you one night on his ship." + +"Yes, my son.... I was waiting for you. I shall be glad to breathe the +dawn at sea." + +Peter Stock pressed Charter's hand as they led Father Fontanel forth. +The mountain was quieter again. The bells of Saint Pierre rang the hour +of two.... The three reached the Sugar Landing where the _Saragossa's_ +launch lay. + +"Hello, Ernst," Stock called to his man. "I've kept you waiting long, +but top-speed to the ship--deep water and ocean air!" + +The launch sped across the smoky harbor, riding down little isles of +flotsam, dead birds from the sky and nameless mysteries from the roiled +bed of the harbor. The wind was hot in their faces, like a stoke-hold +blast. Often they heard a hissing in the water, like the sound of a wet +finger touching hot iron. A burning cinder fell upon Charter's hand, a +messenger from Pelée. He could not feel fire that night.... He was +living over that last moment with her--gazing into her eyes as one who +seeks to penetrate the mystery of creation, as if it were any clearer in +a woman's eyes than in a Nile night, a Venetian song, or in the flow of +gasolene to the spark, which filled the contemplation of Ernst.... He +remembered the swift intaking of her breath at the last, and knew that +she was close to tears. + +The launch was swinging around to the _Saragossa's_ ladder. Father +Fontanel had not spoken. Wherever the ship-lights fell, the sheeting of +ash could be seen--upon mast and railing and plates. They helped the +good man up the ladder, and Stock ordered Laird, his first officer, to +steam out of the blizzard, a dozen miles if necessary. The anchor chain +began to grind at once, and three minutes later, the _Saragossa's_ +screws were kicking the ugly harbor tide. Charter watched, strangely +disconcerted, until only the dull red of Pelée pierced the thick veil +behind. A star, and another, pricked the blue vault ahead, and the air +blew in fragrant as wine from the rolling Caribbean, but each moment was +an arraignment now.... He wanted none of the clean sea; and the mere +fact that he would not rouse her before daylight, even if he were at the +_Palms_, did not lessen the savage pressure of the time.... Father +Fontanel would not sleep, but moved among his people on deck. The +natives refused to stay below, now that the defiled harbor was behind. +There was a humming of old French lullabies to the little ones. Cool air +had brought back the songs of peace and summer to the lowly hearts. It +was an hour before dawn, and the _Saragossa_ was already putting back +toward the roadstead, when Father Fontanel called Charter suddenly. + +"Make haste and go to the woman, my son," he said strangely. + +Charter could not answer. The priest had spoken little more than this, +since they led him from the parish-house. The _Saragossa_ crept into the +edge of the smoke. The gray ghost of morning was stealing into the +hateful haze. They found anchorage. The launch was in readiness below. +It was not yet six. Ernst was off duty, and another sailor,--one whose +room was prepared in the dim pavilion--waited at the tiller. Charter +waved at the pale mute face of the priest, leaning overside, and the fog +rushed in between. + +The launch gained the inner harbor, and the white ships at anchor were +vague as phantoms in the vapor--French steamers, Italian barques, and +the smaller West Indian craft--all with their work to do and their way +to win. Charter heard one officer shout to another a whimsical +inquiry--if Saint Pierre were in her usual place or had switched sites +with hell. The day was clearing rapidly, however, and before the launch +reached shore, the haze so lifted that Pelée could be seen, floating a +pennant of black out to sea. In the city, a large frame warehouse was +ablaze. The tinder-dry structure was being destroyed with almost +explosive speed. + +A blistering heat rushed down from the expiring building to the edge of +the land. Crowds watched the destruction. Many of the people were in +holiday attire. This was the Day of Ascension, and Saint Pierre would +shortly pray and praise at the cathedral; and at _Notre Dame des +Lourdes_, where Father Fontanel would be missed quite the same as if +they had taken the figure of Saint Anne from the altar.... Even now the +cathedral bells were calling, and there was low laughter from a group of +Creole maidens. Was it not good to live, since the sun was trying to +shine again and the mountain did not answer the ringing of the bells? It +was true that Pelée poured forth a black streamer with lightning in its +folds; true that the people trod upon the hot, gray dust of the +volcano's waste; that the heat was such as no man had ever felt before, +and many sat in misery upon the ground; true, indeed, that voices of +hysteria came from the hovels, and the weaker were dying too swiftly for +the priests to attend them all--but the gala-spirit was not dead. The +bells were calling, the mountain was still, bright dresses were +abroad--for the torrid children of France must laugh. + +A carriage was not procurable, so Charter fell in with the procession on +the way to the cathedral. Many of the natives nodded to him; and may +have wondered at the color in his skin, the fire in his eyes, and the +glad ring of his voice. Standing for a moment before the church, he +hurled over the little gathering the germ of flight; told them of the +food and shelter in Fort de France, begged them laughingly to take their +women and children out of this killing air.... It was nearly +eight--eight on the morning of Ascension Day.... She would be ready. He +hoped to find a carriage at the hotel.... At nine they would be in the +launch again, speeding out toward the _Saragossa_. + +Twenty times a minute she recurred to him as he walked. There was no +waning nor wearing--save a wearing brighter, perhaps--of the images she +had put in his mind. Palaces, gardens, treasure-houses--with the turn of +every thought, new riches of possibility identified with her, were +revealed. Thoughts of her, winged in and out his mind like bright birds +that had a cote within--until he was lifted to heights of gladness which +seemed to shatter the dome of human limitations--and leave him crown and +shoulders emerged into illimitable ether. + +The road up the _Morne_ stretched blinding white before him. The sun was +braver. Panting and spent not a little, he strode upward through the +vicious pressure of heat, holding his helmet free from his head, that +air might circulate under the rim. Upon the crest of the _Morne_, he +perceived the gables of the old plantation-house, above the palms and +mangoes, strangely yellowed in the ashen haze. + +Pelée roared. Sullen and dreadful out of the silence voiced the Monster +roused to his labor afresh. Charter darted a glance back at the +darkening North, and began to run.... The crisis was not past; the +holiday darkened. The ship would fill with refugees now, and the road to +Fort de France turn black with flight. These were his thoughts as he +ran. + +The lights of the day burned out one by one. The crust of the earth +stretched to a cracking tension. The air was beetling with strange +concussions. In the clutch of realization, Charter turned one shining +look toward the woman hurrying forward on the veranda of the _Palms_.... +Detonations accumulated into the crash of a thousand navies. + +She halted, her eyes fascinated, lost in the North. He caught her up +like a child. Across the lawn, through the roaring black, he bore her, +brushing her fingers and her fallen hair from his eyes. He reached the +curbing of the old well with his burden, crawled over and caught the +rusty chain. Incandescent tongues lapped the cistern's raised coping. +There was a scream as from the souls of Night and Storm and Chaos +triumphant--a mighty planetary madness--shocking magnitudes from the +very core of sound! Air was sucked from the vault, from their ears and +lungs by the shrieking vacuums, burned through the cushion of atmosphere +by the league-long lanes of electric fire.... Running streams of red +dust filtered down. + +It was eight on the morning of Ascension Day. _La Montagne Pelée_ was +giving birth to death. + + + + +TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + +THE _SARAGOSSA_ ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS FROM _PELÉE_ EIGHT +MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE + + +Peter Stock stared long into the faint film of smoke, until the launch +bearing Charter ashore was lost in the shipping. The pale, winding sheet +was unwrapped from the beauty of morning. There was an edging of rose +and gold on the far dim hills. His eyes smarted from weariness, but his +mind, like an automatic thing, swept around the great circle--from the +ship to the city, to the plantation-house on the _Morne_ and back to the +ship again. He was sick of the shore, disgusted with people who would +listen to M. Mondet and not to him. Miss Wyndam had refused him so +often, that he was half afraid Charter would not be successful, but he +was willing to wait two hours longer, for he liked the young woman +immensely, liked her breeding and her brain.... He joined Laird, his +first officer, on the bridge. The latter was scrutinizing through the +glass a blotch of smoke on the city-front. + +"What do you make of it, sir?" Laird asked. + +The lenses brought to the owner a nucleus of red in the black bank. The +rest of Saint Pierre was a gray, doll-settlement, set in the shelter of +little gray hills. He could see the riven and castellated crest of Pelée +weaving his black ribbon. It was all small, silent, and unearthly. + +"That's a fire on the water-front," he said. + +"That's what I made of it, sir," Laird responded. + +Shortly afterward the trumpetings of the Monster began. The harbor grew +yellowish-black. The shore crawled deeper into the shroud, and was lost +altogether. The water took on a foul look, as if the bed of the sea were +churned with some beastly passion. The anchor-chain grew taught, +mysteriously strained, and banged a tattoo against its steel-bound eye. +Blue Peter drooping at the foremast, livened suddenly into a spasm of +writhing, like a hooked lizard. The black, quivering columns of smoke +from the funnels were fanned down upon the deck, adding soot to the +white smear from the volcano. + +"Better get the natives below--squall coming!" Peter Stock said, in a +low tone to Laird, and noted upon the quiet, serious face of this +officer, as he obeyed, an expression quite new. It was the look of a man +who sees the end, and does not wince. + +The women wailed, as the sailors hurried them below and sealed the ways +after them. A deep-sea language passed over the ship. There were running +feet, bells below, muffled cries from the native-women, quick oaths from +the sailors; and then, Peter Stock felt the iron-fingers of fear about +his heart--not for himself and his ship eight miles at sea, but for his +good young friend and for the woman who had refused to come. + +A hot, fetid breath charged the air. The ship rose and settled like a +feather in a breeze; in a queer light way, as though its element were +heavily charged with air, the water danced, alive with the yeast of +worlds. The disordered sky intoned violence. Pelée had set the +foundations to trembling. A step upon the bridge-ladder caused the +American to turn with a start. Father Fontanel was coming up. + +"Oh, this won't do at all," Peter Stock cried in French. "We're going to +catch hell up here, and you don't belong." + +He dashed down the ladder, and led the old man swiftly back to the +cabin, where he rushed to the ports and screwed them tight with +lightning fingers, led the priest to a chair and locked it in its +socket. Father Fontanel spoke for the first time. + +"It's very good of you," he said dully, "but what of my people?" + +Stock did not answer, but rushed forth. Six feet from the cabin-door, he +met the fiery van of the cataclysm, and found strength to battle his way +back into the cabin.... From out the shoreward darkness thundered +vibrations which rendered soundless all that had passed before. Comets +flashed by the port-holes. The _Saragossa_ shuddered and fell to her +starboard side. + +Eight bells had just sounded when the great thunder rocked over the +gray-black harbor, and the molten vitals of the Monster, wrapped in a +black cloud, filled the heavens, gathered and plunged down upon the city +and the sea. As for the ship, eight miles from the shore and twelve +miles from the craters, she seemed to have fallen from a habitable +planet into the firemist of an unfinished world. She heeled over like a +biscuit-tin, dipping her bridge and gunwales. She was deluged by blasts +of steam and molten stone. Her anchor-chain gave way, and, burning in a +dozen places, she was sucked inshore. + +Laird was on the bridge. Plass, the second officer, on his way to the +bridge, to relieve or assist Laird as the bell struck, was felled at the +door of the chart-room. A sailor trying to drag the body of Plass to +shelter, was overpowered by the blizzard of steam, gas, and molten +stone, falling across the body of his officer. The ship was rolling like +a runaway-buoy. + +Peter Stock had been hurled across the cabin, but clutched the chair in +which the priest was sitting, and clung to an arm of it, pinning the +other to his seat. Several moments may have passed before he regained +his feet. Though badly burned, he felt pain only in his throat and +lungs, from that awful, outer breath as he regained the cabin. +Firebrands still screamed into the sea outside, but the _Saragossa_ was +steadying a trifle, and vague day returned. Stock was first to reach the +deck, the woodwork of which was burning everywhere. He tried to shout, +but his throat was closed by the hot dust. The body of a man was hanging +over the railing of the bridge. It was Laird, with his face burned away. +There were others fallen. + +The shock of his burns and the terrible outer heat was beginning to +overpower the commander when Pugh, the third officer, untouched by fire, +appeared from below. In a horrid, tongueless way, Stock fired the other +to act, and staggered back into the cabin. Pugh shrieked up the hands, +and set to the fires and the ship's course. Out of two officers and +three sailors on deck when Pelée struck, none had lived. Peter Stock +owed his life to the mute and momentary appearance of Father Fontanel. + +The screaming of the native-women reached his ears from the hold. Father +Fontanel stared at him with the most pitiful eyes ever seen in child or +woman. Black clouds were rolling out to sea. Deep thunder of a righteous +source answered Pelée's lamentations. The sailors were fighting fire and +carrying the dead. The thin shaken voice of Pugh came from the bridge. +The engines were throbbing. Macready, Stock's personal servant, entered +with a blast of heat. + +"Thank God, you're alive, sir!" he said, with the little roll of Ireland +on his tongue. "I was below, where better men were not.... Eight miles +at sea--the long-armed divil av a mountain--what must the infightin' +have been!" + +Peter Stock beckoned him close and called huskily for lint and oils. +Macready was back in a moment from the store-room, removed the cracked +and twisted boots; cleansed the ashes from the face and ears of his +chief; administered stimulant and talked incessantly. + +"It's rainin' evenchooalities out.... Ha, thim burns is not so bad, +though your shoes were pretty thin, an' the deck's smeared with red-hot +paste. It's no bit of a geyser in a dirt-pile, sure, can tell Misther +Stock whin to come and whin to go." + +The cabin filled with the odor of burnt flesh as he stripped the coat +from Stock's shoulder, where an incandescent pebble had fallen and +burned through the cloth. Ointments and bandages were applied before the +owner said: + +"We must be getting pretty close in the harbor?" + +This corked Macready's effervescence. Pugh had been putting the +_Saragossa_ out to sea, since he assumed control. It hadn't occurred to +the little Irishman that Mr. Stock would put back into the harbor of an +island freshly-exploded. + +"I dunno, sir. It's hard to see for the rain." + +"Go to the door and find out". + +The rain fell in sheets. Big seas were driving past, and the steady beat +of the engines was audible. There was no smoke, no familiar shadow of +hills, but a leaden tumult of sky, and the rollers of open sea beaten by +a cloudburst. The commander did not need to be told. It all came back to +him--Laird's body hanging over the railing of the bridge; Plass down; +Pugh, a new man, in command. + +"Up to the bridge, Macready, and tell Pugh for me not to be in such a +damned hurry--running away from a stricken town. Tell him to put back in +the roadstead where we belong." + +Macready was gone several moments, and reported, "Pugh says we're +short-handed; that the ship's badly-charred, but worth savin'; in short, +sir, that he's not takin' orders from no valet--meanin' me." + +Nature was righting herself in the brain of the American, but the +problems of time and space still were mountains to him. Macready saw the +gray eye harden, and knew what the next words would be before they were +spoken. + +"Bring Pugh here!" + +It was rather a sweet duty for Macready, whose colors had been lowered +by the untried officer. The latter was in a funk, if ever a seaman had +such a seizure. Pugh gave an order to the man at the wheel and followed +the Irishman below, where he encountered the gray eye, and felt Macready +behind him at the door. + +"Turn back to harbor at once--full speed!" + +Pugh hesitated, his small black eyes burning with terror. + +"Turn back, I say! Get to hell out of here!" + +"But a firefly couldn't live in there, sir----" + +"Call two sailors, Macready!" Stock commanded, and when they came, +added, "Put him in irons, you men!... Macready, help me to the bridge." + + * * * * * + +It was after eleven when the _Saragossa_ regained the harbor. The +terrific cloudburst had spent itself. Out from the land rolled an +unctuous smudge, which bore suggestions of the heinous impartiality of a +great conflagration. The harbor was cluttered with wreckage, a doom +picture for the eyes of the seaman. Dimly, fitfully, through the pall, +they began to see the ghosts of the shipping--black hulls without helm +or hope. The _Saragossa_ vented a deep-toned roar, but no answer was +returned, save a wailing echo--not a voice from the wreckage, not even +the scream of a gull. A sailor heaved the lead, and the scathed steamer +bore into the rising heat. + +Ahead was emptiness. Peter Stock, reclining upon the bridge, and +suffering martyrdoms from his burns, gave up his last hope that the guns +of Pelée had been turned straight seaward, sparing the city or a portion +of it. Rough winds tunnelling through the smoke revealed a hint of hills +shorn of Saint Pierre. A cry was wrung from the American's breast, and +Macready hastened to his side with a glass of spirits. + +"I want a boat made ready--food, medicines, bandages, two or three +hundred pounds of ice covered with blankets and a tarpaulin," Stock +said. "You are to take a couple of men and get in there. Get the steward +started fitting the boat, and see that the natives are kept a bit +quieter. Make 'em see the other side--if they hadn't come aboard." + +"Mother av God," Macready muttered as he went about these affairs. "I +could bake a potatie here, sure, in the holla av my hand. What, thin, +must it be in that pit of destruction?" He feared Pelée less, however, +than the gray eye, and the fate of Pugh. + +The launch had not returned from taking Charter ashore, so one of the +life-boats was put into commission. The German, Ernst, and another +sailor of Macready's choice, were shortly ready to set out. + +"You know why I'm not with you, men," the commander told them at the +last moment. "It isn't that I couldn't stand it in the boat, but there's +a trip ashore for you to make, and there's no walking for me on these +puff-balls for weeks to come. Macready, you know Mr. Charter. He had +time to reach the _Palms_ before hell broke loose. I want you to go +there and bring him back alive--and a woman who'll be with him! Also +report to me regarding conditions in the city. That's all. Lower away." + +A half-hour later, the little boat was forced to return to the ship. The +sailor was whimpering at the oars; the lips of Ernst were twisted in +agony; while Macready was silent, sign enough of his failing endurance. +Human vitality could not withstand the withering draughts of heat. At +noon, another amazing downpour of rain came to the aid of Peter Stock +who, granting that the little party had encountered conditions which +flesh could not conquer, had, nevertheless, been chafing furiously. At +two in the afternoon, a second start was made. + +Deeper and deeper in toward the gray low beach the little boat was +pulled, its occupants the first to look upon the heaped and over-running +measure of Saint Pierre's destruction. The three took turns at the oars. +Fear and suffering brought out a strange feminine quality in the sailor, +not of cowardice; rather he seemed beset by visionary terrors. Rare +running-mates were Macready and Ernst, odd as two white men can be, but +matched to a hair in courage. The German bent to his work, a grim stolid +mechanism. Macready jerked at the oars, and found breath and energy +remaining to assail the world, the flesh and the devil, which was Pugh, +with his barbed and invariably glib tongue. How many times the blue eyes +of the German rolled back under the lids, and his grip relaxed upon the +oars; how many times the whipping tongue of Macready mumbled, forgetting +its object, while his senses reeled against the burning walls of his +brain; how many times the sailor hoarsely commanded them to look through +the fog for figures which alone he saw--only God and these knew. But the +little boat held its prow to the desolate shore. + +They gained the Sugar Landing at last, or the place where it had been, +and strange sounds came from the lips of Ernst, as he pointed to the +hulk of the _Saragossa's_ launch, burned to the water-line. It had been +in his care steadily until its last trip. Gray-covered heaps were +sprawled upon the shore, some half-covered by the incoming tide, others +entirely awash. Pelée had brought down the city; and the fire-tiger had +rushed in at the kill. He was hissing and crunching still, under the +ruins. The sailor moaned and covered his face. + +"There's nothing alive!" he repeated with dreadful stress. + +"What else would you look for--here at the very fut av the mountain?" +Macready demanded. "Wait till we get over the hill, and you'll hear the +birds singin' an' the naygurs laughin' in the fields an' wonderin' why +the milkman don't come." + +The market-place near the shore was filled with the stones from the +surrounding buildings, hurled there as dice from a box. Smoke and steam +oozed from every ruin. The silence was awful as the sight of death. The +streets of the city were effaced. Saint Pierre had been felled and +altered, as the Sioux women once altered the corpses of the slain +whites. There was no discernible way up the _Morne_. Breathing piles of +debris barred every passage. Under one of these, a clock suddenly struck +three--an irreverent survival carrying on its shocking business beneath +the collapsed walls of a burned and beaten city, frightening them +hideously. It would have been impossible to traverse _Rue Victor Hugo_ +had the way been clear, since a hundred feet from the shore or less, +they encountered a zone of unendurable heat. + +"I could die happy holdin' Pugh here," Macready gasped. "Do you think +hell is worse than this, Ernst, barrin' the effrontery of the question? +Ha--don't step there!" + +He yanked the German away from a puddle of uncongealed stuff, hot as +running metal.... The sailor screamed. He had stepped upon what seemed +to be an ash-covered stone. It was soft, springy, and vented a wheezy +sigh. Rain and rock-dust had smeared all things alike in this gray +roasting shambles. + +"Won't somebody say something?" the sailor cried in a momentary silence. + +"It looks like rain, ma'm," Macready offered. + +They had been forced back into the boat, and were skirting the shore +around by the _Morne_. Saint Pierre had rushed to the sea--at the last. +The volcano had found the women with the children, as all manner of +visitations find them--and the men a little apart. Pelée had not +faltered. There was nothing to do by the way, no lips to moisten, no +voice of pain to hush, no dying thing to ease. There was not an +insect-murmur in the air, nor a crawling thing upon the beach, not a +moving wing in the hot, gray sky--a necropolis, shore of death absolute. + +They climbed the cliffs to the north of the _Palms_, glanced down +through the smoke at the city--sunken like a toothless mouth. Even the +_Morne_ was a husk divested of its fruit. Pelée had cut the cane-fields, +sucked the juices and left the blasted stalks in his paste. The old +plantation-house pushed forth no shadow of an outline. It might be +felled or lost in the smoky distance. The nearer landmarks were +gone--homes that had brightened the heights in their day, whose windows +had flashed the rays of the afternoon sun as it rode down +oversea--levelled like the fields of cane. Pelée had swept far and left +only his shroud, and the heaps upon the way, to show that the old +sea-road, so white, so beautiful, had been the haunt of man. The mangoes +had lost their vesture; the palms were gnarled and naked fingers +pointing to the pitiless sky. + +Macready had known this highway in the mornings, when joy was not dead, +when the songs of the toilers and the laughter of children glorified the +fields; in the white moonlight, when the sea-winds met and mingled with +the spice from tropic hills, and the fragrance from the jasmine and +rose-gardens.... He stared ahead now, wetting his puffed and tortured +lips. They had passed the radius of terrific heat, but he was thinking +of the waiting gray eye, when he returned without the man and the woman. + +"It'll be back to the bunkers for Dinny," he muttered.... "Ernst, ye +goat, you're intertainin', you're loquenchus." + +They stepped forward swiftly now. There was not a hope that the mountain +had shown mercy at the journey's end.... They would find whom they +sought down like the others, and the great house about them. Still, +there was a vague God to whom Macready had prayed once or twice in his +life--a God who had the power to strike blasphemers dead, to still +tempests, light volcanic fuses and fell Babylons. To this God he +muttered a prayer now.... + +The ruins of the plantation house wavered forth from the fog. The sailor +plucked at Macready's sleeve, and Ernst mumbled thickly that they might +as well get back aboard.... But the Irishman stood forth from them; and +in that smoky gloom, desolate as the first day, before Light was turned +upon the Formless Void, bayed the names of Charter and the woman. + +Then the answer: + +"_In the cistern--in the old cistern!_" + +Macready made a mental appointment with his God, and yelled presently: +"Didn't I tell you 'twould take more than the sphit of a mountain to +singe the hair of him?... Are you hurted, sir?" + + + + +TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + +PAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE ENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD +THAT DRIVES THE WORLD + + +Charter roused, after an unknown time, to the realization that the woman +was in his arms; later, that he was sitting upon a slimy stone in a +subterranean cell filled with steam. The slab of stone held him free +from the four or five inches of almost scalding water on the floor of +the cistern. The vault was square, and luckily much larger than its +circular orifice; so that back in the corner they were free from the +volcanic discharge which had showered down through the mouth of the +pit--the cause of the heated water and the released vapors. An +earthquake years before had loosened the stone-lining of the vault. With +every shudder of the earth now, under the wrath of Pelée, the walls, +still upstanding, trembled. + +Charter was given much time to observe these matters; and to reckon with +mere surface disorders, such as a bleeding right hand, lacerated from +the rusty chain; a torn shoulder, and a variety of burns which he +promptly decided must be inconsequential, since they stung so in the hot +vapor. Then, someone with a powerful arm was knocking out three-cushion +caroms in his brain-pan. This spoiled good thinking results. It is true, +he did not grasp the points of the position, with the remotest trace of +the sequence in which they are put down. Indeed, his mind, emerging from +the depths into which the shock of eruption had felled it, held alone +with any persistence the all-enfolding miracle that the woman was in his +arms.... + +Presently, his brain began to sort the side-issues. Her head had lain, +upon his shoulder during that precipitous plunge, and her hair had +fallen when he first caught her up. He remembered it blowing and +covering his eyes in a manner of playful endearment quite impossible for +an outsider to conceive. Meanwhile, the blast from Pelée was upon the +city; traversing the six miles from the crater to the _Morne_, faster +than its own sound; six miles in little more than the time it had taken +him to cross the lawn from the veranda to the cistern. A second or two +had saved them. + +The fire had touched her hair.... Her bare arm brushed his cheek, and +his whole nature suddenly crawled with the fear that she might not wake. +His head dropped to her breast, and he heard her heart, light and +steadily on its way. His eyes were straining through the darkness into +her face, but he could not be sure it was without burns. There was +cumulative harshness in the fear that her face, so fragile, of purest +line, should meet the coarse element, burning dirt. His hands were not +free, but he touched her eyes, and knew that they were whole.... She +sighed, stirred and winced a little--breath of consciousness returning. +Then he heard: + +"What is this dripping darkness?" + +The words were slowly uttered, and the tones soft and vague, as from one +dreaming, or very close to the Gates.... In a great dark room somewhere, +in a past life, perhaps, he had heard such a voice from someone lying in +the shadows. + +"We are in the old cistern--you and I----" + +"I--knew--you--would--come--for--me." + +It was murmured as from someone very weary, very happy--as a child +falling asleep after a dream, murmurs with a little contented nestle +under the mother-wing. + +"But how could you know?" he whispered quickly. "My heart was too +full--to take a mere mountain seriously--until the last minute----" + +"_Skylarks--always--know!_" + + * * * * * + +Torrents of rain were descending. Pelée roared with the after-pangs. +Though cooled and replenished by floods of black rain, the rising water +in the cistern was still hot. + +"It was always hard for me to call you Wyndam----" + +"Harder to hear, Quentin Charter...." + +"But are you sure you are not badly burned?" he asked for the tenth +time. + +"I don't feel badly burned.... I was watching for you from the window in +my room. I didn't like the way my hair looked, and was changing it when +I saw you coming--and the Black behind you. I tried to fasten it with +one pin, as I ran downstairs.... It fell. It is very thick and kept the +fire from me----" + +"From us." He would have preferred his share of the red dust. + +She shivered contentedly. "What little is burned will grow again. Red +mops invariably do." + +" ... And to think I should have found the old cistern in the night!... +One night when I could not sleep, I walked out here and explored. The +idea came then----" + +"I watched you from the upper window.... The shutter wiggled as you went +away. It was the next day that the 'fraids got me. You rushed off to the +mountain." + +Often they verged like this beyond the borders of rational quotation. +One hears only the voices, not the words often, from Rapture's Roadway. + +"Just as I begin to think of something Pelée erupts all over again in my +skull----" + +"I didn't know men understood headache matters.... Don't you +think--don't you really think--I might be allowed to stand a little +bit?" + +"Water's still too hot," he replied briefly. + +The cavern was not so utterly dark. The circle of the orifice was +sharply lit with gray.... They lost track of the hours; for moments at a +time forgot physical distress, since they had known only mystic journeys +before.... They whispered the fate of Saint Pierre--a city's soul torn +from the shrieking flesh; shadows lifted from the mystery of the little +wine-shop; clearly they saw how the occultist, his magnetism crippled, +had used Jacques and Soronia; and Charter recalled now where he had seen +the face of Paula before--the photograph in the Bellingham-cabin on the +_Panther_.... A second cloudburst cooled and eased them, though they +stood in water.... It seemed that Peter Stock should have made an effort +to reach them by this time. Save that the gray was unchangeable in the +roof the world, Charter could not have believed that this was all one +day. The power which had devastated the city, and with unspent violence +swept the _Morne_, might have reached three leagues at sea!... Above all +these probabilities arose their happiness. + +"It seems that I've become a little boy," he said, "on one of those +perfect Christmas mornings. Don't you remember, the greatest moment of +all--coming downstairs, partly dressed, into the room _They_ had made +ready? That moment, before you actually see--just as you enter the +mingled dawn and fire-light and catch the first glisten of the tree?... +I'm afraid, Paula Linster, you have found----" + +"A boy," she whispered. Her face was very close in the gray.... "The +loved dream-boy. The boy went away to meet sternness and suffering and +mazes of misdirection--had to compromise with the world to fit at all. +Ah, I have waited long, and the man has come back to me--a boy." + +"_La Montagne Pelée_ is artistic." + +"It may be in this marvellous world, where men carry on their wars and +their wooings," she went on strangely, "some pursuing their little ways +of darkness, some bursting into blooms of valor and tenderness;--it may +be that two of Earth's people, after a dreadful passage through agony +and terror, have been restored to each other--as we are. It may be that +in the roll of Earth's tableaux, another such film is curled away from +another age and another cataclysm." + +"Paula," he declared, after a moment, "I have found a Living Truth in +this happiness--the Great Good that Drives the World! I think I shall +not lose it again. Glimpses of it came to me facing the East--as I wrote +and thought of you. One glimpse was so clear that I expressed it in a +letter, 'I tell you there is no death, since I have heard the Skylark +sing....' I lost the bright fragment, for a few days in New +York--battled for the prize again both in New York and yesterday at the +mountain. To-day has brought it to me--always to keep. It is this: Were +you to die, I should love you and know you were near. This is love above +Flesh and Death--the old mystifying Interchangeables. This happiness is +the triumph over death. It is a revelation, a mighty adoring--not a mere +woman in my arms, but an ineffable issue of eternity. A woman, but +more--Love and Labor and Life and the Great Good that Drives the World! +This is the happiness I have and hold to-day: Though you died, I should +know that you lived and were mine." + +"I see it--it is the triumph over death--but, Quentin Charter--I want +_you_ still!" + +"Don't you see, it is the strength you give me!--that girds me to say +such things?" + +So they had their flights into silence, while the eternal gray lived in +their round summit of sky--until the voices of the rescuers and their +own grateful answers.... The sailor was sent back to the boat for rope, +while Macready cheered them with a fine and soothing Gaelic oil.... They +lifted Paula, who steadied and helped herself by the chain; then sent +the noose down for Charter. + +"Have you the strent', sir, to do the overhand up the chain?" Macready +questioned, and added in a ghost's whisper, "with the fairest of tin +thousand waitin' at the top?" + +Charter laughed. To lift his right arm was thrashing pain, but he made +it easy as he could for them; and in the gray light faced the woman. + +She saw his lacerated hand, the mire, fire-blisters upon his face, the +blood upon his clothing, swollen veins of throat and temples, and the +glowing adoration in his eyes.... She had bound her hair, and there was +much still to bind. No mortal hurt was visible. Behind her was the +falling sea. On her right hand the smoking ruin of the _Palms_; to the +left, Pelée and his tens of thousands slain; above, the hot, leaden, +hurrying clouds.... Ernst, Macready and the sailor moved discreetly +away. Backs turned, they watched the puffs of smoke and steam that rose +like gray-white birds from the valley of the dead city. + +"Ernst, lad," said Macready, "the boss and the leadin' lady are havin' +an intellekchool repast in the cinter av the stage by the old well. Bear +in mind you're a chorus girl and conduct yourself in accord. Have you a +drop left in the heel av the flask, Adele, dear?" + + * * * * * + +They were nearing the _Saragossa_ in the dusk, and their call had been +answered with a rousing cheer from the ship.... + +"Please, sir, you said you would take me sailing," Paula called, as she +readied the head of the ladder. + +Though he could not stand, Peter Stock had an arm for each; and they +were only released to fall into the embrace of Father Fontanel. They saw +it now in the ship's light: Pelée had stricken the old priest, but not +with fire.... The two were together shortly afterward at supper, in +clean dry make-shifts, very ludicrous. + +"I came to you empty-handed, and soiled from the travail of the +journey," she whispered. "All but myself was in a certain room that +faced the North." + +"There are booties, flounces and ribands in the shops of Fort de +France," Charter replied with delight. "Peter Stock shall be allowed +certain privileges, but not to make any such purchases. I carry circular +notes--and insist on straightening them out." + +"Haven't you discovered that Skylarks are not of the insisting +kind--even when they need new plumage? Anything that looks like +insistence nearly scares the life out of them. Isn't it a dear world?" + +All this was smoothly coherent to him.... Alone that night, they drew +deck-chairs close together forward; and snugly wrapped, would have +nothing whatever to do with Peter Stock's sumptuous cabins. They needed +floods of rest, but were too happy, save just to take little sips of +sleep between talk. + +"You must have been afraid at first," she said, "of turning a foolish +person's head with all that beauty of praise in your letters.... I think +you were writing to some image you wanted to believe lived somewhere, +but had little hope ever really to find. I could not take it all home to +me at first.... I felt that you were writing to a lovely, shadowy sister +who was safely put away in a kind of twilight faëry--a little figure by +a well of magical waters. Sometimes I could go to her, reach the well, +but I could not drink at first--only listen to the music of the water, +watch it bubble and flash in the moon." + +"I love your mind, Paula Linster," he said suddenly, "--every phase of +it. By the way--_love's_ a word I never used before to-day--not even in +my work, save as an abstraction." + +She remembered that Selma Cross had said this of him--that he never used +that word. + +"You could not have said that to 'Wyndam'----" + +"Yes--for Skylark was singing more and more about her. I soon should +have had to say it to 'Wyndam.'" + +"I loved your fidelity to Skylark," she told him softly. + +Dust of Pelée would fall upon the archipelago for weeks, but this of +starless dark was their supreme night. "Feel the sting of the spray," he +commanded. "Hear the bows sing!... It's all for us--the loveliest of +earth's distances and the sky afterward----" + +"But behind," she whispered pitifully. + +"Yes--Pelée 'splashed at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's +hair.'" + + * * * * * + +The next night had fallen, and the two were through with the shops of +Fort de France. Paula's dress was white and lustrous, a strange native +fabric which the man regarded with seriousness and awe. He was in white, +too. His right hand was swathed for repairs, the arm slung, and a +thickness of lint was fitted under his collar. About his eyes and mouth +was a slight look of strain still, which could not live another day +before the force of recuperative happiness.... Up through the streets of +the Capital, they made their way. Casements were open to the night and +the sea, but the people were dulled with grief. Martinique had lost her +first born, and Fort de France, the gentle sister of Saint Pierre, was +bowed with the spirit of weeping. They had loved and leaned on each +other, this boy and girl of the Mother Island. + +Through the silent crowds, Charter and Paula walked, a part of the +silence, passing the groves and towers, where the laws of France are +born again for the little aliens; treading streets of darkness and +moaning. A field of fire-lights shone ahead--red glow shining upon new +canvas. This was the little colony of Father Fontanel, sustained by his +American friend,--brands plucked from the burning of Saint Pierre. They +passed the edge of the bivouac. A woman sat nursing her babe, fire-light +upon her face and breast, drowsy little ones about her. Coffee and +night-air and quavering lullabies; above all, ardent Josephine in +marble, smiling and dreaming of Europe among the stars.... It was a +powerful moment to Quentin Charter. Great joy and thrilling tragedy +breathed upon his heart. He saw a tear upon Paula's cheek, and heard the +low voice of Father Fontanel--like an echo across a stream. He saw them +and hastened forward, more than white in the radiance. + +"It is the moment of ten thousand years!" he exclaimed, grasping their +hands. + +Paula started, and turned to Charter whose gaze sank into her brain.... +And so it came about unexpectedly; in the fire-light among the priest's +beloved, under the Seven Palms and the ardent mystic smile of the +Empress.... + +_Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry +heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.... Let thy garments be +always white; and let not thy head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the +wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life._ + +The words rang in their ears, when they were alone in the city's +darkness, and the fire-lights far behind. + + * * * * * + +On the third day following, they stood together on the _Morne +d'Orange_--the three. Father Fontanel had been in feverish haste to gaze +once more upon his city; while Charter and Paula had a mission among the +ruins.... The _Saragossa_ was sitting for a new complexion in the harbor +of Fort de France, so they had been driven over from the Capital, along +the old sea-road. The wind was still; the sun shone through silent +towers of smoke, and it was noon. Sunlight bathed the stripped fields of +cane, and, seemingly inseparable from the stillness, brooded upon the +blue Caribbean. The wreck of the old plantation-house was hunched closer +to the ground. + +They left Father Fontanel in the carriage, and approached the cistern. +Charter halted suddenly at the edge of the stricken lianas, grasping +Paula's arm. The well-curbing was broken away, and the earth, for yards +surrounding, had caved into the vault. They stood there without speaking +for a moment or two, and then he led her back to the carriage.... Father +Fontanel did not seem aware of their coming or going, but smiled when +they spoke. His eyes, charmed with sunlight, were lost oversea. + +At last they stood, the priest between them, at the very edge of the +_Morne_ overlooking the shadowed _Rue Victor Hugo_--a collapsed artery +of the whited sepulchre.... The priest caught his breath; his hands +lifted from their shoulders and stretched out over the necropolis. His +face was upraised. + +"God, love the World!" he breathed, and the flesh sank from him.... Much +death had dulled their emotions, but this was translation. For an +instant they were lifted, exalted, as by the rushing winds of a chariot. + + * * * * * + +They did not enter the city that day, but came again, the fourth day +after the cataclysm. Out of the heat from the prone city, arose a +forbidding breath, so that Paula was prevailed upon to stay behind on +the _Morne_.... Sickened and terrified by the actualities, dreadful +beyond any imaging, Charter made his way up the cluttered road into _Rue +Rivoli_. Saint Pierre, a smoky pestilential charnel, was only alive now +through the lamentations of those who had come down from the hills for +their dead. + +The wine-shop had partly fallen in front. The stone-arch remained, but +the wooden-door had been levelled and was partially devoured by fire. A +breath of coolness still lingered in the dark place, and the fruity odor +of spilled wine mingled revoltingly with the heaviness of death. The +ash-covered floor was packed hard, and still wet from the gusts of rain +that had swept in through the open door and the broken-backed roof; +stained, too, from the leakage of the casks. Charter's boot touched an +empty bottle, and it wheeled and careened across the stones--until he +thought it would never stop.... Steady as a ticking clock, came the +"drip-drip" of liquor, escaping through a sprung seam from somewhere +among the merciful shadows, where the old soldier of France had fallen +from his chair. + +He climbed over the heap of stones, which had been the rear-door, and +entered the little court from which the song-birds had flown. Across the +drifts of ash, he forced his steps--into the semi-dark of the +living-room behind. + +The great head that he had come to find, was rigidly erect, as if the +muscles were locked, and faced the aperture through which he had +entered. It seemed to be done in iron, and was covered with white +dust--Pelée's dust, fresh-wrought from the fire in which the stars were +forged. The first impression was that of calm, but Charter's soul +chilled with terror, before his eyes fathomed the reality of that look. +Under the thick dust, there suddenly appeared upon the features, as if +invisible demons tugged at the muscles with hideous art, a reflection +from the depths.... Bellingham was sitting beside a table. He had seen +Death in the open door. The colossal energies of his life had risen to +vanquish the Foe, yet again. His mind had realized their failure, and +what failure meant, before the End. Out of the havoc of nether-planes, +where Abominations are born, had come a last call for him. That glimpse +of hell was mirrored in the staring dustless eyes.... Around his +shoulders, like a golden vine, and lying across his knees, clung the +trophy of defeat--Soronia. Denied the lily--he had taken the +tiger-lily.... Under the unset stones of the floor, a lizard croaked. + +Charter, who had fallen of old into the Caverns of Devouring, backed out +into the court of the song-birds, in agony for clean light, for he had +seen old hells again, in the luminous decay of those staring eyes.... He +recalled the end of Father Fontanel and this--with reverent awe, as one +on the edge of the mystery. Through the ends of these two, had some +essential balance of power been preserved in the world? + + + + +TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE +WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY + + +Peter Stock had cabled to New York for officers and men to make up a +ship's company. The _Saragossa_ was overhauled, meanwhile, in the harbor +of Fort de France, and the owner expressed his intention of finishing +his healing at sea. On the same ship, which brought his seamen from New +York, arrived in Fort de France a corps of newspaper correspondents, who +were not slow to discover that in the bandaged capitalist lay one of the +great stones of the eruption from the American point of view. This +literally unseated Peter Stock from his chair on the veranda of the +hotel at the Capital. With his guests, he put to sea within thirty-six +hours after the arrival of the steamer from New York; indeed, before the +_Saragossa's_ paint was dry. His vitality was not abated, but the great +figures of Pelée and Fontanel, enriched by M. Mondet as a sort of +clown-attendant, had strangely softened and strengthened this +rarely-flavored personality. As for his two guests, that month of +voyaging in the Caribbean and below, is particularly their own. The +three were on deck as the _Saragossa_ plied past Saint Pierre, five or +six miles deep in the roadstead, a last time. The brute, Pelée, lay +asleep in the sun before the gate of the whited sepulchre. + +"Did I ever tell you about my last interview with M. Mondet?" Peter +Stock inquired. + +Charter had witnessed it, on his way to the craters that morning, but he +did not say so, and was regaled with the story. "Bear witness," Peter +Stock finished, pointing toward the city, "that I forgive M. Mondet. +Doubtless he was writing a paragraph on the staunchness of Pelée--when +his desk was closed for him." + + * * * * * + +They reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock +berthed the _Saragossa_ and breathed the big city, than he discovered +how dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little +apartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong +young queen; alone also first to _The States_, though there was a table +set for four over in Staten Island the following day.... + +Charter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the +latter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in +the eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious +explanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To +Charter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly +bright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid +had put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that +their imperishable lustre was in his eyes--for the deeper-seeing eyes of +the woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to +burst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang +high among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it +were just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the +men and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives +the World. + +Selma Cross had left the _Zoroaster_, and, with Stephen Cabot, was +happily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. _The Thing_ +was to open again in September at the _Herriot_, and the initial venture +into the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to +do without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down +into Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun +Knox proved rare listening: + +"I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from +Stephen Cabot," she said, falling with the same old readiness into her +disclosures. "'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into +Danube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....' +I had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It +was so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a +self-fighter--the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I +took his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it +transpired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to +Cincinnati--for one day--to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I +was all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art +could give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his +face, so brave and so white. + +"I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned +to the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a +Stephen who could smile up from the ground as--as they stoned.... So I +left him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel, +watching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio. + +"Late the next afternoon I reached Danube, and was driven directly to +the theatre--which was new. There was a pang in this. The town seemed +just the same; the streets and buildings, the sounds and smells, even +the sunset patch at the head of Main Street--all were just as they +should be, except the theatre. You see, all the dreams of greatness of +that savage, homely girl, had found their source and culmination in the +old house of melodrama, parts of which, they told me, now were made over +into darkey shanties down by the river. I felt that my success was +qualified a little in that it had not come in the life of the old house. + +"I joined the Company at the theatre, without seeing any of the Danube +folk. The audience was already gathering. Through an eyelet of the +curtain, I saw Calhoun Knox enter alone, and take a seat in the centre, +five rows from the orchestra. He seemed smaller. The good brown tan was +gone. There was a twitch about his mouth that twitched mine. Other faces +were the same--even the lips that had spoken my doom so long ago. I had +no hate for them now.... + +"I looked at Calhoun Knox again, looked for the charm of clean +simplicity, and kept putting Stephen Cabot out of my heart and brain.... +This man before me had fought for me twice, when I had needed a +champion.... They pulled me away from the eyelet, and _The Thing_ was +on. + +"I could feel the town's group-soul that night--responded to its every +thought, as if a nerve-system of my own was installed in every mind. +They were listening to the woman who had startled New York. I felt their +awe. It was not sweet, as I had dreamed the moment would be. After all, +these were my people. + +"I wanted their love, not their adulation. There had been nights back in +the East, when I had felt my audience, and turned loose _The Thing_ with +utmost daring, knowing that enough of the throng could follow me. But +this night I played slowly, played down, so that all could get it. This +was not a concession to the public, but a reconciliation. And at the +last, I moved and spoke pityingly, lest I hurt them; played to the +working face of Calhoun Knox with all its limitations--as you would tell +a story to a child, and hasten the happy ending to steady the quivering +lip.... And then it came to me slowly, after the last curtain had +fallen, that Danube was calling for its own, and I stepped out from +behind. + +"'Once in the days of tumult and misunderstanding,' I told them, 'I was +angry because you did not love me. Now I know that I was not lovable. +And now I feel your goodness and your forgiveness. I pray you not to +thank me any more, lest I break down under too much joy....' Then I +went down among them. A woman kissed me, but the moment was so big and +my eyes so clouded that I did not remember the face.... Presently the +real consciousness came. Danube had dropped back to the doors. My hand +was in the hand of Calhoun Knox. + +"Far out the Lone Ridge pike, we walked, to the foot of the Knobs. I was +breathing the smell of my old mountains. You can rely, that I had kept +my voice bright. 'I have come back to you, Calhoun,' I said. + +"'I shouldn't be here,' he stammered in real panic. 'You didn't write, +and I married----' + +"I could have hugged him in a way that would not have disturbed his +wife, but I said reproachfully, 'And you let me come 'way out here alone +with you, wicked Married Man?...' I started back for town, and then +thought better of it--waited for him to come up, and took his hand. + +"'Calhoun,' I said, 'I found you a solid friend when I needed one +pitifully. Selma Cross never forgets. You have always been my Kentucky +Gentleman. God bless your big bright heart. I wish you kingly +happiness!' + +"And then I did rush back. We separated at the edge of the town. I +wanted to run and cry aloud. The joy was so new and so vast that I could +scarcely hold it. Miles away, I heard the night-train whistle. My +baggage was at the hotel, but I didn't care for that, and reached the +depot-platform in time. The Company was there, but they had reserved a +Pullman. I went into the day-coach, because I wanted to be alone--sat +rigidly in the thin-backed seat. There were snoring, sprawling folks on +every hand.... After a long time, some one stirred in his seat and +muttered, 'High Bridge.' The brakeman came through at age-long +intervals, calling stations that had once seemed to me the far country. +Then across the aisle, a babe awoke and wailed. The mother had others--a +sweet sort of woman sick with weariness. I took the little one, and it +liked the fresh arms and fell asleep. It fitted right in--the soft +helpless warm little thing--and felt good to me. Dawn dimmed the old +meadows before I gave it up to be fed--and begged it back again. + +"And then Cincinnati from the river--brown river below and brown +smoke-clouds above. It seemed as if I had been gone ages, instead of +only since yesterday. Unhampered by baggage, I sped out of the +day-coach, far ahead of the Company in the Pullman, but the carriage to +the hotel was insufferably slow; the elevator dragged.... It was only +eight in the morning, but I knew his ways--how little he slept.... His +door was partly open, and I heard the crinkle of his paper, as he +answered my tap. + +"'Aren't you pretty near ready for breakfast, Stephen?' I asked.... He +stood in the doorway--his head just to my breast. His face was +hallowed, but his body seemed to weaken. I crossed the threshold to help +him, and we--we're to be married before the new season opens." + +Paula loved the story. + + * * * * * + +And at length Paula and Charter reached the house of his mother, whose +glory was about her, as she stood in the doorway. Before he kissed her, +the mother-eyes had searched his heart.... Then she turned to his +garland of victory. + +"I am so glad you have brought me a daughter." + +The women faced each other--the strangest moment in three lives.... All +the ages passed between the eyes of the maid and the mother; and wisdoms +finer than words, as when two suns, sweeping past in their great cycle, +shine across the darkness of the infinite deep; ages of gleaning, +adoring, suffering, bearing, praying; ages of listening to little +children and building dreams out of pain; the weathered lustre of Naomi +and the fresh radiance of Ruth; but over all, that look which passed +between the women shone the secret of the meaning of men--God-taught +Motherhood. + +To Charter, standing afar-off, came the simple but tremendous +revelation, just a glimpse into that lovely arcanum which mere man may +never know in full.... He saw that these two were closer than prophets +to the Lifting Heart of Things; that such are the handmaidens of the +Spirit, to whom are intrusted God's avatars; that no prophet is greater +than his mother. + +To the man, it was new as the dream which nestled in Paula's heart; to +the women, it was old as the flocks on the mountain-sides of Lebanon. +They turned to him smiling. And when he could speak, he said to Paula: + +"I thought you would like to see the garret, and the window that faces +the East." + + +THE END + + + + +About Will Levington Comfort + +_Author of "She Buildeth Her House" and "Routledge Rides Alone"_ + +(_Eight Editions_) + + +Well-known as one of the most successful short-story contributors to +American magazines, Will Levington Comfort awoke one morning a little +over a year ago to find himself famous as a long-story writer. Seldom +has the first novel of an author been accorded the very essence of +praise from the conservative critics as was Mr. Comfort's "Routledge +Rides Alone," acknowledged to be the best book of 1910. + +While young in years, Mr. Comfort, who is thirty-three, is old in +experience. In 1898 he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry, and +saw Cuban service in the Spanish-American War. The following year he +rode as a war correspondent in the Philippines a rise which resulted +from vivid letters written to newspapers from the battlefields and +prisons. + +Stricken with fever, wearied of service and thinking of Home, he was +next ordered by cable up into China to watch the lid lifted from the +Legations at Peking. Here he saw General Liscum killed on the Tientsin +Wall and got his earliest glance of the Japanese in war. Another attack +of fever completely prostrated him and he was sent home on the hospital +ship "Relief." + +In the interval between the Boxer Uprising and the Russo-Japanese War, +Mr. Comfort began to dwell upon the great fundamental facts of +world-politics. But the call of smoke and battle was too strong, and, +securing a berth as war-correspondent for a leading midwestern +newspaper, he returned to the far East and the scenes of the +Russo-Japanese conflict in 1904. He was present at the battle of +Liaoyang his description of which in "Routledge Rides Alone" fairly +overwhelms the reader. + +Few novels of recent years have aroused the same enthusiasm as was +evoked by this story of "Routledge." Book reviewers both in this country +and in Europe have suggested that the book should win for its author the +Peace prize because it is one of the greatest and most effective +arguments against warfare that has ever been presented. + + + + +By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT + + +ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE + +COLORED FRONTISPIECE BY MARTIN JUSTICE + +Here is a tale indeed--big and forceful, palpitating with interest, and +written with the sureness of touch and the breadth of a man who is +master of his art. Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new +story-places in the world of fiction to furnish the scenes for his +narrative--India and Manchuria at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. +While the novel is distinguished by its clear and vigorous war scenes, +the fine and sweet romance of the love of the hero, Routledge--a brave, +strange, and talented American--for the "most beautiful woman in London" +rivals these in interest. + +The story opens in London, sweeps up and down Asia, and reaches its most +rousing pitch on the ghastly field of Liaoyang, in Manchuria. The +one-hundred-mile race from the field to a free cable outside the war +zone, between Routledge and an English war correspondent, is as exciting +and enthralling as anything that has appeared in fiction in recent +years. + + "A big, vital, forceful story that towers giant-high--a romance + to lure the hours away in tense interest--a book with a message + for all mankind."--_Detroit Free Press._ + + "Three such magnificent figures as Routledge, Noreen, and + Rawder never before have appeared together in fiction. Take it + all in all, 'Routledge Rides Alone' is a great novel, full of + sublime conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders + from heaven to earth."--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + "The story unfolds a vast and vivid panorama of life. The first + chapters remind one strongly of the descriptive Kipling we once + knew. We commend the book for its untamed interest. We + recommend it for its descriptive power."--_Boston Evening + Transcript._ + + "Here is one of the strongest novels of the year; a happy + blending of romance and realism, vivid, imaginative, dramatic, + and, above all, a well told story with a purpose. It is a + red-blooded story of war and love, with a touch of the + mysticism of India, some world politics, love of country, and + hate of oppression--a tale of clean and expert workmanship, + powerful and personal."--_Pittsburg Dispatch._ + + "Three such magnificent figures (Routledge, Noreen, and Rawder) + have seldom before appeared together in fiction. For knowledge, + energy, artistic conception, and literary skill, it is easily + the book of the day--A GREAT NOVEL, full of a sublime + conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders from + heaven to earth."--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + "EASILY THE BOOK OF THE DAY"--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of She Buildeth Her House, by Will Comfort + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE BUILDETH HER HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 34825-8.txt or 34825-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/2/34825/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: She Buildeth Her House + +Author: Will Comfort + +Illustrator: Martin Justice + +Release Date: January 2, 2011 [EBook #34825] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE BUILDETH HER HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>She Buildeth Her House</h1> + +<h2>By Will Levington Comfort</h2> + +<h3>Author of "Routledge Rides Alone," etc</h3> + + +<h3>With a Frontispiece By<br /> +Martin Justice</h3> + +<h3>Philadelphia & London<br /> +J. B. Lippincott Company<br /> +1911</h3> + +<h3>COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</h3> + +<h3>Published May, 1911</h3> + +<h3>PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br /> +AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS<br /> +PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>A BOUGH BROUGHT WITH SINGING<br /> +TO THE FEET OF<br /> +HER<br /> +WHO CROSSED THE SANDS ALONE<br /> +IN ADORING PILGRIMAGE<br /> +FOR HER SON</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>HE REACHED THE CURBING OF THE OLD WELL WITH HIS BURDEN</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#FIRST_CHAPTER">FIRST CHAPTER. <br /><span class="smcap">Paula Encounters the Remarkable Eyes of Her First Giant, +and Hearkens to the Second, Thundering Afar-off</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#SECOND_CHAPTER">SECOND CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula Contemplates the Wall of a Hundred Windows, and +the Mysterious Madame Nestor Calls at the Zoroaster</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#THIRD_CHAPTER">THIRD CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Certain Developing Incidents are Caught Into the Current +of Narrative—also a Supper with Reifferscheid</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#FOURTH_CHAPTER">FOURTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula Encounters Her Adversary Who Turns Prophet and +Tells of a Starry Child Soon to be Born</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#FIFTH_CHAPTER">FIFTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula is Involved in the Furious History of Selma Cross +and Writes a Letter to Quentin Charter</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#SIXTH_CHAPTER">SIXTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula is Called to Parlor "F" of the Maidstone where the +Beyond-Devil Awaits with Outstretched Arms</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#SEVENTH_CHAPTER">SEVENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula Begins to See More Clearly Through Madame +Nestor's Revelations, and Witnesses a Broadway Accident</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#EIGHTH_CHAPTER">EIGHTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula Makes Several Discoveries in the Charter +Heart-Country, and is Delighted by His Letters to the Skylark</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#NINTH_CHAPTER">NINTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula is Drawn into the Selma Cross Past and is Bravely +Wooed Through Further Messages from the West</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TENTH_CHAPTER">TENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula Sees Selma Cross in Tragedy, and in Her own +Apartment Next Morning is Given a Reality to Play</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#ELEVENTH_CHAPTER">ELEVENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula is Swept Deep into a Desolate Country by the +High Tide, but Notes a Quick Change in Selma Cross</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWELFTH_CHAPTER">TWELFTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Certain Elements for the Charter Crucible, and His +Mother's Pilgrimage, Across the Sands Alone to Mecca</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#THIRTEENTH_CHAPTER">THIRTEENTH CHAPTER.<br /> "<span class="smcap">No Man Can Enter into a Strong Man's House, and +Spoil His Goods, Except He Will First Bind the Strong Man</span>"</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#FOURTEENTH_CHAPTER">FOURTEENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">The Singing of the Skylark Ceases Abruptly; Charter +Hastens East to Find a Queer Message at the Granville</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#FIFTEENTH_CHAPTER">FIFTEENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Quentin Charter and Selma Cross Join Issue on a New +Battle-ground, Each Leaving the Field with Open Wounds</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#SIXTEENTH_CHAPTER">SIXTEENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula, Finding that Both Giants Have Entered Her +Castle, Rushes in Tumult into the Night</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#SEVENTEENTH_CHAPTER">SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER. <br /><span class="smcap">Paula Sails into the South, Seeking the Holy Man of +Saint Pierre, Where La Montagne Pelée Gives Warning</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#EIGHTEENTH_CHAPTER">EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula is Involved in the Rending Fortunes of Saint +Pierre and the Panther Calls with New York Mail</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#NINETEENTH_CHAPTER">NINETEENTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Quentin Charter is Attracted by the Travail of +Pelée, and Encounters a Queer Fellow-Voyager</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTIETH_CHAPTER">TWENTIETH CHAPTER. <span class="smcap">Charter's Mind Becomes the Arena of Conflict Between +the Wyndam Woman and Skylark Memories</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-FIRST_CHAPTER">TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Charter Communes with the Wyndam Woman, and +Confesses the Great Trouble of His Heart to Father Fontanel</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-SECOND_CHAPTER">TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Charter Makes a Pilgrimage to the Craters of +Pelée—One Last Day Devoted to the Spirit of Old Letters</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-THIRD_CHAPTER">TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Charter and Stock are Called to the Priest's House +in the Night, and the Wyndam Woman Stays at the Palms</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-FOURTH_CHAPTER">TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Having to do Especially with the Morning of the +Ascension, when the Monster, Pelée, Gives Birth to Death</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-FIFTH_CHAPTER">TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">The Saragossa Encounters the Raging Fire-Mists +from Pelée Eight Miles at Sea, but Lives to Send a Boat Ashore</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-SIXTH_CHAPTER">TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER.<br /> <span class="smcap">Paula and Charter in Several Settings Feel the +Energy of the Great Good that Drives the World</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWENTY-SEVENTH_CHAPTER">TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. <br /><span class="smcap">Paula and Charter Journey into the West; One +Hears Voices, but not the Words often, from Rapture's Roadway</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#About_Will_Levington_Comfort">About Will Levington Comfort</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#By_WILL_LEVINGTON_COMFORT">By Will Levington Comfort</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>She Buildeth Her House</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FIRST_CHAPTER" id="FIRST_CHAPTER"></a>FIRST CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT, AND HEARKENS TO +THE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF</h3> + + +<p>Paula Linster was twenty-seven when two invading giants entered the +country of her heart. On the same day, these hosts, each unconscious of +the other, crossed opposite borders and verged toward the prepared +citadel between them.</p> + +<p>Reifferscheid, though not one of the giants, found Paula a distraction +in brown, when she entered his office before nine in the morning, during +the fall of 1901. He edited the rather distinguished weekly book-page of +<i>The States</i>, and had come to rely upon her for a paper or two in each +issue. There had been rain in the night. The mellow October sunlight was +strange with that same charm of maturity which adds a glow of attraction +to motherhood. The wonderful autumn haze, which broods over our zone as +the spirit of ripening grains and tinting fruits, just perceptibly +shaded the vivid sky. A sentence Paula had heard somewhere in a play, +"My God, how the sun does shine!" appealed to her as particularly +fitting for New York on such a morning. Then in the streets, so lately +flooded, the brilliant new-washed air was sweet to breathe.</p> + +<p>Paula had felt the advisability the year before of adding somewhat to +her income. Inventory brought out the truth that not one of her talents +had been specialized to the point of selling its product. She had the +rare sense to distinguish, however, between a certain joyous inclination +to write and a marked ability for producing literature; and to recognize +her own sound and sharp appreciation of what was good in the stirring +tide of books. Presenting herself to Reifferscheid, principally on +account of an especial liking for the book-page of <i>The States</i>, she never +forgot how the big man looked at her that first time over his +spectacles, as if turning her pages with a sort of psychometric faculty. +He found her possible and several months won her not a little +distinction in the work.</p> + +<p>Reifferscheid was a fat, pondrous, heavy-spectacled devourer of work. He +compelled her real admiration—"the American St. Beuve," she called him, +because he was so tireless, and because he sniffed genius from afar. +There was something unreservedly charming to her, in his sense of +personal victory, upon discovering greatness in an unexpected source. +Then he was so big, so common to look at; kind as only a bear of a man +can be; so wise, so deep, and with such a big smoky factory of a brain, +full of fascinating crypts. Subcutaneous laughter that rested her +internally for weeks lingered about certain of the large man's sayings. +Even in the auditing of her account, she felt his kindness.</p> + +<p>"Now here are some essays by Quentin Charter—a big man, a young man and +a slow worker," he said. "Charter's first volume was a thunderer. We +greeted it with a whoop two years ago. Did you see it?"</p> + +<p>"No," Paula replied. "I was too strong for literary trifles then."</p> + +<p>"Anyway, look out for Charter. He didn't start to appear until he was an +adult. He's been everywhere, read everything and has a punch like a +projectile. An effective chap, this Charter. He dropped in to see me a +few weeks after my review. He confessed the critics had made him very +glad.... 'I am doing a second book,' he confided to me. 'Down on my +knees to it. Work-shop stripped of encomiums; no more dinner-parties or +any of that fatness. Say, it's a queer thing about making a book. You +never can tell whether it's to be a boy or a girl....'"</p> + +<p>Paula smiled reservedly.</p> + +<p>"I asked him what his second book was to be about," Reifferscheid went +on. "'Women,' said he. 'How novel!' said I. He grinned genially. +'Reifferscheid,' he declared, in his snappy way, 'women are interesting. +They're doing the thinking nowadays. They're getting there. One of these +mornings, man will wake up to the fact that he's got to be born again to +get in a class with his wife. Man is mixed up with altogether too much +of this down-town madness. Women don't want votes, public office, or +first-hand dollars. <i>They want men!</i>' ... I always remembered that +little bit of stuff from Charter. He says the time will come when classy +girls will get their heads together and evolve this ultimatum, which +will be handed intact to adorers: 'No, boys, we can't marry you. We +haven't any illusions about celibacy. It isn't nice nor attractive, but +it's better than being yoked with hucksters and peddlers who come +up-town at night—mental cripples in empty wagons. Go away and learn +what life means, what it means to be men—<i>what it means to us for you +to be men</i>! Learn how to live—and oh, boys, hurry back!'"</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" Paula exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, Charter is a full deck and a joker. He's lived. He makes you +feel him. His years are veritable campaigns. He has dangled in the +vortices of human action and human passion—and seemed to come out +whole!..." Reifferscheid chuckled at a memory. "'Women are interesting,' +Charter finished in his dry fashion. 'I just got to them lately. I wish +I could know them all.'"</p> + +<p>"I love the book already," Paula said. Reifferscheid laughed inwardly at +the feminine way she held the volume in both hands, pressing it close.</p> + +<p>"It's the only book on my table this morning that I'd like to read," he +added. "Therefore I give it to you. There's no fun in giving something +you don't want.... Are you going to hear Bellingham to-night?"</p> + +<p>She was conscious of an unaccountable dislike at the name, a sense of +inward chill. It was almost as reckonable as the pleasure she felt in +the work and personality of Quentin Charter.</p> + +<p>"Who's Bellingham?" Paula swallowed dryly after the first utterance of +the name.</p> + +<p>"Mental magician. I only mentioned him, because you so seldom miss the +unusual, and are so quick to hail a new cult or odd mental specimen."</p> + +<p>"Magician—surely?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"He comes rather stoutly recommended as such," Reifferscheid replied, +"though personally mine is more than a healthy skepticism. There's a +notice this morning of his lectures. He recently hypnotized a man to +whom the medical profession was afraid to administer an +anaesthetic—held him painless during a long and serious operation. Then +Bellingham is the last word in alchemy, feminine emotions, causes of +hysteria, longevity, the proportions of male and female in each person; +also he renews the vital principle, advises unions, makes you beautiful, +and has esoteric women's classes. A Godey's Ladies' man. Some provincial +husband will shoot him presently."</p> + +<p>Paula took the surface car home, because the day was so rare and the +crowd was still downward bent. The morning paper contained an +announcement of Quentin Charter's new book, and a sketch of the author. +A strange, talented figure, new in letters, the article said. The +paragraphs had that fresh glow of a publisher's perennial high hope. +Here was the book of a man who had lived; who drew not only upon art, +history, and philosophy for his prisms of thought, but who had roamed +and worked and ridden with men, keeping a sensitive finger ever at the +pulse of nature; a man who had never in the most insignificant degree +lowered the import or artificially raised the tension of his work to +adjust it to the fancied needs of the public. In spite of the +enthusiastic phrasing, everything about Charter fascinated her; even the +make-up of the unread book in her hand, and the sentences that gleamed +from the quickly turned pages.</p> + +<p>She had ridden many squares, when the name of Dr. Bellingham stood out +before her eyes in the newspaper. The chill in her arteries was +perceptible as before, when Reifferscheid spoke the name. It was as the +latter had said—the famous healer and telepathist was to start a series +of classes for women.</p> + +<p>Paula lived alone in a small apartment at the <i>Zoroaster</i>, "Top-side o' +Park." Few friends, many books, within a car ride of the world's best +fruition in plays, lectures, music, and painting—yet the reality of it +all was the expansion of her mind in the days and nights alone. The +subtle relations of things encroached upon her intelligence with a +steady and certain trend. She never had to pass, like so many of cruder +nature, through the horrid trials of materialism; nor to be painfully +bruised in mind from buffeting between manhandled creeds and the pure +ethics of the Lord Christ. Hers was not an aggressive masculine +originality, but the complement of it—that inspiring, completing +feminine intelligence, elastic to a man's hard-won concepts and ready +with a crown for them.</p> + +<p>Something of this type of woman, the big-brained brothers of men have +written and chiselled, painted, sung and dreamed of, since human thought +first lifted above the appetites. There must be a bright answer for each +man's particular station of evolution in the world's dumfounding snarl +of the sexes—one woman to lighten his travail and accelerate his +passage to the Uplands. For we are but half-men, man and woman alike. +The whole is two, whose union forms One.... This is the key to Nature's +arcanum; this, the one articulate sentence from all the restless +murmuring out of the past; this, the stupendous Purpose weaving the +million thrilling and truant activities of the present hour—the clean +desire for completion—the union of two which forms One.</p> + +<p>The search for this completing woman is the secret of man's roving in +the gardens of sense. His frequent falls into abysmal depravity are but +results incidental to the occultations of his Guide Star. From reptiles +in the foul smoke of chaos, to the lifted spines of manhood on a rising +road, Man has come; and by the interminable torture of the paths which +sink behind, he has the other half of eternity to reach the Top.</p> + +<p>From a child whose fairies were only enchanted into books for day-time +convenience, darkness to Paula meant visions, indeed. Often now at +night, though she never spoke of it, the little apartment was peopled by +the spirits of her reading and her ideals—mystics, priests, prophets, +teachers, ascetics. To the congenial dark they came—faces unlike any +she had ever seen, but quite unmistakable in her dreamings. Once when +she pampered a natural aversion to meat for several months, soft +foot-falls and low voices (which had nothing whatever to do with her +neighbors across the hall, or the elevator-man in any passage) began to +rouse her in the night. New York is no place for such refinements of +sense, and she checked these manifestations through physical exercise +and increased diet. She was seldom afraid, but there was a tension in +all her imaginings, and she grew marvellously in this twenty-eighth +year—furnishing her mind more sumptuously than she knew. Reifferscheid +saw this in her eyes and in her work.</p> + +<p>Throughout the swiftly passing day, Paula realized that she would go to +Prismatic Hall in West Sixty-seventh Street, where Dr. Bellingham was to +organize his lecture-course that night. Against this foreknowledge was a +well-defined distaste for the man and his work. Between the two, the +thought of the evening crowded frequently into mind until she became +impatient with herself at the importance it assumed. It was with a +certain feminine manipulation of conscience, so deft as almost to be +unconscious, that she excused her own curiosity on the ground that her +disfavor for the doctor and his message would be strengthened by the +first meeting, beyond the need of further experience.</p> + +<p>One concession she made to her natural aversion—that of going late. She +was in a mood poignantly critical. The real Paula Linster, she fancied, +was at home, "Top-side o' Park"; here was just a sophisticated +professional surface, such as reporters carry about. The Hall was packed +with women; the young and the jaded; faces of pup-innocence; faces +bitten from terrible expeditions to the poles of sense; faces tired and +thick from the tread of an orient of emotions; slow-roving eyes which +said, "I crave—I crave! I have lost the sense of reality, but seven +sick and pampered organs crave within me!"</p> + +<p>The thought came to Paula—to be questioned afterward—that man's evil, +after all, is rudimentary compared to a worldly woman's; man's soul not +so complicated, nor so irrevocably identified with his sensual organism. +She could not avoid pondering miserably upon woman's innate love for far +ventures into sensation, permitting these ventures to be called (if the +world would) searches for the holy grail. The inevitable attraction for +women which specialists of the body possess, actually startled her. +Bellingham was one of these. On the surface of all his sayings, and all +comment about him, was the bland, deadly insinuation that the soul +expands in the pursuit of bodily health. About his name was the mystery +of his age, whispers of his physical perfection, intimations of romantic +affairs, the suggestion of his miraculous performances upon the +emotions—the whole gamut of activities designed to make him the instant +aversion of any normal member of his own sex. Yet the flock of females +had settled about him, as they have settled about every black human +plague—and glorious messiah—since the birth of days.</p> + +<p>The thrilled, expectant look on several faces brought to Paula's mind +the type of her sisters who relish being shocked; whose exaltations are +patently those of emotional contact; who call physical excitement the +glorifying of their spirit, and cannot be persuaded to confess +otherwise. Woman as a negation for man to play upon never distressed her +before with such direct and certain pressure. Here were women intent +upon encountering a new sensation; women who devoutly breathed the name +of Motherhood next to Godhood, and yet endured their pregnancy with +organic rebellion and mental loathing; women who could not conceive of +love apart from the embrace of man, and who imagine a "message" in +deformed and salacious novels, making such books popular; women of +gold-leaf culture whose modesty fastens with a bow—narrow temples of +infinite receptivity....</p> + +<p>Why had they come? In the perfect feminine system of information, the +whisper had run: "Bellingham is wonderful. Bellingham tells you how to +live forever. Bellingham teaches the renewal of self and has esoteric +classes—<i>for the few</i>!" They had the sanction of one another. There was +no scandal in being there openly, nor any instinct, apparently, to warn +them that secret classes to discover how to live forever, had upon the +surface no very tonic flavor. The digest of the whole matter was that +revelations sooner or later would be made to a certain few, and that +these revelations, which would be as fine oil upon the mental surfaces +of many women near her, would act as acid upon the male mind generally.</p> + +<p>In the sickening distaste for herself and for those who had to make no +concession to themselves for coming, inasmuch as society permitted; and +who would be heartfully disappointed in a lecture on hygiene that did +not discuss the more intimate matters of the senses, Paula did not +appraise the opposite sex at any higher value. She merely reviewed +matters which had come to her vividly as some of the crowning frailties +of her own kind. The centre of the whole affair, Dr. Bellingham, was now +introduced.</p> + +<p>He looked like a Dane at first glance. His was the size, the dusty look +and the big bone of a Dane; the deep, downy paleness of cheek, the +tumbled, though not mussy hair. He was heavy without being adipose, +lean, but big-boned; his face was lined with years, though miraculously +young in the texture of skin. The lips of a rather small and feminine +mouth were fresh and red as a girl's. In the softness of complexion and +the faintest possible undertone of color, it was impossible not to think +of perfected circulation and human health brought to truest rhythm. The +costliest lotions cannot make such a skin. It is organic harmony. +Exterior decoration does not delude the seeing eye any more than a +powder-magazine becomes an innocent cottage because its walls are +vine-clad.... Directly behind her, Paula now heard a slow whisper:</p> + +<p>"I knew him twenty-five years ago, and he is not a moment older to look +at."</p> + +<p>She seemed to have heard the voice before, and though the sentence +surged with a dark significance through her mind, she did not turn. +Bellingham's words were now caressing the intelligence of his audience. +To Paula, his soft mouth was indescribably odious with cultured passion, +red with replenishment, fresh with that sinister satisfaction which +inevitably brings to mind a second figure, fallen, drained. His presence +set to quivering within her, fears engendered from the great occult +past. Strange deviltries would always be shadowed about the Bellingham +image in her mind.... Here was a man who made a shrine of his body, +invested it with a heavy hungering God, and taught others—women—to bow +and to serve.</p> + +<p>To her the body was but a nunnery which enclosed for a time an eternal +element. This was basic, incontrovertible to her understanding. All that +placated the body and helped to make fleshly desires last long, was +hostile to the eternal element. Not that the body should be abused or +neglected, but kept as nearly as possible a clean vessel for the spirit, +brought to a fine automatic functioning. It was as clear to Paula +Linster as the faces of the women about her, that the splendid sacrifice +of Jesus was not that He had died upon the Cross, but that He put on +flesh in the beginning for the good of infant-souled men.... To eat +sparingly of that which is good; to sleep when weary; to require +cleanliness and pure air—these were the physical laws which worked out +easily for decent minds. Beyond such simple affairs, she did not allow +the body often to rule her brain. When, indeed, the potentialities of +her sex stirred within, Paula felt that it was the down-pull of the old +brood-mother, Earth, and not the lifting of wings.</p> + +<p>Bellingham's voice correlated itself, not with the eyes and brow, but +with the Lilith mouth—that strangely unpunished mouth. It was soft, +suave. There was in it the warmth of breath. The high white forehead and +the tousled brown hair, leonine in its masculinity—seemed foreign as +another man's. She hearkened to the voice of a doctor used to women; one +who knows women without illusion, whom you could imagine saying, "Why +bless you, women never say 'no.'"</p> + +<p>The eyes were blue-gray, but toned very darkly. The iris looked small in +contrast to the expanse of clear white. They were fixed like a bird's in +expression, incapable of warming or softening, yet one did not miss the +impression that they could brighten and harden, even to shining in the +dark. Heavy blonde brows added a look of severity.</p> + +<p>Paula's spirit, as if recognizing an old and mortal enemy, gathered +about itself every human protecting emotion. Frankly hateful, she +surveyed the man, listening. He talked marvellously; even in her +hostility, she had to grant that. The great sunning cat was in his +tones, but the words were joined into clean-thought expression, rapid, +vivid, unanswerable. He did not speak long; the first meeting was +largely formative. Paula knew he was studying his company, and watched +him peer into the faces of the women. His mouth occasionally softened in +the most winsome and engaging way, while his words ran on with the +refined wisdom of ages. And always to her, his eyes stood out cold, +hard, deadly.</p> + +<p>Finally, she was conscious that they were roving near her; moving left +to right, from face to face, as a collection-plate might have been +passed. Her first thought was to leave; but fear never failed to arouse +an impulse to face out the cause. The second thought was to keep her +eyes lowered. This she tried. His words came clearly now, as she stared +down into the shadow—the perfectly carved thoughts, bright and swift +like a company of soldiers moving in accord. As seconds passed, this +down-staring became insufferable as though some one were holding her +head. She could not breathe under repression. Always it had been so; the +irresistible maddened the very centres of her reason—a locked room, a +hand or a will stronger than her own.</p> + +<p>Raising her head with a gasp, as one coming to the surface from a great +depth of water, she met Bellingham's glance unerringly as a shaft of +light. He had waited for this instant. The eyes now boring into her own, +seemed lifted apart from all material things, veritable essences of +light, as if they caught and held the full rays of every arc-lamp in the +Hall. Warmth and smiling were not in them; instead, the spirit of +conquest aroused; incarnate preying-power, dead to pity and humor. Here +was Desire toothed, taloned, quick with every subtle art of nature. +Something at war with God, his eyes expressed to her. Failing to master +God, failing to foul the centres of creative purity, this Something +devoured the souls of women. Continually his voice sought to drug her +brain. The fine edge was gone from her perceptions; dulled, she was, to +all but his sayings. There was a chill behind and above her eyes; it +swept backward and seemed to converge in the coarser ganglia at the base +of her brain. Once she had seen a bird hop and flutter lower and lower +among the branches of a lilacbush. On the ground below was a cat with +head twisted upward—its vivid and implacable eyes distending. Paula +could understand now the crippling magnetism the bird felt.... Finally +she could hear only the words of Bellingham, and feel only his power. +What he was saying now to her was truth, the unqualified truth of +more-than-man.</p> + +<p>When his eyes turned away, she felt ill, futile, immersed in an +indescribable inner darkness. Her fingers pained cruelly, and she +realized she had been clutching with all her strength the book in her +hand—Quentin Charter's book—which she had begun since morning. She +could not remember a single one of his sentences which had impressed +her, for her brain was tired and ineffectual, as after a prolonged +fever, but she held fast to the bracing effect of an optimistic +philosophy. Then finally out of the helplessness of one pitifully +stricken, a tithe of her old vitality returned. She used it at once, +rose from her seat to leave the Hall. Into the base of her brain again, +as she neared the door, penetrated the protest of his eyes. Had she been +unable to go on, she would have screamed. She felt the eyes of the +women, too; the whole, a ghastly experience. Once outside, she wanted to +run.</p> + +<p>Not the least astonishing was the quick obliteration of it all. This was +because her sensations were the result of an influence foreign to her +own nature. In a few moments she felt quite well and normal again, and +was conscious of a tendency to make light of the whole proceeding. She +reached home shortly after ten, angered at herself—inexplicable +perversity—because she had taken Bellingham and the women so +seriously.... That night she finished one of the big books of her +life—Quentin Charter's "A Damsel Came to Peter." When the dawn stole +into the little flat, her eyes were stinging, and her temples felt +stretched apart from the recent hours.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SECOND_CHAPTER" id="SECOND_CHAPTER"></a>SECOND CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND THE MYSTERIOUS +MADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE <i>ZOROASTER</i></h3> + + +<p>Paula had never felt such a consciousness of vitality as the next +forenoon, after three or four hours' sleep. She was just <i>un</i>rested +enough to be alive with tension. Her physical and mental capacities +seemed expanded beyond all common bounds, and her thoughts tumbled about +playfully in full arenic light, as athletes awaiting the beginning of +performance. She plunged into a tub of cool water with such delight as +thoroughly to souse her hair, so it became necessary to spend a +half-hour in the sunlight by the open window, combing and fanning, her +mind turning over wonderful things.</p> + +<p>If you ever looked across a valley of oaks and maples and elms in the +full morning glow of mid-October, you can divine the glory of red and +brown and gold which was this fallen hair. One must meditate long to +suggest with words the eyes of Paula Linster; perhaps the best her +chronicler can do is to offer a glimpse from time to time. Just now you +are asked for the sake of her eyes to visualize that lustrous valley +once more—only in a dusk that enriches rather than dims. A memorably +beautiful young woman, sitting there by the open window—one of the +elect would have said.</p> + +<p>The difficulty in having to do with Linster attractions is to avoid +rising into rhapsody. One thinks of stars and lakes, angels and autumn +lands, because his heart is full as a country-boy's, and high +clean-clipped thinking is choked. Certainly, once having known such a +woman, you will never fall under the spell of Weininger, or any other +scale-eyed genius. There is an inspiring reach to that hard-handled +word, Culture, when it is used about a woman like this. It means so pure +a fineness as neither to require nor to be capable of ostentation; and +yet, a fineness that wears and gives and associates with heroisms. You +think of a lineage that for centuries has not been fouled by brutality +or banality, and has preserved a glowing human warmth, too, to retain +the spirit of woman. When men rise to the real and the worthy, one by +one, each will find his Paula Linster, whom to make happy is happiness; +whose companionship inevitably calls forth his best; whom to be with +constantly means therefore that all within him, not of the best, must +surely die. Clearly when a man finds such a woman, all his roads are +closed, save one—to the Shining Heights! And who can say that his royal +mate will not laughingly unfold wings for him, when they stand together +in the radiant altitude?</p> + +<p>She was thinking of Charter's book as she brushed her hair dry. His +sentences played brightly in her mind, fastening themselves to comment +of her own for the review. Deep was the appeal of the rapt, sunlit face, +as she looked away across the rear-court. The colored hall-boy of her +own house might have missed the exquisite lines of lip, eyelid, nostril, +brow, temple and chin, but his head uncovered in her presence, and the +choicest spirit of service sprang within him. In all about her, +to an enlightened vision, was the unconscious repression of +beauty—art-stirring lines of mental and spiritual awakening; that look +of deep inner freshness and health, the mere sight of which disgusts a +man with all he has done to soil and sicken his body. Full and easily +she breathed, as one who relishes sweet air like the taste of pure +water. You could imagine Paula exclaiming with joy at the tonic delight +of a wind from the sea, but not from the steaming aroma of a grill. It +was all an æsthetic attraction—not an over-rounded arc, not a tissue +stretched shiny from uneven plumpness, not a drowsy sag or fold to +suggest the easy content of a mere feeding and breeding animal.</p> + +<p>The rear-view of a great granite-ridge of rooming-houses across the +court had often fascinated her with the thought of the mysteries within. +Once she had spoken to Reifferscheid about the splendid story of New +York yet to be written by someone who watched, as she often did, one of +these walls of a hundred windows.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he had said. "It's great to be poor. Best blood of New York is in +those back rooms. Everyone needs his poverty-stage of growth—about +seven years will do. It teaches you simplicity. You step into your +neighbor's room and find him washing his stockings with shaving-soap. He +explains that it is better than tooth-powder for textile fabrics. Also, +he intimates that he has done a very serious thing in wetting down these +small garments, having looked in his bag since, and learned that he has +not another pair. However, he wrings them very tight and puts them on +with the remark that this is a certain way to prevent shrinkage."</p> + +<p>Even now, a man stood by his window in a sleeveless garment and a ruff +of lather, shaving with a free hand, and a song between strokes. His was +a shining morning face, indeed.... A bare feminine arm leaped quickly +forth from behind a tightened curtain nearby and adjusted a flower-pot +better to the sunlight. From somewhere came a girlish voice in Wagner's +<i>Walkure Call</i>. There was not a thought of effort in her carrying that +lofty elaborate music—just a fine heart tuned to harmony on a rare +morning. The effect is not spoiled by the glimpse of a tortured feminine +face igniting a cigarette over a gas-flame that has burned all night. +The vibrations of New York are too powerful for many, but there is more +of health and hope than not.... A good mother cleanses a sauce-pan from +her water-pitcher and showers with the rinsing a young heaven-tree far +below. Then she lifts in a milk-bottle from the stone ledge—and blows +the dust from the top....</p> + +<p>Often at night when Paula awakened she could hear the drum of a +typewriter winging across the precipice—one of the night-shift helping +to feed the insatiable maw of print. Had New York called him? Would the +City crush him into a trifler, with artificial emotions, or was this a +Daniel come to interpret her evil dreams?... In a corner-room with two +windows, sat a lame young man before an easel. Almost always he was +there, when there was light. Heaven be with him, Paula thought, if his +picture failed.... And in one of the least and darkest, an old man sat +writing. Day after day, he worked steadily through the hours. To what +god or devil had he sold his soul that he was thus condemned to eternal +scrivening? This was the harrowing part. The back-floors of New York are +not for the old men. Back-rooms for the young men and maidens, still +strong in the flight of time and the fight of competition—back-rooms +for young New York. Nature loses interest in the old. Civilization +should be kinder.</p> + +<p>From an unseen somewhere a canary poured out a veritable fire-hose +torrent of melody; and along one of the lower window ledges opposite, an +old gray cat was crouched, a picture of sinister listening. Here was a +dragon, indeed, for small, warm birds.</p> + +<p>Directly opposite a curtain was lifted, and a woman, no longer young, +appeared to breathe the morning. Many New Yorkers knew this woman for +her part in children's happiness. There was a whisper that she had once +been an artist's model—and had loved the artist.... There was one woman +long ago—a woman with a box of alabaster—who was forgiven because she +loved much.... The lady across the way loved children now, children of +most unhappy fortunes. To those who came, and there were many, she gave +music lessons; often all day long helping grimy fingers to falter over +the keys. So she awakened poetry and planted truth-seedlings in shaded +little hearts. To the children, though the lady was poor as any—in +spite of her piano and a wall of books—she was Lady Bountiful, +indeed.... Paula smiled. Two windows, strangely enough side by side, +were curtained with stockings out to dry. In one, there were +many—cerise and lavender, pink and baby blue. In the next there were +but two pair, demurely black. What a world of suggestion in the +contrast!... So it was always—her wall of a hundred windows, a changing +panorama of folly, tragedy, toil that would not bow to hopelessness, +vanity, art, sacrifice. Blend them all together above the traffic's +roar—and you have the spirit of young New York.</p> + +<p>She put on the brass kettle at length, crossing the room for an +occasional glance into the mirror as she finished her hair.... The +strange numbing power she had felt the night before crept suddenly back +from her eyes now to the base of her brain, striving to cripple her +volition. Bellingham was calling her.... The sunlight was gone. There +was a smell of hot metal in the air, as if some terrific energy had +burned out the vitality. Her heart hurt her from holding her breath so +long. Beyond all expression she was shocked and shamed. The mirror +showed now a spectral Paula with crimson lips and haggard eyes.... An +indescribable fertility stirred within her—almost mystic, like a +whisper from spiritland where little children play, waiting to be born. +She could have fallen in a strange and subtle thrall of redolent +imaginings, except that thought of the source of it all, the +occultist—was as acid in her veins.</p> + +<p>She drank tea and crossed the street to the Park for an hour. The +radiance of autumn impressed her rarely; not as the death of a year, but +rather as a glorious pageant of evening, the great energies of nature +all crowned with fruition and preparing for rest. Back in her room, she +wrote the Charter critique, wrote as seldom before. The cool spirit of +the essayist seemed ignited with a lyric ardor. In her momentary power +she conceived a great literary possibility of the future—an effulgent +Burns-vine blossoming forth upon the austere cliff of a Carlyle. She had +finished, and it was dusk when Madame Nestor called.</p> + +<p>For several years, at various philosophical gatherings and brotherhoods, +Paula, invariably stimulated by the unusual, had encountered this +remarkable woman. Having very little to say as a rule, Madame Nestor was +a figure for comment and one not readily forgotten because of occasional +memorable utterances. In all the cults of New York, there was likely no +individual quite so out of alignment with ordinary life. Indefinitely, +she would be called fifty. Her forehead was broad, her mouth soft. The +face as a whole was heavy and flour-white. There was a distention of +eyeballs and a pulpy shapelessness to her body which gave the impression +of advanced physical deterioration—that peculiar kind of breaking down, +often noticeable among psychics of long practice. Her absolute +incapacity to keep anything of value was only one characteristic of +interest. Madame Nestor's record of apparently thoughtless generosity +was truly inspiriting.</p> + +<p>"I had to see you to-day," she said, sinking down with a sigh of relief. +"I sat behind you last night in Prismatic Hall."</p> + +<p>The younger woman recalled with a start—the whisper she had heard. She +leaned forward and inquired quickly: "So it was you, Madame Nestor, who +knew—this Bellingham"—she cleared her throat as she uttered the +name—"as he is now—a quarter of a century ago?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. How very strange that you should have heard what I said.... You +will join one of his classes, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"I can imagine doing no such thing."</p> + +<p>"Dear Paula, do you think it will really turn out—that you are to have +no relation with Bellingham?"</p> + +<p>Paula repressed the instant impulse to answer sharply. The fact that she +had already felt Bellingham's power made the other's words a harsh +irritation.</p> + +<p>"What relation could I have? He is odious to me."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I should have been a cinder long since, dear, if these were +days for burning witches," Madame Nestor said. "When I saw Bellingham's +eyes settle upon you last night—it appeared to me that you are to know +him well. I came here to give you what strength I could—because he is +the chief of devils."</p> + +<p>"I'm only one of the working neuters of the human hive," Paula managed +to declare.</p> + +<p>The elder woman said a strange thing: "Ah, no. The everlasting feminine +is alive in your every movement. A man like Bellingham would cross the +world for you. Some strong-souled woman sooner or later must encompass +his undoing, and last night it came to me in a way to force my +conviction—that you are the woman."</p> + +<p>Paula bent toward her. Darkness covered the centres of her mind and she +was afraid. She could not laugh, for she had already met the magician's +will. "But I loathe him," she whispered. "About the very name when I +first heard it yesterday was an atmosphere which aroused all my +antagonism."</p> + +<p>"Even that—he has overcome, but it may help you to endure."</p> + +<p>"What does the man want?"</p> + +<p>"He wants life—life—floods of young, fine vitality to renew his own +flesh. He wants to live on and on in the body which you have seen. It is +all he has, for his soul is dead—or feeble as a frog's. He fears death, +because he cannot come back. He renews his life from splendid sources of +human magnetism—such as you possess. It is Bellingham's hell to know +that, once out of the flesh, he has not soul enough, if any, to command +a human body again. You see in him an empty thing, which has lived, God +knows how many years, hugging the warmth of his blood—a creature who +knows that to die means the swift disintegration of an evil principle."</p> + +<p>"Do you realize, Madame Nestor," Paula asked excitedly, "that you are +talking familiarly of things which may exist in books of ancient wisdom, +but that this is New York—New York packed about us? New York does not +reckon with such things."</p> + +<p>"The massed soul of this big city does not reckon with such things, +Paula. That is true, but we are apart. Bellingham is apart. He is wiser +than the massed soul of New York."</p> + +<p>"One might believe, even have such a religious conviction, but you speak +of an actual person, the terrible inner mystery of a man, whom we have +seen—a man who frightened me hideously last night—and to-day! You +bring the thing home to a room in a New York apartment ... Can't you see +how hard to adjust, this is? I don't mean to stop or distract you, but +this has become—you are helping to keep it so—such an intimate, +dreadful thing!"</p> + +<p>Madame Nestor had been too long immersed in occultism to grasp the +world's judgment of her sayings. "Listen, Paula, this that I tell you is +inherent in every thinking man. You are bewildered by the personal +nature it has assumed.... To every one of us shall come the terrible +moment of choice. Man is not conceived blindly to be driven. Imagine a +man who is become a rapidly evolving mind. On the one side is the +animal-nature, curbed and obedient; on the other, his gathering +soul-force. The mind balances between these two—soul and body. The time +has come for him to choose between a lonely path to the Heights, or the +broad diverging highway, moving with pomp, dazzling with the glare of +vain power, and brooded over by an arrogant materialism which slays the +soul.... The spirit of man says, 'Take the rising road alone.' The old +world-mother sings to him from the swaying throng, 'Come over and be my +king. Look at my arts, my palaces, my valiant young men and my glorious +women. I will put worship in the hearts of the strong—for you! I will +put love in the hearts of the beautiful—for you! Come over and be my +king! Later, when you are old and have drunk deep of power—you may take +the rising road alone.'"</p> + +<p>Paula invariably qualified a dogmatic statement as a possibility in her +own mind; but something of this—man reaching a moment of choice—had +always appealed to her as a fundamental verity. Man must conquer not +only his body, but his brain, with its subtle dreams of power, a more +formidable conflict, before the soul assumes supremacy in the mind, and +man's progress to the Uplands becomes a conscious and glorious ascent.</p> + +<p>"You put it with wonderful clearness, Madame Nestor," she said.</p> + +<p>"I am an old woman who has thought of these things until they are clear. +This is the real battle of man, beside which victory over mere appetites +of the body is but a boyish triumph. The intellect hungers for power and +possession; to hold the many inferior intellects in its own despotic +destiny. Against this glittering substance of attraction is the still +intangible faith of the soul—an awful moment of suspense. God or +Mammon—choose ye!... Listen, Paula, to New York below—treading the +empty mill of commerce——"</p> + +<p>"New York has not chosen yet?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear, but hundreds, thousands, are learning in preparation for that +moment of choice—the falseness and futility of material possessions."</p> + +<p>"That is a good thought—an incorruptible kind of optimism!" Paula +exclaimed.... "You think this Bellingham has made the evil choice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Long ago."</p> + +<p>"Yet to have arisen to the moment of choosing, you say he must have +conquered the flesh."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But you depict him—I find him—Desire Incarnate!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly, Paula, because he has reverted. <i>The animal controls his mind, +not the soul.</i> Bellingham is retracing his way back to chaos, with a +human brain, all lit with magic! Out of the gathered knowledge of the +ages, he has drawn his forces, which to us are mystery. He uses these +secret forces of Nature to prolong his own life—which is all he has. +The mystic cord is severed within him. He is a body, nothing but a +body—hence the passion to endure. Out of the craft of the past, he has +learned—who knows how long ago?—to replenish his own vitality with +that of others. He gives nothing, but drains all. Ah, Paula, this I know +too well. He is kin with those creatures of legend, the <i>loup-garou</i>, +the vampire. I tell you he is an insatiable sponge for human magnetism."</p> + +<p>"Past all doubt, can't Bellingham turn back?" Paula asked tensely. "With +all his worldly knowledge, and knowing his own doom, can he not turn +back—far back, a lowly-organized soul, but on the human way?" +Hopelessness, anywhere, was a blasting conception to her.</p> + +<p>"No. I tell you he is a living coffin. There is nothing in him to +energize a pure motive. He might give a fortune to the poor, but it +would be for his own gain. He could not suffer for the poor, or love +them. Dead within, he is detached from the great centres of virtue and +purity—from all that carries the race forward, and will save us at the +last. You see his frightful dependence upon this temporal physical +instrument, since all the records of the past and the unwritten pages of +the future are wiped out? Isn't it a sheer black horror, Paula,—to know +that from the great tide of hopeful humanity, one is set apart; to know +that the amazing force which has carried one from a cell in the ooze to +thinking manhood must end with this red frightened heart; to be forced, +for the continuance of life, to feed upon the strength of one woman +after another—always fairer and finer——" The look of hatred in the +speaker's face had become a banner of havoc.</p> + +<p>"Can he not stop that kind of devouring?" Paula exclaimed. "Would there +not be hope—if he battled with that—put <i>that</i> vampirism behind?"</p> + +<p>Madame Nestor regarded the other steadily, until all distortion of +feature had given away to her accustomed mildness. Then she uttered an +unforgettable question:</p> + +<p>"<i>Can a tiger eat grains?</i>"</p> + +<p>Vast ranges of terrible understanding were suggested.</p> + +<p>"It is my duty, if I ever had a duty," the caller went on, "to make you +know Bellingham as I know him. You must have no pity."</p> + +<p>"Is there really no fact by which his age can be determined?"</p> + +<p>"None that I know. Twenty-five years ago, when he left me hideously wise +and pitifully drained, he looked as he does now."</p> + +<p>"But why, oh why, do you always think of me with Bellingham?" Paula +asked hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"I watched his face when he regarded you last night. I knew the look."</p> + +<p>"What is to prevent me from never seeing him? He cannot force himself +upon me here—in the flesh.... Certainly you would not tell him where I +am, where I go—if I begged you not to!"</p> + +<p>Madame Nestor shuddered. "No, Paula. It is because you are frightened +and tormented that such a thought comes. It is I who am showing you the +real Bellingham. He menaces my race. None but big-souled women are +useful to him now. He is drawn to them, as one hungry, as one always +hungry. It is he first who is drawn. Then they begin to feel and respond +to his occult attraction. The time might have come when you would +worship him—had I not warned you. I did. I was quite his—until I +learned. A woman knows no laws in the midst of an attraction like this. +No other man suffices——"</p> + +<p>"But why—why do you prepare <i>me</i>? Do you think I cannot resist?" Paula +asked furiously. She felt the bonds about her already. The blood rose +hot and rebellious at the thought of being bound. It was the old hideous +fear of a locked room—the shut-in horror which meant suffocation.</p> + +<p>"If I thought you could not resist, Paula," Madame Nestor said, "I +should advise you to flee to the remotest country—this moment. I should +implore you never to allow from your side your best and strongest +friend. But I have studied your brain, your strength, your heart. I love +you for the thought that has come to me—that it is you, Paula Linster, +who is destined to free the race from this destroyer."</p> + +<p>Often in the last half-hour had come a great inward revolt against the +trend of her caller's words. It passed through Paula again, yet she +inquired how she could thus be the means.</p> + +<p>"By resisting him. Bellingham once told me—trust him, this was after I +was fully his—that if I had matched his force with a psychic resistance +equally as strong—it would mortally have weakened him. So if he seeks +to subvert your will and fails, this great one-pointed power of his, +developed who knows how long—will turn and rend itself. This is an +occult law."</p> + +<p>Paula could understand this—the wild beast of physical desire rending +itself at the last—but not the conception of hopelessness—Bellingham +cut off from immortality. The woman divined her thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Again I beg of you," she said in excitement, "not to let a thought of +pity for him insinuate itself in your brain—not the finest point of it! +Think of yourself, of the Great Good which must sustain you, of the +benefit to your race—think of the women less strong! Fail in this, and +Bellingham will absorb your splendid forces, and let you fall back into +the common as I did—to rise again, ah, so bitterly, so wearily!... But +I cannot imagine you failing, you strong young queen, and the women like +me, the legion of emptied shells he has left behind—we shall canonize +you, Paula, if you shatter the vampire's power."</p> + +<p>Thoughts came too fast for speech now. They burned Paula's mind—a +destructive activity, because ineffectual. She wanted to speak of the +shameful experience of the morning, but she could not bring the words to +confession.</p> + +<p>"I had almost forgotten," she said lightly at length, "that it is well +for one to eat and drink. Stay, won't you please, and share a bite of +supper with me, Madame Nestor? We'll talk of other things. I am deadly +tired of Bellingham."</p> + +<p>A hungry man would have known no repletion from the entire offering +which sufficed for these two, forgotten of appetite. Wafers of dark +bread, a poached egg, pickles, a heart of lettuce and a divided melon, +cake and tea—yet how fully they fared!... They were talking about +children and fairy tales over the teacups, when Paula encountered again +that sinister mental seizure—the occultist's influence creeping back +from her reason to that part of the brain man holds in common with +animals.... The lights of the room dimmed; her companion became +invisible. Bellingham was calling: "Come to me—won't you come and help +me in my excellent labors? Come to me, Paula. We can lift the world +together—you and I. Wonderful are the things for me to show you—you +who are already so wise and so very beautiful. Paula Linster,—come to +me!"</p> + +<p>Again and again the words were laid upon her intelligence, until she +heard them only. All the rest was an anterior murmuring, as of wind and +rivers. The words were pressed down upon the surfaces of her brain, like +leaf after leaf of gold-beaters' film—and hammered and hammered +there.... He was in a great gray room, sitting at a desk, but staring at +her, as if there were no walls or streets between—just a little bit of +blackness.... She seemed to know just where to go. She felt the place +for her was there in the great gray room—a wonderful need for her +there.... But a door opened into the room where he sat—a door she had +not seen, for she had not taken her eyes from his face. A woman came in, +a pale woman, a shell of beauty. The huge tousled head at the desk +turned from her to the woman who entered. Paula saw his profile alter +hideously....</p> + +<p>Her own bright room filled her eyes again, and the ashen horror on the +countenance of Madame Nestor, who seemed vaguely to see it all.</p> + +<p>"I think I should have gone to him," Paula murmured, in the slow, flat +tone of one not yet quite normally conscious.</p> + +<p>"There is but one way, you poor distressed child—to build about you a +fortress of purity—which he cannot penetrate——"</p> + +<p>"I think I should have known the car to take—the place to enter," Paula +went on, unheeding, "the elevator entrance—the door of the room——"</p> + +<p>Madame Nestor continued to implore her to pray. Paula shivered finally, +and stared at the other for a few seconds, as if recalling the words the +visitor had spoken, and the past she had lived with Bellingham. Her +terrible rage toward herself spread and covered Madame Nestor. Did not +the latter still dip here, there, and everywhere in the occult and +weird? Might she not have something to do with the projectiles of +Desire?</p> + +<p>"I think I'd better be alone now," she said hoarsely. "One does not feel +like invoking the Pure Presence—when one is chosen for such +defilement."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THIRD_CHAPTER" id="THIRD_CHAPTER"></a>THIRD CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>CERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT OF +NARRATIVE—ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID</h3> + + +<p>In the week that followed, Paula's review of Quentin Charter's new book +appeared. As a bit of luxury reading, she again went over "A Damsel Came +to Peter." It stood up true and strong under the second reading—the +test of a real book. The Western writer became a big figure in her mind. +She thought of him as a Soul; with a certain gladness to know that he +was Out There; that he refused to answer the call of New York; that he +had waited until he was an adult to make his name known, and could not +now be cramped and smothered and spoiled. There was a sterilized purity +about parts of his work—an uncompromising thunder against the fleshly +trends of living—to which she could only associate asceticism, +celibacy, and mystic power. He was altogether an abstraction, but she +was glad that he lived—in the West and in her brain.</p> + +<p>Also her mind was called to lower explorations of life; moments in which +it seemed as if every tissue within her had been carried from arctic +repressions to the springing verdures of the Indies. A sound, an odor, a +man's step, the voice of a child, would start the spell, especially in +moments of receptivity or aimless pondering. Thoughts formed in a lively +fascinating way, tingling dreamily over her intelligence, dilating her +nostrils with indescribable fragrance, brushing her eyelids +half-closed,—until she suddenly awoke to the fact that this was not +herself, but Bellingham's thirst playing upon her. Beyond words dreadful +then, it was to realize this thing in her brain—to feel it spread +hungrily through her veins and localize in her lips, her breast, and the +hollow of her arms. Bellingham crushed the trained energies of his +thought-force into her consciousness, rendering her helpless. Though he +was afterward banished, certain physical forces which he aroused did not +fall asleep.... Frequently came that malignant efflorescence. Her name +was called; the way shown her. Once when she was summoned to the 'phone, +she knew that it was he, but could not at first resist. Reason came at +the sound of her own hoarse and frightened voice. Again one night, +between nine and ten, when Bellingham was in power, she had reached the +street and was hurrying toward the surface-car in Central Park West. Her +name was jovially called by Reifferscheid. He accompanied her through +the Park and back to her door. He said he thought that she was working +too hard, confessed himself skeptical about her eating enough.</p> + +<p>One thought apart from these effects, Paula could not shake from her +mind: Were there human beings with dead or dying souls? Did she pass on +the street men and women in whom the process of soul-starvation was +complete or completing? Could there be human mind-cells detached from +hope, holiness, charity, eternity, and every lovely conception; infected +throughout with earth's descending destructive principle? The thought +terrorized her soul, so that she became almost afraid to glance into the +face of strangers. To think of any man or woman without one hope! This +was insufferable. Compared with this, there is no tragedy, and the +wildest physical suffering is an easy temporal thing. She felt like +crying from the housetops: "Listen to pity; love the good; cultivate a +tender conscience; be clean in body and humble in mind! Nothing matters +but the soul—do not let that die!"</p> + +<p>Then she remembered that every master of the bright tools of art had +depicted this message in his own way; every musician heard it among the +splendid harmonies that winged across his heaven; every prophet stripped +himself of all else, save this message, and every mystic was ordered up +to Nineveh to give it sound. Indeed, every great voice out of the +multitude was a cry of the soul. It came to her as never before, that +all uplift is in the words, <i>Love One Another</i>. If only the world would +see and hear!</p> + +<p>And the world was so immovable—a locked room that resisted her +strength. This was her especial terror—a locked room or a locked +will.... Once when she was a little girl, she released a caged canary +that belonged to a neighbor, and during her punishment, she kept +repeating:</p> + +<p>"<i>It has wings—wings!</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Liberty, spaces of sky, shadowed running streams, unbroken woods where +the paths were so dim as not to disturb the dream of undiscovered +depths—in the midst of these, Paula had found, as a girl, a startling +kind of happiness. She was tireless in the woods, and strangely slow to +hunger. No gloomy stillness haunted her; the sudden scamper of a +squirrel or rabbit could not shake her nerves, nor even the degraded +spiral of a serpent gliding to cover. Her eyelids narrowed in the midst +of confinements. School tightened her lips; much of it, indeed, put a +look of hopeless toleration in her eyes, but the big, silent woods +quickly healed her mind; in them she found the full life.</p> + +<p>At one time, her father essayed to lock her in a closet. Paula told him +she would die if he did, and from the look upon the child's face, he +could not doubt.... He had directly punished her once, and for years +afterward, she could not repress a shudder at his touch. She would serve +him in little things, bring him the choicest fruits and flowers; she +anticipated his wants in the house and knew his habits as a caged thing +learns the movements of its keepers; invariably, she was respectful and +apt—until her will was challenged. Then her mother would weaken and her +father passed on with a smile. "Paula does not permit me to forget that +I have the honor to be her father," he once said.</p> + +<p>Reading grew upon her unconsciously. There was a time when she could not +read, another when she could. She did not remember the transition, but +one afternoon, when she was barely five, she sat for hours in the parlor +still as a mole, save for the turning leaves—sat upon a hassock with +Grimm. It was <i>The Foster Brother</i> which pioneered her mind. That +afternoon endured as one of the most exquisite periods of her life. The +pleasure was so intense that she felt she must be doing wrong.</p> + +<p>Grimm explained the whole world, in proving the reality of fairies. The +soul of the child had always been awake to influences her associates +missed. Wonderful Grimm cleared many mysteries—the unseen activities of +the woods, the visitors of the dark in her room before she was quite +asleep; the invisible weaving behind all events. Later, books inevitably +brought out the element of attraction between man and woman, but such +were the refinements of her home that nothing occurred to startle her +curiosity. It was left to the friendly woods to reveal a mystery and +certain ultimate meanings.... She was sick with the force of her +divining; the peace and purity of her mind shattered. The accruing +revelations of human origin were all that she could bear. She rebelled +against the manner of coming into the world, a heaven-high rebellion. +Something of pity mingled with her reverence for her mother. For years, +she could not come to a belief that the Most High God had any interest +in a creature of such primal defilement. Queerly enough, it was the +great preparer, Darwin, who helped her at the last. Man having come up +through dreadful centuries from an earth-bent mouth and nostril, to a +pitying heart and a lifted brow—has all the more hope of becoming an +angel....</p> + +<p>There was something of the nature of a birthmark in Paula's loathing for +the animal in man and woman. Her mother had been sheltered in girlhood +to such an extent that the mention of a corsage-ribbon would have +offended. Very early, she had married, and the first days of the +relation crushed illusions that were never restored. The birth of Paula +ended a period of inordinate sorrow, which brought all the fine threads +of her life into wear, gave expression to the highest agony of which she +was capable, and ravelled out her emotions one by one. As a mother, she +was rather forceless; the excellent elements of her lineage seemed all +expended in the capacities of the child. Her limitations had not widened +in the dark months, nor had her nature refined. It was as if the heart +of the woman had lost all its color and ardor. The great sweep of +Paula's emotions; her strangeness, her meditative mind and heart-hunger +for freedom; her love for open spaces, still groves and the prophylactic +trends of running water—all expressed, without a doubt, the mysterious +expiration of her mother's finer life. But something beyond heredity, +distances beyond the reach of human mind to explain, was the lofty +quality of the child's soul. Very old it was, and wise; very strange and +very strong.</p> + +<p>Paula never failed afterward in a single opportunity to spare younger +girl-friends from the savagery of revelation, as it had come to her. The +bare truth of origin, she made radiant with illimitable human +possibilities.... Her dream beyond words was some time to give the world +a splendid man or woman. Loving, and loved by a strong-souled, +deep-thinking man; theirs the fruit of highest human concord; beautiful +communions in the midst of life's nobilities, and the glory of these on +the brow of their child—such was her dream of womanhood, whitened +through many vicissitudes.</p> + +<p>Her mother died when Paula was twenty. The call came in the night. In +the summons was that awful note which tells the end. Her mother was on +the border and crossing swiftly. Paula screamed.</p> + +<p>There was no answer, but a faint ruffle on the brow that had been +serene.</p> + +<p>"Mother!... Mother!" a last time—then the answer:</p> + +<p>"Don't—call—me,—Paula! Oh, it—hurts—so—to be—called—back!"</p> + +<p>After that, the dying was a matter of hours and great pain. Had she come +to her in silence, the tired spirit would have lifted easily. So Paula +learned, by terrible experience, the inexpressible value of silence in a +room with death. She had been very close to the mystery. Holding her +mother's hand and praying inaudibly at the last, she had felt the final +wrench to the very core of her being.... Departure, indeed; Paula was +never conscious of her mother's spirit afterward. It is probably futile +to inquire if a child of one's flesh is invariably one's spiritual +offspring.... An ineffectual girl, the mother became a hopeless woman. +In the interval, out of the grinding of her forces, was produced a +fervent heat.... Did blind negative suffering make her receptive to a +gifted child, or did Paula's mother merely give, from her own lovely +flesh, a garment for a spirit-alien from a far and shining country?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Three or four mornings after the Charter critique, Paula brought further +work down-town. Reifferscheid swung about in his chair and stared at her +fully thirty seconds. Then he spoke brusquely, possibly to hide his +embarrassment:</p> + +<p>"Take these three books home, but don't bother with them to-day. I want +you back here at four o'clock. You are to go out to supper with me."</p> + +<p>The idea was not exactly pleasant. She had seen Reifferscheid only a few +times apart from his desk, where she liked him without reservation. She +had always pictured him as a club-man—a typically successful New +Yorker, with a glitter of satire and irreverent humor about all his +sayings. The thought of a supper with Reifferscheid had a bit of supper +heaviness about it. The club type she preferred to know from a sort of +middle distance....</p> + +<p>"Won't you, please?"</p> + +<p>His change of manner was effective. All brusqueness was gone. Paula saw +his real earnestness, and the boyish effort of its expression. There was +no reason for her to refuse, and she hesitated no longer. Yet she +wondered why he had asked her, and searched her mind to learn why she +could not see him at leisure, apart from a club-window's leather chair; +at some particular table in a grill or buffet, or enlivening a game of +billiards with his inimitable characterizations. One of the finest and +most effective minds she had ever contacted belonged to this editor. His +desk was the symbol to her of concentrated and full-pressure +strenuousness; in his work was all that was sophisticated and +world-weathered, but she could neither explain nor overcome the +conviction that his excellence was in spite of, rather than the result +of his life outside.... She met him on the stroke of four in the +entrance to <i>The States</i> building, and he led the way at once to South +Ferry, where they took the Staten Island boat. She felt that he was not +at ease in the crowds, but it was a fact, also, that he did not appear +so huge and froggy in the street, as in the crowded office she knew so +well.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I live over yonder," he said, drawing two stools to the extreme +forward of the deck. "I supposed you knew. The nearest way out of New +York, this is. Besides, you get full five cents' worth of sea voyage, +and it's really another country across the bay. That's the main +thing—not a better country, but different."</p> + +<p>Little was said on the boat. It was enough to breathe the sea and +contemplate the distances. She scarcely noticed which of the +trolley-cars he helped her into at the terminal; but they were out of +town presently, where there were curving country roads, second-growth +hills, and here and there a dim ravine to cool the eye. Then against the +sky she discovered a black ribbon of woods. It was far and big to her +eyes, full of luring mysteries that called to her—her very own +temples.... Turning to Reifferscheid, she found that he had been +regarding her raptly. He coughed and jerked his head the other way, +delightfully embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Guess you like it here," he said after a moment. "I knew you would. I +knew I ought to make you come, somehow. You see, you're a little too +fit—drawn just a trifle too fine. It isn't that you're out of +condition; just the contrary. When one's drawn so fine as you are, one +wears—just from living at joy speed.... We get off here."</p> + +<p>"It's incredible that you should have a house all to yourself!"</p> + +<p>They were walking on the grass that edged the road. It had taken an hour +and a half to come. Dusk was beginning to crowd into the distances. +Ahead on either side of the road were a few houses with land between.</p> + +<p>"Whatever you call it," said Reifferscheid, "it's all in one piece. +There it is yonder—'A wee cot, a cricket's chirr—Sister Annie and the +glad face of her——'"</p> + +<p>"A little white house under big trees!" Paula exclaimed joyously. "And +what's that big dug-out thing behind?"</p> + +<p>Reifferscheid chuckled. "Dug-out is excellent. That's the aquarium and +the lily-lakes. I made those Sierras and clothed their titanic flanks +with forests of sod."</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me to speak.... All this is too wonderful for words...." To +think that she had imagined this man-mammoth sitting in a club-window. +In truth, she was somewhat perturbed for wronging him, though delighted +with the whole expedition. Sister Annie was startling, inasmuch as her +face was as fresh and wholesome as a snow-apple, and yet she could not +leave her invalid's chair unassisted. She was younger than +Reifferscheid.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad to have you come, Miss Linster," she said. "Tim was really +set upon it. He speaks of you so frequently that I wanted to meet you +very much. I can't get over to the city often."</p> + +<p>"Tim." This was the name of names. Paula had known nothing beyond "T. +Reifferscheid." One after another, little joys like this unfolded.</p> + +<p>"It will be too dark after supper," the sister added. "Tim won't be +content until you see his system of ponds. You better go with him now."</p> + +<p>Reifferscheid already filled the side-door. Evidently inspection was the +first and only formality demanded of the guest at the cottage. Paula +followed him up a tiny gravel path to the rim of the top pond—a saucer +of cement, eighteen inches deep and seven or eight feet across. It was +filled with pond-weed and nelumbo foliage. Gold fish and stickle-backs +played in the shadowed water.</p> + +<p>"It isn't the time of year, you know," he said apologetically. "The +lilies are through blossoming, and in a week or two, I'll have to take +my fishes back to winter-quarters. You see my water supply comes from +Silver Lake. The great main empties here." (Paula followed his finger to +the nozzle of a hose that hung over the rim of cement on the top pond.) +"The stream overflows in Montmorency Falls yonder,"—(this, a trickle +down the gravel to the second pond)—"from which, you can hear the roar +of the cataracts into the lower lake, which waters the lands of plenty +all about."</p> + +<p>His look of surprise and disappointment at her laughter was +irresistible.</p> + +<p>"The saurians are all in the depths, but you can see some of my snails," +he went on. "You'd be surprised how important my herd of snails is in +the economy of this whole lake country."</p> + +<p>He picked up a pebble from the edge of the water, pointing out the green +slime that covered it. "These are spores of a very influential +vegetable, called <i>algæ</i>, which spreads like cholera and vegetates +anywhere in water that is not of torrential temperament. Without my +snails, the whole system would be a thick green soup in a month. It's +getting a little dark to see the stickle-back nests. They domesticate +very curiously. Next year, I'll have a fountain.... The second-tank +contains a frail, northern variety of water-hyacinths, some rock bass, +and a turtle or two. Below are the cattails and ferns and mosses. In the +summer, that lower pond is a jungle, but the lilies and lotuses up here +are really choice when in blossom. The overflow of water rejoices the +bugs and posies generally. Annie likes the yard-flowers."</p> + +<p>Paula would not have dared to say how enchantingly these toy-lakes and +lily-beds had adjusted, in her mind, to the nature of the big man beside +her, whose good word was valued by every sincere and important literary +worker in the country. Tim Reifferscheid turning out his tremendous +tasks in New York, would never be quite the same to her again, since she +had seen him playing with his hose in his own back yard, and heard him +talk about his snails and lilies, and the land posies that Sister Annie +liked. Down-town, he had always stimulated her, but here with his +toy-engineering and playful watersheds, he was equally bracing and just +as admirable.</p> + +<p>Darkness was covering them. "I must see it all again," she said. "I want +to come when the lilies are blossoming. I could watch the fishes and +things—for hours. Really, I will never call it a dug-out again."</p> + +<p>She saw him grinning in the dusk.</p> + +<p>"Come in to supper," he said. "You see, anything smaller than a Staten +Island back-yard would hardly do for me to play in. Then there's a +stillness about here that I like. It makes your ears ache a little at +first. You wake up in the middle of the night and think you're under the +earth somewhere, or disembodied. Finally it comes to you that there's +nothing to be afraid of except the silence. A man's head gets to need it +after a time. As a matter of fact, there's no place across the bay for a +fat man after working hours."</p> + +<p>"Miss Linster," called Sister Annie as they entered.</p> + +<p>Paula followed the voice into a speckless spare room.</p> + +<p>"Supper will be served in a moment," the other said. "I just wanted to +tell you—Tim will take you back to the city to-night, grateful for the +chance, but do you really have to go? This little room is yours, and you +can go over together in the morning. Then a night in this stillness will +calm you back into a little girl. Tim doesn't know I'm asking you. +Please do just as you want——"</p> + +<p>Paula didn't have the heart to drag the big brother back to town.</p> + +<p>"Why," she said laughingly, "I'd much rather stay than not. Think how +good this all is to me! I didn't have an idea when he asked me, other +than a restaurant somewhere in New York."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad.... Tim——"</p> + +<p>He tried not to look relieved at the announcement. "Really, I didn't put +Annie up to this, but if you are content to stay, I think it will smooth +you out a bit."</p> + +<p>After supper the three sat out in the yard. There was a heavy richness +in the air, a soft sea-wind flavored with wood-fires and finished +fields. Reifferscheid smoked his pipe and did most of the talking.</p> + +<p>"I glanced over Bertram Lintell's new book—out to-day," he said. "It +sort of hurts. Two or three months ago, I dropped in on him while he was +doing it.... I have always had a certain interest in Lintell because I +accepted his first story seven or eight years ago, as a magazine +reader.... You may not know that nine-tenths of the unsolicited fiction +material in a magazine's mail is a personal affront to intelligence at +large. Nowhere does a man show the youth of his soul so pitifully as +when first alone with white paper and an idea. He shakes down a crow's +rookery and believes in his heart it's an eagle's nest. That there are +men in the world paid to open his package, inspect and return same +respectfully—and do it again—is an uncommercial peculiarity of a most +commercial age. Editors rely upon the more or less technically flawless +products of the trained, the "arrived"; writers who have forgotten their +dreams—rung the bell once or twice—and show a willingness to take +money for the echoes.</p> + +<p>"An expensive reading staff is not necessary for these contributors; +their stuff goes to the heart of things at once. But what sorry caravans +halt in the outer courts of a magazine-office; what sick, empty, +unwashed confusion is impounded there! Yet a company of men moves ever +through and about, peering into the unsightly, unsavory packs—ever +ordering away, ever clearing the court, lest the mess rise to heaven.... +But perfect pearls have been found in these restless, complaining +trash-heaps, and will be found again. Men are there to glance at all, +because one of these pearls is worth a whole necklace of seconds. +There's no way out of it. To make lasting good in the literary game, one +must be steeled to reverses—long, ugly corroding reverses. This is the +price which a man pays for the adjustment of his brain and hand to the +needs of the time. As flesh needs bone, he needs these reverses. They +clear the fat from the brain; increase the mental circuits, and lend to +the fibres that firm delicacy which alone can carry live hot emotions +without blowing out, and big voltage ideas swift and true to their +appointed brilliance of expression.</p> + +<p>"I'm gabbing a lot, but I was going to tell you about Bertram Lintell. I +was first in the office to get his manuscript, and I raised the cry of +'Pearl.' It was faulty, but full of the arrogance of unhurt youth. The +face of Twenty-one with all its unlined audacity stared out from the +pages, and every page was an excursion. Here was a true subconscious +ebullition—a hang-over from a previous incarnation, like as not. It was +hard, glassy, but the physical prowess of it stimulated. Frank, brutal +boyishness—that was the attraction. I shouldn't have taken it."</p> + +<p>"You what?" Paula asked.</p> + +<p>"It was a shame to take it," Reifferscheid mused, "but someone else—the +next man, would have. You see, he needed buffeting—seven years at +least. I knew he didn't have the beam and displacement to stand making +good so young. It was doing him an evil turn, but we sent him the brass +tag that shines like gold. Lintell was not adult enough to twig the +counterfeit, not mellowed enough to realize that nothing is so sordid, +nothing labeled so securely to Failure, as conscious success. As I say, +I saw him at work two or three months ago. He was a patch-haired, baby +lion still, dictating stories first draft to a stenographer, supplying +demand like a huckster—the real treasure-house of his soul locked for +life and the key thrown away.... Even money turns the head of the +multitude, but money is small beer compared to the fiery potential wine +of literary recognition. Long hammering, refining reverses, alone +prepare a man for this. Quentin Charter said something of the kind: that +a young writer should live his lean years full length, and if he really +craters the mountain, he will praise every god in the Pantheon because +his achievements were slow.</p> + +<p>"Lintell's present stuff is insufferable. The point is he may have had +in the beginning no less a gift than Charter's. That's why the new book +sickens me so.... By the way, I got a letter from Charter this +afternoon. I meant to bring it along, but I'll pass it over to you in +the morning. It's yours, Miss Linster, though he did me the honor to +think that I had written his critique. He says you crawled right inside +his book. We don't usually answer letters of this kind. There are +writers, you know, glad to turn a review office into an Admiration +Exchange. But you'll want to write to Charter, I'm sure. He's different."