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diff --git a/old/7492-h.htm.2021-01-26 b/old/7492-h.htm.2021-01-26 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0cd61c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7492-h.htm.2021-01-26 @@ -0,0 +1,21683 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Fighting Chance, by Robert W. Chambers + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fighting Chance, by Robert W. Chambers + +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: The Fighting Chance + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7492] +Last Updated: March 15, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIGHTING CHANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:60%;"><img src="images/F1.PNG" + alt="'She Was Standing Beside the Fire With Quarrier, One Foot On the Fender.' " width="100%" /><br /></div> + + <h1> + The Fighting Chance + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Robert W. Chambers + </h2> + <h4> + Author of “Cardigan,” “The Maid at Arms,” “The Firing Line,” etc. + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + DEDICATED TO MY FATHER + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>THE FIGHTING CHANCE</b></big> </a> <br /> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a> + </td> + <td> + ACQUAINTANCE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> + </td> + <td> + IMPRUDENCE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a> + </td> + <td> + SHOTOVER + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE SEASON OPENS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> + </td> + <td> + A WINNING LOSER + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a> + </td> + <td> + MODUS VIVENDI + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> + </td> + <td> + PERSUASION + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a> + </td> + <td> + CONFIDENCES + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a> + </td> + <td> + CONFESSIONS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE SEAMY SIDE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE CALL OF THE RAIN + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE ASKING PRICE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE SELLING PRICE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE BARGAIN + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE ENEMY LISTENS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + THE FIGHTING CHANCE + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. ACQUAINTANCE + </h2> + <p> + The speed of the train slackened; a broad tidal river flashed into sight + below the trestle, spreading away on either hand through yellowing level + meadows. And now, above the roaring undertone of the cars, from far ahead + floated back the treble bell-notes of the locomotive; there came a + gritting vibration of brakes; slowly, more slowly the cars glided to a + creaking standstill beside a sun-scorched platform gay with the bright + flutter of sunshades and summer gowns. + </p> + <p> + “Shotover! Shotover!” rang the far cry along the cars; and an + absent-minded young man in the Pullman pocketed the uncut magazine he had + been dreaming over and, picking up gun case and valise, followed a line of + fellow-passengers to the open air, where one by one they were engulfed and + lost to view amid the gay confusion on the platform. + </p> + <p> + The absent-minded young man, however, did not seem to know exactly where + he was bound for. He stood hesitating, leisurely inspecting the flashing + ranks of vehicles—depot wagons, omnibusses, and motor cars already + eddying around a dusty gravel drive centred by the conventional railroad + flower bed and fountain. + </p> + <p> + Sunshine blazed on foliage plants arranged geometrically, on scarlet stars + composed of geraniums, on thickets of tall flame-tinted cannas. And around + this triumph of landscape gardening, phaeton, Tilbury, Mercedes, and + Toledo backed, circled, tooted; gaily gowned women, whips aslant, horses + dancing, greeted expected guests; laughing young men climbed into + dog-carts and took the reins from nimble grooms; young girls, + extravagantly veiled, made room in comfortable touring-cars for feminine + guests whose extravagant veils were yet to be unpacked; slim young men in + leather trappings, caps adorned with elaborate masks or goggles, + manipulated rakish steering-gears; preoccupied machinists were fussing + with valve and radiator or were cranking up; and, through the jolly + tumult, the melancholy bell of the locomotive sounded, and the long train + moved out through the September sunshine amid clouds of snowy steam. + </p> + <p> + And all this time the young man, gun case in one hand, suit case in the + other, looked about him in his good-humoured, leisurely manner for anybody + or any vehicle which might be waiting for him. His amiable inspection + presently brought a bustling baggage-master within range of vision; and he + spoke to this official, mentioning his host's name. + </p> + <p> + “Lookin' for Mr. Ferrall?” repeated the baggage-master, spinning a trunk + dexterously into rank with its fellows. “Say, one of Mr. Ferrall's men was + here just now—there he is, over there uncrating that there + bird-dog!” + </p> + <p> + The young man's eyes followed the direction indicated by the grimy thumb; + a red-faced groom in familiar livery was kneeling beside a dog's + travelling crate, attempting to unlock it, while behind the bars an + excited white setter whined and thrust forth first one silky paw then the + other. + </p> + <p> + The young man watched the scene for a moment, then: + </p> + <p> + “Are you one of Mr. Ferrall's men?” he asked in his agreeable voice. + </p> + <p> + The groom looked up, then stood up: + </p> + <p> + “Yis, Sorr.” + </p> + <p> + “Take these; I'm Mr. Siward—for Shotover House. I dare say you have + room for me and the dog, too.” + </p> + <p> + The groom opened his mouth to speak, but Siward took the crate key from + his fingers, knelt, and tried the lock. It resisted. From the depths of + the crate a beseeching paw fell upon his cuff. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, old fellow,” he said soothingly, “I know how you feel about + it; I know you're in a hurry—and we'll have you out in a second—steady, + boy!—something's jammed, you see! Only one moment now! There you + are!” + </p> + <p> + The dog attempted to bolt as the crate door opened, but the young man + caught him by the leather collar and the groom snapped on a leash. + </p> + <p> + “Beg pardon, Sorr,” began the groom, carried almost off his feet by the + frantic circling of the dog—“beg pardon, Sorr, but I'll be afther + seem' if anny of Mr. Ferrall's men drove over for you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Are you not one of Mr. Ferrall's men?” + </p> + <p> + “Yis, Sorr, but I hadn't anny orders to meet anny wan—” + </p> + <p> + “Haven't you anything here to drive me in?” + </p> + <p> + “Yis, Sorr—I'll look to see—” + </p> + <p> + The raw groom, much embarrassed, and keeping his feet with difficulty + against the plunging dog, turned toward the gravel drive where now only a + steam motor and a depot-wagon remained. As they looked the motor steamed + out, honking hoarsely; the depot-wagon followed, leaving the circle at the + end of the station empty of vehicles. + </p> + <p> + “Didn't Mr. Ferrall expect me?” asked Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Aw, yis, Sorr; but the gintlemen for Shotover House does ginerally + allways coom by Black Fells, Sorr—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lord!” said the young man, “I remember now. I should have gone on to + Black Fells Crossing; Mr. Ferrall wrote me!” Then, amused: “I suppose you + have only a baggage-wagon here?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Sorr—a phayton”—he hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Well? Isn't a phaeton all right?” + </p> + <p> + “Yis, Sorr—if th' yoong lady says so—beg pardon, Sorr, Miss + Landis is driving.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—h! I see.... Is Miss Landis a guest at Shotover House?” + </p> + <p> + “Yis, Sorr. An' if ye would joost ask her—the phayton do be coming + now, Sorr!” + </p> + <p> + The phaeton was coming; the horse, a showy animal, executed side-steps; + blue ribbons fluttered from the glittering head-stall; a young girl in + white was driving. + </p> + <p> + Siward advanced to the platform's edge as the phaeton drew up; the young + lady looked inquiringly at the groom, at the dog, and leisurely at him. + </p> + <p> + So he took off his hat, naming himself in that well-bred and agreeable + manner characteristic of men of his sort,—and even his smile + appeared to be part and parcel of a conventional ensemble so harmonious as + to remain inconspicuous. + </p> + <p> + “You should have gone on to Black Fells Crossing,” observed Miss Landis, + coolly controlling the nervous horse. “Didn't you know it?” + </p> + <p> + He said he remembered now that such were the directions given him. + </p> + <p> + The girl glanced at him incuriously, and with more curiosity at the dog. + “Is that the Sagamore pup, Flynn?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “It is, Miss.” + </p> + <p> + “Can't you take him on the rumble with you?” And, to Siward: “There is + room for your gun and suit case.” + </p> + <p> + “And for me?” he asked, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “I think so. Be careful of that Sagamore pup, Flynn. Hold him between your + knees. Are you ready, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + So he climbed in; the groom hoisted the dog to the rumble and sprang up + behind; the horse danced and misbehaved, making a spectacle of himself and + an agreeable picture of his driver; then the pretty little phaeton swung + northward out of the gravel drive and went whirling along a road all misty + with puffs of yellow dust which the afternoon sun turned to floating + golden powder. + </p> + <p> + “Did you send my telegram, Flynn?” she asked without turning her head. + </p> + <p> + “I did, Miss.” + </p> + <p> + It being the most important telegram she had ever sent in all her life, + Miss Landis became preoccupied,—quite oblivious to extraneous + details, including Siward, until the horse began acting badly again. Her + slightly disdainful and perfect control of the reins interested the young + man. He might have said something civil and conventional about that, but + did not make the effort to invade a reserve which appeared to embarrass + nobody. + </p> + <p> + A stacatto note from the dog, prolonged infinitely in hysterical + crescendo, demanded comment from somebody. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter with him, Flynn?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + Siward said: “You should let him run, Miss Landis.” + </p> + <p> + She nodded, smiling, inattentive, absorbed in her own affairs, still + theorising concerning her telegram. She drove on for a while, and might + have forgotten the dog entirely had he not once more lifted his voice in + melancholy. + </p> + <p> + “You say he ought to run for a mile or two? Do you think he'll bolt, Mr. + Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Is he a new dog?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, fresh from the kennels; supposed to be house-and wagon-broken, + steady to shot and wing—” She shrugged her pretty shoulders. “You + see how he's acting already!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mind if I try him?” suggested Siward. + </p> + <p> + “You mean that you are going to let him run?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so.” + </p> + <p> + “And if he bolts?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll take my chances.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but please consider my chances, Mr. Siward. The dog doesn't belong + to me.” + </p> + <p> + “But he ought to run—” + </p> + <p> + “But suppose he runs away? He's a horridly expensive creature—if you + care to take the risk.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll take the risk,” said Siward, smiling as she drew rein. “Now Flynn, + give me the leash. Quiet! Quiet, puppy! Everything is coming your way; + that's the beauty of patience; great thing, patience!” He took the leader; + the dog sprang from the rumble. “Now, my friend, look at me! No, don't + twist and squirm and scramble; look me square in the eye; so!... Now we + know each ether and we respect each other—because you are going to + be a good puppy... and obey... Down charge!” + </p> + <p> + The dog, trembling with eager comprehension, dropped like a shot, muzzle + laid flat between his paws. Siward unleashed him, looked down at him for a + second, stooped and caressed the silky head, then with a laugh swung + himself into the phaeton beside the driver, who, pretty head turned, had + been looking on intently. + </p> + <p> + “Your dog is yard-broken,” he said. “Look at him.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. Do you think he will follow us?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so.” + </p> + <p> + The horse started, Miss Landis looking back over her shoulder at the dog + who lay motionless, crouched flat in the road. + </p> + <p> + Then Siward turned. “Come on, Sagamore!” he said gaily; and the dog sprang + forward, circled about the moving phaeton, splitting the air with yelps of + ecstasy, then tore ahead, mad with the delight of stretching cramped + muscles amid the long rank grass and shrubbery of the roadside. + </p> + <p> + The girl watched him doubtfully; when he disappeared far away up the road + she turned the blue inquiry of her eyes on Siward. + </p> + <p> + “He'll be back,” said the young fellow, laughing; and presently the dog + reappeared on a tearing gallop, white flag tossing, glorious in his new + liberty, enchanted with the confidence this tall young man had reposed in + him—this adorable young man, this wonderful friend who had suddenly + appeared to release him from an undignified and abominable situation in a + crate. + </p> + <p> + “A good dog,” said Siward; and the girl looked around at him, partly + because his voice was pleasant, partly because a vague memory was + beginning to stir within her, coupling something unpleasant with the name + of Siward. + </p> + <p> + She had been conscious of it when he first named himself, but, absorbed in + the overwhelming importance of her telegram, had left the analysis of the + matter for the future. + </p> + <p> + She thought again of her telegram, theorised a little, came to no + conclusion except to let the matter rest for the present, and mentally + turned to the next and far less important problem—the question of + this rather attractive young man at her side, and why the name of Siward + should be linked in her mind with anything disagreeable. + </p> + <p> + Tentatively following the elusive mental dews that might awaken something + definite concerning her hazy impression of the man beside her, she spoke + pleasantly, conventionally, touching idly any topic that might have a + bearing; and, under a self-possession so detached as to give an impression + of indifference, eyes, ears, and intelligence admitted that he was + agreeable to look at, pleasant of voice, and difficult to reconcile with + anything unpleasant. + </p> + <p> + Which gradually aroused her interest—the incongruous usually + interesting girls of her age—for he had wit enough to amuse her, + sufficient inconsequence to please her, and something listless, at times + almost absent-minded, almost inattentive, that might have piqued her had + it not inoculated her, as it always does any woman, with the nascent germ + of curiosity. Besides, there was, in the hint of his momentary + preoccupation, a certain charm. + </p> + <p> + They discussed shooting and the opening of the season; dogs and the + training of dogs; and why some go gun-shy and why some ace blinkers. From + sport and its justification, they became inconsequential; and she was + beginning to enjoy the freshness of their chance acquaintance, his nice + attitude toward things, his irrelevancy, his gaiety. + </p> + <p> + Laughter thawed her; for notwithstanding the fearless confidence she had + been taught for men of her own kind, self-possession and reserve, if not + inherent, had also been drilled into her, and she required a great deal in + a man before she paid him the tribute of one of her pretty laughs. + </p> + <p> + Apparently they were advancing rather rapidly. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you think we ought to call the dog in, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; he's had enough!” + </p> + <p> + She drew rein; he sprang out and whistled; and the Sagamore pup, dusty and + happy came romping back. Siward motioned him to the rumble, but the dog + leaped to the front. + </p> + <p> + “I don't mind,” said the girl. “Let him sit here between us. And you might + occupy yourself by pulling some of those burrs from his ears—if you + will?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I will. Look up here, puppy! No! Don't try to lick my face, for + that is bad manners. Demonstrations are odious, as the poet says.” + </p> + <p> + “It's always bad manners, isn't it?” asked Miss Landis. + </p> + <p> + “What? Being affectionate?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and admitting it.” + </p> + <p> + “I believe it is. Do you hear that—Sagamore? But never mind; I'll + break the rules some day when we're alone.” + </p> + <p> + The dog laid one paw on Siward's knee, looking him wistfully in the eyes. + </p> + <p> + “More demonstrations,” observed the girl. “Mr. Siward! You are hugging + him! This amounts to a dual conspiracy in bad manners.” + </p> + <p> + “Awfully glad to admit you to the conspiracy,” he said. “There's one + vacancy—if you are eligible.” + </p> + <p> + “I am; I was discovered recently kissing my saddle-mare.” + </p> + <p> + “That settles it! Sagamore, give the young lady the grip.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia Landis glanced at the dog, then impulsively shifting the whip to + her left hand, held out the right. And very gravely the Sagamore pup laid + one paw in her dainty white gloved palm. + </p> + <p> + “You darling!” murmured the girl, resuming her whip. + </p> + <p> + “I notice,” observed Siward, “that you are perfectly qualified for + membership in our association for the promotion of bad manners. In fact I + should suggest you for the presidency—” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you think all sorts of things because I gushed over that dog.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Well you need not,” she rejoined, delicate nose up-tilted. “I never + kissed a baby in all my life—and never mean to. Which is probably + more than you can say.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, its more than I can say. + </p> + <p> + “That admission elects you president,” she concluded. But after a moment's + silent driving she turned partly toward him with mock seriousness: “Is it + not horridly unnatural in me to feel that way about babies? And about + people, too; I simply cannot endure demonstrations. As for dogs and horses—well, + I've admitted how I behave; and, being so shamelessly affectionate by + disposition, why can't I be nice to babies? I've a hazy but dreadful + notion that there's something wrong about me, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + He scrutinised the pretty features, anxiously; “I can't see it,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “But I mean it—almost seriously. I don't want to be so aloof, but—I + don't like to touch other people. It is rather horrid of me I suppose to + be like those silky, plumy, luxurious Angora cats who never are civil to + you and who always jump out of your arms at the first opportunity.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed—and there was malice in his eyes, but he did not know her + well enough to pursue the subject through so easy an opening. + </p> + <p> + It had occurred to her, too, that her simile might invite elaboration, and + she sensed the laugh in his silence, and liked him for remaining silent + where he might easily have been wittily otherwise. + </p> + <p> + This set her so much at ease, left her so confident, that they were on + terms of gayest understanding presently, she gossiping about the guests at + Shotover House, outlining the diversions planned for the two weeks before + them. + </p> + <p> + “But we shall see little of one another; you will be shooting most of the + time,” she said—with the very faintest hint of challenge—too + delicate, too impersonal to savour of coquetry. But the germ of it was + there. + </p> + <p> + “Do you shoot?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; why?” + </p> + <p> + “I am reconciled to the shooting, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that is awfully civil of you. Sometimes I'd rather play Bridge.” + </p> + <p> + “So should I—sometimes.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll remember that, Mr. Siward; and when all the men are waiting for you + to start out after grouse perhaps I may take that moment to whisper: 'May + I play?'” + </p> + <p> + He laughed. + </p> + <p> + “You mean that you really would stay and play double dummy when every + other living man will be off to the coverts? Double dummy—to improve + my game?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly! I need improvement.” + </p> + <p> + “Then there is something wrong with you, too, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed and started to flick her whip, but at her first motion the + horse gave trouble. + </p> + <p> + “The bit doesn't fit,” observed Siward. + </p> + <p> + “You are perfectly right,” she returned, surprised. “I ought to have + remembered; it is shameful to drive a horse improperly bitted.” And, after + a moment: “You are considerate toward animals; it is good in a man.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it's no merit. When animals are uncomfortable it worries me. It's one + sort of selfishness, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “What nonsense,” she said; and her smile was very friendly. “Why doesn't a + nice man ever admit he's nice when told so?” + </p> + <p> + It seems they had advanced that far. For she was beginning to find this + young man not only safe but promising; she had met nobody recently half as + amusing, and the outlook at Shotover House had been unpromising with only + the overgrateful Page twins to practise on—the other men + collectively and individually boring her. And suddenly, welcome as manna + from the sky, behold this highly agreeable boy to play with—until + Quarrier arrived. Her telegram had been addressed to Mr. Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “What was it you were saying about selfishness?” she asked. “Oh, I + remember. It was nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed, adding: “Selfishness is so simply defined you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it? How.” + </p> + <p> + “A refusal to renounce. That covers everything,” she concluded. + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes renunciation is weakness—isn't it?” he suggested. + </p> + <p> + “In what case for example?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, suppose we take love.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, you may take it if you like it.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose you loved a man!” he insisted. + </p> + <p> + “Let him beware! What then?” + </p> + <p> + “—And, suppose it would distress your family if you married him?” + </p> + <p> + “I'd give him up.” + </p> + <p> + “If you loved him?” + </p> + <p> + “Love? That is the poorest excuse for selfishness, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “So you would ruin your happiness and his—” + </p> + <p> + “A girl ought to find more happiness in renouncing a selfish love than in + love itself,” announced Miss Landis with that serious conviction + characteristic of her years. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” assented Siward with a touch of malice, “if you really do + find more happiness in renouncing love than in love itself, it would be + foolish not to do it—” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward! You are derisive. Besides, you are not acute. A woman is + always an opportunist. When the event takes place I shall know what to + do.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean when you want to marry the man you mustn't? + </p> + <p> + “Exactly. I probably shall.” + </p> + <p> + “Marry him? + </p> + <p> + “Wish to!” + </p> + <p> + “I see. But you won't, of course.” + </p> + <p> + She drew rein, bringing the horse to a walk at the foot of a long hill. + </p> + <p> + “We are going much too fast,” said Miss Landis, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Driving too fast for—” + </p> + <p> + “No, not driving, going—you and I.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you mean—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes I do. We are on all sorts of terms, already.” + </p> + <p> + “In the country, you know, people—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes I know all about it, and what old and valued friends one makes at a + week's end. But it has been a matter of half-hours with us, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “Let us sit very still and think it over,” he suggested. And they both + laughed. + </p> + <p> + It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her + telegram. The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had time + to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr. Howard Quarrier. The last + week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was no + complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material of + interest in the eight words: “I will consider your request when you + arrive. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if you know Howard Quarrier?” she said. + </p> + <p> + After a second's hesitation he replied: “Yes—a little. Everybody + does.” + </p> + <p> + “You do know him?” + </p> + <p> + “Only at—the club.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the Lenox?” + </p> + <p> + “The Lenox—and the Patroons.” + </p> + <p> + Preoccupied, driving with careless, almost inattentive perfection, she + thought idly of her twenty-three years, wondering how life could have + passed so quickly leaving her already stranded on the shoals of an + engagement to marry Howard Quarrier. Then her thoughts, errant, wandered + half the world over before they returned to Siward; and when at length + they did, and meaning to be civil, she spoke again of his acquaintance + with Quarrier at the Patroons Club—the club itself being sufficient + to settle Siward's status in every community. + </p> + <p> + “I'm trying to remember what it is I have heard about you,” she continued + amiably; “you are—” + </p> + <p> + An odd expression in his eyes arrested her—long enough to note their + colour and expression—and she continued, pleasantly; “—you are + Stephen Siward, are you not? You see I know your name perfectly well—” + Her straight brows contracted a trifle; she drove on, lips compressed, + following an elusive train of thought which vaguely, persistently, coupled + his name with something indefinitely unpleasant. And she could not + reconcile this with his appearance. However, the train of unlinked ideas + which she pursued began to form the semblance of a chain. Coupling his + name with Quarrier's, and with a club, aroused memory; vague uneasiness + stirred her to a glimmering comprehension. Siward? Stephen Siward? One of + the New York Siwards then;—one of that race— + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the truth flashed upon her,—the crude truth lacking + definite detail, lacking circumstance and colour and atmosphere,—merely + the raw and ugly truth. + </p> + <p> + Had he looked at her—and he did, once—he could have seen only + the unruffled and very sweet profile of a young girl. Composure was one of + the masks she had learned to wear—when she chose. + </p> + <p> + And she was thinking very hard all the while; “So this is the man? I might + have known his name. Where were my five wits? Siward!—Stephen + Siward!... He is very young, too... much too young to be so horrid.... Yet—it + wasn't so dreadful, after all; only the publicity! Dear me! I knew we were + going too fast.” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Landis,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward?”—very gently. It was her way to be gentle when + generous. + </p> + <p> + “I think,” he said, “that you are beginning to remember where you may have + heard my name.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—a little—” She looked at him with the direct gaze of a + child, but the lovely eyes were troubled. His smile was not very genuine, + but he met her gaze steadily enough. + </p> + <p> + “It was rather nice of Mrs. Ferrall to ask me,” he said, “after the mess I + made of things last spring.” + </p> + <p> + “Grace Ferrall is a dear,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + After a moment he ventured: “I suppose you saw it in the papers.” + </p> + <p> + “I think so; I had completely forgotten it; your name seemed to—” + </p> + <p> + “I see.” Then, listlessly: “I couldn't have ventured to remind you that—that + perhaps you might not care to be so amiable—” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward,” she said impulsively, “you are nice to me! Why shouldn't I + be amiable? It was—it was—I've forgotten just how dreadfully + you did behave—” + </p> + <p> + “Pretty badly.” + </p> + <p> + “Very?” + </p> + <p> + “They say so.” + </p> + <p> + “And what is your opinion Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I ought to have known better.” Something about him reminded her of a + bad small boy; and suddenly in spite of her better sense, in spite of her + instinctive caution, she found herself on the very verge of laughter. What + was it in the man that disarmed and invited a confidence—scarcely + justified it appeared? What was it now that moved her to overlook what few + overlook—not the fault, but its publicity? Was it his agreeable + bearing, his pleasant badinage, his amiably listless moments of + preoccupation, his youth that appealed to her—aroused her charity, + her generosity, her curiosity? + </p> + <p> + And had other people continued to accept him, too? What would Quarrier + think of his presence at Shotover? She began to realise that she was a + little afraid of Quarrier's opinions. And his opinions were always + judgments. However Grace Ferrall had thought it proper to ask him, and + that meant social absolution. As far as that went she also was perfectly + ready to absolve him if he needed it. But perhaps he didn't care!—She + looked at him, furtively. He seemed to be tranquil enough in his + abstraction. Trouble appeared to slide very easily from his broad young + shoulders. Perhaps he was already taking much for granted in her + gentleness with him. And gradually speculation became interest and + interest a young girl's innocent curiosity to learn something of a man + whose record it seemed almost impossible to reconcile with his + personality. + </p> + <p> + “I was wondering,” he said looking up to encounter her clear eyes, “whose + house that is over there?” + </p> + <p> + “Beverly Plank's shooting-box; Black Fells,” she replied nodding toward + the vast pile of blackish rocks against the sky, upon which sprawled a + heavy stone house infested with chimneys. + </p> + <p> + “Plank? Oh yes.” + </p> + <p> + He smiled to remember the battering blows rained upon the ramparts of + society by the master of Black Fells. + </p> + <p> + But the smile faded; and, glancing at him, the girl was surprised to see + the subtle change in his face—the white worn look, then the old + listless apathy which, all at once to her, hinted of something graver than + preoccupation. + </p> + <p> + “Are we near the sea?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Very near. Only a moment to the top of this hill.... Now look!” + </p> + <p> + There lay the sea—the same grey-blue crawling void that had ever + fascinated and repelled him—always wrinkled, always in flat + monotonous motion, spreading away, away to the sad world's ends. + </p> + <p> + “Full of menace—always,” he said, unconscious that he had spoken + aloud. + </p> + <p> + “The sea!” + </p> + <p> + He spoke without turning: “The sea is a relentless thing for a man to + fight.... There are other tides more persistent than the sea, but like it—like + it in its menace.” + </p> + <p> + His face seemed thinner, older; she noticed his cheek bones for the first + time. Then, meeting her eyes, youth returned with a laugh and a touch of + colour; and, without understanding exactly how, she was aware, presently, + that they had insensibly slipped back to their light badinage and gay + inconsequences—back to a footing which, strangely, seemed to be + already an old footing, familiar, pleasant, and natural to return to. + </p> + <p> + “Is that Shotover House?” he asked as they came to the crest of the last + hillock between them and the sea. + </p> + <p> + “At last, Mr. Siward,” she said mockingly; “and now your troubles are + nearly ended.” + </p> + <p> + “And yours, Miss Landis?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” she murmured to herself, thinking of the telegram with the + faintest misgiving. + </p> + <p> + For she was very young, and she had not had half enough out of life as + yet; and besides, her theories and preconceived plans for the safe and + sound ordering of her life appeared to lack weight—nay, they were + dwindling already into insignificance. + </p> + <p> + Theory had almost decided her to answer Mr. Quarrier's suggestion with a + 'Yes.' However, he was coming from the Lakes in a day or two. She could + decide definitely when she had discussed the matter with him. + </p> + <p> + “I wish that I owned this dog,” observed Siward, as the phaeton entered + the macadamised drive. + </p> + <p> + “I wish so, too,” she said, “but he belongs to Mr. Quarrier.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II IMPRUDENCE + </h2> + <p> + A house of native stone built into and among weather-scarred rocks, one + massive wing butting seaward, others nosing north and south among cedars + and outcropping ledges—the whole silver-grey mass of masonry + reddening under a westering sun, every dormer, every leaded diamond pane + aflame; this was Shotover as Siward first beheld it. + </p> + <p> + Like the craggy vertebrae of a half-buried fossil splitting the sod, a + ragged line of rock rose as a barrier to inland winds; the foreland, set + here and there with tiny lawns and pockets of bright flowers, fell away to + the cliffs; and here, sheer wet black rocks fronted the eternal battering + of the Atlantic. + </p> + <p> + As the phaeton drew up under a pillared porte-cochere, one or two servants + appeared; a rather imposing specimen bowed them through the doors into the + hall where, in a wide chimney place, the embers of a drift-wood fire + glimmered like a heap of dusty jewels. Bars of sunlight slanted on wall + and rug, on stone floor and carved staircase, on the bronze foliations of + the railed gallery above, where, in the golden gloom through a high + window, sun-tipped tree tops against a sky of azure stirred like burnished + foliage in a tapestry. + </p> + <p> + “There is nobody here, of course,” observed Miss Landis to Siward as they + halted in front of the fire-place; “the season opens to-day in this + county, you see.” She shrugged her pretty shoulders: “And the women who + don't shoot make the first field-luncheon a function.” + </p> + <p> + She turned, nodded her adieux, then, over her shoulder, casually: “If you + haven't an appointment with the Sand-Man before dinner you may find me in + the gun-room.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll be there in about three minutes,” he said; “and what about this + dog?”—looking down at the Sagamore pup who stood before him, + wagging, attentive, always the gentleman to the tips of his toes. + </p> + <p> + Miss Landis laughed. “Take him to your room if you like. Dogs have the run + of the house.” + </p> + <p> + So he followed a servant to the floor above where a smiling and very + ornamental maid preceded him through a corridor and into that heavy wing + of the house which fronted the sea. + </p> + <p> + “Tea is served in the gun-room, sir,” said the pretty maid, and + disappeared to give place to a melancholy and silent young man who turned + on the bath, laid out fresh raiment, and whispering, “Scotch or Irish, + sir?” presently effaced himself. + </p> + <p> + Before he quenched his own thirst Siward filled a bowl and set it on the + floor, and it seemed as though the dog would never finish gulping and + slobbering in the limpid icy water. + </p> + <p> + “It's the salt air, my boy,” commented the young man, gravely refilling + his own glass as though accepting the excuse on his own account. + </p> + <p> + Then man and beast completed ablutions and grooming and filed out through + the wide corridor, around the gallery, and down the broad stairway to the + gun-room—an oaken vaulted place illuminated by the sun, where mellow + lights sparkled on glass-cased rows of fowling pieces and rifles, on the + polished antlers of shaggy moose heads. + </p> + <p> + Miss Landis sat curled up in a cushioned corner under the open casement + panes, offering herself a cup of tea. She looked up, nodding invitation; + he found a place beside her. A servant whispered, “Scotch or Irish, sir,” + then set the crystal paraphernalia at his elbow. + </p> + <p> + He said something about the salt air, casually; the girl gazed + meditatively at space. + </p> + <p> + The sound of wheels on the gravel outside aroused her from a silence which + had become a brown study; and, to Siward, presently, she said: “Here + endeth our first rendezvous.” + </p> + <p> + “Then let us arrange another immediately,” he said, stirring the ice in + his glass. + </p> + <p> + The girl considered him with speculative eyes: “I shouldn't exactly know + what to do with you for the next hour if I didn't abandon you.” + </p> + <p> + “Why bother to do anything with me? Why even give yourself the trouble of + deserting me? That solves the problem.” + </p> + <p> + “I really don't mean that you are a problem to me, Mr. Siward,” she said, + amused; “I mean that I am going to drive again.” + </p> + <p> + “I see.” + </p> + <p> + “No you don't see at all. There's a telegram; I'm not driving for pleasure—” + </p> + <p> + She had not meant that either, and it annoyed her that she had expressed + herself in such terms. As a matter of fact, at the telegraphed request of + Mr. Quarrier, she was going to Black Fells Crossing to meet his train from + the Lakes and drive him back to Shotover. The drive, therefore, was of + course a drive for pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “I see,” repeated Siward amiably. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you do,” she observed, rising to her graceful height. He was on + his feet at once, so carelessly, so good-humouredly acquiescent that + without any reason at all she hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “I had meant to show you about—the cliffs—the kennels and + stables; I'm sorry,” she concluded, lingering. + </p> + <p> + “I'm awfully sorry,” he rejoined without meaning anything in particular. + That was the trouble, whatever he said, apparently meant so much. + </p> + <p> + With the agreeable sensation of being regretted, she leisurely gloved + herself, then walked through the gun-room and hall, Siward strolling + beside her. + </p> + <p> + The dog followed them as they turned toward the door and passed out across + the terraced veranda to the driveway where a Tandem cart was drawn up, + faultlessly appointed. Quarrier's mania was Tandem. She thought it rather + nice of her to remember this. + </p> + <p> + She inspected the ensemble without visible interest for a few moments; the + wind freshened from the sea, fluttering her veil, and she turned toward + the east to face it. In the golden splendour of declining day the white + sails of yachts crowded landward on the last leg before beating westward + into Blue Harbour; a small white cruiser, steaming south, left a mile long + stratum of rose-tinted smoke hanging parallel to the horizon's plane; the + westering sun struck sparks from her bright-work. + </p> + <p> + The magic light on land and water seemed to fascinate the girl; she had + walked a little way toward the cliffs, Siward following silently, offering + no comment on the beauty of sky and cliff. As they halted once more the + enchantment seemed to spread; a delicate haze enveloped the sea; hints of + rose colour tinted the waves; over the uplands a pale mauve bloom grew; + the sunlight turned redder, slanting on the rocks, and every kelp-covered + reef became a spongy golden mound, sprayed with liquid flame. + </p> + <p> + They had turned their backs to the Tandem; the grooms looked after them, + standing motionless at the horses' heads. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward, this is too fine to miss,” she said. “I will walk as far as + the headland with you.... Please smoke if you care to.” + </p> + <p> + He did care to; several matches were extinguished by the wind until she + spread her skids as a barrier; and kneeling in their shelter he got his + light. + </p> + <p> + “Tobacco smoke diluted with sea breeze is delicious,” she said, as the + wind whirled the aromatic smoke of his cigarette up into her face. “Don't + move, Mr. Siward; I like it; there is to me always a faint odour of + sweet-brier in the mélange. Did you ever notice it?” + </p> + <p> + The breeze-blown conversation became fragmentary, veering as capriciously + as the purple wind-flaws that spread across the shoals. But always to her + question or comment she found in his response the charm of freshness, of + quick intelligence, or of a humourous and idle perversity which stimulates + without demanding. + </p> + <p> + Once, glancing back at the house where the T-cart and horses stood, she + said that she had better return; or perhaps she only thought she said it, + for he made no response that time. And a few moments later they reached + the headland, and the Atlantic lay below, flowing azure from horizon to + horizon—under a universe of depthless blue. And for a long while + neither spoke. + </p> + <p> + With her the spell endured until conscience began to stir. Then she awoke, + uneasy as always, under the shadow of restraint or pressure, until her + eyes fell on him and lingered. + </p> + <p> + A subtle change had come into his face; its leanness struck her for the + first time; that, and an utter detachment from his surroundings, a sombre + oblivion to everything—and to her. + </p> + <p> + How curiously had his face altered, how shadowy it had grown, effacing the + charm of youth, in it. + </p> + <p> + The slight amusement with which she had become conscious of her own + personal exclusion grew to an interest tinged with curiosity. + </p> + <p> + The interest continued, but when his silence became irksome to her she + said so very frankly. His absent eyes, still clouded, met hers, unsmiling. + </p> + <p> + “I hate the sea,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “You—hate it!” she repeated, too incredulous to be disappointed. + </p> + <p> + “There's no rest in it; it tires. A man who plays with it must be on his + guard every second. To spend a lifetime on it is ridiculous—a whole + life of intelligent effort, against perpetual, brutal, inanimate + resistance—one endless uninterrupted fight—a ceaseless human + manoeuvre against senseless menace; and then the counter attack of the + lifeless monster, the bellowing advance, the shock—and no battle won—nothing + final, nothing settled, no! only the same eternal nightmare of + surveillance, the same sleepless watch for stupid treachery.” + </p> + <p> + “But—you don't have to fight it!” she said, astonished. + </p> + <p> + “No; but it is no secret—what it does to those who do.... Some + escape; but only by dying ashore before it gets them. That is the way some + of us reach Heaven; we die too quick for the Enemy to catch us.” + </p> + <p> + He was laughing when she said: “It is not a fight with the sea; it is the + battle of Life itself you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, in a way, the battle of Life.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you are morbid then. Is there anybody ever born who has not a fight + on his hands?” + </p> + <p> + “No; only I have known men tired out, unfairly, before life had declared + war on them.” + </p> + <p> + “Just what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, something about fair play—what our popular idol summarises as a + 'square deal'.” He laughed again, easily, his face clearing. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody worth a square deal ever laments because he hasn't had it,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “I dare say that's true, too,” he admitted listlessly. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward, exactly what did you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking of men I knew; for example a man who through generations + has inherited every impulse and desire that he should not harbour—a + man with intellect enough to be aware of it, with decency enough to desire + decency.... What chance has he with the storms which have been brewing for + him even before he opened his eyes on earth? Is that a square deal?” + </p> + <p> + The troubled concentration of her face was reflected now in his own; the + wind came whipping and flicking at them from league-wide tossing wastes; + the steady thunder of the sea accented the silence. + </p> + <p> + She said: “I suppose everybody has infinite capacity for decency or + mischief. I know that I have. And I fancy that this capacity always + remains, no matter how moral one's life may be. 'Watch and pray' was not + addressed to the guilty alone, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, of course. As for the balanced capacity for good and evil, how + about the inherited desire for the latter?” + </p> + <p> + “Who is free from that, too? Do you suppose anybody really desires to be + good?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean most people are so afraid not to be, that virtue becomes a + habit?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. It's a plain business proposition anyway. It pays.” + </p> + <p> + “Celestial insurance?” he asked, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, Mr. Siward; do you?” + </p> + <p> + But he, turning to the sea, had become engrossed in his own thoughts + again; and again she was first curious, then impatient at the ease with + which he excluded her. She remembered, too, that the cart was waiting; + that she had scarcely time now to make the train. + </p> + <p> + She stood irresolute, inert, disinclined to bestir herself. An inborn + aptitude for drifting, which threatened to become a talent for indecision, + had always alternated in her with sudden impulsive conclusions; and when + her pride was involved, in decisions which sometimes scarcely withstood + the analysis of reason. + </p> + <p> + Physically healthy, mentally unawakened, sentimentally incredulous, + totally ignorant of any master passion, and conventionally drilled, her + beauty and sweet temper had carried her easily on the frothy crest of her + first season, over the eligible and ineligible alike, leaving her at + Lenox, a rather tired and breathless girl, in love with pleasure and the + world which treated her so well. + </p> + <p> + The death of her mother abroad had made little impression upon her—her + uncle, Major Belwether, having cared for her since her father's death when + she was ten years old. So, although the scandal of her mother's self-exile + had been in a measure condoned by a tardy marriage to the man for whom she + had left everything, her daughter had grown up ignorant of any particular + feeling for a mother she could scarcely remember. + </p> + <p> + However, she wore black and went nowhere for the second winter, during + which time she learned a great deal concerning the unconventional + proclivities of the women of her race and family, enough to impress her so + seriously that on an exaggerated impulse she had come to one of her + characteristic decisions. + </p> + <p> + That decision was to break the unsavoury record at the first justifiable + opportunity. And the opportunity came in the shape of Quarrier. As though + wedlock were actually the sanctuary which an alarmed nation pretends it to + be! + </p> + <p> + Now, approaching the threshold of a third and last season, and having put + away her almost meaningless mourning, there had stolen into her sense of + security something irksome in the promise she had made to give Quarrier a + definite answer before winter. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it had been the lack of interest in the people at Shotover, + perhaps a mental review of her ancestors' capricious records—perhaps + a characteristic impulse that had directed a telegram to Quarrier after a + midnight confab with Grace Ferrall. + </p> + <p> + However it may have been, she had summoned him. And now he was on his way + to get his answer, the best whip, the most eagerly discussed, and one of + the wealthiest unmarried men in America. + </p> + <p> + Lingering irresolutely, considering with idle eyes the shadows lengthening + across the sun-shot moorland, the sound of Siward's even voice aroused her + from a meditation bordering on lassitude. + </p> + <p> + She answered vaguely. He spoke again; all the agreeable, gentle, humourous + charm dominant once more—releasing her from the growing tension of + her own thoughts, absolving her from the duty of immediate decision. + </p> + <p> + “I feel curiously lazy,” she said; “perhaps from our long drive.” She + seated herself on the turf. “Talk to me, Mr. Siward—in that lazy way + of yours.” + </p> + <p> + What he had to say proved inconsequent enough, an irrelevant suggestion + concerning the training of field-dogs for close covert work and the + reasons for not breaking such dogs on quail. Then the question of + cross-breeding came up, and he gave his opinion on the qualities of + “droppers.” To which she replied, sleepily; and the conversation veered + again toward the mystery of heredity, and the hopelessness of escape from + its laws as illustrated now by the Sagamore pup, galloping nose in the + wind, having scented afar the traces of the forbidden rabbit. + </p> + <p> + “His ancestors turned 'round and 'round to flatten the long reeds and + grasses in their lairs before lying down,” observed Siward. “He does it, + too, where there is nothing to flatten out. Did you ever notice how many + times a dog turns around before lying down? And there goes the carefully + schooled Sagamore, chasing rabbits! Why? Because his wild ancestors chased + rabbits.... Heredity? It's a steady, unseen, pulling, dragging force. Like + lightning, too, it shatters, sometimes, where there is resistance.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean, Mr. Siward, that heredity is an excuse for moral weakness?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Those inheriting nothing of evil say it is no excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “It is no excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “You speak with authority,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “With more than you are aware of,” she murmured, not meaning to say it. + </p> + <p> + She stood up impulsively, her fresh face turned to the distant house, her + rounded young figure poised in relief against the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Inherited or not, idleness, procrastination, are my besetting sins. Can't + you suggest the remedy, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “But they are only the thieves of Time; and we kill the poor old + gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “Leagued assassins,” she repeated pensively. + </p> + <p> + Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she + looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric. + </p> + <p> + “Payment for my iniquities—the first instalment,” she said, still + looking down over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her. + “Thank you, Mr. Siward. I think we ought to start, don't you?” + </p> + <p> + He straightened up, smiling, awaiting her further pleasure. Her pleasure + being capricious, she seated herself again, saying: “What I meant to say + was this: evils that spring from heredity are no excuse for misconduct in + people of our sort. Environment, not heredity, counts. And it's our + business, who have every chance in the world, to make good!” + </p> + <p> + He looked down, amused at the piquant incongruity of voice and vernacular. + </p> + <p> + “What time is it?” she asked irrelevantly. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at his watch. She turned her eyes toward the level sun, + conscious, and a little conscience-stricken that it was too late for her + to drive to Black Fells Crossing—unless she started at once. + </p> + <p> + The sun hung low over the pines; all the scrubby foreland ran molten gold + in every tufted furrow; flock after flock of twittering little birds + whirled into the briers and out again, scattering inland into undulating + flight. + </p> + <p> + The zenith turned shell pink; through clotted shoals of clouds spread + spaces of palest green like calm lakes in the sky. + </p> + <p> + It grew stiller; the wind went down with the sun. + </p> + <p> + Doubtless he had forgotten to tell her the time; she had almost forgotten + that she had asked him. With the silence of sunset a languor, the + indolence of content, crept over her; she saw him close his watch with the + absent-minded air which she already associated with him, and she let the + question go from sheer disinclination for the effort of repetition—let + the projected drive go—acquiescent, content that matters shape + themselves without any interference from her. The sense of ease, of + physical well-being invaded her with an agreeable relaxation as though + tension somewhere had slackened. + </p> + <p> + They chatted on, casually, impersonally, in rather subdued tones. The dog + returned now and then to see that all was well. All was well enough, it + appeared, for she sat beside Siward, quite content, knees clasped in her + hands, exchanging impressions of life with a man who so far had been + sympathetically considerate in demanding from her no intellectual effort. + </p> + <p> + The conversation drifted illogically; sometimes he stirred her to + amusement, even a hushed laughter; sometimes she smilingly agreed with his + views, sometimes she let them go, uncriticised; or, intent on her own + ideas, shook her small head in amused disapproval. + </p> + <p> + The stillness over all, the deepening mellow light, the blessed indolence + of the young world—and their few years in it—Youth! That was + perhaps the key to it all, after all. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow,” she mused aloud, knees cradled in her clasped fingers, + “to-morrow they'll shoot—with great circumstance and fuss—a + few native woodcock—there's no flight yet from the north!—a + few grouse, fewer snipe, a stray duck or two. Others will drive motor cars + over bad roads; others will ride, sail, golf—anything to kill the + eternal enemy.” + </p> + <p> + “And you?” + </p> + <p> + “Je n'en sais rien, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “Mais je voudrais savoir.” + </p> + <p> + “Pourquoi?” + </p> + <p> + “To lay a true course by the stars”; he looked at her blue eyes and she + laughed easily under the laughing flattery. + </p> + <p> + “You must seek another compass—to-morrow,” she said. Then it + occurred to her that nobody could guess her decision in regard to + Quarrier; and she partly raised her eyes, looking at him, indolent + speculation under the white lids. + </p> + <p> + She liked him already; in fact she had liked few men as well on such brief + acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + “You know the majority of the people here, or coming, don't you?” she + inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Who are they?” + </p> + <p> + She began: “The Leroy Mortimers?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Lord Alderdene and Captain Voucher, and the Page twins and Marion?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Rena Bonnesdel, the Tassel girl, Agatha Caithness, Mrs. Vendenning—all + sorts, all sets.” And, with an effort: “If I'm to drive, I should like—to—to + know what time it is?” + </p> + <p> + He informed her; and she, too indolent to pretend surprise, and finding + reproach easier, told him that he had no business to permit her to forget. + </p> + <p> + His smiling serenity under the rebuke aroused in her a slight resentment + as though he had taken something for granted. + </p> + <p> + Besides, she had grown uneasy; she had wired Quarrier, saying she would + meet him and drive him over. He had replied at once, naming his train. He + was an exact man and expected method and precision in others. She didn't + exactly know how it might affect him if his reasonable demand was + unsatisfied. She did not know him very well yet, only well enough to be + aware that he was a gentleman so precisely, so judiciously constructed, + that, contemplating his equitable perfections, her awe and admiration grew + as one on whom dawns the exquisite adjustments of an almost human machine. + </p> + <p> + And, thinking of him now, she again made up her mind to give him the + answer which he now had every reason to expect from her. This decision + appeared to lubricate her conscience; it ran more smoothly now, emitting + fewer creaks. + </p> + <p> + “You say that you know Mr. Quarrier?” she began thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Not well.” + </p> + <p> + “I—hope you will like him, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not think he likes me, Miss Landis. He has reasons not to.” + </p> + <p> + She looked up, suddenly remembering: “Oh—since that scrape? What has + Mr. Quarrier to do—” She did not finish the sentence. A troubled + silence followed; she was trying to remember the details—something + she had paid small attention to at the time—something so foreign to + her, so distant from her comprehension that it had not touched her closely + enough for her to remember exactly what this young man might have done to + forfeit the good-will of Howard Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + She looked at Siward; it was impossible that anything very bad could come + from such a man. And, pursuing her reasoning aloud: “It couldn't have been + very awful,” she argued; “something foolish about an actress, was it not? + And that could not concern Mr. Quarrier.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you did know; I thought you—remembered—while you + were driving me over from the station—that I was dropped from my + club.” + </p> + <p> + She flushed up: “Oh!—but—what had Mr. Quarrier to do with + that?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a governor of that club.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that Mr. Quarrier had you—dropped?” + </p> + <p> + “What else could he do? A man who is idiot enough to risk making his own + club notorious, must take the consequences. And they say I took that risk. + Therefore Mr. Quarrier, Major Belwether—all the governors did their + duty. I—I naturally conclude that no governor of the Patroons Club + feels very kindly toward me.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Landis sat very still, her small head bent, a flush still brightening + her fair face. + </p> + <p> + She recalled a few of the details now—the scandal—something of + the story. Which particular actress it was she could not remember; but + some men who had dined too freely had made the wager, and this boy sitting + beside her had accepted it—and won it, by bringing into the sacred + precincts of the Patroons Club a foolish, shameless girl disguised in a + man's evening dress. + </p> + <p> + That was bad enough; that somebody promptly discovered it was worse; but + worst of all was the publicity, the club's name smirched, the young man + expelled from one of the two best clubs in the metropolis. + </p> + <p> + To read of such things in the columns of a daily paper had meant little to + her except to repell her; to hear it mentioned among people of her own + sort had left her incurious and indifferent. But now she saw it in a new + light, with the man who had figured in it seated beside her. Did such men + as he—such attractive, well-bred, amusing men as he—do that + sort of thing? + </p> + <p> + There he sat, hat off, the sun touching his short, thick hair which waved + a little at the temples—a boyish mould to head and shoulders, a + cleanly outlined check and chin, a thoroughbred ear set close—a good + face. What sort of a man, then, was a woman to feel at ease with? What + eye, what mouth, what manner, what bearing was a woman to trust? + </p> + <p> + “Is that the kind of man you are, Mr. Siward?” she said impulsively. + </p> + <p> + “It appears that I was; I don't know what I am—or may be.” + </p> + <p> + “The pity of it!” she said, still swayed by impulse. “Why did you do—didn't + you know—realize what you were doing—bringing discredit on + your own club?” + </p> + <p> + “I was in no condition to know, Miss Landis.” + </p> + <p> + The crude brutality of the expression might merely have hurt or disgusted + her had she been less intelligent. Nor, as it was, did she fully + understand why he chose to use it—unless that he meant it in + self-punishment. + </p> + <p> + “It's rather shameful!” she said hotly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he assented; “it's a bad beginning.” + </p> + <p> + “A—beginning! Do you mean to go on?” + </p> + <p> + He did not reply; his head was partly turned from her. She sat silent for + a while. The dog had returned to lie at Siward's feet, its brown eyes + tirelessly watching the man it had chosen for its friend; and the man, + without turning his eyes, dropped one hand on the dog's head, caressing + the silky ears. + </p> + <p> + Some sentimentalist had once said that no man who cared for animals could + be wholly bad. Inexperience inclined her to believe it. Then too, she had + that inclination for overlooking offences committed against precept, which + appears to be one of those edifying human traits peculiar to neither sex + and common to both. Besides, her knowledge of such matters was as vague as + her mind was healthy and body wholesome. Men who dined incautiously were + not remarkable for their rarity; the actress habit, being incomprehensible + to her, meant nothing; and she said, innocently: “What men like you can + find attractive in a common woman I do not understand; there are plenty of + pretty women of your own sort. The actress cult is beyond my + comprehension; I only know it is generally condoned. But it is not for + such things that we drop men, Mr. Siward. You know that, of course.” + </p> + <p> + “For what do you drop men?” + </p> + <p> + “For falsehood, deception, any dishonesty.” + </p> + <p> + “And you don't drop a man when you read in the papers that one of the two + best clubs in town has expelled him?” + </p> + <p> + She gave him a troubled glance; and, naively: “But you are still a member + of the other, are you not?” Then hardening: “It was common! common!—thoroughly + disgraceful and incomprehensible!”—and with every word uttered + insensibly warming in her heart toward him whom she was chastening; “it + was not even bad—it was worse than being simply bad; it was stupid!” + </p> + <p> + He nodded, one hand slowly caressing the dog's head where it lay across + his knees. + </p> + <p> + She watched him a moment, hesitated, then smiling a little: “So now I know + the worst about you; do I not?” she concluded. + </p> + <p> + He did not answer; she waited, the smile still curving her red mouth. Had + she been too severe? She wondered. “You may help me to my feet,” she said + sweetly. She was very young. + </p> + <p> + He rose at once, holding out his hands to aid her in that pleasantly + impersonal manner so suited to him; and now they stood together in the + purple dusk of the uplands—two people young enough to take one + another seriously. + </p> + <p> + “Let me tell you something,” she said, facing him, white hands loosely + linked behind her. “I don't exactly understand how it has happened, but + you know as well as I do that we have formed a—an acquaintance—the + sort that under normal conditions requires a long time and several + conventional and preliminary chapters.... I should like to know what you + think of our performance.” + </p> + <p> + “I think,” he said laughing, “that it is charming.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes; men usually find the unconventional agreeable. What I want to + know is why I find it so, too?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” A dull colour stained his cheek-bones. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly I do. Is it because I've had a delightful chance to admonish a + sinner—and be—just a little sorry—that he had made such + a silly spectacle of himself?” + </p> + <p> + He laughed, wincing a trifle. + </p> + <p> + “Hence this agreeably righteous glow suffusing me,” she concluded. “So now + that I have answered my own question, I think that we had better go. + ...Don't you?” + </p> + <p> + They walked for a while, subdued, soberly picking their path through the + dusk. After a few moments she began to feel doubtful, a little uneasy, + partly from a reaction which was natural, partly because she was not at + all sure what either Quarrier or Major Belwether would think of the terms + she was already on with Siward. Suppose they objected? She had never + thwarted either of these gentlemen. Besides she already had a temporary + interest in Siward—the interest that women always cherish, quite + unconsciously, for the man whose shortcomings they have consented to + overlook. + </p> + <p> + As they crossed the headland, through the deepening dusk the acetylene + lamps on a cluster of motor cars spread a blinding light across the scrub. + The windows of Shotover House were brilliantly illuminated. + </p> + <p> + “Our shooting-party has returned,” she said. + </p> + <p> + They crossed the drive through the white glare of the motor lamps; people + were passing, grooms with dogs and guns and fluffy bunches of game-birds, + several women in motor costumes, veils afloat, a man or two in + shooting-tweeds or khaki. + </p> + <p> + As they entered the hall together, she turned to him, an indefinable smile + curving her lips; then, with a little nod, friendly and sweet, she left + him standing at the open door of the gun-room. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III SHOTOVER + </h2> + <p> + The first person he encountered in the gun-room was Quarrier, who favoured + him with an expressionless stare, then with a bow, quite perfunctory and + non-committal. It was plain enough that he had not expected to meet Siward + at Shotover House. + </p> + <p> + Kemp Ferrall, a dark, stocky, active man of forty, was in the act of + draining a glass, when, though the bottom he caught sight of Siward. He + finished in a gulp, and advanced, one muscular hand outstretched: “Hello, + Stephen! Heard you'd arrived, tried the Scotch, and bolted with Sylvia + Landis! That's all right, too, but you should have come for the opening + day. Lots of native woodcock—eh, Blinky?” turning to Lord Alderdene; + and again to Siward: “You know all these fellows—Mortimer yonder—” + There was the slightest ring in his voice; and Leroy Mortimer, red-necked, + bulky, and heavy eyed, emptied his glass and came over, followed by Lord + Alderdene blinking madly though his shooting-goggles and showing all his + teeth like a pointer with a “tic.” Captain Voucher, a gentleman with the + vivid colouring of a healthy groom on a cold day, came up, followed by the + Page boys, Willis and Gordon, who shook hands shyly, enchanted to be on + easy terms with the notorious Mr. Siward. And last of all Tom O'Hara + arrived, reeking of the saddle and clinking a pair of trooper's spurs over + the floor—relics of his bloodless Porto Rico campaign with Squadron + A. + </p> + <p> + It was patent to every man present that the Kemp Ferralls had determined + to ignore Siward's recent foolishness, which indicated that he might + reasonably expect the continued good-will of several sets, the orbits of + which intersected in the social system of his native city. Indeed, the few + qualified to snub him cared nothing about the matter, and it was not + likely that anybody else would take the initiative in being disagreeable + to a young man, the fortunes and misfortunes of whose race were part of + the history of Manhattan Island. Siwards, good or bad, were a matter of + course in New York. + </p> + <p> + So everybody in the gun-room was civil enough, and he chose Scotch and + found a seat beside Alderdene, who sat biting at a smoky pipe and + fingering a tumbler of smokier Scotch, blinking away like mad through his + shooting-goggles at everybody. + </p> + <p> + “These little brown snipe you call woodcock,” he began; “we bagged nine + brace, d'you see? But of all the damnable bogs and covers—” + </p> + <p> + “Rotten,” said Mortimer thickly; “Ferrall, you're all calf and biceps, and + it's well enough for you to go floundering into bogs—” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you expect to find native woodcock?” demanded Ferrall, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “On the table hereafter,” growled Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, go and pot Beverly Plank's tame pheasants,” retorted Ferrall amiably; + “Captain Voucher had a blank day, but he isn't kicking.” + </p> + <p> + “Not I,” said Voucher; “the sport is capital—if one can manage to + hit the beggars—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, everybody misses in snap-shooting,” observed Ferrall; “that is, + everybody except Stephen Siward with his unholy left barrel. Crack! and,” + turning to Alderdene, “it's like taking money from you, Blinky—which + reminds me that we've time for a little Preference before dressing.” + </p> + <p> + His squinting lordship declined and took an easier position in his chair, + extending a pair of little bandy legs draped in baggy tweed knickerbockers + and heather-spats. Mortimer, industriously distending his skin with + whiskey, reached for the decanter. The aromatic perfume of the spirits + aroused Siward, and he instinctively nodded his desire to a servant. + </p> + <p> + “This salt air keeps one thirsty,” he observed to Ferrall; then something + in his host's expression arrested the glass at his lips. He had already + been using the decanter a good deal; except Mortimer, nobody was doing + that sort of thing as freely as he. + </p> + <p> + He set his glass on the table thoughtfully; a tinge of colour had crept + into his lean checks. + </p> + <p> + Ferrall, too, suddenly uncomfortable, stood up saying something about + dressing; several men arose a trifle stiffly, feeling in every joint the + result of the first day's shooting after all those idle months. Mortimer + got up with an unfeigned groan; Siward followed, leaving his glass + untouched. + </p> + <p> + One or two other men came in from the billiard-room. All greeted Siward + amiably—all excepting one who may not have seen him—an + elderly, pink, soft gentleman with white downy chop-whiskers and the + profile of a benevolent buck rabbit. + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, Major Belwether?” said Siward in a low voice without + offering his hand. + </p> + <p> + Then Major Belwether saw him, bless you! yes indeed! And though Siward + continued not to offer his hand, Major Belwether meant to have it, bless + your heart! And he fussed and fussed and beamed cordiality until he + secured it in his plump white fingers and pressed it effusively. + </p> + <p> + There was something about his soft, warm hands which had always reminded + Siward of the temperature and texture of a newly hatched bird. It had been + some time since he had shaken hands with Major Belwether; it was apparent + that the bird had not aged any. + </p> + <p> + “And now for the shooting!” said the Major with an arch smile. “Now for + the stag at bay and the winding horn— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'Where sleeps the moon On Mona's rill—' +</pre> + <p> + Eh, Siward? + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'And here's to the hound With his nose upon the ground—' +</pre> + <p> + Eh, my boy? That reminds me of a story—” He chuckled and chuckled, + his lambent eyes suffused with mirth; and slipping his arm through the + pivot-sleeve of Lord Alderdene's shooting-jacket, hooking the other in + Siward's reluctant elbow, and driving Mortimer ahead of him, he went + garrulously away up the stairs, his lordship's bandy little legs trotting + beside him, the soaking gaiters and shoes slopping at every step. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, his mottled skin now sufficiently distended, greeted the story + with a yawn from ear to ear; his lordship, blinking madly, burst into that + remarkable laugh which seemed to reveal the absence of certain vocal cords + requisite to perfect harmony; and Siward smiled in his listless, pleasant + way, and turned off down his corridor, unaware that the Sagamore pup was + following close at his heels until he heard Quarrier's even, colourless + voice: “Ferrall, would you be good enough to send Sagamore to your + kennels?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—he's your dog! I forgot,” said Siward turning around. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier looked at him, pausing a moment. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said coldly, “he's my dog.” + </p> + <p> + For a fraction of a second the two men's eyes encountered; then Siward + glanced at the dog, and turned on his heel with the slightest shrug. And + that is all there was to the incident—an anxious, perplexed puppy + lugged off by a servant, turning, jerking, twisting, resisting, looking + piteously back as his unwilling feet slid over the polished floor. + </p> + <p> + So Siward walked on alone through the long eastern wing to his room + overlooking the sea. He sat down on the edge of his bed, glancing at the + clothing laid out for him. He felt tired and disinclined for the exertion + of undressing. The shades were up; night quicksilvered the window-panes so + that they were like a dark mirror reflecting his face. He inspected his + darkened features curiously; the blurred and sombre-tinted visage returned + the stare. + </p> + <p> + “Not a man at all—the shadow of a man,” he said aloud—“with no + will, no courage—always putting off the battle, always avoiding + conclusions, always skulking. What chance is there for a man like that?” + </p> + <p> + As one who raises a glass to drink wine and unexpectedly finds water, he + shrugged his shoulders disgustedly and got up. A bath followed; he dressed + leisurely, and was pacing the room, fussing with his collar, when Ferrall + knocked and entered, finding a seat on the bed. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen,” he said bluntly, “I haven't seen you since that break of yours + at the club.” + </p> + <p> + “Rotten, wasn't it?” commented Siward, tying his tie. + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly. Of course it doesn't make any difference to Grace or to me, + but I fancy you've already heard from it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. All I care about is how my mother took it.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course; she was cut up I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you know how she would look at a thing of that sort; not that any of + the nine and seventy jarring sets would care, but those few thousands + invading the edges, butting in—half or three-quarters inside—are + the people who can't afford to overlook the victim of a fashionable club's + displeasure—those, and a woman like my mother, and several other + decent-minded people who happen to count in town.” + </p> + <p> + Ferrall, his legs swinging busily, thought again; then: “Who was the girl, + Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think the papers mentioned her name,” said Siward gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—I beg your pardon; I thought she was some notorious actress—everybody + said so.... Who were those callow fools who put you up to it?... Never + mind if you don't care to tell. But it strikes me they are candidates for + club discipline as well as you. It was up to them to face the governors I + think—” + </p> + <p> + “No, I think not.” + </p> + <p> + Ferrall, legs swinging busily, considered him. + </p> + <p> + “Too bad,” he mused; “they need not have dropped you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, they had to. But as long as the Lenox takes no action I can live that + down.” + </p> + <p> + Ferrall nodded: “I came in to say something—a message from Grace—confound + it! what was it? Oh—could you—before dinner—now—just + sit down and with that infernal facility of yours make a sketch of a man + chasing a gun-shy dog?” + </p> + <p> + “Why yes—if Mrs. Ferrall wishes—” + </p> + <p> + He walked over to the desk in his shirt-sleeves, sat down, drew a blank + sheet of paper toward him, and, dipping his pen, drew carelessly a gun-shy + setter dog rushing frantically across the stubble, and after him, + bare-headed, gun in hand, the maddest of men. + </p> + <p> + “Put a Vandyke beard on him,” grinned Ferrall over his shoulder. “There! O + Lord! but you have hit it! Put a ticked saddle on the cur—there!” + </p> + <p> + “Who is this supposed to be?” began Siward, looking up. But “Wait!” + chuckled his host, seizing the still wet sketch, and made for the door. + </p> + <p> + Siward strolled into the bath-room, washed a spot or two of ink from his + fingers, returned and buttoned his waistcoat, then, completing an + unhurried toilet, went out and down the stairway to the big living-room. + There were two or three people there—Mrs. Leroy Mortimer, very + fetching with her Japanese-like colouring, black hair and eyes that + slanted just enough; Rena Bonnesdel, smooth, violet-eyed, blonde, and + rather stunning in a peculiarly innocent way; Miss Caithness, very pale + and slimly attractive; and the Page boys, Willis and Gordon, delightfully + shy and interested, and having a splendid time with any woman who could + afford the intellectual leisure. + </p> + <p> + Siward spoke pleasantly to them all. Other people drifted down—Marion + Page who looked like a school-marm and rode like a demon; Eileen Shannon, + pink and white as a thorn blossom, with the deuce to pay lurking in her + grey eyes; Kathryn Tassel and Mrs. Vendenning whom he did not know, and + finally his hostess Grace Ferrall with her piquant, almost boyish, + freckled face and sweet frank eyes and the figure of an adolescent. + </p> + <p> + She gave Siward one pretty sun-browned hand and laid the other above his, + holding it a moment in her light clasp. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen! Stephen!” she said under her breath, “it's because I've a few + things to scold you about that I've asked you to Shotover.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I know,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I should hope you do. I've a letter to-night from your mother.” + </p> + <p> + “From my mother?” + </p> + <p> + “I want you to go over it—with me—if we can find a minute + after dinner.” She released his hand, turning partly around: “Kemp, + dinner's been announced, so cut that dog story in two! Will you give me + your arm Major Belwether? Howard!”—to her cousin, Mr. Quarrier, who + turned from Miss Landis to listen—“will you please try to recollect + whom you are to take in—and do it?” And, as she passed Siward, in a + low voice, mischievous and slangy: “Sylvia Landis for yours—as she + says she didn't have enough of you on the cliffs.” + </p> + <p> + The others appeared to know how to pair according to some previous notice. + Siward turned to Sylvia Landis with the pleasure of his good fortune so + plainly visible in his face, that her own brightened in response. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” she said gaily, “you cannot escape me. There is no use in + looking wildly at Agatha Caithness”—he wasn't—“or pretending + you're pleased,” slipping her rounded, bare arm through the arm he + offered. “You can't guess what I've done to-night—nobody can guess + except Grace Ferrall and one other person. And if you try to look happy + beside me, I may tell you—somewhere between sherry and cognac—Oh, + yes; I've done two things: I have your dog for you!” + </p> + <p> + “Not Sagamore?” he said incredulously as he was seating her. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly Sagamore. I said to Mr. Quarrier, 'I want Sagamore,' and when + he tried to give him to me, I made him take my cheque. Now you may draw + another for me at your leisure, Mr. Siward. Tell me, are you pleased?”—for + she was looking for the troubled hesitation in his face and she saw it + dawning. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Quarrier doesn't like me, you know—” + </p> + <p> + “But I do,” she said coolly. “I told him how much pleasure it would give + me. That is sufficient—is it not?—for everybody concerned.” + </p> + <p> + “He knew that you meant to—” + </p> + <p> + “No, that concerns only you and me. Are you trying to spoil my pleasure in + what I have done?” + </p> + <p> + “I can't take the dog, Miss Landis—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said, vexed; “I had no idea you were vindictive—” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence; he bent forward a trifle, gravely scrutinising a + “hand-painted” name card, though it might not have astonished him to learn + that somebody's foot had held the brush. Somewhere in the vicinity Grace + Ferrall had discovered a woman who supported dozens of relatives by + painting that sort of thing for the summer residents at Vermillion Point + down the coast. So being charitable she left an order, and being thrifty, + insisted on using the cards, spite of her husband's gibes. + </p> + <p> + People were now inspecting them with more or less curiosity; Siward found + his “hand-painting” so unattractive that he had just tipped it over to + avoid seeing it, when a burst of laughter from Lord Alderdene made + everybody turn. Mrs. Vendenning was laughing; so was Rena Bonnesdel + looking over Quarrier's shoulder at a card he was holding—not one of + the “hand-decorated,” but a sheet of note-paper containing a drawing of a + man rushing after a gun-shy dog. + </p> + <p> + The extraordinary cackling laughter of his lordship obliterated other + sounds for a while; Rena Bonnesdel possessed herself of the drawing and + held it up amid a shout of laughter. And, to his excessive annoyance, + Siward saw that, unconsciously, he had caricatured Quarrier—Ferrall's + malicious request for a Vandyke beard making the caricature dreadfully + apparent. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier had at first flushed up; then he forced a smile; but his + symmetrical features were never cordial when he smiled. + </p> + <p> + “Who on earth did that?” whispered Sylvia Landis apprehensively. “Mr. + Quarrier dislikes that sort of thing—but of course he'll take it + well.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he ever chase his own dog?” asked Siward, biting his lip. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—so Blinky says—in the Carolinas last season. It's Blinky!—that's + his notion of humour. Did you ever hear such a laugh? No wonder Mr. + Quarrier is annoyed.” + </p> + <p> + The gay uproar had partly subsided, renewed here and there as the sketch + was passed along, and finally, making the circle, returned like a bad + penny to Quarrier. He smiled again, symmetrically, as he received it, + nodding his compliments to Alderdene. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” cackled his lordship; “I didn't draw it, old chap!” + </p> + <p> + “Nor I! I only wish I could,” added Captain Voucher. + </p> + <p> + “Nor I—nor I—who did it?” ran the chorus along the table. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't do it!” said Sylvia gravely, looking across at Quarrier. And + suddenly Quarrier's large, handsome eyes met Siward's for the briefest + fraction of a second, then were averted. But into his face there crept an + expressionless pallor that did not escape Siward—no, nor Sylvia + Landis. + </p> + <p> + Presently under cover of a rapid fire of chatter she said: “Did you draw + that?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I had no idea it was meant for him. You may imagine how likely I'd + be to take any liberty with a man who already dislikes me.” + </p> + <p> + “But it resembles him—in a very dreadful way.” + </p> + <p> + “I know it. You must take my word for what I have told you.” + </p> + <p> + She looked up at him: “I do.” Then: “It's a pity; Mr. Quarrier does not + consider such things humourous. He—he is very sensitive.... Oh, I + wish that fool Englishman had been in Ballyhoo!” + </p> + <p> + “But he didn't do it!” + </p> + <p> + “No, but he put you up to it—or Grace Ferrall did. I wish Grace + would let Mr. Quarrier alone; she has always been perfectly possessed to + plague him; she seems unable to take him seriously and he simply hates it. + I don't think he'd tolerate her if she were not his cousin. + </p> + <p> + “I'm awfully sorry,” was all Siward said; and for a while he gloomily + busied himself with whatever was brought to him. + </p> + <p> + “Don't look that way,” came a low voice beside him. + </p> + <p> + “Do I show everything as plainly as that?” he asked, curiously. + </p> + <p> + “I seem to read you—sometimes.” + </p> + <p> + “It's very nice of you,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Nice?” + </p> + <p> + “To look at me—now and then.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she cried resentfully, “don't be grateful.” + </p> + <p> + “I—really am not you know,” he said laughing. + </p> + <p> + “That,” she rejoined slowly, “is the truth. You say conventional things in + a manner—in an agreeably personal manner that interests women. But + you are not grateful to anybody for anything; you are indifferent, and you + can't help being nice to people, so—some day—some girl will + think you are grateful, and will have a miserable time of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Miserable time?” + </p> + <p> + “Waiting for you to say what never will enter your head to say.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean I—I—” + </p> + <p> + “Flirt? No, I mean that you don't flirt; that you are always dreamily + occupied with your own affairs, from which listlessly congenial + occupation, when drawn, you are so unexpectedly nice that a girl + immediately desires to see how nice you can be.” + </p> + <p> + “What a charming indictment you draw!” he said, amused. + </p> + <p> + “It's a grave one I assure you. I've been talking about you to Grace + Ferrall; I asked to be placed beside you at dinner; I told her I hadn't + had half enough of you on the cliff. Now what do you think of yourself for + being too nice to a susceptible girl? I think it's immoral.” + </p> + <p> + They both were laughing now; several people glanced at them, smiling in + sympathy. Alderdene took that opportunity to revert to the sketch, + furnishing a specimen of his own inimitable laughter as a running + accompaniment to the story of Quarrier and his dog in North Carolina, + until he had everybody, as usual, laughing, not at the story but at him. + All of which demonstration was bitterly offensive to Quarrier. He turned + his eyes once on Miss Landis and on Siward, then dropped them. + </p> + <p> + The hostess arose; a rustle and flurry of silk and lace and the scraping + of chairs, a lingering word or laugh, and the colour vanished from the + room leaving a circle of men in black standing around the table. + </p> + <p> + Here and there a man, lighting a cigarette, bolted his coffee and cognac + and strolled out to the gun-room. Ferrall, gesticulating vigorously, + resumed his preprandial dog story to Captain Voucher; Belwether + buttonholed Alderdene and bored him with an interminably facetious tale + until that nobleman, threatened with maxillary dislocation, fairly + wrenched himself loose and came over to Siward, squinting furiously. + </p> + <p> + “Old ass!” he muttered; “his chop whiskers look like the chops of a + Southdown ram—and he's got the wits of one. Look here, Stephen, I + hear you fell into no end of a scrape in town—” + </p> + <p> + “Tu quoque, Blinky? Oh, read the newspapers and let it go at that!” + </p> + <p> + “Just as you like old chap!” returned his lordship unabashed. “All I meant + was—anything Voucher and I can do—of course—” + </p> + <p> + “You're very good. I'm not dead you know.” + </p> + <p> + “'Not dead, you know',” repeated Major Belwether coming up behind them + with his sprightly step; “that reminds me of a good one—” He sat + down and lighted a cigar, then, vainly attempting to control his + countenance as though roguishly anticipating the treat awaiting them, he + began another endless story. + </p> + <p> + Tradition had hallowed the popular notion that Major Belwether was a wit. + The sycophant of the outer world seldom even awaited his first word before + bursting into premature mirth. Besides he was very wealthy. + </p> + <p> + Siward watched him with mixed emotions; the lambent-eyed, sheepy + expression had given place to the buck rabbit; his smooth baby-pink skin + and downy white side whiskers quivered in premature sympathy with his + listener's overwhelming hilarity. + </p> + <p> + The Page boys, very callow, very much delighted, and a little in awe of + such a celebrated personage, laughed heartily. And altogether there was + sufficient attention and sufficient laughter to make a very respectable + noise. This, being the major's cue for an exit, he rose, one sleek hand + raised in sprightly protest as though to shield the invisible ladies, to + whose bournes he was bound, from an uproar too masculine and mighty for + the ears of such a sex. + </p> + <p> + “Ass!” muttered Alderdene, getting up and pattering about the room in his + big, shiny pumps. “Give me a peg—somebody!” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer swallowed his brandy, lingered, lifted the decanter, mechanically + considering its remaining contents and his own capacity; then: + </p> + <p> + “Bridge, Captain?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” said Captain Voucher briskly. + </p> + <p> + “I'll go and shoo the major into the gun-room,” observed Ferrall—“unless—” + looking questioningly at Siward. + </p> + <p> + “I've a date with your wife,” observed that young man, strolling toward + the hall. + </p> + <p> + The Page boys, Rena Bonnesdel, and Eileen Shannon were seated at a card + table together, very much engaged with one another, the sealed pack lying + neglected on the green cloth, a vast pink box of bon-bons beside it, not + neglected. + </p> + <p> + O'Hara and Quarrier with Marion Page and Mrs. Mortimer were immersed in + the game, already stony faced and oblivious to outer sounds. + </p> + <p> + About the rooms were distributed girls en tête-à-tête, girls eating + bon-bons and watching the cards—among them Sylvia Landis, hands + loosely clasped behind her, standing at Quarrier's elbow to observe and + profit by an expert performance. + </p> + <p> + As Siward strolled in she raised her dainty head for an instant, smiled in + silence, and resumed a study of her fiancé's game. + </p> + <p> + A moment later, when Quarrier had emerged brilliantly from the mêlée, she + looked up again, triumphantly, supposing Siward was lingering somewhere + waiting to join her. And she was just a trifle surprised and disappointed + to find him nowhere in sight. She had wished him to observe the brilliancy + of Mr. Quarrier's game. + </p> + <p> + But Siward, outside on the veranda, was saying at that moment to his + hostess: “I shall be very glad to read my mother's letter at any time you + choose.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be later, Stephen. I'm to cut in when Kemp sends for me. He has a + lot of letters to attend to.... Tell me, what do you think of Sylvia + Landis?” + </p> + <p> + “I like her, of course,” he replied pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + Grace Ferrall stood thinking a moment: “That sketch you made proved a + great success, didn't it?” And she laughed under her breath. + </p> + <p> + “Did it? I thought Mr. Quarrier seemed annoyed—” + </p> + <p> + “Really? What a muff that cousin of mine is. He's such a muff, you know, + that the very sight of his pointed beard and pompadour hair and his + complacency sets me in fidgets to stir him up.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think you'd best use me for the stick next time,” said Siward. + “He's not my cousin you know.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall shrugged her boyish shoulders: “By the way”—she said + curiously—“who was that girl?” + </p> + <p> + “What girl,” he asked coolly, looking at his hostess, now the very + incarnation of delicate mockery with her pretty laughing mouth, her boyish + sunburn and freckles. + </p> + <p> + “You won't tell me I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry—” + </p> + <p> + “Was she pretty, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said sulkily; “I wish you wouldn't—” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense! Do you think I'm going to let you off without some sort of + confession? If I had time now—but I haven't. Kemp has business + letters: he'll be furious; so I've got to take his cards or we won't have + any pennies to buy gasoline for our adored and shrieking Mercedes.” + </p> + <p> + She retreated backward with a gay nod of malice, turned to enter the + house, and met Sylvia Landis face to face in the hallway. + </p> + <p> + “You minx!” she whispered; “aren't you ashamed?” + </p> + <p> + “Very much, dear. What for?” And catching sight of Siward outside in the + starlight, divined perhaps something of her hostess' meaning, for she + laughed uneasily, like a child who winces under a stern eye. + </p> + <p> + “You don't suppose for a moment,” she began, “that I have—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes I do. You always do.” + </p> + <p> + “Not with that sort of man,” she returned naïvely; “he won't.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall regarded her suspiciously: “You always pick out exactly the + wrong man to play with—” + </p> + <p> + They had moved back side by side into the hall, the hostess' arm linked in + the arm of the younger girl. + </p> + <p> + “The wrong man?” repeated Sylvia, instinctively freeing her arm, her + straight brows beginning to bend inward. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't mean that—exactly. You know how much I care for his mother—and + for him.” The obstinate downward trend of the brows, the narrowing blue + gaze signalled mutiny to the woman who knew her so well. + </p> + <p> + “What is so wrong with Mr. Siward?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. There was an affair—” + </p> + <p> + “This spring in town. I know it. Is that all?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—for the present,” replied Grace Ferrall uncomfortably; then: + “For goodness' sake, Sylvia, don't cross examine me that way! I care a + great deal for that boy—” + </p> + <p> + “So do I. I've made him take my dog.” + </p> + <p> + There was an abrupt pause, and presently Mrs. Ferrall began to laugh. + </p> + <p> + “I mean it—really,” said Sylvia quietly; “I like him immensely.” + </p> + <p> + “Dearest, you mean it generously—with your usual exaggeration. You + have heard that he has been foolish, and because he's so young, so + likable, every instinct, every impulse in you is aroused to—to be + nice to him—” + </p> + <p> + “And if that were—” + </p> + <p> + “There is no harm, dear—” Mrs. Ferrall hesitated, her grey eyes + softening to a graver revery. Then looking up: “It's rather pathetic,” she + said in a low voice. “Kemp thinks he's foredoomed—like all the + Siwards. It's an hereditary failing with him,—no, it's hereditary + damnation. Siward after Siward, generation after generation you know—” + She bit her lip, thinking a moment. “His grandfather was a friend of my + grand-parents, brilliant, handsome, generous, and—doomed! His own + father was found dying in a dreadful resort in London where he had + wandered when stupefied—a Siward! Think of it! So you see what that + outbreak of Stephen's means to those whose families have been New Yorkers + since New York was. It is ominous, it is more than ominous—it means + that the master-vice has seized on one more Siward. But I shall never, + never admit it to his mother.” + </p> + <p> + The younger girl sat wide-eyed, silent; the elder's gaze was upon her, but + her thoughts, remote, centred on the hapless mother of such a son. + </p> + <p> + “Such indulgence was once fashionable; moderation is the present fashion. + Perhaps he will fall into line,” said Mrs. Ferrall thoughtfully. “The main + thing is to keep him among people, not to drop him. The gregarious may be + shamed, but if anything, any incident, happens to drive him outside by + himself, if he should become solitary, there's not a chance in the world + for him.... It's a pity. I know he meant to make himself the exception to + the rule—and look! Already one carouse of his has landed him in the + daily papers!” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia flushed and looked up: “Grace, may I ask you a plain question?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, child,” she answered absently. + </p> + <p> + “Has it occurred to you that what you have said about this boy touches me + very closely?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall's wits returned nimbly from woolgathering, and she shot a + startled, inquiring glance at the girl beside her. + </p> + <p> + “You—you mean the matter of heredity, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I think my uncle Major Belwether chose you as his august mouthpiece + for that little sermon on the dangers of heredity—the danger of + being ignorant concerning what women of my race had done—before I + came into the world they found so amusing.” + </p> + <p> + “I told you several things,” returned Mrs. Ferrall composedly. “Your uncle + thought it best for you to know.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. The marriage vows sat lightly upon some of my ancestors, I gather. + In fact,” she added coolly, “where the women of my race loved they usually + found the way—rather unconventionally. There was, if I understood + you, enough of divorce, of general indiscretion and irregularity to + seriously complicate any family tree and coat of arms I might care to + claim—” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia!” + </p> + <p> + The girl lifted her pretty bare shoulders. “I'm sorry, but could I help + it? Very well; all I can do is to prove a decent exception. Very well; I'm + doing it, am I not?—practically scared into the first solidly + suitable marriage offered—seizing the unfortunate Howard with both + hands for fear he'd get away and leave me alone with only a queer family + record for company! Very well! Now then, I want to ask you why everybody, + in my case, didn't go about with sanctimonious faces and dolorous mien + repeating: 'Her grand-mother eloped! Her mother ran away. Poor child, + she's doomed! doomed!'” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia, I—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—why didn't they? That's the way they talk about that boy out + there!” She swept a rounded arm toward the veranda. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but he has already broken loose, while you—” + </p> + <p> + “So did I—nearly! Had it not been for you, you know well enough I + might have run away with that dreadful Englishman at Newport! For I adored + him—I did! I did! and you know it. And look at my endless escapes + from compromising myself! Can you count them?—all those + indiscretions when mere living seemed to intoxicate me that first winter—and + only my uncle and you to break me in!” + </p> + <p> + “In other words,” said Mrs. Ferrall slowly, “you don't think Mr. Siward is + getting what is known as a square deal?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't. Major Belwether has already hinted—no, not even that—but + has somehow managed to dampen my pleasure in Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall considered the girl beside her—now very lovely and + flushed in her suppressed excitement. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” she said, “you are going to marry somebody else. So why + become quite so animated about a man you may never again see?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall see him if I desire to!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” + </p> + <p> + “I am not taking the black veil, am I?” asked the girl hotly. + </p> + <p> + “Only the wedding veil, dear. But after all your husband ought to have + something to suggest concerning a common visiting list—” + </p> + <p> + “He may suggest—certainly. In the meantime I shall be loyal to my + own friends—and afterward, too,” she murmured to herself, as her + hostess rose, calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Go and be good to this poor young man then; I adore rows—and you'll + have a few on your hands I'll warrant. Let me remind you that your uncle + can make it unpleasant for you yet, and that your amiable fiancé has a + will of his own under his pompadour and silky beard.” + </p> + <p> + “What a pity to have it clash with mine,” said the girl serenely. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall looked at her: “Mercy on us! Howard's pompadour would stick + up straight with horror if he could hear you! Don't be silly; don't for an + impulse, for a caprice, break off anything desirable on account of a man + for whom you really care nothing—whose amiable exterior and + prospective misfortune merely enlist a very natural and generous sympathy + in you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you suppose that I shall endure interference from anybody?—from + my uncle, from Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “Dear, you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Don't be emotional; + don't let loose impulses that you and I know about, knew about in our + school years, know all about now, and which you and I have decided must be + eliminated—” + </p> + <p> + “You mean subdued; they'll always be there.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well; who cares, as long as you have them in leash?” + </p> + <p> + Looking at one another, the excited colour cooling in the younger girl's + cheeks, they laughed, one with relief, the other a little ashamed. + </p> + <p> + “Kemp will be furious; I simply must cut in!” said Mrs. Ferrall, hastily + turning toward the gun-room. Miss Landis looked after her, subdued, + vaguely repentant, the consciousness dawning upon her that she had + probably made considerable conversation about nothing. + </p> + <p> + “It's been so all day,” she thought impatiently; “I've exaggerated; I've + worked up a scene about a man whose habits are not the slightest concern + of mine. Besides that I've neglected Howard shamefully!” She was walking + slowly, her thoughts outstripping her errant feet, but it seemed that + neither her thoughts nor her steps were leading her toward the neglected + gentleman within; for presently she found herself at the breezy veranda + door, looking rather fixedly at the stars. + </p> + <p> + The stars, shining impartially upon the just and the unjust, illuminated + the person of Siward, who sat alone, rather limply, one knee crossed above + the other. He looked up by chance, and, seeing her star-gazing in the + doorway, straightened out and rose to his feet. + </p> + <p> + Aware of him apparently for the first time, she stepped across the + threshold meeting his advance half-way. + </p> + <p> + “Would you care to go down to the rocks?” he asked. “The surf is + terrific.” + </p> + <p> + “No—I don't think I care—” + </p> + <p> + They stood listening a moment to the stupendous roar. + </p> + <p> + “A storm somewhere at sea,” he concluded. + </p> + <p> + “Is it very fine—the surf?” + </p> + <p> + “Very fine—and very relentless—” he laughed; “it is an + unfriendly creature, the sea, you know.” + </p> + <p> + She had begun to move toward the cliffs, he fell into step beside her; + they spoke little, a word now and then. + </p> + <p> + The perfume of the mounting sea saturated the night with wild fragrance; + dew lay heavy on the lawns; she lifted her skirts enough to clear the + grass, heedless that her silk-shod feet were now soaking. Then at the + cliffs' edge, as she looked down into the white fury of the surf, the + stunning crash of the ocean saluted her. + </p> + <p> + For a long while they watched in silence; once she leaned a trifle too far + over the star-lit gulf and, recoiling, involuntarily steadied herself on + his arm. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” she said, “no swimmer could endure that battering.” + </p> + <p> + “Not long.” + </p> + <p> + “Would there be no chance?” + </p> + <p> + “Not one.” + </p> + <p> + She bent farther outward, fascinated, stirred, by the splendid frenzy of + the breakers. + </p> + <p> + “I—think—,” he began quietly; then a firm hand fell over her + left hand; and, half encircled by his arm she found herself drawn back. + Neither spoke; two things she was coolly aware of, that, urged, drawn by + something subtly irresistible she had leaned too far out from the cliff, + and would have leaned farther had he not taken matters into his own + keeping without apology. Another thing; the pressure of his hand over hers + remained a sensation still—a strong, steady, masterful imprint + lacking hesitation or vacillation. She was as conscious of it as though + her hand still tightened under his—and she was conscious, too, that + nothing of his touch had offended; that there had arisen in her no tremor + of instinctive recoil. For never before had she touched or suffered a + touch from a man, even a gloved greeting, that had not in some measure + subtly repelled her, nor, for that matter, a caress from a woman without a + reaction of faint discomfort. + </p> + <p> + “Was I in any actual danger?” she asked curiously. + </p> + <p> + “I think not. But it was too much responsibility for me.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. Any time I wish to break my neck I am to please do it alone in + future.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly—if you don't mind,” he said smiling. + </p> + <p> + They turned, shoulder to shoulder, walking back through the drenched + herbage. + </p> + <p> + “That,” she said impulsively, “is not what I said a few moments ago to a + woman.” + </p> + <p> + “What did you say a few moments ago to a woman?” + </p> + <p> + “I said, Mr. Siward, that I would not leave a—a certain man to go to + the devil alone!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know any man who is going to the devil?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” she asked, letting herself go swinging out upon a tide of + intimacy she had never dreamed of risking—nor had she the slightest + idea whither the current would carry her. + </p> + <p> + They had stopped on the lawn, ankle deep in wet grass, the stars overhead + sparkling magnificently, and in their ears the outcrash of the sea. + </p> + <p> + “You mean me,” he concluded. + </p> + <p> + “Do I?” + </p> + <p> + He looked up into the lovely face; her eyes were very sweet, very clear—clear + with excitement—but very friendly. + </p> + <p> + “Let us sit here on the steps a little while, will you?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + So he found a place beside her, one step lower, and she leaned forward, + elbows on knees, rounded white chin in her palms, the starlight giving her + bare arms and shoulders a marble lustre and tinting her eyes a deeper + amethyst. + </p> + <p> + And now, innocently untethered, mission and all, she laid her heart quite + bare—one chapter of it. And, like other women-errant who believe in + the influence of their sex individually and collectively, she began wrong + by telling him of her engagement—perhaps to emphasise her pure + disinterestedness in a crusade for principle only. Which naturally + dampened in him any nascent enthusiasm for being ministered to, and so + preoccupied him that he turned deaf ears to some very sweet platitudes + which might otherwise have impressed him as discoveries in philosophy. + </p> + <p> + Officially her creed was the fashionable one in town; privately she had + her own religion, lacking some details truly enough, but shaped upon + youthful notions of right and wrong. As she had not read very widely, she + supposed that she had discovered this religion for herself; she was not + aware that everybody else had passed that way—it being the first + immature moult in young people after rejecting dogma. + </p> + <p> + And the ripened fruit of all this philosophy she helpfully dispensed for + Siward's benefit as bearing directly on his case. + </p> + <p> + Had he not been immersed in the unexpected proposition of her impending + matrimony, he might have been impressed, for the spell of her beauty + counted something, and besides, he had recently formulated for himself a + code of ethics, tinctured with Omar, and slightly resembling her own + discoveries in that dog-eared science. + </p> + <p> + So it was, when she was most eloquent, most earnestly inspired—nay + in the very middle of a plea for sweetness and light and simple living, + that his reasonings found voice in the material comment: + </p> + <p> + “I never imagined you were engaged!” + </p> + <p> + “Is that what you have been thinking about?” she asked, innocently + astonished. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Why not? I never for one instant supposed—” + </p> + <p> + “But, Mr. Siward, why should you have concerned yourself with supposing + anything? Why indulge in any speculation of that sort about me?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, but I didn't,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you didn't; you'd known me for about three hours—there on + the cliff—” + </p> + <p> + “But—Quarrier—!” + </p> + <p> + Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen—flickering, not + yet settled. He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the + woman destined to be Quarrier's wife. He had talked too much anyway. + Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue. He had made + a plain ass of himself—that was all,—a garrulous ass. And + truly it seemed that the girl beside him, even in the starlight, could + follow and divine what he had scarcely expressed to himself; or her + instincts had taken a shorter cut to forestall his own conclusion. + </p> + <p> + “Don't think the things you are thinking!” she said in a fierce little + voice, leaning toward him. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” he asked, taken aback. + </p> + <p> + “You know! Don't! It is unfair—it is—is faithless—to me. + I am your friend; why not? Does it make any difference to you whom I + marry? Cannot two people remain in accord anyway? Their friendship + concerns each other and—nobody else!” She was letting herself go + now; she was conscious of it, conscious that impulse and emotion were the + currents unloosed and hurrying her onward. And with it all came + exhilaration, a faint intoxication, a delicate delight in daring to let go + all and trust to impulse and emotions. + </p> + <p> + “Why should you feel hurt because for a moment you let me see—gave + me a glimpse of yourself—of life's battle as you foresee it? What if + there is always a reaction from all confidences exchanged? What if that + miserable French cynic did say that never was he more alone than after + confessing to a friend? He died crazy anyhow. Is not a rare moment of + confidence worth the reaction—the subsidence into the armored shell + of self? Tell me truly, Mr. Siward, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + Breathless, confused, exhilarated by her own rapid voice she bent her + face, brilliant with colour, and very sweet; and he looked up into it, + expectant, uncertain. + </p> + <p> + “If such a friendship as ours is to become worth anything to you—to + me, why should it trouble you that I know—and am thinking of things + that concern you? Is it because the confidence is one-sided? Is it because + you have given and I have listened and given nothing in return to balance + the account? I do give—interest, deep interest, sympathy if you ask + it; I give confidence in return—if you desire it!” + </p> + <p> + “What can a girl like you need of sympathy?” he said smiling. + </p> + <p> + “You don't know! you don't know! If heredity is a dark vista, and if you + must stare through it all your life, sword in hand, always on your guard, + do you think you are the only one?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you—one?” he said incredulously. + </p> + <p> + “Yes”—with an involuntary shudder—“not that way. It is easier + for me; I think it is—I know it is. But there are things to combat—impulses, + a recklessness, perhaps something almost ruthless. What else I do not + know, for I have never experienced violent emotions of any sort—never + even deep emotion.” + </p> + <p> + “You are in love!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, thoroughly,” she added with conviction, “but not violently. I—” + she hesitated, stopped short, leaning forward, peering at him through the + dusk; and: “Mr. Siward! are you laughing?” She rose and he stood up + instantly. + </p> + <p> + There was lightning in her darkening eyes now; in his something that + glimmered and danced. She watched it, fascinated, then of a sudden the + storm broke and they were both laughing convulsively, face to face there + under the stars. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward,” she breathed, “I don't know what I am laughing at; do you? + Is it at you? At myself? At my poor philosophy in shreds and tatters? Is + it some infernal mirth that you seem to be able to kindle in me—for + I never knew a man like you before?” + </p> + <p> + “You don't know what you were laughing at?” he repeated. “It was something + about love—” + </p> + <p> + “No I don't know why I laughed! I—I don't wish to, Mr. Siward. I do + not desire to laugh at anything you have made me say—anything you + may infer—” + </p> + <p> + “I don't infer—” + </p> + <p> + “You do! You made me say something—about my being ignorant of deep, + of violent emotion, when I had just informed you that I am thoroughly, + thoroughly in love—” + </p> + <p> + “Did I make you say all that, Miss Landis?” + </p> + <p> + “You did. Then you laughed and made me laugh too. Then you—” + </p> + <p> + “What did I do then?” he asked, far too humbly. + </p> + <p> + “You—you infer that I am either not in love or incapable of it, or + too ignorant of it to know what I'm talking about. That, Mr. Siward, is + what you have done to me to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “I—I'm sorry—” + </p> + <p> + “Are you?” + </p> + <p> + “I ought to be anyway,” he said. + </p> + <p> + It was unfortunate; an utterly inexcusable laughter seemed to bewitch + them, hovering always close to his lips and hers. + </p> + <p> + “How can you laugh!” she said. “How dare you! I don't care for you nearly + as violently as I did, Mr. Siward. A friendship between us would not be at + all good for me. Things pass too swiftly—too intimately. There is + too much mockery in you—” She ceased suddenly, watching the sombre + alteration of his face; and, “Have I hurt you?” she asked penitently. + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Have I, Mr. Siward? I did not mean it.” The attitude, the words, + slackening to a trailing sweetness, and then the moment's silence, stirred + him. + </p> + <p> + “I'm rather ignorant myself of violent emotion,” he said. “I suspect + normal people are. You know better than I do whether love is usually a + sedative.” + </p> + <p> + “Am I normal—after what I have confessed?” she asked. “Can't love be + well-bred?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly I should say—only perhaps you are not an expert—” + </p> + <p> + “In what?” + </p> + <p> + “In self-analysis, for example.” + </p> + <p> + There was a vague meaning in the gaze they exchanged. + </p> + <p> + “As for our friendship, we'll do the best we can for it, no matter what + occurs,” he added, thinking of Quarrier. And, thinking of him, glanced up + to see him within ear-shot and moving straight toward them from the + veranda above. + </p> + <p> + There was a short silence; a tentative civil word from Siward; then Miss + Landis took command of something that had a grotesque resemblance to a + situation. A few minutes later they returned slowly to the house, the girl + walking serenely between Siward and her preoccupied affianced. + </p> + <p> + “If your shoes are as wet as my skirts and slippers you had better change, + Mr. Siward,” she said, pausing at the foot of the staircase. + </p> + <p> + So he took his congé, leaving her standing there with Quarrier, and + mounted to his room. + </p> + <p> + In the corridor he passed Ferrall, who had finished his business + correspondence and was returning to the card-room. + </p> + <p> + “Here's a letter that Grace wants you to see,” he said. “Read it before + you turn in, Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + “All right; but I'll be down later,” replied Siward passing on, the letter + in his hand. Entering his room he kicked off his wet pumps and found dry + ones. Then moved about, whistling a gay air from some recent vaudeville, + busy with rough towels and silken foot-gear, until, reshod and dry, he was + ready to descend once more. + </p> + <p> + The encounter, the suddenly informal acquaintance with this young girl had + stirred him agreeably, leaving a slight exhilaration. Even her engagement + to Quarrier added a tinge of malice to his interest. Besides he was young + enough to feel the flattery of her concern for him—of her rebuke, of + her imprudence, her generous emotional and childish philosophy. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps, as like recognises like, he recognised in her the instincts of + the born drifter, momentarily at anchor—the temporary inertia of the + opportunist, the latent capacity of an unformed character for all things + and anything. Add to these her few years, her beauty, and the wholesome + ignorance so confidently acknowledged, what man could remain unconcerned, + uninterested in the development of such possibilities? Not Siward, amused + by her sagacious and impulsive prudence, worldliness, and innocence in + accepting Quarrier; and touched by her profitless, frank, and unworldly + friendliness for himself. + </p> + <p> + Not that he objected to her marrying Quarrier; he rather admired her for + being able to do it, considering the general scramble for Quarrier. But + let that take care of itself; meanwhile, their sudden and capricious + intimacy had aroused him from the morbid reaction consequent upon the + cheap notoriety which he had brought upon himself. Let him sponge his + slate clean and begin again a better record, flattered by the solicitude + she had so prettily displayed. + </p> + <p> + Whistling under his breath the same gay, empty melody, he opened the top + drawer of his dresser, dropped in his mother's letter, and locking the + drawer, pocketed the key. He would have time enough to read the letter + when he went to bed; he did not just now feel exactly like skimming + through the fond, foolish sermon which he knew had been preached at him + through his mother's favourite missionary, Grace Ferrall. What was the use + of dragging in the sad old questions again—of repeating his + assurances of good behaviour, of reiterating his promises of moderation + and watchfulness, of explaining his own self-confidence? Better that the + letter await his bed time—his prayers would be the sincerer the + fresher the impression; for he was old-fashioned enough to say the prayers + that an immature philosophy proved superfluous. For, he thought, if prayer + is any use, it takes only a few minutes to be on the safe side. + </p> + <p> + So he went down-stairs leisurely, prepared to acquiesce in any suggestion + from anybody, but rather hoping to saunter across Sylvia Landis' path + before being committed. + </p> + <p> + She was standing beside the fire with Quarrier, one foot on the fender, + apparently too preoccupied to notice him; so he strolled into the + gun-room, which was blue with tobacco smoke and aromatic with the volatile + odours from decanters. + </p> + <p> + There were a few women there, and the majority of the men. Lord Alderdene, + Major Belwether, and Mortimer were at a table by themselves; stacks of + ivory chips and five cards spread in the centre of the green explained the + nature of their game; and Mortimer, raising his heavy inflamed eyes and + seeing Siward unoccupied, said wheezily: “Cut out that 'widow,' and give + Siward his stack! Anything above two pairs for a jack triples the ante. + Come on, Siward, there's a decent chap!” + </p> + <p> + So he seated himself for a sacrifice to the blind goddess balanced upon + her winged wheel; and the cards ran high—so high that stacks + dwindled or toppled within the half-hour, and Mortimer grew redder and + redder, and Major Belwether blander and blander, and Alderdene's face wore + a continual nervous snicker, showing every white hound's tooth, and the + ice in the tall glasses clinked ceaselessly. + </p> + <p> + It was late when Quarrier “sat in,” with an expressionless acknowledgment + of Siward's presence, and an emotionless raid upon his neighbour's + resources with the first hand dealt, in which he participated without + drawing a card. + </p> + <p> + And always Siward, eyes on his cards, seemed to see Quarrier before him, + his overmanicured fingers caressing his silky beard, the symmetrical + pompadour dark and thick as the winter fur on a rat, tufting his smooth + blank forehead. + </p> + <p> + It was very late when Siward first began to be aware of his increasing + deafness, the difficulty, too, that he had in making people hear, the + annoying contempt in Quarrier's woman-like eyes. He felt that he was + making a fool of himself, very noiselessly somehow—but with more + racket than he expected when he miscalculated the distance between his + hand and a decanter. + </p> + <p> + It was time for him to go—unless he chose to ask Quarrier for an + explanation of that sneer which he found distasteful. But there was too + much noise, too much laughter. + </p> + <p> + Besides he had a matter to attend to—the careful perusal of his + mother's letter to Mrs. Ferrall. + </p> + <p> + Very white, he rose. After an indeterminate interval he found himself + entering his room. + </p> + <p> + The letter was in the dresser; several things seemed to fall and break, + but he got the letter, sank down on the bed's edge and strove to read,—set + his teeth grimly, forcing his blurred eyes to a focus. But he could make + nothing of it—nor of his toilet either, nor of Ferrall, who came in + on his way to bed having noticed the electricity still in full glare over + the open transom, and who straightened out matters for the stunned man + lying face downward across the bed, his mother's letter crushed in his + nerveless hand. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV THE SEASON OPENS + </h2> + <p> + Breakfast at Shotover, except for the luxurious sluggards to whom trays + were sent, was served in the English fashion—any other method or + compromise being impossible. + </p> + <p> + Ferrall, reasonable in most things, detested customs exotic, and usually + had an Englishman or two about the house to tell them so, being unable to + jeer in any language except his own. Which is partly why Alderdene and + Voucher were there. And this British sideboard breakfast was a concession + wrung from him through force of sheer necessity, although the custom had + already become practically universal in American country houses where + guests were entertained. + </p> + <p> + But at the British breakfast he drew the line. No army of servants, always + in evidence, would he tolerate, either; no highly ornamented human + bric-à-brac decorating halls and corners; no exotic pheasants hustled into + covert and out again; no fusillade at the wretched, frightened, bewildered + aliens dumped by the thousand into unfamiliar cover and driven toward the + guns by improvised beaters. + </p> + <p> + “We walk up our game or we follow a brace of good dogs in this white man's + country,” he said with unnecessary emphasis whenever his bad taste and his + wife's absence gave him an opportunity to express to the casual foreigner + his personal opinions on field sport. “You'll load your own guns and + you'll use your own legs if you shoot with me; and your dogs will do their + own retrieving, too. And if anybody desires a Yankee's opinion on shooting + driven birds from rocking-chairs or potting tame deer from grand-stands, + they can have it right now!” + </p> + <p> + Usually nobody wanted his further opinion; and sometimes they got it and + sometimes not, if his wife was within earshot. Otherwise Ferrall appeared + to be a normal man, energetically devoted to his business, his pleasures, + his friends, and comfortably in love with his wife. And if some considered + his vigour in business to be lacking in mercy, that vigour was always + exercised within the law. He never transgressed the rules of war, but his + headlong energy sometimes landed him close to the dead line. He had + already breakfasted, when the earliest risers entered the morning room to + saunter about the sideboards and investigate the simmering contents of + silver-covered dishes on the warmers. + </p> + <p> + The fragrance of coffee was pleasantly perceptible; men in conventional + shooting attire roamed about the room, selected what they cared for, and + carried it to the table. Mrs. Mortimer was there consuming peaches that + matched her own complexion; Marion Page, always more congruous in field + costume and belted jacket than in anything else, and always, like her own + hunters, minutely groomed, was preparing a breakfast for her own + consumption with the leisurely precision characteristic of her whether in + the saddle, on the box, or grassing her brace of any covey that ever + flushed. + </p> + <p> + Captain Voucher and Lord Alderdene discussed prospects between bites, + attentive to the monosyllabic opinions of Miss Page. Her twin brothers, + Gordon and Willis, shyly consuming oatmeal, listened respectfully and + waited on their sister at the slightest lifting of her thinly arched + eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + Into this company sauntered Siward, apparently no worse for wear. For as + yet the Enemy had set upon him no proprietary insignia save a rather + becoming pallor and faint bluish shadows under the eyes. He strolled + about, exchanging amiable greetings, and presently selected a chilled + grape fruit as his breakfast. Opposite him Mortimer, breakfasting upon his + own dreadful bracer of an apple soaked in port, raised his heavy inflamed + eyes with a significant leer at the iced grape fruit. For he was always + ready to make room upon his own level for other men; but the wordless grin + and the bloodshot welcome were calmly ignored, for as yet that freemasonry + evoked no recognition from the pallid man opposite, whose hands were + steady as though that morning's sun had wakened him from pleasant dreams. + </p> + <p> + “The most difficult shot in the world,” Alderdene was explaining, “is an + incoming pheasant, sailing on a slant before a gale.” + </p> + <p> + “A woodcock in alders doing a jack-snipe twist is worse,” grunted + Mortimer, drenching another apple in port. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Miss Page tersely. + </p> + <p> + “Or a depraved ruffed cock-grouse in the short pines; isn't that the + limit?” asked Mortimer of Siward. + </p> + <p> + But Siward only shrugged his comment and glanced out through the leaded + casements into the brilliant September sunshine. + </p> + <p> + Outside he could see Major Belwether, pink skinned, snowy chop whiskers + brushed rabbit fashion, very voluble with Sylvia Landis, who listened + absently, head partly averted. Quarrier in tweeds and gaiters, his morning + cigar delicately balanced in his gloved fingers, strolled near enough to + be within ear-shot; and when Sylvia's inattention to Major Belwether's + observations became marked to the verge of rudeness, he came forward and + spoke. But whatever it was that he said appeared to change her passive + inattention to quiet displeasure, for, as Siward rose from the table, he + saw her turn on her heel and walk slowly toward a group of dogs presided + over by some kennel men and gamekeepers. + </p> + <p> + She was talking to the head gamekeeper when he emerged from the house, but + she saw him on the terrace and gave him a bright nod of greeting, so close + to an invitation that he descended the stone steps and crossed the dew-wet + lawn. + </p> + <p> + “I am asking Dawson to explain just exactly what a 'Shotover Drive' + resembles,” she said, turning to include Siward in an animated conference + with the big, scraggy, head keeper. “You know, Mr. Siward, that it is a + custom peculiar to Shotover House to open the season with what is called a + Shotover Drive?” + </p> + <p> + “I heard Alderdene talking about it,” he said, smilingly inspecting the + girl's attire of khaki with its buttoned pockets, gun pads, and Cossack + cartridge loops, and the tan knee-kilts hanging heavily pleated over + gaiters and little thick-soled shoes. He had never cared very much to see + women afield, for, in a rare case where there was no affectation, there + was something else inborn that he found unpleasant—something lacking + about a woman who could take life from frightened wild things, something + shocking that a woman could look, unmoved, upon a twitching, blood-soiled + heap of feathers at her feet. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Dawson, dog-whip at salute, stood knee deep among his restless + setters, explaining the ceremony with which Mr. Ferrall ushered in the + opening of each shooting season: + </p> + <p> + “It's our own idee, Miss Landis,” he said proudly; “onc't a season Mr. + Ferrall and his guests likes it for a mixed bag. 'Tis a sort of picnic, + Miss; the guns is in pairs, sixty yards apart in line, an' the rules is, + walk straight ahead, dogs to heel until first cover is reached; fire + straight or to quarter, never blankin' nor wipin' no eyes; and ground game + counts as feathers for the Shotover Cup.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! It's a skirmish line that walks straight ahead?” said Siward, + nodding. + </p> + <p> + “Straight ahead, Sir. No stoppin', no turnin' for hedges, fences, water or + rock. There is boats f'r deep water and fords marked and corduroy f'r to + pass the Seven Dreens. Luncheon at one, Miss—an hour's rest—then + straight on over hill, valley, rock, and river to the rondyvoo atop Osprey + Ledge. You'll see the poles and the big nests, Sir. It's there they score + for the cup, and there when the bag is counted, the traps are ready to + carry you home again.”... And to Siward: “Will you draw for your lady, + Sir? It is the custom.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you my 'lady'?” he asked, turning to Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + “Do you want me?” + </p> + <p> + In the smiling lustre of her eyes the tiniest spark flashed out at him—a + hint of defiance for somebody, perhaps for Major Belwether who had taken + considerable pains to enlighten her as to Siward's condition the night + before; perhaps also for Quarrier, who had naturally expected to act as + her gun-bearer in emergencies. But the gaily veiled malice of the one had + annoyed her, and the cold assumption of the other had irritated her, and + she had, scarcely knowing why, turned her shoulder to both of these + gentlemen with an indefinite idea of escaping a pressure, amounting almost + to critical importunity. + </p> + <p> + “I'm probably a poor shot?” she said, looking smilingly, straight into + Siward's eyes. “But if you'll take me—” + </p> + <p> + “I will with pleasure,” he said; “Dawson, do we draw for position? Very + well then”; and he drew a slip of paper from the box offered by the head + keeper. + </p> + <p> + “Number seven!” said Sylvia, looking over his shoulder. “Come out to the + starting line, Mr. Siward. All the positions are marked with golf-discs. + What sort of ground have we ahead, Dawson?” + </p> + <p> + “Kind o' stiff, Miss,” grinned the keeper. “Pity your gentleman ain't + drawed the meadows an' Sachem Hill line. Will you choose your dog, Sir?” + </p> + <p> + “You have your dog, you know,” observed Sylvia demurely. And Siward, + glancing among the impatient setters, saw one white, heavily feathered + dog, straining at his leash, and wagging frantically, brown eyes fixed on + him. + </p> + <p> + The next moment Sagamore was free, devouring his master with caresses, the + girl looking on in smiling silence; and presently, side by side, the man, + the girl, and the dog were strolling off to the starting line where + already people were gathering in groups, selecting dogs, fowling-pieces, + comparing numbers, and discussing the merits of their respective lines of + advance. + </p> + <p> + Ferrall, busily energetic, and in high spirits, greeted them gaily, + pointing out the red disc bearing their number, seven, where it stood out + distinctly above the distant scrub of the foreland. + </p> + <p> + “You two are certainly up against it!” he said, grinning. “There's only + one rougher line, and you're in for thorns and water and a scramble across + the back-bone of the divide!” + </p> + <p> + “Is it any good?” asked Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Good—if you've got the legs and Sylvia doesn't play baby—” + </p> + <p> + “I?” she said indignantly. “Kemp, you annoy me. And I will bet you now,” + she added, flushing, “that your old cup is ours.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” said Siward, laughing, “we may not shoot straight.” + </p> + <p> + “You will! Kemp, I'll wager whatever you dare!” + </p> + <p> + “Gloves? Stockings?—against a cigarette case?” he suggested. + </p> + <p> + “Done,” she said disdainfully, moving forward along the skirmish line with + a nod and smile for the groups now disintegrating into couples, the Page + boys with Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel, Marion Page followed by + Alderdene, Mrs. Vendenning and Major Belwether and the Tassel girl + convoyed by Leroy Mortimer. Farther along the line, taking post, she saw + Quarrier and Miss Caithness, Captain Voucher with Mrs. Mortimer, and + others too distant to recognise, moving across country with glitter and + glint of sunlight on slanting gun barrels. + </p> + <p> + And now Ferrall was climbing into his saddle beside his pretty wife, who + sat her horse like a boy, the white flag lifted high in the sunshine, + watching the firing line until the last laggard was in position. + </p> + <p> + “All right, Grace!” said Ferrall briskly. Down went the white flag; the + far-ranged line started into motion straight across country, dogs at heel. + </p> + <p> + From her saddle Mrs. Ferrall could see the advance, strung out far afield + from the dark spots moving along the Fells boundary, to the two couples + traversing the salt meadows to north. Crack! A distant report came faintly + over the uplands against the wind. + </p> + <p> + “Voucher,” observed Ferrall; “probably a snipe. Hark! he's struck them + again, Grace.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall, watching curiously, saw Siward's gun fly up as two big dark + spots floated up from the marsh and went swinging over his head. Crack! + Crack! Down sheered the black spots, tumbling earthward out of the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Duck,” said Ferrall; “a double for Stephen. Lord Harry! how that man can + shoot! Isn't it a pity that—” + </p> + <p> + He said no more; his pretty wife astride her thoroughbred sat silent, grey + eyes fixed on the distant figures of Sylvia Landis and Siward, now + shoulder deep in the reeds. + </p> + <p> + “Was it—very bad last night?” she asked in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + Ferrall shrugged. “He was not offensive; he walked steadily enough + up-stairs. When I went into his room he lay on the bed as if he'd been + struck by lightning. And yet—you see how he is this morning?” + </p> + <p> + “After a while,” his wife said, “it is going to alter him some day—dreadfully—isn't + it, Kemp?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean—like Mortimer?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—only Leroy was always a pig.” + </p> + <p> + As they turned their horses toward the high-road Mrs. Ferrall said: “Do + you know why Sylvia isn't shooting with Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” replied her husband indifferently; “do you?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” She looked out across the sunlit ocean, grave grey eyes brightening + with suppressed mischief. “But I half suspect.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, all sorts of things, Kemp.” + </p> + <p> + “What's one of 'em?” asked Ferrall, looking around at her; but his wife + only laughed. + </p> + <p> + “You don't mean she's throwing her flies at Siward—now that you've + hooked Quarrier for her! I thought she'd played him to the gaff—” + </p> + <p> + “Please don't be coarse, Kemp,” said Mrs. Ferrall, sending her horse + forward. Her husband spurred to her side, and without turning her head she + continued: “Of course Sylvia won't be foolish. If they were only safely + married; but Howard is such a pill—” + </p> + <p> + “What does Sylvia expect with Howard's millions? A man?” + </p> + <p> + Grace Ferrall drew bridle. “The curious thing is, Kemp, that she liked + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Likes him?” + </p> + <p> + “No, liked him. I saw how it was; she took his silences for intellectual + meditation, his gallery, his library, his smatterings for expressions of a + cultivated personality. Then she remembered how close she came to running + off with that cashiered Englishman, and that scared her into clutching the + substantial in the shape of Howard.... Still, I wish I hadn't meddled.” + </p> + <p> + “Meddled how?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I told her to do it. We had talks until daylight.... She may marry + him—I don't know—but if you think any live woman could be + contented with a muff like that!” + </p> + <p> + “That's immoral.” + </p> + <p> + “Kemp, I'm not. She'd be mad not to marry him; but I don't know what I'd + do to a man like that, if I were his wife. And you know what a terrific + capacity for mischief there is in Sylvia. Some day she's going to love + somebody. And it isn't likely to be Howard. And, oh, Kemp! I do grow so + tired of that sort of thing. Do you suppose anybody will ever make decency + a fashion?” + </p> + <p> + “You're doing your best,” said Ferrall, laughing at his wife's pretty, + boyish face turned back toward him over her shoulder; “you're presenting + your cousin and his millions to a girl who can dress the part—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't, Kemp! I don't know why I meddled!... I wish I hadn't—” + </p> + <p> + “I do. You can't let Howard alone! You're perfectly possessed to plague + him when he's with you, and now you've arranged for another woman to keep + it up for the rest of his lifetime. What does Sylvia want with a man who + possesses the instincts and intellect of a coachman? She is asked + everywhere, she has her own money. Why not let her alone? Or is it too + late?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean let her make a fool of herself with Stephen Siward? That is + where she is drifting.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do. She has a perfect genius for selecting the wrong man; and + she's already sorry for this one. I'm sorry for Stephen, too; but it's + safe for me to be.” + </p> + <p> + “She might make something of him.” + </p> + <p> + “You know perfectly well no woman ever did make anything of a doomed man. + He'd kill her—I mean it, Kemp! He would literally kill her with + grief. She isn't like Leila Mortimer; she isn't like most girls of her + sort. You men think her a rather stunning, highly tempered, unreasonable + young girl, with a reserve of sufficiently trained intelligence to marry + the best our market offers—and close her eyes;—a thoroughbred + with the caprices of one, but also with the grafted instinct for proper + mating.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, that's all right, isn't it?” asked Ferrall. “That's the way I size + her up. Isn't it correct?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, in a way. She has all the expensive training of the thoroughbred—and + all the ignorance, too. She is cold-blooded because wholesome; a trifle + sceptical because so absolutely unawakened. She never experienced a deep + emotion. Impulses have intoxicated her once or twice—as when she + asked my opinion about running off with Cavendish, and that boy and girl + escapade with Rivington; nothing at all except high mettle, the innocent + daring lurking in all thoroughbreds, and a great deal of very red blood + racing through that superb young body. But,” Ferrall reined in to listen, + “but if ever a man awakens her—I don't care who he is—you'll + see a girl you never knew, a brand-new creature emerge with the last rags + and laces of conventionality dropping from her; a woman, Kemp, heiress to + every generous impulse, every emotion, every vice, every virtue of all + that brilliant race of hers.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem to know,” he said, amused and curious. + </p> + <p> + “I know. Major Belwether told me that he had thought of Howard as an + anchor for her. It seemed a pity—Howard with all his cold, heavy + negative inertia.... I said I'd do it. I did. And now I don't know; I + wish, almost wish I hadn't.” + </p> + <p> + “What has changed your ideas?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Howard is safer than Stephen Siward, already in the first + clutches of his master-vice. Would you mate what she inherits from her + mother and her mother's mother, with what is that poor boy's heritage from + the Siwards?” + </p> + <p> + “After all,” observed Ferrall dryly, “we're not in the angel-breeding + business.” + </p> + <p> + “We ought to be. Every decent person ought to be. If they were, inherited + vice would be as rare in this country as smallpox!” + </p> + <p> + “People don't inherit smallpox, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind! You know what I mean. In our stock farms and kennels, we weed + out, destroy, exterminate hereditary weakness in everything. We pay the + greatest attention to the production of all offspring except our own. Look + at Stephen! How dared his parents bring him into the world? Look at + Sylvia! And now, suppose they marry!” + </p> + <p> + “Dearest,” said Ferrall, “my head is a whirl and my wits are spinning like + five toy tops. Your theories are all right; but unless you and I are + prepared to abandon several business enterprises and take to the lecture + platform, I'm afraid people are going to be wicked enough to marry whom + they like, and the human race will he run as usual with money the + favourite, and love a case of 'also-ran.'... By the way, how dared you + marry me, knowing the sort of demon I am?” + </p> + <p> + The gathering frown on Mrs. Ferrall's brow faded; she raised her clear + grey eyes and met her husband's gaze, gay, humourous, and with a hint of + tenderness—enough to bring the colour into her pretty face. + </p> + <p> + “You know I'm right, Kemp.” + </p> + <p> + “Always, dear. And now that we have the world off our hands for a few + minutes, suppose we gallop?” + </p> + <p> + But she held her horse to a walk, riding forward, grave, thoughtful, + preoccupied with a new problem, only part of which she had told her + husband. + </p> + <p> + For that night she had been awakened in her bed to find standing beside + her a white, wide-eyed figure, shivering, limbs a-chill beneath her + clinging lace. She had taken the pallid visitor to her arms and warmed her + and soothed her and whispered to her, murmuring the thousand little words + and sounds, the breathing magic mothers use with children. And Sylvia lay + there, chilled, nerveless, silent, ignorant why her sleeplessness had + turned to restlessness, to loneliness, to an awakening perception of what + she lacked and needed and began to desire. For that sad void, peopled at + intervals through her brief years with a vague mother-phantom, had, in the + new crisis of her career, become suddenly an empty desolation, frightening + her with her own utter isolation. Fill it now she could not, now that she + needed that ghost of child-comfort, that shadowy refuge, that sweet shape + she had fashioned out of dreams to symbolise a mother she had never known. + </p> + <p> + Driven she knew not why, she had crept from her room in search of the + still, warm, fragrant nest and the whispered reassurance and the caress + she had never before endured. Yes, now she craved it, invited it, longed + for safe arms around her, the hovering hand on her hair. Was this Sylvia? + </p> + <p> + And Grace Ferrall, clearing her sleepy eyes, amazed, incredulous of the + cold, child-like hands upon her shoulders, caught her in her arms with a + little laugh and sob and drew her to her breast, to soothe and caress and + reassure, to make up to her all she could of what is every child's just + heritage. + </p> + <p> + And for a long while Sylvia, lying there, told her nothing—because + she did not know how—merely a word, a restless question half + ashamed, barely enough to shadow forth the something stirring her toward + an awakening in a new world, where with new eyes she might catch glimpses + of those dim and splendidly misty visions that float through sunlit + silences when a young girl dreams awake. + </p> + <p> + And at length, gravely, innocently, she spoke of her engagement, and the + worldly possibilities before her; of the man she was to marry, and her new + and unexpected sense of loneliness in his presence, now that she had seen + him again after months. + </p> + <p> + She spoke, presently, of Siward—a fugitive question or two, offered + indifferently at first, then with shy persistence and curiosity, knowing + nothing of the senseless form flung face downward across the sheets in a + room close by. And thereafter the murmured burden of the theme was Siward, + until one, heavy eyed, turned from the white dawn silvering the windows, + sighed, and fell asleep; and one lay silent, head half buried in its + tangled gold, wide awake, thinking vague thoughts that had no ending, no + beginning. And at last a rosy bar of light fell across the wall, and the + warm shadows faded from corner and curtain; and, turning on the pillow, + her face nestled in her hair, she fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + Nothing of this had Mrs. Ferrall told her husband. + </p> + <p> + For the first time in her life had Sylvia suffered the caresses most women + invite or naturally lavish; for the first time had she attempted + confidences, failing because she did not know how, but curiously contented + with the older woman's arms around her. + </p> + <p> + There was a change in Sylvia, a great change stealing in upon her as she + lay there, breathing like a child, flushed lips scarcely parted. Through + the early slanting sunlight the elder woman, leaning on one arm, looked + down at her, grey eyes very grave and tender—wise, sweet eyes that + divined with their pure clairvoyance all that might happen or might fail + to come to pass in this great change stealing over Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + Nothing of this could her husband understand had she words to convey it. + There was nothing he need understand except that his wife, meaning well, + had meddled and regretted. + </p> + <p> + And now, turning in her saddle with a pretty gesture of her shoulders: + </p> + <p> + “I meddle no more! Those who need me may come to me. Now laugh at my tardy + wisdom, Kemp!” + </p> + <p> + “It's no laughing matter,” he said, “if you're going to stand back and let + this abandoned world spin itself madly to the bow-wows—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be horrid. I repent. The mischief take Howard Quarrier!” + </p> + <p> + “Amen! Come on, Grace.” + </p> + <p> + She gathered bridle. “Do you suppose Stephen Siward is going to make + trouble?” + </p> + <p> + “How can he unless she helps him? Nonsense! All's well with Siward and + Sylvia. Shall we gallop?” + </p> + <p> + All was very well with Siward and Sylvia. They had passed the rabbit-brier + country scathless, with two black mallard, a jack-snipe, and a rabbit to + the credit of their score, and were now advancing through that dimly lit + enchanted land of tall grey alders where, in the sudden twilight of the + leaves, woodcock after woodcock fluttered upward twittering, only to stop + and drop, transformed at the vicious crack of Siward's gun to fluffy balls + of feather whirling earthward from mid-air. + </p> + <p> + Sagamore came galloping back with a soft, unsoiled mass of chestnut and + brown feathers in his mouth. Siward took the dead cock, passed it back to + the keeper who followed them, patted the beautiful eager dog and signalled + him forward once more. + </p> + <p> + “You should have fired that time,” he said to Sylvia—“that is, if + you care to kill anything.” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't seem to be able to,” she said. “It isn't a bit like shooting + at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by surprise—it's all + so charmingly sudden—and my heart seems to stop in one beat, and I + look and look and then—whisk! the woodcock is gone, leaving me + breathless—” + </p> + <p> + Her voice ceased; the white setter, cutting up his ground ahead, had + stopped, rigid, one leg raised, jaws quivering and locking alternately. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't that a stunning picture!” said Siward in a low voice. “What a + beauty he is—like a statue in white and blue-veined marble. You may + talk, Miss Landis; woodcock don't flush at the sound of the human voice as + grouse do.” + </p> + <p> + “See his brown eyes roll back at us! He wonders why we don't do + something!” whispered the girl. “Look, Mr. Siward! Now his head is moving—oh + so gradually to the left!” + </p> + <p> + “The bird is moving on the ground,” nodded Siward; “now the bird has + stopped.” + </p> + <p> + “I do wish I could see a woodcock on the ground,” she breathed. “Do you + think we might by any chance?” + </p> + <p> + Siward noiselessly sank to his knees and crouched, keen eyes minutely busy + among the shadowy browns and greys of wet earth and withered leaf. And + after a while, cautiously, he signalled the girl to kneel beside him, and + stretched out one arm, forefinger extended. + </p> + <p> + “Sight straight along my arm,” he said, “as though it were a rifle + barrel.” + </p> + <p> + Her soft cheek rested against his shoulder; a stray strand of shining hair + brushing his face. + </p> + <p> + “Under that bunch of fern,” he whispered; “just the colour of the dead + leaves. Do you see?... Don't you see that big woodcock squatted flat, bill + pointed straight out and resting on the leaves?” + </p> + <p> + After a long while she saw, suddenly, and an exquisite little shock + tightened her fingers on Siward's extended arm. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the feathered miracle!” she whispered; “the wonder of its cleverness + to hide like that! You look and look and stare, seeing it all the while + and not knowing that you see it. Then in a flash it is there, motionless, + a brown-shaped shadow among shadows.... The dear little thing!... Mr. + Siward, do you think—are you going to—” + </p> + <p> + “No, I won't shoot it.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you.... Might I sit here a moment to watch it?” + </p> + <p> + She seated herself soundlessly among the dead leaves; he sank into place + beside her, laying his gun aside. + </p> + <p> + “Rather rough on the dog,” he said with a grimace. + </p> + <p> + “I know. It is very good of you, Mr. Siward to do this for my pleasure. Oh—h! + Do you see! Oh, the little beauty!” + </p> + <p> + The woodcock had risen, plumage puffed out, strutting with wings bowed and + tail spread, facing the dog. The sudden pigmy defiance thrilled her. + “Brave! Brave!” she exclaimed, enraptured; but at the sound of her voice + the bird crouched like a flash, large dark liquid eyes shining, long bill + pointed straight toward them. + </p> + <p> + “He'll fly the way his bill points,” said Siward. “Watch!” + </p> + <p> + He rose; she sprang lightly to her feet; there came a whirring flutter, a + twittering shower of sweet notes, soft wings beating almost in their very + faces, a distant shadow against the sky, and the woodcock was gone. + </p> + <p> + Quieting the astounded dog, gun cradled in the hollow of his left arm, he + turned to the girl beside him: “That sort of thing wins no cups,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “It wins something else, Mr. Siward,—my very warm regard for you.” + </p> + <p> + “There is no choice between that and the Shotover Cup,” he admitted, + considering her. + </p> + <p> + “I—do you mean it?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I do, vigorously!” + </p> + <p> + “Then you are much nicer than I thought you.... And after all, if the + price of a cup is the life of that brave little bird, I had rather shoot + clay pigeons. Now you will scorn me I suppose. Begin!” + </p> + <p> + “My ideal woman has never been a life-taker,” he said coolly. “Once, when + I was a boy, there was a girl—very lovely—my first sweetheart. + I saw her at the traps once, just after she had killed her seventh pigeon + straight, 'pulling it down' from overhead, you know—very clever—the + little thing was breathing on the grass, and it made sounds—” He + shrugged and walked on. “She killed her twenty-first bird straight; it was + a handsome cup, too.” + </p> + <p> + And after a silence, “So you didn't love her any more, Mr. Siward?”—mockingly + sweet. + </p> + <p> + They laughed, and at the sound of laughter the tall-stemmed alders echoed + with the rushing roar of a cock-grouse thundering skyward. Crack! Crack! + Whirling over and over through a cloud of floating feathers, a heavy + weight struck the springy earth. There lay the big mottled bird, splendid + silky ruffs spread, dead eyes closing, a single tiny crimson bead + twinkling like a ruby on the gaping beak. + </p> + <p> + “Dead!” said Siward to the dog who had dropped to shot; “Fetch!” And, + signalling the boy behind, he relieved the dog of his burden and tossed + the dead weight of ruffled plumage toward him. Then he broke his gun, and, + as the empty shells flew rattling backward, slipped in fresh cartridges, + locked the barrels, and walked forward, the flush of excitement still + staining his sunburnt face. + </p> + <p> + “You deal death mercifully,” said the girl in a low voice. “I wonder what + your ci-devant sweetheart would think of you.” + </p> + <p> + “A bungler had better stick to the traps,” he assented, ignoring the + badinage. + </p> + <p> + “I am wondering,” she said thoughtfully, “what I think of men who kill.” + </p> + <p> + He turned sharply, hesitated, shrugged. “Wild things' lives are brief at + best—fox or flying-tick, wet nests or mink, owl, hawk, weasel or + man. But the death man deals is the most merciful. Besides,” he added, + laughing, “ours is not a case of sweethearts.” + </p> + <p> + “My argument is purely in the abstract, Mr. Siward. I am asking you + whether the death men deal is more justifiable than a woman's gift of + death?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well, life-taking, the giving of life—there can be only one + answer to the mystery; and I don't know it,” he replied smiling. + </p> + <p> + “I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me then,” he said, still amused. + </p> + <p> + They had passed swale after swale of silver birches waist deep in perfumed + fern and brake; the big timber lay before them. She moved forward, light + gun swung easily across her leather-padded shoulder; and on the wood's + sunny edge she seated herself, straight young back against a giant pine, + gun balanced across her flattened knees. + </p> + <p> + “You are feeling the pace a little,” he said, coming up and standing in + front of her. + </p> + <p> + “The pace? No, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a trifle—bored?” She considered him in silence, then leaned + back luxuriously, rounded arms raised, wrists crossed to pillow her head. + </p> + <p> + “This is charmingly new to me,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “What? Not the open?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I have camped and done the usual roughing it with only three guides + apiece and the champagne inadequately chilled. I have endured that sort of + hardship several times, Mr. Siward.... What is that furry hunch up there + in that tall thin tree?” + </p> + <p> + “A raccoon,” he said presently. “Can you see the foxy head peeping so + slyly down at us? Look at Sagamore nosing the air in that droll blind + mole-like way. He knows there's something furry up aloft somewhere; and he + knows it's none of his business.” + </p> + <p> + They watched the motionless ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest + elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; the + rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the + tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished amid bronzing leafy depths. + </p> + <p> + In the silence the birds began to reappear. A jay screamed somewhere deep + in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig to twig, + cheeping inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + She sat listening, bright head pillowed in her arms, idly attentive to his + low running comment on beast and bird and tree, on forest stillness and + forest sounds, on life and the wild laws of life and death governing the + great out-world 'twixt sky and earth. Sunlight and shadows moving, speech + and silence, waxed and waned. A listless contentment lay warm upon her, + weighting the heavy white lids. The blue of her eyes was very dark now—almost + purple like the colour of the sea when the wind-flaws turn the blue to + violet. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“Did you ever hear of the 'Lesser Children'?” she asked. “Listen then: + + “'Multitudes, multitudes, under the moon they stirred! + The weakerbrothers of our earthly breed; + All came about my head and at my feet + A thousand thousand sweet, + With starry eyes not even raised to plead: + Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute! + And I beheld and saw them one by one + Pass, and become as nothing in the night.' +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“Do you know what it means? + + “'Winged mysteries of song that from the sky + Once dashed long music down—' +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“Do you understand?” she asked, smiling. + + “'Who has not seen in the high gulf of light + What, lower, was a bird!'” + </pre> + <p> + She ceased, and, raising her eyes to his: “Do you know that plea for mercy + on the lesser children who die all day to-day because the season opens for + your pleasure, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Is it a woodland sermon?” he inquired, too politely. + </p> + <p> + “The poem? No; it is the case for the prosecution. The prisoner may defend + himself if he can.” + </p> + <p> + “The defence rests,” he said. “The prisoner moves that he be discharged.” + </p> + <p> + “Motion denied,” she interrupted promptly. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere in the woodland world the crows were holding a noisy session, + and she told him that was the jury debating the degree of his guilt. + </p> + <p> + “Because you're guilty of course,” she continued. “I wonder what your + sentence is to be?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll leave it to you,” he suggested lazily. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose I sentenced you to slay no more?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'd appeal—” + </p> + <p> + “No use; I am the tribunal of last resort.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.” + </p> + <p> + “You do well, Mr. Siward. This court is very merciful.... How much do you + care for bird murder? Very much? Is there anything you care for more? Yes? + And could this court grant it to you in compensation?” + </p> + <p> + He said, deliberately, roused by the level challenge of her gaze: “The + court is incompetent to compensate the prisoner or offer any compromise.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Because the court herself is already compromised in her future + engagements.” + </p> + <p> + “But what has my—engagement to do with—” + </p> + <p> + “You offered compensation for depriving me of my shooting. There could be + only one adequate compensation.” + </p> + <p> + “And that?” she asked, coolly enough. + </p> + <p> + “Your continual companionship.” + </p> + <p> + “But you have it, Mr. Siward—” + </p> + <p> + “I have it for a day. The season lasts three months you know.” + </p> + <p> + “And you and I are to play a continuous vaudeville for three months? Is + that your offer?” + </p> + <p> + “Partly.” + </p> + <p> + “Then one day with me is not worth those many days of murder?” she asked + in pretended astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “Ask yourself why those many days would be doubly empty,” he said so + seriously that the pointless game began to confuse her. + </p> + <p> + “Then”—she turned lightly from uncertain ground—“then perhaps + we had better be about that matter of the cup you prize so highly. Are you + ready, Mr. Siward? There is much to be killed yet—including time, + you know.” + </p> + <p> + But the hinted sweetness of the challenge had aroused him, and he made no + motion to rise. Nor did she. + </p> + <p> + “I am not sure,” he reflected, “just exactly what I should ask of you if + you insist on taking away—” he turned and looked about him through + the burnt gold foliage, “—if you took away all this out of my life.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall not take it; because I have nothing in exchange to offer... you + say,” she answered imprudently. + </p> + <p> + “I did not say so,” he retorted. + </p> + <p> + “You did—reminding me that the court is already engaged for a + continuous performance.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it necessary to remind you?” he asked with deliberate malice. + </p> + <p> + She flushed up, vexed, silent, then looked directly at him with beautiful + hostile eyes. “What do you mean, Mr. Siward? Are you taking our harmless, + idle badinage as warrant for an intimacy unwarranted?” + </p> + <p> + “Have I offended?” he asked, so impassively that a flash of resentment + brought her to her feet, angry and self-possessed. + </p> + <p> + “How far have we to go?” she asked quietly. + </p> + <p> + He rose to his feet, turned, hailing the keeper, repeating the question. + And at the answer they both started forward, the dog ranging ahead through + a dense growth of beech and chestnut, over a high brown ridge, then down, + always down along a leafy ravine to the water's edge—a forest pond + set in the gorgeous foliage of ripening maples. + </p> + <p> + “I don't see,” said Sylvia impatiently, “how we are going to obey + instructions and go straight ahead. There must be a stupid boat + somewhere!” + </p> + <p> + But the game-laden keeper shook his head, pulled up his hip boots, and + pointed out a line of alder poles set in the water to mark a crossing. + </p> + <p> + “Am I expected to wade?” asked the girl anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “This here,” observed the keeper, “is one of the most sportin' courses on + the estate. Last season I seen Miss Page go through it like a scared deer—the + young lady, sir, that took last season's cup”—in explanation to + Siward, who stood doubtfully at the water's edge, looking back at Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + Raising her dismayed eyes she encountered his; there was a little laugh + between them. She stepped daintily across the stones to the water's edge, + instinctively gathering her kilts in one hand. + </p> + <p> + “Miles and I could chair you over,” suggested Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Is that fair—under the rules?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, Miss; as long as you go straight,” said the keeper. + </p> + <p> + So they laid aside the guns and the guide's game-sack, and formed a chair + with their hands, and, bearing the girl between them, they waded out along + the driven alder stakes, knee-deep in brown water. + </p> + <p> + Before them herons rose into heavy flapping flight, broad wings glittering + in the sun; a diver, distantly afloat among the lily pads, settled under + the water to his eyes as a submarine settles till the conning-tower is + awash. + </p> + <p> + Her arm, lightly resting around his neck, tightened a trifle as the water + rose to his thighs; then the faint pressure relaxed as they thrashed + shoreward through the shallows, ankle deep once more, and landed among the + dry reeds on the farther bank. + </p> + <p> + Miles, the keeper, went back for the guns. Siward stamped about in the + sun, shaking the drops from water-proof breeches and gaiters, only to be + half drenched again when Sagamore shook himself vigorously. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Sylvia, looking sideways at Siward, “your contempt for + my sporting accomplishments has not decreased. I'm sorry; I don't like to + walk in wet shoes... even to gain your approval.” + </p> + <p> + And, as the keeper came splashing across the shallows: “Miles, you may + carry my gun. I shall not need it any longer—” + </p> + <p> + The upward roar of a bevey of grouse drowned her voice; poor Sagamore, + pointing madly in the blackberry thicket all unperceived, cast a dismayed + glance aloft where the sunlit air quivered under the winnowing rush of + heavy wings. Siward flung up his gun, heading a big quartering bird; + steadily the glittering barrels swept in the arc of fire, hesitated, + wavered; then the possibility passed; the young fellow lowered the gun, + slowly, gravely; stood a moment motionless with bent head until the rising + colour in his face had faded. + </p> + <p> + And that was all, for a while. The astonished and disgusted keeper stared + into the thicket; the dog lay quivering, impatient for signal. Sylvia's + heart, which had seemed to stop with her voice, silenced in the gusty + thunder of heavy wings, began beating too fast. For the ringing crack of a + gun shot could have spoken no louder to her than the glittering silence of + the suspended barrels; nor any promise of his voice sound as the startled + stillness sounded now about her. For he had made something a trifle more + than mere amends for his rudeness. He was overdoing everything—a + little. + </p> + <p> + He stood on the thicket's edge, absently unloading the weapon, scarcely + understanding what he had done and what he had not done. + </p> + <p> + A moment later a far hail sounded across the uplands, and against the sky + figures moved distantly. + </p> + <p> + “Alderdene and Marion Page,” said Siward. “I believe we lunch yonder, do + we not, Miles?” + </p> + <p> + They climbed the hill in silence, arriving after a few minutes to find + others already at luncheon—the Page boys, eager, enthusiastic, + recounting adventure by flood and field; Rena Bonnesdel tired and frankly + bored and decorated with more than her share of mud; Eileen Shannon, very + pretty, very effective, having done more execution with her eyes than with + the dainty fowling-piece beside her. + </p> + <p> + Marion Page nodded to Sylvia and Siward with a crisp, business-like + question or two, then went over to inspect their bag, nodding approbation + as Miles laid the game on the grass. + </p> + <p> + “Eight full brace,” she commented. “We have five, and an odd cock-pheasant—from + Black Fells, I suppose. The people to our left have been blazing away like + Coney Island, but Rena's guide says the ferns are full of rabbits that + way, and Major Belwether can't hit fur afoot. You,” she added frankly to + Siward, “ought to take the cup. The birches ahead of you are full of + woodcock. If you don't, Howard Quarrier will. He's into a flight of + jack-snipe I hear.” + </p> + <p> + Siward's eyes had suddenly narrowed; then he laughed, patting Sagamore's + cheeks. “I don't believe I shall shoot very steadily this afternoon,” he + said, turning toward the group at luncheon under the trees. “I wish + Quarrier well—with the cup.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense,” said Marion Page curtly; “you are the cleanest shot I ever + knew.” And she raised her glass to him, frankly, and emptied it with the + precision characteristic of her: “Your cup! With all my heart!” + </p> + <p> + “I also drink to your success, Mr. Siward,” said Sylvia in a low voice, + lifting her champagne glass in the sunlight. “To the Shotover Cup—if + you wish it.” And as other glasses sparkled aloft amid a gay tumult of + voices wishing him success, Sylvia dropped her voice, attuning it to his + ear alone: “Success for the cup, if you wish it—or, whatever you + wish—success!” and she meant it very kindly. + </p> + <p> + His hand resting on his glass he sat, smiling silent acknowledgment to the + noisy generous toasts; he turned and looked at Sylvia when her low voice + caught his ear—looked at her very steadily, unsmiling. + </p> + <p> + Then to the others, brightening again, he said a word or two, wittily, + with a gay compliment well placed and a phrase to end it in good taste. + And, in the little gust of hand-clapping and laughter, he turned again to + Sylvia, smilingly, saying under his breath: “As though winning the cup + could compensate me now for losing it!” + </p> + <p> + She leaned involuntarily nearer: “You mean that you will not try for it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “That is not fair—to me!” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Because—because I do not ask it of you.” + </p> + <p> + “You need not, now that I know your wish.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward, I—my wish—” + </p> + <p> + But she had no chance to finish; already Rena Bonnesdel was looking at + them, and there was a hint of amused surprise in Eileen Shannon's + mischievous eyes, averted instantly, with malicious ostentation. + </p> + <p> + Then Marion Page took possession of him so exclusively, so calmly, that + something in her cool certainty vaguely irritated Sylvia, who had never + liked her. Besides, the girl showed too plainly her indifference to other + people; which other people seldom find amusing. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen,” called out Alderdene, anxiously counting the web loops in his + khaki vest, “what do you call fair shooting at these damnable ruffed + grouse? You needn't be civil about it, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Five shells to a bird is good shooting,” answered Siward. “Don't you + think so, Miss Page?” + </p> + <p> + “You have a better score, Mr. Siward,” said Marion Page with a hostile + glance at Alderdene, who had not made good. + </p> + <p> + “That was chance—and this year's birds. I've taken ten shells to an + old drummer in hard wood or short pines.” He smiled to himself, adding: “A + drove of six in the open got off scot free a little while ago. Miss Landis + saw it.” + </p> + <p> + That he was inclined to turn it all to banter relieved her at once. “It + was pitiable,” she nodded gravely to Marion; “his nerve left him when they + made such a din in the briers.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Page glanced at her indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “What I need is practice like the chasseurs of Tarascon,” admitted Siward. + </p> + <p> + “I willingly offer my hat, monsieur,” said Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + Marion Page, impatient to start, had turned her tailor-made back to the + company, and was instructing his crestfallen lordship very plainly: “You + fire too quickly, Blinky; two seconds is what you must count when a grouse + flushes. You must say 'Mark! Right!' or 'Mark! Left! Bang!'” + </p> + <p> + “I might as well say 'Bang!' for all I've done to-day,” he muttered, + adjusting his shooting-goggles and snapping his eyes like fury. Then + exploding into raucous laughter he moved off southward with Marion Page, + who had exchanged a swift handshake with Siward; the twins followed, + convoying Eileen and Rena, neither maiden excitedly enthusiastic. And so + the luncheon party, lord and lady, twins and maidens, guides and dogs, + trailed away across the ridge, distant silhouettes presently against the + sky, then gone. And after a little while the far, dry, accentless report + of smokeless powder announced that the opening of the season had been + resumed and the Lesser Children were dying fast in the glory of a perfect + day. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ready, Mr. Siward?” She stood waiting for him at the edge of the + thicket; Miles resumed his game sack and her fowling-piece; the dog came + up, looking him anxiously in the eyes. + </p> + <p> + So he walked forward beside her into the dappled light of the thicket. + </p> + <p> + Within a few minutes the dog stood twice; and twice the whirring twitter + of woodcock startled her, echoed by the futile crack of his gun. + </p> + <p> + “Beg pardon, sir—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Miles,” with a glint of humour. + </p> + <p> + “Overshot, sir,—excusin' the liberty, Mr. Siward. Both marked down + forty yard to the left if you wish to start 'em again.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said indifferently, “I had my chance at them. They're exempt.” + </p> + <p> + Then Sagamore, tail wildly whipping, came smack on the trail of an old + stager of a cock-grouse—on, on over rock, log, wet gully, and dry + ridge, twisting, doubling, circling, every wile, every trick employed and + met, until the dog crawling noiselessly forward, trembled and froze, and + Siward, far to left, wheeled at the muffled and almost noiseless rise. For + an instant the slanting barrels wavered, grew motionless; but only a stray + sunbeam glinting struck a flash of cold fire from the muzzle, only the + feathery whirring whisper broke the silence of suspense. Then far away + over sunny tree tops a big grouse sailed up, rocketing into the sky on + slanted wings, breasting the height of green; dipped, glided downward with + bowed wings stiffened, and was engulfed in the misty barriers of purpling + woods. + </p> + <p> + “Vale!” said Siward aloud, “I salute you!” + </p> + <p> + He came strolling back across the crisp leaves, the dappled sunshine + playing over his face like the flicker of a smile. + </p> + <p> + “Miles,” he said, “my nerve is gone. Such things happen. I'm all in. Come + over here, my friend, and look at the sun with me.” + </p> + <p> + The discomfited keeper obeyed. + </p> + <p> + “Where ought that refulgent luminary to scintilate when I face Osprey + Ledge?” + </p> + <p> + “Sir?” + </p> + <p> + “The sun. How do I hold it?” + </p> + <p> + “On the p'int of your right shoulder, sir.—You ain't quittin', Mr. + Siward, sir!” anxiously; “that Shotover Cup is easy yours, sir!” eagerly; + “Wot's a miss on a old drummer, Mr. Siward? Wot's twice over-shootin' + cock, sir, when a blind dropper can see you are the cleanest, fastest, + hard-shootin' shot in the null county!” + </p> + <p> + But Siward shook his head with an absent glance at the dog, and motioned + the astonished keeper forward. + </p> + <p> + “Line the easiest trail for us,” he said; “I think we are already a trifle + tired. Twigs will do in short cover; use a hatchet in the big timber.... + And go slow till we join you.” + </p> + <p> + And when the unwilling and perplexed keeper had started, Siward, unlocking + his gun, drew out the smooth yellow cartridges and pocketed them. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia looked up as the sharp metallic click of the locked breech rang out + in the silence. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you do this, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know; really I am honest; I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + “It could not be because I—” + </p> + <p> + “No, of course not,” he said, too seriously to reassure her. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward,” in quick displeasure. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “What you do for your amusements cannot concern me.” + </p> + <p> + “Right as usual,” he said so gaily that a reluctant smile trembled on her + lips. + </p> + <p> + “Then why have you done this? It is unreasonable—if you don't feel + as I do about killing things that are having a good time in the world.” + </p> + <p> + He stood silent, absently looking at the fowling-piece cradled in his left + arm. “Shall we sit here a moment and talk it over?” he suggested + listlessly. + </p> + <p> + Her blue gaze swept him; his vague smile was indifferently bland. + </p> + <p> + “If you are determined not to shoot, we might as well start for Osprey + Ledge,” she suggested; “otherwise, what reason is there for our being here + together, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + Awaiting his comment—perhaps expecting a counter-proposition—she + leaned against the tree beside which he stood. And after a while, as his + absent-minded preoccupation continued: + </p> + <p> + “Do you think the leaves are dry enough to sit on?” + </p> + <p> + He slipped off his shooting-coat and placed it at the base of the tree. + She waited for a second, uncertain how to meet an attitude which seemed to + take for granted matters which might, if discussed, give her at least the + privilege of yielding. However, to discuss a triviality meant forcing + emphasis where none was necessary. She seated herself; and, as he + continued to remain standing, she stripped off her shooting-gloves and + glanced up at him inquiringly: “Well, Mr. Siward, I am literally at your + feet.” + </p> + <p> + “Which redresses the balance a little,” he said, finding a place near her. + </p> + <p> + “That is very nice of you. Can I always count on you for civil platitudes + when I stir you out of your day-dreams?” + </p> + <p> + “You can always count on stirring me without effort.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can't. Nobody can. You are never to be counted on; you are too + absent-minded. Like a veil you wrap yourself in a brown study, leaving + everybody outside to consider the pointed flattery of your withdrawal. + What happens to you when you are inside that magic veil? Do you change + into anything interesting?” + </p> + <p> + He sat there, chin propped on his linked fingers, elbows on knees; and, + though there was always the hint of a smile in his pleasant eyes, always + the indefinable charm of breeding in voice and attitude, something now was + lacking. And after a moment she concluded that it was his attention. + Certainly his wits were wool-gathering again; his eyes, edged with the + shadow of a smile, saw far beyond her, far beyond the sunlit shadows where + they sat. + </p> + <p> + In his preoccupation she had found him negatively attractive. She glanced + at him now from time to time, her eyes returning always to the beauty of + the subdued light where all about them silver-stemmed birches clustered + like slim shining pillars, crowned with their autumn canopy of crumpled + gold. + </p> + <p> + “Enchantment!” she said under her breath. “Surely an enchanted sleeper + lies here somewhere.” + </p> + <p> + “You,” he observed, “unawakened.” + </p> + <p> + “Asleep? I?” She looked around at him. “You are the dreamer here. Your + eyes are full of dreaming even now. What is your desire?” + </p> + <p> + He leaned on one arm, watching her; she had dropped her ungloved hand, + searching among the newly fallen gold of the birch leaves drifted into + heaps. On the third finger a jewel glittered; he saw it, conscious of its + meaning—but his eyes followed the hand idly heaping up autumn gold, + a white slim hand, smoothly fascinating. Then the little, restless hand + swept near to his, almost touching it; and then instinctively he took it + in his own, curiously, lifting it a little to consider its nearer + loveliness. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps it was sheer + amazement that left her hand lying idly relaxed like a white petalled + blossom in his. His bearing, too, was so blankly impersonal that for a + moment the whole thing appeared inconsequent. Then, as her hand lay there, + scarcely imprisoned, their eyes encountered,—and hers, intensely + blue now, considered him without emotion, studied him impersonally without + purpose, incuriously acquiescent, indifferently expectant. + </p> + <p> + After a little while the consciousness of the contact disconcerted her; + she withdrew her fingers with an involuntary shiver. + </p> + <p> + “Is there no chance?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Perplexed with her own emotion, the meaning of his low-voiced question at + first escaped her; then, like its own echo, came ringing back in her ears, + re-echoed again as he repeated it: + </p> + <p> + “Is there no chance for me, Miss Landis?” + </p> + <p> + The very revulsion of self-possession returning chilled her; then anger + came, quick and hot; then pride. She deliberated, choosing her words + coolly enough: “What chance do you mean, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “A fighting chance. Can you give it to me?” + </p> + <p> + “A fighting chance? For what?”—very low, very dangerous. + </p> + <p> + “For you.” + </p> + <p> + Then, in spite of her, her senses became unsteady; a sudden ringing + confusion seemed to deafen her, through which his voice, as if very far + away, sounded again: + </p> + <p> + “Men who are worth a fighting chance ask for it sometimes—but take + it always. I take it.” + </p> + <p> + Her pallor faded under the flood of bright colour; the blue of her eyes + darkened ominously to velvet. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward,” she said, very distinctly and slowly, “I am not—even—sorry—for + you.” + </p> + <p> + “Then my chance is desperate indeed,” he retorted coolly. + </p> + <p> + “Chance! Do you imagine—” Her anger choked her. + </p> + <p> + “Are you not a little hard?” he said, paling under his tan. “I supposed + women dismissed men more gently—even such a man as I am.” + </p> + <p> + For a full minute she strove to comprehend. + </p> + <p> + “Such a man as you!” she repeated vaguely; “you mean—” a crimson + wave dyed her skin to the temples and she leaned toward him in + horror-stricken contrition; “I didn't mean that, Mr. Siward! I—I + never thought of that! It had no weight, it was not in my thoughts. I + meant only that you had assumed what is unwarranted—that you—your + question humiliated me, knowing that I am engaged—knowing me so + little—so—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I knew everything. Ask yourself why I risk everything to say this to + you? There can be only one answer.” + </p> + <p> + Then after a long silence: “Have I ever—” she began tremblingly—“ever + by word or look—” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Have I even—” + </p> + <p> + “No. I've simply discovered how I feel. That's what I was dreaming about + when you asked me. I was afraid I might do this too soon; but I meant to + do it anyway before it became too late.” + </p> + <p> + “It was too late from the very moment we met, Mr. Siward.” And, as he + reddened painfully again, she added quickly: “I mean that I had already + decided. Why will you take what I say so dreadfully different from the way + I intend it? Listen to me. I—I believe I am not very experienced + yet; I was a—astonished—quite stunned for a moment. Then it + hurt me—and I said that I was not sorry for you... I am sorry, now.” + </p> + <p> + And, as he said nothing: “You were a little rough, a little sudden with + me, Mr. Siward. Men have asked me that question—several times; but + never so soon, so unreasonably soon—never without some preliminary + of some sort, so that I could foresee, be more or less prepared.... But + you gave me no warning. I—if you had, I would have known how to be + gentle. I—I wish to be now. I like you—enough to say this to + you, enough to be seriously sorry; if I could bring myself to really + believe this—feeling—” + </p> + <p> + Still he said nothing; he sat there listlessly studying the sun spots + glowing, waxing, waning on the carpet of dead leaves at his feet. + </p> + <p> + “As for—what you have said,” she added, a little smile curving the + sensitive mouth, “it is impulsive, unconsidered, a trifle boyish, Mr. + Siward. I pay myself the compliment of your sincerity; it is rather nice + to be a girl who can awaken the romance in a man within a day or two's + acquaintance.... And that is all it is—a romantic impulse with a + pretty girl. You see I am frank; I am really glad that you find me + attractive. Tell me so, if you wish. We shall not misunderstand each other + again. Shall we?” + </p> + <p> + He raised his head, considering her, forcing the smile to meet her own. + </p> + <p> + “We shall be better friends than ever,” she asserted confidently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, better than ever.” + </p> + <p> + “Because what you have done means the nicest sort of friendship, you see. + You can't escape its duties and responsibilities now, Mr. Siward. I shall + expect you to spend the greater part of your life in devotedly doing + things for me. Besides, I am now privileged to worry you with advice. Oh, + you have invested me with all sorts of powers now!” + </p> + <p> + He nodded. + </p> + <p> + She sprang to her feet, flushed, smiling, a trifle excited. + </p> + <p> + “Is it all over, and are we the very ideals of friends?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “The very ideals.” + </p> + <p> + “You are nice!” she said impulsively, holding out both gloveless hands. He + held them, she looking at him very sweetly, very confidently. + </p> + <p> + “Allons! Without malice?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Without malice.” + </p> + <p> + “Without afterthoughts?” + </p> + <p> + “Without afterthoughts.” + </p> + <p> + “And—you are content?” persuasively. + </p> + <p> + “Of course not,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but you must be.” + </p> + <p> + “I must be,” he repeated obediently. + </p> + <p> + “And you are! Say it!” + </p> + <p> + “But it does not make me unhappy not to be contented—” + </p> + <p> + “Say it, please; or—do you desire me to be unhappy?” + </p> + <p> + Her small, smooth hands lying between his, they stood confronting one + another in the golden light. She might easily have brought the matter to + an end; and why she did not, she knew no more than a kitten waking to + consciousness under its first caress. + </p> + <p> + “Say it,” she repeated, laughing uncertainly back into his smiling eyes of + a boy. + </p> + <p> + “Say what?” + </p> + <p> + “That you are contented.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward, it is unkind, it is shameless—” + </p> + <p> + “I know it; I am that sort.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I am sorry for you. Look at that!” turning her left hand in his so + that the jewel on the third finger caught the light. + </p> + <p> + “I see it.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet—” + </p> + <p> + “And yet.” + </p> + <p> + “That,” she observed with composure, “is sheer obstinacy.... Isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent.” + </p> + <p> + “How can it be?” impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was + unnerving her—yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. “How can + you really care for me? Do you actually believe that—devotion—comes + like that?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly like that.” + </p> + <p> + “So suddenly? It is impossible!” with a twist of her pretty shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “How did it come—to you?” he asked between his teeth. + </p> + <p> + Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands + contracted in his—tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with + a little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a + minute—more, perhaps, she did not know—she half lay in his + arms, her untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, + then tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came + back, too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice. + </p> + <p> + He had freed her; she remembered that somebody had asked him to—perhaps + herself. That was well; she needed to breathe, to summon strength and + common-sense, find out what had been done, what reasonless madness she had + committed in the half-light of the silver-stemmed trees clustering in + shameful witness on every hand. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her, and she covered her + face with her hands, standing, almost swaying, as wave on wave of + incredulous shame seemed to sweep her from knee to brow. That phase passed + after a while; out of it she emerged, flushed, outwardly composed, into + another phase, in full self-possession once more, able to understand what + had happened without the disproportion of emotional exaggeration. After + all, she had only been kissed. Besides she was a novice, which probably + accounted, in a measure, for the unreasonable emotion coincident with a + caress to which she was unaccustomed. Without looking up at him she found + herself saying coolly enough to surprise herself: “I never supposed I was + capable of that. It appears that I am. I haven't anything to say for + myself... except that I feel fearfully humiliated.... Don't say anything + now... I do not blame you, truly I do not. It was contemptible of me—to + do it—wearing this—” she stretched out her slender left hand, + not looking at him; “it was contemptible!”... She slowly raised her eyes, + summoning all her courage to face him. + </p> + <p> + But he only saw in the pink confusion of her lovely face the dawning + challenge of a coquette saluting her adversary in gay acknowledgment of + his fleeting moment of success. And as his face fell, then hardened into + brightness, instantly she divined how he rated her, and in a flash + realized her weapons and her security, and that the control of the + situation was hers, not in the control of this irresolute young man who + stood so silently considering her. Strange that she should be ashamed of + her own innocence, willing that he believe her accomplished in such arts, + enchanted that he no longer perhaps suspected genuine emotion in the + swift, confused sweetness of her first kiss. If only all that were truly + hidden from him, if he dare not in his heart convict her of anything save + perfection in a gay, imprudent rôle, what a weight lifted, what relief, + what hot self-contempt cooled! What vengeance, too, she would take on him + for the agony of her awakening—the dazed chagrin, the dread of his + wise, amused eyes—eyes that she feared had often looked upon such + scenes; eyes no doubt familiar with such unimportant details as the shamed + demeanour of a novice. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you take it so seriously?” she said, laughing and studying him, + certain now of herself in this new disguise. + </p> + <p> + “Do you take it lightly?” he asked, striving to smile. + </p> + <p> + “I? Ah, I must, you know. You don't expect to marry me... do you, Mr. + Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “I—” He choked up at that, grimly for a while. + </p> + <p> + Walking slowly forward together she fell into step frankly beside him, + near him—too near. “Try to be sensible,” she was saying gaily; “I + like you so much—and it would be horrid to have you mope, you know. + And besides, even if I cared for you, there are reasons, you know—reasons + for any girl to marry the man I am going to marry. Does my cynicism shock + you? What am I to do?” with a shrug. “Such marriages are reasonable, and + far likelier to be agreeable than when fancy is the sole motive—certainly + far more agreeable than an ill-considered yielding to abstract emotion + with nothing concrete in view.... So, you see, I could not marry you even + if I—” her voice was inclined to tremble, but she controlled it. + Would she never learn her rôle? “even if I loved you—” + </p> + <p> + Then her tongue stumbled and was silent; and they walked on, side by side, + through the fading splendour of the year, exchanging no further speech. + </p> + <p> + Toward sunset their guide hailed them, standing high among the rocks, a + silhouette against the sky. And beyond him they saw the poles crowned with + the huge nests of the fish-hawks, marking the last rendezvous at Osprey + Ledge. + </p> + <p> + She turned to him as they started up the last incline, thanking him in a + sweet, natural voice for his care of her—quite innocently—until + in the questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes + softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read her + ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self—ere she + had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose familiar + title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden troubling + significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced uneasily at + the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her years with the + figures 23, and headed with the unconvincing chapter title, “Love.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V A WINNING LOSER + </h2> + <p> + The week passed swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade + from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and dusk + along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the + smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where + the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the + woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the big + northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off into + swamps to the sad undoing of several of the younger setters. + </p> + <p> + There was a pheasant drive at Black Fells to which the Ferralls' guests + were bidden by Beverly Plank—a curious scene, where ladies and + gentlemen stood on a lawn, backed by an army of loaders and gun-bearers, + while another improvised army of beaters drove some thousands of + frightened, bewildered, homeless foreign pheasants at the guns. And the + miserable aliens that escaped the guns were left to perish in the + desolation of a coming winter which they were unfitted to withstand. + </p> + <p> + So the first week of the season sped gaily, ending on Saturday with a + heavy flight of northern woodcock and an uproarious fusillade among the + silver birches. + </p> + <p> + Once Ferrall loaded two motor cars with pioneers for a day beyond his own + boundaries; and one day was spent ingloriously with the beagles; but + otherwise the Shotover estate proved more than sufficient for good bags or + target practice, as the skill of the sportsmen developed. + </p> + <p> + Lord Alderdene, good enough on snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic + by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost + the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough + style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also + adorned with clever pen-and-ink sketches by Siward. + </p> + <p> + Leroy Mortimer had given up shooting and established himself as a haunter + of cushions in sunny corners. Tom O'Hara had gone back to Lenox; Mrs. + Vendenning to Hot Springs. Beverly Plank, master of Black Fells, began to + pervade the house after a tentative appearance; and he and Major Belwether + pottered about the coverts, usually after luncheon—the latter doing + little damage with his fowling-piece, and nobody knew how much with his + gossiping tongue. Quarrier appeared in the field methodically, shot with + judgment, taking no chances for a brilliant performance which might + endanger his respectable average. As for the Page boys, they kept the + river ducks stirring whenever Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel could be + persuaded to share the canoes with them. Otherwise they haunted the + vicinity of those bored maidens, suffering snubs sorrowfully, but + persistently faithful. They were a great nuisance in the evening, + especially as their sister did not permit them to lose more than ten + dollars a day at cards. + </p> + <p> + Cards—that is Bridge and Preference—ruled as usual; and the + latter game being faster suited Mortimer and Ferrall, but did not aid + Siward toward recouping his Bridge losses. + </p> + <p> + Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested Klondyke + for Siward's benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to him than + anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring rather to + “carry” Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into bankruptcy under + the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke. + </p> + <p> + Two matters occupied him; since “cup day” he had never had another + opportunity to see Sylvia Landis alone; that was the first matter. He had + touched neither wine nor spirits nor malt since the night Ferrall had + found him prone, sprawling in a stupor on his disordered bed. That was the + second matter, and it occupied him, at times required all his attention, + particularly when the physical desire for it set in, steadily, + mercilessly, mounting inexorably like a tide.... But, like the tide, it + ebbed at last, particularly when a sleepless night had exhausted him. + </p> + <p> + He had gone back to his shooting again after a cool review of the ethics + involved. It even amused him to think that the whimsical sermon delivered + him by a girl who had cleverness enough to marry many millions, with + Quarrier thrown in, could have so moved him to sentimentality. He had + ceded the big cup of antique silver to Quarrier, too—a matter which + troubled him little, however, as in the irritation of the reaction he had + been shooting with the brilliancy of a demon; and the gun-room books were + open to any doubting guests' inspection. + </p> + <p> + Time, therefore, was never heavy on his hands, save when the tide + threatened—when at night he stirred and awoke, conscious of its + crawling advance, aware of its steady mounting menace. Moments at table, + when the aroma of wine made him catch his breath, moments in the gun-room + redolent of spicy spirits; a maddening volatile fragrance clinging to the + card-room, too! Yes, the long days were filled with such moments for him. + </p> + <p> + But afield the desire faded; and even during the day, indoors, he shrugged + desire aside. It was night that he dreaded—the long hours, lying + there tense, stark-eyed, sickened with desire. + </p> + <p> + As for Sylvia, she and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away + into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the coast. + Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove, they + took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl for him. + Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite time being + set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he returned from a + morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away by that time, + curled up in the tonneau beside Grace Ferrall, watched the dark pines + flying past, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, while the rushing wind drove + health into her and care out of her—cleansing, purifying, + overwhelming winds flowing through and through her, till her very soul + within her seemed shining through the beauty of her eyes. Besides, she had + just confessed. + </p> + <p> + “He kissed you!” repeated Grace Ferrall incredulously. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—a number of times. He was silly enough to do it, and I let + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Did—did he say—” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what he said; I was all nerves—confused—scared—a + perfect stick in fact!... I don't believe he'd care to try again.” + </p> + <p> + Then Mrs. Ferrall deliberately settled down in her furs to extract from + the girl beside her every essential detail; and the girl, frank at first, + grew shy and silent—reticent enough to worry her friend into a + silence which lasted a long while for a cheerful little matron of her + sort. + </p> + <p> + Presently they spoke of other matters—matters interesting to pretty + women with much to do in the coming winter between New York, Hot Springs, + and Florida; surmises as to dinners, dances, and the newcomers in the + younger sets, and the marriages to be arranged or disarranged, and the + scandals humanity is heir to, and the attitude of the bishop toward + divorce. + </p> + <p> + And the new pavillion to be built for Saint Berold's Hospital, and the + various states of the various charities each was interested in, and the + chances of something new at the opera, and the impossibility of saving + Fifth Avenue from truck traffic, and the increasing importance of + Washington as a social centre, and the bad manners of a foreign + ambassador, and the better manners of another diplomat, and the lack of + discrimination betrayed by our ambassador to a certain great Power in + choosing people for presentation at court, and the latest unhappy + British-American marriage, and the hopelessness of the French as decent + husbands, and the recent accident to the Claymores' big yacht, and the + tendency of well-born young men toward politics, and the anything but + distinguished person of Lord Alderdene, which was, however, vastly + superior to the demeanour and person of others of his rank recently + imported, and the beauty of Miss Caithness, and the chance that Captain + Voucher had if Leila Mortimer would let him alone, and the absurdity of + the Page twins, and the furtive coarseness of Leroy Mortimer and his + general badness, and the sadness of Leila Mortimer's lot when she had + always been in love with other people,—and a little scandalous + surmise concerning Tom O'Hara, and the new house on Seventy-ninth Street + building for Mrs. Vendenning, and that charming widow's success at last + year's horse show—and whether the fashion of the function was + reviving, and whether Beverly Plank had completely broken into the social + sets he had besieged so long, or whether a few of the hunting and shooting + people merely permitted him to drive pheasants for them, and why Katharyn + Tassel made eyes at him, having sufficient money of her own to die unwed, + and—and—and then, at last, as the big motor car swung in a + circle at Wenniston Cross-Roads, and poked its brass and lacquer muzzle + toward Shotover, the talk swung back to Siward once more—having + travelled half the world over to find him. + </p> + <p> + “He is the sweetest fellow with his mother,” sighed Grace; “and that + counts heavily with me. But there's trouble ahead for her—sorrow and + trouble enough for them both, if he is a true Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “Heredity again!” said Sylvia impatiently. “Isn't he man enough to win + out? I'll bet you he settles down, marries, and—” + </p> + <p> + “Marries? Not he! How many girls do you suppose have believed that—were + justified in believing he meant anything by his attractive manner and nice + ways of telling you how much he liked you? He had a desperate affair with + Mrs. Mortimer—innocent enough I fancy. He's had a dozen within three + years; and in a week Rena Bonnesdel has come to making eyes at him, and + Eileen gives him no end of chances which he doesn't see. As for Marion + Page, the girl had been on the edge of loving him for years! You laugh? + But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she ever can be + with anybody.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes I do. Hadn't you suspected it?” + </p> + <p> + And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent. + </p> + <p> + “If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could,” + continued Mrs. Ferrall. “He's a perfect fool not to see how she cares for + him.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia said: “He is indeed.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would + only ask her. But he won't.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” ventured Sylvia, “she'll ask him. She strikes me as that sort. + I do not mean it unkindly—only Marion is so tailor-made and + cigaretteful—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her. + </p> + <p> + “Did he propose to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—I think so.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it's the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to play + with him as a rule, and he doesn't have to be definite. I wonder what he + meant by being so definite with you?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose he meant marriage,” said Sylvia serenely; yet there was the + slightest ring in her voice; and it amused Mrs. Ferrall to try her a + little further. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you think he really intended to commit himself?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” retorted Sylvia, turning red. “Do you think he found me + over-willing, as you say he finds others?” + </p> + <p> + “You were probably a new sensation for him,” inferred Mrs. Ferrall + musingly. “You mustn't take him seriously, child—a man with his + record. Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with + everything else he tries; his pen—you know how infernally clever he + is; and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry + home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper + harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with—dogs, horses, + pen, brush, music, women”—that was too malicious, for Sylvia had + flushed up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the + hand of the girl beside her: “Child, child,” she said, “he is not that + sort; no decent man ever is unless the girl is too.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, sitting up very straight in her furs, said: “He found me anything + but difficult—if that's what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't. Please don't be vexed, dear. I plague everybody when I see an + opening. There's really only one thing that worries me about it all.” + </p> + <p> + “What is that?” asked Sylvia without interest. + </p> + <p> + “It's that you might be tempted to care a little for him, which, being + useless, might be unwise.” + </p> + <p> + “I am... tempted.” + </p> + <p> + “Not seriously!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” She turned in a sudden nervous impatience foreign to her. + “Howard Quarrier is too perfectly imperfect for me. I'm glad I've said it. + The things he knows about and doesn't know have been a revelation in this + last week with him. There is too much surface, too much exterior admirably + fashioned. And inside is all clock-work. I've said it; I'm glad I have. He + seemed different at Newport; he seemed nice at Lenox. The truth is, he's a + horrid disappointment—and I'm bored to death at my brilliant + prospects.” + </p> + <p> + The low whizzing hum of the motor filled a silence that produced + considerable effect upon Grace Ferrall. And, after mastering her wits, she + said in a subdued voice: + </p> + <p> + “Of course it's my meddling.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it isn't. I asked your opinion, but I knew what I was going to + do. Only, I did think him personally possible—which made the + expediency, the mercenary view of it easier to contemplate.” + </p> + <p> + She was becoming as frankly brutal as she knew how to be, which made the + revolt the more ominous. + </p> + <p> + “You don't think you could endure him for an hour or two a day, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + “It is not that,” said the girl almost sullenly. + </p> + <p> + “But—” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid of myself—call it inherited mischief if you like! If I + let a man do to me what Mr. Siward did when I was only engaged to Howard, + what might I do—” + </p> + <p> + “You are not that sort!” said Mrs. Ferrall bluntly. “Don't be exotic, + Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know—if I don't know? Most girls are kissed; I—well + I didn't expect to be. But I was! I tell you, Grace, I don't know what I + am or shall be. I'm unsafe; I know that much.” + </p> + <p> + “It's moral and honest to realize it,” said Mrs. Ferrall suavely; “and in + doing so you insure your own safety. Sylvia dear, I wish I hadn't meddled; + I'm meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don't give Howard his + congé for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell upon, but + Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the impulse of the + moment.” + </p> + <p> + “I know it.” + </p> + <p> + “You are too clever not to. Consider the matter wisely, dispassionately, + intelligently, dear; then if by April you simply can't stand it—talk + the thing over with me again,” she ended rather vaguely and wistfully; for + it had been her heart's desire to wed Sylvia's beauty and Quarrier's + fortune, and the suitability of the one for the other was apparent enough + to make even sterner moralists wobbly in their creed. Quarrier, as a + detail of modern human architecture, she supposed might fit in somewhere, + and took that for granted in laying the corner stone for her fairy palace + which Sylvia was to inhabit. And now!—oh, vexation!—the + neglected but essentially constructive detail of human architecture had + buckled, knocking the dream palace and its princess and its splendour + about her ears. + </p> + <p> + “Things never happen in real life,” she observed plaintively; “only + romances have plots where things work out. But we people in real life, we + just go on and on in a badly constructed, plotless sort of way with no + villains, no interesting situations, no climaxes, no ensemble. No, we grow + old and irritable and meaner and meaner; we lose our good looks and + digestions, and we die in hopeless discord with the unity required in a + dollar and a half novel by a master of modern fiction.” + </p> + <p> + “But some among us amass fortunes,” suggested Sylvia, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “But we don't live happy ever after. Nobody ever had enough money in real + life.” + </p> + <p> + “Some fall in love,” observed Sylvia, musing. + </p> + <p> + “And they are not content, silly!” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Because nobody ever had enough love in real life,” mocked Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + “You have said it, child. That is the malady of the world, and nobody + knows it until some pretty ninny like you babbles the truth. And that is + why we care for those immortals in romance, those fortunate lovers who, in + fable, are given and give enough of love; those magic shapes in verse and + tale whose hearts are satisfied when the mad author of their being inks + his last period and goes to dinner.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia laughed awhile, then, chin on wrist, sat musing there, muffled in + her furs. + </p> + <p> + “As for love, I think I should be moderate in the asking, in the giving. A + little—to flavour routine—would be sufficient for me I fancy.” + </p> + <p> + “You know so much about it,” observed Mrs. Ferrall ironically. + </p> + <p> + “I am permitted to speculate, am I not?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Only speculate in sound investments, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “How can you make a sound investment in love? Isn't it always sheerest + speculation?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that is why simple matrimony is usually a safer speculation than + love.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but—love isn't matrimony.” + </p> + <p> + “Match that with its complementary platitude and you have the essence of + modern fiction,” observed Mrs. Ferrall. “Love is a subject talked to + death, which explains the present shortage in the market I suppose. You're + not in love and you don't miss it. Why cultivate an artificial taste for + it? If it ever comes naturally, you'll be astonished at your capacity for + it, and the constant deterioration in quantity and quality of the visible + supply. Goodness! my epigrams make me yawn—or is it age and the ill + humour of the aged when the porridge spills over on the family cat?” + </p> + <p> + “I am the cat, I suppose,” asked Sylvia, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “Yes you are—and you go tearing away, back up, fur on end, leaving + me by the fire with no porridge and only the aroma of the singeing fur to + comfort me.... Still there's one thing to comfort me.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Kitty-cats come back, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I suppose so.... Do you believe I could induce him to wear his hair + any way except pompadour?... and, dear, his beard is so dreadfully silky. + Isn't there anything he could take for it?” + </p> + <p> + “Only a razor I'm afraid. Those long, thick, soft, eyelashes of his are + ominous. Eyes of that sort ruin a man for my taste. He might just as + reasonably wear my hat.” + </p> + <p> + “But he can't follow the fashions in eyes,” laughed Sylvia. “Oh, this is + atrocious of us—it is simply horrible to sit here and say such + things. I am cold-blooded enough as it is—material enough, mean, + covetous, contemptible—” + </p> + <p> + “Dear!” said Grace Ferrall mildly, “you are not choosing a husband; you + are choosing a career. To criticise his investments might be bad taste; to + be able to extract what amusement you can out of Howard is a direct mercy + from Heaven. Otherwise you'd go mad, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Grace! Do you wish me to marry him?” + </p> + <p> + “What is the alternative, dear?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, nothing—self-respect, dowdiness, and peace.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that all?” + </p> + <p> + “All I can see.” + </p> + <p> + “Not Stephen Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “To marry? No. To enjoy, yes.... Grace, I have had such a good time with + him; you don't know! He is such a boy—sometimes; and I—I + believe that I am rather good for him.... Not that I'd ever again let him + do that sort of thing.... Besides, his curiosity is quenched; I am the + sort he supposed. Now he's found out he will be nice.... It's been days + since I've had a talk with him. He tried to, but I wouldn't. Besides, the + major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing + definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of matters + rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not even + appear to understand or notice—it was all done in such a horridly + vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he took + to the Patroons is better company than he finds in nine places out of ten + among his own sort.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Grace Ferrall slowly, “if that is the way you feel, I don't see + why you shouldn't play with Mr. Siward whenever you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor I. I've been a perfect fool not to.... Howard hates him.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “What a question! A woman knows such things. Then, you remember that + caricature—so dreadfully like Howard? Howard has no sense of humour; + he detests such things. It was the most dreadful thing that Mr. Siward + could have done to him.” + </p> + <p> + “Meddled again!” groaned Grace. “Doesn't Howard know that I did that?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but nothing I can say alters his conviction that the likeness was + intended. You know it was a likeness! And if Mr. Siward had not told me + that it was not intended, I should never have believed it to be an + accident.” + </p> + <p> + After a prolonged silence Sylvia said, overcarelessly: “I don't quite + understand Howard. With me anger lasts but a moment, and then I'm open to + overtures for peace... I think Howard's anger lasts.” + </p> + <p> + “It does,” said Grace. “He was a muff as a boy—a prig with a prig's + memory under all his shallow, showy surface. I'm frank with you; I never + could take my cousin either respectfully or seriously, but I've known him + to take his own anger so seriously that years after he has visited it upon + those who had really wronged him. And he is equipped for retaliation if he + chooses. That fortune of his reaches far.... Not that I think him capable + of using such a power to satisfy a mere personal dislike. Howard has + principles, loads of them. But—the weapon is there.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it true that Mr. Siward is interested in building electric roads?” + asked Sylvia curiously. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, child. Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. I wondered.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Mortimer said so.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I suppose he is. I'll ask Kemp if you like. Why? Isn't it all right + to build them?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so. Howard is in it somehow. In fact Howard's company is behind + Mr. Siward's, I believe.” + </p> + <p> + Grace Ferrall turned and looked at the girl beside her, laughing outright. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Howard doesn't do mysterious financial things to nice young men + because they draw impudent pictures of him running after his dog—or + for any other reason. That, dear, is one of those skilfully developed + portions of an artistic plot; and plots exist only in romance. So do + villains; and besides, my cousin isn't one. Besides that, if Howard is in + that thing, no doubt Kemp and I are too. So your nice young man is in very + safe company.” + </p> + <p> + “You draw such silly inferences,” said Sylvia coolly; but there was a good + deal of colour in her cheeks; and she knew it and pulled her big motor + veil across her face, fastening it under her chin. All of which amused + Grace Ferrall infinitely until the subtler significance of the girl's + mental processes struck her, sobering her own thoughts. Sylvia, too, had + grown serious in her preoccupation; and the partie-à-deux terminated a few + minutes later in a duet of silence over the tea-cups in the gun-room. + </p> + <p> + The weather had turned warm and misty; one of those sudden sea-coast + changes had greyed the blue in the sky, spreading a fine haze over land + and water, effacing the crisp sparkle of the sea, dulling the westering + sun. + </p> + <p> + A few moments later Sylvia, glancing over her shoulder, noticed that a + fine misty drizzle had clouded the casements. That meant that her usual + evening stroll on the cliffs with Quarrier, before dressing for dinner, + was off. And she drew a little breath of unconscious relief as Marion Page + walked in, her light woollen shooting-jacket, her hat, shoes, and the + barrels of the fowling-piece tucked under her left arm-pit, all glimmering + frostily with powdered rain drops. + </p> + <p> + She said something to Grace Ferrall about the mist promising good + point-shooting in the morning, took the order book from a servant, jotted + down her request to be called an hour before sunrise, filled in the + gun-room records with her score—the species and number bagged, and + the number of shells used—and accepting the tea offered, drew out a + tiny cigarette-case of sweet-bay wood heavily crusted with rose-gold. + </p> + <p> + “With whom were you shooting?” asked Grace, as Marion dropped one + well-shaped leg over the other and wreathed her delicately tanned features + in smoke. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen Siward and Blinky. They're at it yet, but I had some letters to + write.” She glanced leisurely at Sylvia and touched the ash-tray with the + whitening end of her cigarette. “That dog you let Mr. Siward have is a + good one. I'm taking him to Jersey next week for the cock-shooting.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia returned her calm gaze blankly. + </p> + <p> + An unreasonable and disagreeable shock had passed through her. + </p> + <p> + “My North Carolina pointers are useless for close work,” observed Marion + indifferently; and she leaned back, watching the blue smoke curling upward + from her cigarette. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, distrait, but with downcast eyes on fire under the fringed lids, + was thinking of the cheque Siward had given her for Sagamore. The + transaction, for her, had been a business one on the surface only. She had + never meant to use the cheque. She had laid it away among a few letters, + relics, pleasant souvenirs of the summer. To her the affair had been + softened by a delicate hint of intimacy,—the delight he was to take + in something that had once been hers had given her a faint taste of the + pleasure of according pleasure to a man. And this is what he had done! + </p> + <p> + The drizzle had turned to fog, through which rain was now pelting the + cliffs; people were returning from the open; a motor-car came whizzing + into the drive, and out of it tumbled Rena and Eileen and the faithful + Pages, the girls irritable and ready for tea, and the boys like a pair of + eager, wagging, setter puppies, pleased with everything and everybody, + utterly oblivious to the sombre repose brooding above the tea-table. + </p> + <p> + Their sister calmly refused them the use of her cigarettes. Eileen + presented her pretty shoulder, Rena nearly yawned at them, but, nothing + dampened, they recounted a number of incidents with reciprocal enthusiasm + to Sylvia, who was too inattentive to smile, and to Grace Ferrall, who + smiled the more sweetly through sheer inattention. + </p> + <p> + Then Alderdene came in, blinking a greeting through his foggy goggles, + sloppy, baggy, heavy shoes wheezing, lingered in the vicinity long enough + to swallow his “peg” and acquire a disdainful opinion of his shooting from + Marion, and then took himself off, leaving the room noisy with his laugh, + which resembled the rattle of a startled kingfisher. + </p> + <p> + In ones and twos the guests reported as the dusk-curtained fog closed in + on Shotover. Quarrier came, dry as a chip under his rain-coat, but his + silky beard was wet with rain, and moisture powdered his long, soft + eyelashes and white skin; and his flexible, pointed fingers, as he drew + off his gloves, seemed startling in their whiteness through the gathering + gloom. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose our evening walk is out of the question,” he said, standing by + Sylvia, who had nodded a greeting and then turned her head rather hastily + to see who had entered the room. It was Siward, only a vague shape in the + gloom, but perfectly recognisable to her. At the same moment Marion Page + rose leisurely and strolled toward the billiard-room. + </p> + <p> + “Our walk?” repeated Sylvia absently—“it's raining, you know.” Yet + only a day or two ago she had walked to church with Siward through the + rain, the irritated Major feeling obliged to go with them. Her eyes + followed Siward's figure, suddenly dark against the door of the lighted + billiard-room, then brilliantly illuminated, as he entered, nodded + acceptance to Mortimer's invitation, and picked up the cue just laid aside + by Agatha Caithness, who had turned to speak to Marion. Then Mortimer's + bulk loomed nearer; voices became gay and animated in the billiard-room. + Siward's handsome face was bent toward Agatha Caithness in gay challenge; + Mortimer's heavy laugh broke out; there came the rattle of pool-balls, and + the dull sound of cue-butts striking the floor; then, crack! and the game + began, with Marion Page and Siward fighting Mortimer and Miss Caithness + for something or other. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier had been speaking for some time before Sylvia became aware of it—something + about a brisk walk in the morning somewhere; and she nodded impatiently, + watching Marion's supple waist-line as she bent far over the illuminated + table for a complicated shot at the enemy. + </p> + <p> + His fiancée's inattention was not agreeable to Quarrier. A dozen things + had happened since his arrival which had not been agreeable to him: her + failure to meet him at the Fells Crossing, and the reason for her failure; + and her informal acquaintance with Siward, whose presence at Shotover he + had not looked for, and her sudden intimacy with the man he had never + particularly liked, and whom within six months he had come to detest and + to avoid. + </p> + <p> + These things—the outrageous liberty Siward had permitted himself in + caricaturing him, the mortifying caprice of Sylvia for Siward on the day + of the Shotover cup-drive—had left indelible impressions in a cold + and rather heavy mind, slow to waste effort in the indulgence of any vital + emotion. + </p> + <p> + In a few years indifference to Siward had changed to passive disapproval; + that, again, to an emotionless dislike; and when the scandal at the + Patroons Club occurred, for the first time in his life he understood what + it was to fear the man he disliked. For if Siward had committed the insane + imprudence which had cost him his title to membership, he had also done + something, knowingly or otherwise, which awoke in Quarrier a cold, slow + fear; and that fear was dormant, but present, now, and it, for the time + being, dictated his attitude and bearing toward the man who might or might + not be capable of using viciously a knowledge which Quarrier believed that + he must possess. + </p> + <p> + For that reason, when it was not possible to avoid Siward, his bearing + toward him was carefully civil; for that reason he dampened Major + Belwether's eagerness to tell everybody all he knew about the shamelessly + imprudent girl who had figured with Siward in the scandal, but whose + identity the press had not discovered. + </p> + <p> + Silence was always desirable to Quarrier; silence concerning all matters + was a trait inborn and congenially cultivated to a habit by him in every + affair of life—in business, in leisure, in the methodical pursuits + of such pleasures as a limited intellect permitted him, in personal and + family matters, in public questions and financial problems. + </p> + <p> + He listened always, but never invited confidences; he had no opinion to + express when invited. And he became very, very rich. + </p> + <p> + And over it all spread a thin membrane of vanity, nervous, not + intellectual, sensitiveness; for all sense of humour was absent in this + man, whose smile, when not a physical effort, was automatically and + methodically responsive to certain fixed cues. He smiled when he said + “Good morning,” when declining or accepting invitations, when taking his + leave, when meeting anybody of any financial importance, and when + everybody except himself had begun to laugh in a theatre or a + drawing-room. This limit to any personal manifestation he considered a + generous one. And perhaps it was. + </p> + <p> + A sudden rain-squall, noisy against the casements, had darkened the room; + then the electric lights broke out with a mild candle-like lustre, and + Quarrier, standing beside Sylvia's chair, discovered it to be empty. + </p> + <p> + It was not until he had dressed for dinner that he saw her again, seated + on the stairs with Marion Page—a new appearance of intimacy for both + women, who heretofore had found nothing except a passing civility in + common. + </p> + <p> + Marion was discussing dog-breeding with that cool, crude, direct + insouciance so unpleasant to some men. Sylvia was attentive, curious, and + instinctively shrinking by turns, secretly dismayed at the overplainness + of terms employed in kennel lore by the girl at her side. + </p> + <p> + The conversation veered toward the Sagamore pup. Marion explained that + Siward was too busy to do any Southern shooting, which was why he was glad + to have her polish Sagamore on Jersey woodcock. + </p> + <p> + “I thought it was not good for a dog to be used by anybody except his + master,” said Sylvia carelessly. + </p> + <p> + “Only second-raters suffer. Besides, I have shot enough, now, with Mr. + Siward to use his dog as he does.” + </p> + <p> + “He is an agreeable shooting companion, smiled Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + “He is perfect,” answered Marion coolly. “The only test for a thoroughbred + is the field. He rings true.” + </p> + <p> + They exchanged carefully impersonal views on Siward's good qualities for a + moment or two; then Marion said bluntly: “Do you know anything in + particular about that Patroons Club affair?