</p> + +<p>Paula did not answer, but she was pleased and excited that her review +had been a joy to this thunderer of the West, and that he had answered +her tidings of high hope for the future.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOURTH_CHAPTER" id="FOURTH_CHAPTER"></a>FOURTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND TELLS OF A STARRY +CHILD SOON TO BE BORN</h3> + + +<p>Paula went upstairs to the editorial rooms with Reifferscheid the +following morning for Charter's letter. This she carried into the +city-office to be alone. Forenoon is the dead time of a morning +newspaper. The place seemed still tired from the all-night struggle to +spring a paper to the streets. She thrust up a window for fresh air and +sat down in a reporter's chair to read.... The letter was big with +boyish delight. "When a man spends a couple of years growing and +trimming a pile of stuff into a sizable book," he had written, "and the +first of the important reviews comes in with such a message of +enthusiasm, it is the heart's 'well-done' long waited for." Beyond this, +there was only a line or two about the book. It had been in the +publisher's hands six months, and he was cold to it now. <i>The States</i> +had interested him, however, because there was an inclination in the +article to look at his work to come. In fact, some of the thoughts of +the reviewer, he wrote, were sympathetic with the subject-matter +simmering in his mind. Naturally, the coincidence had thrilled him. +Charter, believing that Reifferscheid had done the work, wrote with +utmost freedom. This attracted Paula, as it gave her a glimpse of a +certain fineness between men who admire each other. The issue was not +closed.... She wanted to answer the letter then and there at the +reporter's desk, but Reifferscheid knew she had not gone. He might come +in—and laugh at her precipitation.</p> + +<p>After a night of perfect rest, Paula's mind was animated with thoughts +of work—until she reached the <i>Zoroaster</i>. Something of Bellingham's +tormenting energy was heavy in the atmosphere of her rooms. When passing +the full-length mirror, she turned her face away in fear. Impatiently +she caught up one of the new books (and Charter's letter for a marker), +and hurried across to the Park. The fall days were still flawless.</p> + +<p>It was not yet ten in the morning, and few people were abroad. She sat +down upon one of the weathered knobs of Manhattan rock which had worn +through the thin skin of soil, and allowed herself to think of the +formidable affliction. To all intents, the magician had dispossessed her +of the rooms, identified for years with her personality and no other. +She could not put away the truth that the full forces of her mind were +at bay before the psychic advances of the dreadful stranger. This was +not long to be endured. Inasmuch that his power did not harmlessly +glance from her, she felt that there must be great potentialities of +evil within herself. This conviction made her frightened and desperate. +She should have known that it was her inner development, her +sensitiveness which had made her so potent an attraction for Bellingham. +The substance of her whole terror was that there had been moments under +his spell, when she had not been at all the mistress of her own will.</p> + +<p>The suggestions which he projected had seemed to her the good and proper +actions. She knew it as a law—that every time her own divine right to +the rule of her faculties was thus usurped by an evil force, her +resistance was weakened. Yet there was a shocking unfairness in the +thought that she was not given a chance. In the throne-room of her mind, +she was not queen. All the sacred fortifications of self seemed broken, +even the soul's integrity debased, when Bellingham crushed his way in +and forced her to obey. This is the great psychological crime. When one +has broken into the sacred precincts, the door is left open for other +malignant, earth-bound entities foully to enter and betray....</p> + +<p>There was no one in whom she could confide, but Madame Nestor. Almost +any professional man, a physician especially, would have called her +revelations hysterical.... Her constant and growing fear was of the time +when she should be called by Bellingham—and nothing would supervene to +save her. Some time the spell might not be broken. She became ill with +tension and shame as this unspeakable possibility seethed through her +mind.... Better death than to continue in being passion-ridden by this +defiler, in the presence of whom she became so loathsome in her own +sight—that she dared not pray....</p> + +<p>Somewhere far off children were talking. Their voices warmed and +cleansed her mind. There was a stimulating thud of hoofs on the +turf-roads. She tried to read now. Her eyes travelled dutifully along +the lines of her book, without bringing forth even the phase of a +thought from the page of print. A swift step drew her glance down the +foot-path. Bellingham was approaching. His shoulders were thrown back, +his long arms swinging so that every muscle was in play, striding +forward at incredible speed. He filled his lungs with every cubic inch +of morning air they could contain, and expelled the volume with gusto. +She had once seen a rugged Englishman take his exercise as seriously as +this, on the promenade of an Atlantic liner before the breakfast-gong. +To all appearances, Bellingham did not have a thought apart from his +constitutional.</p> + +<p>Paula sat very still on the rock. Her slightest movement now would +attract his attention. It occurred to her afterwards that she had been +like a crippled squirrel huddled in the fork of a tree—the hunter and +his dog below....</p> + +<p>At the point where the path was nearest her, he halted. The thing +happened exactly as she might have conceived it in a story. For a moment +he seemed to be searching his mind for the meaning of his impulse to +stop. An unforgettable figure, this, as he stood there with lifted head, +concentrating upon the vagary which had brought him to a standstill.... +Paula may have been mistaken in her terror, but she never relinquished +the thought that her proximity was known to him—before his face turned +unerringly to the rock and his bright gray eyes filled with her +presence.</p> + +<p>"You are Miss Linster?" he asked, smiling agreeably.</p> + +<p>She nodded, not trusting her voice.</p> + +<p>"You attended the first of my Prismatic Hall lectures ten days ago?... I +seldom forget a face, and I remember asking one of my committee your +name."</p> + +<p>Paula found it rather a unique effort to hold in mind the truth that she +had never spoken to this man before. Then the whole trend of her mental +activity was suddenly complicated by the thought that all her past +terrors might be groundless. Possibly Madame Nestor was insane on this +subject. "It may be that her mad words and my stimulated imagination +have reared a monster that has no actuality."</p> + +<p>The bracing voices of the children, the brilliance of mid-forenoon, the +man's kingly figure, agreeable courtesy, and commanding health—indeed, +apart from the eyes in which she hardly dared to glance, there was +nothing to connect him even vaguely with the sinister persecutions which +bore his image. The whole world-mind was with him. What right had she to +say that the world-mind was in error and she normal—she and the +unreckonable Madame Nestor?... Paula recalled the strange intensity of +her mental life for years, and the largeness of her solitudes. The +world-mind would say she was beside herself from much study.... More +than all, no power was exerted upon her now. Who would believe that this +Bellingham, with miles of the metropolis between them, had repeatedly +over-ridden her volition, when she felt no threatening influence at the +present moment, almost within his reach—only the innate repulsion and +the fear of her fears?</p> + +<p>"I hope to see you again at the meetings, Miss Linster."</p> + +<p>"They do not attract me."</p> + +<p>"That is important, if unpleasant to learn," he remarked, as if +genuinely perturbed. "I have been studying for a long time, and perhaps +I have taken a roundabout road to discovery. It is quite possible that +the values of my instruction are over-estimated by many.... Do you mind +if I sit down a moment? I have walked a hundred squares and will start +back from here." From his manner it was impossible to imagine irony +covert in his humbleness.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, though I must return to my apartment in a moment.... I +did not like the atmosphere—the audience—that first night," Paula +added.</p> + +<p>"Nor did I, altogether," he said quickly. "But how can one choose the +real, if all are not admitted at first? With each lecture you will find +a more select company, and there will be very few when the actual +message is unfolded."</p> + +<p>He glanced away as if to determine the exact point through the trees +from which the children's voices came. His profile was unquestionably +that of an aristocrat. The carriage of his head, the wonderful +development of his figure, his voice and the gentle temper of his +answers, even the cut of his coat and the elegance of his shoes +suggested an unconscious and invariable refinement which controverted +the horror he had once seemed.</p> + +<p>"It may be that I am not quite like other people," she said, "but I +cannot think of physical perfection as the first aim in life."</p> + +<p>"Nor can I," he answered; "still I think that after the elimination of +poisons from the physical organism, one's mental and spiritual powers +are quickened and freer to develop."</p> + +<p>"Do you always shape your philosophy to meet the objections of your +disciples—so?"</p> + +<p>"You are stimulating, Miss Linster, but I have made no concession to +adapt myself to your views. I only declared that I weed out my classes +before real work begins, and that physical disease retards mental +growth. I might add that I do not lecture for money."</p> + +<p>"Why do you teach only women?"</p> + +<p>"There are several reasons," he replied readily enough. "I have found +that a mixed audience is not receptive; there is a self-consciousness, +sometimes worse, something of a scoffing spirit, which breaks the point +of my appeal. Women are aroused to interest when a man appeals directly +to them. They do not like to betray a profound interest in any subject +apart from the household—when their lords are present. Man +instinctively combats any source which tends toward mental emancipation +on the part of women. It is only a few decades ago that women were +forced to abide entirely within their domestic circle. Instead of using +a superior physical strength now to keep her there, man's tendency is to +ridicule her outside interests. So I have found that women prefer to +study alone."</p> + +<p>Bellingham answered thus circuitously, but his manner suggested that he +was grateful for the inquiry, since it gave him an opportunity to +express matters which had only been half-formed in his mind. Paula, +whose every question had come from an inclination to confound him, began +to realize that the spirit was unworthy and partook of impertinence.</p> + +<p>"I believe in automatic health," she said impatiently. "It seems to me +that refinement means this: that in real fineness all such things are +managed with a sort of unconscious art. For instance, I should not have +health at the price of walking twice a hundred blocks in a forenoon——"</p> + +<p>"The point is eminently reasonable, Miss Linster," Bellingham remarked +with a smile. "But what I find it well to do, I rarely advise for +others. I am from a stock of powerful physical men. My fathers were +sailors and fishermen. They gave me an organism which weakens if I +neglect exercise, and I seem to require about five times as much +physical activity as many men of the present generation. I have +absolutely no use for this tremendous muscular strength; in fact, I +should gladly be less strong if it could be accomplished without a +general deterioration. The point is, that a man with three or four +generations of gentle-folk behind him, can keep in a state of glowing +health at the expense of about one-fifth the physical energy that I +burn—who come from rough men of mighty outdoor labors."</p> + +<p>This was very reasonable, except that he seemed far removed in nature +from the men of boats and beaches. She had dared to glance into his face +as he spoke, and found an impression from the diamond hardness of his +eyes, entirely different from that which came through listening merely. +But for this glance, it never would have occurred to her, that her +questions had stretched his faculties to the slightest tension. She +would have arisen to go now, but he resumed:</p> + +<p>"I cannot bear to have you think that my energies are directed entirely +in the interests of lifting the standards of health, Miss Linster. +Really, this is but a small part of preparation. It was only because I +felt you ready for the important truths—that I regretted your absence +after the first night. Do you know that we live in the time of a +spiritual high-tide? It is clear to me that the whole race is lifting +with a wonderful inner animation. In the next quarter of a century great +mystic voices shall be heard. And there shall be One above all.... I +tell you people are breaking down under the tyranny of their material +possessions. After desire—comes the burden of holding. We are +approaching the great <i>ennui</i> which Carlyle prophesied. There is no +longer a gospel of materialism. The great English and German teachers +whose work was regarded as supreme philosophy by the people ten years +ago, are shown to be pitiful failures in our colleges to-day—or at +best, specialists of one particular stage of evolution, who made the +mistake of preaching that their little division in the great cosmic line +was the whole road. Materialism died out of Germany a few years +ago—with a great shock of suicide. The mystics are teaching her now. I +assure you the dawn is breaking for a great spiritual day such as the +world has never seen. Soon a great light shall cover the nations and +evil shall crawl into the holes of the earth where it is dark.... There +is shortly to be born into the world—a glorious Child. While He is +growing to celestial manhood—New Voices shall rise here and everywhere +preparing the way. One of these New Voices—one of the very least of +these—is Bellingham to whom you listen so impatiently."</p> + +<p>Every venture into the occult had whispered this Child-promise in +Paula's ears. There was such a concerted understanding of this +revelation among the cults, that the thought had come to her that +perhaps this was a delusion of every age. Yet she had seen a Hindu +record dated a hundred years before, prophesying the birth of a Superman +in the early years of the Twentieth Century. There was scarcely a +division among the astrologers on this one point. She had even been +conscious in the solitudes of her own life of a certain mystic +confidence of such a fulfillment.... She dared not look into +Bellingham's face at such a moment. The ghastly phase of the whole +matter was to hear this prophecy repeated by one to whom the illustrious +prospect (if he were, as she had believed) could become only an awful +illumination of the hell to which he was condemned. It was—only +unspeakably worse—like hearing a parrot croak, "Feed our souls with the +bread of life!..." Paula stirred in her seat, and Charter's letter +dropped from the book in her lap. She seized it with a rush of grateful +emotion. It was a stanchion in her mind now filled with turbulence.</p> + +<p>"There never was a time when woman's intelligence was so eager and +rational; never a time," Bellingham went on, "when men were so tired of +metals and meals and miles. The groan for the Absolutely New, for the +utmost in sense and the weirdest of sensations, for speed to cover +distances and to overcome every obstacle, even thin air—all these +express the great weariness of the flesh and make clear to the prophetic +understanding that man is nearing the end of his lessons in three +dimensions and five senses. There is a stirring of the spirit-captive in +the worn mesh of the body."</p> + +<p>The woman traced her name with her forefinger upon the cover of the book +in her lap; again and again, "Paula—Paula—Paula." It was a habit she +had not remembered for years. As a little girl when she fought against +being persuaded contrary to her will, she would hold herself in hand +thus, by wriggling "Paula" anywhere. All that Bellingham said was +artfully calculated to inspire her with hope and joy in the world. So +marvelously were the words designed to carry her high in happiness, that +there was a corresponding tension of terror in remembering that +Bellingham uttered them. Yet she would have felt like a lump of clay had +she not told him:</p> + +<p>"What you say is very wonderful to me."</p> + +<p>"And it is the women who are most sensitive to the Light—women who are +already unfolding in the rays, yet so far-flung and dim." Bellingham's +voice was a quick emotionless monotone. "Perhaps you have noted the +great amalgamation of clubs and classes of women which each year turns +its power to more direct effort and valuable study. Another thing, let +the word Genius be whispered about any child or youth, and he becomes at +once the darling of rich matrons. What does this mean—this desire of +woman to bring out the latent powers of a stranger's child? This veiled, +beautiful quality is the surest sign of all. It is the spirit of +Rebecca—which, even in the grief for her own dead babe, turns +thrillingly to mother a wayfarer's Starry Child. Verily, when a woman +begins to dream about bringing prophets into the world—the giants of +those other days are close to her, crowding closer, eager to be born +again."</p> + +<p>Paula turned to him and arose. His face was not kindled. It was as if he +were an actor reading lines to memorize, not yet trying to simulate the +contained emotions. There is a glow of countenance where fine +thought-force is in action, but Bellingham's face was not lit with the +expiration of mind-energy, though his eyes glittered with set, bird-like +brightness.</p> + +<p>"I must hurry away now," she told him hastily. "I must think upon what +you have said."</p> + +<p>"I truly wish," he added softly, and with a kindness she felt, because +her eyes were turned from him, "that you would join one of my wiser +classes. You would be an inspiration. Besides, the little things that +have been given me to tell—should be known by the very few who have +reached your degree of evolution."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she faltered. "I must think."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Miss Linster."</p> + +<p>Reaching the street in front of her apartment house, she turned just in +time to see him disappear among the trees. He strode forward as if this +were his world, and his days had been a continuous pageant of +victories.... Her rooms were all cleared of disorder, her mind refreshed +and stimulated.... That night between eleven and twelve she was writing +to Charter. There were a half dozen penned pages before her, and a smile +on her lips. She poured out a full heart to the big Western figure of +cleanliness and strength—wrote to the man she wanted him to be.... The +day had been strange and expanding. She had suffered no evil. The +thoughts remaining with her from the talk in the Park were large with +significance, and they had cleared slowly from the murkiness of their +source. These, and the ideal of manhood she was building out of +Charter's book and letter and Reifferscheid's little sketch of him, had +made the hours rich with healing. She was tired but steady-nerved as she +wrote.... There was a faint tapping at her hall-door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FIFTH_CHAPTER" id="FIFTH_CHAPTER"></a>FIFTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS AND WRITES A +LETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER</h3> + + +<p>Paula thrust the sheets of the letter in her desk drawer and admitted +Selma Cross, an actress whose apartment was across the hall. These two +had chatted together many times, sometimes intimately. Each had found +the other interesting. Hints of a past that was almost classic in the +fury of its struggle for publicity, had repeatedly come to Paula's ears, +with other matters she greatly would have preferred not to hear. Selma +Cross was huge to look upon, and at first thought without grace. There +was something uncanny in her face and movements, and an extraordinary +breadth between her yellow eyes which were wide-lidded, slow-moving and +ever-changing. She was but little past thirty, yet the crowded traffic +of her years was intricately marked.</p> + +<p>"I saw the light under your door, and felt like coming in for a few +minutes," she said. "I must talk to some one and my maid, Dimity, is +snoring. You see, I'm celebrating for two reasons."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, so I can help," Paula answered.</p> + +<p>"Vhruebert has taken a play for me. You know, I've been begging him to +for months. The play was made for me—not that it was written with me in +mind, but that I just suit it. Selma Cross is to be carved in light over +a theatre-entrance, twenty seconds from Broadway—next April. It will be +at the <i>Herriot</i>—Vhruebert's theatre. We run through Hartford, +Springfield, Rochester and that string of second cities earlier in the +Spring."</p> + +<p>Paula rose and gave both her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad for you," she said. "I know something about how you +have worked for this——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the play is <i>The Thing</i>. I am an ugly slaving drudge, but have +all the emotions that the sweet <i>ingenue</i> of the piece should have, and +the audience watches me deliver. Yes, I've waited long for this, and yet +I'm not so glad as I thought I should be. I've been pretty sure of it +for the last year or two. I said I was celebrating for two things——"</p> + +<p>"Pray, what is the other?"</p> + +<p>"I forget that it might not interest you—though it certainly does me," +Selma Cross said with a queer, low laugh.... "He wasn't ugly about it, +but he has been exacting—ugh! The fact is, I have earned the privilege +at last of sleeping in my own respectable apartment."</p> + +<p>Paula couldn't help shivering a bit. "You mean you have left your——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he wasn't my husband.... It's such a luxury to pay for your own +things—for your own house and clothes and dinners—to earn a dollar for +every need and one to put away.... You didn't think that I could get my +name above the name of a play—without an angel?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," Paula said, "I saw you with him often. It didn't +exactly occur to me that he was your husband, because he didn't come +here. But do you mean that now when you don't need him any longer—you +told him to go away?"</p> + +<p>"Just that—except it isn't at all as it looks. You wouldn't pity old +man Villiers. Living God, that's humorous—after what I have given. +Don't look for wings on theatrical angels, dear."</p> + +<p>It was plain that the woman was utterly tired. She regarded Paula with a +queer expression of embarrassment, and there was a look of harsh +self-repression under the now-drooped eyelids.</p> + +<p>"I don't apologize," she went on hastily. "What I have done, I would do +again—only earlier in the game, but you're the sort of woman I don't +like to have look at me that—I mean look down upon me. I haven't many +friends. I think I must be half wild, but you make the grade that I +have—and you pay the price.... You've always looked attractive to +me—so easy and finished and out of the ruck."</p> + +<p>There was a real warming sincerity in the words. Paula divined on the +instant that she could forever check an intimacy—by a word which would +betray the depth of her abhorrence for such a concession to ambition, +and for the life which seems to demand it. Selma Cross was sick for a +friend, sick from containing herself. On this night of achievement there +was something pitiful in the need of her heart.</p> + +<p>"New York has turned rather too many pages of life before my eyes, +Selma, for me to feel far above any one whose struggles I have not +endured."</p> + +<p>The other leaned forward eagerly, "I liked you from the first moment, +Paula," she said. "You were so rounded—it seemed to me. I'm all +streaky, all one-sided. You're bred. I'm cattle.... Some time I'll tell +you how it all began. I said I would be the greatest living +tragedienne—hurled this at a lot of cat-minds down in Kentucky fifteen +years ago. Of course, I shall. It does not mean so much to me as I +thought, and it may be a bauble to you, but I wanted it. Its +far-awayness doesn't torture me as it once did, but one pays a ghastly +price. Yes, it's a climb, dear. You must have bone and blood and +brain—a sort of brain—and you should have a cheer from below; but I +didn't. I wonder if there ever was a fight that can match mine? If so, +it would not be a good tale for children or grown-ups with delicate +nerves. Little women always hated me. I remember, one restaurant cashier +on Eighth Avenue told me I was too unsightly to be a waitress. I have +done kitchen pot-boilers and scrubbed tenement-stairs. Then, because I +repeated parts of plays in those horrid halls—they said I was crazy.... +Why, I have felt a perfect lust for suicide—felt my breast ache for a +cool knife and my hand rise gladly. Once I played a freak part—that was +my greater degradation—debased my soul by making my body look worse +than it is. I went down to hell for that—and was forgiven. I have been +so homesick, Paula, that I could have eaten the dirt in the road of that +little Kentucky town.... Yes, I pressed against the steel until +something broke—it was the steel, not me. Oh, I could tell you +much!..."</p> + +<p>She paused but a moment.</p> + +<p>"The thing so dreadful to overcome was that I have a body like a great +Dane. It would not have hurt a writer, a painter, even a singer, so +much, but we of the drama are so dependent upon the shape of our bodies. +Then, my face is like a dog or a horse or a cat—all these I have been +likened to. Then I was slow to learn repression. This is a part of +culture, I guess—breeding. Mine is a lineage of Kentucky poor white +trash, who knows, but a speck of 'nigger'? I don't care now, only it +gave me a temper of seven devils, if it was so. These are some of the +things I have contended with. I would go to a manager and he would laugh +me along, trying to get rid of me gracefully, thinking that some of his +friends were playing a practical joke on him. Vhruebert thought that at +first. Vhruebert calls me <i>The Thing</i> now. I could have done better had +I been a cripple; there are parts for a cripple. And you watch, Paula, +next January when I burn up things here, they'll say my success is +largely due to my figure and face!"</p> + +<p>As she looked and listened, Paula saw great meanings in the broad big +countenance, a sort of ruffian strength to carry this perfecting +instrument of emotion. The great body was needed to support such +talents, handicapped by the lack of beauty. Selma Cross fascinated her. +Paula's heart went out to the great crude creature she had been—in pity +for this woman of furious history. The processes by which her brain and +flesh had been refined would have slain the body and mind of an ordinary +human. It came to Paula that here was one of Mother Nature's most +enthralling experiments—the evolution of an effective instrument from +the coarsest and vaguest heredity.</p> + +<p>"They are all brainless but Vhruebert. You see, unless one is a beauty, +you can't get the support of a big manager's name. I mean without +money—there are managers who will lend their name to your stardom, if +you take the financial risk. Otherwise, you've got to attract them as a +possible conquest. All men are like that. If you interest them +sexually—they will hear what you have to say——"</p> + +<p>"Isn't that a reckless talk?" Paula asked, pale from the repulsiveness +of the thought. "You say it without a single qualification——"</p> + +<p>Selma Cross stared at her vacantly for a few seconds, then laughed +softly. "You don't actually believe—to the contrary?"</p> + +<p>"Let's pass it by. I should have to be changed—to believe that!"</p> + +<p>"I hope the time will never come when you need something terribly from a +strange man—one upon whom you have no hold but—yourself.... Ah, but +you—the brighter sort would give you what you asked. You——"</p> + +<p>"Please don't go on!" Paula whispered. "The other part is so +interesting."</p> + +<p>Selma Cross seemed to stir restlessly in her loose, softly-scented +garments. "I suppose I'm too rough for you. In ninety-nine women out of +a hundred, I'd say your protest was a cheap affectation, but it isn't so +with you...."</p> + +<p>"It's your set, smothery pessimism that hurts so, Selma," Paula declared +intensely. "It hurts me most because you seem to have it so locked and +immovable inside.... You have been so big and wonderful to win against +tremendous obstacles—not against ugliness—I can't grant that. You +startled me, when I saw you first. I think women have held you apart +because you were uncommon. You show a strange power in your movements +and expression. It's not ugliness——"</p> + +<p>"That's mighty rare of you. I haven't had the pleasure of being defied +like that before. But you are not like other people—not like other +women."</p> + +<p>"You will meet many real men and women—wiser and kinder than I am. I +think your pessimism cannot endure—when you look for the good in +people——"</p> + +<p>"The kind I have known would not let me. They're just as hateful now—I +mean the stuffy dolls of the stage—just as hateful, calling me 'dear' +and 'love' and saying, 'How tremendous you are, Selma Cross!....' +Listen, it is only a little while ago that the same women used to ask me +to walk on Broadway with them—to use me as a foil for their baby faces! +Oh, women are horrible—dusty shavings inside—and men are of the same +family."</p> + +<p>"You poor, dear unfortunate—not to know the really wonderful kind! You +are worn to the bone from winning your victory, but when you're rested, +you'll be able to see the beautiful—clearly."</p> + +<p>"One only knows as far as one can see."</p> + +<p>This sentence was a shock to Paula's intelligence. It was spoken without +consciousness of the meaning which drove so deep into the other's mind. +It suggested a mind dependent altogether upon physical eyes. Paula +refused to believe that this was the key to the whole matter.</p> + +<p>"They have been so cruel to me—those female things which bloom a year," +Selma Cross continued. "Flesh-flowers! They harried me to martyrdom. I +had to hate them, because I was forced to be one with them—I, a big +savage, dreaming unutterable things. It's all so close yet, I haven't +come to pity them.... Maybe you can tell me what good they are—what +they mean in the world—the shallow, brainless things who make the stage +full! They are in factories, too, everywhere—daughters of the coolies +and peasants of Europe—only worse over here because their fathers have +lost their low fixed place in society, and are all mixed in their dim, +brute minds. They have no one to rule them. You will see a family of +dirty, frightened, low-minded children—the eldest, say a girl of +fifteen. A dog or a cat with a good home is rich beside them. Take this +eldest girl of a brood—with all the filth of foreign New York in and +about her. She is fifteen and ready for the streets. It is the year of +her miracle. I've seen it a score of times. You miss her a few months +and she appears again at work somewhere—her face decently clean, her +eyes clear, a bit of bright ribbon and a gown wrung somewhere from the +beds of torture. It is her brief bloom—so horrid to look at when you +know what it means. All the fifteen years of squalor, evil, and +low-mindedness for this one year—a bloom-girl out of the dirt! And the +next, she has fallen back, unwashed, high-voiced, hardening, +stiffening,—a babe at her breast, dull hell in her heart. All her +living before and to come—for that one bloom year. Maybe you can tell +me what the big purpose of it all is. Earth uses them quite as +ruthlessly as any weed or flower—gives them a year to bloom, not for +beauty, but that more crude seeds may be scattered. Perpetuate! Flowers +bloom to catch a bug—such girls, to catch a man—perpetuate—oh God, +what for? And these things have laughed at me in the chorus, called me +'Crazy Sal,' because I spoke of things they never dreamed."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Paula said quickly, "I've seen something like that. How you will +pity them when you are rested! It is hard for us to understand why such +numbers are sacrificed like a common kind of plants. Nietzsche calls +them 'the much-too-many.' But Nietzsche does not know quite so much as +the Energy that wills them to manifest. It is dreadful, it is pitiful. +It would seem, if God so loved the world—that He could not endure such +pity as would be His at the sight of this suffering and degradation.... +But you have no right to despise them—you, of all women. You're +blooming up, up, up,—farther and farther out of the common—your +blooming has been for years because you have kindled your mind. You must +bloom for years still—that's the only meaning of your strength—because +you will kindle your soul.... A woman with power like yours—has no +right but to love the weak. Think what strength you have! There have +been moments in the last half-hour that you have roused me to such a +pitch of thinking—that I have felt weak and ineffectual beside you. You +made me think sometimes of a great submarine—I don't know just +why—flashing in the depths."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you see me right," Selma Cross said wearily. "Many times +I have been lost in the dark. I have been wicked—hated the forces that +made me. I have so much in me of the peasant—that I abhor. There have +been times when I would have been a prostitute for a clean house and +decent clothes to cover me, but men did not look at <i>The Thing</i>—only +the old man, and one other!" Her eyes brightened, either at the memory +or at the thought that she was free from the former.... "Don't wince and +I'll tell you about that angel. You will be wiser. I don't want you for +my friend, if I must keep something back. It was over three years ago, +during my first real success. I was rather startling as Sarah Blixton in +Heber's <i>Caller Herrin</i>. It was in that that I learned repression. That +was my struggle—to repress.... Old man Villiers saw me, and was wise +enough to see my future. 'Here's a girl,' I can imagine him saying, 'who +is ugly enough to be square to one man, and she's a comer in spite of +her face.' He showed where his check-book could be of unspeakable +service. It was all very clear to me. I felt I had struggled enough, and +went with him.... Villiers is that kind of New Yorker who feels that he +has nothing left to live for, when he ceases to desire women. In his +vanity—they are always vain—he wanted to be seen with a woman +mentioned on Broadway. It was his idea of being looked up to—and of +making other men envious. You know his sort have no interest—save where +they can ruin.</p> + +<p>"Then for two winter months, Villiers and I had a falling out. He went +South, and I remained here to work. During this time I had my first real +brush with love—a young Westerner. It was terrific. He was a brilliant, +but turned out a rotten cad. I couldn't stand that in a young man.... +You can pity an old man, much the worse for living, when he is brazenly +a cad—doesn't know anything else.... When Villiers came back from the +South I was bought again. I put it all nakedly, Paula, but I was older +than you are now, when that sort of thing began with me. Remember that! +Still, I mustn't take too much credit, because I didn't attract men.... +If you don't abhor me now, you never will, little neighbor, because you +have the worst.... Sometime I'll tell you a real little love story—oh, +I'm praying it's real! He's a hunch-back, Paula,—the author of <i>The +Thing</i>.... Nobody could possibly want a hunch-back but me—yet I'm not +good enough. He's so noble and so fine!... The past is so full of +abominations, and I'm not a liar.... I don't think he'd want me—though +I could be his nurse. I could <i>carry him</i>!... Then there is a long-ago +promise.... Oh, I know I'm not fit for that kind of happiness!..."</p> + +<p>There was an inspiration in the last. It was strong enough to subvert +Paula's mind from the road of dreary degradation over which she had been +led. From rousing heights of admiration to black pits of shame, she had +fallen, but here again was a tonic breath from clean altitudes. The +picture in her mind of this great glowing creature tenderly mothering +the poor crippled genius of <i>The Thing</i>—was a thrilling conception.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing which cannot be forgiven—save soul-death!" Paula said +ardently. "What you have told me is very hard to adjust, but I hope for +your new love. Oh, I am glad, Selma, that the other is all behind! I +don't know much of such things, but it has come to me that it is easier +for a man to separate himself from past degradations and be clean—than +a woman. This is because a man gives—<i>but the woman receives her sin</i>! +That which is given cannot continue to defile, but woman is the +matrix.... Still, you do not lie. Such things are so dreadful when +matted in lies. We all carry burdensome devils—but few uncover them, as +you have done for me. There is something noble in looking back into the +past with a shudder, saying,—'I was sick and full of disease in those +days,' but when one hugs the corrosion, painting it white all +over—there is an inner devouring that is never appeased.... All our +sisters are in trouble. I think we live in a world of suffering +sororities. You are big and powerful. Your greater life is to come.... I +am glad for what you have put behind. You will progress farther and +farther from it. I am glad you are back across the hall—alone!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For many moments after Selma Cross had gone, Paula sat thinking under +the lamp. At last she drew the sheets of the letter to Charter from the +desk-drawer, and read them over. The same rapt smile came to her lips, +as when she was writing. It was a letter to her Ideal—the big figure of +cleanness and strength, she wanted this man to be. Even a line or two +she added. No one ever knew, but Paula.... At length, she began tearing +the sheets. Finer and finer became the squares under her tense +fingers—a little pile of <i>confetti</i> on the desk at last—and brushed +into a basket.... Then she wrote another letter, blithe, brief, +gracious—about his book and her opinion. It was a letter such as he +would expect....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SIXTH_CHAPTER" id="SIXTH_CHAPTER"></a>SIXTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR "F" OF THE <i>MAID-STONE</i> WHERE THE BEYOND-DEVIL +AWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS</h3> + + +<p>Paula felt singularly blessed the next morning wondering if ever there +existed another woman into whose life-channel poured such strange and +torrential tributaries. The current of her mind was broadening and +accelerating. She was being prepared for some big expression, and there +is true happiness in the thought. Reifferscheid, since her pilgrimage to +Staten Island, had become a fixture of delight. Selma Cross had borne +her down on mighty pinions to the lower revelations of the City, but had +winged her back again on a breeze of pure romance. Madame Nestor had +parted the curtains, which shut from the world's eye, hell unqualified, +yet her own life was a miracle of penitence. Not the least of her +inspirations was this mild, brave woman of the solitudes. Then, there +was the commanding mystery of Bellingham, emerging in her mind now from +the chicaneries of the past ten days; rising, indeed, to his own +valuation—that of a New Voice. Finally, above and before all, was the +stirring figure of her Ideal—her splendid secret source of +optimism—Charter, less a man than a soul in her new dreams—a name to +which she affixed, "The Man-Who-Must-Be-Somewhere."</p> + +<p>Just once, the thought came to Paula that Bellingham had designed a +meeting such as took place in the Park to soften her aversion and clear +from her mind any idea of his abnormality. She could not hold this +suspicion long. Attributing evil strategies to another was not easy for +Paula. The simpler way now was to give him every benefit, even to regard +the recent dreadful adventures with an intangible devil—as an outburst +of her neglected feminine prerogatives, coincident with the stress of +her rather lonely intellectual life. As for Madame Nestor, might she not +have reached a more acute stage of a similar derangement? Paula was not +unacquainted with the great potentialities of fine physical health, nor +did she miss the fact that Mother Nature seldom permits a woman of +normal development to reach the fourth cycle of her years, without +reckoning with the ancient reason of her being.</p> + +<p>She now regarded early events connected with Bellingham as one might +look back upon the beginning of a run of fever.... Could he be one of +the New Voices?</p> + +<p>Paula loved to think that Woman was to be the chief resource of the +Lifting Age. Everywhere among men she saw the furious hunger for +spiritual refreshment. Words, which she heard by mere chance from +passers-by, appalled her. It was so tragically clear to her how the life +led by city men starves their better natures—that there were times when +she could hardly realize they did not see it. She wanted someone to make +the whole world understand—that just as there are hidden spaces between +the atoms of steel which made radioactivity possible, so in the human +body there is a permeating space, in which the soul of man is built day +by day from every thought and act; and when the worn-out physical +envelope falls away—there it stands, a record to endure.... She wanted +to believe that it was the office of woman to help man make this record +beautiful. Just as the old Anglo-Saxon for "lady" means "giver of +bread," so she loved to think that the spiritual loaf was in the keeping +of woman also.</p> + +<p>Paula could not meditate without ecstasy upon the thought that a great +spiritual tide was rising, soon to overflow every race and nation. The +lifting of man from greedy senses to the pure happiness of brotherhood, +was her most intimate and lovely hope. Back of everything, this lived +and lit her mind. There were transcendent moments—she hardly dared to +describe or interpret them—when cosmic consciousness swept into her +brain. Swift was the visitation, nor did it leave any memorable +impression, but she divined that such lofty moments, different only in +degree, were responsible for the great utterances in books that are +deathless. The shield was torn from her soul, leaving it naked to every +world-anguish. The woman, Paula Linster, became an accumulation of all +suffering—desert thirsts, untold loves, birth and death parturitions, +blind cruelties of battle, the carnal lust of Famine (that soft-treading +spectre), welted flesh under the screaming lash, moaning from the +World's Night everywhere—until the impassioned spirit within rushed +forth to the very horizon's rim to shelter an agonizing people from an +angry God. Such is the genius of race-motherhood—the ineffable spirit +of mediation between Father and child.</p> + +<p>One must regard with awe the reaction which follows such an outpouring.</p> + +<p>These are the wilderness-wrestlings of the great-souled—the +Gethsemanes. Out of the dream, would appear the actual spectacle of the +City—human beings preying one upon the other, the wolf still frothing +in man's breast—and then would crush down upon her with shattering pain +the realization of her own hopeless ineffectuality. To a mind thus +stricken and desolated often, premonitions of madness come at +last—madness, the black brother of genius. There is safety alone in a +body strong and undefiled to receive again the expanded spirit. From how +many a lustrous youth—tarrying too long by the fetid margins of +sense—has the glory winged away, never to return to a creature fallen +into hairy despoliation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Paula had returned from down-town about noon. Reifferscheid, who had a +weakness for Herman Melville, and annually endeavored to spur the +American people into a more adequate appreciation of the old sea-lion, +had ordered her to rest her eyes for a few days in <i>Moby Dick</i>. With the +fat, old fine-print novel under her arm, Paula let herself into her own +apartment and instantly encountered the occultist's power. She sank to +the floor and covered her face in the pillows of the couch. In the past +twenty-four hours she had come to believe that the enemy had been put +away forever, yet here in her own room she was stricken, and so +swiftly.... Though she did not realize it at once, many of the thoughts +which gradually surged into her mind were not her own. She came to see +Bellingham as other women saw him—as a great and wise doctor. Her own +conception battled against this, but vainly, vaguely. It was as if he +held the balance of power in her consciousness. Without attempting to +link them together, the processes of her mind quickly will be set into +words.</p> + +<p>Her first thought, before the tightening of Bellingham's control in her +brain, was to rush into his presence and fiercely arraign him for the +treachery he had committed. After blaming Madame Nestor and deforming +her own faculties to clear him from evil, the devilishness of the +present visitation overwhelmed. And how infinitely more black and +formidable now was his magic—after the utterances in the Park! This was +her last real stand.... A cry of hopelessness escaped her lips, for the +numbness was already about her eyes, and creeping back like a pestilence +along the open highways of her mind.</p> + +<p>"Come to me. The way is open. I am alone. I am near.... Come to me, +Paula Linster, of plentiful treasures.... Do you not see the open +way—how near I am? Oh, come—now—come to me now!"</p> + +<p>Again and again the little sentences fell upon her mind, until its +surface stirred against reiteration, as one, thoroughly understanding, +resents repeated explanations.... It was right now for her to go. She +had been rebellious and headstrong to conjure such evils about the name +of a famous physician. The world called him famous. Only she and Madame +Nestor had stood apart, clutching fast to their ideas of his deviltry. +He had taken the trouble to call her to him—to prove that he was good. +The degradation which she had felt at the first moment of his +summons—was all from her own perversity.... Clearly she saw the street +below, Cathedral Way; a turn north, then across the Plaza to the brown +ornate entrance of <i>The Maidstone</i>.... There was no formality about the +going. Her hat and coat had not been removed.... She was in the hall; +the elevator halted at her floor while the man pushed a letter and some +papers under the door of the Selma Cross apartment.... In the street, +she turned across the Plaza from Cathedral Way to <i>The Maidstone</i>. The +real Paula Linster marshalled a hundred terrible protests, but her voice +was muffled, her strength ineffectual as Josephine's beating with white +hands against the Emperor's iron door. Real volition was locked in the +pitiless will of the physician, to whom she hastened as one hoping to be +saved.</p> + +<p>She inquired huskily of the man at the hotel-desk.</p> + +<p>"The Doctor is waiting on the parlor-floor—in F," was the answer.</p> + +<p>Paula stepped from the elevator, and was directed to the last door on +the left.... The sense of her need, of her illness, hurried her forward +through the long hall. Sometimes she seemed burdened with the body of a +woman, very tired and helpless, but quite obedient.... The figure "F" on +a silver shield filled her eyes. The door was ajar. Her entrance was not +unlike that of a lioness goaded with irons through a barred passage into +an arena. She did not open the door wider, but slipped through sideways, +gathering her dress closely about her.... Bellingham was there. His face +was white, rigid from long concentration; yet he smiled and his arms +were opened to her.... The point here was that he so marvelously +understood. His attitude to her seemed that of a physician of the soul. +She could not feel the fighting of the real woman.... Dazed and broken +for the moment, she encountered the soothing magnetism of his hands.</p> + +<p>"How long I have waited!" he quietly exclaimed. "Hours, and it was +bitter waiting—but you are a wreath for my waiting—how grateful you +are to my weariness!... Paula Linster, Paula Linster—what deserts of +burning sunshine I have crossed to find you—what dark jungles I have +searched for such fragrance!"</p> + +<p>His arms were light upon her, his voice low and lulling. He dared not +yet touch his lips to her hair—though they were dry and twisted with +his awful thirst. Craft and patience altogether feline was in the art +with which he wound and wove about her mind thoughts of his own, +designed to ignite the spark of responsive desire.... And how softly he +fanned—(an incautious blast would have left him in darkness +altogether)—until it caught.... Well, indeed, he knew the cunning of +the yet unbroken seals; and better still did he know the outraged forces +hovering all about her, ready to defeat him for the slightest error—and +leave him to burn in his own fires.</p> + +<p>"This is peace," he whispered with indescribable repression. "How soft a +resting-place—and yet how strong!... Out of the past I have come for +you. Do you remember the rock in the desert on which you sat and waited +long ago? Your eyes were weary when I came—weary from the blazing light +of noon and the endless waning of that long day. On a great rock in the +desert you sat—until I came, <i>until I came</i>. Then you laughed because I +shut the feverish sun-glow from your strained eyes.... Remember, I came +in the skin of a lion and shut the sunset from your aching eyes—my +shoulders darkening the west—and we were alone—and the night came +on...."</p> + +<p>Clearly was transferred to hers, the picture in his own brain. One of +the ancient and mystic films of memory seemed brought after ages to the +light—the reddening sands, the city far behind, from which she had fled +to meet her hero, deep in the desert—the glow of sunset on his +shoulders and in his hair, tawny as the lion's skin he wore.... The +heart quickened within her; the savage ardor of that long-ago woman grew +hot in her breast. Strong as a lion he was, this youth of the Sun, and +fleet the night fell to cover them. She ate the dried grapes he gave +her, drank deep from his skin of wine, and laughed with him in the swift +descending night.... She felt his arms now, her face was upraised, her +eyelids tensely shut. Downward the blood rushed, leaving her lips icy +cold. She felt the muscles of his arms in her tightening fingers, and +her breast rose against him. This was no Twentieth Century magician who +thralled her now, but a glorious hero out of the desert sunset;—and the +woman within her was as one consuming with ecstasy from a lover's last +visit....</p> + +<p>And now Bellingham changed the color and surface of his advances. It was +his thought to make such a marvellous sally, that when he retired and +the mistress once again commanded her own citadel, she would perceive +the field of his activities strewn, not with corpses, but with garlands, +and in their fragrance she must yearn for the giant to come yet again. +The thing he now endeavored to do was beyond an ordinary human +conception for devilishness; and yet, that it was not a momentary +impulse, but a well considered plan, was proven by the trend of his talk +of the day before.... The flaw in his structure was his apparent +forgetting that the woman in his arms breathing so ardently, in her own +mind was clinging to a youth out of the sunset—a youth in the skin of a +lion.</p> + +<p>"Wisdom has been given to my eyes," Bellingham resumed with surpassing +gentleness. "For years a conception of wonderful womanhood has lived and +brightened in my mind, bringing with it a promise that in due time, such +a woman would be shown to me. The woman, the promise and the miracle of +its later meaning, I perceived at last were not for my happiness, but +for the world's awful need. You are the fruits of my wonderful +vision—you—Paula Linster. You are the quest of my long and weary +searching!"</p> + +<p>His utterance of her name strangely disturbed her night-rapture of the +desert. It was as if she heard afar-off—the calling of her people.</p> + +<p>"On the night you entered the Hall," he said, and his face bent closer, +"I felt the sense of victory, before these physical eyes found you. My +thoughts roved over a world, brightened by a new hope, fairer for your +presence. And then, I saw your fine white brow, the ignited magic of +your hair and eyes, your frail exquisite shoulders.... It seemed as +though the lights perished from the place—when you left."</p> + +<p>The word "magic" was a sudden spark around which the thoughts of the +woman now groped.... She had lost her desert lover, passion was drained +from her, and there was a weight of great trouble pressing down ... +"Magic"—she struggled for its meaning.... She was sitting upon a rock +again, but not in the desert—rather in a place of cooled sunlight, +where there were turf roads and grand, old trees—a huge figure +approaching with a powerful swinging stride—yesterday, Bellingham, the +Park—the Talk!... Paula lifted her shoulders, felt the binding arms +around them and heard the words uttered now in the meridian of human +passion:</p> + +<p>"Listen, Paula Linster, you have been chosen for the most exalted task +ever offered to living woman. The Great Soul is not yet in the world, +and He must come soon!... It is you who have inspired this—you, of +trained will; a mind of stirring evolution, every thought so essentially +feminine; you of virgin body and a soul lit with stars! You are brave. +The burden is easy to one of your courage, and I should keep you free +from the world—free from the burns and the whips of this thinking +animal, the world. All that I have won from the world, her mysteries, +her enchantments, I shall give you, all that is big and brave and wise +in song and philosophy and nature, I shall bring to your feet, as a +hunter with trophies to his beloved—all that a man, wise and tender, +can think and express to quicken the splendor of fertility——"</p> + +<p>Paula was now fully conscious—her self restored to her. The Yesterday +and the To-day rose before her mind in startling parallel. Her primary +dread was that she might lose control again before Bellingham was put +away. The super-devilishness of his plan—hiding a blasphemy in the +white robe of a spiritual consecration—had changed him in her sight to +a ravening beast. The thing which he believed would cause her eagerly to +bestow upon him the riches of her threefold life had lifted her farther +out of his power that moment, than even she realized. Bellingham had +over-reached. She was filled with inner nausea.... The idea of escape, +the thought of crippling the magician's power over her forever—in the +stress of this, she grew cold.... She was nearest the door. It stood +ajar, as when she had entered.</p> + +<p>"Meditation—in the place I have prepared," he was whispering, +"meditation and the poetic life, rarest of fruits, purest of white +garments—cleansed with sunlight and starlight, you and I, Paula +Linster,—the sources of creation which have been revealed to me—for +you! Wonderful woman—all the vitalities of heaven shall play upon you! +We shall bring the new god into the world——"</p> + +<p>She pushed back from his arms and faced him—white-lipped and loathing.</p> + +<p>"You father a son of mine," she said, in the doorway. "You—are +dead—the man's soul is dead within you—you whited sepulchre!"</p> + +<p>His face altered like a white wall which an earthquake disorders at the +base. White rock turned to blown paper; the man-mask rubbed out; Havoc +featured upon an erect thing, with arms pitifully outstretched.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Paula, alone in the long hall, ran to the marble stairs, hurried down +and into the street—swiftly to her house. There, every thread of +clothing she had worn was gathered into a pile for burning. Then she +bathed and her strength returned.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SEVENTH_CHAPTER" id="SEVENTH_CHAPTER"></a>SEVENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS, +AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT</h3> + + +<p>In mid-afternoon Paula obeyed an impulse to call upon Madame Nestor. She +wanted to talk with the only human being in New York who could quite +understand. Madame's room was west of Eighth Avenue in Forty-fourth +Street—the servant's quarter in a squalid suite, four flights up. The +single window opened upon a dim shaft, heavy with emanations from many +kitchens. There was not even a closet. Madame's moulted plumage was hung +upon the back of the outer and only door. Books were everywhere, on the +floor, in boxes, on the cot.</p> + +<p>"My dear Paula, you felt the need of me?... I should have come to you. +This does very well for me, but I dislike my poverty to be known, dear. +It is not that I am the least proud, but the psychic effects of pity are +depressing."</p> + +<p>"Please, Madame Nestor, don't think of me pitying anybody! I did feel +the need of you. The day has been horrible. But first, I want to tell +you that I am very sorry for what I said—when you were in my rooms the +other day——"</p> + +<p>The elder woman leaned forward and kissed Paula's dress at the shoulder. +There was something sweet and mild and devotional in the action, +something suggestive of a wise old working-bee pausing an instant to +caress its queen.</p> + +<p>"You have been impelled to go to him, Paula?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It came over me quite irresistibly. I could not have been +altogether myself.... I think I shall leave the city!"</p> + +<p>Madame Nestor asked several questions, bringing out all she cared to +know of Paula's experience that day. Her eyes became very bright as she +said:</p> + +<p>"I dare not advise you <i>not</i> to go away. Still, don't you see it—how +wonderful was your victory to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I can't always defeat him!" Paula cried. "His power comes over me and I +move toward him—just as reptiles must follow a blind impulse started +from without. Each time I follow, I must be weaker."</p> + +<p>"But, Paula, each time something happens to restore you to yourself, +thwarting his purpose, his projections are weakened."</p> + +<p>"But if I should go far away?"</p> + +<p>"He could only put it in your mind to return."</p> + +<p>When Paula remembered the accidents which had preserved her, even when +in the same city with the Destroyer, she could not doubt the salvation +in putting a big stretch of the planet's curve between her and this +dynamo.... Certain unfinished thinking could only be cleared through a +friend like Madame Nestor.</p> + +<p>"This physical consciousness which he has made me feel seems +indescribably more sinister in erect human beings than the mating +instinct in animals and birds," Paula declared with hesitation. "Can it +be that women in general encounter influences—of this kind?"</p> + +<p>"It is man's fault that women have broken all seasons," the Madame said +bitterly. "Man has kept woman submerged since the beginning of time. +Always eager to serve; and blest—or cursed—with the changeless passion +to be <i>all</i> to one man—her most enduring hope to hold the exclusive +love of one man—woman has adapted herself eagerly to become the +monogamic answer to man's polygamic nature. Bellingham is but the +embodiment of a desire which exists in greater or less degree in every +man. This desire of man has disordered women. We have lost the true +meaning of ourselves—I mean, as a race of women—and have become merely +physical mates."</p> + +<p>"I can hardly believe it—that even women of the streets should ever be +degraded by such a horrible force," Paula said desperately. "And the +sweet calm faces of some of the women we know——"</p> + +<p>"Behind the mask of innocence, often, is a woman's terrible secret, +Paula. For most women obey. Even the growth of the maid is ruthlessly +forced by hot breaths of passion, until motherhood—so often a domestic +tragedy—leaves the imprint of shame in her arms. The man of unlit soul +has made this low play of passion his art. Woman as a race has fallen, +because it is her way to please and obey. Man has taught us to believe +that when he comes to our arms, we are at our highest.... And, listen, +Paula, certain men of to-day, a step higher in evolution, blame woman +because she has not suddenly <i>unlearned</i> her training of the +ages—lessons man has graven in the very bed-rock of her nature. In the +novelty of their new-found austerity, they exclaim: 'Avoid woman. She is +passion rhythmic. It is she who draws us down from our lofty regions of +endeavor.'"</p> + +<p>Terrific energy of rebellion stirred Paula's mind. "But the promise is +that woman's time shall come!" she exclaimed. "The Child, Jesus, said to +his Mother, 'Thy time is not yet come,' but it is promised that the heel +of woman shall crush the head of the Serpent. We have always borne the +sin, the agony, the degradation, but our time must be close at hand! I +think this is the age—and this the country—of the Rising Woman!"</p> + +<p>Madame Nestor arose from the cot and stood before Paula, her eyes +shining with emotion.</p> + +<p>"Bless you, my beloved girl, my whole heart leaps to sanction that! I +have symbolized the whole struggle of our race in your personal +struggle—don't you see this, Paula?... Bellingham is the concentrate of +devourers—and you the evolved woman who overcomes him! My hope for the +race lies in you, and your victory to-day has filled my cup with +happiness!... You say you do not dare to pray. I tell you, child,—the +God of women gave you strength to-day. He is close to harken unto your +need—for you are among the first of the elect to bring in the glory of +the new day!... The animal in man has depleted the splendid energies of +the Spirit. Passions of the kind you defeated to-day are overpowering +women everywhere at this hour—lesser passions of lesser Bellinghams. +Man's course to God has been a crawl through millenniums, instead of a +flight through decades, because woman has bowed—obeyed. God is patient, +but woman is aroused!... Above the din of wars, the world has heard the +wailing of the women; out of the ghostly silence of famine and from +beneath the debris of fallen empires—always the world has heard her cry +for pity—her cry for pity now <i>become a Voice of Power</i>! All her +tortured centuries have been for this—and the signs are upon us! +Woman's demand for knowledge, her clamor for suffrage, her protest +against eternally paying for man's lust with unblessed babes—all these +are signs! But you, Paula Linster,—and what I know of this day—is the +most thrilling sign of all to me!... Ah, woman is evolving; she is +aroused! How shall she repay man for brutalizing her so long?"</p> + +<p>"By bringing him back to God!" Paula answered.</p> + +<p>They wept together and whispered, while the night fell about and covered +the squalid room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was one of her emancipated nights. Paula's spirit poured out over the +city, for her mind was lit with thoughts of the ultimate redemption of +her race. Bellingham could not have found her in his world that hour.... +Emerging from Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, at eight in the evening, +she passed under the hot brilliance of a famous hotel-entrance. As it +never would have occurred to her to do in a less exalted moment, Paula +glanced at a little knot of men standing under the lights. The eyes of +one were roving like an unclean hand over her figure. Suddenly +encountering her look, a bold, eager, challenge stretched itself upon +his face. In the momentary panic, her glance darted to the others +instinctively for protection—and found three smiling corpses.... Here +were little Bellinghams; here, the sexual drunkenness which has made +Man's course "a crawl through millenniums" to God, instead of a flight +through decades. What a pitiless revelation!... She clung to her big +Ideal in the West. It came to her for a second like a last and single +hope—that Charter was not like that.... "God is patient and woman is +aroused!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>And farther up, a little way into Forty-seventh, Paula found a Salvation +Army circle under the torch. A man with a pallid, shrunken face turned +imploring eyes from one to another of the company, exclaiming: "I tell +you, man's first work here below is to save his soul! I pray you—men +and women, here to-night—to save your souls!"</p> + +<p>Paula tossed her purse upon the big drum, as she passed swiftly. Luckily +there was carfare in her glove, for she had not thought of that. Never +before had she felt in such fullness her relation to the race....</p> + +<p>A hansom-cab veered about the edge of the Salvation circle, swift enough +to attract her eye. The horse had started before the driver was in the +seat. The latter was fat and apoplectic. It was all he could do to +regain his place, so that the reins still dangled. The possibility of a +cab-horse becoming excited held only humor for the crowd, which parted +to let the vehicle by. The horse, feeling his head, started to run just +as the driver seized one of the lines and jerked his beast into the +curb. There was an inhuman scream. A strange, boneless effigy of a man +with twisted, waving arms—went down before the plunging horse, so +suddenly swerved.... A hush seemed to have fallen upon the noisy +Broadway corner. Paula was not blind in the brief interval which +followed, but the world seemed gray and still, like a spectral dawn, or +the unearthly setting of a dream.</p> + +<p>"The shaft bored into him, and the horse struck him after he fell," a +voice explained.</p> + +<p>They lifted him. There was particular dreadfulness in the quantity of +fluid evenly sheeted on the pavement as from a pail carefully +overturned. Startling effrontery attached to the thought of man's +heaven-aspiring current swimming like this upon a degraded city road. +The horse, now held by the bit, snorted affrightedly at the odor. They +had carried the unfortunate to the sidewalk under the lights of a +tobacco-shop window. The upper part of his head and face was indefinite +like a crushed tin of dark paint. But mouth and nose and chin of the +upturned face left an imperishable imprint upon her mind. It was +Bellingham.... Paula fled, her lips opening in a sick fashion. It seemed +hours before she could reach the sanctuary of her room, where she sobbed +in the dark.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="EIGHTH_CHAPTER" id="EIGHTH_CHAPTER"></a>EIGHTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER HEART-COUNTRY, AND IS +DELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK</h3> + + +<p>The morning paper stated that Dr. Bellingham had suffered a fracture of +the skull and internal injury, but might live. A note to Paula from +Madame Nestor late the next day contained the following paragraph: "I +called at the hospital to inquire. A doctor told me that the case is +likely to become a classic one. Never in his experience, he stated, had +he witnessed a man put up such a fight for life. It will be long, +however, before he is abroad again. He must have been following you +quite madly, because there never was a man more careful in the midst of +city-dangers than Bellingham. Why, a scratched finger completely upset +him—in the earlier days. Inscrutable, but thrilling—isn't it, my dear +Paula?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Did you follow <i>Moby Dick's</i> whale tracks around the wet wastes of the +world?" Reifferscheid asked several mornings later, as Paula entered.</p> + +<p>Her face was flushed. A further letter from Quentin Charter had just +been tucked into her bag. "Yes, and Mr. Melville over trans-continental +digressions," she answered. "He surely is Neptune's own <i>confrère</i>."</p> + +<p>"Did you get the leviathan alongside and study the bewildering chaos of +a ninety-foot nervous system?" Reifferscheid went on with delight.</p> + +<p>"Exactly, and colored miles of sea-water with the emptyings of his vast +heart. Then, there was an extended process of fatty degeneration, which +I believe they called—blubber-boiling."</p> + +<p>They laughed together over the old whale-epic.</p> + +<p>"They remember Melville up in Boston and Nantucket," he added, "but he's +about as much alive as a honey-bee's pulse elsewhere. The trouble is, +you can't rectify this outrage by law. It isn't uxoricide or +sheep-stealing—not to know Melville—but it's the deadly sin of +ingratitude. This is a raw age, we adorn—not to rock in the boat of +that man's soul. Why, he's worthy to stand with the angels on the point +of the present."</p> + +<p>The big editor always warmed her when he enthused. Here, in the midst of +holiday books pouring in by scores, he had time to make a big personal +and public protest against a fifty-year-old novel being forgotten.</p> + +<p>"But isn't Melville acknowledged to be the headwaters of inspiration for +all later sea-books?" Paula asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, to the men who do them, he's the big laughing figure behind their +work, but the public doesn't seem to know.... Of course, Herman has +faults—Japan currents of faults—but they only warm him to a white +man's heart. Do you know, I like to think of him in a wide, windy room, +tearing off his story long-hand, upon yard square sheets, grinning like +an ogre at the soul-play, the pages of copy settling ankle-deep upon the +floor. There's no taint of over-breeding in the unborn thing, no curse +of compression, no aping Addison—nothing but Melville, just blown in +with the gale, reeking with a big story which must be shed, before he +blows out again, with straining cordage booming in his ears. He +harnesses Art. He man-handles Power, makes it grovel and play circus. +'Here it is,' he seems to say at the end. 'Take it or leave it. I'm +rotting here ashore.'"</p> + +<p>"You ought to dictate reviews like that, Mr. Reifferscheid," Paula could +not help saying, though she knew he would be disconcerted.</p> + +<p>He colored, turned back to his work, directing her to take her choice +from the shelf of fresh books.... On the car going back, Paula opened +Charter's letter. Her fingers trembled, because she had been in a happy +and daring mood five or six days before when she wrote the letter to +which this was the reply.</p> + +<blockquote><p>... Do you know, I really like to write to you? I feel +untrammelled—turned loose in the meadows. It seems when I +start an idea—that you've grasped it as soon as it is clear to +me. Piled sentences after that are unnecessary. It's a real joy +to write this way, as spirits commune. It wouldn't do at all +for the blessed multitude. You have to be a mineral and a +vegetable and an animal, all in a paragraph, to get the whole +market. But how generous the dear old multitude is—(if the +writer has suffered enough)—with its bed and board and +lamplight....</p> + +<p>I have been scored and salted so many times that I heal like an +earth-worm. Tell me, can scar-tissue ever be so fine? +Fineness—that's the one excellent feature of being human! +There's no other reason for being—no other meaning or reason +for atomic affinity or star-hung space. True, the great +Conceiver of Refining Thought seems pleased to take all +eternity to play in....</p> + +<p>You've made me think of you out of all proportion. I don't want +to help it. I'm very glad we hailed each other across the +distance. There's something so entirely blithe and wise and +finished about the personality I've builded from three little +letters and a critique—that I refresh myself very frequently +from them.... I think we must be old playmates. Perhaps we +plotted ghost-stories and pegged oranges at each other in +Atlantean orchards millenniums ago. I begin to feel as if I +deserve to have my playmate back.... Then, again, it is as +though these little letters brought to my garret window the +Skylark I have heard far and faintly so long in the higher +moments of dream. Just a note here and there used to come to me +from far-shining archipelagoes of cloud-land. I listen now and +clearly understand what you have sung so long in the +Heights.... You are winged—that's the word! Wing often to my +window—won't you? Life is peppering me with good things this +year, I could not be more grateful.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Letters like these made Paula think of that memorable first afternoon +with Grimm; and like it, too, the joy was so intense as to hold the +suggestion that there must be something evil in it all. She laughed at +this. What law, human or divine, was disordered by two human grown-ups +with clean minds communing together intimately in letters? Quentin +Charter might have been less imperious, or less precipitous, in writing +such pleasing matters about herself, but had he not earned the boon of +saying what he felt? Still, Paula would not have been so entirely +feminine, had she not repressed somewhat. She even may have known that +artful repression from without is stimulus to any man. Occasionally, +Charter forgot his sense of humor, but the woman five years younger, +never. The inevitable thought that in the ordinary sequence of events, +they should meet face to face, harrowed somewhat with the thought that +she must keep his ideals down—or both were lost. What could a mind like +his <i>not</i> build about months of communion (eyes and ears strained toward +flashing skies) with a Skylark ideal?... She reminded Charter that +skylarks are little, brown, tame-plumaged creatures that only sing when +they soar. She could not forbear to note that he was a bit sky-larky, +too, in his letters, and observed that she had found it wise, mainly to +keep one's wings tightly folded in New York. She signed her next letter, +nevertheless, with a small pen-picture of the name he had given +her—full-throated and ascending. Also she put on her house address. +Some of the paragraphs from letters which came in the following weeks, +she remembered without referring to the treasured file:</p> + +<blockquote><p>... Bless the wings! May they never tire for long—since I +cannot be there when they are folded.... Often, explain it if +you can, I think of you as some one I have seen in Japan, +especially in Tokyo—hurrying through the dusk in the +Minimasakurna-cho, wandering through the tombs of the +Forty-seven Ronins. or sipping tea in the Kameido among the +wistaria blooms. Some time—who knows? I have made quite a +delightful romance about it.... Who is so wise as positively to +say, that we are not marvellously related from the youth of the +world? Who dares declare we have not climbed cliffs of Cathay +to stare across the sky-blue water, nor whispered together in +orient casements under constellations that swing more +perilously near than these?... We may be a pair of foolish +dreamers, but Asia must have a cup of tea for us—Asia, because +she is so far and so still. We shall <i>remember</i> then....</p> + +<p>And so you live alone? How strange, I have always thought of +you so? From the number, I think you must overlook the +Park—don't you?... It may strike you humorously, but I feel +like ordering you not to take too many meals alone. One is apt +to be neglectful, and women lose their appetites easier than +men. I used to be graceless toward the gift of health. Perhaps +I enjoy perfectly prepared food altogether too well for one of +inner aspirations. The bit of a soul in which you see such +glorious possibilities, packs rather an imperious animal this +trip, I fear. However, I don't let the animal carry <i>me</i>—any +more.</p> + +<p>I see a wonderful sensitiveness in all that you write—that's +why I suggest especially that you should never forget fine food +and plentiful exercise. Psychic activity in America is attained +so often at the price of physical deterioration. This is an +empty failure, uncentering, deluding. Remember, I say in +America.... Pray, don't think I fail to worship +sensitiveness—those high, strange emotions, the sense of +oneness with all things that live, the vergings of the mind +toward the intangible, the light, refreshing sleep of +asceticism, subtle expandings of solitude and the mystical +launchings,—anything that gives spread of wing rather than +amplitude of girth—but I have seen these very pursuits carry +one entirely out of rhythm with the world. The multitudes +cannot follow us when there are stars in our eyes—they cannot +see.</p> + +<p>A few years ago I had a strange period of deep-delving into +ancient wisdom. A lot of big, simple treasures unfolded, but I +discovered great dogmas as well—the steel shirts, iron +shields, mailed fists and other junk which lesser men seem +predestined to hammer about the gentle spirit of Truth. I +vegetarianed, lived inside, practiced meditate, and became a +sensitive, as it seems now, in rather a paltry, arrogant sense. +The point is I lost the little appeal I had to people through +writing. It came to me at length with grim finality that if a +man means to whip the world into line at all, he must keep a +certain brute strength. He must challenge the world at its own +games <i>and win</i>, before he can show the world that there are +finer games to play. You can't stand above the mists and call +the crowd to you, but many will <i>follow</i> you up through +them.... I truly hope, if I am wrong in this, that you will see +it instantly, and not permit the edge and temper of your +fineness to be coarsened through me. You are so animate, so +delicately strong, and seem so spiritually unhurt, that it +occurs to me now that there may be finer laws for you, than are +vouchsafed to me. I interpreted my orders—to win according to +certain unalterable rules of the world. Balzac did that. I +think some Skylark sang to him at the last, when he did his +Seraphita....</p> + +<p>I cannot help but tell you again of my gratitude. I am no +impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to +me.... Isn't this an excellent world when the finer moments +come; when we can think with gentleness of past failures of the +flesh and spirit, and with joy upon the achievements of others; +when we feel that we have preserved a certain relish for the +rich of all thought, and a pleasure in innocence; when out of +our errors and calamities we have won a philosophy which makes +serene our present voyaging and gives us keen eyes to discern +the coast-lights of the future?... With lifted brow—I harken +for your singing.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Paula knew that Quentin Charter was crying out for his mate of fire. She +remembered that she had strangely felt his strength before there were +any letters, but she could not deny that it since had become a greater +and more intimate thing—her tower, white and heroic, cutting clean +through the films of distance, and suggesting a vast, invisible city at +its base. That she was the bright answer in the East for such a tower +was incredible. She could send a song over on the wings of the +morning—make it shine like ivory into the eyes of the new day, but she +dared not think of herself as a corresponding fixture. A man like +Charter could form a higher woman out of dreams and letter-pages than +the world could mold for him from her finest clays. Always she said +this—and forgot that the man was clay. A pair of dreamers, truly, and +yet there was a difference in their ideals. If Charter's vision of her +lifted higher, it was also flexible to contain a human woman. As for +hers—Paula had builded a tower. True, there were moments of flying fog +in which she did not see it, but clean winds quickly brushed away the +obscurations, and not a remnant clung. When seen at all, her tower was +pure white and undiminished.</p> + +<p>Of necessity there were reactions. His familiarity with the petty +intensities of the average man often startled her. He seemed capable of +dropping into the parlance of any company, not as one who had listened +and memorized, but as an old familiar who had served time in all +societies. In the new aspect of personal letters, his book revealed a +comprehension of women—that dismayed. Of course, his printed work was +filled with such stuff as her letters were made of, but between a book +and a letter, there is the same difference of appeal as the lines read +by an actor, however gifted, are cold compared to a friend's voice. +Though she wondered at Charter giving his time to write such letters to +her, this became very clear, if his inclination were anything like her +own to answer them. All the thinking of her days formed itself into +compressed messages for him; and all the best of her sprang to her pen +under his address. The effort then became to repress, to keep her pages +within bounds, and the ultimate effort was to wait several days before +writing again. His every sentence suggested pleasure in writing; and as +a matter of fact, he repressed very little.... Was it through letters +like hers in his leisure months that Charter amassed his tremendous +array of poignant details; was it through such, that he reared his +imposing ranges of feminine understanding? This was a question requiring +a worldlier woman than Paula long to hold in mind. In the man's writing, +regarded from her critical training, there was no betrayal of the +literary clerk dependent upon data.</p> + +<p>"I am no impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to +me." There was something of seership in his thus irrevocably affixing +his ideal to the human woman who held the pen.... His photograph was +frequently enough in the press—a big browed, plain-faced young man with +a jaw less aggressive than she would have imagined, and a mouth rather +finely arched for a reformer who was to whip the world into line. And +then there was a discovery. In a magazine dated a decade before, she ran +upon his picture among the advertising pages. Verses of his were +announced to appear during the year to come. He could not have been over +twenty for this picture, and to her it was completely charming—a boy +out of the past calling blithely; a poetic face, too, reminding her of +prints she had seen of an early drawing of Keats's head now in +London—eager, sensitive, all untried!... It was not without resistance +that she acknowledged herself <i>closer to the boy</i>—that something of the +man was beyond her. There was a mystery left upon the face by the +intervening years, "while the tireless soul etched on...." Should she +ever know? Or must there always be this dim, hurting thing? Was it all +the etching of the <i>soul</i>—that this later print revealed?... These were +but bits of shadow—ungrippable things which made her wings falter for a +moment and long for something sure to rest upon, but Reifferscheid's +first talk about Charter, the latter's book, and the letters—out of +these were reconstructed her tower of shining purity.</p> + +<p>There were times when Paula's heart, gathering all its tributary +sympathies, poured out to the big figure in the West in a deep and +rushing torrent. Her entire life was illuminated by these moments of +ardor. Here was a giving, in which the thought of actual possession had +little or no part. Her finest elements were merged into one-pointed +expression. It is not strange that she was dismayed by the triumphant +force of the woman within her, nor that she recalled one of the first of +Madame Nestor's utterances, "Nonsense, Paula, the everlasting feminine +is alive in every movement of you." Yet this outpouring was lofty, and +noon-sky clear. An emotion like this meant brightness to every life that +contacted it.... But ruthlessly she covered, hid away even from her own +thoughts, illuminations such as these. Here was a point of tragic +significance. Out of the past has come this great fear to strong +women—the fear to let themselves love. This is one of the sorriest +evolutions of the self-protecting instinct. So long have women met the +tragic fact of fickleness and evasion in the men of their majestic +concentrations—that fear puts its weight against the doors that love +would open wide.</p> + +<p>Almost unconsciously the personal tension of the correspondence +increased. Not infrequently after her letters were gone, Paula became +afraid that this new, full-powered self of hers had crept into her +written pages with betraying effulgence, rising high above the light +laughter of the lines. How she cried out for open honesty in the world +and rebelled against the garments of falsity which society insists must +cover the high as well as the low. Charter seemed to say what was in his +heart; at least, he dared to write as the woman could not, as she dared +not even to think, lest he prove—against the exclaiming negatives of +her soul—a literary craftsman of such furious zeal that he could tear +the heart out of a woman he had not seen, pin the quivering thing under +his lens, to describe, with his own responsive sensations.</p> + +<p>So the weeks were truly emotional. Swiftly, beyond any realization of +her own, Paula Linster became full-length a woman. Reifferscheid found +it harder and harder to talk even bossily to her, but cleared his voice +when she entered, vented a few booky generalities, and cleared his voice +when she went away. Keen winter fell upon his system of emptied lakes; +gusty winter harped the sound of a lonely ship in polar seas among the +naked branches of the big elms above his cottage; indeed, gray winter +would have roughed it—in the big chap's breast, had he not buckled his +heart against it.... For years, Tim Reifferscheid had felt himself aloof +from all such sentiment. Weakening, he had scrutinized his new assistant +keenly for the frailties with which her sex was identified in his mind. +In all their talks together, she had verified not one, so that he was +forced to destroy the whole worthless edition. She was a discovery, +thrillingly so, since he had long believed such a woman impossible. Now +he felt crude beside her, remembered everything that he had done amiss +(volumes of material supposed to be out of print). Frankly, he was +irritated with any one in the office who presumed to feel himself an +equal with Miss Linster.... But all this was Reifferscheid's, and no +other—as far from any expression of his, as thoughtless kisses or +thundering heroics.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NINTH_CHAPTER" id="NINTH_CHAPTER"></a>NINTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA IS DRAWN DEEPER INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY WOOED +THROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST</h3> + + +<p>Selma Cross frequently filled the little place of books across the hall +with her tremendous vibrations before the trial trip of her new play on +the road. Paula liked to have her come in, delighted in the great +creature's rapture over the hunch-back, Stephen Cabot, author of <i>The +Thing</i>. There was an indescribably brighter luster in the waxing and +waning of romantic tides, than the eyes of Paula had ever before +discovered, so that the confidences of the other were of moment. Selma +was terrified by some promise she had made years before in Kentucky. It +was gradually driven deep into the listener's understanding that no +matter how harsh and dreadful the intervening years had been, here was a +woman to whom a promise meant a promise. Paula was moved almost to tears +by the other's description of Stephen Cabot, and the first time she saw +him.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if the long white face with the pain-lit eyes could ever mean +to any one else what it does to me?" Selma whispered raptly when they +talked together one Sunday night. "Why, to see him sitting there before +me at rehearsal—the finest, lowest head in all the chairs—steadies, +exalts me! I hold fast to repression.... It It was Vhruebert who brought +me to him, and the first words Stephen said were: 'Your manager is a +wizard, Miss Cross, to get you for this. Why, you are the woman I wrote +about in <i>The Thing</i>!'"</p> + +<p>"Tell me more," Paula had whispered.</p> + +<p>"We met in Vhruebert's office and forgot the manager entirely. I guess +two hours passed, as we talked, and went over the play together that +first time. Vhruebert sent in his office-boy finally to remind us that +he was still in the building. How we three laughed about it!... Then as +we started out for luncheon together, Stephen and I, Vhruebert took his +place at the door before us, and delivered himself of something like +this:</p> + +<p>"'You two listen to the father of what you are to be,'" Selma Cross went +on, roughening her voice and tightening her nasal passages, to imitate +the old Hebrew star-maker. "'Listen to the soulless Vhruebert, who +brudalizes the great Amerigan stage. You two are Art. Very well, listen +to Commerce. It took me twenty-five years to learn that there must be +humor in a blay. This <i>T'ing</i> would not lift the lip of a ganary-bird. +It took me twenty-five years to learn there must be joy at the end of a +blay—and wedding-bells. This <i>T'ing</i> ends just about—over the hills to +the mad-house. Twenty-five years proved to me what I know the first +day—that women of the stage must be beautiful. Miss Gross is not. I say +no more. Here I have neither dramatist nor star. I could give the blay +by Gabot to Ellen Terry—or to Miss Gross, if Ibsen write it. As it is, +I have no name. There are five thousand people in this country writing +blays with humor and habby endings. There are ten thousand beautiful +women exbiring to spend it on the stage. Yet you two are the chosen of +Vhruebert. When you look into each other's eye and visper how +von-der-ful you are, with rising inflection; and say, "To hell with +Gommerce and the Binhead Bublic!" remember Vhruebert who advances the +money!'"</p> + +<p>"And did you remember Vhruebert in that fairy luncheon together?" Paula +asked happily.</p> + +<p>"No, I only saw the long white face of Stephen Cabot. I wanted to take +him in my arms and make him whole!"</p> + +<p>For ten weeks Bellingham lay in one of the New York hospitals. "A woman +attends him," Madame Nestor informed. "She is young and has been very +beautiful. How well do I know her look of impotence and apathy—that +look of unresisting obedience." To Paula, the magician seemed back among +the dead ages, although Madame Nestor did not regard the present lull +without foreboding. Paula could not feel that her real self had been +defiled. The dreadful visitations were all but erased, as pass the +spectres of delirium. What was more real, and rocked the centres of her +being, was the conception of this outcast's battle for life. She could +not forget that it was in pursuing her, that he had been injured. Facing +not only death, but extinction, this idolater of life had, as one +physician expressed it, held together his shattered vitality by sheer +force of will, until healing set in. The only thought comparable in +terror to such a conflict, had to do with the solitudes and abject +frigidity of inter-stellar spaces.</p> + +<p>The Skylark Letters, as she came to call them, were after all, the +eminent feature of the fall and winter weeks. There was a startling +paragraph in one of the December series: "I think it is fitting for you +to know (though, believe me, I needed no word regarding you from +without), that I am not entirely in the dark as to how you have +impressed another. I know nothing of the color of your hair or eyes, +nothing of your size or appearance,—only just how you <i>impressed +another</i>. This information, it is needless to say, was unsolicited...." +Just that, and no further reference. It was as though he had felt it a +duty to incorporate those lines. Portions of some of the later letters +follow:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Did you know, that without the upward spread of wings—there +can be no song from the Skylark? This, for me, has a fragrant +and delicate significance. It is true that the poor little +caged-birds sing, but how sorry they are, since they have to +flutter their wings to give forth sound, and cling with their +claws to the bars to hold themselves down!... I think you must +have been a little wing-weary when you wrote your last letter +to me. Perhaps the dusk was crowding into the Heights. No one +knows as I do how the Skylark has sung and sung!... You did +not say it, but I think you wanted the earth-sweet meadows. It +came to me like needed rain—straight to the heart of mine that +little plaint in the song. It made me feel how useless is the +strength of my arms.... You see, I manage pretty well to keep +you up There. I must. And because you are so wonderful, I +can.... An enthralling temperament rises to me from your +letters. I love to let it flood through my brain....</p> + +<p>I do not feel at all sure that you know me truly. What a man's +soul appears to be, through the intimations of his higher +moments, is not the man altogether that humans must reckon +with. Nor must they reckon with the trampling violences of +one's past. I truly believe in the soul. I believe it is an +essence fundamentally fine; that great mothers brood it +beautifully into their babes; that it is nourished by the good +a man does and thinks. I believe in the ultimate victory of the +soul, against the tough, twisted fibres of flesh which rise to +demand a thousand sensations. I would have you think of me as +one <i>lifting</i>; happy in discoveries, the crown of which you +are; conscious of an integrating spirit; that sometimes in my +silences I answer your song as one glorified. But then, I +remember that you must not judge me by the brightest of my +work. Such are the trained, tense bursts of speed—the swift +expiration of the best. I think a man is about half as good as +his best work and half as bad as his most lamentable leisure. +Midway between his emotions and exaltations—is indicated his +valuation.... All men clinging to the sweep of the upward +cycle, must know the evil multitude at some time. Perhaps few +men have met and discarded so many personal devils as I, in a +single life. But I say to you as I write to-night, those devils +cast out seem far back among cannibal centuries. I worship the +fine, the pure,—thoughts and deeds which are expanded and +warmed by the soul's breath. And you are the anchorage of this +sweeter spirit which is upon me. Now, out of the logic which +life burns into the brain, comes this thought: (I set it down +only to fortify the citadel of truth in which our momentous +relation alone can prosper.) Are there fangs and hackles and +claws which I have not yet uncovered? Am I given the present +serenity as a resting-time before meeting a more subtle and +formidable enemy? Has my vitality miraculously been preserved +for some final battle with a champion of champions of the +flesh? Is it because the sting is gone from my scar-tissues +that I feel so strong and so white to-night? I cannot think +this, because I have heard—because I still hear—my Skylark +sing.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The personal element of the foregoing and the hint of years of "wrath +and wanderings," which she saw in his second photograph, correlated +themselves in Paula's mind. They frightened her cruelly, but did not put +Charter farther away. Remembering the effect of the passion which +Bellingham had projected into her own brain, helped her vaguely to +understand Charter's earlier years. His splendid emancipation from past +evils lifted her soul. And when he asked, if his present serenity might +not be a preparation for a mightier struggle, the serious reflection +came—might she not ask the same question of herself? The old +Flesh-Mother does not permit one to rest when one is full of +strength.... Paula perceived that Quentin Charter was bravely trying to +get to some sort of rational adjustment her ideal of him and the blooded +reality—and to preserve her from all hurt. Doubts could not exist in a +mind besieged by such letters.... One of her communications must have +reflected something of her terror at the vague forms of his past, which +he partially unveiled, for in answer he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Do not worry again about the Big Back Time. Perhaps I was over +assertive about the shadowed years. The main thing is that this +is the wonderful present—and you, my white ally of nobler +power and purpose. A gale of good things will come to +us—hopes, communions and inspirations. We shall know each +other—grow so fine together—that Mother Earth at last will +lose her down-pull upon us—as upon perfumes and sunbeams. You +have come with mystical brightening. You are the New Era. There +is healing in Gethsemanes since you have swept with grace and +imperiousness into possession of the Charter heart-country so +long undiscovered. The big area is lit, redeemed from chaos. It +is thrilling—since you are there. Never must you wing away.... +Sometime you shall know with what strength and truth and +tenderness I regard you. The spirit of spring is in my veins. +It would turn to summer if we were together, but there could be +no reacting winter because you have evolved a mind and a +soul.... Body and mind and soul all evenly ignited—what a +conception of woman!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Paula begged him not to try to fit such an ideal of the finished +feminine to a little brown tame-plumaged skylark. Since they might some +time meet, she wrote, it was nothing less than unfair for his mind, +trained to visualize its images so clearly, to turn its full energies +upon an ideal, and expect a human stranger—a happening—in the workaday +physical vesture (such as is needed for New York activities) to +sublimate the vision. She told him that he would certainly flee away +from the reality, and that he would have no one but himself to blame. +Visions, she added, do not review books nor write to authors whom they +have not met. All of which, she expressed very lightly, though she could +not but adore the spirit of ideality to which she had aroused his +faculties.</p> + +<p>At this time Paula encountered one of the imperishable little books of +the world, bracing to her spirit as a day's camp among mountain-pines. +Nor could she refrain from telling Charter about "The Practice of the +Presence of God," as told in the conversations of Brother Lawrence, a +bare-footed Carmelite of the Seventeenth Century. "No wilderness +wanderings seem to have intervened between the Red Sea and the Jordan of +his experience," she quoted from the preface, and told him how simple it +was for this unlearned man to be good—a mere "footman and soldier" +whose illumination was the result of seeing a dry and leafless tree in +mid-winter, and the thought of the change that would come to it with the +Spring. His whole life thereafter, largely spent in the monastery +kitchen—"a great awkward fellow, who broke everything"—was conducted +as if God were his constantly advising Companion. It was a life of +supernal happiness—and so simple to comprehend. Charter's reply to this +letter proved largely influential in an important decision Paula was +destined to make.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Yes, I have communed with Brother Lawrence—carried the little +volume with me on many voyages. I commend a mind that is fine +enough to draw inspiration from a message so chaste and simple. +You will be interested to hear that I have known another +Brother Lawrence—a man whose holiness one might describe as +"humble" or "lofty," with equal accuracy. This man is a +Catholic priest, Father Fontanel of Martinique. His parish is +in that amazing little port, Saint Pierre—where Africa and +France were long ago transplanted and have fused together so +enticingly. Lafcadio Hearn's country—you will say. I wonder +that this inscrutable master, Hearn, missed Father Fontanel in +his studies.... I was rough from the seas and a long stretch of +military campaigning, when my ship turned into that lovely +harbor of Saint Pierre. Finding Father Fontanel, I stayed over +several ships, and the healing of his companionship restores me +even now to remember.</p> + +<p>We would walk together on the <i>Morne d'Orange</i> in the evening. +His church was on the rise of the <i>morne</i> at the foot of <i>Rue +Victor Hugo</i>. He loved to hear about my explorations in books, +especially about my studies among the religious enthusiasts. I +would tell him of the almost incredible austerities of certain +mystics to refine the body, and it was really a sensation to +hear him exclaim in his French way: "Can it be possible? I am +very ignorant. All that I know is to worship the good God who +is always with me, and to love my dear children who have so +much to bear. I do not know why I should be so happy—unless it +is because I know so very little. Tell me why I live in a state +of continual transport...." I can hear his gentle Latin tones +even now at night when I shut my eyes—see the lights of the +shipping from that cliff road, hear the creoles' moaning songs +from the cabins, and recall the old volcano, <i>La Montagne +Peleé</i>, outlined like a huge couchant beast against the low, +northern stars.</p> + +<p>Father Fontanel has meant very much to me. In all my thinking +upon the ultimate happiness of the race, he stands out as the +bright achievement. At the time I knew him, there was not a +single moment of his life in which the physical of the man was +supreme. What his earlier years were I do not know, of course, +but I confess now I should like to know.... The presence of God +was so real to him, that Father Fontanel did not understand at +all his own great spiritual strength. Nor do his people quite +appreciate how great he is among the priests of men. He has +been in their midst so long that they seem accustomed to his +power. Only a stranger can realize what a pure, shining garment +his actual <i>flesh</i> has become. To me there was healing in the +very approach of this man.</p> + +<p>Dear Father Fontanel! All I had to do was to substitute "Higher +Self" for "God" and I had my religion—the Practice of the +Presence of the Higher Self. Does it not seem very clear to +you?... To me, God is always an abstraction—something of +vaster glory than the central sun, but one's Spiritual Body, +the real being, integrated through interminable lives, from the +finest materials of thought and action—this Higher Self is the +Presence I must keep always with me, and do I not deserve that +It should stand scornfully aloof, when, against my better +knowledge, I fall short in the performance?... I think it is +his Higher Self which is so lustrous in Father Fontanel, and +the enveloping purity which comes from you is the same. About +such purity there is nothing icy nor fibrous nor sterile.... +You are singing in my heart, Skylark.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The picture Charter had drawn of Father Fontanel of Saint Pierre +appealed strongly to Paula; and her mind's quick grasp of the Charter +religion—the Practice of the Presence of the Higher Self—became one of +her moments of illumination. This was ground-down simplicity. True, +every idea of Charter's was based upon reincarnation. Indeed, this +seemed so familiar to him, that he had not even undertaken to state it +as one of his fundamentals. But had she cared, she could have discarded +even that, from the present concept. So to live that the form of the +best within be not degraded; the days a constant cherishing of this +Invisible Friend; the conduct of life constantly adjusted to please this +Companion of purity and wisdom—here was ethics which blew away every +cloud impending upon her Heights. Years of such living could not but +bring one to the Uplands. As to Charter, God had always been to her The +Ineffable—source of solar, aye, universal energy—the Unseen All. +"Walking with God," "talking with God," "a personal God," "presence of +God,"—these were forms of speech she could never use, but the Higher +Self—this white charioteer—the soul-body that rises when the clay +falls—here was a Personal God, indeed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TENTH_CHAPTER" id="TENTH_CHAPTER"></a>TENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN APARTMENT NEXT MORNING +IS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY</h3> + + +<p>Selma Cross did not reach New York until the morning of the opening day +at the <i>Herriot Theatre</i>. She was very tired from rehearsals and the +try-outs along the string of second cities. There had been a big +difference of opinion regarding <i>The Thing</i>, among what New Yorkers are +pleased to call the provincial critics. From the character of the first +notices, on the contrary, it was apparent that the townsmen were not a +little afraid to trust such a startling play to New York. Mid-forenoon +of an early April day, the actress rapped upon Paula's door.</p> + +<p>"I have seen the boards," Paula exclaimed. "'Selma Cross' in letters big +as you are; and yesterday afternoon they were hanging the electric sign +in front of the <i>Herriot</i>. Also I shall be there to-night—since I was +wise enough to secure a ticket ten days ago. Isn't it glorious?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am quite happy about it," Selma Cross said, stretching out upon +the lounge. "Of course, it's not over until we see the morning papers. I +was never afraid—even of the vitriol-throwers, before. You see, I have +to think about success for Stephen Cabot, too."</p> + +<p>"Is he well?" Paula asked hastily.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, though I think sometimes he's a martyr. Oh, I have so much to +say——"</p> + +<p>"You said you would tell me some time how Vhruebert first decided to +take you on," Paula urged.</p> + +<p>"Before I got to the gate where the star-stuff passes through?" Selma +Cross answered laughingly. "That was four years ago. I had been to him +many times before he let me in. His chair squeaked under him. He looked +at me first as if he were afraid I would spring at him. I told him what +I could do, and he kept repeating that he didn't know it and New York +didn't know it. I said I would show New York, but unfortunately I had to +show him first. He screwed up his face and stared at me, as if I were +startlingly original in my ugliness. I know he could hear my heart beat.</p> + +<p>"'I can't do anything for you, Miss Gross,' he said impatiently, but in +spite of himself, he added, 'Come to-morrow.' You see, I had made him +think, and that hurt. He knew something of my work all right, and +wondered where he would put a big-mouthed, clear-skinned, yellow-eyed +amazon. The next day, he kept me waiting in the reception-room until I +could have screamed at the half-dressed women on the walls.</p> + +<p>"'I don't know exactly why I asked you to come again,' was his greeting +when the door finally opened to me. 'What was it, once more, that you +mean to do?'</p> + +<p>"'I mean to be the foremost tragedienne,' I said.</p> + +<p>"'Sit down. Tragedy doesn't bay.'</p> + +<p>"'I shall make it pay.'</p> + +<p>"'Um-m. How do you know? Some brivate vire of yours?'</p> + +<p>"'I can show you that I shall make it pay.'</p> + +<p>"'My Gott, not here! We will go to the outskirts.'</p> + +<p>"And he meant it, Paula. It was mid-winter. He took me to a little +summer-theatre up Lenox way. The place had not been open since +Thanksgiving. Vhruebert sat down in the centre of the frosty parquet, +shivering in his great coat. You know he's a thin-lipped, smile-less +little man, but not such a dead soul as he looks. He leaks out +occasionally through the dollar-varnish. Can you imagine a colder +reception? Vhruebert sat there blowing out his breath repeatedly, +seemingly absorbed in the effect the steam made in a little bar of +sunlight which slanted across the icy theatre. That was my try-out +before Vhruebert. I gave him some of Sudermann, Boker, and Ibsen. He +raised his hand finally, and when I halted, he called in a bartender +from the establishment adjoining, and commanded me to give something +from Camille and Sapho. I would have murdered him if he had been fooling +me after that. The bartender shivered in the cold.</p> + +<p>"'What do you think of that, Mr. Vite-Apron?' Vhruebert inquired at +length. He seemed to be warmer.</p> + +<p>"'Hot stuff,' said the man. 'It makes your coppers sizzle.'</p> + +<p>"The criticism delighted Vhruebert. 'Miss Gross, you make our goppers +sizzle,' he exclaimed, and then ordered wine and told me to be at his +studio to-morrow at eleven. That was the real winning," Selma Cross +concluded. "To-night I put the crown on it."</p> + +<p>Paula invariably felt the fling of emotions when Selma Cross was near. +The latter seemed now to have found her perfect dream; certainly there +was fresh coloring and poise in her words and actions. It was +inspiriting for Paula to think of Selma Cross and Stephen Cabot having +been accepted by the hard-headed Vhruebert—that such a pair could eat +his bread and drink his wine with merry hearts. It was more than +inspiriting for her to think of this vibrant heart covering and +mothering the physically unfortunate. Paula asked, as only a woman +could, the question uppermost in both minds.</p> + +<p>"Love me?" Selma whispered. "I don't know, dear. I know we love to be +together. I know that I love him. I know that he would not ask me to +take for a husband—a broken vessel——"</p> + +<p>"But you can make him know that—to you—he is not a broken vessel!... +Oh, that would mean so little to me!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I should have to tell him—of old Villiers—and the other!... +Oh, God, he is white fire! He is not the kind who could understand +that!... I thought I could do anything, I said, 'I am case-hardened. +Nothing can make me suffer!... I will go my way,—and no man, no power, +earthly or occult, can make me alter that way,' but Stephen Cabot has +done it. I would rather win for him to-night, than be called the +foremost living tragedienne.... I think he loves me, but there is the +price I paid—and I didn't need to pay it, for I had already risen out +of the depths. That was vanity. I needed no angel. I didn't care until I +met Stephen Cabot!"</p> + +<p>"I think—I think, if I were Stephen Cabot, I could forgive that," Paula +said slowly. She wondered at herself for these words when she was alone, +and the little place of books was no longer energized by the other's +presence.</p> + +<p>Selma started up from the lounge, stretched her great arm half across +the room and clutched Paula's hand. There was a soft grateful glow in +the big yellow eyes. "Do you know that means something—from a woman +like you? Always I shall remember that—as a fine thing from my one fine +woman. Mostly, they have hated me—what you call—our sisters."</p> + +<p>"You are a different woman—you're all brightened, since you met Stephen +Cabot. I feel this," Paula declared.</p> + +<p>"Even if all smoothed out here, there is still the old covenant in +Kentucky," Selma said, after a moment, and sprang to her feet, shaking +herself full-length.</p> + +<p>"Won't you tell me about that, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not now. I must go down-town. There is a dress-maker—and <i>we</i> +breakfast together.... Root for me—for us, to-night—won't you, dear +girl?"</p> + +<p>"With all my heart."</p> + +<p>They passed out through the hall together—just as the elevator-man +tucked a letter under the door.... Alone, Paula read this Spring +greeting from Quentin Charter:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I look away this morning into the brilliant East. I think of +you there—as glory waits. I feel the strength of a giant to +battle through dragons of flesh and cataclysms of Nature.... +Who knows what conflicts, what conflagrations, rage in the +glowing distance—between you and me? Not I, but that I have +strength—I do know.... By the golden glory of this wondrous +Spring morning which spreads before my eyes a world of work and +heroism blessed of the Most High God, I only ask to know that +you are there—<i>that you are there</i>.... While eternity is yet +young, we shall emerge out of time and distance; though it be +from a world altered by great cosmic shattering—yet shall we +emerge, serene man and woman.</p> + +<p>You are there in the brilliant East. In good time I shall go to +you. Meanwhile I have your light and your song. The dull dim +brute is gone from me, forever. Even that black prince of the +blood, Passion, stands beyond the magnetic circle. With you +<i>there</i>, I feel a divine right kingship, and all the black +princes of the body are afar off, herding with the beasts. I +tell you, since I have heard the Skylark sing—there is no +death.</p></blockquote> + +<p>That day became a vivid memory. Charter reached the highest pinnacle of +her mind—a man who could love and who could wait. The message from the +West exalted her. Here, indeed, was one of the New Voices. All through +the afternoon, out of the hushes of her mind, would rise this pæan from +the West—sentence after sentence <i>for her</i>.... No, not for her alone. +She saw him always in the midst of his people, illustrious among his +people.... She saw him coming to her over mountains—again and again, +she caught a glimpse of him, configured among the peaks, and striding +toward her—yet between them was a valley torn with storm.... It came to +her that there must be a prophecy in this message; that he would not be +suffered to come to her easily as his letters came. Yet, the strength he +had felt was hers, and those were hours of ecstasy—while the gray of +the Spring afternoon thickened into dark. Only <i>The Thing</i> could have +called her out that night; for once, when it was almost time to go, the +storm lifted from the valley between them. She saw his path to her, just +for an instant, and she longed to see it again....</p> + +<p>Paula entered the theatre a moment before the curtain rose, but in the +remaining seconds of light, discovered in the fourth aisle far to the +right—"the finest, lowest head" and the long white face of Stephen +Cabot. If a man's face may be called beautiful, his was—firm, delicate, +poetic,—brilliant eyes, livid pallor. And the hand in which the thin +cheek rested, while large and chalky-white, was slender as a girl's.... +In the middle of the first act, a tall, elderly man shuffled down the +aisle and sank into the chair in front of Paula, where he sprawled, +preparing to be bored. This was Felix Larch, one of the best known of +the metropolitan critics, notorious as a play-killer.</p> + + +<p>The first-night crowd can be counted on. It meant nothing to Vhruebert +that the house was packed. The venture was his up to the rise of the +curtain. Paula was absorbed by the first two acts of the play, but did +not feel herself fit to judge. She was too intensely interested in the +career of Selma Cross; in the face of Stephen Cabot; in the attitudes of +Felix Larch, who occasionally forgot to pose. It was all very big and +intimate, but the bigger drama, up to the final curtain, was the battle +for success against the blasé aspirations of the audience and the +ultra-critical enemy personified in the man before her.</p> + +<p>The small and excellent company was balanced to a crumb. Adequate +rehearsals had finished the work. Then the lines were rich, forceful and +flowing—strange with a poetic quality that "got across the footlights." +Paula noted these exterior matters with relief. Unquestionably the +audience forgot itself throughout the second act. Paula realized, with +distaste, that her own critical sense was bristling for trouble. She had +hoped to be as receptive to emotional enjoyment as she imagined the +average play-goer to be. Though she failed signally in this, her +sensibilities were in no way outraged, nor even irritated. On the +contrary, she began to rise to the valor of the work and its +performance. The acting of Selma Cross, though supreme in repression, +was haunting, unforgettable. Felix Larch had twice disturbed her by +taking his seat in the midst of the first and second acts. She had heard +that he rarely sat out a whole performance, and took it therefore as a +good omen when he returned, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, as the final +curtain rose.</p> + +<p>By some new mastery of style, Selma Cross had managed, almost +throughout, to keep her profile to the audience. The last act was half +gone, moreover, before the people realized that there were qualities in +her voice, other than richness and flexibility. She had held them thus +far with the theme, charging the massed consciousness of her audience +with subtle passions. Now came the rising moments. Full into the light +she turned her face.... She was quite alone with her tragedy. A gesture +of the great bare arm, as the stage darkened, and she turned loose upon +the men and women a perfect havoc of emptiness—in the shadows of which +was manifesting a huge unfinished human. She made the people see how a +mighty passion, suddenly bereft of its object, turns to devour the brain +that held it. They saw the great, gray face of <i>The Thing</i> slowly rubbed +out—saw the mind behind it, soften and run away into chaos. There was a +whisper, horrible with exhaustion—a breast beaten in the gloom.</p> + +<p>Felix Larch swore softly.... <i>The Thing</i> was laughing as the curtain +crawled down over her—an easy, wind-blown, chattering laugh....</p> + +<p>The critic grasped the low shoulders of a bald, thin-lipped +acquaintance, exclaiming:</p> + +<p>"Where did you get that diadem, Lucky One?"</p> + +<p>Paula heard a hoarse voice, but the words of the reply were lost.</p> + +<p>"Come over across the street for a minute. I want a stimulant and a talk +with you," Felix Larch added, wriggling into his overcoat.</p> + +<p>There was a low, husky laugh, and then plainly these words: "She makes +your goppers sizzle—eh?... Wait until I tell her she has won and I'll +go with you," added the queer little man, whom Paula knew now to be +Vhruebert....</p> + +<p>The latter passed along the emptied aisle toward Stephen Cabot, who had +not left his seat. Paula noted with a start that the playwright's head +had dropped forward in a queer way. Vhruebert glanced at him, and +grasped his shoulder. The old manager then cleared his throat—a sound +which apparently had meaning for the nearest usher, who hurried forward +to be dispatched for a doctor. It was very cleverly and quietly done.... +Stephen Cabot, who could see more deeply than others into the art of the +woman and the power of his own lines, and possibly deeper into the big +result of this fine union of play and player—had fainted at the +climacteric moment.... A physician now breasted his way through the +crowd at the doors, and <i>The Thing</i> suddenly appeared in the nearest box +and darted forward like a rush of wind. She gathered the insensible one +in her arms and repeated his name low and swiftly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he murmured, opening his eyes at last.</p> + +<p>They seemed alone.... Presently Stephen Cabot laughingly protested that +he was quite well, and disappeared behind the scenes, assisted by the +long, bare arm that had so recently hurled havoc over the throng. Paula +waited for a few moments at the door until she was assured.</p> + +<p>Driving home through the Park, she felt that she could not endure +another emotion. For a long time she tossed restlessly in bed, too tired +to sleep. A reacting depression had fallen upon her worn nerves. She +could not forget the big structure of the day's joy, but substance had +dropped from it.... The cold air sweeping through her sleeping-room +seemed to come from desolate mountains. Lost entirely was her gladness +of victory in the Selma Cross achievement. She called herself spiteful, +ungrateful, and quite miserably at last sank into sleep....</p> + +<p>She was conscious at length of the gray of morning, a stifling pressure +in her lungs, and the effort to rouse herself. She felt the cold upon +her face; yet the air seemed devitalized by some exhausting voltage, she +had known before. There was a horrid jangle in her brain, as of two +great forces battling to complete the circuit there. A face imploring +from a garret-window, a youth in a lion's skin, a rock in the desert and +a rock in the Park, the dim hotel parlor and the figure of yesterday +among the mountain-peaks—so the images rushed past—until the tortured +face of Bellingham (burning eyes in the midst of ghastly pallor), caught +and held her mind still. From a room small as her own, and gray like her +own with morning, he called to her: "Come to me.... Come to me, Paula +Linster.... I have lived for you—oh, come to me!"</p> + +<p>She sprang out of bed, and knelt. How long it was before she freed +herself, Paula never knew. Indeed, she was not conscious of being +actually awake, until she felt the bitter cold and hurried into the +heated room beyond. She was physically wretched, but no longer +obsessed.... She would not believe now that the beyond-devil had called +again. It was all a dream, she told herself again and again—this rush +of images and the summons from the enemy. Yesterday, she had been too +happy; human bodies cannot endure so long such refining fire; to-day was +the reaction and to-morrow her old strength and poise would come again. +Quite bravely, she assured herself that she was glad to pay the price +for the hours of yesterday. She called for the full series of morning +papers, resolving to occupy her mind with the critical notices of the +new play.</p> + +<p>These were quite remarkable in the unanimity of their praise. The +Cross-Cabot combination had won, indeed, but Paula could extract no +buoyancy from the fact, nor did black coffee dispel the vague +premonitive shadows which thickened in the background of her mind. The +rapping of Selma Cross upon her door was hours earlier than ever before. +She, too, had called for the morning papers. A first night is never +finished until these are out. Paula did not feel equal to expressing all +that the play had meant to her. It was with decided disinclination that +she admitted her neighbor.</p> + +<p>Selma Cross had not bathed, nor dressed her hair. She darted in +noiselessly in furry slippers—a yellow silk robe over her night-dress. +Very silken and sensuous, the huge, laughing creature appeared as she +sank upon the lounge and shaded her yellow eyes from the light. So +perfect was her health, and so fresh her happiness, that an hour or two +of sleep had not left her eyes heavy nor her skin pallid. There was an +odor of sweet clover about her silks that Paula never sensed afterward +without becoming violently ill. She knew she was wrong—that every fault +was hers—but she could not bear the way her neighbor cuddled this +morning in the fur of the couch-covering. Selma had brought in every +morning newspaper issued and a thick bundle of telegrams besides. Paula +told her, literally forcing the sentences, how splendidly the play and +her own work had appealed to her. This task, which would have been a +pure delight at another time, was adequately accomplished only after +much effort now. It appeared that the actress scarcely heard what she +was saying. The room was brightening and there was a grateful piping of +steam in the heaters of the apartment.</p> + +<p>"So glad you liked it, dear," Selma said briefly. "And isn't it great +the way the papers treated it? Not one of them panned the play nor my +work.... I say, it's queer when a thing you've dreamed of for years +comes true at last—it's different from the way you've seen it come to +others. I mean there's something unique and a fullness you never +imagined. Oh, I don't know nor care what I'm drowning to say.... Please +do look over these telegrams—<i>from everybody</i>! There's over a hundred! +I had to come in here. I'd have roused you out of bed—if you hadn't +been up. The telephone will be seething a little later—and I wanted +this talk with you."</p> + +<p>Big theatrical names were attached to the yellow messages. It is a +custom for stages-folk to speed a new star through the first performance +with a line of courage—wired. You are supposed to count your real +friends in those who remember the formality. It is not well to be a day +late....</p> + +<p>"And did you notice how Felix Larch uncoiled?"</p> + +<p>Paula looked up from the telegrams to explain how this critic had been +the object of her contemplation the night before.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't turned loose in that sort of praise this season," Selma Cross +added. "His notice alone, dear, is enough to keep us running at the +<i>Herriot</i> until June—and we'll open there again in the fall, past +doubt."</p> + +<p>Paula felt wicked in that she must enthuse artificially. She forced +herself to remember that ordinarily she could have sprung with a merry +heart into the very centre of the other's happiness.</p> + +<p>"Listen, love," Selma resumed, ecstactically hugging her pillow, "I want +to tell you things. I wanted to yesterday, but I had to hurry off. +You've got so much, that you must have the rest. Besides, it's in my +mind this morning, because it was the beginning of last night——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, tell me," Paula said faintly, bringing her a cup of coffee.</p> + +<p>"I was first smitten with the passion to act—a gawky girl of ten at a +child's party," Selma began. "I was speaking a piece when the impulse +came to turn loose. It may have been because I was so homely and +straight-haired, or it may have been that I did the verses so +differently from the ordinary routine of speaking pieces—anyway, a boy +in the room laughed. Another boy immediately bored in upon the scoffer, +downed his enemy and was endeavoring hopefully to kill him with bare +hands, when I interfered. My champion and I walked home together and +left a wailing and disordered company. That's the first brush.</p> + +<p>"My home was Danube, Kentucky. They had a dramatic society there. Eight +years after the child's party, this dramatic society gave <i>A Tribute to +Art</i>. Where the piece came from is forgotten. How it got its name never +was known outside of the sorry brain that thrust it, deformed but +palpitating, upon the world. Mrs. Fiske couldn't have made other than a +stick of the heroine. The hero was larger timber, though too dead for +vine leaves. But, I think I told you about the Big Sister—put there in +blindness or by budding genius. There were possibilities in that +character. Danube didn't know it, or it wouldn't have fallen to me. +Indeed, I remember toward the end of the piece—a real moment of windy +gloom and falling leaves, a black-windowed farmhouse on the left, the +rest a desolate horizon—in such a moment the Big Sister plucks out her +heart to show its running death.</p> + +<p>"I had persisted in dramatic work, in and out of season, during those +eight years, but it really was because the Big Sister didn't need to be +beautiful that I got the part. I wove the lines tighter and sharpened +the thing in rehearsals, until the rest of the cast became afraid, not +that I would outshine them, but that I might disgrace the society on the +night o' nights. You see, I was only just tolerated. Poor father, he +wasn't accounted much in Danube, and there was a raft of us. Poor, dear +man!</p> + +<p>"Danube wasn't big enough to attract real shows, so the visiting drama +gave expression to limited trains, trap-doors, blank cartridges and +falling cliffs"—Selma Cross chuckled expansively at the memory—"and I +plunged my fellow-townsmen into waters deeper and stormier than +<i>Nobody's Claim</i> or <i>Shadows of a Great City</i>. Wasn't it monstrous?"</p> + +<p>Paula inclined her head, but was not given time to answer.</p> + +<p>"A spring night in Kentucky—hot, damp, starlit—shall I ever forget +that terrible night of <i>A Tribute to Art</i>? All Danube somebodies were +out to see the younger generation perpetuate the lofty culture of the +place. Grandmothers were there, who played <i>East Lynne</i> on the same +stage—before the raids of Wolfert and Morgan; and daddies who sat like +deans, eyes dim, but artistic, you know—watched the young idea progress +upon familiar paths.... The heroine did the best she could. I was a +camel beside her—strode about her raging and caressing. You see how I +could have spoiled <i>The Thing</i> last night—if I had let the passion +flood through me like a torrent through a broken dam? That's what I did +in Danube—and some full-throated baying as well. Oh, it is horrible to +remember.</p> + +<p>"The town felt itself brutalized, and justly. I had left a rampant thing +upon every brain, and very naturally the impulse followed to squelch the +perpetrator for all time. I don't blame Danube now. I had been bad; my +lack of self-repression, scandalous. The part, as I had evolved it, was +out of all proportion to the piece, to Danube, to amateur theatricals. I +don't know if I struck a false note, but certainly I piled on the +feeling.</p> + +<p>"Can you imagine, Paula, that it was an instant of singular glory to +me—that climax?... Poor Danube couldn't see that I was combustible +fuel, freshly lit; that I was bound to burn with a steady flame when the +pockets of gas were exploded.... My dazed people did not leave the hall +at once. It was as if they had taken strong medicine and wanted to study +the effect upon each other. I came out from behind at last, up the +aisle, sensing disorder where I had expected praise, and was joined by +my old champion, Calhoun Knox, who had whipped the scoffer at the +child's party. He pressed my hand. We had always been friends. Passing +around the edge of the crowd, I heard this sentence:</p> + +<p>"'Some one—the police, if necessary—must prevent Selma Cross from +making another such shocking display of herself!'</p> + +<p>"It was a woman who spoke, and the man at her side laughed. I had no +time nor thought to check Calhoun. He stepped up to the man beside the +woman. 'Laugh like that again,' he said coldly, 'and I'll kill you!'</p> + +<p>"It seemed to me that all Danube turned upon us. My face must have been +mist-gray. I know I felt like falling. The woman's words had knifed me.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Oh, you cat-minds!</i>' I flung at them. Calhoun Knox drew me out into +the dark. I don't know how far out on the Lone Ridge Pike we walked, +before it occurred to either of us to halt or speak," Selma Cross went +on very slowly. "I think we walked nearly to the Knobs. The night had +cleared. It was wonderfully still out there among the hemp-fields. I +knew how he was pitying me, and told him I must go away.</p> + +<p>"'I can't stand for you to go away, Selma,' Calhoun said. 'I want you to +stay and be mine always. We always got along together. You are beautiful +enough to me!'</p> + +<p>"I guess it was hard for him to say it," the woman finished with a +laugh, "I used to wish he hadn't put in that 'enough.' But that +moment—it was what I needed. There was always something big and simple +about Calhoun Knox. My hand darted to his shoulder and closed there like +a mountaineer's, 'You deserve more of a woman than I am, Calhoun,' I +said impetuously, 'but you can have me when I come to marry—but, God, +that's far off. I like you, Calhoun. I'd fight for you to the death—as +you fought for me to-night and long ago. I think I'd hate any woman who +got you—but there's no wife in me to-night. I have failed to win +Danube, Kentucky, but I'll win the world. I may be a burnt-out hag then, +but I'll come back—when I have won the world—and you can have me and +it.... Listen, Calhoun Knox, if ever a man means <i>husband</i> to me—you +shall be the man, but to-night,' I ended with a flourish, and turned +back home, 'I'm not a woman—just a devil at war with the world!'"</p> + +<p>"But haven't you heard from him?" Paula asked, after a moment.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he wrote and wrote. Calhoun Knox is the kind of stuff that +remembers. The time came when I didn't have the heart to answer. I was +afraid I'd ask him for money, or ask him to come to help me. Help out of +Danube! I couldn't do that—better old Villiers.... But I mustn't lie to +you. I went through the really hard part alone.... So Calhoun's letters +were not answered, and maybe he has forgotten. Anyway, before I +marry—he shall have his chance. Oh, I'll make it hard for him. I +wouldn't open any letter from Danube now—but he shall have his +chance——"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean to do?"</p> + +<p>"Why, we'll finish the season here—and Vhruebert has promised us a +little run in the West during June. We touch Cincinnati. From there I'll +take the Company down to Danube. I've got to win the world and Danube. +After the play, I'll walk out on the Lone Ridge pike—among the +hemp-fields—with Calhoun Knox——"</p> + +<p>"But he may have married——"</p> + +<p>"God, how I hope so! I shall wish him kingly happiness—and rush back to +Stephen Cabot."</p> + +<p>Paula could not be stirred by the story this morning. She missed, as +never before, some big reality behind the loves of Selma Cross. There +was too much of the sense of possession in her story—arm-possession. So +readily, could she be transformed into the earthy female, fighting tooth +and claw for her own. Paula could hardly comprehend in her present +depression, what she had said yesterday about Stephen Cabot's capacity +to forgive.... She was glad, when Selma Cross rose, yawned, stretched, +and shook herself. The odor of sweet clover was heaviness in the +room.... The long, bare arm darted over the reading-table and plucked +forth the book Paula loved. The volume had not been hidden; there was no +reason why she should not have done this, yet the action hurt the other +like a drenching of icy water upon her naked heart.</p> + +<p>"Ho-ho—Quentin Charter! So <i>A Damsel Came to Peter</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I think—I hear your telephone,—Selma!" Paula managed to say, her +voice dry, as if the words were cut from paper.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I must go, but here's another story. A rotten cad—but how he +can write! I don't mean books—but letters!... He's the one I told you +about—the Westerner—while the old man was in the South!"</p> + +<p>The last was called from the hall. The heavy door slammed between them.</p> + +<p>Paula could not stand—could not keep her mouth from dropping open. Her +temples seemed to be cracking apart.... She saw herself in +half-darkness—like <i>The Thing</i> last night—beating her breast in the +gloom. She felt as if she must laugh—in that same wind-blown, chattering +way.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ELEVENTH_CHAPTER" id="ELEVENTH_CHAPTER"></a>ELEVENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES +A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS</h3> + + +<p>Paula wrote a short letter to Quentin Charter in the afternoon, and did +not begin to regret it until too late. It was not that she had said +anything unwise or discordant—but that she had written at all.... Her +heart felt dead. She had trusted her all to one—and her all was lost. A +little white animal that had always been warm and petted, suddenly +turned naked to face the reality of winter,—this was the first sense, +and the paramount trouble was that she could not die quickly enough. The +full realization was slow to come. Indeed, it was not until the night +and the next day that she learned the awful reaches of suffering of +which a desolated human mind is capable. It was like one of those +historic tides which rise easily to the highest landmarks of the +shore-dweller, and not till then begin to show their real fury, +devastating vast fields heretofore virgin to the sea. Along many coasts +and in many lives there is one, called The High Tide.... Paula felt that +she could have coped with her sorrow, had this been a personal blow, but +her faith in the race of men, the inspiration of her work, her dream of +service—all were uprooted.</p> + +<p>She did not pretend to deny that she had loved Quentin Charter—her +first and loftiest dream of a mate, the heart's cry of all her +womanhood. True, as man and woman, they had made no covenant, but to her +(and had he not expressed the same in a score of ways?), there had been +enacted a more wonderful adjustment, than any words could bring about. +This was the havoc. She had lost more than a mere human lover. She dared +now to say it, because, in losing, she perceived how great it had +become—the passion was gone from her soul. Her place in the world was +desolate; all her labors pointless. As a woman, she had needed his arms, +less than an anchorage of faith in his nobility. And how her faith had +rushed forth to that upper window across the States!</p> + +<p><i>Words</i>—the very word was poison to her. Writing—an emptiness, a +treachery. Veritably, he had torn the pith out of all her loved +books.... Bellingham had shown her what words meant—words that drew +light about themselves, attracting a brilliance that blinded her; words +that wrought devilishness in the cover of their white light—but +Bellingham had not assailed her faith. This was the work of a man who +had lifted her above the world, not one who called from beneath. +Bellingham could not have crippled her faith like this—and left it to +die.... Almost momentarily, came the thought of his letters—thoughts +<i>from</i> these letters. They left her in a dark—that was madness....</p> + +<p>And if they were false, what was the meaning of her exaltations? Night +and morning she had looked into the West, sending him all the graces of +her mind, all the secrets of her heart. He had told her of the strange +power that had come to him, of the new happiness—how, as never before, +he had felt radiations of splendid strength. She had not hurried him to +her, but had read with ecstasy, believing that a tithe of his new power +was her gift.... Words, desolate, damnable words.... "And I had thought +to heal and lift New York," she exclaimed mockingly, looking down into +the gray streets after the age-long night. "New York holds fast to her +realities—the things she has found sure. It is well to be normal and +like New York!"</p> + +<p>The day after the door had shut upon Selma Cross, Paula was a betrayed +spirit wandering alone in polar darkness. She had not slept, nor could +she touch food. Twice the actress had rapped; repeatedly the telephone +called—these hardly roused her. Letters were thrust under her door and +lay untouched in the hall. She was lying upon the lounge in the little +room of books, as the darkness swiftly gathered that second day. All the +meanings of her childhood, all the promises for fulfillment with the +years, were lost. The only passion she knew was for the quick end of +life—to be free from the world, and its Bellinghams.</p> + +<p>"God, tell me," she murmured, and her voice sounded dry and strange in +the dark, "what is this thing, Soul, which cries out for its +Ideal—builds its mate from all things pure, from dreams that are +cleansed in the sky; dreams that have not known the touch of any earthly +thing—what is this Soul, that, now bereft, cries with Rachel, 'Death, +let me in!...' Oh, Death, put me to sleep—put me to sleep!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Voices reached her from the hall:</p> + +<p>"You can knock or ring, sir, if you like," the elevator-man was saying, +"but I tell you Miss Linster is not there. She has not answered the +'phone, and there is one of the letters, sticking out from under the +door, that I put there this morning, or yesterday afternoon."</p> + +<p>"When did you see her last?" The voice was Reifferscheid's.</p> + +<p>"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives +in this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday +morning."</p> + +<p>"The point is that she left no word—either with you or with us—before +going away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck——"</p> + +<p>The bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed +against it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer—but facing +Reifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called +from below.</p> + +<p>"No use," Reifferscheid said finally. "Here's a coin for your trouble. +I'll call up the first thing in the morning——"</p> + +<p>She heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the +car, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at <i>The +States</i> for four or five days. She had intended going down-town +yesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless +kindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling +for the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter +recurred to her—and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women +she had known. All about him was sturdy and wholesome—a substance, +this, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell +asleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie, +big trees and solid friends.</p> + +<p>She awoke in a different world—at least, a world in which tea and toast +and marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the +depression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope. +It was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would +have her letter now, or soon—that letter written seven eternities ago +in the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have +written in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had +not let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to +high-tide in her soul—there had been no words for him. Would she ever +write again?...</p> + +<p>Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma +Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men—and had +asked less a few years ago—that to have her call one "cad" with an +adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known +Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True, +he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter +delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was +black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he +wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau +to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that +the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom +them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted +in his letters, was a song—bright as his open prairies, and pure as the +big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended +periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart +answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific +abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added +sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to +say—and what Quentin Charter may add?..."</p> + +<p>The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring, +because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an +accumulation of mail upon the floor—two from <i>The States</i>; one from +Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one +of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and +she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had +been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony.</p> + +<blockquote><p>I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in +a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A +sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing +came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the +invisible connections between us were deranged—as if there had +been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when +the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours, +began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously +active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a +few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich +and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the +gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you—but this +last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please?</p></blockquote> + +<p>She was not given long to ponder upon this strange proof of his inner +responsiveness; yet the deep significance of it remained with her, and +could not but restore in part a certain impressive meaning of their +relation. Selma Cross called, and Reifferscheid 'phoned, as Paula was +just leaving for down-town. It had been necessary, she explained, to the +literary editor in his office, for her to make a sorry little pilgrimage +during the past few days. She was very grateful it was over. +Reifferscheid said abruptly that pilgrimages were nefarious when they +made one look so white and trembly.</p> + +<p>"The point is, you'd better make another to Staten Island," he added. +"Nice rough passage in a biting wind, barren fields, naked woods, and +all that. Besides, you must see my system of base-burners——"</p> + +<p>"I'll just do that—when I catch up a little on my work," Paula said. +"I'm actually yearning for it, but there are so many loose ends to tie +up, that I couldn't adequately enjoy myself for a day or two. Really, +I'm not at all ill. You haven't enough respect for my endurance, which +is of a very good sort."</p> + +<p>"Don't be too sure about that," Reifferscheid said quickly. "It's +altogether too good to be hurt.... Do you realize you've never had your +hat off in this office?"</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought of it," she said, studying him. Plainly by his bravado +he wasn't quite sure of his ground.</p> + +<p>"There ought to be legislation against people with hair the color of +yours——" Reifferscheid regarded her a moment before he added, "wearing +hats. You must come over to Staten—if for no other reason——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I begin to see perfectly now," Paula observed. "You want to add me +to your system of base-burners."</p> + +<p>He chuckled capaciously. "Early next week, then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, with delight"</p> + +<p>He did not tell her of being worried to the point of travelling far +up-town to ring the bell of her apartment. She could not like him less +for this.... There was a telegram from Charter, when she reached home. +In the next two hours, a thought came to Paula and was banished a score +of times; yet with each recurrence it was more integrate and compelling. +This was Saturday afternoon. Selma Cross returned from her matinée +shortly before six and was alone. Paula met her in the hall, and +followed into the other's apartment.