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Sylvia, “nothing in particular.” + </p> + <p> + “Neither do I; and I don't care to; I mean, that I don't care what he did; + and I wish that gossiping old Major would stop trying to hint it to me.” + </p> + <p> + “My uncle!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I forgot. Beg your pardon, you know, but—” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not offended,” observed Sylvia, with a shrug of her pretty, bare + shoulders. + </p> + <p> + Marion laughed. “Such a gadabout! Besides, I'm no prude, but he and Leroy + Mortimer have no business to talk to unmarried women the way they do. No + matter how worldly wise we are, men have no right to suppose we are.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh!” shrugged Sylvia. “I have no patience to study out double-entendre, + so it never shocks me. Besides—” + </p> + <p> + She was going to add that she was not at all versed in doubtful worldly + wisdom, but decided not to, as it might seem to imply disapproval of + Marion's learning. So she went on: “Besides, what have innuendoes to do + with Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know whether I care to understand them. The Major hinted that the + woman—the one who figured in it—is—rather exclusively + Mr. Siward's 'property.'” + </p> + <p> + “Exclusively?” repeated Sylvia curiously. “She's a public actress, isn't + she?” + </p> + <p> + “If you call the manoeuvres of a newly fledged chorus girl acting, yes, + she is. But I don't believe Mr. Siward figures in that unfashionable rôle. + Why, there are too many women of his own sort ready for mischief.” Marion + turned to Sylvia, her eyes hard with a cynicism quite lost on the other. + “That sort of thing might suit Leroy Mortimer, but it doesn't fit Mr. + Siward,” she concluded, rising as their hostess appeared from above and + the butler from below. + </p> + <p> + And all through dinner an indefinitely unpleasant remembrance of the + conversation lingered with Sylvia, and she sat silent for minutes at a + time, returning to actualities with a long, curious side-glance across at + Siward, and an uncomprehending smile of assent for whatever Quarrier or + Major Belwether had been saying to her. + </p> + <p> + Cards she managed to avoid after dinner, and stood by Quarrier's chair for + half an hour, absently watching the relentless method and steady adherence + to rule which characterised his Bridge-playing, the eager, unslaked + brutality of Mortimer, the set, selfish face of his pretty wife, the + chilled intensity of Miss Caithness. + </p> + <p> + And Grace Ferrall's phrase recurred to her, “Nobody ever has enough + money!”—not even these people, whose only worry was to find + investment for the surplus they were unable to spend. Something of the + meanness of it all penetrated her. Were these the real visages of these + people, whose faces otherwise seemed so smooth and human? Was Leila + Mortimer aware of the shrillness of her voice? Did Agatha Caithness + realise how pinched her mouth and nose had grown? Did even Leroy Mortimer + dream how swollen the pouches under his eyes were; how red and puffy his + hands, shuffling a new pack; how pendulous and dreadful his red under-lip + when absorbedly making up his cards? + </p> + <p> + Instinctively she moved a step forward for a glimpse of Quarrier's face. + The face appeared to be a study in blankness. His natural visage was + emotionless and inexpressive enough, but this face, from which every + vestige of colour had fled, fascinated her with its dead whiteness; and + the hair brushed high, the long, black lashes, the silky beard, struck her + as absolutely ghastly, as though they had been glued to a face of wax. + </p> + <p> + She turned on her heel, restless, depressed, inclined for companionship. + The Page boys had tempted Rena and Eileen to the billiard-room; Voucher, + Alderdene, and Major Belwether were huddled over a table, immersed in + Preference; Katharyn Tassel and Grace Ferrall sat together looking over + the announcements of Sylvia's engagement in a batch of New York papers + just arrived; Ferrall was writing at a desk, and Siward and Marion were + occupied in the former's sketch for an ideal shooting vehicle, to be built + on the buckboard principle, with a clever arrangement for dogs, guns, + ammunition, and provisions. Siward's profile, as it bent in the lamplight + over the paper, was very engaging. The boyish note predominated as he + talked while he drew, his eyes now smiling, now seriously intent on the + sketch which was developing so swiftly under his facile pencil. + </p> + <p> + Marion's clean-cut blond head was close to his, her supple body twisted in + her seat, one bare arm hanging over the back of the chair. Something in + her attitude seemed to exclude intrusion; her voice, too, was hushed in + comment, though his was pitched in his naturally agreeable key. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia had taken a hesitating step toward them, but halted, turning + irresolutely; and suddenly over her crept a sensation of isolation—something + of that feeling which had roused her at midnight from her bed and driven + her to Grace Ferrall for a refuge from she knew not what. + </p> + <p> + The rustle of her silken dinner gown was scarcely perceptible as she + turned. Siward, moving his head slightly, glanced up, then brought his + sketch to a brilliant finish. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you think something of this sort is practicable?” he asked + pleasantly, including Mrs. Ferrall and Katharyn Tassel in a general appeal + which brought them into the circle of two. Grace Ferrall leaned forward, + looking over Marion's shoulder, and Siward rose and stepped back, with a + quick glance into the hall—in time to catch a glimmer of pale blue + and lace on the stairs. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose my cigarettes are in my room as usual,” he said aloud to + himself, wheeling so that he could not have time to see Marion's offer of + her little gold-encrusted case, or notice her quickly raised eyes, bright + with suspicion and vexation. For she, too, had observed Sylvia's distant + entrance, had been perfectly aware of Siward's cognizance of Sylvia's + retreat; and when Siward went on sketching she had been content. Now she + could not tell whether he had deliberately and skillfully taken his congé + to follow Sylvia, or whether, in his quest for his cigarettes, chance + might meddle, as usual. Even if he returned, she could not know with + certainty how much of a part hazard had played on the landing above, where + she already heard the distant sounds of Sylvia's voice mingling with + Siward's, then a light footfall or two, and silence. + </p> + <p> + He had greeted her in his usual careless, happy fashion, just as she had + reached her chamber door; and she turned at the sound of his voice, + confused, unsmiling, a little pale. + </p> + <p> + “Is it headache, or are you too in quest of cigarettes?” he asked, as he + stopped in passing her where she stood, one slender hand on the knob of + her door. + </p> + <p> + “I don't smoke, you know,” she said, looking up at him with a cool little + laugh. “It isn't headache either. I was—boring myself, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there any virtue in me as a remedy?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I have no doubt you have lots of virtues.... Perhaps you might do as + a temporary remedy—first aid to the injured.” She laughed again, + uncertainly. “But you are on a quest for cigarettes.” + </p> + <p> + “And you?” + </p> + <p> + “A rendezvous—with the Sand-Man.... Good night.” + </p> + <p> + “Good night... if you must say it.” + </p> + <p> + “It's polite to say something... isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “It would be polite to say, 'With pleasure, Mr. Siward!'” + </p> + <p> + “But you haven't invited me to do anything—not even to accept a + cigarette. Besides, you didn't expect to meet me up here?” + </p> + <p> + The trailing accent made it near enough a question for him to say, “Yes, I + did.” + </p> + <p> + “How could you?” + </p> + <p> + “I saw you leave the room.” + </p> + <p> + “You were sketching for Marion Page. Do you wish me to believe that you + noticed me—” + </p> + <p> + “—And followed you? Yes, I did follow you.” She looked at him, then + past him toward a corner of the wide hall where a maid in cap and apron + sat pretending to be sewing. “Careful!” she motioned with smiling lips, + “servants gossip.... Good night, again.” + </p> + <p> + “Won't you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear! you mustn't speak so loud,” she motioned, with her fresh, sweet + lips curving on the edge of that adorable smile once more. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't we have a moment—” + </p> + <p> + “No—” + </p> + <p> + “One minute—” + </p> + <p> + “Hush! I must open my door”—lingering. “I might come out again, if + you have anything particularly important to communicate to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I have. There's a big bay-window at the end of the other corridor. Will + you come?” + </p> + <p> + But she opened her door, with a light laugh, saying “good night” again, + and closed it noiselessly behind her. + </p> + <p> + He walked on, turning into his corridor, but kept straight ahead, passing + his own door, on to the window at the end of the hall, then north along a + wide passageway which terminated in a bay-window overlooking the roof of + the indoor swimming tank. + </p> + <p> + Rain rattled heavily, against the panes and on the lighted roof of + opalescent glass below, through which he could make out the shadowy fronds + of palms. + </p> + <p> + It appeared that he had cigarettes enough, for he lighted one presently, + and, leaving his chair, curled up in the cushioned and pillowed + window-seat, gathering his knees together under his arm. + </p> + <p> + The cigarette he had lighted went out. He had bitten into it and twisted + it so roughly that it presently crumbled; and he threw the rags of it into + a metal bowl, locking his jaws in silence. For the night threatened to be + a bad one for him. A heavy fragrance from his neighbour's wine-glass at + dinner had stirred up what had for a time lain dormant; and, by accident, + something—some sweetmeat he had tasted—was saturated in + brandy. + </p> + <p> + Now, his restlessness at the prospect of a blank night had quickened to + uneasiness, with a hint of fever tinting his skin, but, as yet, the dull + ache in his body was scarcely more than a premonition. + </p> + <p> + He had his own devices for tiding him over such periods—reading, + tobacco, and the long, blind, dogged tramps he took in town. But here, + to-night, in the rain, one stood every chance of walking off the cliffs; + and he was sick of reading himself sightless over the sort of books sent + wholesale to Shotover; and he was already too ill at ease, physically, to + make smoking endurable. + </p> + <p> + Were it not for a half-defiant, half-sullen dread of the coming night, he + might have put it from his mind in spite of the slowly increasing nervous + tension and the steady dull consciousness of desire. He drew another + Sirdar from his case and sat staring at the rain-smeared night, twisting + the frail fragrant cigarette to bits between his fingers. + </p> + <p> + After a while he began to walk monotonously to and fro the length of the + corridor, like a man timing his steps to the heavy ache of body or mind. + Once he went as far as his own door, entered, and stepping to the + wash-basin, let the icy water run over hands and wrists. This sometimes + helped to stimulate and soothe him; it did now, for a while—long + enough to change the current of his thoughts to the girl he had hoped + might have the imprudence to return for a tryst, innocent enough in + itself, yet unconventional and unreasonable enough to prove attractive to + them both. + </p> + <p> + Probably she wouldn't come; she had kept her fluffy skirts clear of him + since Cup Day—which simply corroborated his vague estimate of her. + Had she done the contrary, his estimate would have been the same; for, + unconsciously but naturally, he had prejudged her. A girl who could + capture Quarrier at full noontide, and in the face of all Manhattan, was a + girl equipped for anything she dared—though she was probably too + clever to dare too much; a girl to be interested in, to amuse and be + amused by; a girl to be reckoned with. His restlessness and his fever + subdued by the icy water, he stood drying his hands, thinking, coolly, how + close he had come to being seriously in love with this young girl, whose + attitude was always a curious temptation, whose smile was a charming + provocation, whose youth and beauty were to him a perpetual challenge. He + admitted to himself, calmly, that he had never seen a woman he cared as + much for; that for the brief moment of his declaration he had known an + utterly new emotion, which inevitably must have become the love he had so + quietly declared it to be. He had never before felt as he felt then, cared + as he cared then. Anything had been possible for him at that time—any + degree of love, any devotion, any generous renunciation. Clear-sighted, + master of himself, he saw love before him, and knew it when he saw it; + recognised it, was ready for it, offered it, emboldened by her soft hands + so eloquent in his. + </p> + <p> + And in his arms he held it for an instant, he thought, spite of the sudden + inertia, spite of the according of cold lips and hands still colder, + relaxed, inert; held it until he doubted. That was all; he had been wise + to doubt such sudden miracles as that. She, consummate and charming, had + soon set him right. And, after all, she liked him; and she had been sure + enough of herself to permit the impulse of a moment to carry her with him—a + little way, a very little way—merely to the formal symbol of a + passion the germ of which she recognised in him. + </p> + <p> + Then she had become intelligent again, with a little laughter, a little + malice, a becoming tint of hesitation and confusion; all the sense, all + the arts, all the friendly sweetness of a woman thorough in training, + schooled in self-possession, clear enough to be audacious and perverse + without danger to herself, to the man, or to the main chance. + </p> + <p> + Standing there alone in his lighted room, he wondered whether, had her + trained and inbred policy been less precise, less worldly, she might have + responded to such a man as he. Perfectly conscious that he had been + capable of loving her; aware, too, that his experience had left him on + that borderland only through his cool refusal to cross it and face a + hopeless battle already lost, he leisurely and mentally took the measure + of his own state of mind, and found all well, all intact; found himself + still master of his affections, and probably clear-minded enough to remain + so under the circumstances. + </p> + <p> + To such a man as he, impulse to love, capacity to love, did not mean + instant capsizing with a flop into sentimental tempests, where swamped, + ardent and callow youth raises a hysterically selfish clamour for + reciprocity or death. His nature partly, partly his character, accounted + for this balance; and, in part, a rather wide experience with women of + various degrees counted more. + </p> + <p> + So, by instinct and experience, normally temperate, only what was abnormal + and inherited might work a mischief in this man. His listlessness, his + easy acquiescence, were but consequent upon the self-knowledge of + self-control. But mastery of the master-vice required something different; + he was sick of a sickness; and because, in this sickness, will, mind, and + body are tainted too, reason and logic lack clarity; and, to the signals + of danger his reply had always been either overconfident or weak—and + it had been always the same reply: “Not yet. There is time.” And now, this + last week, it had come upon him that the time was now; the skirmish was + already on; and it had alarmed him suddenly to find that the skirmish was + already a battle, and a rough one. + </p> + <p> + As he stood there he heard voices on the stairs. People had already begun + to retire, because late cards and point-shooting at dawn do not agree. And + a point-shooting picnic in snugly elaborate blinds was popular with women—or + was supposed to be. + </p> + <p> + He could distinguish by their voices, by their laughter and step, the + people who were mounting the stairway and lingering for gossip or passing + through the various corridors to court the sleep denied him; he heard + Mortimer's heavy tread and the soft shuffling step of Major Belwether as + they left the elevator; and the patter of his hostess's satin slippers, + and her gay “good night” on the stairs. + </p> + <p> + Little by little the tumult died away. Quarrier's measured step came, + passed; Marion Page's cool, crisp voice and walk, and the giggle and amble + of the twins, and Rena and Eileen,—the last laggards, with Ferrall's + brisk, decisive tones and stride to close the procession. + </p> + <p> + He turned and looked grimly at his bed, then, shutting off the lights, he + opened his door and went out into the deserted corridor, where the + elevator shaft was dark and only the dim night-lights burned at angles in + the passageways. + </p> + <p> + He had his rain-coat and cap with him, not being certain of what he might + be driven to; but for the present he found the bay-window overlooking the + swimming tank sufficient to begin the vigil. + </p> + <p> + Secure from intrusion, as there were no bedrooms on that corridor, he + tossed coat and cap into the window-seat, walked to and fro for a while + listening to the rain, then sat down, his well-shaped head between his + hands. And in silence he faced the Enemy. + </p> + <p> + How long he had sat there he did not know. When he raised his face, all + gray and drawn with the tension of conflict, his eyes were not very clear, + nor did the figure standing there in the dim light from the hall mean + anything for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward?” in an uncertain voice, almost a whisper. + </p> + <p> + He stood up mechanically, and she saw his face. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ill? What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Ill? No.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “I fancy I was close to the + edge of sleep.” Some colour came back into his face; he stood smiling now, + the significance of her presence dawning on him. + </p> + <p> + “Did you really come?” he asked. “This isn't a very lovely but impalpable + astral vision, is it?” + </p> + <p> + “It's horridly imprudent, isn't it?” she murmured, still considering the + rather drawn and pallid face of the man before her. “I came out of pure + curiosity, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced about her. He moved a big bunch of hothouse roses so she could + pass, and she settled down lightly on the edge of the window-seat. When he + had piled some big downy cushions behind her back, she made a quick + gesture of invitation. + </p> + <p> + “I have only a moment,” she said, as he seated himself beside her. “Part + of my curiosity is satisfied in finding you here; I didn't suppose you so + faithful.” + </p> + <p> + “I can be fairly faithful. What else are you curious about?” + </p> + <p> + “You said you had something important—” + </p> + <p> + “—To tell you? So I did. That was bribery, perjury, false pretences, + robbery under arms, anything you will! I only wanted you to come.” + </p> + <p> + “That is a shameful confession!” she said; but her smile was gay enough, + and she noiselessly shook out her fluffy skirts and settled herself a + trifle more deeply among the pillows. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” she observed absently, “you are dreadfully mortified at + yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally,” he admitted. + </p> + <p> + The patter of the rain attracted her attention; she peered out through the + blurred casements into the blackness. Then, picking up his cap and + indicating his raincoat, “Why?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—in case you hadn't come—” + </p> + <p> + “A walk? By yourself? A night like this on the cliffs! You are not + perfectly mad, are you?” + </p> + <p> + “Not perfectly.” + </p> + <p> + Her face grew serious and beautiful. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Things.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you care to be more explicit?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he said, with a humourous glance at her, “I haven't seen you for + ages. That's not wholesome for me, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “But you see me now; and it does not seem to benefit you.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel much better,” he insisted, laughing; and her blue eyes grew very + lovely as the smile broke from them in uncertain response. + </p> + <p> + “So you had nothing really important to tell me, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Only that I wanted you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!... I said important.” + </p> + <p> + But he did not argue the question; and she leaned forward, broke a rose + from its stem, then sank back a little way among the cushions, looking at + him, idly inhaling the hothouse perfume. + </p> + <p> + “Why have you so ostentatiously avoided me, Mr. Siward?” she asked + languidly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, upon my word!” he said, with a touch of irritation. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you are so dreadfully literal!” she shrugged, brushing her straight, + sensitive nose with the pink blossom; “I only said it to give you a + chance.... If you are going to be stupid, good night!” But she made no + movement to go.... “Yes, then; I have avoided you. And it doesn't become + you to ask why.” + </p> + <p> + “Because I kissed you?” + </p> + <p> + “You hint at the true reason so chivalrously, so delicately,” she said, + “that I scarcely recognise it.” The cool mockery of her voice and the + warm, quick colour tinting neck and face were incongruous. He thought with + slow surprise that she was not yet letter-perfect in her rôle of the + material triumphant over the spiritual. A trifle ashamed, too, he sat + silent, watching the silken petals fall one by one as she slowly detached + them with delicate, restless lips. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry I came,” she said reflectively. “You don't know why I came, do + you? Sheer loneliness, Mr. Siward; there is something of the child in me + still, you see. I am not yet sufficiently resourceful to take it out in a + quietly tearful obligato; I never learned how to produce tears.... So I + came to you.” She had stripped the petals from the rose, and now, tossing + the crushed branch from her, she leaned forward and broke from its stem a + heavy, perfumed bud, half unfolded. + </p> + <p> + “It seems my fate to pass my life in bidding you good night,” she said, + straightening up and turning to him with the careless laughter touching + mouth and eyes again. Then, resting her weight on one hand, her smooth, + white shoulder rounded beside her cheek, she looked at him out of + humourous eyes: + </p> + <p> + “What is it that women find so attractive in you? The man's experienced + insouciance? The boy's unconscious cynicism? The mystery of your + self-sufficiency? The faulty humanity in you? The youth in you already + showing traces of wear that hint of future scars? What will you be at + thirty-five? At forty?... Ah,” she added softly, “what are you now? For I + don't know, and you cannot tell me if you would.... Out of these little + windows called eyes we look at one another, and study surfaces, and try to + peep into neighbours' windows. But all is dark behind the windows—always + dark, in there where they tell us souls hide.” + </p> + <p> + She laid the shell-pink bud against her cheek that matched it, smiling + with wise sweetness to herself. + </p> + <p> + “What counts with you?” he asked after a moment. + </p> + <p> + “Counts? How?” + </p> + <p> + “In your affections. What prepossesses you?” + </p> + <p> + She laughed audaciously: “Your traits—some of them—all of them + that you reveal. You must be aware of that much already, considering + everything—” + </p> + <p> + “Then, what is it I lack? Where do I fail?” + </p> + <p> + “But you don't lack—you don't fail! I ask nothing more of you, Mr. + Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “A man from whom a woman desires nothing is already convicted of + insufficiency.... You would recognise this very quickly if I made love to + you.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that the only way I am to discover your insufficiency, Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Or my sufficiency.... Have you enough curiosity to try?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I thought you were to try.” Then, quickly: “But I think you have + already experimented; and I did not notice your shortcomings. So there is + no use in pursuing that line of investigation any farther—is there?” + </p> + <p> + And always with her the mischief lay in the trailing upward inflection; in + the confused sweetness of her eyes, and their lovely uncertainty. + </p> + <p> + One slim white hand held the rose against her cheek; the other lay idly on + her knee, fresh and delicate as a fallen petal; and he laid both hands + over it and lifted it between them. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward, I am afraid this is becoming a habit with you.” The gay + mockery was not quite genuine; the curve of lips too sensitive for a voice + so lightly cynical. + </p> + <p> + He smiled, bending there, considering her hand between his; and after a + moment her muscles relaxed, and bare round arm and hand lay abandoned to + him. + </p> + <p> + “Quite flawless—perfect,” he said aloud to himself. + </p> + <p> + “Do you—read hands?” + </p> + <p> + “Vaguely.” He touched the smooth palm: “Long life, clear mind, and”—he + laughed—“heart supreme over reason! There is written a white lie—but + a pretty one.” + </p> + <p> + “It is no lie.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed again, unconvinced. + </p> + <p> + “It is the truth,” she said, seriously insisting and bending sideways + above her own hand where it lay in his. “It is a miserable confession to + admit it, but I'm afraid intelligence would fight a losing battle with + heart if the conflict ever came. You see, I know, having nobody to study + except myself all these years.... There is the proof of it—that + selfish, smooth contour, where there should be generosity. Then, look at + the tendency of imagination toward mischief!” She laid her right + forefinger on the palm of the left hand which he held, and traced the + developments arising in the Mount of Hermes. “Is it not a horrid hand, Mr. + Siward? I don't know how much you know about palms, but—” She + suddenly flushed, and attempted to close her hand, doubling the thumb + over. There was a little half-hearted struggle, freeing one of his arms, + which fell, settling about her slender waist; a silence, a breathless + moment, and he had kissed her. Her lips were warm, this time. + </p> + <p> + She recovered herself, avoiding his eyes, and moved backward, shielding + her face with pretty upflung elbows out-turned. “I told you it was + becoming a habit with you!” The loud beating of her pulses marred her + voice. “Must I establish a dead-line every time I commit the folly of + being alone with you?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll draw that line,” he said, taking her in his arms. + </p> + <p> + “I—I beg you will draw it quickly, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “I do; it passes through your heart and mine!” + </p> + <p> + “Is—do you mean a declaration—again? You are compromising + yourself, you know. I warn you that you are committing yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “So are you. Look at me!” + </p> + <p> + In his arms, her own arms pressed against his breast, resisting, she + raised her splendid youthful eyes; and through and through her shot pulse + on pulse, until every nerve seemed aquiver. + </p> + <p> + “While I'm still sane,” he said with a dry catch in his throat, “before I + tell you that I love you, look at me.” + </p> + <p> + “I will, if you wish,” she said with a trembling smile, “but it is useless—” + </p> + <p> + “That is what I shall find out in time.... You must meet my eyes. That is + well; that is frank and sweet—” + </p> + <p> + “And useless—truly it is.... Please don't tell me—anything.” + </p> + <p> + “You will not listen?” + </p> + <p> + “There is no chance for you—if you mean love. I—I tell you in + time, you see.... I am utterly frivolous—quite selfish and + mercenary.” + </p> + <p> + “I take my chance!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I give you none! Why do you interfere! A—a girl's policy costs + her something if it be worth anything; whatever it costs it is worth it to + me.... And I do not love you. In so short a time how could I?” + </p> + <p> + Then in his arms she fell a-trembling. Something blinded her eyes, and she + turned her head sharply, only to encounter his lips on hers in a deep, + clinging embrace that left her dazed, still resisting with the fragments + of breath and voice. + </p> + <p> + “Not again—I beg—you. Let me go now. It is not best. Oh! + truly, truly it is all wrong with us now.” She bent her head, blinded with + tears, swaying, stunned; then, with a breathless sound, turned in his arms + to meet his lips, her hands contracting in his; and, confronting, they + paused, suspending the crisis, young faces close, and hearts afire. + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia, I love you.” + </p> + <p> + For an instant their lips clung; she had rendered him his kiss. Then, + tremblingly, “It is useless... even though I loved you.” + </p> + <p> + “Say it!” + </p> + <p> + “I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Say it!” + </p> + <p> + “I—I cannot!... And it is no use—no use! I do not know myself—this + way. My eyes—are wet. It is not like me; there is nothing of me in + this girl you hold so closely, so confidently.... I do care for you—how + can I help it? How could any woman help it? Is not that enough?” + </p> + <p> + “Until you are a bride, yes.” + </p> + <p> + “A bride? Stephen!—I cannot—” + </p> + <p> + “You cannot help it, Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + “I must! I have my way to go.” + </p> + <p> + “My way lies that way.” + </p> + <p> + “No! no! I cannot do it; it is not best for me—not best for you.... + I do care for you; you have taught me how to say it. But—you know + what I have done—and mean to do, and must carry through. Then, how + can you love a girl like that?” + </p> + <p> + “Dear, I know the woman I love.” + </p> + <p> + “Silly, she is what her life has made her—material, passionately + selfish, unable to renounce the root of all evil.... Even if this—this + happiness were ours always—I mean, if this madness could last our + wedded life—I am not good enough, not noble enough, to forget what I + might have had, and put away.... Is it not dreadful to admit it? Do you + not know that self-contempt is part of the price?... I have no money. I + know what you have.... I asked. And it is enough for a man who remains + unmarried.... For I cannot 'make things do'; I cannot 'contrive'; I will + not cling to the fringe of things, or play that heartbreaking rôle of the + shabby expatriated on the Continent.... No person in this world ever had + enough. I tell you I could find use for every flake of metal ever + mined!... You see you do not know me. From my pretty face and figure you + misjudge me. I am intelligent—not intellectual, though I might have + been, might even be yet. I am cultivated, not learned; though I care for + learning—or might, if I had time.... My rôle in life is to mount to + a security too high for any question as to my dominance.... Can you take + me there?” + </p> + <p> + “There are other heights, Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + “Higher?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “The spiritual; I know. I could not breathe there, if I cared to climb. + ...And I have told you what I am—all silk and lace and + smooth-skinned selfishness.” She looked at him wistfully. “If you can + change me, take me.” And she rose, facing him. + </p> + <p> + “I do not give you up,” he said, with a savage note hardening his voice; + and it thrilled her to hear it, and every drop of blood in her body leaped + as she yielded to his arms again, heavy-lidded, trembling, confused, under + the piercing sweetness of contact. + </p> + <p> + The perfume of her mouth, her hair, the consenting fingers locked in his, + palm against palm, the lips, acquiescent, then afire at last, responsive + to his own; and her eyes opening from the dream under the white lids—these + were what he had of her till every vein in him pulsed flame. Then her + voice, broken, breathless: + </p> + <p> + “Good night. Love me while you can—and forgive me!... Good night.... + Where are we? All—all this must have stunned me, blinded me.... Is + this my door, or yours? Hush! I am half dead with fear—to be here + under the light again.... If you take me again, my knees will give way.... + And I must find my door. Oh, the ghastly imprudence of it!... Good + night... good night. I—I love you!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI MODUS VIVENDI + </h2> + <p> + After the first few days of his arrival at Shotover time had threatened to + hang heavily on Mortimer's mottled hands. After the second day afield he + recognised that his shooting career was practically over; he had become + too bulky during the last year to endure the physical exertion; his + habits, too, had at length made traitors of his eyes; a half hour's + snipe-shooting in the sun, and the veins in his neck swelled ominously. + Panting, eyes inflamed, fat arms wobbly, he had scored miss after miss, + and laboured onward, sullenly persistent to the end. But it was the end. + That cup day finished him; he recognised that he was done for. And, + following the Law of Pleasure, which finishes us before we are finished + with it, he did not experience any particular sense of deprivation in the + prospect. Only the wholesome dread caging. But Mortimer, not yet done with + self-indulgence in more convenient forms, cast about him within his new + limits for occupation between those hours consecrated to the rites of the + table and the card-room. + </p> + <p> + He drove four, but found that it numbed his arms, and that the sea air + made him sleepy. Motor-cars agreed with him only when driving with a + pretty woman. Forced through ennui to fish off the rocks, he soon tired of + the sea-perch and rock-cod and the malodours of periwinkle and clam. + </p> + <p> + Then he frankly took to Major Belwether's sunny side of the gun-room, with + illustrated papers and apples and decanter. But Major Belwether, always as + careful of his digestion as of his financial secrets, blandly dodged the + pressing invitations to rum and confidence, until Mortimer sulkily took up + his headquarters in the reading-room, on the chance of his wife's moving + elsewhere. Which she did, unobtrusively carrying Captain Voucher with her + in a sudden zeal for billiard practice on rainy mornings now too frequent + along the coast. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer possessed that mysterious talent, so common among the financially + insolvent, for living lavishly on an invisible income. But, plan as he + would, he had never been able to increase that income through confidential + gossip with men like Quarrier or Belwether, or even Ferrall. What + information his pretty wife might have extracted he did not know; her + income had never visibly increased above the vanishing point, although, + like himself, she denied herself nothing. One short, lively interview with + her had been enough to drive all partnership ideas out of his head. If he + wanted to learn anything financially advantageous to himself he must do it + without her aid; and as he was perpetually in hopes of the friendly hint + that never came, he still moused about when opportunity offered; and this + also helped to kill time. + </p> + <p> + Besides, he was always studying women. Years before, Grace Ferrall had + snapped her slim fingers in his face; and here, at Shotover, the field was + limited. Mrs. Vendenning had left; Agatha Caithness was still a pale and + reticent puzzle; Rena, Katharyn, and Eileen tormented him; Marion Page, + coolly au fait, yawned in his face. There remained Sylvia, who, knowing + nothing about his species, met him half-way with the sweet and sensitive + deference due a somewhat battered and infirm gentleman of forty-eight—until + a sleek aside from Major Belwether spoiled everything, as usual, for her, + leaving her painfully conscious and perplexed between doubt and disgust. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, the wealthy master of Black Fells, Beverly Plank, had found + encouragement enough at Shotover to venture on tentative informality. + There was no doubt that ultimately he must be counted on in New York; but + nobody except him was impatiently cordial for the event; and so, at the + little house party, he slipped and slid from every attempt at closer + quarters, until, rolling smoothly enough, he landed without much + discomfort somewhere between Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Mortimer. And it was not a + question as to “which would be good to him,” observed Major Belwether, + with his misleading and benevolent mirth; “it was, which would be goodest + quickest!” + </p> + <p> + And Mrs. Mortimer, abandoning Captain Voucher by the same token, displayed + certain warning notices perfectly comprehensive to her husband. And at + first he was inclined to recognise defeat. + </p> + <p> + But the general insuccess which had so faithfully attended him recently + had aroused the long-dormant desire for a general review of the situation + with his wife—perhaps even the furtive hope of some conjugal + arrangement tending toward an exchange of views concerning possible + alliance. + </p> + <p> + The evening previous, to his intense disgust, host, hostess, and guests + had retired early, in view of the point-shooting at dawn. For not only was + there to be no point-shooting for him, but he had risen from the + card-table heavily hit; and besides, for the first time his apples and + port had disagreed with him. + </p> + <p> + As he had not risen until mid-day he was not sleepy. Books were an + aversion equalled only by distaste for his own company. Irritated, bored, + he had perforce sulkily entered the elevator and passed to his room, where + there was nothing on earth for him to do except to thumb over last week's + sporting periodicals and smoke himself stupid. + </p> + <p> + But it required more than that to ensnare the goddess of slumber. He + walked about the room, haunted of slow thoughts; he stood at the + rain-smeared pane, fat fingers resting on the glass. The richly flavoured + cigar grew distasteful; and if he could not smoke, what, in pity's name, + was he to do? + </p> + <p> + Involuntarily his distended eyes wandered to his wife's locked and bolted + door; then he thought of Beverly Plank, and his own failure to fasten + himself upon that anxiously over-cordial individual with his houses and + his villas and his yachts and his investments! + </p> + <p> + He stepped to the switch and extinguished the lights in his room. Under + the door, along the sill, a glimmer came from his wife's bed-chamber. He + listened; the maid was still there; so he sat down in the darkness to + wait; and by-and-by he heard the outer bedroom door close, and the subdued + rustle of the departing maid. + </p> + <p> + Then, turning on his lights, he moved ponderously and jauntily to his + wife's door and knocked discreetly. + </p> + <p> + Leila Mortimer came to the door and opened it; her hair was coiled for the + night, her pretty figure outlined under a cascade of clinging lace. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter?” she asked quietly. + </p> + <p> + “Are you point-shooting to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to chat with you.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry. I'm driving to Wenniston, after breakfast, with Beverly Plank, + and I need sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to talk to you,” he repeated doggedly. + </p> + <p> + She regarded him for a moment in silence, then, with an assenting gesture, + turned away into her room; and he followed, heavily apprehensive but + resolved. + </p> + <p> + She had seated herself among a pile of cushions, one knee crossed over the + other, her slim white foot half concealed by the silken toe of her + slipper. And as he pulled a chair forward for himself, her pretty black + eyes, which slanted a little, took his measure and divined trouble. + </p> + <p> + “Leila,” he said, “why can't we have—” + </p> + <p> + “A cigarette?” she interrupted, indicating her dainty case on the table. + </p> + <p> + He took one, savagely aware of defiance somewhere. She lighted her own + from a candle and settled back, studying the sequence of blue smoke-rings + jetting upward to the ceiling. + </p> + <p> + “About this man Plank,” he began, louder than he had intended through + sheer self-mistrust; and his wife made a quick, disdainful sign of + caution, which subdued his voice instantly. “Why can't we take him up—together, + Leila?” he ended lamely, furious at his own uneasiness in a matter which + might concern him vitally. + </p> + <p> + “I see no necessity of your taking him up,” observed his wife serenely. “I + can do what may be useful to him in town.” + </p> + <p> + “So can I. There are clubs where he ought to be seen—” + </p> + <p> + “I can manage such matters much better.” + </p> + <p> + “You can't manage everything,” he insisted sullenly. “There are chances of + various sorts—” + </p> + <p> + “Investments?” asked Mrs. Mortimer, with bright malice. + </p> + <p> + “See here, Leila, you have your own way too much. I say little; I make + damned few observations; but I could, if I cared to.... It becomes you to + be civil at least. I want to talk over this Plank matter with you; I want + you to listen, too.” + </p> + <p> + A shade of faint disgust passed over her face. “I am listening,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, I can see several ways in which the man can be of use to + me.... I discovered him before you did, anyway. And what I want to do is + to have a frank, honourable—” + </p> + <p> + “A—what?” + </p> + <p> + “—An honourable understanding with you, I said,” he repeated, + reddening. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” She snapped her cigarette into the grate. “Oh! I see. And what + then?” + </p> + <p> + “What then?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; what then?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you and I can arrange to stand behind him this winter in town, can't + we?” + </p> + <p> + “And then?” + </p> + <p> + “Then—damn it!—the beggar can show his gratitude, can't he?” + </p> + <p> + “How?” she asked listlessly. + </p> + <p> + “By making good. How else?” he retorted savagely. “He can't welch because + there's little to climb for beyond us; and even if he climbs, he can't + ignore us. I can do as many things for him in my way as you can in yours. + What is the use of being a pig, Leila? Anything he does for me isn't going + to cancel his obligations to you.” + </p> + <p> + “I know him better than you do,” she observed, bending her head and + pleating the lace on her knee. “There is Dutch blood in him.” + </p> + <p> + “Not good Hollander, but common Dutch,” sneered Mortimer. “And you mean + he'll squeeze a dollar till the eagle screams-don't you?” + </p> + <p> + She sat silent, pleating her lace with steady fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that's all right, too,” laughed Mortimer easily; “let the Audubon + Society worry over the eagle. It's a perfectly plain business proposition; + we can do for him in a couple of winters what he can't do for himself in + ten. Figure it out for yourself, Leila,” he said, waving a mottled fat + hand at her. + </p> + <p> + “I—have,” she said under her breath. + </p> + <p> + “Then, is it settled? + </p> + <p> + “Settled—how?” + </p> + <p> + “That we form ourselves into a benevolent society of two in behalf of + Plank?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I don't want to, Roy,” she said slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + She did not say why not, seated there nervously pleating the fragile stuff + clinging to her knee. + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” he repeated menacingly. Her unexpectedly quiescent attitude had + emboldened him to a bullying tone—something he had not lately + ventured on. + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyes to his: “I—rather like him,” she said quietly. + </p> + <p> + “Then, by God! he'll pay for that!” he burst out, mask off, every inflamed + feature shockingly congested. + </p> + <p> + “Roy! You dare not—” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you I—” + </p> + <p> + “You dare not!” + </p> + <p> + The palpitating silence lengthened; slowly the blood left the swollen + veins. Heavy pendulous lip hanging, he stared at her from distended eyes, + realising that he had forgotten himself. She was right. He dared not. And + she held the whip-hand as usual. + </p> + <p> + For every suspicion he could entertain, she had evidence of a certainty to + match it; for every chance that he might have to prove anything, she had + twenty proven facts. And he knew it. Why they had, during all these years, + made any outward pretence of conjugal unity they alone knew. The modus + vivendi suited them better than divorce: that was apparent, or had been + until recently. Recently Leila Mortimer had changed—become subdued + and softened to a degree that had perplexed her husband. Her attitude + toward him lacked a little of the bitterness and contempt she usually + reserved for him in private; she had become more prudent, almost cautious + at times. + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you one thing,” he said with a sudden snarl: “You'd better be + careful there is no gossip about you and Plank.” + </p> + <p> + She reddened under the insult. + </p> + <p> + “Now we'll see,” he continued venomously, “how far you can go alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you suppose,” she asked calmly, “that I am afraid of a divorce court?” + </p> + <p> + The question so frankly astonished him that he sat agape, unable to reply. + For years he had very naturally supposed her to be afraid of it—afraid + of not being qualified to obtain it. Indeed, he had taken that for granted + as the very corner-stone of their mutual toleration. Had he been an ass to + do so? A vague alarm took possession of him; for, with that understanding, + he had not been at all careful of his own behaviour, neither had he been + at any particular pains to conceal his doings from her. His alarm + increased. What had he against her, after all, except ancient suspicions, + now so confused and indefinite that memory itself outlawed the case, if it + ever really existed. What had she against him? Facts—unless she was + more stupid than any of her sex he had ever encountered. And now, this + defiance, this increasing prudence, this subtle change in her, began to + make him anxious for the permanency of the small income she had allowed + him during all these years—doled out to him, as he believed, though + her dormant fear of him. + </p> + <p> + “What are you talking about?” he said harshly. + </p> + <p> + “I believe I mentioned divorce.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, cut it out! D'ye see? Cut it, I say. You'd stand as much chance + before a referee as a snowball in hell.” + </p> + <p> + “There's no telling,” she said coolly, “until one tries.” + </p> + <p> + He glared at her, then burst into a laugh. “Rot!” he said thickly. “Talk + sense, Leila! And keep this hard-headed Dutchman for yourself, if you feel + that way about it. I don't want to butt in. I only thought—for old + times' sake—perhaps you'd—” + </p> + <p> + “Good night,” she managed to say, her disgust almost strangling her. + </p> + <p> + And he went, furtively, heavy-footed, perplexed, inwardly cursing his + blunder in stirring up a sleeping lioness whom he had so long mistaken for + a dozing cat. + </p> + <p> + For hours he sat in his room, or paced the four walls, doubtful, + chagrined, furious by turns. Once he drew out a memorandum-book and stood + under a lighted sconce, studying the figures. His losses at Shotover + staggered him, but he had looked to his wife heretofore in such + emergencies. + </p> + <p> + Certainly the time had come for him to do something. But what?—if + his wife was going to strike such attitudes in the very face of decency? + Certainly a husband in these days was without honour in his own household. + </p> + <p> + His uneasiness had produced a raging thirst. He punched an electric button + with his fleshy thumb, and prowled around, waiting. Nobody came; he + punched again, and looked at his watch. It astonished him to find the hour + was three o'clock in the morning. That discovery, however, only appeared + to increase his thirst. He opened the hall door, prepared to descend into + the depths of the house and raid a sideboard; and as he thrust his heavy + head out into the lighted corridor his eyes fell upon two figures standing + at the open door of a bedroom. One was Siward; that was plain. Who was the + girl he had kissed? One of the maids? Somebody's wife? Who? + </p> + <p> + Every dull pulse began to hammer in Mortimer's head. In his excitement he + stepped half-way into the corridor, then skipped nimbly back, closing his + door without a sound. + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia Landis, by all that's holy!” he breathed to himself, and sat down + rather suddenly on the edge of the bed. + </p> + <p> + After a while he rose and crept to the door, opened it, glued his eyes to + the crack, in time to catch a glimpse of Siward entering his own corridor + alone. + </p> + <p> + And that night, Mortimer, lying awake in bed, busy with schemes, became + conscious of a definite idea. It took shape and matured so suddenly that + it actually shocked his moral sense. Then it scared him. + </p> + <p> + “But—but that is blackmail!” he whispered aloud. “A man can't do + that sort of thing. What the devil ever put it into my head?... And there + are men I know—women, too—scoundrelly blackguards, who'd use + that information somehow; and make it pay, too. The scoundrels!” + </p> + <p> + He squirmed down among the bedclothes with a sudden shiver; but the night + had turned warm. + </p> + <p> + “Scoundrels!” he said, with milder emphasis. “Blackmailers! Contemptible + pups!” + </p> + <p> + He fell asleep an hour later, muttering something incoherent about + scoundrels and blackmail. + </p> + <p> + And meanwhile, in the darkened house, from all round came the noise of + knocking on doors, sounds of people stirring—a low voice here and + there, lights breaking out from transoms, the thud of rubber-shod heels, + the rattle of cartridges from the echoing gun-room. For the guests at + Shotover were awaking, lest the wet sky, whitening behind the east, ring + with the whimpering wedges of wild-fowl rushing seaward over empty blinds. + </p> + <p> + The unusual stillness of the house in the late morning sunshine was + pleasant to Miss Landis. She had risen very late, unconscious of the stir + and movement before dawn; and it was only when a maid told her, as she + came from her bath, that she remembered the projected point-shooting, and + concluded, with an odd, happy sense of relief, that she was almost alone + in the house. + </p> + <p> + A little later, glancing from her bedroom window for a fulfilment of the + promise of the sun which a glimpse of blue sky heralded, she saw Leila + Mortimer settling herself in the forward seat of a Mercedes, and Beverly + Plank climbing in beside her; and she watched Plank steer the big machine + across the wet lawn, while the machinist swung himself into the tonneau; + and away they rolled, faster, faster, rushing out into the misty + hinterland, where the long streak of distant forest already began to + brighten, edged with the first rays of watery sunshine. + </p> + <p> + So she had the big house to herself—every bit of it and with it + freedom from obligation, from comment, from demand or exaction; freedom + from restraint; liberty to roam about, to read, to dream, to idle, to + remember! Ah, that was what she needed—a quiet interval in this + hurrying youth of hers to catch her breath once more, and stand still, and + look back a day or two and remember. + </p> + <p> + So, to breakfast all alone was delicious; to stroll, unhurried, to the + sideboard and leisurely choose among the fresh cool fruits; to loiter over + cream-jug and cereal; to saunter out into the freshness of the world and + breathe it, and feel the sun warming cheek and throat, and the little + breezes from a sunlit sea stirring the bright strands of her hair. + </p> + <p> + In the increasing brilliancy of the sunshine she stretched out her hands, + warming them daintily as she might twist them before the fire on the + hearth. And here, at the fragrant hearth of the world, she stood, sweet + and fresh as the morning itself, untroubled gaze intensely blue with the + tint of the purple sea, sensitive lips scarcely parting in the dreaming + smile that made her eyes more wonderful. + </p> + <p> + As the warmth grew on land and water, penetrating her body, a faintly + delicious glow responded in her heart,—nothing at first wistful in + the serene sense of well-being, stretching her rounded arms skyward in the + unaccustomed luxury of a liberty which had become the naively unconscious + licence of a child. The poise of sheer health stretched her to tiptoe; + then the graceful tension relaxed, and her smooth fingers uncurled, + tightened, and fell limp as her arms fell and her superb young figure + straightened, confronting the sea. + </p> + <p> + Out over the rain-wet, odorous grass she picked her way, skirts swung high + above the delicate contour of ankle and limb, following a little + descending path she knew full of rocky angles, swept by pendant sprays of + blackberry, and then down under the jutting rock, south through thickets + of wild cherry along the crags, until, before her the way opened downward + again where a tiny crescent beach glimmered white hot in the sun. + </p> + <p> + From his bedroom window Mortimer peeped forth, following her progress with + a leer. + </p> + <p> + As she descended, noticing the rifts of bronzing seaweed piled along the + tide mark, her foot dislodged a tiny triangle of rock, which rolled + clattering and ringing below; and as she sprang lightly to the sand, a + man, lying full length and motionless as the heaped seaweed, raised + himself on one arm, turning his sun-dazzled eyes on her. + </p> + <p> + The dull shock of surprise halted her as Siward rose to his feet, still + dazed, the sand running from his brown shooting-clothes over his tightly + strapped puttees. + </p> + <p> + “Have you the faintest idea that I supposed you were here?” she asked + briefly. Then, frank in her disappointment, she looked up at the cliffs + overhead, where her line of retreat lay. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you not go with the others?” she added, unsmiling. + </p> + <p> + “I—don't know. I will, if you wish.” He had coloured slowly, the + frank disappointment in her face penetrating his surprise; and now he + turned around, instinctively, also looking for the path of retreat. + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” she said, aware of her own crude attitude and confused by it; + “wait a moment, Mr. Siward. I don't mean to drive you away.” + </p> + <p> + “It's self-exile,” he said quietly; “quite voluntary, I assure you.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward!” + </p> + <p> + And, as he looked up coolly, “Have you nothing more friendly to say to me? + Is your friendship for me so limited that my first caprice oversteps the + bounds? Must I always be in dread of wounding you when I give you the + privilege of knowing me better than anybody ever knew me—of seeing + me as I am, with all my faults, my failings, my impulses, my real self? + ...I don't know why the pleasure of being alone to-day should have meant + exclusion for you, too. It was the unwelcome shock of seeing anybody—a + selfish enjoyment of myself—that surprised me into rudeness. That is + all.... Can you not understand?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so. I meant no criticism—” + </p> + <p> + “Wait, Mr. Siward!” as he moved slowly toward the path. “You force me to + say other things, which you have no right to hear.... After last night”—the + vivid tint grew in her face—“after such a night, is it not—natural—for + a girl to creep off somewhere by herself and try to think a little?” + </p> + <p> + He had turned full on her; the answering colour crept to his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Is that why?” he asked slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Is it not a reason?” + </p> + <p> + “It was my reason—for being here.” + </p> + <p> + She bit her bright lip. This trend to the conversation was ominous, and + she had meant to do her drifting alone in still sun-dreams, fearing no + witness, no testimony, no judgment save her own self in court with + herself. + </p> + <p> + “I—I suppose you cannot go—now,” she reflected innocently. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed I can, and must.” + </p> + <p> + “And leave me here to dig in the sand with my heels? Merci!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean—” + </p> + <p> + “I certainly do, Mr. Siward. I don't want to dream, now; I don't care to + reflect. I did, but here you come blundering into my private world and + upset my calculations and change my intentions! It's a shame, especially + as you've been lying here doing what I wished to do for goodness knows how + long!” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going,” he said, looking at her curiously. + </p> + <p> + “Then you are very selfish, Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “We will call it that,” he said with an odd laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Very well.” She seated herself on the sand and calmly shook out her + skirts. + </p> + <p> + “About what time would you like to be called?” he asked smilingly. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, I shall do no sun-dreaming.” + </p> + <p> + “Please. It is good for you.” + </p> + <p> + “No, it isn't good at all. And I am grateful to you for waking me,” she + retorted with a sudden gay malice that subdued him. And she, delicate nose + in the air, laughingly watching him, went on with her punishment: “You see + what you've done, don't you?—saved me from an entire morning wasted + in sentimental reverie over what might have been. Now you can appreciate + it, can't you?—your wisdom in appearing in the flesh to save a silly + girl the effort of evoking you in the spirit! Ah, Mr. Siward, I am vastly + obliged to you! Pray sit here beside me in the flesh, for fear that in + your absence I might commit the folly that tempted me here.” + </p> + <p> + His low running laughter accompanying her voice had stimulated her to a + gay audacity, which for the instant extinguished in her the little fear of + him she had been barely conscious of. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” he said, “that you also aroused me from my sun-dreams?” + </p> + <p> + “Did I? And can't you resume them?” + </p> + <p> + “You save me the necessity.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that is a second-hand compliment,” she said disdainfully—“a + weak plagiarism on what I conveyed very wittily. You were probably really + asleep, and dreaming of bird-murder.” + </p> + <p> + He waited for her to finish, then, amused eyes searching, he roamed about + until high on a little drifted sand dune he found a place for himself; and + while she watched him indignantly, he curled up in the sunshine, and, + dropping his head on the hot sand, calmly closed his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Upon—my word!” she breathed aloud. + </p> + <p> + He unclosed his eyes. “Now you may dream; you can't avoid it,” he observed + lazily, and closed his eyes; and neither taunts nor jeers nor questions, + nor fragments of shells flung with intent to hit, stirred him from his + immobility. + </p> + <p> + She tired of the attempt presently, and sat silent, elbows on her thighs, + hands propping her chin. Thoughts, vague as the fitful breeze, arose, + lingered, and, like the breeze, faded, dissolved into calm, through which, + cadenced by the far beat of the ebb tide, her heart echoed, beating the + steady intervals of time. + </p> + <p> + She had not meant to dream, but as she sat there, the fine-spun golden + threads flying from the whirling loom of dreams floated about her, + settling over her, entangling her in unseen meshes, so that she stirred, + groping amid the netted brightness, drawn onward along dim paths and + through corridors of thought where, always beyond, vague splendours seemed + to beckon. + </p> + <p> + Now lost, now restless, conscious of the perils of the shining path she + followed, the rhythm of an ocean soothing her to false security, she + dreamed on awake, unconscious of the tinted sea and sky which stained her + eyes to hues ineffable. A long while afterward a small cloud floated + across the sun; and, in the sudden shadow on the world, doubt sounded its + tiny voice, and her ears listened, and the enchantment faded and died + away. + </p> + <p> + Turning, she looked across the sand at the man lying there; her eyes + considered him—how long she did not know, she did not heed—until, + stirring, he looked up; and she paled a trifle and closed her eyes, + stunned by the sudden clamour of pulse and heart. + </p> + <p> + When he rose and walked over, she looked up gravely, pouring the last + handful of white sand through her stretched fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Did you dream?” he asked lightly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you dream true?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing of my dream can happen,” she said. “You know that,... don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “I know that we love... and that we dare not ignore it.” + </p> + <p> + She suffered his arm about her, his eyes looking deeply into hers—a + close, sweet caress, a union of lips, and her dimmed eyes' response. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen,” she faltered, “how can you make it so hard for me? How can you + force me to this shame!” + </p> + <p> + “Shame?” he repeated vaguely. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—this treachery to myself—when I cannot hope to be more to + you—when I dare not love you too much!” + </p> + <p> + “You must dare, Sylvia!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no! I know myself, I tell you. I cannot give up what is offered—for + you!—dearly, dearly as I do love you!” She turned and caught his + hands in hers, flushed, trembling, unstrung. “I cannot—I simply + cannot! How can you love me and listen to such wickedness? How can you + still care for such a girl as I am—worse than mercenary, because I + have a heart—or had, until you took it! Keep it; it is the only part + of me not all ignoble.” + </p> + <p> + “I will keep it—in trust,” he said, “until you give yourself with + it.” + </p> + <p> + But she only shook her head wearily, withdrawing her hands from his, and + for a time they sat silent, eyes apart. + </p> + <p> + Then—“There is another reason,” she said wistfully. + </p> + <p> + He looked up at her, hesitated, and—“My habits?” he asked simply. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I have them in check.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you—certain?” + </p> + <p> + “I think I may be—now.” + </p> + <p> + “Yet,” she said timidly, “you lost one fight—since you knew me.” + </p> + <p> + The dull red mantling his face wrung her heart. She turned impulsively and + laid both hands on his shoulders. “That chance I would take, with all its + uncertainty, all the dread inheritance you have come into. I love you + enough for that; and if it turned out that—that you could not stem + the tide, even with me to face it with you; and if the pity of it, the + grief of it, killed me, I would take that chance—if you loved me + through it all.... But there is something else. Hush; let me have my say + while I find the words—something else you do not understand.... Turn + your face a little; please don't look at me. This is what you do not know—that, + in three generations, every woman of my race has—gone wrong.... + Every one! and I am beginning—with such a marriage!... deliberately, + selfishly, shamelessly, perfectly conscious of the frivolous, erratic + blood in me, aware of the race record behind me. + </p> + <p> + “Once, when I knew nothing—before I—I met you—I believed + such a marriage would not only permit me mental tranquillity, but safely + anchor me in the harbour of convention, leaving me free to become what I + am fashioned to become—autocrat and arbiter in my own world. And + now! and now! I don't know—truly I don't know what I may become. + Your love forces my hand. I am displaying all the shallowness, falseness, + pettiness, all the mean, and cruel and callous character which must be + truly my real self.... Only I shall not marry you! You are not to run the + risk of what I might prove to be when I remember in bitterness all I have + renounced. If I married you I should remember, unreconciled, what you cost + me. Better for you and for me that I marry him, and let him bear with me + when I remember that he cost me you!” + </p> + <p> + She bent over, almost double, closing her eyes with small clenched hands; + and he saw the ring shimmering in the sunshine, and her hair, heavily, + densely gold, and the white nape of her neck, and the tiny close-set ears, + and the curved softness of cheek and chin; every smooth, childlike contour + and mould—rounded arms, slim, flowing lines of body and limb—all + valued at many millions by her as her own appraiser. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, deep within him, something seemed to fail, die out—perhaps + a tiny newly lighted flame of unaccustomed purity, the dawning flicker of + aspiration to better things. Whatever it was, material, spiritual, was + gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed + twilit doubt crept in—the same dull acquiescence—the same + uncertainty of self, the familiar lack of will, of incentive, the + congenial tendency to drift; and with it came weariness—perhaps + reaction from the recent skirmishes with that master-vice. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” he said in a dull voice, “you are right.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I am wrong—wrong!” she said, lifting her lovely face and heavy + eyes. “But I have chosen my path.... And you will forget.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope so,” he said simply. + </p> + <p> + “If you hope so, you will.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded, unconvinced, watching a flock of sand-pipers whirling into the + cove like a gray snow-squall and fearlessly settling on the beach. + </p> + <p> + After a while, with a long breath: “Then it is settled,” she concluded. + </p> + <p> + If she expected corroboration from him she received none; and perhaps she + was not awaiting it. She sat very still, her eyes lost in thought. + </p> + <p> + And Mortimer, peeping down at them over the thicket above, yawned + impatiently and glanced about him for the most convenient avenue of + self-effacement when the time arrived. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII PERSUASION + </h2> + <p> + The days of the house-party at Shotover were numbered. A fresh relay of + guests was to replace them on Monday, and so they were making the most of + the waning week on lawn and marsh, in covert and blind, or motoring madly + over the State, or riding in parties to Vermillion Light. Tennis and lawn + bowls came into fashion; even water polo and squash alternated on days too + raw for more rugged sport. + </p> + <p> + And during all these days Beverly Plank appeared with unflagging + persistence and assiduity, until his familiar, big, round head and + patient, delft-blue, Dutch eyes became a matter of course at Shotover, + indoors and out. + </p> + <p> + It was not that he was either accepted, tolerated, or endured; he was + simply there, and nobody took the trouble to question his all-pervading + presence until everybody had become too much habituated to him to think + about it at all. + </p> + <p> + The accomplished establishment of Beverly Plank was probably due as much + to his own obstinate and good-tempered persistence as to Mrs. Mortimer. He + was a Harvard graduate—there are all kinds of them—enormously + wealthy, and though he had no particular personal tastes to gratify, he + was willing and able to gratify the tastes of others. He did whatever + anybody else did, and did it well enough to be amusing; and as lack of + intellectual development never barred anybody from any section of the + fashionable world, it seemed fair to infer that he would land where he + wanted to, sooner or later. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, Mrs. Mortimer led him about with the confidence that was her + perquisite; and the chances were that in due time he would have + house-parties of his own at Black Fells—not the kind he had wisely + denied himself the pleasure of giving, with such neighbours as the + Ferralls to observe, but the sort he desired. However, there were many + things to be accomplished for him and by him before he could expect to use + his great yacht and his estates and his shooting boxes and the vast + granite mansion recently completed and facing Central Park just north of + the new palaces built on the edges of the outer desert where Fifth Avenue + fringes the hundreds. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, he had become in a measure domesticated at Shotover, and + Shotover people gradually came to ride, drive, and motor over the Fells, + which was a good beginning, though not necessarily a promise for anything + definite in the future. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, riding a huge chestnut—he could still wedge himself into a + saddle—had now made it a regular practice to affect the jocular + early-bird squire, and drag Plank out of bed. And Plank, in no position to + be anything but flattered by such sans gêne, laboriously and gratefully + splashed through his bath, wallowed amid the breakfast plates, and mounted + a hunter for long and apparently aimless gallops with Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + His acquaintance among people who knew Mortimer being limited, he had no + means of determining the latter's social value except through hearsay and + a toadying newspaper or two. Therefore he was not yet aware of Mortimer's + perennial need of money; and when Mortimer laughingly alluded to his + poverty, Plank accepted the proposition in a purely comparative sense, and + laughed, too, his thrifty Dutch soul untroubled by misgivings. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, Mortimer had come, among other things, on information; how + much, and precisely of what nature, he was almost too much ashamed to + admit definitely, even to himself. Still, the idea that had led him into + this sudden intimacy with Plank, vague or not, persisted; and he was + always hovering on the edge of hinting at something which might elicit a + responsive hint from the flattered master of Black Fells. + </p> + <p> + There was much about Plank that was unaffected, genuine, even simple, in + one sense; he cared for people for their own sakes; and only stubborn + adherence to a dogged ambition had enabled him to dispense with the + society of many people he might easily have cultivated and liked—people + nearer his own sort; and that, perhaps, was the reason he so readily liked + Mortimer, whose coarse fibre soon wore through the polish when rubbed + against by a closer, finer fibre. And Plank liked him aside from + gratitude; and they got on famously on the basis of such mutual + recognition. Then, one day, very suddenly, Mortimer stumbled on something + valuable—a thread, a mere clew, so astonishing that for an instant + it absolutely upset all his unadmitted theories and calculations. + </p> + <p> + It was nothing—a vague word or two—a forced laugh—and + the scared silence of this man Plank, who had blundered on the verge of a + confidence to a man he liked. + </p> + <p> + A moment of amazement, of half-incredulous suspicion, of certainty; and + Mortimer pounced playfully upon him like a tiger—a big, fat, + friendly, jocose tiger: + </p> + <p> + “Plank, is that what you're up to!” + </p> + <p> + “Up to! Why, I never thought of such a—” + </p> + <p> + “Haw! haw!” roared Mortimer. “If you could only see your face!” + </p> + <p> + And Beverly Plank, red as a beet, comfortably suffused with reassurance + under the reaction from his scare, attempted to refute the other's + conclusions: “It doesn't mean anything, Mortimer. She's just the + handsomest girl I ever saw. I know she's engaged. I only admired her a + lot.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not the only man,” said Mortimer blandly, still striving to + reconcile his preconceived theories with the awkward half-confession of + this great, red-fisted, hulking horseman riding at his stirrup. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't have her dream,” stammered Plank, “that I had ever thought of + such a—” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? It would only flatter her.” + </p> + <p> + “Flatter a woman who is engaged to marry another man!” gasped Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Do you think any woman ever had enough admiration in this + world?” asked Mortimer coolly. “And as for Sylvia Landis, she'd be tickled + to death if anybody hinted that you had ever admired her.” + </p> + <p> + “Good Lord!” exclaimed Plank, alarmed; “You wouldn't make a joke of it! + you wouldn't be careless about such a thing! And there's Quarrier! I'm not + on joking terms with him; I'm on most formal terms.” + </p> + <p> + “Quarrier!” sneered the other, flicking at his stirrup with his crop. + “He's on formal terms with everybody, including himself. He never laughed + on purpose in his life; once a month only, to keep his mouth in; that's + his limit. Do you suppose any woman would stand for him if a better man + looked sideways at her?” And, reversing his riding crop, he deliberately + poked Mr. Plank in the ribs. + </p> + <p> + “A—a better man!” muttered Plank, scarce crediting his ears. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. A man who can make good, is good; but a man who can make + better is it with the ladies—God bless 'em!” he added, displaying a + heavy set of teeth. + </p> + <p> + Beverly Plank knew perfectly well that, in the comparison so delicately + suggested by Mortimer, his material equipment could be scarcely compared + to the immense fortune controlled by Howard Quarrier; and as he thought + it, his reflections were put into words by Mortimer, airily enough: + </p> + <p> + “Nobody stands a chance in a show-down with Quarrier. But—” + </p> + <p> + Plank gaped until the tension became unbearable. + </p> + <p> + “But—what?” he blurted out. + </p> + <p> + “Plank,” said Mortimer solemnly, and his voice vibrated with feeling, “Let + me do a little thinking before I ask you a—a vital question.” + </p> + <p> + But Plank had become agitated again, and he said something so bluntly that + Mortimer wheeled on him, glowering: + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Plank: you don't suppose I'm capable of repeating a + confidence, do you?—if you choose to make me understand it's a + confidence.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't a confidence; it isn't anything; I mean it is confidential, of + course. All there's in it is what I said—or rather what you took me + up on so fast,” ended Plank, abashed. + </p> + <p> + “About your being in love with Syl—” + </p> + <p> + “Confound it!” roared Plank, crimson to his hair; and he set his heavy + spurs to his mount and plunged forward in a storm of dust. Mortimer + followed, silent, profoundly immersed in his own thoughts and deductions; + and as he pounded along, turning over in his mind all the varied + information he had so unexpectedly obtained in these last few days, a dull + excitement stirred him, and he urged his huge horse forward in a thrill of + rising exhilaration such as seizes on men who hunt, no matter what they + hunt—the savage, swimming sense of intoxication which marks the man + who chases the quarry not for its own value, but because it is his nature + to chase and ride down and enjoy spoils. + </p> + <p> + And all that afternoon, having taken to his room on pretence of neuralgia, + he lay sprawled on his bed, thinking, thinking. Not that he meant harm to + anybody, he told himself very frequently. He had, of course, information + which certain degraded men might use in a contemptible way, but he, + Mortimer, did not resemble such men in any particular. All he desired was + to do Plank a good turn. There was nothing disreputable in doing a wealthy + man a favour.... And God knew a wealthy man's gratitude was necessary to + him at that very moment—gratitude substantially acknowledged.... He + liked Plank—wished him well; that was all right, too; but a man is + an ass who doesn't wish himself well also.... Two birds with one stone.... + Three! for he hated Quarrier. Four!... for he had no love for his wife.... + Besides, it would teach Leila a wholesome lesson—teach her that he + still counted; serve her right for her disgusting selfishness about Plank. + </p> + <p> + No, there was to be nothing disreputable in his proceedings; that he would + be very careful about.... Probably Major Belwether might express his + gratitude substantially if he, Mortimer, went to him frankly and + volunteered not to mention to Quarrier the scene he had witnessed between + Sylvia Landis and Stephen Siward at three o'clock in the morning in the + corridor; and if, in playful corroboration, he displayed the cap and + rain-coat and the big fan, all crushed, which objects of interest he had + discovered later in the bay-window.... Yes, probably Major Belwether would + be very grateful, because he wanted Quarrier in the family; he needed + Quarrier in his business.... But, faugh! that was close enough to + blackmail to rub off!... No!... No! He wouldn't go to Belwether and + promise any such thing!... On the contrary, he felt it his duty to inform + Quarrier! Quarrier had a right to know what sort of a girl he was + threatened with for life!... A man ought not to let another man go blindly + into such a marriage.... Men owed each other something, even if they were + not particularly close friends.... And he had always had a respect for + Quarrier, even a sort of liking for him—yes, a distinct liking!... + And, anyhow, women were devils! and it behooved men to get together and + stand for one another! + </p> + <p> + Quarrier would give her her walking papers damned quick!... And, in her + humiliation, is there anybody mad enough to fancy that she wouldn't snap + up Plank in such a fix?... And make it look like a jilt for Quarrier?... + But Plank must do his part on the minute; Plank must step up in the very + nick of time; Plank, with his millions and his ambitions, was bound to be + a winner anyway, and Sylvia might as well be his pilot and use his + money.... And Plank would be very, very grateful—very useful, a very + good friend to have.... And Leila would learn at last that he, Mortimer, + had cut his wisdom teeth, by God! + </p> + <p> + As for Siward, he amounted to nothing; probably was one of that + contemptible sort of men who butted in and kissed a pretty girl when he + had the chance. He, Mortimer, had only disgust for such amateurs of the + social by-ways; for he himself kept to the highways, like any + self-respecting professional, even when a tour of the highways sometimes + carried him below stairs. There was no romantic shilly-shallying + fol-de-rol about him. Women learned what to expect from him in short + order. En garde, Madame!—ou Mademoiselle—tant pis! + </p> + <p> + He laughed to himself and rolled over, digging his head into the pillows + and stretching his fat hands to ease their congestion. And most of all he + amused himself with figuring out the exact degree of his wife's + astonishment and chagrin when, without consulting her, he achieved the + triumph of Quarrier's elimination and the theatrical entry of Beverly + Plank upon the stage. He laughed when he thought of Major Belwether, too, + confounded under the loss of such a nephew-in-law, humiliated, crushed, + all his misleading jocularity, all his sleek pink-and-white suavity, all + his humbugging bonhomie knocked out of him, leaving only a rumpled, + startled old gentleman, who bore an amusing resemblance to a very much + mussed-up buck-rabbit. + </p> + <p> + “Haw! haw!” roared Mortimer, rolling about in his bed and kicking the + slippers from his fat feet. Then, remembering that he was supposed to be + suffering silently in his room, he hunched up to a sitting posture and + regarded his environment with a subdued grin. + </p> + <p> + Everything seems easy when it seems funny. After all, the matter was + simple—absurdly simple. A word to Quarrier, and crack! the match was + off! Girl mad as a hornet, but staggered, has no explanation to offer; man + frozen stiff with rage, mute as an iceberg. Then, zip! Enter Beverly Plank—the + girl's rescuer at a pinch—her preserver, the saviour of her “face,” + the big, highly coloured, leaden-eyed deus ex machina. Would she take + fifty cents on the dollar? Would she? to buy herself a new “face”? And put + it all over Quarrier? And live happy ever after? Would she? Oh, not at + all! + </p> + <p> + And Mortimer rolled over in another paroxysm; which wasn't good for him, + and frightened him enough to lie still awhile and think how best he might + cut down on his wine and spirits. + </p> + <p> + The main thing, after all, was to promise Plank his opportunity, but not + tell him how he was to obtain it; for Mortimer had an uneasy idea that + there was something of the Puritan deep planted under the stolid young + man's hide, and that he might make some absurd and irrelevant objection to + the perfectly proper methods employed by his newly self-constituted guide + and mentor. No; that was no concern of Plank's. All he had to do was to be + ready. As for Quarrier, anybody could forecast his action when once + convinced of Sylvia's behaviour. + </p> + <p> + He lay there pondering several methods of imparting the sad but necessary + information to Quarrier. One thing was certain: there was not now time + enough before the house-party dissolved to mould Plank into acquiescent + obedience. That must be finished in town—unless Plank invited him to + stay at the Fells after his time was up at Shotover. By Heaven! That was + the idea! And there'd be a chance for him at cards!... Only, of course, + Plank would ask Leila too.... But what did he care! He was no longer + afraid of her; he'd soon be independent of her and her pittance. Let her + go to the courts for her divorce! Let her— + </p> + <p> + He sat up rather suddenly, perplexed with a new idea which, curiously + enough, had not appealed to him before. The astonishing hint so coolly + dropped by his wife concerning her fearlessness of divorce proceedings had + only awakened him to the consciousness of his own vulnerability and + carelessness of conduct. + </p> + <p> + Now it occurred to him, for the first time, that if it were not a mere + bluff on Leila's part, this sudden coquetting with the question of divorce + might indicate an ulterior object. Was Leila considering his elimination + in view of this ulterior object? Was there an ulterior gentleman somewhere + prepared to replace him? If so, where? And who? + </p> + <p> + His wife's possible indiscretions had never interested him; he simply + didn't care—had no curiosity, as long as appearances were + maintained. And she had preserved appearances with a skill which required + all the indifferent and easy charity of their set to pretend completely + deceived everybody. Yes, he gave her credit for that; she had been clever. + Nobody outside of the social register knew the true state of affairs in + the house of Leroy Mortimer—which, after all, was all anybody cared + about. + </p> + <p> + And so, immersed in the details of his dirty little drama, he pondered + over the possibility of an ulterior gentleman as he moved heavily to and + fro, dressing himself—his neuralgia being much better—and + presently descended the stairs to find everybody absent, engaged, as a + servant explained, in a game of water basket-ball in the swimming pool. So + he strolled off toward the north wing of the house, which had been built + for the squash-courts and swimming pool. + </p> + <p> + There was a good deal of an uproar in the big gymnasium as Mortimer walked + in, threading his way through the palms and orange-trees; much splashing + in the pool, cries and stifled laughter, and the quick rattle of applause + from the gallery of the squash-courts. + </p> + <p> + The Page boys and Rena and Eileen on one side were playing the last match + game against Sylvia, Marion Page, Siward, and Ferrall on the other; the + big, slippery, glistening ball was flying about through storms of spray. + Marion caught it, but her brother Gordon got it away; then Ferrall secured + it and dived toward the red goal; but Rena Bonnesdel caught him under + water; the ball bobbed up, and Sylvia flung both arms around it with a + little warning shout and hurled it back at Siward, who shot forward like + an arrow, his opponents gathering about him in full cry, amid laughter and + excited applause from the gallery, where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher + were wildly offering odds on the blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether + were thriftily booking them. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer climbed the slippery, marble stairway as fast as his lack of + breath permitted, anxious for his share of the harvest if the odds were + right. He ignored his wife's smilingly ironical offer, seeing no sense in + bothering about money already inside the family; but he managed to make + several apparently desirable wagers with Katharyn Tassel and one with + Beverly Plank, who was also obstinately backing the blues, the losing + side. Sylvia played forward for the blues. + </p> + <p> + Agatha Caithness, sleeves rolled up, tall and slim and strangely pale in + her white flannels, came from the squash-court with Quarrier to watch the + finish; and Mortimer observed her sidewise, blinking, irresolute, for he + had never understood her and was always a trifle afraid of her. A pair of + icicles, she and Quarrier, with whom he had never been on betting terms; + so he made no suggestions in that direction, and presently became absorbed + in the splashing battle below. Indeed, such a dashing of foam and + showering of spray was taking place that the fronds of the big palms hung + dripping amid drenched blossoms overweighted and prone on the wet marble + edges of the pool. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, through the confused blur of foam and spray, the big, glistening + ball shot aloft and remained. + </p> + <p> + “Blue! Blue!” exclaimed Grace Ferrall, clapping her hands; and a little + whirlwind of cries and hand clapping echoed from the gallery as the + breathless swimmers came climbing out of the pool, with scarcely wind + enough left for a word or strength for a gesture toward the laughing crowd + above. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, disgusted, turned away, already casting about him for somebody + to play cards with—it being his temperament and his temper to throw + good money after bad. But Quarrier and Miss Caithness had already returned + to the squash-courts, the majority of the swimmers to their several + dressing-rooms, and Grace Ferrall's party, equipped for motoring, to the + lawn, where they lost little time in disappearing into the golden haze + which a sudden shift of wind had spun out of the cloudless afternoon's + sunshine. + </p> + <p> + However, he got Marion, and also, as usual, the two men who had made a + practice of taking away his money—Major Belwether and Lord + Alderdene. He hadn't particularly wanted them; he wanted somebody he could + play with, like Siward, for example, or even the two ten-dollar Pages; not + that their combined twenty would do him much good, but it would at least + permit him the pleasures of the card-table without personal loss. + </p> + <p> + But the Pages had retired to dress, and Voucher was for motoring, and he + had no use for his wife, and he was afraid of Plank's game, and Siward, + seated on the edge of the pool and sharing a pint of ginger-ale with + Sylvia Landis, shook his head at the suggestion and resumed his division + of the ginger-ale. + </p> + <p> + Plank and Leila Mortimer came down to congratulate them. Sylvia, always + instinctively and particularly nice to people of Plank's sort whom she + occasionally encountered, was so faultlessly amiable, that Plank, who had + never before permitted himself the privilege of monopolising her, found + himself doing it so easily that it kept him in a state of persistent + mental intoxication. + </p> + <p> + That slow, sweet, upward training inflection to a statement which + instantly became a confided question was an unconscious trick which had + been responsible, in Sylvia's brief life, for more mistakes than anything + else. Like others before him, Beverly Plank made the mistake that the + sweetness of voice and the friendliness of eyes were particularly personal + to him, in tribute to qualities he had foolishly enough hitherto not + suspected in himself. Now he suspected them, and whatever of real + qualities desirable had been latent in him also appeared at once, + confirming his modest suspicions. Certainly he was a wit! Was not this + perfectly charming girl's responsive and delicious laughter proof enough? + Certainly he was epigrammatic! Certainly he could be easy, polished, + amusing, sympathetic, and vastly interesting all the while. Could he not + divine it in her undivided attention, the quick, amused flicker of + recognition animating her beautiful face when he had turned a particularly + successful phrase or taken a verbal hurdle without a cropper? And above + all, her kindness to him impressed him; her natural and friendly pleasure + in being agreeable. Here he was already on an informal footing with one of + the persons of whom he had been most shy and uncertain. If people were + going to be as considerate of him as she had proved, why—why— + </p> + <p> + His dull, Dutch-blue eyes returned to her, fascinated. The conquest of + what he desired and meant to have became merged in a vague plan which + included such a marriage as he had dreamed of. + </p> + <p> + Somebody had once told him that a man who could afford to dress for dinner + could go anywhere; meaning that, being a man, nature had fitted his feet + with the paraphernalia for climbing as high as he cared to climb. + </p> + <p> + There was just enough truth in the statement to determine him to use his + climbing irons; and he had done so, carrying his fortune with him, which + had proved neither an impediment nor an aid so far. But now he had + concluded that neither his god-sent climbing irons, his amiability, his + obstinacy, his mild, tireless persistency, nor his money counted. It had + come to a crisis where personal worth and sterling character must carry + him through sheer merit to the inner temple—that inner temple of raw + gold whose altars are served by a sexless skeleton in cap and bells! + </p> + <p> + Siward, inclined to be amused by the duration of the trance into which + Plank had fallen, watched the progress of that bulky young man's + infatuation as he sat there on the pool's marble edge, exchanging trivial + views on trivial subjects with Mrs. Leroy Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + But her conversation, even when inconsequential, was never wearisome + except when she made it so for her husband's benefit. Features, person, + personality, and temperament were warmly exotic; her dark eyes with their + slight Japanese slant, the clear olive skin with its rose bloom, the + temptation of mouth and slender neck, were always provocative of the + audacity in men which she could so well meet with amusement or surprise, + or at times with a fascinating audacity of her own wholly charming because + of its setting. + </p> + <p> + Once, in their history, during her early married life, Siward had been + very sentimental about her; but neither he nor she had approached the + danger line closer than to make daring eyes at one another across the + frontiers of good taste. And their youthful enchantment had faded so + naturally, so pleasantly, that always there had remained to them both an + agreeable after-taste—a sort of gay understanding which almost + invariably led to mutual banter when they encountered. But now something + appeared to be lacking in their rather listless badinage—something + of the usual flavour which once had salted even a laughing silence with + significance. Siward, too, had ceased to be amused at the spectacle of + Plank's calf-like infatuation; and Leila Mortimer's bored smile had lasted + so long that her olive-pink cheeks were stiff, and she relaxed her fixed + features with a little shrug that was also something of a shiver. Then, + looking prudently around, she encountered Siward's eyes; and during a + moment's hesitation they considered one another with an increasing + curiosity that slowly became tentative intelligence. And her eyes said + very plainly and wickedly to Siward's: “Oho, my friend! So it bores you to + see Mr. Plank monopolising an engaged girl who belongs to Howard + Quarrier!” + </p> + <p> + And his eyes, wincing, denying, pretending ignorance too late, suddenly + narrowed in vexed retaliation: “Speak for yourself, my lady! You're no + more pleased than I am!” + </p> + <p> + The next moment they both regretted the pale flash of telepathy. There had + been something wounded in his eyes; and she had not meant that. No; a new + charity for the hapless had softened her wonderfully within a fortnight's + time, and a self-pity, not entirely ignoble, had subdued the brilliancy of + her dark eyes, and made her tongue more gentle in dealing with all + failings. Besides, she was not yet perfectly certain what ailed her, never + having really cared for any one man before. No, she was not at all + certain.... But in the meanwhile she was very sorry for herself, and for + all those who drained the bitter cup that might yet pass from her + shrinking lips. Who knows! “Stephen,” she said under her breath, “I didn't + mean to hurt you.... Don't scowl. Listen. I have already entirely + forgotten the nature of my offense. Pax, if you please.” + </p> + <p> + He refused to understand; and she understood that, too; and she gazed + critically upon Sylvia Landis as a very young mother might inspect a rival + infant with whom her matchless offspring was coquetting. + </p> + <p> + Then, without appearing to, she took Plank away from temptation; so + skilfully that nobody except Siward understood that the young man had been + incontinently removed. He, Plank, never doubting that he was a perfectly + free agent, decided that the time had arrived for triumphant retirement. + It had; but Leila Mortimer, not he, had rendered the decision, and so + cleverly that it appeared even to Plank himself that he had dragged her + off with him rather masterfully. Clearly he was becoming a devil of a + fellow! + </p> + <p> + Sylvia turned to Siward, glanced up at him, hesitated, and began to laugh + consciously: + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of my latest sentimental acquisition?” + </p> + <p> + “He'd be an ornament to a stock farm,” replied Siward, out of humour. + </p> + <p> + “How brutal you can be!” she mused, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense! He's a plain bounder, isn't he?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.... Is he? He struck me a trifle appealingly—even + pathetically; they usually do, that sort.... As though the trouble they + took could ever be worth the time they lose!... There are dozens of men I + know who are far less presentable than this highly coloured and robust + young human being; and yet they are part of the accomplished scheme of + things—like degenerate horses, you know—always pathetic to me; + but they're still horses, for all that. Quid rides? Species of the same + genus can cross, of course, but I had rather be a donkey than a mule. + ...And if I were a donkey I'd sing and cavort with my own kind, and let + horses flourish their own heels inside the accomplished scheme of + things.... Now I have been brutal. But—I'm easily coloured by my + environment.” + </p> + <p> + She sat, smiling maliciously down at the water, smoothing out the soaked + skirt of her swimming suit, and swinging her legs reflectively. + </p> + <p> + “Are you reconciled?” she asked presently. + </p> + <p> + “To what?” + </p> + <p> + “To leaving Shotover. To-day is our last day, you know. To-morrow we all + go; and next day these familiar walls will ring with other voices, my poor + friend: + </p> + <p> + “'Yon rising moon that looks for us again—How oft hereafter will she + wax and wane; How oft hereafter, rising, look for us Through this same + mansion—and for one in vain!'” + </p> + <p> + “That is I—the one, you know. You may be here again; but I—I + shall not be I if I ever come to Shotover again.” + </p> + <p> + Her stockinged heels beat the devil's tattoo against the marble sides of + the pool. She reached up above her head, drawing down a flowering branch + of Japanese orange, and caressed her delicate nose with the white + blossoms, dreamily, then, mischievously: “I'm accustoming myself to this + most significant perfume,” she said, looking at him askance. And she + deliberately hummed the wedding march, watching the colour rise in his + sullen face. + </p> + <p> + “If you had the courage of a sparrow you'd make life worth something for + us both,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I know it; I haven't; but I seem to possess the remainder of his + lordship's traits—inconsequence, self-centred selfishness, the + instinct for Fifth Avenue nest-building—all the feathered vices, all + the unlovely personality and futility and uselessness of my prototype.... + Only, as you observe, I lack the quality of courage.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know how much courage it requires to do what you're going to do,” + he said sulkily. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you? Sometimes, when you wear a scowl like that, I think that it + may require no more courage than I am capable of.... And sometimes—I + don't know.” + </p> + <p> + She crossed her knees, one slender ankle imprisoned in her hand, leaning + forward thoughtfully above the water. + </p> + <p> + “Our last day,” she mused; “for we shall never be just you and I again—never + again, my friend, after we leave this rocky coast of Eden. ...I shall have + hints of you in the sea-wind and the sound of the sea; in the perfume of + autumn woods, in the whisper of stirring leaves when the white birches put + on their gold crowns next year.” She smiled, turning to him, a little + gravely: “When the Lesser Children return with April, I shall not forget + you, Mr. Siward, nor forget your mercy of a day on them; nor your + comradeship, nor your sweetness to me.... Nor your charity for me, nor all + that you overlook so far in me,—under the glamour of a spell that + seems to hold you still, and that still holds me.... I can answer for my + constancy so far, until one more spring and summer have come and gone—until + one more autumn comes, and while it lasts—as long as any semblance + of the setting remains which had once framed you; I can answer for my + constancy as long as that.... Afterwards, the snow!—symbol of our + separation. I am to be married a year from November first.” + </p> + <p> + He looked up at her in dark surprise, for he had heard that their wedding + date had been set for the coming winter. + </p> + <p> + “A year's engagement?” he repeated, unconvinced. + </p> + <p> + “It was my wish. I think that is sufficient for everybody concerned.” + Then, averting her face, which had suddenly lost a little of its colour: + “A year is little enough,” she said impatiently. “I—what has + happened to us requires an interval—a decent interval for its + burial.... Death is respectable in any form. What dies between you and me + can have no resurrection under the snow.... So I bring to the burial my + tribute—a year of life, a year of constancy, my friend; symbol of an + eternity I could have given you had I been worth it.” She looked up, + flushed, the forced smile stamped on lips still trembling. “Sentiment in + such a woman as I! 'A spectacle for Gods and men,' you are saying—are + you not? And perhaps sentiment with me is only an ancient instinct, a + latent ancestral quality for which I, ages later, have no use.” She was + laughing easily. “No use for sentiment, as our bodies have no use for that + fashionable little cul-de-sac, you know, though wise men say it once + served its purpose, too.... Stephen Siward, what do you think of me now?” + </p> + <p> + “I am learning,” he replied simply. + </p> + <p> + “What, if you please?” + </p> + <p> + “Learning a little about what I am losing.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean—me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + She bent forward impulsively, balancing her body on the pool's rim with + both arms, dropping her knee until her ankles swung interlocked above the + water. “Listen,” she said in a low, distinct voice: “What you lose is no + other man's gain! If I warm and expand in your presence—if I say + clever things sometimes—if I am intelligent, sympathetic, and + amusing—it is because of you. You inspire it in me. Normally I am + the sort of girl you first met at the station. I tell you that I don't + know myself now—that I have not known myself since I knew you. + Qualities of understanding, ability to appreciate, to express myself + without employing the commonplaces, subtleties of intercourse—all, + maybe, were latent in me, but sterile, until you came into my life.... And + when you go, then, lacking impulse and incentive, the new facility, the + new sensitive alertness, the unconscious self-confidence, all will + smoulder and die out in me.... I know it; I realise that it was due to you—part + of me that I should never have known, of which I should have remained + totally ignorant, had it not blossomed suddenly, stimulated by you alone.” + </p> + <p> + Slowly the clouded seriousness of her blue eyes cleared, and the smile + began to glimmer again. “That is your revenge; you recommit me to my + commonplace self; you restore me to my tinsel career, practically a dolt. + Shame on you, Stephen Siward, to treat a poor girl so!... But it's just as + well. Blunted perceptions, according to our needs, you know; and so life + is tempered for us all, else we might not endure it long.... A pleasantly + morbid suggestion for a day like this, is it not?... Shall we take a + farewell plunge, and dress? You know we say good-bye to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you go from here?” + </p> + <p> + “To Lenox; the Claymores have asked us for a week; after that, Hot Springs + for another two weeks or so; after that, to Oyster Bay.... Mr. Quarrier + opens his house on Sedge Point,” she added demurely, “but I don't think he + expects to invite you to 'The Sedges.'” + </p> + <p> + “How long do you stay there?” asked Siward irritably. + </p> + <p> + “Until we go to town in December.” + </p> + <p> + “What will you find to do all that time in Oyster Bay?” he asked more + irritably. + </p> + <p> + “What a premature question! The yacht is there. Besides, there's the usual + neighbourhood hunting, with the usual packs and inevitable set; the usual + steeple-chasing; the usual exchange of social amenities; the usual driving + and riding; the usual, my poor friend, the usual, in all its + uncompromising certainty.... And what are you to do?” + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “After you leave here?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't know where you are going?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to town.” + </p> + <p> + “And then?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but haven't you been asked somewhere? You have, of course.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and I have declined.” + </p> + <p> + “Matters of business,” she inferred. “Too bad!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no.” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” she concluded, laughing, “you don't care to tell me where you are + going.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said thoughtfully, “I don't care to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed again carelessly, and, placing one hand on the tiled pavement, + sprang lightly to her feet. + </p> + <p> + “A last plunge?” she asked, as he rose at her side. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, one last plunge together. Deep! Are you ready?” + </p> + <p> + She raised her white arms above her head, finger-tips joined, poised an + instant on the brink, swaying forward; then, at his brief word, they + flashed downward together, cutting the crystalline sea-water, shooting + like great fish over the glass-tiled bed, shoulder to shoulder under the + water; and opening their eyes, they turned toward one another with a swift + outstretch of hands, an uncontrollable touch of lips, the very shadow of + contact; then cleaving upward, rising to the surface to lie breathlessly + floating, arms extended, and the sun filtering down through the + ground-glass roof above. + </p> + <p> + “We are perfectly crazy,” she breathed. “I'm quite mad; I see that. On + land it's bad enough for us to misbehave; but submarine sentiment! We'll + be growing scales and tails presently.... Did you ever hear of a Southern + bird—a sort of hawk, I think—that almost never alights; that + lives and eats and sleeps its whole life away on the wing? and even its + courtship, and its honeymoon? Grace Ferrall pointed one out to me last + winter, near Palm Beach—a slender bird, part black, part snowy + white, with long, pointed, delicate wings like an enormous swallow; and + all day, all night, it floats and soars and drifts in the upper air, never + resting, never alighting except during its brief nesting season.... Think + of the exquisite bliss of drifting one's life through in mid-air—to + sleep, balanced on light wings, upborne by invisible currents flowing + under the stars—to sail dreamily through the long sunshine, to float + under the moon!... And at last, I suppose, when its time has come, down it + whirls out of the sky, stone dead!... There is something thrilling in such + a death—something magnificent.... And in the exquisitely spiritual + honeymoon, vague as the shadow of a rainbow, is the very essence and aroma + of that impalpable Paradise we women prophesy in dreams!... More + sentiment! Heigho! My brother is the weeping crocodile, and the five winds + are my wits.... Shall we dress? Even with a maid and the electric + air-blast it will take time to dry my hair and dress it.” + </p> + <p> + When he came out of his dressing-room she was apparently still in the + hands of the maid. So he sauntered through the house as far as the + library, and drawing a cheque-book from one pocket, fished out a + memorandum-book from another, and began to cast up totals with a view to + learning something about the various debts contracted at Shotover. + </p> + <p> + He seemed to owe everybody. Fortune had smitten him hip and thigh; and, a + trifle concerned, he began covering a pad with figures until he knew where + he stood. Then he drew a considerable cheque to Major Belwether's order, + another to Alderdene. Others followed to other people for various amounts; + and he was very busily at work when, aware of another presence near, he + turned around in his chair. Sylvia Landis was writing at a desk in the + corner, and she looked up, nodding the little greeting that she always + reserved for him even after five minutes' separation. + </p> + <p> + “I'm writing cheques,” she said. “I suppose you're writing to your + mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you think so?” he asked curiously. + </p> + <p> + “You write to her every day, don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, “but how do you know?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him with unblushing deliberation. “You wrote every day.... + If it was to a woman, I wanted to know.... And I told Grace Ferrall that + it worried me. And then Grace told me. Is there any other confession of my + own pettiness that I can make to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you really care to whom I was writing?” he asked slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Care? I—it worried me. Was it not a pitifully common impulse? + 'Sisters under our skin,' you know—I and the maid who dresses me. + She would have snooped; I didn't; that's the only generic difference. I + wanted to know just the same.... But—that was before—” + </p> + <p> + “Before what?” + </p> + <p> + “Before I—please don't ask me to say it.... I did, once, when you + asked me.” + </p> + <p> + “Before you cared for me. Is that what you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You are so cruelly literal when you wish to punish me.... You are + interrupting me, too. I owe that wretched Kemp Ferrall a lot of money, and + I'm trying to find out how much seven and nine are, to close accounts with + Marion Page.” + </p> + <p> + Siward turned and continued his writing. And when the little sheaf of + cheques was ready he counted them, laid them aside, and, drawing a flat + packet of fresh bank-notes from his portfolio, counted out the tips + expected of him below stairs. These arranged for, he straightened up and + glanced over his shoulder at Sylvia, but she was apparently absorbed in + counting something on the ends of her fingers, so he turned smilingly to + his desk and wrote a long letter to his mother—the same tender, + affectionately boyish letter he had always written her, full of + confidences, full of humour, gaily anticipating his own return to her on + the heels of the letter. + </p> + <p> + In his first letter to her from Shotover he had spoken casually of a Miss + Landis. It seemed the name was familiar enough to his mother, who asked + about her; and he had replied in another letter or two, a trifle emphatic + in his praise of her, because from his mother's letters it was quite + evident that she knew a good deal concerning the very unconventional + affairs of Sylvia's family. + </p> + <p> + Of his swift and somewhat equivocal courtship he had had nothing to say in + his letters; in fact recently he had nothing to say about Sylvia at all, + reserving that vital confidence for the clear sympathy and understanding + which he looked forward to when he should see her, and which, through dark + days and bitter aftermaths, through struggle and defeat by his + master-vice, had never failed him yet, never faltered for an instant. + </p> + <p> + So he brought his letter to a close with a tender and uneasy inquiry + concerning her health, which, she had intimated, was not exactly + satisfactory, and for that reason she had opened the house in town in + order to be near Dr. Grisby, their family doctor. + </p> + <p> + Sealing and directing the letter, he looked up to see Sylvia standing at + his elbow. She dropped a light hand on his shoulder for a second, barely + touching him—a fugitive caress, delicate as the smile hovering on + her lips, as the shy tenderness in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “More letters to your sweetheart?” she asked, abandoning her hand to him. + </p> + <p> + “One more—the last before I see her.... I wish you could see her, + Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish so, too,” she answered simply, seating herself on the arm of his + chair as though it were a side-saddle. + </p> + <p> + They sat there very silent for a few moments, curiously oblivious to the + chance curiosity of any one who might enter or pass. + </p> + <p> + “Would she—care for me—do you think?” asked the girl in a low + voice. + </p> + <p> + “I think so,—for your real self.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. She could only feel contempt for me—as I am.” + </p> + <p> + “She is old-fashioned,” he said reverently. + </p> + <p> + “That means all that is best in a woman.... The old fashion of truth and + faith; the old fashion of honour, and faith in honour; the old, old + fashion of—love.... All that is best, Stephen; all that is worth the + love of a man.... Some day somebody will revive those fashions.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you?” + </p> + <p> + “Dear, they would not become me,” she said, the tenderness in her eyes + deepening a little; and she touched his head lightly in humourous caress. + </p> + <p> + “What shall we do with the waning daylight?” she asked. “It is my last day + with you. I told Howard it was my last day with you, and I did not care to + be disturbed.” + </p> + <p> + “You probably didn't say it that way,” he commented, amused. + </p> + <p> + “I did.” + </p> + <p> + “How much of that sort of thing is he prepared to stand?” asked Siward + curiously. + </p> + <p> + “How much? I don't know. I don't believe he cares. It is my uncle, Major + Belwether, who is making things unpleasant for me. I had to tell Howard, + you know.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” exclaimed Siward incredulously. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Do you think my conduct has passed without protest?” + </p> + <p> + “You told Quarrier!” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Did you imagine I could do otherwise?” she asked coolly. “I have that + much decency left. Certainly I told him. Do you suppose that, after what + we did—what I admitted to you—that I could meet him as usual? + Do you think I am afraid of him?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you were afraid of losing him,” muttered Siward. + </p> + <p> + “I was, dreadfully. And the morning after you and I had been imprudent + enough to sit up until nearly daylight—and do what we did—I + made him take a long walk with me, and I told him plainly that I cared for + you, that I was too selfish and cowardly to marry you, and that if he + couldn't endure the news he was at liberty to terminate the engagement + without notice.” + </p> + <p> + “What did he say?” stammered Siward. + </p> + <p> + “A number of practical things.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say he stands it!” + </p> + <p> + “It appears so. What else is there for him to do, unless he breaks the + engagement?” + </p> + <p> + “And he—hasn't?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I was informed that he held me strictly and precisely to my promise; + that he would never release me voluntarily, though I was, of course, at + liberty to do what I chose.... My poor friend, he cares no more for love + than do I. I happen to be the one woman in New York whom he considers + absolutely suitable for him; by race, by breeding, by virtue of appearance + and presence, eminently fitted to complete the material portion of his + fortune and estate.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice had hardened as she spoke; now it rang a little at the end, and + she laughed unpleasantly. + </p> + <p> + “It appears that I was a little truer to myself than you gave me credit + for—a little truer to you—a little less treacherous, less + shameless, than you must have thought me. But I have gone to my limit of + decency; ...and, were I ten times more in love with you than I am, I could + not put away the position and power offered me. But I will not lie for it, + nor betray for it.... Do you remember, once you asked me for what reasons + I dropped men from my list? And I told you, because of any falsehood or + treachery, any betrayal of trust—and for no other reason. You + remember? And did you suppose that elemental standard of decency did not + include women—even such a woman as I?” + </p> + <p> + She dropped one arm on the back of his chair and rested her chin on it, + staring at space across his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “That's how it had to be, you see, when I found that I cared for you. + There was nothing to do but to tell him. I was quite certain that it was + all off; but I found that I didn't know the man. I knew he was sensitive, + but I didn't know he was sensitive to personal ridicule only, and to + nothing else in all the world that I can discover. I—I suppose, from + my frankness to him, he has concluded that no ridicule could ever touch + him through me. I mean, he trusts me enough to marry me.... He will be + safe enough, as far as my personal conduct is concerned,” she added + naively. “It seems that I am capable of love; but I am incapable of its + degradation.” + </p> + <p> + Siward, leaning heavily forward over his desk, rested his head in both + hands; and she stooped from her perch on the arm of the chair, pressing + her hot cheeks against his hands—a moment only; then slipping to her + feet, she curled up in a great arm-chair by the fire, head tipped back, + blue gaze concentrated on him. + </p> + <p> + “The thing for you to do,” she said, “is to ambush me some night, and + throw me into a hansom, and drive us both to the parson's. I'd hate you + for it as much as I'd love you, but I'd make you an interesting wife.” + </p> + <p> + “I may do that yet,” he said, lifting his head from his hands. + </p> + <p> + “You've a year to do it in,” she observed.... “By the way, you're to take + me in to dinner, as you did the first night. Do you remember? I asked + Grace Ferrall then. I asked her again to-day. Heigho! It was years ago, + wasn't it, that I drove up to the station and saw a very attractive and + perplexed young man looking anxiously about for somebody to take him to + Shotover. Ahem! the notorious Mr. Siward! Dear,... I didn't mean to hurt + you! You know it, silly! Mayn't I have my little joke about your badness—your + redoubtable badness of reputation? There! You had just better smile.... + How dare you frighten me by making me think I had hurt you!... Besides, + you are probably unrepentant.” + </p> + <p> + She watched him closely for a moment or two, then, “Are you unrepentant?” + </p> + <p> + “About what?” + </p> + <p> + “About your general wickedness? About—” she hesitated—“about + that girl, for example.” + </p> + <p> + “What girl?” he asked coldly. + </p> + <p> + “That reminds me that you have told me absolutely nothing about her.” + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to tell,” he said, in a tone so utterly new to her in + its finality that she sat up as though listening to an unknown voice. + </p> + <p> + Tone and words so completely excluded her from the new intimacy into which + she had imperceptibly drifted that both suddenly developed a significance + from sheer contrast. Who was this girl, then, of whom he had absolutely + nothing to say? What was she to him? What could she be to him—an + actress, a woman of common antecedents? + </p> + <p> + She had sometimes idly speculated in an indefinitely innocent way as to + just what a well-born man could find to interest him in such women; what + he could have to talk about to persons of that sort, where community of + tastes and traditions must be so absolutely lacking. + </p> + <p> + Gossip, scandal of that nature, hints, silences, innuendoes, the wise + shrugs of young girls oversophisticated, the cool, hard smiles of matrons, + all had left her indifferent or bored, partly from distaste, partly from + sheer incredulity; a refusal to understand, an innate delicacy that not + only refrains from comprehension, but also denies itself even the + curiosity to inquire or the temptation of vaguest surmise on a subject + that could not exist for her. + </p> + <p> + But now, something of the uncomfortable uneasiness had come over her which + she had been conscious of when made aware of Marion Page's worldly wisdom, + and which had imperceptibly chilled her when Grace Ferrall spoke of + Siward's escapade, coupling this woman and him in the same scandal. + </p> + <p> + She took it for granted that there must be, for men, an attraction toward + women who figured publicly behind the foot-lights, though it appeared very + silly to her. In fact it all was silly and undignified—part and + parcel, no doubt, of that undergraduate foolishness which seemed to cling + to some men who had otherwise attained discretion. + </p> + <p> + But it appeared to her that Siward had taken the matter with a seriousness + entirely out of proportion in his curt closure of the subject, and she + felt a little irritated, a little humiliated, a little hurt, and took + refuge in a silence that he did not offer to break. + </p> + <p> + Early twilight had fallen in the room; the firelight grew redder. + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia,” he said abruptly, reverting to the old, light tone hinting of + the laughter in his eyes which she could no longer see, “Suppose, as you + suggested, I did ambush you—say after the opera—seize you + under the very nose of your escort and make madly for a hansom?” + </p> + <p> + “I know of no other way,” she said demurely. + </p> + <p> + “Would you resist, physically?” + </p> + <p> + “I would, if nobody were looking.” + </p> + <p> + “Desperately? + </p> + <p> + “How do I know? Besides, it couldn't last long,” she said, thinking of his + slimly powerful build as she had noticed it in his swimming costume. + Smiling, amused, she wondered how long she could resist him with her own + wholesome supple activity strengthened to the perfection of health in + saddle and afoot. + </p> + <p> + “I should advise you to chloroform me,” she said defiantly. “You don't + realise my accomplishments with the punching-bag.” + </p> + <p> + “So you mean to resist?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do. If I were going to surrender at once, I might as well go off + to church with you now.” + </p> + <p> + “Wenniston church!” he said promptly. “I'll order the Mercedes.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed, lazily settling herself more snugly by the fire. “Suppose it + were our fire?” she smiled. “There would be a dog lying across that rug, + and a comfortable Angora tabby dozing by the fender, and—you, + cross-legged, at my feet, with that fascinating head of yours tipped back + against my knees.” + </p> + <p> + The laughter in her voice died out, and he had risen, saying unsteadily: + “Don't! I—I can't stand that sort of thing, you know.” + </p> + <p> + She had made a mistake, too; she also had suddenly become aware of her own + limits in the same direction. + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me, dear! I meant no mockery.” + </p> + <p> + “I know.... After a while a man finds laughter difficult.” + </p> + <p> + “I was not laughing at—anything. I was only pretending to be happy.” + </p> + <p> + “Your happiness is before you,” he said sullenly. + </p> + <p> + “My future, you mean. You know I am exchanging one for the other.... And + some day you will awake to the infamy of it; you will comprehend the + depravity of the monstrous trade I made.... And then—and then—” + </p> + <p> + She passed one slim hand over her face—“then you will shake yourself + free from this dream of me; then, awake, my punishment at your hands will + begin.... Dear, no man in his right senses can continue to love a girl + such as I am. All that is true and ardent and generous in you has invested + my physical attractiveness and my small intellect with a magic that cannot + last, because it is magic; and you are the magician, enmeshed for the + moment in the mists of your own enchantment. When this fades, when you + unclose your eyes in clear daylight, dear, I dread to think what I shall + appear to you—what a dreadful, shrunken, bloodless shell, hung with + lace and scented, silken cerements—a jewelled mummy-case—a + thing that never was!... Do you understand my punishment a little, now?” + </p> + <p> + “If it were true,” he said in a dull voice, “you will have forgotten, + too.” + </p> + <p> + “I pray I may,” she said under her breath. + </p> + <p> + And, after a long silence: “Do you think, before the year is out, that you + might be granted enough courage?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. I shall not even pray for it. I want what is offered me! I desire it + so blindly that already it has become part of me. I tell you the poison is + in every vein; there is nothing else but poison in me. I am what I tell + you, to the core. It is past my own strength of will to stop me, now. If I + am stopped, another must do it. My weakness for you, being a treachery if + not confessed, I was obliged to confess, horribly frightened as I was. He + might have stopped me; he did not.... And now, what is there on earth to + halt me? Love cannot. Common decency and courage cannot. Fear of your + unhappiness and mine cannot. No, even the certitude of your contempt, some + day, is powerless to halt me now. I could not love; I am utterly incapable + of loving you enough to balance the sacrifice. And that is final.” + </p> + <p> + Grace Ferrall came into the room and found a duel of silence in progress + under the dull fire-glow tinting the ceiling. + </p> + <p> + “Another quarrel,” she commented, turning on the current of the drop-light + above the desk from which Siward had risen at her entrance. “You quarrel + enough to marry. Why don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “I wish we could,” said Sylvia simply. + </p> + <p> + Grace laughed. “What a little fool you are!” she said tenderly, seating + herself in Siward's chair and dropping one hand over his where it rested + on the arm. “Stephen, can't you make her—a big, strong fellow like + you? Oh, well; on your heads be it! My conscience is now clear for the + first time, and I'll never meddle again.” She gave Siward's hand a + perfunctory pat and released him with a discreetly stifled yawn. “I'm + disgracefully sleepy; the wind blew like fury along the coast. Sylvia, + have you had a good time at Shotover—the time of your life?” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia raised her eyes and encountered Siward's. + </p> + <p> + “I certainly have,” she said faintly. + </p> + <p> + “C'est bien, chérie. Can you be as civil, Stephen—conscientiously? + Oh, that is very nice of you! But there's one thing: why on earth didn't + you make eyes at Marion? Life might be one long, blissful carnival of + horse and dog for you both. Oh, dear! there, I'm meddling again! Pinch me, + Sylvia, if I ever begin to meddle again! How did you come out at Bridge, + Stephen? What—bad as that? Gracious! this is disgraceful—this + gambling the way people do! I'm shocked and I'm going up to dress. Are you + coming, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + The dinner was very gay. The ceremony of christening the Shotover Cup, + which Quarrier had won, proceeded with presentation speech and a speech of + acceptance faultlessly commonplace, during which Quarrier wore his smile—which + was the only humorous thing he contributed. + </p> + <p> + The cup was full. Siward eyed it, perplexed, deadly afraid, yet seeing no + avenue of escape from what must appear a public exhibition of contempt for + Quarrier if he refused to taste its contents. That meant a bad night for + him; yet he shrank more from the certain misinterpretation of a refusal to + drink from the huge loving-cup with its heavy wreath of scented orchids, + now already on its way toward him, than he feared the waking struggle so + sure to follow. + </p> + <p> + Marion received the cup, lifted it in both hands, and said distinctly, + “Good Hunting!” as she drank to Quarrier. Her brother Gordon took it, and + drank entirely too much. Then Sylvia lifted it, her white hands half + buried among the orchids: “To you!” she murmured for Siward's ear alone; + then drank gaily, mischievously, “To the best shot at Shotover!” And + Siward took the cup: “I salute victory,” he said, smiling, “always, and + everywhere! To him who takes the fighting chance and wins out! To the best + man! Health!” And he drank as a gentleman drinks, with a gay bow to + Quarrier, and with death in his heart. + </p> + <p> + Later, the irony of it struck him so grimly that he laughed; and Sylvia, + beside him, looked up, dismayed to see the gray change in his face. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” she faltered, catching his eye; “why do you—why are + you so white?” + </p> + <p> + But he only smiled, as though he had misunderstood, saying: + </p> + <p> + “The survival of the fittest; that is the only test, after all. The man + who makes good doesn't whine for justice. There's enough of it in the + world to go round, and he who misses it gets all that's due him just the + same.” + </p> + <p> + Later, at cards, the aromatic odour from Alderdene's decanter roused him + to fierce desire, but he fought it down until only the deadened, tearing + ache remained to shake and loosen every nerve. And when Ferrall, finishing + his usual batch of business letters, arrived to cut in if needed, Siward + dropped his cards with a shudder, and rose so utterly unnerved that + Captain Voucher, noticing his drawn face, asked him if he were not ill. + </p> + <p> + He was leaving on an earlier train than the others, having decided to pass + through Boston and Deptford, at which latter place he meant to leave + Sagamore for the winter in care of the manager of his mother's farm. So he + took a quiet leave of those to whom the civility might not prove an + interruption—a word to Alderdene and Voucher as he passed out, a + quick clasp for Ferrall and for Grace, a carefully and cordially formal + parting from the Page boys, which pleased them ineffably. + </p> + <p> + Eileen and Rena, who had never had half a chance at him, took it now, + delighted to discipline their faithful Pages; and he submitted in his own + engagingly agreeable way, and so skilfully that both Eileen and Rena felt + sorry that they had not earlier understood how civilly anxious he had been + to devote himself to them alone. And they looked at the Pages, + exasperated. + </p> + <p> + In the big hall he passed Marion, and stopped to take his leave. + </p> + <p> + No, he would do no hunting this season either at Carysford or with the two + trial packs at Eastwood. Possibly at Warrenton later, but probably not; + business threatened to detain him in town more or less.... Of course he'd + come to see her when she returned to town.... And it had been a jolly + party, and it was a shame to sound “lights out” so soon! Good-bye. ...Good + night. And that was all. + </p> + <p> + And that was all, unless he disturbed Sylvia, seated at cards with + Quarrier and Major Belwether and Leila Mortimer—and very intent on + the dummy, very still, and a trifle pallid with the pallor of + concentration. + </p> + <p> + So—that was all, then. + </p> + <p> + Ascending the stairs, a servant handed him a letter bearing the crest of + the Lenox Club. He pocketed it unopened and continued his way. + </p> + <p> + In the darkness of his own room he sat down, the devil's own clutch on his + shrinking nerves, a deathly desire tearing at his very vitals, and every + vein a tiny trail of fire run riot. He had been too long without it, too + long to endure the craving aroused by that gay draught from Quarrier's + loving-cup. + </p> + <p> + The awakened fury of his desire appalled him, and for a while that + occupied him, enabling him to endure. But fear and dismay soon passed in + the purely physical distress; he walked the floor, haggard, the sweat + starting on his face; he lay with clenched hands, stiffened out across the + bed, deafened by the riotous clamour of his pulses, conscious that he was + holding out, unconscious how long he could hold out. + </p> + <p> + Crisis after crisis swept him; sometimes he found his feet and moved + blindly about the room. + </p> + <p> + Strange periods of calm intervened; sensation seemed deadened; and he + stood as a man who listens, scarcely daring to breathe lest the enemy + awake and seize him. + </p> + <p> + He turned on the light, later, to look for his pipe, and he caught a + glimpse of himself in the mirror. It was a sick man who stared back at him + out of hollow eyes, and the physical revulsion shocked him into something + resembling self-command. + </p> + <p> + “Damn you!” he said fiercely, setting his teeth and staring back at his + reflected face, “I'll kill you yet before I've finished with you!” + </p> + <p> + Then he filled his pipe, and opening his bedroom window, sat down, resting + his arm on the sill. A splendid moon silvered the sea; through the intense + stillness he heard the surf, magnificently dissonant among the reefs, and + he listened, fascinated, loathing the tides as he feared and loathed the + inexorable tides that surged and ebbed with his accursed desire. + </p> + <p> + Once he said to himself, weakly—for he was deadly tired—“What + am I making the fight for, anyway?” And “Who are you making the fight + for?” echoed his heavy pulses. + </p> + <p> + He had asked that question and received that answer before. After all, it + had been for his mother's sake alone. And now—and now?—his + heart beat out another answer; and before his eyes two other eyes seemed + to open, fearlessly, sweetly, divinely tender. But they were no longer his + mother's grave, gray eyes. + </p> + <p> + After the second pipe he remembered his letter. It gave him something to + do, so he opened it and tried to read it, but for a long while, in his + confused physical and mental condition, he could make no sense of it. + </p> + <p> + Little by little he began to comprehend its purport that his resignation + was regretfully requested by the governors of the Lenox Club for reasons + unassigned. + </p> + <p> + The shock of the thing came to him after a while, like a distant, dull + report long after the flash of the explosion. Well, the affair, bad enough + at first, was turning worse, that was all. How much of that sort of + discredit could a man stand and keep his balance?... And what would his + mother say? + </p> + <p> + Confused from his own physical suffering, the blow had fallen with a + deadened force on nerves already numbed; but his half-stupefied + acquiescence had suddenly become a painful recoil when he remembered where + the brunt of the disgrace would fall—where the centre of suffering + must always be, and the keenest grief concentrated. Roused, appalled, + almost totally unnerved, he stood staring at the letter, beginning to + realise what it would mean to his mother. A passion of remorse and + resentment swept him. She must be spared that! There must be some way—some + punishment for his offence that could not strike her through him! It was + wicked, it was contemptible, insane, to strike her! What were the + governors of the Lenox about—a lot of snivelling hypocrites, + pandering to the horrified snobbery at the Patroons! Who were they, + anyway, to discipline him! Scarce one in fifty among the members of the + two clubs was qualified to sit in judgment on a Siward! + </p> + <p> + But that tempest of passion and mortification passed, too, leaving him + standing there, dumb, desperate, staring at the letter crushed in his + shaking hand. + </p> + <p> + He must see somebody, some member of the Lenox, and do something—something! + Ferrall! Was that Ferrall's step on the landing? + </p> + <p> + He sprang to the door and opened it. Quarrier, passing the corridor, + turned an expressionless visage toward him, and passed on with a nod + almost imperceptible. + </p> + <p> + “Quarrier!” he called, swept by a sudden impulse. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier halted and turned. + </p> + <p> + “Could you give me a moment—here in my room? I won't detain you.” + </p> + <p> + The faint trace of surprise faded from Quarrier's face; he quietly + retraced his steps, and, entering Siward's room, stood silently + confronting its pallid tenant. + </p> + <p> + “Will you sit down a moment?” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier seated himself in the arm-chair by the window, and Siward found a + chair opposite. + </p> + <p> + “Quarrier,” said the younger man, turning a tensely miserable face on his + visitor, “I want to ask you something. I'll not mince matters. You know + that the Patroons have dropped me, and you know what for.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know.” + </p> + <p> + “When I was called before the Board of Governors to explain the matter, if + I could, you were sitting on that Board.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I denied the charge, but refused to explain.... You remember?” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier nodded coldly. + </p> + <p> + “And I was dropped by the club!” + </p> + <p> + A slight inclination of Quarrier's symmetrical head corroborated him. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” said Siward, slowly and very distinctly, “I shall tell you + unofficially what I refused to tell the other governors officially.” And, + as he began speaking, Quarrier's face flushed, then the features became + immobile, set, and inert, and his eyes grew duller and duller, as though, + under a smooth surface the soul inside of him was shrinking back into some + dark corner, silent, watchful, suspicious, and perhaps defiant. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Quarrier,” said Siward quietly, “I did not take that girl to the + Patroons Club—and you know it.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier was all surface now; he had drawn away internally so far that + even his eyes seemed to recede until they scarcely glimmered through the + slits in his colourless mask. And Siward went on: + </p> + <p> + “I knew perfectly well what sort of women I was to meet at that fool + supper Billy Fleetwood gave; and you must have, too, for the girl you took + in was no stranger to you.... Her name is Lydia Vyse, I believe.” + </p> + <p> + The slightest possible glimmer in the elder man's eyes was all the answer + he granted. + </p> + <p> + “What happened,” said Siward calmly, “was this: She bet me she could so + disguise herself that I could safely take her into any club in New York. I + bet her she couldn't. I never dreamed of trying. Besides, she was your—dinner + partner,” he added with a shrug. + </p> + <p> + His concentrated gaze seemed at length to pierce the expressionless + surface of the other man, who moved slightly in his chair and moistened + his thin lips under the glossy beard. + </p> + <p> + “Quarrier,” said Siward earnestly, “What happened in the club lobby I + don't exactly know, because I was not in a condition to know. I admit it; + that was the trouble with me. When I left Fleetwood's rooms I left with a + half dozen men. I remember crossing Fifth Avenue with them; and the next + thing I remember distinctly was loud talking in the club lobby, and a + number of men there, and a slim young fellow in Inverness and top hat in + the centre of a crowd, whose face was the face of that girl, Lydia Vyse. + And that is absolutely all. But I couldn't do more than deny that I took + her there unless I told what I knew; and of course that was not possible, + even in self-defence. But it was for you to admit that I was right. And + you did not. You dared not! You let another man blunder into your private + affairs and fall a victim to circumstantial evidence which you could have + refuted; and it was up to you to say something! And you did not!... And + now—what are you going to do? The Lenox Club has taken this thing + up. A man can't stand too much of that sort of thing. What am I to do? I + can't defend myself by betraying my accidental knowledge of your petty, + private affairs. So I leave it to you. I ask you what are you going to + do?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean”—Quarrier's voice was not his own, and he brought it + harshly under command—“do you mean that you think it necessary for + me to say I knew her? What object would be attained by that? I did not + take her to the Patroons'.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor did I. Ask her how she got there. Learn the truth from her, man!” + </p> + <p> + “What proof is there that I ever met her before I took her into supper at + Fleetwood's?” + </p> + <p> + “Proof! Are you mad? All I ask of you is to say to the governors what I + cannot say without using your name.” + </p> + <p> + “You wish me,” asked Quarrier icily, “to deny that you made that wager? I + can do that.” + </p> + <p> + “You can't do it! I did make that bet.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Then, what is it you wish me to say?” + </p> + <p> + “Tell them the truth. Tell them you know I did not take her to the club. + You need not tell them why you know it. You need not tell them how much + you know about her, whose brougham she drove home in. I can't defend + myself at your expense—intrench myself behind your dirty little + romance. What could I say? I denied taking her to the club. Then Major + Belwether confronted me with my wager. Then I shut up. And so did you, + Quarrier—so did you, seated there among the governors, between Leroy + Mortimer and Belwether. It was up to you, and you did not stir!” + </p> + <p> + “Stir!” echoed the other man, exasperated. “Of course I did not stir. What + did I know about it? Do you think I care to give a man like Mortimer a + hold on me by admitting I knew anything?—or Belwether—do you + think I care to have that man know anything about my private and personal + business? Did you expect me to say that I was in a position to prove + anything one way or another? And,” he added with increasing harshness, + “how do you know what I might or might not prove? If she went to the + Patroons Club, I did not go with her; I did not see her; I don't know + whether or not you took her.” + </p> + <p> + “I have already told you that I did not take her,” said Siward, turning + whiter. + </p> + <p> + “You told that to the governors, too. Tell them again, if you like. I + decline to discuss this matter with you. I decline to countenance your + unwarranted intrusion into what you pretend to believe are my private + affairs. I decline to confer with Belwether or Mortimer. It's enough that + you are inclined to meddle—” His cold anger was stirring. He rose to + his full, muscular height, slow, menacing, his long, pale fingers twisting + his silky beard. “It's enough that you meddle!” he repeated. “As for the + matter in question, a dozen men, including myself, heard you make a wager; + and later I myself was a witness that the terms of that wager had been + carried out to the letter. I know absolutely nothing except that, Mr. + Siward; nor, it appears, do you, for you were drunk at the time, and you + have admitted it to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I have asked you,” said Siward, rising, and very grave, “I have asked you + to do the right thing. Are you going to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “Is that a threat?” inquired Quarrier, showing the edges of his well-kept + teeth. “Is this intimidation, Mr. Siward? Do I understand that you are + proposing to bespatter others with scandal unless I am frightened into + going to the governors with the flimsy excuse you attempt to offer me? In + other words, Mr. Siward, are you bent on making me pay for what you + believe you know of my private life? Is it really intimidation?” + </p> + <p> + And still Siward stared into his half-veiled, sneering eyes, speechless. + </p> + <p> + “There is only one name used for this kind of thing,” added Quarrier, + taking a quick involuntary step backward to the door as the blaze of fury + broke out in Siward's eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! Quarrier,” whispered Siward with dry lips, “what a cur you are! + What a cur!” + </p> + <p> + And long after Quarrier had passed the door and disappeared in the + corridor, Siward stood there, frozen motionless under the icy waves of + rage that swept him. + </p> + <p> + He had never before had an enemy worth the name; he knew he had one now. + He had never before hated; he now understood something of that, too. The + purely physical craving to take this man and crush him into eternal + quiescence had given place to a more terrible mental desire to punish. His + brain surged and surged under the first flood of a mortal hatred. That the + hatred was sterile made it the more intense, and, blinded by it, he stood + there or paced the room minute after minute, hearing nothing but the wild + clamour in his brain, seeing nothing but the smooth, expressionless face + of the man whom he could not reach. + </p> + <p> + Toward midnight, seated in his chair by the window, a deathly lassitude + weighing his heart, he heard the steps of people on the stairway, the + click of the ascending elevator, gay voices calling good night, a ripple + of laughter, the silken swish of skirts in the corridor, doors opening and + closing; then silence creeping throughout the house on the receding heels + of departure—a stillness that settled like a mist through hall and + corridor, accented for a few moments by distant sounds, then absolute, + echoless silence. And for a long while he sat there listening. + </p> + <p> + The cool wind from the ocean blew his curtains far into the room, where + they bellied out, fluttering, floating, subsiding, only to rise again in + the freshening breeze. He sat watching their silken convolutions, + stupidly, for a while, then rose and closed his window, and raised the + window on the south for purposes of air. + </p> + <p> + As he turned to adjust his transom, something white thrust under the door + caught his eye, and he walked over and drew it across the sill. It was a + sealed note. He opened it, reading it as he walked back to the drop-light + burning beside his bed: + </p> + <p> + “Did you not mean to say good-bye? Because it is to be good-bye for a + long, long time—for all our lives—as long as we live—as + long as the world lasts, and longer.... Good-bye—unless you care to + say it to me.” + </p> + <p> + He stood studying the note for a while; presently, lighting a match, he + set fire to it and carried it blazing to the grate and flung it in, + watching the blackened ashes curl up, glow, whiten, and fall in flakes to + the hearth. Then he went out into the corridor, and traversed the hall to + the passage which led to the bay-window. There was nobody there. The stars + looked in on him, twinkling with a frosty light; beneath, the shadowy + fronds of palms traced a pale pattern on the glass roof of the swimming + pool. He waited a moment, turned, retraced his steps to his own door and + stood listening. Then, moving swiftly, he walked the length of the + corridor, and, halting at her door, knocked once. + </p> + <p> + After a moment the door swung open. He stepped forward into the room, + closing the door behind him, and confronted the tall girl standing there + silhouetted against the lamp behind her. + </p> + <p> + “You are insane to do this!” she whispered. “I let you in for fear you'd + knock again!” + </p> + <p> + “I went to the bay-window,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “You went too late. I was there an hour ago. I waited. Do you know what + time it is?” + </p> + <p> + “Come to the bay-window,” he said, “if you fear me here.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know it is nearly three o'clock?” she repeated. “And you leave at + six. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we say good-bye here?” he asked coolly. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. I dare not go out. And you—do you know the chances we + are running? You must be perfectly mad to come to my room. Do you think + anybody could have seen—heard you—” + </p> + <p> + “No. Good night.” He offered his hand; she laid both of hers in it. He + could scarcely distinguish her features where she stood dark against the + brilliant light behind her. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye,” he whispered, kissing her hands where they lay in his. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye.” Her fingers closed convulsively, retaining his hands. “I hope—I + think that—you—” Her head was drooping; she could not control + her voice. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye, Sylvia,” he said again. + </p> + <p> + It was quite useless, she could not speak; and when he took her in his + arms she clung to him, quivering; and he kissed the wet lashes, and the + hot, trembling lips, and the smooth little hands crushed to his breast. + </p> + <p> + “We have a year yet,” she gasped. “Dear, take me by force before it ends. + I—I simply cannot endure this. I told you to take me—to tear + me from myself. Will you do it? I will love you—truly, truly! Oh, my + darling, my darling! Don't—don't give me up! Can't you do something + for us? Can't you—” + </p> + <p> + “Will you come with me now?” + </p> + <p> + “How can—” + </p> + <p> + “Will you?” + </p> + <p> + A sudden sound broke out in the night—the distant pealing of the + lodge-gate bell. Startled, she shrank back; somebody in the adjoining room + had sprung to the floor and was opening the window. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” she motioned with whitening lips. “Quick! oh, quick, before + you are seen! Grace may come! I—I beg of you to go!” + </p> + <p> + As he stepped into the corridor he heard, below, a sound at the great + door, and the stirring of the night watchman on post. At his own door he + turned, listening to the movement and whispering. Ferrall, in + dressing-gown and slippers, stepped into the corridor; below, the chains + were rattling as the wicket swung open. There was a brief parley at the + door, sounds of retreating steps on the gravel outside, sounds of + approaching steps on the stairway. + </p> + <p> + “What's that? A telegram?” said Ferrall sharply. “Here, give it to me.... + Wait! It isn't for me. It's for Mr Siward!” + </p> + <p> + Siward, standing at his open door, swayed slightly. A thrill of pure fear + struck him through and through. He laid one hand on the door to steady + himself, and stepped forward as Ferrall came up. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! You're awake, Stephen. Here's a telegram.” He extended his hand. + Siward took the yellow envelope, fumbled it, tore it open. + </p> + <p> + “Good God!” whispered Ferrall; “is it bad?” + </p> + <p> + And Siward's glazed eyes stared and stared at the scrawled and inky + message: + </p> + <p> + “YOUR MOTHER IS VERY ILL. COME AT ONCE.” + </p> + <p> + The signature was the name of their family physician, Grisby. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII CONFIDENCES + </h2> + <p> + By January the complex social mechanism of the metropolis was whirling + smoothly again; the last ultra-fashionable December lingerer had returned + from the country; those of the same caste outward bound for a Southern or + exotic winter had departed; and the glittering machine, every part + assembled, refurbished, repolished, and connected, having been given + preliminary speed-tests at the horse show, and a tuning up at the opera, + was now running under full velocity; and its steady, subdued whir + quickened the clattering pulse of the city, keying it to a sublimely + syncopated ragtime. + </p> + <p> + The commercial reaction from the chaos of the holidays had become a + carnival of recovery; shop windows grew brighter and gayer than ever, + bursting into gaudy winter florescence; the main arteries of the town + roared prosperity; cross streets were packed; Fifth Avenue, almost + impassible in the morning, choked up after three o'clock; and all the + afternoon through, and late into the night, mounted police of the traffic + squad, adrift in the tide of carriages, stemmed the flashing currents + pouring north and south from the white marble arch to the gilded bronze + battle-horse and its rider on guard at the portals of the richest quarter + of the wealthiest city in the world. + </p> + <p> + So far, that winter, snow had fallen only twice, lasting but a day or two + each time; street and avenue remained bone dry where the white-uniformed + cleaning squads worked amid clouds of dust; and all day long the flinty + asphalt echoed the rattling slap of horses' feet; all day long the big, + shining motor-cars sped up town and down town, droning their distant + warnings. It was an open winter in New York, and, financially, a + prosperous one; and that meant a brilliant social season. Like a set piece + of fireworks, with its interdependent parts taking fire in turn, function + after function, spectacle after spectacle, glittered, fizzed, and was + extinguished, only to give place to newer and more splendid spectacles; + separate circles, sets, and groups belonging to the social solar system + whizzed, revolved, rotated, with edifying effects on everybody concerned, + unconcerned, and not at all concerned; and at intervals, when for a moment + or two something hung fire, the twinkle of similar spectacles sputtering + away in distant cities beyond the horizon was faintly reflected in the + social sky above the incandescent metropolis. For the whole nation was + footing it, heel and toe, to the echoes of strains borne on the winds from + the social capital of the republic; and the social arbiter at Bird Centre + was more of a facsimile of his New York confrère than that confrère could + ever dream of even in the most realistic of nightmares. + </p> + <p> + Three phenomena particularly characterised that metropolitan winter: the + reckless rage for private gambling through the mediums of bridge and + roulette; the incorporation of a company known as The Inter-County + Electric Company, capitalised at a figure calculated to disturb nobody, + and, so far, without any avowed specific policy other than that which + served to decorate a portion of its charter which otherwise might have + remained ornately and comparatively blank; the third phenomenon was the + retirement from active affairs of Stanley S. Quarrier, the father of + Howard Quarrier, and the election of the son to the presidency of the + great Algonquin Loan and Trust Company, with its network system of + dependent, subsidiary, and allied corporations. + </p> + <p> + The day that the newspapers gave this interesting information to the + Western world, Leroy Mortimer, on being bluntly notified that he had + overdrawn his account with the Algonquin Loan and Trust, began telephoning + in every direction until he located Beverly Plank at the Saddle Club—an + organisation of wealthy men, and sufficiently exclusive not to compromise + Plank's possible chances for something better; in fact, the Saddle Club, + into which Leroy Mortimer had already managed to pilot him, was one riser + and tread upward on the stair he was climbing, though it was more of a + lobby for other clubs than a club in itself. To be seen there was, + perhaps, rather to a man's advantage, if he did not loaf there in the + evenings or use it too frequently. As Plank carefully avoided doing + either, Mortimer was fortunate in finding him there; and he crawled out of + his hansom, saying that the desk clerk would pay, and entered the + reading-room, where Plank sat writing a letter. + </p> + <p> + Beverly Plank had grown stouter since he had returned to town from Black + Fells; but the increase of weight was evenly distributed over his six feet + odd, which made him only a trifle more ponderous and not abdominally fat. + But Mortimer had become enormous; rolls of flesh crowded his mottled + ear-lobes outward and bulged above his collar; cushions of it padded the + backs of his hands and fingers; shaving left his heavy, distended face + congested and unpleasantly shiny. But he was as minutely groomed as ever, + and he wore that satiated air of prosperity which had always been one of + his most important assets. + </p> + <p> + The social campaign inaugurated by Leila Mortimer in behalf of Beverly + Plank had, so far, received no serious reverses. His box at the horse + show, of course, produced merely negative results; his box at the opera + might mean something some day. His name was up at the Lenox and the + Patroons; he had endowed a ward in the new pavilion of St. Berold's + Hospital; he had presented a fine Gainsborough—The Countess of Wythe—to + the Metropolitan Museum; and it was rumoured that he had consulted several + bishops concerning a new chapel for that huge bastion of the citadel of + Faith looming above the metropolitan wilderness in the north. + </p> + <p> + So far, so good. If, as yet, he had not been permitted to go where he + wanted to go, he at least had been instructed where not to go and what not + to do; and he was as docile as he was dogged, understanding how much + longer it takes to shuffle in by way of the mews and the back door than to + sit on the front steps and wait politely for somebody to unchain the front + door. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile he was doggedly docile; his huge house, facing the wintry park + midway between the squat palaces of the wealthy pioneers and the outer + hundreds, remained magnificently empty save for certain afternoon + conferences of very solemn men, fellow directors and associates in + business and financial matters—save for the periodical presence of + the Mortimers: a mansion immense and shadowy, haunted by relays of + yawning, livened servants, half stupefied under the vast silence of the + twilit splendour. He was patient, not only because he was told to be, but + also because he had nothing better to do. Society stared at him as blankly + as the Mountain confronted Mahomet. But the stubborn patience of the man + was itself a strain on the Mountain; he was aware of that, and he waited + for it to come to him. As yet, however, he could detect no symptoms of + mobility in the Mountain. + </p> + <p> + “Things are moving all the same,” said Mortimer, as he entered the reading + room of the Saddle Club. “Quarrier and Belwether have listened a damned + sight more respectfully to me since they read that column about you and + the bishops and that chapel business.” + </p> + <p> + Plank turned his heavy head with a disturbed glance around the room; for + he always dreaded Mortimer's indiscretions of speech—was afraid of + his cynical frankness in the presence of others; even shrank from the + brutal bonhomie of the man when alone with him. + </p> + <p> + “Can't you be careful?” he said; “there was a man here a moment ago.” He + picked up his unfinished letter, folded and pocketed it, touched an + electric bell, and when a servant came, “Take Mr. Mortimer's order,” he + said, supporting his massive head on his huge hands and resting his elbow + on the writing-desk. + </p> + <p> + “I've got to cut out this morning bracer,” said Mortimer, eyeing the + servant with indecision; but he gave his order nevertheless, and later + accepted a cigar; and when the servant had returned and again retired, he + half emptied his tall glass, refilled it with mineral water, and, settling + back in the padded arm-chair, said: “If I manage this thing as it ought to + be managed, you'll go through by April. What do you think of that?” + </p> + <p> + Plank's phlegmatic features flushed. “I'm more obliged to you than I can + say,” he began, but Mortimer silenced him with a gesture: “Don't + interrupt. I'm going to put you through The Patroons Club by April. That's + thirty yards through the centre; d'ye see, you dunderheaded Dutchman? It's + solid gain, and it's our ball. The Lenox will take longer; they're a + 'holier-than-thou' bunch of nincompoops, and it always horrifies them to + have any man elected, no matter who he is. They'd rather die of dry rot + than elect anybody; it shocks them to think that any man could have the + presumption to be presented. They require the spectacle of fasting and + prayer—a view of a candidate seated in sackcloth and ashes in outer + darkness. You've got to wait for the Lenox, Plank.” + </p> + <p> + “I am waiting,” said Plank, squaring his massive jaws. + </p> + <p> + “You've got to,” growled Mortimer, emptying his glass aggressively. + </p> + <p> + Plank looked out of the window, his shrewd blue eyes closing in + retrospection. + </p> + <p> + “Another thing,” continued Mortimer thickly; “the Kemp Ferralls are + disposed to be decent. I don't mean in asking you to meet some + intellectual second-raters, but in doing it handsomely. I don't know + whether it's time yet,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Plank's stolid + face; “I don't want to push the mourners too hard... Well, I'll see about + it... And if it's the thing to do, and the time to do it”—he turned + on Plank with his boisterous and misleading laugh and clapped him on the + shoulder—“it will be done, as sure as snobs are snobs; and that's + the surest thing you ever bet on. Here's to them!” and he emptied his + glass and fell back into his chair, wheezing and sucking at his unlighted + cigar. + </p> + <p> + “I want to say,” began Plank, speaking the more slowly because he was + deeply in earnest, “that all this you are doing for me is very handsome of + you, Mortimer. I'd like to say—to convey to you something of how I + feel about the way you and Mrs. Mortimer—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Leila has done it all.” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Mortimer is very kind, and you have been so, too. I—I wish + there was something—some way to—to—” + </p> + <p> + “To what?” asked Mortimer so bluntly that Plank flushed up and stammered: + </p> + <p> + “To be—to do a—to show my gratitude.” + </p> + <p> + “How? You're scarcely in a position to do anything for us,” said Mortimer, + brutally staring him out of countenance. + </p> + <p> + “I know it,” said Plank, the painful flush deepening. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, fussing and growling over his cigar, was nevertheless stealthily + intent on the game which had so long absorbed him. His wits, clogged, + dulled by excesses, were now aroused to a sort of gross activity through + the menace of necessity. At last Plank had given him an opening. He + recognised his chance. + </p> + <p> + “There's one thing,” he said deliberately, “that I won't stand for, and + that's any vulgar misconception on your part of my friendship for you. Do + you follow me?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't misunderstand it,” protested Plank, angry and astonished; “I + don't—” + </p> + <p> + “—As though,” continued Mortimer menacingly, “I were one of those + needy social tipsters, one of those shabby, pandering touts who—” + </p> + <p> + “For Heaven's sake, Mortimer, don't talk like that! I had no intention—” + </p> + <p> + “—One of those contemptible, parasitic leeches,” persisted Mortimer, + getting redder and hoarser, “who live on men like you. Confound you, + Plank, what the devil do you mean by it?” + </p> + <p> + “Mortimer, are you crazy, to talk to me like that?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I'm not, but you must be! I've a mind to drop the whole cursed + business! I've every inclination to drop it! If you haven't horse-sense + enough—if you haven't innate delicacy sufficient to keep you from + making such a break—” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't! It wasn't a break, Mortimer. I wouldn't have hurt you—” + </p> + <p> + “You did hurt me! How can I feel the same again? I never imagined you + thought I was that sort of a social mercenary. Why, so little did I dream + that you looked on our friendship in that light that I was—on my + word of honour!—I was just now on the point of asking you for three + or four thousand, to carry me to the month's end and square my bridge + balance.” + </p> + <p> + “Mortimer, you must take it! You are a fool to think I meant anything by + saying I wanted to show my gratitude. Look here; be decent and fair with + me. I wouldn't offer you an affront—would I?—even if I were a + cad. I wouldn't do it now, just when you're getting things into shape for + me. I'm not a fool, anyway. This is in deadly earnest, I tell you, + Mortimer, and I'm getting angry about it. You've got to show your + confidence in me; you've got to take what you want from me, as you would + from any friend. I resent your failure to do it now, as though you drew a + line between me and your intimates. If you're really my friend, show it!” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. A curious and unaccustomed sensation had silenced + Mortimer, something almost akin to shame. It astonished him a little. He + did not quite understand why, in the very moment of success over this + stolid, shrewd young man and his thrifty Dutch instincts, he should feel + uncomfortable. Were not his services worth something? Had he not earned at + least the right to borrow from this rich man who could afford to pay for + what was done for him? Why should he feel ashamed? He had not been + treacherous; he really liked the fellow. Why shouldn't he take his money? + </p> + <p> + “See here, old man,” said Plank, extending a huge highly coloured hand, + “is all square between us now?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so,” muttered Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + But Plank would not relinquish his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Then tell me how to draw that cheque! Great Heaven, Mortimer, what is + friendship, anyhow, if it doesn't include little matters like this—little + misunderstandings like this? I'm the man to be sensitive, not you. You + have been very good to me, Mortimer. I could almost wish you in a position + where the only thing I possess might square something of my debt to you.” + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later, while he was filling in the cheque, a dusty youth in + riding clothes and spurs came in and found a seat by one of the windows, + into which he dropped, and then looked about him for a servant. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Fleetwood!” said Mortimer, glancing over his shoulder to see whose + spurs were ringing on the polished floor. + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood saluted amiably with his riding-crop; including Plank, whom he + did not know, in a more formal salute. + </p> + <p> + “Will you join us?” asked Mortimer, taking the cheque which Plank offered + and carelessly pocketing it without even a nod of thanks. “You know + Beverly Plank, of course? What! I thought everybody knew Beverly Plank.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Plank shook hands and resumed their seats. + </p> + <p> + “Ripping weather!” observed Fleetwood, replacing his hat and rebuttoning + the glove which he had removed to shake hands with Plank. “Lot of jolly + people out this morning. I say, Mortimer, do you want that roan hunter of + mine you looked over? I mean King Dermid, because Marion Page wants him, + if you don't. She was out this morning, and she spoke of it again.” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, lifting a replenished glass, shook his head, and drank thirstily + in silence. + </p> + <p> + “Saw you at Westbury, I think,” said Fleetwood politely to Plank, as the + two lifted their glasses to one another. + </p> + <p> + “I hunted there for a day or two,” replied Plank, modestly. “If it's that + big Irish thoroughbred you were riding that you want to sell I'd like a + look in, if Miss Page doesn't fancy him.” + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood laughed, and glanced amusedly at Plank over his glass. “It isn't + that horse, Mr. Plank. That's Drumceit, Stephen Siward's famous horse.” He + interrupted himself to exchange greetings with several men who came into + the room rather noisily, their spurs resounding across the oaken floor. + One of them, Tom O'Hara, joined them, slamming his crop on the desk beside + Plank and spreading himself over an arm-chair, from the seat of which he + forcibly removed Mortimer's feet without excuse. + </p> + <p> + “Drink? Of course I want a drink!” he replied irritably to Fleetwood—“one, + three, ten, several! Billy, whose weasel-bellied pinto was that you were + kicking your heels into in the park? Some of the squadron men asked me—the + major. Oh, beg pardon! Didn't know you were trying to stick Mortimer with + him. He might do for the troop ambulance, inside!... What? Oh, yes; met + Mr. Blank—I mean Mr. Plank—at Shotover, I think. How d'ye do? + Had the pleasure of potting your tame pheasants. Rotten sport, you know. + What do you do it for, Mr. Blank?” + </p> + <p> + “What did you come for, if it's rotten sport?” asked Plank so simply that + it took O'Hara a moment to realise he had been snubbed. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't mean to be offensive,” he drawled. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you can't help it,” said Plank very gently; “some people can't, + you know.” And there was another silence, broken by Mortimer, whose entire + hulk was tingling with a mixture of surprise and amusement over his + protégé's developing ability to take care of himself. “Did you say that + Stephen Siward is in Westbury, Billy?” + </p> + <p> + “No; he's in town,” replied Fleetwood. “I took his horses up to hunt with. + He isn't hunting, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know. Nobody ever sees him anywhere,” said Mortimer. “I guess + his mother's death cut him up.” + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood lifted his empty glass and gently shook the ice in it. “That, + and—the other business—is enough to cut any man up, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean the action of the Lenox Club?” asked Plank seriously. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. He's resigned from this club, too, I hear. Somebody told me that he + has made a clean sweep of all his clubs. That's foolish. A man may be an + ass to join too many clubs but he's always a fool to resign from any of + 'em. You ask the weatherwise what resigning from a club forecasts. It's + the first ominous sign in a young man's career.” + </p> + <p> + “What's the second sign?” asked O'Hara, with a yawn. + </p> + <p> + “Squadron talk; and you're full of it,” retorted Fleetwood—“'I said + to the major,' and 'The captain told the chief trumpeter'—all that + sort of thing—and those Porto Rico spurs of yours, and the + ewe-necked glyptosaurus you block the bridle-path with every morning. + You're an awful nuisance, Tom, if anybody should ask me.” + </p> + <p> + Under cover of a rapid-fire exchange of pleasantries between Fleetwood and + O'Hara, Plank turned to Mortimer, hesitating: + </p> + <p> + “I rather liked Siward when I met him at Shotover,” he ventured. “I'm very + sorry he's down and out.” + </p> + <p> + “He drinks,” shrugged Mortimer, diluting his mineral water with Irish + whisky. “He can't let it alone; he's like all the Siwards. I could have + told you that the first time I ever saw him. We all told him to cut it + out, because he was sure to do some damfool thing if he didn't. He's done + it, and his clubs have cut him out. It's his own funeral.... Well, here's + to you!” + </p> + <p> + “Cut who out?” asked Fleetwood, ignoring O'Hara's parting shot concerning + the decadence of the Fleetwood stables and their owner. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen Siward. I always said that he was sure, sooner or later, to land + in the family ditch. He has a right to, of course; the gutter is public + property.” + </p> + <p> + “It's a damned sad thing,” said Fleetwood slowly. + </p> + <p> + After a pause Plank said: “I think so, too.... I don't know him very + well.” + </p> + <p> + “You may know him better now,” said O'Hara insolently. + </p> + <p> + Plank reddened, and, after a moment: “I should be glad to, if he cares to + know me.” + </p> + <p> + “Mortimer doesn't care for him, but he's an awfully good fellow, all the + same,” said Fleetwood, turning to Plank; “he's been an ass, but who + hasn't? I like him tremendously, and I feel very bad over the mess he made + of it after that crazy dinner I gave in my rooms. What? You hadn't heard + of it? Why man, it's the talk of the clubs.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose that is why I haven't heard,” said Plank simply; “my club-life + is still in the future.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Fleetwood with an involuntary stare, surprised, a trifle + uncomfortable, yet somehow liking Plank, and not understanding why. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not in anything, you see; I'm only up for the Patroons and the + Lenox,” added Plank gravely. + </p> + <p> + “I see. Certainly. Er—hope you'll make 'em; hope to see you there + soon. Er—I see by the papers you've been jollying the clergy, Mr. + Plank. Awfully handsome of you, all that chapel business. I say: I've a + cousin—er—young architect; Beaux Arts, and all that—just + over. I'd awfully like to have him given a chance at that competition; + invited to try, you see. I don't suppose it could be managed, now—” + </p> + <p> + “Would you like to have me ask the bishops?” inquired Plank, naively + shrewd. And the conversation became very cordial between the two, which + Mortimer observed, keeping one ironical eye on Plank, while he continued a + desultory discussion with O'Hara concerning a very private dinner which + somebody told somebody that somebody had given to Quarrier and the + Inter-County Electric people; which, if true, plainly indicated who was + financing the Inter-County scheme, and why Amalgamated stock had tumbled + again yesterday, and what might be looked for from the Algonquin Trust + Company's president. + </p> + <p> + “Amalgamated Electric doesn't seem to like it a little bit,” said O'Hara. + “Ferrall, Belwether, and Siward are in it up to their necks; and if + Quarrier is really the god in the machine, and if he really is doing + stunts with Amalgamated Electric, and is also mixing feet with the + Inter-County crowd, why, he is virtually paralleling his own road; and + why, in the name of common sense, is he doing that? He'll kill it; that's + what he'll do.” + </p> + <p> + “He can afford to kill it,” observed Mortimer, punching the electric + button and making a significant gesture toward his empty glass as the + servant entered; “a man like Quarrier can afford to kill anything.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but why kill Amalgamated Electric? Why not merge? Why, it's a crazy + thing to do, it's a devil of a thing to do, to parallel your own line!” + insisted O'Hara. “That is dirty work. People don't do such things these + days. Nobody tears up dollar bills for the pleasure of tearing.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody knows what Quarrier will do,” muttered Mortimer, who had tried + hard enough to find out when the first ominous rumours arose concerning + Amalgamated, and the first fractional declines left the street speechless + and stupefied. + </p> + <p> + O'Hara sat frowning, and fingering his glass. “As a matter of fact,” he + said, “a little cold logic shows us that Quarrier isn't in it at all. No + sane man would ruin his own enterprise, when there is no need to. His + people are openly supporting Amalgamated and hammering Inter-County; and, + besides, there's Ferrall in it, and Mrs. Ferrall is Quarrier's cousin; and + there's Belwether in it, and Quarrier is engaged to marry Sylvia Landis, + who is Belwether's niece. It's a scrap with Harrington's crowd, and the + wheels inside of wheels are like Chinese boxes. Who knows what it means? + Only it's plain that Amalgamated is safe, if Quarrier wants it to be. And + unless he does he's crazy.” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer puffed stolidly at his cigar until the smoke got into his eyes + and inflamed them. He sat for a while, wiping his puffy eyelids with his + handkerchief; then, squinting sideways at Plank, and seeing him still + occupied with Fleetwood, turned bluntly on O'Hara: + </p> + <p> + “See here: what do you mean by being nasty to Plank?” he growled. “I'm + backing him. Do you understand?” + </p> + <p> + “It is curious,” mused O'Hara coolly, “how much of a cad a fairly decent + man can be when he's out of temper!” + </p> + <p> + “You mean Plank, or me?” demanded Mortimer, darkening angrily. + </p> + <p> + “No; I mean myself. I'm not that way usually. I took him for a bounder, + and he's caught me with the goods on. I've been thinking that the men who + bother with such questions are usually open to suspicion themselves. Watch + me do the civil, now. I'm ashamed of myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment. Will you be civil enough to do something for him at the + Patroons? That will mean something.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he up? Yes, I will;” and, turning in his chair, he said to Plank: + “Awfully sorry I acted like a bounder just now, after having accepted your + hospitality at the Fells. I did mean to be offensive, and I'm sorry for + that, too. Hope you'll overlook it, and be friendly.” + </p> + <p> + Plank's face took on the dark-red hue of embarrassment; he looked + questioningly at Mortimer, whose visage remained non-committal, then + directly at O'Hara. + </p> + <p> + “I should be very glad to be friends with you,” he said with an ingenuous + dignity that surprised Mortimer. It was only the native simplicity of the + man, veneered and polished by constant contact with Mrs. Mortimer, and now + showing to advantage in the grain. And it gratified Mortimer, because he + saw that it was going to make many matters much easier for himself and his + protégé. + </p> + <p> + The tall glasses were filled and drained again before they departed to the + cold plunge and dressing-rooms above, whence presently they emerged in + street garb to drive down town and lunch together at the Lenox Club, Plank + as Fleetwood's guest. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, very heavy and inert after luncheon, wedged himself into a great + stuffed arm-chair by the window, where he alternately nodded over his + coffee and wheezed in his breathing, and leered out at Fifth Avenue from + half-closed, puffy eyes. And there he was due to sit, sodden and replete, + until the fashionable equipages began to flash past. He'd probably see his + wife driving with Mrs. Ferrall or with Miss Caithness, or perhaps with + some doddering caryatid of the social structure; and he'd sit there, + leering with gummy eyes out of the club windows, while servants in silent + processional replenished his glass from time to time, until in the early + night the trim little shopgirls flocked out into the highways in + gossiping, fluttering coveys, trotting away across the illuminated + asphalt, north and south to their thousand dingy destinations. And after + they had gone he would probably arouse himself to read the evening paper, + or perhaps gossip with Major Belwether and other white-haired familiars, + or perhaps doze until it was time to summon a cab and go home to dress. + </p> + <p> + That afternoon, however, having O'Hara and Fleetwood to give him + countenance, he managed to arouse himself long enough to make Plank known + personally to several of the governors of the club and to a dozen members, + then left him to his fate. Whence, presently, Fleetwood and O'Hara + extracted him—fate at that moment being personified by a garrulous + old gentleman, one Peter Caithness, who divided with Major Belwether the + distinction of being the club bore—and together they piloted him to + the billiard room, where he beat them handily for a dollar a point at + everything they suggested. + </p> + <p> + “You play almost as pretty a game as Stephen Siward used to play,” said + O'Hara cordially. “You've something of his cue movement—something of + his infernal facility and touch. Hasn't he, Fleetwood?” + </p> + <p> + “I wish Siward were back here,” said Fleetwood thoughtfully, returning his + cue to his own rack. “I wonder what he does with himself—where he + keeps himself all the while? What the devil is there for a man to do, if + he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's + death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do—go to + his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day + and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do + you know what he does with himself?” to O'Hara. + </p> + <p> + “I don't even know where he lives,” observed O'Hara, resuming his coat. + “He's given up his rooms, I understand.” + </p> + <p> + “What? Don't know the old Siward house?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! does he live there now? Of course; I forgot about his mother. He had + apartments last year, you remember. He gave dinners—corkers they + were. I went to one—like that last one you gave.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I'd never given it,” said Fleetwood gloomily. “If I hadn't, he'd + be a member here still.... What do you suppose induced him to take that + little gin-drinking cat to the Patroons? Why, man, it wasn't even an + undergraduate's trick! it was the act of a lunatic.” + </p> + <p> + For a while they talked of Siward, and of his unfortunate story and the + pity of it; and when the two men ceased, + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” said Plank mildly, “I don't believe he ever did it.” + </p> + <p> + O'Hara looked up surprised, then shrugged. “Unfortunately he doesn't deny + it, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “I heard,” said Fleetwood, lighting a cigarette, “that he did deny it; + that he said, no matter what his condition was, he couldn't have done it. + If he had been sober, the governors would have been bound to take his word + of honour. But he couldn't give that, you see. And after they pointed out + to him that he had been in no condition to know exactly what he did do, he + shut up.... And they dropped him; and he's falling yet.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe that sort of a man ever would do that sort of thing,” + repeated Plank obstinately, his Delft-blue eyes partly closing, so that + all the Dutch shrewdness and stubbornness in his face disturbed its highly + coloured placidity. And he walked away toward the wash-room to cleanse his + ponderous pink hands of chalk-dust. + </p> + <p> + “That's what's the matter with Plank,” observed O'Hara to Fleetwood as + Plank disappeared. “It isn't that he's a bounder; but he doesn't know + things; he doesn't know enough, for instance, to wait until he's a member + of a club before he criticises the judgment of its governors. Yet you + can't help tolerating the fellow. I think I'll write a letter for him, or + put down my name. What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “It would be all right,” said Fleetwood. “He'll need all the support he + can get, with Leroy Mortimer as his sponsor.... Wasn't Mortimer rather + nasty about Siward though, in his rôle of the alcoholic prophet? Whew!” + </p> + <p> + “Siward never had any use for Mortimer,” observed O'Hara. + </p> + <p> + “I'll bet you never heard him say so,” returned Fleetwood. “You know + Stephen Siward's way; he never said anything unpleasant about any man. I + wish I didn't either, but I do. So do you. So do most men.... Lord! I wish + Siward were back here. He was a good deal of a man, after all, Tom.” + </p> + <p> + They were unconsciously using the past tense in discussing Siward, as + though he were dead, either physically or socially. + </p> + <p> + “In one way he was always a singularly decent man,” mused O'Hara, walking + toward the great marble vestibule and buttoning his overcoat. + </p> + <p> + “How exactly do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, about women.” + </p> + <p> + “I believe it, too. If he did take that Vyse girl into the Patroons, it + was his limit with her—and, I believe his limit with any woman. He + was absurdly decent that way; he was indeed. And now look at the + reputation he has! Isn't it funny? isn't it, now?” + </p> + <p> + “What sort of an effect do you suppose all this business is going to have + on Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “It's had one effect already,” replied Fleetwood, as Plank came up, ready + for the street. “Ferrall says he looks sick, and Belwether says he's going + to the devil; but that's the sort of thing the major is likely to say. By + the way, wasn't there something between that pretty Landis girl and + Siward? Somebody—some damned gossiping somebody—talked about + it somewhere, recently.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe that, either,” said Plank, in his heavy, measured, + passionless voice, as they descended the steps of the white portico and + looked around for a cab. + </p> + <p> + “As for me, I've got to hustle,” observed O'Hara, glancing at his watch. + “I'm due to shine at a function about five. Are you coming up-town either + of you fellows? I'll give you a lift as far as Seventy-second Street, + Plank.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell you what we'll do,” said Fleetwood, impulsively, turning to Plank: + “We'll drive down town, you and I, and we'll look up poor old Siward! + Shall we? He's probably all alone in that God-forsaken red brick family + tomb! Shall we? How about it, Plank?” + </p> + <p> + O'Hara turned impatiently on his heel with a gesture of adieu, climbed + into his electric hansom, and went buzzing away up the avenue. + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to, but I don't think I know Mr. Siward well enough to do that,” + said Plank diffidently. He hesitated, colouring up. “He might + misunderstand my going with you—as a liberty—which perhaps I + might not have ventured on had he been less—less unfortunate.” + </p> + <p> + Again Fleetwood warmed toward the ruddy, ponderous young man beside him. + “See here,” he said, “you are going as a friend of mine—if you care + to look at it that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Plank; “I should be very glad to go in that way.” + </p> + <p> + The Siward house was old only in the comparative Manhattan meaning of the + word; for in New York nothing is really very old, except the faces of the + young men. + </p> + <p> + Decades ago it had been considered a big house, and it was still so spoken + of—a solid, dingy, red brick structure, cubical in proportions, + surmounted by heavy chimneys, the depth of its sunken windows hinting of + the thickness of wall and foundation. Window-curtains of obsolete pattern, + all alike, and all drawn, masked the blank panes. Three massive + wistaria-vines, the gnarled stems as thick as tree-trunks, crawled upward + to the roof, dividing the façade equally, and furnishing some relief to + its flatness, otherwise unbroken except by the deep reveals of window and + door. Two huge and unsymmetrical catalpa trees stood sentinels before it, + dividing curb from asphalt; and from the centres of the shrivelled, brown + grass-plots flanking the stoop under the basement windows two aged + Rose-of-Sharon trees bristled naked to the height of the white marble + capitals of the flaking pillars supporting the stained portico. + </p> + <p> + An old New York house, in the New York sense. Old in another sense, too, + where in a rapid land Time outstrips itself, painting, with the antiquity + of centuries, the stone and mortar which were new scarce ten years since. + </p> + <p> + “Nice old family mausoleum,” commented Fleetwood, descending from the + hansom, followed by Plank. The latter instinctively mounted the stoop on + tiptoe, treading gingerly as one who ventures into precincts unknown but + long respected; and as Fleetwood pulled the old-fashioned bell, Plank + stole a glance over the façade, where wisps of straw trailed from + sparrows' nests, undisturbed, wedged between plinth and pillar; where, + behind the lace pane-screens, shadowy edges of heavy curtains framed the + obscurity; where the paint had blistered and peeled from the iron + railings, and the marble pillars of the portico glimmered, scarred by + frosts of winters long forgotten. + </p> + <p> + “Cheerful monument,” repeated Fleetwood with a sarcastic nod. Then the + door was opened by a very old man wearing the black “swallow-tail” clothes + and choker of an old-time butler, spotless, quite immaculate, but cut + after a fashion no young man remembers. + </p> + <p> + “Good evening,” said Fleetwood, entering, followed on tiptoe by Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Good evening, sir.”... A pause; and in the unsteady voice of age: “Mr. + Fleetwood, sir.... Mr.—.” A bow, and the dim eyes peering up at + Plank, who stood fumbling for his card-case. + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood dropped both cards on the salver unsteadily extended. The butler + ushered them into a dim room on the right. + </p> + <p> + “How is Mr. Siward?” asked Fleetwood, pausing on the threshold and + dropping his voice. + </p> + <p> + The old man hesitated, looking down, then still looking away from + Fleetwood: “Bravely, sir, bravely, Mr. Fleetwood.” + </p> + <p> + “The Siwards were always that,” said the young man gently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir.... Thank you. Mr. Stephen—Mr. Siward,” he corrected, + quaintly, “is indisposed, sir. It was a—a great shock to us all, + sir!” He bowed and turned away, holding his salver stiffly; and they heard + him muttering under his breath, “Bravely, sir, bravely. A—a great + shock, sir!... Thank you.” + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood turned to Plank, who stood silent, staring through the fading + light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light + touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the + carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished + mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, + and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to + another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish. + </p> + <p> + “This is the real thing,” observed Fleetwood cynically, “all this Fourth + Avenue antique business; dingy, cumbersome, depressing. Good God! I see + myself standing it.... Look at that old grinny-bags in a pig-tail over + there! To the cellar for his, if this were my house.... We've got some, + too, in several rooms, and I never go into 'em. They're like a scene in a + bum play, or like one of those Washington Square rat-holes, where artists + eat Welsh-rabbits with dirty fingers. Ugh!” + </p> + <p> + “I like it,” said Plank, under his breath. + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood stared, then shrugged, and returned to the window to watch a + brand-new French motor-car drawn up before a modern mansion across the + avenue. + </p> + <p> + The butler returned presently, saying that Mr. Siward was at home and + would receive them in the library above, as he was not yet able to pass up + and down stairs. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know he was as ill as that,” muttered Fleetwood, as he and Plank + followed the old man up the creaking stairway. But Gumble, the butler, + said nothing in reply. + </p> + <p> + Siward was sitting in an arm-chair by the window, one leg extended, his + left foot, stiffly cased in bandages, resting on a footstool. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Stephen!” exclaimed Fleetwood, hastening forward, “I didn't know you + were laid up like this!” + </p> + <p> + Siward offered his hand inquiringly; then his eyes turned toward Plank, + who stood behind Fleetwood; and, slowly disengaging his hand from + Fleetwood's sympathetic grip, he offered it to Plank. + </p> + <p> + “It is very kind of you,” he said. “Gumble, Mr. Fleetwood prefers rye, for + some inscrutable reason. Mr. Plank?” His smile was a question. + </p> + <p> + “If you don't mind,” said Plank, “I should like to have some tea—that + is, if—” + </p> + <p> + “Tea, Gumble, for two. We'll tipple in company, Mr. Plank,” he added. “And + the cigars are at your elbow, Billy,” with another smile at Fleetwood. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” said the latter, after he had lighted his cigar, “what is the + matter, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + Siward glanced at his stiffly extended foot. “Nothing much.” He reddened + faintly, “I slipped. It's only a twisted ankle.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment or two the answer satisfied Fleetwood, then a sudden, curious + flash of suspicion came into his eyes; he glanced sharply at Siward, who + lowered his eyes, while the red tint in his hollow cheeks deepened. + </p> + <p> + Neither spoke for a while. Plank sipped the tea which Wands, the second + man, brought. Siward brooded over his cup, head bent. Fleetwood made more + noise than necessary with his ice. + </p> + <p> + “I miss you like hell!” said Fleetwood musingly, measuring out the old rye + from the quaint decanter. “Why did you drop the Saddle Club, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not riding; I have no use for it,” replied Siward. + </p> + <p> + “You've cut out the Proscenium Club, too, and the Owl's Head, and the + Trophy. It's a shame, Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm tired of clubs.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't talk that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, I won't,” said Siward, smiling. “Tell me what is happening—out + there,” he made a gesture toward the window; “all the gossip the + newspapers miss. I've talked Dr. Grisby to death; I've talked Gumble to + death; I've read myself stupid. What's going on, Billy?” + </p> + <p> + So Fleetwood sketched for him a gay cartoon of events, caricaturing + various episodes in the social kaleidoscope which might interest him. He + gossiped cynically, but without malice, about people they both knew, about + engagements, marriages, and divorces, plans and ambitions; about those + absent from the metropolis and the newcomers to be welcomed. He commented + briefly on the opera, reviewed the newer plays at the theatres, touched on + the now dormant gaiety which had made the season at nearby country clubs + conspicuous; then drifted into the hunting field, gossiping pleasantly in + the vernacular about horses and packs and drag-hunts and stables, and what + people thought of the new English hounds of the trial pack, and how the + new M. F. H., Maitland Gray, had managed to break so many bones at + Southbury. + </p> + <p> + Politics were touched upon, and they spoke of the possibility of Ferrall + going to the Assembly, the sport of boss-baiting having become fashionable + among amateurs, and providing a new amusement for the idle rich. + </p> + <p> + So city, State, and national issues were run through lightly, business + conditions noticed, the stock market speculated upon; and presently + conversation died out, with a yawn from Fleetwood as he looked into his + empty glass at the last bit of ice. + </p> + <p> + “Don't do that, Billy,” smiled Siward. “You haven't discoursed upon art, + literature, and science yet, and you can't go until you've adjusted the + affairs of the nation for the next twenty-four hours.” + </p> + <p> + “Art?” yawned Fleetwood. “Oh, pictures? Don't like 'em. Nobody ever looks + at 'em except débutantes, who do it out of deviltry, to floor a man at a + dinner or a dance.” + </p> + <p> + “How about literature?” inquired Siward gravely. “Anything doing?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing in it,” replied Fleetwood more gravely still. “It's another + feminine bluff—like all that music talk they hand you after the + opera.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. And science?” + </p> + <p> + “Spider Flynn is matched to meet Kid Holloway; is that what you mean, + Stephen? Somebody tumbled out of an air-ship the other day; is that what + you mean? And they're selling scientific jewelry on Broadway at a dollar a + quart; is that what you want to know?” + </p> + <p> + Siward rested his head on his hand with a smile. “Yes, that's about what I + wanted to know, Billy—all about the arts and sciences.... Much + obliged. You needn't stay any longer, if you don't want to.” + </p> + <p> + “How soon will you be out?” inquired Fleetwood. + </p> + <p> + “Out? I don't know. I shall try to drive to the office to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Why the devil did you resign from all your clubs? How can I see you if I + don't come here?” began Fleetwood impatiently. “I know, of course, that + you're not going anywhere, but a man always goes to his club. You don't + look well, Stephen. You are too much alone.” + </p> + <p> + Siward did not answer. His face and body had certainly grown thinner since + Fleetwood had last seen him. Plank, too, had been shocked at the change in + him—the dark, hard lines under the eyes; the pallor, the curious + immobility of the man, save for his fingers, which were always restless, + now moving in search of some small object to worry and turn over and over, + now nervously settling into a grasp on the arm of his chair. + </p> + <p> + “How is Amalgamated Electric?” asked Fleetwood, abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “I think it's all right. Want to buy some?” replied Siward, smiling. + </p> + <p> + Plank stirred in his chair ponderously. “Somebody is kicking it to + pieces,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Somebody is trying to,” smiled Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Harrington,” nodded Fleetwood. Siward nodded back. Plank was silent. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” continued Fleetwood, tentatively, “you people need not worry, + with Howard Quarrier back of you.” + </p> + <p> + Nobody said anything for a while. Presently Siward's restless hands, + moving in search of something, encountered a pencil lying on the table + beside him, and he picked it up and began drawing initials and scrolls on + the margin of a newspaper; and all the scrolls framed initials, and all + the initials were the same, twining and twisting into endless variations + of the letters S. L. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I must go to the office to-morrow,” he repeated absently. “I am + better—in fact I am quite well, except for this sprain.” He looked + down at his bandaged foot, then his pencil moved listlessly again, + continuing the endless variations on the two letters. It was plain that he + was tired. + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood rose and made his adieux almost affectionately. Plank moved + forward on tiptoe, bulky and noiseless; and Siward held out his hand, + saying something amiably formal. + </p> + <p> + “Would you like to have me come again?” asked Plank, red with + embarrassment, yet so naively that at first Siward found no words to + answer him; then— + </p> + <p> + “Would you care to come, Mr. Plank?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Siward looked at him curiously, almost cautiously. His first impressions + of the man had been summed up in one contemptuous word. Besides, barring + that, what was there in common between himself and such a type as Plank? + He had not even troubled himself to avoid him at Shotover; he had merely + been aware of him when Plank spoke to him; never otherwise, except that + afternoon beside the swimming pool, when he had made one of his rare + criticisms on Plank. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps Plank had changed, perhaps Siward had; for he found nothing + offensive in the bulky young man now—nothing particularly + attractive, either, except for a certain simplicity, a certain direct + candour in the heavy blue eyes which met his squarely. + </p> + <p> + “Come in for a cigar when you have a few moments idle,” said Siward + slowly. + </p> + <p> + “It will give me great pleasure,” said Plank, bowing. + </p> + <p> + And that was all. He followed Fleetwood down the stairs; Wands held their + coats, and bowed them out into the falling shadows of the winter twilight. + </p> + <p> + Siward, sitting beside his window, watched them enter their hansom and + drive away up the avenue. A dull flush had settled over his cheeks; the + aroma of spirits hung in the air, and he looked across the room at the + decanter. Presently he drank some of his tea, but it was lukewarm, and he + pushed the cup from him. + </p> + <p> + The clatter of the cup brought the old butler, who toddled hither and + thither, removing trays, pulling chairs into place, fussing and pattering + about, until a maid came in noiselessly, bearing a lamp. She pulled down + the shades, drew the sad-coloured curtains, went to the mantelpiece and + peered at the clock, then brought a wineglass and a spoon to Siward, and + measured the dose in silence. He swallowed it, shrugged, permitted her to + change the position of his chair and footstool, and nodded thanks and + dismissal. + </p> + <p> + “Gumble, are you there?” he asked carelessly. + </p> + <p> + The butler entered from the hallway. “Yes, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “You may leave that decanter.” + </p> + <p> + But the old servant may have misunderstood, for he only bowed and ambled + off downstairs with the decanter, either heedless or deaf to his master's + sharp order to return. + </p> + <p> + For a while Siward sat there, eyes fixed, scowling into vacancy; then the + old, listless, careworn expression returned; he rested one elbow on the + window-sill, his worn cheek on his hand, and with the other hand fell to + weaving initials with his pencil on the margin of the newspaper lying on + the table beside him. + </p> + <p> + Lamplight brought out sharply the physical change in him—the angular + shadows flat under the cheek-bones, the hard, slightly swollen flesh in + the bluish shadows around the eyes. The mark of the master-vice was there; + its stamp in the swollen, worn-out hollows; its imprint in the fine lines + at the corners of his mouth; its sign manual in the faintest relaxation of + the under lip, which had not yet become a looseness. + </p> + <p> + For the last of the Siwards had at last stepped into the highway which his + doomed forebears had travelled before him. + </p> + <p> + “Gumble!” he called irritably. + </p> + <p> + A quavering voice, an unsteady step, and the old man entered again. “Mr. + Stephen, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Bring that decanter back. Didn't you hear me tell you just now?” + </p> + <p> + “Sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Didn't you hear me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Mr. Stephen, sir.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + “Gumble!” + </p> + <p> + “Sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to bring that decanter?” + </p> + <p> + The old butler bowed, and ambled from the room, and for a long while + Siward sat sullenly listening and scoring the edges of the paper with his + trembling pencil. Then the lead broke short, and he flung it from him and + pulled the bell. Wands came this time, a lank, sandy, silent man, grown + gray as a rat in the service of the Siwards. He received his master's + orders, and withdrew; and again Siward waited, biting his under lip and + tearing bits from the edges of the newspaper with fingers never still; but + nobody came with the decanter, and after a while his tense muscles + relaxed; something in his very soul seemed to snap, and he sank back in + his chair, the hot tears blinding him. + </p> + <p> + He had got as far as that; moments of self-pity were becoming almost as + frequent as scorching intervals of self-contempt. + </p> + <p> + So they all knew what was the matter with him—they all knew—the + doctor, the servants, his friends. Had he not surprised the quick + suspicion in Fleetwood's glance, when he told him he had slipped, and + sprained his ankle? What if he had been drunk when he fell—fell on + his own doorsteps, carried into the old Siward house by old Siward + servants, drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood's business. + It was none of the servants' business. It was nobody's business except his + own. Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and + doctor him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide + decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle + with him? Of what concern to them were his vices or his virtues? + </p> + <p> + The tears dried in his hot eyes; he jerked the old-fashioned bell + savagely; and after a long while he heard servants whispering together in + the passageway outside his door. + </p> + <p> + He lay very still in his chair; his hearing had become abnormally acute, + but he could not make out what they were saying; and as the dull, + intestinal aching grew sharper, parching, searing every strained muscle in + throat and chest, he struck the table beside him, and clenched his teeth + in the fierce rush of agony that swept him from head to foot, crying out + an inarticulate menace on his household. And Dr. Grisby came into the room + from the outer shadows of the hall. + </p> + <p> + He was very small, very meagre, very bald, and clean-shaven, with a face + like a nut-cracker; and the brown wig he wore was atrocious, and curled + forward over his colourless ears. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles, each + glass divided into two lenses; and he stood on tiptoe to look out through + the upper lenses on the world, and always bent almost double to use the + lower or reading lenses. + </p> + <p> + Besides that, he affected frilled shirts, and string ties, which nobody + had ever seen snugly tied. His loose string tie was the first thing Siward + could remember about the doctor; and that the doctor had permitted him to + pull it when he had the measles, at the age of six. + </p> + <p> + “What's all this racket?” said the little old doctor harshly. “Got colic? + Got the toothache? I'm ashamed of you, Stephen, cutting capers and + pounding the furniture! Look up! Look at me! Out with your tongue! Well, + now, what the devil's the trouble?” + </p> + <p> + “You—know,” muttered Siward, abandoning his wrist to the little man, + who seated himself beside him. Dr. Grisby scarcely noted the pulse; the + delicate pressure had become a strong caress. + </p> + <p> + “Know what?” he grunted. “How do I know what's the matter with you? Hey? + Now, now, don't try to explain, Steve; don't fly off the handle! All + right; grant that I do know what's bothering you; I want to see that ankle + first. Here, somebody! Light that gas. Why the mischief don't you have the + house wired for electricity, Stephen? It's wholesome. Gas isn't. Lamps are + worse, sir. Do as I tell you!” And he went on loquaciously, grumbling and + muttering, and never ceasing his talk, while Siward, wincing as the + dressing was removed, lay back and closed his eyes. + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later Gumble appeared, to announce dinner. + </p> + <p> + “I don't want any,” said Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Eat!” said Dr. Grisby harshly. + </p> + <p> + “I—don't care to.” + </p> + <p> + “Eat, I tell you! Do you think I don't mean what I say?” + </p> + <p> + So he ate his broth and toast, the doctor curtly declining to join him. He + ate hurriedly, closing his eyes in aversion. Even the iced tea was flat + and distasteful to him. + </p> + <p> + And at last he lay back, white and unstrung, the momentarily deadened + desperation glimmering under his half-closed eyes. And for a long while + Dr. Grisby sat, doubled almost in two, cuddling his bony little knees and + studying the patterns in the faded carpet. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you'd better go, Stephen,” he said at length. + </p> + <p> + “Up the river—to Mulqueen's?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Let's try it, Steve. You'll be on your feet in two weeks. Then you'd + better go—up the river—to Mulqueen's.” + </p> + <p> + “I—I'll go, if you say so. But I can't go now.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't say go now. I said in two weeks.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you give me your word?” demanded the doctor sharply. + </p> + <p> + “No, doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I may have to be here on business. There seems to be some sort of + crisis coming which I don't understand.” + </p> + <p> + “There's a crisis right here, Steve, which I understand!” snapped Dr. + Grisby. “Face it like a man! Face it like a man! You're sick—to your + bones, boy—sick! sick! Fight the fight, Steve! Fight a good fight. + There's a fighting chance; on my soul of honour, there is, Steve, a + fighting chance for you! Now! now, boy! Buckle up tight! Tuck up your + sword-sleeve! At 'em, Steve! Give 'em hell! Oh, my boy, my boy, I know; I + know!” The little man's voice broke, but he steadied it instantly with a + snap of his nut-cracker jaws, and scowled on his patient and shook his + little withered fist at him. + </p> + <p> + His patient lay very still in the shadow. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to go,” said the doctor harshly, “before your self-control + goes. Do you understand? I want you to go before your decision is + undermined; before you begin to do devious things, sly things, cheating + things, slinking things—anything and everything to get at the thing + you crave. I've given you something to fight with, and you won't take it + faithfully. I've given you free rein in tobacco and tea and coffee. I've + helped you as much as I dare to weather the nights. Now, you help me—do + you hear?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes... I will.” + </p> + <p> + “You say so; now do it. Do something for yourself. Do anything! If you're + sick of reading—and I don't blame you, considering the stuff you + read—get people down here to see you; get lots of people. Telephone + 'em; you've a telephone there, haven't you? There it is, by your elbow. + Use it! Call up people. Talk all the time.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I will.” + </p> + <p> + “Good! Now, Steve, we know what's the matter, physically, don't we? Of + course we do! Now, then, what's the matter mentally?” + </p> + <p> + “Mentally?” repeated Siward under his breath. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, mentally. What's the trouble? Stocks? Bonds? Lawsuits? Love?” the + slightest pause, and a narrowing of the gimlet eyes behind the lenses. + “Love?” he repeated harshly. “Which is it, boy? They're all good to let + alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Business,” said Siward. But, being a Siward, he was obliged to add + “partly.” + </p> + <p> + “Business—partly,” repeated the doctor. “What's the matter with + business—partly?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. There are rumours. Hetherington is pounding us—apparently. + That Inter-County crowd is acting ominously, too. There's something + underhand, somewhere.” He bent his head and fell to plucking at the faded + brocade on the arm of his chair, muttering to himself, “somewhere, + somehow, something underhand. I don't know what; I really don't.” + </p> + <p> + “All right—all right,” said the doctor testily; “let it go at that! + There's treachery, eh? You suspect it? You're sure of it—as + reasonably sure as a gentleman can be of something he is not fashioned to + understand? That's it, is it? All right, sir—all right! Very well—ver-y + well. Now, sir, look at me! Business symptoms admitted, what about the + 'partly,' Stephen?—what about it, eh? What about it?” + </p> + <p> + But Siward fell silent again. + </p> + <p> + “Eh? Did you say something? No? Oh, very well, ver-y well, sir.... + Perfectly correct, Stephen. You have not earned the right to admit further + symptoms. No, sir, you have not earned the right to admit them to anybody, + not even to yourself. Nor to—her!” + </p> + <p> + “Doctor!” + </p> + <p> + “Sir?” + </p> + <p> + “I have—admitted them.” + </p> + <p> + “To yourself, Steve? I'm sorry. You have no right to—yet. I'm sorry—” + </p> + <p> + “I have admitted them—admitted them—to her.” + </p> + <p> + “That settles it,” said the doctor grimly, “that clinches it! That locks + you to the wheel! That pledges you. The squabble is on, now. It's your + honour that's engaged now, not your nerves, not your intestines. It's a + good fight—a very good fight, with no chance of losing anything but + life. You go up the river to Mulqueen's. That's the strategy in this + campaign; that's excellent manoeuvring; that's good generalship! Eh? Mask + your purpose, Steve; make a feint of camping out here under my guns; then + suddenly fling your entire force up the Hudson and fortify yourself at + Mulqueen's! Ho, that'll fix 'em! That's going to astonish the enemy!” + </p> + <p> + His harsh, dry, crackling laughter broke out like the distant rattle of + musketry. + </p> + <p> + The ghost of a smile glimmered in Siward's haunted eyes, then faded as he + leaned forward. + </p> + <p> + “She has refused me,” he said simply. + </p> + <p> + The little doctor, after an incredulous stare, began chattering with + wrath. “Refused you! Pah! Pooh! That's nothing! That signifies absolutely + nothing! It's meaningless! It's a detail. You get well—do you hear? + You go and get well; then try it again! Then you'll see! And if she is an + idiot—in the event of her irrational persistence in an incredible + and utterly indefensible attitude”—he choked up, then fairly barked + at Siward—“take her anyway, sir! Run off with her! Dominate + circumstances, sir! take charge of events!... But you can't do it till + you've clapped yourself into prison for life.... And God help you if you + let yourself escape!” + </p> + <p> + And after a long while Siward said: “If I should ever marry—and—and—” + </p> + <p> + “Had children, eh? Is that it? Oh, it is, eh? Well, I say, marry! I say, + have children! If you're a man, you'll breed men. The chances are they may + not inherit what you have. It skips some generations—some, now and + then. But if they do, good God! I say it's better to be born and have a + chance to fight than never to come into the arena at all! By winning out, + the world learns; by failure, the world is no less wise. The important + thing is birth. The main point is to breed—to produce—to + reproduce! but not until you stand, sword in hand, and your armed heel on + the breast of your prostrate and subconscious self!” + </p> + <p> + He jumped up and began running about the room with short little bantam + steps, talking all the while. + </p> + <p> + “People say, 'Shall criminals be allowed to mate and produce young? Shall + malefactors be allowed to beget? No!' And I say no, too. Never so long as + they remain criminals and malefactors; so long as the evil in them is in + the ascendant. Never, until they are cured. That's what I say; that's what + I maintain. Crime is a disease; criminals are sick people. No marriage for + them until they're cured; no children for them until they're well. If they + cure themselves, let 'em marry; let 'em breed; for then, if their children + inherit the inclination, they also inherit the grit to cauterise the + malady.” + </p> + <p> + He produced a huge handkerchief from the tails of his coat, and wiped his + damp features and polished his forehead so violently that his wig took a + new and jaunty angle. + </p> + <p> + “I'm talking too much,” he said fretfully; “I'm talking a great deal—all + the time—continually. I've other patients—several—plenty! + Do you think you're the only man I know who's trying to disfigure his + liver and make spots come out all over inside him? Do you?” + </p> + <p> + Siward smiled again, a worn, pallid smile. + </p> + <p> + “I can stand it while you are here, doctor, but when I'm alone it's—hard. + One of those crises is close now. I've a bad night ahead—a bad + outlook. Couldn't you—” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + “Just enough—” + </p> + <p> + “No, Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + “—Enough to dull it—just a little? I don't ask for enough to + make me sleep—not even to make me doze. You have your needle; + haven't you, doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, just this once—for the last time.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Are you afraid? You needn't be, doctor. I don't care for it except + to give me a little respite, a little rest on a night like this. I'm so + tired of this ache. If I could only have some sleep, and wake up in good + shape, I'd stand a better chance of fighting.... Wait, doctor! Just one + moment. I don't mean to be a coward, but I've had a hard fight, and—I'm + tired.... If you could see your way to helping me—” + </p> + <p> + “I dare not help you any more that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Not this once?” + </p> + <p> + “Not this once.” + </p> + <p> + There was a dead silence, broken at last by the doctor with a violent + gesture toward the telephone. “Talk to the girl! Why don't you talk to the + girl! If she's worth a hill o' beans she'll help you to hang on. What's + she for, if she isn't for such moments? Tell her you need her voice; tell + her you need her faith in you. Damn central! Talk out in church! Don't + make a goddess of a woman. The men who want to marry her, and can't, will + do that! The nincompoop can always be counted on to deify the commonplace. + And she is commonplace. If she isn't, she's no good! Commend me to sanity + and the commonplace. I take off my hat to it! I honour it. God bless it! + Good-night!” + </p> + <p> + Siward lay still for a long while after the doctor had gone. More than an + hour had passed before he slowly sat up and groped for the telephone book, + opened it, and searched in a blind, hesitating way until he found the + number he was looking for. + </p> + <p> + He had never telephoned to her; he had never written her except once, in + reply to her letter in regard to his mother's death—that strange, + timid, formal letter, in which, grief-stunned as he was, he saw only the + formality, and had answered it more formally still. And that was all that + had come of the days and nights by that northern sea—a letter and + its answer, and silence. + </p> + <p> + And, thinking of these things, he shut the book wearily, and lay back in + the shadow of the faded curtain, closing his sunken eyes. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX CONFESSIONS + </h2> + <p> + In a city in transition, where yesterday is as dead as a dead century, + where those who prepare the old year for burial are already taking the + ante-mortem statement of the new, the future fulfils the functions of the + present. Time itself is considered merely as a by-product of horse-power, + discounted with flippancy as the unavoidable friction clogging the + fly-wheel of progress. + </p> + <p> + Memory, once a fine art, is becoming a lost art in Manhattan. + </p> + <p> + His world and his city had almost ceased to think of Siward. + </p> + <p> + For a few weeks men spoke of him in the several clubs of which he had + lately been a member—spoke of him always in the past tense; and + after a little while spoke of him no more. + </p> + <p> + In that section of the social system which he had inhabited, his absence + on account of his mother's death being taken for granted, people laid him + away in their minds almost as ceremoniously as they had laid away the + memory of his mother. Nothing halted because he was not present; nothing + was delayed, rearranged, or abandoned because his familiar presence + chanced to be missing. There remained only one more place to fill at a + cotillion, dinner, or bridge party; only another man for opera box or + week's end; one man the more to be counted on, one more man to be counted + out—transferred to the credit of profit and loss, and the ledger + closed for the season. + </p> + <p> + They who remembered him, among those who had not yet lost that + old-fashioned art, were very few—a young girl here and there, over + whom he had been absent-mindedly sentimental; a débutante or two who had + adored him from a distance as a friend of elder sister or brother; here + and there an old, old lady to whom he had been considerate, and who + perhaps remembered something of the winning charm of the Siwards when the + town was young—his father, perhaps, perhaps his grandfather—these + thought of him at intervals; the remainder had no leisure to remember even + if they had not forgotten how to do it. Several cabmen missed him for a + while; now and then a privileged café waiter inquired about him from gay, + noisy parties entering some old haunt of his. Mr. Desmond, of art gallery + and roulette notoriety, whose business is not to forget, was politely + regretful at his absence from certain occult ceremonies which he had at + irregular intervals graced with votive offerings. And the list ended there—almost, + not quite; for there were two people who had not forgotten Siward: Howard + Quarrier and Beverly Plank; and one other, a third, who could not yet + forget him if she would—but, as yet, she had not tried very + desperately. + </p> + <p> + The day that Siward left New York to visit everybody's friend, Mr. + Mulqueen, in the country, Plank called on him for the second time in his + life, and was presently received in the south drawing-room, the library + being limited to an informality and intimacy not for Mr. Plank. + </p> + <p> + Siward, still lame, and using unskilfully two shiny new crutches, came + down the stairs and stumped into the drawing-room, which, in spite of the + sombre, clustering curtains, was brightly illuminated by the winter + sunshine reflected from the snow in the street. Plank was shocked at the + change in him—at the ghost of a voice, listlessly formal; at the + thin, nerveless hand offered; startled, so that he forgot his shyness, and + retained the bony hand tightly in his, and instinctively laid his other + great cushion-like paw over it, holding it imprisoned, unable to speak, + unconscious, in the impulse of the moment, of the liberty he permitted + himself, and which he had never dreamed of taking with such a man as + Siward. + </p> + <p> + The effect on Siward was composite; his tired voice ceased; surprise, + inability to understand tinged with instinctive displeasure, were + succeeded by humourous curiosity; and, very slowly it became plain to him + that this beefy young man liked him, was naively concerned about him, felt + friendly toward him, and was showing it as spontaneously as a child. + Because he now understood something of how it is with a man who is in the + process of being forgotten, his perceptions were perhaps the finer in + these days, and the direct unconsciousness of Plank touched him more + heavily than the pair of heavy hands enclosing his. + </p> + <p> + “I thought I'd come,” began Plank, growing redder and redder as he began + to realise the enormity of familiarity committed only on the warrant of + impulse. “You don't look well.” + </p> + <p> + “It was good of you to think of me,” said Siward. “Come up to the library, + if you've a few minutes to spare an invalid. Please go first; I'm a trifle + lame yet.” + </p> + <p> + “I—I am sorry,” muttered Plank, “very, very sorry.” + </p> + <p> + At first, in the library, Plank was awkward and silent, finding nothing to + say, and nowhere to dispose of his hands, until Siward gave him a cigar to + occupy his fingers. Even then he continued to sit uncomfortably, his bulk + balanced on a rickety, spindle-legged chair, which he stubbornly refused + to exchange for another, at Siward's suggestion, out of sheer + embarrassment, and with a confused idea that his refusal would somehow + ultimately put him at his ease with his surroundings. + </p> + <p> + Siward, secretly amused, rang for tea, although the hour was early. After + a little while, either the toast or the tea appeared to act on Plank as a + lingual laxative, for he began suddenly to talk, which is characteristic + of bashful men; and Siward gravely helped him on when he floundered and + turned shy. After a little, matters went very well with them, and Plank, + much more at ease than he had ever dared to hope he could be with Siward, + talked and talked; and Siward, his crutches across his knees, lay back in + his arm-chair, chatting with that winning informality so becoming to men + who are unconscious of their charm. + </p> + <p> + Watching Plank, it occurred to him gradually that this great, cumbersome + creature was not a shrewd, thrifty, self-made and self-finished adult at + all; only a big, wistful, lonely boy, without comrades and with nowhere to + play. On Plank's round face there remained no trace of shrewdness, of + stubbornness, nothing even of the heavy, saturnine placidity of a dogged + man who waits his turn. + </p> + <p> + Plank spoke of himself after a while, sounding the personal note with + tentative timidity. Siward gravely encouraged him, and in a little while + the outlines of his crude autobiography appeared, embodying his eventless + boyhood in a Pennsylvania town; his career at the high school; the dawning + desire for college equipment, satisfied by his father, who owned shares in + the promising Deepvale Steel Plank Company; the unhappy years at Harvard—hard + years, for he learned with difficulty; solitary years, for he was not + sought by those whom he desired to know. Then he ventured to speak of his + father's growing interest in steel; the merging and absorbing of + independent plants; his own entry upon the scene on the death of his + father; and—the rest—material fortune and prosperity, which, + perhaps, might stand substitute as a social sponsor for him; stand, + perhaps, for something of what he lacked in himself, which only long + residence amid the best, long-formed habits for the best, or a long + inheritance of the best could give. Did Siward think so? Was the best + beyond his reach? Was it hopeless for such a man as he to try? And why? + </p> + <p> + The innocent snobbery, the abashed but absolute simplicity of this + ponderous pilgrim from the smelting pits clambering upward through the + high school of the smoky town, groping laboriously through the chilly + halls of Harvard toward the outer breastworks of Manhattan, interested + Siward; and he said so in his pleasant way, without offence, and with a + smiling question at the end. + </p> + <p> + “Worth while?” repeated Plank, flushing heavily, “it is worth while to me. + I have always desired to be a part of the best that there is in my own + country; and the best is here, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “Not necessarily,” said Siward, still smiling. “The noisiest is here, and + some of the best.” + </p> + <p> + “Which is the best?” inquired Plank naively. + </p> + <p> + “Why, all plain people, whose education, breeding, and fortune permit them + the luxury of thinking, and whose tastes, intelligence, and sanity enable + them to express their thoughts. There are such people here, and some of + them form a portion of the gaudier and noisier galaxy we call society.” + </p> + <p> + “That is what I wish to be part of,” said Plank. “Could you tell me what + are the requirements?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe I could, exactly,” said Siward, amused. “With us, the + social system, as an established and finished system, has too recently + been evolved from outer chaos to be characteristic of anything except the + crudity and energy of the chaos from which it emerged. The balance between + wealth, intelligence, and breeding has not yet been established—not + from lack of wealth or intelligence. The formula has not been announced, + that is all.” + </p> + <p> + “What is the formula?” insisted Plank. + </p> + <p> + “The formula is the receipt for a real society,” replied Siward, laughing. + “At present we have its uncombined ingredients in the raw—noisy + wealth and flippant fashion, arrogant intelligence and dowdy breeding—all + excellent materials, when filtered and fused in the retort; and many of + our test tubes have already precipitated pure metal besides, and our + national laboratory is turning out fine alloys. Some day we'll understand + the formula, and we'll weld the entire mass; and that will be society, Mr. + Plank.” + </p> + <p> + “In the meanwhile,” repeated Plank, unsmiling, “I want to be part of the + best we have. I want to be part of the brightness of things. I mean, that + I cannot be contented with an imitation.” + </p> + <p> + “An imitation?” + </p> + <p> + “Of the best—of what you say is not yet society. I ask no more than + your footing among the people of this city. I wish to be able to go where + such men as you go; be permitted, asked, desired to be part of what you + always have been part of. Is it a great deal I ask? Tell me, Mr. Siward—for + I don't know—is it too much to expect?