</p> + +<p>"I have just an hour, dear. Dimity has supper ready. Stay, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Paula forced herself to say. "I wanted to ask you about Quentin +Charter. You were called away—just as you were speaking of him the +other morning.... I have not met him, but his two recent books are very +wonderful. I reviewed the second for <i>The States</i>. He thanked me in a +letter which was open to answer."</p> + +<p>Selma Cross stretched out her arms and laughed mirthlessly. "And so you +two have been writing letters?" she observed. "I'm putting down a bet +that his are rich—if he's interested."</p> + +<p>Paula had steeled herself for this. There were matters which she must +learn before making a decision which his telegram called for. Her mind +held her inexorably to the work at hand, though her heart would have +faltered in the thick cloud of misgivings.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is much in his letters—so much that I can't quite adjust +him to the name you twice designated. Remember, you once before called +him that—when I didn't know that you were speaking of Quentin Charter."</p> + +<p>"I'll swear this much also," Selma Cross said savagely, "he has found +your letters worth while."</p> + +<p>"Is that to the point?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes Paula," the other replied, darting a queer look at her. "If I +am to be held to a point—it is—because, as a writer, he uses what is +of value. He makes women mad about him, and then goes back to his +garret, and sobers up enough to write an essay or a story out of his +recent first-hand studies in passion."</p> + +<p>"You say he was drinking—when you knew him?"</p> + +<p>"Enough to kill another man. It didn't seem to make his temperament play +less magically. He was never silly or limp, either in mind or body, but +he must have been burned to a cinder inside. He intimated that he didn't +dare to go on exhibition any day before mid-afternoon."</p> + +<p>Paula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: "I wish +you would tell me <i>just</i> what Quentin Charter did to make you think of +him always—in connection with that name."</p> + +<p>"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate +before you—also supper, which won't stay hot." Selma Cross spoke with +some tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly, +and it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of +her admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature. +".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe +that he was passionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in <i>Caller +Herrin</i>,—my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an +exceptionally good play. It took his eye—my work especially—and he +arranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this +formality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue +was greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was +peculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain.... +The man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room, +not that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he +was drinking—and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working +knowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed—of every +book. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing +himself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it +was merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I +wasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight—to me. He used to +send notes in the forenoon—things he thought of, when he couldn't +sleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early +hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving +for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way +home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for +me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he +said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me +believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since."</p> + +<p>Paula began to breathe a bit more freely. "Didn't he write?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, at first, but I saw at once he was forcing. Then he dictated an +answer to one of mine—dictated a letter to me——" Selma Cross halted. +The lids narrowed across her yellow eyes.</p> + +<p>"He had said he loved you?" Paula asked with effort.</p> + +<p>"By the way," Selma Cross retorted, "did you notice that word 'love' in +either of his recent books—except as a generality?"</p> + +<p>"Since you speak of it, I do recall he markedly avoided it," Paula said +with consuming interest.</p> + +<p>"No, he didn't use it to me. He said he never put it in a man's or +woman's mouth in a story. Ah, but there are other words," she went on +softly. "The man was a lover—beyond dreams—impassioned."</p> + +<p>"About that dictated letter?" Paula urged hastily.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I told him I didn't want any more that way. Then Villiers was +back, and beckoning again. The last word I received was from Charter's +stenographer. She said he was ill. Oh, I did hear afterward—that he was +in a sanatorium. God knows, he must have landed there—if he kept up the +pace he was going when I knew him."</p> + +<p>In the moment of silence which followed, Paula was hoping with all her +might—that this was the end.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know what you're thinking!" Selma said suddenly. "He has +fascinated you, and you can't see that he's a rotten cad—from what I've +said so far. A woman can never see the meanness of a man from another +woman's experience with him. She forgives him for calling forth all +another woman has—and then shaking her loose like a soiled bath-robe +when one's tub is ready. But it's different when she's the discarded +woman!... He was so deep, I can't believe he didn't know that episodes +were new to me. Likely, he's had so many around the world, that he can't +take them more seriously from the woman's angle—than from his own.... +Quentin Charter was the first man to arouse all my dreams. Can't you see +how it hurt when he turned out to be—well, that name you refuse to +utter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, yes, but you suggest more, Selma!"</p> + +<p>"He used me for 'copy,' as they call it. His article on the 'acting of +stage-folk after hours,' appeared in a magazine a few weeks later. He's +always a saint in his garret, you know. The article was filled with +cutting cynicism about stage-matters, many of which he had discovered in +the two weeks with me—and laughed over with his wine. I could have +forgiven that, only he made me believe that there was not a thought +apart from Selma Cross in his mind when we were together.... Oh, what's +the use of me lying? I could have forgiven that, anyway!"</p> + +<p>"What was it, you could not forgive?" Paula's face was bloodless.</p> + +<p>"He told it all about—how easy I had proved in his hands!" the actress +revealed with suppressed fury.</p> + +<p>The other shrank back.</p> + +<p>"That's where the expression comes in, Paula—the expression you hate. +Drunk or sober—cad's the word. What a woman gives to a <i>man</i> is put in +his inner vault forever. What she gives to a <i>cad</i>—is passed on to his +friends."</p> + +<p>Paula arose, tortured as if branded within. Here was a defection of +character which an entire incarnation of purity could not make whole. It +was true that in her heart, she had not been mortally stricken before; +true, as Selma Cross had so bitterly declared, that a woman is not +stayed from mating with a man because a sister has suffered at his +hands.</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to say about the word, if that is true." Paula spoke +with difficulty, and in a hopeless tone.</p> + +<p>"Please, eat some supper, dear——"</p> + +<p>There was heart-break in the answer: "I cannot. I'm distressed, because +I have spoiled yours.... You have answered everything readily—and it +has hurt you.... I—feel—as—if—I—must—tell—you—why—I—asked—or +I wouldn't have dared to force questions upon you. His letters made me +think of him a great deal. When you picked up his book the other morning +and said <i>that</i>—why, it was all I could stand for the time. His work is +so high and brave—I can hardly understand how he could talk about a +woman whose only fault was that she gave him what he desired. Are you +sure he cannot prove that false?"</p> + +<p>Selma Cross left her seat at the table and took Paula in her arms.</p> + +<p>"How can he?" she whispered. "The old man knew all about us. One of his +friends heard Charter talking about the easy virtue of stage women—that +there were scarcely no exceptions! Charter hinted in his article that +acting is but refined prostitution. Villiers said because I had a name +for being square Charter had chosen to prove otherwise!... Then see how +he dropped me—not a word in three years from my memorable lover! And +Villiers knew about us—first and last!... I could murder that sort—and +to think that his devil's gift has been working upon you——"</p> + +<p>"You have told me quite enough, thank you." Paula interrupted in a +lifeless voice. "I shall not see him."</p> + +<p>Selma Cross held her off at arms' length to glance at her face. "You +what?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"He is on the way to New York and will be at the <i>Granville</i> to-morrow +afternoon, where he hopes to find a note saying he may call here +to-morrow night. There shall be no note from me——"</p> + +<p>"But did you write to him, Paula?" the actress asked strangely excited.</p> + +<p>"Yes—a little after you left me the other morning. It was silly of me. +Oh, but I did not tell him what I had heard—or who told me!... Finish +your supper—you must go."</p> + +<p>"And how did you learn of his coming?"</p> + +<p>"He telegraphed me to-day. That's why I bothered you at your supper——"</p> + +<p>"What a dramatic situation—if you decided to see him!" Selma Cross said +intensely. "And to think—that to-morrow is Sunday night and I don't +work!"</p> + +<p>Paula felt brutalized by the change in the other's manner. "I have +decided not to see him," she repeated, and left the apartment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWELFTH_CHAPTER" id="TWELFTH_CHAPTER"></a>TWELFTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>CERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS MOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE +ACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA</h3> + + +<p>Charter had come a long way very swiftly in his search for realities. If +it is required of man, at a certain stage of evolution, to possess a +working knowledge of the majority of possible human experiences, in +order to choose wisely between good and evil, Charter had, indeed, +covered much ground in his thirty-three years. As a matter of fact, +there were few degrees in the masonry of sensation, into which he had +not been initiated. His was the name of a race of wild, sensual, +physical types; a name still held high in old-world authority, and +identified with men of heavy hunting, heavy dining and drinking. The +Charters had always been admired for high temper and fair women. True, +there was not a germ of the present Charter mental capacity in the whole +race of such men commonly mated, but Quentin's father had married a +woman with a marvellous endurance in prayer—that old, dull-looking +formula for producing sons of strength. A silent woman, she was, a +reverent woman, an angry woman, with the stuff of martyrdoms in her +veins.</p> + +<p>Indeed, in her father, John Quentin, reformer, there were stirring +materials for memory. His it was to ride and preach, to excoriate evil +and depict the good, with the blessing of a living God shining bright +and directly upon it. A bracing figure, this Grandfather Quentin, an +ethereal bloom at the top of a tough stalk of Irish peasantry. First, as +a soldier in the British army he was heard of, a stripling with a girl's +waist, a pigeon breast, and the soul's divinity breathing itself awake +within. His was a poet's rapture at the sight of morning mists, +wrestling with the daybreak over the mountains; and everywhere his +regiment went, were left behind Quentin's songs—crude verses of a minor +singer, never seeking permanence more than Homer; and everywhere, he set +about to correct the degradations of men, absolutely unscared and +grandly improvident. A fighter for simple loving-kindness in the heart +of man, a worshiper of the bright fragment of truth vouchsafed to his +eyes, a lover of children, a man who walked thrillingly with a personal +God, and was so glorified and ignited by the spirit that, every day, he +strode singing into battle. Such was John Quentin, and from him, a +living part of his own strong soul, sprang the woman who mothered +Quentin Charter, sprang pure from his dreams and meditations, and +doubtless with his prayer for a great son, marked in the scroll of her +soul.... For to her, bringing a man into the world meant more than a +bleak passage of misery begun with passion and ended with pain.</p> + +<p>Her single bearing of fruit was a solitary pilgrimage. From the hour of +the conception, she drew apart with her own ideals, held herself aloof +from fleshly things, almost as one without a body. Charter, the +strongly-sexed, her merchant-husband, the laughing, scolding, joking +gunner; admirable, even delightful, to Nineteenth Century men of hot +dinners and stimulated nights—showed her all that a man must <i>not</i> be. +Alone, she crossed the burning sands; cleansed her body and brain in the +cool of evenings, expanded her soul with dreams projected far into the +glistening purple heavens and whispered the psalms and poems which had +fed the lyric hunger of her father.</p> + +<p>It glorified her temples to brood by an open window upon the night-sky; +to conceive even the garment's hem of that Inspiring Source, to Whom +solar systems are but a glowworm swarm, and the soul of man mightier +than them all. Sometimes she carried the concept farther, until it +seemed as if her heart must cease to beat: that this perfecting fruit of +the universe, the soul of man, must be imprisoned for a time in the womb +of woman; that the Supreme seemed content with this humble mystery, nor +counted not æons spent, nor burnt-out suns, nor wasting myriads that +devastate the habitable crusts—if only One smile back at Him at last; +if only at last, on some chilling planet's rim, One Worthy Spirit lift +His lustrous pinions and ascend out of chaos to the Father.</p> + +<p>The spirit of her own father was nearer to her in this wonderful +pilgrimage than her husband, to whom she was cold as Etruscan glasses in +the deep-delved earth (yet filled with what fiery potential wine!). He +called her Mistress Ice, brought every art, lure, and expression in the +Charter evolution to bear upon her; yet, farther and farther into +heights he could not dream, she fled with her forming babe. Many +mysteries were cleared for her during this exalted period—though +clouded later by the pangs of parturition.... Once, in the night, she +had awakened with a sound in her room. At first she thought it was her +husband, but she heard his breathing from the next chamber. At length +before her window, shadowed against the faint light of the sky, appeared +the head and shoulders of a man. He was less than ten feet from her, and +she heard the rustle of his fingers over the dresser. For an instant she +endured a horrible, stifling, feminine fright, but it was superseded at +once by a fine assembling of faculties under the control of genuine +courage. The words she whispered were quite new to her.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to have to kill you," she said softly. "Put down what you +have and go away—hurry."</p> + +<p>The burglar fled quietly down the front stairs, and she heard the door +shut behind him. Out of her trembling was soon evolved the consciousness +of some great triumph, the nature of which she did not yet know. It was +pure ecstasy that the realization brought. The courage which had +steadied her through the crisis was not her own, but from the man's soul +she bore! There was never any doubt after that, she was to bear a son.</p> + +<p>There is a rather vital defect in her pursuing the way alone, even +though a great transport filled the days and nights. The complete +alienation of her husband was a fact. This estranged the boy from his +father. Except as the sower, the latter had no part in the life-garden +of Quentin Charter. The mother realized in later years that she might +have ignored less and explained more. The fear of a lack of sympathy had +given her a separateness which her whole married life afterward +reflected. She had disdained even the minor feminine prerogative of +acting. Her husband had a quick, accurate physical brain which, while it +could not have accompanied nor supported in her sustained inspiration, +might still have comprehended and laughingly admired. Instead, she had +been as wholly apart from him as a memory. Often, in the great weariness +of continued contemplation, her spirit had cried out for the sustenance +which only a real mate could bring, the gifts of a kindred soul. Many +times she asked: "Where is the undiscovered master of my heart?"</p> + +<p>There was no one to replenish within her the mighty forces she expended +to nurture the spiritual elements of her child. A lover of changeless +chivalry might have given her a prophet, instead of a genius, pitifully +enmeshed in fleshly complications. In her developed the concept (and the +mark of it lived afterward with glowing power in the mind of her +son)—the thrilling possibility of a union, in the supreme sense of the +word, a Union of Two to form One....</p> + +<p>Charter, the boy, inherited a sense of the importance of the "I." In his +earlier years all things moved about the ego. By the time of his first +letter to Paula Linster, the world had tested the Charter quality, but +to judge by the years previous, more specifically by the decade bounded +by his twentieth and thirtieth birthdays, it would have appeared that +apart from endowing the young man with a fine and large brain-surface, +the Charter elements had triumphed over the mother's meditations. To a +very wise eye, acquainted with the psychic and material aspects of the +case, the fact would have become plain that the hot, raw blood of the +Charters had to be cooled, aged, and refined, before the exalted spirit +of the Quentins could manifest in this particular instrument. It would +have been a very fascinating natural experiment had it not been for the +fear that the boy's body would be destroyed instead of refined.</p> + +<p>His mother's abhorrence for the gross animalism of drink, as she +discovered it in her husband (though the tolerant world did not call him +a drunkard), was by no means reflected intact in the boy's mind. A vast +field of surface-tissue, however, was receptive to the subject. Quentin +was early interested in the effects of alcohol, and entirely unafraid. +He had the perversity to believe that many of his inclinations must be +worn-out, instead of controlled. As for his ability to control anything +about him, under the pressure of necessity, he had no doubt of this. +Drink played upon him warmly. His young men and women associates found +the stimulated Charter an absolutely new order of human enchantment—a +young man lit with humor and wisdom, girded with chivalry, and a delight +to the emotions. Indeed, it was through these that the young man's +spirit for a space lost the helm. It was less for his fine physical +attractions than for the play of his emotions that his intimates loved +him. From his moods emanated what seemed to minds youthful as his own, +all that was brave and true and tender. An evening of wine, and Charter +dwelt in a house of dreams, to which came fine friendships, passionate +amours, the truest of verses and the sweetest songs. Often he came to +dwell in this house, calling it life—and his mother wept her nights +away. Her husband was long dead, but she felt that something, named +Charter, was battling formidably for the soul of her boy. She was +grateful for his fine physique, grateful that his emotions were more +delicately attuned than any of his father's breed, but she had not +prayed for these. She knew the ghastly mockeries which later come to +haunt these houses of dreams. Such was not her promise of fulfilment. +She had not crossed the deserts and mountains alone to Mecca for a +verse-maker—a bit of proud flesh for women to adore.... Charter, +imperious with his stimulus, wise in his imagined worldliness, thought +he laughed away his mother's fears.</p> + +<p>"I am a clerk of the emotions," he once told her. "To depict them, I +must feel them first."</p> + +<p>And the yellow devil who built for him his house of dreams coarsened his +desires as well, and wove a husk, fibrous, warm, and red, about his +soul. The old flesh-mother, Earth, concentred upon him her subtlest +currents of gravity; showed him her women in garments of crushed lilies; +promised him her mysteries out of Egypt—how he should change the base +metal of words into shining gold; sent unto him her flatterers calling +him great, years before his time; calling him Emotion's Own Master and +Action's Apostle; and her sirens lured him to the vine-clad cliffs with +soft singing that caressed his senses. Because his splendid young body +was aglow, he called it harmony—this wind wailing from the barrens.... +As if harmony could come out of hell.</p> + +<p>Old Mother Earth with her dead-souled moon—how she paints her devils +with glory for the eye of a big-souled boy; painting dawns above her +mountains of dirt, and sunsets upon her drowning depths of sea; painting +scarlet the lips of insatiable women, and roses in the heart of her +devouring wines—always painting! Look to Burns and Byron—who bravely +sang her pictures—and sank.</p> + +<p>There are vital matters of narrative in this decade of Charter's between +twenty and thirty. Elements of the world-old conflict between the animal +and the soul are never without human interest; but this is a history of +a brighter conquest than any victory over the senses alone.... Even +restless years of wandering are only suggested. Yet one cannot show how +far into the heights Charter climbed, without lifting for a moment the +shadow from the caverns, wherein he finally awoke, and wrestled with +demons towards the single point of light—on the rising road.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THIRTEENTH_CHAPTER" id="THIRTEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>THIRTEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>"NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND SPOIL, HIS GOODS, +EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN"</h3> + + +<p>Charter had always been able to stop drinking when thoroughly disgusted +with its effects, but his final abandonment, three years before the +Skylark letters, had lasted long—up the Yangtse to the Gorges, back to +Shanghai, and around the Straits and Mediterranean to New York, where he +had met Selma Cross; indeed, for many weeks after he had reached his own +city in the Mid-West. He had now fallen into the condition in which work +was practically impossible. In the early stages, he had known brief but +lightning passages of expression, when his hands moved with magical +speed upon his machine, and his thoughts even faster, breaking in upon +achievement three or four times in a half-hour to snatch his stimulant. +Always in the midst of this sort of activity, he felt that his work was +of the highest character. The swift running of his brain under the whip +appeared record-breaking to the low vanity of a sot. It was with shame +that he regarded his posted time-card, after such a race. Yet he had +this to say of the whole work-drink matter: When at his brief best under +stimulus, a condition of mind precarious to reach and never to be +counted upon, the product balanced well with the ordinary output, the +stuff that came in quantities from honest, healthy faculties. In a word, +an occasional flashy peak standing forth from a streaky, rime-washed +pile reckoned well with the easy levels of highway routine.</p> + +<p>During his first days at home he would occupy entire forenoons in the +endeavor to rouse himself to a pitch of work. Not infrequently upon +awakening, he swallowed a pint of whiskey in order to retain four or +five ounces. Toward mid-afternoon, still without having eaten, he would +draw up his chair before the type-mill to wait, and only a finished +curse would evolve from the burned and stricken surfaces of his brain. +If, indeed, passable copy did come at last, Charter invariably banished +restraint, drinking as frequently as the impulse came. Clumsiness of the +fingers therefore frequently intervened just as his sluggish mind +unfolded; and in the interval of calling his stenographer out of the +regular hours, the poor brain babes, still-born, were fit only for +burial.</p> + +<p>Often, again (for he could not live decently with himself without +working), he would spend the day in fussy preparation for a long, +productive evening. The room was at a proper temperature; the buffet +admirably stocked; pipes, cigars, and cigarettes at hand; his +stenographer in her usual mood of delightful negation—when an +irresistible impulse would seize his mind with the necessity of +witnessing a certain drama, absolutely essential to inspiration. Again, +with real work actually begun, his mind would bolt into the domains of +correspondence, or some little lyric started a distracting hum far back +in his mind. The neglected thing of importance would be lifted from the +machine, and the letters or the verses put under weigh. In the case of +the latter, he would often start brilliantly with a true subconscious +ebullition—and cast the thing aside, never to be finished, at the first +hitch in the rhyme or obscurity in thought. Then he would find himself +apologizing slavishly for Asiatic fever to the woman who helped +him—whose unspoken pity he sensed, as hardened arteries feel the coming +storm. Alone, he would give way to furious hatred for himself and his +degradation, and by the startling perversity of the drunken, hurry into +a stupor to stifle remorse. Prospecting thus in the abysses, Charter +discovered the outcroppings of dastardly little vanities and kindred +nastiness which normally he could not have believed to exist in his +composite or in the least worthy of his friends. A third trick drink +played upon him when he was nicely prepared for a night of work. The +summons which he dared not disregard since it came now so +irregularly—to dine—would sound imperiously in the midst of the first +torture-wrung page, probably for the first time since the night before. +In the actual illness, which followed partaking of the most delicate +food, work was, of course, out of the question.</p> + +<p>Finally, the horrors closed in upon his nights. The wreck that could not +sleep was obsessed with passions, even perversions—how curiously untold +are these abominations—until a place where the wreck lay seemed +permeated with the foulest conceptions of the dark. What pirates board +the unhelmed mind of the drunken to writhe and lust and despoil the +alien decks—wingless, crawling abdomens, which, even in the shades, are +but the ganglia of appetite!... A brand of realism, this, whose only +excuse is that it carries the red lamps of peril.</p> + +<p>At the end of months of swift and dreadful dissipation, Charter +determined abruptly to stop his self-poisoning on the morning of his +Thirtieth birthday. Coming to this decision within a week before the +date, so confident was he of strength, that instead of making the end +easy by graduating the doses in the intervening days, he dropped the +bars of conduct altogether, and was put to bed unconscious late in the +afternoon of the last. He awoke in the night, and slowly out of physical +agony and mental horror came the realization that the hour of +fighting-it-out-alone was upon him. He shuddered and tried to sleep, +cursed himself for losing consciousness so early in the day without +having prepared his mind for the ordeal. Suddenly he leaped out of bed, +turned on the lights, and found his watch. With a cry of joy, he +discovered that it was seven minutes before twelve. In the next seven +minutes, he prepared himself largely from a quart bottle, and lay down +again as the midnight-bells relayed over the city. Ordinarily, sleep +would have come to him after such an application in the midst of the +night, but the thought assumed dimensions that the bells <i>had</i> struck. +He thought of his nights on the big, yellow river in China, and of the +nearer nights in New York. There was a vague haunt about the latter—as +of something neglected. He thought of the clean boy he had been, and of +the scarred mental cripple he must be from now on.... In all its +circling, his mind invariably paused at one station—the diminished +quart bottle on the buffet. He arose at last, hot with irritation, +poured the remaining liquor into the washbasin, and turned on the water +to cleanse even the odor away. For a moment he felt easier, as if the +Man stirred within him. Here he laughed at himself low and +mockingly—for the Man was the whiskey he had drunk in the seven minutes +before twelve.</p> + +<p>Now the thought evolved to hasten the work of systemic cleansing, begun +with denial. At the same time, he planned that this would occupy his +mind until daylight. He prepared a hot tub, drinking hot water at the +same time—glass after glass until he was as sensitive within as only a +fresh-washed sore can be. Internally, the difference between hot and +cold water is just the difference between pouring the same upon a greasy +plate. The charred flaccid passages in due time were flushed free from +its sustaining alcohol; and every exterior pore cratered with hot water +and livened to the quick with a rough towel. Long before he had +finished, the trembling was upon him, and he sweated with fear before +the reaction that he had so ruthlessly challenged in washing the spirit +from his veins.</p> + +<p>Charter rubbed the steam from the bath-room window, shaded his eyes, and +looked for the daylight which was not there. Stars still shone clear in +the unwhitened distances. Why was he so eager for the dawn? It was the +drunkard in him—always frightened and restless, even in sleep, <i>while +buffets are closed</i>. This is so, even though a filled flask cools the +fingers that grope under the pillow.... Any man who has ever walked the +streets during the two great cycles of time between three and five in +the morning, waiting for certain sinister doors to open, does not cease +to shiver at the memory even in his finer years. It is not the +discordant tyranny of nerves, nor the need of the body, pitiful and +actual though it is, wherein the terror lies,—but living, walking with +the consciousness that the devil is in power; that you are the debauched +instrument of his lust, putting away the sweet fragrant dawn for a place +of cuspidors, dormant flies, sticky woods, where bleared, saturated +messes of human flesh sneak in, even as you, to lick their love and +their life.... That you have waited for this moment for hours—oh, +God!—while the fair new day comes winging over mountains and lakes, +bringing, cleansed from inter-stellar spaces, the purity of lilies, new +mysteries of love, the ruddy light of roses and heroic hopes for clean +men—that you should hide from this adoring light in a dim place of +brutes, a place covered with the psychic stains of lust; that you should +run from clean gutters to drink this hell-seepage.</p> + +<p>He asked himself why he thirsted for light. If every door on his floor +were a saloon, he would not have entered the nearest. And yet a summer +dawn was due. Hours must have passed since midnight. He glanced into the +medicine-case before turning off the lights in the bath-room. Alcohol +was the base in many of the bottles; this thought incited fever in his +brain.... He could hardly stand. A well-man would have been weakened by +the processes of cleansing he had endured. The blackness, pressing +against the outer window, became the form of his great trouble. "I wish +the day would come," he said aloud. His voice frightened him. It was +like a whimper from an insane ward. He hastened to escape from the +place, now hateful.</p> + +<p>The chill of the hall, as he emerged, struck into his flesh, a polar +blast. Like an animal he scurried to the bed and crawled under cover, +shaking convulsively. His watch ticked upon the bed-post. Presently he +was burning—as if hot cloths were quickly being renewed upon his flesh. +Yet instantaneously upon lifting the cover, the chill would seize him +again. Finally he squirmed his head about until he could see his watch. +Two-fifteen, it said. Manifestly, this was a lie. He had not wound the +thing the night before, though its ticking filled the room. He recalled +that when he was drinking, frequently he wound his watch a dozen times a +day, or quite as frequently forgot it entirely. At all events, it was +lying now. Thoughts of the whiskey he had poured out, of the drugs in +the medicine-case, controlled. He needed a drink, and nothing but +alcohol would do. This is the terrible thing. Without endangering one's +heart, it is impossible to take enough morphine to deaden a whiskey +reaction. A little only horrifies one's dreams. There is no bromide. He +cried out for the poison he had washed away from his veins. This would +have been a crutch for hours. In the normal course of bodily waste, he +would not have been brought to this state of need in twenty-four hours. +He felt the rapping of old familiar devils against his brain. He needed +a drink.</p> + +<p>The lights were turned on full in his room. The watch hanging above his +head ticked incessant lies regarding the energy of passing time. He +could lose himself in black gorges of agony, grope his way back to find +that the minute hand had scarcely stirred.... He lay perfectly rigid +until a wave, half of drowsiness, half of weakness, slowed-down the +vibrations of his mind.... Somewhere in the underworld, he found a +consciousness—a dank smell, the dimness of a cave; the wash of fins +gliding in lazy curves across the black, sluggish water; an <i>eye</i>, +green, steadfast, ashine like phosphor which is concentrated decay,—the +eye of rapacity gorged. His nostrils filled with the foreign odor of +menageries and aquariums. A brief hiatus now, in which objects altered. +A great weight pressed against his chest, not to hurt, but to fill his +consciousness with the thought of its cold crushing strength; the weight +of a tree-trunk, the chill of stone, the soft texture of slimy flesh.... +Full against him upon the rock, in his half-submerged cavern, lay the +terror of all his obsessions—the crocodile. Savage incarnations were +shaken out of his soul as he regarded this beast, a terror so great that +his throat shut, his spine stiffened. Still as a dead tree, the creature +pressed against him, bulging stomach, the narrow, yellow-brown head, +moveless, raised from the rock. This was the armed abdomen he feared +most—cruelty, patience, repletion—and the dirty-white of nether +parts!... He heard the scream within him—before it broke from his +throat.</p> + +<p>Out of one of these, Charter emerged with a cry, wet with sweat as the +cavern-floor from which he came—to find that the minute-hand of his +watch had not traversed the distance between two Roman numerals. He +seized the time-piece and flung it across the room, lived an age of +regret before it struck the walnut edge of his dresser and crashed to +the floor.... The sounds of running-down fitted to words in his brain.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tick—tick!... tick-tick-tick.</i>" A spring rattled a disordered plaint; +then after a silence: "I served you—did my work well—very well—very +well!..." Charter writhed, wordlessly imploring it to be still. It was +not the value, but the sentient complaining of a thing abused. Faithful, +and he had crushed it. He felt at last in the silence that his heart +would stop if it ticked again; and as he waited, staring at it, his mind +rushed off to a morning of boyhood and terrible cruelty.... He had been +hunting at the edge of a half-cleared bit of timber. A fat gray squirrel +raced across the dead leaves, fully sixty yards away—its mate following +blithely. The leader gained the home-tree as Charter shot, crippling the +second—the male. It was a long shot and a very good one, but the boy +forgot that. The squirrel tried to climb the tree, but could not. It +crawled about, uncoupled, among the roots, and answered the muffled +chattering from the hole above—this, as the boy came up, his breast +filling with the deadliest shame he had ever known. The squirrel told +him all, and answered his mate besides. It was not a chatter for mercy. +The little male was cross about it—bewildered, too, for its +life-business was so important. The tortured boy dropped the butt of his +gun upon the creature's head.... Now the tone changed—the flattened +head would not die.... He had fled crying from the thing, which haunted +him almost to madness. He <i>begged</i> now, as the old thoughts of that hour +began to run about in the deep-worn groove of his mind....</p> + +<p>Andas he had treated the squirrel, the watch—so he was treating his own +life....</p> + +<p>Again he was called to consciousness by some one uttering his name. He +answered. The apartment echoed with the flat, unnatural cry of his +voice; silence mocking him.... Then, in delusion, he would find himself +hurrying across the yard, attracted by some psychic terror of warning. +Finally, as he opened the stable-door, sounds of a panting struggle +reached him from the box-stall where he kept his loved saddle-mare. +Light showed him that she had broken through the flooring, and, +frenziedly struggling to get her legs clear from the wreck, had torn the +skin and flesh behind, from hoof to hock. He saw the yellow tendons and +the gleaming white bone. She was half-up, half-down, the smoky look of +torture and accusation in her brown eyes....</p> + +<p>Finally came back his inexorable memories—one after another, his nights +of degraded passion; the memory of brothels, where drunkenness had +carried him; songs, words, laughter he had heard; pictures on the walls; +combs, cards, cigarettes of the dressing-tables, low ceilings and +noisome lamps; that individual something about each woman, and her +especial perversion; peregrinations among the lusts of half the world's +ports, where a man never gets so low that he cannot fall into a woman's +arms. How they had clung to him and begged him to come back! His +nostrils filled again with sickening perfumes that never could overpower +the burnt odor of harlot's hair. Down upon him these horrors poured, +until he was driven to the floor from the very foulness of the place +wherein he lay, but a chill struck his heart and forced him back into +the nest of sensual dreams....</p> + +<p>Constantly he felt that dry direct need for cigarette inhalation—that +nervous craving which makes a man curse viciously at the break of a +match or its missing fire—but his heart responded instantly to the mild +poisoning, a direct and awful pounding like the effect of cocaine upon +the strong, and his sickness was intensified. So he would put the +cigarette down, lest the aorta burst within him—only to light the pest +again a moment later.</p> + +<p>He could feel his liver, a hot turgid weight; even, mark its huge +boundary upon the surface of his body. Back of his teeth, began the +burning insatiable passage, collapsing for alcohol in every inch of its +coiled length; its tissues forming an articulate appeal in his brain: +"You have filled us with burning for weeks and months, until we have +come to rely upon the false fire. Take this away suddenly now and we +must die. We cannot keep you warm, even alive, without more of the fuel +which destroyed us. We do not want much—just enough to help us until we +rebuild our own energy." And his brain reiterated a warning of its own. +"I, too, am charred and helpless. The devils run in and out and over. I +have no resistance. I shall open entirely to them—unless you strengthen +me with fire. You are doing a very wicked and dangerous thing in +stopping short like this. Deserted of me, you are destitute, indeed."</p> + +<p>Charter felt his unshaven mouth. It was soft and fallen like an +imbecile's. A man in hell does not curse himself. He saw himself giving. +He felt that he was giving up life and its every hope, but the fear of +madness, or driveling idiocy, was worse than this. He would drink for +nerve to kill himself decently. The abject powerlessness of his will was +the startling revelation. He had played with his will many times, used +it to drink when its automatic action was to refrain. Always he had felt +it to be unbreakable, until now. He was a yellow, cowering elemental, +more hideous and pitiable than prohibition-orator ever depicted in his +most dreadful scare-climax. There is no will when Nature turns loose her +dogs of fear upon a sick and shattered spirit—no more will than in the +crisis of pneumonia or typhoid.</p> + +<p>He wrapped the bed-clothes about him and staggered to the medicine-case. +There was no pure alcohol; no wood-alcohol luckily. However, a quart +bottle of liver-tonic—turkey rhubarb, gum guaiac, and aloes, steeped in +Holland gin. A teaspoonful before meals is the dose—for the spring of +the year. An old family remedy, this,—one of the bitterest and most +potent concoctions ever shaken in a bottle, a gold-brown devil that +gagged full-length. The inconceivable organic need for alcohol worked +strangely, since Charter's stomach retained a half-tumbler of this +horrible dosage. Possibly, it could not have held straight whiskey at +once. Internally cleansed, he, of course, responded immediately to the +warmth. Plans for whiskey instantly awoke in his brain. He touched the +button which connected with his man in the stable; then waited by a rear +window until the other appeared.</p> + +<p>"Bob," he called down shakily, "have you got any whiskey?"</p> + +<p>"The half of a half-pint, sir."</p> + +<p>"Bring it up quickly. Here—watch close—I'm tossing down my latch-key."</p> + +<p>The key left his hand badly. He could have embraced Bob for finding it +in the dark as he did. Charter then sat down—still with the bed-clothes +wrapped about him—to wait for the other's step. He felt close to death +in the silence.... Bob poured and held the single drink to his lips. +Charter sat still, swallowing for a moment. Part remained within him.</p> + +<p>"Now, Bob," he said, "run across the street to Dr. Whipple, and tell +him I need some whiskey. Tell him he needn't come over—unless he wants +to. I'm ill, and I've got to get out of here. Hurry back."</p> + +<p>He dared not return to bed now—fear of dreams. To draw on parts of his +clothing was an heroic achievement, but he could not bend forward to put +on stockings or shoes without overturning his stomach, the lining of +which was sore as a festering wound. His nostrils, with their continual +suggestions, now tortured him with a certain half-cooked odor of his own +inner tissues. The consciousness of having lost his will—that he was +thirty years old, and shortly to be drunk again—became the nucleus for +every flying storm-cloud in his brain. He knew what it would be now. He +would drink regularly, fatten, redden, and betray every remnant of good +left within him—more and more distended and brutalized—until his heart +stopped or his liver hardened. And the great work? He tried to smile at +this. Those who had looked for big things from his maturity had chosen a +musty vessel. He would write of the loves of the flesh, and of physical +instincts—one of the common—with a spark of the old genius now and +then to light up the havoc—that he might writhe! Yes, he would never +get past that—the instantaneous flash of his real self to lift him +where he belonged—so he would not forget to suffer—<i>when he fell +back</i>.... "I'll break that little system," he muttered angrily, as to an +enemy in the room, "I'll drink my nerve back and shoot my head off...." +But bigger, infinitely more important, than any of these thoughts, was +the straining of every sense for Bob's step in the hall—Bob with the +whiskey from his never-failing friend, Dr. Whipple.... Yes, he had +chosen whiskey to drive out the God-stuff from his soul. What a dull, +cheap beast he was!</p> + +<p>The day was breaking—a sweet summer morning. He wrapped the bed-clothes +closer about him, and lifted the window higher. The nostrils that had +brought him so much of squalor and horror now expanded to the new life +of the day—vitality that stirred flowers and foliage, grasses and skies +to beauty; the blessed morning winds, lit with faint glory. The East was +a great, gray butterfly's wing, shot with quivering lines of mauve and +gold. It shamed the hulk huddled at the window. Bob's foot on the stairs +was the price of his brutality.</p> + +<p>"Great mornin' for a ride. Beth is fit as a circus. I'd better get her +ready, hadn't I, sir?"</p> + +<p>"God, no!" Charter mumbled. "Help me on with my boots, and pour out a +drink. Bring fresh water.... Did Doctor——"</p> + +<p>"Didn't question me, sir. Brought what you wanted, and said he'd drop +over to see you to-day."</p> + +<p>Charter held his mouth for the proffered stimulant, and beckoned the +other back.</p> + +<p>"Let me sit still for a minute or two. Don't joggle about the room, +Bob."</p> + +<p>Revulsion quieted, the nausea passed. Bob finished dressing him, and +Charter moved abroad. He took the flask with him, lest it be some +forgotten holiday and the bars closed. A man who has had such a night as +his is slavish for days before the fear of being <i>without</i>. He was +pitifully weak, but the stimulus had lifted his mind out of the hells of +obsession.</p> + +<p>The morning wind had sweetened the streets. Lawns, hedges, vines, and +all the greens seemed washed and preened to meet the sun. To one who has +hived with demons, there is something so simple and sanative about the +restoring night—the rest of healing and health. He could have wept at +the virtue of simple goodness—so easy, so vainly sought amid the +complications of vanity and desire. Well and clearly he saw now that +mild good, undemonstrative, unaggressive good—seventy years of bovine +plodding, sunning, grazing, drowsing—is a step toward the Top. What a +travesty is genius when it is arraigned by an august morning; men who +summon gods to their thinking, yet fail in the simple lessons that dogs +and horses and cats have grasped! All the more foul and bestial are +those whom gods have touched within; charged with treason of manhood by +every good and perfect thing, when they cannot rise and meet the day +with clean hearts. Charter would have given all his evolution for the +simple decency of his man, Bob, or his mare, Beth.</p> + +<p>The crowd of thoughts incensed him, so he hurried.... Dengler was +sweeping out his bar. Screen-doors slammed open, and a volume of dust +met the early caller as he was about to enter. Dengler didn't drink, and +he was properly pleased with the morning. Lafe Schiel, who was scrubbing +cuspidors for Dengler, drank. That's why he cleaned cuspidors. Dengler +greeted his honored patron effusively.</p> + +<p>"Suppose you've been working all night, Mr. Charter. You look a little +roughed and tired. You work while we sleep—eh? That's the way with you +writer-fellows. I've got a niece that writes. I told you about her. +She's ruined her eyes. She says she can get her best thoughts at night. +You're all alike."</p> + +<p>"Have a little touch, Lafe?" Charter asked, turning to the porter, who +wiped his hands on his trousers and stepped forward gratefully.</p> + +<p>Bottles were piled on the bar, still beer-stained from the night before. +Dengler put forward clean, dripping glasses from below, and stroked the +bottle with his palm, giving Lafe water, and inquiring of Charter what +he would have "for a wash...." Dengler, so big-necked, healthy, and +busy, talking about his breakfast and not corrupting his body with the +stuff others paid for; Lafe Schiel in his last years—nothing but +whiskey left—no thought, no compunction, no man, no soul, just a +galvanic desire—these three in a tawdry little up-town bar at five in +the morning—and he, Quentin Charter, with a splendid mare to ride, a +mother to breakfast with, a world's work to do; he, Quentin Charter, in +this diseased growth upon the world's gutter, in this accumulation of +cells which taints all society.</p> + +<p>Charter drank and glanced at the morning paper. The sheet still damp +from the press reminded him of the night's toil in the office down-town +(a veritable strife of work, while he had grovelled)—copy-makers, +copy-readers, compositors, form-makers, and pressmen—he knew many of +them—all fine fellows, decently resting now, deservedly resting. And +the healthy little boys, cutting their sleep short, to deliver from door +to door, even to Dengler's, this worthy product for the helpful dollar! +Ah, God, the world was so sweet and pure in its worthier activities! God +only asked that—not genius, just slow-leisured decency would pass with +a blessing. God had eternity to build men, and genius which looked out +upon a morning like this, from a warm tube of disease, was concentrated +waste! Charter cleared his throat. Thoughts were pressing down upon him +too swiftly again. He ordered another drink, and Dengler winked +protestingly as he turned to call Lafe Schiel. The look said, "Don't buy +him another, or I won't get my cuspidors cleaned."</p> + +<p>So Charter felt that he was out of range and alignment everywhere, and +the drink betrayed him, as it always does when in power. Not even in +Lafe Scheil was the devil surer of his power this day. The whiskey did +not brighten, but stimulated thought-terrors upon the subject of his own +shattering.... Dengler found him interesting—this man so strangely +honored by others; by certain others honored above politicians. He +wondered now why the other so recklessly plied the whip.... The change +that came was inevitable.</p> + +<p>"There now, old fellow," Dengler remonstrated familiarly, "I don't like +to turn you down, but you can't—honest, you can't—stand much more."</p> + +<p>This was at seven-thirty. Charter straightened up, laughed, and started +to say, "This is the first——"</p> + +<p>But he reflected that once before this same thing had happened +somewhere: he had been deemed too drunk to drink—somewhere before.... +He wabbled in the memory, and mumbled something wide to the point of +what he had meant to say, and jerked out.... That buttoning of his coat +about his throat (on a brilliant summer morning); that walking out +swiftly with set jaw and unseeing eyes, was but one of many landmarks to +Dengler—landmarks on the down-grade. He had seen them all in his twenty +years; seen the whole neighborhood change; seen clean boys redden, +fatten, and thrive for a time; watched the abyss widen between young +married pairs, his own liquors running in the bottom; seen men leave +their best with him and take home their beast.... Dengler, yes, had seen +many things worth telling and remembering. They all owed him at the +last.... In some ways, this man, Charter, was different. He tried to +remember who it was who first brought Charter in, and who that party of +swell chaps were who, finding Charter there one day, had made a sort of +hero out of him and tarried for hours.... The beer-man, in his leather +apron, entered to spoil this musing. He put up the old square-face +bottle, and served for a "chaser" a tall shell of beer.... Even beer-men +could not last. Dengler had seen many who for a year or two "chased" gin +with beer at every call. There was Schultz, a year ago about this time. +He'd been driving a wagon for a couple of years. Schultz had made too +many stops before he reached Dengler's that day. A full half-barrel had +crushed him to the pavement just outside the door.</p> + +<p>"Put two halves in the basement, and leave me a dozen cases of pints," +Dengler ordered.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Charter was met at the door by his mother. She had expected to find him +suffering from nerves, but clean. He had always kept his word, and she +had waited for this day. She did not need to look at him twice, but put +on her bonnet and left the house. She returned within an hour with three +of Charter's men friends. Bob, whom she had left to take care of her +son, reported that he had a terrible time. Charter, unable to find his +six-shooter, had overturned the house and talked of conspiracy and +robbery. He had fallen asleep within the last few minutes. Strange that +the mother had thought to hide the six-shooter....</p> + +<p>The men lifted him to a closed carriage. Charter was driven to a +sanatorium. One of the friends undertook to stay with him for a day or +two. Charter did not rightly realize where he was until evening. He +appeared to take the news very quietly. Whiskey was allowed him when it +was needed. Other patients in various states of convalescence offered +assistance in many ways. That night, when the friend finally fell asleep +in the chair at the bedside, Charter arose softly, went into a hall, +<i>where a light was burning</i>, and plunged down into the dark—twenty-two +brass-covered steps. His head broke the panel of the front door at the +foot. His idea was the same which had made him hunt for his six-shooter +the morning before. Besides the door, he broke his nose, his arm, and +covered himself with bruises, but fell short, years yet unnumbered, from +his intent. Under the care of experts after that, he was watched +constantly, and given stimulus at gradually lengthening intervals—until +he refused it himself on the seventh day. Three weeks later, still, he +left the place, a man again, with one hundred and twenty needle +punctures in the flesh of his unbroken arm.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOURTEENTH_CHAPTER" id="FOURTEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>FOURTEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>THE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER HASTENS EAST TO FIND +A QUEER MESSAGE AT <i>THE GRANVILLE</i></h3> + + +<p>Charter, three years after the foregoing descent into realism, was +confessedly as happy a man as the Mid-West held. He accepted his +serenity with a full knowledge of its excellence, and according to his +present health and habits would not have been excited to find himself +still among those present, had the curtain been lifted thirty or forty +years away. In the year that followed the sanatorium experience, Charter +in reality found himself. There were a few months in which work came +slowly and was uncertain in quality. In his entire conception, nothing +worse could happen than an abatement of mental activity, but he did not +writhe, knowing that he richly deserved the perfect punishment. So +slowly and deeply did physical care and spiritual awakening restore the +forces of mind, however, that he did not realize an expansion of power +until his first long work had received critical and popular acclaim, and +he could see it, himself, in perspective. So he put off the last and +toughest shackle of King Fear—the living death.</p> + +<p>As for drinking, that had beaten him. He had no thought to re-challenge +the champion. In learning that he could become abject, a creature of +paralyzed will, he had no further curiosity. This much, however, he had +required to be shown, and what a tender heart he had ever afterward for +the Lafe Schiels of this world. There were other vivid animals, strong +and agile, in his quiver of physical passions, but he discovered that +these could not become red and rending without alcohol. Such were +clubbed into submission accordingly. With alcohol, Charter could travel +any one of seven sorry routes to the gutter; without it, none. This was +his constant source of thankfulness—that he had refined his elements +without abating their dynamics. The forces that might have proved so +deadly in mastery, furnished a fine vitality under the lash.</p> + +<p>All was sanative and open about him. Charter knew the ultimate dozen of +the hundred and forty-four thousand rules for health—and made these his +habit. The garret, so often spoken of, was the third-floor of his +mother's mansion. Since he slept under the sky, his sleeping-room was +also a solarium. There was a long, thickly-carpeted hall where he paced +and smoked meditatively; a trophy-room and his study and library. +Through books and lands, he had travelled as few men of his years, and +always with an exploring mind. In far countries, his was an eye of quick +familiarity; always he had been intensely a part of his present environ, +whether Typee or Tibet. Then, the God-taught philosophers of Asia and +Europe, and our own rousing young continent, were the well-beloved of +his brain, so that he saw many things with eyes lit by their prophecies. +As for money, he was wealthy, as Channing commends, rather than rich, +and for this competence of late, he had made not a single concession, or +subverted the least of his ideals, selling only the best of his +thoughts, the expression of which polished the product and increased the +capacity. He fitted nothing to the fancied needs of marketing. His +mother began truly to live now, and her external nature manifested below +in fine grains and finished services. Between the two, the old Charter +formalities were observed. She was royal steel—this white-haired +mother—and a cottage would have become baronial about her. Where she +was, there lived order and silence and poise.</p> + +<p>After this enumeration of felicitous details, one will conclude that +this has to deal with a selfish man; yet his gruelling punishments must +not be forgotten, nor the Quentin spirit. It is true that he had emerged +miraculously unhurt from many dark explorations; but his appreciation of +the innate treachery and perversion of events was sound and keen. By no +means did he challenge any complication which might strip him to +quivering nakedness again. Rather his whole life breathed gratitude for +the goodly days as they came, and glided into untormented nights. Next +in importance to the discovery that his will could be beaten was this +which the drinking temperament so hesitatingly grants—that there are +thrilling hearts, brilliant minds, memorable conversations, and lovely +impulses among men and women who will not tarry long over the wine. +Simple as this seems, it was hard for a Charter to learn.... As he +contemplated the full promise of his maturity, the thought often +came—indeed, he expressed it in one of the Skylark letters—that this +was but a period of rest and healing in which he was storing power for +sterner and more subtle trials.</p> + +<p>Such is an intimation of the mental and moral state of Quentin Charter +in his thirty-fourth year, when he began to open the Skylark letters +with more than curiosity.... He knew Reifferscheid, and admired him with +the familiar enthusiasm of one who has read the editor's work +intermittently for years. Charter, of course, was delighted with the +review of his second book. It did not occur to him that it could have +been written by other than the editor himself. Reifferscheid's reply to +Charter's letter of thanks for the critique proved the key to the whole +matter, since it gave the Westerner both focus and dimension for his +visioning.</p> + +<blockquote><p>I haven't read your book yet, old friend, but I'm going to +shortly. Your fine letter has been turned over to Miss Paula +Linster, a young woman who has been doing some reviews for me, +of late; some of the most important, in which lot your book, of +course, fell. The review which pleased you is only one of a +hundred that has pleased me. Miss Linster is the last word—for +fineness of mind. Incidentally, she is an illumination to look +at, and I haven't the slightest doubt but that she sings and +paints and plays quite as well as she writes book notices. If +she liked a work of mine as well as she likes yours, I should +start on a year's tramp, careless of returns from States yet to +be heard from. The point that interests me is that you could do +a great book about women, away off there in the Provinces—<i>and +without knowing her</i>.</p> + +<p>You may wonder at this ebullition. Truth is, I'm backing down, +firmly, forcefully, an inclination to do an essay on the +subject. This is the first chance I ever had to express matters +which have come forth from the Miraculous in the past year. All +that she does has the ultimate feminine touch,—but I'll stop +before I get my sleeves up again about this new order of being. +Perhaps you deserve to know Miss Linster. You'd never be the +same afterwards, so I'm not so sure whether I'd better +negotiate it or not. I'm glad to see your book has left the +post so perfectly. Always come to see me when in town. Yours +solid, Reifferscheid.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And so she became the Skylark to Quentin Charter, because she was lost +in the heights over by the seaboard, and only her singing came out of +the blue.... There were fine feminine flashes in the letters Charter +received, rare exquisite matters which can be given to the world, only +through the one who inspires their warm delicacy and charm. The circuit +was complete, and the voltage grew mightier and mightier.</p> + +<p>There was a royal fall night, in which Charter's work came ill, because +thoughts of her monopolized. Life seemed warm and splendid within him. +He turned off the electric bulb above his head, and the moonlight burst +in—a hunting moon, full and red as Mars. There was thrilling glory in +the purple south, and a sense of the ineffable majesty of stellar +management. He banished the night panorama with the electric button +again, and wrote to the Skylark. This particular letter proved the kind +which annihilates all sense of separateness, save the animal heaviness +of miles, and makes this last, extra carking and pitiless for the time. +It may have been that Charter would have hesitated to send this letter, +had he read it over again in the cool of morning, but it happened that +he yearned for a walk that night—and passed a mail-box, while the +witchery of the night still enchanted.</p> + +<p>He felt dry, a bit burned the next morning, and saddled for a couple of +hours, transferring the slight strain of nerves to his muscles. There +was a note from the Skylark. She had found an old picture of his in a +magazine and commented on it deliciously.... "I wonder if you think of +me as I am—plain, <i>plain</i>?" she had asked.... No, he did not. Nor was +it Reifferscheid's words to the contrary that prevented him. It is not +in man to correlate plainness with a mystic attraction. She had never +appeared to him as beautiful exactly, but fine, vivid, electric—a +manifestation of eyes, lips, mind. All the poundage part of a human +being was utterly vague in his concept of the Skylark.... Charter +naturally lost his perspective and penetration in dealing with his own +interlacing emotions.</p> + +<p>The present letter thralled him. It was blithe in intent, but +intuitively deep and keen. In a former letter, he had asked if there +were not a strain of Irish in her lineage, so mercurial did her +temperament play in all that she wrote. "No Irish," she had answered. +"Dutch—straight Dutch. Always New York—always Dutch. I praise +Providence for this 'monkey-wrench to hang upon my safety valve.'"</p> + +<p>The "red moon" letter seemed to have caught her on the wing—at her +highest and happiest—for she answered it in fine faith and lightness. +Though it had carried her up and up; and though the singing came back +from golden azure, yet she had not forgotten her humor. There was a +suggestion of world-wisdom here, or was it world-wear?</p> + +<p>For hours at a time, Charter was now stripped of his capacity for work. +This is fine torment. Mostly there was a sheet in his type-mill, but his +fingers only fluttered the space-bar. Let him begin a letter to the +Skylark, however, and inspiration came, indeed. His thoughts marshalled +like a perfect army then, and passed out from under his hand in flashing +review.... He ate little, slept little, but his vitality was prodigious. +A miracle matured in his breast. Had he not been more than usually +stubborn, he would have granted long before, that he loved a woman for +the first time in his life—and this a woman he had never seen.</p> + +<p>By New Year's there was no dissembling. No day passed now in which he +did not battle down an impulse to take a train for New York. This was +real living. The destiny which had ruled him through so many dark +wanderings, had waited until his soul was roused to dominance, before he +was permitted to enter earth's true treasury. It was now that he +remembered his past, and many a mile and many an hour he paced the dim +hall—wrestling to be clean of it. This was a Soul which called. He did +not dare to answer while a vestige of the old taints lingered.... He was +seldom troubled that she might prove less inspiring than he pictured. He +staked every reliance in that he had lived thirty-three years and +encountered nothing comparable with this before. Passions, fascinations, +infatuations, were long put behind; these were classed now in his mind +beneath decent and frictionless partnerships between men and women.</p> + +<p>The vision which inspired his romantic loneliness was all that +Reifferscheid had suggested, and infinitely more which his own dreamings +had supplied. She was an adult frankly challenged by the mysteries of +creation; often shocked by its revelations, never above pity nor beneath +humor, wonderful in her reality of culture, and wise above men with a +woman's divination. But particularly, her ultimate meaning was for +<i>him</i>; his quest, she was; his crown, to be. The world had preserved her +singing, until he was ready; and though singing, she must ever feel the +poverty of unfulfilment in her own breast, until he came. This was the +stately form of the whole enchantment.</p> + +<p>That there existed in creation a <i>completing</i> feminine for all his +lonely and divided forces; that there lived one woman who could evenly +ignite his body, brain, and spirit; that there was hidden in the +splendid plan of things, a Union of Two to form One; all this which had +been drifting star-stuff before, became sparks now for new and terrific +energies of mind; energies, however, which could be trained and directed +only in her presence.</p> + +<p>Man cannot live altogether in the altitudes. There were brief periods +wherein Charter remembered the mad, drink-tainted trifler with lyrics +and women. It had been a past, surely, filled with soul-murdering +illusions. Those who had known him then, would have had to see him now +to find faith. There had been letters about his recent books from men +and women who had known him in the darker, less-spacious days. Failing +to adjust this new and lusty spirit with the man they had known, they +had tried to bring a laugh from him and answers to futile questions.</p> + +<p>Charter could not forget that there come to the desk of a review-editor +many personal notices concerning one whose work is being talked about. +Indeed, such are handled as a matter of routine. The Skylark could not +be expected always to wing aloof from these. All that was vague and +indefinite did not matter; such might even be accounted as admirable +specializations in life, but his acquaintance had been prodigious, and +many clippings came home to him which he was not pleased to read.... +Still, in the main, he relied upon Paula's solid sense of justice; and +every fresh letter lifted him higher and higher. In his own letters, he +did not fail to incorporate a buffer against indefinite revelations. +Moreover, he had never ceased to call it wonderful—this capacity, of +even the purest women, to lock the doors against the ugliest +generalities of a man's past, and to reckon only with specific +instances. It is here that the mother looks out through the eyes of a +maid.</p> + +<p>One April morning, he encountered a depression more formidable in +vitality than ever before. Beth had just had her shoes set, and Charter +tried to ride off the blue devil. He steadied his mount out of town, +until she struck the ringing country road. The instant she felt her +calks bite into the frosty turf, the mare flirted her head, took the +bit, and became a veritable glowing battery of beautiful energy. Twelve +miles he gave her, but the blue devil rode equally well and sat down +again with Charter in his study. It was like a desert-island loneliness, +this which beset him, as if his ship were sinking into the horizon; only +it was a more poignant than physical agony—a sense of spiritual +isolation.</p> + +<p>This study had become to him the place of his dearest revelations of +life. Here, of late especially, he had found refuge from every discord, +and here invariably were opened the letters from the Skylark. The place +of a man's work becomes a grand, quiet solace as he grows older, but +calm and poise were wrested from the room to-day. He fought the +depression with every trained faculty, but was whipped by it. Color and +sunlight were gone from within; the zeal from future work, the warmth +from every promise, the changing lustre from words, and the excellent +energy of thought which impels their weaving. Twilight in mid-afternoon. +He turned on the lights impatiently. Meaning and beauty were bereft from +all his possessions, as buoyancy was gone from his own breast. There was +something pitifully boyish in the trophies he had treasured—so much of +the college cub, and the youth who refuses to permit his travels to be +forgotten. He regarded his past work, as one grown out of it, regretting +that it had ever attracted the materials of permanence. Smugness in his +teachings; cold intellectuality brazen in all his attainments; +everything about him suddenly become sinister from the old life!... He +looked into the East—his country of singing, of roses, cedars, and +fountains—but the gray-black twilight was a damnable intervention.... +It was in this spirit, or lack of it, that he wrote the letter which +revealed to Paula his inner responsiveness, as she was tossed in The +High Tide.</p> + +<p>The letter which she had written almost at the same time, reached him on +the second morning thereafter; and his suffering in the interval he +could only liken to one of the old sieges of reaction after dissipation. +The fine, angular writing, which he never regarded without a sense of +the darting swiftness of her hand; the thin, tough sheets that crinkled, +came like bounty to the starving; yet he was deathly afraid.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Something of the long ago has just come to me—to my very +rooms. It would not have been believed, had I sought it. I +might have endured it, if <i>you</i> had told me. It is dreadful to +play with illusions. Oh, why must we keep our gods so far +away—lest we lose them? Had I waited longer, I could not have +written. It seems now that you have a right to know—before my +pride dries up all expression. You are not to blame—except +that you were very reckless in adding happinesses one upon the +other. It was all quite ridiculous. I trusted my +intuition—allowed myself to think of a table spread in the +wilderness of the world with you. My intuitions! I used to be +so proud of them. I see now that sometimes they're quite as +fallible as plain thinking, after all.</p> + +<p>I always felt you alone. I seemed to know your voice after +centuries. Yes, I am sure it was that which affected me so +deeply in your work and made me answer your letters with such +faith. <i>I knew your voice.</i> I thought of you alone—your spirit +hungry.... It makes one feel so common, when one's intuitions +betray this way. The heart for writing further is cold and +heavy. Once, down the wind, came a fragrant pollen, but the +blowing summer is gone from my garden....</p></blockquote> + +<p>No signature.</p> + +<p>She had not penned a skylark with a folded or broken wing. Charter sat +thinking for several moments, but only because he knew there was ample +time to catch the noon-train for New York. That he should do this had +formed in mind before he had read five lines of the letter. This thought +of action steadied him; and the proof that he had sensed her agony and +reflected it throughout the past forty-eight hours made the call of the +East instant and irresistible. It did not come to him at first that he +was now entering the greater conflict, for which Nature had trained him +in tranquillity and fed his soul unto replenishment during three +years.... His first quick thought came out of old habits of mind: <i>An +hour with her, and her heart will be healed!</i> Here was the old trifler. +He suffered for this instant faltering of the brighter manhood. Man's +fineness is not accentuated by the fact that a woman sacrifices her +power within him, when she falls to pleading a little. Charter could +have torn out the old mental fibres upon which played the thought of her +swiftly renewed happiness by his presence.</p> + +<p>The reality of her suffering slowly penetrated his mind. He perceived +that she could not express the actuality; that her thoughts had winged +ineffectually about the immovable disorder—like bees over the clumsy +corpse of a rodent in the hive. It was not to be lifted, and the +inspiration hermetically to seal the monster and resume activities as +well as possible, had not yet come.... "I might have endured it, if +<i>you</i> had told me!"</p> + +<p>He wasted no energy trying to think exactly what had happened. It was +all he could bear to grasp the full meaning that this inspiring creature +who had soared and sung so long, was crushed and cold. Every sentence in +her letter revealed the bruise of her heart, the absence of +spontaneity.... She was as different from other women he had known—the +women who had been healed by his word or his caress—as he was different +in this attraction. He telegraphed that he was coming, begged that she +would see him the following evening, and instructed her to leave word +for him at the <i>Granville</i>. Then he packed his bag and told his mother. +She laughed quietly.</p> + +<p>"On the spur of the moment as usual, Quentin.... It will be good for +you. You've been home a long time. Are you going—beyond New York?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't a thought now of going farther, Mother," he answered....</p> + +<p>Again twilight in mid-afternoon—as he crossed the river from Jersey. It +had been a day and night to age the soul—with its inexorable stretch of +material miles. New York had a different look, a different atmosphere, +than ever before. Huge and full of horrible grinding; sick with work and +sick with damp—but above this, the magic of her presence was over all. +It was only four in the afternoon, and he had not asked to see her until +seven. Might she not have watched for him or be near him now? She would +know him from his pictures, and observe him as a stranger, but he had +only his visions.</p> + +<p>On the Cross-town to the <i>Granville</i>, emotions played upon him of a kind +that he could not have understood in another man a few months before. +Moreover, he felt himself giving way before the vibrations of the big +city. Harried and shrunken, he was, like a youth from the fields; and +the voice he had raised so valiantly from afar against this tremendous +massed soul, seemed now but the clamor of a boy in the safety of his own +door. To and fro along his inflamed nerves crept the direct need of a +drink and a cigarette—old wolves forever on the watch for the spent and +the wounded.... Actually terrorized, he was, at the thought she might +not see him; that there might be no note for him at the <i>Granville</i>. +What a voyage in the dark.</p> + +<p>For the time, his excellent moral balance had deserted shamelessly. An +adequate perception of his own position and attitude in the eyes of high +womanhood had unhelmed him, quite properly. Nature had finally found a +hot retort which just fitted his case—and in he went.... No purely +physical ardor could have called Quentin Charter out of his study and +far across the continent. Lesser loves than this have plunged nations +into war, and broken the main trend of history into pregnant +digressions. The more penetratingly one regards the man in his present +consuming, the more formidable becomes the conviction that the human +cosmos in the beginning was cleft in twain: one to grope to the light, a +male; the other to suffer the way, her burden, the curse of Eve. When +these mates of fire fulfil their divided destinies and sweep into the +zone of mutual attraction, woe to the satellites and asteroids in the +inevitable cataclysm which follows.... Yet it is out of such solar +throes that gods and prophets are born.... He gave his bag to a boy at +the <i>Granville</i> entrance, and stepped forward to the desk, clearing his +throat and repeating his question.... The clerk rushed through the +letters in "C."</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Charter,—not a letter, but wait just a moment; there was a +telephone-call."</p> + +<p>A chill had swept through him as the man spoke. It had not occurred to +him that the word would come in other than her handwriting. This was an +unsigned note, written by the telephone-girl:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. Quentin Charter: A lady who says you will understand, +'phoned that she will be home at seven to-night—if you think +it wise and kind to come to her.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The message was dated at two <span class="smcap">P. M.</span> Both chill and burning were in the +words. It was strangely unlike her; yet in passing through the +operator's mind, it might have become routine. The word "kind" was a +torturing curb. It placed him on ugly quaking ground. How weak, how +ancient and commonplace, is the human lord after all, when in doubt +regarding his lady's reception of him! Where is his valor now, his +taking of cities, his smiling deaths for honor? Most of all times, he is +man, the male; not man, the soul. Half-way out on the surface-car, he +discovered one of the big "Selma Cross" bill-boards. It was intimate, +startling, an evil omen—great black letters out of the deathless +past.... He stood on the fourth floor of the <i>Zoroaster</i>. The +elevator-man had shown him a certain door which was slightly ajar. He +was ill, breathless, and his heart sank strangely with the lights in the +shaft from the descending car.... He tapped on the designated door, and +a deep melodious voice, instantly identified with ancient abandonments, +called gently:</p> + +<p>"Come in!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FIFTEENTH_CHAPTER" id="FIFTEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>FIFTEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACH +LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS</h3> + + +<p>Charter was seized with vertigo. It was his sorry thought that the old +scar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going, +could not endure a crux like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock to +his spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in a +room filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions had +culminated in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an inner +wrench, which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like a +stroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting the +Skylark spirit to the eminent flesh of this old plaything of his, left +him drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into a +deep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as if +it could not grip the blood locked in his veins.</p> + +<p>He sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running through +his brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but something +was wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousness +that he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again one +of his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst. +In the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he felt +the old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of his +mind with all the impish exultation of that lower self. Pride asserted +itself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! He +should always remember with shame this coming to New York—a youthful +Marius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness—coming to this +city (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with an +abortive conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fell +upon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were in +shadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall and +mantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all was +so pervading—as his blood began to move again—that he laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," Selma Cross said softly, "I thought at first you had been +drinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tell +you what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor so +unsteadily—looking so white?"</p> + +<p>"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing for +middle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little later +in your new play, but not here—to-night——"</p> + +<p>"That is what I thought—that incurable thing. You seem floored. I +didn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you were +adaptable—if nothing else."</p> + +<p>His collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in his +lungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now how +Skylark had been stricken. The real devastation was that she belonged to +this sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, this +trap. It was all so different from the consummate fineness, the +pervading delicacy, of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to the +trick, <i>might she not be listening</i>?... He did not mind her hearing; +indeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know—but that +she should listen! He writhed. This was not his Skylark at all.... It +was hardly Charter's way now to plunge into the centre of things. There +was a feline elegance in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; she +seemed so delightfully at ease, that he was willing to make it a bit +harder for her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly," he said slowly. "It is +something, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has made +good so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I had +read all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounter +your stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to find +you here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle. +As for your work—few know its quality better than I."</p> + +<p>She studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. "As for +that, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too," she said finally. "I +never doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I feared +that whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfully +changed—so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you went +away; what else have you been doing?—I mean, to change you so finely."</p> + +<p>"Garret."</p> + +<p>Her brow clouded at the word. It was as if she had expected to laugh at +him long before this. "Did any woman ever tell you that you're rather a +mean sort, Quentin Charter?"</p> + +<p>"Doubtless I have deserved it," he answered. "What are you thinking?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of your garret—where you gather your victims for +vivisection."</p> + +<p>"That's put very clearly."</p> + +<p>"Do you think this is big-man stuff?"</p> + +<p>"My case is rather an ugly one to look back upon, truly," Charter +granted. "For a long time, it appeared to me that I must learn things at +first-hand. With first-water talents, perhaps this is not necessary."</p> + +<p>"A woman finally brings a man face to face," she said with sudden scorn, +"and he becomes limp, agrees with everything she says.... 'Yes, it is +quite true, I was an awful beast. What else, dear?'—ugh!"</p> + +<p>Charter smiled. She was very swift and deft in supplying a man's evil +motives. It is a terrible feminine misfortune—this gift of +imputing—and happy women do not possess it. Few men, incidentally, are +deep enough to avail themselves of all the crafts and cunnings with +which they may be accredited.</p> + +<p>"I have no intention of destroying the slightest gratification you may +draw, Selma, from questioning me," he said. "If I appear limp, please +remember that I'm a bit in the dark as yet. I came to this floor on a +different errand. I had this errand in mind—not self-examination. +However, I'll attend now in all sincerity. You were speaking of my +victims for vivisection in the garret."</p> + +<p>She appeared not to trust him in the least. "I've always wanted +to know if you believed—what an apprentice I really was in +love—give-and-take—when you came?"</p> + +<p>"That was easily believed, Selma——"</p> + +<p>"Then you grant I wasn't acting—when I gave myself to you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't think you were acting——"</p> + +<p>"Then <i>you</i> were acting, because when the time came—you dropped me +quite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased to +feed."</p> + +<p>"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, and +certainly not acting altogether, until——"</p> + +<p>"Enter—the wine," she said with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you will." He was irritated for a second, having meant to say +something entirely different.</p> + +<p>"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon his +drinking!"</p> + +<p>"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the whole +life that the drinking carried me into—that I had such horror for when, +when I became well."</p> + +<p>"You got well very suddenly after you left me," she told him. Her huge +face was livid, and her lips dry.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I was a long time ill." Her temper chilled his +attempts at sincerity.</p> + +<p>"It looked so from those first few—letters, is rather a dignified +word."</p> + +<p>"I say it with shame, I was practically unable to write. I was burnt out +when I left here. I had been to Asia—gone from home seven months—and +the returning fool permitted the bars to welcome him——"</p> + +<p>"You seized a moment to dictate a letter——"</p> + +<p>"Silence would have been far better," he said. "I see that now. My only +idea was to let you hear. Writing myself was out of the question by that +time."</p> + +<p>"You wrote an article about stage people—with all the loftiness of an +anæmic priest."</p> + +<p>"That was written before I left here—written and delivered——"</p> + +<p>"All the worse, that you could write such an article—while you were +spending so much time with me."</p> + +<p>"I have never belittled what you gave me, Selma. I could praise you, +without admiring the stage. You are amazingly different. I think that's +why New York is talking about you to-night. I had made many trips to New +York and knew many stage people, before I met you. If you had belonged +to the type familiar to me, I should have needed a stronger stimulus +than drink to force an interest. Had there been others like you—had I +even encountered 'five holy ones in the city'—I should not have written +that stage article, or others before it."</p> + +<p>"You were one with the Broadway Glowworms, Quentin Charter. Few of them +drank so steadily as you."</p> + +<p>"I have already told you that for a long time I was an unutterable fool. +Until three years ago, I did not begin to know—the breath of life."</p> + +<p>Selma Cross arose and paced the room, stretching out her great arms from +time to time as she walked. "You're getting back your glibness," she +exclaimed, "your quick little sentences which fit in so nicely! Ah, I +know them well, as other women are learning them. But I have things +which you cannot answer so easily—you of the garret penances.... You +find a starved woman of thirty—play with her for a fortnight, showing +her everything that she can desire, and seeming to have no thought, but +of her. I discover that there was not a moment in which you were so +ardent that you forgot to be an analyst. I forgive that, as you might +forgive things in my day's work. You put on your gray garret-garb, and +forget the hearts of my people, to uncover their weaknesses before the +world—you, so recently one of us, and none more drunk or drained with +the dawn—than you! Such preaching is not good to the nostrils, but I +forgive that. You are sick, and even the drink won't warm you, so you +leave me at a moment's notice——"</p> + +<p>"There was another reason."</p> + +<p>"Hear me out, first," she commanded.... "To you, it is just, 'Adios, my +dear'; to me, it is an uprooting—oh, I don't mind telling you. I was +overturned in that furrow, left naked for the long burning day, but I +remembered my work—the work you despise! I, who had reason to know how +noble your pen can be, forgave even those first paltry letters, filled +with excuses such as a cheap clerk might write. I forgave the dictation, +because it said you were ill—forgave the silences.... But when you came +to New York six months afterwards, and did not so much as 'phone or send +me a card of greeting—Selma called in her silly tears."</p> + +<p>"It was vile ingratitude," he said earnestly. "That's where my big fault +lay. I wonder if you would try to understand the only palliation. You +were strangely generous and wonderful in your ways. I did not cease to +think of that. Personally, you are far above the things I came to abhor. +No one understands but the victim, what alcohol does to a man when it +gets him down. I tried to kill myself. I became convalescent literally +by force. Slowly approaching the normal again, I was glad enough to +live, but the horrors never leave the mind entirely. Everything +connected with the old life filled me with shuddering fear. I tell you +no one hates alcohol like a drunkard fresh in his reform."</p> + +<p>"But I did not make you drink," she said impatiently. "I'm not a +drink-loving woman."</p> + +<p>Charter's face flushed. The interview was becoming a farce. It had been +agony for him to make this confession. She would not see that he +realized his ingratitude; that it was his derangement caused by +indulging low propensities which made him identify her with the days of +evil.</p> + +<p>"I know that very well, Selma Cross," he said wearily, "but the stage is +a part of that old life, that sick night-life that runs eternally around +the belt-line."</p> + +<p>She hated him for reverting to this point. Holding fast to what she +still had to say, the actress picked up a broken thread. "You said there +was another reason why you left New York so suddenly."</p> + +<p>Charter expected now to learn if any one were listening. He was cold +with the thought of the interview being weighed in the balances of a +third mind.</p> + +<p>"You've made a big point of my going away," he essayed. "The other +reason is not a pretty matter, and doubtless you will call any +repugnance of mine an affectation——"</p> + +<p>"Repugnance—what do you mean?" she asked savagely, yet she was afraid, +afraid of his cool tongue. "I never lied to you."</p> + +<p>"That may be true. I'm not curious for evidence to the contrary. The day +before I left for the West, a friend told me that you and I were being +watched; that all our movements were known. I didn't believe it; could +not see the sense—until it was proved that same night by the devious +walk we took.... You doubtless remember the face of that young +night-bird whom we once laughed about. We thought it just one of those +coincidences which frequently occur—a certain face bobbing up +everywhere for a number of days. I assured myself that night that you +knew nothing of this remarkable outside interest in our affairs."</p> + +<p>Selma Cross, with swift stealth, disappeared into the apartment-hall and +closed the outer door; then returned, facing him. Her yellow eyes were +wide open, filled with a misty, tortured look. To Charter the place and +the woman had become haggard with emptiness. He missed the occasional +click of the elevator in the outer-hall, for it had seemed to keep him +in touch with the world's activities. The old carnal magnetism of Selma +Cross stirred not a tissue in him now; the odor of her garments which +once roused him, was forbidding. He had not the strength to believe that +the door had been shut for any other reason than to prevent Skylark from +hearing. The actress had not minded how their voices carried, so long as +<i>he</i> was being arraigned.... The air was devitalized. It was as if they +were dying of heart-break—without a sound.... It had been so +wonderful—this thought of finding his mate after the æons, his +completion—a woman beautiful with soul-age and spiritual light....</p> + +<p>Selma Cross was speaking. Charter stirred from his great trouble. She +was changed, no longer the clever mistress of a dramatic hour.... Each +was so burdened with a personal tragedy that pity for the other was slow +to warm between them.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that old Villiers paid the night-bird to watch us—to learn +where we went, and possibly what we said?" she was saying hoarsely. +Selma Cross felt already that her cad was exploded.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and that was unpleasant," Charter told her. "I didn't like the +feel of that procurer's eyes, but what revolted me was Villiers himself. +I took pains to learn his name the next day—that last day. There isn't +a more unclean human package in New York.... It was so unlike you. I +couldn't adjust the two. I couldn't be where he had been. I was sick +with my own degradation. I went back to my garret."</p> + +<p>Selma Cross was crippled; she saw there was no lie in this. At what a +price had been bought the restoration of faith for Paula Linster!... She +had heard after their compact about Villiers' early days. There had been +times when her fingers itched to tighten upon his scrawny throat. To +have Quentin Charter hear this record was fire in her veins; it embraced +the added horror that Stephen Cabot might also hear.... There was +nothing further with which to charge the man before her. She nursed her +wrath to keep from crying out.</p> + +<p>"Was it a man's way to give me no chance to explain?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Broadway knew Villiers."</p> + +<p>"I did not!"</p> + +<p>"Anyway, I couldn't get it straight in my mind, then," Charter said +hastily. "You're no vulgar woman, mad after colors and dollars. You love +your work too much to be one of those insatiable deserts of passion. Nor +are you a creature of black evolution who prefers the soul, to the body +of man, for a plaything.... You were all that was generous and normally +fervent with me.... Let's cut the subject. It does not excuse me for not +calling when I came to New York. You were nothing if not good to me."</p> + +<p>"Then Villiers paid to find out things about us," she said slowly. "He +said you bragged about such matters to your friends."</p> + +<p>Charter shivered. "I fail to see how you troubled about a man not +writing—if you could believe that about him."</p> + +<p>"I didn't see how he could know our places of meeting—any other way. I +should never have seen him again, if he hadn't made me believe this of +you."</p> + +<p>Charter scarcely heard her. The thought was inevitable now that the +actress might have represented him to Skylark as one with the loathed +habit of talking about women to his friends. The quick inclination to +inquire could not overcome his distaste for mentioning a dear name in +this room. The radiant, flashing spirit behind the letters did not +belong here.... His brain ached with emptiness; he wondered continually +how he could ever fill the spaces expanded by the Skylark's singing....</p> + +<p>In the brain of Selma Cross a furious struggle was joined. Never before +had she been given to see so clearly her own limitations—and this in +the high light of her great dramatic triumph. Her womanhood contained +that mighty quality of worshiping intellect. This, she had loved in +Charter long ago; in Stephen Cabot now. The inner key to her greatness +was her capacity to forget the animal in man—if he proved a brain. +There is only one higher reverence—that of forgetting brain to worship +soul. Perceiving the attitude of Quentin Charter to her old life, it was +made clear to her that she must preserve a lie in her relation with +Stephen Cabot; if, indeed, the playwright did not learn outside, as +Charter had done. It was plain that he did not know yet, since he had +not run from her—to a garret somewhere. What a hideous mockery was this +night—begun in pride! Distantly she was grateful that Paula Linster was +at hand to be restored, but her own mind was whipped and cowed by its +thoughts—so there was little energy for another's romance.... Charter +had made no comment on her last remark. She realized now that his +thoughts were bearing him close to the truth.</p> + +<p>"You say they forced you to cast out your enemy," she declared hoarsely. +"I cast out mine of my own accord. If there is palliation for you, there +should be for a woman in her first experience. You asked me to stretch +my imagination about a drink-reaction making you avoid me. I ask you, +how is a woman, for the first time alone with a man—to know that he is +different from other men? Add to this, a woman who has come up from the +dregs—for years in the midst of the slum-blooms of the chorus? What I +heard from them of their nights—would have taxed the versatility of +even Villiers—to make me see him lower than I expected! I ask you—how +did I know he was an exception—rather than the rule among the +Glowworms?"</p> + +<p>"I'm rather glad you said that," Charter declared quickly. "It's a point +of view I'm grateful for. Do you wonder that the life from which you +have risen to one of the regnant queens has become inseparable in my +mind with shuddering aversion?"</p> + +<p>In the extremity of her suffering, her mind had reverted, as an artist's +always does when desperately pressed, to thoughts of work—work, the +healer, the refuge where devils truly are cast out. Even in her work she +now encountered the lash, since Charter despised it. Literally, she was +at bay before him.</p> + +<p>"Always that!" she cried. "It is detestable in you always to blame my +work. I broke training. I should have won without the damned angel. You +degraded yourself for years in your work, but I don't hear you blaming +art for your debaucheries! You have sat alone so long that you think all +men outside are foul. You sit high in your attic, so that all men look +like bugs below!"</p> + +<p>"There is something in what you say," he answered, aroused by her +bigness and strength. "Yet in my garret, I do not deal with rootless +abstractions. Everything has its foundation in actual observation. I +moved long among the play-managers, and found them men of +huckster-minds—brainless money-bags, dependent upon every passing wind +of criticism. I tell you, when one talked to them or to their +office-apes—one felt himself, his inner-self, rushing forth as if to +fill something bottomless——"</p> + +<p>"You do not know Vhruebert——"</p> + +<p>"Eliminate him. I am not speaking of any particular man. I do not mean +all playwrights when I say that I found playwrights as a class, not +literary workers—but literary tricksters. I am not speaking of <i>The +Thing</i>, nor of its author, of whom I have heard excellent word—when I +say that plays are not written, but rewritten by elementals, who, +through their sheer coarseness, sense the slow vibrations of the mob, +and feculate the original lines to suit."</p> + +<p>"Bah—an idea from one of your nights, when you tried to drown the blue +devils! It broods over all your thinking! You forget the great army, +that silent army, which is continually lifting itself artistically by +writing one after another—impossible plays. You forget the great hearts +of the players—men and women who pull together for big results."</p> + +<p>"I am not speaking of the vast library of manuscript failures, but of a +small proportion which get into the sinister glare of Broadway——"</p> + +<p>"My God, Broadway is not New York!"</p> + +<p>"For which I am powerfully glad," he answered with energy. "As for warm +human hearts—there is warmth and loyalty, genuine tears and decent +hopes in every brothel and bar—yet the black trends of their existence +course on. This was so hard for me to learn, that I have it very +clearly.... I remember the opening night of Martha Boardman as a +star—telegrams pouring in, critics besieging her dressing-room. Even +her manager didn't know what he had, until the critics told him the play +would stay in New York a year—yet his name was on the boards above the +star and bigger than the author's. I watched the bleak, painted faces of +the women and heard their false voices acclaiming the new star. What +they had in their hearts was not praise, but envy. Their words were +sham, indecency and lying. Eternally simulating—that's the stage life. +Pity the women—poor Maachas, if you will—but their work is damnable, +nevertheless. It is from such unhappy creatures evading motherhood that +youths get the abominable notion that real manhood lies in the loins."</p> + +<p>"Poor youths—go on! When you have finished I shall tell you something."</p> + +<p>"Don't misunderstand me, Selma Cross. No one knows better than I—how +the sexes prey upon each other—how they drag each other to the ground. +Only I was thinking of the poor things in ties, canes, cigarettes and +coatings—out catching!... I saw the whole horrid, empty game of the +stage. You have come wonderfully and differently into the glare, but let +me ask where is Martha Boardman to-night—a few short years later?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she was tired, her energy burned out, when she finally arrived. +It's a stiff grade," Selma Cross said gently.</p> + +<p>"I would explain it, that she was prostituted from <i>excessive +simulation</i>—season after season of simulation—emotion after emotion +false to herself! The Law says, 'Live your own life.' The Stage says, +'Act mine,'—so pitiably often a poor playwright's abortive sensations! +What can happen to a body that continually makes of itself a lying +instrument? Like the queen-bee whose whole life is made up of +egg-laying—the brain of this poor purveyor of emotions becomes a waxy +pulp. As for her soul—it is in God's hands—let us hope."</p> + +<p>"It is good to laugh at you, Quentin Charter. You have another appetite. +You wanted alcohol when I knew you first—now you thirst after purists +and winged women. I have a lover now who can live among men, soar just +as high as you do, work with just as much greatness and strength, +without ever having degraded himself or believed all human creatures +vile. The stage has its shams, its mockeries, but its glories, too. It +is not all deranged by money-bags. The most brilliant of your writers +give us our lines—the most wonderful of your mystics. It is true we +simulate; true that ours is a constant giving; but call in your +garret-high logic now, Sir Prophet: Look at the tired empty faces of my +company, look at mine, after we have finished <i>The Thing</i>; then look at +the strengthened grip on life and the lifted hopes which, each night, +the multitude takes from out our breasts—and call ours a prostitution, +if you can!"</p> + +<p>Charter arose and extended his hand, which she took gracelessly, but was +instantly sorry that she had misjudged his intent.</p> + +<p>"Can't you see, Selma Cross, that you and I have no difference, no point +for argument, if the general run of plays were like <i>The Thing</i>—as you +make me see it? We had eliminated this from the discussion, but I have +nothing but praise for Vhruebert, nothing but enthusiasm for Mr. Cabot +and for you—if the combination gives the people an expansion of hope +and a lifted ideal. Do that, and you need not reckon with critics."</p> + +<p>Instantly she changed her point of view again, so that he was both +chilled and puzzled. "I should have been glad to come out in any +successful play," she said wearily. "<i>The Thing</i> just happens to have an +uplift——"</p> + +<p>"So much is accomplished for you, then. You will never be content again +with a play that has not. Oh, I don't mean ostensible good, +melodramatically contrasted with obvious bad, but the subtle inspiration +of real artists—that marvellous flexibility of line and largeness of +meaning that fits about every life! Just as you can draw fresh strength +again and again from a great poem; so, in performing a great play—one +does not act, but lives!"</p> + +<p>"Are you going?" she questioned absently.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I confess I haven't been so consumed in years——"</p> + +<p>She drew close to him.... "It has been dramatic, if not literary, hasn't +it?" Her nostrils dilated and her lower lip was drawn back between her +teeth.</p> + +<p>He smiled.</p> + +<p>"I feel burnt out, too," she went on softly. "It has been strange +to be with you again—almost like—those early mornings.... Did you +ever hear me calling you—'way off there in the West? I used to lie +awake, all feverish after you went away, calling in a whisper, +'Quentin—Quentin!...' It seemed you must come, if you were alive. There +were times after you went away, that I would have given this week's +victory, which I saw from afar,—to have you rush in for just one +hour!... In God's name," she cried suddenly, "is there really this sort +of honor in living man—is it because you hate me—or do you have to +drink to take a woman in your arms? You, who used to be—singing +flames?"</p> + +<p>Charter was not unattracted, but his self-command was strangely +imperious. There was magnetism now in the old passion—but a flutter of +wings broke the attraction.... Darkness covered the wings, and the song +was stilled; yet in that faint rustling, was enchantment which changed +to brute matter—these open arms and the rising breast.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it is as you said—about the anæmic priest," he muttered +laughingly.... And then it occurred to him that there might have been a +trick to her tempting.... From this point he was sexless and could pity +her, though his nerves were raw from her verbal punishments. It was +altogether new in his experience—this word-whipping; and though he had +not sharpened a sentence in retaliation, he could not but see the +ghastly way in which a woman is betrayed by her temper, which checks a +man's passion like a sudden fright. Between a woman given to rages and +her lover—lies a naked sword. Consummate, in truth, is the siren who +has mastered the art of silence.... Selma Cross sank back into a chair. +The world's wear was on her brow and under her eyes, as she laughed +bitterly.</p> + +<p>"You always had a way of making me sick of life," she said strangely. "I +wonder if ever there was a humiliation so artistically complete as +mine?"</p> + +<p>This was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not be +quite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating had +been the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically an +actress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was not +prepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman, +Selma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that his +theory was amazingly strengthened here—the theory that moral +derangement results from excessive simulation.</p> + +<p>"You—would—not—kiss—me," she repeated. "For my own sake, I'd like to +believe—that you're trying to be true to some one,—but it's all rot +that there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you—you +spook!"</p> + +<p>"You said you had a lover——"</p> + +<p>She shivered. "You left me unfinished." There was a tragic plaint in her +tone, and she added hastily, "There was a reason for my trying you.... I +think the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, is +that you have refused to ask why I brought you here—refused even to +utter the name—of the woman you expected to see—<i>in my presence</i>.... +You may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a God +resurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you—or both—to +the point of death! Either way—remember this—I'll be square as a +die—to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what I +mean—to-morrow, I think...."</p> + +<p>He was at the door. "Good-night," he said and touched the signal for the +elevator.</p> + +<p>She called him back, "Come and see me—at my best—at the +<i>Herriot</i>—won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes——"</p> + +<p>"But tell me what performance—and where your seat is——"</p> + +<p>"... Good-night."</p> + +<p>The car stopped at the floor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SIXTEENTH_CHAPTER" id="SIXTEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>SIXTEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT +INTO THE NIGHT</h3> + + +<p>It was after eight that Sunday night, when Paula emerged from the +elevator in the upper-hall of the <i>Zoroaster</i>, and noted that the door +of the Selma Cross apartment was ajar.... The interval since she had +parted from the actress the evening before had been abundant with +misery. Almost, she had crossed the bay to visit the Reifferscheids; +would have done so, indeed, had she been able to 'phone her coming. Her +rooms had become a dismal oppression; Bellingham haunted her +consciousness; there were moments when she was actually afraid there +alone.</p> + +<p>All Saturday night she had sleeplessly tossed, knowing that Quentin +Charter was speeding eastward, and dreading the moment when he should +arrive in the city and find no welcoming note from her. She dared not be +in her rooms after he was due to reach the <i>Granville</i>, lest he call her +by telephone or messenger—and her purpose of not seeing him be +destroyed by some swift and salient appeal. She had waited until after +the hour in which he had asked to call, to be sure that this time he +would have given up all hope of seeing her. The prospect now of entering +her apartment and remaining there throughout the night, challenged every +ounce of will-force she possessed....</p> + +<p>Battling with loneliness and bereavement, as she had been for hours, +Paula was grateful to note, by the open door, that the actress was at +home, even though she had left her the evening before, hurt and +disappointed by the other's swift change of manner upon learning that +Quentin Charter was to be in New York to-day.... It was with a startling +but indefinable emotion that she heard the man's voice now through the +open door. Stephen Cabot was there, she thought, as she softly let +herself in to the place of ordeals, which her own flat had become.</p> + +<p>In the dark and silence of the inner hall, the old enemy swept into her +consciousness—again the awful localizations of the preying force! The +usual powers of mind scattered, as in war the pith of a capital's +garrisons rush forth to distant borders. By habit, her hand was upon the +button, but she did not turn on light. Instead, she drew back, steeling +her will to remember her name, her place in the world, her friends. +Harshly driven, yet Paula repressed a cry, and fought her way out into +the main hall—as from the coiling suction of a maelstrom. Even in her +terror, she could not but repress a swift sense of victory, in that she +had escaped from the vortex of attraction—her own rooms.</p> + +<p>The man's voice reached her again, filled her mind with amazing +resistance—so that the point of the occultist's will was broken. +Suddenly, she remembered that she had once heard Stephen Cabot, +protesting that he was quite well—at the end of the first New York +performance of <i>The Thing</i>, and that his tones were inseparably +identified with his misfortune. The voice she heard now thrilled her +like an ancient, but instantly familiar, harmony. It was not Stephen +Cabot's. She stood at the open door, when the vehemence of Selma Cross, +who was now speaking, caused her to refrain from making her presence +known. The unspeakable possibility, suddenly upreared in her mind, +banished every formality. The full energies of her life formed in a +prayer that she might be wrong, as Paula peered through the inner hall, +and for the first time in the flesh glimpsed Quentin Charter.</p> + +<p>She was standing before the elevator-shaft and had signaled for the car +eternities ago. Selma Cross was moving up and down the room within, but +her words though faintly audible, had no meaning to the woman without. +Paula's mind seemed so filled with sayings from the actress that there +was no room for the interpretation of a syllable further. One sentence +of Charter's startled her with deadly pain.... She could wait no longer, +and started to walk down. Half-way to the main-floor, the elevator sped +upward to answer her bell.... She was very weak, and temptation was +fiercely operative to return to her rooms, when she heard a slow, firm +step ascending the flight below. She turned from the stairs on the +second floor, just as the huge, lean shoulders of Bellingham appeared on +the opposite side of the elevator-shaft.</p> + +<p>The two faced without words. His countenance was livid, wasted, but his +eyes were of fire. Paula lost herself in their power. She knew only that +she must return with him. There was no place to go; indeed, to return +with him now seemed normal, rational—until the brightly-lit car rushed +down and stopped before them.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Miss Linster," the elevator-man +said, "but I had to carry a message to the rear."</p> + +<p>In the instantaneous break of Bellingham's concentration, Paula +recovered herself sufficiently to dart into the car.</p> + +<p>"Down, if you please," she said hoarsely. "The gentleman is going up."</p> + +<p>Bellingham, who had started to follow, was stopped by the sliding-door. +The conductor called that he would be back directly, as his car slid +down.... In the untellable disorganization of mind, Paula knew for the +moment only this: she must reach the outer darkness instantly or expire. +In that swift drop to the main floor, and in the brief interval required +to stop the car and slide the door, she endured all the agony of +tightened fingers upon her throat. There was an ease in racing limbs, as +she sped across the tiles to the entrance, as a frightened child rushes +from a dark room. She would die if the great door resisted—pictured it +all before her hand touched the knob. She would turn, scream, and fall +from suffocation. Her scream would call about her the horror that she +feared.</p> + +<p>The big door answered, as it seemed, with a sort of leisurely dignity to +her spasm of strength—and out under the rain-blurred lamps, she ran, +ready to faint if any one called, and continually horrified lest +something pluck at her skirts—thus to Central Park West. An Eighth +Avenue car was approaching, half a square above. To stand and wait, in +the fear lest Bellingham reach the corner in time for the car, assailed +the last of her vitality. It was not until she had boarded it, and was +beyond reach of a pedestrian on Cathedral Way, that she breathed as one +who has touched shore after the Rapids. Still, every south-bound cab +renewed her panic. She could have made time to South Ferry by changing +to the Elevated, but fear of encountering the Destroyer prevented this. +Fully three-quarters of an hour was used in reaching the waiting-room, +where she was fortunate in catching a Staten Island boat without delay. +Every figure that crossed the bridge after her, until the big ferry put +off, Paula scrutinized; then sank nearly fainting into a seat.</p> + +<p>Bellingham's plot was clear to her mind, as well as certain elements of +his craft to obviate every possibility of failure. He had doubtless seen +her enter the house, and timed his control to dethrone her volition as +she reached her rooms. Since the elevator-man would not have taken him +up, without word from her, Bellingham had hastened in and started up the +stairs when the car was called from the main floor. His shock at finding +her in the second-hall was extraordinary, since he was doubtless +struggling with the entire force of his concentration, to hold her in +the higher apartment and to prepare her mind for his own reception. It +was that moment that the elevator-man had saved her; yet, she could not +forget how the voice of Quentin Charter had broken the magician's power +a moment before; and it occurred to her now how wonderfully throughout +her whole Bellingham experience, something of the Westerner's spirit had +sustained her in the crises—Quentin Charter's book that first night in +Prismatic Hall; Quentin Charter's letter to which she had clung during +the dreadful interview in the Park....</p> + +<p>As for Quentin Charter rushing immediately to the woman of lawless +attractions, because he had not received the hoped-for note at the +<i>Granville</i>—in this appeared a wantonness almost beyond belief. Wearily +she tried to put the man and his base action entirely out of mind. And +Selma Cross, whose animation had been so noticeable when informed of +Charter's coming, had fallen beneath the reach of Paula's emotions.... +She could pity—with what a torrential outpouring—could she pity "that +finest, lowest head!"</p> + +<p>She stepped out on deck. The April night was inky-black. All day there +had been a misty rain from which the chill of winter was gone. The +dampness was sweet to breathe and fresh upon her face. The smell of +ocean brought up from the subconscious, a thought already in tangible +formation there. The round clock in the cabin forward had indicated +nine-forty-five. It seemed more like another day, than only an hour and +a half ago, that she had caught the Eighth Avenue car at Cathedral Way. +The ferry was nearing the Staten slip. In a half-hour more, she would +reach Reifferscheid's house. Her heart warmed with gratitude for a +friend to whom she could say as little or as much as she pleased, yet +find him, heart and home, at her service. One must be terrified and know +the need of a refuge in the night to test such values. A few hours +before, she had rejected the thought of going, because a slight +formality had not been attended to. Hard pressed now, she was seeking +him in the midst of the night.... At the mention of the big man's name, +the conductor on the Silver Lake car took her in charge, helped her off +at the right road, and pointed out the Reifferscheid light. Thus she +felt her friend's kindness long before she heard the big elms whispering +over his cottage. The front-window was frankly uncurtained, and the +editor sat within, soft-shirted and eminently comfortable beside a +green-shaded reading-lamp. She even saw him drop his book at her step +upon the walk. A moment later, she blinked at him laughingly, as he +stood in the light of the wide open doorway.</p> + +<p>"Properly 'Driven From Home,' I suppose I should be tear-stained and in +shawl and apron," she began.</p> + +<p>He laughed delightedly, and exclaimed: "How could Father be so +obdurate—alas, a-a-las! Lemme see, this is a fisherman's hut on the +moors, or a gardener's lodge on the shore. Anyway, it's good to have you +here.... Annie!"</p> + +<p>He took her hat and raincoat, wriggling meanwhile into a coat of his +own, arranged a big chair before the grate, then removed her rubbers. +Not a question did he ask, and Sister Annie's greeting presently, from +her chair, was quite the same—as if the visit and the hour were exactly +in order.</p> + +<p>"You'll stay a day or two, won't you?" he asked. "Honestly, I don't like +the way they treat you up there beyond the Park.... It will be fine +to-morrow. This soft rain will make Mother Earth turn over and take an +eye-opener——"</p> + +<p>"The truth is, I want to stay until there's a ship for the Antilles," +she told him, "and I don't know when the first one goes."</p> + +<p>"I hope it's a week at least," he said briskly. "The morning papers are +here with all the sailings. A sea-voyage will do you a world of good, +and Europe doesn't compare with a trip to the Caribbean."</p> + +<p>"Just you two—and one other—are to know," Paula added nervously.</p> + +<p>Reifferscheid had gathered up a bundle of papers, and was turning pages +swiftly. "There isn't a reason in the world why everybody should know," +he remarked lightly, "only you'd better be Lottie or Daisy +Whats-her-name, as the cabin lists of all outgoing ships are available +to any one who looks."</p> + +<p>"Tim will be delighted to make everything easy for you," Sister Annie +put in.</p> + +<p>Thus mountains dissolved. The soulful accord and the instant sympathy +which sprang to meet her every word, and the valor behind it all, so +solid as to need no explanation—were more than Paula could bear.... +Reifferscheid looked up from his papers, finding that she did not speak, +started with embarrassment, and darted to the buffet. A moment later he +had given her a glass of wine and vanished from the room with an armful +of newspapers. The door had no sooner closed upon him than Paula +discovered the outstretched arms of Sister Annie. In the several moments +which followed her heart was healed and soothed through a half-forgotten +luxury....</p> + +<p>"The twin-screw liner, <i>Fruitlands</i>,—do you really want the first?" +Reifferscheid interrupted himself, when he was permitted to enter later.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, it sails in forty-eight hours, or a little less—Savannah, +Santiago de Cuba, San Juan de Porto Rico—and down to the little +Antilles—Tuesday night at ten o'clock at the foot of Manhattan."</p> + +<p>"That will do very well," Paula said, "and I'd like to go straight to +the ship from here—if you'll——"</p> + +<p>"Berth—transportation—trunks—and sub-let your flat, if you like," +Reifferscheid said as gleefully as a boy invited for a week's hunt. +"Why, Miss Linster, I am the original arrangement committee."</p> + +<p>"You have always been wonderful to me," Paula could not help saying, +though it shattered his ease. "This one other who must know is Madame +Nestor. She'll take care of my flat and pack things for me—if you'll +get a message to her in the morning when you go over. I don't expect to +be gone so long that it will be advisable to sub-let."</p> + +<p>"Which is emphatically glad tidings," Reifferscheid remarked hastily.</p> + +<p>"You'll want all your summer clothes," said Sister Annie. "Tim will see +to your trunks."</p> + +<p>"Sometime, I'll make it all plain," Paula tried to say steadily. "It's +just been life to me—this coming here—and knowing that I could come +here——"</p> + +<p>"Miss Linster," Reifferscheid broke in, "I don't want to have to +disappear again. The little things you need done, I'd do for any one in +the office. Please bear in mind that Sister Annie and I would be +hurt—if you didn't let us do them. Why, we belong—in a case like this. +Incidentally, you are doing a bully thing—to take a sail down past that +toy-archipelago. They say you can hear the parakeets screeching out from +the palm-trees on the shore, and each island has a different smell of +spice. It will be great for you—rig you out with a new set of wings. +You must take Hearn along. I've got his volume here on the West Indies. +He'll tell you the color of the water your ship churns. Each day farther +south it's a different blue——"</p> + +<p>So he jockeyed her into laughing, and she slept long and dreamlessly +that night, as she had done once before in the same room.... The second +night following, Reifferscheid put her aboard the <i>Fruitlands</i>.</p> + +<p>"It's good you thought of taking your cabin under a borrowed name, +Miss—er—Wyndam—Miss Laura Wyndam," he said in a low voice, for the +passengers were moving about. "I'll write you all about it. You have +famous friends. Selma Cross, who is playing at the <i>Herriot</i>, wanted to +know where you were. I thought for a minute she was going to throw me +down and take it away from me. Quentin Charter, by the way, is in town +and asked about you. Seemed depressed when I told him you were out of +town, and hadn't sent your address to me yet. I told him and Miss Cross +that mail for you sent to <i>The States</i> would get to you eventually. Both +said they would write—so you'll hear from them on the ship that follows +this." He glanced at her queerly for a second, and added, "Good-by, and +a blessed voyage to you, Tired Lady. Write us how the isles bewitch you, +and I'll send you a package of books every ship or two——"</p> + +<p>"Good-by—my first of friends!"</p> + +<p>Two hours afterward Paula took a last turn on deck. The spray swept in +gusts over the <i>Fruitlands's</i> dipping prow. The bare masts, tipped with +lights, swung with a giant sweep from port to starboard and back to port +again, fingering the black heavens for the blown-out stars. She was +lonely, but not altogether miserable, out there on the tossing floor of +the Atlantic....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SEVENTEENTH_CHAPTER" id="SEVENTEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF SAINT PIERRE, WHERE +<i>LA MONTAGNE PELÉE</i> GIVES WARNING</h3> + + +<p>Wonderfully strengthened, she was, by the voyage. Sorrow had destroyed +large fields of verdure, and turned barren the future, but its devouring +was finished. Quentin Charter was adjusted in her mind to a duality with +which Paula Linster could have no concern. Only to one mistress could he +be faithful; indeed, it was only in the presence of this mistress that +he became the tower of visions to another; in the midst of the work he +worshipped, Quentin Charter had heard the Skylark sing. Paula did not +want to see him again, nor Selma Cross. To avoid these two, as well as +the place where the Destroyer had learned so well to penetrate, she had +managed not to return to her apartment during the two days before +sailing.... There would never be another master-romance—never again so +rich a giving, nor so pure an ideal. Before this tragic reality, the +inner glory of her womanhood became meaningless. It was this that made +the future a crossing of sterile tundras,—yet she would keep her +friends, and love her work, and try to hold her faith....</p> + +<p>Bellingham did not call her at sea, but he had frightened her too +profoundly to be far from mind. The face she had seen in the hall-way +was drawn and disordered by the dreadful tortures of nether-planes; and +awful in the eyes, was that feline vacancy of soul. Once in a dream, she +saw him—a pale reptile-monster upreared from a salty sea, voiceless in +that oceanic isolation, a shameful secret of the depths. The ghastly +bulk had risen with a mute protest to the sky against dissolution and +creeping decay—and sounded again....</p> + +<p>To her, Bellingham was living death, the triumph of desire which rends +itself, the very essence of tragedy. She gladly would have died to make +her race see the awfulness of <i>just flesh</i>—as she saw it now.... His +power seemed ended; she felt with the Reifferscheids and Madame Nestor, +that her secret was hermetic, and there was a goodly sense of security +in the intervening sea....</p> + +<p>And now there was a new island each day; each morning a fresh garden +arose from the Caribbean—sun-wooed, rain-softened isles with colorful +little ports.... There was one tropic city—she could not recall the +name—which from the offing had looked like the flower-strewn gateway to +an amphitheatre of mountains.</p> + +<p>The <i>Fruitlands</i> had lain for a day in the hot, sharky harbor of +Santiago; had run into a real cloudburst off the Silver Reefs of Santo +Domingo, and breathed on the radiant next morning before the stately and +ancient city of San Juan de Porto Rico—shining white as a dream-castle +of old Spain, and adrift in an azure world of sky and sea. She spent a +day and an evening in this isle of ripe fruits and riper amours; and +took away materials for a memory composite of interminable siestas, +restless radiant nights, towering cliffs, incomparable courtesy, and +soft-voiced maidens with wondrous Spanish eyes that laugh and turn away.</p> + +<p>Then for two days they had steamed down past the saintly +archipelago—St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Kitts; then Montserrat, +Guadeloupe, Dominica, and a legion of littler isles—truncated peaks +jutting forth from fragrant, tinted water. There were afternoons when +she did not care to lift her voice or move about. Fruit-juices and the +simplest salads, a flexible cane chair under the awnings, a book to rest +the eyes from the gorgeous sea and enchanted shores, somnolence rather +than sleep—these are enough for the approach to perfection in the +Caribbean, with the Lesser Antilles on the lee.... Then at last in late +afternoon, the great hulking shape of Pelée loomed watery green against +the sky; in the swift-speeding twilight, the volcano seemed to swell and +blacken until it was like the shadow of a continent, and the lights of +Saint Pierre pricked off the edge of the land.</p> + +<p>At last late at night, queerly restless, she sat alone on deck in the +windless roadstead and regarded the illumined terraces of Saint Pierre. +They had told her that the breath from Martinique was like the heavy +moist sweetness of a horticultural garden, but the island must have been +sick with fever this night, for a mile at sea the land-breeze was dry, +devitalized, irritating the throat and nostrils.</p> + +<p>There was no moon, and the stars were so faint in the north that the +mass of Pelée was scarcely shaped against the sky. The higher lights of +the city had a reddish uncertain glow, as if a thin film of fog hung +between them and the eye; but to the south the night cleared into pure +purple and unsullied tropic stars. The harbor was weirdly hot.</p> + +<p>Before her was the city which held the quest of her voyaging—Father +Fontanel, the holy man of Saint Pierre.... <i>Only a stranger can realize +what a pure shining garment his actual flesh has become. To me there was +healing in the very approach of the man....</i> This was the enduring +fragment from the Charter letters; and in that dreadful Sunday night +when she began her flight from Bellingham, already deep within her mind +Father Fontanel was the goal.... Paula set out for shore early the next +morning. The second-officer of the <i>Fruitlands</i> sat beside her in the +launch. She spoke of the intense sultriness.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Saint Pierre is glowing like a brazier," he said. "I was ashore +last night for awhile. The people blame the mountain. Old Pelée has been +acting up—showering the town with ash every little while lately. It's +the taint of sulphur that spoils the air."</p> + +<p>She turned apprehensively toward the volcano. <i>La Montague Pelée</i>, over +the red-tiled roofs of Saint Pierre, looked huge like an Emperor of the +Romans. Paled in the intense morning light, he wore a delicate ruching +of white cloud about his crown. They stepped ashore on the Sugar Landing +where Paula found a carriage to take her to the <i>Hotel des Palms</i>, a +rare old plantation-house on the <i>Morne d'Orange</i>, recently converted +for public use.</p> + +<p>The ponies were ascending the rise in <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i>, at the southern +end of the city, when Paula discovered the little Catholic church she +had imaged for so many weeks, <i>Notre Dame des Lourdes</i>, niched away in +the crowded streets with a Quebec-like quaintness, and all the holier +from its close association with the lowly shops. From these walls had +risen the spiritual house of Father Fontanel—her far bright beacon.... +The <i>porteuses</i>, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident, +wore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails, +steadying the baskets upon their heads. The pressure of the heat, and +the dispiriting atmosphere revealed their effects in the distended +eyelids and colorless, twisted lips of the burden-bearers.</p> + +<p>The ponies at length gained the eminence of the <i>Morne d'Orange</i>, and +ahead she saw the broad, white plantation-house—<i>Hotel des Palms</i>. To +the right was the dazzling, turquoise sea where the <i>Fruitlands</i> lay +large among the shipping, and near her a private sea-going yacht, nearly +as long and angelically white. The broad verandas of the hotel were +alluring with palms; the walls and portcullises were cooled with +embroidering vines. Gardens flamed with poinsettias and roses, and a +shaded grove of mango and India trees at the end of the lawn, was edged +with moon flowerets and oleanders. Back of the plantation-house waved +the sloping seas of cane; in front, the Caribbean. On the south rose the +peaks of Carbet; on the north, the Monster.</p> + +<p>Paula had hardly left the veranda of magnificent vistas two hours later, +when the friendly captain of the <i>Fruitlands</i> approached with an elderly +American, of distinguished appearance, whom he presented—Mr. Peter +Stock, of Pittsburg.</p> + +<p>"Since you are to leave us here, Miss Wyndam," the captain added, "I +thought you would be glad to know Mr. Stock, who makes an annual cruise +around these Islands—and knows them better than any American I've +encountered yet. Yonder is his yacht—that clipper-built beauty just a +bit in from the liner."</p> + +<p>"I've already been admiring the yacht," Paula said, "and wondering her +name. There's something Venetian about her dazzling whiteness in the +soft, deep blue."</p> + +<p>"I get it exactly, Miss Wyndam—that 'mirage of marble' in the Italian +sky.... My craft is the <i>Saragossa</i>." His eyelids were tightened against +the light, and the voice was sharp and brisk. His face, tropically +tanned, contrasted effectively with the close-cropped hair and mustache, +lustrous-white as his ship.... Paula having found the captain's courtesy +and good sense invariable during the voyage, gladly accepted his friend, +who proved most interesting on the matter of Pelée.</p> + +<p>"I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual," he told her, +pointing toward the mountain, "to study the old man yonder. Pelée, you +know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of +Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present +disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell—I use the word to +signify a geological stratum—is very close to the surface down here. +All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great +subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time +under the Caribbean—and rub out our very pretty panorama."</p> + +<p>"You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?" Paula asked.</p> + +<p>The vaguest sort of a smile passed over his eyes and touched his lips. +"Pelée and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of +these islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the +archipelago—Pelée's present internal complaint, for instance,—should +be taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this +morning—except for the heavy rain before dawn."</p> + +<p>"You mean volcanic ash?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"That explains the white scum I saw in the gutters, driving through the +city.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to +behave this way?"</p> + +<p>"From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelée has had a +session of grumbling."</p> + +<p>"I mean as a usual thing——"</p> + +<p>He turned to her abruptly and inquired, "Didn't you know that there +hasn't been a sound from Pelée for twenty years before the month of +April now ending?"</p> + +<p>This gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now, +but after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda.</p> + +<p>"Ever been in Pittsburg?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air—to think I'm back +among the steel mills of the lower Monongahela."</p> + +<p>"The moon looks like beaten egg," Paula said with a slight shiver. "They +must be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelée, Mr. +Stock, please tell me more about him."</p> + +<p>He had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet +peaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics, +but was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. "It's the +ash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen," he +explained. "We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain."</p> + +<p>They turned to the north where a low rumbling was heard. It was like +distant thunder, but the horizon beyond Pelée was unscathed by +lightning.</p> + +<p>"Are you really worried, Mr. Stock?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's as I said. The fact that Pelée is acting out of the ordinary +is quite enough to make any one skeptical regarding his intentions."</p> + +<p>He discussed familiarly certain of the man-eaters among the mountains of +the world—Krakatoa, Bandaisan, Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, Ætna, calling them +chronic old ruffians, whom Time doesn't tame.</p> + +<p>"A thousand years is nothing to them," he added. "They wait, still as +crocodiles, until seers have built their temples in the high rifts and +cities have formed on their flanks. They have tasted blood, you see, and +the madness comes back. Twenty years is only a siesta. Pelée is a +suspect."</p> + +<p>"I think I should prefer to hear you tell the treachery of volcanoes +outside of the fire-zone," she declared. "It's like listening to ghost +stories in a haunted house."</p> + +<p>Pelée rumbled again, and Paula's fingers involuntarily started toward +his sleeve. The heavy wooden shutters of the great house rattled in the +windless night; the ground upon which they stood seemed to wince at the +Monster's pain. She was conscious of the fragrance of roses and magnolia +blooms above the acrid taint of the air. Some strange freak of the +atmosphere exerted a pressure upon the flowers, forcing a sudden +expulsion of perfume. The young moon was a formless blotch now in the +fouled sky. A sigh like the whimpering of many sick children was audible +from the servants' cabins behind the hotel.... Later, from her own room, +she saw the double chain of lights out in the harbor—the <i>Saragossa</i> +pulling at her moorings among the lesser craft, like a bright empress in +the midst of dusky maid-servants; and in the north was Vulcan struggling +to contain the fury of his fluids. She was a little afraid of Pelée.</p> + +<p>Very early abroad, Paula set out on her first pilgrimage to <i>Notre Dame +des Lourdes</i>. Rain had not fallen in the night, and she regarded a white +world, as Stock had promised, and the source of the phenomenon with the +pastelle tints of early morning upon his huge eastern slope. She had +slept little and with her face turned to the north. A cortege had passed +before her in dream—all the destroyers of history, each with a vivid +individuality, like the types of faces of all nations—the story of each +and the desolation it had made among men and the works of men.</p> + +<p>Most of them had given warning. Pelée was warning now. His warning was +written upon the veins of every leaf, painted upon the curve of every +blade of grass, sheeted evenly-white upon the red tiles of every roof. +Gray dust blown by steam from the bursting quarries of the mountain +clogged the gutters of the city and the throats of men. It was a moving, +white cloud in the river, a chalky shading that marked the highest reach +of the harbor tide. It settled in the hair of the children, and +complicated the toil of bees in the nectar-cups. With league-long +cerements, and with a voice that caused to tremble his dwarfed +companions, the hills and <i>mornes</i>, great Pelée had proclaimed his +warning in the night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="EIGHTEENTH_CHAPTER" id="EIGHTEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT PIERRE AND <i>THE +PANTHER</i> CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL</h3> + + +<p>Father Fontanel was out in the parish somewhere. One of the washer-women +told her this, at the door of the church. There were many sick in the +city from the great heat and the burned air—many little children sick. +Father Fontanel always sought the sick in body; those who were sick in +soul, sought him.... So the woman of the river-banks, in her simple way, +augmented the story of the priest's love for his people. Paula rested +for a few moments in the dim transept. Natives moved in and out for a +breath of coolness, some pausing to kneel upon the worn tiles of the +nave. Later she walked among the lower streets of the suffering city, +her heart filled with pity for the throngs housed on the low breathless +water-front. Except when the wind was straight from the volcano, the +hotel on the <i>Morne d'Orange</i> was made livable by the cool Trades.</p> + +<p>The clock in the <i>Hopital l'Militaire</i> struck the hour of nine. Paula +had just hired a carriage at the Sugar Landing, when her eye was +attracted by a small crowd gathering near the water's edge. The black +cassock of a priest in the midst drew her hurrying forward. A young man, +she thought at first, from the frail shoulders and the slender waist.... +A negress had fallen from the heat. Her burdens lay together upon the +shore—a tray of cakes from her head, and a naked babe from her arms.... +A glimpse at the priest's profile, and she needed not to be told that +this was the holy man of Saint Pierre.</p> + +<p>Happiness lived in the face above the deep pity of the moment. It was an +attraction of light, like the brow of Mary in Murillo's <i>Immaculate +Conception</i>; or like that instant ethereal radiance which shines from +the face of a little child passing away without pain. The years had put +an exquisite nobility upon the plain countenance, and the inner life had +added the gleam of adoration—"the rapture-light of holy vigils kept."</p> + +<p>Paula rubbed her eyes, afraid lest it were not true; afraid for a moment +that it was her own meditations that had wrought this miracle in clay. +Lingering, she ceased to doubt the soul's transfiguration.... Father +Fontanel beckoned a huge negro from a lighter laden with +molasses-casks—a man of strength, bare to the waist.</p> + +<p>"Take the little mother to my house," he said.</p> + +<p>A young woman standing by was given charge of the child.... "Lift her +gently, Strong Man. The woman will show you the way to the door." Then +raising his voice to the crowd, the priest added, "You who are +well—tell others that it is yet cool in the church. Carry the ailing +ones there, and the little children. Father Pelée will soon be silent +again.... Does any one happen to know who owns the beautiful ship in the +harbor?"</p> + +<p>His French sentences seemed lifted above a pervasive hush upon the +shore. The native faces wore a curious look of adulation; and Paula +marvelled in that they seemed unconscious of this. She was not a +Catholic; yet she uttered his name with a thrilling rapture, and with a +meaning she had never known before:</p> + +<p>"Father Fontanel——"</p> + +<p>He turned, instantly divining her inspiration.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Stock, who owns the ship yonder, is staying at the <i>Hotel des +Palms</i>," she said quickly. "I have a carriage here. I was thinking that +the sick woman and her child might be taken to your house in that. +Afterward, when she is cared for, you might wish to ride with me to the +Hotel—where I also live."</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Child—who are you?"</p> + +<p>"Just a visitor in Saint Pierre—a woman from the States."</p> + +<p>Her arrangement was followed, and the negro went back to his work. +Father Fontanel joined her behind the carriage.</p> + +<p>"But you speak French so well," he observed.</p> + +<p>"Not a few Americans do. I was grateful that it came back to me here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, for I do not speak a word of English," he said humbly.</p> + +<p>They walked for a moment in silence, his head bowed in thought. Paula, +glancing at him from time to time, studied the lines of pity and +tenderness which shadowed the eyes. His mouth was wonderful to her, +quite as virgin to the iron of self-repression as to the soft fullness +of physical desire. This was the marvel of the face—it was above +battle. Here were eyes that had seen the Glory and retained an unearthly +happiness—a face that moved among the lowly, loved, pitied, abode with +them; yet was beautiful with the spiritual poise of Overman.</p> + +<p>"It was strange that you did not meet Lafcadio Hearn when he was here," +she said at length.</p> + +<p>He shook his head, asked the name again and the man's work.</p> + +<p>"A writer who tarried here; a mystic, too, strange and strong."</p> + +<p>"I know no writer by that name—but how did you know that I did not meet +him, Child?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking he would write about you in his book of Martinique +sketches—had he known."</p> + +<p>He accepted the explanation innocently. "There was a writer here—a +young man very dear to me—of whom you reminded me at once——"</p> + +<p>"Of whom I reminded you, Father?" she repeated excitedly. "You mean +because I spoke of another writer?"</p> + +<p>"No, I saw a resemblance—rather some relationship of yours to my +wonderful young friend.... He said he would come again to me."</p> + +<p>She had spoken of Hearn in the hope that Father Fontanel would be +reminded of another writer whose name she did not care to mention. His +idea of relationship startled her to the heart; yet when she asked +further, the good man could not explain. It had merely been his first +thought, he said,—as if she had <i>come</i> from his friend.</p> + +<p>"You thought much of him then, Father Fontanel?"</p> + +<p>He spoke with power now. "A character of terrible thirsts, Child,—such +thirsts as I have never known. Some moments as he walked beside me, I +have felt him—like a giant with wolves pulling at his thighs, and +angels lifting his arms. Great strength of mind, his presence endowed +me, so that I would have seen more of him, and more,—but he will come +back! And I know that the wolves shall have been slain, when he comes +again——"</p> + +<p>"And the angels, Father?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Such are the companions of the Lifted, my daughter.... It is when I +meet one of great conflicts that I am suffused with the spirit of +worship in that I am spared. God makes my way so easy that I must wonder +if I am not one of His very weak. It must be so, for my mornings and +evenings are made lovely by the Presence. My people hearken unto my +prayers for them; they love me and bring their little children for my +blessing—until I am so happy that I cry aloud for some great work to do +that I may strive heroically to show my gratitude to God—and lo, the +doors of my work are opened, but there are no lions in the way!"</p> + +<p>She knew now all that Charter had meant. In her breast was a silent +mystic stirring—akin to that endearing miracle enacted in a +conservatory of flowers, when the morning sun first floods down upon the +glass.... The initial doubt of her own valor in suffering Selma Cross to +shatter her Tower, sprang into being now. Father Fontanel loved him, and +had looked within.</p> + +<p>That the priest had perceived a "relationship" swept into the woman's +soul. Low logic wrought from the physical contacts of Selma Cross +trembled before the other immaterial suggestion—that Quentin Charter +would come back to Saint Pierre triumphantly companioned, his wolves +slain.... She forgot nothing of the actress's point of view; nor that +the Westerner did not reach her floor in the <i>Zoroaster</i> and encounter +an old attraction by accident. He was not one to force his way there, if +the man at the elevator told him Miss Linster was not in. All of these +things which had driven her to action were still inexplicable, but final +condemnation was gone from the evidence—as the stone rolled away.</p> + +<p>Bellingham?... The mystery now, as she stood within this radiant aura, +was that any point of his desire could ever have found lodgment within. +Her sense of protection at this moment was absolute. She had done well +to come here.... Again swept into mind, Quentin Charter's silent part in +saving her from the Destroyer—the book, the letter, the voice; even to +this sanctuary she had come through a sentence from him. For a moment +the old master-romance shone glorious again—like a lone, valiant star +glimpsed in the rift of storm-hurled clouds.</p> + +<p>They had reached the low street door of Father Fontanel's house, a wing +of the church. A native doctor had been summoned and helped to carry the +woman in. She was revived presently.</p> + +<p>"Father," Paula said, remembering the words of the washer-woman, as they +emerged into the street, "when one is sick of soul—does one knock +here?"</p> + +<p>"One does not knock, but enters straightway," he answered. "The door is +never locked.... But you look very happy, my daughter."</p> + +<p>"I am happy," she answered.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They drove together to the <i>Hotel des Palms</i>. Paula did not ask, though +she had something of an idea regarding the priest's purpose in asking +for Peter Stock. Though she had formed a very high opinion of the +American, it occurred to her that he would hardly approve of any one +directing arteries of philanthropy to his hand. He had been one of those +ruffian giants of the elder school of finance who began with the axe and +the plow; whose health, character and ethics had been wrought upon the +anvil of privation; whose culture began in middle life, and, being +hard-earned, was eminent in the foreground of mind—austere and +inelastic, this culture, yet solidly founded. Stock was rich and loved +to give, but was rather ashamed of it. Paula could imagine him saying, +"I hate the whining of the strong." For twenty years since his +retirement, he had voyaged about the world, learning to love beautiful +things, and giving possibly many small fortunes away; yet he much would +have preferred to acknowledge that he had knocked down a brute than +endowed an asylum. Mr. Stock was firm in opinion, dutiful in +appreciation for the fine. His sayings were strongly savored, reliant +with facts; his every thought was the result of a direct physical +process of mind,—a mind athletic to grip the tangible, but which had +not yet contracted for its spiritual endowment. In a word a splendid +type of American with which to blend an ardently artistic +temperament.... Paula, holding something of this conception of the +capitalist, became eager to see what adjustment could follow a meeting +with his complement in characteristic qualities—her revered mystic. Mr. +Stock was pacing up and down the mango grove. Leaving Father Fontanel on +the veranda, she joined the American.</p> + +<p>"I found a holy man down on the water-front, mildly inquiring who owned +the <i>Saragossa</i>," she said laughingly, "and asked him to share my +carriage. He has not told me what he wants, but he's a very wonderful +priest."</p> + +<p>She noted the instant contraction of his brows, and shrank inwardly at +the hard, rapid tone, with which he darted the question:</p> + +<p>"Are you a Catholic?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Stock."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll see him." It was as if he were talking to his secretary, but +Paula liked him too well to mind. They drew near the veranda.</p> + +<p>"... Well, sir, what is it?" he spoke brusquely, and in French, studying +the priest's upturned face. Mr. Stock believed he knew faces. Except for +the years and the calling, he would have decided that Father Fontanel +was rather too meek and feminine—at first glance.</p> + +<p>"What I wished to ask depends upon your being here for a day or two," +the priest said readily. "Father Pelée's hot breath is killing our +children in the lower quarters of the city, and many of the poor women +are suffering. The ship out in the harbor looked to me like a good angel +with folded wings, as I walked the water-front this morning. I thought +you would be glad to let me send some mothers and babies—to breathe the +good air of the offing. A day, or a night and a day, may save lives."</p> + +<p>Paula had felt a proprietary interest in Father Fontanel's mission, no +matter what it proved to be. She was pleased beyond measure to find that +he was entirely incapable of awe or cringing, before a man of stern and +distinguished mien and of such commanding dignity. Moreover, he stated +the favor quite as if it were an advantage which the American had not +thought of for himself. So interested was she in the priest's utterance, +that when her eyes turned from his face to Stock's—the alteration there +amazed her. And like the natives of the water-front, the American did +not seem to be <i>aware</i> of the benign influence. He had followed the +French sentences intently at first, but caught the whole idea before the +priest was finished.</p> + +<p>"Did you know I wasn't a Catholic?" he asked. The question apparently +had been in his mind before he felt himself responding to the appeal.</p> + +<p>"No," Father Fontanel answered sincerely. "The truth is, it didn't occur +to me whether you were or not."</p> + +<p>"Quite right," Mr. Stock said quickly. "It has no place, whatever, so +long as you don't think so. You've got a good idea. I'll be here for a +day or two. You'll need money to hire boats; then my first officer will +have to be informed. My launch is at the Sugar Landing.... On second +thought, I'll go back down-town with you.... Miss Wyndam—later in the +day—a chat with you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>Father Fontanel turned, thanking her with a smile. "And the name is +'Wyndam,'" he added. "I had not heard it before."</p> + +<p>Paula watched them walking down the driveway to the carriage which she +had retained for Father Fontanel. The inclination was full-formed to +seek the solitude of her room and there review the whole delightful +matter.... She was glad that the priest had not asked her name, for +under his eyes—she could not have answered "Wyndam."</p> + +<p>It was not until the following evening, after a day of actual physical +suffering from Pelée and the heat, even on the <i>Morne</i>, that she had the +promised talk with Peter Stock.</p> + +<p>"I like your priest," he said, "He works like a man, and he hasn't got a +crook in his back. What he wants he seems to get. I have sent over a +hundred natives out yonder on the <i>Saragossa</i>, negotiated for the town's +whole available supply of fresh milk, and Laird, my chief officer, is +giving the party a little cruise to-night——"</p> + +<p>"Do you know—I think it is splendid?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"The work—your ship filled with gasping unfortunates from the city!"</p> + +<p>"Do you happen to know of any reason why an idle ship should not be used +for some such purpose?"</p> + +<p>"None, whatever," she said demurely, quite willing that he should adjust +the matter to suit himself. His touchiness upon the subject of his own +benefactions remanded her pleasurably of Reifferscheid. Her inward joy +was to study in Peter Stock the unacknowledged influence of Father +Fontanel—or was it an unconscious influence? The American's further +activities unfolded:</p> + +<p>"By the way, have you been reading the French paper here—<i>Les +Colonies</i>?"</p> + +<p>Paula had not.</p> + +<p>"The editor, M. Mondet, is the smug authority for a statement yesterday +that Saint Pierre is in absolutely no danger from the mountain. Now, of +course, this may be true, but he doesn't know it—unless he should have +the Dealer in Destiny on the wire. There is always a big enough +percentage of foolish virgins in a city, so it peeved me to find one in +the sole editorial capacity. My first impulse was to calk up the throat +of M. Mondet with several sheets of his abominable assurances. This I +restrained, but nevertheless I called upon him to-day. His next issue +appears day after to-morrow, and my idea is for him to print a vigorous +warning against Pelée. Why, he could clear the town of ten thousand +people for a few days—until the weather settles. Incidentally, if the +mountain took on a sudden destroying streak—just see what he would have +done! Some glory in saving lives on that scale."</p> + +<p>"Vine leaves, indeed," said Paula, "Did M. Mondet tell you he would +print this warning?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly. He pointed out the cost of detaching a third of the city's +inhabitants. I told him how this cost could be brought down within +reason, and showed myself not unwilling to back the exodus. I'm a +practical man, Miss Wyndam, and these things look bigger than they +really are. But you never can tell what a tubby little Frenchman will +do. It's atrocious for a man in his position to say that a volcano won't +volcane—sorely tempting to old Father Pelée—a sort of challenge. It +would be bad enough to play Pilate and wash his hands of the city's +danger—but to be a white-lipped, kissing Judas at the last supper of +Saint Pierre——"</p> + +<p>"Did you tell him that?" Paula asked hastily.</p> + +<p>"Not in those words, Miss Wyndam, but he seemed to be a bit afraid of +me—kept watching my hands and pulling at his cravat. When he finally +showed me to the door, his was the delicacy of one who handles dynamite. +At all events, I'm waiting for his next issue to see if my call 'took!' +I really do wish that a lot of these people would forget their clothes, +chickens, coals, coins, and all such, for a few days and camp somewhere +between here and Fort de France."</p> + +<p>Paula was thrilled by the American's zeal. He was not content, now that +he had begun, to deal with boatloads, but wanted to stir the city. She +would have given much to know the exact part of Father Fontanel in this +rousing ardor of her new friend. "And you really think Pelée may not +hold out?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a monomaniac—at least, not yet," he replied, and his voice +suggested a certain pent savagery in his brain. "Call it an experiment +that I'm sufficiently interested in to finance. The ways of volcanoes +are past the previsions of men. I'd like to get a lot of folks out of +the fire-zone, until Pelée is cool—or a billion tons lighter. This +ordered-up-to-Nineveh business is out of my line, but it's absorbing. I +don't say that Pelée will blow his head off this week or this +millennium, but I do say that there are vaults of explosives in that +monster, the smallest of which could make this city look like a leper's +corpse upon the beach. I say that the internal fires are burning high; +that they're already playing about the vital cap; that Pelée has already +sprung several leaks, and that the same force which lifted this cheerful +archipelago from the depths of the sea is pressing against the craters +at this moment. I say that Vesuvius warned before he broke; that +Krakatoa warned and then struck; that down the ages these safety valves +scattered over the face of the earth have mercifully joggled before +giving way; that Pelée is joggling now."</p> + +<p>"If M. Mondet would write just that," Paula said softly, "I think you +would have your exodus."</p> + +<p>She sought her room shortly afterward. Pelée's moods had been variable +that day. The north had been obscured by a fresh fog in the afternoon. +The ash and sulphur fumes, cruel to the lungs on the breezy <i>Morne</i>, six +miles from the craters, gave her an intimation of the anguish of the +people in the intervening depression where the city lay. The twilight +had brought ease again and a ten-minute shower, so there was real +freshness in the early evening. Rippling waves of merriment reached her +from the darky quarters, as the young men from the fields came forth to +bathe in the sea. Never before was the volatile tropic soul so strongly +evidenced for her understanding, as in that glad hour of +reaction—simple hearts to glow at little things, whose swift tragedies +come and go like blighting winds which, though they may slay, leave no +wound; instant to gladden in the groves of serenity, when a black cloud +has blown by.</p> + +<p>Her mind was sleepless.... Once, long after midnight, when she fell into +a doze, it was only to be awakened by a dream of a garrote upon her +throat. The ash had thickened again, and the air was acrid. The hours +seemed to fall asleep in passing. From her balcony she peered into the +dead-black of the North where Pelée rumbled at intervals. Back in the +south, the blurred moon impended with an evil light. A faint wailing of +children reached her from the servants' cabins. The sense of isolation +was dreadful for a moment. It seemed to rest entirely with her that time +passed at all; that she must grapple with each moment and fight it back +into the past....</p> + +<p>The <i>Panther</i>, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint +Pierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the passing of time, +determined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day, +if morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision, +for she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched +and brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The glass showed her a +pallid face, darkly-lined.</p> + +<p>The blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it +touched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered +in that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down +through the city to the Landing she found the <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i> almost +deserted. The <i>porteuses</i> were gone from the highway; all doors were +tightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes +were stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little +island mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely +moved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she +imagined the smell of death.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years," the captain said, as +she boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had +fallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre +that day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately +after dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with +the dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the +volcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she +perceived the lights of a big liner lying near the <i>Saragossa</i>. There +was no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be the +<i>Panther</i> with letters from New York. According to her schedule, the +steamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after the <i>Fruitlands</i>. +Paula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails +would be distributed.</p> + +<p>"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the +Hotel?" the clerk inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. The <i>Panther</i> +anchored at two this morning."</p> + +<p>"Please send any letters for me to my room at once," she told him, and +went there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame +Nestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon +another, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his +care to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma +Cross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself.</p> + +<p>The latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big +envelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account +of those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work +and a hope for her health—the whole, brief, fine and tonic—like her +friend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of +emotions:</p> + +<blockquote><p>This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have +ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten +you that I searched, but because I think if you understood +entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had +better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she +has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her +those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the +truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter. +I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I +had the heart yet to see <i>The Thing</i>. Reifferscheid tells me +that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I +counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now +with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for +one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and +subtly terrifying—this ordeal for which I have been prepared. +I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What +I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you +suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you +to-night—sweet gift of the world to me.</p> + +<p>Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy +complications—and you will bring back a splendid store of +energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written +so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me +drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity—but I +have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and +it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning.</p> + +<p>I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without +you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go +away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary—when I +decide upon it—at the <i>Granville</i>. Some time soon I shall hear +from you. All shall be restored—even serenity to your +beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business +of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through +and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to +make you wiser, happier,—to keep you <i>winged</i>. This, as I know +the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you....</p> + +<p>My window at the <i>Granville</i> faces the East—the East to which +I have come—yet from the old ways, I still look to the East +for you. New York has found her Spring—a warm, almost vernal +night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths +are fluttering at the glass—softly, eagerly to get at the +light—as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for +the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the +electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... but <i>you</i> would +not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the +light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, +but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame....</p> + +<p>One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table +like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way +in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance....</p> + +<p>Bless your warm heart that brims with singing—singing which I +must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease +to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless—as +I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the +heart of Quentin Charter.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She was unconscious of passing time, until her eye was attracted by the +heavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon a <i>Herriot Theatre</i> envelope. This +communication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose +intrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it +seemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to +write, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives.</p> + +<blockquote><p>I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the +hall <i>that night</i>, because I saw your hat as you started to +walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made +me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him +come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been +hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home +that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I +sent a telephone-message to the <i>Granville</i> for him to call. +He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would +not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, +he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man +at the <i>Zoroaster</i> had orders from me to show a gentleman +inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment.</p> + +<p>My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in +what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that +night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall—to hear at +once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that +<i>we</i> had arranged—that you were somewhere in the apartment +listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words—there is so much, +and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The +woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat +so helplessly against a wall.</p> + +<p>But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. +Villiers had a spy watching all our movements—and was thus +informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter +had talked to men—all the things that his spy had learned. He +did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. +Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is +not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he +would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that +if it is not you—some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart +and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic +possibility of calling him to the <i>Zoroaster</i> blinded my +judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have +the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old +neighbor—who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the +world, but who meant to be square with you.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Paula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment +with healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched +arms, poured forth an ecstasy of gratitude for his sake; for the +restoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her +womanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat +occurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease +of mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for +New York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when +Madame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first +line brought back old fears:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard +that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two +hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang +and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes +and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,—the +desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he +had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost +instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control +was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was +gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed +by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was +gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will +help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the +interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your +place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost +unbearable that I should be forced to tell him—when I love you +so—if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered +terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his +powers—that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not +formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into +mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to +be the victory. He is breaking up or he would not <i>come to +you</i>....</p></blockquote> + +<p>For a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelée, and the gray menace +that charged the burnt-out air.</p> + +<p>Then came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never +locked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising +vibration—until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized +again.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the +key in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling +Charter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new +mental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the +balustrade for the repetition of a voice that an instant before had +thrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from +the Voice. Peter Stock was now replying:</p> + +<p>"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor," he said striding +up and down the lower hall in his rage. "A few days ago I called upon +him, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy +for him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of +insufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the +flakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall +have to call upon him again."</p> + +<p>Paula heard the low laugh of the other and the words:</p> + +<p>"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the +mountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a +line about Pelée's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed +at once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see the <i>Saragossa</i> +lying familiarly in the roadstead——"</p> + +<p>Trailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her +way back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NINETEENTH_CHAPTER" id="NINETEENTH_CHAPTER"></a>NINETEENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF <i>PELÉE</i>, AND ENCOUNTERS A +QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER</h3> + + +<p>Charter did not find Paula Linster in the week of New York that followed +his call at the <i>Zoroaster</i>, but he found Quentin Charter. The first +three or four days were rather intense in a psychological way. The old +vibrations of New York invariably contained for him a destructive +principle, as Paris held for Dr. Duprez. The furious consumption of +nerve-tissue during the first evening after his arrival; a renewal of +desires operating subconsciously, and in no small part through the +passion of Selma Cross; his last struggle, both subtle and furious, with +his own stimulus-craving temperament, and the desolation of the true +romance—combined, among other things, worthily to test the growth of +his spirit.... The thought that Skylark had fallen into the hands of +Selma Cross, and had been given that ugly estimate of him which the +actress held before his call, as he expressed it in his letter, "drove +straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity." Over this, was a +ghastly, whimpering thing that would not be immured—the effect of +which, of all assailants to rising hope, was most scarifying: That Paula +Linster had suffered herself to listen to those old horrors, and had +permitted him to be called to the bar before Selma Cross. No matter how +he handled this, it held a fundamental lesion in the Skylark-fineness.</p> + +<p>Charter whipped his wastrel tendencies one by one until on the fifth day +his resistance hardened, and the brute within him was crippled from +beating against it. His letter to Paula Linster was a triumph of +repression. Probably one out of six of the thoughts that came to him +were given expression. He felt that he had made of Selma Cross an +implacable enemy, and was pursued by the haunting dread (if, indeed, the +conversation had not been overheard), that she might think better about +"squaring" him. It was on this fifth day that for a moment the mystic +attraction returned to his consciousness, and he heard the old singing. +This was the first reward for a chastened spirit. Again and +again—though never consciously to be lured or forced—the vision, +unhurt, undiminished, returned for just an instant with a veiled, but +exquisite refinement.</p> + +<p>The newspaper account of Pelée's overflowing wrath immediately +materialized all his vague thought of voyaging. His quest had vanished +from New York. Had Selma Cross been true to her word; at least, had any +part of their interview been empowered to restore something of the faith +of Paula Linster—there had been ample time for him to hear it. He was +afraid that, in itself, his old intimacy with the actress had been +enough to startle the Skylark into uttermost flight. Reifferscheid's +frigidity had required only one test to become a deep trouble. His hint +that Miss Linster would be away two or three months rendered New York +and a return to his own home equally impossible. Father Fontanel held a +bright, substantial warmth for his isolated spirit—and the <i>Panther</i> +was among the imminent sailings.</p> + +<p>He bought his berth and passage on the morning of the sailing date, and +there was a matinée of <i>The Thing</i> in the meantime. Charter did not +notify Selma Cross of his coming, but he liked the play unreservedly, +and was amazed by the perfection of her work. He wrote her a line to +this effect; and also a note of congratulation and greeting to Stephen +Cabot.... It was not without a pang that he looked back at Manhattan +from The Narrows that night.</p> + +<p>For several mornings he had studied the gaunt, striding figure of a +fellow-passenger, who appeared to be religious in the matter of his +constitutional; or, as a sailor softly remarked as he glanced up at +Charter from his holy-stoning, "He seems to feel the need av walkin' off +sivin or eight divils before answerin' the breakfast-gong...." In +behalf of this stranger also, Charter happened to overhear the +chief-steward encouraging one of the waiters to extra-diligence in +service, Queerly, in the steward's mind, the interest seemed of a deeper +sort than even an unusual fee could exact—as if he recognized in the +stranger a man exalted in some mysterious masonry. And Charter noticed +that the haggard giant enforced a sort of willing slavery throughout the +ship—from the hands, but through the heads. This strange potentiality +was decidedly interesting; as was the figure in itself, which seemed +possessed of the strength of vikings, in spite of an impression, +inevitable to Charter when he drew near—of one enduring a sort of +Promethean dissolution. Charter reflected upon the man's eyes, which had +the startling look of having penetrated beyond the formality of +Death—into shadows where inquisition-hells were limned. It was not +until he heard the steward address the other as "Doctor Bellingham," +that the fanciful attraction weakened. His recollection crowded +instantly with newspaper paragraphs regarding the Bellingham activities. +Charter was rather normal in his masculine hatred for hypnotic artists +and itinerary confessionals for women.</p> + +<p>The <i>Panther</i> ran into a gale in that storm-crucible off Hatteras. +Charter smiled at the thought, as the striding Bellingham passed, doing +his mileage on the rocking deck, that the roar of the wind in the +funnels aloft was fierce energy in the draughts of this human furnace. +While his own interest waned, the other, curiously enough, began to +respond to his unspoken overtures of a few days before. The <i>Panther</i> +was a day out from San Juan, steaming past the far-flung coral shoals +off Santo Domingo, when Charter was beckoned forward where Bellingham +sat.</p> + +<p>"This soft air would call a Saint Francis down from his spiritual +meditations," the Doctor observed.</p> + +<p>The voice put Charter on edge, and the manner affected him with inward +humor. It was as if the other thought, "Why, there's that pleasant-faced +young man again. Perhaps it would be just as well to speak with him." As +he drew up his chair, however, Charter was conscious of an abrupt change +in his mental attitude—an inclination to combat, verbally to rush in, +seize and destroy every false utterance. His initial idea was to compel +this man who spoke so glibly of meditations to explain what the word +meant to him. This tense, nervous impatience to disqualify all the other +might say became dominant enough to be reckoned with, but when Charter +began to repress his irritation, a surprising inner resistance was +encountered. His sensation was that of one being demagnetized. Thoughts +and words came quickly with the outgoing energy of the current. +Altogether he was extraordinarily affected.</p> + +<p>"These Islands are not particularly adapted for one who pursues the +austerities," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Yet where can you find such temperamental happiness?" Bellingham +inquired, plainly testing the other. His manner of speech was flippant, +as if it were quite the same to him if his acquaintance preferred +another subject.</p> + +<p>"Anywhere among the less-evolved nations, when the people are warm and +fed."</p> + +<p>The Doctor smiled. "You will soon see the long, lithe coppery bodies of +the Islanders, as they plunge into the sea from the Antillean cliffs. +You will hear the soft laughter of the women, and then you will forget +to deny their perfection." Sensuality exhaled from the utterance.</p> + +<p>"You speak of the few brief zenith years which lie at the end of youth," +Charter said. "This sort of perfection exists anywhere. In the Antilles +it certainly is not because the natives have learned how to preserve +life."</p> + +<p>"That's just the point," said Bellingham, "Add to their natural gifts of +beautiful young bodies—the knowledge of preservation."</p> + +<p>"Take a poor, unread Island boy and inform him how to live forever," +Charter observed. "Of course, he'll grasp the process instantly. But +wouldn't it be rather severe on the other boys and girls, if the usual +formula of perpetuating self is used? I mean, would he not have to +restore his vitality from the others?"</p> + +<p>Bellingham stared at him. Charter faced it out, but not without cost, +for the livid countenance before him grew more and more ghastly and +tenuous, until it had the effect of becoming altogether unsubstantial; +and out of this wraith shone the eyes of the serpent. The clash of wills +was quickly passed.</p> + +<p>"You have encountered a different fountain of youth from mine," the +Doctor said gently.</p> + +<p>"Rather I have encountered a disgust for any serious consideration of +immortality in the body."</p> + +<p>"Interesting, but our good Saint Paul says that those who are in the +body when the last call sounds, will be caught up—without disturbing +the sleep of the dead."</p> + +<p>"It would be rather hard on such bodies—if the chariots were of fire," +Charter suggested.</p> + +<p>He was inwardly groping for his poise. He could think well enough, but +it disturbed him to feel the need to avoid the other's eyes. He liked +the shaping of the conversation and knew that Bellingham felt himself +unknown. Charter realized, too, that he would strike fire if he hammered +long enough, but there was malevolence in the swift expenditure of +energy demanded.</p> + +<p>Bellingham smiled again. "Then you think it is inevitable that the end +of man is—the clouds?"</p> + +<p>"The aspiration of the spirit, I should say, is to be relieved of feet +of clay.... Immortality in the body—that's an unbreakable paradox to +me. I'm laminated, Harveyized against anything except making a fine +tentative instrument of the body."</p> + +<p>"You think, then, that the spirit grows as the body wastes?"</p> + +<p>"Orientals have encountered starvation with astonishing results to +philosophy," Charter remarked. "But I was thinking only of a body firmly +helmed by a clean mind. The best I have within me declares that the +fleshly wrapping becomes at the end but a cumbering cerement; that +through life, it is a spirit-vault. When I pamper the body, following +its fitful and imperious appetites, I surely stiffen the seals of the +vault. In my hours in which the senses are dominant the spirit shrinks +in abhorrence; just as it thrills, warms and expands in rarer moments of +nobility."</p> + +<p>"Then the old martyrs and saints who macerated themselves wove great +folds of spirit?"</p> + +<p>The inconsequential manner of the question urged Charter to greater +effort to detach, if possible, for a moment at least, the other's Ego. +"In ideal," he went on, "I should be as careless of food as Thoreau, as +careless of physical pain as Suso. As for the reproductive devil +incarnated in man—it, and all its ramifications, since the most +delicate and delightful of these so often betray—I should encase in the +coldest steel of repression——"</p> + +<p>"You say, in ideal," Bellingham ventured quietly. "... But are not these +great forces splendid fuel for the mind? Prodigious mental workers have +said so."</p> + +<p>"A common view," said Charter, who regarded the remark as +characteristic. "Certain mental workers are fond of expressing this. You +hear it everywhere with a sort of 'Eureka.' Strength of the loins is but +a coarse inflammation to the mind. A man may use such excess strength, +earned by continence, in the production of exotics, feverish lyrics, and +in depicting summer passions, but the truth is, that so long as that +force is not censored, shriven and sterilized—it is the same jungle +pestilence, and will color the mind with impurity. It is much better +where it belongs—than in the mind."</p> + +<p>"You do not believe in the wild torrents, the forked lightnings, and the +shocking thunders of the poets?"</p> + +<p>"I like the calm, conquering voices of the prophets better.... +Immortality of the body?... There can be no immortality in a substance +which earth attracts. We have vast and violent lessons to learn in the +flesh; lessons which can be learned only in the flesh, because it is a +matrix for the integration of spirit. It appears to me that, in due +time, man reaches a period when he balances in the attractions—between +the weight of the body and the lifting of the soul. This is the result +of a slow, refining process that has endured through all time. +Reincarnation is the best theory I know for the process. That there is +an upward tendency driving the universe, seems to be the only cause and +justification for Creating. Devolution cannot be at the centre of such a +system.... The body becomes more and more a spotless garment for the +soul; soul-light more and more electrifies it; the elimination of +carnality in thought may even render the body delicate and transparent, +but it is a matrix still, and falls away—when one's full-formed wings +no longer need the weight of a thorax——"</p> + +<p>"What an expression!" Bellingham observed abruptly. He had been staring +away toward a low, cloudy film of land in the south. One would have +thought that he had heard only the sentence which aroused his comment. +Charter was filling with violence. The man's vanity was chained to him +like a corpse. This experience of pouring out energy to no purpose +aroused in Charter all the forces which had combined to force the public +to his work. The thought came that Bellingham was so accustomed to +direct the speech and thought of others, mainly women, that he had lost +the listening faculty.</p> + +<p>"Let me express it, then," Charter declared with his stoutest +repression, "that this beautiful surviving element, having finished with +the flesh, knows only the attraction of Light. It is the perfect flower +of ages of earth-culture, exquisite and inimitable from the weathering +centuries, and is radiant for a higher destiny than a cooling planet's +crust——"</p> + +<p>"My dear young man, you speak very clearly, prettily, and not without +force, I may say,—a purely Platonistic gospel."</p> + +<p>Charter's mental current was turned off for a second. True or false, the +remark was eminently effective. A great man might have said it, or a +dilettante.</p> + +<p>"In which case, I have a firm foundation."</p> + +<p>"But I am essentially of the moderns," said Bellingham.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I should have known that from your first remark—about the +brown bodies of the Islanders, rejoicing in the sunlight and bathing in +these jewelled seas."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes——" The softening of Bellingham's mouth, as he recalled his +own words, injected fresh stimulant into the animus of the other. As +Charter feared the eyes, so he had come to loathe the mouth, though he +was not pleased with the intensity of his feelings.</p> + +<p>"Do you honestly believe that—that which feels the attraction of earth, +and becomes a part of earth after death—is the stuff of immortality?" +he demanded.</p> + +<p>"By marvellous processes of prolongation and refinement—and barring +accident—yes."</p> + +<p>"Processes which these poor Islanders could understand?"</p> + +<p>"We are moving in a circle," Bellingham said hastily.</p> + +<p>For the first moment, Charter felt the whip-hand over his own faculties.</p> + +<p>"I've noted the great, modern tendency to preach <i>body</i>," he said, +inhaling a big breath of the fragrant air, "to make a religion of bodily +health—to look for elemental truth in alimentary canals; to mix prayer +with carnal subterfuge and heaven with health resorts. Better Phallicism +bare-faced.... I read a tract recently written by one of these +body-worshippers—the smug, black devil. It made me feel just as I did +when I found a doctor book in the attic once, at the age of ten.... +Whatever I may be, have done, may feel, dream or think below the +diaphragm—hasn't anything to do with my religion. I believe in health, +as in a good horse or a good typewriter, but my body's health is not +going to rule my day."</p> + +<p>"You are young—to have become chilled by such polar blasts," Bellingham +said uneasily, for he now found the other's eyes but without result.</p> + +<p>"I came into the world with a full quiver of red passions," Charter said +wearily, yet strangely glad. "The quiver is not empty. I do not say that +I wish it were, but I have this to declare: I do not relish being told +how to play with the barbs; how to polish and point and delight in them; +how to put them back more deadly poisoned. I think there are big +blankets of mercy for a natural voluptuary—for the things done when +tissues are aflame—but for the man who deliberately studies to recreate +them without cost, and tells others of his experiments—frankly, I +believe in hell for such men-maggots. Oblivion is too sweet. The essence +of my hatred for these Bodyists is because of the poison they infuse +into the minds of youths and maidens, whose character-skeletons are +still rubbery.... But let such teachers purr, wriggle, and dilate—for +they're going back right speedily to the vipers!"</p> + +<p>Bellingham's eyes had been lost in the South. He turned, arose, and +after a pause said lightly, "Your talk is strong meat, young man.... +I—I suffered a serious accident some months ago and cannot stay too +long in one place. We shall talk again. How far do you go with the +<i>Panther</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Saint Pierre."</p> + +<p>Charter already felt the first pangs of reaction. His vehemence, the +burn of temper for himself, in that he had allowed the other's +personality to prey upon him, and the unwonted aggressiveness of his +talk—all assumed an evil aspect now as he perceived the occultist's +ghastly face. In rising, Bellingham seemed to have stirred within +himself centres of unutterable torture. His look suggested one who has +been drilled in dreadful arcanums of pain, unapproached by ordinary men.</p> + +<p>"I think I must have been pent a long time," Charter said in his +trouble. "Perhaps, I'm a little afraid of myself and was rehearsing a +warning for the strength of my own bridle-arm—since we're swinging down +into these Isles of Seduction."</p> + +<p>"You'll find a more comfortable coolness with the years, I think, and +cease to abhor your bounding physical vitality. Remember, 'Jesus came +eating and drinking——'"</p> + +<p>Charter started under the touch of the old iron. "But 'wisdom is +justified of all her children,'" he responded quickly.</p> + +<p>They were at the door of Bellingham's cabin, which was forward on the +promenade. The doctor laughed harshly as he turned the key. "I see you +have your Scriptures, too," he said. "We must talk again."</p> + +<p>"How far do you go with the <i>Panther</i>?" Charter asked, drawing away. His +eyes had filled for a second, as the door swung open, with the +photograph of a strangely charming young woman within the cabin.</p> + +<p>"I have not decided—possibly on to South America."</p> + +<p>Charter felt as he walked alone that he had shown his youth, even a +pertness of youth. He recalled that he had done almost all the talking; +that he had felt the combativeness of a boy who scents a rival from +another school—quite ridiculous. Moreover, he was weary, as if one of +his furious seasons of work had just ended—that rare and excellent kind +of work which gathers about itself an elemental force to drive the mind +as with fire until the course is run.... He did not encounter Bellingham +during the rest of the voyage.</p> + +<p>Long before dawn the <i>Panther</i> gained the harbor before Saint Pierre, +and Charter awoke to the consciousness of a disorder in the air. Alone +on deck, while the night was being driven back over the rising land, he +was delighted to pick out the writhing letters of gold, "<i>Saragossa</i>," +through the smoky gray, a few furlongs to the south. Peter Stock, an +acquaintance from a former call at Saint Pierre, had become a solid and +fruitful memory....</p> + +<p>Father Fontanel was found early, where the suffering was greatest in the +city. The old eyes lit with gladness as he caught Charter with both +hands, and murmured something as his gaze sank into the eyes of the +younger man—something which Charter did not exactly understand, about +wolves being slain.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing with Old Man Pelée, Father? We heard him +groaning in the night, and the town is fetid with his sickness."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my son, I am afraid!"</p> + +<p>Had all the seismologists of civilization gathered in Saint Pierre, and +uttered a verdict that the volcano was an imminent menace, Charter would +not have turned a more serious look at Pelée than he did that moment.... +At the <i>Palms</i>, he found Peter Stock and a joyous welcome. They arranged +for luncheon together, and the Capitalist hurried down into the city.... +That proved a memorable luncheon, since Peter Stock at the last moment +persuaded Miss Wyndam to join them.</p> + +<p>Charter was disturbed with the thought that he had seen her before; and +amazed that he could have forgotten where. He could only put it far back +among the phantasmagoria of drinking days. Certainly the sane, restored +Charter had never met this woman and forgotten. His veins were dilated +as by a miraculous wine.</p> + +<p>"The name is new to me, but I seem to have seen you somewhere, Miss +Wyndam," he declared.</p> + +<p>"That's the second time you've said that, young man," Mr. Stock +remarked. "Don't your sentences register?"</p> + +<p>"It's always bewildering—I know how Mr. Charter feels," Paula managed +to say. "I'm quite sure we were never introduced, though I know Mr. +Charter's work."</p> + +<p>"That's good of you, indeed," he said. "I don't mean—to know my +work—but to help me out with Friend Stock. It is bewildering that I +have forgotten. I feel like a boy in an enchanted forest. Pelée has been +working wonders all day."</p> + +<p>"I can't follow you," the Capitalist sighed. "Your sentences are +puckered."</p> + +<p>They hardly heard him. Paula, holding fast with all her strength to the +part she had planned to play, sensed Charter's blind emotion, distinct +from her own series of shocks. To her it was that furious moment of +adjustment, when a man and his ideal meet for the first time in a +woman's heart. As for this heart, she feared they would hear its +beating. Instantly, she knew that he had not come to Saint Pierre +expecting to find her; knew that she was flooding into his +subconsciousness—that he felt <i>worlds</i> and could not understand. She +found the boy in his eyes—the boy of his old picture—and the deep +lines and the white skin of a man who has lived clean, and the brow of a +man who has thought many clean things. He was thinking of the Skylark, +and "Wyndam" disturbed him.... Always when he hesitated in his speech, +the right word sprang to her lips to help him. She caught the very +processes of his thinking; his remoteness from the thought of food, was +her own.... For hours, since she had heard his voice below, Paula had +paced the floor of her room, planning to keep her secret long. She would +play and watch his struggle to remember the Skylark; she would weigh the +forces of the conflict, stimulate it; study him among men, in the +presence of suffering, and in the dread of the mountain. All this she +had planned, but now her whole heart went out to the boy in his +eyes—the boy that smiled. All the doubts which at best she had hoped +for the coming days to banish were erased in a moment; she even believed +in its fullness the letter from Selma Cross—because he was embarrassed, +brimming with emotions he could not understand, quite as the boy of her +dreams would be. She lived full-length in his silences, hardly dared to +look at him now, for she felt his constant gaze. She knew that she was +colorless, but that her eyes were filled with light.... Presently she +realized that they were talking of Father Fontanel.</p> + +<p>"He's a good old man," said Peter Stock. "He works day and night—and +refuses to call it work. Just think of having a servant with a God like +Father Fontanel's to make work easy!"</p> + +<p>"He's even a little bit sorry for Pelée," Charter said. "I'm never quite +the same in Saint Pierre. Many times up in the States, I ask myself, if +it isn't largely in my mind about Father Fontanel's spirit and his +effect upon me. It isn't. Stronger than ever it came to me this morning. +You know him?" He turned the last to the woman.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I found him down on the water-front——"</p> + +<p>"And brought him to me," said Mr. Stock, and added: "You know what +bothered me about priests so long—they seem to have it all settled +between them that theirs is the only true Air-line Limited to God. +Fontanel's down in the lowlands, where life is pent and cruel, where +there are weak sisters and little ones who have to be helped over hard +ways—that's what gets Peter Stock."</p> + +<p>"You don't know how good that is to hear," Paula said softly. "I have +thought it, too, about some men in holy orders—black figures moving +along in a 'grim, unfraternal' Indian file, with their eyes so occupied +in keeping their feet from breaking fresh ground—that it seems they +must sometimes lose the Summit."</p> + +<p>Charter looked from one to the other. Peter Stock regarded their plates. +Paula made a quick pretense of eating, and was grateful when Charter +broke the silence: "Yes, Father Fontanel has found one of the trails to +the Top—one of the happy ones. Sometimes I think there are just as many +trails, as an ant could find to the top of an apple. Wayfarers go +a-singing on Father Fontanel's trail—eyes warm with soft skies and +untellable dreams. It's a way of fineness and loving-kindness——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Stock had risen from the table and moved to a window which faced the +North. All was vague about them. Paula had been carried by Charter's +voice toward far-shining mountains.... In the silence, she met the +strange, steady eyes of <i>the boy</i>, and looked away to find that the room +had darkened.</p> + +<p>"It is getting dark," he said.</p> + +<p>She would have said it, if he hadn't.</p> + +<p>The mountain rumbled.</p> + +<p>"The North is a mass of swirling grays and blacks," Peter Stock +announced from the window. "It isn't a thunderstorm——"</p> + +<p>A sharp detonation cleaved the darkening air, and from the rear of the +house the answer issued—quavering cries of children, sharp calling of +mothers, and the sullen undertone of men. A subdued drumming came from +the North now, completing the tossing currents of sound about the house. +The dismal bellowing of cattle and the stamping of ponies was heard from +the barns. All this was wiped out by a series of terrific crashes, and +the floor stirred as if intaking a deep breath. The dining-room filled +with a crying, crouching gray-lipped throng of servants. A deluge of ash +complicated the half-night outside, and the curse of sulphur pressed +down.</p> + +<p>Paula arose. Charter had taken his place close beside her, but spoke no +word.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTIETH_CHAPTER" id="TWENTIETH_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTIETH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>CHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WYNDAM WOMAN +AND SKYLARK MEMORIES</h3> + + +<p>In the <i>Rue Rivoli</i> there was a little stone wine-shop. The street was +short, narrow, crooked, and ill-paved—a cleft in Saint Pierre's +terrace-work. Just across from the vault-like entrance to the shop, the +white, scarred cliff arose to another flight of the city. Between the +shop and the living-rooms behind there was a little court, shaded by +mango-trees. Dwarfed banana-shrubs flourished in the shade of the +mangoes, and singing-birds were caged in the lower foliage. Since the +sun could find no entrance, the wine-shop was dark as a cave, and as +cool. One window, if an aperture like the clean wound of a thirteen-inch +gun could be called a window, opened to the north; and from it, by the +grace of a crook in the <i>Rue Rivoli</i>, might be seen the mighty-calibred +cone of Pelée.</p> + +<p>Pere Rabeaut's wine was very good, and some of it was very cheap. The +service was much as you made it, for if you were known you were +permitted to help yourself. In this world there was no one of station +too lofty to go to Pere Rabeaut's; and since those of no station +whatsoever drank rum, instead of wine, you would meet no one there to +whom it was not a privilege to say "<i>Bon jour</i>."</p> + +<p>"Come and see my birds," the crafty Rabeaut would say if he approved of +you.</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?" you might ask, being a stranger.</p> + +<p>"In the coolest hovel of Saint Pierre," was his invariable answer.</p> + +<p>And presently, if you were truly alive, you would find yourself in the +little stone wine-shop, listening to the birds and looking over the +stalled casks, demijohns, and bottles, filled with more or less +concentrated soil and sun. In due course, Soronia would appear in the +shadowy doorway (it would seem that the bird-songs were hushed as she +crossed the court), and she would show you a vintage of especially long +ago. After that, though you became a missionary in Shantung, or a +remittance-man in Tahiti, you would never forget the bouquet of the +Rabeaut wines, the cantatas of the canaries, nor the witchery of +Soronia's eyes.... If the little stone wine-shop were transplanted in +New York, artists would find it, and you would be forced to fetch your +own goblet and have difficulty in getting in and out for the crowd o' +nights.</p> + +<p>Thither Charter went the next morning and sat down in the cherished +coolness. Peter Stock had reminded him of their former talks there, over +a particular wine of Epernay, and had arranged to meet him this +morning.... In the foreground of Charter's mind a gritty depression had +settled, but throughout the finer, farther consciousness, where +realities abide, there hung a mystic constellation, which every little +while (and with a shock of ecstasy, so wonderful that his <i>mere</i> brain +was alarmed and called it scandalous), fused together into a great, +glowing ardent Star of Bethlehem....</p> + +<p>Again, the <i>mere</i> brain said: "What have you done with your three years? +The actress knew you better than you knew yourself. All your letters, +and the spirit of your letters, have fallen into ruin before the first +woman you meet down here in a dreamy, tropic isle. How can you—you, who +have lived truly for a little while, and seemed to have felt the love +that lifts—sink into the fragrant meshes of romance, through the +beautiful eyes of a stranger to your world and to your ways? And what of +Skylark, the lovely, the winged?..." And the soul of the man riding at +its moorings in the bright calm of wisdom's anchorage, made laughing +answer: "This is the Skylark—ah, not that Wyndam is Linster,—but this +is the veiled queen who has waited so long for the House of Charter to +be ready. This is the forever-fairy that puzzled the nights and mornings +of the long-ago Charter boy. It was her wing that held the last dart of +light in the gardens of boyhood before the frowning thunders came. It +was her songs that made the youth's mind magic with lyrics, certain ones +so very clear that they fitted into words. It was to find her dazzling +brow that lured him to prodigious wanderings, until he fell fainting in +the dust of other women's chariots. It was the rustling of her wings +that he heard from without, when he lay in the Caverns of Devouring, +where the twain, Flesh and Death, hold ghastly carnival; the flash of +her wings again that lifted his eyes to the Rising Road. It was her +spirit in the splendid East whose miracles of singing and shining made +glorious, with creative touch, his hours by the garret window.... It was +she of exquisite shoulder and starry eyes and radiant sympathies—before +whom the boy, the man and the spirit, bowed in thankfulness +yesterday...."</p> + +<p>And so he sat there thinking, thinking,—glimpsing the errant centuries +in the same high light of memory that this very morning recurred—an +hour or two ago, when he had walked with her through the mango-grove in +the coolness following a dawn-shower that had washed the white weight of +Pelée's ash-winter from the trees.... "What a chaos I must be," he +murmured in dull anguish, "with the finest of my life plighted to a +vision that is lost—while I linger desolate in the presence of wondrous +reality!" ... Some one was moving and whispering in the little room +across the court of the song-birds.... Peter Stock entered, his white +hair and mustache dulled with ash; his eyes red and angry.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think I've got Father Fontanel frightened," he said, sinking +down across the little round table. "He's telling the people to shut up +their houses and go to Fort de France. Sixty or seventy have started, +and many more have gone up to Morne Rouge and Ajoupa Boullion, where it +happens to be cool, though they're just as close to the craters. +Fontanel has come into a very proper spirit of respect for Pelée's +destructive capacity. By the way, did you hear what happened yesterday, +during the darkness and racket while we were at dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Not definitely. Tell me," Charter urged.</p> + +<p>"The extreme northern end of the city, or part of it, was flooded out +like an ant-hill under a kettle boiling over. The River <i>Blanche</i> +overflowed her banks, and ran with boiling mud from the volcano. Thirty +people were killed and the Usine Guerin destroyed."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think it was so bad as that."</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm wrong, but the Guerin disaster may be only a preliminary +demonstration—like the operator experimenting to find if it is dark +enough to start the main fireworks. Nobody can complain to Saint Peter +that Pelée hasn't warned."</p> + +<p>"There's another way to look at it," Charter said. "The volcano's +overflow into the River <i>Blanche</i> might have eased the pressure upon the +craters. I wonder if there is any authority or precedent for such a +hope?"</p> + +<p>"If Pelée's fuse is burning shorter and shorter toward a Krakatoan +cataclysm," Peter Stock declared moodily, "it's not for man to say what +spark will shake the world.... I tried to see Mondet this morning—but +couldn't get in. You wouldn't think one white, small person could +contain so much poison. I am haunted with the desire to commit physical +depredations."</p> + +<p>"I think I'll take a little journey up toward the craters to-morrow," +Charter confided, after a moment. "They say that the weather is quiet +and clean to the north of the mountain. One might ride up and try to +reason with <i>Pere Pelée</i>——"</p> + +<p>At this juncture Soronia entered the wine-shop from the little court, to +fill the eyes and the goblets of the Americans. A dark, ardent, alluring +face; flesh like dull gold, made wonderful by the faintest tints of ripe +fruit; eyes that could melt and burn and laugh; a fragile figure, but +radiantly abloom, and as worthily draped as a young palm in a richly +blossoming vine. She made one think of a strange, regal flower, an +experiment of Nature, wrought in the most sumptuous shadow of a tropic +garden.... She was gone. Charter laughed at the drained look in Peter +Stock's face.</p> + +<p>"An orchid——" the latter began.</p> + +<p>"Or a sunlit cathedral window."</p> + +<p>"Will the visitation be repeated? Do I wake or sleep?"</p> + +<p>"The years have dealt artistically in the little wine-shop," +said Charter. "They say old Pere Rabeaut married a <i>fille de +couleur</i>—daughter of a former Governor-General of Martinique."</p> + +<p>"Some Daphne of the Islands, she must have been, since Pere Rabeaut does +not seem designed to father a sunset.... It's my first glimpse of +Soronia this voyage. She was beautiful in a girlish way last year.... +She's in love, or she couldn't glow like that. I met Pere Rabeaut down +in the city——"</p> + +<p>Charter arose. "Perhaps the lover is across the court. I heard a +whispering through the bird-songs—and one could not fail to note how +she hurried back.... I must go on. The water is no better here than +elsewhere."</p> + +<p>"But the wine is," said Peter Stock. "Wait luncheon for me at the +<i>Palms</i>.... By the way, how'd you like to take a little cruise—feel the +<i>Saragossa</i> under you, running like a scared deer to hitch herself to +the solid old Horn, built of rock and sealed with icebergs——"</p> + +<p>"A clean thought, in this air—but the eventualities here attract. When +Father Fontanel grows afraid for the city, well, it may not be +scientific, but it's ominous.... I wanted to ask if it ever occurred to +you that even the <i>Morne d'Orange</i> might fall into the sweeping range of +Pelée's guns?"</p> + +<p>"In other words—if the mountain won't recede from Miss Wyndam, we'd +better snatch up Miss Wyndam and make a getaway from the mountain?"</p> + +<p>From far within a "Yea" was acclaimed, yet there was a sullen Charter +integrity which had given its word to Skylark, and feared the test of +being shut on the same ship with a woman who endowed him with such power +that he felt potent to go to the craters and remonstrate with the +Monster.</p> + +<p>"It might be well to ask her," Charter replied gloomily, "but I'm rather +absorbed in the action here and Father Fontanel's work. I want to look +at the craters from behind——"</p> + +<p>"Twice you've said that," said Peter Stock, "and each time it reminds me +that I'm old, yet there's a lure about it. I'm thinking——"</p> + +<p>Their heads were together at the little round window for the mountain +had rumbled again, and they stared beyond the city into the ashen +shroud.</p> + +<p>"Grand old martyr," Charter muttered, "hang on, hang on!... The flag of +truce still flies."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Paula at the <i>Palms</i> reflected the Charter conflict that morning. She +had seen it in his eyes and felt it in his heart, as they had walked +together in the mock-winter of the mango-grove before breakfast. Away +from him now, however, she could not be sure that "Wyndam," representing +the woman, altogether satisfied his vision of Skylark. Very strange, he +was, in his struggling, and it became harder, and a more delicate thing +than she had believed, to say, "I am Paula Linster." She had felt this +great restlessness of his spirit vaguely in the early letters—a stormy, +battling spirit which his brain constantly labored to interpret. She had +seen his moments of calm, too, when the eyes and smile of the boy +rendered his attractions so intimate to her, that she could have told +him anything—but these calms did not endure even in her presence. She +did not want the woman, Wyndam, despised, nor yet the Skylark put from +him. It became a reality, that out of his struggle Truth would rise; +meanwhile, though not with the entire sanction of a certain inner voice, +she withheld her secret, remaining silent and watchful in the midst of +the greatest drama the world could bring to her understanding....</p> + +<p>Paula did not fail to note that Peter Stock was somewhat surprised when +she refused for the present his invitation to spend the nights at least +out in the cool Caribbean. She saw, moreover, that Quentin Charter was +beginning to fear the mountain, because she remained at the <i>Palms</i>. +Indeed, it was hard for all to remember that in form, at least, they +were mere acquaintances, so familiar had they become to each other in +the pressure of Pelée. Above all this, she was almost continually +conscious of Bellingham since the receipt of Madame Nestor's letter. It +was not that his power was formidable enough to disorder the unfolding +of the drama, but she felt his nearness, his strategies—all the more +strange, as there had been no sign of him since the arrival of the +<i>Panther</i>. If for no other reason, she would have found it difficult to +disclose her real name to Quentin Charter, while her mind was even +distantly the prey of the black giant.</p> + +<p>These were tremendous hours—when but a word from her withheld two +hearts from bursting into anthems. Bravely, she gloried in these last +great refinings—longings, fears, exaltations, but never was she without +the loftiest hope of her life. The man who had come was so much that +<i>the man</i> should be. She saw his former years as the wobblings of a top +that has not yet gained its momentum. Only at its highest speed does the +top sing its peace with God.... Had not the finest glow of his powers +been reserved until her coming?...</p> + +<p>In such moments as these, she could look back upon her own agonies with +gratitude. She had needed a Bellingham. Should she not be thankful that +a beyond-devil had been required to test her soul? In the splendid +renewals of her spirit, Paula felt that she could look into the +magician's eyes now and command him from her. She was even grateful that +she had been swept in the fury of The High Tide, nor would she have had +that supreme night of trial when she fled from the <i>Zoroaster</i>, stricken +from her past. Just as Quentin Charter, of the terrible thirsts, had +required his years of wrath and wandering, so her soul had needed the +test of a woman's revelations and man's sublimated passion. Deep within +lived a majestic happiness—earned.</p> + +<p>At one o'clock, as she was going below for luncheon, the sun gave up +trying to shine through the ash-fog, but volumes of dreadful heat found +the earth. The <i>Saragossa</i> was invisible in the roadstead; there was no +line dividing shore and sea, nor sea and sky. It was all an illimitable +mask, whose fabric was the dust which for centuries had lain upon the +dynamos of Pelée.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-FIRST_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-FIRST_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>CHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND CONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE +OF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL</h3> + + +<p>"Do you know what I discovered this morning?" Peter Stock asked, after +the three had found a table together. "M. Mondet is trying to keep the +people in town for political reasons. It appears that there is to be an +election in a few days. All my efforts, and, by non-parishioners, the +efforts of Father Fontanel, are regarded as a political +counter-stroke—to rush a certain element of the suffrage out of the +town.... This is certainly Ash-Wednesday, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Charter laughed. "My theory that the Guerin disaster might relieve the +craters and give surcease to Saint Pierre—doesn't seem to work out. The +air is getting thicker, even."</p> + +<p>"It isn't really ash, you know," explained Mr. Stock, "but rock, ground +fine as neat in the hell-mills under the mountain and shot out by steam +through Pelée's valves——"</p> + +<p>"Intensely graphic," said Paula.</p> + +<p>"It has been rather a graphic morning," Charter remarked. "Friend Stock +is virile from his activities with Father Fontanel."</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't make a covenant with the mountain—as you did this +morning in the wine-shop. You should have seen him, Miss Wyndam, staring +away at the volcano and, muttering, 'Hang on, old chap, hang on!....' My +dear young woman, doesn't a ride on the ocean sound good for this +afternoon? You can sit on deck and hold the little black babies. The +<i>Saragossa</i> takes another load to Fort de France in two or three hours."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "Not just yet. You don't realize how wonderful the +drama is to me—you and Father Fontanel, playing Cassandra down in the +city—the groaning mountain, and the pity of it all. I confess a little +inconvenience of the weather isn't enough to drive me out. It isn't very +often given to a woman to watch the operations of a destiny so big as +this."</p> + +<p>The capitalist turned to Charter. "You know Empress Josephine was born +in Martinique and has become a sort of patron saint for the Island. A +beautiful statue of her stands in the square at Fort de France where our +refugees are encamped. I was only thinking that the map of Europe and +the history of France might have been altered greatly if our beloved +Josephine had been gifted with a will like this—of Miss Wyndam's."</p> + +<p>Her pale, searching face regarded Charter for a second, and his eyes +said plainly as words, "Don't you think you'd better consider this more +seriously?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe you'll like the idea better for the evening, when the <i>Saragossa</i> +is back in the roadstead again, comparatively empty," Peter Stock added +presently. "Father Fontanel and I have a lot to do in the meantime. Can +you imagine our first parents occupying themselves when the first +tornado was swooping down—our dear initial mother, surpassingly +wind-blown, driving the geese to shelter, propping up the orchards, +getting out the rain-barrels, and tightening tent-pins?"</p> + +<p>"Vividly," said Paula.</p> + +<p>"That's just how busy we are—Father Fontanel and I."</p> + +<p>It was to be expected that a sophomoric pointlessness should +characterize the sayings of the two in the midst of Peter Stock's +masculinity and the thrilling magnitude of the marvel each was to the +other.... They were left together presently, and the search for treasure +began at once:</p> + +<p>"... The present is a time of readjustment between men and women," he +was saying. "It seems to me that the great mistake people make—men and +women alike—is that each sex tries to raise itself by lowering +the other. It hardly could be any other way just now, and at +first—with woman filled with the turmoil of emerging from ages of +oppression—fighting back the old and fitting to the new. But in man and +woman—not in either alone—lies completion. If the two do not quite +complete each other, a Third often springs from them with an increased +spiritual development."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, leaning forward, her chin fitted to her palms. "The +<i>I-am</i> and the <i>You-are-not</i> will soon be put away. I like to think of +it—that man and woman are together in the complete human. There is a +glorious, an arch-feminine ideal in the nature of the Christ——"</p> + +<p>"Even in the ineffable courage," he added softly. "That is woman's—the +finer courage that never loses its tenderness.... His Figure sometimes, +as now, becomes an intimate passion to me——"</p> + +<p>"As if He were near?"</p> + +<p>"As if He were near—still loving, still mediating—all earth's struggle +and anguish passing through Him and becoming glorified with His pity and +tenderness—before it reaches the eyes of the Father.... There is no +other way. Man and woman must be One in Two—before Two in One. They +must not war upon each other. Woman is receptive; man the origin. Woman +is a planet cooled to support life; man, still an incandescent sun, +generates the life."</p> + +<p>"That is clear and inspiring," she said. "I have always wanted it said +just like that—that one is as important as the other in the evolution +of the Individual——"</p> + +<p>"And for that Individual are swung the solar systems.... Look at +Job—denuded of all but the Spirit. There is an Individual, and his +story is the history of an Initiation.... We are coming to a time when +Mind will operate in man and woman <i>conscious</i> of the Soul. When that +time comes true, how the progress to God will be cleared and speeded! It +will be a flight——"</p> + +<p>"Instead of a crawl," she finished.</p> + +<p>They were alone in the big dining-room. Their voices could not have +reached the nearest empty table. It was like a communion—their first +communion.</p> + +<p>"I have felt it," she went on in a strange, low tone, "and heard the New +Voices—Preparers of the Way. Sometimes it came to me in New York—the +stirring of a great, new spiritual life. I have felt the hunger—that +awful hollowness in the breasts of men and women, who turn to each other +in mute agony, who turn to a thousand foolish sensations—because they +do not realize what they hunger for. Their breasts cry out to be +filled——"</p> + +<p>"And the Spirit cries out to flood in."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the Spirit asks only for Earth-people to listen to their inner +voices and love one another," she completed. "It demands no macerations, +no fetters, no fearful austerities—only fineness and loving kindness."</p> + +<p>"How wonderfully they have come to me, too—those radiant moments—as I +sat by my study window, facing the East," he whispered, not knowing what +the last words meant to her. "How clear it is that all great and good +things come with this soul-age—this soul-consciousness. I have seen in +those lovely moments that Mother Earth is but one of many of God's +gardens; that human life is but a day in a glorious culture-scheme which +involves many brighter and brighter transplantings; that the radiance of +the Christ, our Exemplar, but shows us the loveliness which shall be +ours when we approach that lofty maturity of bloom——"</p> + +<p>A waiter entered with the word that a man from the city, Pere Rabeaut, +desired to see Mr. Charter. Each felt the dreadfulness of returning so +abruptly to sordid exterior consciousness—each felt the gray ghost of +Pelée.</p> + +<p>"I shall go and see what is wanted, Miss Wyndam, and hurry back—if I +may?" he said in a dull, tired tone.</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had said "Wyndam," and it hurt cruelly at this +moment.... "No, no," she said rising hastily. "It would spoil it to come +back. We could not forget ourselves like that—so soon again. It always +spoils—oh, what am I saying? I think our talk must have interested me +very much."</p> + +<p>"I understand," he said gently. "But we shall talk again—and for this +little hour, my whole heart rises to thank you."</p> + +<p>Pere Rabeaut was waiting upon the veranda. Peculiarly, at this moment he +seemed attached to the crook of wine-shop servitude, which Charter had +never noticed with such evidence among the familiar casks. Moreover, +disorder was written upon the gray face.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>, what a day, M. Charter!—a day of judgment! Soronia's +little birds are dying!"</p> + +<p>Charter regarded the sharp, black eyes, which darted over his own face, +but would not be held in any gaze.</p> + +<p>"I heard from my daughter that you are going to the craters of the +mountain," the old man said. "'He will need a guide,' said I at once. +'And guides are scarce just now, for the people are afraid of Pelée. +Still, he's an old patron,' I said to Soronia. 'He cannot go to the +mountain without a guide, so I shall do this little thing for him. He +must have our Jacques.'"</p> + +<p>Charter drew him away. He did not care to have it known at the <i>Palms</i> +that he was projecting a trip to the summit. Perhaps the inscrutable +Pere Rabeaut was conferring a considerable favor. It was arranged that +if he decided to make the journey, the American should call at the +wine-shop for Jacques early the following morning. Pere Rabeaut left him +none the poorer for his queer errand.</p> + +<p>Charter avoided Miss Wyndam for the rest of the day. Beyond all the +words of their little talk, had come to him a fullness of womanhood +quite beyond the dreamer. As he remembered the lustrous face, the +completion of his sentences, the mutual sustaining of their thoughts, +their steady, tireless ascent beyond the need of words; as he remembered +her calms, and the glimpses of cosmic consciousness, her grasp, her +expression, her silences, the exquisite refinement of her face, and the +lingering adoration in her eyes—the ideal of the Skylark was so clearly +and marvellously personified that for moments at a time the vision was +lost in the living woman. And for this, Quentin Charter proposed to +suffer—and to suffer alone.</p> + +<p>So he supped down-town, and waited for Father Fontanel at the +parish-house. The priest came in during the evening and Charter saw at +once, what the other never could have admitted, that the last few days +had borne the good man to the uttermost edges of his frail vitality. +Under the lamp, the beautiful old face had the whiteness of that virgin +wax of Italian hives in which the young queens lie until the hour of +awakening. The tired, smiling eyes, deeply shadowed under a brow that +was blest, gazed upon the young man with a light in his eyes not +reflected from the lamp, but from his great love—in that pure +fatherhood of celibacy....</p> + +<p>"Ah, no, I'm not weary, my son. We must have our walks and talks +together on the <i>Morne</i> again.... When old Father Pelée rests once more +from his travail, and the people are happy again, you and I shall walk +under the stars, and you shall tell me of those glorious saints, who +felt in the presence of God that they must put such violent constraint +upon themselves.... When I think of my suffering people—it comes to me +that the white ship was sent like a good angel—and how I thank that +noble lady for taking me at once to this great rock of an American, who +bluffs me about so cheerily and grants all things before they are asked. +What wonderful people you are from America! But it is always so—always +these good things come to me. Indeed, I am very grateful.... +Weary?—what a poor old man I should be to fall weary in the midst of +such helpers...."</p> + +<p>Charter sat down beside him under the lamp and told him what an arena +his mind had become for conflict between a woman and a vision. Even with +the writer's trained designing, the tale drew out with an oriental +patience of weaving and coloring. Charter had felt a woman's need for +the ease of disclosure, and indeed there was no other man whom he would +have told. He had a thought, too, that if by any chance Pelée should +intervene—both the woman and the Skylark might learn. He did not tell +of his plan to go to the mountain—lest he be dissuaded. In his mind the +following day was set apart—as a sort of pilgrimage sacred to Skylark.</p> + +<p>"Old Pelée has shadowed my mind," Father Fontanel said, when the story +was done. "I see him before and between all things, but I shall meditate +and tell you what seems best in my sight. Only this, my son, you may +know, that when first the noble lady filled my eyes—I felt you near +her—as if she had come to me from you, whom I always loved to +remember."</p> + +<p>Charter bowed and went his way, troubled by the shadow of Pelée in the +holy man's mind; and yet glad, too, that the priest had felt him near +when he first saw Miss Wyndam. It was late when he reached the <i>Palms</i> +yet sleeplessness ranged through his mind, and he did not soon go to his +room. The house and grounds were all his own. He paced the veranda, the +garden paths and drives; crossed the shadowy lawns, brooded upon the +rumbling mountain and the foggy moon high in the south.... At the side +of the great house to the north, there was a trellis heavily burdened +with lianas. Within, he found the orifice of an old cistern, partially +covered by unfixed planking. A startling thought caused him to wonder +why he had not explored the place before. The moonlight, faint at best, +gave but ghostly light through the foliage, yet he kicked away a board +and lit a match. A heavy wooden bar crossed the rim and was set stoutly +in the masonry. His mind keenly grasped each detail at the exterior. A +rusty chain depended from the thick cross-piece. He dropped several +ignited matches into the chamber. Slabs of stone from the side-walls had +fallen into the cistern, which seemed to contain little or no water.... +From one of the native cabins came the sound of a dog barking. A shutter +clicked in one of the upper windows of the plantation-house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-SECOND_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-SECOND_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>CHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF <i>PELÉE</i>—ONE LAST DAY +DEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS</h3> + + +<p>Charter left the <i>Palms</i> early to join his guide at the wine-shop. He +had kept apart from Peter Stock for two reasons. The old capitalist +easily could have been tempted to accompany him. Personally, Charter did +not consider a strong element of danger, and a glimpse into the +volcano's mouth would give him a grasp and handling of the throes of a +sick world, around which all natural phenomena would assume thereafter +an admirable repression. To Peter Stock it would be an adventure, +merely. More than all this, he wanted to go to the mountain alone. It +was the Skylark's day; and for this reason, he hurried out of the +<i>Palms</i> and down to the city without breakfast.... A last look from the +<i>Morne</i>, as it dipped into the <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i>—at a certain upper +window of the plantation-house, where it seemed he was leaving all the +bright valiant prodigies of the future. He turned resolutely toward +Pelée—but the Skylark's song grew fainter <i>behind</i>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Pere Rabeaut's interest in the venture continued to delight him. +Procuring a companion was no common favor, since inquiries in the town +proved that the regular guides were in abject dread of approaching the +Monster now. Soronia, Pere Rabeaut, and his new servant awaited him in +the <i>Rue Rivoli</i>. The latter was a huge Creole, of gloomy visage. They +would not find any one to accompany them in the lower part of the city, +he said, as the fear there was greater than ever since the Guerin +disaster. In Morne Rouge, however, they would doubtless be able to +procure mules, food, and other servants if necessary, for a day's trip +to the craters. All of which appeared reasonable to Charter, though he +wondered again at the vital interest of Pere Rabeaut, and the general +tension of the starting.</p> + +<p>The two passed down through the city, and into the crowd of the +market-place, where a blithesome little drama unfolded. Peter Stock had +apparently been talking to the people about their volcano, urging them, +no doubt, to take the advice of Father Fontanel and flee to Fort de +France, when he had perceived M. Mondet passing in his carriage. Charter +saw his friend dart quickly from the crowd and seize the bridle. Despite +the protestations of the driver, the capitalist drew the vehicle into +view of all. His face was red with the heat and ashine with laughter and +perspiration. Alarm and merriment mingled in the native throng. All eyes +followed the towering figure of the American who now swung open the door +of the carriage and bowed low to M. Mondet.</p> + +<p>"This, dear friends," Peter Stock announced, as one would produce a +rabbit from a silk hat,—"this, you all perceive, is your little editor +of <i>Les Colonies</i>. Is he not bright and clean and pretty? He is very +fond of American humor. See how the little editor laughs!"</p> + +<p>M. Mondet's smile was yellowish-gray and of sickly contour. His article +relative to the American appealed to him now entirely stripped of the +humor with which it was fraught a few days before, as he had composed it +in the inner of inner-offices. This demon of crackling French and +restless hands would stop at nothing. M. Mondet pictured himself being +picked up for dead presently. As the blow did not fall on the instant, +the sorry thought tried him that he was to be played with before being +dispatched.</p> + +<p>"This is the man who tells you that Saint Pierre is in no danger—who +scoffs at those who have already gone—who inquires in his paper, 'Where +on the Island could a more secure place than Saint Pierre be found in +the event of an earthquake visitation?' M. Mondet advises us to flee +with all dispatch to the live craters of a volcano to escape his +hypothetical earthquake." Peter Stock was now holding up the Frenchman's +arm, as a referee upraises the whip of a winning fighter. "He says +there's no more peril from Pelée than from an old man shaking ashes out +of his pipe. I proposed to wager my ship against M. Mondet's rolled-top +desk that he was wrong, but there was a difficulty in the way. Do you +not see, my friends of Saint Pierre, that, if I won the wager, I should +not be able to distinguish between M. Mondet's rolled-top desk and M. +Mondet's cigarette case in the ruins of the city——"</p> + +<p>There had been a steady growling from the mountain.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Stock exclaimed after a pause, "Pelée speaks again! 'I will +repay—verily, I will repay!' growls the Monster. Let it be so, then, +friends of mine. I will turn over my little account to the big +fire-eater yonder who will collect all debts. I tell you, we who tarry +too long will be buying political extras and last editions in hell from +this bit of a newspaper man!"</p> + +<p>Charter laughingly turned away to avoid being seen, just as M. Mondet +was chucked like a large, soft bundle into the seat of his carriage and +the door slammed forcibly, corking whatever wrath appertained. In any of +the red-blooded zones, a foreigner who performed such antics at the +expense of a portly and respected citizen would have encountered a +quietus quick and blasting, but the people of Martinique are not swift +to anger nor forward in reprisal.</p> + +<p>Charter's physical energy was imperious, but the numbness of his scalp +was a pregnant warning against the perils of heat. There were moments in +which his mind moved in a light, irresponsible fashion, as if obsessed +at quick intervals, one after another, by mad kings who dared anything, +and whom no one dared refuse. Somehow his brain contrived with striking +artifices to keep the Wyndam-Skylark conflict in the background; yet, as +often as he became aware of old Vulcan muttering his agonies ahead, just +so often did the reality rise that the meaning and direction of his life +was gone, if he was not to see again the woman at the <i>Palms</i>.</p> + +<p>Jacques, his guide, followed in sullen silence. They crossed the +Roxelane, and presently were ascending toward Morne Rouge. Saint Pierre +was just still enough now to act like a vast sounding-board. Remote +voices reached them, even from the harbor-front to the left, and from +shut shops everywhere.... It was nearly mid-day, when he rode out from +Morne Rouge, with three more companions.</p> + +<p>The ash-hung valley was far behind, and Charter drank deeply of the +clean, east wind from the Atlantic. There was a rush of bitterness, too, +because the woman was not there to share these priceless volumes of +sunlit vitality. All the impetus of enterprise was needed now to turn +the point of conflict, and force it into the background again.... They +pushed through Ajoupa Boullion to the gorge of the Falaise, the +northward bank of which marked the trail which Jacques chose to the +summit.</p> + +<p>And now they moved upward in the midst of the old glory of Martinique. +The brisk Trades blowing evenly in the heights, wiped the eastern slope +of the mountain clear of stone-dust and whipped the blasts of sulphur +down into the valley toward the shore. Green lakes of cane filled the +valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms, so distant and so orderly +that they looked like a city garden set with hen and chickens.... +Northward, through the rifts, glistened the sea, steel-blue and cool. +Before them rose the vast, green-clad mass of the mountain, its corona +dim with smoke and lashed by storm. Down in the southwest lay the +ghastly pall, the hidden, tortured city, tranced under the cobra-head of +the volcano and already laved in its poison.</p> + +<p>The trail became very steep at two thousand feet, and this fact, +together with the back-thresh of the summit disturbance, forced Charter +to abandon the animals. It transpired that two of the three later guides +felt it their duty, at this point, to stay behind with the mules. A +little later, when the growling from the prone, upturned face of the +Monster suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the flesh and outraged the +senses of man, Charter looked back and found that only one native was +faltering behind, instead of two. And this one was Jacques, of the +savage eyes. Pere Rabeaut was praised again.</p> + +<p>Fascination for the dying Thing took hold of him now and drew him on. +Charter was little conscious of fear for his life, but of a fixed terror +lest he should be unable to go on. He found himself tearing up a +handkerchief and stuffing the shreds in his ears to deaden the hideous +vibrations. With the linen remaining, he filled his mouth, shutting his +jaws together upon it, as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on an +incline.</p> + +<p>The titanic disorder placated his own. He became unconscious of passing +time. From the contour of the slope, remembered from a past visit, he +was aware of nearing the <i>Lac des Palmists</i>, which marked the +summit-level. Yet changes, violent changes, were everywhere evidenced. +The shoulder of the mountain was smeared with a crust of ash and seamed +with fresh scars. The crust was made by the dry, whirling winds playing +upon the paste formed of stone-dust and condensed steam. The clicking +whir, like a clap of wings, heard at intervals, accounted for the scars. +Bombs of rock were being hurled from the great tubes. Here he shouted to +Jacques to stay behind; that he would be back in a few moments. There +was a nod of assent from the evil head.</p> + +<p>That he was in the range of a raking volcano-fire impressed with a sort +of laughing awe this ant clinging to the beard of a giant. Up, knees and +hands, now, he crawled—up over the throbbing chin, to the black, +pounded lip of the Monster. Out of the old lake coiled the furious tower +of steam and rock-dust which mushroomed in high heaven, like a primal +nebula from which worlds are made. It was this which fell upon the city. +Pockets of gas exploded in the heights, rending the periphery, as the +veil of the temple was rent. Only this horrible torrent spreading over +Saint Pierre to witness, but sounds not meant for the ear of man, sounds +which seemed to saw his skull in twain—the thundering engines of a +planet.</p> + +<p>The rocky rim of the lake was hot to his hands and knees, but a moment +more he lingered. A thought in his brain held him there with thrilling +bands. It was only a plaything of mind—a vagary of altitude and +immensity. "Did ever the body of a man clog the crater of a live +volcano?" was his irreverent query. "Did ever suicidal genius conceive +of corrupting such majesty of force with his pygmy purpose?"</p> + +<p>There he lay, sprawled at the edge of the universal mystery, at the +secret-entrance to the chamber of earth's dynamos. The edge of the pit +shook with the frightful work going on below, yet he was not slain. The +torrent burst past and upward with a southward inclination, clean as a +missing bullet. The bombs of rock canted out from sheer weight and fell +behind. That which he comprehended—although his eyes saw only the gray, +thundering cataclysm—was never before imagined in the mind of man.</p> + +<p>The gray blackened. The roar dwindled, and his senses reeled. With a +rush of saliva, the linen dropped from his open mouth. Charter was sure +there was a gaping cleft in his skull, for he could feel the air blowing +in and out, cold and colder. He tried to lift his hands to cover the +sensitive wound, but they groped in vain for his head. With the icy +draughts of air, he seemed to hear faintly his name falling upon bare +ganglia. For a second he feared that the lower part of his body would +not respond; that he was uncoupled like a beast whose spine is +broken.... It was only a momentary overcoming of the gas, or altitude, +or the dreadful disorder, or all three. Yet he knew how he must turn +back if he lived.... His name was called again. He thought it was the +Reaper, calling forth his ghost.</p> + +<p>"Quentin Charter! Quentin Charter!"</p> + +<p>Then he saw the Wyndam woman on the veranda of the <i>Palms</i>, her face +white with agony, her eyes straining toward him.... Turning hastily—he +missed death in a savage, sordid reality. Jacques had crept upon him, a +maniac in his eyes, dog's slaver on his lips. A rock twice as large as +his head was upraised in both arms. With a muscular spasm one knows in a +dream, Charter's whole body united in a spring to the side—escaping the +rock. Jacques turned and fled like a goat, leaping from level to level.</p> + +<p>Charter managed to follow. He felt weak and ill for the time, as though +Pelée had punished him for peering into matters which Nature does not +thank man for endeavoring to understand.... The three natives pressed +about him far down on the slope. Jacques had vanished. The sun was +sinking seaward. Charter mounted his mule, turning the recent incident +over in his mind for the manieth time. His first thought had been that +the indescribable gripping of the mountain had turned mad a decent +servant, but this did not stand when he recalled how Pere Rabeaut had +importuned him to accept Jacques, and how the latter had fled from his +<i>failure</i>. Yet, so far as he could see, there was no reason in the world +why a conspiracy to murder him should have origin in the little +wine-shop of <i>Rue Rivoli</i>. It was all baffling even at first, that a +rock had been chosen, when a knife or a pistol would have been +effective. This latter, he explained presently. There was a possibility +of his body being found; a smashed head would fall to the blame of <i>Pere +Pelée</i>, who was casting bombs of rock upon the slopes; while a knife or +a bullet-wound on his body would start the hounds indeed.</p> + +<p>He rode down the winding trail apart from the guides. Darkness was +beginning, and the lights of Ajoupa Boullion showed ahead. The mountain +carried on a frightful drumming behind. Coiling masses of volcanic +spume, miles above the craters, generated their own fire; and lit in the +flashes, looked like billows of boiling steel. Charter rode upon sheer +nerve—nerve at which men had often wondered. At length a full-rigged +thought sprang into his mind, which had known but the passing of +hopeless derelicts since the first moment of descent. It was she who had +called to save him. The woman of flesh had become a vision indeed. The +little Island mule felt the heel that moment.... Charter turned back to +the red moiled sky—a rolling, roaring Hades in the North.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, Skylark," he murmured, "if you <i>will</i> merge into this +woman. She may never know that a man fled from her to the mountain +to-day, and is hurrying back—as to the source of all beauty!... +Charter, Charter, your thoughts are boiling over——"</p> + +<p>He rode into the streets of Morne Rouge, so over-crowded now with the +frightened from the lower city, that many were huddled upon the highway +where they would be forced to sleep. Here he paid the three guides, but +retained his mule.... On the down trail again, he re-entered the bank of +falling ash and the sulphurous desolation. Evil as it was, the taint +brought a sense of proximity to the <i>Morne</i> and the <i>Palms</i>. Saint +Pierre was dark and harrowingly still under the throbbing volcano. The +hoof-beats of the mule were muffled in ash, as if he pounded along a +sandy beach. Often a rousing fetor reached the nostrils of the rider, +above the drying, cutting vapor from Pelée, and the little beast shied +and snorted at untoward humps on the highway. War and pestilence, +seemingly, had stalked through Saint Pierre that day and a winter storm +had tried to cover the aftermath.... He passed through <i>Rue Rivoli</i>, but +was far too eager to reach the <i>Palms</i> to stop at the wine-shop. The +ugly mystery there could be penetrated afterward. Downward, he turned +toward the next terrace, where the solitary figure of a woman confronted +him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Charter!" she cried. "And—you are able to ride?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you mean, Miss Wyndam?" he said, swiftly dismounting. +"What are you doing 'way up here alone—in this dreadful suffocation?"</p> + +<p>"I was looking for a little stone wine-shop——" She checked herself, a +scroll of horrors spreading open in her brain.</p> + +<p>"It's just a little way back," he said, in a repressed tone. "I have an +errand there, too. Shall I show you?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered shuddering. "I'll walk with you back to the <i>Palms</i>. +I must think.... Oh, let us hurry!"</p> + +<p>He lifted her to the saddle, and took the bridle-rein.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-THIRD_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-THIRD_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE IN THE NIGHT, AND THE +WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE <i>PALMS</i></h3> + + +<p>Peter Stock was abroad in the <i>Palms</i> shortly after Charter left for the +wine-shop to join Jacques, for the day's trip. The absence of the +younger man reminded him of the project Charter had twice mentioned in +the wine-shop.</p> + +<p>"I can't quite understand it," he said to Miss Wyndam as he started for +the city, "if he really has gone to the craters. He had me thinking it +over—about going along. Why should he rush off alone? I tell you, it's +not like him. The boy's troubled—got some of the groan-stuff of Pelée +in his vitals."</p> + +<p>The day began badly for Paula. Her mind assumed the old dread +receptivity which the occultist had found to his advantage; terrors +flocked in as the hours drew on. One pays for being responsive to the +finer textures of life. Under the stimulus of heat, good steel becomes +radiant with an activity destructive to itself, but quite as marvellous +in its way as the starry heavens. What a superior and admirable +endowment, this, though it consumes, compared to the dead +asbestos-fabric which will not warm. Paula felt the city in her breast +that day—the restless, fevered cries of children and the answering +maternal anguish, the terror everywhere, even in bird-cries and limping +animals—that cosmic sympathy.</p> + +<p>She knew that Charter would not have rushed away to the mountain without +a "good morning" for her, had she told him yesterday. She saw him turn +upon the <i>Morne</i>, look steadily at her window, almost as if he saw the +outline of her figure there—as the call went to him from her inner +heart.... She had reconstructed his last week in New York, from the +letter of Selma Cross and his own; and in her sight he had achieved a +finer thing than any warrior who ever broadened the borders of his +queen. Not a word from her; encountering a mysterious suspicion from +Reifferscheid; avoiding Selma Cross by his word and her own; +vanquishing, who may know how many devils of his own past; and then +summoning the courage and gentleness to write such a letter as she had +received—a letter sent out into the dark—this was loyalty and courage +to woo the soul. With such a spirit, she could tramp the world's highway +with bruised feet, but a singing heart.... And only such a spirit could +be true to Skylark; for she knew as "Wyndam" she had quickened him for +all time, though he ran from her—to commune with Pelée. She felt his +strength—strength of man such as maidens dream of, and, maturing, put +their dreams away.</p> + +<p>"... as I sat by my study window, facing the East!" Well she knew those +words from his letters; and they came to her now, from the talk of +yesterday in the high light of an angelic visitation. Always in memory +the dining-room at the <i>Palms</i> would have an occult fragrance, for +she saw his great love for Skylark there, as he spoke of "facing the +East." How soon could she have told him after that, but for the evil old +French face that drew him away.... "You deserve to suffer, Paula +Linster," she whispered. "You let him go away,—without a tithe of your +secret, or a morsel of your mercy."</p> + +<p>Inevitable before such a conception of manhood—Paula feared her +unworthiness. She saw herself back in New York, faltering under the +power of Bellingham; swayed by those specialists, Reifferscheid in +books, Madame Nestor in occultism; and, above all blame-worthily, by +Selma Cross of the passions. She seemed always to have been listening. +Selma Cross had been strong enough to destroy her Tower; and this, when +the actress herself had been so little sure of her statements that she +must needs call Charter to prove them. Nothing that she had done seemed +to carry the stamina of decision.... So the self-arraignment thickened +and tightened about her, until she cried out:</p> + +<p>"But I would have told him yesterday—had not that old man called him +away!"</p> + +<p>Peter Stock returned at noon, imploring her to go out to the ship, for +even on the <i>Morne</i>, Pelée had become a plague. He pointed out that she +was practically alone in the <i>Palms</i>; that nearly all of Father +Fontanel's parishioners had taken his word and left for Fort de France +or Morne Rouge, at least; that he, Peter Stock, was a very old man who +had earned the right to be fond of whom he pleased, and that it +seriously injured an old man's health when he couldn't have his way.</p> + +<p>"There are big reasons for me to stay here to-day—big only to me," she +told him. "If I had known you for years, I couldn't be more assured of +your kindness, nor more willing to avail myself of it, but please trust +me to know best to-day. Possibly to-morrow."</p> + +<p>So the American left her, complaining that she was quite as inscrutable +as Charter.... An hour or more later, as she was watching the mountain +from her room, a little black carriage stopped before the gate of the +<i>Palms</i>, and Father Fontanel stepped slowly out. She hurried +downstairs, met him at the door, and saw the rare old face in its great +weariness.</p> + +<p>"You have given too much strength to your work, Father," she said, +putting her arm about him and helping him toward the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>"I am quite well," he panted. "I was among my people in the city, when +our amazing friend suddenly appeared with a carriage, bustled me in and +sent me here, saying there were enough people in Saint Pierre who +refused to obey him, and that he didn't propose that I should be one."</p> + +<p>"I think he did very well," she answered, laughing. "What must it be +down in the city—when we suffer so here? We cannot do without you——"</p> + +<p>"But there is great work for me—the great work I have always asked for. +Believe me, I do not suffer."</p> + +<p>"One must not labor until he falls and dies, Father."</p> + +<p>"If it be the will of the good God, I ask nothing fairer than to fall in +His service. Death is only terrible from afar off in youth, my dear +child. When we are old and perceive the glories of the Reality, we are +prone to forget the illusion here. In remembering immortality, we forget +the cares and ills of flesh.... I am only troubled for my people, +stifling in the gray curse of the city, and for my brave young friend. +My mind was clouded when he asked me certain questions last night; and +to-day, they say he has gone to the craters of the mountain."</p> + +<p>"What for?" she whispered quickly.</p> + +<p>"Ah, how should I know? But he tells me of people who make pilgrimages +of sanctification to strange cities of the East—to Mecca and +Benares——"</p> + +<p>"But they go to Benares to die, Father!"</p> + +<p>"I did not know, my daughter," he assured her, drawing his hand across +his brow in a troubled fashion. "He has not gone to the mountain for +that, though I see storms gathering about him, storms of the mountain +and hatreds of men. But I see you with him afterward—as I saw him with +you—when you first spoke to me."</p> + +<p>She told him all, and found healing in the old man's smile.</p> + +<p>"It is well, and it is wonderful," he whispered at last. "Much that my +life has misunderstood is made clear to me—by this love of yours and +his——"</p> + +<p>"'And his,' Father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>There was silence. She would not ask if Quentin Charter had also told +his story. Father Fontanel arose and said he must go back, but he took +the girl's hands, looked deeply into her eyes, saying with memorable +gentleness:</p> + +<p>"Listen, child,—the man who cannot forget a vision that is lost, will +be a brave mate for the envisioned reality that he finds."</p> + +<p>At intervals all that afternoon she felt the influence of Bellingham. It +was not desire. Dull and impersonal, it appealed, as one might hear a +child in another house repeatedly calling to its mother. Within her +there was no response, save that of loathing for a spectre that rises +untimely from a past long since expiated. She did not ask herself +whether she was lifted beyond him, or whether he was debased and +weakened, or if he really called with the old intensity. Glimpses of the +strange place in which he lodged occasionally flashed before her inner +mind, but it was all far and indefinite, easily to be banished. To her, +he had become inextricable from the reptiles. There was so much of +living fear and greater glory in her mind that afternoon, that these +were but evil shadows of slight account.</p> + +<p>The torturing hours crawled by, until the day turned to a deeper gray, +and the North was reddened by Pelée's cone which the thick vapor dimmed +and blurred. Paula was suffered to fight out her battle alone. She could +not have asked more than this. A thousand times she paced across her +room; again and again straining her eyes northward, along the road, over +the city into the darkness, and the end of all things—the mountain.... +There was a moment in the half-light before the day was spent, in which +she seemed to see Quentin Charter, as Father Fontanel had told her, +hemmed in by all the storms and hates of the world. Over the surface of +her brain was a vivid track for flying futile agonies.</p> + +<p>The rumbling that had been incessant was punctuated at intervals now by +an awesome and deeper vibration. Altogether, the sound was like a steady +stream of vehicles, certain ones heavier and moving more swiftly than +others, pounding over a wooden bridge. To her, there was a pang in each +phase of the volcano's activity, since Quentin Charter had gone up into +that red roar.... She did not go down for dinner. When it was eight by +her watch, she felt that she could not live, if he did not return before +another hour. Several minutes had passed when there was a tapping at her +door, and Paula answering, was confronted by a sumptuous figure of +native womanhood. It was Soronia.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Charter is at the wine-shop of Pere Rabeaut in <i>Rue Rivoli</i>," she +said swiftly, hatefully, as though she had been forced to carry the +message, and would not utter a word more than necessary. "He has been +hurt—we do not think seriously—but he wants you to come to him at +once."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I will go to him at once," Paula said, turning to get her +hat. "Pere Rabeaut's wine-shop in the <i>Rue Rivoli</i>?... You say he is not +seriously hurt——"</p> + +<p>She had not turned five seconds from the door, but the woman was gone. +There was much that was strange in this; many thoughts occurred apart +from the central idea of glad obedience, and the fullness of gratitude +in that Pelée had not murdered him.... The <i>Rue Rivoli</i> was a street of +the terraces, she ascertained on the lower floor; also that it would be +impossible to procure a carriage. Mr. Stock had been forced to buy one +outright, her informer added, and to use one of his sailors for a +driver.... So she set out alone and on foot, hurrying along the sea-road +toward the slope where <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i> began. The strangeness of it +all persistently imposed upon her mind, but was unreckonable, compared +to the thought that Quentin Charter would not have called for her, had +he been able to come. From this, the fear of a more serious wound than +the woman had said, was inevitable.</p> + +<p>Paula had suffered enough from doubting; none should mar her performance +now. Unerringly, the processes of mind throughout the day had borne her +to such an action. She would have gone to any red-lit door of the torrid +city.... Vivid terrors of some dreadful crippling accident hurried her +steps into running....</p> + +<p>Pelée, a baleful changing jewel in the black North, reminded her that +Charter would not have gone up to that sink of chaos, had she spoken the +word yesterday. The thought of that wonderful hour brought back the +brooding romance in tints almost ethereal. Higher in her heart than he +had reached in any moment of the day's fluctuations, the image of +Charter wounded, was upraised now and sustained, as she turned from <i>Rue +Victor Hugo</i> into the smothering climb to the terraces. All she could +feel was a prayer that he might live; all the trials and conflicts and +hopes of the past six months hovered afar from this, like navies +crippled in the roadstead....</p> + +<p>She must be near the <i>Rue Rivoli</i>, she thought, suddenly facing an empty +cliff. It was at this moment that she heard the soft foot-falls of a +little native mule, and encountered Quentin Charter....</p> + +<p>Quickly out of the great gladness of the meeting arose the frightful +possibilities from which she had just escaped. They were still too +imminent to be banished from mind at once. Again Charter had saved her +from the Destroyer. She would have wept, had she ventured to speak as he +lifted her into the saddle. Charter was silent, too, for the time, +trying to adjust and measure and proportion.</p> + +<p>Constantly she kept her eyes upon him as he walked slightly ahead, for +she needed this steady assurance that he was there and well. She felt +her arms where his stiffened fingers had been, as he lifted her so +easily upon the mule. She wanted to reach forward and touch his helmet. +They had descended almost to <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i>, when he said:</p> + +<p>"As I looked down the fiery throat of that dragon up there to-day, +everything grew black and still for a minute, like a vacuum.... Will you +please tell me if I came back all right, or are we 'two hurrying shapes +in twilight land—in no man's land?'"</p> + +<p>His amusing appeal righted her. "I have not heard of donkey shapes in +twilight-land," she answered.... And then in the new silence she tried +to bring her thoughts to the point of revelation, but she needed light +for that—light in which to watch his face. Moreover, revelations +contained Bellingham, and she was not quite ready to speak of this. It +was dreadful to be forced to think of the occultist, when her heart +cried out for another moment such as that of yesterday, in which she +could watch his eyes and whisper, "I am very proud to be the Skylark you +treasure so...."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it kind to frighten your friends?" she asked finally. +"When they told me you had gone to the craters—it seemed such a +reckless thing to do——"</p> + +<p>"You see, I rode around behind the mountain. It's very different to +approach from the north. I wished you were there with me in the clean +air. Pelée's muzzle is turned toward the city——"</p> + +<p>"I sent you many cheers and high hopes—did they come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, more than you know——" He checked himself, not wishing to +frighten her further with the story of Jacques, "You said you were +looking for the little wine-shop. Did some one send for you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Some one you know?"</p> + +<p>"They told me you were there—hurt. That's why I came, Mr. Charter."</p> + +<p>He drew up the mule and faced her. "I was there this morning, but not +since.... There's something black about this. Pere Rabeaut was rather +officious in furnishing a guide for me. I'd better find out——"</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to go back there to-night!" she said intensely. "I +think we are both half-dead. I don't feel coherent at all. It has been a +life—this day."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to have made it harder for you. Certainly I shall not add to +your worry to-night. I was thinking, though, it's rather a serious thing +to call you out alone at this hour, through a city disordered like +this—in my name."</p> + +<p>"There's much need of a talk. We shall soon understand it all.... That +must be Mr. Stock coming. He has the only carriage moving in Saint +Pierre, they say."</p> + +<p>Charter pulled the mule up on the walk to let the vehicle pass, but the +capitalist saw them and called to his driver to stop.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said gratefully, "I'm glad to get down to earth again. You +two have had me soaring.... Charter, you don't mean to tell me you +called Miss Wyndam to meet you in the wine-shop?"</p> + +<p>"No. There's a little matter there which must be probed later. I had the +good fortune to meet Miss Wyndam before she reached there."</p> + +<p>Paula watched Charter as he spoke. Light from the carriage-lamp fell +upon him. His white clothing was stained from the saddle, his hair and +eyebrows whitened with dust. His eyes shone in a face haggard unto +ghastliness.</p> + +<p>"I'd go there now," Stock declared, after asking one or two questions +further, "but I have to report with sorrow that Father Fontanel is in a +very weak condition and has asked for you. I just came from the <i>Palms</i>, +hoping that you had returned, and learned that Miss Wyndam was +mysteriously abroad. My idea is to make the good old man go out to the +ship to-night. That's his only chance. He just shakes his head and +smiles at me, when I start in to boss him, but I think he'll go for you. +The little parish-house is like a shut-oven—literally smells of the +burning.... The fact is, I'm getting panicky as an old brood-biddy, +among all you wilful chicks.... Miss Wyndam has promised for to-morrow, +however."</p> + +<p>Her heart went out to the substantial friend he had proved to every one, +though it was all but unthinkable to have Quentin Charter taken from the +<i>Palms</i> that night.</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you at once, but we must see Miss Wyndam safely back.... +She'll be more comfortable in the carriage with you, and we can hurry," +Charter declared.</p> + +<p>He held his arms to her and lifted her down.</p> + +<p>"How I pity you!" she whispered. "You are weary unto death, but I am so +glad—so glad you are safely back from the mountain."</p> + +<p>"Thank you.... You, too, are trembling with weariness. It would not do, +not to go to Father Fontanel—would it?"</p> + +<p>"No, no!"</p> + +<p>At the hotel, Charter took a few moments to put on fresh clothing. Paula +waited with Peter Stock on the lower floor until he appeared. The +capitalist did not fail to see that they wanted a word together, and +clattered forth to see the "pilot of his deep-sea hack."</p> + +<p>"You'd better go aboard to-morrow morning," Charter said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, to-morrow, possibly,—we shall know then. You will be here in the +morning—the first thing in the morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." There was a wonder-world of emotion in his word.</p> + +<p>"And you will not go to the wine-shop, before you see me—in the +morning?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. His inner life was facing the East, listening to a +Skylark song.</p> + +<p>"There is much to hear and say," she whispered unsteadily. "But go to +Father Fontanel—or I—or you will not be in time! He must not die +without seeing you—and take my love and reverence——"</p> + +<p>They were looking into each other's eyes—without words.... Peter Stock +returned from the veranda. Charter shivered slightly with the return to +common consciousness, clenched his empty left hand where hers had been.</p> + +<p>"The times are running close here," he whispered huskily. "Sometimes I +forget that we've only just met. Father Fontanel alone could call me +from here to-night. Somehow, I dread to leave you. You'll have to +forgive me for saying it."</p> + +<p>"Yes.... But in the morning—oh, come quickly.... Good-night."</p> + +<p>She turned hastily to the staircase, and Charter's remarks as he rode +townward with the other, were shirred, indeed....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-FOURTH_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-FOURTH_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>HAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE ASCENSION, WHEN THE +MONSTER, <i>PELÉE</i>, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH</h3> + + +<p>The old servant met them at the door with uplifted finger. Father +Fontanel was sleeping. They did not wish to disturb him but sat down to +wait in the anteroom, which seemed to breathe of little tragedies of +Saint Pierre. On one side of the room was the door that was never +locked; on the other, the entrance to the sleeping-room of the priest. +Thus he kept his ear to the city's pulse. Peter Stock drowsed in the +suffocating air. Charter's mind slowly revolved and fitted to the great +concept.... The woman was drawn to him, and there had been no need of +words.... Each moment she was more wonderful and radiant. There had not +been a glance, a word, a movement, a moment, a breath, an aspiration, a +lift of brow or shoulder or thought, that had not more dearly charmed +his conception of her triune beauty.</p> + +<p>The day had left in his brain a crowd of unassimilated actions, and into +this formless company came the thrilling mystery of his last moment with +her—a shining cord of happiness for the labyrinth of the late days.... +There had been so much <i>beyond words</i> between them—an overtone of +singing. He had seen in her eyes all the eager treasure of brimming +womanhood, rising to burst the bonds of repression for the first time. +Dawn was a far voyage, but he settled himself to wait with the will of a +weathered voyager whose heart feels the hungry arms upon the waiting +shore.</p> + +<p>The volcano lost its monstrous rhythm again, and was ripping forth +irregular crashes. Father Fontanel awoke and the <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i> +became alive with voices, aroused by the rattling in the throat of the +mountain. Charter went into the room where the priest lay.</p> + +<p>"Come, Father," he said, "We have waited long for you. I want you to go +out to the ship for the rest of the night. You must breathe true air for +an hour. Do this for me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my son!" the old man murmured, drawing Charter's head down to his +breast. "My mind was clouded, and I could not see you clearly in the +travail of yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Many of your people are in Fort de France, Father," the young man +added. "They will be glad to see you. Then you may come back here—even +to-morrow, if you are stronger. Besides, the stalwart friend who has +done so much for your people, wants you one night on his ship."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my son.... I was waiting for you. I shall be glad to breathe the +dawn at sea."</p> + +<p>Peter Stock pressed Charter's hand as they led Father Fontanel forth. +The mountain was quieter again. The bells of Saint Pierre rang the hour +of two.... The three reached the Sugar Landing where the <i>Saragossa's</i> +launch lay.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Ernst," Stock called to his man. "I've kept you waiting long, +but top-speed to the ship—deep water and ocean air!"</p> + +<p>The launch sped across the smoky harbor, riding down little isles of +flotsam, dead birds from the sky and nameless mysteries from the roiled +bed of the harbor. The wind was hot in their faces, like a stoke-hold +blast. Often they heard a hissing in the water, like the sound of a wet +finger touching hot iron. A burning cinder fell upon Charter's hand, a +messenger from Pelée. He could not feel fire that night.... He was +living over that last moment with her—gazing into her eyes as one who +seeks to penetrate the mystery of creation, as if it were any clearer in +a woman's eyes than in a Nile night, a Venetian song, or in the flow of +gasolene to the spark, which filled the contemplation of Ernst.... He +remembered the swift intaking of her breath at the last, and knew that +she was close to tears.</p> + +<p>The launch was swinging around to the <i>Saragossa's</i> ladder. Father +Fontanel had not spoken. Wherever the ship-lights fell, the sheeting of +ash could be seen—upon mast and railing and plates. They helped the +good man up the ladder, and Stock ordered Laird, his first officer, to +steam out of the blizzard, a dozen miles if necessary. The anchor chain +began to grind at once, and three minutes later, the <i>Saragossa's</i> +screws were kicking the ugly harbor tide. Charter watched, strangely +disconcerted, until only the dull red of Pelée pierced the thick veil +behind. A star, and another, pricked the blue vault ahead, and the air +blew in fragrant as wine from the rolling Caribbean, but each moment was +an arraignment now.... He wanted none of the clean sea; and the mere +fact that he would not rouse her before daylight, even if he were at the +<i>Palms</i>, did not lessen the savage pressure of the time.... Father +Fontanel would not sleep, but moved among his people on deck. The +natives refused to stay below, now that the defiled harbor was behind. +There was a humming of old French lullabies to the little ones. Cool air +had brought back the songs of peace and summer to the lowly hearts. It +was an hour before dawn, and the <i>Saragossa</i> was already putting back +toward the roadstead, when Father Fontanel called Charter suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Make haste and go to the woman, my son," he said strangely.</p> + +<p>Charter could not answer. The priest had spoken little more than this, +since they led him from the parish-house. The <i>Saragossa</i> crept into the +edge of the smoke. The gray ghost of morning was stealing into the +hateful haze. They found anchorage. The launch was in readiness below. +It was not yet six. Ernst was off duty, and another sailor,—one whose +room was prepared in the dim pavilion—waited at the tiller. Charter +waved at the pale mute face of the priest, leaning overside, and the fog +rushed in between.</p> + +<p>The launch gained the inner harbor, and the white ships at anchor were +vague as phantoms in the vapor—French steamers, Italian barques, and +the smaller West Indian craft—all with their work to do and their way +to win. Charter heard one officer shout to another a whimsical +inquiry—if Saint Pierre were in her usual place or had switched sites +with hell. The day was clearing rapidly, however, and before the launch +reached shore, the haze so lifted that Pelée could be seen, floating a +pennant of black out to sea. In the city, a large frame warehouse was +ablaze. The tinder-dry structure was being destroyed with almost +explosive speed.</p> + +<p>A blistering heat rushed down from the expiring building to the edge of +the land. Crowds watched the destruction. Many of the people were in +holiday attire. This was the Day of Ascension, and Saint Pierre would +shortly pray and praise at the cathedral; and at <i>Notre Dame des +Lourdes</i>, where Father Fontanel would be missed quite the same as if +they had taken the figure of Saint Anne from the altar.... Even now the +cathedral bells were calling, and there was low laughter from a group of +Creole maidens. Was it not good to live, since the sun was trying to +shine again and the mountain did not answer the ringing of the bells? It +was true that Pelée poured forth a black streamer with lightning in its +folds; true that the people trod upon the hot, gray dust of the +volcano's waste; that the heat was such as no man had ever felt before, +and many sat in misery upon the ground; true, indeed, that voices of +hysteria came from the hovels, and the weaker were dying too swiftly for +the priests to attend them all—but the gala-spirit was not dead. The +bells were calling, the mountain was still, bright dresses were +abroad—for the torrid children of France must laugh.</p> + +<p>A carriage was not procurable, so Charter fell in with the procession on +the way to the cathedral. Many of the natives nodded to him; and may +have wondered at the color in his skin, the fire in his eyes, and the +glad ring of his voice. Standing for a moment before the church, he +hurled over the little gathering the germ of flight; told them of the +food and shelter in Fort de France, begged them laughingly to take their +women and children out of this killing air.... It was nearly +eight—eight on the morning of Ascension Day.... She would be ready. He +hoped to find a carriage at the hotel.... At nine they would be in the +launch again, speeding out toward the <i>Saragossa</i>.</p> + +<p>Twenty times a minute she recurred to him as he walked. There was no +waning nor wearing—save a wearing brighter, perhaps—of the images she +had put in his mind. Palaces, gardens, treasure-houses—with the turn of +every thought, new riches of possibility identified with her, were +revealed. Thoughts of her, winged in and out his mind like bright birds +that had a cote within—until he was lifted to heights of gladness which +seemed to shatter the dome of human limitations—and leave him crown and +shoulders emerged into illimitable ether.</p> + +<p>The road up the <i>Morne</i> stretched blinding white before him. The sun was +braver. Panting and spent not a little, he strode upward through the +vicious pressure of heat, holding his helmet free from his head, that +air might circulate under the rim. Upon the crest of the <i>Morne</i>, he +perceived the gables of the old plantation-house, above the palms and +mangoes, strangely yellowed in the ashen haze.</p> + +<p>Pelée roared. Sullen and dreadful out of the silence voiced the Monster +roused to his labor afresh. Charter darted a glance back at the +darkening North, and began to run.... The crisis was not past; the +holiday darkened. The ship would fill with refugees now, and the road to +Fort de France turn black with flight. These were his thoughts as he +ran.</p> + +<p>The lights of the day burned out one by one. The crust of the earth +stretched to a cracking tension. The air was beetling with strange +concussions. In the clutch of realization, Charter turned one shining +look toward the woman hurrying forward on the veranda of the <i>Palms</i>.... +Detonations accumulated into the crash of a thousand navies.</p> + +<p>She halted, her eyes fascinated, lost in the North. He caught her up +like a child. Across the lawn, through the roaring black, he bore her, +brushing her fingers and her fallen hair from his eyes. He reached the +curbing of the old well with his burden, crawled over and caught the +rusty chain. Incandescent tongues lapped the cistern's raised coping. +There was a scream as from the souls of Night and Storm and Chaos +triumphant—a mighty planetary madness—shocking magnitudes from the +very core of sound! Air was sucked from the vault, from their ears and +lungs by the shrieking vacuums, burned through the cushion of atmosphere +by the league-long lanes of electric fire.... Running streams of red +dust filtered down.</p> + +<p>It was eight on the morning of Ascension Day. <i>La Montagne Pelée</i> was +giving birth to death.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-FIFTH_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-FIFTH_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>THE <i>SARAGOSSA</i> ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS FROM <i>PELÉE</i> EIGHT +MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE</h3> + + +<p>Peter Stock stared long into the faint film of smoke, until the launch +bearing Charter ashore was lost in the shipping. The pale, winding sheet +was unwrapped from the beauty of morning. There was an edging of rose +and gold on the far dim hills. His eyes smarted from weariness, but his +mind, like an automatic thing, swept around the great circle—from the +ship to the city, to the plantation-house on the <i>Morne</i> and back to the +ship again. He was sick of the shore, disgusted with people who would +listen to M. Mondet and not to him. Miss Wyndam had refused him so +often, that he was half afraid Charter would not be successful, but he +was willing to wait two hours longer, for he liked the young woman +immensely, liked her breeding and her brain.... He joined Laird, his +first officer, on the bridge. The latter was scrutinizing through the +glass a blotch of smoke on the city-front.</p> + +<p>"What do you make of it, sir?" Laird asked.</p> + +<p>The lenses brought to the owner a nucleus of red in the black bank. The +rest of Saint Pierre was a gray, doll-settlement, set in the shelter of +little gray hills. He could see the riven and castellated crest of Pelée +weaving his black ribbon. It was all small, silent, and unearthly.</p> + +<p>"That's a fire on the water-front," he said.</p> + +<p>"That's what I made of it, sir," Laird responded.</p> + +<p>Shortly afterward the trumpetings of the Monster began. The harbor grew +yellowish-black. The shore crawled deeper into the shroud, and was lost +altogether. The water took on a foul look, as if the bed of the sea were +churned with some beastly passion. The anchor-chain grew taught, +mysteriously strained, and banged a tattoo against its steel-bound eye. +Blue Peter drooping at the foremast, livened suddenly into a spasm of +writhing, like a hooked lizard. The black, quivering columns of smoke +from the funnels were fanned down upon the deck, adding soot to the +white smear from the volcano.</p> + +<p>"Better get the natives below—squall coming!" Peter Stock said, in a +low tone to Laird, and noted upon the quiet, serious face of this +officer, as he obeyed, an expression quite new. It was the look of a man +who sees the end, and does not wince.</p> + +<p>The women wailed, as the sailors hurried them below and sealed the ways +after them. A deep-sea language passed over the ship. There were running +feet, bells below, muffled cries from the native-women, quick oaths from +the sailors; and then, Peter Stock felt the iron-fingers of fear about +his heart—not for himself and his ship eight miles at sea, but for his +good young friend and for the woman who had refused to come.</p> + +<p>A hot, fetid breath charged the air. The ship rose and settled like a +feather in a breeze; in a queer light way, as though its element were +heavily charged with air, the water danced, alive with the yeast of +worlds. The disordered sky intoned violence. Pelée had set the +foundations to trembling. A step upon the bridge-ladder caused the +American to turn with a start. Father Fontanel was coming up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, this won't do at all," Peter Stock cried in French. "We're going to +catch hell up here, and you don't belong."</p> + +<p>He dashed down the ladder, and led the old man swiftly back to the +cabin, where he rushed to the ports and screwed them tight with +lightning fingers, led the priest to a chair and locked it in its +socket. Father Fontanel spoke for the first time.</p> + +<p>"It's very good of you," he said dully, "but what of my people?"</p> + +<p>Stock did not answer, but rushed forth. Six feet from the cabin-door, he +met the fiery van of the cataclysm, and found strength to battle his way +back into the cabin.... From out the shoreward darkness thundered +vibrations which rendered soundless all that had passed before. Comets +flashed by the port-holes. The <i>Saragossa</i> shuddered and fell to her +starboard side.</p> + +<p>Eight bells had just sounded when the great thunder rocked over the +gray-black harbor, and the molten vitals of the Monster, wrapped in a +black cloud, filled the heavens, gathered and plunged down upon the city +and the sea. As for the ship, eight miles from the shore and twelve +miles from the craters, she seemed to have fallen from a habitable +planet into the firemist of an unfinished world. She heeled over like a +biscuit-tin, dipping her bridge and gunwales. She was deluged by blasts +of steam and molten stone. Her anchor-chain gave way, and, burning in a +dozen places, she was sucked inshore.</p> + +<p>Laird was on the bridge. Plass, the second officer, on his way to the +bridge, to relieve or assist Laird as the bell struck, was felled at the +door of the chart-room. A sailor trying to drag the body of Plass to +shelter, was overpowered by the blizzard of steam, gas, and molten +stone, falling across the body of his officer. The ship was rolling like +a runaway-buoy.</p> + +<p>Peter Stock had been hurled across the cabin, but clutched the chair in +which the priest was sitting, and clung to an arm of it, pinning the +other to his seat. Several moments may have passed before he regained +his feet. Though badly burned, he felt pain only in his throat and +lungs, from that awful, outer breath as he regained the cabin. +Firebrands still screamed into the sea outside, but the <i>Saragossa</i> was +steadying a trifle, and vague day returned. Stock was first to reach the +deck, the woodwork of which was burning everywhere. He tried to shout, +but his throat was closed by the hot dust. The body of a man was hanging +over the railing of the bridge. It was Laird, with his face burned away. +There were others fallen.</p> + +<p>The shock of his burns and the terrible outer heat was beginning to +overpower the commander when Pugh, the third officer, untouched by fire, +appeared from below. In a horrid, tongueless way, Stock fired the other +to act, and staggered back into the cabin. Pugh shrieked up the hands, +and set to the fires and the ship's course. Out of two officers and +three sailors on deck when Pelée struck, none had lived. Peter Stock +owed his life to the mute and momentary appearance of Father Fontanel.</p> + +<p>The screaming of the native-women reached his ears from the hold. Father +Fontanel stared at him with the most pitiful eyes ever seen in child or +woman. Black clouds were rolling out to sea. Deep thunder of a righteous +source answered Pelée's lamentations. The sailors were fighting fire and +carrying the dead. The thin shaken voice of Pugh came from the bridge. +The engines were throbbing. Macready, Stock's personal servant, entered +with a blast of heat.</p> + +<p>"Thank God, you're alive, sir!" he said, with the little roll of Ireland +on his tongue. "I was below, where better men were not.... Eight miles +at sea—the long-armed divil av a mountain—what must the infightin' +have been!"</p> + +<p>Peter Stock beckoned him close and called huskily for lint and oils. +Macready was back in a moment from the store-room, removed the cracked +and twisted boots; cleansed the ashes from the face and ears of his +chief; administered stimulant and talked incessantly.</p> + +<p>"It's rainin' evenchooalities out.... Ha, thim burns is not so bad, +though your shoes were pretty thin, an' the deck's smeared with red-hot +paste. It's no bit of a geyser in a dirt-pile, sure, can tell Misther +Stock whin to come and whin to go."</p> + +<p>The cabin filled with the odor of burnt flesh as he stripped the coat +from Stock's shoulder, where an incandescent pebble had fallen and +burned through the cloth. Ointments and bandages were applied before the +owner said:</p> + +<p>"We must be getting pretty close in the harbor?"</p> + +<p>This corked Macready's effervescence. Pugh had been putting the +<i>Saragossa</i> out to sea, since he assumed control. It hadn't occurred to +the little Irishman that Mr. Stock would put back into the harbor of an +island freshly-exploded.</p> + +<p>"I dunno, sir. It's hard to see for the rain."</p> + +<p>"Go to the door and find out".</p> + +<p>The rain fell in sheets. Big seas were driving past, and the steady beat +of the engines was audible. There was no smoke, no familiar shadow of +hills, but a leaden tumult of sky, and the rollers of open sea beaten by +a cloudburst. The commander did not need to be told. It all came back to +him—Laird's body hanging over the railing of the bridge; Plass down; +Pugh, a new man, in command.</p> + +<p>"Up to the bridge, Macready, and tell Pugh for me not to be in such a +damned hurry—running away from a stricken town. Tell him to put back in +the roadstead where we belong."</p> + +<p>Macready was gone several moments, and reported, "Pugh says we're +short-handed; that the ship's badly-charred, but worth savin'; in short, +sir, that he's not takin' orders from no valet—meanin' me."</p> + +<p>Nature was righting herself in the brain of the American, but the +problems of time and space still were mountains to him. Macready saw the +gray eye harden, and knew what the next words would be before they were +spoken.</p> + +<p>"Bring Pugh here!"</p> + +<p>It was rather a sweet duty for Macready, whose colors had been lowered +by the untried officer. The latter was in a funk, if ever a seaman had +such a seizure. Pugh gave an order to the man at the wheel and followed +the Irishman below, where he encountered the gray eye, and felt Macready +behind him at the door.</p> + +<p>"Turn back to harbor at once—full speed!"</p> + +<p>Pugh hesitated, his small black eyes burning with terror.</p> + +<p>"Turn back, I say! Get to hell out of here!"</p> + +<p>"But a firefly couldn't live in there, sir——"</p> + +<p>"Call two sailors, Macready!" Stock commanded, and when they came, +added, "Put him in irons, you men!... Macready, help me to the bridge."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was after eleven when the <i>Saragossa</i> regained the harbor. The +terrific cloudburst had spent itself. Out from the land rolled an +unctuous smudge, which bore suggestions of the heinous impartiality of a +great conflagration. The harbor was cluttered with wreckage, a doom +picture for the eyes of the seaman. Dimly, fitfully, through the pall, +they began to see the ghosts of the shipping—black hulls without helm +or hope. The <i>Saragossa</i> vented a deep-toned roar, but no answer was +returned, save a wailing echo—not a voice from the wreckage, not even +the scream of a gull. A sailor heaved the lead, and the scathed steamer +bore into the rising heat.</p> + +<p>Ahead was emptiness. Peter Stock, reclining upon the bridge, and +suffering martyrdoms from his burns, gave up his last hope that the guns +of Pelée had been turned straight seaward, sparing the city or a portion +of it. Rough winds tunnelling through the smoke revealed a hint of hills +shorn of Saint Pierre. A cry was wrung from the American's breast, and +Macready hastened to his side with a glass of spirits.</p> + +<p>"I want a boat made ready—food, medicines, bandages, two or three +hundred pounds of ice covered with blankets and a tarpaulin," Stock +said. "You are to take a couple of men and get in there. Get the steward +started fitting the boat, and see that the natives are kept a bit +quieter. Make 'em see the other side—if they hadn't come aboard."</p> + +<p>"Mother av God," Macready muttered as he went about these affairs. "I +could bake a potatie here, sure, in the holla av my hand. What, thin, +must it be in that pit of destruction?" He feared Pelée less, however, +than the gray eye, and the fate of Pugh.</p> + +<p>The launch had not returned from taking Charter ashore, so one of the +life-boats was put into commission. The German, Ernst, and another +sailor of Macready's choice, were shortly ready to set out.</p> + +<p>"You know why I'm not with you, men," the commander told them at the +last moment. "It isn't that I couldn't stand it in the boat, but there's +a trip ashore for you to make, and there's no walking for me on these +puff-balls for weeks to come. Macready, you know Mr. Charter. He had +time to reach the <i>Palms</i> before hell broke loose. I want you to go +there and bring him back alive—and a woman who'll be with him! Also +report to me regarding conditions in the city. That's all. Lower away."</p> + +<p>A half-hour later, the little boat was forced to return to the ship. The +sailor was whimpering at the oars; the lips of Ernst were twisted in +agony; while Macready was silent, sign enough of his failing endurance. +Human vitality could not withstand the withering draughts of heat. At +noon, another amazing downpour of rain came to the aid of Peter Stock +who, granting that the little party had encountered conditions which +flesh could not conquer, had, nevertheless, been chafing furiously. At +two in the afternoon, a second start was made.</p> + +<p>Deeper and deeper in toward the gray low beach the little boat was +pulled, its occupants the first to look upon the heaped and over-running +measure of Saint Pierre's destruction. The three took turns at the oars. +Fear and suffering brought out a strange feminine quality in the sailor, +not of cowardice; rather he seemed beset by visionary terrors. Rare +running-mates were Macready and Ernst, odd as two white men can be, but +matched to a hair in courage. The German bent to his work, a grim stolid +mechanism. Macready jerked at the oars, and found breath and energy +remaining to assail the world, the flesh and the devil, which was Pugh, +with his barbed and invariably glib tongue. How many times the blue eyes +of the German rolled back under the lids, and his grip relaxed upon the +oars; how many times the whipping tongue of Macready mumbled, forgetting +its object, while his senses reeled against the burning walls of his +brain; how many times the sailor hoarsely commanded them to look through +the fog for figures which alone he saw—only God and these knew. But the +little boat held its prow to the desolate shore.</p> + +<p>They gained the Sugar Landing at last, or the place where it had been, +and strange sounds came from the lips of Ernst, as he pointed to the +hulk of the <i>Saragossa's</i> launch, burned to the water-line. It had been +in his care steadily until its last trip. Gray-covered heaps were +sprawled upon the shore, some half-covered by the incoming tide, others +entirely awash. Pelée had brought down the city; and the fire-tiger had +rushed in at the kill. He was hissing and crunching still, under the +ruins. The sailor moaned and covered his face.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing alive!" he repeated with dreadful stress.</p> + +<p>"What else would you look for—here at the very fut av the mountain?" +Macready demanded. "Wait till we get over the hill, and you'll hear the +birds singin' an' the naygurs laughin' in the fields an' wonderin' why +the milkman don't come."</p> + +<p>The market-place near the shore was filled with the stones from the +surrounding buildings, hurled there as dice from a box. Smoke and steam +oozed from every ruin. The silence was awful as the sight of death. The +streets of the city were effaced. Saint Pierre had been felled and +altered, as the Sioux women once altered the corpses of the slain +whites. There was no discernible way up the <i>Morne</i>. Breathing piles of +debris barred every passage. Under one of these, a clock suddenly struck +three—an irreverent survival carrying on its shocking business beneath +the collapsed walls of a burned and beaten city, frightening them +hideously. It would have been impossible to traverse <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i> +had the way been clear, since a hundred feet from the shore or less, +they encountered a zone of unendurable heat.</p> + +<p>"I could die happy holdin' Pugh here," Macready gasped. "Do you think +hell is worse than this, Ernst, barrin' the effrontery of the question? +Ha—don't step there!"</p> + +<p>He yanked the German away from a puddle of uncongealed stuff, hot as +running metal.... The sailor screamed. He had stepped upon what seemed +to be an ash-covered stone. It was soft, springy, and vented a wheezy +sigh. Rain and rock-dust had smeared all things alike in this gray +roasting shambles.</p> + +<p>"Won't somebody say something?" the sailor cried in a momentary silence.</p> + +<p>"It looks like rain, ma'm," Macready offered.