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think it is a very high ambition,” said Siward, smiling. “What + you ask is not very much to ask of life, Mr. Plank.” + </p> + <p> + “But is there any reason why I may not hope to go where I wish to go?” + </p> + <p> + “I think it depends upon yourself,” said Siward, “upon your capacity for + being, or for making people believe you to be exactly what they require. + You ask me whether you may be able to go where you desire; and I answer + you that there is no limit to any journey except the sprinting ability of + the pilgrim.” + </p> + <p> + Plank laughed a little, and his squared jaws relaxed; then, after a few + moments' thought: + </p> + <p> + “It is curious that what you cast away from you so easily, I am waiting + for with all the patience I have in me. And yet it is always yours to pick + up again whenever you wish; and I may never live to possess it.” + </p> + <p> + He was so perfectly right that Siward said nothing; in fact, he could have + no particular interest or sympathy for a man's quest of what he himself + did not understand the lack of. Those born without a tag unmistakably + ticketing them and their positions in the world were perforce ticketed. + Siward took it for granted that a man belonged where he was to be met; and + all he cared about was to find him civil, whether he happened to be a + policeman or a master of fox-hounds. + </p> + <p> + He was, now that he knew Plank, contented to accept him anywhere he met + him; but Plank's upward evolutions upon the social ladder were of no + interest to him, and his naïve snobbery was becoming something of a bore. + </p> + <p> + So Siward directed the conversation into other channels, and Plank, + accepting another cup of tea, became very communicative about his stables + and his dogs, and the preservation of game; and after a while, looking up + confidently at Siward, he said: + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it beastly to drive pheasants the way I did at Black Fells? + I have heard that you were disgusted.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't my idea of a square deal,” said Siward frankly. + </p> + <p> + “That settles it, then.” + </p> + <p> + “But you should not let me interfere with—” + </p> + <p> + “I'll take your opinion, and thank you for it. It didn't seem to me to be + the thing; only it's done over here, you know. The De Coursay's and the—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know.... Glad you feel that way about it, Plank. It's pretty + rotten sportsmanship. Don't you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “I do. I—would you—I should like to ask you to try some square + shooting at the Fells,” stammered Plank, “next season, if you would care + to.” + </p> + <p> + “You're very good. I should like to, if I were going to shoot at all; but + I fancy my shooting days are over, for a while.” + </p> + <p> + “Over!” + </p> + <p> + “Business,” nodded Siward, absently grave again. “I see no prospect of my + idling for the next year or two.” + </p> + <p> + “You are in—in Amalgamated Electric, I think,” ventured Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Very much in,” replied the other frankly. “You've read the papers and + heard rumours, I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “Some. I don't suppose anybody quite understands the attacks on + Amalgamated.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't—not yet. Do you?” + </p> + <p> + Plank sat silent, then his shrewd under lip began to protrude. + </p> + <p> + “I'm wondering,” he began cautiously, “how much the Algonquin crowd + understands about the matter?” + </p> + <p> + Siward's troubled eyes were on him as he spoke, watching closely, + narrowly. + </p> + <p> + “I've heard that rumour before,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “So have I,” said Plank, “and it seems incredible.” He looked warily at + Siward. “Suppose it is true that the Algonquin Trust Company is godfather + to Inter-County. That doesn't explain why a man should kick his own door + down when there's a bell to ring and servants to let him in—and out + again, too.” + </p> + <p> + “I have wondered,” said Siward, “whether the door he might be inclined to + kick down is really his own door any longer.” + </p> + <p> + “I, too,” said Plank simply. “It may belong to a personal enemy—if + he has any. He could afford to have an enemy, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + Siward nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Then, hadn't you better—I beg your pardon! You have not asked me to + advise you.” + </p> + <p> + “No. I may ask your advice some day. Will you give it when I do?” + </p> + <p> + “With pleasure,” said Plank, so warmly disinterested, so plainly proud and + eager to do a service that Siward, surprised and touched, found no word to + utter. + </p> + <p> + Plank rose. Siward attempted to stand up, but had trouble with his + crutches. + </p> + <p> + “Please don't try,” said Plank, coming over and offering his hand. “May I + stop in again soon? Oh, you are off to the country for a month or two? I + see.... You don't look very well. I hope it will benefit you. Awfully glad + to have seen you. I—I hope you won't forget me—entirely.” + </p> + <p> + “I am the man people are forgetting,” returned Siward, “not you. It was + very nice of you to come. You are one of very few who remember me at all.” + </p> + <p> + “I have very few people to remember,” said Plank; “and if I had as many as + I could desire I should remember you first.” + </p> + <p> + Here he became very much embarrassed. Siward offered his hand again. Plank + shook it awkwardly, and went away on tiptoe down the stairs which creaked + decorously under his weight. + </p> + <p> + And that ended the first interview between Plank and Siward in the first + days of the latter's decline. + </p> + <p> + The months that passed during Siward's absence from the city began to + prove rather eventful for Plank. He was finally elected a member of the + Patroons Club, without serious opposition; he had dined twice with the + Kemp Ferralls; he and Major Belwether were seen together at the Caithness + dance, and in the Caithness box at the opera. Once a respectable newspaper + reported him at Tuxedo for the week's end; his name, linked with the + clergy, frequently occupied such space under the column headed + “Ecclesiastical News” as was devoted to the progress of the new chapel, + and many old ladies began to become familiar with his name. + </p> + <p> + At the right moment the Mortimers featured him between two fashionable + bishops at a dinner. Mrs. Vendenning, who adored bishops, immediately + remembered him among those asked to her famous annual bal poudré; a + celebrated yacht club admitted him to membership; a whole shoal of + excellent minor clubs which really needed new members followed suit, and + even the rock-ribbed Lenox, wearied of its own time-honoured immobility, + displayed the preliminary fidgets which boded well for the stolid + candidate. The Mountain was preparing to take the first stiff step toward + Mohammed. It was the prophet's cue to sit tight and yawn occasionally. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile he didn't want to; he was becoming anxious to do things for + himself, which Leila Mortimer, of course, would not permit. It was + difficult for him to understand that any effort of his own would probably + be disastrous; that progress could come only through his own receptive + passivity; that nothing was demanded, nothing required, nothing permitted + from him as yet, save a capacity for assimilating such opportunities as + sections of the social system condescended to offer. + </p> + <p> + For instance, he wanted to open his art gallery to the public; he said it + was good strategy; and Mrs. Mortimer sat upon the suggestion with a shrug + of her pretty shoulders. Well, then, couldn't he possibly do something + with his great, gilded ball-room? No, he couldn't; and the less in + evidence his galleries and his ball-rooms were at present the better his + chances with people who, perfectly aware that he possessed them, were very + slowly learning to overlook the insolence of the accident that permitted + him to possess what they had never known the want of. First of all people + must tire of repeating to each other that he was nobody, and that would + happen when they wearied of explaining to one another why he was ever + asked anywhere. There was time enough for him to offer amusement to people + after they had ceased to find amusement in snubbing him; plenty of time in + the future for them to lash him to a gallop for their pleasure. In the + meanwhile he was doing very well, because he began to appear regularly in + the Caithness-Bonnesdel box, and old Peter Caithness was already boring + him at the Patroons; which meant that the thrifty old gentleman considered + Plank's millions as a possible underpinning for the sagging house of + Caithness, of which his pallid daughter Agatha was the sole sustaining + caryatid in perspective. + </p> + <p> + Yes, he was doing well; for that despotic beauty, Sylvia Landis, whose + capricious perversity had recently astonished those who remembered her in + her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was always + friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important, considering + Sylvia's unassailable position, and her kinship to the autocratic old lady + whose kindly ukase had for generations remained the undisputed law in the + social system of Manhattan. + </p> + <p> + “There is another matter,” said Leila Mortimer innocently, as Plank, + lingering after a disastrous rubber of bridge with her, her husband, and + Agatha Caithness, had followed her into her own apartments to write his + cheque for what he owed. “You've driven with me so much and you come here + so often and we are seen together so frequently that the clans are + sharpening up their dirks for us. And that helps some.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” exclaimed Plank, reddening, and twisting around in his chair. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. You didn't suppose I could escape, did you?” + </p> + <p> + “Escape! What?” demanded Plank, getting redder. + </p> + <p> + “Escape being talked about, savagely, mercilessly. Can't you see how it + helps? Oh dear, are you stupid, Beverly? + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” replied Plank, staring, “just how stupid I am. If you mean + that I'm compromising you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please! Why do you use back-stairs words? Nobody talks about + compromising now; all that went out with New Year's calls and brown-stone + stoops.” + </p> + <p> + “What do they call it, then?” asked Plank seriously. + </p> + <p> + “Call what? you great boy!” + </p> + <p> + “What you say I'm doing?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't say it.” + </p> + <p> + “Who does?” + </p> + <p> + Leila laughed, leaned back in her big, padded chair, dropping one knee + over the other. Her dark eyes with the Japanese slant to them rested + mockingly on Plank, who had now turned completely around in his chair, + leaving his half-written cheque on her escritoire behind him. + </p> + <p> + “You're simply credited with an affair with a pretty woman,” she said, + watching the dull colour mounting to his temples, “and that is certain to + be useful to you, and it doesn't affect me. What on earth are you blushing + about?” And as he said nothing, she added, with a daring little laugh: + “You are credited with being very agreeable, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “If—if that's the way you take it—” he began. + </p> + <p> + “Of course! What do you expect me to do—call for help before I'm + hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that this talk—gossip—doesn't hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “How silly!” She looked at him, smiling. “You know how likely I am to + require protection from your importunities.” She dropped her pretty head, + and began plaiting with her fingers the silken gown over her knee. “Or how + likely I would be to shriek for it even if”—she looked up with + childlike directness—“even if I needed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you can take care of yourself,” said Plank, wincing. + </p> + <p> + “I could, if I wanted to.” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody knows that. I know it, Leroy knows it; only I don't care to + figure as that kind of man.” + </p> + <p> + Already he had lost sight of her position in the matter; and she drew a + long, quiet breath, almost like a sigh. + </p> + <p> + “Time enough after you marry,” she said deliberately, and lighted a + cigarette from a candle, recreating her knees the other way. + </p> + <p> + He considered her, started to speak, checked himself, and swung around to + the desk again. His pen hovered over the space to be filled in. He tried + to recollect the amount, hesitated, dated the cheque and affixed his + signature, still trying to remember; then he looked at her over his + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “I forget the exact amount.” + </p> + <p> + She surveyed him through the haze of her cigarette, but made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “I forget the amount,” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “So do I,” she nodded indolently. + </p> + <p> + “But I—” + </p> + <p> + “Let it go. Besides, I shall not accept it.” + </p> + <p> + He flushed up, astonished. “You can't refuse to take a gambling debt.” + </p> + <p> + “I do,” she retorted coolly. “I'm tired of taking your money.” + </p> + <p> + “But you won it.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm tired of winning it. It is all I ever do win... from you.” + </p> + <p> + Her pretty head was wreathed in smoke. She tipped the ashes from the + cigarette's end, watching them fall to powder on the rug. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what you mean,” he persisted doggedly. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you? I don't believe I do, either. There are intervals in my career + which might prove eloquent if I opened my lips. But I don't, except to + make floating rings and cabalistic signs out of cigarette smoke. Can you + read their meaning? Look! There goes one, and there's another, and another—all + twisting and uncurling into hieroglyphics. They are very significant; they + might tell you a lot of things, if you would only translate them. But you + haven't the key—have you?” + </p> + <p> + There was a heavy, jarring step in the main living-room, and Mortimer's + bulk darkened the doorway. + </p> + <p> + “Entrez, mon ami,” nodded Leila, glancing up. “Where is Agatha?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to Desmond's,” he grunted, ignoring his wife's question; “do + you want to try it again, Beverly?” + </p> + <p> + “I can't make Leila take her own winnings,” said Plank, holding out the + signed but unfilled cheque to Mortimer, who took it and scrutinised it for + a moment, rubbing his heavy, inflamed eyes; then, gesticulating, the + cheque fluttering in his puffy fingers: + </p> + <p> + “Come on,” he insisted. “I've a notion that I can give Desmond a whirl + that he won't forget in a hurry. Agatha's asleep; she's going to that ball—where + is it?” he demanded, turning on his wife. “Yes, yes; the Page blow-out. + You're going, I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + Leila nodded, and lighted another cigarette. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” continued Mortimer impatiently; “you and Agatha won't start + before one. And if you think Plank had better go, why, we'll be back here + in time.” + </p> + <p> + “That means you won't be back at all,” observed his wife coolly; “and it's + good policy for Beverly to go where he's asked. Can't you turn in and + sleep, now, and amuse your friend Desmond to-morrow night?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can't. What a fool I'd be to let a chance slip when I feel like a + winner!” + </p> + <p> + “You never feel otherwise when you gamble,” said Leila. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do,” he retorted peevishly. “I can tell almost every time what the + cards are going to do to me. Leila, go to sleep. We'll be back here for + you by one, or half past.” + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Leroy,” began Plank, “there's one thing I can't stand for, and + that's this continual loss of sleep. If I go with you I'll not be fit to + go to the Pages.” + </p> + <p> + “What a farmer you are!” sneered Mortimer. “I believe you roost on the + foot-board of your bed, like a confounded turkey. Come on! You'd better + begin training, you know. People in this town are not going to stand for + the merry ploughboy game, you see!” + </p> + <p> + But Plank was shrewdly covering his principal reason for declining; he had + too often “temporarily” assisted Mortimer at Desmond's and Burbank's, when + Mortimer, cleaned out and unable to draw against a balance non-existent, + had plucked him by the sleeve from the faro table with the breathless + request for a loan. + </p> + <p> + “I tell you I can wring Desmond dry to-night,” repeated Mortimer sullenly. + “It isn't a case of 'want to,' either; it's a case of 'got to.' That old + pink-and-white rabbit, Belwether, got me into a game this afternoon, and + between him and Voucher and Alderdine I'm stripped clean as a kennel + bone.” + </p> + <p> + But Plank shook his head, pretending to yawn; and Mortimer, glowering and + lingering, presently went off, his swollen hands thrust into his trousers' + pockets, his gross features dark with disgust; and presently they heard + the front door slam, and a rattling tattoo of horses' feet on the asphalt; + and Leila sprang up impatiently, and, passing Plank, traversed the passage + to the windows of the front room. + </p> + <p> + “He's taken the horses—the beast!” she said calmly, as Plank joined + her at the great windows and looked out into the night, where the round, + drooping, flower-like globes of the electric lamps spread a lake of silver + before the house. + </p> + <p> + It was rather rough on Leila. The Mortimers maintained one pair of horses + only; and the use given them at all hours resulted in endless scenes, and + an utter impossibility for Leila to retain the same coachman and footman + for more than a few weeks at a time. + </p> + <p> + “He won't come back; he'll keep Martin and the horses standing in front of + Delmonico's all night. You'd better call up the stables, Beverly.” + </p> + <p> + So Plank called up a livery and arranged for transportation at one; and + Leila seated herself at a card-table and began to deal herself cold decks, + thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “That bit in 'Carmen,'” she said, “it always brings the shudder; it never + palls on me, never grows stale.” She whipped the ominous spade from the + pack and held it out. “La Mort!” she exclaimed in mock tragedy, yet there + was another undertone ringing through it, sounding, too, in her following + laugh. “Draw!” she commanded, holding out the pack; and Plank drew a + diamond. + </p> + <p> + “Naturally,” she nodded, shuffling the pack with her smooth, savant + fingers and laying them out as she repeated the formula: “Qui frappe? Qui + entre? Qui prend chaise? Qui parle? Oh, the deuce! it's always the same! + Tiens! je m'ennui!” There was a flash of her bare arm, a flutter, and the + cards fell in a shower over them both. + </p> + <p> + Plank flipped a card from his knee, laughing uncertainly, aware of + symptoms in his pretty vis-à-vis which always made him uncomfortable. For + months, now, at certain intervals, these recurrent symptoms had made him + wary; but what they might portend he did not know, only that, alone with + her, moments occurred when he was heavily aware of a tension which, after + a while, affected even his few thick nerves. One of those intervals was + threatening now: her flushed cheeks, her feverish activity with her hands, + the unconscious reflex movement of her silken knees and restless slippers, + all foreboded it. Next would come the nervous laughter, the swift epigram + which bored and puzzled him, the veiled badinage he was unequal to; and + then the hint of weariness, the curious pathos of long silences, the + burnt-out beauty of her eyes from which the fire had gone as though + quenched by invisible tears within. + </p> + <p> + He ascribed it—desired to ascribe it—to her relations with her + husband. He had naturally learned and divined how matters stood with them; + he had learned considerable in the last month or two—something of + Mortimer's record as a burly brother to the rich; something of his + position among those who made no question of his presence anywhere. + Something of Leila, too, he had heard, or rather deduced from hinted word + or shrug or smiling silence, not meant for him, but indifferent to what he + might hear and what he might think of what he heard. + </p> + <p> + He did listen; he did patiently add two and two in the long solitudes of + his Louis XV chamber; and if the results were not always four, at least + they came within a fraction of the proper answer. And this did not alter + his policy or weaken his faith in his mentors; nor did it impair his real + gratitude to them, and his real and simple friendship for them both. He + was faithful in friendship once formed, obstinately so, for better or for + worse; but he was shrewd enough to ignore opportunities for friendships + which he foresaw could do him no good on his plodding pilgrimage toward + the temple of his inexorable desire. + </p> + <p> + Lifting, now, his Delft-coloured eyes furtively, he studied the + silk-and-lace swathed figure of the young matron opposite, flung back into + the depths of her great chair, profile turned from him, her chin + imprisoned in her ringed fingers. The brooding abandon of the attitude + contrasted sharply with the grooming of the woman, making both the more + effective. + </p> + <p> + “Turn in, if you want to,” she said, her voice indistinct, smothered by + her pink palm. “You're to dress in Leroy's quarters.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to turn in just yet.” + </p> + <p> + “You said you needed sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I do. But it's not eleven yet.” + </p> + <p> + She slipped into another posture, reaching for a cigarette, and, setting + it afire from the match he offered, exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked + dreamily through it at him. + </p> + <p> + “Who is she?” she asked in a colourless voice. “Tell me, for I don't know. + Agatha? Marion Page? Mrs. Vendenning? or the Tassel girl?” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody—yet,” he admitted cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody—yet,” she repeated, musing over her cigarette. “That's good + politics, if it's true.” + </p> + <p> + “Am I untruthful?” he asked simply. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Are you? You're a man.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't talk that way, Leila.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I won't. What is it that you and Sylvia Landis have to talk about so + continuously every time you meet?” + </p> + <p> + “She's merely civil to me,” he explained. + </p> + <p> + “That's more than she is to a lot of people. What do you talk about?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know—nothing in particular; mostly about Shotover, and the + people there last summer.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn't she ever mention Stephen Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Usually. She knows I like him.” + </p> + <p> + “She likes him, too,” said Leila, looking at him steadily. + </p> + <p> + “I know it. Everybody likes him—or did. I do, yet.” + </p> + <p> + “I do, too,” observed Mrs. Mortimer coolly. “I was in love with him. He + was only a boy then.” + </p> + <p> + Plank nodded in silence. + </p> + <p> + “Where is he now—do, you know?” she asked. “Everybody says he's gone + to the devil.” + </p> + <p> + “He's in the country somewhere,” replied Plank cautiously. “I stopped in + to see him the other day, but nobody seemed to know when he would return.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Mortimer tossed her cigarette onto the hearth. For a long interval of + silence she lay there in her chair, changing her position restlessly from + moment to moment; and at length she lay quite still, so long that Plank + began to think she had fallen asleep in her chair. + </p> + <p> + He rose. She did not stir, and, passing her, he instinctively glanced + down. Her cheeks, half buried against the back of the chair, were + overflushed; under the closed lids the lashes glistened wet in the + lamplight. + </p> + <p> + Surprised, embarrassed, he halted, as though afraid to move; and she sat + up with a nervous shake of her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “What a life!” she said, under her breath; “what a life for a woman to + lead!” + </p> + <p> + “Wh-whose?” he blurted out. + </p> + <p> + “Mine!” + </p> + <p> + He stared at her uneasily, finding nothing to say. He had never before + heard anything like this from her. + </p> + <p> + “Can't anybody help me out of it?” she said quietly. + </p> + <p> + “Who? How?... Do you mean—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I mean it! I mean it! I—” + </p> + <p> + And suddenly she broke down, in a strange, stammering, tearless way, + opening the dry flood-gates over which rattled an avalanche of words—bitter, + breathless phrases rushing brokenly from lips that shrank as they formed + them. + </p> + <p> + Plank sat inert, the corroding echo of the words clattering in his ears. + And after a while he heard his own altered voice sounding persistently in + repetition: + </p> + <p> + “Don't say those things, Leila; don't tell me such things.” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Don't you care?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, I care; but I can't do anything! I have no business to hear—to + see you this way.” + </p> + <p> + “To whom can I speak, then, if I can not speak to you? To whom can I turn? + Where am I to turn, in all the world?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” he said fearfully; “the only way is to go on.” + </p> + <p> + “What else have I done? What else am I doing?” she cried. “Go on? Am I not + trudging on and on through life, dragging the horror of it behind me + through the mud, except when the horror drags me? To whom am I to turn—to + other beasts like him?—sitting patiently around, grinning and + slavering, awaiting their turn when the horror of it crushes me to the + mud?” + </p> + <p> + She stretched out a rounded, quivering arm, and laid the small fingers of + the left hand on its flawless contour. “Look!” she said, exasperated, “I + am young yet; the horror has not yet corrupted the youth in me. I am + fashioned for some reason, am I not?—for some purpose, some + happiness. I am not bad; I am human. What poison has soaked into me can be + eliminated. I tell you, no woman is capable of being so thoroughly + poisoned that the antidote proves useless. + </p> + <p> + “But I tell you men, also, that unless she find that antidote she will + surely reinfect herself. A man can not do what that man has done to me and + expect me to recover unaided. People talk of me, and I have given them + subjects enough! But—look at me! Straight between the eyes! Every + law have I broken except that! Do you understand? That one, which you men + consider yourselves exempt from, I have not broken—yet! Shall I + speak plainer? It is the fashion to be crude. But—I can't be; I am + unfashionable, you see.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed, her haunted eyes fixed on his. + </p> + <p> + “Is there no chance for me? Because I drag his bedraggled name about with + me is there no decent chance, no decent hope? Is there only indecency in + prospect, if a man comes to care for a married woman? Can't a decent man + love her at all? I—I think—” + </p> + <p> + Her hands, outstretched, trembled, then flew to her face; and she stood + there swaying, until Plank perforce stepped to her side and steadied her + against him. + </p> + <p> + So they remained for a while, until she looked up dazed, weary, ashamed, + expecting nothing of him; and when it came, leaving her still incredulous, + his arms around her, his tense, flushed face recoiling from their first + kiss, she did not seem to comprehend. + </p> + <p> + “I can't turn on him,” he stammered, “I—we are friends, you see. How + can I love you, if that is so?” + </p> + <p> + “Could you love me?” she asked calmly. + </p> + <p> + “I—I don't know. I did love—I do care for—another woman. + I can't marry her, though I am given to understand there is a chance. + Perhaps it is partly ambition,” he said honestly, “for I am quite sure she + has never cared for me, never thought of me in that way. I think a man + can't stand that long.” + </p> + <p> + “No; only women can. Who is she?” + </p> + <p> + “You won't ask me, will you?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Are you sorry that I am in love with you?” + </p> + <p> + His arms unclasped her body, and he stepped back, facing her. + </p> + <p> + “Are you?” she asked violently. + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “You speak like a man,” she said tremulously. “Am I to be permitted to + adore you in peace, then—decently, and in peace?” + </p> + <p> + “Don't speak that way, Leila. I—there is no woman, no friend, I care + for as much as I do you. It is easy, I think, for a woman, like you, to + make a man care for her. You will not do it, will you?” + </p> + <p> + “I will,” she said softly. + </p> + <p> + “It's no use; I can't turn on him. I can't! He is my friend, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “Let him remain so. I shall do what I can. Let him remain a monument to + his fellow-beasts. What do I care? Do you think I desire to turn you into + his image? Do you think I hope for your degradation and mine? Are you + afraid I should not recognise love unaccompanied by the attendant beast? I—I + don't know; you had better teach me, if I prove blind. If you can love me, + do so in charity before I go blind forever.” + </p> + <p> + She laid one hand on his arm, looked at him, then turned and passed slowly + through the doorway. + </p> + <p> + “If you are going to sleep before we start you had better be about it!” + she said, looking back at him from the stairs. + </p> + <p> + But he had no further need of sleep; and for a long while he stood at the + windows watching the lamps of cabs and carriages sparkling through the + leafless thickets of the park like winter fire-flies. + </p> + <p> + At one o'clock, hearing Agatha Caithness speak to Leila's maid, he left + the window, and sitting down at the desk, telephoned to Desmond's; and he + was informed that Mortimer, hard hit, had signified his intention of + recouping at Burbank's. Then he managed to get Burbank's on the wire, and + finally Mortimer himself, but was only cursed for his pains and cut off in + the middle of his pleading. + </p> + <p> + So he wandered up-stairs into Mortimer's apartments, where he tubbed and + dressed, and finally descended, to find Agatha Caithness alone in the + library, spinning a roulette wheel and whistling an air from “La + Bacchante.” + </p> + <p> + “That's pretty,” he said; “sing it.” + </p> + <p> + “No; it's better off without the words; and so are you,” added Agatha + candidly, relinquishing the wheel and strolling with languid grace about + the room, hands on her hips, timing her vagrant steps to the indolent, + wicked air. And, + </p> + <p> + “'Je rougirais de men ivresse Si tu conservais ta raison!'” + </p> + <p> + she hummed deliberately, pivoting on her heels and advancing again toward + Plank, her pretty, pale face delicate as an enamelled cameo under the + flood of light from the crystal chandeliers. + </p> + <p> + “I understand that Mr. Mortimer is not coming with us,” she said + carelessly. “Are you going to dance with me, if I find nobody better?” + </p> + <p> + He expressed himself flattered, cautiously. He was one of many who never + understood this tall, white, low-voiced girl, with eyes too pale for + beauty, yet strangely alluring, too. Few men denied the indefinable + enchantment of her; few men could meet her deep-lidded, transparent gaze + unmoved. In the sensitive curve of her mouth there was a kind of + sensuousness; in her low voice, in her pallor, in the slim grace of her a + vague provocation that made men restless and women silently curious for + something more definite on which to base their curiosity. + </p> + <p> + She was wearing, over the smooth, dead-white skin of her neck, a collar of + superb diamonds and aquamarines—almost an effrontery, as the latter + were even darker than her eyes; yet the strange and effective harmony was + evident, and Plank spoke of the splendour of the gems. + </p> + <p> + She nodded indifferently, saying they were new, and that she had picked + them up at Tiffany's; and he mentally sketched out the value of the + diamonds, a trifle surprised, because Leila Mortimer had carefully + informed him about the condition of the Caithness exchequer. + </p> + <p> + That youthful matron herself appeared in a few moments, very lustrous, + very lovely in her fragrant, exotic brightness, and Plank for the first + time thought that she was handsome—the vigorous, youthful + incarnation of Life itself, in contrast to Agatha's almost deathly beauty. + She greeted him not only without a trace of embarrassment, but with such a + friendly, fresh, gay confidence that he scarcely recognised in her the + dry-eyed, feverish woman of an hour ago, whose very lips shrank back, + scorched by the torrent of her own invective. + </p> + <p> + And so they drove the three short blocks to the Page's in their hired + livery; the street was inadequate for the crush of vehicles; and the + glittering pressure within the house was outrageous; all of which confused + Plank, who became easily confused by such things. + </p> + <p> + How they got in—how they managed to present themselves—who + took Leila and Agatha from him—where they went—where he + himself might be—he did not understand very clearly. The house was + large, strange, full of strangers. He attempted to obtain his bearings by + wandering about looking for a small rococo reception-room where he + remembered he had once talked kennel talk with Marion Page, and had on + another occasion perspired freely under the arrogant and strabismic glare + of her mother. That good lady had really rather liked him; he never + suspected it. + </p> + <p> + But he couldn't find the rococo room—or perhaps he didn't recognise + it. So many people—so many, many people whom he did not know, whom + he had never before laid eyes on—high-bred faces hard as diamonds; + young, gay, laughing faces; brilliant eyes encountering his without a + softening of recognition; clean-cut, attractive men in swarms, all + animated, all amused, all at home among themselves and among the silken + visions of loveliness passing and repassing, with here an extended gloved + arm and the cordial greeting of camaraderie, there a quick smile, a swift + turn in passing, a capricious bending forward for a whisper, a compliment, + a jest—all this swept by him, around him, enveloping him with its + brightness, its gaiety, its fragrance, and left him more absolutely alone + than he had ever been in all his life. + </p> + <p> + He tried to find Leila, and gave it up. He saw Quarrier talking to Agatha, + but the former saluted him so coldly that he turned away. + </p> + <p> + After a while he found Marion, but she hadn't a dance left for him; + neither had Rena Bonnesdel, whom he encountered while she was adroitly + avoiding one of the ever-faithful twins. The twin caught up with her in + consequence, and she snubbed Plank for his share in the disaster, which + depressed him, and he started for the smoking-room, wherever that haven + might be found. He got into the ball-room, however, by mistake, and + adorned the wall, during the cotillon, as closely as his girth permitted, + until an old lady sent for him; and he went and talked about bishops for + nearly an hour to her, until his condition bordered on frenzy, the old + lady being deaf and peevish. + </p> + <p> + Later, Alderdene used him to get rid of an angular, old harridan who + seemed to be one solid diamond-mine, and who drove him into a corner and + talked indelicacies until Plank's broad face flamed like the setting sun. + Then Captain Voucher unloaded a frightened débutante on him who tried to + talk about horses and couldn't; and they hated each other for a while, + until, looking around her in desperation, she found he had vanished—which + was quick work for a man of his size. + </p> + <p> + Kathryn Tassel employed him for supper, and kept him busy while she + herself was immersed in a dawning affair with Fleetwood. She did + everything to him except to tip him; and her insolence was the last straw. + </p> + <p> + Then, unexpectedly in the throng, two wonderful sea-blue eyes encountered + his, deepening to violet with pleasure, and the trailing sweetness of a + voice he knew was repeating his name, and a slim, white-gloved hand lay in + his own. + </p> + <p> + Her escort, Ferrall, nodded to him pleasantly. She leaned forward from + Ferrall's arm, saying, under her breath, “I have saved a dance for you. + Please ask me at once. Quick! do you want me?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I do,” stammered Plank. + </p> + <p> + Ferrall, suspicious, stepped forward to exchange civilities, then turning + to the girl beside him: “See here, Sylvia, you've dragged me all over this + house on one pretext or another. Do you want any supper, or don't you? If + you don't, it's our dance.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't. No, it isn't. Kemp, you annoy me!” + </p> + <p> + “That's a nice thing to say! Is it your delicately inimitable way of + giving me my congé?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, thank you,” nodded Miss Landis coolly; “you may go now.” + </p> + <p> + “You're spoiled, that's what's the matter,” retorted Ferrall wrathfully. + “I thought I was to have this dance. You said—” + </p> + <p> + “I said 'perhaps,' because I didn't see Mr. Plank coming to claim it. + Thank you, Kemp, for finding him.” + </p> + <p> + Her nod and smile took the edge from her malice. Ferrall, who really + adored dancing, glared about for anybody, and presently cornered the + frightened and neglected debutante who had hated Plank. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, standing beside Plank, looked up at him with her confident and + friendly smile. + </p> + <p> + “You don't care to dance, do you? Would you mind if we sat out this + dance?” + </p> + <p> + “If you'd rather,” he said, so wistfully that she hesitated; then with a + little shrug laid one hand on his arm, and they swung out across the floor + together, into the scented whirl. + </p> + <p> + Plank, like many heavy men, danced beautifully; and Sylvia, who still + loved dancing with all the ardour of a schoolgirl, permitted a moment or + two of keen delight to sweep her dreamily from her purpose. But that + purpose must have been a strong one, for she returned to it in a few + minutes, and, looking up at Plank, said very gently that she cared to + dance no more. + </p> + <p> + Her hand resting lightly on his arm, it did not seem possible that any + pressure of hers was directing them to the conservatory; yet he did not + know where he was going, and she was familiar with the house, and they + soon entered the conservatory, where, in the shadow of various palms + various youths looked up impatiently as they passed, and various maidens + sat up very straight in their chairs. + </p> + <p> + Threading their dim way into the farther recesses they found seats among + thickets of forced lilacs over-hung by early wistaria. A spring-like odour + hung in the air; somewhere a tiny fountain grew musical in the + semi-darkness. + </p> + <p> + “Marion told me you had been asked,” she said. “We have been so friendly; + you've always asked me to dance whenever we have met; so I thought I'd + save you one. Are you flattered, Mr. Plank?” + </p> + <p> + He said he was, very pleasantly, perfectly undeceived, and convinced of + her purpose—a purpose never even tacitly admitted between them; and + the old loneliness came over him again—not resentment, for he was + willing that she should use him. Why not? Others used him; everybody used + him; and if they found no use for him they let him alone. Mortimer, + Fleetwood, Belwether—all, all had something to exact from him. It + was for that he was tolerated—he knew it; he had slowly and + unwillingly learned it. His intrusion among these people, of whom he was + not one, would be endured only while he might be turned to some account. + The hospital used him, the clergy found plenty for him to do for them, the + museum had room for other pictures of his. Who among them all had ever + sought him without a motive? Who among them all had ever found unselfish + pleasure in him? Not one. + </p> + <p> + Something in the dull sadness of his face, as he sat there, checked the + first elaborately careless question her lips were already framing. Leaning + a little nearer in the dim light she looked at him inquiringly and he + returned her gaze in silence. + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Mr. Plank,” she said; “is anything wrong?” + </p> + <p> + He knew that she did not mean to ask if anything was amiss with him. She + did not care. Nobody cared. So, recognising his cue, he answered: “No, + nothing is wrong that I have heard of.” + </p> + <p> + “You wear a very solemn countenance.” + </p> + <p> + “Gaiety affects me solemnly, sometimes. It is a reaction from frivolity. I + suppose that I am over-enjoying life; that is all.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed, using her fan, although the place was cool enough and they + had not danced long. To and fro flitted the silken vanes of her fan, now + closing impatiently, now opening again like the wings of a nervous moth in + the moonlight. + </p> + <p> + He wished she would come to her point, but he dared not lead her to it too + brusquely, because her purpose and her point were supposed to be + absolutely hidden from his thick and credulous understanding. It had taken + him some time to make this clear to himself; passing from suspicion, + through chagrin and overwounded feeling, to dull certainty that she, too, + was using him, harmlessly enough from her standpoint, but how bitterly + from his, he alone could know. + </p> + <p> + The quickened flutter of her fan meant impatience to learn from him what + she had come to him to learn, and then, satisfied, to leave him alone + again amid the peopled solitude of clustered lights. + </p> + <p> + He wished she would speak; he was tired of the sadness of it all. Whenever + in his isolation, in his utter destitution of friendship, he turned + guilelessly to meet a new advance, always, sooner or later, the friendly + mask was lifted enough for him to divine the cool, fixed gaze of + self-interest inspecting him through the damask slits. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia was speaking now, and the plumy fan was under savant control, + waving graceful accompaniment to her soft voice, punctuating her sentences + at times, at times making an emphasis or outlining a gesture. + </p> + <p> + It was the familiar sequence; topics that led to themes which adroitly + skirted the salient point; returned capriciously, just avoiding it—a + subtly charming pattern of words which required so little in reply that + his smile and nod were almost enough to keep her aria and his + accompaniment afloat. + </p> + <p> + It began to fascinate him to watch the delicacy of her strategy, the + coquetting with her purpose; her naive advance to the very edges of it, + the airy retreat, the innocent detour, the elaborate and circuitous + return. And at last she drifted into it so naturally that it seemed + impossible that fatuous man could have the most primitive suspicion of her + premeditation. + </p> + <p> + And Plank, now recognising his cue, answered her: “No, I have not heard + that he is in town. I stopped to see him the other day, but nobody there + knew how soon he intended to return from the country.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know he had gone to the country,” she said without apparent + interest. + </p> + <p> + And Plank was either too kind to terminate the subject, or too anxious to + serve his turn and release her; for he went on: “I thought I told you at + Mrs. Ferrall's that Mr. Siward had gone to the country.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you did. No doubt I've forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm quite sure I did, because I remember saying that he looked very ill, + and you said, rather sharply, that he had no business to be ill. Do you + remember?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said slowly. “Is he better?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope so.” + </p> + <p> + “You hope so?”—with the controlled emphasis of impatience. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Don't you, Miss Landis? When I saw him at his home, he was lame—on + crutches—and he looked rather ghastly; and all he said was that he + expected to leave for the country. I asked him to shoot next year at Black + Fells, and he seemed bothered about business, and said it might keep him + from taking any vacation.” + </p> + <p> + “He spoke about his business?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he—” + </p> + <p> + “What is the trouble with his business? Is it anything about Amalgamated + and Inter-County?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he worried?” + </p> + <p> + Plank said deliberately: “I should be, if my interests were locked up in + Amalgamated Electric.” + </p> + <p> + “Could you tell me why that would worry you?” she asked, smiling + persuasively across at him. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, “I can't tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Because I wouldn't understand?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I myself don't understand.” + </p> + <p> + She thought awhile, brushing the rose velvet of her mouth with the fan's + edge, then, looking up confidently: + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward is such a boy. I'm so glad he has you to advise him in such + matters.” + </p> + <p> + “What matters?” asked Plank bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “Why, in—in financial matters.” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't advise him.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Because he hasn't asked me to, Miss Landis.” + </p> + <p> + “He ought to ask you.... He must ask you.... Don't wait for him, Mr. + Plank. He is only a boy in such things.” + </p> + <p> + And, as Plank was silent: + </p> + <p> + “You will, won't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Do what—make his business my business, without an invitation?” + asked Plank, so quietly that she flushed with annoyance. + </p> + <p> + “If you pretend to be his friend is it not your duty to advise him?” she + asked impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “No; that is for his business associates to do. Friendship comes to grief + when it crosses the frontiers of business.” + </p> + <p> + “That is a narrow view to take, Mr. Plank.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, straight and narrow. The boundaries of friendship are straight and + narrow. It is best to keep to the trodden path; best not to walk on the + grass or trample the flowers.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you are sacrificing friendship for an epigram,” she said, + careless of the undertone of contempt in her voice. + </p> + <p> + “I have never sacrificed friendship.” He turned, and looked at her + pleasantly. “I never made an epigram consciously, and I have never + required of a friend more than I had to offer in return. Have you?” + </p> + <p> + The flush of hot displeasure stained her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “Are you really questioning me, Mr. Plank?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You have been questioning me rather seriously—have you not?” + </p> + <p> + “I did not comprehend your definition of friendship. I did not agree with + it. I questioned it, not you! That is all.” + </p> + <p> + Plank rested his head on one big hand and stared at the clusters of dim + blossoms behind her; and after a while he said, as though thinking aloud: + </p> + <p> + “Many have taken my friendship for granted, and have never offered their + own in return. I do not know about Mr. Siward. There is nothing I can do + for him, nothing he can do for me. If there is to be friendship between us + it will be disinterested; and I would rather have that than anything in + the world, I think.” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause; but when Sylvia would have broken it his gesture + committed her to silence with the dignity one might use in checking a + persistent child. + </p> + <p> + “You question my definition of friendship, Miss Landis. I should have let + your question pass, however keenly it touched me, had it not also touched + him. Now I am going to say some things which lie within the straight and + narrow bounds I spoke of. I never knew a man I cared for as much as I care + for Mr. Siward. I know why, too. He is disinterested. I do not believe he + wastes very many thoughts on me. Perhaps he will. I want him to like me, + if it's possible. But one thing you and I may be sure of: if he does not + care to return the friendship I offer him he will never accept anything + else from me, though he might give at my request; and that is the sort of + a man he is; and that is why he is every inch a man; and so I like him, + Miss Landis. Do you wonder?” + </p> + <p> + She did not reply. + </p> + <p> + “Do you wonder?” he repeated sharply. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Then—” He straightened up, and the silent significance of his + waiting attitude was plain enough to her. + </p> + <p> + But she shook her head impatiently, saying: “I don't know whose dance it + is, and I don't care. Please go on. It is—is pleasant. I like Mr. + Siward; I like to hear men speak of him as you do. I like you for doing + it. If you should ever come to care for my friendship that is the best + passport to it—your loyalty to Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “No man can truthfully speak otherwise than I have spoken,” he said + gravely. + </p> + <p> + “No, not of these things. But—you know w-what is—is usually + said when his name comes up among men.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean about his habits?” he asked simply. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Is it not an outrage to drag in that sort of thing? It angers me + intensely, Mr. Plank. Why do they do it? Is there a single one among them + qualified to criticise Mr. Siward? And besides, it is not true any + more!... is it?—what was once said of him with—with some + truth? Is it?” + </p> + <p> + The dull red blood mantled Plank's heavy visage. The silence grew grim as + he did his slow, laborious thinking, the while his eyes, expressionless + and almost opaque in the dim light, never left her's, until, under the + unchanging, merciless inspection, the mask dropped for an instant from her + anxious face, and he saw what he saw. + </p> + <p> + He was no fool. What he had come to believe she at last had only + confirmed; and now the question became simple: was she worth enlightening? + And by what title did she demand his confidence? + </p> + <p> + “You ask me if it is true any more. You mean about his habits. If I answer + you it is because I cannot be indifferent to what concerns him. But before + I answer I ask you this: Would your interest in his fortunes matter to + him?” + </p> + <p> + She waited, head bent; then: + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, Mr. Plank,” very low. + </p> + <p> + “Did your interest in his fortunes ever concern him?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, once.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her sternly, his jaw squaring until his heavy under lip + projected. “Within my definition of friendship, is he your friend?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean he—” + </p> + <p> + “No, I mean you! I can answer for him. How is it with you? Do you return + what he gives—if there is really friendship between you? Or do you + take what he offers, offering nothing in return?” + </p> + <p> + She had turned rather white under the direct impact of the questions. The + jarring repetition of his voice itself was like the dull echo of distant + blows. Yet it never occurred to her to resent it, nor his attitude, nor + his self-assumed privilege. She did not care; she no longer cared what he + said to her or thought about her; nor did she care that her mask had + fallen at last. It was not what he was saying, but what her own heart + repeated so heavily that drove the colour from her face. Not he, but she + herself had become the pitiless attorney for the prosecution; not his + voice, but the clamouring conscience within her demanded by what right she + used the name of friendship to characterise the late relations between her + and the man to whom she had denied herself. + </p> + <p> + Then a bitter impatience swept her, and a dawning fear, too; for she had + set her foot on the fallen mask, and the impulse rendered her reckless. + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you speak?” she said. “Yes, I have a right to know. I care for + him as much as you do. Why don't you answer me? I tell you I care for + him!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” he said in a dull voice. “Then help me out, if you can, for I + don't know what to do; and if I did, I haven't the authority of friendship + as my warrant. He is in New York. He did go to the country; and, at his + home, the servants suppose he is still away. But he isn't; he is here, + alone, and sick—sick of his old sickness. I saw him, and”—Plank + rested his head on his hand, dropping his eyes—“and he didn't know + me. I—I do not think he will remember that he met me, or that I + spoke. And—I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. And I don't know + where he is. He will go home after a while. I call—every day—to + see—see what can be done. But if he were there I would not know what + to do. When he does go home I won't know what to say—what to try to + do.... And that is an answer to your question, Miss Landis. I give it, + because you say you care for him as I do. Will you advise me what to do?—you, + who are more entitled than I am to know the truth, because he has given + you the friendship which he has as yet not accorded to me.” + </p> + <p> + But Sylvia, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, could find no voice to answer; and after + a little while they rose and moved through the fragrant gloom toward the + sparkling lights beyond. + </p> + <p> + Her voice came back as they entered the brilliant rooms: “I should like to + find Grace Ferrall,” she said very distinctly. “Please keep the others + off, Mr. Plank.” + </p> + <p> + Her small hand on his arm lay with a weight out of all proportion to its + size. Fair head averted, she no longer guided him with that impalpable + control; it was he who had become the pilot now, and he steered his own + way through the billowy ocean of silk and lace, master of the course he + had set, heavily bland to the interrupter and the importunate from whom + she turned a deaf ear and dumb lips, and lowered eyes that saw nothing. + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood had missed his dance with her, but she scarcely heard his eager + complaints. Quarrier, coldly inquiring, confronted them; was passed almost + without recognition, and left behind, motionless, looking after them out + of his narrowing, black-fringed eyes of a woman. + </p> + <p> + Then Ferrall came, and hearing his voice, she raised her colourless face. + </p> + <p> + “Will you take me home with you, Kemp, when you take Grace?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Of course. I don't know where Grace is. Are you in a hurry to go? It's + only four o'clock.” + </p> + <p> + They were at the entrance to the supper-room. Plank drew up a chair for + her, and she sank down, dropping her elbows on the small table, and + resting her face between her fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Pegged out, Sylvia?” exclaimed Ferrall incredulously. “You? What's the + younger set coming to?” and he motioned a servant to fill her glass. But + she pushed it aside with a shiver, and gave Plank a strange look which he + scarcely understood at the moment. + </p> + <p> + “More caprices; all sorts of 'em on the programme,” muttered Ferrall, + looking down at her from where he stood beside Plank. “O tempora! O + Sylvia!... Plank, would you mind hunting up my wife? I'll stay and see + that this infant doesn't fall asleep.” + </p> + <p> + But Sylvia shook her head, saying: “Please go, Kemp. I'm a little tired, + that's all. When Grace is ready, I'll leave with her.” And at her gesture + Plank seated himself, while Ferrall, shrugging his square shoulders, + sauntered off in quest of his wife, stopping a moment at a neighbouring + table to speak to Agatha Caithness, who sat there with Captain Voucher, + the gemmed collar on her slender throat a pale blaze of splendour. + </p> + <p> + Plank was hungry, and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded, and + exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank's voice. + For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to keep up a + desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she owed an + explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank's appetite was + in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had fashioned him, and + she paid less and less attention to convention and a trifle more to the + beauty of Agatha's jewels, until the silence at the small table in the + corner remained unbroken except by the faint tinkle of silver and crystal + and the bubbling hiss of a glass refilled. + </p> + <p> + Major Belwether, his white, fluffy, chop-whiskers brushed rabbit fashion, + peeped in at the door, started to tiptoe out again, caught sight of them, + and came trotting back, beaming rosy effusion. He leaned roguishly over + the table, his moist eyes a-twinkle with suppressed mirth; then, bestowing + a sprightly glance on Plank, which said very plainly, “I'm up to one of my + irrepressible jokes again!” he held up a smooth, white, and over-manicured + forefinger: + </p> + <p> + “I was in Tiffany's yesterday,” he said, “and I saw a young man in there + who didn't see me, and I peeped over his shoulder, and what do you think + he was doing?” + </p> + <p> + She lifted her eyes a little wearily: + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I do,” he chuckled. “He was choosing a collar of blue diamonds and aqua + marines!—Te-he!—probably to wear himself!—Te-he! Or + perhaps he was going to be married!—He-he-he!—next winter—ahem!—next + November—Ha-ha! I don't know, I'm sure, what he meant to do with + that collar. I only—” + </p> + <p> + Something in Sylvia's eyes stopped him, and, following their direction, he + turned around to find Quarrier standing at his elbow, icy and + expressionless. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said the aged jester, a little disconcerted, “I'm caught talking out + in church, I see! It was only a harmless little fun, Howard.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean you saw me?” asked Quarrier, pale as a sheet. “You are in + error. I have not been in Tiffany's in months.” + </p> + <p> + Belwether, crestfallen under the white menace of Quarrier's face, nodded, + and essayed a chuckle without success. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, at first listless and uninterested, looked inquiringly from the + major to Quarrier, surprised at the suppressed feeling exhibited over so + trivial a gaucherie. If Quarrier had chosen a collar like Agatha's for + her, what of it? But as he had not, on his own statement, what did it + matter? Why should he look that way at the foolish major, to whose + garrulous gossip he was accustomed, and whose inability to refrain from + prying was notorious enough. + </p> + <p> + Turning disdainfully, she caught a glimpse of Plank's shocked and altered + face. It relapsed instantly into the usual inert expression; and a queer, + uncomfortable perplexity began to invade her. What had happened to stir up + these three men? Of what importance was an indiscretion of an old + gentleman whose fatuous vanity and consequent blunders everybody was + familiar with? And, after all, Howard had not bought anything at + Tiffany's; he said so himself.... But it was evident that Agatha had + chanced on the collar that Belwether thought he saw somebody else + examining. + </p> + <p> + She turned, and looked at the dead-white neck of the girl. The collar was + wonderful—a miracle of pale fire. And Sylvia, musing, let her + thoughts run on, dreamy eyes brooding. She was glad that Agatha's means + permitted her now to have such things. It had been understood, for some + years, that the Caithness fortune was in rather an alarming condition. + Howard had been able recently to do a favour or two for old Peter + Caithness. She had heard the major bragging about it. Evidently Mr. + Caithness must have improved the chance, if he was able to present such + gems to his daughter. And now somebody would marry her; perhaps Captain + Voucher; perhaps even Alderdene; perhaps, as rumour had it now and then, + Plank might venture into the arena.... Poor Plank! More of a man than + people understood. She understood. She— + </p> + <p> + And her thoughts swung back like the returning tide to Siward, and her + heart began heavily again, and the slightly faint sensation returned. She + passed her ungloved, unsteady fingers across her eyelids and forehead, + looking up and around. The major and Howard had disappeared; Plank, beside + her, sat staring stupidly into his empty wine-glass. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't Mrs. Ferrall coming?” she said wearily. + </p> + <p> + Plank gathered his cumbersome bulk and stood up, trying to see through the + entrance into the ball-room. After a moment he said: “They're in there, + talking to Marion. It's a good chance to make our adieux.” + </p> + <p> + As they passed out of the supper-room Sylvia paused behind Agatha's chair + and bent over her. “The collar is beautiful,” she said, “and so are you, + Agatha”; and with a little impulsive caress for the jewels she passed on, + unconscious of the delicate flush that spread from Agatha's shoulders to + her hair. And Agatha, turning, encountered only the stupid gaze of Plank, + moving ponderously past on Sylvia's heels. + </p> + <p> + “If you'll find Leila, I'm ready at any time,” she said carelessly, and + resumed her tête-à-tête with Voucher, who had plainly been annoyed at the + interruption. + </p> + <p> + Plank went on, a new trouble dawning on his thickening mental horizon. He + had completely forgotten Leila. Even with all the demands made upon him; + even with all the time he had given to those whose use of him he + understood, how could he have forgotten Leila and the recent scene between + them, and the new attitude and new relations with her that he must so + carefully consider and ponder over before he presented himself at the + house of Mortimer again! + </p> + <p> + Ferrall and his wife and Sylvia were making their adieux to Marion and her + mother when he came up; and he, too, took that opportunity. + </p> + <p> + Later, on his quest for Leila, Sylvia, passing through the great hall, + shrouded in silk and ermine, turned to offer him her hand, saying in a low + voice: “I am at home to you; do you understand? Always,” she added + nervously. + </p> + <p> + He looked after her with an unconscious sigh, unaware that anything in + himself had claimed her respect. And after a moment he swung on his broad + heels to continue his search for Mrs. Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X THE SEAMY SIDE + </h2> + <p> + About four o'clock on the following afternoon Mrs. Mortimer's maid, who + had almost finished drying and dressing her mistress' hair, was called to + the door by a persistent knocking, which at first she had been bidden to + disregard. + </p> + <p> + It was Mortimer's man, desiring to know whether Mrs. Mortimer could + receive Mr. Mortimer at once on matters of importance. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Leila petulantly. “Tell Mullins to say that I can not see + anybody,” and catching a glimpse of the shadowy Mullins dodging about the + dusky corridor: “What is the matter? Is Mr. Mortimer ill?” + </p> + <p> + But Mullins could not say what the matter might be, and he went away, only + to return in a few moments bearing a scratchy note from his master, badly + blotted and still wet; and Leila, with a shrug of resignation, took the + blotched scrawl daintily between thumb and forefinger and unfolded it. + Behind her, the maid, twisting up the masses of dark, fragrant hair, read + the note very easily over her mistress' shoulder. It ran, without + preliminaries: + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to talk to you, whether you like it or not. Do you understand + that? If you want to know what's the matter with me you'll find out fast + enough. Fire that French girl out before I arrive.” + </p> + <p> + She closed the note thoughtfully, folding and double-folding it into a + thick wad. The ink had come off, discolouring her finger-tips; she dropped + the soiled paper on the floor, and held out her hands, plump fingers + spread. And when the maid had finished removing the stains and had + repolished the pretty hands, her mistress sipped her chocolate + thoughtfully, nibbled a bit of dry toast, then motioned the maid to take + the tray and her departure, leaving her the cup. + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later Mortimer came in, stood a moment blinking around the + room, then dropped into a seat, sullen, inert, the folds of his chin + crowded out on his collar, his heavy abdomen cradled on his short, thick + legs. He had been freshly shaved; linen and clothing were spotless, yet + the man looked unclean. + </p> + <p> + Save for the network of purple veins in his face, there was no colour + there, none in his lips; even his flabby hands were the hue of clay. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ill?” asked his wife coolly. + </p> + <p> + “No, not very. I've got the jumps. What's that? Tea? Ugh! it's chocolate. + Push it out of sight, will you? I can smell it.” + </p> + <p> + Leila set the delicate cup on a table behind her. + </p> + <p> + “What time did you return this morning?” she asked, stifling a yawn. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know; about five or six. How the devil should I know what time I + came in?” + </p> + <p> + Sitting there before the mirror of her dresser she stole a second glance + at his marred features in the glass. The loose mouth, the smeared eyes, + the palsy-like tremors that twitched the hands where they tightened on the + arms of his chair, became repulsive to the verge of fascination. She tried + to look away, but could not. + </p> + <p> + “You had better see Dr. Grisby,” she managed to say. + </p> + <p> + “I'd better see you; that's what I'd better do,” he retorted thickly. + “You'll do all the doctoring I want. And I want it, all right.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + He passed his swollen hand across his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he repeated. “It's the limit, this time, if you want to + know. I'm all in.” + </p> + <p> + “Roulette?” raising her eyebrows without interest + </p> + <p> + “Yes, roulette, too. Everything! They got me upstairs at Burbank's. The + game's crooked! Every box, every case, every wheel, every pack is crooked! + crooked! crooked, by God!” he burst out in a fever, struggling to sit + upright, his hands always tightening on the arms of the chair. “It's + nothing but a creeping joint, run by a bunch of hand-shakers! I—I'll—” + </p> + <p> + Stuttering, choking, stammering imprecations, his hoarse clamour died away + after a while. She sat there, head bent, silent, impassive, acquiescent + under the physical and mental strain to which she had never become + thoroughly hardened. How many such scenes had she witnessed! She could not + count them. They differed very little in detail, and not at all in their + ultimate object, which was to get what money she had. This was his method + of reimbursing himself for his losses. + </p> + <p> + He made an end to his outburst after a while. Only his dreadful fat + breathing now filled the silence; and supposing he had finished, she found + her voice with an effort: + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry. It comes at a bad time, as you know—” + </p> + <p> + “A bad time!” he broke out violently. “How can it come at any other sort + of time? With us, all times are bad. If this is worse than the average it + can't be helped. We are in it for keeps this time!” + </p> + <p> + “We?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, we!” he repeated; but his face had grown ghastly, and his uncertain + eyes were fastened on her's in the mirror. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean—exactly?” she asked, turning from the dresser to + confront him. + </p> + <p> + He made no effort to answer; an expression of dull fright was growing on + his visage, as though for the first time he had begun to realise what had + happened. + </p> + <p> + She saw it, and her heart quickened, but she spoke disdainfully: “Well, I + am ready to listen—as usual. How much do you want?” + </p> + <p> + He made no sign; his lower lip hung loose; his eyes blinked at her. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” she repeated. “What have you been doing? How much have you + lost? You can't have lost very much; we hadn't much to lose. If you have + given your note to any of those gamblers, it is a shame—a shame! + Leroy, look at me! You promised me, on your honour, never to do that + again. Have you lied, after all the times I have helped you out, stripped + myself, denied myself, put off tradesmen, faced down creditors? After all + I have done, do you dare come here and ask for more—ask for what I + have not got—with not one bill settled, not one servant paid since + December—” + </p> + <p> + “Leila, I—I've got—to tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “What?” she demanded, appalled by the change in his face. If he was + overdoing it, he was overdoing it realistically enough. + </p> + <p> + “I—I've used Plank's cheque!” he mumbled, and moistened his lips + with his tongue. + </p> + <p> + She stared back at him, striving to comprehend. “Plank's!” she repeated + slowly, “Plank's cheque? What cheque? What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “The one he gave you last night. I've used that. Now you know!” + </p> + <p> + “The one he—But you couldn't! How could you? It was not filled in.” + </p> + <p> + “I filled it.” + </p> + <p> + Her dawning horror was reacting on him, as it always did, like a fierce + tonic; and his own courage came back in a sort of sullen desperation. + </p> + <p> + “You... You are trying to frighten me, Leroy,” she stammered. “You are + trying to make me do something—give you what you want—force me + to give you what you want! You can't frighten me. The cheque was made out + to me—to my order. How could you have used it, if I had not indorsed + it?” + </p> + <p> + “I indorsed it. Do you understand that!” he said savagely. + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't; because, if you did, it's forgery.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't give a damn what you think it is!” he broke in fiercely. “All I'm + worried over is what Plank will think. I didn't mean to do it; I didn't + dream of doing it; but when Burbank cleaned me up I fished about, and that + cursed cheque came tumbling out!” + </p> + <p> + In the rising excitement of self-defence the colour was coming back into + his battered face; he sat up straighter in his chair, and, grasping the + upholstered arms, leaned forward, speaking more distinctly and with + increasing vigour and anger: + </p> + <p> + “When I saw that cheque in my hands I thought I'd use it temporarily—merely + as moral collateral to flash at Burbank—something to back my I. O. + U.'s. So I filled it in.” + </p> + <p> + “For how much?” she asked, not daring to believe him; but he ignored the + question and went on: “I filled it and indorsed it, and—” + </p> + <p> + “How could you indorse it?” she interrupted coolly, now unconvinced again + and suspicious. + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you if you'll stop that fool tongue a moment. The cheque was + made to 'L. Mortimer,' wasn't it? So I wrote 'L. Mortimer' on the back. + Now do you know? If you are L. Mortimer, so am I. Leila begins with L; so + does Leroy, doesn't it? I didn't imitate your two-words-to-a-page + autograph. I put my own fist to a cheque made out to one L. Mortimer; and + I don't care what you think about it as long as Plank can stand it. Now + put up your nose and howl, if you like.” + </p> + <p> + But under her sudden pallor he was taking fright again, and he began to + bolster up his courage with bluster and noise, as usual: + </p> + <p> + “Howl all you like!” he jeered. “It won't alter matters or square accounts + with Plank. What are you staring at? Do you suppose I'm not sorry? Do you + fancy I don't know what a fool I've been? What are you turning white for? + What in hell—” + </p> + <p> + “How much have you—” She choked, then, resolutely: “How much have + you—taken?” + </p> + <p> + “Taken!” he broke out, with an oath. “What do you mean? I've borrowed + about twenty thousand dollars. Now yelp! Eh? What?—no yelps? + Probably some weeps, then. Turn 'em on and run dry; I'll wait.” And he + managed to cross one bulky leg over the other and lean back, affecting + resignation, while Leila, bolt upright in her low chair, every curved + outline rigid under the flowing, silken wrap, stared at him as though + stunned. + </p> + <p> + “Well, we're good for it, aren't we?” he said threateningly. “If he's + going to turn ugly about it, here's the house.” + </p> + <p> + “My—house?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, your house! I suppose you'd rather raise something on the house than + have the thing come out in the papers.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think so?” she asked, staring into his bloodshot eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do. I'm damn sure of it!” + </p> + <p> + “You are wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that you are not inclined to stand by me?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I mean that.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't intend to help me out?” + </p> + <p> + “I do not intend to—not this time.” + </p> + <p> + He began to show his big teeth, and that nervous snickering “tick” + twitched his upper lip. + </p> + <p> + “How about the courts?” he sneered. “Do you want to figure in them with + Plank?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to,” she said steadily, “but you can not frighten me any + more by that threat.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Can't frighten you! Perhaps you think you'll marry Plank when I get a + decree? Do you? Well, you won't for several reasons; first, because I'll + name other corespondents and that will make Plank sick; second, because + Plank wants to marry somebody else and I'm able to assist him. So where do + you come out in the shuffle?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” she said, under her breath, and rested her head against + the back of the chair, as though suddenly tired. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I know. You'll come out smirched, and you know it,” said Mortimer, + gazing intently at her. “Look here, Leila: I didn't come here to threaten + you. I'm no black-mailer; I'm no criminal. I'm simply a decent sort of a + man, who is pretty badly scared over what he's done in a moment of + temptation. You know I had no thought of anything except to borrow enough + on my I. O. U.'s to make a killing at Burbank's. I had to show them + something big, so I filled in that cheque, not meaning to use it; and + before I knew it I'd indorsed it, and was plunging against it. Then they + stacked everything on me—by God, they did! and if I had not been in + the condition I was in I'd have stopped payment. But it was too late when + I realised what I was against. Leila, you know I'm not a bad man at heart. + Can't you help a fellow?” + </p> + <p> + His manner, completely changed, had become the resentful and fretful + appeal of the victim of plot and circumstance. All the savage brutality + had been eliminated; the sneer, the truculent attempts to browbeat, the + pitiful swagger, the cynical justification, all were gone. It was really + the man himself now, normally scared and repentant; the frightened, + overfed pensioner on his wife's bounty; not the human beast maddened by + fear and dissipation, half stunned, half panic-stricken, driven by sheer + terror into a rôle which even he shrank from—had shrunk from all + these years. For, leech and parasite that he was, Mortimer, however much + the dirty acquisition of money might tempt him in theory, had not yet + brought himself to the point of attempting the practice, even when in + sorest straits and bitterest need. He didn't want to do it; he wished to + get along without it, partly because of native inertia and an aversion to + the mental nimbleness that he would be required to show as a law-breaker, + partly because the word “black-mail” stood for what he did not dare + suggest that he had come to, even to himself. His distaste was genuine; + there were certain things which he didn't want to commit, and extortion + was one of them. He could, at a pinch, lie to his wife, or try to scare + her into giving him money; he could, when necessary, “borrow” from such + men as Plank; but he had never cheated at cards, and he had never + attempted to black-mail anybody except his wife—which, of course, + was purely a family matter, and concerned nobody else. + </p> + <p> + Now he was attempting it again, with more sincerity, energy, and + determination than he ever before had been forced to display. Even in his + most profane violence the rage and panic were only partly real. He was, it + is true, genuinely scared, and horribly shaken physically, but he had + counted on violence, and he stimulated his own emotions and made them + serve him, knowing all the while that in the reaction his ends would be + accomplished, as usual. This policy of alternately frightening, + dragooning, and supplicating Leila had carried him so far; and though it + was true that this was a more serious situation than he had ever yet + faced, he was convinced that his wife would pull him out somehow; and how + that was to be accomplished he did not very much care, as long as he was + pulled out safely. + </p> + <p> + “What this household requires,” he said, “is economy.” He spread his legs, + denting the Aubusson carpet with his boot-heels, and glanced askance at + his wife. “Economy,” he repeated, furtively wetting his lips with a + heavily coated tongue; “that's the true solution; economical + administration in domestic matters. Retrenchment, Leila! retrenchment! + Fewer folderols. I've a notion to give up that farm, and stop trying to + breed those damfool sheep. They cost a thousand apiece, and do you know + what I got for those six I sent to Westbury? Just twelve hundred dollars + from Fleetwood—the bargaining shopkeeper! Twelve hundred! Think of + that! And along comes Granby and sells a single ram for six thousand + plunks!” + </p> + <p> + Leila's head was lowered. He could not see her expression, but he had + always been confident of his ability to talk himself out of trouble, so he + rambled on in pretence of camaraderie, currying favour, as he believed, + ingratiating himself with the coarse bluntness that served him among some + men, even among some women. + </p> + <p> + “We'll fix it somehow,” he said reassuringly; “don't you worry, Leila. + I've confidence in you, little girl! You've got me out of sticky messes + before, eh? Well, we've weathered a few, haven't we?” + </p> + <p> + Even the horrible parody on wedded loyalty left her silent, unmoved, dark + eyes brooding; and he began to grow a little restless and anxious as his + jocularity increased without a movement in either response or aversion + from his wife. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't be scared, if I'm not,” he said reproachfully. “The house is + worth two hundred and fifty thousand, and there's only fifty on it now. If + that fat, Dutch skinflint, Plank, shows his tusks, we can clap on another + fifty.” And as she made no sound or movement in reply: “As far as Plank + goes, haven't I done enough for him to square it? What have we ever got + out of him, except a thousand or two now and then when the cards went + against me? If I took it, it was practically what he owes me. And if he + thinks it's too much—look here, Leila! I've a trick up my sleeve. I + can make good any time I wish to. I'm in a position to marry that man to + the girl he's mad about—stark, raving mad.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Mortimer slowly raised her head and looked at her husband. + </p> + <p> + “Leroy, are you mad?” + </p> + <p> + “I! Not much!” he exclaimed gleefully. “I can make him the husband of the + most-run-after girl in New York—if I want to. And at the same time I + can puncture the most arrogant, the most cold-blooded, selfish, + purse-proud, inflated nincompoop that ever sat at the head of a director's + table. O-ho! Now you're staring, Leila. I can do it; I can make good. What + are you worrying about? Why, I've got a hundred ways to square that + cheque, and each separate way is a winner.” + </p> + <p> + He rose, shook out the creases in his trousers, and adjusted the squat, + gold fob which ornamented his protruding waistcoat. + </p> + <p> + “So you'll fix it, won't you, Leila?” he said, apparently oblivious that + he had expressed himself as able to adjust the matter in one hundred + equally edifying and satisfactory manners. + </p> + <p> + She did not answer. He lingered a moment at the door, looking back with an + ingratiating leer; but she paid him no attention, and he took himself off, + confident that her sulkiness could not result in anything unpleasant to + anybody except herself. + </p> + <p> + Nor did it, as far as he could see. The days brought no noticeable change + in his wife's demeanour toward him. Plank, when he met him, was civil + enough, though it did occur to Mortimer that he saw very little of Plank + in these days. + </p> + <p> + “Ungrateful beggar!” he thought bitterly; “he's toadying to Belwether now. + I can't do anything more for him, so I don't interest him.” + </p> + <p> + And for a while he wore either a truculent, aggrieved air in Plank's + presence, or the meeker demeanour of a martyr, sentimentally + misunderstood, but patient under the affliction. + </p> + <p> + Then there came a time when he needed money. During the few days he spent + circling tentatively and apprehensively around his wife he learned enough + to know that there was nothing to be had from her at present. No doubt the + money she raised to placate Plank—if she had placated him in that + fashion—was a strain on her resources, whatever those resources + were. + </p> + <p> + One thing was certain: Plank had not remained very long in ignorance of + the cheque drawn against his balance, if indeed, as Mortimer feared, the + bank itself had not communicated with Plank as soon as the cheque was + presented for payment. Therefore Plank must have been placated by Leila; + how, Mortimer was satisfied not to know. + </p> + <p> + “Some of these days,” he said to himself, “I'll catch her tripping, and + then there'll be a decent division of property, or—there'll be a + divorce.” But, as usual, Mortimer found such practices more attractive in + theory than in execution, and he was really quite contented to go on as + things were going, if somebody would see that he had some money + occasionally. + </p> + <p> + One of these occasions when he needed it was approaching. He had made a + “killing” at Desmond's, and had used the money to stop up the more + threatening gaps in the tottering financial fabric known as his “personal + accounts.” The fabric would hold for a while, but meantime he needed money + to go on with. And Leila evidently had none. He tried everybody except + Plank. He had scarcely the impudence to go to Plank just yet; but when, + completing the vicious circle, he found his borrowing capacity exhausted, + and himself once more face to face with the only hope, Plank, he sat down + to consider seriously the possibility of the matter. + </p> + <p> + Of course Plank owed him more than he could ever pay—the ungrateful + parvenu!—but what Plank had thought of that cheque transaction he + had never been able to discover. + </p> + <p> + Somehow or other he must put Plank under fresh obligations; and that might + have been possible had not Leila invaded the ground, leaving nothing, now + that Plank was secure in club life. + </p> + <p> + Of course the first thing that presented itself to Mortimer's + consideration was the engineering of Plank's matrimonial ambitions. + Clearly the man had not changed. He was always at Sylvia's heels; he was + seen with her in public; he went to the Belwether house a great deal. No + possible doubt but that he was as infatuated as ever. And Quarrier was + going to marry her next November—that is, if he, Mortimer, chose to + keep silent about a certain midnight episode at Shotover. + </p> + <p> + It was his inclination, except in theory, to keep silent, partly because + of his native inertia and unwillingness to go to the physical and + intellectual exertion of being a rascal, partly because he didn't really + want to be a rascal of that sort. + </p> + <p> + Like a man with premonitions of toothache, who walks down to the dentist's + just to see what the number of the house looks like, and then walks around + the block to think it over, so Mortimer, suffering from lack of money, + walked round and round the central idea, unable to bring himself to the + point. + </p> + <p> + Several times he called up Quarrier on the 'phone and made appointments to + lunch with him; but these meetings never resulted in anything except + luncheons which Mortimer paid for, and matters were becoming desperate. + </p> + <p> + So one day, after having lunched too freely, he sat down and wrote Plank + the following note: + </p> + <p> + My Dear Beverly: You will remember that I once promised you my aid in + securing what, to you, is the dearest object of your existence. I have + thought, I have pondered, I have given the matter deep and, I may add + without irreverence, prayerful consideration, knowing that the life's + happiness of my closest friend depended on my judgment and wisdom and + intelligence to secure for him the opportunity to crown his life's work by + the acquisition of the brightest jewel in the diadem of old Manhattan. + </p> + <p> + “By George! that's wickedly good, though!” chuckled Mortimer, refreshing + himself with his old stand-by, an apple, quartered, and soaked in very old + port. So he sopped his apple and swallowed it, and picked up his pen + again, chary of overdoing it. + </p> + <p> + All I say to you is, be ready! The time is close at hand when you may + boldly make your avowal. But be ready! All depends upon the psychological + moment. An instant too soon, an instant too late, and you are lost. And + she is lost forever. Remember! Be faithful; trust in me, and wait. And the + instant I say, “Speak!” pour out your soul, my dear friend, and be certain + you are not pouring it out in vain. L. M. + </p> + <p> + Writing about “pouring out” made him thirsty, so he fortified himself + several times, and then, sealing the letter, went out to a letter-box and + stood looking at it. + </p> + <p> + “If I mail it I'm in for it,” he muttered. After a while he put the letter + in his pocket and walked on. + </p> + <p> + “It really doesn't commit me to anything,” he reflected at last, halting + before another letter-box. And as he stood there, hesitating, he glanced + up and saw Quarrier entering the Lenox Club. The next moment he flung up + the metal box lid, dropped in his letter, and followed Quarrier into the + club. + </p> + <p> + Then events tumbled forward almost without a push from him. Quarrier was + alone in a window corner, drinking vichy and milk and glancing over the + afternoon papers. He saw Mortimer, and invited him to join him; and + Mortimer, being thirsty, took champagne. + </p> + <p> + “I've been trying a new coach,” said Quarrier, in his colourless and + rather agreeable voice; and he went on leisurely explaining the points of + the new mail-coach which had been built in Paris after plans of his own, + while Mortimer gulped glass after glass of chilled wine, which seemed only + to make him thirstier. Meantime he listened, really interested, except + that his fleshy head was too full of alcohol and his own project to + contain additional statistics concerning coaching. Besides, Quarrier, who + had never been over-cordial to him, was more so now—enough for + Mortimer to venture on a few tentative suggestions of a financial nature; + and though, as usual, Quarrier was not responsive, he did not, as usual, + get up and go away. + </p> + <p> + A vague hope stirred Mortimer that it might not be beyond his persuasive + tongue to make this chilly, reticent young man into a friend some day—a + helpful friend. For Mortimer all his life had trusted to his tongue; and + though poorly enough repaid, the few lingual victories remained in his + memory, along with an inexhaustible vanity and hope; while his countless + defeats and the many occasions on which his tongue had played him false + were all forgotten. Besides, he had been drinking more heavily all day + than was his custom. + </p> + <p> + So Quarrier talked, sparingly, about his new coach, about Billy + Fleetwood's renowned string of hunters, about Ashley Spencer's new stable + and his chances at Saratoga with Roy-a-neh, for which he had paid a + fabulous sum—the sum and the story probably equally fabulous. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer's head was swimming with ideas; he was also talking a great deal, + much more than he had intended; he was saying things he had not exactly + intended to say, either, in just that way. He realised it, but he went on, + unable to stop his own tongue, the noise of which intoxicated him. + </p> + <p> + Once or twice he thought Quarrier looked at him rather strangely; but he + would show Quarrier that he was nobody's fool; he'd show Quarrier that he + was a friend, a good, staunch friend; and that Quarrier had long, long + undervalued him. Waves of sentiment spread through and through him; his + affection for Quarrier dampened his eyes; and still he blabbed on and on, + gazing with brimming eyes upon Quarrier, who sat back silent and attentive + as Mortimer circled and blundered nearer and nearer to the crucial point + of his destination. + </p> + <p> + Midway in one of his linguistic ellipses Quarrier leaned forward and + caught his arm in a grip of steel. Another man had entered the room. + Mortimer, made partly conscious by the pain of Quarrier's vise-like grip, + was sober enough to recognise the impropriety of his continuing aloud the + veiled story he had been constructing with what he supposed to be a + cunning as matchless as it was impenetrable. + </p> + <p> + Later he found himself upstairs in a private card-room, facing Quarrier + across a table, and still talking and quenching his increasing thirst. He + knew now what he was telling Quarrier; he was unveiling the parable; he + was stripping metaphor from a carefully precise story. He used Siward's + name presently; presently he used Sylvia's name. A moment later—or + was it an hour?—Quarrier stopped him, coldly, without a trace of + passion, demanding corroborative detail. And Mortimer gave it, wagging his + head and one fat forefinger as emphasis. + </p> + <p> + “You saw that?” repeated Quarrier, deadly white of a sudden. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; an' I—” + </p> + <p> + “At three in the morning?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; an' I want—” + </p> + <p> + “You saw him enter her room?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; an' I wan' tersay thish to you, because I'm your fr'en'. Don' wan' + anny fr'en's mine get fooled on women! See? Thash how I feel. I respec' + the sect! See! Women, lovely women! See? Respec' sect! Gimme y'han', + buzzer—er—brother Quar'er! Your m' fr'en'; I'm your fr'en'. I + know how it is. Gotter wife m'own. Rotten one. Stingy! Takes money outter + m' pockets. Dam 'stravagant. Ruin me!... Say, old boy, what about dividend + due 'morrow on Orange County Eclectic—mean Erlextic—no!—mean + 'Letric! Damn!—Wasser masser tongue?” + </p> + <p> + Opening his fond and foggy eyes, and finding himself alone in the + card-room, he began to cry; and a little later, attempting to push the + electric button, he fell over a lounge and lay there, his shirt-front + soiled with wine, one fat leg trailing to the floor; not the ideal + position for slumber, perhaps, but what difference do attitudes and + postures and poses make when a gentleman, in the sacred seclusion of his + own club, is wooing the drowsy goddess with blasts of votive music through + his empurpled nose? + </p> + <p> + In the meantime, however, he was due to dine at the Belwether house; and + when eight o'clock approached, and he had not returned to dress, Leila + called up Sylvia Landis on the telephone: + </p> + <p> + “My dear, Leroy hasn't returned, and I suppose he's forgotten about the + Bridge. I can bring Mr. Plank, if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Sylvia, adding, “if Mr. Plank is there, may I speak to + him a moment?” + </p> + <p> + So Leila rose, setting the receiver on the desk, and Plank came in from + the library and settled himself heavily in the chair: + </p> + <p> + “Did you wish to speak to me, Miss Landis?” + </p> + <p> + “Is that you, Mr. Plank? Yes; will you dine with us at eight? Bridge + afterward, if you don't mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you.” + </p> + <p> + “And, Mr. Plank, you had a note from me this morning?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Please disregard it.” + </p> + <p> + “If you wish.” + </p> + <p> + “I do. It is not worth while.” And as Plank made no comment, “I have no + further interest in the matter. Do you understand?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Plank doggedly. + </p> + <p> + “I have nothing more to say. I am sorry. We dine at eight,” concluded + Sylvia hurriedly. + </p> + <p> + Plank hung up the receiver and sat eyeing it for a while in silence. Then + his jaw began to harden and his under lip protruded, and he folded his + great hands, resting them in front of him on the edge of the desk, + brooding there, with eyes narrowing like a sleepy giant at prayer. + </p> + <p> + When Leila entered, in her evening wraps, she found him there, so immersed + in reverie that he failed to hear her; and she stood a moment at the + doorway, smiling to herself, thinking how pleasant it was to come down + ready for the evening and find him there, as though he belonged where he + sat, and was part of the familiar environment. + </p> + <p> + Recently she had grown younger in a smooth-skinned, full-lipped way—so + much younger that it was spoken of. Something girlish in figure, in + spontaneity, in the hesitation of her smile, in the lack of that hard, + brilliant confidence which once characterised her, had developed; as + though she were beginning her début again, reverting to a softness and + charm prematurely checked. Truly, her youth's discoloured blossom, forced + by the pale phantom of false spring, was refolding to a bud once more; and + the harsher tints of the inclement years were fading. + </p> + <p> + “Beverly,” she said, “I am ready.” + </p> + <p> + Plank stood up, dazed from his reverie, and walked toward her. His white + tie had become disarranged; she raised her hands, halting him, and pulled + it into shape for him, consciously innocent of the intimacy. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” he said. “Do you know how pretty you are this evening?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I was very happy at my mirror. Do you know, the withered years seem + to be dropping from me like leaves from an autumn sapling. And I feel + young enough to say so poetically.... Did Sylvia try to flirt with you + over the wire?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, as usual,” he said drily, descending the stairs beside her. + </p> + <p> + “And really you don't love her any more?” she queried. + </p> + <p> + “Scarcely.” His voice was low and rather disagreeable, and she looked up. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I knew what you and Sylvia find to talk about so frequently, if + you're not in love.” + </p> + <p> + But he made no answer; and they drove away to the Belwether house, a + rather wide, old-style mansion of brown stone, with a stoop dividing its + ugly façade, and a series of unnecessary glass doors blockading the + vestibule. + </p> + <p> + A drawing-room and a reception-room flanked the marble-tiled hall; behind + these the dining-room ran the width of the rear. It was a typical + gentlefolk's house of the worst period of Manhattan, and Major Belwether + belonged in it as fittingly as a melodeon belongs in a west-side flat. The + hall-way was made for such a man as he to patter through; the + velvet-covered stairs were as peculiarly fitted for him as a runway is for + a rabbit; the suave pink-and-white drawing-room, the discreet, gray + reception-room, the soft, fat rugs, the intricacies of banisters and + alcoves and curtained cubby-holes—all reflected his personality, all + corroborated the ensemble. It was his habitat, his distinctly, from the + pronounced but meaningless intricacy of the architecture to the studied + but unconvincing tints, like a man who suddenly starts to speak, but + checks himself, realising he has nothing in particular to say. + </p> + <p> + There were half a dozen people there lounging informally between the + living-room on the second floor and Sylvia's apartments in the rear—the + residue from a luncheon and Bridge party given that afternoon by Sylvia to + a score or so of card-mad women. A few of these she had asked to remain + for an informal dinner, and a desperate game later—the sort of + people she knew well enough to lose to heavily or win from without remorse—Grace + Ferrall, Marion Page, Agatha Caithness. Trusting to the telephone that + morning, she had secured the Mortimers and Quarrier, failing three men; + and now the party, with Plank as Mortimer's substitute, was complete, all + thorough gamesters—sex mattering nothing in the preparation for such + a séance. + </p> + <p> + In Sylvia's boudoir Grace Ferrall and Agatha Caithness sat before the + fire; Sylvia, at the mirror of her dresser, was correcting the pallor + incident to the unbroken dissipation of a brilliant season; Marion, with + her inevitable cigarette, wandered between Sylvia's quarters and the + library, where Quarrier and Major Belwether were sitting in low-voiced + confab. + </p> + <p> + Leila, greeted gaily from the boudoir, went in. Plank entered the library, + was mauled effusively by the major, returned Quarrier's firm hand shake, + and sat down with an inquiring smile. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, we're out for blood to-night,” tittered Major Belwether, + grasping Quarrier's arm humourously and shaking it to emphasise his words—a + habit that Quarrier thoroughly disliked. “Sylvia had a lot of women here + playing for the season score, so I suggested she keep the pick of them for + dinner, and call in a few choice ones to make a night of it.” + </p> + <p> + “It's agreeable to me,” said Plank, still looking at Quarrier with the + same inquiring expression, which that gentleman presently chose to + understand. + </p> + <p> + “I haven't had a chance to look into that matter,” he said carelessly. + “Some day, when you have time to go over it—” + </p> + <p> + “I have time now,” said Plank; “there's nothing to go over; there's no + reason for any secrecy. All I wrote you was that I proposed to control the + stock of Amalgamated Electric and that I wished your advice in the + matter.” + </p> + <p> + “I could not give you any advice off-hand on such an extraordinary + suggestion,” returned Quarrier coldly. “If you know where the stock is, + you'll understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean what it is quoted at, or who owns it?” interrupted Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Who owns it. Everybody knows where it has dropped to, I suppose. Most + people know, too, where it is held.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I do.” + </p> + <p> + “And who is manipulating it,” added Quarrier indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean Harrington's people?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't mean anybody in particular, Mr. Plank.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Plank, staring, “I was sure you couldn't have meant Harrington; + because,” he went on deliberately, “there are other theories floating + about that mysterious pool, one of which I've proved.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier looked at him out of his velvety-lidded eyes: + </p> + <p> + “What have you proved?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you, if you'll appoint an interview.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll come too,” began Belwether, who had been listening, loose-mouthed + and intent; “we're all in it—Howard, Kemp Ferrall, and I—” + </p> + <p> + “And Stephen Siward,” observed Plank, so quietly that Quarrier never even + raised his eyes to read the stolid face opposite. + </p> + <p> + Presently he said: “Do you know anybody who can deliver you any + considerable block of Amalgamated Electric at the market figures?” + </p> + <p> + “I could deliver you several blocks, if you care to bid,” said Plank + bluntly. + </p> + <p> + Belwether grew red, then pale. Quarrier stiffened in his chair, but his + eyes were only sceptical. Plank's under lip had begun to protrude again; + he swung his massive head, looking from Belwether back to Quarrier: + </p> + <p> + “Pool or no pool,” he continued, “you Amalgamated people will want to see + the stock climb back into the branches from which somebody shook it out; + and I propose to put it there. That is all I had meant to say to you, Mr. + Quarrier. I'm not averse to saying it here to you, and I do. There's no + secrecy about it. Figure out for yourself how much stock I control, and + who let it go. Settle your family questions and put your house in order; + then invite me to call, and I'll do it. And I have an idea that we are + going to stand on our own legs again, and recover our self-respect and our + fighting capacity; and I rather think we'll stop this hold-up business, + and that our Inter-County friend will let go the sand-bag and pocket the + jimmy, and talk business across the line-fence.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier's characteristic pallor was no index to his feelings, nor was his + icy reticence. All hell might be boiling below. + </p> + <p> + When anybody gave Quarrier a letter to read he took a long time reading + it; but if he was slow he was also minute; he went over every word again + and again, studying, absorbing each letter, each period, the conformation + of every word. And when he ended he had in his brain a photograph of the + letter which he would never forget. + </p> + <p> + And now, slowly, minutely, methodically, he was going over and over + Plank's words, and his manner of saying them, and their surface import, + and the hidden one, if any. + </p> + <p> + If Plank had spoken the truth—and there was no reason to doubt it—Plank + had quietly acquired a controlling interest in Amalgamated Electric. That + meant treachery in somebody. Who? Probably Siward, perhaps Belwether. He + would not look at the latter just yet; not for a minute or two. There was + time enough to see through that withered, pink-and-white old fraud. But + why had Plank done this? And why did Plank suspect him of any desire to + wreck his own property? He did suspect him, that was certain. + </p> + <p> + After a silence, he spoke quietly and without emotion: + </p> + <p> + “Everybody concerned will be glad to see Amalgamated Electric declaring + dividends. This is a shock to us,” he glanced impassively at the shrunken + major, “but a pleasant shock. I think it well to arrange a meeting as soon + as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow,” said Plank, with a manner of closing discussion. And in his + brusque ending of the matter Quarrier detected the ringing undertone of an + authority he never had and never would endure; and though his pale, + composed features betrayed not the subtlest shade of emotion, he was aware + that a new element had come into his life—a new force was growing + out of nothing to confront him, an unfamiliar shape loomed vaguely ahead, + throwing its huge distorted shadow across his path. He sensed it with the + instinct of kind for kind, not because Plank's millions meant anything to + him as a force; not because this lumbering, red-faced meddler had + blundered into a family affair where confidence consisted in joining hands + lest a pocket be inadvertently picked; not because Plank had knocked at + the door, expecting treachery to open, and had found it, but because of + the awful simplicity of the man and his methods. + </p> + <p> + If Plank suspected him, he must also suspect him of complicity in the + Inter-County grab; he must suspect him of the ruthless crushing power that + corrupts or annihilates opposition, making a mockery of legislation, a + jest of the courts, and an epigram of a people's indignation. + </p> + <p> + And yet, in the face of all this, careless, fearless, frank to the outer + verge of stupidity—which sometimes means the inability to be afraid—this + man Plank was casually telling him things which men regard as secrets and + as weapons of defence—was actually averting him of his peril, and + telling him almost contemptuously to pull up the drawbridge and prepare + for siege, instead of rushing the castle and giving it to the sack. + </p> + <p> + As Quarrier sat there meditating, his long, white fingers caressing his + soft, pointed beard, Sylvia came in, greeting the men collectively with a + nod, and offering her hand to Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Dinner is announced,” she said; “please go in farm fashion. Wait!” as + Plank, following the major and Quarrier, stood aside for her to pass. “No, + you go ahead, Howard; and you,” to the major. + </p> + <p> + Left for a moment in the room with Plank, she stood listening to the + others descending the stairs; then: + </p> + <p> + “Have you seen Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Is he well?” + </p> + <p> + “Not very.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he well enough to read a letter, and to answer one?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes; he's well enough in that way.” + </p> + <p> + “I supposed so. That is why I said to you, over the wire, not to trouble + him with my request.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that I am not to say anything about your offer to buy the + hunter?” + </p> + <p> + “No. If I make up my mind that I want the horse I'll write him—perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + Lingering still, she let one hand fall on the banisters, turning back + toward Plank, who was following: + </p> + <p> + “I understood you to mean that—that Mr. Siward's financial affairs + were anything but satisfactory?”—the sweet, trailing, upward + inflection making it a question. + </p> + <p> + “When did I say that?” demanded Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Once—a month ago.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't,” said Plank bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I had inferred it, then, from something you said, or something you + were silent about. Is that it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + “Am I quite wrong, then?” she asked, looking him in the eyes. + </p> + <p> + And Plank, who never lied, found no answer. Considering him for a moment + in silence, she turned again and descended the stairs. + </p> + <p> + The dinner was one of those thoroughly well-chosen dinners of few courses + and faultless service suitable for card-players, who neither care to stuff + themselves as a preliminary to a battle royal, nor to dawdle through + courses, eliminating for themselves what is not good for them. The men + drank a light, sound, aromatic Irish of the major's; the women—except + Marion, who took what the men took—used claret sparingly. Coffee was + served where they sat; the men smoking, Agatha and Marion producing their + own cigarettes. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you smoke any more?” asked Grace Ferrall of Leila Mortimer, and at + the smiling negative, “Oh, that perhaps explains it. You're growing + positively radiant, you know. You'll he wearing a braid and a tuck in your + skirt if you go on getting younger.” + </p> + <p> + Leila laughed, colouring up as Plank turned in his chair to look at her + closer. + </p> + <p> + “No, it won't rub off, Mr. Plank,” said Marion coolly, “but mine will. + This,” touching a faint spot of colour under her eyes, “is art.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! I'm all art!” said Grace. “Observe, Mr. Plank, that under this + becoming flush are the same old freckles you saw at Shotover.” And she + laughed that sweet, careless laugh of an adolescent and straightened her + boyish figure, pretty head held high, adding: “Kemp won't let me 'improve' + myself, or I'd do it.” + </p> + <p> + “You are perfect,” said Sylvia, rising from the table, her own lovely, + rounded, youthful figure condoning the exaggeration; “you're sufficiently + sweet as you are. Good people, if you are ready, we will go through the + ceremony of cutting for partners—unless otherwise you decide. How + say you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care to enter the scramble for a man,” cried Grace. “If it's to + choose, I'd as soon choose Marion.” + </p> + <p> + Plank looked at Leila, who laughed. + </p> + <p> + “All right; choose, then!” said Sylvia. “Howard, you're dying, of course, + to play with me, but you're looking very guiltily at Agatha.” + </p> + <p> + The major asked Leila at once; so Plank fell to Sylvia, pitted against + Marion and Grace Ferrall. + </p> + <p> + A few moments later the quiet of the library was broken by the butler + entering with decanters and ice, and glasses that tinkled frostily. + </p> + <p> + Play began at table Number One on a passed make of no trumps by Sylvia, + and at the other table on a doubled and redoubled heart make, which sent a + delicate flush into Agatha's face, and drove the last vestige of lingering + thoughtfulness from Quarrier's, leaving it a tense, pallid, and + expressionless mask, out of which looked the velvet-fringed eyes of a + woman. + </p> + <p> + Of all the faces there at the two tables, Sylvia's alone had not changed, + neither assuming the gambler's mask nor the infatuated glare of the + amateur. She was thoughtful, excited, delighted, or dismayed by turns, but + always wholesomely so; the game for its own sake, and not the stakes, + absorbing her, partly because she had never permitted herself to weigh + money and pleasure in the same balance, but kept a mental pair of scales + for each. + </p> + <p> + As usual, the fever of gain was fiercest in those who could afford to lose + most. Quarrier, playing to rule with merciless precision, coldly exacted + every penalty that a lapse in his opponents permitted. Agatha, her teeth + set in her nether lip, her eyes like living jewels, answered Quarrier's + every signal, interpreted every sign, her play fitting in exactly with + his, as though she were his subconscious self balancing the perfectly + adjusted mechanism of his body and mind. + </p> + <p> + Now and then lifting her eyes, she sent a long, limpid glance at Quarrier + like a pale shaft of light; and under his heavy-fringed lashes, at + moments, his level gaze encountered her's with a slow narrowing of lids—as + though there was more than one game in progress, more than one stake being + played for under the dull rose glow of the clustered lights. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, sitting dummy at the other tables mechanically alert to Plank's + cards dropping in rapid sequence as he played alternately from his own + hand and the dummy, permitted her thoughtful eyes to wander toward Agatha + from moment to moment. How alluring her subtle beauty, in its own strange + way! How perfect her accord with her partner! How faultless her + intelligence, divining the very source of every hidden motive controlling + him, forestalling his intent—acquiescent, delicate, marvellous + intelligence—the esoteric complement of two parts of a single mind. + </p> + <p> + The collar of diamonds and aqua marines shimmered like the reflection of + shadowy lightning across her throat; a single splendid jewel glowed on her + left hand as her fingers flashed among the cards for the make-up. + </p> + <p> + “A hundred aces,” broke in Plank's heavy voice as he played the last trick + and picked up the scoring card and pencil. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia's blue eyes were laughing as Plank cut the new pack. Marion Page + coolly laid aside her cigarette, dealt, and made it “without” in the + original. + </p> + <p> + “May I play?” asked Sylvia sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “Please,” growled Plank. + </p> + <p> + So Sylvia serenely played from the “top of nothing,” and Grace Ferrall + whisked a wonderful dummy across the green; and Plank's thick under lip + began to protrude, and he lowered his heavy head like a bull at bay. + </p> + <p> + Once Marion, over-intent, touched a card in the dummy when she should have + played from her own hand; and Sylvia would have let it pass, had not Plank + calmly noted the penalty. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear! It's too much like business,” sighed Sylvia. “Can't we play for + the sake of the sport? I don't think it good sportsmanship to profit by a + blunder.” + </p> + <p> + “Rule,” observed Marion laconically. “'Ware barbed wire, if you want the + brush.” + </p> + <p> + “I myself never was crazy for the brush,” murmured Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + Grace whispered maliciously: “But you've got it, with the mask and pads,” + and her mischievous head barely tipped backward in the direction of + Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “Especially the mask,” returned Sylvia, under her breath, and laid on the + table the last card of a Yarborough. + </p> + <p> + Plank scored without comment. Marion cut, and resumed her cigarette. + Sylvia dealt with that witchery of rounded wrists and slim fingers + fascinating to men and women alike. Then, cards en règle, passed the make. + Plank, cautiously consulting the score, made it spades, which being + doubled, Grace led a “singleton” ace, and Plank slapped down a strong + dummy and folded his great arms. + </p> + <p> + Toward midnight, Sylvia, absorbed in her dummy, fancied she heard the + electric bell ringing at the front door. Later, having barely made the + odd, she was turning to look at the major, when, beyond him, she saw Leroy + Mortimer enter the room, sullen, pasty-skinned, but perfectly sober and + well groomed. + </p> + <p> + “You are a trifle late,” observed Sylvia carelessly. Grace Ferrall and + Marion ignored him. Plank bade him good evening in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + The people at the other table, having completed their rubber, looked + around at Mortimer in disagreeable surprise. + </p> + <p> + “I'll cut in, if you want me. If you don't, say so,” observed Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + It was plain that they did not; so he settled himself in an arm-chair, + with an ugly glance at his wife and an insolent one at Quarrier; and the + game went on in silence; Leila and the major still losing heavily under + the sneering gaze of Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + At last, “Who's carrying you?” he broke out, exasperated; and in the + shocked silence Leila, very white, made a movement to rise, but Quarrier + laid his long fingers across her arm, pressing her backward. + </p> + <p> + “You don't know what you're saying,” he remarked, looking coldly at + Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + Plank laid down his cards, rose, and walked over to Mortimer: + </p> + <p> + “May I have a word with you?” he asked bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “You may. And I'll help myself to a word or two with you,” retorted + Mortimer, following Plank out of the room, down the stairs to the lighted + reception-room, where they wheeled, confronting one another. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter?” demanded Plank. “At the club they told me you were + asleep in the card-room. I didn't tell Leila. What is wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm—I'm dead broke,” said Mortimer harshly. “Billy Fleetwood took + my paper. Can you help me out? It's due to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + Plank looked at him gravely, but made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “Can you?” repeated Mortimer violently. “Haven't I done enough for you? + Haven't I done enough for everybody? Is anybody going to show me any + consideration? Look at Quarrier's manner to me just now! And this very day + I did him a service that all his millions can't repay. And there you + stand, too, staring at me as though I were some damned importuning + shabby-genteel, hinting around for an opening to touch you. Yes, you do! + And this very day I have done for you the—the most vital thing—the + most sacred favour one man can do for another—” + </p> + <p> + He halted, stammered something incoherent, his battered eyes wet with + tears. The man was a wreck—nerves, stamina, mind on the very verge + of collapse. + </p> + <p> + “I'll help you, of course,” said Plank, eyeing him. “Go home, now, and + sleep. I tell you I'll help you in the morning.... Don't give way! Have + you no grit? Pull up sharp, I tell you!” + </p> + <p> + But Mortimer had fallen into a chair, his ravaged face cradled in his + hands. “I've got all that's c-coming to me,” he said hoarsely; “I'm all in—all + in! God! but I've got the jumps this trip.... You'll stand for this, won't + you, Plank? I was batty, but I woke up in time to grasp the live wire + Billy Fleetwood held—three shocks in succession—and his were + queens full to my jacks—aces to kings twice!—Alderdene and + Voucher sitting in until they'd started me off hiking hellward!” + </p> + <p> + He began to ramble, and even to laugh weakly, passing his puffy, shaking + hands across his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “It's good of you, Beverly; I appreciate it. But I've been good to you. + You're all to the good, my boy! Understand? All to the good. I fixed it; I + did it for you. You can have your innings now. You can have her when you + want her, I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” said Plank menacingly. + </p> + <p> + “Mean! I mean what I told you that day at Black Fells, when we were + riding. I told you you had a chance to win out. Now the chance has come—same's + I told you. Start in, and by the time you're ready to say 'When?' she'll + be there with the bottle!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think you are perfectly sane yet,” said Plank slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Let it go at that, then,” sniggered Mortimer, struggling to his feet. + “Bring Leila back; I'm all in; I'm going home. You'll be around in the + morning, won't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Plank. “Have you got a cab?” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer had one. The glass and iron doors clanged behind him, and Plank, + waiting a moment, sighed, raised his head, and, encountering the curious + gaze of a servant, trudged off up-stairs again. + </p> + <p> + The game had ended at both tables. Quarrier and Agatha stood by the window + together, conversing in low voices. Belwether, at a desk, sat muttering + and fussing with a cheque-book. The others were in Sylvia's apartments. + </p> + <p> + A few moments later Kemp Ferrall arrived, in the best of spirits, very + much inclined to consider the night as still young; but his enthusiasm met + with no response, and presently he departed with his wife and Marion in + their big Mercedes, wheeling into the avenue at a reckless pace, and + streaming away through the night like a meteor run mad. + </p> + <p> + Leila, in her wraps, emerged in a few moments, looking at Plank out of + serious eyes; and they made their brief adieux and went away in Plank's + brougham. + </p> + <p> + When Agatha's maid arrived, Quarrier also started to take his leave; but + Sylvia, seated at a card-table, idly arranging the cards in geometrical + designs and fanciful arabesques, looked up at him, saying: + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to say something to you, Howard.” + </p> + <p> + Agatha passed them, going into Sylvia's room for her wraps; and Quarrier + turned to Sylvia: + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he said, with the slightest hint of impatience. + </p> + <p> + “Can't you stay a minute?” asked Sylvia, surprised. + </p> + <p> + “Agatha is going in the motor with me. Is it anything important?” + </p> + <p> + She considered him without replying. She had never before detected that + manner, that hardness in a voice always so even in quality. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + She thought a moment, putting aside for the time his manner, which she + could not comprehend; then: + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to ask you a question—a rather ignorant one, perhaps. It's + about your Amalgamated Electric Company. May I ask it, Howard?” + </p> + <p> + After a second's stare, “Certainly,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “It's only this: If the other people—the Inter-County, I mean—are + slowly ruining Amalgamated, why don't you stop it?” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier's eyes narrowed. “Oh! And who have you been discussing the matter + with?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Plank,” she said simply. “I asked him. He shook his head, and said + I'd better ask you. And I do ask you.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment he stood mute; then his lips began to shrink back over his + beautiful teeth in one of his rare laughs. + </p> + <p> + “I'll be very glad to explain it some day,” he said; but there was no + mirth in his voice or eyes, only the snickering lip wrinkling the pallor. + </p> + <p> + “Will you not answer now?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “No, not now. But I desire you to understand it some day—some day + before November. And one or two other matters that it is necessary for you + to understand. I want to explain them, Sylvia, in such a manner that you + will never be likely to forget them. And I mean to; for they are never out + of my mind, and I wish them to be as ineffaceably impressed on yours.... + Good night.” + </p> + <p> + He took her limp hand almost briskly, released it, and stepped down the + stairs as Agatha entered, cloaked, to say good night. + </p> + <p> + They kissed at parting—“life embracing death”—as Mortimer had + sneered on a similar occasion; then Sylvia, alone, stood in her bedroom, + hands linked behind her, her lovely head bent, groping with the very + ghosts of thought which eluded her, fleeing, vanishing, reappearing, to + peep out at her only to fade into nothing ere she could follow where they + flitted through the dark labyrinths of memory. + </p> + <p> + The major, craning his neck in the bay-window, saw Agatha and Quarrier + enter the big, yellow motor, and disappear behind the limousine. And it + worried him horribly, because he knew perfectly well that Quarrier had + lied to him about a jewelled collar precisely like the collar worn by + Agatha Caithness; and what to do or what to say to anybody on the subject + was, for the first time in his life, utterly beyond his garrulous ability. + So, for the first time also in his chattering career, he held his tongue, + reassured at moments, at other moments panic-stricken lest this marriage + he had engineered should go amiss, and his ambitions be nipped at the very + instant of triumphant maturity. + </p> + <p> + “This sort of thing—in your own caste—among your own kind,” + his panicky thoughts ran on, “is b-bad form—rotten bad taste on both + sides. If they were married—one of them, anyway! But this isn't + right; no, by gad! it's bad taste, and no gentleman could countenance it!” + </p> + <p> + It was plain that he could, however, his only fear being that somebody + might whisper something to turn Sylvia's innocence into a terrible wisdom + which would ruin everything, and knock the underpinning from the new tower + which his inflated fancy beheld slowly growing heavenward, surmounting the + house of Belwether. + </p> + <p> + Another matter: he had violated his word, and had been caught at it by his + prospective nephew-in-law—broken his pledged word not to sell his + Amalgamated Electric holdings, and had done it. Yet, how could Plank + dominate, unless another also had done what he had done? And it made him a + little more comfortable to know he was sharing the fault with somebody—probably + with Siward, whom he now had the luxury of despising for the very thing he + himself had done. + </p> + <p> + “Drunkard!” he muttered to himself; “he's in the gutter at last!” + </p> + <p> + And he repeated it unctuously, almost reconciled to his own shortcoming, + because it was the first time, as far as he knew, that a Belwether might + legitimately enjoy the pleasures of holding the word of a Siward in + contempt. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia had dismissed her maid, the old feeling of distaste for the touch + of another had returned since the last mad, crushed embrace in Siward's + arms had become a memory. More and more she was returning to old + instincts, old habits of thought, reverting to type once more, virgin of + lip and thought and desire, save when the old memory stopped her heart + suddenly, then sent it racing, touching her face with quick, crimson + imprint. + </p> + <p> + Now, blue eyes dreaming under the bright masses of her loosened hair, she + sat watching the last glimmer amid the ashes whitening on the hearth, + thinking of Siward and of what had been between them, and of what could + never be—never, never be. + </p> + <p> + One red spark among the ashes—her ambition, deathless amid the ashes + of life! When that, too, went out, life must be extinct. + </p> + <p> + What he had roused in her had died when he went away. It could never awake + again, unless he returned to awaken it. And he never would; he would never + come again. + </p> + <p> + One brief interlude of love, of passion, in her life could neither tint + nor taint the cool, normal sequence of her days. All that life held for a + woman of her caste—all save that—was hers when she stretched + out her hand for it—hers by right of succession, of descent; hers by + warrant unquestioned, by the unuttered text of the ukase to be launched, + if necessary, by that very, very old lady, drowsing, enthroned, as the + endless pageant wound like a jewelled river at her feet. + </p> + <p> + So Siward could never come again, sauntering toward her through the + sunlight, smiling his absent smile. She caught her breath painfully, + straightening up; a single ash fell in the fire; the last spark went out. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI THE CALL OF THE RAIN + </h2> + <h3> + The park was very misty and damp and still that morning. + </h3> + <p> + There was a scent of sap and new buds in the February haze, a glimmer of + green on southern slopes, a distant bird note, tentative, then confident, + rippling from the gray tangle of naked thickets. Here and there in hollows + the tips of amber-tinted shoots pricked the soil's dark surface; here and + there in the sparse woodlands a withered leaf still clinging to oak or + beech was forced to let go by the swelling bud at its base and fell + rustling stiffly in the silence. + </p> + <p> + Far away on the wooded bridle-path the dulled double gallop of horses + sounded, now muffled in a hollow, now louder, jarring the rising ground, + nearer, heavier, then suddenly checked to a trample, as Sylvia drew bridle + by the reservoir, and, straightening in her saddle, raised her flushed + face to the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Rain?” she asked, as Quarrier, controlling his beautiful, restive horse, + ranged up beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Probably,” he said, scarcely glancing at the sky, where, above the great + rectangular lagoons, hundreds of sea-gulls, high in the air, hung + flapping, stemming some rushing upper gale unfelt below. + </p> + <p> + She walked her mount, head lifted, watching the gulls; he followed, + uninterested, imperturbable in his finished horsemanship. With horses he + always appeared to advantage, whether on the box of break or coach, or + silently controlling a spike or tandem, or sitting his saddle in his + long-limbed, faultless fashion, maintaining without effort the very + essence of form. Here he was at his best, perfectly informal, informally + perfect. + </p> + <p> + They had ridden every day since the weather permitted—even before it + permitted—thrashing and slashing through the rotting ice and snow, + galloping over the frozen, gravelly loam, amid leafless trees and a + winter-smitten perspective—drearier for the distant, eastern glimpse + of the avenue's marble and limestone façades and the vast cliffs of + masonry and brick looming above the west and south. + </p> + <p> + On these daily rides together it was her custom to discuss practical + matters concerning their future; and it was his custom to listen until + pressed for a suggestion, an assent, or a reply. + </p> + <p> + Sparing words—cautious, chary of self-commitment, and seldom + offering to assume the initiative—this was the surface character + which she had come to recognise and acquiesce in; this was Quarrier as he + had been developed from her hazy, preconceived ideas of the man before she + had finally accepted him at Shotover the autumn before. She also knew him + as a methodical man, exacting from others the orderly precision which + characterised his own dealings; a man of education and little learning, of + attainments and little cultivation, conversant with usages, formal, + intensely sensitive to ridicule, incapable of humour. + </p> + <p> + This was Quarrier as she knew him or had known him. Recently she had, + little by little, become aware of an indefinable change in the man. For + one thing, he had grown more reticent. At times, too, his reserve seemed + to have something almost surly about it; under his cold composure a hint + of something concealed, watchful, and very quiet. + </p> + <p> + Confidences she had never looked for in him nor desired. It appalled her + at moments to realise how little they had in common, and that only on the + surface—a communion of superficial interest incident to the + fulfilment of social duties and the pursuit of pleasure. Beyond that she + knew nothing of him, required nothing of him. What was there to know? what + to require? + </p> + <p> + Now that the main line of her route through life had been surveyed and + carefully laid out, what was there more for her in life than to set out + upon her progress? It was her own road. Presumptive leader already, + logical leader from the day she married—leader, in fact, when the + ukase, her future legacy, so decreed; it was a royal road laid out for her + through the gardens and pleasant places; a road for her alone, and over it + she had chosen to pass. What more was there to desire? + </p> + <p> + From the going of Siward, all that he had aroused in her of love, of + intelligence, of wholesome desire and sane curiosity—the + intellectual restlessness, the capacity for passion, the renaissance of + the simpler innocence—had subsided into the laissez faire of dull + quiescence. If in her he had sown, imprudently, subtle, impulsive, + unworldly ideas, flowering into sudden brilliancy in the quick magic of + his companionship, now those flowers were dead under the inexorable winter + of her ambition, where all such things lay; her lonely childhood, with its + dimmed visions of mother-love ineffable; the strange splendour of the + dreams haunting her adolescence—pageants of bravery and the glitter + of the cross, altars of self-denial and pure intent, service and sacrifice + and the scorn of wrong; and sometimes, seen dimly with enraptured eyes + through dissolving mists—the man! glimmering for an instant, then + fading, resolved into the starry void which fashioned him. + </p> + <p> + Riding there, head bent, her pulses timing the slow pacing of her horse, + she presently became aware, without looking up, that Quarrier was watching + her. Dreams vanished. A perfectly unreasonable sense of being spied upon, + of something stealthy about it all, flashed to her mind and was gone, + leaving her grave and perplexed. What a strange suspicion! What an + infernal inference! What grotesque train of thought could have culminated + in such a sinister idea! + </p> + <p> + She moved slightly in her saddle to look at him, and for an instant + fancied that there was something furtive in his eyes; only for an instant, + for he quietly picked up the thread of conversation where she had dropped + it, saying that it had been raining for the last ten minutes, and that + they might as well turn their horses toward shelter. + </p> + <p> + “I don't mind the rain,” she said; “there is a spring-like odour in it. + Don't you notice it?” + </p> + <p> + “Not particularly,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “I was miles away a moment ago,” she said; “years away, I mean—a + little girl again, with two stiff yellow braids, trying to pretend that a + big arm-chair was my mother's lap and that I could hear her whispering to + me. And there I sat, on a day like this, listening, pretending, cuddled up + tight, and looking out at the first rain of the year falling in the + backyard. There was an odour like this about it all. Memory, they say, is + largely a matter of nose!” She laughed, fearing that he might have thought + her sentimental, already regretting the familiarity of thrusting such + trivial and personal incidents upon his notice. He was probably too + indifferent to comment on it, merely nodding as she ended. + </p> + <p> + Then, without reason, through and through her shot a shiver of loneliness—utter + loneliness and isolation. Without reason, because from him she expected + nothing, required nothing, except what he offered—the emotionless + reticence of indifference, the composure of perfect formality. What did + she want, then—companions? She had them. Friends? She could scarcely + escape from them. Intimates? She had only to choose one or a hundred + attuned responsive to her every mood, every caprice. Lonely? With the men + of New York crowding, shouldering, crushing their way to her feet? Lonely? + With the women of New York struggling already for precedence in her + favour?—omen significant of the days to come, of those future years + diamond-linked in one unbroken, triumphant glitter. + </p> + <p> + Lonely! + </p> + <p> + The rain was falling out of the hanging mist, something more than a + drizzle now. Quarrier spoke of it again, but she shook her head, walking + her horse slowly onward. The train of thought she followed was slower + still, winding on and on, leading her into half light and shadow, and in + and out through hidden trails she should have known by this time—always + on, skirting the objective, circling it through sudden turns. And now she + was becoming conscious of the familiar way; now she recognised the quiet, + still by-ways of the maze she seemed doomed to wander in forever. But, for + that matter, all paths of thought were alike to her, for, sooner or later, + all ultimately led to him; and this she was already aware of as a + disturbing phenomenon to consider and account for and to provide against—when + she had leisure. + </p> + <p> + “About that Amalgamated Electric Company,” she began without prelude; + “would you mind answering a question or two, Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “You could not understand it,” he said, unpleasantly disturbed by her + abruptness. + </p> + <p> + “As you please. It is quite true I can make nothing of what the newspapers + are saying about it, except that Mr. Plank seems to be doing a number of + things.” + </p> + <p> + “Injunctions, and other matters,” observed Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “Is anybody going to lose any money in it?” + </p> + <p> + “Who, for example?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—you, for example,” she said, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “I don't expect to.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it is going to turn out all right? And Mr. Plank and Kemp Ferrall + and the major and—the other people interested, are not going to be + almost ruined by the Inter-County people?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think a man like Plank is likely to be ruined, as you say, by + Amalgamated Electric?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But Kemp and the major—” + </p> + <p> + “I think the major is out of danger,” replied Quarrier, looking at her + with the new, sullen narrowing of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad of that. Is Kemp—and the others?” + </p> + <p> + “Ferrall could stand it if matters go wrong. What others?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—the other owners and stockholders—” + </p> + <p> + “What others? Who do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward, for example,” she said in an even voice, leaning over to pat + her horse's neck with her gloved hand. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward must take the chances we all take,” observed Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “But, Howard, it would really mean ruin for him if matters went badly. + Wouldn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not familiar with the details of Mr. Siward's investments.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor am I,” she said slowly. + </p> + <p> + He made no reply. + </p> + <p> + Lack of emotion in the man beside her she always expected, and therefore + this new, sullen note in his voice perplexed her. Too, at times, in his + increasing reticence there seemed to be almost a hint of cold effrontery. + She felt it now—an indefinite suggestion of displeasure and the + power to retaliate; something evasive, watchful, patiently hostile; and, + try as she might, she could not rid herself of the discomfort of it, and + the perplexity. + </p> + <p> + She spoke about other things; he responded in his impassive manner. + Presently she turned her horse and Quarrier wheeled his, facing a warm, + fine rain, slanting thickly from the south. + </p> + <p> + His silky, Vandyke beard was all wet with the moisture. She noticed it, + and unbidden arose the vision of the gun-room at Shotover: Quarrier's soft + beard wet with rain; the phantoms of people passing and repassing; + Siward's straight figure swinging past, silhouetted against the glare of + light from the billiard-room. And here she made an effort to efface the + vision, shutting her eyes as she rode there in the rain. But clearly + against the closed lids she saw the phantoms passing—spectres of + dead hours, the wraith of an old happiness masked with youth and wearing + Siward's features! + </p> + <p> + She must stop it! What was all this crowding in upon her as she rode + forward through the driving rain—all this resurgence of ghosts long + laid, long exorcised? Had the odour of the rain stolen her senses, + awakening memory of childish solitude? Was it that which was drugging her + with remembrance of Siward and the rattle of rain in the bay-window above + the glass-roofed swimming-pool? + </p> + <p> + She opened her eyes wide, staring straight ahead into the thickening rain; + but her thoughts were loosened now, tuned to the increasing rhythm of her + heart: and she saw him seated there, his head buried in his hands as she + stole through the dim corridors to her first tryst; saw him look up; saw + herself beside him among the cushions; tasted again the rose-petals that + her lips had stripped from the blossoms; saw once more the dawn of + something in his steady eyes; felt his arm about her, his breath— + </p> + <p> + Her horse, suddenly spurred, bounded forward through the rain, and she + rode breathless, with lips half parted, as if afraid, turning her head to + look behind—as though she could outride the phantom clinging to her + stirrup, masked like youth, wearing the shadowy eyes of Love! + </p> + <p> + In her drenched habit, standing before her dressing-room fire, she heard + her maid soliciting entrance, and paid no heed, the door being locked—as + though a spectre could be bolted out of rooms and houses! Pacing the + floor, restless, annoyed, and dismayed by turns, she flung her wet skirt + and coat from her, piece by piece, and stood for awhile, like some slender + youth in riding breeches and shirt, facing the fire, her fingers resting + on her hips. + </p> + <p> + In the dull light of a rainy noon-day the fire reddened the ceiling, + throwing her giant shadow across the wall, where it towered, swaying, like + a ghost above her. She caught sight of it over her shoulder, and watched + it absently; then gazed into the coals again, her chin dropping on her + bared chest. + </p> + <p> + At her maid's repeated knocking she turned, her boots and the single spur + sparkling in the firelight, and opened the door. + </p> + <p> + An hour later, fresh from her bath, luxurious in loose and filmy lace, her + small, white feet shod with silk, she lunched alone, cradled among the + cushions of her couch. + </p> + <p> + Twice she strolled through the rooms leisurely, summoned by her maid to + the telephone; the first time to chat with Grace Ferrall, who, it + appeared, was a victim of dissipation, being still abed, and out of humour + with the rainy world; the second time to answer in the negative Marion's + suggestion that she motor to Lakewood with her for the week's end before + they closed their house. + </p> + <p> + Sauntering back again, she sipped her milk and vichy, tasted the + strawberries, tasted a big black grape, discarded both, and lay back among + the cushions, her naked arms clasped behind her head, and dropping one + knee over the other, stared at the ceiling. + </p> + <p> + Restlessness and caprice ruled her. She seldom smoked, but seeing on the + table a stray cigarette of the sort she kept for any intimates who might + desire them, she stretched out her arm, scratched a match, and lighted it + with a dainty grimace. + </p> + <p> + Lying there, she tried to make rings; but the smoke only got into her + delicate uptilted nose and stung her tongue, and she very soon had enough + of her cigarette. + </p> + <p> + Watching the slow fire consume it between her fingers she lay supine, + following the spirals of smoke with inattentive eyes. By-and-by the + lengthening ash fell, powdering her, and she threw the cigarette into the + grate, flicked the ashes from her bare, round arm, and, clasping her hands + under her neck, turned over and closed her eyes. + </p> + <p> + Sleep?—with every pulse awake and throbbing, every heart-beat + sending the young blood rushing out through a body the incarnation of + youth and life itself! There was a faint flush in the hollow of each + upturned palm, where the fingers like relaxed petals curled inward; a + deepening tint in the parted lips; and under the lids, through the dusk of + the lashes, a glimmer of blue. + </p> + <p> + Lying there, veiled gaze conscious of the rose-light which glowed and + waned on the ceiling, she awaited the flowing tide on which so often she + had embarked and drifted out into that golden gloom serene, where, spirit + becalmed, Time and Grief faded, and Desire died out upon the unshadowed + sea of dreams. + </p> + <p> + It is long waiting for the tide when the wakeful heart beats loudly, when + the pulses quicken at a memory, and the thousand idle little cellules of + the brain, long sealed, long unused, and consigned to the archives of What + Is Ended, open one by one, releasing each its own forgotten ghost. + </p> + <p> + And how can the heart rest, the pulse sleep, startled to a flutter, as one + by one the tiny cells unclose unbidden, and the dead remembrance, from its + cerements freed, brightens to life? + </p> + <p> + Words he had used, the idle lifting of his head, the forgotten inflection + of his voice, the sunlight on his hair and the sea-wind stirring it; his + figure as it turned to move away, the half-caught echo of his laugh, + faint, faint!—so that her own ears, throbbing, strained to listen; + the countless unimportant moments she had thought unmarked, yet carefully + stored up, without her knowledge, in the magic cellules of her brain—all, + all were coming back to life, more and more distinct, startlingly clear. + </p> + <p> + And she lay like one afraid to move, lest her stirring waken a vague + something that still slept, something she dared not arouse, dared not meet + face to face, even in dreams. An interval—perhaps an hour, perhaps a + second—passed, leaving her stranded so close to the shoals of + slumber that sleep passed only near enough to awaken her. + </p> + <p> + The room was very still and dim, but the clamour in her brain unnerved + her, and she sat up among the cushions, looking vacantly about her with + the blue, confused eyes, the direct, unseeing gaze of a child roused by a + half-heard call. + </p> + <p> + The call—low, imperative, sustained—continued softly + persistent against her windows—the summons of the young year's rain. + </p> + <p> + She went to the window and stood among the filmy curtains, looking out + into the mist; a springlike aroma penetrated the room. She opened the + window a little way, and the sweet, virile odour enveloped her. + </p> + <p> + A thousand longings rose within her; unnumbered wistful questions stirred + her, sighing, unanswered. + </p> + <p> + Aware that her lips were moving unconsciously, she listened to the words + forming automatic repetitions of phrases long forgotten: + </p> + <p> + “And those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the door shall be + shut in the streets.” + </p> + <p> + What was it she was repeating? + </p> + <p> + “Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the + way.” + </p> + <p> + What echo of the past was this? + </p> + <p> + “And desire shall fail: because—” + </p> + <p> + Intent, absorbed in retracing the forgotten sequence to its source, she + stood, breathing the thickening incense of the rain; and every breath was + drawing her backward, nearer, nearer to the source of memory. Ah, the + cliff chapel in the rain!—the words of a text mumbled deafly—the + yearly service for those who died at sea! And she, seated there in the + chapel dusk thinking of him who sat beside her, and how he feared a + heavier, stealthier, more secret tide crawling, purring about his feet! + </p> + <p> + Enfin! Always, always at the end of everything, He! Always, reckoning step + by step, backward through time, He! the source, the inception, the meaning + of all! + </p> + <p> + Unmoored at last, her spirit swaying, enveloped in memories of him, she + gave herself to the flood—overwhelmed, as tide on tide rose, rushing + over her—body, mind, and soul. + </p> + <p> + She closed her eyes, leaning there heavily amid the cloudy curtains; she + moved back into the room and stood staring at space through wet lashes. + The hard, dry pulse in her throat hurt her till her under lip, freed from + the tyranny of her small teeth, slipped free, quivering rebellion. + </p> + <p> + She had been walking her room to and fro, to and fro, for a long time + before she realised that she had moved at all. + </p> + <p> + And now, impulse held the helm; a blind, unreasoning desire for relief + hurried into action on the wings of impulse. + </p> + <p> + There was a telephone at her elbow. No need to hunt through lists to find + a number she had known so long by heart—the three figures which had + reiterated themselves so often, monotonously insistent, slyly persuasive; + repeating themselves even in her dreams, so that she awoke at times + shivering with the vision in which she had listened to temptation, and had + called to him across the wilderness of streets and men. + </p> + <p> + “Is he at home?” + </p> + <p> + “—!” + </p> + <p> + “Would you ask him to come to the telephone?” + </p> + <p> + “—!” + </p> + <p> + “Please say to him that it is a—a friend.... Thank you.” + </p> + <p> + In the throbbing quiet of her room she heard the fingers of the prying + rain busy at her windows; the ticking of the small French clock, very + dull, very far away—or was it her heart? And, faintly ringing in the + receiver pressed against her ear, millions of tiny stirrings, sounds like + instruments of an elfin orchestra tuning, echoes as of steps passing + through the halls of fairy-land, a faint confusion of human-like tones; + then: + </p> + <p> + “Who is it?” + </p> + <p> + Her voice left her for an instant; her dry lips made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “Who is it?” he repeated in his steady, pleasant voice. + </p> + <p> + “It is I.” + </p> + <p> + There was absolute silence—so long that it frightened her. But + before she could speak again his voice was sounding in her ears, patient, + unconvinced: + </p> + <p> + “I don't recognise your voice. Who am I speaking to?” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + There was no response, and she spoke again: + </p> + <p> + “I only wanted to say good morning. It is afternoon now; is it too late to + say good morning?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I'm badly rattled. Is it you, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed it is. I am in my own room. I—I thought—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am listening.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what I did think. Is it necessary for me to telephone you a + minute account of the mental processes which ended by my calling you up—out + of the vasty deep?” + </p> + <p> + The old ring in her voice hinting of the laughing undertone, the same + trailing sweetness of inflection—could he doubt his senses any + longer? + </p> + <p> + “I know you, now,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I should think you might. I should very much like to know how you are—if + you don't mind saying?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. I seem to be all right. Are you all right, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + “Shamefully and outrageously well. What a season, too! Everybody else is + in rags—make-up rags! Isn't that a disagreeable remark? But I'll + come to the paint-brush too, of course.... We all do. Doesn't anybody ever + see you any more?” + </p> + <p> + She heard him laugh to himself unpleasantly; then: “Does anybody want to?” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody, of course! You know it. You always were spoiled to death.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—to death.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you becoming cynical?” + </p> + <p> + “I? Why should I?” + </p> + <p> + “You are! Stop it! Mercy on us! If that is what is going on in a certain + house on lower Fifth Avenue, facing the corner of certain streets, it's + time somebody dropped in to—” + </p> + <p> + “To—what?” + </p> + <p> + “To the rescue! I've a mind to do it myself. They say you are not well, + either.” + </p> + <p> + “Who says that?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the usual little ornithological cockatrice—or, rather, + cantatrice. Don't ask me, because I won't tell you. I always tell you too + much, anyway. Don't I?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I do. Everybody spoils you and so do I.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—I am rather in that way, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + “What way?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + And in a lower voice: “Please don't say such things—will you?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Especially to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Especially to you. No, I won't, Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + And, after a hesitation, she continued sweetly: + </p> + <p> + “I wonder what you were doing, all alone in that old house of yours, when + I called you up?” + </p> + <p> + “I? Let me see. Oh, I was superintending some packing.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you going off somewhere?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, Sylvia.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, how absurd! You must know where you are going! If you mean that + you don't care to tell me—” + </p> + <p> + “I mean—that.” + </p> + <p> + “I decline to be snubbed. I'm shameless, and I wish to be informed. Please + tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd rather not tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well.... Good-bye.... But don't ring off just yet, Stephen.... Do + you think that, sometime, you would care to see—any people—I + mean when you begin to go out again?” + </p> + <p> + “Who, for example?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, anybody?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I don't think I should care to.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would care to. It is not well to let go every tie, drop + everybody so completely. No man can do that to advantage. It would be so + much better for you to go about a bit—see and be seen, you know; + just to meet a few people informally; go to see some pretty girl you know + well enough to—to—” + </p> + <p> + “To what? Make love to?” + </p> + <p> + “That would he very good for you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “But not for the pretty girl. Besides, I'm rather too busy to go about, + even if I were inclined to.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you really busy, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—waiting. That is the very hardest sort of occupation. And I'm + obliged to be on hand every minute.” + </p> + <p> + “But you said that you were going out of town.” + </p> + <p> + “Did I? Well, I did not say it, exactly, but I am going to leave town.” + </p> + <p> + “For very long?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. I can't tell yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, before you go—if you are going for a very, very long while—perhaps + you will—you might care to say good-bye?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it best?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said innocently; “but if you care—” + </p> + <p> + “Do you care to have me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence; and when his voice sounded again it had altered: + </p> + <p> + “I do not think you would care to see me, Sylvia. I—they say I am—I + have—changed—since my—since a slight illness. I am not + over it yet, not cured—not very well yet; and a little tired, you + see—a little shaken. I am leaving New York to—to try once more + to be cured. I expect to be well—one way or another—” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, where are you going? Answer me!” + </p> + <p> + “I can't answer you.” + </p> + <p> + “Is your illness serious?” + </p> + <p> + “A—it is—it requires some—some care.” + </p> + <p> + Her fingers tightening around the receiver whitened to the delicate nails + under the pressure. Mute, struggling with the mounting impulse, voice and + lip unsteady, she still spoke with restraint: + </p> + <p> + “You say you require care? And what care have you? Who is there with you? + Answer me!” + </p> + <p> + “Why—everybody; the servants. I have care enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the servants! Have you a physician to advise you?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly—the best in the world. Sylvia, dea—, Sylvia, I + didn't mean to give you an impression—” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, I will have you truthful with me! I know perfectly well you are + ill. I—if I could only—if there was something, some way—Listen: + I am—I am going to do something about it, and I don't care very much + what I do!” + </p> + <p> + “What sweet nonsense!” he laughed, but his voice was no steadier than + hers. + </p> + <p> + “Will you drive with me?” she asked impulsively, “some afternoon—” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia, dear, you don't really want me to do it. Wait, listen: I—I've + got to tell you that—that I'm not fit for it. I've got to be honest + with you; I am not fit, not in physical condition to go out just yet. I've + really been ill—for weeks. Plank has been very nice to me. I want to + get well; I mean to try very hard. But the man you knew—is—changed.” + </p> + <p> + “Changed?” + </p> + <p> + “Not in that way!” he said in a slow voice. + </p> + <p> + “H-how, then?” she stammered, all a-thrill. + </p> + <p> + “Nerve gone—almost. Going to get it back again, of course. Feel a + million times better already for talking with you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do—does it really help?” + </p> + <p> + “It's the only panacea for me,” he said too quickly to consider his words. + </p> + <p> + “The only one?” she faltered. “Do you mean to say that your trouble—illness—has + anything to do with—” + </p> + <p> + “No, no! I only—” + </p> + <p> + “Has it, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + “Because, if I thought—” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia, I'm not that sort! You mustn't talk to me that way. There's + nothing to be sorry for about me. Any man may lose his nerve, and, if he + is a man, go after it and get it back again. Every man has a fighting + chance. You said it yourself once—that a man mustn't ask for a + fighting chance; he must take it. And I'm going to take it and win out one + way or another.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean by 'another,' Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “I—Nothing. It's a phrase.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean? Answer me!” + </p> + <p> + “It's a phrase,” he said again; “no meaning, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, Mr. Plank says that you are lame.” + </p> + <p> + “What did he say that for?” demanded Siward wrathfully. + </p> + <p> + “I asked him. Kemp saw you on crutches at your window. So I asked Mr. + Plank, and he said you had discarded your crutches too soon and had fallen + and lamed yourself again. Are you able to walk yet?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, of course.” + </p> + <p> + “Outdoors?” + </p> + <p> + “A—no, not just yet.” + </p> + <p> + “In other words, you are practically bedridden.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no! I can get about the room very well.” + </p> + <p> + “You couldn't go down-stairs—for an hour's drive, could you?” + </p> + <p> + “Can't manage that for awhile,” he said hastily. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the vanity of you, Stephen Siward! the vanity! Ashamed to let me see + you when you are not your complete and magnificently attractive self! + Silly, I shall see you! I shall drive down on the first sunny morning and + sit outside in my victoria until you can't stand the temptation another + instant. I'm going to do it. You cannot stop me; nobody can stop me. I + desire to do it, and that is sufficient, I think, for everybody concerned. + If the sun is out to-morrow, I shall be out too!... I am so tired of not + seeing you! Let central listen! I don't care. I don't care what I am + saying. I've endured it so long—I—There's no use! I am too + tired of it, and I want to see you.... Can't we see each other without—without—thinking + about things that are settled once and for all?” + </p> + <p> + “I can't,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Then you'd better learn to! Because, if you think I'm going through life + without seeing you frequently you are simple! I've stood it too long at a + time. I won't go through this sort of thing again! You'd better be + amiable; you'd better be civil to me, or—or—nobody on earth + can tell what will happen! The idea of you telling me you had lost your + nerve! You've got to get it back—and help me find mine! Yes, it's + gone, gone, gone! I lost it in the rain, somewhere, to-day.... Does the + scent of the rain come in at your window?... Do you remember—There! + I can't say it.... Good-bye. Good-bye. You must get well and I must, too. + Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + The fruit of her imprudence was happiness—an excited happiness, + which lasted for a day. The rain lasted, too, for another day, then turned + to snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the + great blizzard—blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying + squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling like + wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars halted; + even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy wastes; waggons + floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; and everywhere, in + the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men with pick and shovel + struggled with the drifts in Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Then the storm + ended at daybreak. + </p> + <p> + All day long squadrons of white gulls wheeled and sailed in the sky above + the snowy expanse of park where the great, rectangular sheets of water + glimmered black in their white setting. As she sat at her desk she could + see them drifting into and out of the gray squares of sky framed by her + window-panes. Two days ago she had seen them stemming the sky blasts, + heralding the coming of unfelt tempests, flapping steadily through the + fragrant rain. Now, the false phantom which had mimicked spring turned on + the world the glassy glare of winter, stupefying hope, stunning desire, + clogging the life essence in all young, living things. The first vague + summons, the restlessness of awakening aspiration, the first delicate, + indrawn breath, were stilled to deathly immobility. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, at her escritoire, chin cradled in her hollowed hand, sat + listlessly inspecting her mail—the usual pile of bills and + advertisements, social demands and interested appeals, with here and there + a frivolous note from some intimate to punctuate the endless + importunities. + </p> + <p> + Her housekeeper had come and gone; the Belwether establishment could jog + through another day. Various specialists, who cared for the health and + beauty of her body, had entered and made their unctuous exits. The major + had gone to Tuxedo for the week's end; her maid had bronchitis; two horses + required the veterinary, and the kitchen range a new water-back. + </p> + <p> + Cards had come for the Caithness function; cards for young Austin + Wadsworth's wedding to a Charleston girl of rumoured beauty; Caragnini was + to sing for Mrs. Vendenning; a live llama, two-legged, had consented to + undermine Christianity for Mrs. Pyne-Johnson and her guests. + </p> + <p> + “Would Sylvia be ready for the inspection of imported head-gears to + harmonise with the gowns being built by Constantine? + </p> + <p> + “When— + </p> + <p> + “Would she receive the courteous agent of 'The Reigning Beauties of + Manhattan,' to arrange for her portrait and biographical sketch? + </p> + <p> + “When— + </p> + <p> + “Would she realise that Jefferson B. Doty could turn earth into heaven for + any young chatelaine by affixing to the laundry his anti-microbe drying + machine emitting sixty sterilised hot-air blasts in thirty seconds, at a + cost of one-tenth of one mill per blast? + </p> + <p> + “And when—” + </p> + <p> + But she turned her head, looking wearily across the room at the brightly + burning fire beside which Mrs. Ferrall sat, nibbling mint-paste, very + serious over one of those books that “everybody was reading.” + </p> + <p> + “How far have you read?” inquired Sylvia without interest, turning over a + new letter to cut with her paper-knife. + </p> + <p> + Grace ruffled the uncut pages of her book without looking up, then yawned + shamelessly: “She's decided to try living with him for awhile, and if they + find life agreeable she'll marry him.... Pleasant situation, isn't it? + Nice book, very; and they say that somebody is making a play of it. I”—She + yawned again, showing her small, brilliant teeth—“I wonder what sort + of people write these immoral romances!” + </p> + <p> + “Probably immoral people,” said Sylvia indifferently. “Drop it on the + coals, Grace.” + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Ferrall reopened the book where she had laid her finger to mark + the place. “Do you think so?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Think what?” + </p> + <p> + “That rotten books and plays come from morally rotten people?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think about it at all,” observed Sylvia, opening another letter + impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “You're probably not very literary,” said Grace mischievously. + </p> + <p> + “Not in that way, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ferrall took another bonbon: “Did you see 'Mrs. Lane's Experiment'?” + </p> + <p> + “I did,” said Sylvia, looking up, the pink creeping into her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “You thought it very strong, I suppose?” asked Grace innocently. + </p> + <p> + “I thought it incredible.” + </p> + <p> + “But, dear, it was sheer realism! Why blink at truth? And when an author + has the courage to tell facts why not have the courage to applaud?” + </p> + <p> + “If that is truth, it doesn't concern me,” said Sylvia. “Grace, why will + you pose, even if you are married? for you have a clean mind, and you know + it!” + </p> + <p> + “I know it,” sighed Mrs. Ferrall, closing her book again, but keeping the + place with her finger; “and that's why I'm so curious about all these + depraved people. I can't understand why writers have not found out that we + women are instinctively innocent, even after we are obliged to make our + morality a profession and our innocence an art. They all hang their + romances to motives that no woman recognises as feminine; they ascribe to + us instincts which we do not possess, passions of which we are ignorant—a + ridiculous moral turpitude in the overmastering presence of love. Pooh! If + they only knew what a small part love plays with us, after all!” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia said slowly: “It sometimes plays a small part, after all.” + </p> + <p> + “Always,” insisted Grace with emphasis. “No carefully watched girl knows + what it is, whatever her suspicions may be. When she marries, if she + doesn't marry from family pressure or from her own motives of common-sense + ambition, she marries because she likes the man, not because she loves + him.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia was silent. + </p> + <p> + “Because, even if she wanted to love him,” continued Grace, “she would not + know how. It's the ingrained innocence which men encounter that they don't + allow for or understand in us. Even after we are married, and whether or + not we learn to love our husbands, it remains part of us as an educated + instinct; and it takes all the scientific, selfish ruthlessness of a man + to break it down. That's why I say so few among us ever comprehend the + motives attributed to us in romance or in that parody of it called + realism. Love is rarer with us than men could ever believe—and I'm + glad of it,” she said maliciously, with a final snap of her pretty teeth. + </p> + <p> + “It was on that theory you advised me, I think,” said Sylvia, looking into + the fire. + </p> + <p> + “Advised you, child?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—about accepting Howard.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Is it not a sound theory? Doesn't it stand inspection? Doesn't + it wear?” + </p> + <p> + “It—wears,” said Sylvia indifferently. Grace looked up from her open + book. “Is anything amiss?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you know, child. What is wrong? Has Howard made himself + insufferable? He's a master at it. Has he?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I don't remember that he has.... I'm tired, physically. I'm tired of + the winter.” + </p> + <p> + “Go to Florida for Lent.” + </p> + <p> + “Horror! It's as stupid as a hothouse. It isn't that, either, dear—only, + when it was raining so deliciously the other day I was silly enough to + think I scented the spring in the park. I was glad of a change you know—any + excuse to stop this eternal carnival I live in.” + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter?” demanded Mrs. Ferrall, withdrawing her finger from + the pages and plumping the closed book down on her knee. “You'd better + tell me, Sylvia; you might just as well tell me now as later when my + persistence has vexed us both. Now, what has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been—imprudent,” said Sylvia, in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + “You mean,”—Mrs. Ferrall looked at her keenly—“that he has + been here?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I telephoned him; and I asked him to drive with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Sylvia, what nonsense! Why on earth do you stir yourself up by that + sort of silliness at this late date? What use is it? Can't you let him + alone?” + </p> + <p> + “I—No, I can't, it seems. Grace, I was—I felt so—so + strangely about it all.” + </p> + <p> + “About what, little idiot?” + </p> + <p> + “About leaving him—alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you Stephen Siward's keeper?” demanded Mrs. Ferrall, exasperated. + </p> + <p> + “I felt as though I were, for awhile. He is ill.” + </p> + <p> + “With an illness that, thank God, you are not going to nurse through life. + Don't look at me that way, dear. I'm obliged to speak harshly; I'm obliged + to harden my heart to such a monstrous idea. You know I love you; you know + I care deeply for that poor boy—but do you think I could be loyal to + either of you and not say what I do say? He is doomed, as sure as you sit + there! He has fallen, and no one can help him. Link after link he has + broken with his own world; his master-vice holds him faster, closer, more + absolutely, than hell ever held a lost soul!” + </p> + <p> + “Grace, I cannot endure—” + </p> + <p> + “You must! Are you trying to drug your silly self with romance so you + won't recognise truth when you see it? Are you drifting back into old + impulses, unreasoning whims of caprice? Have you forgotten what I know of + you, and what you know of yourself? Is the taint of your transmitted + inheritance beginning to show in you—the one woman of your race who + is fashioned to withstand it and stamp it out?” + </p> + <p> + “I am mistress of my emotions,” said Sylvia, flushing. + </p> + <p> + “Then suppress them,” retorted Grace Ferrall hotly, “before they begin to + bully you. There was no earthly reason for you to talk to Stephen. No + disinterested impulse moved you. It was a sheer perverse, sentimental + restlessness—the delicate, meddlesome deviltry of your race. And if + that poison is in you, it's well for you to know it.” + </p> + <p> + “It is in me,” said Sylvia, staring at the fire. + </p> + <p> + “Then you know what to do for it.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I do,” said Grace decisively; “and the sooner you marry Howard and + intrench yourself behind your pride, the better off you'll be. That's + where, fortunately enough, you differ from your ancestors; you are unable + to understand marital treachery. Otherwise you'd make it lively for us + all.” + </p> + <p> + “It is true,” said Sylvia deliberately, “that I could not be treacherous + to anybody. But I am wondering; I am asking myself just what constitutes + treachery to myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Sentimentalising over Stephen might fill the bill,” observed Grace + tartly. + </p> + <p> + “But it doesn't seem to,” mused Sylvia, her blue gaze on the coals. “That + is what I do not understand. I have no conscience concerning what I feel + for him.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you feel?” + </p> + <p> + “I was in love with him. You knew it.” + </p> + <p> + “You liked him,” insisted Grace patiently. + </p> + <p> + “No—loved him. I know. Dear, your theories are sound in a general + way, but what is a girl going to do about it when she loves a man? You say + a young girl can't love—doesn't know how. But I do love, though it + is true that I don't know how to love very wisely. What is the use in + denying it? This winter has been a deafening, stupefying fever to me. The + sheer noise of it stunned me until I forgot how I did feel about anything. + Then—I don't know—somehow, in the rain out there, I began to + wake... Dear, the old instincts, the old desires, the old truths, came + back out of chaos; that full feeling here”—she laid her fingers on + her throat—“the sense of expectancy, the restless hope growing out + of torpid acquiescence—all returned; and, dearest, with them all + came memories of him. What am I to do? Could you tell me?” + </p> + <p> + For a long while Mrs. Ferrall sat in troubled silence, her hand shading + her eyes. Sylvia, leaning over her desk, idling with pen and pencil, + looked around from time to time, as though awaiting the opinion of some + specialist who, in full possession of the facts, now had become + responsible for the patient. + </p> + <p> + “If you marry him,” said Mrs. Ferrall quietly, “your life will become a + hell.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But would it make life any easier for him?” asked Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + “How—to know that you had been dragged down?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I mean could I do anything for him?” + </p> + <p> + “No woman ever did. That is a sentimental falsehood of the emotional. No + woman ever did help a man in that way. Sylvia, if love were the only + question, and if you do truly love him, I—well, I suppose I'd be + fool enough to advise you to be a fool. Even then you'd be sorry. You know + what your future may be; you know what you are fitted for. What can you do + without Howard? In this town your rôle would be a very minor one without + Howard's money, and you know it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know it.” + </p> + <p> + “And your sacrifice could not help that doomed boy.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia nodded assent. + </p> + <p> + “Then, is there any choice? Is there any question of what to do?” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia looked out into the winter sky, through the tops of snowy trees; + everywhere the stark, deathly rigidity of winter. Under it, frozen, lay + the rain that had scented the air. Under her ambition lay the ghosts of + yesterday. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, “there is no question of choice. I know what must be.” + </p> + <p> + Grace, seated in the firelight, looked up as Sylvia rose from her desk and + came across the room; and when she sank down on the rug at her feet, + resting her cheek against the elder woman's knees, nothing was said for a + long time—a time of length sufficient to commit a memory to its + grave, lay it away decently and in quiet befitting. + </p> + <p> + Sore doubt assailed Grace Ferrall, guiltily aware that once again she had + meddled; and in the calm tenor of her own placid, marital satisfaction, + looking backward along the pleasant path she had trodden with its little + monuments to love at decent intervals amid the agreeable monotony of + content, her heart and conscience misgave her lest she had counselled this + young girl wrongly, committing her to the arid lovelessness which she + herself had never known. + </p> + <p> + Leaning there, her fingers lingering in light caress on Sylvia's bright + hair, for every doubt she brought up argument, to every sentimental + wavering within her heart she opposed the chilling reason of common sense. + Destruction to happiness lay in Sylvia's yielding to her caprice for + Siward. There was other happiness in the world besides the non-essential + one of love. That must be Sylvia's portion. And after all—and after + all, love was a matter of degree; and it was well for Sylvia that she had + the malady so lightly—well for her that it had advanced so little, + lest she suspect what its crowning miracles might be and fall sick of a + passion for what she had forever lost. + </p> + <p> + For a week or more the snow continued; colder, gloomier weather set in, + and the impending menace of Ash Wednesday redoubled the social pace, + culminating in the Westervelt ball on the eve of the forty days. And + Sylvia had not yet seen Siward or spoken to him again across the + wilderness of streets and men. + </p> + <p> + In the first relaxation of Lent she had instinctively welcomed an + opportunity for spiritual consolation and a chance to take her spiritual + bearings; not because of bodily fatigue—for in the splendour of her + youthful vigour she did not know what that meant. + </p> + <p> + Saint Berold was a pretty good saint, and his church was patronised by + Major Belwether's household. The major liked two things high: his game and + his church. Sylvia cared for neither, but had become habituated to both + the odours of sanctity and of pheasants; so to Saint Berold's she went in + cure of her soul. Besides, she was fond of Father Curtis, who, if he were + every inch a priest, was also every foot of his six feet a man—simple, + good, and brave. + </p> + <p> + However, she found little opportunity, save at her brief confession, for a + word with Father Curtis. His days were full days to the overbrimming, and + a fashionable pack was ever at his heels, fawning and shoving and + importuning. It was fashionable to adore Father Curtis, and for that + reason she shrank from venturing any demand upon his time, and nobody else + at Saint Berold's appealed to her. Besides, the music was hard, + commonplace, even blatant at times, and, having a delicate ear, she shrank + from this also. It is probable then that what comfort she found under + Saint Berold's big, brand-new Episcopal cross she extracted from observing + the rites, usages, and laws of a creed that had been accepted for her by + that Christian gentleman, Major Belwether. Also, she may have found some + solace from the still intervals devoted to an inventory of her sins and + the wistful searching of a heart too young for sadness. If she did it was + her own affair, not Grace Ferrall's, who went with her to Saint Berold's + determined always to confess to too much gambling, but letting it go from + day to day so that the penance could not interfere with the next séance. + </p> + <p> + Agatha Caithness was there a great deal, looking like a saint in her + subdued plumage; and very devout, dodging nothing—neither confession + nor Quarrier's occasionally lifted eyes, though their gaze, meeting, + seemed lost in dreamy devotion or drowned in the contemplation of the + spiritual and remote. + </p> + <p> + Plank came docilely from his Dutch Reformed church to sit beside Leila. As + for Mortimer, once a vestryman, he never came at all—made no + pretence or profession of what he elegantly expressed as “caring a damn” + for anything “in the church line,” though, he added, there were “some good + lookers to be found in a few synagogues.” His misconception of the + attractions of the church amused the new set of men among whom he had + recently drifted, to the unfeigned disgust of gentlemen like Major + Belwether; “club” men, in the commoner and more sinister interpretation of + the word; unfit men, who had managed to slip into good clubs; men, once + fit, who had deteriorated to the verge of ostracism; heavy, over-fed, + idle, insolent men in questionable financial situation, hard card players, + hard drinkers, hard riders, negative in their virtues, merciless in their + vices, and whose cynical misconduct formed the sources of the stock of + stories told where such men foregather. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer had already furnished his world with sufficient material for + jests of that flavour; now they were telling a new one: how, as Leila was + standing before Tiffany's looking for her carriage, a masher accosted her, + and, at her haughty stare, said sneeringly: “Oh, you can't play that game + on me; I've seen you with Leroy Mortimer!” + </p> + <p> + The story was repeated frequently enough. Leila heard it with a shrug; but + such things mattered to her now, and she cried over it at night, burning + that Plank should hear her name used jestingly to emphasise the depth of + her husband's degradation. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer stayed out at night very frequently now. Also, he appeared to + make his money go farther, or was luckier at his “card killings,” because + he seldom attempted to bully Leila, being apparently content with his + allowance. + </p> + <p> + Once or twice Plank saw him with an unusually attractive girl belonging to + a world very far removed from Leila's. Somebody said she was an actress + when she did anything at all—one Lydia Vyse, somewhat celebrated for + an audacity not too delicate. But Plank was no more interested than any + man who can't afford to endanger his prospects by a closer acquaintance + with that sort of pretty woman. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Mortimer kept away from home, wife, and church, and Plank + frequented them, so the two men did not meet very often; and the less they + met the less they found to say to one another. + </p> + <p> + Now that the forty days had really begun, Major Belwether became restless + for the flesh-pots of the south, although Lenten duties sat lightly enough + upon the house of Belwether. These decent observances were limited to a + lax acknowledgment of fast days, church in moderation, and active + participation in the succession of informal affairs calculated to sustain + life in those intellectually atrophied and wealthy people entirely + dependent upon others for their amusements. + </p> + <p> + To these people no fear of punishment hereafter can equal the terror of + being left to their own devices; and so, though the opera was over, + theatres unfashionable, formal functions suspended and dances ended, the + pace still continued at a discreet and decorous trot; and those who had + not fled to California or Palm Beach, remained to pray and play Bridge + with an unction most edifying. + </p> + <p> + And all this while Sylvia had not seen Siward. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia was changing. The characteristic amiability, the sensitive reserve, + the sweet composure which the world had always counted on in her, had + become exceptions and no longer the rules which governed the caprice and + impulse always latent. An indifference so pointed as to verge on insolence + amazed her intimates at times; a sudden, flushed impatience startled the + habitués of her shrine. There was a new, unseeing hardness in her eyes; in + her attitude the faintest hint of cynicism. She acquired a habit of doing + selfish things coldly, indifferent to the canons of the art; and true + selfishness, the most delicate of all the arts, requires an expert. + </p> + <p> + That which had most charmed—her unfeigned pleasure in pleasure, her + unfailing consideration for all, her gentleness with ignorance, her + generous unconsciousness of self—all these still remained, it is + true, though no longer characteristic, no longer to be counted on. + </p> + <p> + For the first time a slight sense of fear tinctured the general + admiration. + </p> + <p> + In public her indifference and growing impatience with Quarrier had not + reached the verge of bad taste, but in private she was scarcely at pains + to conceal her weariness and inattention, showing him less and less of the + formal consideration which had been their only medium of coexistence. That + he noticed it was evident even to her who carelessly ignored the + consequences of her own attitude. + </p> + <p> + Once, speaking of the alterations in progress at The Sedges, his place + near Oyster Bay, he casually asked her opinion, and she as casually + observed that if he had an opinion about anything he wouldn't know what to + do with it. + </p> + <p> + Once, too, she had remarked in Quarrier's hearing to Ferrall, who was + complaining about the loss of his hair, that a hairless head was a + visitation from Heaven, but a beard was a man's own fault. + </p> + <p> + Once they came very close to a definite rupture, close enough to scare her + after all the heat had gone out of her and the matter was ended. Quarrier + had lingered late after cards, and something was said about the impending + kennel show and about Marion Page judging the English setters. + </p> + <p> + “Agatha tells me that you are going with Marion,” continued Quarrier. “As + long as Marion has chosen to make herself conspicuous there is nothing to + be said. But do you think it very good taste for you to figure publicly on + the sawdust with an eccentric girl like Marion?” + </p> + <p> + “I see nothing conspicuous about a girl's judging a few dogs,” said + Sylvia, merely from an irritable desire to contradict. + </p> + <p> + “It's bad taste and bad form,” remarked Quarrier coldly; “and Agatha + thought it a mistake for you to go there with her.” + </p> + <p> + “Agatha's opinions do not concern me.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps mine may have some weight.” + </p> + <p> + “Not the slightest.” + </p> + <p> + He said patiently: “This is a public show; do you understand? Not one of + those private bench exhibitions.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand. Really, Howard, you are insufferable at times.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you feel that way?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do. I am sorry to be rude, but I do feel that way!” Flushed, + impatient, she looked him squarely between his narrowing, woman's eyes: “I + do not care for you very much, Howard, and you know it. I am marrying you + with a perfectly sordid motive, and you know that, too. Therefore it is + more decent—if there is any decency left in either of us—to + interfere with one another as little as possible, unless you desire a + definite rupture. Do you?” + </p> + <p> + “I? A—a rupture?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said hotly; “do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I'm too cowardly, too selfish, too treacherous to myself. No, I + don't.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor do I,” he said, lifting his furtive eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Very well. You are more contemptible than I am, that is all.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice had grown unsteady; an unreasoning rush of anger had set her + whole body a-thrill, and the white heat of it was driving her to provoke + him, as though that might cleanse her of the ignominy of the bargain—as + though a bargain did not require two of the same mind to make it. + </p> + <p> + “What do you want of me?” she said, still stinging under the angry waves + of self-contempt. “What are you marrying me for? Because, divided, we are + likely to cut small figures in our tin-trumpet world? Because, united, we + can dominate the brainless? Is there any other reason?” + </p> + <p> + Showing his teeth in that twitching snicker that contracted the muscles of + his upper lip: “Children!” he said, looking at her. + </p> + <p> + She turned scarlet to her hair; the deliberate grossness stunned her. + Confused, she stood confronting him, dumb under a retort the coarseness of + which she had never dreamed him capable. + </p> + <p> + “I mean what I say,” he repeated calmly. “A man cares for two things: his + fortune, and the heirs to it. If you didn't know that you have learned it + now. You hurt me deliberately. I told you a plain truth very bluntly. It + is for you to consider the situation.” + </p> + <p> + But she could not speak; anger, humiliation, shame, held her tongue-tied. + The instinctive revolt at the vague horror—the monstrous, + meaningless threat—nothing could force words from her to repudiate, + to deny what he had dared to utter. + </p> + <p> + Except as the effrontery of brutality, except as a formless menace born of + his anger, the reason he flung at her for his marrying her conveyed + nothing to her in its grotesque impossibility. Only the intentional + coarseness of it was to be endured—if she chose to endure it; for + the rest was empty of concrete meaning to her. + </p> + <p> + Lent was half over before she saw him again. Neither he nor she had taken + any steps to complete the rupture; and at the Mi-carême dance, given by + the Siowa Hunt, Quarrier, who was M. F. H., took up the thread of their + suspended intercourse as methodically and calmly as though it had never + quivered to the breaking point. He led the cotillon with agreeable + precision and impersonal accuracy, favouring her at intervals; and though + she wasted no favours on him, she endured his, which was sufficient + evidence that matters were still in statu quo. + </p> + <p> + She returned to town next morning with Grace Ferrall, irritable, sulky, + furious with herself at the cowardly relief she felt. For, spite of her + burning anger against Quarrier, the suspense at times had been wearing; + and she would not make the first move—had not decided even to accept + his move if it came—at least, had not admitted to herself that she + would accept it. It had come and the tension was over, and now, entering + Mrs. Ferrall's brougham which met them at Thirty-fourth Street Ferry, she + was furious with herself for her unfeigned feeling of relief. + </p> + <p> + All hot with self-contempt she lay back in the comfortably upholstered + corner of the brougham, staring straight before her, sullen red mouth + unresponsive to the occasional inconsequent questions of Grace Ferrall. + </p> + <p> + “After awhile,” observed Grace, “people will begin to talk about the + discontented beauty of your face.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia's eyebrows bent still farther inward. + </p> + <p> + “A fretful face, but rather pretty,” commented Grace maliciously. “It + won't do, dear. Your rôle is dignified comedy. O dear! O my!” She stifled + a yawn behind her faultlessly gloved hand. “I'm feeling these late hours + in my aged bones. It wasn't much of a dance, was it? Or am I + disillusioned? Certainly that Edgeworth boy fell in love with me—the + depraved creature—trying his primitive wiles there in the + conservatory! Little beast! There are no nice boys any more; they're all + too young or too sophisticated.... Howard does lead well, I admit that.... + You're on the box seat together again I see. Pooh! I wasn't a bit + alarmed.” + </p> + <p> + “I was,” said Sylvia, curling her lip in biting self-contempt. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that's a wholesome confession, anyway. O dear, how I do yawn! and + Lent only half over.... Sylvia, what are you staring at? Oh, I—see.” + </p> + <p> + They had driven south to Washington Square, where Mrs. Ferrall had desired + to leave a note, and were now returning. Sylvia had leaned forward to look + up at Siward's house, but with Mrs. Ferrall's first word she sank back, + curiously expressionless and white; for she had seen a woman entering the + front door and had recognised her as Marion Page. + </p> + <p> + “Well, of all indiscretions!” breathed Grace, looking helplessly at + Sylvia. “Oh, no, that sort of thing is sheer effrontery, you know! It's + rotten bad taste; it's no worse, of course—but it's bad taste. I + don't care what privileges we concede to Marion, we're not going to + concede this—unless she puts on trousers for good. It's all very + well for her to talk her plain kennel talk, and call spades by their + technical names, and smoke all over people's houses, and walk all over + people's prejudices; but there's no sense in her hunting for trouble; and + she'll get it, sure as scandal is scandal!” + </p> + <p> + And still Sylvia remained pale and silent, eyes downcast, shrinking close + into her upholstered corner, as though some reflex instinct of + self-concealment was still automatically dominating her. + </p> + <p> + “She ought to be spanked!” said Grace viciously. “If she were my daughter + I'd do it, too!” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia did not stir. + </p> + <p> + “Little idiot! Going into a man's house in the face of all Fifth Avenue + and the teeth of decency!” + </p> + <p> + “She has courage,” said Sylvia, still very white. + </p> + <p> + “Courage! Do you mean fool-hardiness?” + </p> + <p> + “No, courage—the courage I lacked. I knew he was too ill to leave + his room and I lacked the courage to go and see him.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean, alone?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, alone.” + </p> + <p> + “You dare tell me you ever contemplated—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. I think I should have done it yet, but—but Marion—” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she bent forward, resting her face in her hands; and between the + fingers a bright drop ran, glimmered, and fell. + </p> + <p> + “O Lord!” breathed Mrs. Ferrall, and sank back, nerveless, into her own + corner of the rocking brougham. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII THE ASKING PRICE + </h2> + <p> + Siward, at his desk, over which the May sunshine streamed, his crutches + laid against his chair, sat poring over the piles of papers left there by + Beverly Plank some days before with a curt recommendation that he master + their contents. + </p> + <p> + Some of the papers were typewritten, some appeared to be engraved + certificates of stock, a few were in Plank's heavy, squat handwriting. + There were several packages tied in pink tape, evidently legal papers of + some sort; and also a pile of scrap-books containing newspaper clippings + to which Siward referred occasionally, or read them at length, resting his + thin, fatigued face between two bony hands. + </p> + <p> + The curious persistence of youth in his features seemed unaccountable in + view of the heavy marks imprinted there; but they were marks, not lines; + bluish hollows under eyes still young, marred contours of the cheek-bone; + a hardness about the hollow temples above which his short, bright hair + clustered with all its soft, youthful allure undimmed; and in every + movement, every turn of his head, there still remained much of that + indefinable attractiveness which had always characterised his race—much + of the unconscious charm usually known as breeding. + </p> + <p> + In men of Mortimer's fibre, dissipation produced coarser symptoms—distended + veins, and sagging flesh—where in Siward it seemed to bruise and + harden, driving the colour of blood out of him and leaving the pallor of + marble, and the bluish shadows of it staining the hollows. Only the eyes + had begun to change radically; something in them had been quenched. + </p> + <p> + That he could never hope to become immune he had learned at last when he + had returned, physically wholesome, from his long course of training under + the famous Irish specialist on the Hudson. He had expected to be immune, + spite of the blunt and forcible language of Mulqueen when he turned him + out into the world again: + </p> + <p> + “Ye'll be afther notin',” said Mr. Mulqueen, “that a poonch in the plexis + putts a man out; but it don't kill him. That's you! Whin a man mixes it up + wid the booze, l'ave him come here an' I'll tache him a thrick. But it's + not murther I tache; it's the hook on the jaw that shtops, an' the poonch + in the plexis that putts the booze-divil on the bum! L'ave him take the + count; he'll niver rise to the chune o' the bell av ye l'ave him lie. But + he ain't dead, Misther Sayward; mark that, me son! An' don't ye be afther + sayin', 'Th' inimy is down an' out fur good! Pore lad! Sure, I'll shake + hands over a dhrink wid him, for he can do me no hurrt anny more!' No, + sorr! L'ave him lie, an' l'ave the years av ver life count him out; fur + the day you die, he dies, an' not wan shake o' the mixer sooner! G'wan, + now, fur the rub-down. Ye've faught yer lasht round, if ye ain't a fool!” + </p> + <p> + He had been a fool. He had imagined that he could control himself, and + practise the moderation that other men practised when they chose. The + puerile restraint annoyed him; his implied inability to master himself + humiliated him, the more so because, secretly, he was horribly afraid in + the remote depths of his heart. + </p> + <p> + Exactly how it happened he did not remember, except that he had gone down + town on business and had lunched with several men. There was claret. Later + he remembered another café, farther up town, and another, more brilliantly + lighted. After that there were vague hours—the fierce fever of + debauch wrapping night and day in flame through which he moved, unseeing, + unheeding, deafened, drenched soul and body in the living fire; or + dreaming, feeling the subsiding fury of desire pulse and ebb and flow, + rocking him to unconsciousness. + </p> + <p> + His father's old servants had found him again, this time in the area; and + this time the same ankle, not yet strong, had been broken. + </p> + <p> + Through the waning winter days, as he lay brooding in bitterness, + realising that it was all to do over again, Plank's shy visits became + gradually part of the routine. But it was many days before Siward + perceived in the big, lumbering, pink-fisted man anything to attract him + beyond the faintly amused curiosity of one man for another who is in + process of establishing himself as the first of a race. + </p> + <p> + As for reciprocation in other forms except the most superficial, or of + permitting a personal note to sound ever so discreetly, Siward tolerated + no such idea. Even the tentative advances of Plank hinting on willingness, + and perhaps ability, to help Siward in the Amalgamated tangle were + pleasantly ignored. Unpaid services rendered by men like Plank were + impossible; any obligation to Plank was utterly out of the question. + Meanwhile they began to like one another—at least Siward often found + himself looking forward with pleasure to a visit from Plank. There had + never been any question of the latter's attitude toward Siward. + </p> + <p> + Plank began to frequent the house, but never informally. It is doubtful + whether he could have practised informality in that house even at Siward's + invitation. Something of the attitude of a college lower classman for a + man in a class above seemed to typify their relations; and that feeling is + never entirely eradicated between men, no matter how close their + relationship in after-life. + </p> + <p> + One very bad night Plank came to the house and was admitted by Gumble. + Wands, the second man, stood behind the aged butler; both were apparently + frightened. + </p> + <p> + That something was amiss appeared plainly enough; and Plank, instinctively + producing a card, dropped it on a table and turned to go. It may have been + that the old butler recognised the innate delicacy of the motive, or it + may have been a sudden confidence born of the necessities of the case, for + he asked Plank to see his young master. + </p> + <p> + And Plank, looking him in the eyes, considered, until his courage began to + fail. Then he went up-stairs. + </p> + <p> + It was a bad night outside, and it was a bad night for Siward. The + master-vice had him by the throat. He sat there, clutching the arms of his + chair, his broken leg, in its plaster casing, extended in front of him; + and when he saw Plank enter he glared at him. + </p> + <p> + Hour after hour the two men sat there, the one white with rage, but + helpless; the other, stolid, inert, deaf to demands for intercession with + the arch-vice, dumb under pleadings for a compromise. He refused to + interfere with the butler, and Siward insulted him. He refused to go and + find the decanters himself, and Siward deliberately cursed him. + </p> + <p> + Outside the storm raged all night. Inside that house Plank faced a more + awful tempest. There was a sedative on the mantel and he offered it to + Siward, who struck it from his hand. + </p> + <p> + Once, toward morning, Siward feigned sleep, and Plank, heavy head on his + breast, feigned it, too. Then Siward bent over stealthily and opened a + drawer in his desk; and Plank was on his feet like a flash, jerking the + morphine from Siward's fingers. + </p> + <p> + The doctor arrived at daylight, responding to Plank's summons by + telephone, and Plank went away with the morphine and Siward's revolver + bulging in the side-pockets of his dinner coat. + </p> + <p> + He did not come again for a week. A short note from Siward started him + toward lower Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + There was little said when he came into the room: + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Plank! Glad to see you.” + </p> + <p> + “Hello! Are you all right?” + </p> + <p> + “All right.... Much obliged for pulling me through. Wish you'd pull me + through this Amalgamated Electric knot-hole, too—some day!” + </p> + <p> + “Do—do you mean it?” ventured Plank, turning red with delight. + </p> + <p> + “Mean it? Indeed I do—if you do. Sit here; ring for whatever you + want—or perhaps you'd better go down to the sideboard. I'm not to be + trusted with the odour in the room just yet.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care for anything,” said Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Whenever you please, then. You know the house, and you don't mind my + being unceremonious, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Good!” rejoined Siward, laughing. “I expect the same friendly lack of + ceremony from you.” + </p> + <p> + But that, for Plank, was impossible. All he could do was to care the more + for Siward without crossing the border line so suddenly made free; all he + could do was to sit there rolling and unrolling his gloves into wads with + his clumsy, highly coloured hands, and gaze consciously at everything in + the room except Siward. + </p> + <p> + On that day, at Plank's shy suggestion, they talked over Siward's business + affairs for the first time. After that day, and for many days, the subject + became the key-note to their intercourse; and Siward at last understood + that this man desired to do him a service absolutely and purely from a + disinterested liking for him, and as an expression of that liking. Also he + was unexpectedly made aware of Plank's serenely unerring business + sagacity. + </p> + <p> + That surface cynicism which all must learn, sooner or later, or remain the + victims of naive credulity, was, in Siward, nothing but an outer skin, as + it is in all who acquire wisdom with their cynicism. It was not long proof + against Plank's simple attitude and undisguised pleasure in doing + something for a man he liked. Under that simplicity no motive, no + self-interest could skulk; and Siward knew it. + </p> + <p> + As for the quid pro quo, Siward had insisted from the first on a business + arrangement. The treachery of Major Belwether through sheer fright had + knocked the key-stone from the syndicate, and the dam which made the + golden pool possible collapsed, showering Plank's brokers who worked + patiently with buckets and mops. + </p> + <p> + The double treachery of Quarrier was now perfectly apparent to Plank. + Siward, true to his word, held his stock in the face of ruin. Kemp + Ferrall, furious with the major, and beginning to suspect Quarrier, came + to Plank for consultation. + </p> + <p> + Then the defence formed under Plank. Legal machinery was set in motion, + meeting followed meeting, until Harrington cynically showed his hand and + Quarrier smiled his rare smile; and the fight against Inter-County was on + in the open, preceded by a furious clamour of charge and counter-charge in + the columns of the daily press. + </p> + <p> + That Quarrier had been guilty of something or other was the vague + impression of that great news-reading public which, stunned by the + reiteration of figures in the millions, turns to the simpler pleasures of + a murder trial. Besides, whatever Quarrier had done was no doubt done + within the chalk-marked courts of the game, though probably his shoes may + have become a little dusty. + </p> + <p> + But who could hope to bring players like Quarrier before the ordinary + umpire, or to investigate his methods with the everyday investigations + reserved for everyday folk, whose road through business life lay always + between State's prison and the penitentiary and whose guide-posts were + policemen? + </p> + <p> + Let the great syndicates join in battle; they could only slay each other. + Let the millions bury their millions; the public, though poorer, could + never be the wiser. + </p> + <p> + Siward, at his desk, the May sunshine pouring over him, sat conning the + heaps of typewritten sheets, striving to see between the lines some sign + of fortune for his investments, some promise of release from the + increasing financial stringency, some chance of justice being done on + those high priests who had been performing marvellous tricks upon their + altar so that by miracle, mine and thine spelled “ours,” and all the + tablets of the law were lettered upside down and hind-side before, like + the Black Mass. + </p> + <p> + Gumble knocked presently. Siward raised his perplexed eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Page, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Siward doubtfully; then, “Ask Miss Page to come up.” + </p> + <p> + Marion strolled in a moment later, exchanged a vigorous hand shake with + Siward, pulled up a chair and dropped into it. She was in riding-habit and + boots, faultlessly groomed as usual, her smooth, pale hair sleek in its + thick knot, collar and tie immaculate as her gloves. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she said, “any news of your ankle, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “I inquired about my ankle,” said Siward, amused, “and they tell me it is + better, thank you.” + </p> + <p> + “Sit a horse pretty soon?” she asked, dropping one leg over the other and + balancing the riding-crop across her knee. + </p> + <p> + “Not for awhile. You have a fine day for a gallop, Marion,” looking + askance at the sunshine filtering through the first green leaves of the + tree outside his window. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right—the day. I'm trying Tom O'Hara's new mare. They say + she's a little devil. I never saw a devil of a horse—did you? There + may be some out West.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't break that pretty neck of yours, Marion,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She lifted her eyes; then, briefly, “No fear.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, there is,” he said. “There's no use looking for trouble in a horse. + Women who hunt as you hunt take all that's legitimately coming to them. + Why doesn't Tom ride his own mare?” + </p> + <p> + “She rolled on him,” said Marion simply. + </p> + <p> + “Oh. Is he hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “Ribs.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he's lucky.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't he! He'll miss a few drills with his precious squadron, that's + all.” + </p> + <p> + She was looking about her, preoccupied. “Where are your cigarettes, + Stephen? Oh, I see. Don't try to move—don't be silly.” + </p> + <p> + She leaned over the desk, her fresh young face close to his, and reached + for the cigarettes. The clean-cut head, the sweetness of her youth and + femininity, boyish in its allure, were very attractive to him—more + so, perhaps, because of his isolation from the atmosphere of women. + </p> + <p> + “It's all very well, Marion, your coming here—and it's very sweet of + you, and I enjoy it immensely,” he said: “but it's a deuced imprudent + thing for you to do, and I feel bound to say so for your sake every time + you come.” + </p> + <p> + She leaned back in her chair and coolly blew a wreath of smoke at him. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” he said, unconvinced. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly it's all right. I've done what suited me all my life. This + suits me.” + </p> + <p> + “It suits me, too,” he said, “only I wish you'd tell your mother before + somebody around this neighbourhood informs her first.” + </p> + <p> + “Let 'em. You'll be out by that time. Do you think I'm going to tell my + mother now and have her stop it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Marion, you know perfectly well that it won't do for a girl to ignore + first principles. I'm horribly afraid somebody will talk about you.” + </p> + <p> + “What would you do, then?” + </p> + <p> + “I?” he asked, disturbed. “What could I do?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I suppose,” she said slowly, “you'd have to marry me.” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” he rejoined with a laugh, “I should think you'd be scared into + prudence by the prospect.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not easily—scared,” she said, looking down. + </p> + <p> + “Not at that prospect?” he said jestingly. + </p> + <p> + She looked up at him; and he remembered afterward the poise of her small + head, and the slow, clear colour mounting; remembered that it conveyed to + him, somehow, a hint of courage and sincerity. + </p> + <p> + “I am not frightened,” she said gravely. + </p> + <p> + Gravity fell upon him, too. In this young girl's eyes there was no + evasion. For a long while he had felt vaguely that matters were not + perfectly balanced between them. At moments, even, he had felt an + indefinable uneasiness in her presence. The situation troubled him, too; + and though he had known her from childhood and had long ago learned to + discount her vagaries of informality, her manners sans façon, her careless + ignoring of convention, and the unembarrassed terms of her speech, his + common-sense could not countenance this defiance of social usage, sure to + involve even such a privileged girl as she in some unpleasantness. + </p> + <p> + This troubled him; and now, partly sceptical, yet partly conscious, too, + of her very frank liking for himself, he looked at her, perplexed, + apprehensive, unwilling to credit her with any deeper meaning than her + words expressed. + </p> + <p> + She had grown pink and restless under his gaze, using her cigarette + frequently, and continually flicking the ashes to the floor, until the + little finger of her glove was blackened. + </p> + <p> + But courage characterised her race. It had required more than he knew for + her to come into his house; and now that she was there loyalty to her + professed principles—that a man and a woman were by right endowed + with equal privileges—forced her to face the consequences of her + theory in the practise. + </p> + <p> + She had, with calm face and quivering heart, given him an opening. That + was a concession to her essential womanhood and a cowardice on her part; + and, lest she turn utterly traitor to herself, she faced him again, cool, + quiet, and terror in her heart: + </p> + <p> + “I'd be very glad to marry you—if you c-cared to,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Marion!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—I—it is—of course it's a joke.” + </p> + <p> + “No; I'm serious.” + </p> + <p> + “Serious! Nonsense!” + </p> + <p> + “Please don't say that.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her, appalled. + </p> + <p> + “But I—but you don't love—can't be in love with me!” he + stammered. + </p> + <p> + “I am.” + </p> + <p> + Gloved hands tightening on either end of her riding-crop, she bent her + knee against it, balancing there, looking straight at him. + </p> + <p> + “I meant to tell you so,” she said, “if you didn't tell me first. So—I + was rather—tired waiting. So I've told you.” + </p> + <p> + “It is only a fancy,” he said, scarcely knowing what he was saying. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think so, Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + But he could not meet her candour, and he sat, silent, miserable, staring + at the papers on his desk. + </p> + <p> + After a while she drew a deep, even breath, and rose to her feet. + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “Marion—I never dreamed that—” + </p> + <p> + “You should dream truer,” she said. There was a suspicion of mist in her + clear eyes; she turned abruptly to the window and stood there for a few + moments, looking down at her brougham waiting in front of the house. “It + can't be helped, can it!” she said, turning suddenly. + </p> + <p> + He found no answer to her question. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye,” she said, walking to him with outstretched hand; “it's all in + a lifetime, Steve, and that's too short for a good, clean friendship like + ours to die in. I don't think I'd better come again. Look me up for a + gallop when you're fit. And you might drop me a line to say how you're + getting on. Is it all right, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” he said hoarsely. + </p> + <p> + Their hands tightened in a crushing clasp; then she swung on her spurred + heel and walked out, leaving him haggard, motionless. He heard the front + door close, and he swayed forward, dropping his face in his hands, arms + half buried among the papers on his desk. + </p> + <p> + Plank found him there, an hour later, fumbling among the papers, and at + first feared that he read in Siward's drawn and sullen face a premonition + of the ever-dreaded symptoms. + </p> + <p> + “Quarrier has telephoned asking for a conference at last,” he said + abruptly, sitting down beside Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” inquired Siward, “how do you interpret that—favourably?” + </p> + <p> + “I am inclined to think he is a bit uneasy,” said Plank cautiously. + “Harrington made a secret trip to Albany last week. You didn't know that.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he did. It looks to me as though there were going to be a ghost of + a chance for an investigation. That is how I am inclined to consider + Harrington's trip and Quarrier's flag of truce. But—I don't know. + There's nothing definite, of course. You are as conversant with the + situation as I am.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I am not. That is like you, Plank, to ascribe to me the same business + sense that you possess, but I haven't got it. It's very nice and + considerate of you, but I haven't it, and you know it.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you have.” + </p> + <p> + “You think so because you think generously. That doesn't alter the facts. + Now tell me what you have concluded that we ought to do and I'll say + 'Amen,' as usual.” + </p> + <p> + Plank laughed, and looked over several sheets of the typewritten matter on + the desk beside him. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose I meet Quarrier?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “All right. Did he suggest a date?” + </p> + <p> + “At four, this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you had better go?” + </p> + <p> + “I think it might do no harm,” said Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Amen!” observed Siward, laughing, and touched the electric button for the + early tea, which Plank adored at any hour. + </p> + <p> + For a while they dropped business and discussed their tea, chatting very + comfortably together. Long ago Siward had found out something of the + mental breadth of the man beside him, and that he was worth listening to + as well as talking to. For Plank had formed opinions upon a great many + subjects; and whatever culture he possessed was from sheer desire for + self-cultivation. + </p> + <p> + “You know, Siward,” he was accustomed to say with a smile, “you inherit + what I am qualifying myself to transmit.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be all one in a thousand years,” was Siward's usual rejoinder. + </p> + <p> + “That is not going to prevent my efforts to become a good ancestor to my + descendants,” Plank would say laughingly. “They shall have a chance, every + one of them. And it will be up to them if they don't make good.” + </p> + <p> + Sipping their tea in the pleasant, sunny room, they discussed matters of + common interest—Plank's recent fishing trip on Long Island and the + degeneracy of liver-fed trout; the North Side Club's Experiments with + European partridges; Billy Fleetwood's new stables; forestry, and the + chance of national legislation concerning it—a subject of which + Plank was very fond, and on which he had exceedingly sound ideas. + </p> + <p> + Drifting from one topic to another through the haze of their cigars, + silent when it pleased them to be so, there could be no doubt of their + liking for each other upon a basis at least superficially informal; and if + Plank's manner retained at times a shade of quaint reserve, Siward's was + perhaps the more frankly direct for that reason. + </p> + <p> + “I think,” observed Plank, laying his half-consumed cigar on the silver + tray, “that I'd better go down town and see what our pre-glacial friend + Quarrier wants. I may be able to furnish him with a new sensation.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if Quarrier ever experienced a genuine sensation,” mused Siward, + arranging the papers before him into divisional piles. + </p> + <p> + “Plenty,” said Plank drily. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think so.” + </p> + <p> + “Plenty,” repeated Plank. “It's your thin-lipped, thin-nosed, pasty-pale, + symmetrical brother who is closer to the animal under his mask than any of + us imagine. I—” He hesitated. “Do you want to know my opinion of + Quarrier? I've never told you. I don't usually talk about my—dislikes. + Do you want to know?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” said Siward curiously. + </p> + <p> + “Then, first of all, he is a sentimentalist.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! oh!” jeered Siward. + </p> + <p> + “A sentimentalist of the weakest type,” continued Plank obstinately; + “because he sentimentalises over himself. Siward, look out for the man + with elaborate whiskers! Look out for a pallid man with eccentric hair and + a silky beard! He's a sentimentalist of the sort I told you, and is + usually utterly remorseless in his dealings with women. I suppose you + think me a fool.” + </p> + <p> + “I think Quarrier is indifferent concerning women,” said Siward. + </p> + <p> + “You are wrong. He is a sensualist,” insisted Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, Plank—not that!” + </p> + <p> + “A sensualist. His sentimental vanity he lavishes upon himself—the + animal in him on women. His caution, born of self-consideration, is the + caution of a beast. Such men as he believe they live in the focus of a + million eyes. Part of his vanity is to deceive those eyes and be what he + is under the mask he wears; and to do that one must be the very master of + caution. That is Quarrier's vanity. To conceal, is his monomania.” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot see how you draw that conclusion.” + </p> + <p> + “Siward, he is a bad man, and crafty—every inch of him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come, now! Only characters in fiction have no saving qualities. You + never heard of anybody in real life being entirely bad.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn't; and Quarrier isn't. For example, he is kind to valuable + animals—I mean, his own.” + </p> + <p> + “Good to animals! The bad man's invariable characteristic!” laughed + Siward. “I'm kind to 'em, too. What else is he good to?” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody knows that he hasn't a poor relation left; not one. He is loyal + to them in a rare way; he filled one subsidiary company full of them. It + is known down town as the 'Home for Destitute Nephews.'” + </p> + <p> + “Seriously, Plank, the man must have something good in him.” + </p> + <p> + “Because of your theory?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I believe that nobody is entirely bad. So do the great masters of + fiction.” + </p> + <p> + Plank said gravely: “He is a good son to his father. That is perfectly + true—kind, considerate, dutiful, loyal. The financial world is + perfectly aware that Stanley Quarrier is to-day the most unscrupulous old + scoundrel who ever crushed a refinery or debauched a railroad! and his son + no more believes it than he credits the scandalous history of the Red + Woman of Wall Street. Why, when I was making arrangements for that chapel + Quarrier came to me, very much perturbed, because he understood that all + the memorial chapels for the cathedral had been arranged for, and he had + desired to build one to the memory of his father! His father! Isn't it + awful to think of!—a chapel to the memory of the briber of judges + and of legislatures, the cynical defier of law!—this hoary old + thief, who beggared the widow and stripped the orphan, and whose only + match, as a great unpunished criminal, was that sinister little + predecessor of his, who dreamed even of debauching the executive of these + United States!” + </p> + <p> + Siward had never before seen Plank aroused, and he said so, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “That is true,” said Plank earnestly; “I waste little temper over my likes + and dislikes. But what I know, and what I legitimately infer concerning + the younger Quarrier is enough to rouse any man's anger. I won't tell you + what I know. I can't. It has nothing to do with his financial methods, + nothing to do with this business; but it is bad—bad all through! The + blow his father struck at the integrity of the bench the son strikes at + the very key-stone of all social safeguard. It isn't my business; I cannot + interfere; but Siward, I'm a damned restless witness, and the old, + primitive longing comes back on me to strike—to take a stick and use + it to splinters on that man whom I am going down town to politely confer + with!... And I must go now. Good-bye.... Take care of that ankle. Any + books I can send you—anything you want? No? All right. And don't + worry over Amalgamated Electric, for I really believe we are beginning to + frighten them badly.” + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye,” said Siward. “Don't forget that I'm always at home.” + </p> + <p> + “You must get out,” muttered Plank; “you must get well, and get out into + the sunshine.” And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall, + where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him. + </p> + <p> + He had come in a big yellow and black touring-car; and now, with a brief + word to his mechanic, he climbed into the tonneau, and away they sped down + town—a glitter of bull's-eye, brass, and varnish, with the mellow, + horn notes floating far in their wake. + </p> + <p> + It was exactly four o'clock when he was ushered into Quarrier's private + suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper + stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier was alone, gloved and hatted, as though on the point of leaving. + He showed a slight surprise at seeing Plank, as if he had not been + expecting him; and the manner of offering his hand subtly emphasised it as + he came forward with a trace of inquiry in his greeting. + </p> + <p> + “You said four o'clock, I believe,” observed Plank bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes. It was about that—ah—matter—ah—I beg + your pardon; can you recollect?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what it is you want. You requested this meeting,” said + Plank, yawning. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. I recollect it perfectly now. Will you sit here, Mr. Plank—for + a moment—” + </p> + <p> + “If it concerns Inter-County, it will take longer than a moment—unless + you cannot spare the time now,” said Plank. “Shall we call it off?” + </p> + <p> + “As a matter of fact I am rather short of time just now.” + </p> + <p> + “Then let us postpone it. I shall probably be at my office if you are + anxious to see me.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier looked at him, then laid aside his hat and sat down. There was + little to be done in diplomacy with an oaf like that. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Plank,” he said, without any emphasis at all, “there should be some + way for us to come together. Have you considered it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I haven't,” replied Plank. + </p> + <p> + “I mean, for you and me to try to understand each other.” + </p> + <p> + “For us?” asked Plank, raising his blond eyebrows. “Do you mean + Amalgamated Electric and Inter-County, impersonally?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean for us, personally.” + </p> + <p> + “There is no way,” said Plank, with conviction. + </p> + <p> + “I think there is.” + </p> + <p> + “You are wasting time thinking it, Mr. Quarrier.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier's velvet-fringed eyes began to narrow, but his calm voice + remained unchanged: “We are merely wasting energy in this duel,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no; I don't feel wasted.” + </p> + <p> + “We are also wasting opportunities,” continued Quarrier slowly. “This + whole matter is involving us in a tangle of litigation requiring our + constant effort, constant attention.” + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, Mr. Quarrier, but you take it too seriously. I have + found, in this affair, nothing except a rather agreeable mental + exhilaration.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Plank, if you are not inclined to be serious—” + </p> + <p> + “I am,” said Plank so savagely that Quarrier, startled, could not doubt + him. “I like this sort of thing, Mr. Quarrier. Anything that is hard to + overcome, I like to overcome. The pleasure in life, to me, is to win out. + I am fighting you with the greatest possible satisfaction to myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you see victory ahead,” said Quarrier calmly. + </p> + <p> + “I do, Mr. Quarrier, I do. But not in the manner you fear I may hope for + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mind saying in what manner you are already discounting your + victory, Mr Plank?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't mind telling you. I have no batteries to mask. I don't care + how much you know about my resources; so I'll tell you what I see, Mr. + Quarrier. I see a parody of the popular battle between razor-back and + rattler. The rattler only strives to strike and kill, not to swallow. Mr. + Quarrier, that old razor-back isn't going home hungry; but—he's + going home.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid I am not familiar enough with the natural history you quote to + follow you,” said Quarrier with a sneer, his long fingers busy with the + silky point of his beard. + </p> + <p> + “No, you won't follow me home; you'll come with me, when it's all over. + Now is it very plain to you, Mr. Quarrier?” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier said, without emotion: “I repeat that it would be easy for you + and me to merge our differences on a basis absolutely satisfactory to you + and to me—and to Harrington.” + </p> + <p> + “You are mistaken,” said Plank, rising. “Good afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier rose, too. “You decline to discuss the matter?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “It has been discussed sufficiently.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why did you come here?” + </p> + <p> + “To see for myself how afraid of me you really are,” said Plank. “Now I + know, and so do you.” + </p> + <p> + “You desire to make it a personal matter?” inquired Quarrier, in a low + voice, his face dead white in the late sunlight which illuminated the + room. + </p> + <p> + “Personal? No—impersonal; because there could be absolutely nothing + personal between us, Mr. Quarrier; and the only thing in the world that + there ought to be between us are a few stout, steel bars. Beg pardon for + talking shop. I'm a shopkeeper, and I'm in the steel business, and I lack + opportunities for cultivation. Good day.