</p> + +<p>They had been forced back into the boat, and were skirting the shore +around by the <i>Morne</i>. Saint Pierre had rushed to the sea—at the last. +The volcano had found the women with the children, as all manner of +visitations find them—and the men a little apart. Pelée had not +faltered. There was nothing to do by the way, no lips to moisten, no +voice of pain to hush, no dying thing to ease. There was not an +insect-murmur in the air, nor a crawling thing upon the beach, not a +moving wing in the hot, gray sky—a necropolis, shore of death absolute.</p> + +<p>They climbed the cliffs to the north of the <i>Palms</i>, glanced down +through the smoke at the city—sunken like a toothless mouth. Even the +<i>Morne</i> was a husk divested of its fruit. Pelée had cut the cane-fields, +sucked the juices and left the blasted stalks in his paste. The old +plantation-house pushed forth no shadow of an outline. It might be +felled or lost in the smoky distance. The nearer landmarks were +gone—homes that had brightened the heights in their day, whose windows +had flashed the rays of the afternoon sun as it rode down +oversea—levelled like the fields of cane. Pelée had swept far and left +only his shroud, and the heaps upon the way, to show that the old +sea-road, so white, so beautiful, had been the haunt of man. The mangoes +had lost their vesture; the palms were gnarled and naked fingers +pointing to the pitiless sky.</p> + +<p>Macready had known this highway in the mornings, when joy was not dead, +when the songs of the toilers and the laughter of children glorified the +fields; in the white moonlight, when the sea-winds met and mingled with +the spice from tropic hills, and the fragrance from the jasmine and +rose-gardens.... He stared ahead now, wetting his puffed and tortured +lips. They had passed the radius of terrific heat, but he was thinking +of the waiting gray eye, when he returned without the man and the woman.</p> + +<p>"It'll be back to the bunkers for Dinny," he muttered.... "Ernst, ye +goat, you're intertainin', you're loquenchus."</p> + +<p>They stepped forward swiftly now. There was not a hope that the mountain +had shown mercy at the journey's end.... They would find whom they +sought down like the others, and the great house about them. Still, +there was a vague God to whom Macready had prayed once or twice in his +life—a God who had the power to strike blasphemers dead, to still +tempests, light volcanic fuses and fell Babylons. To this God he +muttered a prayer now....</p> + +<p>The ruins of the plantation house wavered forth from the fog. The sailor +plucked at Macready's sleeve, and Ernst mumbled thickly that they might +as well get back aboard.... But the Irishman stood forth from them; and +in that smoky gloom, desolate as the first day, before Light was turned +upon the Formless Void, bayed the names of Charter and the woman.</p> + +<p>Then the answer:</p> + +<p>"<i>In the cistern—in the old cistern!</i>"</p> + +<p>Macready made a mental appointment with his God, and yelled presently: +"Didn't I tell you 'twould take more than the sphit of a mountain to +singe the hair of him?... Are you hurted, sir?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-SIXTH_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-SIXTH_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE ENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD +THAT DRIVES THE WORLD</h3> + + +<p>Charter roused, after an unknown time, to the realization that the woman +was in his arms; later, that he was sitting upon a slimy stone in a +subterranean cell filled with steam. The slab of stone held him free +from the four or five inches of almost scalding water on the floor of +the cistern. The vault was square, and luckily much larger than its +circular orifice; so that back in the corner they were free from the +volcanic discharge which had showered down through the mouth of the +pit—the cause of the heated water and the released vapors. An +earthquake years before had loosened the stone-lining of the vault. With +every shudder of the earth now, under the wrath of Pelée, the walls, +still upstanding, trembled.</p> + +<p>Charter was given much time to observe these matters; and to reckon with +mere surface disorders, such as a bleeding right hand, lacerated from +the rusty chain; a torn shoulder, and a variety of burns which he +promptly decided must be inconsequential, since they stung so in the hot +vapor. Then, someone with a powerful arm was knocking out three-cushion +caroms in his brain-pan. This spoiled good thinking results. It is true, +he did not grasp the points of the position, with the remotest trace of +the sequence in which they are put down. Indeed, his mind, emerging from +the depths into which the shock of eruption had felled it, held alone +with any persistence the all-enfolding miracle that the woman was in his +arms....</p> + +<p>Presently, his brain began to sort the side-issues. Her head had lain, +upon his shoulder during that precipitous plunge, and her hair had +fallen when he first caught her up. He remembered it blowing and +covering his eyes in a manner of playful endearment quite impossible for +an outsider to conceive. Meanwhile, the blast from Pelée was upon the +city; traversing the six miles from the crater to the <i>Morne</i>, faster +than its own sound; six miles in little more than the time it had taken +him to cross the lawn from the veranda to the cistern. A second or two +had saved them.</p> + +<p>The fire had touched her hair.... Her bare arm brushed his cheek, and +his whole nature suddenly crawled with the fear that she might not wake. +His head dropped to her breast, and he heard her heart, light and +steadily on its way. His eyes were straining through the darkness into +her face, but he could not be sure it was without burns. There was +cumulative harshness in the fear that her face, so fragile, of purest +line, should meet the coarse element, burning dirt. His hands were not +free, but he touched her eyes, and knew that they were whole.... She +sighed, stirred and winced a little—breath of consciousness returning. +Then he heard:</p> + +<p>"What is this dripping darkness?"</p> + +<p>The words were slowly uttered, and the tones soft and vague, as from one +dreaming, or very close to the Gates.... In a great dark room somewhere, +in a past life, perhaps, he had heard such a voice from someone lying in +the shadows.</p> + +<p>"We are in the old cistern—you and I——"</p> + +<p>"I—knew—you—would—come—for—me."</p> + +<p>It was murmured as from someone very weary, very happy—as a child +falling asleep after a dream, murmurs with a little contented nestle +under the mother-wing.</p> + +<p>"But how could you know?" he whispered quickly. "My heart was too +full—to take a mere mountain seriously—until the last minute——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Skylarks—always—know!</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Torrents of rain were descending. Pelée roared with the after-pangs. +Though cooled and replenished by floods of black rain, the rising water +in the cistern was still hot.</p> + +<p>"It was always hard for me to call you Wyndam——"</p> + +<p>"Harder to hear, Quentin Charter...."</p> + +<p>"But are you sure you are not badly burned?" he asked for the tenth +time.</p> + +<p>"I don't feel badly burned.... I was watching for you from the window in +my room. I didn't like the way my hair looked, and was changing it when +I saw you coming—and the Black behind you. I tried to fasten it with +one pin, as I ran downstairs.... It fell. It is very thick and kept the +fire from me——"</p> + +<p>"From us." He would have preferred his share of the red dust.</p> + +<p>She shivered contentedly. "What little is burned will grow again. Red +mops invariably do."</p> + +<p>" ... And to think I should have found the old cistern in the night!... +One night when I could not sleep, I walked out here and explored. The +idea came then——"</p> + +<p>"I watched you from the upper window.... The shutter wiggled as you went +away. It was the next day that the 'fraids got me. You rushed off to the +mountain."</p> + +<p>Often they verged like this beyond the borders of rational quotation. +One hears only the voices, not the words often, from Rapture's Roadway.</p> + +<p>"Just as I begin to think of something Pelée erupts all over again in my +skull——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know men understood headache matters.... Don't you +think—don't you really think—I might be allowed to stand a little +bit?"</p> + +<p>"Water's still too hot," he replied briefly.</p> + +<p>The cavern was not so utterly dark. The circle of the orifice was +sharply lit with gray.... They lost track of the hours; for moments at a +time forgot physical distress, since they had known only mystic journeys +before.... They whispered the fate of Saint Pierre—a city's soul torn +from the shrieking flesh; shadows lifted from the mystery of the little +wine-shop; clearly they saw how the occultist, his magnetism crippled, +had used Jacques and Soronia; and Charter recalled now where he had seen +the face of Paula before—the photograph in the Bellingham-cabin on the +<i>Panther</i>.... A second cloudburst cooled and eased them, though they +stood in water.... It seemed that Peter Stock should have made an effort +to reach them by this time. Save that the gray was unchangeable in the +roof the world, Charter could not have believed that this was all one +day. The power which had devastated the city, and with unspent violence +swept the <i>Morne</i>, might have reached three leagues at sea!... Above all +these probabilities arose their happiness.</p> + +<p>"It seems that I've become a little boy," he said, "on one of those +perfect Christmas mornings. Don't you remember, the greatest moment of +all—coming downstairs, partly dressed, into the room <i>They</i> had made +ready? That moment, before you actually see—just as you enter the +mingled dawn and fire-light and catch the first glisten of the tree?... +I'm afraid, Paula Linster, you have found——"</p> + +<p>"A boy," she whispered. Her face was very close in the gray.... "The +loved dream-boy. The boy went away to meet sternness and suffering and +mazes of misdirection—had to compromise with the world to fit at all. +Ah, I have waited long, and the man has come back to me—a boy."</p> + +<p>"<i>La Montagne Pelée</i> is artistic."</p> + +<p>"It may be in this marvellous world, where men carry on their wars and +their wooings," she went on strangely, "some pursuing their little ways +of darkness, some bursting into blooms of valor and tenderness;—it may +be that two of Earth's people, after a dreadful passage through agony +and terror, have been restored to each other—as we are. It may be that +in the roll of Earth's tableaux, another such film is curled away from +another age and another cataclysm."</p> + +<p>"Paula," he declared, after a moment, "I have found a Living Truth in +this happiness—the Great Good that Drives the World! I think I shall +not lose it again. Glimpses of it came to me facing the East—as I wrote +and thought of you. One glimpse was so clear that I expressed it in a +letter, 'I tell you there is no death, since I have heard the Skylark +sing....' I lost the bright fragment, for a few days in New +York—battled for the prize again both in New York and yesterday at the +mountain. To-day has brought it to me—always to keep. It is this: Were +you to die, I should love you and know you were near. This is love above +Flesh and Death—the old mystifying Interchangeables. This happiness is +the triumph over death. It is a revelation, a mighty adoring—not a mere +woman in my arms, but an ineffable issue of eternity. A woman, but +more—Love and Labor and Life and the Great Good that Drives the World! +This is the happiness I have and hold to-day: Though you died, I should +know that you lived and were mine."</p> + +<p>"I see it—it is the triumph over death—but, Quentin Charter—I want +<i>you</i> still!"</p> + +<p>"Don't you see, it is the strength you give me!—that girds me to say +such things?"</p> + +<p>So they had their flights into silence, while the eternal gray lived in +their round summit of sky—until the voices of the rescuers and their +own grateful answers.... The sailor was sent back to the boat for rope, +while Macready cheered them with a fine and soothing Gaelic oil.... They +lifted Paula, who steadied and helped herself by the chain; then sent +the noose down for Charter.</p> + +<p>"Have you the strent', sir, to do the overhand up the chain?" Macready +questioned, and added in a ghost's whisper, "with the fairest of tin +thousand waitin' at the top?"</p> + +<p>Charter laughed. To lift his right arm was thrashing pain, but he made +it easy as he could for them; and in the gray light faced the woman.</p> + +<p>She saw his lacerated hand, the mire, fire-blisters upon his face, the +blood upon his clothing, swollen veins of throat and temples, and the +glowing adoration in his eyes.... She had bound her hair, and there was +much still to bind. No mortal hurt was visible. Behind her was the +falling sea. On her right hand the smoking ruin of the <i>Palms</i>; to the +left, Pelée and his tens of thousands slain; above, the hot, leaden, +hurrying clouds.... Ernst, Macready and the sailor moved discreetly +away. Backs turned, they watched the puffs of smoke and steam that rose +like gray-white birds from the valley of the dead city.</p> + +<p>"Ernst, lad," said Macready, "the boss and the leadin' lady are havin' +an intellekchool repast in the cinter av the stage by the old well. Bear +in mind you're a chorus girl and conduct yourself in accord. Have you a +drop left in the heel av the flask, Adele, dear?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They were nearing the <i>Saragossa</i> in the dusk, and their call had been +answered with a rousing cheer from the ship....</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, you said you would take me sailing," Paula called, as she +readied the head of the ladder.</p> + +<p>Though he could not stand, Peter Stock had an arm for each; and they +were only released to fall into the embrace of Father Fontanel. They saw +it now in the ship's light: Pelée had stricken the old priest, but not +with fire.... The two were together shortly afterward at supper, in +clean dry make-shifts, very ludicrous.</p> + +<p>"I came to you empty-handed, and soiled from the travail of the +journey," she whispered. "All but myself was in a certain room that +faced the North."</p> + +<p>"There are booties, flounces and ribands in the shops of Fort de +France," Charter replied with delight. "Peter Stock shall be allowed +certain privileges, but not to make any such purchases. I carry circular +notes—and insist on straightening them out."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you discovered that Skylarks are not of the insisting +kind—even when they need new plumage? Anything that looks like +insistence nearly scares the life out of them. Isn't it a dear world?"</p> + +<p>All this was smoothly coherent to him.... Alone that night, they drew +deck-chairs close together forward; and snugly wrapped, would have +nothing whatever to do with Peter Stock's sumptuous cabins. They needed +floods of rest, but were too happy, save just to take little sips of +sleep between talk.</p> + +<p>"You must have been afraid at first," she said, "of turning a foolish +person's head with all that beauty of praise in your letters.... I think +you were writing to some image you wanted to believe lived somewhere, +but had little hope ever really to find. I could not take it all home to +me at first.... I felt that you were writing to a lovely, shadowy sister +who was safely put away in a kind of twilight faëry—a little figure by +a well of magical waters. Sometimes I could go to her, reach the well, +but I could not drink at first—only listen to the music of the water, +watch it bubble and flash in the moon."</p> + +<p>"I love your mind, Paula Linster," he said suddenly, "—every phase of +it. By the way—<i>love's</i> a word I never used before to-day—not even in +my work, save as an abstraction."</p> + +<p>She remembered that Selma Cross had said this of him—that he never used +that word.</p> + +<p>"You could not have said that to 'Wyndam'——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—for Skylark was singing more and more about her. I soon should +have had to say it to 'Wyndam.'"</p> + +<p>"I loved your fidelity to Skylark," she told him softly.</p> + +<p>Dust of Pelée would fall upon the archipelago for weeks, but this of +starless dark was their supreme night. "Feel the sting of the spray," he +commanded. "Hear the bows sing!... It's all for us—the loveliest of +earth's distances and the sky afterward——"</p> + +<p>"But behind," she whispered pitifully.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Pelée 'splashed at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's +hair.'"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The next night had fallen, and the two were through with the shops of +Fort de France. Paula's dress was white and lustrous, a strange native +fabric which the man regarded with seriousness and awe. He was in white, +too. His right hand was swathed for repairs, the arm slung, and a +thickness of lint was fitted under his collar. About his eyes and mouth +was a slight look of strain still, which could not live another day +before the force of recuperative happiness.... Up through the streets of +the Capital, they made their way. Casements were open to the night and +the sea, but the people were dulled with grief. Martinique had lost her +first born, and Fort de France, the gentle sister of Saint Pierre, was +bowed with the spirit of weeping. They had loved and leaned on each +other, this boy and girl of the Mother Island.</p> + +<p>Through the silent crowds, Charter and Paula walked, a part of the +silence, passing the groves and towers, where the laws of France are +born again for the little aliens; treading streets of darkness and +moaning. A field of fire-lights shone ahead—red glow shining upon new +canvas. This was the little colony of Father Fontanel, sustained by his +American friend,—brands plucked from the burning of Saint Pierre. They +passed the edge of the bivouac. A woman sat nursing her babe, fire-light +upon her face and breast, drowsy little ones about her. Coffee and +night-air and quavering lullabies; above all, ardent Josephine in +marble, smiling and dreaming of Europe among the stars.... It was a +powerful moment to Quentin Charter. Great joy and thrilling tragedy +breathed upon his heart. He saw a tear upon Paula's cheek, and heard the +low voice of Father Fontanel—like an echo across a stream. He saw them +and hastened forward, more than white in the radiance.</p> + +<p>"It is the moment of ten thousand years!" he exclaimed, grasping their +hands.</p> + +<p>Paula started, and turned to Charter whose gaze sank into her brain.... +And so it came about unexpectedly; in the fire-light among the priest's +beloved, under the Seven Palms and the ardent mystic smile of the +Empress....</p> + +<p><i>Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry +heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.... Let thy garments be +always white; and let not thy head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the +wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life.</i></p> + +<p>The words rang in their ears, when they were alone in the city's +darkness, and the fire-lights far behind.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>On the third day following, they stood together on the <i>Morne +d'Orange</i>—the three. Father Fontanel had been in feverish haste to gaze +once more upon his city; while Charter and Paula had a mission among the +ruins.... The <i>Saragossa</i> was sitting for a new complexion in the harbor +of Fort de France, so they had been driven over from the Capital, along +the old sea-road. The wind was still; the sun shone through silent +towers of smoke, and it was noon. Sunlight bathed the stripped fields of +cane, and, seemingly inseparable from the stillness, brooded upon the +blue Caribbean. The wreck of the old plantation-house was hunched closer +to the ground.</p> + +<p>They left Father Fontanel in the carriage, and approached the cistern. +Charter halted suddenly at the edge of the stricken lianas, grasping +Paula's arm. The well-curbing was broken away, and the earth, for yards +surrounding, had caved into the vault. They stood there without speaking +for a moment or two, and then he led her back to the carriage.... Father +Fontanel did not seem aware of their coming or going, but smiled when +they spoke. His eyes, charmed with sunlight, were lost oversea.</p> + +<p>At last they stood, the priest between them, at the very edge of the +<i>Morne</i> overlooking the shadowed <i>Rue Victor Hugo</i>—a collapsed artery +of the whited sepulchre.... The priest caught his breath; his hands +lifted from their shoulders and stretched out over the necropolis. His +face was upraised.</p> + +<p>"God, love the World!" he breathed, and the flesh sank from him.... Much +death had dulled their emotions, but this was translation. For an +instant they were lifted, exalted, as by the rushing winds of a chariot.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They did not enter the city that day, but came again, the fourth day +after the cataclysm. Out of the heat from the prone city, arose a +forbidding breath, so that Paula was prevailed upon to stay behind on +the <i>Morne</i>.... Sickened and terrified by the actualities, dreadful +beyond any imaging, Charter made his way up the cluttered road into <i>Rue +Rivoli</i>. Saint Pierre, a smoky pestilential charnel, was only alive now +through the lamentations of those who had come down from the hills for +their dead.</p> + +<p>The wine-shop had partly fallen in front. The stone-arch remained, but +the wooden-door had been levelled and was partially devoured by fire. A +breath of coolness still lingered in the dark place, and the fruity odor +of spilled wine mingled revoltingly with the heaviness of death. The +ash-covered floor was packed hard, and still wet from the gusts of rain +that had swept in through the open door and the broken-backed roof; +stained, too, from the leakage of the casks. Charter's boot touched an +empty bottle, and it wheeled and careened across the stones—until he +thought it would never stop.... Steady as a ticking clock, came the +"drip-drip" of liquor, escaping through a sprung seam from somewhere +among the merciful shadows, where the old soldier of France had fallen +from his chair.</p> + +<p>He climbed over the heap of stones, which had been the rear-door, and +entered the little court from which the song-birds had flown. Across the +drifts of ash, he forced his steps—into the semi-dark of the +living-room behind.</p> + +<p>The great head that he had come to find, was rigidly erect, as if the +muscles were locked, and faced the aperture through which he had +entered. It seemed to be done in iron, and was covered with white +dust—Pelée's dust, fresh-wrought from the fire in which the stars were +forged. The first impression was that of calm, but Charter's soul +chilled with terror, before his eyes fathomed the reality of that look. +Under the thick dust, there suddenly appeared upon the features, as if +invisible demons tugged at the muscles with hideous art, a reflection +from the depths.... Bellingham was sitting beside a table. He had seen +Death in the open door. The colossal energies of his life had risen to +vanquish the Foe, yet again. His mind had realized their failure, and +what failure meant, before the End. Out of the havoc of nether-planes, +where Abominations are born, had come a last call for him. That glimpse +of hell was mirrored in the staring dustless eyes.... Around his +shoulders, like a golden vine, and lying across his knees, clung the +trophy of defeat—Soronia. Denied the lily—he had taken the +tiger-lily.... Under the unset stones of the floor, a lizard croaked.</p> + +<p>Charter, who had fallen of old into the Caverns of Devouring, backed out +into the court of the song-birds, in agony for clean light, for he had +seen old hells again, in the luminous decay of those staring eyes.... He +recalled the end of Father Fontanel and this—with reverent awe, as one +on the edge of the mystery. Through the ends of these two, had some +essential balance of power been preserved in the world?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWENTY-SEVENTH_CHAPTER" id="TWENTY-SEVENTH_CHAPTER"></a>TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER</h2> + +<h3>PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE +WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY</h3> + + +<p>Peter Stock had cabled to New York for officers and men to make up a +ship's company. The <i>Saragossa</i> was overhauled, meanwhile, in the harbor +of Fort de France, and the owner expressed his intention of finishing +his healing at sea. On the same ship, which brought his seamen from New +York, arrived in Fort de France a corps of newspaper correspondents, who +were not slow to discover that in the bandaged capitalist lay one of the +great stones of the eruption from the American point of view. This +literally unseated Peter Stock from his chair on the veranda of the +hotel at the Capital. With his guests, he put to sea within thirty-six +hours after the arrival of the steamer from New York; indeed, before the +<i>Saragossa's</i> paint was dry. His vitality was not abated, but the great +figures of Pelée and Fontanel, enriched by M. Mondet as a sort of +clown-attendant, had strangely softened and strengthened this +rarely-flavored personality. As for his two guests, that month of +voyaging in the Caribbean and below, is particularly their own. The +three were on deck as the <i>Saragossa</i> plied past Saint Pierre, five or +six miles deep in the roadstead, a last time. The brute, Pelée, lay +asleep in the sun before the gate of the whited sepulchre.</p> + +<p>"Did I ever tell you about my last interview with M. Mondet?" Peter +Stock inquired.</p> + +<p>Charter had witnessed it, on his way to the craters that morning, but he +did not say so, and was regaled with the story. "Bear witness," Peter +Stock finished, pointing toward the city, "that I forgive M. Mondet. +Doubtless he was writing a paragraph on the staunchness of Pelée—when +his desk was closed for him."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock +berthed the <i>Saragossa</i> and breathed the big city, than he discovered +how dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little +apartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong +young queen; alone also first to <i>The States</i>, though there was a table +set for four over in Staten Island the following day....</p> + +<p>Charter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the +latter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in +the eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious +explanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To +Charter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly +bright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid +had put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that +their imperishable lustre was in his eyes—for the deeper-seeing eyes of +the woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to +burst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang +high among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it +were just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the +men and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives +the World.</p> + +<p>Selma Cross had left the <i>Zoroaster</i>, and, with Stephen Cabot, was +happily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. <i>The Thing</i> +was to open again in September at the <i>Herriot</i>, and the initial venture +into the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to +do without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down +into Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun +Knox proved rare listening:</p> + +<p>"I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from +Stephen Cabot," she said, falling with the same old readiness into her +disclosures. "'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into +Danube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....' +I had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It +was so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a +self-fighter—the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I +took his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it +transpired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to +Cincinnati—for one day—to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I +was all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art +could give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his +face, so brave and so white.</p> + +<p>"I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned +to the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a +Stephen who could smile up from the ground as—as they stoned.... So I +left him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel, +watching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio.</p> + +<p>"Late the next afternoon I reached Danube, and was driven directly to +the theatre—which was new. There was a pang in this. The town seemed +just the same; the streets and buildings, the sounds and smells, even +the sunset patch at the head of Main Street—all were just as they +should be, except the theatre. You see, all the dreams of greatness of +that savage, homely girl, had found their source and culmination in the +old house of melodrama, parts of which, they told me, now were made over +into darkey shanties down by the river. I felt that my success was +qualified a little in that it had not come in the life of the old house.</p> + +<p>"I joined the Company at the theatre, without seeing any of the Danube +folk. The audience was already gathering. Through an eyelet of the +curtain, I saw Calhoun Knox enter alone, and take a seat in the centre, +five rows from the orchestra. He seemed smaller. The good brown tan was +gone. There was a twitch about his mouth that twitched mine. Other faces +were the same—even the lips that had spoken my doom so long ago. I had +no hate for them now....</p> + +<p>"I looked at Calhoun Knox again, looked for the charm of clean +simplicity, and kept putting Stephen Cabot out of my heart and brain.... +This man before me had fought for me twice, when I had needed a +champion.... They pulled me away from the eyelet, and <i>The Thing</i> was +on.</p> + +<p>"I could feel the town's group-soul that night—responded to its every +thought, as if a nerve-system of my own was installed in every mind. +They were listening to the woman who had startled New York. I felt their +awe. It was not sweet, as I had dreamed the moment would be. After all, +these were my people.</p> + +<p>"I wanted their love, not their adulation. There had been nights back in +the East, when I had felt my audience, and turned loose <i>The Thing</i> with +utmost daring, knowing that enough of the throng could follow me. But +this night I played slowly, played down, so that all could get it. This +was not a concession to the public, but a reconciliation. And at the +last, I moved and spoke pityingly, lest I hurt them; played to the +working face of Calhoun Knox with all its limitations—as you would tell +a story to a child, and hasten the happy ending to steady the quivering +lip.... And then it came to me slowly, after the last curtain had +fallen, that Danube was calling for its own, and I stepped out from +behind.</p> + +<p>"'Once in the days of tumult and misunderstanding,' I told them, 'I was +angry because you did not love me. Now I know that I was not lovable. +And now I feel your goodness and your forgiveness. I pray you not to +thank me any more, lest I break down under too much joy....' Then I +went down among them. A woman kissed me, but the moment was so big and +my eyes so clouded that I did not remember the face.... Presently the +real consciousness came. Danube had dropped back to the doors. My hand +was in the hand of Calhoun Knox.</p> + +<p>"Far out the Lone Ridge pike, we walked, to the foot of the Knobs. I was +breathing the smell of my old mountains. You can rely, that I had kept +my voice bright. 'I have come back to you, Calhoun,' I said.</p> + +<p>"'I shouldn't be here,' he stammered in real panic. 'You didn't write, +and I married——'</p> + +<p>"I could have hugged him in a way that would not have disturbed his +wife, but I said reproachfully, 'And you let me come 'way out here alone +with you, wicked Married Man?...' I started back for town, and then +thought better of it—waited for him to come up, and took his hand.</p> + +<p>"'Calhoun,' I said, 'I found you a solid friend when I needed one +pitifully. Selma Cross never forgets. You have always been my Kentucky +Gentleman. God bless your big bright heart. I wish you kingly +happiness!'</p> + +<p>"And then I did rush back. We separated at the edge of the town. I +wanted to run and cry aloud. The joy was so new and so vast that I could +scarcely hold it. Miles away, I heard the night-train whistle. My +baggage was at the hotel, but I didn't care for that, and reached the +depot-platform in time. The Company was there, but they had reserved a +Pullman. I went into the day-coach, because I wanted to be alone—sat +rigidly in the thin-backed seat. There were snoring, sprawling folks on +every hand.... After a long time, some one stirred in his seat and +muttered, 'High Bridge.' The brakeman came through at age-long +intervals, calling stations that had once seemed to me the far country. +Then across the aisle, a babe awoke and wailed. The mother had others—a +sweet sort of woman sick with weariness. I took the little one, and it +liked the fresh arms and fell asleep. It fitted right in—the soft +helpless warm little thing—and felt good to me. Dawn dimmed the old +meadows before I gave it up to be fed—and begged it back again.</p> + +<p>"And then Cincinnati from the river—brown river below and brown +smoke-clouds above. It seemed as if I had been gone ages, instead of +only since yesterday. Unhampered by baggage, I sped out of the +day-coach, far ahead of the Company in the Pullman, but the carriage to +the hotel was insufferably slow; the elevator dragged.... It was only +eight in the morning, but I knew his ways—how little he slept.... His +door was partly open, and I heard the crinkle of his paper, as he +answered my tap.</p> + +<p>"'Aren't you pretty near ready for breakfast, Stephen?' I asked.... He +stood in the doorway—his head just to my breast. His face was +hallowed, but his body seemed to weaken. I crossed the threshold to help +him, and we—we're to be married before the new season opens."</p> + +<p>Paula loved the story.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And at length Paula and Charter reached the house of his mother, whose +glory was about her, as she stood in the doorway. Before he kissed her, +the mother-eyes had searched his heart.... Then she turned to his +garland of victory.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad you have brought me a daughter."</p> + +<p>The women faced each other—the strangest moment in three lives.... All +the ages passed between the eyes of the maid and the mother; and wisdoms +finer than words, as when two suns, sweeping past in their great cycle, +shine across the darkness of the infinite deep; ages of gleaning, +adoring, suffering, bearing, praying; ages of listening to little +children and building dreams out of pain; the weathered lustre of Naomi +and the fresh radiance of Ruth; but over all, that look which passed +between the women shone the secret of the meaning of men—God-taught +Motherhood.</p> + +<p>To Charter, standing afar-off, came the simple but tremendous +revelation, just a glimpse into that lovely arcanum which mere man may +never know in full.... He saw that these two were closer than prophets +to the Lifting Heart of Things; that such are the handmaidens of the +Spirit, to whom are intrusted God's avatars; that no prophet is greater +than his mother.</p> + +<p>To the man, it was new as the dream which nestled in Paula's heart; to +the women, it was old as the flocks on the mountain-sides of Lebanon. +They turned to him smiling. And when he could speak, he said to Paula:</p> + +<p>"I thought you would like to see the garret, and the window that faces +the East."</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="About_Will_Levington_Comfort" id="About_Will_Levington_Comfort"></a>About Will Levington Comfort</h2> + +<h3><i>Author of "She Buildeth Her House" and "Routledge Rides Alone"</i></h3> + +<h3>(<i>Eight Editions</i>)</h3> + + +<p>Well-known as one of the most successful short-story contributors to +American magazines, Will Levington Comfort awoke one morning a little +over a year ago to find himself famous as a long-story writer. Seldom +has the first novel of an author been accorded the very essence of +praise from the conservative critics as was Mr. Comfort's "Routledge +Rides Alone," acknowledged to be the best book of 1910.</p> + +<p>While young in years, Mr. Comfort, who is thirty-three, is old in +experience. In 1898 he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry, and +saw Cuban service in the Spanish-American War. The following year he +rode as a war correspondent in the Philippines a rise which resulted +from vivid letters written to newspapers from the battlefields and +prisons.</p> + +<p>Stricken with fever, wearied of service and thinking of Home, he was +next ordered by cable up into China to watch the lid lifted from the +Legations at Peking. Here he saw General Liscum killed on the Tientsin +Wall and got his earliest glance of the Japanese in war. Another attack +of fever completely prostrated him and he was sent home on the hospital +ship "Relief."</p> + +<p>In the interval between the Boxer Uprising and the Russo-Japanese War, +Mr. Comfort began to dwell upon the great fundamental facts of +world-politics. But the call of smoke and battle was too strong, and, +securing a berth as war-correspondent for a leading midwestern +newspaper, he returned to the far East and the scenes of the +Russo-Japanese conflict in 1904. He was present at the battle of +Liaoyang his description of which in "Routledge Rides Alone" fairly +overwhelms the reader.</p> + +<p>Few novels of recent years have aroused the same enthusiasm as was +evoked by this story of "Routledge." Book reviewers both in this country +and in Europe have suggested that the book should win for its author the +Peace prize because it is one of the greatest and most effective +arguments against warfare that has ever been presented.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="By_WILL_LEVINGTON_COMFORT" id="By_WILL_LEVINGTON_COMFORT"></a>By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT</h2> + + +<h3>ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE</h3> + +<h3>COLORED FRONTISPIECE BY MARTIN JUSTICE</h3> + +<p>Here is a tale indeed—big and forceful, palpitating with interest, and +written with the sureness of touch and the breadth of a man who is +master of his art. Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new +story-places in the world of fiction to furnish the scenes for his +narrative—India and Manchuria at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. +While the novel is distinguished by its clear and vigorous war scenes, +the fine and sweet romance of the love of the hero, Routledge—a brave, +strange, and talented American—for the "most beautiful woman in London" +rivals these in interest.</p> + +<p>The story opens in London, sweeps up and down Asia, and reaches its most +rousing pitch on the ghastly field of Liaoyang, in Manchuria. The +one-hundred-mile race from the field to a free cable outside the war +zone, between Routledge and an English war correspondent, is as exciting +and enthralling as anything that has appeared in fiction in recent +years.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"A big, vital, forceful story that towers giant-high—a romance +to lure the hours away in tense interest—a book with a message +for all mankind."—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>"Three such magnificent figures as Routledge, Noreen, and +Rawder never before have appeared together in fiction. Take it +all in all, 'Routledge Rides Alone' is a great novel, full of +sublime conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders +from heaven to earth."—<i>San Francisco Argonaut.</i></p> + +<p>"The story unfolds a vast and vivid panorama of life. The first +chapters remind one strongly of the descriptive Kipling we once +knew. We commend the book for its untamed interest. We +recommend it for its descriptive power."—<i>Boston Evening +Transcript.</i></p> + +<p>"Here is one of the strongest novels of the year; a happy +blending of romance and realism, vivid, imaginative, dramatic, +and, above all, a well told story with a purpose. It is a +red-blooded story of war and love, with a touch of the +mysticism of India, some world politics, love of country, and +hate of oppression—a tale of clean and expert workmanship, +powerful and personal."—<i>Pittsburg Dispatch.</i></p> + +<p>"Three such magnificent figures (Routledge, Noreen, and Rawder) +have seldom before appeared together in fiction. For knowledge, +energy, artistic conception, and literary skill, it is easily +the book of the day—A GREAT NOVEL, full of a sublime +conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders from +heaven to earth."—<i>San Francisco Argonaut.</i></p> + +<p>"EASILY THE BOOK OF THE DAY"—<i>San Francisco Argonaut.</i></p></blockquote> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of She Buildeth Her House, by Will Comfort + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE BUILDETH HER HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 34825-h.htm or 34825-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/2/34825/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: She Buildeth Her House + +Author: Will Comfort + +Illustrator: Martin Justice + +Release Date: January 2, 2011 [EBook #34825] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE BUILDETH HER HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + + She Buildeth Her House + + By Will Levington Comfort + + Author of "Routledge Rides Alone," etc + + + With a Frontispiece By + Martin Justice + + Philadelphia & London + J. B. Lippincott Company + 1911 + + COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY + + Published May, 1911 + + PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY + AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS + PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. + + + A BOUGH BROUGHT WITH SINGING + TO THE FEET OF + HER + WHO CROSSED THE SANDS ALONE + IN ADORING PILGRIMAGE + FOR HER SON + + +[Illustration: HE REACHED THE CURBING OF THE OLD WELL WITH HIS BURDEN] + + + + +Contents + + +FIRST CHAPTER. PAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT, +AND HEARKENS TO THE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF + +SECOND CHAPTER. PAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND +THE MYSTERIOUS MADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE ZOROASTER + +THIRD CHAPTER. CERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT +OF NARRATIVE--ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID + +FOURTH CHAPTER. PAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND +TELLS OF A STARRY CHILD SOON TO BE BORN + +FIFTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS +AND WRITES A LETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER + +SIXTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR "F" OF THE MAIDSTONE WHERE THE +BEYOND-DEVIL AWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS + +SEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME +NESTOR'S REVELATIONS, AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT + +EIGHTH CHAPTER. PAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER +HEART-COUNTRY, AND IS DELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK + +NINTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS DRAWN INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY +WOOED THROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST + +TENTH CHAPTER. PAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN +APARTMENT NEXT MORNING IS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY + +ELEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE +HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS + +TWELFTH CHAPTER. CERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS +MOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE, ACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA + +THIRTEENTH CHAPTER. "NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND +SPOIL HIS GOODS, EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN" + +FOURTEENTH CHAPTER. THE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER +HASTENS EAST TO FIND A QUEER MESSAGE AT THE GRANVILLE + +FIFTEENTH CHAPTER. QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW +BATTLE-GROUND, EACH LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS + +SIXTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA, FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER +CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT INTO THE NIGHT + +SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF +SAINT PIERRE, WHERE LA MONTAGNE PELEE GIVES WARNING + +EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER. PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT +PIERRE AND THE PANTHER CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL + +NINETEENTH CHAPTER. QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF +PELEE, AND ENCOUNTERS A QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER + +TWENTIETH CHAPTER. CHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN +THE WYNDAM WOMAN AND SKYLARK MEMORIES + +TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER. CHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND +CONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE OF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL + +TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER. CHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF +PELEE--ONE LAST DAY DEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS + +TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER. CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE +IN THE NIGHT, AND THE WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE PALMS + +TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER. HAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE +ASCENSION, WHEN THE MONSTER, PELEE, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH + +TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER. THE SARAGOSSA ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS +FROM PELEE EIGHT MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE + +TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER. PAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE +ENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD THAT DRIVES THE WORLD + +TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE +HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY + + + + +She Buildeth Her House + + + + +FIRST CHAPTER + +PAULA ENCOUNTERS THE REMARKABLE EYES OF HER FIRST GIANT, AND HEARKENS TO +THE SECOND, THUNDERING AFAR-OFF + + +Paula Linster was twenty-seven when two invading giants entered the +country of her heart. On the same day, these hosts, each unconscious of +the other, crossed opposite borders and verged toward the prepared +citadel between them. + +Reifferscheid, though not one of the giants, found Paula a distraction +in brown, when she entered his office before nine in the morning, during +the fall of 1901. He edited the rather distinguished weekly book-page of +_The States_, and had come to rely upon her for a paper or two in each +issue. There had been rain in the night. The mellow October sunlight was +strange with that same charm of maturity which adds a glow of attraction +to motherhood. The wonderful autumn haze, which broods over our zone as +the spirit of ripening grains and tinting fruits, just perceptibly +shaded the vivid sky. A sentence Paula had heard somewhere in a play, +"My God, how the sun does shine!" appealed to her as particularly +fitting for New York on such a morning. Then in the streets, so lately +flooded, the brilliant new-washed air was sweet to breathe. + +Paula had felt the advisability the year before of adding somewhat to +her income. Inventory brought out the truth that not one of her talents +had been specialized to the point of selling its product. She had the +rare sense to distinguish, however, between a certain joyous inclination +to write and a marked ability for producing literature; and to recognize +her own sound and sharp appreciation of what was good in the stirring +tide of books. Presenting herself to Reifferscheid, principally on +account of an especial liking for the book-page of _The States_, she never +forgot how the big man looked at her that first time over his +spectacles, as if turning her pages with a sort of psychometric faculty. +He found her possible and several months won her not a little +distinction in the work. + +Reifferscheid was a fat, pondrous, heavy-spectacled devourer of work. He +compelled her real admiration--"the American St. Beuve," she called him, +because he was so tireless, and because he sniffed genius from afar. +There was something unreservedly charming to her, in his sense of +personal victory, upon discovering greatness in an unexpected source. +Then he was so big, so common to look at; kind as only a bear of a man +can be; so wise, so deep, and with such a big smoky factory of a brain, +full of fascinating crypts. Subcutaneous laughter that rested her +internally for weeks lingered about certain of the large man's sayings. +Even in the auditing of her account, she felt his kindness. + +"Now here are some essays by Quentin Charter--a big man, a young man and +a slow worker," he said. "Charter's first volume was a thunderer. We +greeted it with a whoop two years ago. Did you see it?" + +"No," Paula replied. "I was too strong for literary trifles then." + +"Anyway, look out for Charter. He didn't start to appear until he was an +adult. He's been everywhere, read everything and has a punch like a +projectile. An effective chap, this Charter. He dropped in to see me a +few weeks after my review. He confessed the critics had made him very +glad.... 'I am doing a second book,' he confided to me. 'Down on my +knees to it. Work-shop stripped of encomiums; no more dinner-parties or +any of that fatness. Say, it's a queer thing about making a book. You +never can tell whether it's to be a boy or a girl....'" + +Paula smiled reservedly. + +"I asked him what his second book was to be about," Reifferscheid went +on. "'Women,' said he. 'How novel!' said I. He grinned genially. +'Reifferscheid,' he declared, in his snappy way, 'women are interesting. +They're doing the thinking nowadays. They're getting there. One of these +mornings, man will wake up to the fact that he's got to be born again to +get in a class with his wife. Man is mixed up with altogether too much +of this down-town madness. Women don't want votes, public office, or +first-hand dollars. _They want men!_' ... I always remembered that +little bit of stuff from Charter. He says the time will come when classy +girls will get their heads together and evolve this ultimatum, which +will be handed intact to adorers: 'No, boys, we can't marry you. We +haven't any illusions about celibacy. It isn't nice nor attractive, but +it's better than being yoked with hucksters and peddlers who come +up-town at night--mental cripples in empty wagons. Go away and learn +what life means, what it means to be men--_what it means to us for you +to be men_! Learn how to live--and oh, boys, hurry back!'" + +"Splendid!" Paula exclaimed. + +"Oh, yes, Charter is a full deck and a joker. He's lived. He makes you +feel him. His years are veritable campaigns. He has dangled in the +vortices of human action and human passion--and seemed to come out +whole!..." Reifferscheid chuckled at a memory. "'Women are interesting,' +Charter finished in his dry fashion. 'I just got to them lately. I wish +I could know them all.'" + +"I love the book already," Paula said. Reifferscheid laughed inwardly at +the feminine way she held the volume in both hands, pressing it close. + +"It's the only book on my table this morning that I'd like to read," he +added. "Therefore I give it to you. There's no fun in giving something +you don't want.... Are you going to hear Bellingham to-night?" + +She was conscious of an unaccountable dislike at the name, a sense of +inward chill. It was almost as reckonable as the pleasure she felt in +the work and personality of Quentin Charter. + +"Who's Bellingham?" Paula swallowed dryly after the first utterance of +the name. + +"Mental magician. I only mentioned him, because you so seldom miss the +unusual, and are so quick to hail a new cult or odd mental specimen." + +"Magician--surely?" she asked. + +"He comes rather stoutly recommended as such," Reifferscheid replied, +"though personally mine is more than a healthy skepticism. There's a +notice this morning of his lectures. He recently hypnotized a man to +whom the medical profession was afraid to administer an +anaesthetic--held him painless during a long and serious operation. Then +Bellingham is the last word in alchemy, feminine emotions, causes of +hysteria, longevity, the proportions of male and female in each person; +also he renews the vital principle, advises unions, makes you beautiful, +and has esoteric women's classes. A Godey's Ladies' man. Some provincial +husband will shoot him presently." + +Paula took the surface car home, because the day was so rare and the +crowd was still downward bent. The morning paper contained an +announcement of Quentin Charter's new book, and a sketch of the author. +A strange, talented figure, new in letters, the article said. The +paragraphs had that fresh glow of a publisher's perennial high hope. +Here was the book of a man who had lived; who drew not only upon art, +history, and philosophy for his prisms of thought, but who had roamed +and worked and ridden with men, keeping a sensitive finger ever at the +pulse of nature; a man who had never in the most insignificant degree +lowered the import or artificially raised the tension of his work to +adjust it to the fancied needs of the public. In spite of the +enthusiastic phrasing, everything about Charter fascinated her; even the +make-up of the unread book in her hand, and the sentences that gleamed +from the quickly turned pages. + +She had ridden many squares, when the name of Dr. Bellingham stood out +before her eyes in the newspaper. The chill in her arteries was +perceptible as before, when Reifferscheid spoke the name. It was as the +latter had said--the famous healer and telepathist was to start a series +of classes for women. + +Paula lived alone in a small apartment at the _Zoroaster_, "Top-side o' +Park." Few friends, many books, within a car ride of the world's best +fruition in plays, lectures, music, and painting--yet the reality of it +all was the expansion of her mind in the days and nights alone. The +subtle relations of things encroached upon her intelligence with a +steady and certain trend. She never had to pass, like so many of cruder +nature, through the horrid trials of materialism; nor to be painfully +bruised in mind from buffeting between manhandled creeds and the pure +ethics of the Lord Christ. Hers was not an aggressive masculine +originality, but the complement of it--that inspiring, completing +feminine intelligence, elastic to a man's hard-won concepts and ready +with a crown for them. + +Something of this type of woman, the big-brained brothers of men have +written and chiselled, painted, sung and dreamed of, since human thought +first lifted above the appetites. There must be a bright answer for each +man's particular station of evolution in the world's dumfounding snarl +of the sexes--one woman to lighten his travail and accelerate his +passage to the Uplands. For we are but half-men, man and woman alike. +The whole is two, whose union forms One.... This is the key to Nature's +arcanum; this, the one articulate sentence from all the restless +murmuring out of the past; this, the stupendous Purpose weaving the +million thrilling and truant activities of the present hour--the clean +desire for completion--the union of two which forms One. + +The search for this completing woman is the secret of man's roving in +the gardens of sense. His frequent falls into abysmal depravity are but +results incidental to the occultations of his Guide Star. From reptiles +in the foul smoke of chaos, to the lifted spines of manhood on a rising +road, Man has come; and by the interminable torture of the paths which +sink behind, he has the other half of eternity to reach the Top. + +From a child whose fairies were only enchanted into books for day-time +convenience, darkness to Paula meant visions, indeed. Often now at +night, though she never spoke of it, the little apartment was peopled by +the spirits of her reading and her ideals--mystics, priests, prophets, +teachers, ascetics. To the congenial dark they came--faces unlike any +she had ever seen, but quite unmistakable in her dreamings. Once when +she pampered a natural aversion to meat for several months, soft +foot-falls and low voices (which had nothing whatever to do with her +neighbors across the hall, or the elevator-man in any passage) began to +rouse her in the night. New York is no place for such refinements of +sense, and she checked these manifestations through physical exercise +and increased diet. She was seldom afraid, but there was a tension in +all her imaginings, and she grew marvellously in this twenty-eighth +year--furnishing her mind more sumptuously than she knew. Reifferscheid +saw this in her eyes and in her work. + +Throughout the swiftly passing day, Paula realized that she would go to +Prismatic Hall in West Sixty-seventh Street, where Dr. Bellingham was to +organize his lecture-course that night. Against this foreknowledge was a +well-defined distaste for the man and his work. Between the two, the +thought of the evening crowded frequently into mind until she became +impatient with herself at the importance it assumed. It was with a +certain feminine manipulation of conscience, so deft as almost to be +unconscious, that she excused her own curiosity on the ground that her +disfavor for the doctor and his message would be strengthened by the +first meeting, beyond the need of further experience. + +One concession she made to her natural aversion--that of going late. She +was in a mood poignantly critical. The real Paula Linster, she fancied, +was at home, "Top-side o' Park"; here was just a sophisticated +professional surface, such as reporters carry about. The Hall was packed +with women; the young and the jaded; faces of pup-innocence; faces +bitten from terrible expeditions to the poles of sense; faces tired and +thick from the tread of an orient of emotions; slow-roving eyes which +said, "I crave--I crave! I have lost the sense of reality, but seven +sick and pampered organs crave within me!" + +The thought came to Paula--to be questioned afterward--that man's evil, +after all, is rudimentary compared to a worldly woman's; man's soul not +so complicated, nor so irrevocably identified with his sensual organism. +She could not avoid pondering miserably upon woman's innate love for far +ventures into sensation, permitting these ventures to be called (if the +world would) searches for the holy grail. The inevitable attraction for +women which specialists of the body possess, actually startled her. +Bellingham was one of these. On the surface of all his sayings, and all +comment about him, was the bland, deadly insinuation that the soul +expands in the pursuit of bodily health. About his name was the mystery +of his age, whispers of his physical perfection, intimations of romantic +affairs, the suggestion of his miraculous performances upon the +emotions--the whole gamut of activities designed to make him the instant +aversion of any normal member of his own sex. Yet the flock of females +had settled about him, as they have settled about every black human +plague--and glorious messiah--since the birth of days. + +The thrilled, expectant look on several faces brought to Paula's mind +the type of her sisters who relish being shocked; whose exaltations are +patently those of emotional contact; who call physical excitement the +glorifying of their spirit, and cannot be persuaded to confess +otherwise. Woman as a negation for man to play upon never distressed her +before with such direct and certain pressure. Here were women intent +upon encountering a new sensation; women who devoutly breathed the name +of Motherhood next to Godhood, and yet endured their pregnancy with +organic rebellion and mental loathing; women who could not conceive of +love apart from the embrace of man, and who imagine a "message" in +deformed and salacious novels, making such books popular; women of +gold-leaf culture whose modesty fastens with a bow--narrow temples of +infinite receptivity.... + +Why had they come? In the perfect feminine system of information, the +whisper had run: "Bellingham is wonderful. Bellingham tells you how to +live forever. Bellingham teaches the renewal of self and has esoteric +classes--_for the few_!" They had the sanction of one another. There was +no scandal in being there openly, nor any instinct, apparently, to warn +them that secret classes to discover how to live forever, had upon the +surface no very tonic flavor. The digest of the whole matter was that +revelations sooner or later would be made to a certain few, and that +these revelations, which would be as fine oil upon the mental surfaces +of many women near her, would act as acid upon the male mind generally. + +In the sickening distaste for herself and for those who had to make no +concession to themselves for coming, inasmuch as society permitted; and +who would be heartfully disappointed in a lecture on hygiene that did +not discuss the more intimate matters of the senses, Paula did not +appraise the opposite sex at any higher value. She merely reviewed +matters which had come to her vividly as some of the crowning frailties +of her own kind. The centre of the whole affair, Dr. Bellingham, was now +introduced. + +He looked like a Dane at first glance. His was the size, the dusty look +and the big bone of a Dane; the deep, downy paleness of cheek, the +tumbled, though not mussy hair. He was heavy without being adipose, +lean, but big-boned; his face was lined with years, though miraculously +young in the texture of skin. The lips of a rather small and feminine +mouth were fresh and red as a girl's. In the softness of complexion and +the faintest possible undertone of color, it was impossible not to think +of perfected circulation and human health brought to truest rhythm. The +costliest lotions cannot make such a skin. It is organic harmony. +Exterior decoration does not delude the seeing eye any more than a +powder-magazine becomes an innocent cottage because its walls are +vine-clad.... Directly behind her, Paula now heard a slow whisper: + +"I knew him twenty-five years ago, and he is not a moment older to look +at." + +She seemed to have heard the voice before, and though the sentence +surged with a dark significance through her mind, she did not turn. +Bellingham's words were now caressing the intelligence of his audience. +To Paula, his soft mouth was indescribably odious with cultured passion, +red with replenishment, fresh with that sinister satisfaction which +inevitably brings to mind a second figure, fallen, drained. His presence +set to quivering within her, fears engendered from the great occult +past. Strange deviltries would always be shadowed about the Bellingham +image in her mind.... Here was a man who made a shrine of his body, +invested it with a heavy hungering God, and taught others--women--to bow +and to serve. + +To her the body was but a nunnery which enclosed for a time an eternal +element. This was basic, incontrovertible to her understanding. All that +placated the body and helped to make fleshly desires last long, was +hostile to the eternal element. Not that the body should be abused or +neglected, but kept as nearly as possible a clean vessel for the spirit, +brought to a fine automatic functioning. It was as clear to Paula +Linster as the faces of the women about her, that the splendid sacrifice +of Jesus was not that He had died upon the Cross, but that He put on +flesh in the beginning for the good of infant-souled men.... To eat +sparingly of that which is good; to sleep when weary; to require +cleanliness and pure air--these were the physical laws which worked out +easily for decent minds. Beyond such simple affairs, she did not allow +the body often to rule her brain. When, indeed, the potentialities of +her sex stirred within, Paula felt that it was the down-pull of the old +brood-mother, Earth, and not the lifting of wings. + +Bellingham's voice correlated itself, not with the eyes and brow, but +with the Lilith mouth--that strangely unpunished mouth. It was soft, +suave. There was in it the warmth of breath. The high white forehead and +the tousled brown hair, leonine in its masculinity--seemed foreign as +another man's. She hearkened to the voice of a doctor used to women; one +who knows women without illusion, whom you could imagine saying, "Why +bless you, women never say 'no.'" + +The eyes were blue-gray, but toned very darkly. The iris looked small in +contrast to the expanse of clear white. They were fixed like a bird's in +expression, incapable of warming or softening, yet one did not miss the +impression that they could brighten and harden, even to shining in the +dark. Heavy blonde brows added a look of severity. + +Paula's spirit, as if recognizing an old and mortal enemy, gathered +about itself every human protecting emotion. Frankly hateful, she +surveyed the man, listening. He talked marvellously; even in her +hostility, she had to grant that. The great sunning cat was in his +tones, but the words were joined into clean-thought expression, rapid, +vivid, unanswerable. He did not speak long; the first meeting was +largely formative. Paula knew he was studying his company, and watched +him peer into the faces of the women. His mouth occasionally softened in +the most winsome and engaging way, while his words ran on with the +refined wisdom of ages. And always to her, his eyes stood out cold, +hard, deadly. + +Finally, she was conscious that they were roving near her; moving left +to right, from face to face, as a collection-plate might have been +passed. Her first thought was to leave; but fear never failed to arouse +an impulse to face out the cause. The second thought was to keep her +eyes lowered. This she tried. His words came clearly now, as she stared +down into the shadow--the perfectly carved thoughts, bright and swift +like a company of soldiers moving in accord. As seconds passed, this +down-staring became insufferable as though some one were holding her +head. She could not breathe under repression. Always it had been so; the +irresistible maddened the very centres of her reason--a locked room, a +hand or a will stronger than her own. + +Raising her head with a gasp, as one coming to the surface from a great +depth of water, she met Bellingham's glance unerringly as a shaft of +light. He had waited for this instant. The eyes now boring into her own, +seemed lifted apart from all material things, veritable essences of +light, as if they caught and held the full rays of every arc-lamp in the +Hall. Warmth and smiling were not in them; instead, the spirit of +conquest aroused; incarnate preying-power, dead to pity and humor. Here +was Desire toothed, taloned, quick with every subtle art of nature. +Something at war with God, his eyes expressed to her. Failing to master +God, failing to foul the centres of creative purity, this Something +devoured the souls of women. Continually his voice sought to drug her +brain. The fine edge was gone from her perceptions; dulled, she was, to +all but his sayings. There was a chill behind and above her eyes; it +swept backward and seemed to converge in the coarser ganglia at the base +of her brain. Once she had seen a bird hop and flutter lower and lower +among the branches of a lilacbush. On the ground below was a cat with +head twisted upward--its vivid and implacable eyes distending. Paula +could understand now the crippling magnetism the bird felt.... Finally +she could hear only the words of Bellingham, and feel only his power. +What he was saying now to her was truth, the unqualified truth of +more-than-man. + +When his eyes turned away, she felt ill, futile, immersed in an +indescribable inner darkness. Her fingers pained cruelly, and she +realized she had been clutching with all her strength the book in her +hand--Quentin Charter's book--which she had begun since morning. She +could not remember a single one of his sentences which had impressed +her, for her brain was tired and ineffectual, as after a prolonged +fever, but she held fast to the bracing effect of an optimistic +philosophy. Then finally out of the helplessness of one pitifully +stricken, a tithe of her old vitality returned. She used it at once, +rose from her seat to leave the Hall. Into the base of her brain again, +as she neared the door, penetrated the protest of his eyes. Had she been +unable to go on, she would have screamed. She felt the eyes of the +women, too; the whole, a ghastly experience. Once outside, she wanted to +run. + +Not the least astonishing was the quick obliteration of it all. This was +because her sensations were the result of an influence foreign to her +own nature. In a few moments she felt quite well and normal again, and +was conscious of a tendency to make light of the whole proceeding. She +reached home shortly after ten, angered at herself--inexplicable +perversity--because she had taken Bellingham and the women so +seriously.... That night she finished one of the big books of her +life--Quentin Charter's "A Damsel Came to Peter." When the dawn stole +into the little flat, her eyes were stinging, and her temples felt +stretched apart from the recent hours. + + + + +SECOND CHAPTER + +PAULA CONTEMPLATES THE WALL OF A HUNDRED WINDOWS, AND THE MYSTERIOUS +MADAME NESTOR CALLS AT THE _ZOROASTER_ + + +Paula had never felt such a consciousness of vitality as the next +forenoon, after three or four hours' sleep. She was just _un_rested +enough to be alive with tension. Her physical and mental capacities +seemed expanded beyond all common bounds, and her thoughts tumbled about +playfully in full arenic light, as athletes awaiting the beginning of +performance. She plunged into a tub of cool water with such delight as +thoroughly to souse her hair, so it became necessary to spend a +half-hour in the sunlight by the open window, combing and fanning, her +mind turning over wonderful things. + +If you ever looked across a valley of oaks and maples and elms in the +full morning glow of mid-October, you can divine the glory of red and +brown and gold which was this fallen hair. One must meditate long to +suggest with words the eyes of Paula Linster; perhaps the best her +chronicler can do is to offer a glimpse from time to time. Just now you +are asked for the sake of her eyes to visualize that lustrous valley +once more--only in a dusk that enriches rather than dims. A memorably +beautiful young woman, sitting there by the open window--one of the +elect would have said. + +The difficulty in having to do with Linster attractions is to avoid +rising into rhapsody. One thinks of stars and lakes, angels and autumn +lands, because his heart is full as a country-boy's, and high +clean-clipped thinking is choked. Certainly, once having known such a +woman, you will never fall under the spell of Weininger, or any other +scale-eyed genius. There is an inspiring reach to that hard-handled +word, Culture, when it is used about a woman like this. It means so pure +a fineness as neither to require nor to be capable of ostentation; and +yet, a fineness that wears and gives and associates with heroisms. You +think of a lineage that for centuries has not been fouled by brutality +or banality, and has preserved a glowing human warmth, too, to retain +the spirit of woman. When men rise to the real and the worthy, one by +one, each will find his Paula Linster, whom to make happy is happiness; +whose companionship inevitably calls forth his best; whom to be with +constantly means therefore that all within him, not of the best, must +surely die. Clearly when a man finds such a woman, all his roads are +closed, save one--to the Shining Heights! And who can say that his royal +mate will not laughingly unfold wings for him, when they stand together +in the radiant altitude? + +She was thinking of Charter's book as she brushed her hair dry. His +sentences played brightly in her mind, fastening themselves to comment +of her own for the review. Deep was the appeal of the rapt, sunlit face, +as she looked away across the rear-court. The colored hall-boy of her +own house might have missed the exquisite lines of lip, eyelid, nostril, +brow, temple and chin, but his head uncovered in her presence, and the +choicest spirit of service sprang within him. In all about her, +to an enlightened vision, was the unconscious repression of +beauty--art-stirring lines of mental and spiritual awakening; that look +of deep inner freshness and health, the mere sight of which disgusts a +man with all he has done to soil and sicken his body. Full and easily +she breathed, as one who relishes sweet air like the taste of pure +water. You could imagine Paula exclaiming with joy at the tonic delight +of a wind from the sea, but not from the steaming aroma of a grill. It +was all an aesthetic attraction--not an over-rounded arc, not a tissue +stretched shiny from uneven plumpness, not a drowsy sag or fold to +suggest the easy content of a mere feeding and breeding animal. + +The rear-view of a great granite-ridge of rooming-houses across the +court had often fascinated her with the thought of the mysteries within. +Once she had spoken to Reifferscheid about the splendid story of New +York yet to be written by someone who watched, as she often did, one of +these walls of a hundred windows. + +"Yes," he had said. "It's great to be poor. Best blood of New York is in +those back rooms. Everyone needs his poverty-stage of growth--about +seven years will do. It teaches you simplicity. You step into your +neighbor's room and find him washing his stockings with shaving-soap. He +explains that it is better than tooth-powder for textile fabrics. Also, +he intimates that he has done a very serious thing in wetting down these +small garments, having looked in his bag since, and learned that he has +not another pair. However, he wrings them very tight and puts them on +with the remark that this is a certain way to prevent shrinkage." + +Even now, a man stood by his window in a sleeveless garment and a ruff +of lather, shaving with a free hand, and a song between strokes. His was +a shining morning face, indeed.... A bare feminine arm leaped quickly +forth from behind a tightened curtain nearby and adjusted a flower-pot +better to the sunlight. From somewhere came a girlish voice in Wagner's +_Walkure Call_. There was not a thought of effort in her carrying that +lofty elaborate music--just a fine heart tuned to harmony on a rare +morning. The effect is not spoiled by the glimpse of a tortured feminine +face igniting a cigarette over a gas-flame that has burned all night. +The vibrations of New York are too powerful for many, but there is more +of health and hope than not.... A good mother cleanses a sauce-pan from +her water-pitcher and showers with the rinsing a young heaven-tree far +below. Then she lifts in a milk-bottle from the stone ledge--and blows +the dust from the top.... + +Often at night when Paula awakened she could hear the drum of a +typewriter winging across the precipice--one of the night-shift helping +to feed the insatiable maw of print. Had New York called him? Would the +City crush him into a trifler, with artificial emotions, or was this a +Daniel come to interpret her evil dreams?... In a corner-room with two +windows, sat a lame young man before an easel. Almost always he was +there, when there was light. Heaven be with him, Paula thought, if his +picture failed.... And in one of the least and darkest, an old man sat +writing. Day after day, he worked steadily through the hours. To what +god or devil had he sold his soul that he was thus condemned to eternal +scrivening? This was the harrowing part. The back-floors of New York are +not for the old men. Back-rooms for the young men and maidens, still +strong in the flight of time and the fight of competition--back-rooms +for young New York. Nature loses interest in the old. Civilization +should be kinder. + +From an unseen somewhere a canary poured out a veritable fire-hose +torrent of melody; and along one of the lower window ledges opposite, an +old gray cat was crouched, a picture of sinister listening. Here was a +dragon, indeed, for small, warm birds. + +Directly opposite a curtain was lifted, and a woman, no longer young, +appeared to breathe the morning. Many New Yorkers knew this woman for +her part in children's happiness. There was a whisper that she had once +been an artist's model--and had loved the artist.... There was one woman +long ago--a woman with a box of alabaster--who was forgiven because she +loved much.... The lady across the way loved children now, children of +most unhappy fortunes. To those who came, and there were many, she gave +music lessons; often all day long helping grimy fingers to falter over +the keys. So she awakened poetry and planted truth-seedlings in shaded +little hearts. To the children, though the lady was poor as any--in +spite of her piano and a wall of books--she was Lady Bountiful, +indeed.... Paula smiled. Two windows, strangely enough side by side, +were curtained with stockings out to dry. In one, there were +many--cerise and lavender, pink and baby blue. In the next there were +but two pair, demurely black. What a world of suggestion in the +contrast!... So it was always--her wall of a hundred windows, a changing +panorama of folly, tragedy, toil that would not bow to hopelessness, +vanity, art, sacrifice. Blend them all together above the traffic's +roar--and you have the spirit of young New York. + +She put on the brass kettle at length, crossing the room for an +occasional glance into the mirror as she finished her hair.... The +strange numbing power she had felt the night before crept suddenly back +from her eyes now to the base of her brain, striving to cripple her +volition. Bellingham was calling her.... The sunlight was gone. There +was a smell of hot metal in the air, as if some terrific energy had +burned out the vitality. Her heart hurt her from holding her breath so +long. Beyond all expression she was shocked and shamed. The mirror +showed now a spectral Paula with crimson lips and haggard eyes.... An +indescribable fertility stirred within her--almost mystic, like a +whisper from spiritland where little children play, waiting to be born. +She could have fallen in a strange and subtle thrall of redolent +imaginings, except that thought of the source of it all, the +occultist--was as acid in her veins. + +She drank tea and crossed the street to the Park for an hour. The +radiance of autumn impressed her rarely; not as the death of a year, but +rather as a glorious pageant of evening, the great energies of nature +all crowned with fruition and preparing for rest. Back in her room, she +wrote the Charter critique, wrote as seldom before. The cool spirit of +the essayist seemed ignited with a lyric ardor. In her momentary power +she conceived a great literary possibility of the future--an effulgent +Burns-vine blossoming forth upon the austere cliff of a Carlyle. She had +finished, and it was dusk when Madame Nestor called. + +For several years, at various philosophical gatherings and brotherhoods, +Paula, invariably stimulated by the unusual, had encountered this +remarkable woman. Having very little to say as a rule, Madame Nestor was +a figure for comment and one not readily forgotten because of occasional +memorable utterances. In all the cults of New York, there was likely no +individual quite so out of alignment with ordinary life. Indefinitely, +she would be called fifty. Her forehead was broad, her mouth soft. The +face as a whole was heavy and flour-white. There was a distention of +eyeballs and a pulpy shapelessness to her body which gave the impression +of advanced physical deterioration--that peculiar kind of breaking down, +often noticeable among psychics of long practice. Her absolute +incapacity to keep anything of value was only one characteristic of +interest. Madame Nestor's record of apparently thoughtless generosity +was truly inspiriting. + +"I had to see you to-day," she said, sinking down with a sigh of relief. +"I sat behind you last night in Prismatic Hall." + +The younger woman recalled with a start--the whisper she had heard. She +leaned forward and inquired quickly: "So it was you, Madame Nestor, who +knew--this Bellingham"--she cleared her throat as she uttered the +name--"as he is now--a quarter of a century ago?" + +"Yes. How very strange that you should have heard what I said.... You +will join one of his classes, I presume?" + +"I can imagine doing no such thing." + +"Dear Paula, do you think it will really turn out--that you are to have +no relation with Bellingham?" + +Paula repressed the instant impulse to answer sharply. The fact that she +had already felt Bellingham's power made the other's words a harsh +irritation. + +"What relation could I have? He is odious to me." + +"I suppose I should have been a cinder long since, dear, if these were +days for burning witches," Madame Nestor said. "When I saw Bellingham's +eyes settle upon you last night--it appeared to me that you are to know +him well. I came here to give you what strength I could--because he is +the chief of devils." + +"I'm only one of the working neuters of the human hive," Paula managed +to declare. + +The elder woman said a strange thing: "Ah, no. The everlasting feminine +is alive in your every movement. A man like Bellingham would cross the +world for you. Some strong-souled woman sooner or later must encompass +his undoing, and last night it came to me in a way to force my +conviction--that you are the woman." + +Paula bent toward her. Darkness covered the centres of her mind and she +was afraid. She could not laugh, for she had already met the magician's +will. "But I loathe him," she whispered. "About the very name when I +first heard it yesterday was an atmosphere which aroused all my +antagonism." + +"Even that--he has overcome, but it may help you to endure." + +"What does the man want?" + +"He wants life--life--floods of young, fine vitality to renew his own +flesh. He wants to live on and on in the body which you have seen. It is +all he has, for his soul is dead--or feeble as a frog's. He fears death, +because he cannot come back. He renews his life from splendid sources of +human magnetism--such as you possess. It is Bellingham's hell to know +that, once out of the flesh, he has not soul enough, if any, to command +a human body again. You see in him an empty thing, which has lived, God +knows how many years, hugging the warmth of his blood--a creature who +knows that to die means the swift disintegration of an evil principle." + +"Do you realize, Madame Nestor," Paula asked excitedly, "that you are +talking familiarly of things which may exist in books of ancient wisdom, +but that this is New York--New York packed about us? New York does not +reckon with such things." + +"The massed soul of this big city does not reckon with such things, +Paula. That is true, but we are apart. Bellingham is apart. He is wiser +than the massed soul of New York." + +"One might believe, even have such a religious conviction, but you speak +of an actual person, the terrible inner mystery of a man, whom we have +seen--a man who frightened me hideously last night--and to-day! You +bring the thing home to a room in a New York apartment ... Can't you see +how hard to adjust, this is? I don't mean to stop or distract you, but +this has become--you are helping to keep it so--such an intimate, +dreadful thing!" + +Madame Nestor had been too long immersed in occultism to grasp the +world's judgment of her sayings. "Listen, Paula, this that I tell you is +inherent in every thinking man. You are bewildered by the personal +nature it has assumed.... To every one of us shall come the terrible +moment of choice. Man is not conceived blindly to be driven. Imagine a +man who is become a rapidly evolving mind. On the one side is the +animal-nature, curbed and obedient; on the other, his gathering +soul-force. The mind balances between these two--soul and body. The time +has come for him to choose between a lonely path to the Heights, or the +broad diverging highway, moving with pomp, dazzling with the glare of +vain power, and brooded over by an arrogant materialism which slays the +soul.... The spirit of man says, 'Take the rising road alone.' The old +world-mother sings to him from the swaying throng, 'Come over and be my +king. Look at my arts, my palaces, my valiant young men and my glorious +women. I will put worship in the hearts of the strong--for you! I will +put love in the hearts of the beautiful--for you! Come over and be my +king! Later, when you are old and have drunk deep of power--you may take +the rising road alone.'" + +Paula invariably qualified a dogmatic statement as a possibility in her +own mind; but something of this--man reaching a moment of choice--had +always appealed to her as a fundamental verity. Man must conquer not +only his body, but his brain, with its subtle dreams of power, a more +formidable conflict, before the soul assumes supremacy in the mind, and +man's progress to the Uplands becomes a conscious and glorious ascent. + +"You put it with wonderful clearness, Madame Nestor," she said. + +"I am an old woman who has thought of these things until they are clear. +This is the real battle of man, beside which victory over mere appetites +of the body is but a boyish triumph. The intellect hungers for power and +possession; to hold the many inferior intellects in its own despotic +destiny. Against this glittering substance of attraction is the still +intangible faith of the soul--an awful moment of suspense. God or +Mammon--choose ye!... Listen, Paula, to New York below--treading the +empty mill of commerce----" + +"New York has not chosen yet?" + +"No, dear, but hundreds, thousands, are learning in preparation for that +moment of choice--the falseness and futility of material possessions." + +"That is a good thought--an incorruptible kind of optimism!" Paula +exclaimed.... "You think this Bellingham has made the evil choice?" + +"Yes. Long ago." + +"Yet to have arisen to the moment of choosing, you say he must have +conquered the flesh." + +"Yes." + +"But you depict him--I find him--Desire Incarnate!" + +"Exactly, Paula, because he has reverted. _The animal controls his mind, +not the soul._ Bellingham is retracing his way back to chaos, with a +human brain, all lit with magic! Out of the gathered knowledge of the +ages, he has drawn his forces, which to us are mystery. He uses these +secret forces of Nature to prolong his own life--which is all he has. +The mystic cord is severed within him. He is a body, nothing but a +body--hence the passion to endure. Out of the craft of the past, he has +learned--who knows how long ago?--to replenish his own vitality with +that of others. He gives nothing, but drains all. Ah, Paula, this I know +too well. He is kin with those creatures of legend, the _loup-garou_, +the vampire. I tell you he is an insatiable sponge for human magnetism." + +"Past all doubt, can't Bellingham turn back?" Paula asked tensely. "With +all his worldly knowledge, and knowing his own doom, can he not turn +back--far back, a lowly-organized soul, but on the human way?" +Hopelessness, anywhere, was a blasting conception to her. + +"No. I tell you he is a living coffin. There is nothing in him to +energize a pure motive. He might give a fortune to the poor, but it +would be for his own gain. He could not suffer for the poor, or love +them. Dead within, he is detached from the great centres of virtue and +purity--from all that carries the race forward, and will save us at the +last. You see his frightful dependence upon this temporal physical +instrument, since all the records of the past and the unwritten pages of +the future are wiped out? Isn't it a sheer black horror, Paula,--to know +that from the great tide of hopeful humanity, one is set apart; to know +that the amazing force which has carried one from a cell in the ooze to +thinking manhood must end with this red frightened heart; to be forced, +for the continuance of life, to feed upon the strength of one woman +after another--always fairer and finer----" The look of hatred in the +speaker's face had become a banner of havoc. + +"Can he not stop that kind of devouring?" Paula exclaimed. "Would there +not be hope--if he battled with that--put _that_ vampirism behind?" + +Madame Nestor regarded the other steadily, until all distortion of +feature had given away to her accustomed mildness. Then she uttered an +unforgettable question: + +"_Can a tiger eat grains?_" + +Vast ranges of terrible understanding were suggested. + +"It is my duty, if I ever had a duty," the caller went on, "to make you +know Bellingham as I know him. You must have no pity." + +"Is there really no fact by which his age can be determined?" + +"None that I know. Twenty-five years ago, when he left me hideously wise +and pitifully drained, he looked as he does now." + +"But why, oh why, do you always think of me with Bellingham?" Paula +asked hopelessly. + +"I watched his face when he regarded you last night. I knew the look." + +"What is to prevent me from never seeing him? He cannot force himself +upon me here--in the flesh.... Certainly you would not tell him where I +am, where I go--if I begged you not to!" + +Madame Nestor shuddered. "No, Paula. It is because you are frightened +and tormented that such a thought comes. It is I who am showing you the +real Bellingham. He menaces my race. None but big-souled women are +useful to him now. He is drawn to them, as one hungry, as one always +hungry. It is he first who is drawn. Then they begin to feel and respond +to his occult attraction. The time might have come when you would +worship him--had I not warned you. I did. I was quite his--until I +learned. A woman knows no laws in the midst of an attraction like this. +No other man suffices----" + +"But why--why do you prepare _me_? Do you think I cannot resist?" Paula +asked furiously. She felt the bonds about her already. The blood rose +hot and rebellious at the thought of being bound. It was the old hideous +fear of a locked room--the shut-in horror which meant suffocation. + +"If I thought you could not resist, Paula," Madame Nestor said, "I +should advise you to flee to the remotest country--this moment. I should +implore you never to allow from your side your best and strongest +friend. But I have studied your brain, your strength, your heart. I love +you for the thought that has come to me--that it is you, Paula Linster, +who is destined to free the race from this destroyer." + +Often in the last half-hour had come a great inward revolt against the +trend of her caller's words. It passed through Paula again, yet she +inquired how she could thus be the means. + +"By resisting him. Bellingham once told me--trust him, this was after I +was fully his--that if I had matched his force with a psychic resistance +equally as strong--it would mortally have weakened him. So if he seeks +to subvert your will and fails, this great one-pointed power of his, +developed who knows how long--will turn and rend itself. This is an +occult law." + +Paula could understand this--the wild beast of physical desire rending +itself at the last--but not the conception of hopelessness--Bellingham +cut off from immortality. The woman divined her thoughts. + +"Again I beg of you," she said in excitement, "not to let a thought of +pity for him insinuate itself in your brain--not the finest point of it! +Think of yourself, of the Great Good which must sustain you, of the +benefit to your race--think of the women less strong! Fail in this, and +Bellingham will absorb your splendid forces, and let you fall back into +the common as I did--to rise again, ah, so bitterly, so wearily!... But +I cannot imagine you failing, you strong young queen, and the women like +me, the legion of emptied shells he has left behind--we shall canonize +you, Paula, if you shatter the vampire's power." + +Thoughts came too fast for speech now. They burned Paula's mind--a +destructive activity, because ineffectual. She wanted to speak of the +shameful experience of the morning, but she could not bring the words to +confession. + +"I had almost forgotten," she said lightly at length, "that it is well +for one to eat and drink. Stay, won't you please, and share a bite of +supper with me, Madame Nestor? We'll talk of other things. I am deadly +tired of Bellingham." + +A hungry man would have known no repletion from the entire offering +which sufficed for these two, forgotten of appetite. Wafers of dark +bread, a poached egg, pickles, a heart of lettuce and a divided melon, +cake and tea--yet how fully they fared!... They were talking about +children and fairy tales over the teacups, when Paula encountered again +that sinister mental seizure--the occultist's influence creeping back +from her reason to that part of the brain man holds in common with +animals.... The lights of the room dimmed; her companion became +invisible. Bellingham was calling: "Come to me--won't you come and help +me in my excellent labors? Come to me, Paula. We can lift the world +together--you and I. Wonderful are the things for me to show you--you +who are already so wise and so very beautiful. Paula Linster,--come to +me!" + +Again and again the words were laid upon her intelligence, until she +heard them only. All the rest was an anterior murmuring, as of wind and +rivers. The words were pressed down upon the surfaces of her brain, like +leaf after leaf of gold-beaters' film--and hammered and hammered +there.... He was in a great gray room, sitting at a desk, but staring at +her, as if there were no walls or streets between--just a little bit of +blackness.... She seemed to know just where to go. She felt the place +for her was there in the great gray room--a wonderful need for her +there.... But a door opened into the room where he sat--a door she had +not seen, for she had not taken her eyes from his face. A woman came in, +a pale woman, a shell of beauty. The huge tousled head at the desk +turned from her to the woman who entered. Paula saw his profile alter +hideously.... + +Her own bright room filled her eyes again, and the ashen horror on the +countenance of Madame Nestor, who seemed vaguely to see it all. + +"I think I should have gone to him," Paula murmured, in the slow, flat +tone of one not yet quite normally conscious. + +"There is but one way, you poor distressed child--to build about you a +fortress of purity--which he cannot penetrate----" + +"I think I should have known the car to take--the place to enter," Paula +went on, unheeding, "the elevator entrance--the door of the room----" + +Madame Nestor continued to implore her to pray. Paula shivered finally, +and stared at the other for a few seconds, as if recalling the words the +visitor had spoken, and the past she had lived with Bellingham. Her +terrible rage toward herself spread and covered Madame Nestor. Did not +the latter still dip here, there, and everywhere in the occult and +weird? Might she not have something to do with the projectiles of +Desire? + +"I think I'd better be alone now," she said hoarsely. "One does not feel +like invoking the Pure Presence--when one is chosen for such +defilement." + + + + +THIRD CHAPTER + +CERTAIN DEVELOPING INCIDENTS ARE CAUGHT INTO THE CURRENT OF +NARRATIVE--ALSO A SUPPER WITH REIFFERSCHEID + + +In the week that followed, Paula's review of Quentin Charter's new book +appeared. As a bit of luxury reading, she again went over "A Damsel Came +to Peter." It stood up true and strong under the second reading--the +test of a real book. The Western writer became a big figure in her mind. +She thought of him as a Soul; with a certain gladness to know that he +was Out There; that he refused to answer the call of New York; that he +had waited until he was an adult to make his name known, and could not +now be cramped and smothered and spoiled. There was a sterilized purity +about parts of his work--an uncompromising thunder against the fleshly +trends of living--to which she could only associate asceticism, +celibacy, and mystic power. He was altogether an abstraction, but she +was glad that he lived--in the West and in her brain. + +Also her mind was called to lower explorations of life; moments in which +it seemed as if every tissue within her had been carried from arctic +repressions to the springing verdures of the Indies. A sound, an odor, a +man's step, the voice of a child, would start the spell, especially in +moments of receptivity or aimless pondering. Thoughts formed in a lively +fascinating way, tingling dreamily over her intelligence, dilating her +nostrils with indescribable fragrance, brushing her eyelids +half-closed,--until she suddenly awoke to the fact that this was not +herself, but Bellingham's thirst playing upon her. Beyond words dreadful +then, it was to realize this thing in her brain--to feel it spread +hungrily through her veins and localize in her lips, her breast, and the +hollow of her arms. Bellingham crushed the trained energies of his +thought-force into her consciousness, rendering her helpless. Though he +was afterward banished, certain physical forces which he aroused did not +fall asleep.... Frequently came that malignant efflorescence. Her name +was called; the way shown her. Once when she was summoned to the 'phone, +she knew that it was he, but could not at first resist. Reason came at +the sound of her own hoarse and frightened voice. Again one night, +between nine and ten, when Bellingham was in power, she had reached the +street and was hurrying toward the surface-car in Central Park West. Her +name was jovially called by Reifferscheid. He accompanied her through +the Park and back to her door. He said he thought that she was working +too hard, confessed himself skeptical about her eating enough. + +One thought apart from these effects, Paula could not shake from her +mind: Were there human beings with dead or dying souls? Did she pass on +the street men and women in whom the process of soul-starvation was +complete or completing? Could there be human mind-cells detached from +hope, holiness, charity, eternity, and every lovely conception; infected +throughout with earth's descending destructive principle? The thought +terrorized her soul, so that she became almost afraid to glance into the +face of strangers. To think of any man or woman without one hope! This +was insufferable. Compared with this, there is no tragedy, and the +wildest physical suffering is an easy temporal thing. She felt like +crying from the housetops: "Listen to pity; love the good; cultivate a +tender conscience; be clean in body and humble in mind! Nothing matters +but the soul--do not let that die!" + +Then she remembered that every master of the bright tools of art had +depicted this message in his own way; every musician heard it among the +splendid harmonies that winged across his heaven; every prophet stripped +himself of all else, save this message, and every mystic was ordered up +to Nineveh to give it sound. Indeed, every great voice out of the +multitude was a cry of the soul. It came to her as never before, that +all uplift is in the words, _Love One Another_. If only the world would +see and hear! + +And the world was so immovable--a locked room that resisted her +strength. This was her especial terror--a locked room or a locked +will.... Once when she was a little girl, she released a caged canary +that belonged to a neighbor, and during her punishment, she kept +repeating: + +"_It has wings--wings!_" + + * * * * * + +Liberty, spaces of sky, shadowed running streams, unbroken woods where +the paths were so dim as not to disturb the dream of undiscovered +depths--in the midst of these, Paula had found, as a girl, a startling +kind of happiness. She was tireless in the woods, and strangely slow to +hunger. No gloomy stillness haunted her; the sudden scamper of a +squirrel or rabbit could not shake her nerves, nor even the degraded +spiral of a serpent gliding to cover. Her eyelids narrowed in the midst +of confinements. School tightened her lips; much of it, indeed, put a +look of hopeless toleration in her eyes, but the big, silent woods +quickly healed her mind; in them she found the full life. + +At one time, her father essayed to lock her in a closet. Paula told him +she would die if he did, and from the look upon the child's face, he +could not doubt.... He had directly punished her once, and for years +afterward, she could not repress a shudder at his touch. She would serve +him in little things, bring him the choicest fruits and flowers; she +anticipated his wants in the house and knew his habits as a caged thing +learns the movements of its keepers; invariably, she was respectful and +apt--until her will was challenged. Then her mother would weaken and her +father passed on with a smile. "Paula does not permit me to forget that +I have the honor to be her father," he once said. + +Reading grew upon her unconsciously. There was a time when she could not +read, another when she could. She did not remember the transition, but +one afternoon, when she was barely five, she sat for hours in the parlor +still as a mole, save for the turning leaves--sat upon a hassock with +Grimm. It was _The Foster Brother_ which pioneered her mind. That +afternoon endured as one of the most exquisite periods of her life. The +pleasure was so intense that she felt she must be doing wrong. + +Grimm explained the whole world, in proving the reality of fairies. The +soul of the child had always been awake to influences her associates +missed. Wonderful Grimm cleared many mysteries--the unseen activities of +the woods, the visitors of the dark in her room before she was quite +asleep; the invisible weaving behind all events. Later, books inevitably +brought out the element of attraction between man and woman, but such +were the refinements of her home that nothing occurred to startle her +curiosity. It was left to the friendly woods to reveal a mystery and +certain ultimate meanings.... She was sick with the force of her +divining; the peace and purity of her mind shattered. The accruing +revelations of human origin were all that she could bear. She rebelled +against the manner of coming into the world, a heaven-high rebellion. +Something of pity mingled with her reverence for her mother. For years, +she could not come to a belief that the Most High God had any interest +in a creature of such primal defilement. Queerly enough, it was the +great preparer, Darwin, who helped her at the last. Man having come up +through dreadful centuries from an earth-bent mouth and nostril, to a +pitying heart and a lifted brow--has all the more hope of becoming an +angel.... + +There was something of the nature of a birthmark in Paula's loathing for +the animal in man and woman. Her mother had been sheltered in girlhood +to such an extent that the mention of a corsage-ribbon would have +offended. Very early, she had married, and the first days of the +relation crushed illusions that were never restored. The birth of Paula +ended a period of inordinate sorrow, which brought all the fine threads +of her life into wear, gave expression to the highest agony of which she +was capable, and ravelled out her emotions one by one. As a mother, she +was rather forceless; the excellent elements of her lineage seemed all +expended in the capacities of the child. Her limitations had not widened +in the dark months, nor had her nature refined. It was as if the heart +of the woman had lost all its color and ardor. The great sweep of +Paula's emotions; her strangeness, her meditative mind and heart-hunger +for freedom; her love for open spaces, still groves and the prophylactic +trends of running water--all expressed, without a doubt, the mysterious +expiration of her mother's finer life. But something beyond heredity, +distances beyond the reach of human mind to explain, was the lofty +quality of the child's soul. Very old it was, and wise; very strange and +very strong. + +Paula never failed afterward in a single opportunity to spare younger +girl-friends from the savagery of revelation, as it had come to her. The +bare truth of origin, she made radiant with illimitable human +possibilities.... Her dream beyond words was some time to give the world +a splendid man or woman. Loving, and loved by a strong-souled, +deep-thinking man; theirs the fruit of highest human concord; beautiful +communions in the midst of life's nobilities, and the glory of these on +the brow of their child--such was her dream of womanhood, whitened +through many vicissitudes. + +Her mother died when Paula was twenty. The call came in the night. In +the summons was that awful note which tells the end. Her mother was on +the border and crossing swiftly. Paula screamed. + +There was no answer, but a faint ruffle on the brow that had been +serene. + +"Mother!... Mother!" a last time--then the answer: + +"Don't--call--me,--Paula! Oh, it--hurts--so--to be--called--back!" + +After that, the dying was a matter of hours and great pain. Had she come +to her in silence, the tired spirit would have lifted easily. So Paula +learned, by terrible experience, the inexpressible value of silence in a +room with death. She had been very close to the mystery. Holding her +mother's hand and praying inaudibly at the last, she had felt the final +wrench to the very core of her being.... Departure, indeed; Paula was +never conscious of her mother's spirit afterward. It is probably futile +to inquire if a child of one's flesh is invariably one's spiritual +offspring.... An ineffectual girl, the mother became a hopeless woman. +In the interval, out of the grinding of her forces, was produced a +fervent heat.... Did blind negative suffering make her receptive to a +gifted child, or did Paula's mother merely give, from her own lovely +flesh, a garment for a spirit-alien from a far and shining country? + + * * * * * + +Three or four mornings after the Charter critique, Paula brought further +work down-town. Reifferscheid swung about in his chair and stared at her +fully thirty seconds. Then he spoke brusquely, possibly to hide his +embarrassment: + +"Take these three books home, but don't bother with them to-day. I want +you back here at four o'clock. You are to go out to supper with me." + +The idea was not exactly pleasant. She had seen Reifferscheid only a few +times apart from his desk, where she liked him without reservation. She +had always pictured him as a club-man--a typically successful New +Yorker, with a glitter of satire and irreverent humor about all his +sayings. The thought of a supper with Reifferscheid had a bit of supper +heaviness about it. The club type she preferred to know from a sort of +middle distance.... + +"Won't you, please?" + +His change of manner was effective. All brusqueness was gone. Paula saw +his real earnestness, and the boyish effort of its expression. There was +no reason for her to refuse, and she hesitated no longer. Yet she +wondered why he had asked her, and searched her mind to learn why she +could not see him at leisure, apart from a club-window's leather chair; +at some particular table in a grill or buffet, or enlivening a game of +billiards with his inimitable characterizations. One of the finest and +most effective minds she had ever contacted belonged to this editor. His +desk was the symbol to her of concentrated and full-pressure +strenuousness; in his work was all that was sophisticated and +world-weathered, but she could neither explain nor overcome the +conviction that his excellence was in spite of, rather than the result +of his life outside.... She met him on the stroke of four in the +entrance to _The States_ building, and he led the way at once to South +Ferry, where they took the Staten Island boat. She felt that he was not +at ease in the crowds, but it was a fact, also, that he did not appear +so huge and froggy in the street, as in the crowded office she knew so +well. + +"Yes, I live over yonder," he said, drawing two stools to the extreme +forward of the deck. "I supposed you knew. The nearest way out of New +York, this is. Besides, you get full five cents' worth of sea voyage, +and it's really another country across the bay. That's the main +thing--not a better country, but different." + +Little was said on the boat. It was enough to breathe the sea and +contemplate the distances. She scarcely noticed which of the +trolley-cars he helped her into at the terminal; but they were out of +town presently, where there were curving country roads, second-growth +hills, and here and there a dim ravine to cool the eye. Then against the +sky she discovered a black ribbon of woods. It was far and big to her +eyes, full of luring mysteries that called to her--her very own +temples.... Turning to Reifferscheid, she found that he had been +regarding her raptly. He coughed and jerked his head the other way, +delightfully embarrassed. + +"Guess you like it here," he said after a moment. "I knew you would. I +knew I ought to make you come, somehow. You see, you're a little too +fit--drawn just a trifle too fine. It isn't that you're out of +condition; just the contrary. When one's drawn so fine as you are, one +wears--just from living at joy speed.... We get off here." + +"It's incredible that you should have a house all to yourself!" + +They were walking on the grass that edged the road. It had taken an hour +and a half to come. Dusk was beginning to crowd into the distances. +Ahead on either side of the road were a few houses with land between. + +"Whatever you call it," said Reifferscheid, "it's all in one piece. +There it is yonder--'A wee cot, a cricket's chirr--Sister Annie and the +glad face of her----'" + +"A little white house under big trees!" Paula exclaimed joyously. "And +what's that big dug-out thing behind?" + +Reifferscheid chuckled. "Dug-out is excellent. That's the aquarium and +the lily-lakes. I made those Sierras and clothed their titanic flanks +with forests of sod." + +"Don't ask me to speak.... All this is too wonderful for words...." To +think that she had imagined this man-mammoth sitting in a club-window. +In truth, she was somewhat perturbed for wronging him, though delighted +with the whole expedition. Sister Annie was startling, inasmuch as her +face was as fresh and wholesome as a snow-apple, and yet she could not +leave her invalid's chair unassisted. She was younger than +Reifferscheid. + +"I'm so glad to have you come, Miss Linster," she said. "Tim was really +set upon it. He speaks of you so frequently that I wanted to meet you +very much. I can't get over to the city often." + +"Tim." This was the name of names. Paula had known nothing beyond "T. +Reifferscheid." One after another, little joys like this unfolded. + +"It will be too dark after supper," the sister added. "Tim won't be +content until you see his system of ponds. You better go with him now." + +Reifferscheid already filled the side-door. Evidently inspection was the +first and only formality demanded of the guest at the cottage. Paula +followed him up a tiny gravel path to the rim of the top pond--a saucer +of cement, eighteen inches deep and seven or eight feet across. It was +filled with pond-weed and nelumbo foliage. Gold fish and stickle-backs +played in the shadowed water. + +"It isn't the time of year, you know," he said apologetically. "The +lilies are through blossoming, and in a week or two, I'll have to take +my fishes back to winter-quarters. You see my water supply comes from +Silver Lake. The great main empties here." (Paula followed his finger to +the nozzle of a hose that hung over the rim of cement on the top pond.) +"The stream overflows in Montmorency Falls yonder,"--(this, a trickle +down the gravel to the second pond)--"from which, you can hear the roar +of the cataracts into the lower lake, which waters the lands of plenty +all about." + +His look of surprise and disappointment at her laughter was +irresistible. + +"The saurians are all in the depths, but you can see some of my snails," +he went on. "You'd be surprised how important my herd of snails is in +the economy of this whole lake country." + +He picked up a pebble from the edge of the water, pointing out the green +slime that covered it. "These are spores of a very influential +vegetable, called _algae_, which spreads like cholera and vegetates +anywhere in water that is not of torrential temperament. Without my +snails, the whole system would be a thick green soup in a month. It's +getting a little dark to see the stickle-back nests. They domesticate +very curiously. Next year, I'll have a fountain.... The second-tank +contains a frail, northern variety of water-hyacinths, some rock bass, +and a turtle or two. Below are the cattails and ferns and mosses. In the +summer, that lower pond is a jungle, but the lilies and lotuses up here +are really choice when in blossom. The overflow of water rejoices the +bugs and posies generally. Annie likes the yard-flowers." + +Paula would not have dared to say how enchantingly these toy-lakes and +lily-beds had adjusted, in her mind, to the nature of the big man beside +her, whose good word was valued by every sincere and important literary +worker in the country. Tim Reifferscheid turning out his tremendous +tasks in New York, would never be quite the same to her again, since she +had seen him playing with his hose in his own back yard, and heard him +talk about his snails and lilies, and the land posies that Sister Annie +liked. Down-town, he had always stimulated her, but here with his +toy-engineering and playful watersheds, he was equally bracing and just +as admirable. + +Darkness was covering them. "I must see it all again," she said. "I want +to come when the lilies are blossoming. I could watch the fishes and +things--for hours. Really, I will never call it a dug-out again." + +She saw him grinning in the dusk. + +"Come in to supper," he said. "You see, anything smaller than a Staten +Island back-yard would hardly do for me to play in. Then there's a +stillness about here that I like. It makes your ears ache a little at +first. You wake up in the middle of the night and think you're under the +earth somewhere, or disembodied. Finally it comes to you that there's +nothing to be afraid of except the silence. A man's head gets to need it +after a time. As a matter of fact, there's no place across the bay for a +fat man after working hours." + +"Miss Linster," called Sister Annie as they entered. + +Paula followed the voice into a speckless spare room. + +"Supper will be served in a moment," the other said. "I just wanted to +tell you--Tim will take you back to the city to-night, grateful for the +chance, but do you really have to go? This little room is yours, and you +can go over together in the morning. Then a night in this stillness will +calm you back into a little girl. Tim doesn't know I'm asking you. +Please do just as you want----" + +Paula didn't have the heart to drag the big brother back to town. + +"Why," she said laughingly, "I'd much rather stay than not. Think how +good this all is to me! I didn't have an idea when he asked me, other +than a restaurant somewhere in New York." + +"I am so glad.... Tim----" + +He tried not to look relieved at the announcement. "Really, I didn't put +Annie up to this, but if you are content to stay, I think it will smooth +you out a bit." + +After supper the three sat out in the yard. There was a heavy richness +in the air, a soft sea-wind flavored with wood-fires and finished +fields. Reifferscheid smoked his pipe and did most of the talking. + +"I glanced over Bertram Lintell's new book--out to-day," he said. "It +sort of hurts. Two or three months ago, I dropped in on him while he was +doing it.... I have always had a certain interest in Lintell because I +accepted his first story seven or eight years ago, as a magazine +reader.... You may not know that nine-tenths of the unsolicited fiction +material in a magazine's mail is a personal affront to intelligence at +large. Nowhere does a man show the youth of his soul so pitifully as +when first alone with white paper and an idea. He shakes down a crow's +rookery and believes in his heart it's an eagle's nest. That there are +men in the world paid to open his package, inspect and return same +respectfully--and do it again--is an uncommercial peculiarity of a most +commercial age. Editors rely upon the more or less technically flawless +products of the trained, the "arrived"; writers who have forgotten their +dreams--rung the bell once or twice--and show a willingness to take +money for the echoes. + +"An expensive reading staff is not necessary for these contributors; +their stuff goes to the heart of things at once. But what sorry caravans +halt in the outer courts of a magazine-office; what sick, empty, +unwashed confusion is impounded there! Yet a company of men moves ever +through and about, peering into the unsightly, unsavory packs--ever +ordering away, ever clearing the court, lest the mess rise to heaven.... +But perfect pearls have been found in these restless, complaining +trash-heaps, and will be found again. Men are there to glance at all, +because one of these pearls is worth a whole necklace of seconds. +There's no way out of it. To make lasting good in the literary game, one +must be steeled to reverses--long, ugly corroding reverses. This is the +price which a man pays for the adjustment of his brain and hand to the +needs of the time. As flesh needs bone, he needs these reverses. They +clear the fat from the brain; increase the mental circuits, and lend to +the fibres that firm delicacy which alone can carry live hot emotions +without blowing out, and big voltage ideas swift and true to their +appointed brilliance of expression. + +"I'm gabbing a lot, but I was going to tell you about Bertram Lintell. I +was first in the office to get his manuscript, and I raised the cry of +'Pearl.' It was faulty, but full of the arrogance of unhurt youth. The +face of Twenty-one with all its unlined audacity stared out from the +pages, and every page was an excursion. Here was a true subconscious +ebullition--a hang-over from a previous incarnation, like as not. It was +hard, glassy, but the physical prowess of it stimulated. Frank, brutal +boyishness--that was the attraction. I shouldn't have taken it." + +"You what?" Paula asked. + +"It was a shame to take it," Reifferscheid mused, "but someone else--the +next man, would have. You see, he needed buffeting--seven years at +least. I knew he didn't have the beam and displacement to stand making +good so young. It was doing him an evil turn, but we sent him the brass +tag that shines like gold. Lintell was not adult enough to twig the +counterfeit, not mellowed enough to realize that nothing is so sordid, +nothing labeled so securely to Failure, as conscious success. As I say, +I saw him at work two or three months ago. He was a patch-haired, baby +lion still, dictating stories first draft to a stenographer, supplying +demand like a huckster--the real treasure-house of his soul locked for +life and the key thrown away.... Even money turns the head of the +multitude, but money is small beer compared to the fiery potential wine +of literary recognition. Long hammering, refining reverses, alone +prepare a man for this. Quentin Charter said something of the kind: that +a young writer should live his lean years full length, and if he really +craters the mountain, he will praise every god in the Pantheon because +his achievements were slow. + +"Lintell's present stuff is insufferable. The point is he may have had +in the beginning no less a gift than Charter's. That's why the new book +sickens me so.... By the way, I got a letter from Charter this +afternoon. I meant to bring it along, but I'll pass it over to you in +the morning. It's yours, Miss Linster, though he did me the honor to +think that I had written his critique. He says you crawled right inside +his book. We don't usually answer letters of this kind. There are +writers, you know, glad to turn a review office into an Admiration +Exchange. But you'll want to write to Charter, I'm sure. He's different." + +Paula did not answer, but she was pleased and excited that her review +had been a joy to this thunderer of the West, and that he had answered +her tidings of high hope for the future. + + + + +FOURTH CHAPTER + +PAULA ENCOUNTERS HER ADVERSARY WHO TURNS PROPHET AND TELLS OF A STARRY +CHILD SOON TO BE BORN + + +Paula went upstairs to the editorial rooms with Reifferscheid the +following morning for Charter's letter. This she carried into the +city-office to be alone. Forenoon is the dead time of a morning +newspaper. The place seemed still tired from the all-night struggle to +spring a paper to the streets. She thrust up a window for fresh air and +sat down in a reporter's chair to read.... The letter was big with +boyish delight. "When a man spends a couple of years growing and +trimming a pile of stuff into a sizable book," he had written, "and the +first of the important reviews comes in with such a message of +enthusiasm, it is the heart's 'well-done' long waited for." Beyond this, +there was only a line or two about the book. It had been in the +publisher's hands six months, and he was cold to it now. _The States_ +had interested him, however, because there was an inclination in the +article to look at his work to come. In fact, some of the thoughts of +the reviewer, he wrote, were sympathetic with the subject-matter +simmering in his mind. Naturally, the coincidence had thrilled him. +Charter, believing that Reifferscheid had done the work, wrote with +utmost freedom. This attracted Paula, as it gave her a glimpse of a +certain fineness between men who admire each other. The issue was not +closed.... She wanted to answer the letter then and there at the +reporter's desk, but Reifferscheid knew she had not gone. He might come +in--and laugh at her precipitation. + +After a night of perfect rest, Paula's mind was animated with thoughts +of work--until she reached the _Zoroaster_. Something of Bellingham's +tormenting energy was heavy in the atmosphere of her rooms. When passing +the full-length mirror, she turned her face away in fear. Impatiently +she caught up one of the new books (and Charter's letter for a marker), +and hurried across to the Park. The fall days were still flawless. + +It was not yet ten in the morning, and few people were abroad. She sat +down upon one of the weathered knobs of Manhattan rock which had worn +through the thin skin of soil, and allowed herself to think of the +formidable affliction. To all intents, the magician had dispossessed her +of the rooms, identified for years with her personality and no other. +She could not put away the truth that the full forces of her mind were +at bay before the psychic advances of the dreadful stranger. This was +not long to be endured. Inasmuch that his power did not harmlessly +glance from her, she felt that there must be great potentialities of +evil within herself. This conviction made her frightened and desperate. +She should have known that it was her inner development, her +sensitiveness which had made her so potent an attraction for Bellingham. +The substance of her whole terror was that there had been moments under +his spell, when she had not been at all the mistress of her own will. + +The suggestions which he projected had seemed to her the good and proper +actions. She knew it as a law--that every time her own divine right to +the rule of her faculties was thus usurped by an evil force, her +resistance was weakened. Yet there was a shocking unfairness in the +thought that she was not given a chance. In the throne-room of her mind, +she was not queen. All the sacred fortifications of self seemed broken, +even the soul's integrity debased, when Bellingham crushed his way in +and forced her to obey. This is the great psychological crime. When one +has broken into the sacred precincts, the door is left open for other +malignant, earth-bound entities foully to enter and betray.... + +There was no one in whom she could confide, but Madame Nestor. Almost +any professional man, a physician especially, would have called her +revelations hysterical.... Her constant and growing fear was of the time +when she should be called by Bellingham--and nothing would supervene to +save her. Some time the spell might not be broken. She became ill with +tension and shame as this unspeakable possibility seethed through her +mind.... Better death than to continue in being passion-ridden by this +defiler, in the presence of whom she became so loathsome in her own +sight--that she dared not pray.... + +Somewhere far off children were talking. Their voices warmed and +cleansed her mind. There was a stimulating thud of hoofs on the +turf-roads. She tried to read now. Her eyes travelled dutifully along +the lines of her book, without bringing forth even the phase of a +thought from the page of print. A swift step drew her glance down the +foot-path. Bellingham was approaching. His shoulders were thrown back, +his long arms swinging so that every muscle was in play, striding +forward at incredible speed. He filled his lungs with every cubic inch +of morning air they could contain, and expelled the volume with gusto. +She had once seen a rugged Englishman take his exercise as seriously as +this, on the promenade of an Atlantic liner before the breakfast-gong. +To all appearances, Bellingham did not have a thought apart from his +constitutional. + +Paula sat very still on the rock. Her slightest movement now would +attract his attention. It occurred to her afterwards that she had been +like a crippled squirrel huddled in the fork of a tree--the hunter and +his dog below.... + +At the point where the path was nearest her, he halted. The thing +happened exactly as she might have conceived it in a story. For a moment +he seemed to be searching his mind for the meaning of his impulse to +stop. An unforgettable figure, this, as he stood there with lifted head, +concentrating upon the vagary which had brought him to a standstill.... +Paula may have been mistaken in her terror, but she never relinquished +the thought that her proximity was known to him--before his face turned +unerringly to the rock and his bright gray eyes filled with her +presence. + +"You are Miss Linster?" he asked, smiling agreeably. + +She nodded, not trusting her voice. + +"You attended the first of my Prismatic Hall lectures ten days ago?... I +seldom forget a face, and I remember asking one of my committee your +name." + +Paula found it rather a unique effort to hold in mind the truth that she +had never spoken to this man before. Then the whole trend of her mental +activity was suddenly complicated by the thought that all her past +terrors might be groundless. Possibly Madame Nestor was insane on this +subject. "It may be that her mad words and my stimulated imagination +have reared a monster that has no actuality." + +The bracing voices of the children, the brilliance of mid-forenoon, the +man's kingly figure, agreeable courtesy, and commanding health--indeed, +apart from the eyes in which she hardly dared to glance, there was +nothing to connect him even vaguely with the sinister persecutions which +bore his image. The whole world-mind was with him. What right had she to +say that the world-mind was in error and she normal--she and the +unreckonable Madame Nestor?... Paula recalled the strange intensity of +her mental life for years, and the largeness of her solitudes. The +world-mind would say she was beside herself from much study.... More +than all, no power was exerted upon her now. Who would believe that this +Bellingham, with miles of the metropolis between them, had repeatedly +over-ridden her volition, when she felt no threatening influence at the +present moment, almost within his reach--only the innate repulsion and +the fear of her fears? + +"I hope to see you again at the meetings, Miss Linster." + +"They do not attract me." + +"That is important, if unpleasant to learn," he remarked, as if +genuinely perturbed. "I have been studying for a long time, and perhaps +I have taken a roundabout road to discovery. It is quite possible that +the values of my instruction are over-estimated by many.... Do you mind +if I sit down a moment? I have walked a hundred squares and will start +back from here." From his manner it was impossible to imagine irony +covert in his humbleness. + +"Certainly not, though I must return to my apartment in a moment.... I +did not like the atmosphere--the audience--that first night," Paula +added. + +"Nor did I, altogether," he said quickly. "But how can one choose the +real, if all are not admitted at first? With each lecture you will find +a more select company, and there will be very few when the actual +message is unfolded." + +He glanced away as if to determine the exact point through the trees +from which the children's voices came. His profile was unquestionably +that of an aristocrat. The carriage of his head, the wonderful +development of his figure, his voice and the gentle temper of his +answers, even the cut of his coat and the elegance of his shoes +suggested an unconscious and invariable refinement which controverted +the horror he had once seemed. + +"It may be that I am not quite like other people," she said, "but I +cannot think of physical perfection as the first aim in life." + +"Nor can I," he answered; "still I think that after the elimination of +poisons from the physical organism, one's mental and spiritual powers +are quickened and freer to develop." + +"Do you always shape your philosophy to meet the objections of your +disciples--so?" + +"You are stimulating, Miss Linster, but I have made no concession to +adapt myself to your views. I only declared that I weed out my classes +before real work begins, and that physical disease retards mental +growth. I might add that I do not lecture for money." + +"Why do you teach only women?" + +"There are several reasons," he replied readily enough. "I have found +that a mixed audience is not receptive; there is a self-consciousness, +sometimes worse, something of a scoffing spirit, which breaks the point +of my appeal. Women are aroused to interest when a man appeals directly +to them. They do not like to betray a profound interest in any subject +apart from the household--when their lords are present. Man +instinctively combats any source which tends toward mental emancipation +on the part of women. It is only a few decades ago that women were +forced to abide entirely within their domestic circle. Instead of using +a superior physical strength now to keep her there, man's tendency is to +ridicule her outside interests. So I have found that women prefer to +study alone." + +Bellingham answered thus circuitously, but his manner suggested that he +was grateful for the inquiry, since it gave him an opportunity to +express matters which had only been half-formed in his mind. Paula, +whose every question had come from an inclination to confound him, began +to realize that the spirit was unworthy and partook of impertinence. + +"I believe in automatic health," she said impatiently. "It seems to me +that refinement means this: that in real fineness all such things are +managed with a sort of unconscious art. For instance, I should not have +health at the price of walking twice a hundred blocks in a forenoon----" + +"The point is eminently reasonable, Miss Linster," Bellingham remarked +with a smile. "But what I find it well to do, I rarely advise for +others. I am from a stock of powerful physical men. My fathers were +sailors and fishermen. They gave me an organism which weakens if I +neglect exercise, and I seem to require about five times as much +physical activity as many men of the present generation. I have +absolutely no use for this tremendous muscular strength; in fact, I +should gladly be less strong if it could be accomplished without a +general deterioration. The point is, that a man with three or four +generations of gentle-folk behind him, can keep in a state of glowing +health at the expense of about one-fifth the physical energy that I +burn--who come from rough men of mighty outdoor labors." + +This was very reasonable, except that he seemed far removed in nature +from the men of boats and beaches. She had dared to glance into his face +as he spoke, and found an impression from the diamond hardness of his +eyes, entirely different from that which came through listening merely. +But for this glance, it never would have occurred to her, that her +questions had stretched his faculties to the slightest tension. She +would have arisen to go now, but he resumed: + +"I cannot bear to have you think that my energies are directed entirely +in the interests of lifting the standards of health, Miss Linster. +Really, this is but a small part of preparation. It was only because I +felt you ready for the important truths--that I regretted your absence +after the first night. Do you know that we live in the time of a +spiritual high-tide? It is clear to me that the whole race is lifting +with a wonderful inner animation. In the next quarter of a century great +mystic voices shall be heard. And there shall be One above all.... I +tell you people are breaking down under the tyranny of their material +possessions. After desire--comes the burden of holding. We are +approaching the great _ennui_ which Carlyle prophesied. There is no +longer a gospel of materialism. The great English and German teachers +whose work was regarded as supreme philosophy by the people ten years +ago, are shown to be pitiful failures in our colleges to-day--or at +best, specialists of one particular stage of evolution, who made the +mistake of preaching that their little division in the great cosmic line +was the whole road. Materialism died out of Germany a few years +ago--with a great shock of suicide. The mystics are teaching her now. I +assure you the dawn is breaking for a great spiritual day such as the +world has never seen. Soon a great light shall cover the nations and +evil shall crawl into the holes of the earth where it is dark.... There +is shortly to be born into the world--a glorious Child. While He is +growing to celestial manhood--New Voices shall rise here and everywhere +preparing the way. One of these New Voices--one of the very least of +these--is Bellingham to whom you listen so impatiently." + +Every venture into the occult had whispered this Child-promise in +Paula's ears. There was such a concerted understanding of this +revelation among the cults, that the thought had come to her that +perhaps this was a delusion of every age. Yet she had seen a Hindu +record dated a hundred years before, prophesying the birth of a Superman +in the early years of the Twentieth Century. There was scarcely a +division among the astrologers on this one point. She had even been +conscious in the solitudes of her own life of a certain mystic +confidence of such a fulfillment.... She dared not look into +Bellingham's face at such a moment. The ghastly phase of the whole +matter was to hear this prophecy repeated by one to whom the illustrious +prospect (if he were, as she had believed) could become only an awful +illumination of the hell to which he was condemned. It was--only +unspeakably worse--like hearing a parrot croak, "Feed our souls with the +bread of life!..." Paula stirred in her seat, and Charter's letter +dropped from the book in her lap. She seized it with a rush of grateful +emotion. It was a stanchion in her mind now filled with turbulence. + +"There never was a time when woman's intelligence was so eager and +rational; never a time," Bellingham went on, "when men were so tired of +metals and meals and miles. The groan for the Absolutely New, for the +utmost in sense and the weirdest of sensations, for speed to cover +distances and to overcome every obstacle, even thin air--all these +express the great weariness of the flesh and make clear to the prophetic +understanding that man is nearing the end of his lessons in three +dimensions and five senses. There is a stirring of the spirit-captive in +the worn mesh of the body." + +The woman traced her name with her forefinger upon the cover of the book +in her lap; again and again, "Paula--Paula--Paula." It was a habit she +had not remembered for years. As a little girl when she fought against +being persuaded contrary to her will, she would hold herself in hand +thus, by wriggling "Paula" anywhere. All that Bellingham said was +artfully calculated to inspire her with hope and joy in the world. So +marvelously were the words designed to carry her high in happiness, that +there was a corresponding tension of terror in remembering that +Bellingham uttered them. Yet she would have felt like a lump of clay had +she not told him: + +"What you say is very wonderful to me." + +"And it is the women who are most sensitive to the Light--women who are +already unfolding in the rays, yet so far-flung and dim." Bellingham's +voice was a quick emotionless monotone. "Perhaps you have noted the +great amalgamation of clubs and classes of women which each year turns +its power to more direct effort and valuable study. Another thing, let +the word Genius be whispered about any child or youth, and he becomes at +once the darling of rich matrons. What does this mean--this desire of +woman to bring out the latent powers of a stranger's child? This veiled, +beautiful quality is the surest sign of all. It is the spirit of +Rebecca--which, even in the grief for her own dead babe, turns +thrillingly to mother a wayfarer's Starry Child. Verily, when a woman +begins to dream about bringing prophets into the world--the giants of +those other days are close to her, crowding closer, eager to be born +again." + +Paula turned to him and arose. His face was not kindled. It was as if he +were an actor reading lines to memorize, not yet trying to simulate the +contained emotions. There is a glow of countenance where fine +thought-force is in action, but Bellingham's face was not lit with the +expiration of mind-energy, though his eyes glittered with set, bird-like +brightness. + +"I must hurry away now," she told him hastily. "I must think upon what +you have said." + +"I truly wish," he added softly, and with a kindness she felt, because +her eyes were turned from him, "that you would join one of my wiser +classes. You would be an inspiration. Besides, the little things that +have been given me to tell--should be known by the very few who have +reached your degree of evolution." + +"Thank you," she faltered. "I must think." + +"Good-by, Miss Linster." + +Reaching the street in front of her apartment house, she turned just in +time to see him disappear among the trees. He strode forward as if this +were his world, and his days had been a continuous pageant of +victories.... Her rooms were all cleared of disorder, her mind refreshed +and stimulated.... That night between eleven and twelve she was writing +to Charter. There were a half dozen penned pages before her, and a smile +on her lips. She poured out a full heart to the big Western figure of +cleanliness and strength--wrote to the man she wanted him to be.... The +day had been strange and expanding. She had suffered no evil. The +thoughts remaining with her from the talk in the Park were large with +significance, and they had cleared slowly from the murkiness of their +source. These, and the ideal of manhood she was building out of +Charter's book and letter and Reifferscheid's little sketch of him, had +made the hours rich with healing. She was tired but steady-nerved as she +wrote.... There was a faint tapping at her hall-door. + + + + +FIFTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE FURIOUS HISTORY OF SELMA CROSS AND WRITES A +LETTER TO QUENTIN CHARTER + + +Paula thrust the sheets of the letter in her desk drawer and admitted +Selma Cross, an actress whose apartment was across the hall. These two +had chatted together many times, sometimes intimately. Each had found +the other interesting. Hints of a past that was almost classic in the +fury of its struggle for publicity, had repeatedly come to Paula's ears, +with other matters she greatly would have preferred not to hear. Selma +Cross was huge to look upon, and at first thought without grace. There +was something uncanny in her face and movements, and an extraordinary +breadth between her yellow eyes which were wide-lidded, slow-moving and +ever-changing. She was but little past thirty, yet the crowded traffic +of her years was intricately marked. + +"I saw the light under your door, and felt like coming in for a few +minutes," she said. "I must talk to some one and my maid, Dimity, is +snoring. You see, I'm celebrating for two reasons." + +"Tell me, so I can help," Paula answered. + +"Vhruebert has taken a play for me. You know, I've been begging him to +for months. The play was made for me--not that it was written with me in +mind, but that I just suit it. Selma Cross is to be carved in light over +a theatre-entrance, twenty seconds from Broadway--next April. It will be +at the _Herriot_--Vhruebert's theatre. We run through Hartford, +Springfield, Rochester and that string of second cities earlier in the +Spring." + +Paula rose and gave both her hands. + +"Oh, I'm so glad for you," she said. "I know something about how you +have worked for this----" + +"Yes, and the play is _The Thing_. I am an ugly slaving drudge, but have +all the emotions that the sweet _ingenue_ of the piece should have, and +the audience watches me deliver. Yes, I've waited long for this, and yet +I'm not so glad as I thought I should be. I've been pretty sure of it +for the last year or two. I said I was celebrating for two things----" + +"Pray, what is the other?" + +"I forget that it might not interest you--though it certainly does me," +Selma Cross said with a queer, low laugh.... "He wasn't ugly about it, +but he has been exacting--ugh! The fact is, I have earned the privilege +at last of sleeping in my own respectable apartment." + +Paula couldn't help shivering a bit. "You mean you have left your----" + +"Oh, he wasn't my husband.... It's such a luxury to pay for your own +things--for your own house and clothes and dinners--to earn a dollar for +every need and one to put away.... You didn't think that I could get my +name above the name of a play--without an angel?" + +"I didn't know," Paula said, "I saw you with him often. It didn't +exactly occur to me that he was your husband, because he didn't come +here. But do you mean that now when you don't need him any longer--you +told him to go away?" + +"Just that--except it isn't at all as it looks. You wouldn't pity old +man Villiers. Living God, that's humorous--after what I have given. +Don't look for wings on theatrical angels, dear." + +It was plain that the woman was utterly tired. She regarded Paula with a +queer expression of embarrassment, and there was a look of harsh +self-repression under the now-drooped eyelids. + +"I don't apologize," she went on hastily. "What I have done, I would do +again--only earlier in the game, but you're the sort of woman I don't +like to have look at me that--I mean look down upon me. I haven't many +friends. I think I must be half wild, but you make the grade that I +have--and you pay the price.... You've always looked attractive to +me--so easy and finished and out of the ruck." + +There was a real warming sincerity in the words. Paula divined on the +instant that she could forever check an intimacy--by a word which would +betray the depth of her abhorrence for such a concession to ambition, +and for the life which seems to demand it. Selma Cross was sick for a +friend, sick from containing herself. On this night of achievement there +was something pitiful in the need of her heart. + +"New York has turned rather too many pages of life before my eyes, +Selma, for me to feel far above any one whose struggles I have not +endured." + +The other leaned forward eagerly, "I liked you from the first moment, +Paula," she said. "You were so rounded--it seemed to me. I'm all +streaky, all one-sided. You're bred. I'm cattle.... Some time I'll tell +you how it all began. I said I would be the greatest living +tragedienne--hurled this at a lot of cat-minds down in Kentucky fifteen +years ago. Of course, I shall. It does not mean so much to me as I +thought, and it may be a bauble to you, but I wanted it. Its +far-awayness doesn't torture me as it once did, but one pays a ghastly +price. Yes, it's a climb, dear. You must have bone and blood and +brain--a sort of brain--and you should have a cheer from below; but I +didn't. I wonder if there ever was a fight that can match mine? If so, +it would not be a good tale for children or grown-ups with delicate +nerves. Little women always hated me. I remember, one restaurant cashier +on Eighth Avenue told me I was too unsightly to be a waitress. I have +done kitchen pot-boilers and scrubbed tenement-stairs. Then, because I +repeated parts of plays in those horrid halls--they said I was crazy.... +Why, I have felt a perfect lust for suicide--felt my breast ache for a +cool knife and my hand rise gladly. Once I played a freak part--that was +my greater degradation--debased my soul by making my body look worse +than it is. I went down to hell for that--and was forgiven. I have been +so homesick, Paula, that I could have eaten the dirt in the road of that +little Kentucky town.... Yes, I pressed against the steel until +something broke--it was the steel, not me. Oh, I could tell you +much!..." + +She paused but a moment. + +"The thing so dreadful to overcome was that I have a body like a great +Dane. It would not have hurt a writer, a painter, even a singer, so +much, but we of the drama are so dependent upon the shape of our bodies. +Then, my face is like a dog or a horse or a cat--all these I have been +likened to. Then I was slow to learn repression. This is a part of +culture, I guess--breeding. Mine is a lineage of Kentucky poor white +trash, who knows, but a speck of 'nigger'? I don't care now, only it +gave me a temper of seven devils, if it was so. These are some of the +things I have contended with. I would go to a manager and he would laugh +me along, trying to get rid of me gracefully, thinking that some of his +friends were playing a practical joke on him. Vhruebert thought that at +first. Vhruebert calls me _The Thing_ now. I could have done better had +I been a cripple; there are parts for a cripple. And you watch, Paula, +next January when I burn up things here, they'll say my success is +largely due to my figure and face!" + +As she looked and listened, Paula saw great meanings in the broad big +countenance, a sort of ruffian strength to carry this perfecting +instrument of emotion. The great body was needed to support such +talents, handicapped by the lack of beauty. Selma Cross fascinated her. +Paula's heart went out to the great crude creature she had been--in pity +for this woman of furious history. The processes by which her brain and +flesh had been refined would have slain the body and mind of an ordinary +human. It came to Paula that here was one of Mother Nature's most +enthralling experiments--the evolution of an effective instrument from +the coarsest and vaguest heredity. + +"They are all brainless but Vhruebert. You see, unless one is a beauty, +you can't get the support of a big manager's name. I mean without +money--there are managers who will lend their name to your stardom, if +you take the financial risk. Otherwise, you've got to attract them as a +possible conquest. All men are like that. If you interest them +sexually--they will hear what you have to say----" + +"Isn't that a reckless talk?" Paula asked, pale from the repulsiveness +of the thought. "You say it without a single qualification----" + +Selma Cross stared at her vacantly for a few seconds, then laughed +softly. "You don't actually believe--to the contrary?" + +"Let's pass it by. I should have to be changed--to believe that!" + +"I hope the time will never come when you need something terribly from a +strange man--one upon whom you have no hold but--yourself.... Ah, but +you--the brighter sort would give you what you asked. You----" + +"Please don't go on!" Paula whispered. "The other part is so +interesting." + +Selma Cross seemed to stir restlessly in her loose, softly-scented +garments. "I suppose I'm too rough for you. In ninety-nine women out of +a hundred, I'd say your protest was a cheap affectation, but it isn't so +with you...." + +"It's your set, smothery pessimism that hurts so, Selma," Paula declared +intensely. "It hurts me most because you seem to have it so locked and +immovable inside.... You have been so big and wonderful to win against +tremendous obstacles--not against ugliness--I can't grant that. You +startled me, when I saw you first. I think women have held you apart +because you were uncommon. You show a strange power in your movements +and expression. It's not ugliness----" + +"That's mighty rare of you. I haven't had the pleasure of being defied +like that before. But you are not like other people--not like other +women." + +"You will meet many real men and women--wiser and kinder than I am. I +think your pessimism cannot endure--when you look for the good in +people----" + +"The kind I have known would not let me. They're just as hateful now--I +mean the stuffy dolls of the stage--just as hateful, calling me 'dear' +and 'love' and saying, 'How tremendous you are, Selma Cross!....' +Listen, it is only a little while ago that the same women used to ask me +to walk on Broadway with them--to use me as a foil for their baby faces! +Oh, women are horrible--dusty shavings inside--and men are of the same +family." + +"You poor, dear unfortunate--not to know the really wonderful kind! You +are worn to the bone from winning your victory, but when you're rested, +you'll be able to see the beautiful--clearly." + +"One only knows as far as one can see." + +This sentence was a shock to Paula's intelligence. It was spoken without +consciousness of the meaning which drove so deep into the other's mind. +It suggested a mind dependent altogether upon physical eyes. Paula +refused to believe that this was the key to the whole matter. + +"They have been so cruel to me--those female things which bloom a year," +Selma Cross continued. "Flesh-flowers! They harried me to martyrdom. I +had to hate them, because I was forced to be one with them--I, a big +savage, dreaming unutterable things. It's all so close yet, I haven't +come to pity them.... Maybe you can tell me what good they are--what +they mean in the world--the shallow, brainless things who make the stage +full! They are in factories, too, everywhere--daughters of the coolies +and peasants of Europe--only worse over here because their fathers have +lost their low fixed place in society, and are all mixed in their dim, +brute minds. They have no one to rule them. You will see a family of +dirty, frightened, low-minded children--the eldest, say a girl of +fifteen. A dog or a cat with a good home is rich beside them. Take this +eldest girl of a brood--with all the filth of foreign New York in and +about her. She is fifteen and ready for the streets. It is the year of +her miracle. I've seen it a score of times. You miss her a few months +and she appears again at work somewhere--her face decently clean, her +eyes clear, a bit of bright ribbon and a gown wrung somewhere from the +beds of torture. It is her brief bloom--so horrid to look at when you +know what it means. All the fifteen years of squalor, evil, and +low-mindedness for this one year--a bloom-girl out of the dirt! And the +next, she has fallen back, unwashed, high-voiced, hardening, +stiffening,--a babe at her breast, dull hell in her heart. All her +living before and to come--for that one bloom year. Maybe you can tell +me what the big purpose of it all is. Earth uses them quite as +ruthlessly as any weed or flower--gives them a year to bloom, not for +beauty, but that more crude seeds may be scattered. Perpetuate! Flowers +bloom to catch a bug--such girls, to catch a man--perpetuate--oh God, +what for? And these things have laughed at me in the chorus, called me +'Crazy Sal,' because I spoke of things they never dreamed." + +"Yes," Paula said quickly, "I've seen something like that. How you will +pity them when you are rested! It is hard for us to understand why such +numbers are sacrificed like a common kind of plants. Nietzsche calls +them 'the much-too-many.' But Nietzsche does not know quite so much as +the Energy that wills them to manifest. It is dreadful, it is pitiful. +It would seem, if God so loved the world--that He could not endure such +pity as would be His at the sight of this suffering and degradation.... +But you have no right to despise them--you, of all women. You're +blooming up, up, up,--farther and farther out of the common--your +blooming has been for years because you have kindled your mind. You must +bloom for years still--that's the only meaning of your strength--because +you will kindle your soul.... A woman with power like yours--has no +right but to love the weak. Think what strength you have! There have +been moments in the last half-hour that you have roused me to such a +pitch of thinking--that I have felt weak and ineffectual beside you. You +made me think sometimes of a great submarine--I don't know just +why--flashing in the depths." + +"I don't think you see me right," Selma Cross said wearily. "Many times +I have been lost in the dark. I have been wicked--hated the forces that +made me. I have so much in me of the peasant--that I abhor. There have +been times when I would have been a prostitute for a clean house and +decent clothes to cover me, but men did not look at _The Thing_--only +the old man, and one other!" Her eyes brightened, either at the memory +or at the thought that she was free from the former.... "Don't wince and +I'll tell you about that angel. You will be wiser. I don't want you for +my friend, if I must keep something back. It was over three years ago, +during my first real success. I was rather startling as Sarah Blixton in +Heber's _Caller Herrin_. It was in that that I learned repression. That +was my struggle--to repress.... Old man Villiers saw me, and was wise +enough to see my future. 'Here's a girl,' I can imagine him saying, 'who +is ugly enough to be square to one man, and she's a comer in spite of +her face.' He showed where his check-book could be of unspeakable +service. It was all very clear to me. I felt I had struggled enough, and +went with him.... Villiers is that kind of New Yorker who feels that he +has nothing left to live for, when he ceases to desire women. In his +vanity--they are always vain--he wanted to be seen with a woman +mentioned on Broadway. It was his idea of being looked up to--and of +making other men envious. You know his sort have no interest--save where +they can ruin. + +"Then for two winter months, Villiers and I had a falling out. He went +South, and I remained here to work. During this time I had my first real +brush with love--a young Westerner. It was terrific. He was a brilliant, +but turned out a rotten cad. I couldn't stand that in a young man.... +You can pity an old man, much the worse for living, when he is brazenly +a cad--doesn't know anything else.... When Villiers came back from the +South I was bought again. I put it all nakedly, Paula, but I was older +than you are now, when that sort of thing began with me. Remember that! +Still, I mustn't take too much credit, because I didn't attract men.... +If you don't abhor me now, you never will, little neighbor, because you +have the worst.... Sometime I'll tell you a real little love story--oh, +I'm praying it's real! He's a hunch-back, Paula,--the author of _The +Thing_.... Nobody could possibly want a hunch-back but me--yet I'm not +good enough. He's so noble and so fine!... The past is so full of +abominations, and I'm not a liar.... I don't think he'd want me--though +I could be his nurse. I could _carry him_!... Then there is a long-ago +promise.... Oh, I know I'm not fit for that kind of happiness!..." + +There was an inspiration in the last. It was strong enough to subvert +Paula's mind from the road of dreary degradation over which she had been +led. From rousing heights of admiration to black pits of shame, she had +fallen, but here again was a tonic breath from clean altitudes. The +picture in her mind of this great glowing creature tenderly mothering +the poor crippled genius of _The Thing_--was a thrilling conception. + +"There is nothing which cannot be forgiven--save soul-death!" Paula said +ardently. "What you have told me is very hard to adjust, but I hope for +your new love. Oh, I am glad, Selma, that the other is all behind! I +don't know much of such things, but it has come to me that it is easier +for a man to separate himself from past degradations and be clean--than +a woman. This is because a man gives--_but the woman receives her sin_! +That which is given cannot continue to defile, but woman is the +matrix.... Still, you do not lie. Such things are so dreadful when +matted in lies. We all carry burdensome devils--but few uncover them, as +you have done for me. There is something noble in looking back into the +past with a shudder, saying,--'I was sick and full of disease in those +days,' but when one hugs the corrosion, painting it white all +over--there is an inner devouring that is never appeased.... All our +sisters are in trouble. I think we live in a world of suffering +sororities. You are big and powerful. Your greater life is to come.... I +am glad for what you have put behind. You will progress farther and +farther from it. I am glad you are back across the hall--alone!" + + * * * * * + +For many moments after Selma Cross had gone, Paula sat thinking under +the lamp. At last she drew the sheets of the letter to Charter from the +desk-drawer, and read them over. The same rapt smile came to her lips, +as when she was writing. It was a letter to her Ideal--the big figure of +cleanness and strength, she wanted this man to be. Even a line or two +she added. No one ever knew, but Paula.... At length, she began tearing +the sheets. Finer and finer became the squares under her tense +fingers--a little pile of _confetti_ on the desk at last--and brushed +into a basket.... Then she wrote another letter, blithe, brief, +gracious--about his book and her opinion. It was a letter such as he +would expect.... + + + + +SIXTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS CALLED TO PARLOR "F" OF THE _MAID-STONE_ WHERE THE BEYOND-DEVIL +AWAITS WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS + + +Paula felt singularly blessed the next morning wondering if ever there +existed another woman into whose life-channel poured such strange and +torrential tributaries. The current of her mind was broadening and +accelerating. She was being prepared for some big expression, and there +is true happiness in the thought. Reifferscheid, since her pilgrimage to +Staten Island, had become a fixture of delight. Selma Cross had borne +her down on mighty pinions to the lower revelations of the City, but had +winged her back again on a breeze of pure romance. Madame Nestor had +parted the curtains, which shut from the world's eye, hell unqualified, +yet her own life was a miracle of penitence. Not the least of her +inspirations was this mild, brave woman of the solitudes. Then, there +was the commanding mystery of Bellingham, emerging in her mind now from +the chicaneries of the past ten days; rising, indeed, to his own +valuation--that of a New Voice. Finally, above and before all, was the +stirring figure of her Ideal--her splendid secret source of +optimism--Charter, less a man than a soul in her new dreams--a name to +which she affixed, "The Man-Who-Must-Be-Somewhere." + +Just once, the thought came to Paula that Bellingham had designed a +meeting such as took place in the Park to soften her aversion and clear +from her mind any idea of his abnormality. She could not hold this +suspicion long. Attributing evil strategies to another was not easy for +Paula. The simpler way now was to give him every benefit, even to regard +the recent dreadful adventures with an intangible devil--as an outburst +of her neglected feminine prerogatives, coincident with the stress of +her rather lonely intellectual life. As for Madame Nestor, might she not +have reached a more acute stage of a similar derangement? Paula was not +unacquainted with the great potentialities of fine physical health, nor +did she miss the fact that Mother Nature seldom permits a woman of +normal development to reach the fourth cycle of her years, without +reckoning with the ancient reason of her being. + +She now regarded early events connected with Bellingham as one might +look back upon the beginning of a run of fever.... Could he be one of +the New Voices? + +Paula loved to think that Woman was to be the chief resource of the +Lifting Age. Everywhere among men she saw the furious hunger for +spiritual refreshment. Words, which she heard by mere chance from +passers-by, appalled her. It was so tragically clear to her how the life +led by city men starves their better natures--that there were times when +she could hardly realize they did not see it. She wanted someone to make +the whole world understand--that just as there are hidden spaces between +the atoms of steel which made radioactivity possible, so in the human +body there is a permeating space, in which the soul of man is built day +by day from every thought and act; and when the worn-out physical +envelope falls away--there it stands, a record to endure.... She wanted +to believe that it was the office of woman to help man make this record +beautiful. Just as the old Anglo-Saxon for "lady" means "giver of +bread," so she loved to think that the spiritual loaf was in the keeping +of woman also. + +Paula could not meditate without ecstasy upon the thought that a great +spiritual tide was rising, soon to overflow every race and nation. The +lifting of man from greedy senses to the pure happiness of brotherhood, +was her most intimate and lovely hope. Back of everything, this lived +and lit her mind. There were transcendent moments--she hardly dared to +describe or interpret them--when cosmic consciousness swept into her +brain. Swift was the visitation, nor did it leave any memorable +impression, but she divined that such lofty moments, different only in +degree, were responsible for the great utterances in books that are +deathless. The shield was torn from her soul, leaving it naked to every +world-anguish. The woman, Paula Linster, became an accumulation of all +suffering--desert thirsts, untold loves, birth and death parturitions, +blind cruelties of battle, the carnal lust of Famine (that soft-treading +spectre), welted flesh under the screaming lash, moaning from the +World's Night everywhere--until the impassioned spirit within rushed +forth to the very horizon's rim to shelter an agonizing people from an +angry God. Such is the genius of race-motherhood--the ineffable spirit +of mediation between Father and child. + +One must regard with awe the reaction which follows such an outpouring. + +These are the wilderness-wrestlings of the great-souled--the +Gethsemanes. Out of the dream, would appear the actual spectacle of the +City--human beings preying one upon the other, the wolf still frothing +in man's breast--and then would crush down upon her with shattering pain +the realization of her own hopeless ineffectuality. To a mind thus +stricken and desolated often, premonitions of madness come at +last--madness, the black brother of genius. There is safety alone in a +body strong and undefiled to receive again the expanded spirit. From how +many a lustrous youth--tarrying too long by the fetid margins of +sense--has the glory winged away, never to return to a creature fallen +into hairy despoliation. + + * * * * * + +Paula had returned from down-town about noon. Reifferscheid, who had a +weakness for Herman Melville, and annually endeavored to spur the +American people into a more adequate appreciation of the old sea-lion, +had ordered her to rest her eyes for a few days in _Moby Dick_. With the +fat, old fine-print novel under her arm, Paula let herself into her own +apartment and instantly encountered the occultist's power. She sank to +the floor and covered her face in the pillows of the couch. In the past +twenty-four hours she had come to believe that the enemy had been put +away forever, yet here in her own room she was stricken, and so +swiftly.... Though she did not realize it at once, many of the thoughts +which gradually surged into her mind were not her own. She came to see +Bellingham as other women saw him--as a great and wise doctor. Her own +conception battled against this, but vainly, vaguely. It was as if he +held the balance of power in her consciousness. Without attempting to +link them together, the processes of her mind quickly will be set into +words. + +Her first thought, before the tightening of Bellingham's control in her +brain, was to rush into his presence and fiercely arraign him for the +treachery he had committed. After blaming Madame Nestor and deforming +her own faculties to clear him from evil, the devilishness of the +present visitation overwhelmed. And how infinitely more black and +formidable now was his magic--after the utterances in the Park! This was +her last real stand.... A cry of hopelessness escaped her lips, for the +numbness was already about her eyes, and creeping back like a pestilence +along the open highways of her mind. + +"Come to me. The way is open. I am alone. I am near.... Come to me, +Paula Linster, of plentiful treasures.... Do you not see the open +way--how near I am? Oh, come--now--come to me now!" + +Again and again the little sentences fell upon her mind, until its +surface stirred against reiteration, as one, thoroughly understanding, +resents repeated explanations.... It was right now for her to go. She +had been rebellious and headstrong to conjure such evils about the name +of a famous physician. The world called him famous. Only she and Madame +Nestor had stood apart, clutching fast to their ideas of his deviltry. +He had taken the trouble to call her to him--to prove that he was good. +The degradation which she had felt at the first moment of his +summons--was all from her own perversity.... Clearly she saw the street +below, Cathedral Way; a turn north, then across the Plaza to the brown +ornate entrance of _The Maidstone_.... There was no formality about the +going. Her hat and coat had not been removed.... She was in the hall; +the elevator halted at her floor while the man pushed a letter and some +papers under the door of the Selma Cross apartment.... In the street, +she turned across the Plaza from Cathedral Way to _The Maidstone_. The +real Paula Linster marshalled a hundred terrible protests, but her voice +was muffled, her strength ineffectual as Josephine's beating with white +hands against the Emperor's iron door. Real volition was locked in the +pitiless will of the physician, to whom she hastened as one hoping to be +saved. + +She inquired huskily of the man at the hotel-desk. + +"The Doctor is waiting on the parlor-floor--in F," was the answer. + +Paula stepped from the elevator, and was directed to the last door on +the left.... The sense of her need, of her illness, hurried her forward +through the long hall. Sometimes she seemed burdened with the body of a +woman, very tired and helpless, but quite obedient.... The figure "F" on +a silver shield filled her eyes. The door was ajar. Her entrance was not +unlike that of a lioness goaded with irons through a barred passage into +an arena. She did not open the door wider, but slipped through sideways, +gathering her dress closely about her.... Bellingham was there. His face +was white, rigid from long concentration; yet he smiled and his arms +were opened to her.... The point here was that he so marvelously +understood. His attitude to her seemed that of a physician of the soul. +She could not feel the fighting of the real woman.... Dazed and broken +for the moment, she encountered the soothing magnetism of his hands. + +"How long I have waited!" he quietly exclaimed. "Hours, and it was +bitter waiting--but you are a wreath for my waiting--how grateful you +are to my weariness!... Paula Linster, Paula Linster--what deserts of +burning sunshine I have crossed to find you--what dark jungles I have +searched for such fragrance!" + +His arms were light upon her, his voice low and lulling. He dared not +yet touch his lips to her hair--though they were dry and twisted with +his awful thirst. Craft and patience altogether feline was in the art +with which he wound and wove about her mind thoughts of his own, +designed to ignite the spark of responsive desire.... And how softly he +fanned--(an incautious blast would have left him in darkness +altogether)--until it caught.... Well, indeed, he knew the cunning of +the yet unbroken seals; and better still did he know the outraged forces +hovering all about her, ready to defeat him for the slightest error--and +leave him to burn in his own fires. + +"This is peace," he whispered with indescribable repression. "How soft a +resting-place--and yet how strong!... Out of the past I have come for +you. Do you remember the rock in the desert on which you sat and waited +long ago? Your eyes were weary when I came--weary from the blazing light +of noon and the endless waning of that long day. On a great rock in the +desert you sat--until I came, _until I came_. Then you laughed because I +shut the feverish sun-glow from your strained eyes.... Remember, I came +in the skin of a lion and shut the sunset from your aching eyes--my +shoulders darkening the west--and we were alone--and the night came +on...." + +Clearly was transferred to hers, the picture in his own brain. One of +the ancient and mystic films of memory seemed brought after ages to the +light--the reddening sands, the city far behind, from which she had fled +to meet her hero, deep in the desert--the glow of sunset on his +shoulders and in his hair, tawny as the lion's skin he wore.... The +heart quickened within her; the savage ardor of that long-ago woman grew +hot in her breast. Strong as a lion he was, this youth of the Sun, and +fleet the night fell to cover them. She ate the dried grapes he gave +her, drank deep from his skin of wine, and laughed with him in the swift +descending night.... She felt his arms now, her face was upraised, her +eyelids tensely shut. Downward the blood rushed, leaving her lips icy +cold. She felt the muscles of his arms in her tightening fingers, and +her breast rose against him. This was no Twentieth Century magician who +thralled her now, but a glorious hero out of the desert sunset;--and the +woman within her was as one consuming with ecstasy from a lover's last +visit.... + +And now Bellingham changed the color and surface of his advances. It was +his thought to make such a marvellous sally, that when he retired and +the mistress once again commanded her own citadel, she would perceive +the field of his activities strewn, not with corpses, but with garlands, +and in their fragrance she must yearn for the giant to come yet again. +The thing he now endeavored to do was beyond an ordinary human +conception for devilishness; and yet, that it was not a momentary +impulse, but a well considered plan, was proven by the trend of his talk +of the day before.... The flaw in his structure was his apparent +forgetting that the woman in his arms breathing so ardently, in her own +mind was clinging to a youth out of the sunset--a youth in the skin of a +lion. + +"Wisdom has been given to my eyes," Bellingham resumed with surpassing +gentleness. "For years a conception of wonderful womanhood has lived and +brightened in my mind, bringing with it a promise that in due time, such +a woman would be shown to me. The woman, the promise and the miracle of +its later meaning, I perceived at last were not for my happiness, but +for the world's awful need. You are the fruits of my wonderful +vision--you--Paula Linster. You are the quest of my long and weary +searching!" + +His utterance of her name strangely disturbed her night-rapture of the +desert. It was as if she heard afar-off--the calling of her people. + +"On the night you entered the Hall," he said, and his face bent closer, +"I felt the sense of victory, before these physical eyes found you. My +thoughts roved over a world, brightened by a new hope, fairer for your +presence. And then, I saw your fine white brow, the ignited magic of +your hair and eyes, your frail exquisite shoulders.... It seemed as +though the lights perished from the place--when you left." + +The word "magic" was a sudden spark around which the thoughts of the +woman now groped.... She had lost her desert lover, passion was drained +from her, and there was a weight of great trouble pressing down ... +"Magic"--she struggled for its meaning.... She was sitting upon a rock +again, but not in the desert--rather in a place of cooled sunlight, +where there were turf roads and grand, old trees--a huge figure +approaching with a powerful swinging stride--yesterday, Bellingham, the +Park--the Talk!... Paula lifted her shoulders, felt the binding arms +around them and heard the words uttered now in the meridian of human +passion: + +"Listen, Paula Linster, you have been chosen for the most exalted task +ever offered to living woman. The Great Soul is not yet in the world, +and He must come soon!... It is you who have inspired this--you, of +trained will; a mind of stirring evolution, every thought so essentially +feminine; you of virgin body and a soul lit with stars! You are brave. +The burden is easy to one of your courage, and I should keep you free +from the world--free from the burns and the whips of this thinking +animal, the world. All that I have won from the world, her mysteries, +her enchantments, I shall give you, all that is big and brave and wise +in song and philosophy and nature, I shall bring to your feet, as a +hunter with trophies to his beloved--all that a man, wise and tender, +can think and express to quicken the splendor of fertility----" + +Paula was now fully conscious--her self restored to her. The Yesterday +and the To-day rose before her mind in startling parallel. Her primary +dread was that she might lose control again before Bellingham was put +away. The super-devilishness of his plan--hiding a blasphemy in the +white robe of a spiritual consecration--had changed him in her sight to +a ravening beast. The thing which he believed would cause her eagerly to +bestow upon him the riches of her threefold life had lifted her farther +out of his power that moment, than even she realized. Bellingham had +over-reached. She was filled with inner nausea.... The idea of escape, +the thought of crippling the magician's power over her forever--in the +stress of this, she grew cold.... She was nearest the door. It stood +ajar, as when she had entered. + +"Meditation--in the place I have prepared," he was whispering, +"meditation and the poetic life, rarest of fruits, purest of white +garments--cleansed with sunlight and starlight, you and I, Paula +Linster,--the sources of creation which have been revealed to me--for +you! Wonderful woman--all the vitalities of heaven shall play upon you! +We shall bring the new god into the world----" + +She pushed back from his arms and faced him--white-lipped and loathing. + +"You father a son of mine," she said, in the doorway. "You--are +dead--the man's soul is dead within you--you whited sepulchre!" + +His face altered like a white wall which an earthquake disorders at the +base. White rock turned to blown paper; the man-mask rubbed out; Havoc +featured upon an erect thing, with arms pitifully outstretched. + + * * * * * + +Paula, alone in the long hall, ran to the marble stairs, hurried down +and into the street--swiftly to her house. There, every thread of +clothing she had worn was gathered into a pile for burning. Then she +bathed and her strength returned. + + + + +SEVENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS, +AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT + + +In mid-afternoon Paula obeyed an impulse to call upon Madame Nestor. She +wanted to talk with the only human being in New York who could quite +understand. Madame's room was west of Eighth Avenue in Forty-fourth +Street--the servant's quarter in a squalid suite, four flights up. The +single window opened upon a dim shaft, heavy with emanations from many +kitchens. There was not even a closet. Madame's moulted plumage was hung +upon the back of the outer and only door. Books were everywhere, on the +floor, in boxes, on the cot. + +"My dear Paula, you felt the need of me?... I should have come to you. +This does very well for me, but I dislike my poverty to be known, dear. +It is not that I am the least proud, but the psychic effects of pity are +depressing." + +"Please, Madame Nestor, don't think of me pitying anybody! I did feel +the need of you. The day has been horrible. But first, I want to tell +you that I am very sorry for what I said--when you were in my rooms the +other day----" + +The elder woman leaned forward and kissed Paula's dress at the shoulder. +There was something sweet and mild and devotional in the action, +something suggestive of a wise old working-bee pausing an instant to +caress its queen. + +"You have been impelled to go to him, Paula?" + +"Yes. It came over me quite irresistibly. I could not have been +altogether myself.... I think I shall leave the city!" + +Madame Nestor asked several questions, bringing out all she cared to +know of Paula's experience that day. Her eyes became very bright as she +said: + +"I dare not advise you _not_ to go away. Still, don't you see it--how +wonderful was your victory to-day?" + +"I can't always defeat him!" Paula cried. "His power comes over me and I +move toward him--just as reptiles must follow a blind impulse started +from without. Each time I follow, I must be weaker." + +"But, Paula, each time something happens to restore you to yourself, +thwarting his purpose, his projections are weakened." + +"But if I should go far away?" + +"He could only put it in your mind to return." + +When Paula remembered the accidents which had preserved her, even when +in the same city with the Destroyer, she could not doubt the salvation +in putting a big stretch of the planet's curve between her and this +dynamo.... Certain unfinished thinking could only be cleared through a +friend like Madame Nestor. + +"This physical consciousness which he has made me feel seems +indescribably more sinister in erect human beings than the mating +instinct in animals and birds," Paula declared with hesitation. "Can it +be that women in general encounter influences--of this kind?" + +"It is man's fault that women have broken all seasons," the Madame said +bitterly. "Man has kept woman submerged since the beginning of time. +Always eager to serve; and blest--or cursed--with the changeless passion +to be _all_ to one man--her most enduring hope to hold the exclusive +love of one man--woman has adapted herself eagerly to become the +monogamic answer to man's polygamic nature. Bellingham is but the +embodiment of a desire which exists in greater or less degree in every +man. This desire of man has disordered women. We have lost the true +meaning of ourselves--I mean, as a race of women--and have become merely +physical mates." + +"I can hardly believe it--that even women of the streets should ever be +degraded by such a horrible force," Paula said desperately. "And the +sweet calm faces of some of the women we know----" + +"Behind the mask of innocence, often, is a woman's terrible secret, +Paula. For most women obey. Even the growth of the maid is ruthlessly +forced by hot breaths of passion, until motherhood--so often a domestic +tragedy--leaves the imprint of shame in her arms. The man of unlit soul +has made this low play of passion his art. Woman as a race has fallen, +because it is her way to please and obey. Man has taught us to believe +that when he comes to our arms, we are at our highest.... And, listen, +Paula, certain men of to-day, a step higher in evolution, blame woman +because she has not suddenly _unlearned_ her training of the +ages--lessons man has graven in the very bed-rock of her nature. In the +novelty of their new-found austerity, they exclaim: 'Avoid woman. She is +passion rhythmic. It is she who draws us down from our lofty regions of +endeavor.'" + +Terrific energy of rebellion stirred Paula's mind. "But the promise is +that woman's time shall come!" she exclaimed. "The Child, Jesus, said to +his Mother, 'Thy time is not yet come,' but it is promised that the heel +of woman shall crush the head of the Serpent. We have always borne the +sin, the agony, the degradation, but our time must be close at hand! I +think this is the age--and this the country--of the Rising Woman!" + +Madame Nestor arose from the cot and stood before Paula, her eyes +shining with emotion. + +"Bless you, my beloved girl, my whole heart leaps to sanction that! I +have symbolized the whole struggle of our race in your personal +struggle--don't you see this, Paula?... Bellingham is the concentrate of +devourers--and you the evolved woman who overcomes him! My hope for the +race lies in you, and your victory to-day has filled my cup with +happiness!... You say you do not dare to pray. I tell you, child,--the +God of women gave you strength to-day. He is close to harken unto your +need--for you are among the first of the elect to bring in the glory of +the new day!... The animal in man has depleted the splendid energies of +the Spirit. Passions of the kind you defeated to-day are overpowering +women everywhere at this hour--lesser passions of lesser Bellinghams. +Man's course to God has been a crawl through millenniums, instead of a +flight through decades, because woman has bowed--obeyed. God is patient, +but woman is aroused!... Above the din of wars, the world has heard the +wailing of the women; out of the ghostly silence of famine and from +beneath the debris of fallen empires--always the world has heard her cry +for pity--her cry for pity now _become a Voice of Power_! All her +tortured centuries have been for this--and the signs are upon us! +Woman's demand for knowledge, her clamor for suffrage, her protest +against eternally paying for man's lust with unblessed babes--all these +are signs! But you, Paula Linster,--and what I know of this day--is the +most thrilling sign of all to me!... Ah, woman is evolving; she is +aroused! How shall she repay man for brutalizing her so long?" + +"By bringing him back to God!" Paula answered. + +They wept together and whispered, while the night fell about and covered +the squalid room. + + * * * * * + +It was one of her emancipated nights. Paula's spirit poured out over the +city, for her mind was lit with thoughts of the ultimate redemption of +her race. Bellingham could not have found her in his world that hour.... +Emerging from Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, at eight in the evening, +she passed under the hot brilliance of a famous hotel-entrance. As it +never would have occurred to her to do in a less exalted moment, Paula +glanced at a little knot of men standing under the lights. The eyes of +one were roving like an unclean hand over her figure. Suddenly +encountering her look, a bold, eager, challenge stretched itself upon +his face. In the momentary panic, her glance darted to the others +instinctively for protection--and found three smiling corpses.... Here +were little Bellinghams; here, the sexual drunkenness which has made +Man's course "a crawl through millenniums" to God, instead of a flight +through decades. What a pitiless revelation!... She clung to her big +Ideal in the West. It came to her for a second like a last and single +hope--that Charter was not like that.... "God is patient and woman is +aroused!" she whispered. + +And farther up, a little way into Forty-seventh, Paula found a Salvation +Army circle under the torch. A man with a pallid, shrunken face turned +imploring eyes from one to another of the company, exclaiming: "I tell +you, man's first work here below is to save his soul! I pray you--men +and women, here to-night--to save your souls!" + +Paula tossed her purse upon the big drum, as she passed swiftly. Luckily +there was carfare in her glove, for she had not thought of that. Never +before had she felt in such fullness her relation to the race.... + +A hansom-cab veered about the edge of the Salvation circle, swift enough +to attract her eye. The horse had started before the driver was in the +seat. The latter was fat and apoplectic. It was all he could do to +regain his place, so that the reins still dangled. The possibility of a +cab-horse becoming excited held only humor for the crowd, which parted +to let the vehicle by. The horse, feeling his head, started to run just +as the driver seized one of the lines and jerked his beast into the +curb. There was an inhuman scream. A strange, boneless effigy of a man +with twisted, waving arms--went down before the plunging horse, so +suddenly swerved.... A hush seemed to have fallen upon the noisy +Broadway corner. Paula was not blind in the brief interval which +followed, but the world seemed gray and still, like a spectral dawn, or +the unearthly setting of a dream. + +"The shaft bored into him, and the horse struck him after he fell," a +voice explained. + +They lifted him. There was particular dreadfulness in the quantity of +fluid evenly sheeted on the pavement as from a pail carefully +overturned. Startling effrontery attached to the thought of man's +heaven-aspiring current swimming like this upon a degraded city road. +The horse, now held by the bit, snorted affrightedly at the odor. They +had carried the unfortunate to the sidewalk under the lights of a +tobacco-shop window. The upper part of his head and face was indefinite +like a crushed tin of dark paint. But mouth and nose and chin of the +upturned face left an imperishable imprint upon her mind. It was +Bellingham.... Paula fled, her lips opening in a sick fashion. It seemed +hours before she could reach the sanctuary of her room, where she sobbed +in the dark. + + + + +EIGHTH CHAPTER + +PAULA MAKES SEVERAL DISCOVERIES IN THE CHARTER HEART-COUNTRY, AND IS +DELIGHTED BY HIS LETTERS TO THE SKYLARK + + +The morning paper stated that Dr. Bellingham had suffered a fracture of +the skull and internal injury, but might live. A note to Paula from +Madame Nestor late the next day contained the following paragraph: "I +called at the hospital to inquire. A doctor told me that the case is +likely to become a classic one. Never in his experience, he stated, had +he witnessed a man put up such a fight for life. It will be long, +however, before he is abroad again. He must have been following you +quite madly, because there never was a man more careful in the midst of +city-dangers than Bellingham. Why, a scratched finger completely upset +him--in the earlier days. Inscrutable, but thrilling--isn't it, my dear +Paula?" + + * * * * * + +"Did you follow _Moby Dick's_ whale tracks around the wet wastes of the +world?" Reifferscheid asked several mornings later, as Paula entered. + +Her face was flushed. A further letter from Quentin Charter had just +been tucked into her bag. "Yes, and Mr. Melville over trans-continental +digressions," she answered. "He surely is Neptune's own _confrere_." + +"Did you get the leviathan alongside and study the bewildering chaos of +a ninety-foot nervous system?" Reifferscheid went on with delight. + +"Exactly, and colored miles of sea-water with the emptyings of his vast +heart. Then, there was an extended process of fatty degeneration, which +I believe they called--blubber-boiling." + +They laughed together over the old whale-epic. + +"They remember Melville up in Boston and Nantucket," he added, "but he's +about as much alive as a honey-bee's pulse elsewhere. The trouble is, +you can't rectify this outrage by law. It isn't uxoricide or +sheep-stealing--not to know Melville--but it's the deadly sin of +ingratitude. This is a raw age, we adorn--not to rock in the boat of +that man's soul. Why, he's worthy to stand with the angels on the point +of the present." + +The big editor always warmed her when he enthused. Here, in the midst of +holiday books pouring in by scores, he had time to make a big personal +and public protest against a fifty-year-old novel being forgotten. + +"But isn't Melville acknowledged to be the headwaters of inspiration for +all later sea-books?" Paula asked. + +"Yes, to the men who do them, he's the big laughing figure behind their +work, but the public doesn't seem to know.... Of course, Herman has +faults--Japan currents of faults--but they only warm him to a white +man's heart. Do you know, I like to think of him in a wide, windy room, +tearing off his story long-hand, upon yard square sheets, grinning like +an ogre at the soul-play, the pages of copy settling ankle-deep upon the +floor. There's no taint of over-breeding in the unborn thing, no curse +of compression, no aping Addison--nothing but Melville, just blown in +with the gale, reeking with a big story which must be shed, before he +blows out again, with straining cordage booming in his ears. He +harnesses Art. He man-handles Power, makes it grovel and play circus. +'Here it is,' he seems to say at the end. 'Take it or leave it. I'm +rotting here ashore.'" + +"You ought to dictate reviews like that, Mr. Reifferscheid," Paula could +not help saying, though she knew he would be disconcerted. + +He colored, turned back to his work, directing her to take her choice +from the shelf of fresh books.... On the car going back, Paula opened +Charter's letter. Her fingers trembled, because she had been in a happy +and daring mood five or six days before when she wrote the letter to +which this was the reply. + + ... Do you know, I really like to write to you? I feel + untrammelled--turned loose in the meadows. It seems when I + start an idea--that you've grasped it as soon as it is clear to + me. Piled sentences after that are unnecessary. It's a real joy + to write this way, as spirits commune. It wouldn't do at all + for the blessed multitude. You have to be a mineral and a + vegetable and an animal, all in a paragraph, to get the whole + market. But how generous the dear old multitude is--(if the + writer has suffered enough)--with its bed and board and + lamplight.... + + I have been scored and salted so many times that I heal like an + earth-worm. Tell me, can scar-tissue ever be so fine? + Fineness--that's the one excellent feature of being human! + There's no other reason for being--no other meaning or reason + for atomic affinity or star-hung space. True, the great + Conceiver of Refining Thought seems pleased to take all + eternity to play in.... + + You've made me think of you out of all proportion. I don't want + to help it. I'm very glad we hailed each other across the + distance. There's something so entirely blithe and wise and + finished about the personality I've builded from three little + letters and a critique--that I refresh myself very frequently + from them.... I think we must be old playmates. Perhaps we + plotted ghost-stories and pegged oranges at each other in + Atlantean orchards millenniums ago. I begin to feel as if I + deserve to have my playmate back.... Then, again, it is as + though these little letters brought to my garret window the + Skylark I have heard far and faintly so long in the higher + moments of dream. Just a note here and there used to come to me + from far-shining archipelagoes of cloud-land. I listen now and + clearly understand what you have sung so long in the + Heights.... You are winged--that's the word! Wing often to my + window--won't you? Life is peppering me with good things this + year, I could not be more grateful. + +Letters like these made Paula think of that memorable first afternoon +with Grimm; and like it, too, the joy was so intense as to hold the +suggestion that there must be something evil in it all. She laughed at +this. What law, human or divine, was disordered by two human grown-ups +with clean minds communing together intimately in letters? Quentin +Charter might have been less imperious, or less precipitous, in writing +such pleasing matters about herself, but had he not earned the boon of +saying what he felt? Still, Paula would not have been so entirely +feminine, had she not repressed somewhat. She even may have known that +artful repression from without is stimulus to any man. Occasionally, +Charter forgot his sense of humor, but the woman five years younger, +never. The inevitable thought that in the ordinary sequence of events, +they should meet face to face, harrowed somewhat with the thought that +she must keep his ideals down--or both were lost. What could a mind like +his _not_ build about months of communion (eyes and ears strained toward +flashing skies) with a Skylark ideal?... She reminded Charter that +skylarks are little, brown, tame-plumaged creatures that only sing when +they soar. She could not forbear to note that he was a bit sky-larky, +too, in his letters, and observed that she had found it wise, mainly to +keep one's wings tightly folded in New York. She signed her next letter, +nevertheless, with a small pen-picture of the name he had given +her--full-throated and ascending. Also she put on her house address. +Some of the paragraphs from letters which came in the following weeks, +she remembered without referring to the treasured file: + + ... Bless the wings! May they never tire for long--since I + cannot be there when they are folded.... Often, explain it if + you can, I think of you as some one I have seen in Japan, + especially in Tokyo--hurrying through the dusk in the + Minimasakurna-cho, wandering through the tombs of the + Forty-seven Ronins. or sipping tea in the Kameido among the + wistaria blooms. Some time--who knows? I have made quite a + delightful romance about it.... Who is so wise as positively to + say, that we are not marvellously related from the youth of the + world? Who dares declare we have not climbed cliffs of Cathay + to stare across the sky-blue water, nor whispered together in + orient casements under constellations that swing more + perilously near than these?... We may be a pair of foolish + dreamers, but Asia must have a cup of tea for us--Asia, because + she is so far and so still. We shall _remember_ then.... + + And so you live alone? How strange, I have always thought of + you so? From the number, I think you must overlook the + Park--don't you?... It may strike you humorously, but I feel + like ordering you not to take too many meals alone. One is apt + to be neglectful, and women lose their appetites easier than + men. I used to be graceless toward the gift of health. Perhaps + I enjoy perfectly prepared food altogether too well for one of + inner aspirations. The bit of a soul in which you see such + glorious possibilities, packs rather an imperious animal this + trip, I fear. However, I don't let the animal carry _me_--any + more. + + I see a wonderful sensitiveness in all that you write--that's + why I suggest especially that you should never forget fine food + and plentiful exercise. Psychic activity in America is attained + so often at the price of physical deterioration. This is an + empty failure, uncentering, deluding. Remember, I say in + America.... Pray, don't think I fail to worship + sensitiveness--those high, strange emotions, the sense of + oneness with all things that live, the vergings of the mind + toward the intangible, the light, refreshing sleep of + asceticism, subtle expandings of solitude and the mystical + launchings,--anything that gives spread of wing rather than + amplitude of girth--but I have seen these very pursuits carry + one entirely out of rhythm with the world. The multitudes + cannot follow us when there are stars in our eyes--they cannot + see. + + A few years ago I had a strange period of deep-delving into + ancient wisdom. A lot of big, simple treasures unfolded, but I + discovered great dogmas as well--the steel shirts, iron + shields, mailed fists and other junk which lesser men seem + predestined to hammer about the gentle spirit of Truth. I + vegetarianed, lived inside, practiced meditate, and became a + sensitive, as it seems now, in rather a paltry, arrogant sense. + The point is I lost the little appeal I had to people through + writing. It came to me at length with grim finality that if a + man means to whip the world into line at all, he must keep a + certain brute strength. He must challenge the world at its own + games _and win_, before he can show the world that there are + finer games to play. You can't stand above the mists and call + the crowd to you, but many will _follow_ you up through + them.... I truly hope, if I am wrong in this, that you will see + it instantly, and not permit the edge and temper of your + fineness to be coarsened through me. You are so animate, so + delicately strong, and seem so spiritually unhurt, that it + occurs to me now that there may be finer laws for you, than are + vouchsafed to me. I interpreted my orders--to win according to + certain unalterable rules of the world. Balzac did that. I + think some Skylark sang to him at the last, when he did his + Seraphita.... + + I cannot help but tell you again of my gratitude. I am no + impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to + me.... Isn't this an excellent world when the finer moments + come; when we can think with gentleness of past failures of the + flesh and spirit, and with joy upon the achievements of others; + when we feel that we have preserved a certain relish for the + rich of all thought, and a pleasure in innocence; when out of + our errors and calamities we have won a philosophy which makes + serene our present voyaging and gives us keen eyes to discern + the coast-lights of the future?... With lifted brow--I harken + for your singing. + +Paula knew that Quentin Charter was crying out for his mate of fire. She +remembered that she had strangely felt his strength before there were +any letters, but she could not deny that it since had become a greater +and more intimate thing--her tower, white and heroic, cutting clean +through the films of distance, and suggesting a vast, invisible city at +its base. That she was the bright answer in the East for such a tower +was incredible. She could send a song over on the wings of the +morning--make it shine like ivory into the eyes of the new day, but she +dared not think of herself as a corresponding fixture. A man like +Charter could form a higher woman out of dreams and letter-pages than +the world could mold for him from her finest clays. Always she said +this--and forgot that the man was clay. A pair of dreamers, truly, and +yet there was a difference in their ideals. If Charter's vision of her +lifted higher, it was also flexible to contain a human woman. As for +hers--Paula had builded a tower. True, there were moments of flying fog +in which she did not see it, but clean winds quickly brushed away the +obscurations, and not a remnant clung. When seen at all, her tower was +pure white and undiminished. + +Of necessity there were reactions. His familiarity with the petty +intensities of the average man often startled her. He seemed capable of +dropping into the parlance of any company, not as one who had listened +and memorized, but as an old familiar who had served time in all +societies. In the new aspect of personal letters, his book revealed a +comprehension of women--that dismayed. Of course, his printed work was +filled with such stuff as her letters were made of, but between a book +and a letter, there is the same difference of appeal as the lines read +by an actor, however gifted, are cold compared to a friend's voice. +Though she wondered at Charter giving his time to write such letters to +her, this became very clear, if his inclination were anything like her +own to answer them. All the thinking of her days formed itself into +compressed messages for him; and all the best of her sprang to her pen +under his address. The effort then became to repress, to keep her pages +within bounds, and the ultimate effort was to wait several days before +writing again. His every sentence suggested pleasure in writing; and as +a matter of fact, he repressed very little.... Was it through letters +like hers in his leisure months that Charter amassed his tremendous +array of poignant details; was it through such, that he reared his +imposing ranges of feminine understanding? This was a question requiring +a worldlier woman than Paula long to hold in mind. In the man's writing, +regarded from her critical training, there was no betrayal of the +literary clerk dependent upon data. + +"I am no impressionable boy. I know what the woman must be who writes to +me." There was something of seership in his thus irrevocably affixing +his ideal to the human woman who held the pen.... His photograph was +frequently enough in the press--a big browed, plain-faced young man with +a jaw less aggressive than she would have imagined, and a mouth rather +finely arched for a reformer who was to whip the world into line. And +then there was a discovery. In a magazine dated a decade before, she ran +upon his picture among the advertising pages. Verses of his were +announced to appear during the year to come. He could not have been over +twenty for this picture, and to her it was completely charming--a boy +out of the past calling blithely; a poetic face, too, reminding her of +prints she had seen of an early drawing of Keats's head now in +London--eager, sensitive, all untried!... It was not without resistance +that she acknowledged herself _closer to the boy_--that something of the +man was beyond her. There was a mystery left upon the face by the +intervening years, "while the tireless soul etched on...." Should she +ever know? Or must there always be this dim, hurting thing? Was it all +the etching of the _soul_--that this later print revealed?... These were +but bits of shadow--ungrippable things which made her wings falter for a +moment and long for something sure to rest upon, but Reifferscheid's +first talk about Charter, the latter's book, and the letters--out of +these were reconstructed her tower of shining purity. + +There were times when Paula's heart, gathering all its tributary +sympathies, poured out to the big figure in the West in a deep and +rushing torrent. Her entire life was illuminated by these moments of +ardor. Here was a giving, in which the thought of actual possession had +little or no part. Her finest elements were merged into one-pointed +expression. It is not strange that she was dismayed by the triumphant +force of the woman within her, nor that she recalled one of the first of +Madame Nestor's utterances, "Nonsense, Paula, the everlasting feminine +is alive in every movement of you." Yet this outpouring was lofty, and +noon-sky clear. An emotion like this meant brightness to every life that +contacted it.... But ruthlessly she covered, hid away even from her own +thoughts, illuminations such as these. Here was a point of tragic +significance. Out of the past has come this great fear to strong +women--the fear to let themselves love. This is one of the sorriest +evolutions of the self-protecting instinct. So long have women met the +tragic fact of fickleness and evasion in the men of their majestic +concentrations--that fear puts its weight against the doors that love +would open wide. + +Almost unconsciously the personal tension of the correspondence +increased. Not infrequently after her letters were gone, Paula became +afraid that this new, full-powered self of hers had crept into her +written pages with betraying effulgence, rising high above the light +laughter of the lines. How she cried out for open honesty in the world +and rebelled against the garments of falsity which society insists must +cover the high as well as the low. Charter seemed to say what was in his +heart; at least, he dared to write as the woman could not, as she dared +not even to think, lest he prove--against the exclaiming negatives of +her soul--a literary craftsman of such furious zeal that he could tear +the heart out of a woman he had not seen, pin the quivering thing under +his lens, to describe, with his own responsive sensations. + +So the weeks were truly emotional. Swiftly, beyond any realization of +her own, Paula Linster became full-length a woman. Reifferscheid found +it harder and harder to talk even bossily to her, but cleared his voice +when she entered, vented a few booky generalities, and cleared his voice +when she went away. Keen winter fell upon his system of emptied lakes; +gusty winter harped the sound of a lonely ship in polar seas among the +naked branches of the big elms above his cottage; indeed, gray winter +would have roughed it--in the big chap's breast, had he not buckled his +heart against it.... For years, Tim Reifferscheid had felt himself aloof +from all such sentiment. Weakening, he had scrutinized his new assistant +keenly for the frailties with which her sex was identified in his mind. +In all their talks together, she had verified not one, so that he was +forced to destroy the whole worthless edition. She was a discovery, +thrillingly so, since he had long believed such a woman impossible. Now +he felt crude beside her, remembered everything that he had done amiss +(volumes of material supposed to be out of print). Frankly, he was +irritated with any one in the office who presumed to feel himself an +equal with Miss Linster.... But all this was Reifferscheid's, and no +other--as far from any expression of his, as thoughtless kisses or +thundering heroics. + + + + +NINTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS DRAWN DEEPER INTO THE SELMA CROSS PAST AND IS BRAVELY WOOED +THROUGH FURTHER MESSAGES FROM THE WEST + + +Selma Cross frequently filled the little place of books across the hall +with her tremendous vibrations before the trial trip of her new play on +the road. Paula liked to have her come in, delighted in the great +creature's rapture over the hunch-back, Stephen Cabot, author of _The +Thing_. There was an indescribably brighter luster in the waxing and +waning of romantic tides, than the eyes of Paula had ever before +discovered, so that the confidences of the other were of moment. Selma +was terrified by some promise she had made years before in Kentucky. It +was gradually driven deep into the listener's understanding that no +matter how harsh and dreadful the intervening years had been, here was a +woman to whom a promise meant a promise. Paula was moved almost to tears +by the other's description of Stephen Cabot, and the first time she saw +him. + +"I wonder if the long white face with the pain-lit eyes could ever mean +to any one else what it does to me?" Selma whispered raptly when they +talked together one Sunday night. "Why, to see him sitting there before +me at rehearsal--the finest, lowest head in all the chairs--steadies, +exalts me! I hold fast to repression.... It It was Vhruebert who brought +me to him, and the first words Stephen said were: 'Your manager is a +wizard, Miss Cross, to get you for this. Why, you are the woman I wrote +about in _The Thing_!'" + +"Tell me more," Paula had whispered. + +"We met in Vhruebert's office and forgot the manager entirely. I guess +two hours passed, as we talked, and went over the play together that +first time. Vhruebert sent in his office-boy finally to remind us that +he was still in the building. How we three laughed about it!... Then as +we started out for luncheon together, Stephen and I, Vhruebert took his +place at the door before us, and delivered himself of something like +this: + +"'You two listen to the father of what you are to be,'" Selma Cross went +on, roughening her voice and tightening her nasal passages, to imitate +the old Hebrew star-maker. "'Listen to the soulless Vhruebert, who +brudalizes the great Amerigan stage. You two are Art. Very well, listen +to Commerce. It took me twenty-five years to learn that there must be +humor in a blay. This _T'ing_ would not lift the lip of a ganary-bird. +It took me twenty-five years to learn there must be joy at the end of a +blay--and wedding-bells. This _T'ing_ ends just about--over the hills to +the mad-house. Twenty-five years proved to me what I know the first +day--that women of the stage must be beautiful. Miss Gross is not. I say +no more. Here I have neither dramatist nor star. I could give the blay +by Gabot to Ellen Terry--or to Miss Gross, if Ibsen write it. As it is, +I have no name. There are five thousand people in this country writing +blays with humor and habby endings. There are ten thousand beautiful +women exbiring to spend it on the stage. Yet you two are the chosen of +Vhruebert. When you look into each other's eye and visper how +von-der-ful you are, with rising inflection; and say, "To hell with +Gommerce and the Binhead Bublic!" remember Vhruebert who advances the +money!'" + +"And did you remember Vhruebert in that fairy luncheon together?" Paula +asked happily. + +"No, I only saw the long white face of Stephen Cabot. I wanted to take +him in my arms and make him whole!" + +For ten weeks Bellingham lay in one of the New York hospitals. "A woman +attends him," Madame Nestor informed. "She is young and has been very +beautiful. How well do I know her look of impotence and apathy--that +look of unresisting obedience." To Paula, the magician seemed back among +the dead ages, although Madame Nestor did not regard the present lull +without foreboding. Paula could not feel that her real self had been +defiled. The dreadful visitations were all but erased, as pass the +spectres of delirium. What was more real, and rocked the centres of her +being, was the conception of this outcast's battle for life. She could +not forget that it was in pursuing her, that he had been injured. Facing +not only death, but extinction, this idolater of life had, as one +physician expressed it, held together his shattered vitality by sheer +force of will, until healing set in. The only thought comparable in +terror to such a conflict, had to do with the solitudes and abject +frigidity of inter-stellar spaces. + +The Skylark Letters, as she came to call them, were after all, the +eminent feature of the fall and winter weeks. There was a startling +paragraph in one of the December series: "I think it is fitting for you +to know (though, believe me, I needed no word regarding you from +without), that I am not entirely in the dark as to how you have +impressed another. I know nothing of the color of your hair or eyes, +nothing of your size or appearance,--only just how you _impressed +another_. This information, it is needless to say, was unsolicited...." +Just that, and no further reference. It was as though he had felt it a +duty to incorporate those lines. Portions of some of the later letters +follow: + + Did you know, that without the upward spread of wings--there + can be no song from the Skylark? This, for me, has a fragrant + and delicate significance. It is true that the poor little + caged-birds sing, but how sorry they are, since they have to + flutter their wings to give forth sound, and cling with their + claws to the bars to hold themselves down!... I think you must + have been a little wing-weary when you wrote your last letter + to me. Perhaps the dusk was crowding into the Heights. No one + knows as I do how the Skylark has sung and sung!... You did + not say it, but I think you wanted the earth-sweet meadows. It + came to me like needed rain--straight to the heart of mine that + little plaint in the song. It made me feel how useless is the + strength of my arms.... You see, I manage pretty well to keep + you up There. I must. And because you are so wonderful, I + can.... An enthralling temperament rises to me from your + letters. I love to let it flood through my brain.... + + I do not feel at all sure that you know me truly. What a man's + soul appears to be, through the intimations of his higher + moments, is not the man altogether that humans must reckon + with. Nor must they reckon with the trampling violences of + one's past. I truly believe in the soul. I believe it is an + essence fundamentally fine; that great mothers brood it + beautifully into their babes; that it is nourished by the good + a man does and thinks. I believe in the ultimate victory of the + soul, against the tough, twisted fibres of flesh which rise to + demand a thousand sensations. I would have you think of me as + one _lifting_; happy in discoveries, the crown of which you + are; conscious of an integrating spirit; that sometimes in my + silences I answer your song as one glorified. But then, I + remember that you must not judge me by the brightest of my + work. Such are the trained, tense bursts of speed--the swift + expiration of the best. I think a man is about half as good as + his best work and half as bad as his most lamentable leisure. + Midway between his emotions and exaltations--is indicated his + valuation.... All men clinging to the sweep of the upward + cycle, must know the evil multitude at some time. Perhaps few + men have met and discarded so many personal devils as I, in a + single life. But I say to you as I write to-night, those devils + cast out seem far back among cannibal centuries. I worship the + fine, the pure,--thoughts and deeds which are expanded and + warmed by the soul's breath. And you are the anchorage of this + sweeter spirit which is upon me. Now, out of the logic which + life burns into the brain, comes this thought: (I set it down + only to fortify the citadel of truth in which our momentous + relation alone can prosper.) Are there fangs and hackles and + claws which I have not yet uncovered? Am I given the present + serenity as a resting-time before meeting a more subtle and + formidable enemy? Has my vitality miraculously been preserved + for some final battle with a champion of champions of the + flesh? Is it because the sting is gone from my scar-tissues + that I feel so strong and so white to-night? I cannot think + this, because I have heard--because I still hear--my Skylark + sing. + +The personal element of the foregoing and the hint of years of "wrath +and wanderings," which she saw in his second photograph, correlated +themselves in Paula's mind. They frightened her cruelly, but did not put +Charter farther away. Remembering the effect of the passion which +Bellingham had projected into her own brain, helped her vaguely to +understand Charter's earlier years. His splendid emancipation from past +evils lifted her soul. And when he asked, if his present serenity might +not be a preparation for a mightier struggle, the serious reflection +came--might she not ask the same question of herself? The old +Flesh-Mother does not permit one to rest when one is full of +strength.... Paula perceived that Quentin Charter was bravely trying to +get to some sort of rational adjustment her ideal of him and the blooded +reality--and to preserve her from all hurt. Doubts could not exist in a +mind besieged by such letters.... One of her communications must have +reflected something of her terror at the vague forms of his past, which +he partially unveiled, for in answer he wrote: + + Do not worry again about the Big Back Time. Perhaps I was over + assertive about the shadowed years. The main thing is that this + is the wonderful present--and you, my white ally of nobler + power and purpose. A gale of good things will come to + us--hopes, communions and inspirations. We shall know each + other--grow so fine together--that Mother Earth at last will + lose her down-pull upon us--as upon perfumes and sunbeams. You + have come with mystical brightening. You are the New Era. There + is healing in Gethsemanes since you have swept with grace and + imperiousness into possession of the Charter heart-country so + long undiscovered. The big area is lit, redeemed from chaos. It + is thrilling--since you are there. Never must you wing away.... + Sometime you shall know with what strength and truth and + tenderness I regard you. The spirit of spring is in my veins. + It would turn to summer if we were together, but there could be + no reacting winter because you have evolved a mind and a + soul.... Body and mind and soul all evenly ignited--what a + conception of woman! + +Paula begged him not to try to fit such an ideal of the finished +feminine to a little brown tame-plumaged skylark. Since they might some +time meet, she wrote, it was nothing less than unfair for his mind, +trained to visualize its images so clearly, to turn its full energies +upon an ideal, and expect a human stranger--a happening--in the workaday +physical vesture (such as is needed for New York activities) to +sublimate the vision. She told him that he would certainly flee away +from the reality, and that he would have no one but himself to blame. +Visions, she added, do not review books nor write to authors whom they +have not met. All of which, she expressed very lightly, though she could +not but adore the spirit of ideality to which she had aroused his +faculties. + +At this time Paula encountered one of the imperishable little books of +the world, bracing to her spirit as a day's camp among mountain-pines. +Nor could she refrain from telling Charter about "The Practice of the +Presence of God," as told in the conversations of Brother Lawrence, a +bare-footed Carmelite of the Seventeenth Century. "No wilderness +wanderings seem to have intervened between the Red Sea and the Jordan of +his experience," she quoted from the preface, and told him how simple it +was for this unlearned man to be good--a mere "footman and soldier" +whose illumination was the result of seeing a dry and leafless tree in +mid-winter, and the thought of the change that would come to it with the +Spring. His whole life thereafter, largely spent in the monastery +kitchen--"a great awkward fellow, who broke everything"--was conducted +as if God were his constantly advising Companion. It was a life of +supernal happiness--and so simple to comprehend. Charter's reply to this +letter proved largely influential in an important decision Paula was +destined to make. + + Yes, I have communed with Brother Lawrence--carried the little + volume with me on many voyages. I commend a mind that is fine + enough to draw inspiration from a message so chaste and simple. + You will be interested to hear that I have known another + Brother Lawrence--a man whose holiness one might describe as + "humble" or "lofty," with equal accuracy. This man is a + Catholic priest, Father Fontanel of Martinique. His parish is + in that amazing little port, Saint Pierre--where Africa and + France were long ago transplanted and have fused together so + enticingly. Lafcadio Hearn's country--you will say. I wonder + that this inscrutable master, Hearn, missed Father Fontanel in + his studies.... I was rough from the seas and a long stretch of + military campaigning, when my ship turned into that lovely + harbor of Saint Pierre. Finding Father Fontanel, I stayed over + several ships, and the healing of his companionship restores me + even now to remember. + + We would walk together on the _Morne d'Orange_ in the evening. + His church was on the rise of the _morne_ at the foot of _Rue + Victor Hugo_. He loved to hear about my explorations in books, + especially about my studies among the religious enthusiasts. I + would tell him of the almost incredible austerities of certain + mystics to refine the body, and it was really a sensation to + hear him exclaim in his French way: "Can it be possible? I am + very ignorant. All that I know is to worship the good God who + is always with me, and to love my dear children who have so + much to bear. I do not know why I should be so happy--unless it + is because I know so very little. Tell me why I live in a state + of continual transport...." I can hear his gentle Latin tones + even now at night when I shut my eyes--see the lights of the + shipping from that cliff road, hear the creoles' moaning songs + from the cabins, and recall the old volcano, _La Montagne + Pelee_, outlined like a huge couchant beast against the low, + northern stars. + + Father Fontanel has meant very much to me. In all my thinking + upon the ultimate happiness of the race, he stands out as the + bright achievement. At the time I knew him, there was not a + single moment of his life in which the physical of the man was + supreme. What his earlier years were I do not know, of course, + but I confess now I should like to know.... The presence of God + was so real to him, that Father Fontanel did not understand at + all his own great spiritual strength. Nor do his people quite + appreciate how great he is among the priests of men. He has + been in their midst so long that they seem accustomed to his + power. Only a stranger can realize what a pure, shining garment + his actual _flesh_ has become. To me there was healing in the + very approach of this man. + + Dear Father Fontanel! All I had to do was to substitute "Higher + Self" for "God" and I had my religion--the Practice of the + Presence of the Higher Self. Does it not seem very clear to + you?... To me, God is always an abstraction--something of + vaster glory than the central sun, but one's Spiritual Body, + the real being, integrated through interminable lives, from the + finest materials of thought and action--this Higher Self is the + Presence I must keep always with me, and do I not deserve that + It should stand scornfully aloof, when, against my better + knowledge, I fall short in the performance?... I think it is + his Higher Self which is so lustrous in Father Fontanel, and + the enveloping purity which comes from you is the same. About + such purity there is nothing icy nor fibrous nor sterile.... + You are singing in my heart, Skylark. + +The picture Charter had drawn of Father Fontanel of Saint Pierre +appealed strongly to Paula; and her mind's quick grasp of the Charter +religion--the Practice of the Presence of the Higher Self--became one of +her moments of illumination. This was ground-down simplicity. True, +every idea of Charter's was based upon reincarnation. Indeed, this +seemed so familiar to him, that he had not even undertaken to state it +as one of his fundamentals. But had she cared, she could have discarded +even that, from the present concept. So to live that the form of the +best within be not degraded; the days a constant cherishing of this +Invisible Friend; the conduct of life constantly adjusted to please this +Companion of purity and wisdom--here was ethics which blew away every +cloud impending upon her Heights. Years of such living could not but +bring one to the Uplands. As to Charter, God had always been to her The +Ineffable--source of solar, aye, universal energy--the Unseen All. +"Walking with God," "talking with God," "a personal God," "presence of +God,"--these were forms of speech she could never use, but the Higher +Self--this white charioteer--the soul-body that rises when the clay +falls--here was a Personal God, indeed. + + + + +TENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA SEES SELMA CROSS IN TRAGEDY, AND IN HER OWN APARTMENT NEXT MORNING +IS GIVEN A REALITY TO PLAY + + +Selma Cross did not reach New York until the morning of the opening day +at the _Herriot Theatre_. She was very tired from rehearsals and the +try-outs along the string of second cities. There had been a big +difference of opinion regarding _The Thing_, among what New Yorkers are +pleased to call the provincial critics. From the character of the first +notices, on the contrary, it was apparent that the townsmen were not a +little afraid to trust such a startling play to New York. Mid-forenoon +of an early April day, the actress rapped upon Paula's door. + +"I have seen the boards," Paula exclaimed. "'Selma Cross' in letters big +as you are; and yesterday afternoon they were hanging the electric sign +in front of the _Herriot_. Also I shall be there to-night--since I was +wise enough to secure a ticket ten days ago. Isn't it glorious?" + +"Yes, I am quite happy about it," Selma Cross said, stretching out upon +the lounge. "Of course, it's not over until we see the morning papers. I +was never afraid--even of the vitriol-throwers, before. You see, I have +to think about success for Stephen Cabot, too." + +"Is he well?" Paula asked hastily. + +"Oh yes, though I think sometimes he's a martyr. Oh, I have so much to +say----" + +"You said you would tell me some time how Vhruebert first decided to +take you on," Paula urged. + +"Before I got to the gate where the star-stuff passes through?" Selma +Cross answered laughingly. "That was four years ago. I had been to him +many times before he let me in. His chair squeaked under him. He looked +at me first as if he were afraid I would spring at him. I told him what +I could do, and he kept repeating that he didn't know it and New York +didn't know it. I said I would show New York, but unfortunately I had to +show him first. He screwed up his face and stared at me, as if I were +startlingly original in my ugliness. I know he could hear my heart beat. + +"'I can't do anything for you, Miss Gross,' he said impatiently, but in +spite of himself, he added, 'Come to-morrow.' You see, I had made him +think, and that hurt. He knew something of my work all right, and +wondered where he would put a big-mouthed, clear-skinned, yellow-eyed +amazon. The next day, he kept me waiting in the reception-room until I +could have screamed at the half-dressed women on the walls. + +"'I don't know exactly why I asked you to come again,' was his greeting +when the door finally opened to me. 'What was it, once more, that you +mean to do?' + +"'I mean to be the foremost tragedienne,' I said. + +"'Sit down. Tragedy doesn't bay.' + +"'I shall make it pay.' + +"'Um-m. How do you know? Some brivate vire of yours?' + +"'I can show you that I shall make it pay.' + +"'My Gott, not here! We will go to the outskirts.' + +"And he meant it, Paula. It was mid-winter. He took me to a little +summer-theatre up Lenox way. The place had not been open since +Thanksgiving. Vhruebert sat down in the centre of the frosty parquet, +shivering in his great coat. You know he's a thin-lipped, smile-less +little man, but not such a dead soul as he looks. He leaks out +occasionally through the dollar-varnish. Can you imagine a colder +reception? Vhruebert sat there blowing out his breath repeatedly, +seemingly absorbed in the effect the steam made in a little bar of +sunlight which slanted across the icy theatre. That was my try-out +before Vhruebert. I gave him some of Sudermann, Boker, and Ibsen. He +raised his hand finally, and when I halted, he called in a bartender +from the establishment adjoining, and commanded me to give something +from Camille and Sapho. I would have murdered him if he had been fooling +me after that. The bartender shivered in the cold. + +"'What do you think of that, Mr. Vite-Apron?' Vhruebert inquired at +length. He seemed to be warmer. + +"'Hot stuff,' said the man. 'It makes your coppers sizzle.' + +"The criticism delighted Vhruebert. 'Miss Gross, you make our goppers +sizzle,' he exclaimed, and then ordered wine and told me to be at his +studio to-morrow at eleven. That was the real winning," Selma Cross +concluded. "To-night I put the crown on it." + +Paula invariably felt the fling of emotions when Selma Cross was near. +The latter seemed now to have found her perfect dream; certainly there +was fresh coloring and poise in her words and actions. It was +inspiriting for Paula to think of Selma Cross and Stephen Cabot having +been accepted by the hard-headed Vhruebert--that such a pair could eat +his bread and drink his wine with merry hearts. It was more than +inspiriting for her to think of this vibrant heart covering and +mothering the physically unfortunate. Paula asked, as only a woman +could, the question uppermost in both minds. + +"Love me?" Selma whispered. "I don't know, dear. I know we love to be +together. I know that I love him. I know that he would not ask me to +take for a husband--a broken vessel----" + +"But you can make him know that--to you--he is not a broken vessel!... +Oh, that would mean so little to me!" + +"Yes, but I should have to tell him--of old Villiers--and the other!... +Oh, God, he is white fire! He is not the kind who could understand +that!... I thought I could do anything, I said, 'I am case-hardened. +Nothing can make me suffer!... I will go my way,--and no man, no power, +earthly or occult, can make me alter that way,' but Stephen Cabot has +done it. I would rather win for him to-night, than be called the +foremost living tragedienne.... I think he loves me, but there is the +price I paid--and I didn't need to pay it, for I had already risen out +of the depths. That was vanity. I needed no angel. I didn't care until I +met Stephen Cabot!" + +"I think--I think, if I were Stephen Cabot, I could forgive that," Paula +said slowly. She wondered at herself for these words when she was alone, +and the little place of books was no longer energized by the other's +presence. + +Selma started up from the lounge, stretched her great arm half across +the room and clutched Paula's hand. There was a soft grateful glow in +the big yellow eyes. "Do you know that means something--from a woman +like you? Always I shall remember that--as a fine thing from my one fine +woman. Mostly, they have hated me--what you call--our sisters." + +"You are a different woman--you're all brightened, since you met Stephen +Cabot. I feel this," Paula declared. + +"Even if all smoothed out here, there is still the old covenant in +Kentucky," Selma said, after a moment, and sprang to her feet, shaking +herself full-length. + +"Won't you tell me about that, too?" + +"Yes, but not now. I must go down-town. There is a dress-maker--and _we_ +breakfast together.... Root for me--for us, to-night--won't you, dear +girl?" + +"With all my heart." + +They passed out through the hall together--just as the elevator-man +tucked a letter under the door.... Alone, Paula read this Spring +greeting from Quentin Charter: + + I look away this morning into the brilliant East. I think of + you there--as glory waits. I feel the strength of a giant to + battle through dragons of flesh and cataclysms of Nature.... + Who knows what conflicts, what conflagrations, rage in the + glowing distance--between you and me? Not I, but that I have + strength--I do know.... By the golden glory of this wondrous + Spring morning which spreads before my eyes a world of work and + heroism blessed of the Most High God, I only ask to know that + you are there--_that you are there_.... While eternity is yet + young, we shall emerge out of time and distance; though it be + from a world altered by great cosmic shattering--yet shall we + emerge, serene man and woman. + + You are there in the brilliant East. In good time I shall go to + you. Meanwhile I have your light and your song. The dull dim + brute is gone from me, forever. Even that black prince of the + blood, Passion, stands beyond the magnetic circle. With you + _there_, I feel a divine right kingship, and all the black + princes of the body are afar off, herding with the beasts. I + tell you, since I have heard the Skylark sing--there is no + death. + +That day became a vivid memory. Charter reached the highest pinnacle of +her mind--a man who could love and who could wait. The message from the +West exalted her. Here, indeed, was one of the New Voices. All through +the afternoon, out of the hushes of her mind, would rise this paean from +the West--sentence after sentence _for her_.... No, not for her alone. +She saw him always in the midst of his people, illustrious among his +people.... She saw him coming to her over mountains--again and again, +she caught a glimpse of him, configured among the peaks, and striding +toward her--yet between them was a valley torn with storm.... It came to +her that there must be a prophecy in this message; that he would not be +suffered to come to her easily as his letters came. Yet, the strength he +had felt was hers, and those were hours of ecstasy--while the gray of +the Spring afternoon thickened into dark. Only _The Thing_ could have +called her out that night; for once, when it was almost time to go, the +storm lifted from the valley between them. She saw his path to her, just +for an instant, and she longed to see it again.... + +Paula entered the theatre a moment before the curtain rose, but in the +remaining seconds of light, discovered in the fourth aisle far to the +right--"the finest, lowest head" and the long white face of Stephen +Cabot. If a man's face may be called beautiful, his was--firm, delicate, +poetic,--brilliant eyes, livid pallor. And the hand in which the thin +cheek rested, while large and chalky-white, was slender as a girl's.... +In the middle of the first act, a tall, elderly man shuffled down the +aisle and sank into the chair in front of Paula, where he sprawled, +preparing to be bored. This was Felix Larch, one of the best known of +the metropolitan critics, notorious as a play-killer. + + +The first-night crowd can be counted on. It meant nothing to Vhruebert +that the house was packed. The venture was his up to the rise of the +curtain. Paula was absorbed by the first two acts of the play, but did +not feel herself fit to judge. She was too intensely interested in the +career of Selma Cross; in the face of Stephen Cabot; in the attitudes of +Felix Larch, who occasionally forgot to pose. It was all very big and +intimate, but the bigger drama, up to the final curtain, was the battle +for success against the blase aspirations of the audience and the +ultra-critical enemy personified in the man before her. + +The small and excellent company was balanced to a crumb. Adequate +rehearsals had finished the work. Then the lines were rich, forceful and +flowing--strange with a poetic quality that "got across the footlights." +Paula noted these exterior matters with relief. Unquestionably the +audience forgot itself throughout the second act. Paula realized, with +distaste, that her own critical sense was bristling for trouble. She had +hoped to be as receptive to emotional enjoyment as she imagined the +average play-goer to be. Though she failed signally in this, her +sensibilities were in no way outraged, nor even irritated. On the +contrary, she began to rise to the valor of the work and its +performance. The acting of Selma Cross, though supreme in repression, +was haunting, unforgettable. Felix Larch had twice disturbed her by +taking his seat in the midst of the first and second acts. She had heard +that he rarely sat out a whole performance, and took it therefore as a +good omen when he returned, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, as the final +curtain rose. + +By some new mastery of style, Selma Cross had managed, almost +throughout, to keep her profile to the audience. The last act was half +gone, moreover, before the people realized that there were qualities in +her voice, other than richness and flexibility. She had held them thus +far with the theme, charging the massed consciousness of her audience +with subtle passions. Now came the rising moments. Full into the light +she turned her face.... She was quite alone with her tragedy. A gesture +of the great bare arm, as the stage darkened, and she turned loose upon +the men and women a perfect havoc of emptiness--in the shadows of which +was manifesting a huge unfinished human. She made the people see how a +mighty passion, suddenly bereft of its object, turns to devour the brain +that held it. They saw the great, gray face of _The Thing_ slowly rubbed +out--saw the mind behind it, soften and run away into chaos. There was a +whisper, horrible with exhaustion--a breast beaten in the gloom. + +Felix Larch swore softly.... _The Thing_ was laughing as the curtain +crawled down over her--an easy, wind-blown, chattering laugh.... + +The critic grasped the low shoulders of a bald, thin-lipped +acquaintance, exclaiming: + +"Where did you get that diadem, Lucky One?" + +Paula heard a hoarse voice, but the words of the reply were lost. + +"Come over across the street for a minute. I want a stimulant and a talk +with you," Felix Larch added, wriggling into his overcoat. + +There was a low, husky laugh, and then plainly these words: "She makes +your goppers sizzle--eh?... Wait until I tell her she has won and I'll +go with you," added the queer little man, whom Paula knew now to be +Vhruebert.... + +The latter passed along the emptied aisle toward Stephen Cabot, who had +not left his seat. Paula noted with a start that the playwright's head +had dropped forward in a queer way. Vhruebert glanced at him, and +grasped his shoulder. The old manager then cleared his throat--a sound +which apparently had meaning for the nearest usher, who hurried forward +to be dispatched for a doctor. It was very cleverly and quietly done.... +Stephen Cabot, who could see more deeply than others into the art of the +woman and the power of his own lines, and possibly deeper into the big +result of this fine union of play and player--had fainted at the +climacteric moment.... A physician now breasted his way through the +crowd at the doors, and _The Thing_ suddenly appeared in the nearest box +and darted forward like a rush of wind. She gathered the insensible one +in her arms and repeated his name low and swiftly. + +"Yes," he murmured, opening his eyes at last. + +They seemed alone.... Presently Stephen Cabot laughingly protested that +he was quite well, and disappeared behind the scenes, assisted by the +long, bare arm that had so recently hurled havoc over the throng. Paula +waited for a few moments at the door until she was assured. + +Driving home through the Park, she felt that she could not endure +another emotion. For a long time she tossed restlessly in bed, too tired +to sleep. A reacting depression had fallen upon her worn nerves. She +could not forget the big structure of the day's joy, but substance had +dropped from it.... The cold air sweeping through her sleeping-room +seemed to come from desolate mountains. Lost entirely was her gladness +of victory in the Selma Cross achievement. She called herself spiteful, +ungrateful, and quite miserably at last sank into sleep.... + +She was conscious at length of the gray of morning, a stifling pressure +in her lungs, and the effort to rouse herself. She felt the cold upon +her face; yet the air seemed devitalized by some exhausting voltage, she +had known before. There was a horrid jangle in her brain, as of two +great forces battling to complete the circuit there. A face imploring +from a garret-window, a youth in a lion's skin, a rock in the desert and +a rock in the Park, the dim hotel parlor and the figure of yesterday +among the mountain-peaks--so the images rushed past--until the tortured +face of Bellingham (burning eyes in the midst of ghastly pallor), caught +and held her mind still. From a room small as her own, and gray like her +own with morning, he called to her: "Come to me.... Come to me, Paula +Linster.... I have lived for you--oh, come to me!" + +She sprang out of bed, and knelt. How long it was before she freed +herself, Paula never knew. Indeed, she was not conscious of being +actually awake, until she felt the bitter cold and hurried into the +heated room beyond. She was physically wretched, but no longer +obsessed.... She would not believe now that the beyond-devil had called +again. It was all a dream, she told herself again and again--this rush +of images and the summons from the enemy. Yesterday, she had been too +happy; human bodies cannot endure so long such refining fire; to-day was +the reaction and to-morrow her old strength and poise would come again. +Quite bravely, she assured herself that she was glad to pay the price +for the hours of yesterday. She called for the full series of morning +papers, resolving to occupy her mind with the critical notices of the +new play. + +These were quite remarkable in the unanimity of their praise. The +Cross-Cabot combination had won, indeed, but Paula could extract no +buoyancy from the fact, nor did black coffee dispel the vague +premonitive shadows which thickened in the background of her mind. The +rapping of Selma Cross upon her door was hours earlier than ever before. +She, too, had called for the morning papers. A first night is never +finished until these are out. Paula did not feel equal to expressing all +that the play had meant to her. It was with decided disinclination that +she admitted her neighbor. + +Selma Cross had not bathed, nor dressed her hair. She darted in +noiselessly in furry slippers--a yellow silk robe over her night-dress. +Very silken and sensuous, the huge, laughing creature appeared as she +sank upon the lounge and shaded her yellow eyes from the light. So +perfect was her health, and so fresh her happiness, that an hour or two +of sleep had not left her eyes heavy nor her skin pallid. There was an +odor of sweet clover about her silks that Paula never sensed afterward +without becoming violently ill. She knew she was wrong--that every fault +was hers--but she could not bear the way her neighbor cuddled this +morning in the fur of the couch-covering. Selma had brought in every +morning newspaper issued and a thick bundle of telegrams besides. Paula +told her, literally forcing the sentences, how splendidly the play and +her own work had appealed to her. This task, which would have been a +pure delight at another time, was adequately accomplished only after +much effort now. It appeared that the actress scarcely heard what she +was saying. The room was brightening and there was a grateful piping of +steam in the heaters of the apartment. + +"So glad you liked it, dear," Selma said briefly. "And isn't it great +the way the papers treated it? Not one of them panned the play nor my +work.... I say, it's queer when a thing you've dreamed of for years +comes true at last--it's different from the way you've seen it come to +others. I mean there's something unique and a fullness you never +imagined. Oh, I don't know nor care what I'm drowning to say.... Please +do look over these telegrams--_from everybody_! There's over a hundred! +I had to come in here. I'd have roused you out of bed--if you hadn't +been up. The telephone will be seething a little later--and I wanted +this talk with you." + +Big theatrical names were attached to the yellow messages. It is a +custom for stages-folk to speed a new star through the first performance +with a line of courage--wired. You are supposed to count your real +friends in those who remember the formality. It is not well to be a day +late.... + +"And did you notice how Felix Larch uncoiled?" + +Paula looked up from the telegrams to explain how this critic had been +the object of her contemplation the night before. + +"He hasn't turned loose in that sort of praise this season," Selma Cross +added. "His notice alone, dear, is enough to keep us running at the +_Herriot_ until June--and we'll open there again in the fall, past +doubt." + +Paula felt wicked in that she must enthuse artificially. She forced +herself to remember that ordinarily she could have sprung with a merry +heart into the very centre of the other's happiness. + +"Listen, love," Selma resumed, ecstactically hugging her pillow, "I want +to tell you things. I wanted to yesterday, but I had to hurry off. +You've got so much, that you must have the rest. Besides, it's in my +mind this morning, because it was the beginning of last night----" + +"Yes, tell me," Paula said faintly, bringing her a cup of coffee. + +"I was first smitten with the passion to act--a gawky girl of ten at a +child's party," Selma began. "I was speaking a piece when the impulse +came to turn loose. It may have been because I was so homely and +straight-haired, or it may have been that I did the verses so +differently from the ordinary routine of speaking pieces--anyway, a boy +in the room laughed. Another boy immediately bored in upon the scoffer, +downed his enemy and was endeavoring hopefully to kill him with bare +hands, when I interfered. My champion and I walked home together and +left a wailing and disordered company. That's the first brush. + +"My home was Danube, Kentucky. They had a dramatic society there. Eight +years after the child's party, this dramatic society gave _A Tribute to +Art_. Where the piece came from is forgotten. How it got its name never +was known outside of the sorry brain that thrust it, deformed but +palpitating, upon the world. Mrs. Fiske couldn't have made other than a +stick of the heroine. The hero was larger timber, though too dead for +vine leaves. But, I think I told you about the Big Sister--put there in +blindness or by budding genius. There were possibilities in that +character. Danube didn't know it, or it wouldn't have fallen to me. +Indeed, I remember toward the end of the piece--a real moment of windy +gloom and falling leaves, a black-windowed farmhouse on the left, the +rest a desolate horizon--in such a moment the Big Sister plucks out her +heart to show its running death. + +"I had persisted in dramatic work, in and out of season, during those +eight years, but it really was because the Big Sister didn't need to be +beautiful that I got the part. I wove the lines tighter and sharpened +the thing in rehearsals, until the rest of the cast became afraid, not +that I would outshine them, but that I might disgrace the society on the +night o' nights. You see, I was only just tolerated. Poor father, he +wasn't accounted much in Danube, and there was a raft of us. Poor, dear +man! + +"Danube wasn't big enough to attract real shows, so the visiting drama +gave expression to limited trains, trap-doors, blank cartridges and +falling cliffs"--Selma Cross chuckled expansively at the memory--"and I +plunged my fellow-townsmen into waters deeper and stormier than +_Nobody's Claim_ or _Shadows of a Great City_. Wasn't it monstrous?" + +Paula inclined her head, but was not given time to answer. + +"A spring night in Kentucky--hot, damp, starlit--shall I ever forget +that terrible night of _A Tribute to Art_? All Danube somebodies were +out to see the younger generation perpetuate the lofty culture of the +place. Grandmothers were there, who played _East Lynne_ on the same +stage--before the raids of Wolfert and Morgan; and daddies who sat like +deans, eyes dim, but artistic, you know--watched the young idea progress +upon familiar paths.... The heroine did the best she could. I was a +camel beside her--strode about her raging and caressing. You see how I +could have spoiled _The Thing_ last night--if I had let the passion +flood through me like a torrent through a broken dam? That's what I did +in Danube--and some full-throated baying as well. Oh, it is horrible to +remember. + +"The town felt itself brutalized, and justly. I had left a rampant thing +upon every brain, and very naturally the impulse followed to squelch the +perpetrator for all time. I don't blame Danube now. I had been bad; my +lack of self-repression, scandalous. The part, as I had evolved it, was +out of all proportion to the piece, to Danube, to amateur theatricals. I +don't know if I struck a false note, but certainly I piled on the +feeling. + +"Can you imagine, Paula, that it was an instant of singular glory to +me--that climax?... Poor Danube couldn't see that I was combustible +fuel, freshly lit; that I was bound to burn with a steady flame when the +pockets of gas were exploded.... My dazed people did not leave the hall +at once. It was as if they had taken strong medicine and wanted to study +the effect upon each other. I came out from behind at last, up the +aisle, sensing disorder where I had expected praise, and was joined by +my old champion, Calhoun Knox, who had whipped the scoffer at the +child's party. He pressed my hand. We had always been friends. Passing +around the edge of the crowd, I heard this sentence: + +"'Some one--the police, if necessary--must prevent Selma Cross from +making another such shocking display of herself!' + +"It was a woman who spoke, and the man at her side laughed. I had no +time nor thought to check Calhoun. He stepped up to the man beside the +woman. 'Laugh like that again,' he said coldly, 'and I'll kill you!' + +"It seemed to me that all Danube turned upon us. My face must have been +mist-gray. I know I felt like falling. The woman's words had knifed me. + +"'_Oh, you cat-minds!_' I flung at them. Calhoun Knox drew me out into +the dark. I don't know how far out on the Lone Ridge Pike we walked, +before it occurred to either of us to halt or speak," Selma Cross went +on very slowly. "I think we walked nearly to the Knobs. The night had +cleared. It was wonderfully still out there among the hemp-fields. I +knew how he was pitying me, and told him I must go away. + +"'I can't stand for you to go away, Selma,' Calhoun said. 'I want you to +stay and be mine always. We always got along together. You are beautiful +enough to me!' + +"I guess it was hard for him to say it," the woman finished with a +laugh, "I used to wish he hadn't put in that 'enough.' But that +moment--it was what I needed. There was always something big and simple +about Calhoun Knox. My hand darted to his shoulder and closed there like +a mountaineer's, 'You deserve more of a woman than I am, Calhoun,' I +said impetuously, 'but you can have me when I come to marry--but, God, +that's far off. I like you, Calhoun. I'd fight for you to the death--as +you fought for me to-night and long ago. I think I'd hate any woman who +got you--but there's no wife in me to-night. I have failed to win +Danube, Kentucky, but I'll win the world. I may be a burnt-out hag then, +but I'll come back--when I have won the world--and you can have me and +it.... Listen, Calhoun Knox, if ever a man means _husband_ to me--you +shall be the man, but to-night,' I ended with a flourish, and turned +back home, 'I'm not a woman--just a devil at war with the world!'" + +"But haven't you heard from him?" Paula asked, after a moment. + +"Yes, he wrote and wrote. Calhoun Knox is the kind of stuff that +remembers. The time came when I didn't have the heart to answer. I was +afraid I'd ask him for money, or ask him to come to help me. Help out of +Danube! I couldn't do that--better old Villiers.... But I mustn't lie to +you. I went through the really hard part alone.... So Calhoun's letters +were not answered, and maybe he has forgotten. Anyway, before I +marry--he shall have his chance. Oh, I'll make it hard for him. I +wouldn't open any letter from Danube now--but he shall have his +chance----" + +"What do you mean to do?" + +"Why, we'll finish the season here--and Vhruebert has promised us a +little run in the West during June. We touch Cincinnati. From there I'll +take the Company down to Danube. I've got to win the world and Danube. +After the play, I'll walk out on the Lone Ridge pike--among the +hemp-fields--with Calhoun Knox----" + +"But he may have married----" + +"God, how I hope so! I shall wish him kingly happiness--and rush back to +Stephen Cabot." + +Paula could not be stirred by the story this morning. She missed, as +never before, some big reality behind the loves of Selma Cross. There +was too much of the sense of possession in her story--arm-possession. So +readily, could she be transformed into the earthy female, fighting tooth +and claw for her own. Paula could hardly comprehend in her present +depression, what she had said yesterday about Stephen Cabot's capacity +to forgive.... She was glad, when Selma Cross rose, yawned, stretched, +and shook herself. The odor of sweet clover was heaviness in the +room.... The long, bare arm darted over the reading-table and plucked +forth the book Paula loved. The volume had not been hidden; there was no +reason why she should not have done this, yet the action hurt the other +like a drenching of icy water upon her naked heart. + +"Ho-ho--Quentin Charter! So _A Damsel Came to Peter_?" + +"I think--I hear your telephone,--Selma!" Paula managed to say, her +voice dry, as if the words were cut from paper. + +"Yes, yes, I must go, but here's another story. A rotten cad--but how he +can write! I don't mean books--but letters!... He's the one I told you +about--the Westerner--while the old man was in the South!" + +The last was called from the hall. The heavy door slammed between them. + +Paula could not stand--could not keep her mouth from dropping open. Her +temples seemed to be cracking apart.... She saw herself in +half-darkness--like _The Thing_ last night--beating her breast in the +gloom. She felt as if she must laugh--in that same wind-blown, chattering +way. + + + + +ELEVENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES +A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS + + +Paula wrote a short letter to Quentin Charter in the afternoon, and did +not begin to regret it until too late. It was not that she had said +anything unwise or discordant--but that she had written at all.... Her +heart felt dead. She had trusted her all to one--and her all was lost. A +little white animal that had always been warm and petted, suddenly +turned naked to face the reality of winter,--this was the first sense, +and the paramount trouble was that she could not die quickly enough. The +full realization was slow to come. Indeed, it was not until the night +and the next day that she learned the awful reaches of suffering of +which a desolated human mind is capable. It was like one of those +historic tides which rise easily to the highest landmarks of the +shore-dweller, and not till then begin to show their real fury, +devastating vast fields heretofore virgin to the sea. Along many coasts +and in many lives there is one, called The High Tide.... Paula felt that +she could have coped with her sorrow, had this been a personal blow, but +her faith in the race of men, the inspiration of her work, her dream of +service--all were uprooted. + +She did not pretend to deny that she had loved Quentin Charter--her +first and loftiest dream of a mate, the heart's cry of all her +womanhood. True, as man and woman, they had made no covenant, but to her +(and had he not expressed the same in a score of ways?), there had been +enacted a more wonderful adjustment, than any words could bring about. +This was the havoc. She had lost more than a mere human lover. She dared +now to say it, because, in losing, she perceived how great it had +become--the passion was gone from her soul. Her place in the world was +desolate; all her labors pointless. As a woman, she had needed his arms, +less than an anchorage of faith in his nobility. And how her faith had +rushed forth to that upper window across the States! + +_Words_--the very word was poison to her. Writing--an emptiness, a +treachery. Veritably, he had torn the pith out of all her loved +books.... Bellingham had shown her what words meant--words that drew +light about themselves, attracting a brilliance that blinded her; words +that wrought devilishness in the cover of their white light--but +Bellingham had not assailed her faith. This was the work of a man who +had lifted her above the world, not one who called from beneath. +Bellingham could not have crippled her faith like this--and left it to +die.... Almost momentarily, came the thought of his letters--thoughts +_from_ these letters. They left her in a dark--that was madness.... + +And if they were false, what was the meaning of her exaltations? Night +and morning she had looked into the West, sending him all the graces of +her mind, all the secrets of her heart. He had told her of the strange +power that had come to him, of the new happiness--how, as never before, +he had felt radiations of splendid strength. She had not hurried him to +her, but had read with ecstasy, believing that a tithe of his new power +was her gift.... Words, desolate, damnable words.... "And I had thought +to heal and lift New York," she exclaimed mockingly, looking down into +the gray streets after the age-long night. "New York holds fast to her +realities--the things she has found sure. It is well to be normal and +like New York!" + +The day after the door had shut upon Selma Cross, Paula was a betrayed +spirit wandering alone in polar darkness. She had not slept, nor could +she touch food. Twice the actress had rapped; repeatedly the telephone +called--these hardly roused her. Letters were thrust under her door and +lay untouched in the hall. She was lying upon the lounge in the little +room of books, as the darkness swiftly gathered that second day. All the +meanings of her childhood, all the promises for fulfillment with the +years, were lost. The only passion she knew was for the quick end of +life--to be free from the world, and its Bellinghams. + +"God, tell me," she murmured, and her voice sounded dry and strange in +the dark, "what is this thing, Soul, which cries out for its +Ideal--builds its mate from all things pure, from dreams that are +cleansed in the sky; dreams that have not known the touch of any earthly +thing--what is this Soul, that, now bereft, cries with Rachel, 'Death, +let me in!...' Oh, Death, put me to sleep--put me to sleep!" + + * * * * * + +Voices reached her from the hall: + +"You can knock or ring, sir, if you like," the elevator-man was saying, +"but I tell you Miss Linster is not there. She has not answered the +'phone, and there is one of the letters, sticking out from under the +door, that I put there this morning, or yesterday afternoon." + +"When did you see her last?" The voice was Reifferscheid's. + +"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives +in this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday +morning." + +"The point is that she left no word--either with you or with us--before +going away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck----" + +The bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed +against it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer--but facing +Reifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called +from below. + +"No use," Reifferscheid said finally. "Here's a coin for your trouble. +I'll call up the first thing in the morning----" + +She heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the +car, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at _The +States_ for four or five days. She had intended going down-town +yesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless +kindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling +for the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter +recurred to her--and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women +she had known. All about him was sturdy and wholesome--a substance, +this, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell +asleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie, +big trees and solid friends. + +She awoke in a different world--at least, a world in which tea and toast +and marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the +depression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope. +It was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would +have her letter now, or soon--that letter written seven eternities ago +in the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have +written in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had +not let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to +high-tide in her soul--there had been no words for him. Would she ever +write again?... + +Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma +Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men--and had +asked less a few years ago--that to have her call one "cad" with an +adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known +Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True, +he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter +delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was +black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he +wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau +to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that +the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom +them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted +in his letters, was a song--bright as his open prairies, and pure as the +big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended +periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart +answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific +abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added +sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to +say--and what Quentin Charter may add?..." + +The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring, +because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an +accumulation of mail upon the floor--two from _The States_; one from +Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one +of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and +she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had +been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony. + + I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in + a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A + sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing + came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the + invisible connections between us were deranged--as if there had + been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when + the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours, + began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously + active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a + few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich + and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the + gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you--but this + last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please? + +She was not given long to ponder upon this strange proof of his inner +responsiveness; yet the deep significance of it remained with her, and +could not but restore in part a certain impressive meaning of their +relation. Selma Cross called, and Reifferscheid 'phoned, as Paula was +just leaving for down-town. It had been necessary, she explained, to the +literary editor in his office, for her to make a sorry little pilgrimage +during the past few days. She was very grateful it was over. +Reifferscheid said abruptly that pilgrimages were nefarious when they +made one look so white and trembly. + +"The point is, you'd better make another to Staten Island," he added. +"Nice rough passage in a biting wind, barren fields, naked woods, and +all that. Besides, you must see my system of base-burners----" + +"I'll just do that--when I catch up a little on my work," Paula said. +"I'm actually yearning for it, but there are so many loose ends to tie +up, that I couldn't adequately enjoy myself for a day or two. Really, +I'm not at all ill. You haven't enough respect for my endurance, which +is of a very good sort." + +"Don't be too sure about that," Reifferscheid said quickly. "It's +altogether too good to be hurt.... Do you realize you've never had your +hat off in this office?" + +"I hadn't thought of it," she said, studying him. Plainly by his bravado +he wasn't quite sure of his ground. + +"There ought to be legislation against people with hair the color of +yours----" Reifferscheid regarded her a moment before he added, "wearing +hats. You must come over to Staten--if for no other reason----" + +"Oh, I begin to see perfectly now," Paula observed. "You want to add me +to your system of base-burners." + +He chuckled capaciously. "Early next week, then?" + +"Yes, with delight" + +He did not tell her of being worried to the point of travelling far +up-town to ring the bell of her apartment. She could not like him less +for this.... There was a telegram from Charter, when she reached home. +In the next two hours, a thought came to Paula and was banished a score +of times; yet with each recurrence it was more integrate and compelling. +This was Saturday afternoon. Selma Cross returned from her matinee +shortly before six and was alone. Paula met her in the hall, and +followed into the other's apartment. + +"I have just an hour, dear. Dimity has supper ready. Stay, won't you?" + +"Yes," Paula forced herself to say. "I wanted to ask you about Quentin +Charter. You were called away--just as you were speaking of him the +other morning.... I have not met him, but his two recent books are very +wonderful. I reviewed the second for _The States_. He thanked me in a +letter which was open to answer." + +Selma Cross stretched out her arms and laughed mirthlessly. "And so you +two have been writing letters?" she observed. "I'm putting down a bet +that his are rich--if he's interested." + +Paula had steeled herself for this. There were matters which she must +learn before making a decision which his telegram called for. Her mind +held her inexorably to the work at hand, though her heart would have +faltered in the thick cloud of misgivings. + +"Yes, there is much in his letters--so much that I can't quite adjust +him to the name you twice designated. Remember, you once before called +him that--when I didn't know that you were speaking of Quentin Charter." + +"I'll swear this much also," Selma Cross said savagely, "he has found +your letters worth while." + +"Is that to the point?" + +"Why, yes Paula," the other replied, darting a queer look at her. "If I +am to be held to a point--it is--because, as a writer, he uses what is +of value. He makes women mad about him, and then goes back to his +garret, and sobers up enough to write an essay or a story out of his +recent first-hand studies in passion." + +"You say he was drinking--when you knew him?" + +"Enough to kill another man. It didn't seem to make his temperament play +less magically. He was never silly or limp, either in mind or body, but +he must have been burned to a cinder inside. He intimated that he didn't +dare to go on exhibition any day before mid-afternoon." + +Paula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: "I wish +you would tell me _just_ what Quentin Charter did to make you think of +him always--in connection with that name." + +"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate +before you--also supper, which won't stay hot." Selma Cross spoke with +some tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly, +and it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of +her admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature. +".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe +that he was passionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in _Caller +Herrin_,--my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an +exceptionally good play. It took his eye--my work especially--and he +arranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this +formality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue +was greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was +peculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain.... +The man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room, +not that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he +was drinking--and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working +knowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed--of every +book. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing +himself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it +was merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I +wasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight--to me. He used to +send notes in the forenoon--things he thought of, when he couldn't +sleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early +hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving +for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way +home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for +me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he +said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me +believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since." + +Paula began to breathe a bit more freely. "Didn't he write?" + +"Yes, at first, but I saw at once he was forcing. Then he dictated an +answer to one of mine--dictated a letter to me----" Selma Cross halted. +The lids narrowed across her yellow eyes. + +"He had said he loved you?" Paula asked with effort. + +"By the way," Selma Cross retorted, "did you notice that word 'love' in +either of his recent books--except as a generality?" + +"Since you speak of it, I do recall he markedly avoided it," Paula said +with consuming interest. + +"No, he didn't use it to me. He said he never put it in a man's or +woman's mouth in a story. Ah, but there are other words," she went on +softly. "The man was a lover--beyond dreams--impassioned." + +"About that dictated letter?" Paula urged hastily. + +"Yes, I told him I didn't want any more that way. Then Villiers was +back, and beckoning again. The last word I received was from Charter's +stenographer. She said he was ill. Oh, I did hear afterward--that he was +in a sanatorium. God knows, he must have landed there--if he kept up the +pace he was going when I knew him." + +In the moment of silence which followed, Paula was hoping with all her +might--that this was the end. + +"Oh, I know what you're thinking!" Selma said suddenly. "He has +fascinated you, and you can't see that he's a rotten cad--from what I've +said so far. A woman can never see the meanness of a man from another +woman's experience with him. She forgives him for calling forth all +another woman has--and then shaking her loose like a soiled bath-robe +when one's tub is ready. But it's different when she's the discarded +woman!... He was so deep, I can't believe he didn't know that episodes +were new to me. Likely, he's had so many around the world, that he can't +take them more seriously from the woman's angle--than from his own.... +Quentin Charter was the first man to arouse all my dreams. Can't you see +how it hurt when he turned out to be--well, that name you refuse to +utter?" + +"Yes, of course, yes, but you suggest more, Selma!" + +"He used me for 'copy,' as they call it. His article on the 'acting of +stage-folk after hours,' appeared in a magazine a few weeks later. He's +always a saint in his garret, you know. The article was filled with +cutting cynicism about stage-matters, many of which he had discovered in +the two weeks with me--and laughed over with his wine. I could have +forgiven that, only he made me believe that there was not a thought +apart from Selma Cross in his mind when we were together.... Oh, what's +the use of me lying? I could have forgiven that, anyway!" + +"What was it, you could not forgive?" Paula's face was bloodless. + +"He told it all about--how easy I had proved in his hands!" the actress +revealed with suppressed fury. + +The other shrank back. + +"That's where the expression comes in, Paula--the expression you hate. +Drunk or sober--cad's the word. What a woman gives to a _man_ is put in +his inner vault forever. What she gives to a _cad_--is passed on to his +friends." + +Paula arose, tortured as if branded within. Here was a defection of +character which an entire incarnation of purity could not make whole. It +was true that in her heart, she had not been mortally stricken before; +true, as Selma Cross had so bitterly declared, that a woman is not +stayed from mating with a man because a sister has suffered at his +hands. + +"I have nothing to say about the word, if that is true." Paula spoke +with difficulty, and in a hopeless tone. + +"Please, eat some supper, dear----" + +There was heart-break in the answer: "I cannot. I'm distressed, because +I have spoiled yours.... You have answered everything readily--and it +has hurt you.... I--feel--as--if--I--must--tell--you--why--I--asked--or +I wouldn't have dared to force questions upon you. His letters made me +think of him a great deal. When you picked up his book the other morning +and said _that_--why, it was all I could stand for the time. His work is +so high and brave--I can hardly understand how he could talk about a +woman whose only fault was that she gave him what he desired. Are you +sure he cannot prove that false?" + +Selma Cross left her seat at the table and took Paula in her arms. + +"How can he?" she whispered. "The old man knew all about us. One of his +friends heard Charter talking about the easy virtue of stage women--that +there were scarcely no exceptions! Charter hinted in his article that +acting is but refined prostitution. Villiers said because I had a name +for being square Charter had chosen to prove otherwise!... Then see how +he dropped me--not a word in three years from my memorable lover! And +Villiers knew about us--first and last!... I could murder that sort--and +to think that his devil's gift has been working upon you----" + +"You have told me quite enough, thank you." Paula interrupted in a +lifeless voice. "I shall not see him." + +Selma Cross held her off at arms' length to glance at her face. "You +what?" she exclaimed. + +"He is on the way to New York and will be at the _Granville_ to-morrow +afternoon, where he hopes to find a note saying he may call here +to-morrow night. There shall be no note from me----" + +"But did you write to him, Paula?" the actress asked strangely excited. + +"Yes--a little after you left me the other morning. It was silly of me. +Oh, but I did not tell him what I had heard--or who told me!... Finish +your supper--you must go." + +"And how did you learn of his coming?" + +"He telegraphed me to-day. That's why I bothered you at your supper----" + +"What a dramatic situation--if you decided to see him!" Selma Cross said +intensely. "And to think--that to-morrow is Sunday night and I don't +work!" + +Paula felt brutalized by the change in the other's manner. "I have +decided not to see him," she repeated, and left the apartment. + + + + +TWELFTH CHAPTER + +CERTAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARTER CRUCIBLE, AND HIS MOTHER'S PILGRIMAGE +ACROSS THE SANDS ALONE TO MECCA + + +Charter had come a long way very swiftly in his search for realities. If +it is required of man, at a certain stage of evolution, to possess a +working knowledge of the majority of possible human experiences, in +order to choose wisely between good and evil, Charter had, indeed, +covered much ground in his thirty-three years. As a matter of fact, +there were few degrees in the masonry of sensation, into which he had +not been initiated. His was the name of a race of wild, sensual, +physical types; a name still held high in old-world authority, and +identified with men of heavy hunting, heavy dining and drinking. The +Charters had always been admired for high temper and fair women. True, +there was not a germ of the present Charter mental capacity in the whole +race of such men commonly mated, but Quentin's father had married a +woman with a marvellous endurance in prayer--that old, dull-looking +formula for producing sons of strength. A silent woman, she was, a +reverent woman, an angry woman, with the stuff of martyrdoms in her +veins. + +Indeed, in her father, John Quentin, reformer, there were stirring +materials for memory. His it was to ride and preach, to excoriate evil +and depict the good, with the blessing of a living God shining bright +and directly upon it. A bracing figure, this Grandfather Quentin, an +ethereal bloom at the top of a tough stalk of Irish peasantry. First, as +a soldier in the British army he was heard of, a stripling with a girl's +waist, a pigeon breast, and the soul's divinity breathing itself awake +within. His was a poet's rapture at the sight of morning mists, +wrestling with the daybreak over the mountains; and everywhere his +regiment went, were left behind Quentin's songs--crude verses of a minor +singer, never seeking permanence more than Homer; and everywhere, he set +about to correct the degradations of men, absolutely unscared and +grandly improvident. A fighter for simple loving-kindness in the heart +of man, a worshiper of the bright fragment of truth vouchsafed to his +eyes, a lover of children, a man who walked thrillingly with a personal +God, and was so glorified and ignited by the spirit that, every day, he +strode singing into battle. Such was John Quentin, and from him, a +living part of his own strong soul, sprang the woman who mothered +Quentin Charter, sprang pure from his dreams and meditations, and +doubtless with his prayer for a great son, marked in the scroll of her +soul.... For to her, bringing a man into the world meant more than a +bleak passage of misery begun with passion and ended with pain. + +Her single bearing of fruit was a solitary pilgrimage. From the hour of +the conception, she drew apart with her own ideals, held herself aloof +from fleshly things, almost as one without a body. Charter, the +strongly-sexed, her merchant-husband, the laughing, scolding, joking +gunner; admirable, even delightful, to Nineteenth Century men of hot +dinners and stimulated nights--showed her all that a man must _not_ be. +Alone, she crossed the burning sands; cleansed her body and brain in the +cool of evenings, expanded her soul with dreams projected far into the +glistening purple heavens and whispered the psalms and poems which had +fed the lyric hunger of her father. + +It glorified her temples to brood by an open window upon the night-sky; +to conceive even the garment's hem of that Inspiring Source, to Whom +solar systems are but a glowworm swarm, and the soul of man mightier +than them all. Sometimes she carried the concept farther, until it +seemed as if her heart must cease to beat: that this perfecting fruit of +the universe, the soul of man, must be imprisoned for a time in the womb +of woman; that the Supreme seemed content with this humble mystery, nor +counted not aeons spent, nor burnt-out suns, nor wasting myriads that +devastate the habitable crusts--if only One smile back at Him at last; +if only at last, on some chilling planet's rim, One Worthy Spirit lift +His lustrous pinions and ascend out of chaos to the Father. + +The spirit of her own father was nearer to her in this wonderful +pilgrimage than her husband, to whom she was cold as Etruscan glasses in +the deep-delved earth (yet filled with what fiery potential wine!). He +called her Mistress Ice, brought every art, lure, and expression in the +Charter evolution to bear upon her; yet, farther and farther into +heights he could not dream, she fled with her forming babe. Many +mysteries were cleared for her during this exalted period--though +clouded later by the pangs of parturition.... Once, in the night, she +had awakened with a sound in her room. At first she thought it was her +husband, but she heard his breathing from the next chamber. At length +before her window, shadowed against the faint light of the sky, appeared +the head and shoulders of a man. He was less than ten feet from her, and +she heard the rustle of his fingers over the dresser. For an instant she +endured a horrible, stifling, feminine fright, but it was superseded at +once by a fine assembling of faculties under the control of genuine +courage. The words she whispered were quite new to her. + +"I don't want to have to kill you," she said softly. "Put down what you +have and go away--hurry." + +The burglar fled quietly down the front stairs, and she heard the door +shut behind him. Out of her trembling was soon evolved the consciousness +of some great triumph, the nature of which she did not yet know. It was +pure ecstasy that the realization brought. The courage which had +steadied her through the crisis was not her own, but from the man's soul +she bore! There was never any doubt after that, she was to bear a son. + +There is a rather vital defect in her pursuing the way alone, even +though a great transport filled the days and nights. The complete +alienation of her husband was a fact. This estranged the boy from his +father. Except as the sower, the latter had no part in the life-garden +of Quentin Charter. The mother realized in later years that she might +have ignored less and explained more. The fear of a lack of sympathy had +given her a separateness which her whole married life afterward +reflected. She had disdained even the minor feminine prerogative of +acting. Her husband had a quick, accurate physical brain which, while it +could not have accompanied nor supported in her sustained inspiration, +might still have comprehended and laughingly admired. Instead, she had +been as wholly apart from him as a memory. Often, in the great weariness +of continued contemplation, her spirit had cried out for the sustenance +which only a real mate could bring, the gifts of a kindred soul. Many +times she asked: "Where is the undiscovered master of my heart?" + +There was no one to replenish within her the mighty forces she expended +to nurture the spiritual elements of her child. A lover of changeless +chivalry might have given her a prophet, instead of a genius, pitifully +enmeshed in fleshly complications. In her developed the concept (and the +mark of it lived afterward with glowing power in the mind of her +son)--the thrilling possibility of a union, in the supreme sense of the +word, a Union of Two to form One.... + +Charter, the boy, inherited a sense of the importance of the "I." In his +earlier years all things moved about the ego. By the time of his first +letter to Paula Linster, the world had tested the Charter quality, but +to judge by the years previous, more specifically by the decade bounded +by his twentieth and thirtieth birthdays, it would have appeared that +apart from endowing the young man with a fine and large brain-surface, +the Charter elements had triumphed over the mother's meditations. To a +very wise eye, acquainted with the psychic and material aspects of the +case, the fact would have become plain that the hot, raw blood of the +Charters had to be cooled, aged, and refined, before the exalted spirit +of the Quentins could manifest in this particular instrument. It would +have been a very fascinating natural experiment had it not been for the +fear that the boy's body would be destroyed instead of refined. + +His mother's abhorrence for the gross animalism of drink, as she +discovered it in her husband (though the tolerant world did not call him +a drunkard), was by no means reflected intact in the boy's mind. A vast +field of surface-tissue, however, was receptive to the subject. Quentin +was early interested in the effects of alcohol, and entirely unafraid. +He had the perversity to believe that many of his inclinations must be +worn-out, instead of controlled. As for his ability to control anything +about him, under the pressure of necessity, he had no doubt of this. +Drink played upon him warmly. His young men and women associates found +the stimulated Charter an absolutely new order of human enchantment--a +young man lit with humor and wisdom, girded with chivalry, and a delight +to the emotions. Indeed, it was through these that the young man's +spirit for a space lost the helm. It was less for his fine physical +attractions than for the play of his emotions that his intimates loved +him. From his moods emanated what seemed to minds youthful as his own, +all that was brave and true and tender. An evening of wine, and Charter +dwelt in a house of dreams, to which came fine friendships, passionate +amours, the truest of verses and the sweetest songs. Often he came to +dwell in this house, calling it life--and his mother wept her nights +away. Her husband was long dead, but she felt that something, named +Charter, was battling formidably for the soul of her boy. She was +grateful for his fine physique, grateful that his emotions were more +delicately attuned than any of his father's breed, but she had not +prayed for these. She knew the ghastly mockeries which later come to +haunt these houses of dreams. Such was not her promise of fulfilment. +She had not crossed the deserts and mountains alone to Mecca for a +verse-maker--a bit of proud flesh for women to adore.... Charter, +imperious with his stimulus, wise in his imagined worldliness, thought +he laughed away his mother's fears. + +"I am a clerk of the emotions," he once told her. "To depict them, I +must feel them first." + +And the yellow devil who built for him his house of dreams coarsened his +desires as well, and wove a husk, fibrous, warm, and red, about his +soul. The old flesh-mother, Earth, concentred upon him her subtlest +currents of gravity; showed him her women in garments of crushed lilies; +promised him her mysteries out of Egypt--how he should change the base +metal of words into shining gold; sent unto him her flatterers calling +him great, years before his time; calling him Emotion's Own Master and +Action's Apostle; and her sirens lured him to the vine-clad cliffs with +soft singing that caressed his senses. Because his splendid young body +was aglow, he called it harmony--this wind wailing from the barrens.... +As if harmony could come out of hell. + +Old Mother Earth with her dead-souled moon--how she paints her devils +with glory for the eye of a big-souled boy; painting dawns above her +mountains of dirt, and sunsets upon her drowning depths of sea; painting +scarlet the lips of insatiable women, and roses in the heart of her +devouring wines--always painting! Look to Burns and Byron--who bravely +sang her pictures--and sank. + +There are vital matters of narrative in this decade of Charter's between +twenty and thirty. Elements of the world-old conflict between the animal +and the soul are never without human interest; but this is a history of +a brighter conquest than any victory over the senses alone.... Even +restless years of wandering are only suggested. Yet one cannot show how +far into the heights Charter climbed, without lifting for a moment the +shadow from the caverns, wherein he finally awoke, and wrestled with +demons towards the single point of light--on the rising road. + + + + +THIRTEENTH CHAPTER + +"NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND SPOIL, HIS GOODS, +EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN" + + +Charter had always been able to stop drinking when thoroughly disgusted +with its effects, but his final abandonment, three years before the +Skylark letters, had lasted long--up the Yangtse to the Gorges, back to +Shanghai, and around the Straits and Mediterranean to New York, where he +had met Selma Cross; indeed, for many weeks after he had reached his own +city in the Mid-West. He had now fallen into the condition in which work +was practically impossible. In the early stages, he had known brief but +lightning passages of expression, when his hands moved with magical +speed upon his machine, and his thoughts even faster, breaking in upon +achievement three or four times in a half-hour to snatch his stimulant. +Always in the midst of this sort of activity, he felt that his work was +of the highest character. The swift running of his brain under the whip +appeared record-breaking to the low vanity of a sot. It was with shame +that he regarded his posted time-card, after such a race. Yet he had +this to say of the whole work-drink matter: When at his brief best under +stimulus, a condition of mind precarious to reach and never to be +counted upon, the product balanced well with the ordinary output, the +stuff that came in quantities from honest, healthy faculties. In a word, +an occasional flashy peak standing forth from a streaky, rime-washed +pile reckoned well with the easy levels of highway routine. + +During his first days at home he would occupy entire forenoons in the +endeavor to rouse himself to a pitch of work. Not infrequently upon +awakening, he swallowed a pint of whiskey in order to retain four or +five ounces. Toward mid-afternoon, still without having eaten, he would +draw up his chair before the type-mill to wait, and only a finished +curse would evolve from the burned and stricken surfaces of his brain. +If, indeed, passable copy did come at last, Charter invariably banished +restraint, drinking as frequently as the impulse came. Clumsiness of the +fingers therefore frequently intervened just as his sluggish mind +unfolded; and in the interval of calling his stenographer out of the +regular hours, the poor brain babes, still-born, were fit only for +burial. + +Often, again (for he could not live decently with himself without +working), he would spend the day in fussy preparation for a long, +productive evening. The room was at a proper temperature; the buffet +admirably stocked; pipes, cigars, and cigarettes at hand; his +stenographer in her usual mood of delightful negation--when an +irresistible impulse would seize his mind with the necessity of +witnessing a certain drama, absolutely essential to inspiration. Again, +with real work actually begun, his mind would bolt into the domains of +correspondence, or some little lyric started a distracting hum far back +in his mind. The neglected thing of importance would be lifted from the +machine, and the letters or the verses put under weigh. In the case of +the latter, he would often start brilliantly with a true subconscious +ebullition--and cast the thing aside, never to be finished, at the first +hitch in the rhyme or obscurity in thought. Then he would find himself +apologizing slavishly for Asiatic fever to the woman who helped +him--whose unspoken pity he sensed, as hardened arteries feel the coming +storm. Alone, he would give way to furious hatred for himself and his +degradation, and by the startling perversity of the drunken, hurry into +a stupor to stifle remorse. Prospecting thus in the abysses, Charter +discovered the outcroppings of dastardly little vanities and kindred +nastiness which normally he could not have believed to exist in his +composite or in the least worthy of his friends. A third trick drink +played upon him when he was nicely prepared for a night of work. The +summons which he dared not disregard since it came now so +irregularly--to dine--would sound imperiously in the midst of the first +torture-wrung page, probably for the first time since the night before. +In the actual illness, which followed partaking of the most delicate +food, work was, of course, out of the question. + +Finally, the horrors closed in upon his nights. The wreck that could not +sleep was obsessed with passions, even perversions--how curiously untold +are these abominations--until a place where the wreck lay seemed +permeated with the foulest conceptions of the dark. What pirates board +the unhelmed mind of the drunken to writhe and lust and despoil the +alien decks--wingless, crawling abdomens, which, even in the shades, are +but the ganglia of appetite!... A brand of realism, this, whose only +excuse is that it carries the red lamps of peril. + +At the end of months of swift and dreadful dissipation, Charter +determined abruptly to stop his self-poisoning on the morning of his +Thirtieth birthday. Coming to this decision within a week before the +date, so confident was he of strength, that instead of making the end +easy by graduating the doses in the intervening days, he dropped the +bars of conduct altogether, and was put to bed unconscious late in the +afternoon of the last. He awoke in the night, and slowly out of physical +agony and mental horror came the realization that the hour of +fighting-it-out-alone was upon him. He shuddered and tried to sleep, +cursed himself for losing consciousness so early in the day without +having prepared his mind for the ordeal. Suddenly he leaped out of bed, +turned on the lights, and found his watch. With a cry of joy, he +discovered that it was seven minutes before twelve. In the next seven +minutes, he prepared himself largely from a quart bottle, and lay down +again as the midnight-bells relayed over the city. Ordinarily, sleep +would have come to him after such an application in the midst of the +night, but the thought assumed dimensions that the bells _had_ struck. +He thought of his nights on the big, yellow river in China, and of the +nearer nights in New York. There was a vague haunt about the latter--as +of something neglected. He thought of the clean boy he had been, and of +the scarred mental cripple he must be from now on.... In all its +circling, his mind invariably paused at one station--the diminished +quart bottle on the buffet. He arose at last, hot with irritation, +poured the remaining liquor into the washbasin, and turned on the water +to cleanse even the odor away. For a moment he felt easier, as if the +Man stirred within him. Here he laughed at himself low and +mockingly--for the Man was the whiskey he had drunk in the seven minutes +before twelve. + +Now the thought evolved to hasten the work of systemic cleansing, begun +with denial. At the same time, he planned that this would occupy his +mind until daylight. He prepared a hot tub, drinking hot water at the +same time--glass after glass until he was as sensitive within as only a +fresh-washed sore can be. Internally, the difference between hot and +cold water is just the difference between pouring the same upon a greasy +plate. The charred flaccid passages in due time were flushed free from +its sustaining alcohol; and every exterior pore cratered with hot water +and livened to the quick with a rough towel. Long before he had +finished, the trembling was upon him, and he sweated with fear before +the reaction that he had so ruthlessly challenged in washing the spirit +from his veins. + +Charter rubbed the steam from the bath-room window, shaded his eyes, and +looked for the daylight which was not there. Stars still shone clear in +the unwhitened distances. Why was he so eager for the dawn? It was the +drunkard in him--always frightened and restless, even in sleep, _while +buffets are closed_. This is so, even though a filled flask cools the +fingers that grope under the pillow.... Any man who has ever walked the +streets during the two great cycles of time between three and five in +the morning, waiting for certain sinister doors to open, does not cease +to shiver at the memory even in his finer years. It is not the +discordant tyranny of nerves, nor the need of the body, pitiful and +actual though it is, wherein the terror lies,--but living, walking with +the consciousness that the devil is in power; that you are the debauched +instrument of his lust, putting away the sweet fragrant dawn for a place +of cuspidors, dormant flies, sticky woods, where bleared, saturated +messes of human flesh sneak in, even as you, to lick their love and +their life.... That you have waited for this moment for hours--oh, +God!--while the fair new day comes winging over mountains and lakes, +bringing, cleansed from inter-stellar spaces, the purity of lilies, new +mysteries of love, the ruddy light of roses and heroic hopes for clean +men--that you should hide from this adoring light in a dim place of +brutes, a place covered with the psychic stains of lust; that you should +run from clean gutters to drink this hell-seepage. + +He asked himself why he thirsted for light. If every door on his floor +were a saloon, he would not have entered the nearest. And yet a summer +dawn was due. Hours must have passed since midnight. He glanced into the +medicine-case before turning off the lights in the bath-room. Alcohol +was the base in many of the bottles; this thought incited fever in his +brain.... He could hardly stand. A well-man would have been weakened by +the processes of cleansing he had endured. The blackness, pressing +against the outer window, became the form of his great trouble. "I wish +the day would come," he said aloud. His voice frightened him. It was +like a whimper from an insane ward. He hastened to escape from the +place, now hateful. + +The chill of the hall, as he emerged, struck into his flesh, a polar +blast. Like an animal he scurried to the bed and crawled under cover, +shaking convulsively. His watch ticked upon the bed-post. Presently he +was burning--as if hot cloths were quickly being renewed upon his flesh. +Yet instantaneously upon lifting the cover, the chill would seize him +again. Finally he squirmed his head about until he could see his watch. +Two-fifteen, it said. Manifestly, this was a lie. He had not wound the +thing the night before, though its ticking filled the room. He recalled +that when he was drinking, frequently he wound his watch a dozen times a +day, or quite as frequently forgot it entirely. At all events, it was +lying now. Thoughts of the whiskey he had poured out, of the drugs in +the medicine-case, controlled. He needed a drink, and nothing but +alcohol would do. This is the terrible thing. Without endangering one's +heart, it is impossible to take enough morphine to deaden a whiskey +reaction. A little only horrifies one's dreams. There is no bromide. He +cried out for the poison he had washed away from his veins. This would +have been a crutch for hours. In the normal course of bodily waste, he +would not have been brought to this state of need in twenty-four hours. +He felt the rapping of old familiar devils against his brain. He needed +a drink. + +The lights were turned on full in his room. The watch hanging above his +head ticked incessant lies regarding the energy of passing time. He +could lose himself in black gorges of agony, grope his way back to find +that the minute hand had scarcely stirred.... He lay perfectly rigid +until a wave, half of drowsiness, half of weakness, slowed-down the +vibrations of his mind.... Somewhere in the underworld, he found a +consciousness--a dank smell, the dimness of a cave; the wash of fins +gliding in lazy curves across the black, sluggish water; an _eye_, +green, steadfast, ashine like phosphor which is concentrated decay,--the +eye of rapacity gorged. His nostrils filled with the foreign odor of +menageries and aquariums. A brief hiatus now, in which objects altered. +A great weight pressed against his chest, not to hurt, but to fill his +consciousness with the thought of its cold crushing strength; the weight +of a tree-trunk, the chill of stone, the soft texture of slimy flesh.... +Full against him upon the rock, in his half-submerged cavern, lay the +terror of all his obsessions--the crocodile. Savage incarnations were +shaken out of his soul as he regarded this beast, a terror so great that +his throat shut, his spine stiffened. Still as a dead tree, the creature +pressed against him, bulging stomach, the narrow, yellow-brown head, +moveless, raised from the rock. This was the armed abdomen he feared +most--cruelty, patience, repletion--and the dirty-white of nether +parts!... He heard the scream within him--before it broke from his +throat. + +Out of one of these, Charter emerged with a cry, wet with sweat as the +cavern-floor from which he came--to find that the minute-hand of his +watch had not traversed the distance between two Roman numerals. He +seized the time-piece and flung it across the room, lived an age of +regret before it struck the walnut edge of his dresser and crashed to +the floor.... The sounds of running-down fitted to words in his brain. + +"_Tick--tick!... tick-tick-tick._" A spring rattled a disordered plaint; +then after a silence: "I served you--did my work well--very well--very +well!..." Charter writhed, wordlessly imploring it to be still. It was +not the value, but the sentient complaining of a thing abused. Faithful, +and he had crushed it. He felt at last in the silence that his heart +would stop if it ticked again; and as he waited, staring at it, his mind +rushed off to a morning of boyhood and terrible cruelty.... He had been +hunting at the edge of a half-cleared bit of timber. A fat gray squirrel +raced across the dead leaves, fully sixty yards away--its mate following +blithely. The leader gained the home-tree as Charter shot, crippling the +second--the male. It was a long shot and a very good one, but the boy +forgot that. The squirrel tried to climb the tree, but could not. It +crawled about, uncoupled, among the roots, and answered the muffled +chattering from the hole above--this, as the boy came up, his breast +filling with the deadliest shame he had ever known. The squirrel told +him all, and answered his mate besides. It was not a chatter for mercy. +The little male was cross about it--bewildered, too, for its +life-business was so important. The tortured boy dropped the butt of his +gun upon the creature's head.... Now the tone changed--the flattened +head would not die.... He had fled crying from the thing, which haunted +him almost to madness. He _begged_ now, as the old thoughts of that hour +began to run about in the deep-worn groove of his mind.... + +Andas he had treated the squirrel, the watch--so he was treating his own +life.... + +Again he was called to consciousness by some one uttering his name. He +answered. The apartment echoed with the flat, unnatural cry of his +voice; silence mocking him.... Then, in delusion, he would find himself +hurrying across the yard, attracted by some psychic terror of warning. +Finally, as he opened the stable-door, sounds of a panting struggle +reached him from the box-stall where he kept his loved saddle-mare. +Light showed him that she had broken through the flooring, and, +frenziedly struggling to get her legs clear from the wreck, had torn the +skin and flesh behind, from hoof to hock. He saw the yellow tendons and +the gleaming white bone. She was half-up, half-down, the smoky look of +torture and accusation in her brown eyes.... + +Finally came back his inexorable memories--one after another, his nights +of degraded passion; the memory of brothels, where drunkenness had +carried him; songs, words, laughter he had heard; pictures on the walls; +combs, cards, cigarettes of the dressing-tables, low ceilings and +noisome lamps; that individual something about each woman, and her +especial perversion; peregrinations among the lusts of half the world's +ports, where a man never gets so low that he cannot fall into a woman's +arms. How they had clung to him and begged him to come back! His +nostrils filled again with sickening perfumes that never could overpower +the burnt odor of harlot's hair. Down upon him these horrors poured, +until he was driven to the floor from the very foulness of the place +wherein he lay, but a chill struck his heart and forced him back into +the nest of sensual dreams.... + +Constantly he felt that dry direct need for cigarette inhalation--that +nervous craving which makes a man curse viciously at the break of a +match or its missing fire--but his heart responded instantly to the mild +poisoning, a direct and awful pounding like the effect of cocaine upon +the strong, and his sickness was intensified. So he would put the +cigarette down, lest the aorta burst within him--only to light the pest +again a moment later. + +He could feel his liver, a hot turgid weight; even, mark its huge +boundary upon the surface of his body. Back of his teeth, began the +burning insatiable passage, collapsing for alcohol in every inch of its +coiled length; its tissues forming an articulate appeal in his brain: +"You have filled us with burning for weeks and months, until we have +come to rely upon the false fire. Take this away suddenly now and we +must die. We cannot keep you warm, even alive, without more of the fuel +which destroyed us. We do not want much--just enough to help us until we +rebuild our own energy." And his brain reiterated a warning of its own. +"I, too, am charred and helpless. The devils run in and out and over. I +have no resistance. I shall open entirely to them--unless you strengthen +me with fire. You are doing a very wicked and dangerous thing in +stopping short like this. Deserted of me, you are destitute, indeed." + +Charter felt his unshaven mouth. It was soft and fallen like an +imbecile's. A man in hell does not curse himself. He saw himself giving. +He felt that he was giving up life and its every hope, but the fear of +madness, or driveling idiocy, was worse than this. He would drink for +nerve to kill himself decently. The abject powerlessness of his will was +the startling revelation. He had played with his will many times, used +it to drink when its automatic action was to refrain. Always he had felt +it to be unbreakable, until now. He was a yellow, cowering elemental, +more hideous and pitiable than prohibition-orator ever depicted in his +most dreadful scare-climax. There is no will when Nature turns loose her +dogs of fear upon a sick and shattered spirit--no more will than in the +crisis of pneumonia or typhoid. + +He wrapped the bed-clothes about him and staggered to the medicine-case. +There was no pure alcohol; no wood-alcohol luckily. However, a quart +bottle of liver-tonic--turkey rhubarb, gum guaiac, and aloes, steeped in +Holland gin. A teaspoonful before meals is the dose--for the spring of +the year. An old family remedy, this,--one of the bitterest and most +potent concoctions ever shaken in a bottle, a gold-brown devil that +gagged full-length. The inconceivable organic need for alcohol worked +strangely, since Charter's stomach retained a half-tumbler of this +horrible dosage. Possibly, it could not have held straight whiskey at +once. Internally cleansed, he, of course, responded immediately to the +warmth. Plans for whiskey instantly awoke in his brain. He touched the +button which connected with his man in the stable; then waited by a rear +window until the other appeared. + +"Bob," he called down shakily, "have you got any whiskey?" + +"The half of a half-pint, sir." + +"Bring it up quickly. Here--watch close--I'm tossing down my latch-key." + +The key left his hand badly. He could have embraced Bob for finding it +in the dark as he did. Charter then sat down--still with the bed-clothes +wrapped about him--to wait for the other's step. He felt close to death +in the silence.... Bob poured and held the single drink to his lips. +Charter sat still, swallowing for a moment. Part remained within him. + +"Now, Bob," he said, "run across the street to Dr. Whipple, and tell +him I need some whiskey. Tell him he needn't come over--unless he wants +to. I'm ill, and I've got to get out of here. Hurry back." + +He dared not return to bed now--fear of dreams. To draw on parts of his +clothing was an heroic achievement, but he could not bend forward to put +on stockings or shoes without overturning his stomach, the lining of +which was sore as a festering wound. His nostrils, with their continual +suggestions, now tortured him with a certain half-cooked odor of his own +inner tissues. The consciousness of having lost his will--that he was +thirty years old, and shortly to be drunk again--became the nucleus for +every flying storm-cloud in his brain. He knew what it would be now. He +would drink regularly, fatten, redden, and betray every remnant of good +left within him--more and more distended and brutalized--until his heart +stopped or his liver hardened. And the great work? He tried to smile at +this. Those who had looked for big things from his maturity had chosen a +musty vessel. He would write of the loves of the flesh, and of physical +instincts--one of the common--with a spark of the old genius now and +then to light up the havoc--that he might writhe! Yes, he would never +get past that--the instantaneous flash of his real self to lift him +where he belonged--so he would not forget to suffer--_when he fell +back_.... "I'll break that little system," he muttered angrily, as to an +enemy in the room, "I'll drink my nerve back and shoot my head off...." +But bigger, infinitely more important, than any of these thoughts, was +the straining of every sense for Bob's step in the hall--Bob with the +whiskey from his never-failing friend, Dr. Whipple.... Yes, he had +chosen whiskey to drive out the God-stuff from his soul. What a dull, +cheap beast he was! + +The day was breaking--a sweet summer morning. He wrapped the bed-clothes +closer about him, and lifted the window higher. The nostrils that had +brought him so much of squalor and horror now expanded to the new life +of the day--vitality that stirred flowers and foliage, grasses and skies +to beauty; the blessed morning winds, lit with faint glory. The East was +a great, gray butterfly's wing, shot with quivering lines of mauve and +gold. It shamed the hulk huddled at the window. Bob's foot on the stairs +was the price of his brutality. + +"Great mornin' for a ride. Beth is fit as a circus. I'd better get her +ready, hadn't I, sir?" + +"God, no!" Charter mumbled. "Help me on with my boots, and pour out a +drink. Bring fresh water.... Did Doctor----" + +"Didn't question me, sir. Brought what you wanted, and said he'd drop +over to see you to-day." + +Charter held his mouth for the proffered stimulant, and beckoned the +other back. + +"Let me sit still for a minute or two. Don't joggle about the room, +Bob." + +Revulsion quieted, the nausea passed. Bob finished dressing him, and +Charter moved abroad. He took the flask with him, lest it be some +forgotten holiday and the bars closed. A man who has had such a night as +his is slavish for days before the fear of being _without_. He was +pitifully weak, but the stimulus had lifted his mind out of the hells of +obsession. + +The morning wind had sweetened the streets. Lawns, hedges, vines, and +all the greens seemed washed and preened to meet the sun. To one who has +hived with demons, there is something so simple and sanative about the +restoring night--the rest of healing and health. He could have wept at +the virtue of simple goodness--so easy, so vainly sought amid the +complications of vanity and desire. Well and clearly he saw now that +mild good, undemonstrative, unaggressive good--seventy years of bovine +plodding, sunning, grazing, drowsing--is a step toward the Top. What a +travesty is genius when it is arraigned by an august morning; men who +summon gods to their thinking, yet fail in the simple lessons that dogs +and horses and cats have grasped! All the more foul and bestial are +those whom gods have touched within; charged with treason of manhood by +every good and perfect thing, when they cannot rise and meet the day +with clean hearts. Charter would have given all his evolution for the +simple decency of his man, Bob, or his mare, Beth. + +The crowd of thoughts incensed him, so he hurried.... Dengler was +sweeping out his bar. Screen-doors slammed open, and a volume of dust +met the early caller as he was about to enter. Dengler didn't drink, and +he was properly pleased with the morning. Lafe Schiel, who was scrubbing +cuspidors for Dengler, drank. That's why he cleaned cuspidors. Dengler +greeted his honored patron effusively. + +"Suppose you've been working all night, Mr. Charter. You look a little +roughed and tired. You work while we sleep--eh? That's the way with you +writer-fellows. I've got a niece that writes. I told you about her. +She's ruined her eyes. She says she can get her best thoughts at night. +You're all alike." + +"Have a little touch, Lafe?" Charter asked, turning to the porter, who +wiped his hands on his trousers and stepped forward gratefully. + +Bottles were piled on the bar, still beer-stained from the night before. +Dengler put forward clean, dripping glasses from below, and stroked the +bottle with his palm, giving Lafe water, and inquiring of Charter what +he would have "for a wash...." Dengler, so big-necked, healthy, and +busy, talking about his breakfast and not corrupting his body with the +stuff others paid for; Lafe Schiel in his last years--nothing but +whiskey left--no thought, no compunction, no man, no soul, just a +galvanic desire--these three in a tawdry little up-town bar at five in +the morning--and he, Quentin Charter, with a splendid mare to ride, a +mother to breakfast with, a world's work to do; he, Quentin Charter, in +this diseased growth upon the world's gutter, in this accumulation of +cells which taints all society. + +Charter drank and glanced at the morning paper. The sheet still damp +from the press reminded him of the night's toil in the office down-town +(a veritable strife of work, while he had grovelled)--copy-makers, +copy-readers, compositors, form-makers, and pressmen--he knew many of +them--all fine fellows, decently resting now, deservedly resting. And +the healthy little boys, cutting their sleep short, to deliver from door +to door, even to Dengler's, this worthy product for the helpful dollar! +Ah, God, the world was so sweet and pure in its worthier activities! God +only asked that--not genius, just slow-leisured decency would pass with +a blessing. God had eternity to build men, and genius which looked out +upon a morning like this, from a warm tube of disease, was concentrated +waste! Charter cleared his throat. Thoughts were pressing down upon him +too swiftly again. He ordered another drink, and Dengler winked +protestingly as he turned to call Lafe Schiel. The look said, "Don't buy +him another, or I won't get my cuspidors cleaned." + +So Charter felt that he was out of range and alignment everywhere, and +the drink betrayed him, as it always does when in power. Not even in +Lafe Scheil was the devil surer of his power this day. The whiskey did +not brighten, but stimulated thought-terrors upon the subject of his own +shattering.... Dengler found him interesting--this man so strangely +honored by others; by certain others honored above politicians. He +wondered now why the other so recklessly plied the whip.... The change +that came was inevitable. + +"There now, old fellow," Dengler remonstrated familiarly, "I don't like +to turn you down, but you can't--honest, you can't--stand much more." + +This was at seven-thirty. Charter straightened up, laughed, and started +to say, "This is the first----" + +But he reflected that once before this same thing had happened +somewhere: he had been deemed too drunk to drink--somewhere before.... +He wabbled in the memory, and mumbled something wide to the point of +what he had meant to say, and jerked out.... That buttoning of his coat +about his throat (on a brilliant summer morning); that walking out +swiftly with set jaw and unseeing eyes, was but one of many landmarks to +Dengler--landmarks on the down-grade. He had seen them all in his twenty +years; seen the whole neighborhood change; seen clean boys redden, +fatten, and thrive for a time; watched the abyss widen between young +married pairs, his own liquors running in the bottom; seen men leave +their best with him and take home their beast.... Dengler, yes, had seen +many things worth telling and remembering. They all owed him at the +last.... In some ways, this man, Charter, was different. He tried to +remember who it was who first brought Charter in, and who that party of +swell chaps were who, finding Charter there one day, had made a sort of +hero out of him and tarried for hours.... The beer-man, in his leather +apron, entered to spoil this musing. He put up the old square-face +bottle, and served for a "chaser" a tall shell of beer.... Even beer-men +could not last. Dengler had seen many who for a year or two "chased" gin +with beer at every call. There was Schultz, a year ago about this time. +He'd been driving a wagon for a couple of years. Schultz had made too +many stops before he reached Dengler's that day. A full half-barrel had +crushed him to the pavement just outside the door. + +"Put two halves in the basement, and leave me a dozen cases of pints," +Dengler ordered. + + * * * * * + +Charter was met at the door by his mother. She had expected to find him +suffering from nerves, but clean. He had always kept his word, and she +had waited for this day. She did not need to look at him twice, but put +on her bonnet and left the house. She returned within an hour with three +of Charter's men friends. Bob, whom she had left to take care of her +son, reported that he had a terrible time. Charter, unable to find his +six-shooter, had overturned the house and talked of conspiracy and +robbery. He had fallen asleep within the last few minutes. Strange that +the mother had thought to hide the six-shooter.... + +The men lifted him to a closed carriage. Charter was driven to a +sanatorium. One of the friends undertook to stay with him for a day or +two. Charter did not rightly realize where he was until evening. He +appeared to take the news very quietly. Whiskey was allowed him when it +was needed. Other patients in various states of convalescence offered +assistance in many ways. That night, when the friend finally fell asleep +in the chair at the bedside, Charter arose softly, went into a hall, +_where a light was burning_, and plunged down into the dark--twenty-two +brass-covered steps. His head broke the panel of the front door at the +foot. His idea was the same which had made him hunt for his six-shooter +the morning before. Besides the door, he broke his nose, his arm, and +covered himself with bruises, but fell short, years yet unnumbered, from +his intent. Under the care of experts after that, he was watched +constantly, and given stimulus at gradually lengthening intervals--until +he refused it himself on the seventh day. Three weeks later, still, he +left the place, a man again, with one hundred and twenty needle +punctures in the flesh of his unbroken arm. + + + + +FOURTEENTH CHAPTER + +THE SINGING OF THE SKYLARK CEASES ABRUPTLY; CHARTER HASTENS EAST TO FIND +A QUEER MESSAGE AT _THE GRANVILLE_ + + +Charter, three years after the foregoing descent into realism, was +confessedly as happy a man as the Mid-West held. He accepted his +serenity with a full knowledge of its excellence, and according to his +present health and habits would not have been excited to find himself +still among those present, had the curtain been lifted thirty or forty +years away. In the year that followed the sanatorium experience, Charter +in reality found himself. There were a few months in which work came +slowly and was uncertain in quality. In his entire conception, nothing +worse could happen than an abatement of mental activity, but he did not +writhe, knowing that he richly deserved the perfect punishment. So +slowly and deeply did physical care and spiritual awakening restore the +forces of mind, however, that he did not realize an expansion of power +until his first long work had received critical and popular acclaim, and +he could see it, himself, in perspective. So he put off the last and +toughest shackle of King Fear--the living death. + +As for drinking, that had beaten him. He had no thought to re-challenge +the champion. In learning that he could become abject, a creature of +paralyzed will, he had no further curiosity. This much, however, he had +required to be shown, and what a tender heart he had ever afterward for +the Lafe Schiels of this world. There were other vivid animals, strong +and agile, in his quiver of physical passions, but he discovered that +these could not become red and rending without alcohol. Such were +clubbed into submission accordingly. With alcohol, Charter could travel +any one of seven sorry routes to the gutter; without it, none. This was +his constant source of thankfulness--that he had refined his elements +without abating their dynamics. The forces that might have proved so +deadly in mastery, furnished a fine vitality under the lash. + +All was sanative and open about him. Charter knew the ultimate dozen of +the hundred and forty-four thousand rules for health--and made these his +habit. The garret, so often spoken of, was the third-floor of his +mother's mansion. Since he slept under the sky, his sleeping-room was +also a solarium. There was a long, thickly-carpeted hall where he paced +and smoked meditatively; a trophy-room and his study and library. +Through books and lands, he had travelled as few men of his years, and +always with an exploring mind. In far countries, his was an eye of quick +familiarity; always he had been intensely a part of his present environ, +whether Typee or Tibet. Then, the God-taught philosophers of Asia and +Europe, and our own rousing young continent, were the well-beloved of +his brain, so that he saw many things with eyes lit by their prophecies. +As for money, he was wealthy, as Channing commends, rather than rich, +and for this competence of late, he had made not a single concession, or +subverted the least of his ideals, selling only the best of his +thoughts, the expression of which polished the product and increased the +capacity. He fitted nothing to the fancied needs of marketing. His +mother began truly to live now, and her external nature manifested below +in fine grains and finished services. Between the two, the old Charter +formalities were observed. She was royal steel--this white-haired +mother--and a cottage would have become baronial about her. Where she +was, there lived order and silence and poise. + +After this enumeration of felicitous details, one will conclude that +this has to deal with a selfish man; yet his gruelling punishments must +not be forgotten, nor the Quentin spirit. It is true that he had emerged +miraculously unhurt from many dark explorations; but his appreciation of +the innate treachery and perversion of events was sound and keen. By no +means did he challenge any complication which might strip him to +quivering nakedness again. Rather his whole life breathed gratitude for +the goodly days as they came, and glided into untormented nights. Next +in importance to the discovery that his will could be beaten was this +which the drinking temperament so hesitatingly grants--that there are +thrilling hearts, brilliant minds, memorable conversations, and lovely +impulses among men and women who will not tarry long over the wine. +Simple as this seems, it was hard for a Charter to learn.... As he +contemplated the full promise of his maturity, the thought often +came--indeed, he expressed it in one of the Skylark letters--that this +was but a period of rest and healing in which he was storing power for +sterner and more subtle trials. + +Such is an intimation of the mental and moral state of Quentin Charter +in his thirty-fourth year, when he began to open the Skylark letters +with more than curiosity.... He knew Reifferscheid, and admired him with +the familiar enthusiasm of one who has read the editor's work +intermittently for years. Charter, of course, was delighted with the +review of his second book. It did not occur to him that it could have +been written by other than the editor himself. Reifferscheid's reply to +Charter's letter of thanks for the critique proved the key to the whole +matter, since it gave the Westerner both focus and dimension for his +visioning. + + I haven't read your book yet, old friend, but I'm going to + shortly. Your fine letter has been turned over to Miss Paula + Linster, a young woman who has been doing some reviews for me, + of late; some of the most important, in which lot your book, of + course, fell. The review which pleased you is only one of a + hundred that has pleased me. Miss Linster is the last word--for + fineness of mind. Incidentally, she is an illumination to look + at, and I haven't the slightest doubt but that she sings and + paints and plays quite as well as she writes book notices. If + she liked a work of mine as well as she likes yours, I should + start on a year's tramp, careless of returns from States yet to + be heard from. The point that interests me is that you could do + a great book about women, away off there in the Provinces--_and + without knowing her_. + + You may wonder at this ebullition. Truth is, I'm backing down, + firmly, forcefully, an inclination to do an essay on the + subject. This is the first chance I ever had to express matters + which have come forth from the Miraculous in the past year. All + that she does has the ultimate feminine touch,--but I'll stop + before I get my sleeves up again about this new order of being. + Perhaps you deserve to know Miss Linster. You'd never be the + same afterwards, so I'm not so sure whether I'd better + negotiate it or not. I'm glad to see your book has left the + post so perfectly. Always come to see me when in town. Yours + solid, Reifferscheid. + +And so she became the Skylark to Quentin Charter, because she was lost +in the heights over by the seaboard, and only her singing came out of +the blue.... There were fine feminine flashes in the letters Charter +received, rare exquisite matters which can be given to the world, only +through the one who inspires their warm delicacy and charm. The circuit +was complete, and the voltage grew mightier and mightier. + +There was a royal fall night, in which Charter's work came ill, because +thoughts of her monopolized. Life seemed warm and splendid within him. +He turned off the electric bulb above his head, and the moonlight burst +in--a hunting moon, full and red as Mars. There was thrilling glory in +the purple south, and a sense of the ineffable majesty of stellar +management. He banished the night panorama with the electric button +again, and wrote to the Skylark. This particular letter proved the kind +which annihilates all sense of separateness, save the animal heaviness +of miles, and makes this last, extra carking and pitiless for the time. +It may have been that Charter would have hesitated to send this letter, +had he read it over again in the cool of morning, but it happened that +he yearned for a walk that night--and passed a mail-box, while the +witchery of the night still enchanted. + +He felt dry, a bit burned the next morning, and saddled for a couple of +hours, transferring the slight strain of nerves to his muscles. There +was a note from the Skylark. She had found an old picture of his in a +magazine and commented on it deliciously.... "I wonder if you think of +me as I am--plain, _plain_?" she had asked.... No, he did not. Nor was +it Reifferscheid's words to the contrary that prevented him. It is not +in man to correlate plainness with a mystic attraction. She had never +appeared to him as beautiful exactly, but fine, vivid, electric--a +manifestation of eyes, lips, mind. All the poundage part of a human +being was utterly vague in his concept of the Skylark.... Charter +naturally lost his perspective and penetration in dealing with his own +interlacing emotions. + +The present letter thralled him. It was blithe in intent, but +intuitively deep and keen. In a former letter, he had asked if there +were not a strain of Irish in her lineage, so mercurial did her +temperament play in all that she wrote. "No Irish," she had answered. +"Dutch--straight Dutch. Always New York--always Dutch. I praise +Providence for this 'monkey-wrench to hang upon my safety valve.'" + +The "red moon" letter seemed to have caught her on the wing--at her +highest and happiest--for she answered it in fine faith and lightness. +Though it had carried her up and up; and though the singing came back +from golden azure, yet she had not forgotten her humor. There was a +suggestion of world-wisdom here, or was it world-wear? + +For hours at a time, Charter was now stripped of his capacity for work. +This is fine torment. Mostly there was a sheet in his type-mill, but his +fingers only fluttered the space-bar. Let him begin a letter to the +Skylark, however, and inspiration came, indeed. His thoughts marshalled +like a perfect army then, and passed out from under his hand in flashing +review.... He ate little, slept little, but his vitality was prodigious. +A miracle matured in his breast. Had he not been more than usually +stubborn, he would have granted long before, that he loved a woman for +the first time in his life--and this a woman he had never seen. + +By New Year's there was no dissembling. No day passed now in which he +did not battle down an impulse to take a train for New York. This was +real living. The destiny which had ruled him through so many dark +wanderings, had waited until his soul was roused to dominance, before he +was permitted to enter earth's true treasury. It was now that he +remembered his past, and many a mile and many an hour he paced the dim +hall--wrestling to be clean of it. This was a Soul which called. He did +not dare to answer while a vestige of the old taints lingered.... He was +seldom troubled that she might prove less inspiring than he pictured. He +staked every reliance in that he had lived thirty-three years and +encountered nothing comparable with this before. Passions, fascinations, +infatuations, were long put behind; these were classed now in his mind +beneath decent and frictionless partnerships between men and women. + +The vision which inspired his romantic loneliness was all that +Reifferscheid had suggested, and infinitely more which his own dreamings +had supplied. She was an adult frankly challenged by the mysteries of +creation; often shocked by its revelations, never above pity nor beneath +humor, wonderful in her reality of culture, and wise above men with a +woman's divination. But particularly, her ultimate meaning was for +_him_; his quest, she was; his crown, to be. The world had preserved her +singing, until he was ready; and though singing, she must ever feel the +poverty of unfulfilment in her own breast, until he came. This was the +stately form of the whole enchantment. + +That there existed in creation a _completing_ feminine for all his +lonely and divided forces; that there lived one woman who could evenly +ignite his body, brain, and spirit; that there was hidden in the +splendid plan of things, a Union of Two to form One; all this which had +been drifting star-stuff before, became sparks now for new and terrific +energies of mind; energies, however, which could be trained and directed +only in her presence. + +Man cannot live altogether in the altitudes. There were brief periods +wherein Charter remembered the mad, drink-tainted trifler with lyrics +and women. It had been a past, surely, filled with soul-murdering +illusions. Those who had known him then, would have had to see him now +to find faith. There had been letters about his recent books from men +and women who had known him in the darker, less-spacious days. Failing +to adjust this new and lusty spirit with the man they had known, they +had tried to bring a laugh from him and answers to futile questions. + +Charter could not forget that there come to the desk of a review-editor +many personal notices concerning one whose work is being talked about. +Indeed, such are handled as a matter of routine. The Skylark could not +be expected always to wing aloof from these. All that was vague and +indefinite did not matter; such might even be accounted as admirable +specializations in life, but his acquaintance had been prodigious, and +many clippings came home to him which he was not pleased to read.... +Still, in the main, he relied upon Paula's solid sense of justice; and +every fresh letter lifted him higher and higher. In his own letters, he +did not fail to incorporate a buffer against indefinite revelations. +Moreover, he had never ceased to call it wonderful--this capacity, of +even the purest women, to lock the doors against the ugliest +generalities of a man's past, and to reckon only with specific +instances. It is here that the mother looks out through the eyes of a +maid. + +One April morning, he encountered a depression more formidable in +vitality than ever before. Beth had just had her shoes set, and Charter +tried to ride off the blue devil. He steadied his mount out of town, +until she struck the ringing country road. The instant she felt her +calks bite into the frosty turf, the mare flirted her head, took the +bit, and became a veritable glowing battery of beautiful energy. Twelve +miles he gave her, but the blue devil rode equally well and sat down +again with Charter in his study. It was like a desert-island loneliness, +this which beset him, as if his ship were sinking into the horizon; only +it was a more poignant than physical agony--a sense of spiritual +isolation. + +This study had become to him the place of his dearest revelations of +life. Here, of late especially, he had found refuge from every discord, +and here invariably were opened the letters from the Skylark. The place +of a man's work becomes a grand, quiet solace as he grows older, but +calm and poise were wrested from the room to-day. He fought the +depression with every trained faculty, but was whipped by it. Color and +sunlight were gone from within; the zeal from future work, the warmth +from every promise, the changing lustre from words, and the excellent +energy of thought which impels their weaving. Twilight in mid-afternoon. +He turned on the lights impatiently. Meaning and beauty were bereft from +all his possessions, as buoyancy was gone from his own breast. There was +something pitifully boyish in the trophies he had treasured--so much of +the college cub, and the youth who refuses to permit his travels to be +forgotten. He regarded his past work, as one grown out of it, regretting +that it had ever attracted the materials of permanence. Smugness in his +teachings; cold intellectuality brazen in all his attainments; +everything about him suddenly become sinister from the old life!... He +looked into the East--his country of singing, of roses, cedars, and +fountains--but the gray-black twilight was a damnable intervention.... +It was in this spirit, or lack of it, that he wrote the letter which +revealed to Paula his inner responsiveness, as she was tossed in The +High Tide. + +The letter which she had written almost at the same time, reached him on +the second morning thereafter; and his suffering in the interval he +could only liken to one of the old sieges of reaction after dissipation. +The fine, angular writing, which he never regarded without a sense of +the darting swiftness of her hand; the thin, tough sheets that crinkled, +came like bounty to the starving; yet he was deathly afraid. + + Something of the long ago has just come to me--to my very + rooms. It would not have been believed, had I sought it. I + might have endured it, if _you_ had told me. It is dreadful to + play with illusions. Oh, why must we keep our gods so far + away--lest we lose them? Had I waited longer, I could not have + written. It seems now that you have a right to know--before my + pride dries up all expression. You are not to blame--except + that you were very reckless in adding happinesses one upon the + other. It was all quite ridiculous. I trusted my + intuition--allowed myself to think of a table spread in the + wilderness of the world with you. My intuitions! I used to be + so proud of them. I see now that sometimes they're quite as + fallible as plain thinking, after all. + + I always felt you alone. I seemed to know your voice after + centuries. Yes, I am sure it was that which affected me so + deeply in your work and made me answer your letters with such + faith. _I knew your voice._ I thought of you alone--your spirit + hungry.... It makes one feel so common, when one's intuitions + betray this way. The heart for writing further is cold and + heavy. Once, down the wind, came a fragrant pollen, but the + blowing summer is gone from my garden.... + +No signature. + +She had not penned a skylark with a folded or broken wing. Charter sat +thinking for several moments, but only because he knew there was ample +time to catch the noon-train for New York. That he should do this had +formed in mind before he had read five lines of the letter. This thought +of action steadied him; and the proof that he had sensed her agony and +reflected it throughout the past forty-eight hours made the call of the +East instant and irresistible. It did not come to him at first that he +was now entering the greater conflict, for which Nature had trained him +in tranquillity and fed his soul unto replenishment during three +years.... His first quick thought came out of old habits of mind: _An +hour with her, and her heart will be healed!_ Here was the old trifler. +He suffered for this instant faltering of the brighter manhood. Man's +fineness is not accentuated by the fact that a woman sacrifices her +power within him, when she falls to pleading a little. Charter could +have torn out the old mental fibres upon which played the thought of her +swiftly renewed happiness by his presence. + +The reality of her suffering slowly penetrated his mind. He perceived +that she could not express the actuality; that her thoughts had winged +ineffectually about the immovable disorder--like bees over the clumsy +corpse of a rodent in the hive. It was not to be lifted, and the +inspiration hermetically to seal the monster and resume activities as +well as possible, had not yet come.... "I might have endured it, if +_you_ had told me!" + +He wasted no energy trying to think exactly what had happened. It was +all he could bear to grasp the full meaning that this inspiring creature +who had soared and sung so long, was crushed and cold. Every sentence in +her letter revealed the bruise of her heart, the absence of +spontaneity.... She was as different from other women he had known--the +women who had been healed by his word or his caress--as he was different +in this attraction. He telegraphed that he was coming, begged that she +would see him the following evening, and instructed her to leave word +for him at the _Granville_. Then he packed his bag and told his mother. +She laughed quietly. + +"On the spur of the moment as usual, Quentin.... It will be good for +you. You've been home a long time. Are you going--beyond New York?" + +"I haven't a thought now of going farther, Mother," he answered.... + +Again twilight in mid-afternoon--as he crossed the river from Jersey. It +had been a day and night to age the soul--with its inexorable stretch of +material miles. New York had a different look, a different atmosphere, +than ever before. Huge and full of horrible grinding; sick with work and +sick with damp--but above this, the magic of her presence was over all. +It was only four in the afternoon, and he had not asked to see her until +seven. Might she not have watched for him or be near him now? She would +know him from his pictures, and observe him as a stranger, but he had +only his visions. + +On the Cross-town to the _Granville_, emotions played upon him of a kind +that he could not have understood in another man a few months before. +Moreover, he felt himself giving way before the vibrations of the big +city. Harried and shrunken, he was, like a youth from the fields; and +the voice he had raised so valiantly from afar against this tremendous +massed soul, seemed now but the clamor of a boy in the safety of his own +door. To and fro along his inflamed nerves crept the direct need of a +drink and a cigarette--old wolves forever on the watch for the spent and +the wounded.... Actually terrorized, he was, at the thought she might +not see him; that there might be no note for him at the _Granville_. +What a voyage in the dark. + +For the time, his excellent moral balance had deserted shamelessly. An +adequate perception of his own position and attitude in the eyes of high +womanhood had unhelmed him, quite properly. Nature had finally found a +hot retort which just fitted his case--and in he went.... No purely +physical ardor could have called Quentin Charter out of his study and +far across the continent. Lesser loves than this have plunged nations +into war, and broken the main trend of history into pregnant +digressions. The more penetratingly one regards the man in his present +consuming, the more formidable becomes the conviction that the human +cosmos in the beginning was cleft in twain: one to grope to the light, a +male; the other to suffer the way, her burden, the curse of Eve. When +these mates of fire fulfil their divided destinies and sweep into the +zone of mutual attraction, woe to the satellites and asteroids in the +inevitable cataclysm which follows.... Yet it is out of such solar +throes that gods and prophets are born.... He gave his bag to a boy at +the _Granville_ entrance, and stepped forward to the desk, clearing his +throat and repeating his question.... The clerk rushed through the +letters in "C." + +"No, Mr. Charter,--not a letter, but wait just a moment; there was a +telephone-call." + +A chill had swept through him as the man spoke. It had not occurred to +him that the word would come in other than her handwriting. This was an +unsigned note, written by the telephone-girl: + + Mr. Quentin Charter: A lady who says you will understand, + 'phoned that she will be home at seven to-night--if you think + it wise and kind to come to her. + +The message was dated at two P. M. Both chill and burning were in the +words. It was strangely unlike her; yet in passing through the +operator's mind, it might have become routine. The word "kind" was a +torturing curb. It placed him on ugly quaking ground. How weak, how +ancient and commonplace, is the human lord after all, when in doubt +regarding his lady's reception of him! Where is his valor now, his +taking of cities, his smiling deaths for honor? Most of all times, he is +man, the male; not man, the soul. Half-way out on the surface-car, he +discovered one of the big "Selma Cross" bill-boards. It was intimate, +startling, an evil omen--great black letters out of the deathless +past.... He stood on the fourth floor of the _Zoroaster_. The +elevator-man had shown him a certain door which was slightly ajar. He +was ill, breathless, and his heart sank strangely with the lights in the +shaft from the descending car.... He tapped on the designated door, and +a deep melodious voice, instantly identified with ancient abandonments, +called gently: + +"Come in!" + + + + +FIFTEENTH CHAPTER + +QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACH +LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS + + +Charter was seized with vertigo. It was his sorry thought that the old +scar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going, +could not endure a crux like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock to +his spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in a +room filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions had +culminated in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an inner +wrench, which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like a +stroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting the +Skylark spirit to the eminent flesh of this old plaything of his, left +him drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into a +deep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as if +it could not grip the blood locked in his veins. + +He sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running through +his brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but something +was wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousness +that he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again one +of his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst. +In the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he felt +the old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of his +mind with all the impish exultation of that lower self. Pride asserted +itself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! He +should always remember with shame this coming to New York--a youthful +Marius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness--coming to this +city (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with an +abortive conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fell +upon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were in +shadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall and +mantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all was +so pervading--as his blood began to move again--that he laughed aloud. + +"Do you know," Selma Cross said softly, "I thought at first you had been +drinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tell +you what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor so +unsteadily--looking so white?" + +"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing for +middle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little later +in your new play, but not here--to-night----" + +"That is what I thought--that incurable thing. You seem floored. I +didn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you were +adaptable--if nothing else." + +His collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in his +lungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now how +Skylark had been stricken. The real devastation was that she belonged to +this sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, this +trap. It was all so different from the consummate fineness, the +pervading delicacy, of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to the +trick, _might she not be listening_?... He did not mind her hearing; +indeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know--but that +she should listen! He writhed. This was not his Skylark at all.... It +was hardly Charter's way now to plunge into the centre of things. There +was a feline elegance in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; she +seemed so delightfully at ease, that he was willing to make it a bit +harder for her. + +"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly," he said slowly. "It is +something, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has made +good so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I had +read all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounter +your stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to find +you here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle. +As for your work--few know its quality better than I." + +She studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. "As for +that, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too," she said finally. "I +never doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I feared +that whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfully +changed--so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you went +away; what else have you been doing?--I mean, to change you so finely." + +"Garret." + +Her brow clouded at the word. It was as if she had expected to laugh at +him long before this. "Did any woman ever tell you that you're rather a +mean sort, Quentin Charter?" + +"Doubtless I have deserved it," he answered. "What are you thinking?" + +"I was thinking of your garret--where you gather your victims for +vivisection." + +"That's put very clearly." + +"Do you think this is big-man stuff?" + +"My case is rather an ugly one to look back upon, truly," Charter +granted. "For a long time, it appeared to me that I must learn things at +first-hand. With first-water talents, perhaps this is not necessary." + +"A woman finally brings a man face to face," she said with sudden scorn, +"and he becomes limp, agrees with everything she says.... 'Yes, it is +quite true, I was an awful beast. What else, dear?'--ugh!" + +Charter smiled. She was very swift and deft in supplying a man's evil +motives. It is a terrible feminine misfortune--this gift of +imputing--and happy women do not possess it. Few men, incidentally, are +deep enough to avail themselves of all the crafts and cunnings with +which they may be accredited. + +"I have no intention of destroying the slightest gratification you may +draw, Selma, from questioning me," he said. "If I appear limp, please +remember that I'm a bit in the dark as yet. I came to this floor on a +different errand. I had this errand in mind--not self-examination. +However, I'll attend now in all sincerity. You were speaking of my +victims for vivisection in the garret." + +She appeared not to trust him in the least. "I've always wanted +to know if you believed--what an apprentice I really was in +love--give-and-take--when you came?" + +"That was easily believed, Selma----" + +"Then you grant I wasn't acting--when I gave myself to you?" + +"I didn't think you were acting----" + +"Then _you_ were acting, because when the time came--you dropped me +quite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased to +feed." + +"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, and +certainly not acting altogether, until----" + +"Enter--the wine," she said with a sneer. + +"Yes, if you will." He was irritated for a second, having meant to say +something entirely different. + +"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon his +drinking!" + +"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the whole +life that the drinking carried me into--that I had such horror for when, +when I became well." + +"You got well very suddenly after you left me," she told him. Her huge +face was livid, and her lips dry. + +"On the contrary, I was a long time ill." Her temper chilled his +attempts at sincerity. + +"It looked so from those first few--letters, is rather a dignified +word." + +"I say it with shame, I was practically unable to write. I was burnt out +when I left here. I had been to Asia--gone from home seven months--and +the returning fool permitted the bars to welcome him----" + +"You seized a moment to dictate a letter----" + +"Silence would have been far better," he said. "I see that now. My only +idea was to let you hear. Writing myself was out of the question by that +time." + +"You wrote an article about stage people--with all the loftiness of an +anaemic priest." + +"That was written before I left here--written and delivered----" + +"All the worse, that you could write such an article--while you were +spending so much time with me." + +"I have never belittled what you gave me, Selma. I could praise you, +without admiring the stage. You are amazingly different. I think that's +why New York is talking about you to-night. I had made many trips to New +York and knew many stage people, before I met you. If you had belonged +to the type familiar to me, I should have needed a stronger stimulus +than drink to force an interest. Had there been others like you--had I +even encountered 'five holy ones in the city'--I should not have written +that stage article, or others before it." + +"You were one with the Broadway Glowworms, Quentin Charter. Few of them +drank so steadily as you." + +"I have already told you that for a long time I was an unutterable fool. +Until three years ago, I did not begin to know--the breath of life." + +Selma Cross arose and paced the room, stretching out her great arms from +time to time as she walked. "You're getting back your glibness," she +exclaimed, "your quick little sentences which fit in so nicely! Ah, I +know them well, as other women are learning them. But I have things +which you cannot answer so easily--you of the garret penances.... You +find a starved woman of thirty--play with her for a fortnight, showing +her everything that she can desire, and seeming to have no thought, but +of her. I discover that there was not a moment in which you were so +ardent that you forgot to be an analyst. I forgive that, as you might +forgive things in my day's work. You put on your gray garret-garb, and +forget the hearts of my people, to uncover their weaknesses before the +world--you, so recently one of us, and none more drunk or drained with +the dawn--than you! Such preaching is not good to the nostrils, but I +forgive that. You are sick, and even the drink won't warm you, so you +leave me at a moment's notice----" + +"There was another reason." + +"Hear me out, first," she commanded.... "To you, it is just, 'Adios, my +dear'; to me, it is an uprooting--oh, I don't mind telling you. I was +overturned in that furrow, left naked for the long burning day, but I +remembered my work--the work you despise! I, who had reason to know how +noble your pen can be, forgave even those first paltry letters, filled +with excuses such as a cheap clerk might write. I forgave the dictation, +because it said you were ill--forgave the silences.... But when you came +to New York six months afterwards, and did not so much as 'phone or send +me a card of greeting--Selma called in her silly tears." + +"It was vile ingratitude," he said earnestly. "That's where my big fault +lay. I wonder if you would try to understand the only palliation. You +were strangely generous and wonderful in your ways. I did not cease to +think of that. Personally, you are far above the things I came to abhor. +No one understands but the victim, what alcohol does to a man when it +gets him down. I tried to kill myself. I became convalescent literally +by force. Slowly approaching the normal again, I was glad enough to +live, but the horrors never leave the mind entirely. Everything +connected with the old life filled me with shuddering fear. I tell you +no one hates alcohol like a drunkard fresh in his reform." + +"But I did not make you drink," she said impatiently. "I'm not a +drink-loving woman." + +Charter's face flushed. The interview was becoming a farce. It had been +agony for him to make this confession. She would not see that he +realized his ingratitude; that it was his derangement caused by +indulging low propensities which made him identify her with the days of +evil. + +"I know that very well, Selma Cross," he said wearily, "but the stage is +a part of that old life, that sick night-life that runs eternally around +the belt-line." + +She hated him for reverting to this point. Holding fast to what she +still had to say, the actress picked up a broken thread. "You said there +was another reason why you left New York so suddenly." + +Charter expected now to learn if any one were listening. He was cold +with the thought of the interview being weighed in the balances of a +third mind. + +"You've made a big point of my going away," he essayed. "The other +reason is not a pretty matter, and doubtless you will call any +repugnance of mine an affectation----" + +"Repugnance--what do you mean?" she asked savagely, yet she was afraid, +afraid of his cool tongue. "I never lied to you." + +"That may be true. I'm not curious for evidence to the contrary. The day +before I left for the West, a friend told me that you and I were being +watched; that all our movements were known. I didn't believe it; could +not see the sense--until it was proved that same night by the devious +walk we took.... You doubtless remember the face of that young +night-bird whom we once laughed about. We thought it just one of those +coincidences which frequently occur--a certain face bobbing up +everywhere for a number of days. I assured myself that night that you +knew nothing of this remarkable outside interest in our affairs." + +Selma Cross, with swift stealth, disappeared into the apartment-hall and +closed the outer door; then returned, facing him. Her yellow eyes were +wide open, filled with a misty, tortured look. To Charter the place and +the woman had become haggard with emptiness. He missed the occasional +click of the elevator in the outer-hall, for it had seemed to keep him +in touch with the world's activities. The old carnal magnetism of Selma +Cross stirred not a tissue in him now; the odor of her garments which +once roused him, was forbidding. He had not the strength to believe that +the door had been shut for any other reason than to prevent Skylark from +hearing. The actress had not minded how their voices carried, so long as +_he_ was being arraigned.... The air was devitalized. It was as if they +were dying of heart-break--without a sound.... It had been so +wonderful--this thought of finding his mate after the aeons, his +completion--a woman beautiful with soul-age and spiritual light.... + +Selma Cross was speaking. Charter stirred from his great trouble. She +was changed, no longer the clever mistress of a dramatic hour.... Each +was so burdened with a personal tragedy that pity for the other was slow +to warm between them. + +"Do you mean that old Villiers paid the night-bird to watch us--to learn +where we went, and possibly what we said?" she was saying hoarsely. +Selma Cross felt already that her cad was exploded. + +"Yes, and that was unpleasant," Charter told her. "I didn't like the +feel of that procurer's eyes, but what revolted me was Villiers himself. +I took pains to learn his name the next day--that last day. There isn't +a more unclean human package in New York.... It was so unlike you. I +couldn't adjust the two. I couldn't be where he had been. I was sick +with my own degradation. I went back to my garret." + +Selma Cross was crippled; she saw there was no lie in this. At what a +price had been bought the restoration of faith for Paula Linster!... She +had heard after their compact about Villiers' early days. There had been +times when her fingers itched to tighten upon his scrawny throat. To +have Quentin Charter hear this record was fire in her veins; it embraced +the added horror that Stephen Cabot might also hear.... There was +nothing further with which to charge the man before her. She nursed her +wrath to keep from crying out. + +"Was it a man's way to give me no chance to explain?" she demanded. + +"Broadway knew Villiers." + +"I did not!" + +"Anyway, I couldn't get it straight in my mind, then," Charter said +hastily. "You're no vulgar woman, mad after colors and dollars. You love +your work too much to be one of those insatiable deserts of passion. Nor +are you a creature of black evolution who prefers the soul, to the body +of man, for a plaything.... You were all that was generous and normally +fervent with me.... Let's cut the subject. It does not excuse me for not +calling when I came to New York. You were nothing if not good to me." + +"Then Villiers paid to find out things about us," she said slowly. "He +said you bragged about such matters to your friends." + +Charter shivered. "I fail to see how you troubled about a man not +writing--if you could believe that about him." + +"I didn't see how he could know our places of meeting--any other way. I +should never have seen him again, if he hadn't made me believe this of +you." + +Charter scarcely heard her. The thought was inevitable now that the +actress might have represented him to Skylark as one with the loathed +habit of talking about women to his friends. The quick inclination to +inquire could not overcome his distaste for mentioning a dear name in +this room. The radiant, flashing spirit behind the letters did not +belong here.... His brain ached with emptiness; he wondered continually +how he could ever fill the spaces expanded by the Skylark's singing.... + +In the brain of Selma Cross a furious struggle was joined. Never before +had she been given to see so clearly her own limitations--and this in +the high light of her great dramatic triumph. Her womanhood contained +that mighty quality of worshiping intellect. This, she had loved in +Charter long ago; in Stephen Cabot now. The inner key to her greatness +was her capacity to forget the animal in man--if he proved a brain. +There is only one higher reverence--that of forgetting brain to worship +soul. Perceiving the attitude of Quentin Charter to her old life, it was +made clear to her that she must preserve a lie in her relation with +Stephen Cabot; if, indeed, the playwright did not learn outside, as +Charter had done. It was plain that he did not know yet, since he had +not run from her--to a garret somewhere. What a hideous mockery was this +night--begun in pride! Distantly she was grateful that Paula Linster was +at hand to be restored, but her own mind was whipped and cowed by its +thoughts--so there was little energy for another's romance.... Charter +had made no comment on her last remark. She realized now that his +thoughts were bearing him close to the truth. + +"You say they forced you to cast out your enemy," she declared hoarsely. +"I cast out mine of my own accord. If there is palliation for you, there +should be for a woman in her first experience. You asked me to stretch +my imagination about a drink-reaction making you avoid me. I ask you, +how is a woman, for the first time alone with a man--to know that he is +different from other men? Add to this, a woman who has come up from the +dregs--for years in the midst of the slum-blooms of the chorus? What I +heard from them of their nights--would have taxed the versatility of +even Villiers--to make me see him lower than I expected! I ask you--how +did I know he was an exception--rather than the rule among the +Glowworms?" + +"I'm rather glad you said that," Charter declared quickly. "It's a point +of view I'm grateful for. Do you wonder that the life from which you +have risen to one of the regnant queens has become inseparable in my +mind with shuddering aversion?" + +In the extremity of her suffering, her mind had reverted, as an artist's +always does when desperately pressed, to thoughts of work--work, the +healer, the refuge where devils truly are cast out. Even in her work she +now encountered the lash, since Charter despised it. Literally, she was +at bay before him. + +"Always that!" she cried. "It is detestable in you always to blame my +work. I broke training. I should have won without the damned angel. You +degraded yourself for years in your work, but I don't hear you blaming +art for your debaucheries! You have sat alone so long that you think all +men outside are foul. You sit high in your attic, so that all men look +like bugs below!" + +"There is something in what you say," he answered, aroused by her +bigness and strength. "Yet in my garret, I do not deal with rootless +abstractions. Everything has its foundation in actual observation. I +moved long among the play-managers, and found them men of +huckster-minds--brainless money-bags, dependent upon every passing wind +of criticism. I tell you, when one talked to them or to their +office-apes--one felt himself, his inner-self, rushing forth as if to +fill something bottomless----" + +"You do not know Vhruebert----" + +"Eliminate him. I am not speaking of any particular man. I do not mean +all playwrights when I say that I found playwrights as a class, not +literary workers--but literary tricksters. I am not speaking of _The +Thing_, nor of its author, of whom I have heard excellent word--when I +say that plays are not written, but rewritten by elementals, who, +through their sheer coarseness, sense the slow vibrations of the mob, +and feculate the original lines to suit." + +"Bah--an idea from one of your nights, when you tried to drown the blue +devils! It broods over all your thinking! You forget the great army, +that silent army, which is continually lifting itself artistically by +writing one after another--impossible plays. You forget the great hearts +of the players--men and women who pull together for big results." + +"I am not speaking of the vast library of manuscript failures, but of a +small proportion which get into the sinister glare of Broadway----" + +"My God, Broadway is not New York!" + +"For which I am powerfully glad," he answered with energy. "As for warm +human hearts--there is warmth and loyalty, genuine tears and decent +hopes in every brothel and bar--yet the black trends of their existence +course on. This was so hard for me to learn, that I have it very +clearly.... I remember the opening night of Martha Boardman as a +star--telegrams pouring in, critics besieging her dressing-room. Even +her manager didn't know what he had, until the critics told him the play +would stay in New York a year--yet his name was on the boards above the +star and bigger than the author's. I watched the bleak, painted faces of +the women and heard their false voices acclaiming the new star. What +they had in their hearts was not praise, but envy. Their words were +sham, indecency and lying. Eternally simulating--that's the stage life. +Pity the women--poor Maachas, if you will--but their work is damnable, +nevertheless. It is from such unhappy creatures evading motherhood that +youths get the abominable notion that real manhood lies in the loins." + +"Poor youths--go on! When you have finished I shall tell you something." + +"Don't misunderstand me, Selma Cross. No one knows better than I--how +the sexes prey upon each other--how they drag each other to the ground. +Only I was thinking of the poor things in ties, canes, cigarettes and +coatings--out catching!... I saw the whole horrid, empty game of the +stage. You have come wonderfully and differently into the glare, but let +me ask where is Martha Boardman to-night--a few short years later?" + +"Yes, she was tired, her energy burned out, when she finally arrived. +It's a stiff grade," Selma Cross said gently. + +"I would explain it, that she was prostituted from _excessive +simulation_--season after season of simulation--emotion after emotion +false to herself! The Law says, 'Live your own life.' The Stage says, +'Act mine,'--so pitiably often a poor playwright's abortive sensations! +What can happen to a body that continually makes of itself a lying +instrument? Like the queen-bee whose whole life is made up of +egg-laying--the brain of this poor purveyor of emotions becomes a waxy +pulp. As for her soul--it is in God's hands--let us hope." + +"It is good to laugh at you, Quentin Charter. You have another appetite. +You wanted alcohol when I knew you first--now you thirst after purists +and winged women. I have a lover now who can live among men, soar just +as high as you do, work with just as much greatness and strength, +without ever having degraded himself or believed all human creatures +vile. The stage has its shams, its mockeries, but its glories, too. It +is not all deranged by money-bags. The most brilliant of your writers +give us our lines--the most wonderful of your mystics. It is true we +simulate; true that ours is a constant giving; but call in your +garret-high logic now, Sir Prophet: Look at the tired empty faces of my +company, look at mine, after we have finished _The Thing_; then look at +the strengthened grip on life and the lifted hopes which, each night, +the multitude takes from out our breasts--and call ours a prostitution, +if you can!" + +Charter arose and extended his hand, which she took gracelessly, but was +instantly sorry that she had misjudged his intent. + +"Can't you see, Selma Cross, that you and I have no difference, no point +for argument, if the general run of plays were like _The Thing_--as you +make me see it? We had eliminated this from the discussion, but I have +nothing but praise for Vhruebert, nothing but enthusiasm for Mr. Cabot +and for you--if the combination gives the people an expansion of hope +and a lifted ideal. Do that, and you need not reckon with critics." + +Instantly she changed her point of view again, so that he was both +chilled and puzzled. "I should have been glad to come out in any +successful play," she said wearily. "_The Thing_ just happens to have an +uplift----" + +"So much is accomplished for you, then. You will never be content again +with a play that has not. Oh, I don't mean ostensible good, +melodramatically contrasted with obvious bad, but the subtle inspiration +of real artists--that marvellous flexibility of line and largeness of +meaning that fits about every life! Just as you can draw fresh strength +again and again from a great poem; so, in performing a great play--one +does not act, but lives!" + +"Are you going?" she questioned absently. + +"Yes, I confess I haven't been so consumed in years----" + +She drew close to him.... "It has been dramatic, if not literary, hasn't +it?" Her nostrils dilated and her lower lip was drawn back between her +teeth. + +He smiled. + +"I feel burnt out, too," she went on softly. "It has been strange +to be with you again--almost like--those early mornings.... Did you +ever hear me calling you--'way off there in the West? I used to lie +awake, all feverish after you went away, calling in a whisper, +'Quentin--Quentin!...' It seemed you must come, if you were alive. There +were times after you went away, that I would have given this week's +victory, which I saw from afar,--to have you rush in for just one +hour!... In God's name," she cried suddenly, "is there really this sort +of honor in living man--is it because you hate me--or do you have to +drink to take a woman in your arms? You, who used to be--singing +flames?" + +Charter was not unattracted, but his self-command was strangely +imperious. There was magnetism now in the old passion--but a flutter of +wings broke the attraction.... Darkness covered the wings, and the song +was stilled; yet in that faint rustling, was enchantment which changed +to brute matter--these open arms and the rising breast. + +"I'm afraid it is as you said--about the anaemic priest," he muttered +laughingly.... And then it occurred to him that there might have been a +trick to her tempting.... From this point he was sexless and could pity +her, though his nerves were raw from her verbal punishments. It was +altogether new in his experience--this word-whipping; and though he had +not sharpened a sentence in retaliation, he could not but see the +ghastly way in which a woman is betrayed by her temper, which checks a +man's passion like a sudden fright. Between a woman given to rages and +her lover--lies a naked sword. Consummate, in truth, is the siren who +has mastered the art of silence.... Selma Cross sank back into a chair. +The world's wear was on her brow and under her eyes, as she laughed +bitterly. + +"You always had a way of making me sick of life," she said strangely. "I +wonder if ever there was a humiliation so artistically complete as +mine?" + +This was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not be +quite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating had +been the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically an +actress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was not +prepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman, +Selma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that his +theory was amazingly strengthened here--the theory that moral +derangement results from excessive simulation. + +"You--would--not--kiss--me," she repeated. "For my own sake, I'd like to +believe--that you're trying to be true to some one,--but it's all rot +that there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you--you +spook!" + +"You said you had a lover----" + +She shivered. "You left me unfinished." There was a tragic plaint in her +tone, and she added hastily, "There was a reason for my trying you.... I +think the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, is +that you have refused to ask why I brought you here--refused even to +utter the name--of the woman you expected to see--_in my presence_.... +You may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a God +resurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you--or both--to +the point of death! Either way--remember this--I'll be square as a +die--to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what I +mean--to-morrow, I think...." + +He was at the door. "Good-night," he said and touched the signal for the +elevator. + +She called him back, "Come and see me--at my best--at the +_Herriot_--won't you?" + +"Yes----" + +"But tell me what performance--and where your seat is----" + +"... Good-night." + +The car stopped at the floor. + + + + +SIXTEENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT +INTO THE NIGHT + + +It was after eight that Sunday night, when Paula emerged from the +elevator in the upper-hall of the _Zoroaster_, and noted that the door +of the Selma Cross apartment was ajar.... The interval since she had +parted from the actress the evening before had been abundant with +misery. Almost, she had crossed the bay to visit the Reifferscheids; +would have done so, indeed, had she been able to 'phone her coming. Her +rooms had become a dismal oppression; Bellingham haunted her +consciousness; there were moments when she was actually afraid there +alone. + +All Saturday night she had sleeplessly tossed, knowing that Quentin +Charter was speeding eastward, and dreading the moment when he should +arrive in the city and find no welcoming note from her. She dared not be +in her rooms after he was due to reach the _Granville_, lest he call her +by telephone or messenger--and her purpose of not seeing him be +destroyed by some swift and salient appeal. She had waited until after +the hour in which he had asked to call, to be sure that this time he +would have given up all hope of seeing her. The prospect now of entering +her apartment and remaining there throughout the night, challenged every +ounce of will-force she possessed.... + +Battling with loneliness and bereavement, as she had been for hours, +Paula was grateful to note, by the open door, that the actress was at +home, even though she had left her the evening before, hurt and +disappointed by the other's swift change of manner upon learning that +Quentin Charter was to be in New York to-day.... It was with a startling +but indefinable emotion that she heard the man's voice now through the +open door. Stephen Cabot was there, she thought, as she softly let +herself in to the place of ordeals, which her own flat had become. + +In the dark and silence of the inner hall, the old enemy swept into her +consciousness--again the awful localizations of the preying force! The +usual powers of mind scattered, as in war the pith of a capital's +garrisons rush forth to distant borders. By habit, her hand was upon the +button, but she did not turn on light. Instead, she drew back, steeling +her will to remember her name, her place in the world, her friends. +Harshly driven, yet Paula repressed a cry, and fought her way out into +the main hall--as from the coiling suction of a maelstrom. Even in her +terror, she could not but repress a swift sense of victory, in that she +had escaped from the vortex of attraction--her own rooms. + +The man's voice reached her again, filled her mind with amazing +resistance--so that the point of the occultist's will was broken. +Suddenly, she remembered that she had once heard Stephen Cabot, +protesting that he was quite well--at the end of the first New York +performance of _The Thing_, and that his tones were inseparably +identified with his misfortune. The voice she heard now thrilled her +like an ancient, but instantly familiar, harmony. It was not Stephen +Cabot's. She stood at the open door, when the vehemence of Selma Cross, +who was now speaking, caused her to refrain from making her presence +known. The unspeakable possibility, suddenly upreared in her mind, +banished every formality. The full energies of her life formed in a +prayer that she might be wrong, as Paula peered through the inner hall, +and for the first time in the flesh glimpsed Quentin Charter. + +She was standing before the elevator-shaft and had signaled for the car +eternities ago. Selma Cross was moving up and down the room within, but +her words though faintly audible, had no meaning to the woman without. +Paula's mind seemed so filled with sayings from the actress that there +was no room for the interpretation of a syllable further. One sentence +of Charter's startled her with deadly pain.... She could wait no longer, +and started to walk down. Half-way to the main-floor, the elevator sped +upward to answer her bell.... She was very weak, and temptation was +fiercely operative to return to her rooms, when she heard a slow, firm +step ascending the flight below. She turned from the stairs on the +second floor, just as the huge, lean shoulders of Bellingham appeared on +the opposite side of the elevator-shaft. + +The two faced without words. His countenance was livid, wasted, but his +eyes were of fire. Paula lost herself in their power. She knew only that +she must return with him. There was no place to go; indeed, to return +with him now seemed normal, rational--until the brightly-lit car rushed +down and stopped before them. + +"Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Miss Linster," the elevator-man +said, "but I had to carry a message to the rear." + +In the instantaneous break of Bellingham's concentration, Paula +recovered herself sufficiently to dart into the car. + +"Down, if you please," she said hoarsely. "The gentleman is going up." + +Bellingham, who had started to follow, was stopped by the sliding-door. +The conductor called that he would be back directly, as his car slid +down.... In the untellable disorganization of mind, Paula knew for the +moment only this: she must reach the outer darkness instantly or expire. +In that swift drop to the main floor, and in the brief interval required +to stop the car and slide the door, she endured all the agony of +tightened fingers upon her throat. There was an ease in racing limbs, as +she sped across the tiles to the entrance, as a frightened child rushes +from a dark room. She would die if the great door resisted--pictured it +all before her hand touched the knob. She would turn, scream, and fall +from suffocation. Her scream would call about her the horror that she +feared. + +The big door answered, as it seemed, with a sort of leisurely dignity to +her spasm of strength--and out under the rain-blurred lamps, she ran, +ready to faint if any one called, and continually horrified lest +something pluck at her skirts--thus to Central Park West. An Eighth +Avenue car was approaching, half a square above. To stand and wait, in +the fear lest Bellingham reach the corner in time for the car, assailed +the last of her vitality. It was not until she had boarded it, and was +beyond reach of a pedestrian on Cathedral Way, that she breathed as one +who has touched shore after the Rapids. Still, every south-bound cab +renewed her panic. She could have made time to South Ferry by changing +to the Elevated, but fear of encountering the Destroyer prevented this. +Fully three-quarters of an hour was used in reaching the waiting-room, +where she was fortunate in catching a Staten Island boat without delay. +Every figure that crossed the bridge after her, until the big ferry put +off, Paula scrutinized; then sank nearly fainting into a seat. + +Bellingham's plot was clear to her mind, as well as certain elements of +his craft to obviate every possibility of failure. He had doubtless seen +her enter the house, and timed his control to dethrone her volition as +she reached her rooms. Since the elevator-man would not have taken him +up, without word from her, Bellingham had hastened in and started up the +stairs when the car was called from the main floor. His shock at finding +her in the second-hall was extraordinary, since he was doubtless +struggling with the entire force of his concentration, to hold her in +the higher apartment and to prepare her mind for his own reception. It +was that moment that the elevator-man had saved her; yet, she could not +forget how the voice of Quentin Charter had broken the magician's power +a moment before; and it occurred to her now how wonderfully throughout +her whole Bellingham experience, something of the Westerner's spirit had +sustained her in the crises--Quentin Charter's book that first night in +Prismatic Hall; Quentin Charter's letter to which she had clung during +the dreadful interview in the Park.... + +As for Quentin Charter rushing immediately to the woman of lawless +attractions, because he had not received the hoped-for note at the +_Granville_--in this appeared a wantonness almost beyond belief. Wearily +she tried to put the man and his base action entirely out of mind. And +Selma Cross, whose animation had been so noticeable when informed of +Charter's coming, had fallen beneath the reach of Paula's emotions.... +She could pity--with what a torrential outpouring--could she pity "that +finest, lowest head!" + +She stepped out on deck. The April night was inky-black. All day there +had been a misty rain from which the chill of winter was gone. The +dampness was sweet to breathe and fresh upon her face. The smell of +ocean brought up from the subconscious, a thought already in tangible +formation there. The round clock in the cabin forward had indicated +nine-forty-five. It seemed more like another day, than only an hour and +a half ago, that she had caught the Eighth Avenue car at Cathedral Way. +The ferry was nearing the Staten slip. In a half-hour more, she would +reach Reifferscheid's house. Her heart warmed with gratitude for a +friend to whom she could say as little or as much as she pleased, yet +find him, heart and home, at her service. One must be terrified and know +the need of a refuge in the night to test such values. A few hours +before, she had rejected the thought of going, because a slight +formality had not been attended to. Hard pressed now, she was seeking +him in the midst of the night.... At the mention of the big man's name, +the conductor on the Silver Lake car took her in charge, helped her off +at the right road, and pointed out the Reifferscheid light. Thus she +felt her friend's kindness long before she heard the big elms whispering +over his cottage. The front-window was frankly uncurtained, and the +editor sat within, soft-shirted and eminently comfortable beside a +green-shaded reading-lamp. She even saw him drop his book at her step +upon the walk. A moment later, she blinked at him laughingly, as he +stood in the light of the wide open doorway. + +"Properly 'Driven From Home,' I suppose I should be tear-stained and in +shawl and apron," she began. + +He laughed delightedly, and exclaimed: "How could Father be so +obdurate--alas, a-a-las! Lemme see, this is a fisherman's hut on the +moors, or a gardener's lodge on the shore. Anyway, it's good to have you +here.... Annie!" + +He took her hat and raincoat, wriggling meanwhile into a coat of his +own, arranged a big chair before the grate, then removed her rubbers. +Not a question did he ask, and Sister Annie's greeting presently, from +her chair, was quite the same--as if the visit and the hour were exactly +in order. + +"You'll stay a day or two, won't you?" he asked. "Honestly, I don't like +the way they treat you up there beyond the Park.... It will be fine +to-morrow. This soft rain will make Mother Earth turn over and take an +eye-opener----" + +"The truth is, I want to stay until there's a ship for the Antilles," +she told him, "and I don't know when the first one goes." + +"I hope it's a week at least," he said briskly. "The morning papers are +here with all the sailings. A sea-voyage will do you a world of good, +and Europe doesn't compare with a trip to the Caribbean." + +"Just you two--and one other--are to know," Paula added nervously. + +Reifferscheid had gathered up a bundle of papers, and was turning pages +swiftly. "There isn't a reason in the world why everybody should know," +he remarked lightly, "only you'd better be Lottie or Daisy +Whats-her-name, as the cabin lists of all outgoing ships are available +to any one who looks." + +"Tim will be delighted to make everything easy for you," Sister Annie +put in. + +Thus mountains dissolved. The soulful accord and the instant sympathy +which sprang to meet her every word, and the valor behind it all, so +solid as to need no explanation--were more than Paula could bear.... +Reifferscheid looked up from his papers, finding that she did not speak, +started with embarrassment, and darted to the buffet. A moment later he +had given her a glass of wine and vanished from the room with an armful +of newspapers. The door had no sooner closed upon him than Paula +discovered the outstretched arms of Sister Annie. In the several moments +which followed her heart was healed and soothed through a half-forgotten +luxury.... + +"The twin-screw liner, _Fruitlands_,--do you really want the first?" +Reifferscheid interrupted himself, when he was permitted to enter later. + +"Yes." + +"Well, it sails in forty-eight hours, or a little less--Savannah, +Santiago de Cuba, San Juan de Porto Rico--and down to the little +Antilles--Tuesday night at ten o'clock at the foot of Manhattan." + +"That will do very well," Paula said, "and I'd like to go straight to +the ship from here--if you'll----" + +"Berth--transportation--trunks--and sub-let your flat, if you like," +Reifferscheid said as gleefully as a boy invited for a week's hunt. +"Why, Miss Linster, I am the original arrangement committee." + +"You have always been wonderful to me," Paula could not help saying, +though it shattered his ease. "This one other who must know is Madame +Nestor. She'll take care of my flat and pack things for me--if you'll +get a message to her in the morning when you go over. I don't expect to +be gone so long that it will be advisable to sub-let." + +"Which is emphatically glad tidings," Reifferscheid remarked hastily. + +"You'll want all your summer clothes," said Sister Annie. "Tim will see +to your trunks." + +"Sometime, I'll make it all plain," Paula tried to say steadily. "It's +just been life to me--this coming here--and knowing that I could come +here----" + +"Miss Linster," Reifferscheid broke in, "I don't want to have to +disappear again. The little things you need done, I'd do for any one in +the office. Please bear in mind that Sister Annie and I would be +hurt--if you didn't let us do them. Why, we belong--in a case like this. +Incidentally, you are doing a bully thing--to take a sail down past that +toy-archipelago. They say you can hear the parakeets screeching out from +the palm-trees on the shore, and each island has a different smell of +spice. It will be great for you--rig you out with a new set of wings. +You must take Hearn along. I've got his volume here on the West Indies. +He'll tell you the color of the water your ship churns. Each day farther +south it's a different blue----" + +So he jockeyed her into laughing, and she slept long and dreamlessly +that night, as she had done once before in the same room.... The second +night following, Reifferscheid put her aboard the _Fruitlands_. + +"It's good you thought of taking your cabin under a borrowed name, +Miss--er--Wyndam--Miss Laura Wyndam," he said in a low voice, for the +passengers were moving about. "I'll write you all about it. You have +famous friends. Selma Cross, who is playing at the _Herriot_, wanted to +know where you were. I thought for a minute she was going to throw me +down and take it away from me. Quentin Charter, by the way, is in town +and asked about you. Seemed depressed when I told him you were out of +town, and hadn't sent your address to me yet. I told him and Miss Cross +that mail for you sent to _The States_ would get to you eventually. Both +said they would write--so you'll hear from them on the ship that follows +this." He glanced at her queerly for a second, and added, "Good-by, and +a blessed voyage to you, Tired Lady. Write us how the isles bewitch you, +and I'll send you a package of books every ship or two----" + +"Good-by--my first of friends!" + +Two hours afterward Paula took a last turn on deck. The spray swept in +gusts over the _Fruitlands's_ dipping prow. The bare masts, tipped with +lights, swung with a giant sweep from port to starboard and back to port +again, fingering the black heavens for the blown-out stars. She was +lonely, but not altogether miserable, out there on the tossing floor of +the Atlantic.... + + + + +SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA SAILS INTO THE SOUTH, SEEKING THE HOLY MAN OF SAINT PIERRE, WHERE +_LA MONTAGNE PELEE_ GIVES WARNING + + +Wonderfully strengthened, she was, by the voyage. Sorrow had destroyed +large fields of verdure, and turned barren the future, but its devouring +was finished. Quentin Charter was adjusted in her mind to a duality with +which Paula Linster could have no concern. Only to one mistress could he +be faithful; indeed, it was only in the presence of this mistress that +he became the tower of visions to another; in the midst of the work he +worshipped, Quentin Charter had heard the Skylark sing. Paula did not +want to see him again, nor Selma Cross. To avoid these two, as well as +the place where the Destroyer had learned so well to penetrate, she had +managed not to return to her apartment during the two days before +sailing.... There would never be another master-romance--never again so +rich a giving, nor so pure an ideal. Before this tragic reality, the +inner glory of her womanhood became meaningless. It was this that made +the future a crossing of sterile tundras,--yet she would keep her +friends, and love her work, and try to hold her faith.... + +Bellingham did not call her at sea, but he had frightened her too +profoundly to be far from mind. The face she had seen in the hall-way +was drawn and disordered by the dreadful tortures of nether-planes; and +awful in the eyes, was that feline vacancy of soul. Once in a dream, she +saw him--a pale reptile-monster upreared from a salty sea, voiceless in +that oceanic isolation, a shameful secret of the depths. The ghastly +bulk had risen with a mute protest to the sky against dissolution and +creeping decay--and sounded again.... + +To her, Bellingham was living death, the triumph of desire which rends +itself, the very essence of tragedy. She gladly would have died to make +her race see the awfulness of _just flesh_--as she saw it now.... His +power seemed ended; she felt with the Reifferscheids and Madame Nestor, +that her secret was hermetic, and there was a goodly sense of security +in the intervening sea.... + +And now there was a new island each day; each morning a fresh garden +arose from the Caribbean--sun-wooed, rain-softened isles with colorful +little ports.... There was one tropic city--she could not recall the +name--which from the offing had looked like the flower-strewn gateway to +an amphitheatre of mountains. + +The _Fruitlands_ had lain for a day in the hot, sharky harbor of +Santiago; had run into a real cloudburst off the Silver Reefs of Santo +Domingo, and breathed on the radiant next morning before the stately and +ancient city of San Juan de Porto Rico--shining white as a dream-castle +of old Spain, and adrift in an azure world of sky and sea. She spent a +day and an evening in this isle of ripe fruits and riper amours; and +took away materials for a memory composite of interminable siestas, +restless radiant nights, towering cliffs, incomparable courtesy, and +soft-voiced maidens with wondrous Spanish eyes that laugh and turn away. + +Then for two days they had steamed down past the saintly +archipelago--St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Kitts; then Montserrat, +Guadeloupe, Dominica, and a legion of littler isles--truncated peaks +jutting forth from fragrant, tinted water. There were afternoons when +she did not care to lift her voice or move about. Fruit-juices and the +simplest salads, a flexible cane chair under the awnings, a book to rest +the eyes from the gorgeous sea and enchanted shores, somnolence rather +than sleep--these are enough for the approach to perfection in the +Caribbean, with the Lesser Antilles on the lee.... Then at last in late +afternoon, the great hulking shape of Pelee loomed watery green against +the sky; in the swift-speeding twilight, the volcano seemed to swell and +blacken until it was like the shadow of a continent, and the lights of +Saint Pierre pricked off the edge of the land. + +At last late at night, queerly restless, she sat alone on deck in the +windless roadstead and regarded the illumined terraces of Saint Pierre. +They had told her that the breath from Martinique was like the heavy +moist sweetness of a horticultural garden, but the island must have been +sick with fever this night, for a mile at sea the land-breeze was dry, +devitalized, irritating the throat and nostrils. + +There was no moon, and the stars were so faint in the north that the +mass of Pelee was scarcely shaped against the sky. The higher lights of +the city had a reddish uncertain glow, as if a thin film of fog hung +between them and the eye; but to the south the night cleared into pure +purple and unsullied tropic stars. The harbor was weirdly hot. + +Before her was the city which held the quest of her voyaging--Father +Fontanel, the holy man of Saint Pierre.... _Only a stranger can realize +what a pure shining garment his actual flesh has become. To me there was +healing in the very approach of the man...._ This was the enduring +fragment from the Charter letters; and in that dreadful Sunday night +when she began her flight from Bellingham, already deep within her mind +Father Fontanel was the goal.... Paula set out for shore early the next +morning. The second-officer of the _Fruitlands_ sat beside her in the +launch. She spoke of the intense sultriness. + +"Yes, Saint Pierre is glowing like a brazier," he said. "I was ashore +last night for awhile. The people blame the mountain. Old Pelee has been +acting up--showering the town with ash every little while lately. It's +the taint of sulphur that spoils the air." + +She turned apprehensively toward the volcano. _La Montague Pelee_, over +the red-tiled roofs of Saint Pierre, looked huge like an Emperor of the +Romans. Paled in the intense morning light, he wore a delicate ruching +of white cloud about his crown. They stepped ashore on the Sugar Landing +where Paula found a carriage to take her to the _Hotel des Palms_, a +rare old plantation-house on the _Morne d'Orange_, recently converted +for public use. + +The ponies were ascending the rise in _Rue Victor Hugo_, at the southern +end of the city, when Paula discovered the little Catholic church she +had imaged for so many weeks, _Notre Dame des Lourdes_, niched away in +the crowded streets with a Quebec-like quaintness, and all the holier +from its close association with the lowly shops. From these walls had +risen the spiritual house of Father Fontanel--her far bright beacon.... +The _porteuses_, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident, +wore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails, +steadying the baskets upon their heads. The pressure of the heat, and +the dispiriting atmosphere revealed their effects in the distended +eyelids and colorless, twisted lips of the burden-bearers. + +The ponies at length gained the eminence of the _Morne d'Orange_, and +ahead she saw the broad, white plantation-house--_Hotel des Palms_. To +the right was the dazzling, turquoise sea where the _Fruitlands_ lay +large among the shipping, and near her a private sea-going yacht, nearly +as long and angelically white. The broad verandas of the hotel were +alluring with palms; the walls and portcullises were cooled with +embroidering vines. Gardens flamed with poinsettias and roses, and a +shaded grove of mango and India trees at the end of the lawn, was edged +with moon flowerets and oleanders. Back of the plantation-house waved +the sloping seas of cane; in front, the Caribbean. On the south rose the +peaks of Carbet; on the north, the Monster. + +Paula had hardly left the veranda of magnificent vistas two hours later, +when the friendly captain of the _Fruitlands_ approached with an elderly +American, of distinguished appearance, whom he presented--Mr. Peter +Stock, of Pittsburg. + +"Since you are to leave us here, Miss Wyndam," the captain added, "I +thought you would be glad to know Mr. Stock, who makes an annual cruise +around these Islands--and knows them better than any American I've +encountered yet. Yonder is his yacht--that clipper-built beauty just a +bit in from the liner." + +"I've already been admiring the yacht," Paula said, "and wondering her +name. There's something Venetian about her dazzling whiteness in the +soft, deep blue." + +"I get it exactly, Miss Wyndam--that 'mirage of marble' in the Italian +sky.... My craft is the _Saragossa_." His eyelids were tightened against +the light, and the voice was sharp and brisk. His face, tropically +tanned, contrasted effectively with the close-cropped hair and mustache, +lustrous-white as his ship.... Paula having found the captain's courtesy +and good sense invariable during the voyage, gladly accepted his friend, +who proved most interesting on the matter of Pelee. + +"I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual," he told her, +pointing toward the mountain, "to study the old man yonder. Pelee, you +know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of +Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present +disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell--I use the word to +signify a geological stratum--is very close to the surface down here. +All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great +subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time +under the Caribbean--and rub out our very pretty panorama." + +"You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?" Paula asked. + +The vaguest sort of a smile passed over his eyes and touched his lips. +"Pelee and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of +these islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the +archipelago--Pelee's present internal complaint, for instance,--should +be taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this +morning--except for the heavy rain before dawn." + +"You mean volcanic ash?" + +"Exactly." + +"That explains the white scum I saw in the gutters, driving through the +city.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to +behave this way?" + +"From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelee has had a +session of grumbling." + +"I mean as a usual thing----" + +He turned to her abruptly and inquired, "Didn't you know that there +hasn't been a sound from Pelee for twenty years before the month of +April now ending?" + +This gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now, +but after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda. + +"Ever been in Pittsburg?" he asked. + +"No." + +"I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air--to think I'm back +among the steel mills of the lower Monongahela." + +"The moon looks like beaten egg," Paula said with a slight shiver. "They +must be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelee, Mr. +Stock, please tell me more about him." + +He had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet +peaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics, +but was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. "It's the +ash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen," he +explained. "We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain." + +They turned to the north where a low rumbling was heard. It was like +distant thunder, but the horizon beyond Pelee was unscathed by +lightning. + +"Are you really worried, Mr. Stock?" + +"Why, it's as I said. The fact that Pelee is acting out of the ordinary +is quite enough to make any one skeptical regarding his intentions." + +He discussed familiarly certain of the man-eaters among the mountains of +the world--Krakatoa, Bandaisan, Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, AEtna, calling them +chronic old ruffians, whom Time doesn't tame. + +"A thousand years is nothing to them," he added. "They wait, still as +crocodiles, until seers have built their temples in the high rifts and +cities have formed on their flanks. They have tasted blood, you see, and +the madness comes back. Twenty years is only a siesta. Pelee is a +suspect." + +"I think I should prefer to hear you tell the treachery of volcanoes +outside of the fire-zone," she declared. "It's like listening to ghost +stories in a haunted house." + +Pelee rumbled again, and Paula's fingers involuntarily started toward +his sleeve. The heavy wooden shutters of the great house rattled in the +windless night; the ground upon which they stood seemed to wince at the +Monster's pain. She was conscious of the fragrance of roses and magnolia +blooms above the acrid taint of the air. Some strange freak of the +atmosphere exerted a pressure upon the flowers, forcing a sudden +expulsion of perfume. The young moon was a formless blotch now in the +fouled sky. A sigh like the whimpering of many sick children was audible +from the servants' cabins behind the hotel.... Later, from her own room, +she saw the double chain of lights out in the harbor--the _Saragossa_ +pulling at her moorings among the lesser craft, like a bright empress in +the midst of dusky maid-servants; and in the north was Vulcan struggling +to contain the fury of his fluids. She was a little afraid of Pelee. + +Very early abroad, Paula set out on her first pilgrimage to _Notre Dame +des Lourdes_. Rain had not fallen in the night, and she regarded a white +world, as Stock had promised, and the source of the phenomenon with the +pastelle tints of early morning upon his huge eastern slope. She had +slept little and with her face turned to the north. A cortege had passed +before her in dream--all the destroyers of history, each with a vivid +individuality, like the types of faces of all nations--the story of each +and the desolation it had made among men and the works of men. + +Most of them had given warning. Pelee was warning now. His warning was +written upon the veins of every leaf, painted upon the curve of every +blade of grass, sheeted evenly-white upon the red tiles of every roof. +Gray dust blown by steam from the bursting quarries of the mountain +clogged the gutters of the city and the throats of men. It was a moving, +white cloud in the river, a chalky shading that marked the highest reach +of the harbor tide. It settled in the hair of the children, and +complicated the toil of bees in the nectar-cups. With league-long +cerements, and with a voice that caused to tremble his dwarfed +companions, the hills and _mornes_, great Pelee had proclaimed his +warning in the night. + + + + +EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT PIERRE AND _THE +PANTHER_ CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL + + +Father Fontanel was out in the parish somewhere. One of the washer-women +told her this, at the door of the church. There were many sick in the +city from the great heat and the burned air--many little children sick. +Father Fontanel always sought the sick in body; those who were sick in +soul, sought him.... So the woman of the river-banks, in her simple way, +augmented the story of the priest's love for his people. Paula rested +for a few moments in the dim transept. Natives moved in and out for a +breath of coolness, some pausing to kneel upon the worn tiles of the +nave. Later she walked among the lower streets of the suffering city, +her heart filled with pity for the throngs housed on the low breathless +water-front. Except when the wind was straight from the volcano, the +hotel on the _Morne d'Orange_ was made livable by the cool Trades. + +The clock in the _Hopital l'Militaire_ struck the hour of nine. Paula +had just hired a carriage at the Sugar Landing, when her eye was +attracted by a small crowd gathering near the water's edge. The black +cassock of a priest in the midst drew her hurrying forward. A young man, +she thought at first, from the frail shoulders and the slender waist.... +A negress had fallen from the heat. Her burdens lay together upon the +shore--a tray of cakes from her head, and a naked babe from her arms.... +A glimpse at the priest's profile, and she needed not to be told that +this was the holy man of Saint Pierre. + +Happiness lived in the face above the deep pity of the moment. It was an +attraction of light, like the brow of Mary in Murillo's _Immaculate +Conception_; or like that instant ethereal radiance which shines from +the face of a little child passing away without pain. The years had put +an exquisite nobility upon the plain countenance, and the inner life had +added the gleam of adoration--"the rapture-light of holy vigils kept." + +Paula rubbed her eyes, afraid lest it were not true; afraid for a moment +that it was her own meditations that had wrought this miracle in clay. +Lingering, she ceased to doubt the soul's transfiguration.... Father +Fontanel beckoned a huge negro from a lighter laden with +molasses-casks--a man of strength, bare to the waist. + +"Take the little mother to my house," he said. + +A young woman standing by was given charge of the child.... "Lift her +gently, Strong Man. The woman will show you the way to the door." Then +raising his voice to the crowd, the priest added, "You who are +well--tell others that it is yet cool in the church. Carry the ailing +ones there, and the little children. Father Pelee will soon be silent +again.... Does any one happen to know who owns the beautiful ship in the +harbor?" + +His French sentences seemed lifted above a pervasive hush upon the +shore. The native faces wore a curious look of adulation; and Paula +marvelled in that they seemed unconscious of this. She was not a +Catholic; yet she uttered his name with a thrilling rapture, and with a +meaning she had never known before: + +"Father Fontanel----" + +He turned, instantly divining her inspiration. + +"Mr. Stock, who owns the ship yonder, is staying at the _Hotel des +Palms_," she said quickly. "I have a carriage here. I was thinking that +the sick woman and her child might be taken to your house in that. +Afterward, when she is cared for, you might wish to ride with me to the +Hotel--where I also live." + +"Why, yes, Child--who are you?" + +"Just a visitor in Saint Pierre--a woman from the States." + +Her arrangement was followed, and the negro went back to his work. +Father Fontanel joined her behind the carriage. + +"But you speak French so well," he observed. + +"Not a few Americans do. I was grateful that it came back to me here." + +"Yes, for I do not speak a word of English," he said humbly. + +They walked for a moment in silence, his head bowed in thought. Paula, +glancing at him from time to time, studied the lines of pity and +tenderness which shadowed the eyes. His mouth was wonderful to her, +quite as virgin to the iron of self-repression as to the soft fullness +of physical desire. This was the marvel of the face--it was above +battle. Here were eyes that had seen the Glory and retained an unearthly +happiness--a face that moved among the lowly, loved, pitied, abode with +them; yet was beautiful with the spiritual poise of Overman. + +"It was strange that you did not meet Lafcadio Hearn when he was here," +she said at length. + +He shook his head, asked the name again and the man's work. + +"A writer who tarried here; a mystic, too, strange and strong." + +"I know no writer by that name--but how did you know that I did not meet +him, Child?" + +"I was thinking he would write about you in his book of Martinique +sketches--had he known." + +He accepted the explanation innocently. "There was a writer here--a +young man very dear to me--of whom you reminded me at once----" + +"Of whom I reminded you, Father?" she repeated excitedly. "You mean +because I spoke of another writer?" + +"No, I saw a resemblance--rather some relationship of yours to my +wonderful young friend.... He said he would come again to me." + +She had spoken of Hearn in the hope that Father Fontanel would be +reminded of another writer whose name she did not care to mention. His +idea of relationship startled her to the heart; yet when she asked +further, the good man could not explain. It had merely been his first +thought, he said,--as if she had _come_ from his friend. + +"You thought much of him then, Father Fontanel?" + +He spoke with power now. "A character of terrible thirsts, Child,--such +thirsts as I have never known. Some moments as he walked beside me, I +have felt him--like a giant with wolves pulling at his thighs, and +angels lifting his arms. Great strength of mind, his presence endowed +me, so that I would have seen more of him, and more,--but he will come +back! And I know that the wolves shall have been slain, when he comes +again----" + +"And the angels, Father?" she whispered. + +"Such are the companions of the Lifted, my daughter.... It is when I +meet one of great conflicts that I am suffused with the spirit of +worship in that I am spared. God makes my way so easy that I must wonder +if I am not one of His very weak. It must be so, for my mornings and +evenings are made lovely by the Presence. My people hearken unto my +prayers for them; they love me and bring their little children for my +blessing--until I am so happy that I cry aloud for some great work to do +that I may strive heroically to show my gratitude to God--and lo, the +doors of my work are opened, but there are no lions in the way!" + +She knew now all that Charter had meant. In her breast was a silent +mystic stirring--akin to that endearing miracle enacted in a +conservatory of flowers, when the morning sun first floods down upon the +glass.... The initial doubt of her own valor in suffering Selma Cross to +shatter her Tower, sprang into being now. Father Fontanel loved him, and +had looked within. + +That the priest had perceived a "relationship" swept into the woman's +soul. Low logic wrought from the physical contacts of Selma Cross +trembled before the other immaterial suggestion--that Quentin Charter +would come back to Saint Pierre triumphantly companioned, his wolves +slain.... She forgot nothing of the actress's point of view; nor that +the Westerner did not reach her floor in the _Zoroaster_ and encounter +an old attraction by accident. He was not one to force his way there, if +the man at the elevator told him Miss Linster was not in. All of these +things which had driven her to action were still inexplicable, but final +condemnation was gone from the evidence--as the stone rolled away. + +Bellingham?... The mystery now, as she stood within this radiant aura, +was that any point of his desire could ever have found lodgment within. +Her sense of protection at this moment was absolute. She had done well +to come here.... Again swept into mind, Quentin Charter's silent part in +saving her from the Destroyer--the book, the letter, the voice; even to +this sanctuary she had come through a sentence from him. For a moment +the old master-romance shone glorious again--like a lone, valiant star +glimpsed in the rift of storm-hurled clouds. + +They had reached the low street door of Father Fontanel's house, a wing +of the church. A native doctor had been summoned and helped to carry the +woman in. She was revived presently. + +"Father," Paula said, remembering the words of the washer-woman, as they +emerged into the street, "when one is sick of soul--does one knock +here?" + +"One does not knock, but enters straightway," he answered. "The door is +never locked.... But you look very happy, my daughter." + +"I am happy," she answered. + + * * * * * + +They drove together to the _Hotel des Palms_. Paula did not ask, though +she had something of an idea regarding the priest's purpose in asking +for Peter Stock. Though she had formed a very high opinion of the +American, it occurred to her that he would hardly approve of any one +directing arteries of philanthropy to his hand. He had been one of those +ruffian giants of the elder school of finance who began with the axe and +the plow; whose health, character and ethics had been wrought upon the +anvil of privation; whose culture began in middle life, and, being +hard-earned, was eminent in the foreground of mind--austere and +inelastic, this culture, yet solidly founded. Stock was rich and loved +to give, but was rather ashamed of it. Paula could imagine him saying, +"I hate the whining of the strong." For twenty years since his +retirement, he had voyaged about the world, learning to love beautiful +things, and giving possibly many small fortunes away; yet he much would +have preferred to acknowledge that he had knocked down a brute than +endowed an asylum. Mr. Stock was firm in opinion, dutiful in +appreciation for the fine. His sayings were strongly savored, reliant +with facts; his every thought was the result of a direct physical +process of mind,--a mind athletic to grip the tangible, but which had +not yet contracted for its spiritual endowment. In a word a splendid +type of American with which to blend an ardently artistic +temperament.... Paula, holding something of this conception of the +capitalist, became eager to see what adjustment could follow a meeting +with his complement in characteristic qualities--her revered mystic. Mr. +Stock was pacing up and down the mango grove. Leaving Father Fontanel on +the veranda, she joined the American. + +"I found a holy man down on the water-front, mildly inquiring who owned +the _Saragossa_," she said laughingly, "and asked him to share my +carriage. He has not told me what he wants, but he's a very wonderful +priest." + +She noted the instant contraction of his brows, and shrank inwardly at +the hard, rapid tone, with which he darted the question: + +"Are you a Catholic?" + +"No, Mr. Stock." + +"Yes. I'll see him." It was as if he were talking to his secretary, but +Paula liked him too well to mind. They drew near the veranda. + +"... Well, sir, what is it?" he spoke brusquely, and in French, studying +the priest's upturned face. Mr. Stock believed he knew faces. Except for +the years and the calling, he would have decided that Father Fontanel +was rather too meek and feminine--at first glance. + +"What I wished to ask depends upon your being here for a day or two," +the priest said readily. "Father Pelee's hot breath is killing our +children in the lower quarters of the city, and many of the poor women +are suffering. The ship out in the harbor looked to me like a good angel +with folded wings, as I walked the water-front this morning. I thought +you would be glad to let me send some mothers and babies--to breathe the +good air of the offing. A day, or a night and a day, may save lives." + +Paula had felt a proprietary interest in Father Fontanel's mission, no +matter what it proved to be. She was pleased beyond measure to find that +he was entirely incapable of awe or cringing, before a man of stern and +distinguished mien and of such commanding dignity. Moreover, he stated +the favor quite as if it were an advantage which the American had not +thought of for himself. So interested was she in the priest's utterance, +that when her eyes turned from his face to Stock's--the alteration there +amazed her. And like the natives of the water-front, the American did +not seem to be _aware_ of the benign influence. He had followed the +French sentences intently at first, but caught the whole idea before the +priest was finished. + +"Did you know I wasn't a Catholic?" he asked. The question apparently +had been in his mind before he felt himself responding to the appeal. + +"No," Father Fontanel answered sincerely. "The truth is, it didn't occur +to me whether you were or not." + +"Quite right," Mr. Stock said quickly. "It has no place, whatever, so +long as you don't think so. You've got a good idea. I'll be here for a +day or two. You'll need money to hire boats; then my first officer will +have to be informed. My launch is at the Sugar Landing.... On second +thought, I'll go back down-town with you.... Miss Wyndam--later in the +day--a chat with you?" + +"Of course." + +Father Fontanel turned, thanking her with a smile. "And the name is +'Wyndam,'" he added. "I had not heard it before." + +Paula watched them walking down the driveway to the carriage which she +had retained for Father Fontanel. The inclination was full-formed to +seek the solitude of her room and there review the whole delightful +matter.... She was glad that the priest had not asked her name, for +under his eyes--she could not have answered "Wyndam." + +It was not until the following evening, after a day of actual physical +suffering from Pelee and the heat, even on the _Morne_, that she had the +promised talk with Peter Stock. + +"I like your priest," he said, "He works like a man, and he hasn't got a +crook in his back. What he wants he seems to get. I have sent over a +hundred natives out yonder on the _Saragossa_, negotiated for the town's +whole available supply of fresh milk, and Laird, my chief officer, is +giving the party a little cruise to-night----" + +"Do you know--I think it is splendid?" she exclaimed. + +"What?" + +"The work--your ship filled with gasping unfortunates from the city!" + +"Do you happen to know of any reason why an idle ship should not be used +for some such purpose?" + +"None, whatever," she said demurely, quite willing that he should adjust +the matter to suit himself. His touchiness upon the subject of his own +benefactions remanded her pleasurably of Reifferscheid. Her inward joy +was to study in Peter Stock the unacknowledged influence of Father +Fontanel--or was it an unconscious influence? The American's further +activities unfolded: + +"By the way, have you been reading the French paper here--_Les +Colonies_?" + +Paula had not. + +"The editor, M. Mondet, is the smug authority for a statement yesterday +that Saint Pierre is in absolutely no danger from the mountain. Now, of +course, this may be true, but he doesn't know it--unless he should have +the Dealer in Destiny on the wire. There is always a big enough +percentage of foolish virgins in a city, so it peeved me to find one in +the sole editorial capacity. My first impulse was to calk up the throat +of M. Mondet with several sheets of his abominable assurances. This I +restrained, but nevertheless I called upon him to-day. His next issue +appears day after to-morrow, and my idea is for him to print a vigorous +warning against Pelee. Why, he could clear the town of ten thousand +people for a few days--until the weather settles. Incidentally, if the +mountain took on a sudden destroying streak--just see what he would have +done! Some glory in saving lives on that scale." + +"Vine leaves, indeed," said Paula, "Did M. Mondet tell you he would +print this warning?" + +"Not exactly. He pointed out the cost of detaching a third of the city's +inhabitants. I told him how this cost could be brought down within +reason, and showed myself not unwilling to back the exodus. I'm a +practical man, Miss Wyndam, and these things look bigger than they +really are. But you never can tell what a tubby little Frenchman will +do. It's atrocious for a man in his position to say that a volcano won't +volcane--sorely tempting to old Father Pelee--a sort of challenge. It +would be bad enough to play Pilate and wash his hands of the city's +danger--but to be a white-lipped, kissing Judas at the last supper of +Saint Pierre----" + +"Did you tell him that?" Paula asked hastily. + +"Not in those words, Miss Wyndam, but he seemed to be a bit afraid of +me--kept watching my hands and pulling at his cravat. When he finally +showed me to the door, his was the delicacy of one who handles dynamite. +At all events, I'm waiting for his next issue to see if my call 'took!' +I really do wish that a lot of these people would forget their clothes, +chickens, coals, coins, and all such, for a few days and camp somewhere +between here and Fort de France." + +Paula was thrilled by the American's zeal. He was not content, now that +he had begun, to deal with boatloads, but wanted to stir the city. She +would have given much to know the exact part of Father Fontanel in this +rousing ardor of her new friend. "And you really think Pelee may not +hold out?" she asked. + +"I'm not a monomaniac--at least, not yet," he replied, and his voice +suggested a certain pent savagery in his brain. "Call it an experiment +that I'm sufficiently interested in to finance. The ways of volcanoes +are past the previsions of men. I'd like to get a lot of folks out of +the fire-zone, until Pelee is cool--or a billion tons lighter. This +ordered-up-to-Nineveh business is out of my line, but it's absorbing. I +don't say that Pelee will blow his head off this week or this +millennium, but I do say that there are vaults of explosives in that +monster, the smallest of which could make this city look like a leper's +corpse upon the beach. I say that the internal fires are burning high; +that they're already playing about the vital cap; that Pelee has already +sprung several leaks, and that the same force which lifted this cheerful +archipelago from the depths of the sea is pressing against the craters +at this moment. I say that Vesuvius warned before he broke; that +Krakatoa warned and then struck; that down the ages these safety valves +scattered over the face of the earth have mercifully joggled before +giving way; that Pelee is joggling now." + +"If M. Mondet would write just that," Paula said softly, "I think you +would have your exodus." + +She sought her room shortly afterward. Pelee's moods had been variable +that day. The north had been obscured by a fresh fog in the afternoon. +The ash and sulphur fumes, cruel to the lungs on the breezy _Morne_, six +miles from the craters, gave her an intimation of the anguish of the +people in the intervening depression where the city lay. The twilight +had brought ease again and a ten-minute shower, so there was real +freshness in the early evening. Rippling waves of merriment reached her +from the darky quarters, as the young men from the fields came forth to +bathe in the sea. Never before was the volatile tropic soul so strongly +evidenced for her understanding, as in that glad hour of +reaction--simple hearts to glow at little things, whose swift tragedies +come and go like blighting winds which, though they may slay, leave no +wound; instant to gladden in the groves of serenity, when a black cloud +has blown by. + +Her mind was sleepless.... Once, long after midnight, when she fell into +a doze, it was only to be awakened by a dream of a garrote upon her +throat. The ash had thickened again, and the air was acrid. The hours +seemed to fall asleep in passing. From her balcony she peered into the +dead-black of the North where Pelee rumbled at intervals. Back in the +south, the blurred moon impended with an evil light. A faint wailing of +children reached her from the servants' cabins. The sense of isolation +was dreadful for a moment. It seemed to rest entirely with her that time +passed at all; that she must grapple with each moment and fight it back +into the past.... + +The _Panther_, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint +Pierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the passing of time, +determined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day, +if morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision, +for she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched +and brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The glass showed her a +pallid face, darkly-lined. + +The blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it +touched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered +in that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down +through the city to the Landing she found the _Rue Victor Hugo_ almost +deserted. The _porteuses_ were gone from the highway; all doors were +tightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes +were stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little +island mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely +moved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she +imagined the smell of death. + + * * * * * + +"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years," the captain said, as +she boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had +fallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre +that day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately +after dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with +the dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the +volcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she +perceived the lights of a big liner lying near the _Saragossa_. There +was no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be the +_Panther_ with letters from New York. According to her schedule, the +steamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after the _Fruitlands_. +Paula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails +would be distributed. + +"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the +Hotel?" the clerk inquired. + +"Yes." + +"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. The _Panther_ +anchored at two this morning." + +"Please send any letters for me to my room at once," she told him, and +went there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame +Nestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon +another, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his +care to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma +Cross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself. + +The latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big +envelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account +of those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work +and a hope for her health--the whole, brief, fine and tonic--like her +friend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of +emotions: + + This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have + ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten + you that I searched, but because I think if you understood + entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had + better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she + has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her + those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the + truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter. + I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I + had the heart yet to see _The Thing_. Reifferscheid tells me + that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I + counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now + with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for + one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and + subtly terrifying--this ordeal for which I have been prepared. + I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What + I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you + suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you + to-night--sweet gift of the world to me. + + Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy + complications--and you will bring back a splendid store of + energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written + so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me + drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity--but I + have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and + it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning. + + I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without + you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go + away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary--when I + decide upon it--at the _Granville_. Some time soon I shall hear + from you. All shall be restored--even serenity to your + beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business + of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through + and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to + make you wiser, happier,--to keep you _winged_. This, as I know + the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you.... + + My window at the _Granville_ faces the East--the East to which + I have come--yet from the old ways, I still look to the East + for you. New York has found her Spring--a warm, almost vernal + night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths + are fluttering at the glass--softly, eagerly to get at the + light--as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for + the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the + electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... but _you_ would + not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the + light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, + but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame.... + + One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table + like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way + in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance.... + + Bless your warm heart that brims with singing--singing which I + must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease + to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless--as + I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the + heart of Quentin Charter. + +She was unconscious of passing time, until her eye was attracted by the +heavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon a _Herriot Theatre_ envelope. This +communication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose +intrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it +seemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to +write, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives. + + I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the + hall _that night_, because I saw your hat as you started to + walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made + me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him + come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been + hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home + that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I + sent a telephone-message to the _Granville_ for him to call. + He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would + not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, + he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man + at the _Zoroaster_ had orders from me to show a gentleman + inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment. + + My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in + what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that + night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall--to hear at + once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that + _we_ had arranged--that you were somewhere in the apartment + listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words--there is so much, + and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The + woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat + so helplessly against a wall. + + But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. + Villiers had a spy watching all our movements--and was thus + informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter + had talked to men--all the things that his spy had learned. He + did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. + Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is + not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he + would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that + if it is not you--some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart + and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic + possibility of calling him to the _Zoroaster_ blinded my + judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have + the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old + neighbor--who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the + world, but who meant to be square with you. + +Paula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment +with healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched +arms, poured forth an ecstasy of gratitude for his sake; for the +restoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her +womanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat +occurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease +of mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for +New York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when +Madame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first +line brought back old fears: + + I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard + that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two + hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang + and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes + and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,--the + desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he + had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost + instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control + was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was + gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed + by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was + gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will + help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the + interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your + place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost + unbearable that I should be forced to tell him--when I love you + so--if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered + terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his + powers--that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not + formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into + mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to + be the victory. He is breaking up or he would not _come to + you_.... + +For a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelee, and the gray menace +that charged the burnt-out air. + +Then came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never +locked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising +vibration--until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized +again.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the +key in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling +Charter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new +mental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the +balustrade for the repetition of a voice that an instant before had +thrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from +the Voice. Peter Stock was now replying: + +"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor," he said striding +up and down the lower hall in his rage. "A few days ago I called upon +him, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy +for him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of +insufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the +flakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall +have to call upon him again." + +Paula heard the low laugh of the other and the words: + +"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the +mountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a +line about Pelee's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed +at once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see the _Saragossa_ +lying familiarly in the roadstead----" + +Trailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her +way back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked. + + + + +NINETEENTH CHAPTER + +QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF _PELEE_, AND ENCOUNTERS A +QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER + + +Charter did not find Paula Linster in the week of New York that followed +his call at the _Zoroaster_, but he found Quentin Charter. The first +three or four days were rather intense in a psychological way. The old +vibrations of New York invariably contained for him a destructive +principle, as Paris held for Dr. Duprez. The furious consumption of +nerve-tissue during the first evening after his arrival; a renewal of +desires operating subconsciously, and in no small part through the +passion of Selma Cross; his last struggle, both subtle and furious, with +his own stimulus-craving temperament, and the desolation of the true +romance--combined, among other things, worthily to test the growth of +his spirit.... The thought that Skylark had fallen into the hands of +Selma Cross, and had been given that ugly estimate of him which the +actress held before his call, as he expressed it in his letter, "drove +straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity." Over this, was a +ghastly, whimpering thing that would not be immured--the effect of +which, of all assailants to rising hope, was most scarifying: That Paula +Linster had suffered herself to listen to those old horrors, and had +permitted him to be called to the bar before Selma Cross. No matter how +he handled this, it held a fundamental lesion in the Skylark-fineness. + +Charter whipped his wastrel tendencies one by one until on the fifth day +his resistance hardened, and the brute within him was crippled from +beating against it. His letter to Paula Linster was a triumph of +repression. Probably one out of six of the thoughts that came to him +were given expression. He felt that he had made of Selma Cross an +implacable enemy, and was pursued by the haunting dread (if, indeed, the +conversation had not been overheard), that she might think better about +"squaring" him. It was on this fifth day that for a moment the mystic +attraction returned to his consciousness, and he heard the old singing. +This was the first reward for a chastened spirit. Again and +again--though never consciously to be lured or forced--the vision, +unhurt, undiminished, returned for just an instant with a veiled, but +exquisite refinement. + +The newspaper account of Pelee's overflowing wrath immediately +materialized all his vague thought of voyaging. His quest had vanished +from New York. Had Selma Cross been true to her word; at least, had any +part of their interview been empowered to restore something of the faith +of Paula Linster--there had been ample time for him to hear it. He was +afraid that, in itself, his old intimacy with the actress had been +enough to startle the Skylark into uttermost flight. Reifferscheid's +frigidity had required only one test to become a deep trouble. His hint +that Miss Linster would be away two or three months rendered New York +and a return to his own home equally impossible. Father Fontanel held a +bright, substantial warmth for his isolated spirit--and the _Panther_ +was among the imminent sailings. + +He bought his berth and passage on the morning of the sailing date, and +there was a matinee of _The Thing_ in the meantime. Charter did not +notify Selma Cross of his coming, but he liked the play unreservedly, +and was amazed by the perfection of her work. He wrote her a line to +this effect; and also a note of congratulation and greeting to Stephen +Cabot.... It was not without a pang that he looked back at Manhattan +from The Narrows that night. + +For several mornings he had studied the gaunt, striding figure of a +fellow-passenger, who appeared to be religious in the matter of his +constitutional; or, as a sailor softly remarked as he glanced up at +Charter from his holy-stoning, "He seems to feel the need av walkin' off +sivin or eight divils before answerin' the breakfast-gong...." In +behalf of this stranger also, Charter happened to overhear the +chief-steward encouraging one of the waiters to extra-diligence in +service, Queerly, in the steward's mind, the interest seemed of a deeper +sort than even an unusual fee could exact--as if he recognized in the +stranger a man exalted in some mysterious masonry. And Charter noticed +that the haggard giant enforced a sort of willing slavery throughout the +ship--from the hands, but through the heads. This strange potentiality +was decidedly interesting; as was the figure in itself, which seemed +possessed of the strength of vikings, in spite of an impression, +inevitable to Charter when he drew near--of one enduring a sort of +Promethean dissolution. Charter reflected upon the man's eyes, which had +the startling look of having penetrated beyond the formality of +Death--into shadows where inquisition-hells were limned. It was not +until he heard the steward address the other as "Doctor Bellingham," +that the fanciful attraction weakened. His recollection crowded +instantly with newspaper paragraphs regarding the Bellingham activities. +Charter was rather normal in his masculine hatred for hypnotic artists +and itinerary confessionals for women. + +The _Panther_ ran into a gale in that storm-crucible off Hatteras. +Charter smiled at the thought, as the striding Bellingham passed, doing +his mileage on the rocking deck, that the roar of the wind in the +funnels aloft was fierce energy in the draughts of this human furnace. +While his own interest waned, the other, curiously enough, began to +respond to his unspoken overtures of a few days before. The _Panther_ +was a day out from San Juan, steaming past the far-flung coral shoals +off Santo Domingo, when Charter was beckoned forward where Bellingham +sat. + +"This soft air would call a Saint Francis down from his spiritual +meditations," the Doctor observed. + +The voice put Charter on edge, and the manner affected him with inward +humor. It was as if the other thought, "Why, there's that pleasant-faced +young man again. Perhaps it would be just as well to speak with him." As +he drew up his chair, however, Charter was conscious of an abrupt change +in his mental attitude--an inclination to combat, verbally to rush in, +seize and destroy every false utterance. His initial idea was to compel +this man who spoke so glibly of meditations to explain what the word +meant to him. This tense, nervous impatience to disqualify all the other +might say became dominant enough to be reckoned with, but when Charter +began to repress his irritation, a surprising inner resistance was +encountered. His sensation was that of one being demagnetized. Thoughts +and words came quickly with the outgoing energy of the current. +Altogether he was extraordinarily affected. + +"These Islands are not particularly adapted for one who pursues the +austerities," he replied. + +"Yet where can you find such temperamental happiness?" Bellingham +inquired, plainly testing the other. His manner of speech was flippant, +as if it were quite the same to him if his acquaintance preferred +another subject. + +"Anywhere among the less-evolved nations, when the people are warm and +fed." + +The Doctor smiled. "You will soon see the long, lithe coppery bodies of +the Islanders, as they plunge into the sea from the Antillean cliffs. +You will hear the soft laughter of the women, and then you will forget +to deny their perfection." Sensuality exhaled from the utterance. + +"You speak of the few brief zenith years which lie at the end of youth," +Charter said. "This sort of perfection exists anywhere. In the Antilles +it certainly is not because the natives have learned how to preserve +life." + +"That's just the point," said Bellingham, "Add to their natural gifts of +beautiful young bodies--the knowledge of preservation." + +"Take a poor, unread Island boy and inform him how to live forever," +Charter observed. "Of course, he'll grasp the process instantly. But +wouldn't it be rather severe on the other boys and girls, if the usual +formula of perpetuating self is used? I mean, would he not have to +restore his vitality from the others?" + +Bellingham stared at him. Charter faced it out, but not without cost, +for the livid countenance before him grew more and more ghastly and +tenuous, until it had the effect of becoming altogether unsubstantial; +and out of this wraith shone the eyes of the serpent. The clash of wills +was quickly passed. + +"You have encountered a different fountain of youth from mine," the +Doctor said gently. + +"Rather I have encountered a disgust for any serious consideration of +immortality in the body." + +"Interesting, but our good Saint Paul says that those who are in the +body when the last call sounds, will be caught up--without disturbing +the sleep of the dead." + +"It would be rather hard on such bodies--if the chariots were of fire," +Charter suggested. + +He was inwardly groping for his poise. He could think well enough, but +it disturbed him to feel the need to avoid the other's eyes. He liked +the shaping of the conversation and knew that Bellingham felt himself +unknown. Charter realized, too, that he would strike fire if he hammered +long enough, but there was malevolence in the swift expenditure of +energy demanded. + +Bellingham smiled again. "Then you think it is inevitable that the end +of man is--the clouds?" + +"The aspiration of the spirit, I should say, is to be relieved of feet +of clay.... Immortality in the body--that's an unbreakable paradox to +me. I'm laminated, Harveyized against anything except making a fine +tentative instrument of the body." + +"You think, then, that the spirit grows as the body wastes?" + +"Orientals have encountered starvation with astonishing results to +philosophy," Charter remarked. "But I was thinking only of a body firmly +helmed by a clean mind. The best I have within me declares that the +fleshly wrapping becomes at the end but a cumbering cerement; that +through life, it is a spirit-vault. When I pamper the body, following +its fitful and imperious appetites, I surely stiffen the seals of the +vault. In my hours in which the senses are dominant the spirit shrinks +in abhorrence; just as it thrills, warms and expands in rarer moments of +nobility." + +"Then the old martyrs and saints who macerated themselves wove great +folds of spirit?" + +The inconsequential manner of the question urged Charter to greater +effort to detach, if possible, for a moment at least, the other's Ego. +"In ideal," he went on, "I should be as careless of food as Thoreau, as +careless of physical pain as Suso. As for the reproductive devil +incarnated in man--it, and all its ramifications, since the most +delicate and delightful of these so often betray--I should encase in the +coldest steel of repression----" + +"You say, in ideal," Bellingham ventured quietly. "... But are not these +great forces splendid fuel for the mind? Prodigious mental workers have +said so." + +"A common view," said Charter, who regarded the remark as +characteristic. "Certain mental workers are fond of expressing this. You +hear it everywhere with a sort of 'Eureka.' Strength of the loins is but +a coarse inflammation to the mind. A man may use such excess strength, +earned by continence, in the production of exotics, feverish lyrics, and +in depicting summer passions, but the truth is, that so long as that +force is not censored, shriven and sterilized--it is the same jungle +pestilence, and will color the mind with impurity. It is much better +where it belongs--than in the mind." + +"You do not believe in the wild torrents, the forked lightnings, and the +shocking thunders of the poets?" + +"I like the calm, conquering voices of the prophets better.... +Immortality of the body?... There can be no immortality in a substance +which earth attracts. We have vast and violent lessons to learn in the +flesh; lessons which can be learned only in the flesh, because it is a +matrix for the integration of spirit. It appears to me that, in due +time, man reaches a period when he balances in the attractions--between +the weight of the body and the lifting of the soul. This is the result +of a slow, refining process that has endured through all time. +Reincarnation is the best theory I know for the process. That there is +an upward tendency driving the universe, seems to be the only cause and +justification for Creating. Devolution cannot be at the centre of such a +system.... The body becomes more and more a spotless garment for the +soul; soul-light more and more electrifies it; the elimination of +carnality in thought may even render the body delicate and transparent, +but it is a matrix still, and falls away--when one's full-formed wings +no longer need the weight of a thorax----" + +"What an expression!" Bellingham observed abruptly. He had been staring +away toward a low, cloudy film of land in the south. One would have +thought that he had heard only the sentence which aroused his comment. +Charter was filling with violence. The man's vanity was chained to him +like a corpse. This experience of pouring out energy to no purpose +aroused in Charter all the forces which had combined to force the public +to his work. The thought came that Bellingham was so accustomed to +direct the speech and thought of others, mainly women, that he had lost +the listening faculty. + +"Let me express it, then," Charter declared with his stoutest +repression, "that this beautiful surviving element, having finished with +the flesh, knows only the attraction of Light. It is the perfect flower +of ages of earth-culture, exquisite and inimitable from the weathering +centuries, and is radiant for a higher destiny than a cooling planet's +crust----" + +"My dear young man, you speak very clearly, prettily, and not without +force, I may say,--a purely Platonistic gospel." + +Charter's mental current was turned off for a second. True or false, the +remark was eminently effective. A great man might have said it, or a +dilettante. + +"In which case, I have a firm foundation." + +"But I am essentially of the moderns," said Bellingham. + +"Perhaps I should have known that from your first remark--about the +brown bodies of the Islanders, rejoicing in the sunlight and bathing in +these jewelled seas." + +"Ah, yes----" The softening of Bellingham's mouth, as he recalled his +own words, injected fresh stimulant into the animus of the other. As +Charter feared the eyes, so he had come to loathe the mouth, though he +was not pleased with the intensity of his feelings. + +"Do you honestly believe that--that which feels the attraction of earth, +and becomes a part of earth after death--is the stuff of immortality?" +he demanded. + +"By marvellous processes of prolongation and refinement--and barring +accident--yes." + +"Processes which these poor Islanders could understand?" + +"We are moving in a circle," Bellingham said hastily. + +For the first moment, Charter felt the whip-hand over his own faculties. + +"I've noted the great, modern tendency to preach _body_," he said, +inhaling a big breath of the fragrant air, "to make a religion of bodily +health--to look for elemental truth in alimentary canals; to mix prayer +with carnal subterfuge and heaven with health resorts. Better Phallicism +bare-faced.... I read a tract recently written by one of these +body-worshippers--the smug, black devil. It made me feel just as I did +when I found a doctor book in the attic once, at the age of ten.... +Whatever I may be, have done, may feel, dream or think below the +diaphragm--hasn't anything to do with my religion. I believe in health, +as in a good horse or a good typewriter, but my body's health is not +going to rule my day." + +"You are young--to have become chilled by such polar blasts," Bellingham +said uneasily, for he now found the other's eyes but without result. + +"I came into the world with a full quiver of red passions," Charter said +wearily, yet strangely glad. "The quiver is not empty. I do not say that +I wish it were, but I have this to declare: I do not relish being told +how to play with the barbs; how to polish and point and delight in them; +how to put them back more deadly poisoned. I think there are big +blankets of mercy for a natural voluptuary--for the things done when +tissues are aflame--but for the man who deliberately studies to recreate +them without cost, and tells others of his experiments--frankly, I +believe in hell for such men-maggots. Oblivion is too sweet. The essence +of my hatred for these Bodyists is because of the poison they infuse +into the minds of youths and maidens, whose character-skeletons are +still rubbery.... But let such teachers purr, wriggle, and dilate--for +they're going back right speedily to the vipers!" + +Bellingham's eyes had been lost in the South. He turned, arose, and +after a pause said lightly, "Your talk is strong meat, young man.... +I--I suffered a serious accident some months ago and cannot stay too +long in one place. We shall talk again. How far do you go with the +_Panther_?" + +"Saint Pierre." + +Charter already felt the first pangs of reaction. His vehemence, the +burn of temper for himself, in that he had allowed the other's +personality to prey upon him, and the unwonted aggressiveness of his +talk--all assumed an evil aspect now as he perceived the occultist's +ghastly face. In rising, Bellingham seemed to have stirred within +himself centres of unutterable torture. His look suggested one who has +been drilled in dreadful arcanums of pain, unapproached by ordinary men. + +"I think I must have been pent a long time," Charter said in his +trouble. "Perhaps, I'm a little afraid of myself and was rehearsing a +warning for the strength of my own bridle-arm--since we're swinging down +into these Isles of Seduction." + +"You'll find a more comfortable coolness with the years, I think, and +cease to abhor your bounding physical vitality. Remember, 'Jesus came +eating and drinking----'" + +Charter started under the touch of the old iron. "But 'wisdom is +justified of all her children,'" he responded quickly. + +They were at the door of Bellingham's cabin, which was forward on the +promenade. The doctor laughed harshly as he turned the key. "I see you +have your Scriptures, too," he said. "We must talk again." + +"How far do you go with the _Panther_?" Charter asked, drawing away. His +eyes had filled for a second, as the door swung open, with the +photograph of a strangely charming young woman within the cabin. + +"I have not decided--possibly on to South America." + +Charter felt as he walked alone that he had shown his youth, even a +pertness of youth. He recalled that he had done almost all the talking; +that he had felt the combativeness of a boy who scents a rival from +another school--quite ridiculous. Moreover, he was weary, as if one of +his furious seasons of work had just ended--that rare and excellent kind +of work which gathers about itself an elemental force to drive the mind +as with fire until the course is run.... He did not encounter Bellingham +during the rest of the voyage. + +Long before dawn the _Panther_ gained the harbor before Saint Pierre, +and Charter awoke to the consciousness of a disorder in the air. Alone +on deck, while the night was being driven back over the rising land, he +was delighted to pick out the writhing letters of gold, "_Saragossa_," +through the smoky gray, a few furlongs to the south. Peter Stock, an +acquaintance from a former call at Saint Pierre, had become a solid and +fruitful memory.... + +Father Fontanel was found early, where the suffering was greatest in the +city. The old eyes lit with gladness as he caught Charter with both +hands, and murmured something as his gaze sank into the eyes of the +younger man--something which Charter did not exactly understand, about +wolves being slain. + +"What have you been doing with Old Man Pelee, Father? We heard him +groaning in the night, and the town is fetid with his sickness." + +"Ah, my son, I am afraid!" + +Had all the seismologists of civilization gathered in Saint Pierre, and +uttered a verdict that the volcano was an imminent menace, Charter would +not have turned a more serious look at Pelee than he did that moment.... +At the _Palms_, he found Peter Stock and a joyous welcome. They arranged +for luncheon together, and the Capitalist hurried down into the city.... +That proved a memorable luncheon, since Peter Stock at the last moment +persuaded Miss Wyndam to join them. + +Charter was disturbed with the thought that he had seen her before; and +amazed that he could have forgotten where. He could only put it far back +among the phantasmagoria of drinking days. Certainly the sane, restored +Charter had never met this woman and forgotten. His veins were dilated +as by a miraculous wine. + +"The name is new to me, but I seem to have seen you somewhere, Miss +Wyndam," he declared. + +"That's the second time you've said that, young man," Mr. Stock +remarked. "Don't your sentences register?" + +"It's always bewildering--I know how Mr. Charter feels," Paula managed +to say. "I'm quite sure we were never introduced, though I know Mr. +Charter's work." + +"That's good of you, indeed," he said. "I don't mean--to know my +work--but to help me out with Friend Stock. It is bewildering that I +have forgotten. I feel like a boy in an enchanted forest. Pelee has been +working wonders all day." + +"I can't follow you," the Capitalist sighed. "Your sentences are +puckered." + +They hardly heard him. Paula, holding fast with all her strength to the +part she had planned to play, sensed Charter's blind emotion, distinct +from her own series of shocks. To her it was that furious moment of +adjustment, when a man and his ideal meet for the first time in a +woman's heart. As for this heart, she feared they would hear its +beating. Instantly, she knew that he had not come to Saint Pierre +expecting to find her; knew that she was flooding into his +subconsciousness--that he felt _worlds_ and could not understand. She +found the boy in his eyes--the boy of his old picture--and the deep +lines and the white skin of a man who has lived clean, and the brow of a +man who has thought many clean things. He was thinking of the Skylark, +and "Wyndam" disturbed him.... Always when he hesitated in his speech, +the right word sprang to her lips to help him. She caught the very +processes of his thinking; his remoteness from the thought of food, was +her own.... For hours, since she had heard his voice below, Paula had +paced the floor of her room, planning to keep her secret long. She would +play and watch his struggle to remember the Skylark; she would weigh the +forces of the conflict, stimulate it; study him among men, in the +presence of suffering, and in the dread of the mountain. All this she +had planned, but now her whole heart went out to the boy in his +eyes--the boy that smiled. All the doubts which at best she had hoped +for the coming days to banish were erased in a moment; she even believed +in its fullness the letter from Selma Cross--because he was embarrassed, +brimming with emotions he could not understand, quite as the boy of her +dreams would be. She lived full-length in his silences, hardly dared to +look at him now, for she felt his constant gaze. She knew that she was +colorless, but that her eyes were filled with light.... Presently she +realized that they were talking of Father Fontanel. + +"He's a good old man," said Peter Stock. "He works day and night--and +refuses to call it work. Just think of having a servant with a God like +Father Fontanel's to make work easy!" + +"He's even a little bit sorry for Pelee," Charter said. "I'm never quite +the same in Saint Pierre. Many times up in the States, I ask myself, if +it isn't largely in my mind about Father Fontanel's spirit and his +effect upon me. It isn't. Stronger than ever it came to me this morning. +You know him?" He turned the last to the woman. + +"Yes, I found him down on the water-front----" + +"And brought him to me," said Mr. Stock, and added: "You know what +bothered me about priests so long--they seem to have it all settled +between them that theirs is the only true Air-line Limited to God. +Fontanel's down in the lowlands, where life is pent and cruel, where +there are weak sisters and little ones who have to be helped over hard +ways--that's what gets Peter Stock." + +"You don't know how good that is to hear," Paula said softly. "I have +thought it, too, about some men in holy orders--black figures moving +along in a 'grim, unfraternal' Indian file, with their eyes so occupied +in keeping their feet from breaking fresh ground--that it seems they +must sometimes lose the Summit." + +Charter looked from one to the other. Peter Stock regarded their plates. +Paula made a quick pretense of eating, and was grateful when Charter +broke the silence: "Yes, Father Fontanel has found one of the trails to +the Top--one of the happy ones. Sometimes I think there are just as many +trails, as an ant could find to the top of an apple. Wayfarers go +a-singing on Father Fontanel's trail--eyes warm with soft skies and +untellable dreams. It's a way of fineness and loving-kindness----" + +Mr. Stock had risen from the table and moved to a window which faced the +North. All was vague about them. Paula had been carried by Charter's +voice toward far-shining mountains.... In the silence, she met the +strange, steady eyes of _the boy_, and looked away to find that the room +had darkened. + +"It is getting dark," he said. + +She would have said it, if he hadn't. + +The mountain rumbled. + +"The North is a mass of swirling grays and blacks," Peter Stock +announced from the window. "It isn't a thunderstorm----" + +A sharp detonation cleaved the darkening air, and from the rear of the +house the answer issued--quavering cries of children, sharp calling of +mothers, and the sullen undertone of men. A subdued drumming came from +the North now, completing the tossing currents of sound about the house. +The dismal bellowing of cattle and the stamping of ponies was heard from +the barns. All this was wiped out by a series of terrific crashes, and +the floor stirred as if intaking a deep breath. The dining-room filled +with a crying, crouching gray-lipped throng of servants. A deluge of ash +complicated the half-night outside, and the curse of sulphur pressed +down. + +Paula arose. Charter had taken his place close beside her, but spoke no +word. + + + + +TWENTIETH CHAPTER + +CHARTER'S MIND BECOMES THE ARENA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WYNDAM WOMAN +AND SKYLARK MEMORIES + + +In the _Rue Rivoli_ there was a little stone wine-shop. The street was +short, narrow, crooked, and ill-paved--a cleft in Saint Pierre's +terrace-work. Just across from the vault-like entrance to the shop, the +white, scarred cliff arose to another flight of the city. Between the +shop and the living-rooms behind there was a little court, shaded by +mango-trees. Dwarfed banana-shrubs flourished in the shade of the +mangoes, and singing-birds were caged in the lower foliage. Since the +sun could find no entrance, the wine-shop was dark as a cave, and as +cool. One window, if an aperture like the clean wound of a thirteen-inch +gun could be called a window, opened to the north; and from it, by the +grace of a crook in the _Rue Rivoli_, might be seen the mighty-calibred +cone of Pelee. + +Pere Rabeaut's wine was very good, and some of it was very cheap. The +service was much as you made it, for if you were known you were +permitted to help yourself. In this world there was no one of station +too lofty to go to Pere Rabeaut's; and since those of no station +whatsoever drank rum, instead of wine, you would meet no one there to +whom it was not a privilege to say "_Bon jour_." + +"Come and see my birds," the crafty Rabeaut would say if he approved of +you. + +"Where do you live?" you might ask, being a stranger. + +"In the coolest hovel of Saint Pierre," was his invariable answer. + +And presently, if you were truly alive, you would find yourself in the +little stone wine-shop, listening to the birds and looking over the +stalled casks, demijohns, and bottles, filled with more or less +concentrated soil and sun. In due course, Soronia would appear in the +shadowy doorway (it would seem that the bird-songs were hushed as she +crossed the court), and she would show you a vintage of especially long +ago. After that, though you became a missionary in Shantung, or a +remittance-man in Tahiti, you would never forget the bouquet of the +Rabeaut wines, the cantatas of the canaries, nor the witchery of +Soronia's eyes.... If the little stone wine-shop were transplanted in +New York, artists would find it, and you would be forced to fetch your +own goblet and have difficulty in getting in and out for the crowd o' +nights. + +Thither Charter went the next morning and sat down in the cherished +coolness. Peter Stock had reminded him of their former talks there, over +a particular wine of Epernay, and had arranged to meet him this +morning.... In the foreground of Charter's mind a gritty depression had +settled, but throughout the finer, farther consciousness, where +realities abide, there hung a mystic constellation, which every little +while (and with a shock of ecstasy, so wonderful that his _mere_ brain +was alarmed and called it scandalous), fused together into a great, +glowing ardent Star of Bethlehem.... + +Again, the _mere_ brain said: "What have you done with your three years? +The actress knew you better than you knew yourself. All your letters, +and the spirit of your letters, have fallen into ruin before the first +woman you meet down here in a dreamy, tropic isle. How can you--you, who +have lived truly for a little while, and seemed to have felt the love +that lifts--sink into the fragrant meshes of romance, through the +beautiful eyes of a stranger to your world and to your ways? And what of +Skylark, the lovely, the winged?..." And the soul of the man riding at +its moorings in the bright calm of wisdom's anchorage, made laughing +answer: "This is the Skylark--ah, not that Wyndam is Linster,--but this +is the veiled queen who has waited so long for the House of Charter to +be ready. This is the forever-fairy that puzzled the nights and mornings +of the long-ago Charter boy. It was her wing that held the last dart of +light in the gardens of boyhood before the frowning thunders came. It +was her songs that made the youth's mind magic with lyrics, certain ones +so very clear that they fitted into words. It was to find her dazzling +brow that lured him to prodigious wanderings, until he fell fainting in +the dust of other women's chariots. It was the rustling of her wings +that he heard from without, when he lay in the Caverns of Devouring, +where the twain, Flesh and Death, hold ghastly carnival; the flash of +her wings again that lifted his eyes to the Rising Road. It was her +spirit in the splendid East whose miracles of singing and shining made +glorious, with creative touch, his hours by the garret window.... It was +she of exquisite shoulder and starry eyes and radiant sympathies--before +whom the boy, the man and the spirit, bowed in thankfulness +yesterday...." + +And so he sat there thinking, thinking,--glimpsing the errant centuries +in the same high light of memory that this very morning recurred--an +hour or two ago, when he had walked with her through the mango-grove in +the coolness following a dawn-shower that had washed the white weight of +Pelee's ash-winter from the trees.... "What a chaos I must be," he +murmured in dull anguish, "with the finest of my life plighted to a +vision that is lost--while I linger desolate in the presence of wondrous +reality!" ... Some one was moving and whispering in the little room +across the court of the song-birds.... Peter Stock entered, his white +hair and mustache dulled with ash; his eyes red and angry. + +"Well, I think I've got Father Fontanel frightened," he said, sinking +down across the little round table. "He's telling the people to shut up +their houses and go to Fort de France. Sixty or seventy have started, +and many more have gone up to Morne Rouge and Ajoupa Boullion, where it +happens to be cool, though they're just as close to the craters. +Fontanel has come into a very proper spirit of respect for Pelee's +destructive capacity. By the way, did you hear what happened yesterday, +during the darkness and racket while we were at dinner?" + +"Not definitely. Tell me," Charter urged. + +"The extreme northern end of the city, or part of it, was flooded out +like an ant-hill under a kettle boiling over. The River _Blanche_ +overflowed her banks, and ran with boiling mud from the volcano. Thirty +people were killed and the Usine Guerin destroyed." + +"I didn't think it was so bad as that." + +"I hope I'm wrong, but the Guerin disaster may be only a preliminary +demonstration--like the operator experimenting to find if it is dark +enough to start the main fireworks. Nobody can complain to Saint Peter +that Pelee hasn't warned." + +"There's another way to look at it," Charter said. "The volcano's +overflow into the River _Blanche_ might have eased the pressure upon the +craters. I wonder if there is any authority or precedent for such a +hope?" + +"If Pelee's fuse is burning shorter and shorter toward a Krakatoan +cataclysm," Peter Stock declared moodily, "it's not for man to say what +spark will shake the world.... I tried to see Mondet this morning--but +couldn't get in. You wouldn't think one white, small person could +contain so much poison. I am haunted with the desire to commit physical +depredations." + +"I think I'll take a little journey up toward the craters to-morrow," +Charter confided, after a moment. "They say that the weather is quiet +and clean to the north of the mountain. One might ride up and try to +reason with _Pere Pelee_----" + +At this juncture Soronia entered the wine-shop from the little court, to +fill the eyes and the goblets of the Americans. A dark, ardent, alluring +face; flesh like dull gold, made wonderful by the faintest tints of ripe +fruit; eyes that could melt and burn and laugh; a fragile figure, but +radiantly abloom, and as worthily draped as a young palm in a richly +blossoming vine. She made one think of a strange, regal flower, an +experiment of Nature, wrought in the most sumptuous shadow of a tropic +garden.... She was gone. Charter laughed at the drained look in Peter +Stock's face. + +"An orchid----" the latter began. + +"Or a sunlit cathedral window." + +"Will the visitation be repeated? Do I wake or sleep?" + +"The years have dealt artistically in the little wine-shop," +said Charter. "They say old Pere Rabeaut married a _fille de +couleur_--daughter of a former Governor-General of Martinique." + +"Some Daphne of the Islands, she must have been, since Pere Rabeaut does +not seem designed to father a sunset.... It's my first glimpse of +Soronia this voyage. She was beautiful in a girlish way last year.... +She's in love, or she couldn't glow like that. I met Pere Rabeaut down +in the city----" + +Charter arose. "Perhaps the lover is across the court. I heard a +whispering through the bird-songs--and one could not fail to note how +she hurried back.... I must go on. The water is no better here than +elsewhere." + +"But the wine is," said Peter Stock. "Wait luncheon for me at the +_Palms_.... By the way, how'd you like to take a little cruise--feel the +_Saragossa_ under you, running like a scared deer to hitch herself to +the solid old Horn, built of rock and sealed with icebergs----" + +"A clean thought, in this air--but the eventualities here attract. When +Father Fontanel grows afraid for the city, well, it may not be +scientific, but it's ominous.... I wanted to ask if it ever occurred to +you that even the _Morne d'Orange_ might fall into the sweeping range of +Pelee's guns?" + +"In other words--if the mountain won't recede from Miss Wyndam, we'd +better snatch up Miss Wyndam and make a getaway from the mountain?" + +From far within a "Yea" was acclaimed, yet there was a sullen Charter +integrity which had given its word to Skylark, and feared the test of +being shut on the same ship with a woman who endowed him with such power +that he felt potent to go to the craters and remonstrate with the +Monster. + +"It might be well to ask her," Charter replied gloomily, "but I'm rather +absorbed in the action here and Father Fontanel's work. I want to look +at the craters from behind----" + +"Twice you've said that," said Peter Stock, "and each time it reminds me +that I'm old, yet there's a lure about it. I'm thinking----" + +Their heads were together at the little round window for the mountain +had rumbled again, and they stared beyond the city into the ashen +shroud. + +"Grand old martyr," Charter muttered, "hang on, hang on!... The flag of +truce still flies." + + * * * * * + +Paula at the _Palms_ reflected the Charter conflict that morning. She +had seen it in his eyes and felt it in his heart, as they had walked +together in the mock-winter of the mango-grove before breakfast. Away +from him now, however, she could not be sure that "Wyndam," representing +the woman, altogether satisfied his vision of Skylark. Very strange, he +was, in his struggling, and it became harder, and a more delicate thing +than she had believed, to say, "I am Paula Linster." She had felt this +great restlessness of his spirit vaguely in the early letters--a stormy, +battling spirit which his brain constantly labored to interpret. She had +seen his moments of calm, too, when the eyes and smile of the boy +rendered his attractions so intimate to her, that she could have told +him anything--but these calms did not endure even in her presence. She +did not want the woman, Wyndam, despised, nor yet the Skylark put from +him. It became a reality, that out of his struggle Truth would rise; +meanwhile, though not with the entire sanction of a certain inner voice, +she withheld her secret, remaining silent and watchful in the midst of +the greatest drama the world could bring to her understanding.... + +Paula did not fail to note that Peter Stock was somewhat surprised when +she refused for the present his invitation to spend the nights at least +out in the cool Caribbean. She saw, moreover, that Quentin Charter was +beginning to fear the mountain, because she remained at the _Palms_. +Indeed, it was hard for all to remember that in form, at least, they +were mere acquaintances, so familiar had they become to each other in +the pressure of Pelee. Above all this, she was almost continually +conscious of Bellingham since the receipt of Madame Nestor's letter. It +was not that his power was formidable enough to disorder the unfolding +of the drama, but she felt his nearness, his strategies--all the more +strange, as there had been no sign of him since the arrival of the +_Panther_. If for no other reason, she would have found it difficult to +disclose her real name to Quentin Charter, while her mind was even +distantly the prey of the black giant. + +These were tremendous hours--when but a word from her withheld two +hearts from bursting into anthems. Bravely, she gloried in these last +great refinings--longings, fears, exaltations, but never was she without +the loftiest hope of her life. The man who had come was so much that +_the man_ should be. She saw his former years as the wobblings of a top +that has not yet gained its momentum. Only at its highest speed does the +top sing its peace with God.... Had not the finest glow of his powers +been reserved until her coming?... + +In such moments as these, she could look back upon her own agonies with +gratitude. She had needed a Bellingham. Should she not be thankful that +a beyond-devil had been required to test her soul? In the splendid +renewals of her spirit, Paula felt that she could look into the +magician's eyes now and command him from her. She was even grateful that +she had been swept in the fury of The High Tide, nor would she have had +that supreme night of trial when she fled from the _Zoroaster_, stricken +from her past. Just as Quentin Charter, of the terrible thirsts, had +required his years of wrath and wandering, so her soul had needed the +test of a woman's revelations and man's sublimated passion. Deep within +lived a majestic happiness--earned. + +At one o'clock, as she was going below for luncheon, the sun gave up +trying to shine through the ash-fog, but volumes of dreadful heat found +the earth. The _Saragossa_ was invisible in the roadstead; there was no +line dividing shore and sea, nor sea and sky. It was all an illimitable +mask, whose fabric was the dust which for centuries had lain upon the +dynamos of Pelee. + + + + +TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER + +CHARTER COMMUNES WITH THE WYNDAM WOMAN, AND CONFESSES THE GREAT TROUBLE +OF HIS HEART TO FATHER FONTANEL + + +"Do you know what I discovered this morning?" Peter Stock asked, after +the three had found a table together. "M. Mondet is trying to keep the +people in town for political reasons. It appears that there is to be an +election in a few days. All my efforts, and, by non-parishioners, the +efforts of Father Fontanel, are regarded as a political +counter-stroke--to rush a certain element of the suffrage out of the +town.... This is certainly Ash-Wednesday, isn't it?" + +Charter laughed. "My theory that the Guerin disaster might relieve the +craters and give surcease to Saint Pierre--doesn't seem to work out. The +air is getting thicker, even." + +"It isn't really ash, you know," explained Mr. Stock, "but rock, ground +fine as neat in the hell-mills under the mountain and shot out by steam +through Pelee's valves----" + +"Intensely graphic," said Paula. + +"It has been rather a graphic morning," Charter remarked. "Friend Stock +is virile from his activities with Father Fontanel." + +"Well, I didn't make a covenant with the mountain--as you did this +morning in the wine-shop. You should have seen him, Miss Wyndam, staring +away at the volcano and, muttering, 'Hang on, old chap, hang on!....' My +dear young woman, doesn't a ride on the ocean sound good for this +afternoon? You can sit on deck and hold the little black babies. The +_Saragossa_ takes another load to Fort de France in two or three hours." + +She shook her head. "Not just yet. You don't realize how wonderful the +drama is to me--you and Father Fontanel, playing Cassandra down in the +city--the groaning mountain, and the pity of it all. I confess a little +inconvenience of the weather isn't enough to drive me out. It isn't very +often given to a woman to watch the operations of a destiny so big as +this." + +The capitalist turned to Charter. "You know Empress Josephine was born +in Martinique and has become a sort of patron saint for the Island. A +beautiful statue of her stands in the square at Fort de France where our +refugees are encamped. I was only thinking that the map of Europe and +the history of France might have been altered greatly if our beloved +Josephine had been gifted with a will like this--of Miss Wyndam's." + +Her pale, searching face regarded Charter for a second, and his eyes +said plainly as words, "Don't you think you'd better consider this more +seriously?" + +"Maybe you'll like the idea better for the evening, when the _Saragossa_ +is back in the roadstead again, comparatively empty," Peter Stock added +presently. "Father Fontanel and I have a lot to do in the meantime. Can +you imagine our first parents occupying themselves when the first +tornado was swooping down--our dear initial mother, surpassingly +wind-blown, driving the geese to shelter, propping up the orchards, +getting out the rain-barrels, and tightening tent-pins?" + +"Vividly," said Paula. + +"That's just how busy we are--Father Fontanel and I." + +It was to be expected that a sophomoric pointlessness should +characterize the sayings of the two in the midst of Peter Stock's +masculinity and the thrilling magnitude of the marvel each was to the +other.... They were left together presently, and the search for treasure +began at once: + +"... The present is a time of readjustment between men and women," he +was saying. "It seems to me that the great mistake people make--men and +women alike--is that each sex tries to raise itself by lowering +the other. It hardly could be any other way just now, and at +first--with woman filled with the turmoil of emerging from ages of +oppression--fighting back the old and fitting to the new. But in man and +woman--not in either alone--lies completion. If the two do not quite +complete each other, a Third often springs from them with an increased +spiritual development." + +"Yes," she answered, leaning forward, her chin fitted to her palms. "The +_I-am_ and the _You-are-not_ will soon be put away. I like to think of +it--that man and woman are together in the complete human. There is a +glorious, an arch-feminine ideal in the nature of the Christ----" + +"Even in the ineffable courage," he added softly. "That is woman's--the +finer courage that never loses its tenderness.... His Figure sometimes, +as now, becomes an intimate passion to me----" + +"As if He were near?" + +"As if He were near--still loving, still mediating--all earth's struggle +and anguish passing through Him and becoming glorified with His pity and +tenderness--before it reaches the eyes of the Father.... There is no +other way. Man and woman must be One in Two--before Two in One. They +must not war upon each other. Woman is receptive; man the origin. Woman +is a planet cooled to support life; man, still an incandescent sun, +generates the life." + +"That is clear and inspiring," she said. "I have always wanted it said +just like that--that one is as important as the other in the evolution +of the Individual----" + +"And for that Individual are swung the solar systems.... Look at +Job--denuded of all but the Spirit. There is an Individual, and his +story is the history of an Initiation.... We are coming to a time when +Mind will operate in man and woman _conscious_ of the Soul. When that +time comes true, how the progress to God will be cleared and speeded! It +will be a flight----" + +"Instead of a crawl," she finished. + +They were alone in the big dining-room. Their voices could not have +reached the nearest empty table. It was like a communion--their first +communion. + +"I have felt it," she went on in a strange, low tone, "and heard the New +Voices--Preparers of the Way. Sometimes it came to me in New York--the +stirring of a great, new spiritual life. I have felt the hunger--that +awful hollowness in the breasts of men and women, who turn to each other +in mute agony, who turn to a thousand foolish sensations--because they +do not realize what they hunger for. Their breasts cry out to be +filled----" + +"And the Spirit cries out to flood in." + +"Yes, and the Spirit asks only for Earth-people to listen to their inner +voices and love one another," she completed. "It demands no macerations, +no fetters, no fearful austerities--only fineness and loving kindness." + +"How wonderfully they have come to me, too--those radiant moments--as I +sat by my study window, facing the East," he whispered, not knowing what +the last words meant to her. "How clear it is that all great and good +things come with this soul-age--this soul-consciousness. I have seen in +those lovely moments that Mother Earth is but one of many of God's +gardens; that human life is but a day in a glorious culture-scheme which +involves many brighter and brighter transplantings; that the radiance of +the Christ, our Exemplar, but shows us the loveliness which shall be +ours when we approach that lofty maturity of bloom----" + +A waiter entered with the word that a man from the city, Pere Rabeaut, +desired to see Mr. Charter. Each felt the dreadfulness of returning so +abruptly to sordid exterior consciousness--each felt the gray ghost of +Pelee. + +"I shall go and see what is wanted, Miss Wyndam, and hurry back--if I +may?" he said in a dull, tired tone. + +It was the first time he had said "Wyndam," and it hurt cruelly at this +moment.... "No, no," she said rising hastily. "It would spoil it to come +back. We could not forget ourselves like that--so soon again. It always +spoils--oh, what am I saying? I think our talk must have interested me +very much." + +"I understand," he said gently. "But we shall talk again--and for this +little hour, my whole heart rises to thank you." + +Pere Rabeaut was waiting upon the veranda. Peculiarly, at this moment he +seemed attached to the crook of wine-shop servitude, which Charter had +never noticed with such evidence among the familiar casks. Moreover, +disorder was written upon the gray face. + +"_Mon Dieu_, what a day, M. Charter!--a day of judgment! Soronia's +little birds are dying!" + +Charter regarded the sharp, black eyes, which darted over his own face, +but would not be held in any gaze. + +"I heard from my daughter that you are going to the craters of the +mountain," the old man said. "'He will need a guide,' said I at once. +'And guides are scarce just now, for the people are afraid of Pelee. +Still, he's an old patron,' I said to Soronia. 'He cannot go to the +mountain without a guide, so I shall do this little thing for him. He +must have our Jacques.'" + +Charter drew him away. He did not care to have it known at the _Palms_ +that he was projecting a trip to the summit. Perhaps the inscrutable +Pere Rabeaut was conferring a considerable favor. It was arranged that +if he decided to make the journey, the American should call at the +wine-shop for Jacques early the following morning. Pere Rabeaut left him +none the poorer for his queer errand. + +Charter avoided Miss Wyndam for the rest of the day. Beyond all the +words of their little talk, had come to him a fullness of womanhood +quite beyond the dreamer. As he remembered the lustrous face, the +completion of his sentences, the mutual sustaining of their thoughts, +their steady, tireless ascent beyond the need of words; as he remembered +her calms, and the glimpses of cosmic consciousness, her grasp, her +expression, her silences, the exquisite refinement of her face, and the +lingering adoration in her eyes--the ideal of the Skylark was so clearly +and marvellously personified that for moments at a time the vision was +lost in the living woman. And for this, Quentin Charter proposed to +suffer--and to suffer alone. + +So he supped down-town, and waited for Father Fontanel at the +parish-house. The priest came in during the evening and Charter saw at +once, what the other never could have admitted, that the last few days +had borne the good man to the uttermost edges of his frail vitality. +Under the lamp, the beautiful old face had the whiteness of that virgin +wax of Italian hives in which the young queens lie until the hour of +awakening. The tired, smiling eyes, deeply shadowed under a brow that +was blest, gazed upon the young man with a light in his eyes not +reflected from the lamp, but from his great love--in that pure +fatherhood of celibacy.... + +"Ah, no, I'm not weary, my son. We must have our walks and talks +together on the _Morne_ again.... When old Father Pelee rests once more +from his travail, and the people are happy again, you and I shall walk +under the stars, and you shall tell me of those glorious saints, who +felt in the presence of God that they must put such violent constraint +upon themselves.... When I think of my suffering people--it comes to me +that the white ship was sent like a good angel--and how I thank that +noble lady for taking me at once to this great rock of an American, who +bluffs me about so cheerily and grants all things before they are asked. +What wonderful people you are from America! But it is always so--always +these good things come to me. Indeed, I am very grateful.... +Weary?--what a poor old man I should be to fall weary in the midst of +such helpers...." + +Charter sat down beside him under the lamp and told him what an arena +his mind had become for conflict between a woman and a vision. Even with +the writer's trained designing, the tale drew out with an oriental +patience of weaving and coloring. Charter had felt a woman's need for +the ease of disclosure, and indeed there was no other man whom he would +have told. He had a thought, too, that if by any chance Pelee should +intervene--both the woman and the Skylark might learn. He did not tell +of his plan to go to the mountain--lest he be dissuaded. In his mind the +following day was set apart--as a sort of pilgrimage sacred to Skylark. + +"Old Pelee has shadowed my mind," Father Fontanel said, when the story +was done. "I see him before and between all things, but I shall meditate +and tell you what seems best in my sight. Only this, my son, you may +know, that when first the noble lady filled my eyes--I felt you near +her--as if she had come to me from you, whom I always loved to +remember." + +Charter bowed and went his way, troubled by the shadow of Pelee in the +holy man's mind; and yet glad, too, that the priest had felt him near +when he first saw Miss Wyndam. It was late when he reached the _Palms_ +yet sleeplessness ranged through his mind, and he did not soon go to his +room. The house and grounds were all his own. He paced the veranda, the +garden paths and drives; crossed the shadowy lawns, brooded upon the +rumbling mountain and the foggy moon high in the south.... At the side +of the great house to the north, there was a trellis heavily burdened +with lianas. Within, he found the orifice of an old cistern, partially +covered by unfixed planking. A startling thought caused him to wonder +why he had not explored the place before. The moonlight, faint at best, +gave but ghostly light through the foliage, yet he kicked away a board +and lit a match. A heavy wooden bar crossed the rim and was set stoutly +in the masonry. His mind keenly grasped each detail at the exterior. A +rusty chain depended from the thick cross-piece. He dropped several +ignited matches into the chamber. Slabs of stone from the side-walls had +fallen into the cistern, which seemed to contain little or no water.... +From one of the native cabins came the sound of a dog barking. A shutter +clicked in one of the upper windows of the plantation-house. + + + + +TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER + +CHARTER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CRATERS OF _PELEE_--ONE LAST DAY +DEVOTED TO THE SPIRIT OF OLD LETTERS + + +Charter left the _Palms_ early to join his guide at the wine-shop. He +had kept apart from Peter Stock for two reasons. The old capitalist +easily could have been tempted to accompany him. Personally, Charter did +not consider a strong element of danger, and a glimpse into the +volcano's mouth would give him a grasp and handling of the throes of a +sick world, around which all natural phenomena would assume thereafter +an admirable repression. To Peter Stock it would be an adventure, +merely. More than all this, he wanted to go to the mountain alone. It +was the Skylark's day; and for this reason, he hurried out of the +_Palms_ and down to the city without breakfast.... A last look from the +_Morne_, as it dipped into the _Rue Victor Hugo_--at a certain upper +window of the plantation-house, where it seemed he was leaving all the +bright valiant prodigies of the future. He turned resolutely toward +Pelee--but the Skylark's song grew fainter _behind_. + + * * * * * + +Pere Rabeaut's interest in the venture continued to delight him. +Procuring a companion was no common favor, since inquiries in the town +proved that the regular guides were in abject dread of approaching the +Monster now. Soronia, Pere Rabeaut, and his new servant awaited him in +the _Rue Rivoli_. The latter was a huge Creole, of gloomy visage. They +would not find any one to accompany them in the lower part of the city, +he said, as the fear there was greater than ever since the Guerin +disaster. In Morne Rouge, however, they would doubtless be able to +procure mules, food, and other servants if necessary, for a day's trip +to the craters. All of which appeared reasonable to Charter, though he +wondered again at the vital interest of Pere Rabeaut, and the general +tension of the starting. + +The two passed down through the city, and into the crowd of the +market-place, where a blithesome little drama unfolded. Peter Stock had +apparently been talking to the people about their volcano, urging them, +no doubt, to take the advice of Father Fontanel and flee to Fort de +France, when he had perceived M. Mondet passing in his carriage. Charter +saw his friend dart quickly from the crowd and seize the bridle. Despite +the protestations of the driver, the capitalist drew the vehicle into +view of all. His face was red with the heat and ashine with laughter and +perspiration. Alarm and merriment mingled in the native throng. All eyes +followed the towering figure of the American who now swung open the door +of the carriage and bowed low to M. Mondet. + +"This, dear friends," Peter Stock announced, as one would produce a +rabbit from a silk hat,--"this, you all perceive, is your little editor +of _Les Colonies_. Is he not bright and clean and pretty? He is very +fond of American humor. See how the little editor laughs!" + +M. Mondet's smile was yellowish-gray and of sickly contour. His article +relative to the American appealed to him now entirely stripped of the +humor with which it was fraught a few days before, as he had composed it +in the inner of inner-offices. This demon of crackling French and +restless hands would stop at nothing. M. Mondet pictured himself being +picked up for dead presently. As the blow did not fall on the instant, +the sorry thought tried him that he was to be played with before being +dispatched. + +"This is the man who tells you that Saint Pierre is in no danger--who +scoffs at those who have already gone--who inquires in his paper, 'Where +on the Island could a more secure place than Saint Pierre be found in +the event of an earthquake visitation?' M. Mondet advises us to flee +with all dispatch to the live craters of a volcano to escape his +hypothetical earthquake." Peter Stock was now holding up the Frenchman's +arm, as a referee upraises the whip of a winning fighter. "He says +there's no more peril from Pelee than from an old man shaking ashes out +of his pipe. I proposed to wager my ship against M. Mondet's rolled-top +desk that he was wrong, but there was a difficulty in the way. Do you +not see, my friends of Saint Pierre, that, if I won the wager, I should +not be able to distinguish between M. Mondet's rolled-top desk and M. +Mondet's cigarette case in the ruins of the city----" + +There had been a steady growling from the mountain. + +"Ah!" Stock exclaimed after a pause, "Pelee speaks again! 'I will +repay--verily, I will repay!' growls the Monster. Let it be so, then, +friends of mine. I will turn over my little account to the big +fire-eater yonder who will collect all debts. I tell you, we who tarry +too long will be buying political extras and last editions in hell from +this bit of a newspaper man!" + +Charter laughingly turned away to avoid being seen, just as M. Mondet +was chucked like a large, soft bundle into the seat of his carriage and +the door slammed forcibly, corking whatever wrath appertained. In any of +the red-blooded zones, a foreigner who performed such antics at the +expense of a portly and respected citizen would have encountered a +quietus quick and blasting, but the people of Martinique are not swift +to anger nor forward in reprisal. + +Charter's physical energy was imperious, but the numbness of his scalp +was a pregnant warning against the perils of heat. There were moments in +which his mind moved in a light, irresponsible fashion, as if obsessed +at quick intervals, one after another, by mad kings who dared anything, +and whom no one dared refuse. Somehow his brain contrived with striking +artifices to keep the Wyndam-Skylark conflict in the background; yet, as +often as he became aware of old Vulcan muttering his agonies ahead, just +so often did the reality rise that the meaning and direction of his life +was gone, if he was not to see again the woman at the _Palms_. + +Jacques, his guide, followed in sullen silence. They crossed the +Roxelane, and presently were ascending toward Morne Rouge. Saint Pierre +was just still enough now to act like a vast sounding-board. Remote +voices reached them, even from the harbor-front to the left, and from +shut shops everywhere.... It was nearly mid-day, when he rode out from +Morne Rouge, with three more companions. + +The ash-hung valley was far behind, and Charter drank deeply of the +clean, east wind from the Atlantic. There was a rush of bitterness, too, +because the woman was not there to share these priceless volumes of +sunlit vitality. All the impetus of enterprise was needed now to turn +the point of conflict, and force it into the background again.... They +pushed through Ajoupa Boullion to the gorge of the Falaise, the +northward bank of which marked the trail which Jacques chose to the +summit. + +And now they moved upward in the midst of the old glory of Martinique. +The brisk Trades blowing evenly in the heights, wiped the eastern slope +of the mountain clear of stone-dust and whipped the blasts of sulphur +down into the valley toward the shore. Green lakes of cane filled the +valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms, so distant and so orderly +that they looked like a city garden set with hen and chickens.... +Northward, through the rifts, glistened the sea, steel-blue and cool. +Before them rose the vast, green-clad mass of the mountain, its corona +dim with smoke and lashed by storm. Down in the southwest lay the +ghastly pall, the hidden, tortured city, tranced under the cobra-head of +the volcano and already laved in its poison. + +The trail became very steep at two thousand feet, and this fact, +together with the back-thresh of the summit disturbance, forced Charter +to abandon the animals. It transpired that two of the three later guides +felt it their duty, at this point, to stay behind with the mules. A +little later, when the growling from the prone, upturned face of the +Monster suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the flesh and outraged the +senses of man, Charter looked back and found that only one native was +faltering behind, instead of two. And this one was Jacques, of the +savage eyes. Pere Rabeaut was praised again. + +Fascination for the dying Thing took hold of him now and drew him on. +Charter was little conscious of fear for his life, but of a fixed terror +lest he should be unable to go on. He found himself tearing up a +handkerchief and stuffing the shreds in his ears to deaden the hideous +vibrations. With the linen remaining, he filled his mouth, shutting his +jaws together upon it, as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on an +incline. + +The titanic disorder placated his own. He became unconscious of passing +time. From the contour of the slope, remembered from a past visit, he +was aware of nearing the _Lac des Palmists_, which marked the +summit-level. Yet changes, violent changes, were everywhere evidenced. +The shoulder of the mountain was smeared with a crust of ash and seamed +with fresh scars. The crust was made by the dry, whirling winds playing +upon the paste formed of stone-dust and condensed steam. The clicking +whir, like a clap of wings, heard at intervals, accounted for the scars. +Bombs of rock were being hurled from the great tubes. Here he shouted to +Jacques to stay behind; that he would be back in a few moments. There +was a nod of assent from the evil head. + +That he was in the range of a raking volcano-fire impressed with a sort +of laughing awe this ant clinging to the beard of a giant. Up, knees and +hands, now, he crawled--up over the throbbing chin, to the black, +pounded lip of the Monster. Out of the old lake coiled the furious tower +of steam and rock-dust which mushroomed in high heaven, like a primal +nebula from which worlds are made. It was this which fell upon the city. +Pockets of gas exploded in the heights, rending the periphery, as the +veil of the temple was rent. Only this horrible torrent spreading over +Saint Pierre to witness, but sounds not meant for the ear of man, sounds +which seemed to saw his skull in twain--the thundering engines of a +planet. + +The rocky rim of the lake was hot to his hands and knees, but a moment +more he lingered. A thought in his brain held him there with thrilling +bands. It was only a plaything of mind--a vagary of altitude and +immensity. "Did ever the body of a man clog the crater of a live +volcano?" was his irreverent query. "Did ever suicidal genius conceive +of corrupting such majesty of force with his pygmy purpose?" + +There he lay, sprawled at the edge of the universal mystery, at the +secret-entrance to the chamber of earth's dynamos. The edge of the pit +shook with the frightful work going on below, yet he was not slain. The +torrent burst past and upward with a southward inclination, clean as a +missing bullet. The bombs of rock canted out from sheer weight and fell +behind. That which he comprehended--although his eyes saw only the gray, +thundering cataclysm--was never before imagined in the mind of man. + +The gray blackened. The roar dwindled, and his senses reeled. With a +rush of saliva, the linen dropped from his open mouth. Charter was sure +there was a gaping cleft in his skull, for he could feel the air blowing +in and out, cold and colder. He tried to lift his hands to cover the +sensitive wound, but they groped in vain for his head. With the icy +draughts of air, he seemed to hear faintly his name falling upon bare +ganglia. For a second he feared that the lower part of his body would +not respond; that he was uncoupled like a beast whose spine is +broken.... It was only a momentary overcoming of the gas, or altitude, +or the dreadful disorder, or all three. Yet he knew how he must turn +back if he lived.... His name was called again. He thought it was the +Reaper, calling forth his ghost. + +"Quentin Charter! Quentin Charter!" + +Then he saw the Wyndam woman on the veranda of the _Palms_, her face +white with agony, her eyes straining toward him.... Turning hastily--he +missed death in a savage, sordid reality. Jacques had crept upon him, a +maniac in his eyes, dog's slaver on his lips. A rock twice as large as +his head was upraised in both arms. With a muscular spasm one knows in a +dream, Charter's whole body united in a spring to the side--escaping the +rock. Jacques turned and fled like a goat, leaping from level to level. + +Charter managed to follow. He felt weak and ill for the time, as though +Pelee had punished him for peering into matters which Nature does not +thank man for endeavoring to understand.... The three natives pressed +about him far down on the slope. Jacques had vanished. The sun was +sinking seaward. Charter mounted his mule, turning the recent incident +over in his mind for the manieth time. His first thought had been that +the indescribable gripping of the mountain had turned mad a decent +servant, but this did not stand when he recalled how Pere Rabeaut had +importuned him to accept Jacques, and how the latter had fled from his +_failure_. Yet, so far as he could see, there was no reason in the world +why a conspiracy to murder him should have origin in the little +wine-shop of _Rue Rivoli_. It was all baffling even at first, that a +rock had been chosen, when a knife or a pistol would have been +effective. This latter, he explained presently. There was a possibility +of his body being found; a smashed head would fall to the blame of _Pere +Pelee_, who was casting bombs of rock upon the slopes; while a knife or +a bullet-wound on his body would start the hounds indeed. + +He rode down the winding trail apart from the guides. Darkness was +beginning, and the lights of Ajoupa Boullion showed ahead. The mountain +carried on a frightful drumming behind. Coiling masses of volcanic +spume, miles above the craters, generated their own fire; and lit in the +flashes, looked like billows of boiling steel. Charter rode upon sheer +nerve--nerve at which men had often wondered. At length a full-rigged +thought sprang into his mind, which had known but the passing of +hopeless derelicts since the first moment of descent. It was she who had +called to save him. The woman of flesh had become a vision indeed. The +little Island mule felt the heel that moment.... Charter turned back to +the red moiled sky--a rolling, roaring Hades in the North. + +"I can't help it, Skylark," he murmured, "if you _will_ merge into this +woman. She may never know that a man fled from her to the mountain +to-day, and is hurrying back--as to the source of all beauty!... +Charter, Charter, your thoughts are boiling over----" + +He rode into the streets of Morne Rouge, so over-crowded now with the +frightened from the lower city, that many were huddled upon the highway +where they would be forced to sleep. Here he paid the three guides, but +retained his mule.... On the down trail again, he re-entered the bank of +falling ash and the sulphurous desolation. Evil as it was, the taint +brought a sense of proximity to the _Morne_ and the _Palms_. Saint +Pierre was dark and harrowingly still under the throbbing volcano. The +hoof-beats of the mule were muffled in ash, as if he pounded along a +sandy beach. Often a rousing fetor reached the nostrils of the rider, +above the drying, cutting vapor from Pelee, and the little beast shied +and snorted at untoward humps on the highway. War and pestilence, +seemingly, had stalked through Saint Pierre that day and a winter storm +had tried to cover the aftermath.... He passed through _Rue Rivoli_, but +was far too eager to reach the _Palms_ to stop at the wine-shop. The +ugly mystery there could be penetrated afterward. Downward, he turned +toward the next terrace, where the solitary figure of a woman confronted +him. + +"Mr. Charter!" she cried. "And--you are able to ride?" + +"Why, what do you mean, Miss Wyndam?" he said, swiftly dismounting. +"What are you doing 'way up here alone--in this dreadful suffocation?" + +"I was looking for a little stone wine-shop----" She checked herself, a +scroll of horrors spreading open in her brain. + +"It's just a little way back," he said, in a repressed tone. "I have an +errand there, too. Shall I show you?" + +"No," she answered shuddering. "I'll walk with you back to the _Palms_. +I must think.... Oh, let us hurry!" + +He lifted her to the saddle, and took the bridle-rein. + + + + +TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER + +CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE IN THE NIGHT, AND THE +WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE _PALMS_ + + +Peter Stock was abroad in the _Palms_ shortly after Charter left for the +wine-shop to join Jacques, for the day's trip. The absence of the +younger man reminded him of the project Charter had twice mentioned in +the wine-shop. + +"I can't quite understand it," he said to Miss Wyndam as he started for +the city, "if he really has gone to the craters. He had me thinking it +over--about going along. Why should he rush off alone? I tell you, it's +not like him. The boy's troubled--got some of the groan-stuff of Pelee +in his vitals." + +The day began badly for Paula. Her mind assumed the old dread +receptivity which the occultist had found to his advantage; terrors +flocked in as the hours drew on. One pays for being responsive to the +finer textures of life. Under the stimulus of heat, good steel becomes +radiant with an activity destructive to itself, but quite as marvellous +in its way as the starry heavens. What a superior and admirable +endowment, this, though it consumes, compared to the dead +asbestos-fabric which will not warm. Paula felt the city in her breast +that day--the restless, fevered cries of children and the answering +maternal anguish, the terror everywhere, even in bird-cries and limping +animals--that cosmic sympathy. + +She knew that Charter would not have rushed away to the mountain without +a "good morning" for her, had she told him yesterday. She saw him turn +upon the _Morne_, look steadily at her window, almost as if he saw the +outline of her figure there--as the call went to him from her inner +heart.... She had reconstructed his last week in New York, from the +letter of Selma Cross and his own; and in her sight he had achieved a +finer thing than any warrior who ever broadened the borders of his +queen. Not a word from her; encountering a mysterious suspicion from +Reifferscheid; avoiding Selma Cross by his word and her own; +vanquishing, who may know how many devils of his own past; and then +summoning the courage and gentleness to write such a letter as she had +received--a letter sent out into the dark--this was loyalty and courage +to woo the soul. With such a spirit, she could tramp the world's highway +with bruised feet, but a singing heart.... And only such a spirit could +be true to Skylark; for she knew as "Wyndam" she had quickened him for +all time, though he ran from her--to commune with Pelee. She felt his +strength--strength of man such as maidens dream of, and, maturing, put +their dreams away. + +"... as I sat by my study window, facing the East!" Well she knew those +words from his letters; and they came to her now, from the talk of +yesterday in the high light of an angelic visitation. Always in memory +the dining-room at the _Palms_ would have an occult fragrance, for +she saw his great love for Skylark there, as he spoke of "facing the +East." How soon could she have told him after that, but for the evil old +French face that drew him away.... "You deserve to suffer, Paula +Linster," she whispered. "You let him go away,--without a tithe of your +secret, or a morsel of your mercy." + +Inevitable before such a conception of manhood--Paula feared her +unworthiness. She saw herself back in New York, faltering under the +power of Bellingham; swayed by those specialists, Reifferscheid in +books, Madame Nestor in occultism; and, above all blame-worthily, by +Selma Cross of the passions. She seemed always to have been listening. +Selma Cross had been strong enough to destroy her Tower; and this, when +the actress herself had been so little sure of her statements that she +must needs call Charter to prove them. Nothing that she had done seemed +to carry the stamina of decision.... So the self-arraignment thickened +and tightened about her, until she cried out: + +"But I would have told him yesterday--had not that old man called him +away!" + +Peter Stock returned at noon, imploring her to go out to the ship, for +even on the _Morne_, Pelee had become a plague. He pointed out that she +was practically alone in the _Palms_; that nearly all of Father +Fontanel's parishioners had taken his word and left for Fort de France +or Morne Rouge, at least; that he, Peter Stock, was a very old man who +had earned the right to be fond of whom he pleased, and that it +seriously injured an old man's health when he couldn't have his way. + +"There are big reasons for me to stay here to-day--big only to me," she +told him. "If I had known you for years, I couldn't be more assured of +your kindness, nor more willing to avail myself of it, but please trust +me to know best to-day. Possibly to-morrow." + +So the American left her, complaining that she was quite as inscrutable +as Charter.... An hour or more later, as she was watching the mountain +from her room, a little black carriage stopped before the gate of the +_Palms_, and Father Fontanel stepped slowly out. She hurried +downstairs, met him at the door, and saw the rare old face in its great +weariness. + +"You have given too much strength to your work, Father," she said, +putting her arm about him and helping him toward the sitting-room. + +"I am quite well," he panted. "I was among my people in the city, when +our amazing friend suddenly appeared with a carriage, bustled me in and +sent me here, saying there were enough people in Saint Pierre who +refused to obey him, and that he didn't propose that I should be one." + +"I think he did very well," she answered, laughing. "What must it be +down in the city--when we suffer so here? We cannot do without you----" + +"But there is great work for me--the great work I have always asked for. +Believe me, I do not suffer." + +"One must not labor until he falls and dies, Father." + +"If it be the will of the good God, I ask nothing fairer than to fall in +His service. Death is only terrible from afar off in youth, my dear +child. When we are old and perceive the glories of the Reality, we are +prone to forget the illusion here. In remembering immortality, we forget +the cares and ills of flesh.... I am only troubled for my people, +stifling in the gray curse of the city, and for my brave young friend. +My mind was clouded when he asked me certain questions last night; and +to-day, they say he has gone to the craters of the mountain." + +"What for?" she whispered quickly. + +"Ah, how should I know? But he tells me of people who make pilgrimages +of sanctification to strange cities of the East--to Mecca and +Benares----" + +"But they go to Benares to die, Father!" + +"I did not know, my daughter," he assured her, drawing his hand across +his brow in a troubled fashion. "He has not gone to the mountain for +that, though I see storms gathering about him, storms of the mountain +and hatreds of men. But I see you with him afterward--as I saw him with +you--when you first spoke to me." + +She told him all, and found healing in the old man's smile. + +"It is well, and it is wonderful," he whispered at last. "Much that my +life has misunderstood is made clear to me--by this love of yours and +his----" + +"'And his,' Father?" + +"Yes." + +There was silence. She would not ask if Quentin Charter had also told +his story. Father Fontanel arose and said he must go back, but he took +the girl's hands, looked deeply into her eyes, saying with memorable +gentleness: + +"Listen, child,--the man who cannot forget a vision that is lost, will +be a brave mate for the envisioned reality that he finds." + +At intervals all that afternoon she felt the influence of Bellingham. It +was not desire. Dull and impersonal, it appealed, as one might hear a +child in another house repeatedly calling to its mother. Within her +there was no response, save that of loathing for a spectre that rises +untimely from a past long since expiated. She did not ask herself +whether she was lifted beyond him, or whether he was debased and +weakened, or if he really called with the old intensity. Glimpses of the +strange place in which he lodged occasionally flashed before her inner +mind, but it was all far and indefinite, easily to be banished. To her, +he had become inextricable from the reptiles. There was so much of +living fear and greater glory in her mind that afternoon, that these +were but evil shadows of slight account. + +The torturing hours crawled by, until the day turned to a deeper gray, +and the North was reddened by Pelee's cone which the thick vapor dimmed +and blurred. Paula was suffered to fight out her battle alone. She could +not have asked more than this. A thousand times she paced across her +room; again and again straining her eyes northward, along the road, over +the city into the darkness, and the end of all things--the mountain.... +There was a moment in the half-light before the day was spent, in which +she seemed to see Quentin Charter, as Father Fontanel had told her, +hemmed in by all the storms and hates of the world. Over the surface of +her brain was a vivid track for flying futile agonies. + +The rumbling that had been incessant was punctuated at intervals now by +an awesome and deeper vibration. Altogether, the sound was like a steady +stream of vehicles, certain ones heavier and moving more swiftly than +others, pounding over a wooden bridge. To her, there was a pang in each +phase of the volcano's activity, since Quentin Charter had gone up into +that red roar.... She did not go down for dinner. When it was eight by +her watch, she felt that she could not live, if he did not return before +another hour. Several minutes had passed when there was a tapping at her +door, and Paula answering, was confronted by a sumptuous figure of +native womanhood. It was Soronia. + +"Mr. Charter is at the wine-shop of Pere Rabeaut in _Rue Rivoli_," she +said swiftly, hatefully, as though she had been forced to carry the +message, and would not utter a word more than necessary. "He has been +hurt--we do not think seriously--but he wants you to come to him at +once." + +"Thank you. I will go to him at once," Paula said, turning to get her +hat. "Pere Rabeaut's wine-shop in the _Rue Rivoli_?... You say he is not +seriously hurt----" + +She had not turned five seconds from the door, but the woman was gone. +There was much that was strange in this; many thoughts occurred apart +from the central idea of glad obedience, and the fullness of gratitude +in that Pelee had not murdered him.... The _Rue Rivoli_ was a street of +the terraces, she ascertained on the lower floor; also that it would be +impossible to procure a carriage. Mr. Stock had been forced to buy one +outright, her informer added, and to use one of his sailors for a +driver.... So she set out alone and on foot, hurrying along the sea-road +toward the slope where _Rue Victor Hugo_ began. The strangeness of it +all persistently imposed upon her mind, but was unreckonable, compared +to the thought that Quentin Charter would not have called for her, had +he been able to come. From this, the fear of a more serious wound than +the woman had said, was inevitable. + +Paula had suffered enough from doubting; none should mar her performance +now. Unerringly, the processes of mind throughout the day had borne her +to such an action. She would have gone to any red-lit door of the torrid +city.... Vivid terrors of some dreadful crippling accident hurried her +steps into running.... + +Pelee, a baleful changing jewel in the black North, reminded her that +Charter would not have gone up to that sink of chaos, had she spoken the +word yesterday. The thought of that wonderful hour brought back the +brooding romance in tints almost ethereal. Higher in her heart than he +had reached in any moment of the day's fluctuations, the image of +Charter wounded, was upraised now and sustained, as she turned from _Rue +Victor Hugo_ into the smothering climb to the terraces. All she could +feel was a prayer that he might live; all the trials and conflicts and +hopes of the past six months hovered afar from this, like navies +crippled in the roadstead.... + +She must be near the _Rue Rivoli_, she thought, suddenly facing an empty +cliff. It was at this moment that she heard the soft foot-falls of a +little native mule, and encountered Quentin Charter.... + +Quickly out of the great gladness of the meeting arose the frightful +possibilities from which she had just escaped. They were still too +imminent to be banished from mind at once. Again Charter had saved her +from the Destroyer. She would have wept, had she ventured to speak as he +lifted her into the saddle. Charter was silent, too, for the time, +trying to adjust and measure and proportion. + +Constantly she kept her eyes upon him as he walked slightly ahead, for +she needed this steady assurance that he was there and well. She felt +her arms where his stiffened fingers had been, as he lifted her so +easily upon the mule. She wanted to reach forward and touch his helmet. +They had descended almost to _Rue Victor Hugo_, when he said: + +"As I looked down the fiery throat of that dragon up there to-day, +everything grew black and still for a minute, like a vacuum.... Will you +please tell me if I came back all right, or are we 'two hurrying shapes +in twilight land--in no man's land?'" + +His amusing appeal righted her. "I have not heard of donkey shapes in +twilight-land," she answered.... And then in the new silence she tried +to bring her thoughts to the point of revelation, but she needed light +for that--light in which to watch his face. Moreover, revelations +contained Bellingham, and she was not quite ready to speak of this. It +was dreadful to be forced to think of the occultist, when her heart +cried out for another moment such as that of yesterday, in which she +could watch his eyes and whisper, "I am very proud to be the Skylark you +treasure so...." + +"Do you think it kind to frighten your friends?" she asked finally. +"When they told me you had gone to the craters--it seemed such a +reckless thing to do----" + +"You see, I rode around behind the mountain. It's very different to +approach from the north. I wished you were there with me in the clean +air. Pelee's muzzle is turned toward the city----" + +"I sent you many cheers and high hopes--did they come?" + +"Yes, more than you know----" He checked himself, not wishing to +frighten her further with the story of Jacques, "You said you were +looking for the little wine-shop. Did some one send for you?" + +"Yes." + +"Some one you know?" + +"They told me you were there--hurt. That's why I came, Mr. Charter." + +He drew up the mule and faced her. "I was there this morning, but not +since.... There's something black about this. Pere Rabeaut was rather +officious in furnishing a guide for me. I'd better find out----" + +"I don't want you to go back there to-night!" she said intensely. "I +think we are both half-dead. I don't feel coherent at all. It has been a +life--this day." + +"I am sorry to have made it harder for you. Certainly I shall not add to +your worry to-night. I was thinking, though, it's rather a serious thing +to call you out alone at this hour, through a city disordered like +this--in my name." + +"There's much need of a talk. We shall soon understand it all.... That +must be Mr. Stock coming. He has the only carriage moving in Saint +Pierre, they say." + +Charter pulled the mule up on the walk to let the vehicle pass, but the +capitalist saw them and called to his driver to stop. + +"Well," he said gratefully, "I'm glad to get down to earth again. You +two have had me soaring.... Charter, you don't mean to tell me you +called Miss Wyndam to meet you in the wine-shop?" + +"No. There's a little matter there which must be probed later. I had the +good fortune to meet Miss Wyndam before she reached there." + +Paula watched Charter as he spoke. Light from the carriage-lamp fell +upon him. His white clothing was stained from the saddle, his hair and +eyebrows whitened with dust. His eyes shone in a face haggard unto +ghastliness. + +"I'd go there now," Stock declared, after asking one or two questions +further, "but I have to report with sorrow that Father Fontanel is in a +very weak condition and has asked for you. I just came from the _Palms_, +hoping that you had returned, and learned that Miss Wyndam was +mysteriously abroad. My idea is to make the good old man go out to the +ship to-night. That's his only chance. He just shakes his head and +smiles at me, when I start in to boss him, but I think he'll go for you. +The little parish-house is like a shut-oven--literally smells of the +burning.... The fact is, I'm getting panicky as an old brood-biddy, +among all you wilful chicks.... Miss Wyndam has promised for to-morrow, +however." + +Her heart went out to the substantial friend he had proved to every one, +though it was all but unthinkable to have Quentin Charter taken from the +_Palms_ that night. + +"I'll go with you at once, but we must see Miss Wyndam safely back.... +She'll be more comfortable in the carriage with you, and we can hurry," +Charter declared. + +He held his arms to her and lifted her down. + +"How I pity you!" she whispered. "You are weary unto death, but I am so +glad--so glad you are safely back from the mountain." + +"Thank you.... You, too, are trembling with weariness. It would not do, +not to go to Father Fontanel--would it?" + +"No, no!" + +At the hotel, Charter took a few moments to put on fresh clothing. Paula +waited with Peter Stock on the lower floor until he appeared. The +capitalist did not fail to see that they wanted a word together, and +clattered forth to see the "pilot of his deep-sea hack." + +"You'd better go aboard to-morrow morning," Charter said. + +"Yes, to-morrow, possibly,--we shall know then. You will be here in the +morning--the first thing in the morning?" + +"Yes." There was a wonder-world of emotion in his word. + +"And you will not go to the wine-shop, before you see me--in the +morning?" + +He shook his head. His inner life was facing the East, listening to a +Skylark song. + +"There is much to hear and say," she whispered unsteadily. "But go to +Father Fontanel--or I--or you will not be in time! He must not die +without seeing you--and take my love and reverence----" + +They were looking into each other's eyes--without words.... Peter Stock +returned from the veranda. Charter shivered slightly with the return to +common consciousness, clenched his empty left hand where hers had been. + +"The times are running close here," he whispered huskily. "Sometimes I +forget that we've only just met. Father Fontanel alone could call me +from here to-night. Somehow, I dread to leave you. You'll have to +forgive me for saying it." + +"Yes.... But in the morning--oh, come quickly.... Good-night." + +She turned hastily to the staircase, and Charter's remarks as he rode +townward with the other, were shirred, indeed.... + + + + +TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + +HAVING TO DO ESPECIALLY WITH THE MORNING OF THE ASCENSION, WHEN THE +MONSTER, _PELEE_, GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH + + +The old servant met them at the door with uplifted finger. Father +Fontanel was sleeping. They did not wish to disturb him but sat down to +wait in the anteroom, which seemed to breathe of little tragedies of +Saint Pierre. On one side of the room was the door that was never +locked; on the other, the entrance to the sleeping-room of the priest. +Thus he kept his ear to the city's pulse. Peter Stock drowsed in the +suffocating air. Charter's mind slowly revolved and fitted to the great +concept.... The woman was drawn to him, and there had been no need of +words.... Each moment she was more wonderful and radiant. There had not +been a glance, a word, a movement, a moment, a breath, an aspiration, a +lift of brow or shoulder or thought, that had not more dearly charmed +his conception of her triune beauty. + +The day had left in his brain a crowd of unassimilated actions, and into +this formless company came the thrilling mystery of his last moment with +her--a shining cord of happiness for the labyrinth of the late days.... +There had been so much _beyond words_ between them--an overtone of +singing. He had seen in her eyes all the eager treasure of brimming +womanhood, rising to burst the bonds of repression for the first time. +Dawn was a far voyage, but he settled himself to wait with the will of a +weathered voyager whose heart feels the hungry arms upon the waiting +shore. + +The volcano lost its monstrous rhythm again, and was ripping forth +irregular crashes. Father Fontanel awoke and the _Rue Victor Hugo_ +became alive with voices, aroused by the rattling in the throat of the +mountain. Charter went into the room where the priest lay. + +"Come, Father," he said, "We have waited long for you. I want you to go +out to the ship for the rest of the night. You must breathe true air for +an hour. Do this for me." + +"Ah, my son!" the old man murmured, drawing Charter's head down to his +breast. "My mind was clouded, and I could not see you clearly in the +travail of yesterday." + +"Many of your people are in Fort de France, Father," the young man +added. "They will be glad to see you. Then you may come back here--even +to-morrow, if you are stronger. Besides, the stalwart friend who has +done so much for your people, wants you one night on his ship." + +"Yes, my son.... I was waiting for you. I shall be glad to breathe the +dawn at sea." + +Peter Stock pressed Charter's hand as they led Father Fontanel forth. +The mountain was quieter again. The bells of Saint Pierre rang the hour +of two.... The three reached the Sugar Landing where the _Saragossa's_ +launch lay. + +"Hello, Ernst," Stock called to his man. "I've kept you waiting long, +but top-speed to the ship--deep water and ocean air!" + +The launch sped across the smoky harbor, riding down little isles of +flotsam, dead birds from the sky and nameless mysteries from the roiled +bed of the harbor. The wind was hot in their faces, like a stoke-hold +blast. Often they heard a hissing in the water, like the sound of a wet +finger touching hot iron. A burning cinder fell upon Charter's hand, a +messenger from Pelee. He could not feel fire that night.... He was +living over that last moment with her--gazing into her eyes as one who +seeks to penetrate the mystery of creation, as if it were any clearer in +a woman's eyes than in a Nile night, a Venetian song, or in the flow of +gasolene to the spark, which filled the contemplation of Ernst.... He +remembered the swift intaking of her breath at the last, and knew that +she was close to tears. + +The launch was swinging around to the _Saragossa's_ ladder. Father +Fontanel had not spoken. Wherever the ship-lights fell, the sheeting of +ash could be seen--upon mast and railing and plates. They helped the +good man up the ladder, and Stock ordered Laird, his first officer, to +steam out of the blizzard, a dozen miles if necessary. The anchor chain +began to grind at once, and three minutes later, the _Saragossa's_ +screws were kicking the ugly harbor tide. Charter watched, strangely +disconcerted, until only the dull red of Pelee pierced the thick veil +behind. A star, and another, pricked the blue vault ahead, and the air +blew in fragrant as wine from the rolling Caribbean, but each moment was +an arraignment now.... He wanted none of the clean sea; and the mere +fact that he would not rouse her before daylight, even if he were at the +_Palms_, did not lessen the savage pressure of the time.... Father +Fontanel would not sleep, but moved among his people on deck. The +natives refused to stay below, now that the defiled harbor was behind. +There was a humming of old French lullabies to the little ones. Cool air +had brought back the songs of peace and summer to the lowly hearts. It +was an hour before dawn, and the _Saragossa_ was already putting back +toward the roadstead, when Father Fontanel called Charter suddenly. + +"Make haste and go to the woman, my son," he said strangely. + +Charter could not answer. The priest had spoken little more than this, +since they led him from the parish-house. The _Saragossa_ crept into the +edge of the smoke. The gray ghost of morning was stealing into the +hateful haze. They found anchorage. The launch was in readiness below. +It was not yet six. Ernst was off duty, and another sailor,--one whose +room was prepared in the dim pavilion--waited at the tiller. Charter +waved at the pale mute face of the priest, leaning overside, and the fog +rushed in between. + +The launch gained the inner harbor, and the white ships at anchor were +vague as phantoms in the vapor--French steamers, Italian barques, and +the smaller West Indian craft--all with their work to do and their way +to win. Charter heard one officer shout to another a whimsical +inquiry--if Saint Pierre were in her usual place or had switched sites +with hell. The day was clearing rapidly, however, and before the launch +reached shore, the haze so lifted that Pelee could be seen, floating a +pennant of black out to sea. In the city, a large frame warehouse was +ablaze. The tinder-dry structure was being destroyed with almost +explosive speed. + +A blistering heat rushed down from the expiring building to the edge of +the land. Crowds watched the destruction. Many of the people were in +holiday attire. This was the Day of Ascension, and Saint Pierre would +shortly pray and praise at the cathedral; and at _Notre Dame des +Lourdes_, where Father Fontanel would be missed quite the same as if +they had taken the figure of Saint Anne from the altar.... Even now the +cathedral bells were calling, and there was low laughter from a group of +Creole maidens. Was it not good to live, since the sun was trying to +shine again and the mountain did not answer the ringing of the bells? It +was true that Pelee poured forth a black streamer with lightning in its +folds; true that the people trod upon the hot, gray dust of the +volcano's waste; that the heat was such as no man had ever felt before, +and many sat in misery upon the ground; true, indeed, that voices of +hysteria came from the hovels, and the weaker were dying too swiftly for +the priests to attend them all--but the gala-spirit was not dead. The +bells were calling, the mountain was still, bright dresses were +abroad--for the torrid children of France must laugh. + +A carriage was not procurable, so Charter fell in with the procession on +the way to the cathedral. Many of the natives nodded to him; and may +have wondered at the color in his skin, the fire in his eyes, and the +glad ring of his voice. Standing for a moment before the church, he +hurled over the little gathering the germ of flight; told them of the +food and shelter in Fort de France, begged them laughingly to take their +women and children out of this killing air.... It was nearly +eight--eight on the morning of Ascension Day.... She would be ready. He +hoped to find a carriage at the hotel.... At nine they would be in the +launch again, speeding out toward the _Saragossa_. + +Twenty times a minute she recurred to him as he walked. There was no +waning nor wearing--save a wearing brighter, perhaps--of the images she +had put in his mind. Palaces, gardens, treasure-houses--with the turn of +every thought, new riches of possibility identified with her, were +revealed. Thoughts of her, winged in and out his mind like bright birds +that had a cote within--until he was lifted to heights of gladness which +seemed to shatter the dome of human limitations--and leave him crown and +shoulders emerged into illimitable ether. + +The road up the _Morne_ stretched blinding white before him. The sun was +braver. Panting and spent not a little, he strode upward through the +vicious pressure of heat, holding his helmet free from his head, that +air might circulate under the rim. Upon the crest of the _Morne_, he +perceived the gables of the old plantation-house, above the palms and +mangoes, strangely yellowed in the ashen haze. + +Pelee roared. Sullen and dreadful out of the silence voiced the Monster +roused to his labor afresh. Charter darted a glance back at the +darkening North, and began to run.... The crisis was not past; the +holiday darkened. The ship would fill with refugees now, and the road to +Fort de France turn black with flight. These were his thoughts as he +ran. + +The lights of the day burned out one by one. The crust of the earth +stretched to a cracking tension. The air was beetling with strange +concussions. In the clutch of realization, Charter turned one shining +look toward the woman hurrying forward on the veranda of the _Palms_.... +Detonations accumulated into the crash of a thousand navies. + +She halted, her eyes fascinated, lost in the North. He caught her up +like a child. Across the lawn, through the roaring black, he bore her, +brushing her fingers and her fallen hair from his eyes. He reached the +curbing of the old well with his burden, crawled over and caught the +rusty chain. Incandescent tongues lapped the cistern's raised coping. +There was a scream as from the souls of Night and Storm and Chaos +triumphant--a mighty planetary madness--shocking magnitudes from the +very core of sound! Air was sucked from the vault, from their ears and +lungs by the shrieking vacuums, burned through the cushion of atmosphere +by the league-long lanes of electric fire.... Running streams of red +dust filtered down. + +It was eight on the morning of Ascension Day. _La Montagne Pelee_ was +giving birth to death. + + + + +TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + +THE _SARAGOSSA_ ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS FROM _PELEE_ EIGHT +MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT ASHORE + + +Peter Stock stared long into the faint film of smoke, until the launch +bearing Charter ashore was lost in the shipping. The pale, winding sheet +was unwrapped from the beauty of morning. There was an edging of rose +and gold on the far dim hills. His eyes smarted from weariness, but his +mind, like an automatic thing, swept around the great circle--from the +ship to the city, to the plantation-house on the _Morne_ and back to the +ship again. He was sick of the shore, disgusted with people who would +listen to M. Mondet and not to him. Miss Wyndam had refused him so +often, that he was half afraid Charter would not be successful, but he +was willing to wait two hours longer, for he liked the young woman +immensely, liked her breeding and her brain.... He joined Laird, his +first officer, on the bridge. The latter was scrutinizing through the +glass a blotch of smoke on the city-front. + +"What do you make of it, sir?" Laird asked. + +The lenses brought to the owner a nucleus of red in the black bank. The +rest of Saint Pierre was a gray, doll-settlement, set in the shelter of +little gray hills. He could see the riven and castellated crest of Pelee +weaving his black ribbon. It was all small, silent, and unearthly. + +"That's a fire on the water-front," he said. + +"That's what I made of it, sir," Laird responded. + +Shortly afterward the trumpetings of the Monster began. The harbor grew +yellowish-black. The shore crawled deeper into the shroud, and was lost +altogether. The water took on a foul look, as if the bed of the sea were +churned with some beastly passion. The anchor-chain grew taught, +mysteriously strained, and banged a tattoo against its steel-bound eye. +Blue Peter drooping at the foremast, livened suddenly into a spasm of +writhing, like a hooked lizard. The black, quivering columns of smoke +from the funnels were fanned down upon the deck, adding soot to the +white smear from the volcano. + +"Better get the natives below--squall coming!" Peter Stock said, in a +low tone to Laird, and noted upon the quiet, serious face of this +officer, as he obeyed, an expression quite new. It was the look of a man +who sees the end, and does not wince. + +The women wailed, as the sailors hurried them below and sealed the ways +after them. A deep-sea language passed over the ship. There were running +feet, bells below, muffled cries from the native-women, quick oaths from +the sailors; and then, Peter Stock felt the iron-fingers of fear about +his heart--not for himself and his ship eight miles at sea, but for his +good young friend and for the woman who had refused to come. + +A hot, fetid breath charged the air. The ship rose and settled like a +feather in a breeze; in a queer light way, as though its element were +heavily charged with air, the water danced, alive with the yeast of +worlds. The disordered sky intoned violence. Pelee had set the +foundations to trembling. A step upon the bridge-ladder caused the +American to turn with a start. Father Fontanel was coming up. + +"Oh, this won't do at all," Peter Stock cried in French. "We're going to +catch hell up here, and you don't belong." + +He dashed down the ladder, and led the old man swiftly back to the +cabin, where he rushed to the ports and screwed them tight with +lightning fingers, led the priest to a chair and locked it in its +socket. Father Fontanel spoke for the first time. + +"It's very good of you," he said dully, "but what of my people?" + +Stock did not answer, but rushed forth. Six feet from the cabin-door, he +met the fiery van of the cataclysm, and found strength to battle his way +back into the cabin.... From out the shoreward darkness thundered +vibrations which rendered soundless all that had passed before. Comets +flashed by the port-holes. The _Saragossa_ shuddered and fell to her +starboard side. + +Eight bells had just sounded when the great thunder rocked over the +gray-black harbor, and the molten vitals of the Monster, wrapped in a +black cloud, filled the heavens, gathered and plunged down upon the city +and the sea. As for the ship, eight miles from the shore and twelve +miles from the craters, she seemed to have fallen from a habitable +planet into the firemist of an unfinished world. She heeled over like a +biscuit-tin, dipping her bridge and gunwales. She was deluged by blasts +of steam and molten stone. Her anchor-chain gave way, and, burning in a +dozen places, she was sucked inshore. + +Laird was on the bridge. Plass, the second officer, on his way to the +bridge, to relieve or assist Laird as the bell struck, was felled at the +door of the chart-room. A sailor trying to drag the body of Plass to +shelter, was overpowered by the blizzard of steam, gas, and molten +stone, falling across the body of his officer. The ship was rolling like +a runaway-buoy. + +Peter Stock had been hurled across the cabin, but clutched the chair in +which the priest was sitting, and clung to an arm of it, pinning the +other to his seat. Several moments may have passed before he regained +his feet. Though badly burned, he felt pain only in his throat and +lungs, from that awful, outer breath as he regained the cabin. +Firebrands still screamed into the sea outside, but the _Saragossa_ was +steadying a trifle, and vague day returned. Stock was first to reach the +deck, the woodwork of which was burning everywhere. He tried to shout, +but his throat was closed by the hot dust. The body of a man was hanging +over the railing of the bridge. It was Laird, with his face burned away. +There were others fallen. + +The shock of his burns and the terrible outer heat was beginning to +overpower the commander when Pugh, the third officer, untouched by fire, +appeared from below. In a horrid, tongueless way, Stock fired the other +to act, and staggered back into the cabin. Pugh shrieked up the hands, +and set to the fires and the ship's course. Out of two officers and +three sailors on deck when Pelee struck, none had lived. Peter Stock +owed his life to the mute and momentary appearance of Father Fontanel. + +The screaming of the native-women reached his ears from the hold. Father +Fontanel stared at him with the most pitiful eyes ever seen in child or +woman. Black clouds were rolling out to sea. Deep thunder of a righteous +source answered Pelee's lamentations. The sailors were fighting fire and +carrying the dead. The thin shaken voice of Pugh came from the bridge. +The engines were throbbing. Macready, Stock's personal servant, entered +with a blast of heat. + +"Thank God, you're alive, sir!" he said, with the little roll of Ireland +on his tongue. "I was below, where better men were not.... Eight miles +at sea--the long-armed divil av a mountain--what must the infightin' +have been!" + +Peter Stock beckoned him close and called huskily for lint and oils. +Macready was back in a moment from the store-room, removed the cracked +and twisted boots; cleansed the ashes from the face and ears of his +chief; administered stimulant and talked incessantly. + +"It's rainin' evenchooalities out.... Ha, thim burns is not so bad, +though your shoes were pretty thin, an' the deck's smeared with red-hot +paste. It's no bit of a geyser in a dirt-pile, sure, can tell Misther +Stock whin to come and whin to go." + +The cabin filled with the odor of burnt flesh as he stripped the coat +from Stock's shoulder, where an incandescent pebble had fallen and +burned through the cloth. Ointments and bandages were applied before the +owner said: + +"We must be getting pretty close in the harbor?" + +This corked Macready's effervescence. Pugh had been putting the +_Saragossa_ out to sea, since he assumed control. It hadn't occurred to +the little Irishman that Mr. Stock would put back into the harbor of an +island freshly-exploded. + +"I dunno, sir. It's hard to see for the rain." + +"Go to the door and find out". + +The rain fell in sheets. Big seas were driving past, and the steady beat +of the engines was audible. There was no smoke, no familiar shadow of +hills, but a leaden tumult of sky, and the rollers of open sea beaten by +a cloudburst. The commander did not need to be told. It all came back to +him--Laird's body hanging over the railing of the bridge; Plass down; +Pugh, a new man, in command. + +"Up to the bridge, Macready, and tell Pugh for me not to be in such a +damned hurry--running away from a stricken town. Tell him to put back in +the roadstead where we belong." + +Macready was gone several moments, and reported, "Pugh says we're +short-handed; that the ship's badly-charred, but worth savin'; in short, +sir, that he's not takin' orders from no valet--meanin' me." + +Nature was righting herself in the brain of the American, but the +problems of time and space still were mountains to him. Macready saw the +gray eye harden, and knew what the next words would be before they were +spoken. + +"Bring Pugh here!" + +It was rather a sweet duty for Macready, whose colors had been lowered +by the untried officer. The latter was in a funk, if ever a seaman had +such a seizure. Pugh gave an order to the man at the wheel and followed +the Irishman below, where he encountered the gray eye, and felt Macready +behind him at the door. + +"Turn back to harbor at once--full speed!" + +Pugh hesitated, his small black eyes burning with terror. + +"Turn back, I say! Get to hell out of here!" + +"But a firefly couldn't live in there, sir----" + +"Call two sailors, Macready!" Stock commanded, and when they came, +added, "Put him in irons, you men!... Macready, help me to the bridge." + + * * * * * + +It was after eleven when the _Saragossa_ regained the harbor. The +terrific cloudburst had spent itself. Out from the land rolled an +unctuous smudge, which bore suggestions of the heinous impartiality of a +great conflagration. The harbor was cluttered with wreckage, a doom +picture for the eyes of the seaman. Dimly, fitfully, through the pall, +they began to see the ghosts of the shipping--black hulls without helm +or hope. The _Saragossa_ vented a deep-toned roar, but no answer was +returned, save a wailing echo--not a voice from the wreckage, not even +the scream of a gull. A sailor heaved the lead, and the scathed steamer +bore into the rising heat. + +Ahead was emptiness. Peter Stock, reclining upon the bridge, and +suffering martyrdoms from his burns, gave up his last hope that the guns +of Pelee had been turned straight seaward, sparing the city or a portion +of it. Rough winds tunnelling through the smoke revealed a hint of hills +shorn of Saint Pierre. A cry was wrung from the American's breast, and +Macready hastened to his side with a glass of spirits. + +"I want a boat made ready--food, medicines, bandages, two or three +hundred pounds of ice covered with blankets and a tarpaulin," Stock +said. "You are to take a couple of men and get in there. Get the steward +started fitting the boat, and see that the natives are kept a bit +quieter. Make 'em see the other side--if they hadn't come aboard." + +"Mother av God," Macready muttered as he went about these affairs. "I +could bake a potatie here, sure, in the holla av my hand. What, thin, +must it be in that pit of destruction?" He feared Pelee less, however, +than the gray eye, and the fate of Pugh. + +The launch had not returned from taking Charter ashore, so one of the +life-boats was put into commission. The German, Ernst, and another +sailor of Macready's choice, were shortly ready to set out. + +"You know why I'm not with you, men," the commander told them at the +last moment. "It isn't that I couldn't stand it in the boat, but there's +a trip ashore for you to make, and there's no walking for me on these +puff-balls for weeks to come. Macready, you know Mr. Charter. He had +time to reach the _Palms_ before hell broke loose. I want you to go +there and bring him back alive--and a woman who'll be with him! Also +report to me regarding conditions in the city. That's all. Lower away." + +A half-hour later, the little boat was forced to return to the ship. The +sailor was whimpering at the oars; the lips of Ernst were twisted in +agony; while Macready was silent, sign enough of his failing endurance. +Human vitality could not withstand the withering draughts of heat. At +noon, another amazing downpour of rain came to the aid of Peter Stock +who, granting that the little party had encountered conditions which +flesh could not conquer, had, nevertheless, been chafing furiously. At +two in the afternoon, a second start was made. + +Deeper and deeper in toward the gray low beach the little boat was +pulled, its occupants the first to look upon the heaped and over-running +measure of Saint Pierre's destruction. The three took turns at the oars. +Fear and suffering brought out a strange feminine quality in the sailor, +not of cowardice; rather he seemed beset by visionary terrors. Rare +running-mates were Macready and Ernst, odd as two white men can be, but +matched to a hair in courage. The German bent to his work, a grim stolid +mechanism. Macready jerked at the oars, and found breath and energy +remaining to assail the world, the flesh and the devil, which was Pugh, +with his barbed and invariably glib tongue. How many times the blue eyes +of the German rolled back under the lids, and his grip relaxed upon the +oars; how many times the whipping tongue of Macready mumbled, forgetting +its object, while his senses reeled against the burning walls of his +brain; how many times the sailor hoarsely commanded them to look through +the fog for figures which alone he saw--only God and these knew. But the +little boat held its prow to the desolate shore. + +They gained the Sugar Landing at last, or the place where it had been, +and strange sounds came from the lips of Ernst, as he pointed to the +hulk of the _Saragossa's_ launch, burned to the water-line. It had been +in his care steadily until its last trip. Gray-covered heaps were +sprawled upon the shore, some half-covered by the incoming tide, others +entirely awash. Pelee had brought down the city; and the fire-tiger had +rushed in at the kill. He was hissing and crunching still, under the +ruins. The sailor moaned and covered his face. + +"There's nothing alive!" he repeated with dreadful stress. + +"What else would you look for--here at the very fut av the mountain?" +Macready demanded. "Wait till we get over the hill, and you'll hear the +birds singin' an' the naygurs laughin' in the fields an' wonderin' why +the milkman don't come." + +The market-place near the shore was filled with the stones from the +surrounding buildings, hurled there as dice from a box. Smoke and steam +oozed from every ruin. The silence was awful as the sight of death. The +streets of the city were effaced. Saint Pierre had been felled and +altered, as the Sioux women once altered the corpses of the slain +whites. There was no discernible way up the _Morne_. Breathing piles of +debris barred every passage. Under one of these, a clock suddenly struck +three--an irreverent survival carrying on its shocking business beneath +the collapsed walls of a burned and beaten city, frightening them +hideously. It would have been impossible to traverse _Rue Victor Hugo_ +had the way been clear, since a hundred feet from the shore or less, +they encountered a zone of unendurable heat. + +"I could die happy holdin' Pugh here," Macready gasped. "Do you think +hell is worse than this, Ernst, barrin' the effrontery of the question? +Ha--don't step there!" + +He yanked the German away from a puddle of uncongealed stuff, hot as +running metal.... The sailor screamed. He had stepped upon what seemed +to be an ash-covered stone. It was soft, springy, and vented a wheezy +sigh. Rain and rock-dust had smeared all things alike in this gray +roasting shambles. + +"Won't somebody say something?" the sailor cried in a momentary silence. + +"It looks like rain, ma'm," Macready offered. + +They had been forced back into the boat, and were skirting the shore +around by the _Morne_. Saint Pierre had rushed to the sea--at the last. +The volcano had found the women with the children, as all manner of +visitations find them--and the men a little apart. Pelee had not +faltered. There was nothing to do by the way, no lips to moisten, no +voice of pain to hush, no dying thing to ease. There was not an +insect-murmur in the air, nor a crawling thing upon the beach, not a +moving wing in the hot, gray sky--a necropolis, shore of death absolute. + +They climbed the cliffs to the north of the _Palms_, glanced down +through the smoke at the city--sunken like a toothless mouth. Even the +_Morne_ was a husk divested of its fruit. Pelee had cut the cane-fields, +sucked the juices and left the blasted stalks in his paste. The old +plantation-house pushed forth no shadow of an outline. It might be +felled or lost in the smoky distance. The nearer landmarks were +gone--homes that had brightened the heights in their day, whose windows +had flashed the rays of the afternoon sun as it rode down +oversea--levelled like the fields of cane. Pelee had swept far and left +only his shroud, and the heaps upon the way, to show that the old +sea-road, so white, so beautiful, had been the haunt of man. The mangoes +had lost their vesture; the palms were gnarled and naked fingers +pointing to the pitiless sky. + +Macready had known this highway in the mornings, when joy was not dead, +when the songs of the toilers and the laughter of children glorified the +fields; in the white moonlight, when the sea-winds met and mingled with +the spice from tropic hills, and the fragrance from the jasmine and +rose-gardens.... He stared ahead now, wetting his puffed and tortured +lips. They had passed the radius of terrific heat, but he was thinking +of the waiting gray eye, when he returned without the man and the woman. + +"It'll be back to the bunkers for Dinny," he muttered.... "Ernst, ye +goat, you're intertainin', you're loquenchus." + +They stepped forward swiftly now. There was not a hope that the mountain +had shown mercy at the journey's end.... They would find whom they +sought down like the others, and the great house about them. Still, +there was a vague God to whom Macready had prayed once or twice in his +life--a God who had the power to strike blasphemers dead, to still +tempests, light volcanic fuses and fell Babylons. To this God he +muttered a prayer now.... + +The ruins of the plantation house wavered forth from the fog. The sailor +plucked at Macready's sleeve, and Ernst mumbled thickly that they might +as well get back aboard.... But the Irishman stood forth from them; and +in that smoky gloom, desolate as the first day, before Light was turned +upon the Formless Void, bayed the names of Charter and the woman. + +Then the answer: + +"_In the cistern--in the old cistern!_" + +Macready made a mental appointment with his God, and yelled presently: +"Didn't I tell you 'twould take more than the sphit of a mountain to +singe the hair of him?... Are you hurted, sir?" + + + + +TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + +PAULA AND CHARTER IN SEVERAL SETTINGS FEEL THE ENERGY OF THE GREAT GOOD +THAT DRIVES THE WORLD + + +Charter roused, after an unknown time, to the realization that the woman +was in his arms; later, that he was sitting upon a slimy stone in a +subterranean cell filled with steam. The slab of stone held him free +from the four or five inches of almost scalding water on the floor of +the cistern. The vault was square, and luckily much larger than its +circular orifice; so that back in the corner they were free from the +volcanic discharge which had showered down through the mouth of the +pit--the cause of the heated water and the released vapors. An +earthquake years before had loosened the stone-lining of the vault. With +every shudder of the earth now, under the wrath of Pelee, the walls, +still upstanding, trembled. + +Charter was given much time to observe these matters; and to reckon with +mere surface disorders, such as a bleeding right hand, lacerated from +the rusty chain; a torn shoulder, and a variety of burns which he +promptly decided must be inconsequential, since they stung so in the hot +vapor. Then, someone with a powerful arm was knocking out three-cushion +caroms in his brain-pan. This spoiled good thinking results. It is true, +he did not grasp the points of the position, with the remotest trace of +the sequence in which they are put down. Indeed, his mind, emerging from +the depths into which the shock of eruption had felled it, held alone +with any persistence the all-enfolding miracle that the woman was in his +arms.... + +Presently, his brain began to sort the side-issues. Her head had lain, +upon his shoulder during that precipitous plunge, and her hair had +fallen when he first caught her up. He remembered it blowing and +covering his eyes in a manner of playful endearment quite impossible for +an outsider to conceive. Meanwhile, the blast from Pelee was upon the +city; traversing the six miles from the crater to the _Morne_, faster +than its own sound; six miles in little more than the time it had taken +him to cross the lawn from the veranda to the cistern. A second or two +had saved them. + +The fire had touched her hair.... Her bare arm brushed his cheek, and +his whole nature suddenly crawled with the fear that she might not wake. +His head dropped to her breast, and he heard her heart, light and +steadily on its way. His eyes were straining through the darkness into +her face, but he could not be sure it was without burns. There was +cumulative harshness in the fear that her face, so fragile, of purest +line, should meet the coarse element, burning dirt. His hands were not +free, but he touched her eyes, and knew that they were whole.... She +sighed, stirred and winced a little--breath of consciousness returning. +Then he heard: + +"What is this dripping darkness?" + +The words were slowly uttered, and the tones soft and vague, as from one +dreaming, or very close to the Gates.... In a great dark room somewhere, +in a past life, perhaps, he had heard such a voice from someone lying in +the shadows. + +"We are in the old cistern--you and I----" + +"I--knew--you--would--come--for--me." + +It was murmured as from someone very weary, very happy--as a child +falling asleep after a dream, murmurs with a little contented nestle +under the mother-wing. + +"But how could you know?" he whispered quickly. "My heart was too +full--to take a mere mountain seriously--until the last minute----" + +"_Skylarks--always--know!_" + + * * * * * + +Torrents of rain were descending. Pelee roared with the after-pangs. +Though cooled and replenished by floods of black rain, the rising water +in the cistern was still hot. + +"It was always hard for me to call you Wyndam----" + +"Harder to hear, Quentin Charter...." + +"But are you sure you are not badly burned?" he asked for the tenth +time. + +"I don't feel badly burned.... I was watching for you from the window in +my room. I didn't like the way my hair looked, and was changing it when +I saw you coming--and the Black behind you. I tried to fasten it with +one pin, as I ran downstairs.... It fell. It is very thick and kept the +fire from me----" + +"From us." He would have preferred his share of the red dust. + +She shivered contentedly. "What little is burned will grow again. Red +mops invariably do." + +" ... And to think I should have found the old cistern in the night!... +One night when I could not sleep, I walked out here and explored. The +idea came then----" + +"I watched you from the upper window.... The shutter wiggled as you went +away. It was the next day that the 'fraids got me. You rushed off to the +mountain." + +Often they verged like this beyond the borders of rational quotation. +One hears only the voices, not the words often, from Rapture's Roadway. + +"Just as I begin to think of something Pelee erupts all over again in my +skull----" + +"I didn't know men understood headache matters.... Don't you +think--don't you really think--I might be allowed to stand a little +bit?" + +"Water's still too hot," he replied briefly. + +The cavern was not so utterly dark. The circle of the orifice was +sharply lit with gray.... They lost track of the hours; for moments at a +time forgot physical distress, since they had known only mystic journeys +before.... They whispered the fate of Saint Pierre--a city's soul torn +from the shrieking flesh; shadows lifted from the mystery of the little +wine-shop; clearly they saw how the occultist, his magnetism crippled, +had used Jacques and Soronia; and Charter recalled now where he had seen +the face of Paula before--the photograph in the Bellingham-cabin on the +_Panther_.... A second cloudburst cooled and eased them, though they +stood in water.... It seemed that Peter Stock should have made an effort +to reach them by this time. Save that the gray was unchangeable in the +roof the world, Charter could not have believed that this was all one +day. The power which had devastated the city, and with unspent violence +swept the _Morne_, might have reached three leagues at sea!... Above all +these probabilities arose their happiness. + +"It seems that I've become a little boy," he said, "on one of those +perfect Christmas mornings. Don't you remember, the greatest moment of +all--coming downstairs, partly dressed, into the room _They_ had made +ready? That moment, before you actually see--just as you enter the +mingled dawn and fire-light and catch the first glisten of the tree?... +I'm afraid, Paula Linster, you have found----" + +"A boy," she whispered. Her face was very close in the gray.... "The +loved dream-boy. The boy went away to meet sternness and suffering and +mazes of misdirection--had to compromise with the world to fit at all. +Ah, I have waited long, and the man has come back to me--a boy." + +"_La Montagne Pelee_ is artistic." + +"It may be in this marvellous world, where men carry on their wars and +their wooings," she went on strangely, "some pursuing their little ways +of darkness, some bursting into blooms of valor and tenderness;--it may +be that two of Earth's people, after a dreadful passage through agony +and terror, have been restored to each other--as we are. It may be that +in the roll of Earth's tableaux, another such film is curled away from +another age and another cataclysm." + +"Paula," he declared, after a moment, "I have found a Living Truth in +this happiness--the Great Good that Drives the World! I think I shall +not lose it again. Glimpses of it came to me facing the East--as I wrote +and thought of you. One glimpse was so clear that I expressed it in a +letter, 'I tell you there is no death, since I have heard the Skylark +sing....' I lost the bright fragment, for a few days in New +York--battled for the prize again both in New York and yesterday at the +mountain. To-day has brought it to me--always to keep. It is this: Were +you to die, I should love you and know you were near. This is love above +Flesh and Death--the old mystifying Interchangeables. This happiness is +the triumph over death. It is a revelation, a mighty adoring--not a mere +woman in my arms, but an ineffable issue of eternity. A woman, but +more--Love and Labor and Life and the Great Good that Drives the World! +This is the happiness I have and hold to-day: Though you died, I should +know that you lived and were mine." + +"I see it--it is the triumph over death--but, Quentin Charter--I want +_you_ still!" + +"Don't you see, it is the strength you give me!--that girds me to say +such things?" + +So they had their flights into silence, while the eternal gray lived in +their round summit of sky--until the voices of the rescuers and their +own grateful answers.... The sailor was sent back to the boat for rope, +while Macready cheered them with a fine and soothing Gaelic oil.... They +lifted Paula, who steadied and helped herself by the chain; then sent +the noose down for Charter. + +"Have you the strent', sir, to do the overhand up the chain?" Macready +questioned, and added in a ghost's whisper, "with the fairest of tin +thousand waitin' at the top?" + +Charter laughed. To lift his right arm was thrashing pain, but he made +it easy as he could for them; and in the gray light faced the woman. + +She saw his lacerated hand, the mire, fire-blisters upon his face, the +blood upon his clothing, swollen veins of throat and temples, and the +glowing adoration in his eyes.... She had bound her hair, and there was +much still to bind. No mortal hurt was visible. Behind her was the +falling sea. On her right hand the smoking ruin of the _Palms_; to the +left, Pelee and his tens of thousands slain; above, the hot, leaden, +hurrying clouds.... Ernst, Macready and the sailor moved discreetly +away. Backs turned, they watched the puffs of smoke and steam that rose +like gray-white birds from the valley of the dead city. + +"Ernst, lad," said Macready, "the boss and the leadin' lady are havin' +an intellekchool repast in the cinter av the stage by the old well. Bear +in mind you're a chorus girl and conduct yourself in accord. Have you a +drop left in the heel av the flask, Adele, dear?" + + * * * * * + +They were nearing the _Saragossa_ in the dusk, and their call had been +answered with a rousing cheer from the ship.... + +"Please, sir, you said you would take me sailing," Paula called, as she +readied the head of the ladder. + +Though he could not stand, Peter Stock had an arm for each; and they +were only released to fall into the embrace of Father Fontanel. They saw +it now in the ship's light: Pelee had stricken the old priest, but not +with fire.... The two were together shortly afterward at supper, in +clean dry make-shifts, very ludicrous. + +"I came to you empty-handed, and soiled from the travail of the +journey," she whispered. "All but myself was in a certain room that +faced the North." + +"There are booties, flounces and ribands in the shops of Fort de +France," Charter replied with delight. "Peter Stock shall be allowed +certain privileges, but not to make any such purchases. I carry circular +notes--and insist on straightening them out." + +"Haven't you discovered that Skylarks are not of the insisting +kind--even when they need new plumage? Anything that looks like +insistence nearly scares the life out of them. Isn't it a dear world?" + +All this was smoothly coherent to him.... Alone that night, they drew +deck-chairs close together forward; and snugly wrapped, would have +nothing whatever to do with Peter Stock's sumptuous cabins. They needed +floods of rest, but were too happy, save just to take little sips of +sleep between talk. + +"You must have been afraid at first," she said, "of turning a foolish +person's head with all that beauty of praise in your letters.... I think +you were writing to some image you wanted to believe lived somewhere, +but had little hope ever really to find. I could not take it all home to +me at first.... I felt that you were writing to a lovely, shadowy sister +who was safely put away in a kind of twilight faery--a little figure by +a well of magical waters. Sometimes I could go to her, reach the well, +but I could not drink at first--only listen to the music of the water, +watch it bubble and flash in the moon." + +"I love your mind, Paula Linster," he said suddenly, "--every phase of +it. By the way--_love's_ a word I never used before to-day--not even in +my work, save as an abstraction." + +She remembered that Selma Cross had said this of him--that he never used +that word. + +"You could not have said that to 'Wyndam'----" + +"Yes--for Skylark was singing more and more about her. I soon should +have had to say it to 'Wyndam.'" + +"I loved your fidelity to Skylark," she told him softly. + +Dust of Pelee would fall upon the archipelago for weeks, but this of +starless dark was their supreme night. "Feel the sting of the spray," he +commanded. "Hear the bows sing!... It's all for us--the loveliest of +earth's distances and the sky afterward----" + +"But behind," she whispered pitifully. + +"Yes--Pelee 'splashed at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's +hair.'" + + * * * * * + +The next night had fallen, and the two were through with the shops of +Fort de France. Paula's dress was white and lustrous, a strange native +fabric which the man regarded with seriousness and awe. He was in white, +too. His right hand was swathed for repairs, the arm slung, and a +thickness of lint was fitted under his collar. About his eyes and mouth +was a slight look of strain still, which could not live another day +before the force of recuperative happiness.... Up through the streets of +the Capital, they made their way. Casements were open to the night and +the sea, but the people were dulled with grief. Martinique had lost her +first born, and Fort de France, the gentle sister of Saint Pierre, was +bowed with the spirit of weeping. They had loved and leaned on each +other, this boy and girl of the Mother Island. + +Through the silent crowds, Charter and Paula walked, a part of the +silence, passing the groves and towers, where the laws of France are +born again for the little aliens; treading streets of darkness and +moaning. A field of fire-lights shone ahead--red glow shining upon new +canvas. This was the little colony of Father Fontanel, sustained by his +American friend,--brands plucked from the burning of Saint Pierre. They +passed the edge of the bivouac. A woman sat nursing her babe, fire-light +upon her face and breast, drowsy little ones about her. Coffee and +night-air and quavering lullabies; above all, ardent Josephine in +marble, smiling and dreaming of Europe among the stars.... It was a +powerful moment to Quentin Charter. Great joy and thrilling tragedy +breathed upon his heart. He saw a tear upon Paula's cheek, and heard the +low voice of Father Fontanel--like an echo across a stream. He saw them +and hastened forward, more than white in the radiance. + +"It is the moment of ten thousand years!" he exclaimed, grasping their +hands. + +Paula started, and turned to Charter whose gaze sank into her brain.... +And so it came about unexpectedly; in the fire-light among the priest's +beloved, under the Seven Palms and the ardent mystic smile of the +Empress.... + +_Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry +heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.... Let thy garments be +always white; and let not thy head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the +wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life._ + +The words rang in their ears, when they were alone in the city's +darkness, and the fire-lights far behind. + + * * * * * + +On the third day following, they stood together on the _Morne +d'Orange_--the three. Father Fontanel had been in feverish haste to gaze +once more upon his city; while Charter and Paula had a mission among the +ruins.... The _Saragossa_ was sitting for a new complexion in the harbor +of Fort de France, so they had been driven over from the Capital, along +the old sea-road. The wind was still; the sun shone through silent +towers of smoke, and it was noon. Sunlight bathed the stripped fields of +cane, and, seemingly inseparable from the stillness, brooded upon the +blue Caribbean. The wreck of the old plantation-house was hunched closer +to the ground. + +They left Father Fontanel in the carriage, and approached the cistern. +Charter halted suddenly at the edge of the stricken lianas, grasping +Paula's arm. The well-curbing was broken away, and the earth, for yards +surrounding, had caved into the vault. They stood there without speaking +for a moment or two, and then he led her back to the carriage.... Father +Fontanel did not seem aware of their coming or going, but smiled when +they spoke. His eyes, charmed with sunlight, were lost oversea. + +At last they stood, the priest between them, at the very edge of the +_Morne_ overlooking the shadowed _Rue Victor Hugo_--a collapsed artery +of the whited sepulchre.... The priest caught his breath; his hands +lifted from their shoulders and stretched out over the necropolis. His +face was upraised. + +"God, love the World!" he breathed, and the flesh sank from him.... Much +death had dulled their emotions, but this was translation. For an +instant they were lifted, exalted, as by the rushing winds of a chariot. + + * * * * * + +They did not enter the city that day, but came again, the fourth day +after the cataclysm. Out of the heat from the prone city, arose a +forbidding breath, so that Paula was prevailed upon to stay behind on +the _Morne_.... Sickened and terrified by the actualities, dreadful +beyond any imaging, Charter made his way up the cluttered road into _Rue +Rivoli_. Saint Pierre, a smoky pestilential charnel, was only alive now +through the lamentations of those who had come down from the hills for +their dead. + +The wine-shop had partly fallen in front. The stone-arch remained, but +the wooden-door had been levelled and was partially devoured by fire. A +breath of coolness still lingered in the dark place, and the fruity odor +of spilled wine mingled revoltingly with the heaviness of death. The +ash-covered floor was packed hard, and still wet from the gusts of rain +that had swept in through the open door and the broken-backed roof; +stained, too, from the leakage of the casks. Charter's boot touched an +empty bottle, and it wheeled and careened across the stones--until he +thought it would never stop.... Steady as a ticking clock, came the +"drip-drip" of liquor, escaping through a sprung seam from somewhere +among the merciful shadows, where the old soldier of France had fallen +from his chair. + +He climbed over the heap of stones, which had been the rear-door, and +entered the little court from which the song-birds had flown. Across the +drifts of ash, he forced his steps--into the semi-dark of the +living-room behind. + +The great head that he had come to find, was rigidly erect, as if the +muscles were locked, and faced the aperture through which he had +entered. It seemed to be done in iron, and was covered with white +dust--Pelee's dust, fresh-wrought from the fire in which the stars were +forged. The first impression was that of calm, but Charter's soul +chilled with terror, before his eyes fathomed the reality of that look. +Under the thick dust, there suddenly appeared upon the features, as if +invisible demons tugged at the muscles with hideous art, a reflection +from the depths.... Bellingham was sitting beside a table. He had seen +Death in the open door. The colossal energies of his life had risen to +vanquish the Foe, yet again. His mind had realized their failure, and +what failure meant, before the End. Out of the havoc of nether-planes, +where Abominations are born, had come a last call for him. That glimpse +of hell was mirrored in the staring dustless eyes.... Around his +shoulders, like a golden vine, and lying across his knees, clung the +trophy of defeat--Soronia. Denied the lily--he had taken the +tiger-lily.... Under the unset stones of the floor, a lizard croaked. + +Charter, who had fallen of old into the Caverns of Devouring, backed out +into the court of the song-birds, in agony for clean light, for he had +seen old hells again, in the luminous decay of those staring eyes.... He +recalled the end of Father Fontanel and this--with reverent awe, as one +on the edge of the mystery. Through the ends of these two, had some +essential balance of power been preserved in the world? + + + + +TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + +PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE +WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY + + +Peter Stock had cabled to New York for officers and men to make up a +ship's company. The _Saragossa_ was overhauled, meanwhile, in the harbor +of Fort de France, and the owner expressed his intention of finishing +his healing at sea. On the same ship, which brought his seamen from New +York, arrived in Fort de France a corps of newspaper correspondents, who +were not slow to discover that in the bandaged capitalist lay one of the +great stones of the eruption from the American point of view. This +literally unseated Peter Stock from his chair on the veranda of the +hotel at the Capital. With his guests, he put to sea within thirty-six +hours after the arrival of the steamer from New York; indeed, before the +_Saragossa's_ paint was dry. His vitality was not abated, but the great +figures of Pelee and Fontanel, enriched by M. Mondet as a sort of +clown-attendant, had strangely softened and strengthened this +rarely-flavored personality. As for his two guests, that month of +voyaging in the Caribbean and below, is particularly their own. The +three were on deck as the _Saragossa_ plied past Saint Pierre, five or +six miles deep in the roadstead, a last time. The brute, Pelee, lay +asleep in the sun before the gate of the whited sepulchre. + +"Did I ever tell you about my last interview with M. Mondet?" Peter +Stock inquired. + +Charter had witnessed it, on his way to the craters that morning, but he +did not say so, and was regaled with the story. "Bear witness," Peter +Stock finished, pointing toward the city, "that I forgive M. Mondet. +Doubtless he was writing a paragraph on the staunchness of Pelee--when +his desk was closed for him." + + * * * * * + +They reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock +berthed the _Saragossa_ and breathed the big city, than he discovered +how dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little +apartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong +young queen; alone also first to _The States_, though there was a table +set for four over in Staten Island the following day.... + +Charter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the +latter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in +the eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious +explanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To +Charter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly +bright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid +had put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that +their imperishable lustre was in his eyes--for the deeper-seeing eyes of +the woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to +burst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang +high among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it +were just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the +men and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives +the World. + +Selma Cross had left the _Zoroaster_, and, with Stephen Cabot, was +happily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. _The Thing_ +was to open again in September at the _Herriot_, and the initial venture +into the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to +do without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down +into Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun +Knox proved rare listening: + +"I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from +Stephen Cabot," she said, falling with the same old readiness into her +disclosures. "'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into +Danube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....' +I had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It +was so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a +self-fighter--the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I +took his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it +transpired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to +Cincinnati--for one day--to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I +was all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art +could give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his +face, so brave and so white. + +"I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned +to the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a +Stephen who could smile up from the ground as--as they stoned.... So I +left him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel, +watching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio. + +"Late the next afternoon I reached Danube, and was driven directly to +the theatre--which was new. There was a pang in this. The town seemed +just the same; the streets and buildings, the sounds and smells, even +the sunset patch at the head of Main Street--all were just as they +should be, except the theatre. You see, all the dreams of greatness of +that savage, homely girl, had found their source and culmination in the +old house of melodrama, parts of which, they told me, now were made over +into darkey shanties down by the river. I felt that my success was +qualified a little in that it had not come in the life of the old house. + +"I joined the Company at the theatre, without seeing any of the Danube +folk. The audience was already gathering. Through an eyelet of the +curtain, I saw Calhoun Knox enter alone, and take a seat in the centre, +five rows from the orchestra. He seemed smaller. The good brown tan was +gone. There was a twitch about his mouth that twitched mine. Other faces +were the same--even the lips that had spoken my doom so long ago. I had +no hate for them now.... + +"I looked at Calhoun Knox again, looked for the charm of clean +simplicity, and kept putting Stephen Cabot out of my heart and brain.... +This man before me had fought for me twice, when I had needed a +champion.... They pulled me away from the eyelet, and _The Thing_ was +on. + +"I could feel the town's group-soul that night--responded to its every +thought, as if a nerve-system of my own was installed in every mind. +They were listening to the woman who had startled New York. I felt their +awe. It was not sweet, as I had dreamed the moment would be. After all, +these were my people. + +"I wanted their love, not their adulation. There had been nights back in +the East, when I had felt my audience, and turned loose _The Thing_ with +utmost daring, knowing that enough of the throng could follow me. But +this night I played slowly, played down, so that all could get it. This +was not a concession to the public, but a reconciliation. And at the +last, I moved and spoke pityingly, lest I hurt them; played to the +working face of Calhoun Knox with all its limitations--as you would tell +a story to a child, and hasten the happy ending to steady the quivering +lip.... And then it came to me slowly, after the last curtain had +fallen, that Danube was calling for its own, and I stepped out from +behind. + +"'Once in the days of tumult and misunderstanding,' I told them, 'I was +angry because you did not love me. Now I know that I was not lovable. +And now I feel your goodness and your forgiveness. I pray you not to +thank me any more, lest I break down under too much joy....' Then I +went down among them. A woman kissed me, but the moment was so big and +my eyes so clouded that I did not remember the face.... Presently the +real consciousness came. Danube had dropped back to the doors. My hand +was in the hand of Calhoun Knox. + +"Far out the Lone Ridge pike, we walked, to the foot of the Knobs. I was +breathing the smell of my old mountains. You can rely, that I had kept +my voice bright. 'I have come back to you, Calhoun,' I said. + +"'I shouldn't be here,' he stammered in real panic. 'You didn't write, +and I married----' + +"I could have hugged him in a way that would not have disturbed his +wife, but I said reproachfully, 'And you let me come 'way out here alone +with you, wicked Married Man?...' I started back for town, and then +thought better of it--waited for him to come up, and took his hand. + +"'Calhoun,' I said, 'I found you a solid friend when I needed one +pitifully. Selma Cross never forgets. You have always been my Kentucky +Gentleman. God bless your big bright heart. I wish you kingly +happiness!' + +"And then I did rush back. We separated at the edge of the town. I +wanted to run and cry aloud. The joy was so new and so vast that I could +scarcely hold it. Miles away, I heard the night-train whistle. My +baggage was at the hotel, but I didn't care for that, and reached the +depot-platform in time. The Company was there, but they had reserved a +Pullman. I went into the day-coach, because I wanted to be alone--sat +rigidly in the thin-backed seat. There were snoring, sprawling folks on +every hand.... After a long time, some one stirred in his seat and +muttered, 'High Bridge.' The brakeman came through at age-long +intervals, calling stations that had once seemed to me the far country. +Then across the aisle, a babe awoke and wailed. The mother had others--a +sweet sort of woman sick with weariness. I took the little one, and it +liked the fresh arms and fell asleep. It fitted right in--the soft +helpless warm little thing--and felt good to me. Dawn dimmed the old +meadows before I gave it up to be fed--and begged it back again. + +"And then Cincinnati from the river--brown river below and brown +smoke-clouds above. It seemed as if I had been gone ages, instead of +only since yesterday. Unhampered by baggage, I sped out of the +day-coach, far ahead of the Company in the Pullman, but the carriage to +the hotel was insufferably slow; the elevator dragged.... It was only +eight in the morning, but I knew his ways--how little he slept.... His +door was partly open, and I heard the crinkle of his paper, as he +answered my tap. + +"'Aren't you pretty near ready for breakfast, Stephen?' I asked.... He +stood in the doorway--his head just to my breast. His face was +hallowed, but his body seemed to weaken. I crossed the threshold to help +him, and we--we're to be married before the new season opens." + +Paula loved the story. + + * * * * * + +And at length Paula and Charter reached the house of his mother, whose +glory was about her, as she stood in the doorway. Before he kissed her, +the mother-eyes had searched his heart.... Then she turned to his +garland of victory. + +"I am so glad you have brought me a daughter." + +The women faced each other--the strangest moment in three lives.... All +the ages passed between the eyes of the maid and the mother; and wisdoms +finer than words, as when two suns, sweeping past in their great cycle, +shine across the darkness of the infinite deep; ages of gleaning, +adoring, suffering, bearing, praying; ages of listening to little +children and building dreams out of pain; the weathered lustre of Naomi +and the fresh radiance of Ruth; but over all, that look which passed +between the women shone the secret of the meaning of men--God-taught +Motherhood. + +To Charter, standing afar-off, came the simple but tremendous +revelation, just a glimpse into that lovely arcanum which mere man may +never know in full.... He saw that these two were closer than prophets +to the Lifting Heart of Things; that such are the handmaidens of the +Spirit, to whom are intrusted God's avatars; that no prophet is greater +than his mother. + +To the man, it was new as the dream which nestled in Paula's heart; to +the women, it was old as the flocks on the mountain-sides of Lebanon. +They turned to him smiling. And when he could speak, he said to Paula: + +"I thought you would like to see the garret, and the window that faces +the East." + + +THE END + + + + +About Will Levington Comfort + +_Author of "She Buildeth Her House" and "Routledge Rides Alone"_ + +(_Eight Editions_) + + +Well-known as one of the most successful short-story contributors to +American magazines, Will Levington Comfort awoke one morning a little +over a year ago to find himself famous as a long-story writer. Seldom +has the first novel of an author been accorded the very essence of +praise from the conservative critics as was Mr. Comfort's "Routledge +Rides Alone," acknowledged to be the best book of 1910. + +While young in years, Mr. Comfort, who is thirty-three, is old in +experience. In 1898 he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry, and +saw Cuban service in the Spanish-American War. The following year he +rode as a war correspondent in the Philippines a rise which resulted +from vivid letters written to newspapers from the battlefields and +prisons. + +Stricken with fever, wearied of service and thinking of Home, he was +next ordered by cable up into China to watch the lid lifted from the +Legations at Peking. Here he saw General Liscum killed on the Tientsin +Wall and got his earliest glance of the Japanese in war. Another attack +of fever completely prostrated him and he was sent home on the hospital +ship "Relief." + +In the interval between the Boxer Uprising and the Russo-Japanese War, +Mr. Comfort began to dwell upon the great fundamental facts of +world-politics. But the call of smoke and battle was too strong, and, +securing a berth as war-correspondent for a leading midwestern +newspaper, he returned to the far East and the scenes of the +Russo-Japanese conflict in 1904. He was present at the battle of +Liaoyang his description of which in "Routledge Rides Alone" fairly +overwhelms the reader. + +Few novels of recent years have aroused the same enthusiasm as was +evoked by this story of "Routledge." Book reviewers both in this country +and in Europe have suggested that the book should win for its author the +Peace prize because it is one of the greatest and most effective +arguments against warfare that has ever been presented. + + + + +By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT + + +ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE + +COLORED FRONTISPIECE BY MARTIN JUSTICE + +Here is a tale indeed--big and forceful, palpitating with interest, and +written with the sureness of touch and the breadth of a man who is +master of his art. Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new +story-places in the world of fiction to furnish the scenes for his +narrative--India and Manchuria at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. +While the novel is distinguished by its clear and vigorous war scenes, +the fine and sweet romance of the love of the hero, Routledge--a brave, +strange, and talented American--for the "most beautiful woman in London" +rivals these in interest. + +The story opens in London, sweeps up and down Asia, and reaches its most +rousing pitch on the ghastly field of Liaoyang, in Manchuria. The +one-hundred-mile race from the field to a free cable outside the war +zone, between Routledge and an English war correspondent, is as exciting +and enthralling as anything that has appeared in fiction in recent +years. + + "A big, vital, forceful story that towers giant-high--a romance + to lure the hours away in tense interest--a book with a message + for all mankind."--_Detroit Free Press._ + + "Three such magnificent figures as Routledge, Noreen, and + Rawder never before have appeared together in fiction. Take it + all in all, 'Routledge Rides Alone' is a great novel, full of + sublime conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders + from heaven to earth."--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + "The story unfolds a vast and vivid panorama of life. The first + chapters remind one strongly of the descriptive Kipling we once + knew. We commend the book for its untamed interest. We + recommend it for its descriptive power."--_Boston Evening + Transcript._ + + "Here is one of the strongest novels of the year; a happy + blending of romance and realism, vivid, imaginative, dramatic, + and, above all, a well told story with a purpose. It is a + red-blooded story of war and love, with a touch of the + mysticism of India, some world politics, love of country, and + hate of oppression--a tale of clean and expert workmanship, + powerful and personal."--_Pittsburg Dispatch._ + + "Three such magnificent figures (Routledge, Noreen, and Rawder) + have seldom before appeared together in fiction. For knowledge, + energy, artistic conception, and literary skill, it is easily + the book of the day--A GREAT NOVEL, full of a sublime + conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders from + heaven to earth."--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + "EASILY THE BOOK OF THE DAY"--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of She Buildeth Her House, by Will Comfort + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE BUILDETH HER HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 34825.txt or 34825.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/2/34825/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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