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Plank—” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business + differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered or + modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my + policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly aware + of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this attitude + toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting in + arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful + interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby + is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my + chances, every one; and I take them—every one. For it is a good + fight, Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; + not because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because + such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours. + Your name, Harrington's, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long, + long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be + remembered.” + </p> + <p> + He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier's + unwinking eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Take your fighting chance—it is the cleanest thing you ever + touched; and use it cleanly, or there'll be no mercy shown you when your + time comes. Let the courts alone—do you hear me? Let the legislature + alone. Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to + shove his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. + They'll be warmer than his feet by this time next year.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm + dropped heavily—the old stolid expression came back into his face, + leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving slowly + toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand. + </p> + <p> + Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered Mortimer, + and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks; neither had + Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at his battered and + bloodshot appearance. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Mortimer, “you down here?” + </p> + <p> + “Have you been out of town?” asked Plank cautiously. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the + elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his + pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps + of the rotunda. + </p> + <p> + “See here,” he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily + even after the short chase across the lobby, “I meant to tell you + something. Come over here and sit down a moment.” + </p> + <p> + Still grasping Plank's elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him toward + a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down, while + Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at the heat + under his breath. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he said; “I promised you something once, didn't I?” + </p> + <p> + “Did you?” said Plank, with his bland, expressionless stare of an + overgrown baby. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, cut that out! You know damn well I did; and when I say a thing I make + good. D'ye see?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see,” said Plank, “what you are talking about.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm talking about what I said I'd do for you. Haven't I made good? + Haven't I put you into everything I said I would? Don't you go everywhere? + Don't people ask you everywhere?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—in a way,” said Plank wearily. “I am very grateful; I always + will be.... Can I do anything for you, Leroy?” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer became indignant at the implied distrust of the purity of his + motives; and Plank, failing to stem the maudlin tirade, relapsed into + patient silence, speculating within himself as to what it could be that + Mortimer wanted. + </p> + <p> + It came out presently. Mortimer had attended a “killing” at Desmond's, + and, as usual, had provided the pièce de résistance for his soft-voiced + host. All he wanted was a temporary deposit to tide over matters. He had + never approached Plank in vain, and he did not do so now, for Plank had a + pocket cheque-book and a stylograph. + </p> + <p> + “It's damn little to ask, isn't it?” he muttered resentfully. “That will + only square matters with Desmond; it doesn't leave me anything to go on + with,” and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl. + </p> + <p> + Plank was discreetly silent. + </p> + <p> + “And that is not what I chased you for, either,” continued Mortimer. “I + didn't intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in + another way!” He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the elevators + gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble rotunda; + then his protruding eyes sought Plank's again: + </p> + <p> + “Beverly, old boy, I've got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any + decent man would like to have him—by the scruff of his neck. He's + fit only to kick; and I'm going to kick him good and plenty; and in the + process he's going to let go of several things.” Mortimer leered, pleased + with his own similes, then added rather hastily: “I mean, he's going to + drop several things that don't belong to him. Leave it to me to shake him + down; he'll drop them all right.... One of 'em's yours.” + </p> + <p> + Plank looked at him. + </p> + <p> + “I told you once that I'd let you know when to step up and say 'Good + evening' didn't I?” + </p> + <p> + Plank continued to stare. + </p> + <p> + “Didn't I?” repeated Mortimer peevishly, beginning to lose countenance. + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand you,” said Plank, “and I don't think I want to + understand you.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer thickly; “don't you want to marry + that girl!” but he shrank dismayed under the slow blaze that lighted + Plank's blue eyes. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” he stammered, struggling to his fat legs and instinctively + backing away; “I thought you meant business. I—what the devil do I + care who you marry! It's the last time I try to do anything for you, or + for anybody else! Mark that, my friend. I've plenty to worry over; I've a + lot to keep me busy without lying awake to figure out how to do kindnesses + to old friends. Damn this ingratitude, anyway!” + </p> + <p> + Plank gazed at him for a moment; the anger in his face had died out. + </p> + <p> + “I am not ungrateful,” he said. “You may say almost anything except that, + Leroy. I am not disloyal, no matter what else I may be. But you have made + a bad mistake. You made it that day at Black Fells when you offered to + interfere. I supposed you understood then that I could never tolerate from + anybody anything of such a nature. It appears that you didn't. However, + you understand it now. So let us forget the matter.” + </p> + <p> + But Mortimer, keenly appreciative of the pleasures of being misunderstood, + squeezed some moisture out of his distended eyes, and sat down, a martyr + to his emotions. “To think,” he gulped, “that you, of all men, should turn + on me like this!” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't mean to. Can't you understand, Leroy, that you hurt me?” + </p> + <p> + “Hurt hell!” retorted Mortimer vindictively. “You've had sensation + battered out of you by this time. I guess society has landed you a few + while I was boosting you over the outworks. Don't play that old con game + on me! You tried to get her and you couldn't. Now I come along and offer + to put you next and you yell about your hurt feelings! Oh, splash! There's + another lady, that's all.” + </p> + <p> + “Let it go at that, then,” said Plank, reddening. + </p> + <p> + “But I tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “Drop it!” snapped Plank. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very well! if you're going to take it that way again—” + </p> + <p> + “I am. Cut it! And now let me ask you a question: Where were you going + when I met you?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you want to know for?” asked Mortimer sullenly. + </p> + <p> + “Why, I'll tell you, Leroy. If you have any idea of identifying yourself + with Quarrier's people, of seeking him at this juncture with the + expectation of investing any money in his schemes, you had better not do + so.” + </p> + <p> + “Investing!” sneered Mortimer. “Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to + invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated Electric + gang. Don't worry. If there's any shaking down to be done, I'll do it, my + friend,” and he rose, and started toward the elevators. + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” said Plank. “Why, man, you can't frighten Quarrier! What did you + sell your holdings for? Why didn't you come to us—to me? What's the + use of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can't scare a man like + that.” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer fairly grinned in his face. + </p> + <p> + “Your big mistake,” he sneered, “is in undervaluing others. You don't + think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I'm going to try to take + care of myself all the same.” He laughed, showing his big teeth, and the + vanity in him began to drug him. “No, you think I don't know much. But men + like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you to understand,” + he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution which in saner + moments he was only too certain that his present business required—“I + want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of them is that + I'm not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I'm not afraid of you!” + </p> + <p> + “Leroy—” + </p> + <p> + “No, not afraid of you, either!” repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare. + “Don't try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me, + Beverly! I'm getting tired of it; I'm tired of it now, by God! You keep a + civil tongue in your head after this—do you understand?—and + we'll get on all right. If you don't, I've the means to make you!” + </p> + <p> + “Are you crazy?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit of it! Too damn sane for you and Leila to hoodwink!” + </p> + <p> + “You are crazy!” repeated Plank, aghast. + </p> + <p> + “Am I? You and Leila can take the matter into court, if you want to—unless + I do. And”—here he leaned forward, showing his teeth again—“the + next time you kiss her, close the door!” + </p> + <p> + Then he went away up the marble steps and entered an elevator; and Plank, + grave and pale, went out into the street and entered his big touring-car. + But the drive up town and through the sunlit park gave him no pleasure, + and he entered his great house with a heavy, lifeless step, head bent, as + though counting every crevice in the stones under his lagging feet. For + the first time in all his life he was afraid of a man. + </p> + <p> + The man he was afraid of had gone directly to Quarrier's office, missing + the gentleman he was seeking by such a small fraction of a minute that he + realised they must have passed each other in the elevators, he ascending + while Quarrier was descending. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer turned and hurried to the elevator, hoping to come up with + Quarrier in the rotunda, or possibly in the street outside; but he was too + late, and, furious to think of the time he had wasted with Plank, he + crawled into a hansom and bade the driver take him to a number he gave, + designating one of the new limestone basement houses on the upper west + side. + </p> + <p> + All the way up town, as he jolted about in his seat, he angrily regretted + the meeting with Plank, even in spite of the cheque. What demon had + possessed him to boast—to display his hand when there had been no + necessity? Plank was still ready to give him aid at a crisis—had + always been ready. Time enough when Plank turned stingy to use persuasion; + time enough when Plank attempted to dodge him to employ a club. And now, + for no earthly reason, intoxicated with his own vanity, catering to his + own long-smouldering resentment, he had used his club on a willing horse—deliberately + threatened a man whose gratitude had been good for many a cheque yet. + </p> + <p> + “Ass that I am!” fumed Mortimer; “now when I'm stuck I'll have to go at + him with the club, if I want any money out of him. Confound him, he's + putting me in a false position! He's trying to make it look like + extortion! I won't do it! I'm no blackmailer! I'll starve, before I go to + him again! No blundering, clumsy Dutchman can make a blackmailer out of me + by holding hands with that scoundrelly wife of mine! That's the reason he + did it, too! Between them they are trying to make my loans from Plank look + like blackmail! It would serve them right if I took them up—if I + called their bluff, and stuck Plank up in earnest! But I won't, to please + them! I won't do any dirty thing like that, to humour them! Not much!” + </p> + <p> + He lay back, rolling about in the jouncing cab, scowling at space. + </p> + <p> + “Not much!” he repeated. “I'll shake down Quarrier, though! I'll make him + pay for his treachery—scaring me out of Amalgamated! That will be + restitution, not extortion!” + </p> + <p> + He was the angrier because he had been for days screwing up his courage to + the point of seeking Quarrier face to face. He had not wished to do it; + the scene, and his own attitude in it, could only be repugnant to him, + although he continually explained to himself that it was restitution, not + extortion. + </p> + <p> + But whatever it was, he didn't like to figure in it, and he had hung back + as long as circumstances permitted. But his new lodgings and his new + friends were expensive; and Plank, he supposed, was off somewhere fishing; + so he hung on as long as it was possible; then, exasperated by necessity, + started for Quarrier's office, only to miss him by a few seconds because + he was fool enough to waste his temper and his opportunity in making an + enemy out of a friend! + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” he groaned, “what an ass I am!” And he got out of his cab in front + of a very new limestone basement house with red geraniums blooming on the + window-sills, and let himself in with a latch-key. + </p> + <p> + The interior of the house was attractive in a rather bright, new, clean + fashion. There seemed to be a great deal of white wood-work about, a + wilderness of slender white spindles supporting the dark, rich mahogany + handrail of the stairway; elaborate white grilles between snowy, + Corinthian pillars separating the hall from the drawing-room, where a pale + gilt mirror over a white, colonial mantel reflected a glass chandelier and + panelled walls hung with pale blue silk. + </p> + <p> + All was new, very clean, very quiet; the maid, too, who appeared at the + sound of the closing door and took his hat and gloves was as newly groomed + as the floors and wood-work, and so noiseless as to be conspicuous in her + swift, silent movements. + </p> + <p> + Yet there was something about it all—about the bluish silvery + half-light, the spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid + in her flamboyant cap and apron—that arrested attention and fixed + it. The soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the + contrast between the maid's black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was + nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains + were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no + half-lights. The very stillness was gay with suspense, like a pretty + woman's suppressed laughter glimmering in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + And into this tinted light, framed in palest blue and white, waddled + Mortimer, appropriate as a June-bug scrambling in a Sèvres teacup. + </p> + <p> + “Anybody here?” he growled, leering into the drawing-room at a tiny grand + piano cased in unvarnished Circassian walnut. + </p> + <p> + “There is nobody at home, sir,” said the maid. + </p> + <p> + “Music lesson over?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, at three.” + </p> + <p> + He began to ascend the stairway, breathing heavily, thud, thud over the + deep velvet strip, his fat hand grasping the banister rail. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere on the second floor a small dog barked, and Mortimer traversed + the ball and opened the door into a room hung with gold Spanish leather + and pale green curtains. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Tinto!” he said affably as a tiny Japanese spaniel hurled herself + at him, barking furiously, then began writhing and weaving herself about + him, gurgling recognition and welcome. + </p> + <p> + He sat down heavily in a padded easy-chair. The spaniel sprang into his + lap, wheezing, sniffling, goggling its protruding eyes. Mortimer liked the + dog, but he didn't like what the owner of the dog said about the + resemblance between his own and Tinto's eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Get down!” he said; “you're shedding black and white hairs all over me.” + But the dog didn't want to get down, and Mortimer's good nature permitted + her to curl up on his fat knees and sleep that nervous, twitching sleep + peculiar to overpampered toy canines. + </p> + <p> + The southern sun was warm in the room; the windows open, but not a silken + hanging stirred. + </p> + <p> + Presently another maid entered, with an apple cut into thin wafers and a + decanter of port; and Mortimer lay back in his chair, sopping his apple in + the thick, crimson wine, and feeding morsels of the combination to himself + and to Tinto at intervals until the apple was all gone and the decanter + three-fourths empty. + </p> + <p> + It was very still in the room—so still, that Mortimer, opening his + eyes at longer and longer intervals to peer at the door, finally opened + them no more. + </p> + <p> + The droning gurgle that he made kept Tinto awake. When his lower jaw + sagged, and he began to really show what snoring could be, Tinto, very + nervous, got up and hopped down. + </p> + <p> + It was still daylight when Mortimer awoke, conscious of people about him. + As he opened his eyes, a man laughed; several people seated by the windows + joined in. Then, straightening up with an effort, something tumbled from + his head to the floor and he started to rise. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, look out, Leroy! Don't step on my hat!” cried a girl's voice; and he + sank back in his chair, gazing stupidly around. + </p> + <p> + “Hello! you people!” he said, amused; “I guess I've been asleep. Oh, is + that you Millbank? Whose hat was that—yours, Lydia?” + </p> + <p> + He yawned, laughed, turning his heavy eyes from one to another, + recognising a couple of young girls at the window. He didn't want to get + up; but there is, in the society he now adorned, a stringency of etiquette + known as “re-finement,” and which, to ignore, is to become unpopular. + </p> + <p> + So he got onto his massive legs and went over to shake hands with a + gravity becoming the ceremony. + </p> + <p> + “How d'ye do, Miss Hutchinson? Thought you were at Asbury Park. How de do, + Miss Del Garcia. Have you been out in Millbank's motor yet?” + </p> + <p> + “We broke down at McGowan's Pass,” said Miss Del Garcia, laughing the + laugh that had made her so attractive in “A Word to the Wise.” + </p> + <p> + “Muddy gasoline,” nodded Millbank tersely—an iron-jawed, + over-groomed man of forty, with a florid face shaved blue. + </p> + <p> + “We passed Mr. Plank's big touring-car,” observed Lydia Vyse, shifting + Tinto to the couch and brushing the black and white hairs from her + automobile coat. “How much does a car like that cost, Leroy?” + </p> + <p> + “About twenty-five thousand,” he said gloomily. Then, looking up, “Hold + on, Millbank, don't be going! Why can't you all dine with us? Never mind + your car; ours is all right, and we'll run out into the country for + dinner. How about it, Miss Del Garcia?” + </p> + <p> + But both Miss Del Garcia and Miss Hutchinson had accepted another + invitation, in which Millbank was also included. + </p> + <p> + They stood about, veils floating, leather decorated coats thrown back, + lingering for awhile to talk the garage talk which fascinates people of + their type; then Millbank looked at the clock, made his adieux to Lydia, + nodded significantly to Mortimer, and followed the others down-stairs. + </p> + <p> + There was something amiss with his motor, for it made a startling racket + in the street, finally plunging forward with a kick. + </p> + <p> + Lydia laughed as the two young girls in the tonneau turned to nod to her + in mock despair; then she came running back up-stairs, holding her skirt + free from her hurrying little feet. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” she inquired, as Mortimer turned back from the window to confront + her. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing doing, little girl,” he said with a sombre smile. + </p> + <p> + She looked at him, slowly divesting herself of her light leather-trimmed + coat. + </p> + <p> + “I missed him,” said Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + She flung the coat over a chair, stood a moment, her fingers busy with her + hair-pegs, then sat down on the couch, taking Tinto into her lap. She was + very pretty, dark, slim, marvellously graceful in her every movement. + </p> + <p> + “I missed him,” repeated Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + “Can't you see him to-morrow?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” said Mortimer slowly. “Oh, Lord! how I hate this + business!” + </p> + <p> + “Hasn't he misused your confidence? Hasn't he taken your money?” she + asked. “It may be unpleasant for you to make him unbelt, but you're a + coward if you don't!” + </p> + <p> + “Easy! easy, now!” muttered Mortimer; “I'm going to shake it out of him. I + said I would, and I will.” + </p> + <p> + “I should hope so; it's yours.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly it's mine. I wish I'd held fast now. I never supposed Plank + would take hold. It was that drivelling old Belwether who scared me stiff! + The minute I saw him scurrying to cover like a singed cat I was fool + enough to climb the first tree. I've had my lesson, little girl.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you'll give Howard his. Somebody ought to,” she said quietly. + </p> + <p> + Then gathering up her hat and coat she went into her own apartments. + Mortimer picked up a cheap magazine, looked over the portraits of the + actresses, then, hunching up into a comfortable position, settled himself + to read the theatrical comment. + </p> + <p> + Later, Lydia not appearing, and his own valet arriving to turn on the + electricity, bring him his White Rock and Irish and the Evening Telegraph, + he hoisted his legs into another chair and sprawled there luxuriously over + his paper until it was time to dress. + </p> + <p> + About half past eight they dined in a white and pink dining-room furnished + in dull gray walnut, and served by a stealthy, white-haired, pink-skinned + butler, chiefly remarkable because it seemed utterly impossible to get a + glimpse of his eyes. Nobody could tell whether there was anything the + matter with them or not—and whether they were only very deep set or + were weak, like an albino's, or were slightly crossed, the guests of the + house never knew. Lydia herself didn't know, and had given up trying to + find out. + </p> + <p> + They had planned to go for a spin in Mortimer's motor after dinner, but in + view of the Quarrier fiasco neither was in the mood for anything. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer, as usual, ate and drank heavily. He was a carnivorous man, and + liked plenty of thick, fat, underdone meat. As for Lydia, her appetite was + as erratic as her own impulses. Her table, always wastefully elaborate, no + doubt furnished subsistence for all the relatives of her household below + stairs, and left sufficient for any ambitious butler to make a decent + profit on. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know, Leroy,” she observed, as they left the table and sauntered + back into the pale blue drawing-room, “do you know that the servants + haven't been paid for three months?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, for Heaven's sake,” he expostulated, “don't begin that sort of thing! + I get enough of that at home; I get it every time I show my nose!” + </p> + <p> + “I only mentioned it,” she said carelessly. + </p> + <p> + “I heard you all right. It isn't any pleasanter for me than for you. In + fact, I'm sick of it; I'm dead tired of being up against it every day of + my life. When a man has anything somebody gets it before he can sidestep. + When a man's dead broke there's nobody in sight to touch.” + </p> + <p> + “You had an opportunity to make Howard pay you back.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn't I tell you I missed him?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. What are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Do?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. You are going to do something, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + They had reached the gold and green room above. Lydia began pacing the + length of a beautiful Kermanshah rug—a pale, delicate marvel of rose + and green on a ground of ivory—lovely, but doomed to fade sooner + than the pretty woman who trod it with restless, silk-shod feet. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer had not responded to her last question. She said presently: “You + have never told me how you intend to make him pay you back.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” inquired Mortimer, turning very red. + </p> + <p> + “I said that you haven't yet told me how you intend to make Howard return + the money you lost through his juggling with your stock.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't exactly know myself,” admitted Mortimer, still overflushed. “I + mean to put it to him squarely, as a debt of honour that he owes. I asked + him whether to invest. Damn him! he never warned me not to. He is morally + responsible. Any man who would sit there and nod monotonously like a + mandarin, knowing all the while what he was doing to wreck the company, + and let a friend put into a rotten concern all the cash he could scrape + together, is a swindler!” + </p> + <p> + “I think so too,” she said, studying the rose arabesques in the rug. + </p> + <p> + There was a little click of her teeth when she ended her inspection and + looked across at Mortimer. Something in her expressionless gaze seemed to + reassure him, and give him a confidence he may have lacked. + </p> + <p> + “I want him to understand that I won't swallow that sort of contemptible + treatment,” asserted Mortimer, lighting a thick, dark cigar. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you'll make him understand,” she said, seating herself and resting + her clasped, brilliantly ringed hands in her lap. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I will—never fear! He has abused my confidence abominably; he + has practically swindled me, Lydia. Don't you think so?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell him so, too,” blustered Mortimer, shaking himself into an + upright posture, and laying a pudgy, clinched fist on the table. “I'm not + afraid of him! He'll find that out, too. I know enough to stagger him. Not + that I mean to use it. I'm not going to have him think that my demands on + him for my own property resemble extortion.” + </p> + <p> + “Extortion?” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I don't want him to think I'm trying to intimidate him. I won't have + him think I'm a grafter; but I've half a mind to shake that money out of + him, in one way or another.” + </p> + <p> + He struck the table and looked at her for further sign of approval. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not afraid of him,” he repeated. “I wish to God he were here, and I'd + tell him so!” + </p> + <p> + She said coolly: “I was wishing that too.” + </p> + <p> + For a while they sat silent, preoccupied, avoiding each other's direct + gaze. When she rose he started, watching her in a dazed way as she walked + to the telephone. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I?” she asked quietly, turning to him, her hand on the receiver. + </p> + <p> + “Wait. W-what are you going to do?” he stammered. + </p> + <p> + “Call him up. Shall I?” + </p> + <p> + A dull throb of fright pulsed through him. + </p> + <p> + “You say you are not afraid of him, Leroy.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” he said with an oath, “I am not. Go ahead!” + </p> + <p> + She unhooked the receiver. After a second or two her low, even voice + sounded. There came a pause. She rested one elbow on the walnut shelf, the + receiver tight to her ear. Then: + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Quarrier, please.... Yes, Mr. Howard Quarrier.... No, no name. Say it + is on business of immediate importance.... Very well, then; you may say + that Miss Vyse insists on speaking to him.... Yes, I'll hold the wire.” + </p> + <p> + She turned, the receiver at her ear, and looked narrowly at Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + “Won't he speak to you?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to find out. Hush a moment!” and in the same calm, almost + childish voice: “Oh, Howard, is that you? Yes, I know I promised not to do + this, but that was before things happened!... Well, what am I to do when + it is necessary to talk to you?... Yes, it is necessary!... I tell you it + is necessary!... I am sorry it is not convenient for you to talk to me, + but I really must ask you to listen!... No, I shall not write. I want to + talk to you to-night—now! Yes, you may come here, if you care to!... + I think you had better come, Howard.... Because I am liable to continue + ringing your telephone until you are willing to listen.... No, there is + nobody here. I am alone. What time?... Very well; I shall expect you. + Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + She hung up the receiver and turned to Mortimer: + </p> + <p> + “He's coming up at once. Did I say anything to scare him particularly?” + </p> + <p> + “One thing's sure as preaching,” said Mortimer; “he's a coward, and I'm + dammed glad of it,” he added naively, relighting his cigar, which had gone + out. + </p> + <p> + “If he comes up in his motor he'll be here in a few minutes,” she said. + “Suppose you take your hat and go out. I don't want him to think what he + will think if he walks into the room and finds you waiting. You have your + key, Leroy. Walk down the block; and when you see him come in, give him + five minutes.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice had become a little breathless, and her colour was high. + Mortimer, too, seemed apprehensive. Things had suddenly begun to work + themselves out too swiftly. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think that's best?” he faltered, looking about for his hat. “Tell + Merkle that nobody has been here, if Quarrier should ask him. Do you think + we're doing it in the best way, Lydia? By God, it smells of a put-up job + to me! But I guess it's all right. It's better for me to just happen in, + isn't it? Don't forget to put Merkle wise.” + </p> + <p> + He descended the stairs hastily. Merkle, of the invisible eyes, held his + hat and gloves and opened the door for him. + </p> + <p> + Once on the dark street, his impulse was to flee—get out, get away + from the whole business. A sullen shame was pumping the hot blood up into + his neck and cheeks. He strove to find an inoffensive name for what he was + proposing to do, but ugly terms, synonym after synonym, crowded in to + characterise the impending procedure, and he walked on angrily, half + frightened, looking back from moment to moment at the house he had just + left. + </p> + <p> + On the corner he halted, breathing spasmodically, for he had struck a + smarter pace than he had been aware of. + </p> + <p> + Few people passed him. Once he caught a glimmer of a policeman's buttons + along the park wall, and an unpleasant shiver passed over him. At the same + moment an electric hansom flew noiselessly past him. He shrank back into + the shadow of a porte-cochere. The hansom halted before the limestone + basement house. A tall figure left it, stood a moment in the middle of the + sidewalk, then walked quickly to the front door. It opened, and the man + vanished. + </p> + <p> + The hansom still waited at the door. Mortimer, his hands shaking, looked + at his watch by the light of the electric bulbs flanking the gateway under + which he stood. + </p> + <p> + There was not much time in which to make up his mind, yet his fright was + increasing to a pitch which began to enrage him with that coward's courage + which it is impossible to reckon with. + </p> + <p> + He had missed Quarrier once to-day when he had been keyed to the + encounter. Was he going to miss him again through sheer terror? Besides, + was not Quarrier a coward? Besides, was it not his own money? Had he not + been vilely swindled by a pretended friend? Urging, lashing himself into a + heavy, shuffling motion, he emerged from the porte-cochere and lurched off + down the street. No time to think now, no time for second thought, for + hesitation, for weakness. He had waited too long already. He had waited + ten minutes, instead of five. Was Quarrier going to escape again? Was he + going to get out of the house before— + </p> + <p> + Fumbling with his latch-key, but with sense enough left to make no noise, + he let himself in, passed silently through the reception-hall and up to + the drawing-room floor, where for a second he stood listening. Then + something of the perverted sportsman sent the blood quivering into his + veins. He had him! He had run him down! The game was at bay. + </p> + <p> + An inrush of exhilaration steadied him. He laid his hand on the banister + and mounted, gloves and hat-brim crushed in the other hand. When he + entered the room he pretended to see only Lydia. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, little girl!” he said, laughing, “are you surprised to—” + </p> + <p> + At that moment he caught sight of Quarrier, and the start he gave was + genuine enough. Never had he seen in a man's visage such white + concentration of anger. + </p> + <p> + “Quarrier!” he stammered, for his acting was becoming real enough to + supplant art. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier had risen; his narrowing eyes moved from Mortimer to Lydia, then + reverted to the man in the combination. + </p> + <p> + “Rather unexpected, isn't it?” said Mortimer, staring at Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “Is it?” returned Quarrier in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” sneered Mortimer. “Did you expect to find me here?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Did you expect to find me?” asked the other, with emphasis + unmistakable. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer hoarsely. “What the devil do you + mean by asking me if I expected to find you here? If I had, I'd not have + travelled down to your office to-day to see you; I'd have come here for + you. Naturally people suppose that an engaged man is likely to give up + this sort of thing.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier, motionless, white to the lips, turned his eyes from one to the + other. + </p> + <p> + “It doesn't look very well, does it?” asked Mortimer; and he stood there, + smiling, danger written all over him. “It's beginning rather early,” he + continued, with a sneer. “Most engaged men with a conscience wait until + they're married before they return to the gay and frivolous. But here you + are, it seems, handsome, jolly, and irresistible as ever!” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier looked at Lydia, and his lips moved: “You asked me to come,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + “No; you offered to. I wished to talk to you over the wire, but “—her + lip curled, and she shrugged her shoulders—“you seemed to be afraid + of something or other.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't talk to you in my own house, with guests in the room.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? Did I say anything your fashionable guests might take exception + to? Am I likely to do anything of that kind?—you coward!” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier stood very still, then noiselessly turned and made one step + toward the door. + </p> + <p> + “One moment,” interposed Mortimer blandly. “As long as I travelled down + town to see you, and find you here so unexpectedly, I may as well take + advantage of this opportunity to regulate a little matter. You don't mind + our talking shop for a moment, Lydia? Thank you. It's just a little + business matter between Mr. Quarrier and myself—a matter concerning + a few shares of stock which I once held in one of his companies, bought at + par, and tumbled to ten and—What is the fraction, Quarrier? I + forget.” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier thought deeply for a moment; then he raised his head, looking + full at Mortimer, and under his silky beard an edge of teeth glimmered. + “Did you wish me to take back those shares at par?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly! I knew you would! I knew you'd see it in that way!” cried + Mortimer heartily. “Confound it all, Quarrier, I've always said you were + that sort of man—that you'd never let a friend in on the top floor, + and kick him clear to the cellar! As a matter of fact, I sold out at ten + and three-eighths. Wait! Here's a pencil. Lydia, give me that pad on your + desk. Here you are, Quarrier. It's easy enough to figure out how much you + owe me.” + </p> + <p> + And as Quarrier slowly began tracing figures on the pad, Mortimer rambled + on, growing more demonstrative and boisterous every moment. “It's white of + you, Quarrier—I'll say that! Legally, of course, you could laugh at + me; but I've always said your business conscience would never let you + stand for this sort of thing. 'You can talk and talk,' I've told people, + many a time, 'but you'll never convince me that Howard Quarrier hasn't a + heart.' No, by jinks! they couldn't make me believe it. And here's my + proof—here's my vindication! Lydia, would you mind hunting up that + cheque-book I left here before dinn—” + </p> + <p> + He had made a mistake. The girl flushed. He choked up, and cast a startled + glance at Quarrier. But Quarrier, if he heard, made no motion of + understanding. Perhaps it had not been necessary to convince him of the + conspiracy. + </p> + <p> + When he had finished his figures he reviewed them, tracing each total with + his pencil's point; then quietly handed the pad to Mortimer who went over + it, and nodded that it was correct. + </p> + <p> + Lydia rose. Quarrier said, without looking at her: “I have a blank cheque + with me. May I use one of these pens?” + </p> + <p> + So he had brought a cheque! Had he supposed that a cheque might be + necessary when Lydia called him up? Was he prepared to meet any demand of + hers, too, even before Mortimer appeared on the scene? + </p> + <p> + “As long as you have a cheque with you, Howard,” said Lydia quietly, + “suppose you simply add to Mr. Mortimer's amount what you had intended to + offer me?” + </p> + <p> + He stared at her without answering. + </p> + <p> + “That little remembrance for old time's sake. Don't you recollect?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Howard! Didn't you promise me all sorts of things when I wanted to + go to your friend Mr. Siward, and explain that it was not his fault I got + into the Patroons Club? Don't you remember I felt dreadfully that he was + expelled—that I was simply wild to write to the governors and tell + them how I took Merkle's clothes and drove to the club and waited until I + saw a lot of men go in, and then crowded in with the push?” + </p> + <p> + Mortimer was staring at Quarrier out of his protruding eyes. The girl + leaned forward, deliberate, self-possessed, the red lips edged with + growing scorn. + </p> + <p> + “That was a dirty trick!” said Mortimer heavily. He took the pad, added a + figure, passed it to Lydia, and she coolly wrote a total, underscoring it + heavily. + </p> + <p> + “That is the amount,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier looked at the pad which she had tossed upon the desk. Then he + slowly wetted his pen with ink, and, laying the loose cheque flat, began + to fill it in. Afterward he dried it, and, reading it carefully, pushed it + aside and rose. + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn't be advisable for you to stop payment, you know,” observed + Mortimer insolently, lying back in his chair and stretching his legs. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Quarrier, pausing to turn on them a deathly stare. Then he + went away. After awhile they heard the door close. But there was no sound + from the electric hansom, and Mortimer rose and walked to the window. + </p> + <p> + “He's gone,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Lydia stood at the desk, examining the cheque. + </p> + <p> + “We ought to afford a decent touring-car now,” she suggested—“like + that yellow and black Serin-Chanteur car of Mr. Plank's.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII THE SELLING PRICE + </h2> + <p> + The heat, which had been severe in June, driving the last fashionable + loiterer into the country, continued fiercely throughout July. August was + stifling; the chestnut leaves in the parks curled up and grew brittle; the + elms were blotched; brown stretches scarred the lawns; the blazing colour + of the geranium beds seemed to intensify the heat, like a bed of living + coals. + </p> + <p> + Nobody who was anybody remained in town—except some wealthy business + men and their million odd employés; but the million, being nobodies, + didn't count. + </p> + <p> + Nobody came into town; that is to say that a million odd strangers came as + usual, swelling the sweltering, resident population sufficiently to + animate the main commercial thoroughfares morning and evening, but they + didn't count; the money they spent was, however, very carefully counted. + </p> + <p> + The fashionable columns of the newspapers informed the fashionable + ex-urbanated that the city was empty—though the East Side reeked + like a cattle-pen, and another million or two gasped on the hot, tin roofs + under the stars, or buried their dirty faces in the parched park grass. + </p> + <p> + What the press meant to say was that the wealthy section of the city + within the shadow of St. Patrick's twin white spires and north of + Fifty-ninth Street was as empty and silent as an abandoned gold-mine. + Which was true. Miles of elaborate, untenanted dwellings glimmered blank + under the moon and stood tomb-like in barren magnificence against the + blazing blue of noon. Miles of plate-glass windows, boarded, or bearing + between lowered shade and dusty pane the significant parti-coloured + placard warning the honest thief, stared out at the heated park or, in the + cross streets, confronted each other with inert hauteur, awaiting the + pleasure of their absent owners. + </p> + <p> + The humidity increased; the horses' heads hung heavily under their + ridiculously pitiful straw bonnets. When the sun was vertical nobody + stirred; when the bluish shadows began to creep out over baked sidewalks, + broadening to a strip of superheated shade, a few stirred abroad in the + deserted streets; here a policeman, thin blue summer tunic open, helmet in + hand, swabbing the sweat from forehead and neck; there a white uniformed + street sweeper dragging his rubber-edged mop or a section of wet hose; + perhaps a haggard peddler of lemonade making for the Park wall around the + Metropolitan Museum where, a little later, the East Side would venture out + to sit on the benches, or the great electric tourists' busses would halt + to dump out a living cargo—perhaps only the bent figure of a woman, + very shabby, very old, dragging her ancient bones along the silent + splendour of Fifth Avenue, and peering about the gutters for something she + never finds—always peering, always mumbling the endless, wordless, + soundless miserere of the poor. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier's huge limestone mansion, looming golden in the sun, was + tenantless; its owner, closing even The Sedges, his Long Island house, and + driven northward for a breath of air, was expected at Shotover. + </p> + <p> + The house of Mrs. Mortimer was closed and boarded up; the Caithness + mansion was closed; the Ferralls', the Bonnesdels', the Pages', the + Shannons', Mrs. Vendenning's, all were sealed up like vaults. A caretaker + apparently guarded Major Belwether's house, peeping out at intervals from + behind the basement windows. As for Plank's great pile of masonry, edging + the outer Hundreds in the north, several lighted windows were to be seen + in it at night, and a big yellow and black touring-car whizzed down town + from its bronze gateway every morning with perfect regularity. + </p> + <p> + For there was a fight on that had steadily grown hotter with the weather, + and Plank had little time to concern himself with the temperature or to + mop his red features over the weather bureau report. Harrington and + Quarrier were after him, horse, foot, and dragoons; Harrington had even + taken a house at Seabright in order to be near in person; and Quarrier's + move from Long Island to Shotover House was not as flippant as it might + appear, for he had his private car there and a locomotive at Black Fells + Crossing station, and he was within striking distance of Rochester, Utica, + Syracuse, and Albany. Which was what Harrington thought necessary. + </p> + <p> + The vast unseen machinery set in motion by Harrington and Quarrier had + begun to grind in May; and, at the first audible rumble, the aspect of + things financial in the country changed. A few industrials began to + rocket, nobody knew why; but the market's first tremor left it baggy and + spineless, and the reaction, already overdue, became a sodden and soggy + slump. Nobody knew why. + </p> + <p> + The noise of the fray in the papers, which had first excited then stunned + the outside public, continued in a delirium of rumour, report, forecast, + and summing up at the week's end. + </p> + <p> + Scare heads, involving everybody and everything, from the + District-Attorney to Plank's office boy, succeeded one another. Plank's + name headed column after column. Already becoming familiar in the society + and financial sections, it began to appear in neighbouring paragraphs. Who + was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less inaccuracy, + humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers tried to tell + that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments good-natured or + ill-natured according to circumstances over which somebody ought to have + some control. What was Harrington trying to do to Plank—if he was + trying to do anything? They told that pretty clearly. What was Quarrier + going to do to Plank? That, also, they explained in lively detail. A few + clergymen who stuck to their churches began to volunteer pulpit opinions + concerning the ethics of the battle. A minister who was generally supposed + to make an unmitigated nuisance of himself in politics dealt Plank an + unexpected blow by saying that he was a “hero.” Some papers called him + “Hero” Plank for awhile, but soon tired of it or forgot it under the + stress of the increasing heat. + </p> + <p> + Besides Plank scarcely noticed what the press said of him. He was too + busy; his days were full days, brimming over deep into the night. Brokers, + lawyers, sycophants, tipsters, treacherous ex-employés of Quarrier, + detectives, up-State petty officials, lobbyists from Albany, newspaper + men, men from Wall Street, Broad Street, Mulberry Street, Forty-second + Street—all these he saw in units, relays, regiments—either at + his offices or after dinner—and sometimes after midnight in his own + house. And these were only a few, picked from the interested or + disinterested thousands who besieged him with advice, importunity, + threats, and attempted blackmail. And he handled them all in turn, + stolidly but with decision. His obstinate under lip protruded further and + further with rare recessions; his heavy head was like the lowered head of + a bull. Undaunted, inexorable, slow to the verge of stupidity at times, at + times swift as a startled tiger, this new, amazing personality steadily + developing, looming higher, heavier, athwart the financial horizon—in + stature holding his own among giants, then growing, gradually, inch by + inch, dominated his surrounding level sky line. + </p> + <p> + The youth in him was the tragedy to the old; the sudden silence of the man + the danger to the secretive. Harrington was already an old man; Quarrier's + own weapon had always been secrecy; but the silence of Plank confused him, + for he had never learned to parry well another's use of his own weapon. + The left-handed swordsman dreads to cross with a man who fights with the + left hand. And Harrington, hoary, seamed, scarred, maimed in onslaughts of + long forgotten battles, looked long and hard upon this weird of his own + dead youth which now rose towering to confront him, menacing him with the + armed point of the same shield behind which he himself had so long found + shelter—the Law! + </p> + <p> + The closing of the courts enforced armed truces along certain lines of + Plank's battle front; the adjournment of the legislature emptied Albany. + Once it was rumoured that Plank had passed an entire morning with the + Governor of the greatest State in the Union and that the conference was to + be repeated. A swarm of newspaper men settled about the Governor's summer + cottage at Saratoga, but they learned nothing, nor could they find a trace + of Plank's tracks in the trodden trails of the great Spa. + </p> + <p> + Besides, the racing had begun; Desmond, Burbank, Sneed, and others of the + gilded guild had opened new club-houses; the wretched, half-starved + natives in the surrounding hills were violating the game-laws to distend + the paunches of the overfed with five-inch troutlings and grouse and + woodcock slaughtered out of season; so there was plenty of copy for + newspaper men without the daily speculative paragraph devoted to the + doings of Beverly Plank. Some scandal, too—but newspapers never + touch that; and after all it was nobody's affair that Leroy Mortimer drove + a large yellow and black Serin-Chanteur touring-car, new model, all over + Saratoga county. Perhaps the similarity of machines gave rise to the + rumour of Plank's presence; perhaps not, because the car was often driven + by a tall, slender girl with dark eyes and hair; and nobody ever saw that + sort of pretty woman in Plank's Serin, or saw Leroy Mortimer for many days + without a companion of that species. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer's health was excellent. The races had not proved remunerative + however, and his new motor-car was horribly expensive. So was Lydia. And + he began to be seriously afraid that by the end of August he would be + obliged to apply to Quarrier once more for some slight temporary token of + that gentleman's goodwill. He told Lydia this, and she seemed to agree + with him. This pleased him. She had not pleased him very much recently. + For one thing she was becoming too friendly with some of his friends—Desmond + in particular. + </p> + <p> + Plank, it was known, had opened his great house at Black Fells. His + servants, gamekeepers, were there; his stables, kennels, greenhouses, + model stock-farm—all had been put in immaculate condition pending + the advent of the master. But Plank had not appeared; his new sea-going + steam yacht still lay in the East River, and, at rare intervals, a + significant glimmer of bunting disclosed the owner's presence aboard for + an hour or two. That was all, however; and the cliff-watchers at Shotover + House and the Fells looked seaward in vain for the big Siwanoa, as yacht + after yacht, heralded by the smudge on the horizon, turned from a gray + speck to a white one, and crept in from the sea to anchor. + </p> + <p> + The Ferralls were at Shotover with their first instalment of guests. + Sylvia was there, Quarrier expected—because Kemp Ferrall's break + with him was not a social one, and Grace's real affection for Sylvia + blinded neither her nor her husband to the material and social importance + of the intimacy. Siward was not invited; neither had an invitation to him + been even discussed in view of what Grace was aware of, and what everybody + knew concerning the implacable relations existing between him, personally, + and Howard Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + Bridge, yachting, and motoring were the August sports; the shooting set + had not yet arrived, of course; in fact there was still another relay + expected before the season opened and brought the shooting coterie for the + first two weeks. But Sylvia was expected to last through and hold over + with a brief interlude for a week's end at Lenox. So was Quarrier; and + Grace, always animated by a lively but harmless malice, hoped to Heaven + that Plank might arrive before Quarrier left, because she adored the + tension of situations and was delightedly persuaded that Plank was more + than able to hold his own with her irritating cousin. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, to see them together in a small room,” she sighed ecstatically in + Sylvia's ear; “I'd certainly poke them up if they only turned around + sulkily in the corners of the cage and evinced a desire to lie down.” + </p> + <p> + “What a mischief-maker you are,” said Sylvia listlessly; and though Grace + became very vivacious in describing her plans to extract amusement out of + Plank's hoped-for presence Sylvia remained uninterested. + </p> + <p> + There seemed, in fact, little to interest her that summer at Shotover + House; and, though she never refused any plans made for her, and her + attitude was one of quiet acquiescence always—she never expressed a + preference for anything, a desire to do anything; and, if let alone, was + prone to pace the cliffs or stretch her slim, rounded body on the sand of + some little, sheltered, crescent beach, apparently content with the + thunderous calm of sea and sky. + </p> + <p> + Her interest, too, in people had seemingly been extinguished. Once or + twice she did inquire as to Marion's whereabouts, and learned that Miss + Page was fishing in Minnesota somewhere but would return to Shotover when + the shooting opened. Somebody, Captain Voucher, perhaps, mentioned to + somebody in her hearing that Siward was still in New York. If she heard + she made no sign, no inquiry. The next morning she remained abed with a + headache, and Grace motored to Wendover without her; but Sylvia spent the + balance of the day on the cliffs, and played Bridge with the devil's own + luck till dawn, piling up a score that staggered Mr. Fleetwood, who had + been instructing her in adversary play a day or two before. + </p> + <p> + The hot month dragged on; Quarrier came; Agatha Caithness arrived a few + days later—scheme of the Ferralls involving Alderdene!—but the + Siwanoa did not come, and Plank remained invisible. Leila Mortimer arrived + from Swan's Harbour toward the middle of the month, offering no + information as to the whereabouts of what Major Belwether delicately + designated as her “legitimate.” But everybody knew he was at last to be + crossed off and struck clean out, and the ugly history of the winter, now + so impudently corroborated at Saratoga, gave many a hostess the + opportunity long desired. Mortimer, as far as his own particular circle + was concerned, was down and out; Leila, accepted as a matter of course + without him, remained quietly uncommunicative. If the outward physical + change in her was due to her marital rupture people thought it was well + that it had come in time, for she bloomed like a lovely exotic; and her + silences and enthusiasms, and the fragrant freshness of her developing + attitude toward the world first disconcerted, then amused, then touched + those who had supposed themselves to be so long a buckler for her foibles + and a shield for her caprice. + </p> + <p> + “Gad,” said Alderdene, “she's well rid of him if he's been choking her + this long—the rank, rotten weed that he is, sapping the life from + her so when she hung over toward another fellow's bush we thought she was + frail in the stem—God bless us all for a simpering lot of + blatherskites!” + </p> + <p> + And if, in the corner of the gun-room, there was a man among them who had + ever ventured to hold Leila's smooth little hand, unrebuked, in days gone + by, none the less he knew that Alderdene spoke truth; and none the less he + knew that what witness he might be called to bear at the end of the end of + all must only incriminate himself and not that young matron who now, + before their very eyes, was budding again, reverting to the esoteric charm + of youth reincarnated. + </p> + <p> + “A suit before a referee would settle him,” mused Voucher; “he hasn't a + leg to stand on. Lord! The same cat that tripped up Stephen Siward!” + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood's quick eyes glimmered for an instant in Quarrier's direction. + Quarrier was in the billiard-room, out of earshot, practising balk-line + problems with Major Belwether; and Fleetwood said: “The same cat that + tripped up Stephen Siward. Yes. But who let her loose?” + </p> + <p> + “It was your dinner; you ought to know,” said Voucher bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “I do know. He brought her”—nodding toward the billiard-room. + </p> + <p> + “Belwether?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” yawned Fleetwood. + </p> + <p> + Somebody said presently: “Isn't he one of the Governors? Oh, I say, that + was rather rough on Siward though.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, rough. The law of trespass ought to have operated; a man's liable + for the damage done by his own live-stock.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a brutal way of talking,” said somebody. And the subject was + closed with the entrance of Agatha in white flannels on her way to the + squash court where she had an appointment with Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “A strange girl,” said somebody after she had disappeared with Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “That pallor is stunning,” said a big, ruddy youth, with sunburn on his + neck and forehead. + </p> + <p> + “It isn't healthy,” said Fleetwood. + </p> + <p> + “It attracts me,” persisted the ruddy young man, voicing naively that + curious truth concerning the attraction that disease so often exerts on + health—the strange curiosity the normal has for the sub-normal—that + fascination of the wholesome for the unhealthy. It is, perhaps, more + curiosity than anything, unless, deep hidden under the normal, there lie + one single, perverted nerve. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, passing the hall, glanced in through the gun-room door with an + absentminded smile at the men and their laughing greeting, as they rose + with uplifted glasses to salute her. + </p> + <p> + “The sweetest of all,” observed a man, disconsolately emptying his glass. + “Oh irony! What a marriage!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know any girl who would not change places with her?” asked + another. + </p> + <p> + Every man there insisted that he knew one girl at least who would not + exchange Sylvia's future for her own. That was very nice of them; it is to + be hoped they believed it. Some of them did—for the moment, anyhow. + Then Alderdene, blinking furiously, emitted one of his ear-racking laughs; + and everybody, as usual, laughed too. + </p> + <p> + “You damned cynic,” observed Voucher affectionately. + </p> + <p> + “Somebody,” said Fleetwood, “insists that she doubled up poor Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “She never met Siward until she was engaged to Howard,” remarked Voucher. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don't you consider that enough to squelch the story?” + </p> + <p> + “Engaged girls,” mused Alderdene, “never double up except at Bridge.” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody has been or is in love with Sylvia Landis,” said Voucher, “and + it's a man's own fault if he's hit. Once she did it, innocently enough, + and enjoyed it, never realising that it hurt a man to be doubled up.” + </p> + <p> + Fleetwood yawned again and said: “She can have me to-morrow. But she + won't. She's tired of the sport. Any girl would get enough with the pack + at her heels day in and day out. Besides she's done for—unless she + looses Quarrier and starts on a duke-hunt over in Blinky's country!... Is + anybody on for a sail? Is anybody on for anything? No? Oh, very well. + Shove that decanter north by west, Billy.” + </p> + <p> + This was characteristic of the dog-days at Shotover. The dog-days in town + were very different; the city threw open the parks to the poor at night; + horses fell dead in the streets; pallid urchins, stripped naked, splashed + and rolled and screeched in the basin of the City Hall fountain under the + indifferent eyes of the police. + </p> + <p> + As for Plank he was too busy to know what the thermometer was about; he + had no time for anything outside of his own particular business except to + go every day to the big, darkened house in lower Fifth Avenue where the + days had been hard on Siward and the nights harder. + </p> + <p> + Siward, however, could walk now, using his crutches still, but often + stopping to gently test his left foot and see how much weight he was able + to bear on it—even taking a tentative step or two without crutch + support. He drove when he thought it prudent to use the horses in the + heat, usually very early in the morning, though sometimes at night with + Plank when the latter had time to run his touring-car through the park and + out into the Bronx or Westchester for a breath of air. + </p> + <p> + But Plank wanted him to go away, get out of the city for his + convalescence, and Siward flatly declined, demanding that Plank permit him + to do his share in the fight against the Inter-County people. + </p> + <p> + And Plank, utterly unable to persuade him, and the more hampered because + of his anxiety about Siward—though that young man did not know it—wore + himself out providing Siward with such employment in the matter as would + lightly occupy him without doing any good to the enemy. + </p> + <p> + So Siward, stripped to his pajamas, pored over reams of typewritten matter + and took his brief walking exercise in the comparative cool of the evening + and drove when he dared use his horses; or, sitting beside Plank, whizzed + northward through the starry darkness of the suburbs. + </p> + <p> + When it was that he first began to like Plank very much he could not + exactly remember. He was not, perhaps, aware of how much he liked him. + Plank's unexpected fits of shyness, of formality, often and often amused + him. But there was a subtler feeling under the unexpressed amusement, and, + beneath all, a constantly increasing sub-stratum of respect. Too, he found + himself curiously at ease with Plank, as with one born to his own caste. + And this feeling, unconscious, but more and more apparent, meant more to + Plank than anything that had ever happened to him. It was a tonic in hours + of doubt, a pleasure in his brief leisure, a pride never to be hinted at, + never to be guessed, never to be dreamed of by any living soul save Plank + alone. + </p> + <p> + Then, one sultry day toward the last week in August, a certain judge of a + certain court, known among some as “Harrington's judge,” sent secretly for + Plank. And Plank knew that the crisis was over. But neither Harrington nor + Quarrier dreamed of such a thing. + </p> + <p> + Fear sat heavy on that judge's soul—the godless, selfish fear that + sends the first coward slinking from the councils of conspiracy to seek + immunity from those slowly grinding millstones that grind exceeding fine. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier at Shotover, with his private car and his locomotive within an + hour's drive, strolled with Sylvia on the eve of her departure for Lenox + with Leila Mortimer; then, when their conference was ended, he returned to + Agatha, calmly unconscious of impending events. + </p> + <p> + Harrington, at Seabright, paced his veranda, awaiting this same judge, + annoyed as two boats came in without the expected guest. And never for one + instant did he dream that his creature sat closeted with Plank, tremulous, + sallow, nearing the edge of cringing avowal—only held back from + utter collapse by the agonising necessity of completing a bargain that + might save himself from the degradation of the punishment that had seemed + inevitable. All day long he sat with Plank. Nobody except those two knew + he was there. And after a very long time Plank consented that nobody else + except Siward and Harrington and Quarrier should ever know. So he called + up Harrington on the telephone, saying that there was, in the office, + somebody who desired to speak to him. And when Harrington caught the + judge's first faint, stammered word he reeled where he stood, ashen, + unbelieving, speechless. The shaking but remorseless voice went on, + dinning horribly in his ear, then ceased, and Plank's heavy voice sounded + the curt coup de grâce. + </p> + <p> + Harrington was an old man, a very old man, mortally hurt; but he steadied + himself along the wall of his study to the desk and sank into the chair. + </p> + <p> + There he sat, feeling the scars of old wounds throbbing, feeling his age + and the tragedy of it, and the new sensation of fear—fear of the + wraith of his own youth, wearing the mask of Plank, and menacing him with + the menace he had used on others so long ago—so very long ago. + </p> + <p> + After a little while he passed a thin hand over his eyes, over his gray + head, over the mouth that all men watched with fear, over the shaven jaw + now grimly set, but trembling. His hand, too, shook with palsy as he + wrote, painfully picking out the words and figures of the cipher from his + code-book; but he closed his thin lips and squared his unsteady jaw and + wrote his message to Quarrier: + </p> + <p> + “It is all up. Plank will take over Inter-County. Come at once.” + </p> + <p> + And that was all there was to be done until he could come into Plank's + camp with arms and banners, a conquered man, cynical of the mercy he dared + not expect and which, in all his life, he had never, never shown to man, + to woman, or to child. + </p> + <p> + Plank slept the sleep of utter exhaustion that night; the morning found + him haggard but strong, cool in his triumph, serious, stern faced, almost + sad that his work was done, the battle won. + </p> + <p> + From his own house he telegraphed a curt summons to Harrington and to + Quarrier for a conference in his own office; then, finishing whatever + business his morning mail required, put on his hat and went to see the one + man in the world he was most glad for. + </p> + <p> + He found him at breakfast, sipping coffee and wrinkling his brows over the + eternal typewritten pages. And Plank's face cleared at the sight and he + sat down, laughing aloud. + </p> + <p> + “It's all over, Siward,” he said. “Harrington knows it; Quarrier knows it + by this time. Their judge crawled in yesterday and threw himself on our + mercy; and the men whose whip he obeyed will be on their way to surrender + by this time.... Well! Haven't you a word?” + </p> + <p> + “Many,” said Siward slowly; “too many to utter, but not enough to express + what I feel. If you will take two on account, here they are in one phrase: + thank you.” + </p> + <p> + “Debt's cancelled,” said Plank, laughing. “Do you want to hear the + details?” + </p> + <p> + They talked for an hour, and, in the telling, even Plank's stolidity gave + way sufficient to make his heavy voice ring at moments, and the glimmer of + excitement edge his eyes. Yet, in the telling, he scarcely mentioned + himself, never hinted of the personal part—the inspiration which was + his alone; the brunt of the battle which centred in him; the tireless + vigilance; the loneliness of the nights when he lay awake, perplexed with + doubt and nobody to counsel him—because men who wage such wars are + lonely men and must work out their own salvation. No, nobody but his peers + could advise him; and he had thought that his enemy was his peer, until + that enemy surrendered. + </p> + <p> + The narrative exchanged by Plank in return for Siward's intensely + interested questions was a simple, limpid review of a short but terrific + campaign that only yesterday had threatened to rage through court after + court, year after year. In the sudden shock of the cessation from battle, + Plank himself was a little dazed. Yet he himself had expected the treason + that ended all; he himself had foreseen it. He had counted on it as a good + general counts on such things, confidently, but with a dozen plans as + substitutes in case that plan failed—each plan as elaborately worked + out to the last detail as though it alone existed as the only hope of + victory. But if Siward suspected something of this it was not from Plank + that he learned it. + </p> + <p> + “Plank,” he said at last, “there is nothing in the world that men admire + more than a man. It is a good deal of a privilege for me to tell you so.” + </p> + <p> + Plank turned red with surprise and embarrassment, stammering out something + incoherent. + </p> + <p> + That was all that was said about the victory. Siward, unusually gay for + awhile, presently turned sombre; and it was Plank's turn to lift him out + of it by careless remarks about his rapid convalescence, and the chance + for vacation he so much needed. + </p> + <p> + Once Siward looked up vacantly: “Where am I to go?” he asked. “I'd as soon + stay here.” + </p> + <p> + “But I'm going,” insisted Plank. “The Fells is all ready for us.” + </p> + <p> + “The Fells! I can't go there!” + </p> + <p> + “W-what?” faltered Plank, looking at Siward with hurt eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Can't you—don't you understand?” said Siward in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + “No. You once promised—” + </p> + <p> + “Plank, I'll go anywhere except there with you. I'd rather be with you + than with anybody. Can I say more than that?” + </p> + <p> + “I think you ought to, Siward. A—a fellow feels the refusal of his + offered roof-tree.” + </p> + <p> + “Man! man! it isn't your roof I am refusing. I want to go; I'd give + anything to go. If it were anywhere except where it is, I'd go fast + enough. Now do you understand? If—if Shotover House and Shotover + people were not next door to the Fells, I'd go. Now do you understand?” + </p> + <p> + Plank said: “I don't know whether I understand. If you mean Quarrier, he's + on his way here, and he'll have business to keep him here for the next few + months, I assure you. But”—he looked very gravely across at Siward—“if + you don't mean Quarrier—” He hesitated, ill at ease under the + expressionless scrutiny of the other. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know what's the matter with me, Plank?” he asked at length. + </p> + <p> + “I think so.” + </p> + <p> + “I have wondered. I wonder now how much you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Very little, Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “How much?” + </p> + <p> + Plank looked up, hesitated, and shook his head: “One infers from what one + hears.” + </p> + <p> + “Infers what?” + </p> + <p> + “The truth, I suppose,” replied Plank simply. + </p> + <p> + “And what,” insisted Siward, “have you inferred that you believe to be the + truth? Don't parry, Plank; it isn't easy for me, and I—I never + before spoke this way to any man.... It is likely I should have spoken to + my mother about it.... I had expected to. It may be weakness—I don't + know; but I'd like to talk a little about it to somebody. And there's + nobody fit to listen, except you.” + </p> + <p> + “If you feel that way,” said Plank slowly, “I will be very glad to + listen.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel that way. I've been through—some things; I've been pretty + sick, Plank. It tires a man out; a man's head and shoulders get tired. Oh, + I don't mean the usual reaction from self-contempt, disgust—the + dreadful, aching sadness of it all which lasts even while desire, stunned + for the moment, wakens into craving. I don't mean that. It is something + else—a deathly, mental solitude that terrifies. I tell you, no man + except a man smitten by my malady knows what solitude can be!... There! I + didn't mean to be theatrical; I had no intention of—” + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” cut in Plank heavily. + </p> + <p> + “Go on!... Yes, I want to. You know what a pillow is to a tired man's + shoulders. I want to use your sane intelligence to rest on a moment. It's + my brain that's tired, Plank.” + </p> + <p> + Although everybody had cynically used Plank, nobody had ever before found + him a necessity. + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” he said unsteadily. “If I can be of use to you, Siward, in God's + name let me be, for I have never been necessary to anybody in all my + life.” + </p> + <p> + Siward rested his head on one clinched hand: “How much chance do you think + I have?” he asked wearily. + </p> + <p> + “Chance to get well?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Plank considered for a moment, then: “You are not trying, Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “I have been trying since—since March.” + </p> + <p> + “Since March?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Plank looked at him curiously: “What happened in March?” + </p> + <p> + “Had I better tell you?” + </p> + <p> + “You know better than I.” + </p> + <p> + Siward, cheek crushed against his fist, his elbow on the desk, gazed at + him steadily: + </p> + <p> + “In March,” he said, “Miss Landis spoke to me. I've made a better fight + since.” + </p> + <p> + Plank's serious face darkened. “Is she the only anchor you have?” + </p> + <p> + “Plank, I am not even sure of her. I have made a better fight since then; + that is all I dare say. I know what men think about a man like me; I knew + they demand character, pride, self-denial. But, Plank, I am driving faster + and faster toward the breakers, and these anchors are dragging. For it is + not, in my case, the physical failure to obey the will; it is the will + itself that has been attacked from the first. That is the horror of it. + And what is there behind the will-power to strengthen it? Only the source + of will-power—the mind. It is the mind that cannot help me. What am + I to do?” + </p> + <p> + “There is a spiritual strength,” said Plank timidly. + </p> + <p> + “I have never dreamed of denying it,” said Siward. “I have tried to find + it through the accepted sources—accepted by me, too. God has not + helped me in the conventional way or through traditional methods; but that + has not inclined me to doubt Him as the tribunal of last resort,” he added + hastily. “I don't for a moment waver in faith because I am ignorant of the + proper manner to approach Him. The Arbiter of all knows that I desire to + be decent. He must be aware, too, that all anchors save one have failed to + hold me.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean—Miss Landis?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. It may be weakness; it may be to my shame that the cables of pride + and self-respect, even the spiritual respect for the Highest, cannot hold + me when this one anchor holds. All I know is that it holds—so far. + It held me at Shotover; it holds me again, now. And the rocks were close + abeam, Plank—very close—when she spoke to me over the wires, + through the rain, that dark day in March.” + </p> + <p> + He moistened his lips feverishly. + </p> + <p> + “She said that I might see her. I have waited a long time. I have taken my + fighting chance again and I've won out, so far.” + </p> + <p> + He looked up at Plank, curiously embarrassed: + </p> + <p> + “Your body is normal; your intelligence wholesome, balanced, sane; and I + want to ask you if you think that perhaps, without understanding how, I + have found in her, or through her, in some way, the spiritual source that + I think might help me to help myself?” + </p> + <p> + And, as Plank made no reply: + </p> + <p> + “Or am I talking sentimental cant? Don't answer, if you think that. I + can't trust my own mind any more, anyway; and,” with an ugly laugh, “I'll + know it all some day—the sooner the better!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't say that!” growled Plank. “You were sane a moment ago.” + </p> + <p> + Siward looked up sharply, but the other silenced him with a gesture. + </p> + <p> + “Wait! You asked me a perfectly sane question—so wholesome, so + normal, that I'm trying to frame an answer worthy of it! I intimated that + after the physical, the mental, the ethical phenomena, there remained + always the spiritual instinct. Like a wireless current, if a man can + establish communication it is well for him, whatever the method. You + assented, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And you ask me if I believe it possible that she can be the medium?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Plank said deliberately: “Yes, I do think so.” + </p> + <p> + The silence was again broken by Plank: “Siward, you have asked me what I + think. Now you must listen to the end. If you believed that through her—her + love, marrying her—you stood the best chance in the world to win + out, it would be cowardly to ask her to take the risk. As much as I care + for you I had rather see you lose the fight than accept such a risk from + her. Now you know what I think—but you don't know all. Siward, I say + to you that if you are man enough to take her, take her! And I say that of + the two risks she is running to-day, the chance she might take with you is + infinitely the lesser risk. For with you, if you continue slowly losing + your fight, the mental suffering only will be hers. But if she closes this + bargain with Quarrier, selling to him her body, the light will go out of + her soul for ever.” + </p> + <p> + He leaned heavily toward Siward, stretching out his powerful arm: + </p> + <p> + “You marry her; and keep open your spiritual communication through her, if + that is the way it has been established, and hang on to your God that way + until your body is dead! I tell you, Siward, to marry her. I don't care + how you do it; I don't care how you get her. Take her! Yours, of the two, + is the stronger character, or she would not be where she is. Does she want + what you cannot give her? Cure that desire—it is more contemptible + than the craving that shatters you! I say, let the one-eyed lead the + blind. Miracles are worked out by mathematics—if you have faith + enough.” + </p> + <p> + He rose, striding the length of the room once or twice, turned, holding + out his broad hand: + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye,” he said. “Harrington is about due at my office; Quarrier will + probably turn up to-night. I am not vindictive; I shall be just with them—as + just as I know how, which is to be as merciful as I dare be. Good-bye, + Siward. I—I believe you and she are going to get well.” + </p> + <p> + When he had gone, Siward lay back in his chair, very still, eyes closed. A + faint colour had mounted to his face and remained there. + </p> + <p> + It was late in the afternoon when he went down-stairs, using his crutches + lightly. Gumble handed him a straw hat and opened the door, and Siward + cautiously descended the stoop, stood for a few moments on the sidewalk, + looking up at the blue sky, then wheeled and slowly made his way toward + Washington Square. The avenue was deserted; his own house appeared to be + the only remaining house still open in all that old-fashioned but + respectable quarter. + </p> + <p> + He swung leisurely southward, a slim, well-built young fellow, strangely + out of place on crutches. The poor always looked at him; beggars never + importuned him, yet found him agreeable to watch. Children, who seldom + look up into the air far enough to notice grown people, always became + conscious of him when he passed; often smiled, sometimes spoke. As for + stray curs and tramp cats, they were for ever making advances. As long as + he could remember, there was scarcely a week in town but some homeless dog + attached himself to Siward's heels, sometimes trotting several blocks, + sometimes following him home—where the outcast was always cared for, + washed, fed, and ultimately shipped out to the farm, where scores of these + “fresh-air” dogs resided on his bounty and rolled in luxury on his lawns. + </p> + <p> + Cats, too, were prone to notice him, rising as he passed to hoist an + interrogative tail and make tentative observations. + </p> + <p> + In Washington Square, these, and the ragged children, knew him best of + all. The children came from Minetta Lane and the purlieus south and west + of it; the cats from the Mews, which Siward always thought most + appropriate. + </p> + <p> + And now, as he passed the marble arch and entered the square, glancing + behind him he saw the inevitable cat trotting, and, at his left, a very + dirty little girl pretending to trundle a hoop, but plainly enough keeping + sociable pace with him. + </p> + <p> + “Hello!” said Siward. The cat stopped; the child tossed her clustering + curls, gave him a rapid but fearless sidelong glance, laughed, and ran on + in the wake of her hoop. When she caught it she sat down on a bench + opposite the fountain and looked around at Siward. + </p> + <p> + “It's pretty warm, isn't it?” said Siward, coming up and seating himself + on the same bench. + </p> + <p> + “Are you lame?” asked the child. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a little.” + </p> + <p> + “Is your leg broken?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, not now.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that your cat?” + </p> + <p> + Siward looked around; the cat was seated on the bench beside him. But he + was accustomed to that sort of thing, and he caressed the creature with + his gloved hand. + </p> + <p> + “Are you rich?” asked the child, shaking her blond curls from her eyes and + staring up solemnly at him. + </p> + <p> + “Not very,” he answered, smiling. “Why do you ask?” + </p> + <p> + “You look rich, somehow,” said the child shyly. + </p> + <p> + “What! With these old and very faded clothes?” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head, swinging her plump legs: “You look it, somehow. It + isn't the clothes that matter.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you one thing,” said Siward, laughing “I'm rich enough to buy + all the hokey-pokey you can eat!” and he glanced meaningly at the pedlar + of that staple who had taken station between a vender of peaches and a + Greek flower-seller. + </p> + <p> + The child looked, too, but made no comment. + </p> + <p> + “How about it?” asked Siward. + </p> + <p> + “I'd rather have something to remember you by,” said the girl innocently. + </p> + <p> + “What?” he said, perplexed. + </p> + <p> + “A rose. They are five cents, and hokey-pokey costs that much—I + mean, for as much as you can eat.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really want a rose?” he said amused. + </p> + <p> + But the child fell shy, and he beckoned the Greek and selected a dozen + big, perfumed jacks. + </p> + <p> + Then, as the child sat silent, her ragged arms piled with roses, he asked + her jestingly what else she desired. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. I like to look at you,” she answered simply. + </p> + <p> + “And I like to look at you. Will you tell me your name?” + </p> + <p> + “Molly.” + </p> + <p> + But that is all the information he could extract. Presently she said she + was going, hesitated, looked a very earnest good-bye, and darted away + across the park, her hoop over one arm, the crimson roses bobbing above + her shoulders. Something in her flight attracted the errant cat, for she, + too, jumped down and bounded after the little flying feet, but, catlike, + halted half-way to scratch, and then forgetting what she was about, + wandered off toward the Mews again, whence she had been lured by + instinctive fascination. + </p> + <p> + Siward, intensely amused, sat there in the late sunlight which streamed + through the park, casting long shadows from the elms and sycamores. It was + that time of the day, just before sunset, when the old square looked to + him as he remembered it as a child. Even the marble arch, pink in the + evening sun, did not disturb the harmony of his memories. He saw his + father once more, walking home from down town, tall, slim, laughingly + stopping to watch him as he played there with the other children—the + nurses, seated in a row, crocheting under the sycamores; he saw the + old-fashioned carriage pass, Mockett on the box, Wands beside him, and his + pretty mother leaning forward to wave her hand to him as the long-tailed, + long-maned horses wheeled into Fifth Avenue. Little unimportant scenes, + trivial episodes, grew in the spectral garden of memory: the first time he + ever saw Marion Page, when, aged five, she was attempting to get into the + fountain, pursued by a shrieking nurse; and a certain flight across the + grass he had indulged in with Leila Mortimer, then Leila Egerton, aged + six, in hot pursuit, because she found that it bored him horribly to be + kissed, and she was bound to do it. He had a fight once, over by that + gnarled, old, silver poplar-tree, with Kemp Ferrall—he could not + remember what about, only that they ended by unanimously assaulting their + nurses and were dragged howling homeward. + </p> + <p> + He turned, looking across to where the gray towers of the University once + stood. There had been an old stone church there, too; and, south of that, + old, old houses with hip-roofs and dormers where now the high white cliffs + of modern architecture rose, riddled with tiny windows, every vane + glittering in the sun. South, the old houses still remained, now degraded + to sordid uses. North, the square, red-brick mansions, with their white + pillars and steps, still faced the sunset—the last practically + unbroken rank of the old régime, the last of the old guard, standing fast + and still confronting, still resisting the Inevitable looming in limestone + and granite, story piled on story, aloft in the kindling, southern sky. + </p> + <p> + A cab, driven smartly, passed through the park, the horses' feet slapping + the asphalt till the echoes rattled back from the marble arch. He followed + it idly with his eyes up Fifth Avenue; saw it suddenly halt in the middle + of the street; saw a woman spring out, stand for a moment talking to her + companion, then turn and look toward the square. + </p> + <p> + She stood so long, and she was so far away, that he presently grew tired + of watching her. A dozen ragged urchins were prowling around the fountain, + casting sidelong glances at a distant policeman. But it was not hot enough + that evening to permit the children to splash in the water, and the + policeman drove them off. + </p> + <p> + “Poor little devils!” said Siward to himself; and he rose, adjusted his + crutches, and started through the park with a vague idea of seeing what + could be done. + </p> + <p> + As he limped onward, the sun level in his eyes, he heard somebody speak + behind him, but did not catch the words or apply the hail to himself. + Then, “Mr. Siward!” came the low, breathless voice at his elbow. + </p> + <p> + His heart stopped as he did. The sun had dazzled his eyes, and when he + turned on his crutches he could not see clearly for a second. That past, + he looked at Sylvia, looked at her outstretched hand, took it + mechanically, still staring at her with only a dazed unbelief in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I am in town for a day,” she said. “Leila Mortimer and I were driving up + town from the bank when we saw you; and the next thing that happened was + me, on Fifth Avenue, running after you—no, the next thing was my + flying leap from the hansom, and my standing there looking down the street + and across the square where you sat. Then Leila told me I was probably + crazy, and I immediately confirmed her diagnosis by running after you!” + </p> + <p> + She stood laughing, flushed, sunburned, and breathless, her left hand + still in his, her right hand laid over it. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said, with a sudden change to anxiety, “does it tire you to + stand?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I was going to saunter along.” + </p> + <p> + “May I saunter with you for a moment? I mean—I only mean, I am glad + to see you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I am going to let you go now?” he asked, astonished. + </p> + <p> + She looked at him, then her eyes evaded his: “Let us walk a little,” she + said, withdrawing her hand, “if you think you are strong enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Strong! Look, Sylvia!” and he stood unsupported by his crutches, then + walked a little way, slowly, but quite firmly. “I am rather a coward about + my foot, that is all. I shall not lug these things about after to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “Did the doctor say you might?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, after to-day. I could walk home now without them. I could do a good + many things I couldn't do a few minutes ago. Isn't that curious?” + </p> + <p> + “Very,” she said, avoiding his eyes. + </p> + <p> + He laughed. She dared not look at him. The excitement and impetus of sheer + impulse had carried her this far; now all the sadness of it was clutching + hard at her throat and for awhile she could not speak—walking there + in her dainty, summer gown beside him, the very incarnation of youth and + health, with the sea-tan on wrist and throat, and he, white, hollow-eyed, + crippled, limping, at her elbow! + </p> + <p> + Yet at that very moment his whole frame seemed to glow and his heart + clamour with the courage in it, for he was thinking of Plank's words and + he knew Plank had spoken the truth. She could not give herself to + Quarrier, if he stood firm. His was the stronger will after all; his was + the right to interfere, to stop her, to check her, to take her, draw her + back—as he had once drawn her from the fascination of destruction + when she had swayed out too far over the cliffs at Shotover. + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember that?” he asked, and spoke of the incident. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I remember,” she replied, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Doctors say” he continued, “that there is a weak streak in people who are + affected by great heights, or who find a dizzy fascination drawing them + toward the brink of precipices.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean me?” she asked, amused. + </p> + <p> + But he continued serenely: “You have seen those pigeons called 'tumbler + pigeons' suddenly turn a cart-wheel in mid-air? Scientists say it's not + for pleasure they do it; it's because they get dizzy. In other words, they + are not perfectly normal.” + </p> + <p> + She said, laughing: “Well, you never saw me turn a cart-wheel!” + </p> + <p> + “Only a moral one,” he replied airily. + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, what on earth do you mean? You're not going to be disagreeable, + are you?” + </p> + <p> + “I am going to be so agreeable,” he said, laughing, “that you will find it + very difficult to tear yourself away.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no doubt of it, but I must, and very soon.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not going to let you.” + </p> + <p> + “It can't be helped,” she said, looking up at him. “I came in with Leila. + We're asked to Lenox for the week's end. We go to Stockbridge on the early + train to-morrow morning. + </p> + <p> + “I don't care,” he said doggedly; “I'm not going to let you go yet.” + </p> + <p> + “If I took to my heels here in the park would you chase me, Stephen?” she + asked with mock anxiety. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; and if I couldn't run fast enough I'd call that policeman. Now do + you begin to understand?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I've always understood that you were spoiled. I'm partly guilty of + the spoiling process, too. Listen: I'll walk with you a little way”—she + looked at him—“a little way,” she continued gently; “then I must go. + There is only a caretaker in our house and Leila will be furious if I + leave her all alone. Besides, we're going to dine there and it won't be + very gay if I don't give a few orders first.” + </p> + <p> + “But you brought your maid?” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “Then telephone her that you and Leila are dining out.” + </p> + <p> + “Where, silly? Do you want us to dine somewhere with you?” + </p> + <p> + “Want you! You've got to!” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, it isn't best.” + </p> + <p> + “It is best.” + </p> + <p> + She turned to him impulsively: “Oh, I do want to so much! Do you think I + might? It is perfectly delicious to see you again. I—you have no + idea—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I have,” he said sternly. + </p> + <p> + They turned, walking past the fountain toward Fifth Avenue again. + Furtively she glanced at his hands with the city pallor on them as they + grasped the cross-bars of the crutches, then looked up at his worn face. + He was much thinner, but now in the softly fading light the shadows under + the eyes and cheek-bones seemed less sharp, his face fuller and more + boyish; the contour of head and shoulders, the short, crisp hair were as + she remembered—and the old charm held her, the old fascination grew, + tightening her throat, stealing through every vein, stirring her pulses, + awakening imperceptibly once more the best in her. The twilight of a + thousand years seemed to slip from the world as she looked out at it + through eyes opening from a long, long sleep; the marble arch burned rosy + in the evening glow; a fairy haze hung over the enchanted avenue, + stretching away, away into the blue magic of the city of dreams. + </p> + <p> + “There is no use,” she said under her breath; “I can't go back to Leila. + Stephen, the dreadful part of it is that I—I wish she were in + Jericho! I wish the whole world were in Ballyhoo, and you and I alone once + more!” + </p> + <p> + Under their gay laughter quivered the undertone of excitement. Sylvia + said: + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to talk to you all alone. It won't do, of course; but I may say + what I'd like—mayn't I? What time is it? If I'm dining with you + we've got to have Leila for convention's sake, if not from motives of + sheer decency, which you and I seem to lack, Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + “We lack decency,” said Siward, “and we're proud of it. As for Leila, I am + going to arrange for her very simply but very beautifully. Plank will take + care of her. Sylvia! There's not a soul in town and we can be as imprudent + as we please.” + </p> + <p> + “No, we can't. Agatha's at the Santa Regina. She came down with us.” + </p> + <p> + “But we are not going to dine at the Santa Regina. We're going where + Agatha wouldn't intrude her colourless nose—to a thoroughly + unfashionable and selectly common resort overlooking the classic Harlem; + and we're going to whiz thither in Plank's car, and remain thither until + you yawn for mercy, whence we will return thence—” + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, you silly! I'm perfectly mad to go with you!” + </p> + <p> + “You'll be madder when you get there, if the table has not improved.” + </p> + <p> + “Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!” Then with sudden + self-reproach and quick solicitude: “Am I making you walk too far? + Wouldn't you like to go in now?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I'm not tired; I'm millions of years younger, and I'm as strong as + the nine gods of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven't I waited for this?” + and under his breath, fiercely, “Haven't I waited!” he repeated, turning + on her. + </p> + <p> + “Do—do you mean that as a reproach?” she asked, lowering her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “No. I knew you would not come on 'the first sunny day.'” + </p> + <p> + “Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I am?” + </p> + <p> + “I did not think you would come,” he repeated, halting to rest on his + crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; + and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, + listless, sombre in its fixedness. + </p> + <p> + The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked speech. + At length she stammered: “I did not come b-because I simply couldn't stand + it!” + </p> + <p> + His face cleared as he turned quietly: “Child, you must not confuse + matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is + passing—ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted + order of things is being reversed. You don't know what I mean, do you? Ah, + well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you + remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was.” + </p> + <p> + “Truly I don't understand, Stephen. But then—I am out of training + since you went—went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more + dull? I—it has not been very gay with me. I don't see—looking + back across all the noise, all the chaos of the winter—I do not see + how I stood it alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Alone?” + </p> + <p> + “N-not seeing you—sometimes.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. “Didn't you enjoy the + winter?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?” + </p> + <p> + His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the + fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation: + </p> + <p> + “Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that! Dear, + do you dream for one moment that—that I could—” + </p> + <p> + “No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the frown + gathering between his temples. + </p> + <p> + They were passing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white façade and + green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city. + </p> + <p> + “We'll telephone here,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Side by side they went up the great, broad stoop and entered the lobby. + </p> + <p> + “If you'll speak to Leila, I'll get Plank on the wire. Say that we'll stop + for you at seven.” + </p> + <p> + She gave her number; then, at the nod of the operator, entered a small + booth. Siward was given another booth in a few moments. + </p> + <p> + Plank answered from his office; his voice sounded grave and tired but it + quickened, tinged with surprise, when Siward made known his plan for the + evening. + </p> + <p> + “Is Mrs. Mortimer in town?” he demanded. “I had a wire from her that she + expected to be here and I hoped to see her at the station to-morrow on her + way to Lenox.” + </p> + <p> + “She's stopping with Miss Landis. Can't you manage to come?” asked Siward + anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Do you wish it particularly? I have just seen Quarrier and + Harrington. I can't quite understand Quarrier's attitude. There's a + certain hint of defiance about it. Harrington is all caved in. He is ready + to thank us for any mercies. But Quarrier—there's something I don't + fancy, don't exactly understand about his attitude. He's like a dangerous + man whom you've searched for concealed weapons, and who knows you've + overlooked the knife up his sleeve. That's why I've expected to spend a + quiet evening, studying up the matter and examining every loophole.” + </p> + <p> + “You've got to dine somewhere,” said Siward. “If you could fix it to dine + with us—But I won't urge you.” + </p> + <p> + “All right. I don't know why I shouldn't. I don't know why I feel this way + about things. I—I rather felt—you'll laugh, Siward!—that + somehow I'd better not go out of my own house to-night; that I was safer, + better off in my own house, studying this Quarrier matter out. I'm tired, + I suppose; and this man Quarrier has come close to worrying me. But it's + all right, of course, if you wish it. You know I haven't any nerves.” + </p> + <p> + “If you are tired—” began Siward. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, I'm not. I'll go. Will you say that we'll stop for them at seven? + Really, it's all right, Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to urge you,” repeated Siward. + </p> + <p> + “You're not. I'll go. But—wait one moment tell me, did Quarrier know + that Mrs. Mortimer was to stop with Miss Landis?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment. Hold the wire.” + </p> + <p> + He opened the door of the booth and saw Sylvia waiting for him, seated by + the operator's desk. She rose at once when she saw he wished to speak with + her. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me something,” he said in a low voice; “did Mr. Quarrier know that + Leila was to stay overnight with you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she answered quietly, surprised. “Why?” + </p> + <p> + Siward nodded vaguely, closed the door again, and said to Plank: + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Quarrier knows it. Do you think he'll be there to-night? I don't + suppose Miss Landis and Mrs. Mortimer know he is in town.” + </p> + <p> + Plank's troubled voice came back over the wire: “I don't know. I don't + know what to think. I suppose I'm a little, just a trifle, overworked. + Somebody once said that I had one nerve in me somewhere, and Quarrier's + probably found it; that's all.” + </p> + <p> + “If you think it better not to come—” + </p> + <p> + “I'll come. I'll stop for you in the motor. Don't worry, old fellow! And—take + your fighting chance! Good-bye!” + </p> + <p> + Siward, absorbed in his own thoughts, rose and walked slowly out of the + booth, utterly unconscious that he had left his crutches leaning upright + in the corner. It was only the surprise dawning into tremulous delight on + Sylvia's face that at last arrested him. + </p> + <p> + “See what you have done!” he said, laughing through his own surprise. + “I've a mind to leave them there now, and trust to your new cure.” + </p> + <p> + But she was instantly concerned and anxious, and entering the booth + brought out the crutches and forced him to take them. + </p> + <p> + “No risks now!” she said decisively. “We have too much at stake this + evening. Leila is coming. Isn't it perfectly delightful?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly,” he said, his eyes full of the old laughing confidence again; + “and the most delightful part of it all is that you don't know how + delightful it is going to be.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't I? Very well. Only I inform you that I mean to be perfectly happy! + And that means that I'm going to do as I please! And that means—oh, + it may mean anything! What are you laughing at, Stephen? I know I'm + excited. I don't care! What girl wouldn't be? And I don't know what's + ahead of me at all; and I don't want to know—I don't care!” + </p> + <p> + Her reckless, little laugh rang sweetly in the old-fashioned, deserted + hall; her lovely, daring eyes met his undaunted. + </p> + <p> + “You won't make love to me, will you, Stephen?” + </p> + <p> + “Will you promise me the same?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, silly! How do I know what I might say to you, you big, + blundering boy, who can't take care of himself? I don't know at all; I + won't promise. I'm likely to do anything to-night—even before Leila + and Mr. Plank—when you are with me. Shame on you for the shameless + girl you've educated!” Her voice fell, tremulously, and for an instant + standing there she remembered her education and his part in it. + </p> + <p> + The slow colour in his face reflected the pink confusion in hers. + </p> + <p> + “O tongue! tongue!” she stammered, “I can't hold you in! I can't curb you, + and I can't make you say what you ought to be saying to that boy. There's + trouble coming for somebody; there's trouble here already! Call me a cab, + Stephen, or I'll be dragging you into that big, old-fashioned parlour and + planting you on a chair and placing myself opposite, to moon over you + until somebody puts us out! There! Now will you call me a hansom?... And I + will be all ready at seven.... And don't dare to keep me waiting one + second!... Come before seven. You don't want to frighten me, do you? Very + well then, at a quarter to seven—so I shall not be frightened. And, + Stephen, Stephen, we're doing exactly what we ought not to do. You know + it, don't you? So do I. Nothing can stop us, can it? Good-bye!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV THE BARGAIN + </h2> + <p> + If a man's grief does not awaken his dignity, then he has none. In that + event, grief is not even respectable. And so it was with Leroy Mortimer + when Lydia at last turned on him. If you caress an Angora too long and too + persistently it runs away. And before it goes it scratches. + </p> + <p> + Under all the physical degeneration of mind and flesh there had still + remained in Mortimer the capacity for animal affection; and that does not + mean sensuality alone, but generosity and a sort of routine devotion as + characteristic components of a character which had now disintegrated into + the simplest and most primitive elements. + </p> + <p> + Lydia Vyse left Saratoga when the financial stringency began to make it + unpleasant for her to remain. She told Mortimer without the slightest + compunction that she was going. + </p> + <p> + He did not believe her and he gave her the new car—the big + yellow-and-black Serin-Chanteur. She sold it the same day to a bookmaker—an + old friend of hers; withdrew several jewels from limbo—gems which + Mortimer had given her—and gathered together everything for which, + if he turned ugly, she might not be criminally liable. + </p> + <p> + She had never liked him—she had long disliked him. Such women have + an instinct for their own kind, and no matter how low in the scale a man + of the other kind sinks he can never entirely supply the type of running + mate that such women require, understand, and usually conceive a passion + for. + </p> + <p> + Not liking him she had no hesitation in the matter; disliking him, + whatever unpleasant had occurred during their companionship remained as an + irritant to poison memory. She resented a thousand little incidents that + he scarcely knew had ever existed, but which she treasured without wasting + emotion until the sum total and the time coincided to retaliate. Not that + she would have cared to harm him seriously; she was willing enough to + disoblige him, however—decorate him, before she left him, with one + extra scratch for the sake of auld lang syne. So she wrote a note to the + governors of the Patroons Club, saying that both Quarrier and Mortimer + were aware that the guilt of her escapade could not be attached to Siward; + that she knew nothing of Siward, had accepted his wager without meaning to + attempt to win it, had never again seen him, and had, on the impulse of + the moment, made her entry in the wake of several men. She added that when + Quarrier, as governor, had concurred in Siward's expulsion he knew + perfectly well that Siward was not guilty, because she herself had so + informed Quarrier. Since then she had also told Mortimer, but he had taken + no steps to do justice to Siward, although he, Mortimer, was still a + governor of the Patroons Club. + </p> + <p> + This being about all she could think of to make mischief for two men whose + recent companionship had nourished and irritated her, she shipped her + trunks by express, packed her jewel-case and valise, and met Desmond at + the station. + </p> + <p> + Desmond had business in Europe; Lydia had as much business there as + anywhere; and, although she had been faithless to Mortimer for a + comparatively short time, within that time Desmond already had sworn at + her and struck her. So she was quite ready to follow Desmond anywhere in + this world or the next. And that, too, had not made her the more + considerate toward Mortimer. + </p> + <p> + When the latter returned from the races to find her gone the last riddled + props to what passed for his manhood gave way and the rotten fabric came + crashing into the mud. + </p> + <p> + He had loved her as far as he had been capable of imitating that passion + on the transposed plane to which he had fallen; he was stupefied at first, + then grew violent with the furniture, then hysterically profane, then + pitiable in the abandoned degradation of his grief. And, suspecting + Desmond, he started to find him. They put him out of Desmond's club-house + when he became noisy; they refused him admittance to several similar + resorts where his noise threatened to continue; his landlord lost no time + in interviewing him upon the subject of damage to furniture from kicks and + to the walls and carpets from the contents of smashed bottles. + </p> + <p> + Creditors with sharp noses scented the whirlwind afar off and hemmed him + in with unsettled accounts, mostly hers. Somebody placed a lien on his + horses; a deputy sheriff began to follow him about; all credit ceased as + by magic, and men crossed the street to avoid meeting with an old + companion in direst need. + </p> + <p> + Still, alternately stupefied by his own grief and maddened into the + necessity for action, he packed a suitcase, crawled out of the rear door, + toiled across country and found a farmer to drive him twenty miles over a + sandy road to a local railroad crossing, where he managed to board a train + for Albany. + </p> + <p> + At Albany, as he stood panting and sweating on the long, concrete platform + which paralleled track No. 1, he saw a private car, switched from a Boston + and Albany train, shunted to the rear of the Merchants' Express. + </p> + <p> + The private car was lettered in gold on the central panel, “Algonquin.” He + boarded the Pullman coupled to it forward, pushed through the vestibule, + shoved aside the Japanese steward and darky cook, forcing his way straight + into the private car. Quarrier, reading a magazine, looked up at him in + astonishment. For a full moment neither spoke. Then Mortimer dropped his + suit-case, sat down in an armchair opposite Quarrier, and leisurely mopped + his reeking face and neck. + </p> + <p> + “Scotch and lithia!” he said hoarsely; the Japanese steward looked at + Quarrier; then, at that gentleman's almost imperceptible nod, went away to + execute the commission. + </p> + <p> + He executed a great many similar commissions during the trip to New York. + When they arrived there at five o'clock, Quarrier offered Mortimer his + hand, and held the trembling, puffy fingers as he leaned closer, saying + with cold precision and emotionless emphasis something that appeared to + require the full concentration of Mortimer's half-drugged faculties. + </p> + <p> + And when at length Mortimer drove away in a hansom, Quarrier's Japanese + steward went with him—perhaps to carry his suit case—a + courtesy that did credit to Quarrier's innate thoughtfulness and + consideration for others. He was very considerate; he even called Agatha + up on the telephone and talked with her for ten minutes. Then he + telephoned to Plank's office, learned that Harrington was already there, + telephoned the garage for a Mercedes which he always kept ready in town, + and presently went bowling away to a conference on which the last few + hours had put an entirely new aspect. + </p> + <p> + It had taken Plank only a few minutes to perceive that something had + occurred to change a point of view which he had believed it impossible for + Quarrier to change. Something had gone wrong in his own careful + calculations; some cog had slipped, some rivet given way, some bed-plate + cracked. And Harrington evidently had not been aware of it; but Quarrier + knew it. There was something wrong. + </p> + <p> + It was too late now to go tinkering in the dark for trouble. Plank + understood that. Coolly, as though utterly unaware that the machinery + might not stand the strain, he started it full speed. And when he stopped + it at last Harrington's grist had been ground to atoms, and Quarrier had + looked on without comment. There seemed to be little more for them to do + except to pay the miller. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow,” said Quarrier, rising to go. It was on the edge of Plank's + lips to say, “to-day!”—but he was silent, knowing that Harrington + would speak for him. And the old man did, without words, turning his iron + visage on Quarrier with the silent dignity of despair. But Quarrier coldly + demanded a day before they reckoned with Plank. And Plank, profoundly + disturbed, shrugged his massive shoulders in contemptuous assent. + </p> + <p> + So Quarrier and Harrington went away—the younger partner taking + leave of the older with a sneer for an outworn prop which no man could + ever again have use for. Old and beaten—that was all Harrington now + stood for in Quarrier's eyes. Never a thought of the past undaunted + courage, never a memory of the old victories which had made the Quarrier + fortune possible—only contempt for age, a sneer for the mind and + body that had failed at last. The old robber was done for, his armour + rotten, his buckler broken, his sword blade rusted to the core. The least + of his victims might now finish him with a club where he swayed in his + loosened saddle, or leave him to that horseman on the pale horse watching + him yonder on the horizon. + </p> + <p> + For now, whether Harrington lived or died, he must be counted as nothing + in this new struggle darkly outlining its initial strategy in Quarrier's + brain. What was coming was coming between himself and Plank alone; and + whatever the result—whether an armed truce leaving affairs + indefinitely in statu quo, or the other alternative, an alliance with + Plank, leaving Harrington like a king in his mail, propped upon his + throne, dead eyes doubly darkened under the closed helmet—the result + must be attained swiftly, with secrecy, and with the aid of no man. For he + did not count Mortimer a man. + </p> + <p> + So Quarrier's thin lips twitched and the glimmer of teeth showed under the + silky beard as he listened without comment to the old man's hesitating + words—a tremulous suggestion for a conference that evening—and + he said again, “to-morrow,” and left him there alone, groping with + uncertain hands toward the door of the hired coupé which had brought him + to the place of his earthly downfall; the place where he had met his own + weird face to face—the wraith that bore the mask of Plank. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier, brooding sullenly in his Mercedes, was already far up town on + his way to Major Belwether's house. + </p> + <p> + At the door, Sylvia's maid received him smilingly, saying that her + mistress was not at home but that Mrs. Mortimer was—which saved + Quarrier the necessity of asking for the private conference with Leila + which was exactly what he had come for. But her first unguarded words on + receiving him as he rose at her entrance into the darkened drawing-room + changed that plan, too—changed it all so utterly, and so much for + the better, that he almost smiled to think of the crudity of human + combinations and inventions as compared to the masterly machinations of + Fate. No need for him to complicate matters when here were pawns enough to + play the game for him. No need for him to do anything except give them + their initial velocity and let them tumble into one another and totter or + fall. Leila said, laughingly: “Oh, you are too late, Howard. We are dining + with Mr. Plank at Riverside Inn. What in the world are you doing in town + so suddenly?” + </p> + <p> + “A business telegram. I might have come down with you and Sylvia if I had + known.... Is Plank dining with you alone?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't seen him,” smiled Leila evasively. “He will tell us his plans + of course when he comes.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Quarrier, dropping his eyes and glancing furtively toward the + curtained windows through which he could see the street and his Mercedes + waiting at the curb. At the same instant a hansom drove up; Sylvia sprang + out, ran lightly up the low steps, and the silent, shrouded house rang + with the clamour of the bell. + </p> + <p> + Leila looked curiously at Quarrier, who sat motionless, head partly + averted, as though listening to something heard by him alone. He believed + perhaps that he was listening to the voice of Fate again, and it may have + been so, for already, for the third time, all his plans were changing to + suit this new ally of his—this miraculous Fate which was shaping + matters for him as he waited. Sylvia had started up-stairs like a fragrant + whirlwind, but her flying feet halted at Leila's constrained voice from + the drawing-room, and she spun around and came into the darkened room like + an April breeze. + </p> + <p> + “Leila! They'll be here at a quarter to seven—” + </p> + <p> + Her breath seemed to leave her body as a shadowy figure rose in the + uncertain light and confronted her. + </p> + <p> + “You!” + </p> + <p> + He said: “Didn't you recognise the Mercedes outside?” + </p> + <p> + She had not even seen it, so excited, so deeply engaged had she been with + the riotous tumult of her own thoughts. And still her hurt, unbelieving + gaze widened to dismay as she stood there halted on the threshold; and + still his eyes, narrowing, held her under their expressionless inspection. + </p> + <p> + “When did you come? Why?” she asked in an altered voice. + </p> + <p> + “I came on business. Naturally, being here, I came to see you. I + understand you are dining out?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, we are dining out.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry I didn't wire you because we might have dined together. I saw + Plank this afternoon. He did not say you were to dine with him. Shall I + see you later in the evening, Sylvia?” + </p> + <p> + “I—it will be too late—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! To-morrow then. What train do you take?” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia did not answer; he picked up his hat, repeating the question + carelessly, and still she made no reply. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I see you to-morrow?” he asked, swinging on her rather suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “I think—not. I—there will be no time—” + </p> + <p> + He bowed quietly to Leila, offering his hand. “Who did you say was to dine + with you—besides Plank?” + </p> + <p> + Leila stood silent, then, withdrawing her fingers, walked to the window. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier, his hat in his gloved hands, looked from one to the other, his + inquiring eyes returning and focused on Sylvia. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you dining with?” he asked with authority. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Plank and Mr. Siward.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Siward!” he repeated in surprised displeasure, as though he had not + already divined it. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. A man I like.” + </p> + <p> + “A man I dislike,” he rejoined with the slightest emphasis. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “So am I, Sylvia. And I am going to ask you to make him an excuse. Any + excuse will do.” + </p> + <p> + “Excuse? What do you mean, Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean that I do not care to have you seen with Mr. Siward. Have I ever + demanded very much of you, Sylvia? Very well; I demand this of you now.” + </p> + <p> + And still she stood there, her eyes wide, her colour gone, repeating: + “Excuse? What excuse? What do you mean by 'excuse,' Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “I have told you. You know my wishes. If he has a telephone you can + communicate with him—” + </p> + <p> + “And say that I—that you forbid me—” + </p> + <p> + “If you choose. Yes; say that I object to him. Is there anything + extraordinary in a man objecting to his future wife dining in the country + at a common inn with a notorious outcast from every decent club and circle + in New York?” + </p> + <p> + “What!” she whispered, white as death. “What did you say?” + </p> + <p> + “Shall I repeat what everybody except you seems to be aware of? Do you + care to have me explain to you exactly why decent people have ostracised + this man with whom you are proposing to figure in a public resort?” + </p> + <p> + He turned to Leila, who stood at the window, her back turned toward them: + “Mrs. Mortimer, when Mr. Plank arrives, you will be kind enough to explain + why Sylvia is unable to accompany you.” + </p> + <p> + If Leila heard she neither turned nor made sign of comprehension. + </p> + <p> + “We will dine at the Santa Regina,” he said to Sylvia. “Agatha is there + and I'll find somebody at the club to—” + </p> + <p> + “Why bother to find anybody?” said Leila, wheeling on him, exasperated. + “Why not dine there with Agatha alone? It will not be the first time I + fancy!” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” he said fiercely, under his breath. The colour had + left his face, too, and in his eyes Leila saw for the first time an + expression that she had never before surprised in any eyes except her + husband's. It was the expression of fright; she recognised it. But Sylvia + stared, unenlightened, at an altered visage she scarcely knew for + Quarrier's. + </p> + <p> + “What do I mean?” repeated Leila; “I mean what I say; and if you don't + understand it you can find the key to it, I fancy. Nor shall I answer to + you for my guests. I invite whom I choose. Mr. Siward is one, Mr. Plank is + another. Sylvia, if you care to come I shall be delighted.” + </p> + <p> + “I do care to come,” said Sylvia. Her heart was beating violently, her + eyes were on Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “If you go,” said Quarrier, showing the glimmering edge of teeth under his + beard, “you will answer to me for it.” + </p> + <p> + “I will answer you now, Howard; I am going with Mrs. Mortimer. What have + you to say?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll say it to-morrow,” he replied, contemplating her in a dull, + impassive manner as though absorbed in other things. + </p> + <p> + “Say what there is to be said now!” she insisted, the hot colour staining + her cheeks again. “Do you desire me to free you? Is that all? I will if + you wish.” + </p> + <p> + “No. And I shall not free you, Sylvia. This—all this can be adjusted + in time.” + </p> + <p> + “As you please,” she said slowly. + </p> + <p> + “In time,” he repeated, his passionless voice now under perfect control. + He turned and looked at Leila; all the wickedness of his anger was + concentrated in his gaze. Then he took his leave of them as formally, as + precisely as though he had forgotten the whole scene; and a minute later + the big Mercedes ran out into a half-circle, backed, wheeled, and rolled + away through the thickening dusk, the glare of the acetylenes sweeping the + deserted street. + </p> + <p> + Into the twilight sped Quarrier, head bent, but his soft, dark-lashed eyes + of a woman fixed steadily ahead. Every energy, every thought was now bent + to this newest phase of the same question which he and Fate were finding + simpler to solve every minute. Of all the luxuries he permitted himself + openly or furtively, one—the rarest of them all—his + self-denial had practically eliminated from the list: the luxury of + punishing where no end was served save that of mere personal satisfaction. + The temptation of this luxury now presented itself; and the means of + gratification were so simple, so secret, so easy to command, that the + temptation became almost a duty. + </p> + <p> + Siward he had not turned out of his way to injure; Siward had been in the + way, that was all, and his ruin was to have been merely an agreeable + coincidence with the purposed ruin of Amalgamated Electric before + Inter-County absorbed the fragments. But here was a new phase; Mrs. + Mortimer, whom he had expected to use, and if necessary sacrifice, had + suddenly turned vicious. And he now hated her as coldly as he hated Major + Belwether for betraying suspicions of a similar nature. As for Plank, fear + and hatred of him was becoming hatred and contempt. He had the means of + checking Plank if Mortimer did not drop dead before midnight. There + remained Sylvia, whom he had selected as the fittest object attainable to + transmit his name. Long ago, whatever of liking, of affection, of passion + he had ever entertained for her had quieted to indifference and the + unemotional contemplation of a future methodically arranged for. Now of a + sudden, this young girl he had bought—he knowing what she sold and + what he was paying for—had become exposed to the infection of a + suspicion concerning himself and another woman; a woman unmarried, and of + his own caste, and numbered among her own friends. + </p> + <p> + And he knew enough of Sylvia to know that if anybody could once arouse her + suspicion nothing on earth could induce her to look into his face again. + Suppose Leila should do so this evening? + </p> + <p> + Certainly Quarrier had several matters to ponder over and provide for; and + first and foremost of all to provide for his own security and the vital + necessity of preserving his name and his character untainted. In this he + had to deal with that miserable judge who had betrayed him; with Mortimer, + who had once black-mailed him and who now was temporarily in his service; + with Mrs. Mortimer, who—God knew how, when, or where—had + become suspicious of Agatha and himself; with Major Belwether, who had + deserted him before he could sacrifice the major, and whom he now hated + and feared for having stumbled over suspicions similar to Mrs. Mortimer's. + He had to deal with Sylvia herself, and with Siward—reckon with + Siward's knowledge of matters which it were best that Sylvia should not + know. + </p> + <p> + But first of all, and most important of all, he had to deal with Beverly + Plank. And he was going to do it in a manner that Plank could not have + foreseen; he was going to stop Plank where he stood, and to do this he was + deliberately using his knowledge of the man and paying Plank the + compliment of counting on his sense of honour to defeat him. + </p> + <p> + For he had suddenly found the opportunity to defend himself; he had + discovered the joint in Plank's old-fashioned armour—the armour of + the old paladins—who placed a woman's honour before all else in the + world. Now, through his creature, Mortimer, he could menace Plank with a + threat to involve him and Leila in a vile publicity; now he was in a + position to demand a hearing and a compromise through his new ambassador, + Mortimer, knowing that he could at last halt Plank by threatening Leila + with this shameful danger. Plank must sign the truce or face with Leila an + action for damages and divorce. + </p> + <p> + First of all he went to the Lenox Club and dressed. Then he dined + sparingly and alone. The Mercedes was waiting when he came out ready to + run down to the great Hotel Corona, whither the Japanese steward had + conducted Mortimer. Mortimer had dined heavily, but his disorganised + physical condition was such that it had scarcely affected him at all. + </p> + <p> + Again Quarrier went over patiently and carefully the very simple part he + had reserved for Mortimer that evening, explaining exactly what to say to + Leila and what to say to Plank in case of insolent interruption. Then he + told Mortimer to be ready at nine o'clock, turned on his heel with a curt + word to the Japanese, descended to the street, entered his motor-car + again, and sped away to the Hotel Santa Regina. + </p> + <p> + Miss Caithness was at home, came the message in exchange for his cards for + Agatha and Mrs. Vendenning. He entered the gilded elevator, stepped out on + the sixth floor into a tiny, rococo, public reception-room. Nobody was + there besides himself; Agatha's maid came presently, and he turned and + followed her into the large and very handsome parlour belonging to the + suite which Agatha was occupying with Mrs. Vendenning for the few days + that they were to stop in town. + </p> + <p> + “Hello,” she said serenely, sauntering in, her long, pale hands bracketed + on her narrow hips, her lips disclosing her teeth in a smile so like that + nervous muscular recession which passed for a smile on Quarrier's visage + that for one moment he recognised it and thought she was mocking him. But + she strolled up to him, meeting his eye calmly, and lifted her slim neck, + lips passive under his impetuous kiss. + </p> + <p> + “Is Mrs. Vendenning out?” he asked, laying his hands on the bare shoulders + of the tall, pallid girl—tall as he, and as pallid. + </p> + <p> + “No, Mrs. Ven. is in, Howard.” + </p> + <p> + “Now? You mean she is coming in to interrupt—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no; she isn't fond of you, Howard.” + </p> + <p> + “You said—” he began almost angrily, but she laid her fingers across + his lips. + </p> + <p> + “I said a very foolish thing, Howard. I said that I'd manage to dispense + with Mrs. Ven. this evening.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that you couldn't manage it?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all; I could easily have managed it. But—I didn't care to.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him calmly at close range as he held her embraced, lifted + her arms and, with slender, white fingers patted her hair into place where + his arm around her head had disarranged it, watching him all the while out + of her pale, haunted eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You promised me,” he said, “that you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Howard! Do men still believe in promises?” + </p> + <p> + Quarrier's face had colour enough now; his voice, too, had lost its + passionless, monotonous precision. Whatever was in the man of emotion was + astir; his impatient voice, his lack of poise, the almost human lack of + caution in his speech betrayed him in a new and interesting light. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Agatha, how long is this going to last? Are you trying to make + a fool of me? What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “Wrong? Oh dear no! How could there be anything wrong between you and me—” + </p> + <p> + “Agatha, what is the matter! Look here; let's settle this thing now and + settle it one way or the other! I won't stand it; I—I can't!” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” she said, releasing herself from his tightening arms and + stepping back with another glance at the mirror and another light touch of + her finger-tips on her burnished hair. “Very well,” she repeated, gazing + again into the mirror; “what am I to understand, Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “You know what to understand,” he said in a low voice; “you know what we + both understood when—when—” + </p> + <p> + “When what?” + </p> + <p> + “When I—when you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh what, Howard?” she prompted indolently; and he answered in brutal + exasperation, and for the first time so plainly that a hint of rose tinted + her strange, pale beauty and between her lips the breath came less + regularly as she stood there looking at the dull, silvery rug under her + feet. + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever misunderstand me?” he demanded hotly. “Did I give you any + chance to? Were you ignorant of what that meant,” with a gesture toward + the splendid crescent of flashing gems, scintillating where the low, lace + bodice met the silky lustre of her skin. “Did you misinterpret the collar? + Or the sudden change of fortune in your own family's concerns? Answer me, + Agatha, once for all. But you need not answer after all: I know you have + never misunderstood me!” + </p> + <p> + “I misunderstood nothing,” she said; “you are quite right.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Do?” she asked in slow surprise. “What am I to do, Howard?” + </p> + <p> + “You have said that you loved me.” + </p> + <p> + “I said the truth, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Then—” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “How long are you going to keep me at arm's length?” he asked violently. + </p> + <p> + “That lies with you,” she said, smiling. She looked at him for a moment, + then, resting her hands on her hips, she began to pace the floor, to and + fro, to and fro, and at every turn she raised her head to look at him. All + the strange grace of her became insolent provocation—her pale eyes, + clear, limpid, harbouring no delusions, haunted with the mockery of + wisdom, challenged and checked him. “Howard,” she said, “why should I be + the fool you want me to be because I love you? Why should I be even if I + wished to be? You desire an understanding? Voilà! You have it. I love you; + I never misunderstood you from the first; I could not afford to. You know + what I am; you know what you arouse in me?” + </p> + <p> + Slim, pale, depraved in all but body she stood, eyeing him a moment, the + very incarnation of vicious perversity. + </p> + <p> + “You know what you arouse in me,” she repeated. “But don't count on it!” + </p> + <p> + “You have encouraged—permitted me to count—” His anger choked + him—or was it the haunting wisdom of her eyes that committed him to + silence. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” she said, musingly, “what it is in you that I am so mad + about—whether it is your brutality, or the utter corruption of you + that holds me, or your wicked eyes of a woman, or the fascination of the + mask you turn on the world, and the secret visage, naked in its vice, that + you reserve for me. But I love you—in my own fashion. Count on that, + Howard; for that is all you can surely count on. And now, at last, you + know.” + </p> + <p> + As he stood there, it came to him slowly that, deep within him he had + always known this; that he had never really counted on anything else + though he had throttled his doubts by covering her throat with diamonds. + Her strangeness, her pallor, her acquiescence, the delicate hint of + depravity in her, the subtle response to all that was worst in him had + attracted him, only to learn, little by little, that the taint of + corruption was only a taint infecting others, not her; that the promise of + evil was only a promise; that he had to deal with a young body but an old + intelligence, and a mind so old that at moments her faded gaze almost + appalled him with its indolent clairvoyance. + </p> + <p> + Long since he knew, too, that in all the world he could never again find + such a mate for him. This had, unadmitted even to himself, always remained + a hidden secret within this secret man—an unacknowledged, undrawn-on + reserve in case of the failure which he, even in sanguine moods, knew in + his inmost corrupted soul that his quest was doomed to. + </p> + <p> + And now he had no more need of secrets from himself; now, turning his gaze + inward, he looked upon all with which he had chosen to deceive himself. + And there was nothing left for self-deception. + </p> + <p> + “If I marry you!” he said calmly “at least I know what I am getting.” + </p> + <p> + “I will marry you, Howard. I've got to marry somebody pretty soon. You or + Captain Voucher.” + </p> + <p> + For an instant a vicious light flashed in his narrowing eyes. She saw it + and shook her head with weary cynicism: + </p> + <p> + “No, not that. It could not attract me even with you. It is really vulgar—that + arrangement. Noblesse oblige, mon ami. There is a depravity in marrying + you that makes all lesser vices stale as virtues.” + </p> + <p> + He said nothing; she looked at him, lazily amused; then, inattentive, + turned and paced the floor again. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I see you to-morrow?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “If you wish. Captain Voucher came down on the same train with me. I'll + set him adrift if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he preparing for a declaration?” sneered Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + “I think so,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “Well if he comes to-night after I'm gone, you wait a final word from me. + Do you understand?” he repeated with repressed violence. + </p> + <p> + “No, Howard. Are you going to propose to me to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “You'll know to-morrow,” he retorted angrily. “I tell you to wait. I've a + right to that much consideration anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, Howard,” she said, recognising in him the cowardice which she + had always suspected to be there. + </p> + <p> + She bade him good night; he touched her hand but made no offer to kiss + her. She laughed a little to herself, watching him striding toward the + elevator, then, closing the door, she stood still in the centre of the + room, staring at her own reflection, full length, in the gilded + pier-glass, her lips edged with a sneer so like Quarrier's that, the next + moment she laughed aloud, imitating Quarrier's rare laugh from sheer + perversity. + </p> + <p> + “I think,” she said to her reflected figure in the glass, “I think that + you are either mentally ill or inherently a kind of devil. And I don't + much care which.” + </p> + <p> + And she turned leisurely, her slim hands balanced lightly on her narrow + hips, and strolled into the second dressing-room, where Mrs. Vendenning + sat sullenly indulging in that particular species of solitaire known as + “The Idiot's Delight.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” inquired Mrs. Vendenning, looking up at the tall, pale girl she + was chaperoning so carefully during their sojourn in town. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you know the rhyme to that,” yawned Agatha; “let's ring up somebody. + I'm bored stiff.” + </p> + <p> + “What did Howard Quarrier want?” + </p> + <p> + “He knows, I think, but he hasn't yet informed me.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you one thing, Agatha,” said Mrs. Vendenning, gathering up the + packs for a new shuffle: “Grace Ferrall doesn't fancy Howard's attention + to you and she's beginning to say so. When you go back to Shotover you'd + better let him alone.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not going back to Shotover,” said Agatha. + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I don't think so. However, I'll let you know to-morrow. It all + depends—but I don't expect to.” She turned as her maid tapped on the + door. “Oh, Captain Voucher. Are you at home to him?” flipping the + pasteboard onto the table among the scattered cards. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mrs. Vendenning aggressively, “unless you expect him to flop + down on his knees to-night. Do you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't—to-night. Perhaps to-morrow. I don't know; I can't tell + yet.” And to her maid she nodded that they were at home to Captain + Voucher. + </p> + <p> + Quarrier had met him, too, just as he was leaving the hotel lobby. They + exchanged the careful salutations of men who had no use for one another. + On the Englishman's clean-cut face a deeper hue settled as he passed; on + Quarrier's, not a trace of emotion; but when he entered his motor he sat + bolt upright, stiff-backed and stiff-necked, his long gray-gloved fingers + moving restlessly over his pointed heard. + </p> + <p> + The night was magnificent; myriads of summer stars spangled the heavens. + Even in the reeking city itself a slight freshness grew in the air, + although there was no wind to stir the parched leaves of the park trees, + among which fire-flies floated—their intermittent phosphorescence + breaking out with a silvery, star-like brilliancy. + </p> + <p> + Plank, driving his big motor northward through the night, Leila Mortimer + beside him, twice mistook the low glimmer of a fire-fly for the distant + lamp of a motor, which amused Leila, and her clear, young laughter floated + back to the ears of Sylvia and Siward, curled up in their corners of the + huge tonneau. But they were too profoundly occupied with each other to + heed the sudden care-free laughter of the young matron, though in these + days her laughter was infrequent enough to set the more merciless tongues + wagging when it did sound. + </p> + <p> + Plank had never seen fit to speak to her of her husband's scarcely veiled + menace that day he had encountered him in the rotunda of the Algonquin + Trust Company. His first thought was to do so—to talk it over with + her, consider the threat and the possibility of its seriousness, and then + come to some logical and definite decision as to what their future + relations should be. Again and again he had been on the point of doing + this when alone with Leila—uncomfortable, even apprehensive, because + of their frank intimacy; but he had never had the opportunity to do so + without deliberately dragging in the subject by the ears in all its + ugliness and implied reproach for her imprudence, and seeing that + dreadful, vacant change in Leila's face, which the mere mention of her + husband's name was sure to bring, turn into horror unspeakable. + </p> + <p> + A man not prone to fear his fellows, he now feared Mortimer, but that fear + struck him only through Leila—or had so reached him until the days + of his closing struggle with Quarrier. Whether the long strain had + unnerved him, whether minutely providing against every possible danger he + had been over-scrupulous, over-anxious, morbidly exact—or whether a + foresight almost abnormal had evoked a sinister possibility—he did + not know; but that threat of Mortimer's to involve Plank with Leila in one + common ruin, that boast that he was able to do so could not be ignored as + a possible weapon if Quarrier should by any chance learn of it. + </p> + <p> + In all his life he had taken Leila into his arms but once; had kissed her + but once—but that once had been enough to arm Mortimer with danger + from head to foot. Some prying servant had either listened or seen—perhaps + a glimmer of a mirror had betrayed them. At all events, whoever had seen + or heard had informed Mortimer, and now the man was equipped; the one and + only man in all the world who could with truth accuse Plank; the only man + of whom he stood in honest fear. + </p> + <p> + And it was characteristic of Plank that never for one moment had it + occurred to him that the sheer fault of it all lay with Leila; that it was + her imprudence alone that now threatened herself and the man she loved—that + threatened his very success in life as long as Mortimer should live. + </p> + <p> + All this, Plank, in his thorough, painstaking review of the subject, had + taken into account; and he could not see how it could possibly bear upon + the matters now finally to be adjusted between Quarrier and himself, + because Quarrier was in New York and Mortimer in Saratoga, and unless the + latter had already sold his information the former could not strike at him + through knowledge of it. + </p> + <p> + And yet a curious reluctancy, a hesitation inexplicable—unless + overwork explained it—had come over him when Siward had proposed + their dining together on the very eve of his completed victory over + Quarrier. + </p> + <p> + It seemed absurd, and Plank was too stolid to entertain superstitions, but + he could not, even with Leila laughing there beside him, shake off the + dull instinct that all was not well—that Quarrier's attitude was + still the attitude of a dangerous man; that he, Plank, should have had + this evening in his room alone to study out the matters he had so + patiently plodded through in the long hours while Siward slept. + </p> + <p> + Yet not for one instant did he dream of shifting the responsibility—if + responsibility entailed blame—on Siward, who, against Plank's + judgment and desire, had on the very eve of consummation drawn him away + from that sleepless vigilance which must for ever be the price of a + business man's safety. + </p> + <p> + Leila, gay and excited as a schoolgirl, chattered on ceaselessly to Plank; + all the silence, all the secrecy of the arid years turning to laughter on + her red lips, pouring out, in broken phrases of delight, words strung + together for the sheer pleasure of speech and the happiness of her lot to + be with him unrestrained. + </p> + <p> + He remembered once listening to the song of a wild bird on the edge of a + clearing at night, and how, standing entranced, the low, distant jar of + thunder sounded at moments, scarcely audible—like his heart now, at + intervals, dully persistent amid the gaiety of her voice. + </p> + <p> + “And would you believe it, Beverly,” she said, “I formed the habit at + Shotover of walking across the boundary and strolling into your + greenhouses and deliberately helping myself. And every time I did it I was + certain one of your men would march me out!” + </p> + <p> + He laughed, but did not tell her that his men had reported the first + episode and that he had instructed them that Mrs. Mortimer and her friends + were to do exactly as they pleased at the Fells. However she knew it, + because a garrulous gardener, proud of his service with Plank, had + informed her. + </p> + <p> + “Beverly,” she said, “you are a dear. If people only knew what I know!” + </p> + <p> + He began to turn red; she could see it even in the flickering, lamp-shot + darkness. And she teased him for a while, very gently, even tenderly; and + their voices grew lower in a half-serious badinage that ended with a + quiet, indrawn breath, a sigh, and silence. + </p> + <p> + And now the river swept into view, a darkly luminous sheet set with + reflected stars. Mirrored lights gleamed in it; sudden bright, yellow + flashes zigzagged into its sombre depths; the foliage edged it with a + deeper gloom over which, on the heights, twinkled the multicoloured lights + of Riverside Inn. + </p> + <p> + Up the broad, gentle grade they sped, curving in and out among the clumps + of trees and shrubbery, then on a level, sweeping in a great circle up to + the steps of the inn. + </p> + <p> + Now all about them from the brilliantly lighted verandas the gay tumult + broke out like an uproarious welcome after the swift silence of their + journey; the stir of jolly people keen for pleasure; the clatter of + crockery; the coming and going of waiters, of guests, of hansoms, coupés, + victorias, and scores of motor-cars wheeling and turning through the + blinding glare of their own headlights. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere a gipsy orchestra, full of fitful crescendoes and throbbing + suspensions of caprice, furnished resonant accompaniment to the joyous + clamour; the scent of fountain spray and flowers was in the air. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know you had telephoned for a table,” said Siward, as a + head-waiter came up smiling and bowing to Plank. “I confess, in the new + excitement of things, I clean forgot it! What a man you are to think of + other people!” + </p> + <p> + Plank reddened again, muttering something evasive, and went forward with + Leila. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, moving leisurely beside Siward who was walking slowly but + confidently without crutches, whispered to him: “I never really liked Mr. + Plank before I understood his attitude toward you.” + </p> + <p> + “He is a man, every inch,” said Siward simply. + </p> + <p> + “I think that generally includes what men of your sort demand, doesn't + it?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Men of my sort sometimes demand in others what they themselves are + lacking in,” said Siward, laughing. “Sylvia, look at this jolly crowd! + Look at all those tables! It seems an age since I have done anything of + this sort. I feel like a boy of eighteen—the same funny, quickening + fascination in me toward everything gay and bright and alive!” He looked + around at her, laughingly. “As for you,” he said, “you look about sixteen. + You certainly are the most beautiful thing this beautiful world ever saw!” + </p> + <p> + “Schoolboy courtship!” she mocked him, lingering as he made his slow way + through the crowded place. The tint of excitement was in her eyes and + cheeks; the echo of it in her low, happy voice. “Where on earth is Mr. + Plank? Oh, I see them! They have a table by the balcony rail, in the + corner; and it seems to be rather secluded, Stephen, so I shall, of + course, expect you to say nothing further about beauty of any species. + ...Are you a trifle tired? No?... Well, you need not be indignant. I don't + care whether you tumble. Indeed, I don't believe there is really anything + the matter with you—you are walking with the same old careless + saunter. Mr. Plank,” as they arrived and seated themselves, “Mr. Siward + has just admitted that he uses crutches only because they are ornamental. + Leila, isn't this air delicious? All sorts of people, too, aren't there, + Mr. Plank? Such curious-looking women, some of them—quite pretty, + too, in a certain way. Are you hungry, St—Mr. Siward?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you, St—Mr. Siward?” mimicked Leila promptly. + </p> + <p> + “I am,” said Siward, laughing at Sylvia's significant colour and noting + Plank's direct gaze as the waiter filled Leila's slender-stemmed glass. + And “nothing but Apollinaris,” he said coolly, as the waiter approached + him; but though his voice was easy enough, a dull patch of colour came out + under the cheek-bones. + </p> + <p> + “That is all I care for, either,” said Sylvia with elaborate carelessness. + </p> + <p> + Plank and Leila immediately began to make conversation. Siward, his eyes + bent on the glass of mineral water at his elbow, looked up in silence at + Sylvia questioningly. + </p> + <p> + There was something in her face he did not quite comprehend. She made as + though to speak, looked at him, hesitated, her lovely face eloquent under + the impulse. Then, leaning toward him, she said: + </p> + <p> + “'And thy ways shall be my ways.'” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia, you must not deny yourself, just because I—” + </p> + <p> + “Let me. It is the happiest thing I have ever done for myself.” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't wish it.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but I do,” she said, the low excited laughter scarcely fluttering her + lips. “Listen: I never before, in all my life, gave up anything for your + sake, only this one little pitiful thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I won't let you!” he breathed; “it is nonsense to—” + </p> + <p> + “You must let me! Am I to be on friendly terms with—with your mortal + enemy?” She was still smiling, but now her sensitive mouth quivered + suddenly. + </p> + <p> + He sat silent, considering her, his restless fingers playing with his + glass in which the harmless bubbles were breaking. + </p> + <p> + “I drink to your health, Stephen,” she said under her breath. “I drink to + your happiness, too; and—and to your fortune, and to all that you + desire from fortune.” And she raised her glass in the star-light, looking + over it into his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “All I desire from fortune?” he repeated significantly. + </p> + <p> + “All—almost all—” + </p> + <p> + “No, all,” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + But she only raised the glass to her lips, still looking at him as she + drank. + </p> + <p> + They became unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage + scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep into + their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing thing + wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful, + unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her—as though + awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through + the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling to the edge + of autumn, broke out into a delicate riot of exquisite florescence; the + very sounds of her voice, every intonation, every accent, every pause, + were charming surprises; her laughter was a miracle, her beauty a + revelation. + </p> + <p> + Leila, aware of it, exchanged glance after glance with Plank. Siward, + alternately the leader in it all, then the enchanted listener, bewitched, + enthralled, felt care slipping from his shoulders like a mantle, and + sadness exhaling from a heart that was beating strongly, steadily, + fearlessly—as a heart should beat in the breast of him who has taken + at last his fighting chance. He took it now, under her eyes, for honour, + for manhood, and for the ideal which had made manhood no longer an empty + term muttered in desperation by a sick body, and a mind too sick to + control it. + </p> + <p> + Yes, at last the lifelong battle was on. He knew it. He knew, too, + whatever his fate with her or without her, he must always go on with the + battle for the safe-guarding of that manhood the consciousness of which + she had aroused. + </p> + <p> + All he knew was that, through the medium of his love for her, whatever in + him of the spiritual remained, or had been generated, was now awake, + alive, strong, vital, indestructible—an impalpable current flowing + from a sane intelligence, through medium of her, back to the eternal + truth, returning always, always, to the deathless source from whence it + came. + </p> + <p> + Lingering over the fruit, the champagne breaking in the glasses standing + on the table between them, rim to rim, Leila and Plank had fallen into a + low, desultory, yet guarded exchange of words and silences. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia sprang up and pushed her chair into the farther corner against the + balcony rail, where no light fell except the radiance of the stars. Here + Siward joined her, dragging his chair around so that it faced her as she + leaned back, tilted against a shadowy column. + </p> + <p> + “Is this Bohemianism, Stephen? If it is, I rather like it. Don't you? You + are going to smoke now, aren't you? Ah, that is delightful!” daintily + sniffing the aroma from his cigarette. “It always reminds me of you—there + on the cliffs, that first day. Do you remember?—the smoke from your + cigarette whirling up in my face?... You say you remember. ...Oh, of + course there's nothing else to say when a girl asks you... is there? Oh, I + won't argue with you, if you insist that you do remember. You will not be + like any other man if you do, that's all.... The little things that women + remember!... And believe that men remember! It is pitiful in a way. There! + I am not going to spill over, and I don't care a copper penny whether you + really do remember or not!... Yes, I do care! ...Oh, all women care. It is + their first disappointment to learn how much a man can forget and still + remember to care for them—a little!... Stephen, I said a little; and + that is all that you are permitted to care for me; isn't it?... Please, + don't. You are deliberately beginning to say things!... Stephen, you + silly! you are making love to me!” + </p> + <p> + In the darkness his hand encountered hers on the wooden rail, and the + tremor of the contact silenced her. She freed one finger, then let it rest + with its slender fellow-prisoners. There was no use in trying to speak + just then—utterly useless her voice in the soft, rounded throat + imprisoned by the swelling pulses that tightened and hammered and + tightened. + </p> + <p> + Years seemed to fall away from her, slipping back, back into girlhood, + into childhood, drawing not her alone on the gliding tide, but carrying + him with her. An exquisite languor held her. Through it vague hints of + those splendid visions of her lonely childhood rose, shaping themselves in + the starry darkness—the old mystery of dreams, the old, innocent + desires, the old simplicity of clairvoyance wherein right was right and + wrong, wrong—in all the conventional significance of right and + wrong, in all the old-fashioned, undisturbed faith of childhood. + </p> + <p> + Drifting deliciously, her eyes sometimes meeting his, sometimes lost in + the magic of her reverie, she lay there in her chair, her unresisting + fingers locked in his. + </p> + <p> + Odd little thoughts came hovering into her reverie—thoughts that + seemed distantly familiar, the direct, unconscious impulses of a child. To + feel was once more the only motive for expression; to think fearlessly was + once more inherent; to desire was to demand—unlock her lips, + naively, and ask for what she wished. + </p> + <p> + Under the spell, she turned her blue gaze on him, and her lips parted + without a tremor: + </p> + <p> + “What do you offer for what you ask? And do you still ask it? Is it me you + are asking me for? Because you love me? And what do you give—love?” + </p> + <p> + “Weigh it with the—other,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I have—often—every moment since I have known you. And what a + winter!” Her voice was almost inaudible. “What a winter—without + you!” + </p> + <p> + “That hell is ended for me, too. Sylvia, I know what I ask. And I ask. I + know what I offer. Will you take it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He rose, blindly. She stood up, pale, wide-eyed, confronting him, + stammering out the bargain: + </p> + <p> + “I take all—all! every virtue, every vice of you. I give all—all! + all I have been, all I am, all I shall be! Is that enough? Oh, if there + were only more to give! Stephen, if there were only more!” + </p> + <p> + Her hands had fallen into his, and they looked each other in the eyes. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, through the hush of the enchanted moment, a sullen sound broke—the + sound of a voice they knew, threateningly raised, louder and louder, + growling, profanely menacing. + </p> + <p> + Aghast, they turned in the darkness, peering toward the lighted space + beyond. Leroy Mortimer, his face shockingly congested, stood unsteadily + balancing there, confronting his wife, who sat staring at him in horror. + At the same instant Plank rose and laid a hand on Mortimer's shoulder, but + Mortimer shook him off with a warning oath. + </p> + <p> + “You and I will settle with each other to-morrow!” he said thickly, + pointing a puffy finger at Plank. “You'll find me at the Algonquin Trust. + Do you hear? That's where you'll settle this matter—in the + president's office!” He stood swaying and leering at Plank, repeating + loudly: “In Quarrier's office! Understand? That's where you'll settle up! + See?” + </p> + <p> + Leila, white face quivering, shrank as though he had struck her, and he + turned on her again, grinning: “As for you, you come home! And that'll be + about all for yours.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you insane, to make a scene like this?” whispered Plank. + </p> + <p> + But Mortimer swung on him insultingly: “That's about all from you, too!” + he said. “Leila, are you coming?” + </p> + <p> + He stepped heavily toward her; but Plank's sudden crushing grip was on his + fat arm above the elbow, and he emitted a roar of surprise and pain. + </p> + <p> + “Don't touch him! Don't, in Heaven's name!” stammered Leila, as Plank, + releasing him, stepped back beside her chair. “Can't you see that I must + go with him! I—I must go.” She cast one terrified glance around her, + where scores of strange faces met hers; and at every table people were + standing up to see better. + </p> + <p> + Plank, who had dropped Mortimer's arm as the latter emitted his bellow of + amazement, stepped toward him again, dropping his voice as he spoke: + </p> + <p> + “You go! Do you hear?” he said quietly. “I'll do what you ask me, + to-morrow! I will do what you ask, if you'll go now!” + </p> + <p> + “You come—do you hear!” snarled Mortimer, turning on his wife, who + had already risen. “If you don't I'll make a row here that you'll never + hear the end of as long as you live! And there'll be nothing to talk over + in Quarrier's office, if I do.” + </p> + <p> + Leila looked at Plank, rose, and moved swiftly toward the veranda steps, + her head resolutely lowered, the burning shame flaming in her face. + Mortimer cast one triumphant glance at Plank, then waddled unsteadily + after his wife. + </p> + <p> + “Hold on,” he growled; “I've a Mercedes here! I'll drive you back—wait! + Here it is! Here we are!” And to Quarrier's machinist he said: “You get + into the tonneau. I want to show Mrs. Mortimer what night-driving is. Do + you hear? I tell you I'm going to drive this machine and show you how!” + </p> + <p> + Leila scarcely heard him. She obeyed the impulse of his hand on her arm, + and mounted to the seat, staring straight ahead of her with dazed and + straining eyes that saw nothing. + </p> + <p> + Then Mortimer clambered to his seat, and, without an instant's warning, + opened up and seized the wheel. + </p> + <p> + Unprepared, the machinist attempted to swing aboard, missed his footing in + the uncertain light, and fell sprawling on the gravel. Plank saw him from + the veranda and instantly vaulted the rail to the lawn below. + </p> + <p> + “You damn fool!” yelled Mortimer, looking around, “what in hell do you + think you'll do?” And he clapped on full speed as Plank made a leap for + the car and missed. + </p> + <p> + Mortimer laughed, and turned his head to look back, and the next instant + something seemed to wrench the steering-wheel from its roots. There was a + blinding glare of light, a scream, and the great machine bounded into the + air full length, turned completely over, and lay across a flower-bed, + partly on one side. + </p> + <p> + Something was afire, too. Men were rushing from the verandas, women + screamed, and stood up wringing their hands; a mounted policeman came + galloping through the darkness; people shouted: “Throw sand on it! Get + shovels, for God's sake! Lift that tonneau! There's a woman under it.” + </p> + <p> + But they were mistaken, for Leila lay at the foot of the slope, one little + bloody hand clutching the dead grass; and Plank knelt beside her, giving + his orders quietly to those who came running down the hill from the + roadway above, which was now fiercely illuminated by burning gasoline. At + last they got sand enough to quench the fire and men sufficient to lift + the weight from the dead man's neck, and drag what was left of him onto + the grass. + </p> + <p> + “Don't look,” whispered Siward, drawing Sylvia back. + </p> + <p> + He and she both had put their shoulders to the tonneau along with the + others; and now they stood there together in the shifting lantern-light, + sickened, shivering under the summer stars, staring at the gathering crowd + around that shapeless lump on the grass. + </p> + <p> + Plank passed them, walking beside an improvised stretcher, calm, almost + smiling, as Sylvia sprang forward with a little sob of inquiry. + </p> + <p> + “There's the doctor, over there; that man is a doctor; he knows,” repeated + Plank with studied deliberation, looking down at Leila's deathly face. “He + says it's all right; he says he'll get a candle, and that he can tell by + the flame's effect on the pupils of the eyes what exactly is the matter. + No,” to Siward beside him, pressing forward through the crowd which eddied + from the dead man to the stretcher; “no, there is not a bone broken. She + is stunned, that's all; she fell in the shrubbery. We'll have an ambulance + here pretty quick. Stephen,” using his first name unconsciously, “won't + you look out for Sylvia? I'm going back on the ambulance. If you'll find + somebody to drive my machine, I wish you would take Sylvia back. No, I + don't want you to drive, Stephen—if you don't mind. Get that + machinist, please. I'm rattled, and I don't want you to drive.” + </p> + <p> + Leila lay on the stretcher, her bloodless face upturned to the stars. + Beyond, under a blanket, something else lay very still on the lawn. + </p> + <p> + Plank beckoned a policeman, and whispered to him. + </p> + <p> + Then, far away in the darkness, a distant clamour grew on the night air, + nearer, nearer. + </p> + <p> + Plank, standing beside the stretcher, raised his head, listening to the + ambulance arriving at full speed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV THE ENEMY LISTENS + </h2> + <p> + In September, her marriage to Siward excitingly imminent, Sylvia had been + seized with a passion for wholesale renunciation and rigid + self-chastisement. All that had been so materially desirable to her in + life, all that she had heretofore worshipped, in and belonging to her own + world, she now denied. Down went the miniature golden calf from the altar + in her private shrine, its tiny crashing fall making considerable racket + throughout her world, and the planets and satellites adjacent to that + section of the social system which she had long been expected to dominate. + </p> + <p> + The spectacle of their youthful ruler-elect in sackcloth as the future + bride of a business man had more than disconcerted them. The amazing + announcement of Quarrier's engagement to Agatha Caithness stupefied the + elect, rendering in one harrowing instant null and void the thousand petty + plans and plots, intrigues and schemes, upon which future social + constructions on the social structure had been based. + </p> + <p> + The grief and amazement of Major Belwether, already distracted by his + non-participation, through his own fault, in Plank's consolidation of + Amalgamated with Inter-County, was pitiable to the verge of the + unpleasant. Like panic-stricken rabbits, his thoughts ran in circles, and + he skipped in their wake, scurrying from Quarrier to Harrington, from + Harrington to Plank, from Plank to Siward, in distracted hope of + recovering his equilibrium and squatting safely somewhere in somebody's + luxuriantly perpetual cabbage-patch. He even squeezed under the fence and + hopped humbly about old Peter Caithness, who suddenly assumed monumental + proportions among those who had so long tolerated him. + </p> + <p> + But Quarrier coldly drove him away and the increasing crowds besieging + poor, bewildered old Peter Caithness trod upon the major, and there was + nothing for him to do but to scuttle back to his own brush-heap and huddle + there, squeaking pitifully. + </p> + <p> + As for Grace Ferrall, she lost no time in tears, but took Agatha publicly + to her bosom, turned furiously on Quarrier in private, and for the first + time in her life permitted herself the luxury of telling him exactly what + she thought of him. + </p> + <p> + “You had your chance,” she said; “but you are all surface! There's nothing + to you but soft beard and manicuring, and the reticence of stupidity! The + one girl for you—and you couldn't hold on to her! The one chance of + your life—and it's escaped you, leaving a tuft of pompadour hair and + a pair of woman's eyes protruding from the golden dust-heap your father + buried you in. Now you'd better sit there and let it cover your mouth, and + try to breathe through your nose. Agatha is looking for a new sensation; + she's tried everything, now she's going to try you, that's all. She will + be an invaluable leader, Howard, and we shall not yawn, I assure you. But, + oh! the chance you've lost, for lack of a drop of red blood, and a barber + to give you the beard of a man!” + </p> + <p> + Which merely deepened the fear and hatred which Quarrier had entertained + for his pretty cousin from the depths of his silk-wadded cradle. As for + Kemp Ferrall, now third vice-president of Inter-County, he only laughed + with the tolerance of a man in safety; and, looking at Quarrier through + the pickets of the financial fence, not only forgot how close his escape + had been, but, being a busy and progressive young man, began to consider + how he might ultimately extract a little profit from the expensive tenant + of the enclosure. + </p> + <p> + Grace made the journey to town to express herself freely for Sylvia's + benefit; but when she saw Sylvia, the girl's radiant beauty checked her, + and all she could say was: “My dear! my dear, I knew you would do it! I + knew you would fling him on his head. It's in your blood, you little jade! + you little jilt! you mix of a baggage! I knew you'd behave like all the + women of your race!” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia held Mrs. Ferrall's pretty face impressed between both her hands, + and looking her mischievously in the eyes, she whispered: + </p> + <p> + “'Comme vous, maman, faut-il faire?—Eh! mes petits-enfants, + pourquoi, Quand j'ai fait comme ma grand' mère, Ne feriez-vous pas comme + moi?'” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord!” said Mrs. Ferrall, “I'll never meddle again—and the entire + world may marry and take the consequences!” Then she drove to the Santa + Regina, where Marion was to join her in her return to Shotover; and she + was already trying to make up her disturbed mind as to which might prove + the more suitable for Marion—Captain Voucher, gloomily recovering + from his defeat by Quarrier, or Billy Fleetwood, who didn't want to marry + anybody. + </p> + <p> + In the meanwhile, Siward's new duties as second vice-president of + Inter-County had given him scant leisure for open-air convalescence. He + was busy with Plank; he was also busy with the private investigation + stirred up at the Patroons' Club and the Lenox, and which was slowly but + inevitably resulting in clearing him, so that his restoration to good + standing and full membership remained now only a matter of formal + procedure. + </p> + <p> + So Siward was becoming a very busy man among men; and Plank, still + carrying on his broad shoulders burdens unbearable by any man save such a + man as he, shook his heavy head, and ordered Siward into the open. And + Siward, who had learned to obey, obeyed. + </p> + <p> + But September had nearly ended, when Leila, in Plank's private car, + attended by Siward and Sylvia and two trained nurses, arrived at the + Fells. The nurses—Plank's idea—were a surprise to Leila; and + the day after her arrival at the Fells she dismissed them, got out of bed, + and dressed and came downstairs all alone, on a pair of sound though + faltering legs. + </p> + <p> + Sylvia and Siward were in the music-room, very busily figuring out the + probable cost of a house in that section of the city east of Park Avenue, + where the newly married imprudent are forming colonies—a just + punishment for those reckless brides who marry for love, and are obliged + to drive over two car-tracks to reach their wealthy friends and relatives + of the Golden Zone. + </p> + <p> + And Leila, in her pretty invalid's gown of lace, stood silently at the + music-room door, watching them. Her thick, dark hair was braided, and + looped up under a black bow behind; and she looked like a curious and + impertinent schoolgirl peeping at them there through the crack of the + door, bending forward, her joined hands flattened between her knees. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said at length, in a frankly disappointed voice, “is that all + you do when your chaperone is abed?” + </p> + <p> + “Angel!” cried Sylvia, springing up, “how in the world did you ever manage + to come downstairs?” + </p> + <p> + “On the usual number of feet. If you think it's very gay up there—” + She laid her hands in Sylvia's, and looked at Siward with all the old + mockery in her eyes—eyes which slanted a little at the corners, + Japanese-wise: “Stephen, you are growing positively plump. You'd better + not do that until Sylvia marries you. Look at him, dear! He's getting all + smooth in the cheeks, like a horrid undergraduate boy!” + </p> + <p> + She released one hand and greeted Siward. “Thank you,” she said serenely, + replying to his inquiry, “I am perfectly well. You pay me no compliment + when you ask me, after you have seen me.” And to Sylvia, looking at her + white flannels: “What have you been playing? What do you find to do with + yourself, Sylvia, with that plump sun-burned boy at your heels all day + long? Are there no men about?” + </p> + <p> + “One's coming to-day,” said Sylvia, laughing; and slipping her arm around + Leila's waist, she strolled with her out through the tall glass doors to + the terrace, with a backward glance of airy dismissal for Siward. + </p> + <p> + Plank had wired from New York, the night before, that he was coming; in + another hour he would be there. Leila knew it perfectly well, and she + looked into the wickedly expressive young face of the girl beside her, + eyes soft but unsmiling. + </p> + <p> + “Child, child,” she murmured, “you do not know how much of a man a man can + be!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do!” said Sylvia hotly. + </p> + <p> + Leila smiled. “Hush, you little silly! I've talked Stephen and praised + Stephen to you for days and days, and the moment I dare mention another + man you fly at me, hair on end!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Leila, I know it! I'm perfectly mad about him, that's all. But don't + you think he is looking like himself again? And, Leila, isn't he strangely + attractive?—I don't mean just because I happen to be in love with + him, but give me a perfectly cold and unbiassed opinion, dear, because + there is simply no use in a girl's blinding herself to facts, or in + ignoring certain fixed laws of symmetry, which it is perfectly obvious + that Mr. Siward fulfils in those well-known and established proportions + which—” + </p> + <p> + “Sylvia!” + </p> + <p> + “What?” she asked, startled. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. Only for two solid weeks—” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, if you are not interested—” + </p> + <p> + “But I am, child—I am! desperately interested! He is handsome! I + knew him before you did, and I thought so then!” + </p> + <p> + “Did you?” said Sylvia, troubled. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I did. When I wore short skirts I kissed him, too!” + </p> + <p> + “Did you? W—what did he wear?” + </p> + <p> + “Knickerbockers, silly! You don't think he was still in the cradle, do + you? I'm not as aged as that!” + </p> + <p> + “I missed a great deal in my childhood,” said Sylvia naïvely. + </p> + <p> + “By not knowing Stephen? Pooh! He used to pinch me, and then we'd put out + our tongues in mutual derision. Once—” + </p> + <p> + “Stop!” said Sylvia faintly. “And anyhow, you probably taught him.... Look + at him as he saunters across the lawn, Leila—look at him!” + </p> + <p> + “Well? I see him.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't he almost an ideal?” + </p> + <p> + “He is. He certainly is, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think he walks as though he were perfectly well?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't know,” said Leila thoughtfully. “Sometimes people whose + walk is a gracefully languid saunter develop adipose tissue after forty.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense! Really, Leila, do you think he walks like a perfectly well + man?” + </p> + <p> + “He may be coming down with whooping-cough—” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia rose indignantly, but Leila pulled her back to the sun-warmed + marble bench: + </p> + <p> + “A girl in love loses her sense of humour temporarily. Sit down, you + little vixen!” + </p> + <p> + “Leila, you laugh at everything when I don't feel like it.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not in love, and that's why.” + </p> + <p> + “You are in love!” + </p> + <p> + Leila looked at her, then under her breath: “In love, am I—with the + whole young world ringing with the laughter I had forgotten the very sound + of? Do you call that love?—with the sea and sky laughing back at me, + and the wind in my ears fairly tremulous with laughter? Do you, who look + out upon the pretty world so seriously through those sea-blue eyes of + yours, think that I can be in love?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Leila, a girl's happiness is serious enough, isn't it? Dear, it + frightens me! I was so close to losing it—once.” + </p> + <p> + “I lost mine,” said Leila, closing her eyes for a moment. “I shall not + sigh if I find it again.” + </p> + <p> + They sat there in the sun, Leila's hand lying idly in Sylvia's, the soft + sea-wind stirring their hair, and in their ears the thunderous undertone + of the mounting sea. + </p> + <p> + “Look at Stephen!” murmured Sylvia, her enraptured eyes following him as + he strolled hatless and coatless along the cliff's edge, the sun + glimmering on his short hair, a tall, slim, well-coupled, strongly knit + shape against the sky and sea. + </p> + <p> + But Leila's quick ear had caught a significant sound from the gravel drive + behind her, and she stood up, a delicious colour tinting her face. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going in?” asked Sylvia. Then she, too, heard the subdued + whirring of a motor from the front of the house, and she looked at Leila + as she turned and recrossed the terrace, walking slowly but erect, her + pretty head held high. + </p> + <p> + Then Sylvia faced the sea again and presently descended the terrace, + crossing the long lawn toward the headland, where Siward stood looking out + across the water. + </p> + <p> + Leila, from the music-room, watched her; then she heard Plank's voice, and + his step on the stair, and she called out to him gaily: + </p> + <p> + “I am downstairs, thank you. How dared you send me those foolish nurses!” + </p> + <p> + She was laughing when he came into the room, standing there erect, head + high, a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and she offered him both hands + which he took between his own, holding them strongly, and looking into her + face with steady, questioning eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” she said, still smiling, but her scarlet under-lip trembled a + little; then: “Yes, you may say what you wish—what I—I wish + you to say.... There can be no harm in talking about it. But—will + you be very gentle with me? Don't m-make me cry; I h-have—I am + t-trying to remember how it feels to laugh once more.” + </p> + <p> + Sylvia, lying in the hot sand on the tiny crescent beach under the cliffs, + listened gravely to Siward's figures, as, note-book in hand, he went over + the real-estate problem, commenting thoughtfully as he discussed the + houses offered. + </p> + <p> + “Twenty by a hundred and two; good rear, north side of the street—next + door to the Tommy Barclays, you know, Sylvia; only they're asking + forty-two-five.” + </p> + <p> + “That is an outrage!” said Sylvia seriously; “besides, I remember there + was a wretched cellar, and only a butler's pantry extension. I'd much + rather have that little house in Sixty-fourth Street, where the + Fetherbraynes live—next house on the west, you know. Then we can + pull it down and build—when we want to.” + </p> + <p> + “We won't be able to afford to build for a while, you know,” said Siward + doubtfully. + </p> + <p> + “What do we care, dear? We'll have millions of things to do, anyway, and + what is the use of building?” + </p> + <p> + “As many things to do as that?” he said, looking over his note-book with a + smile. + </p> + <p> + “More! Are we not just beginning to live, and open our eyes, silly? + Listen: Books, books, books, from top to bottom of the house, that is what + I want first of all—except my piano.” + </p> + <p> + “Do let us have a little plumbing, dear,” he said so seriously that for a + fraction of a second she was on the verge of taking him seriously. + </p> + <p> + “Why extravagant plumbing when books furnish sufficient circulation for + the flow of soul, dear?” she retorted gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody we know will ever come to see us, if they think we read books,” + said Siward. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it delightful!” sighed Sylvia. “We're going to become frumps! I + mustn't forget the blue stockings for my trousseau, and you mustn't forget + the California claret for the cellar, dear. We will need it when we read + Henry James to each other.” + </p> + <p> + Siward, resting his weight on one hand, laughed, and looked out at the + surf drenching the reefs with silver. + </p> + <p> + “To think,” he said, “that I could ever have been enough afraid of the sea + to hate it! After all, at low tide the reef is always there in the same + place and none the worse for the drenching. All that surf only shows how + strong a rock can be.” + </p> + <p> + He smiled, and turned to look at Sylvia; and she lay there, silent, blue + eyes looking back into his. Suddenly they glimmered with tears, and she + stretched out both arms, drawing his head down to hers convulsively, her + quivering mouth crushed against his lips. Then she rose to her knees, to + her feet, dazed, brushing the tears from her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “To think—to think,” she stammered, “that I might have let you face + the world alone! Dearest, dearest, we must fight a good fight. The sea is + always there—always, always there!” + </p> + <p> + He looked straight into her eyes, fearlessly, tenderly, and she looked + back with the divine, untroubled gaze of a child, laying her slender, + sun-tanned hands in his. + </p> + <p> + And, deep in his body, as he stood there, he heard the low challenge of + his soul on guard; and he knew that the Enemy listened. + </p> + <p> + THE END <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Fighting Chance, by Robert W. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Fighting Chance + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7492] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 10, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIGHTING CHANCE *** + + + + +This ebook was prepared by Jeffrey Kraus-yao. + + + + +[Illustration: "She was standing beside the fire with Quarrier, one foot +on the fender."] + + + +The Fighting Chance + +By Robert W. Chambers + + +Author of "Cardigan," "The Maid at Arms," "The Firing Line," etc. + + + +DEDICATED TO MY FATHER + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER +I. Acquaintance +II. Imprudence +III. Shotover +IV. The Season Opens +V. A Winning Loser +VI. Modus Vivendi +VII. Persuasion +VIII. Confidences +IX. Confessions +X. The Seamy Side +XI. The Call of the Rain +XII. The Asking Price +XIII. The Selling Price +XIV. The Bargain +XV. The Enemy Listens + + + + +THE FIGHTING CHANCE + + +CHAPTER I ACQUAINTANCE + +The speed of the train slackened; a broad tidal river flashed into sight +below the trestle, spreading away on either hand through yellowing level +meadows. And now, above the roaring undertone of the cars, from far +ahead floated back the treble bell-notes of the locomotive; there came a +gritting vibration of brakes; slowly, more slowly the cars glided to a +creaking standstill beside a sun-scorched platform gay with the bright +flutter of sunshades and summer gowns. + +"Shotover! Shotover!" rang the far cry along the cars; and an absent- +minded young man in the Pullman pocketed the uncut magazine he had been +dreaming over and, picking up gun case and valise, followed a line of +fellow-passengers to the open air, where one by one they were engulfed +and lost to view amid the gay confusion on the platform. + +The absent-minded young man, however, did not seem to know exactly where +he was bound for. He stood hesitating, leisurely inspecting the flashing +ranks of vehicles--depot wagons, omnibusses, and motor cars already +eddying around a dusty gravel drive centred by the conventional railroad +flower bed and fountain. + +Sunshine blazed on foliage plants arranged geometrically, on scarlet +stars composed of geraniums, on thickets of tall flame-tinted cannas. +And around this triumph of landscape gardening, phaeton, Tilbury, +Mercedes, and Toledo backed, circled, tooted; gaily gowned women, whips +aslant, horses dancing, greeted expected guests; laughing young men +climbed into dog-carts and took the reins from nimble grooms; young +girls, extravagantly veiled, made room in comfortable touring-cars for +feminine guests whose extravagant veils were yet to be unpacked; slim +young men in leather trappings, caps adorned with elaborate masks or +goggles, manipulated rakish steering-gears; preoccupied machinists were +fussing with valve and radiator or were cranking up; and, through the +jolly tumult, the melancholy bell of the locomotive sounded, and the +long train moved out through the September sunshine amid clouds of snowy +steam. + +And all this time the young man, gun case in one hand, suit case in the +other, looked about him in his good-humoured, leisurely manner for +anybody or any vehicle which might be waiting for him. His amiable +inspection presently brought a bustling baggage-master within range of +vision; and he spoke to this official, mentioning his host's name. + +"Lookin' for Mr. Ferrall?" repeated the baggage-master, spinning a trunk +dexterously into rank with its fellows. "Say, one of Mr. Ferrall's men +was here just now--there he is, over there uncrating that there bird- +dog!" + +The young man's eyes followed the direction indicated by the grimy +thumb; a red-faced groom in familiar livery was kneeling beside a dog's +travelling crate, attempting to unlock it, while behind the bars an +excited white setter whined and thrust forth first one silky paw then +the other. + +The young man watched the scene for a moment, then: + +"Are you one of Mr. Ferrall's men?" he asked in his agreeable voice. + +The groom looked up, then stood up: + +"Yis, Sorr." + +"Take these; I'm Mr. Siward--for Shotover House. I dare say you have room +for me and the dog, too." + +The groom opened his mouth to speak, but Siward took the crate key from +his fingers, knelt, and tried the lock. It resisted. From the depths of +the crate a beseeching paw fell upon his cuff. + +"Certainly, old fellow," he said soothingly, "I know how you feel about +it; I know you're in a hurry--and we'll have you out in a second--steady, +boy!--something's jammed, you see! Only one moment now! There you are!" + +The dog attempted to bolt as the crate door opened, but the young man +caught him by the leather collar and the groom snapped on a leash. + +"Beg pardon, Sorr," began the groom, carried almost off his feet by the +frantic circling of the dog--"beg pardon, Sorr, but I'll be afther seem' +if anny of Mr. Ferrall's men drove over for you--" + +"Oh! Are you not one of Mr. Ferrall's men?" + +"Yis, Sorr, but I hadn't anny orders to meet anny wan--" + +"Haven't you anything here to drive me in?" + +"Yis, Sorr--I'll look to see--" + +The raw groom, much embarrassed, and keeping his feet with difficulty +against the plunging dog, turned toward the gravel drive where now only +a steam motor and a depot-wagon remained. As they looked the motor +steamed out, honking hoarsely; the depot-wagon followed, leaving the +circle at the end of the station empty of vehicles. + +"Didn't Mr. Ferrall expect me?" asked Siward. + +"Aw, yis, Sorr; but the gintlemen for Shotover House does ginerally +allways coom by Black Fells, Sorr--" + +"Oh, Lord!" said the young man, "I remember now. I should have gone on +to Black Fells Crossing; Mr. Ferrall wrote me!" Then, amused: "I suppose +you have only a baggage-wagon here?" + +"No, Sorr--a phayton"--he hesitated. + +"Well? Isn't a phaeton all right?" + +"Yis, Sorr--if th' yoong lady says so--beg pardon, Sorr, Miss Landis is +driving." + +"Oh--h! I see. . Is Miss Landis a guest at Shotover House?" + +"Yis, Sorr. An' if ye would joost ask her--the phayton do be coming now, +Sorr!" + +The phaeton was coming; the horse, a showy animal, executed side-steps; +blue ribbons fluttered from the glittering head-stall; a young girl in +white was driving. + +Siward advanced to the platform's edge as the phaeton drew up; the young +lady looked inquiringly at the groom, at the dog, and leisurely at him. + +So he took off his hat, naming himself in that well-bred and agreeable +manner characteristic of men of his sort,--and even his smile appeared to +be part and parcel of a conventional ensemble so harmonious as to remain +inconspicuous. + +"You should have gone on to Black Fells Crossing," observed Miss Landis, +coolly controlling the nervous horse. "Didn't you know it?" + +He said he remembered now that such were the directions given him. + +The girl glanced at him incuriously, and with more curiosity at the dog. +"Is that the Sagamore pup, Flynn?" she asked. + +"It is, Miss." + +"Can't you take him on the rumble with you?" And, to Siward: "There is +room for your gun and suit case." + +"And for me?" he asked, smiling. + +"I think so. Be careful of that Sagamore pup, Flynn. Hold him between +your knees. Are you ready, Mr. Siward?" + +So he climbed in; the groom hoisted the dog to the rumble and sprang up +behind; the horse danced and misbehaved, making a spectacle of himself +and an agreeable picture of his driver; then the pretty little phaeton +swung northward out of the gravel drive and went whirling along a road +all misty with puffs of yellow dust which the afternoon sun turned to +floating golden powder. + +"Did you send my telegram, Flynn?" she asked without turning her head. + +"I did, Miss." + +It being the most important telegram she had ever sent in all her life, +Miss Landis became preoccupied,--quite oblivious to extraneous details, +including Siward, until the horse began acting badly again. Her slightly +disdainful and perfect control of the reins interested the young man. He +might have said something civil and conventional about that, but did not +make the effort to invade a reserve which appeared to embarrass nobody. + +A stacatto note from the dog, prolonged infinitely in hysterical +crescendo, demanded comment from somebody. + +"What is the matter with him, Flynn?" she asked. + +Siward said: "You should let him run, Miss Landis." + +She nodded, smiling, inattentive, absorbed in her own affairs, still +theorising concerning her telegram. She drove on for a while, and might +have forgotten the dog entirely had he not once more lifted his voice in +melancholy. + +"You say he ought to run for a mile or two? Do you think he'll bolt, Mr. +Siward?" + +"Is he a new dog?" + +"Yes, fresh from the kennels; supposed to be house-and wagon-broken, +steady to shot and wing--" She shrugged her pretty shoulders. "You see +how he's acting already!" + +"Do you mind if I try him?" suggested Siward. + +"You mean that you are going to let him run?" + +"I think so." + +"And if he bolts?" + +"I'll take my chances." + +"Yes, but please consider my chances, Mr. Siward. The dog doesn't belong +to me." + +"But he ought to run--" + +"But suppose he runs away? He's a horridly expensive creature--if you +care to take the risk." + +"I'll take the risk," said Siward, smiling as she drew rein. "Now Flynn, +give me the leash. Quiet! Quiet, puppy! Everything is coming your way; +that's the beauty of patience; great thing, patience!" He took the +leader; the dog sprang from the rumble. "Now, my friend, look at me! No, +don't twist and squirm and scramble; look me square in the eye; so! . +Now we know each ether and we respect each other--because you are going +to be a good puppy . and obey . Down charge!" + +The dog, trembling with eager comprehension, dropped like a shot, muzzle +laid flat between his paws. Siward unleashed him, looked down at him for +a second, stooped and caressed the silky head, then with a laugh swung +himself into the phaeton beside the driver, who, pretty head turned, had +been looking on intently. + +"Your dog is yard-broken," he said. "Look at him." + +"I see. Do you think he will follow us?" + +"I think so." + +The horse started, Miss Landis looking back over her shoulder at the dog +who lay motionless, crouched flat in the road. + +Then Siward turned. "Come on, Sagamore!" he said gaily; and the dog +sprang forward, circled about the moving phaeton, splitting the air with +yelps of ecstasy, then tore ahead, mad with the delight of stretching +cramped muscles amid the long rank grass and shrubbery of the roadside. + +The girl watched him doubtfully; when he disappeared far away up the +road she turned the blue inquiry of her eyes on Siward. + +"He'll be back," said the young fellow, laughing; and presently the dog +reappeared on a tearing gallop, white flag tossing, glorious in his new +liberty, enchanted with the confidence this tall young man had reposed +in him--this adorable young man, this wonderful friend who had suddenly +appeared to release him from an undignified and abominable situation in +a crate. + +"A good dog," said Siward; and the girl looked around at him, partly +because his voice was pleasant, partly because a vague memory was +beginning to stir within her, coupling something unpleasant with the +name of Siward. + +She had been conscious of it when he first named himself, but, absorbed +in the overwhelming importance of her telegram, had left the analysis of +the matter for the future. + +She thought again of her telegram, theorised a little, came to no +conclusion except to let the matter rest for the present, and mentally +turned to the next and far less important problem--the question of this +rather attractive young man at her side, and why the name of Siward +should be linked in her mind with anything disagreeable. + +Tentatively following the elusive mental dews that might awaken +something definite concerning her hazy impression of the man beside her, +she spoke pleasantly, conventionally, touching idly any topic that might +have a bearing; and, under a self-possession so detached as to give an +impression of indifference, eyes, ears, and intelligence admitted that +he was agreeable to look at, pleasant of voice, and difficult to +reconcile with anything unpleasant. + +Which gradually aroused her interest--the incongruous usually interesting +girls of her age--for he had wit enough to amuse her, sufficient +inconsequence to please her, and something listless, at times almost +absent-minded, almost inattentive, that might have piqued her had it not +inoculated her, as it always does any woman, with the nascent germ of +curiosity. Besides, there was, in the hint of his momentary +preoccupation, a certain charm. + +They discussed shooting and the opening of the season; dogs and the +training of dogs; and why some go gun-shy and why some ace blinkers. +From sport and its justification, they became inconsequential; and she +was beginning to enjoy the freshness of their chance acquaintance, his +nice attitude toward things, his irrelevancy, his gaiety. + +Laughter thawed her; for notwithstanding the fearless confidence she had +been taught for men of her own kind, self-possession and reserve, if not +inherent, had also been drilled into her, and she required a great deal +in a man before she paid him the tribute of one of her pretty laughs. + +Apparently they were advancing rather rapidly. + +"Don't you think we ought to call the dog in, Mr. Siward?" + +"Yes; he's had enough!" + +She drew rein; he sprang out and whistled; and the Sagamore pup, dusty +and happy came romping back. Siward motioned him to the rumble, but the +dog leaped to the front. + +"I don't mind," said the girl. "Let him sit here between us. And you +might occupy yourself by pulling some of those burrs from his ears--if +you will?" + +"Of course I will. Look up here, puppy! No! Don't try to lick my face, +for that is bad manners. Demonstrations are odious, as the poet says." + +"It's always bad manners, isn't it?" asked Miss Landis. + +"What? Being affectionate?" + +"Yes, and admitting it." + +"I believe it is. Do you hear that--Sagamore? But never mind; I'll break +the rules some day when we're alone." + +The dog laid one paw on Siward's knee, looking him wistfully in the +eyes. + +"More demonstrations," observed the girl. "Mr. Siward! You are hugging +him! This amounts to a dual conspiracy in bad manners." + +"Awfully glad to admit you to the conspiracy," he said. "There's one +vacancy--if you are eligible." + +"I am; I was discovered recently kissing my saddle-mare." + +"That settles it! Sagamore, give the young lady the grip." + +Sylvia Landis glanced at the dog, then impulsively shifting the whip to +her left hand, held out the right. And very gravely the Sagamore pup +laid one paw in her dainty white gloved palm. + +"You darling!" murmured the girl, resuming her whip. + +"I notice," observed Siward, "that you are perfectly qualified for +membership in our association for the promotion of bad manners. In fact +I should suggest you for the presidency--" + +"I suppose you think all sorts of things because I gushed over that +dog." + +"Of course I do." + +"Well you need not," she rejoined, delicate nose up-tilted. "I never +kissed a baby in all my life--and never mean to. Which is probably more +than you can say." + +"Yes, its more than I can say. + +"That admission elects you president," she concluded. But after a +moment's silent driving she turned partly toward him with mock +seriousness: "Is it not horridly unnatural in me to feel that way about +babies? And about people, too; I simply cannot endure demonstrations. As +for dogs and horses--well, I've admitted how I behave; and, being so +shamelessly affectionate by disposition, why can't I be nice to babies? +I've a hazy but dreadful notion that there's something wrong about me, +Mr. Siward." + +He scrutinised the pretty features, anxiously; "I can't see it," he +said. + +"But I mean it--almost seriously. I don't want to be so aloof, but--I +don't like to touch other people. It is rather horrid of me I suppose to +be like those silky, plumy, luxurious Angora cats who never are civil to +you and who always jump out of your arms at the first opportunity." + +He laughed--and there was malice in his eyes, but he did not know her +well enough to pursue the subject through so easy an opening. + +It had occurred to her, too, that her simile might invite elaboration, +and she sensed the laugh in his silence, and liked him for remaining +silent where he might easily have been wittily otherwise. + +This set her so much at ease, left her so confident, that they were on +terms of gayest understanding presently, she gossiping about the guests +at Shotover House, outlining the diversions planned for the two weeks +before them. + +"But we shall see little of one another; you will be shooting most of +the time," she said--with the very faintest hint of challenge--too +delicate, too impersonal to savour of coquetry. But the germ of it was +there. + +"Do you shoot?" + +"Yes; why?" + +"I am reconciled to the shooting, then." + +"Oh, that is awfully civil of you. Sometimes I'd rather play Bridge." + +"So should I--sometimes." + +"I'll remember that, Mr. Siward; and when all the men are waiting for +you to start out after grouse perhaps I may take that moment to whisper: +'May I play?'" + +He laughed. + +"You mean that you really would stay and play double dummy when every +other living man will be off to the coverts? Double dummy--to improve my +game?" + +"Certainly! I need improvement." + +"Then there is something wrong with you, too, Mr. Siward." + +She laughed and started to flick her whip, but at her first motion the +horse gave trouble. + +"The bit doesn't fit," observed Siward. + +"You are perfectly right," she returned, surprised. "I ought to have +remembered; it is shameful to drive a horse improperly bitted." And, +after a moment: "You are considerate toward animals; it is good in a +man." + +"Oh, it's no merit. When animals are uncomfortable it worries me. It's +one sort of selfishness, you see." + +"What nonsense," she said; and her smile was very friendly. "Why doesn't +a nice man ever admit he's nice when told so?" + +It seems they had advanced that far. For she was beginning to find this +young man not only safe but promising; she had met nobody recently half +as amusing, and the outlook at Shotover House had been unpromising with +only the overgrateful Page twins to practise on--the other men +collectively and individually boring her. And suddenly, welcome as manna +from the sky, behold this highly agreeable boy to play with--until +Quarrier arrived. Her telegram had been addressed to Mr. Quarrier. + +"What was it you were saying about selfishness?" she asked. "Oh, I +remember. It was nonsense." + +"Certainly." + +She laughed, adding: "Selfishness is so simply defined you know." + +"Is it? How." + +"A refusal to renounce. That covers everything," she concluded. + +"Sometimes renunciation is weakness--isn't it?" he suggested. + +"In what case for example?" + +"Well, suppose we take love." + +"Very well, you may take it if you like it." + +"Suppose you loved a man!" he insisted. + +"Let him beware! What then?" + +"--And, suppose it would distress your family if you married him?" + +"I'd give him up." + +"If you loved him?" + +"Love? That is the poorest excuse for selfishness, Mr. Siward." + +"So you would ruin your happiness and his--" + +"A girl ought to find more happiness in renouncing a selfish love than +in love itself," announced Miss Landis with that serious conviction +characteristic of her years. + +"Of course," assented Siward with a touch of malice, "if you really do +find more happiness in renouncing love than in love itself, it would be +foolish not to do it--" + +"Mr. Siward! You are derisive. Besides, you are not acute. A woman is +always an opportunist. When the event takes place I shall know what to +do." + +"You mean when you want to marry the man you mustn't? + +"Exactly. I probably shall." + +"Marry him? + +"Wish to!" + +"I see. But you won't, of course." + +She drew rein, bringing the horse to a walk at the foot of a long hill. + +"We are going much too fast," said Miss Landis, smiling. + +"Driving too fast for--" + +"No, not driving, going--you and I." + +"Oh, you mean--" + +"Yes I do. We are on all sorts of terms, already." + +"In the country, you know, people--" + +"Yes I know all about it, and what old and valued friends one makes at a +week's end. But it has been a matter of half-hours with us, Mr. Siward." + +"Let us sit very still and think it over," he suggested. And they both +laughed. + +It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her +telegram. The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had +time to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr. Howard Quarrier. The +last week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was +no complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material +of interest in the eight words: "I will consider your request when you +arrive. + +"I wonder if you know Howard Quarrier?" she said. + +After a second's hesitation he replied: "Yes--a little. Everybody does." + +"You do know him?" + +"Only at--the club." + +"Oh, the Lenox?" + +"The Lenox--and the Patroons." + +Preoccupied, driving with careless, almost inattentive perfection, she +thought idly of her twenty-three years, wondering how life could have +passed so quickly leaving her already stranded on the shoals of an +engagement to marry Howard Quarrier. Then her thoughts, errant, wandered +half the world over before they returned to Siward; and when at length +they did, and meaning to be civil, she spoke again of his acquaintance +with Quarrier at the Patroons Club--the club itself being sufficient to +settle Siward's status in every community. + +"I'm trying to remember what it is I have heard about you," she +continued amiably; "you are--" + +An odd expression in his eyes arrested her--long enough to note their +colour and expression--and she continued, pleasantly; "--you are Stephen +Siward, are you not? You see I know your name perfectly well--" Her +straight brows contracted a trifle; she drove on, lips compressed, +following an elusive train of thought which vaguely, persistently, +coupled his name with something indefinitely unpleasant. And she could +not reconcile this with his appearance. However, the train of unlinked +ideas which she pursued began to form the semblance of a chain. Coupling +his name with Quarrier's, and with a club, aroused memory; vague +uneasiness stirred her to a glimmering comprehension. Siward? Stephen +Siward? One of the New York Siwards then;--one of that race-- + +Suddenly the truth flashed upon her,--the crude truth lacking definite +detail, lacking circumstance and colour and atmosphere,--merely the raw +and ugly truth. + +Had he looked at her--and he did, once--he could have seen only the +unruffled and very sweet profile of a young girl. Composure was one of +the masks she had learned to wear--when she chose. + +And she was thinking very hard all the while; "So this is the man? I +might have known his name. Where were my five wits? Siward!--Stephen +Siward! . He is very young, too . much too young to be so horrid. . +Yet--it wasn't so dreadful, after all; only the publicity! Dear me! I +knew we were going too fast." + +"Miss Landis," he said. + +"Mr. Siward?"--very gently. It was her way to be gentle when generous. + +"I think," he said, "that you are beginning to remember where you may +have heard my name." + +"Yes--a little--" She looked at him with the direct gaze of a child, but +the lovely eyes were troubled. His smile was not very genuine, but he +met her gaze steadily enough. + +"It was rather nice of Mrs. Ferrall to ask me," he said, "after the mess +I made of things last spring." + +"Grace Ferrall is a dear," she replied. + +After a moment he ventured: "I suppose you saw it in the papers." + +"I think so; I had completely forgotten it; your name seemed to--" + +"I see." Then, listlessly: "I couldn't have ventured to remind you +that--that perhaps you might not care to be so amiable--" + +"Mr. Siward," she said impulsively, "you are nice to me! Why shouldn't I +be amiable? It was--it was--I've forgotten just how dreadfully you did +behave--" + +"Pretty badly." + +"Very?" + +"They say so." + +"And what is your opinion Mr. Siward?" + +"Oh, I ought to have known better." Something about him reminded her of +a bad small boy; and suddenly in spite of her better sense, in spite of +her instinctive caution, she found herself on the very verge of +laughter. What was it in the man that disarmed and invited a +confidence--scarcely justified it appeared? What was it now that moved +her to overlook what few overlook--not the fault, but its publicity? Was +it his agreeable bearing, his pleasant badinage, his amiably listless +moments of preoccupation, his youth that appealed to her--aroused her +charity, her generosity, her curiosity? + +And had other people continued to accept him, too? What would Quarrier +think of his presence at Shotover? She began to realise that she was a +little afraid of Quarrier's opinions. And his opinions were always +judgments. However Grace Ferrall had thought it proper to ask him, and +that meant social absolution. As far as that went she also was perfectly +ready to absolve him if he needed it. But perhaps he didn't care!--She +looked at him, furtively. He seemed to be tranquil enough in his +abstraction. Trouble appeared to slide very easily from his broad young +shoulders. Perhaps he was already taking much for granted in her +gentleness with him. And gradually speculation became interest and +interest a young girl's innocent curiosity to learn something of a man +whose record it seemed almost impossible to reconcile with his +personality. + +"I was wondering," he said looking up to encounter her clear eyes, +"whose house that is over there?" + +"Beverly Plank's shooting-box; Black Fells," she replied nodding toward +the vast pile of blackish rocks against the sky, upon which sprawled a +heavy stone house infested with chimneys. + +"Plank? Oh yes." + +He smiled to remember the battering blows rained upon the ramparts of +society by the master of Black Fells. + +But the smile faded; and, glancing at him, the girl was surprised to see +the subtle change in his face--the white worn look, then the old +listless apathy which, all at once to her, hinted of something graver +than preoccupation. + +"Are we near the sea?" he asked. + +"Very near. Only a moment to the top of this hill. . Now look!" + +There lay the sea--the same grey-blue crawling void that had ever +fascinated and repelled him--always wrinkled, always in flat monotonous +motion, spreading away, away to the sad world's ends. + +"Full of menace--always," he said, unconscious that he had spoken aloud. + +"The sea!" + +He spoke without turning: "The sea is a relentless thing for a man to +fight. . There are other tides more persistent than the sea, but like +it--like it in its menace." + +His face seemed thinner, older; she noticed his cheek bones for the +first time. Then, meeting her eyes, youth returned with a laugh and a +touch of colour; and, without understanding exactly how, she was aware, +presently, that they had insensibly slipped back to their light badinage +and gay inconsequences--back to a footing which, strangely, seemed to be +already an old footing, familiar, pleasant, and natural to return to. + +"Is that Shotover House?" he asked as they came to the crest of the last +hillock between them and the sea. + +"At last, Mr. Siward," she said mockingly; "and now your troubles are +nearly ended." + +"And yours, Miss Landis?" + +"I don't know," she murmured to herself, thinking of the telegram with +the faintest misgiving. + +For she was very young, and she had not had half enough out of life as +yet; and besides, her theories and preconceived plans for the safe and +sound ordering of her life appeared to lack weight--nay, they were +dwindling already into insignificance. + +Theory had almost decided her to answer Mr. Quarrier's suggestion with a +'Yes.' However, he was coming from the Lakes in a day or two. She could +decide definitely when she had discussed the matter with him. + +"I wish that I owned this dog," observed Siward, as the phaeton entered +the macadamised drive. + +"I wish so, too," she said, "but he belongs to Mr. Quarrier." + + + +CHAPTER II IMPRUDENCE + +A house of native stone built into and among weather-scarred rocks, one +massive wing butting seaward, others nosing north and south among cedars +and outcropping ledges--the whole silver-grey mass of masonry reddening +under a westering sun, every dormer, every leaded diamond pane aflame; +this was Shotover as Siward first beheld it. + +Like the craggy vertebrae of a half-buried fossil splitting the sod, a +ragged line of rock rose as a barrier to inland winds; the foreland, set +here and there with tiny lawns and pockets of bright flowers, fell away +to the cliffs; and here, sheer wet black rocks fronted the eternal +battering of the Atlantic. + +As the phaeton drew up under a pillared porte-cochere, one or two +servants appeared; a rather imposing specimen bowed them through the +doors into the hall where, in a wide chimney place, the embers of a +drift-wood fire glimmered like a heap of dusty jewels. Bars of sunlight +slanted on wall and rug, on stone floor and carved staircase, on the +bronze foliations of the railed gallery above, where, in the golden +gloom through a high window, sun-tipped tree tops against a sky of azure +stirred like burnished foliage in a tapestry. + +"There is nobody here, of course," observed Miss Landis to Siward as +they halted in front of the fire-place; "the season opens to-day in this +county, you see." She shrugged her pretty shoulders: "And the women who +don't shoot make the first field-luncheon a function." + +She turned, nodded her adieux, then, over her shoulder, casually: "If +you haven't an appointment with the Sand-Man before dinner you may find +me in the gun-room." + +"I'll be there in about three minutes," he said; "and what about this +dog?"--looking down at the Sagamore pup who stood before him, wagging, +attentive, always the gentleman to the tips of his toes. + +Miss Landis laughed. "Take him to your room if you like. Dogs have the +run of the house." + +So he followed a servant to the floor above where a smiling and very +ornamental maid preceded him through a corridor and into that heavy wing +of the house which fronted the sea. + +"Tea is served in the gun-room, sir," said the pretty maid, and +disappeared to give place to a melancholy and silent young man who +turned on the bath, laid out fresh raiment, and whispering, "Scotch or +Irish, sir?" presently effaced himself. + +Before he quenched his own thirst Siward filled a bowl and set it on the +floor, and it seemed as though the dog would never finish gulping and +slobbering in the limpid icy water. + +"It's the salt air, my boy," commented the young man, gravely refilling +his own glass as though accepting the excuse on his own account. + +Then man and beast completed ablutions and grooming and filed out +through the wide corridor, around the gallery, and down the broad +stairway to the gun-room--an oaken vaulted place illuminated by the sun, +where mellow lights sparkled on glass-cased rows of fowling pieces and +rifles, on the polished antlers of shaggy moose heads. + +Miss Landis sat curled up in a cushioned corner under the open casement +panes, offering herself a cup of tea. She looked up, nodding invitation; +he found a place beside her. A servant whispered, "Scotch or Irish, +sir," then set the crystal paraphernalia at his elbow. + +He said something about the salt air, casually; the girl gazed +meditatively at space. + +The sound of wheels on the gravel outside aroused her from a silence +which had become a brown study; and, to Siward, presently, she said: +"Here endeth our first rendezvous." + +"Then let us arrange another immediately," he said, stirring the ice in +his glass. + +The girl considered him with speculative eyes: "I shouldn't exactly know +what to do with you for the next hour if I didn't abandon you." + +"Why bother to do anything with me? Why even give yourself the trouble +of deserting me? That solves the problem." + +"I really don't mean that you are a problem to me, Mr. Siward," she +said, amused; "I mean that I am going to drive again." + +"I see." + +"No you don't see at all. There's a telegram; I'm not driving for +pleasure--" + +She had not meant that either, and it annoyed her that she had expressed +herself in such terms. As a matter of fact, at the telegraphed request +of Mr. Quarrier, she was going to Black Fells Crossing to meet his train +from the Lakes and drive him back to Shotover. The drive, therefore, was +of course a drive for pleasure. + +"I see," repeated Siward amiably. + +"Perhaps you do," she observed, rising to her graceful height. He was on +his feet at once, so carelessly, so good-humouredly acquiescent that +without any reason at all she hesitated. + +"I had meant to show you about--the cliffs--the kennels and stables; I'm +sorry," she concluded, lingering. + +"I'm awfully sorry," he rejoined without meaning anything in particular. +That was the trouble, whatever he said, apparently meant so much. + +With the agreeable sensation of being regretted, she leisurely gloved +herself, then walked through the gun-room and hall, Siward strolling +beside her. + +The dog followed them as they turned toward the door and passed out +across the terraced veranda to the driveway where a Tandem cart was +drawn up, faultlessly appointed. Quarrier's mania was Tandem. She +thought it rather nice of her to remember this. + +She inspected the ensemble without visible interest for a few moments; +the wind freshened from the sea, fluttering her veil, and she turned +toward the east to face it. In the golden splendour of declining day the +white sails of yachts crowded landward on the last leg before beating +westward into Blue Harbour; a small white cruiser, steaming south, left +a mile long stratum of rose-tinted smoke hanging parallel to the +horizon's plane; the westering sun struck sparks from her bright-work. + +The magic light on land and water seemed to fascinate the girl; she had +walked a little way toward the cliffs, Siward following silently, +offering no comment on the beauty of sky and cliff. As they halted once +more the enchantment seemed to spread; a delicate haze enveloped the +sea; hints of rose colour tinted the waves; over the uplands a pale +mauve bloom grew; the sunlight turned redder, slanting on the rocks, and +every kelp-covered reef became a spongy golden mound, sprayed with +liquid flame. + +They had turned their backs to the Tandem; the grooms looked after them, +standing motionless at the horses' heads. + +"Mr. Siward, this is too fine to miss," she said. "I will walk as far as +the headland with you. . Please smoke if you care to." + +He did care to; several matches were extinguished by the wind until she +spread her skids as a barrier; and kneeling in their shelter he got his +light. + +"Tobacco smoke diluted with sea breeze is delicious," she said, as the +wind whirled the aromatic smoke of his cigarette up into her face. +"Don't move, Mr. Siward; I like it; there is to me always a faint odour +of sweet-brier in the melange. Did you ever notice it?" + +The breeze-blown conversation became fragmentary, veering as +capriciously as the purple wind-flaws that spread across the shoals. But +always to her question or comment she found in his response the charm of +freshness, of quick intelligence, or of a humourous and idle perversity +which stimulates without demanding. + +Once, glancing back at the house where the T-cart and horses stood, she +said that she had better return; or perhaps she only thought she said +it, for he made no response that time. And a few moments later they +reached the headland, and the Atlantic lay below, flowing azure from +horizon to horizon--under a universe of depthless blue. And for a long +while neither spoke. + +With her the spell endured until conscience began to stir. Then she +awoke, uneasy as always, under the shadow of restraint or pressure, +until her eyes fell on him and lingered. + +A subtle change had come into his face; its leanness struck her for the +first time; that, and an utter detachment from his surroundings, a +sombre oblivion to everything--and to her. + +How curiously had his face altered, how shadowy it had grown, effacing +the charm of youth, in it. + +The slight amusement with which she had become conscious of her own +personal exclusion grew to an interest tinged with curiosity. + +The interest continued, but when his silence became irksome to her she +said so very frankly. His absent eyes, still clouded, met hers, +unsmiling. + +"I hate the sea," he said. + +"You--hate it!" she repeated, too incredulous to be disappointed. + +"There's no rest in it; it tires. A man who plays with it must be on his +guard every second. To spend a lifetime on it is ridiculous--a whole life +of intelligent effort, against perpetual, brutal, inanimate resistance-- +one endless uninterrupted fight--a ceaseless human manoeuvre against +senseless menace; and then the counter attack of the lifeless monster, +the bellowing advance, the shock--and no battle won--nothing final, +nothing settled, no! only the same eternal nightmare of surveillance, +the same sleepless watch for stupid treachery." + +"But--you don't have to fight it!" she said, astonished. + +"No; but it is no secret--what it does to those who do. . Some escape; +but only by dying ashore before it gets them. That is the way some of us +reach Heaven; we die too quick for the Enemy to catch us." + +He was laughing when she said: "It is not a fight with the sea; it is +the battle of Life itself you mean." + +"Yes, in a way, the battle of Life." + +"Oh, you are morbid then. Is there anybody ever born who has not a fight +on his hands?" + +"No; only I have known men tired out, unfairly, before life had declared +war on them." + +"Just what do you mean?" + +"Oh, something about fair play--what our popular idol summarises as a +'square deal'." He laughed again, easily, his face clearing. + +"Nobody worth a square deal ever laments because he hasn't had it," she +said. + +"I dare say that's true, too," he admitted listlessly. + +"Mr. Siward, exactly what did you mean?" + +"I was thinking of men I knew; for example a man who through generations +has inherited every impulse and desire that he should not harbour--a man +with intellect enough to be aware of it, with decency enough to desire +decency. . What chance has he with the storms which have been brewing +for him even before he opened his eyes on earth? Is that a square deal?" + +The troubled concentration of her face was reflected now in his own; the +wind came whipping and flicking at them from league-wide tossing wastes; +the steady thunder of the sea accented the silence. + +She said: "I suppose everybody has infinite capacity for decency or +mischief. I know that I have. And I fancy that this capacity always +remains, no matter how moral one's life may be. 'Watch and pray' was not +addressed to the guilty alone, Mr. Siward." + +"Oh, yes, of course. As for the balanced capacity for good and evil, how +about the inherited desire for the latter?" + +"Who is free from that, too? Do you suppose anybody really desires to be +good?" + +"You mean most people are so afraid not to be, that virtue becomes a +habit?" + +"Perhaps. It's a plain business proposition anyway. It pays." + +"Celestial insurance?" he asked, laughing. + +"I don't know, Mr. Siward; do you?" + +But he, turning to the sea, had become engrossed in his own thoughts +again; and again she was first curious, then impatient at the ease with +which he excluded her. She remembered, too, that the cart was waiting; +that she had scarcely time now to make the train. + +She stood irresolute, inert, disinclined to bestir herself. An inborn +aptitude for drifting, which threatened to become a talent for +indecision, had always alternated in her with sudden impulsive +conclusions; and when her pride was involved, in decisions which +sometimes scarcely withstood the analysis of reason. + +Physically healthy, mentally unawakened, sentimentally incredulous, +totally ignorant of any master passion, and conventionally drilled, her +beauty and sweet temper had carried her easily on the frothy crest of +her first season, over the eligible and ineligible alike, leaving her at +Lenox, a rather tired and breathless girl, in love with pleasure and the +world which treated her so well. + +The death of her mother abroad had made little impression upon her--her +uncle, Major Belwether, having cared for her since her father's death +when she was ten years old. So, although the scandal of her mother's +self-exile had been in a measure condoned by a tardy marriage to the man +for whom she had left everything, her daughter had grown up ignorant of +any particular feeling for a mother she could scarcely remember. + +However, she wore black and went nowhere for the second winter, during +which time she learned a great deal concerning the unconventional +proclivities of the women of her race and family, enough to impress her +so seriously that on an exaggerated impulse she had come to one of her +characteristic decisions. + +That decision was to break the unsavoury record at the first justifiable +opportunity. And the opportunity came in the shape of Quarrier. As +though wedlock were actually the sanctuary which an alarmed nation +pretends it to be! + +Now, approaching the threshold of a third and last season, and having +put away her almost meaningless mourning, there had stolen into her +sense of security something irksome in the promise she had made to give +Quarrier a definite answer before winter. + +Perhaps it had been the lack of interest in the people at Shotover, +perhaps a mental review of her ancestors' capricious records--perhaps a +characteristic impulse that had directed a telegram to Quarrier after a +midnight confab with Grace Ferrall. + +However it may have been, she had summoned him. And now he was on his +way to get his answer, the best whip, the most eagerly discussed, and +one of the wealthiest unmarried men in America. + +Lingering irresolutely, considering with idle eyes the shadows +lengthening across the sun-shot moorland, the sound of Siward's even +voice aroused her from a meditation bordering on lassitude. + +She answered vaguely. He spoke again; all the agreeable, gentle, +humourous charm dominant once more--releasing her from the growing +tension of her own thoughts, absolving her from the duty of immediate +decision. + +"I feel curiously lazy," she said; "perhaps from our long drive." She +seated herself on the turf. "Talk to me, Mr. Siward--in that lazy way of +yours." + +What he had to say proved inconsequent enough, an irrelevant suggestion +concerning the training of field-dogs for close covert work and the +reasons for not breaking such dogs on quail. Then the question of cross- +breeding came up, and he gave his opinion on the qualities of +"droppers." To which she replied, sleepily; and the conversation veered +again toward the mystery of heredity, and the hopelessness of escape +from its laws as illustrated now by the Sagamore pup, galloping nose in +the wind, having scented afar the traces of the forbidden rabbit. + +"His ancestors turned 'round and 'round to flatten the long reeds and +grasses in their lairs before lying down," observed Siward. "He does it, +too, where there is nothing to flatten out. Did you ever notice how many +times a dog turns around before lying down? And there goes the carefully +schooled Sagamore, chasing rabbits! Why? Because his wild ancestors +chased rabbits. . Heredity? It's a steady, unseen, pulling, dragging +force. Like lightning, too, it shatters, sometimes, where there is +resistance." + +"Do you mean, Mr. Siward, that heredity is an excuse for moral +weakness?" + +"I don't know. Those inheriting nothing of evil say it is no excuse." + +"It is no excuse." + +"You speak with authority," he said. + +"With more than you are aware of," she murmured, not meaning to say it. + +She stood up impulsively, her fresh face turned to the distant house, +her rounded young figure poised in relief against the sky. + +"Inherited or not, idleness, procrastination, are my besetting sins. +Can't you suggest the remedy, Mr. Siward?" + +"But they are only the thieves of Time; and we kill the poor old +gentleman." + +"Leagued assassins," she repeated pensively. + +Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she +looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric. + +"Payment for my iniquities--the first instalment," she said, still +looking down over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her. +"Thank you, Mr. Siward. I think we ought to start, don't you?" + +He straightened up, smiling, awaiting her further pleasure. Her pleasure +being capricious, she seated herself again, saying: "What I meant to say +was this: evils that spring from heredity are no excuse for misconduct +in people of our sort. Environment, not heredity, counts. And it's our +business, who have every chance in the world, to make good!" + +He looked down, amused at the piquant incongruity of voice and +vernacular. + +"What time is it?" she asked irrelevantly. + +He glanced at his watch. She turned her eyes toward the level sun, +conscious, and a little conscience-stricken that it was too late for her +to drive to Black Fells Crossing--unless she started at once. + +The sun hung low over the pines; all the scrubby foreland ran molten +gold in every tufted furrow; flock after flock of twittering little +birds whirled into the briers and out again, scattering inland into +undulating flight. + +The zenith turned shell pink; through clotted shoals of clouds spread +spaces of palest green like calm lakes in the sky. + +It grew stiller; the wind went down with the sun. + +Doubtless he had forgotten to tell her the time; she had almost +forgotten that she had asked him. With the silence of sunset a languor, +the indolence of content, crept over her; she saw him close his watch +with the absent-minded air which she already associated with him, and +she let the question go from sheer disinclination for the effort of +repetition--let the projected drive go--acquiescent, content that matters +shape themselves without any interference from her. The sense of ease, +of physical well-being invaded her with an agreeable relaxation as +though tension somewhere had slackened. + +They chatted on, casually, impersonally, in rather subdued tones. The +dog returned now and then to see that all was well. All was well enough, +it appeared, for she sat beside Siward, quite content, knees clasped in +her hands, exchanging impressions of life with a man who so far had been +sympathetically considerate in demanding from her no intellectual +effort. + +The conversation drifted illogically; sometimes he stirred her to +amusement, even a hushed laughter; sometimes she smilingly agreed with +his views, sometimes she let them go, uncriticised; or, intent on her +own ideas, shook her small head in amused disapproval. + +The stillness over all, the deepening mellow light, the blessed +indolence of the young world--and their few years in it--Youth! That was +perhaps the key to it all, after all. + +"To-morrow," she mused aloud, knees cradled in her clasped fingers, +"to-morrow they'll shoot--with great circumstance and fuss--a few native +woodcock--there's no flight yet from the north!--a few grouse, fewer +snipe, a stray duck or two. Others will drive motor cars over bad roads; +others will ride, sail, golf--anything to kill the eternal enemy." + +"And you?" + +"Je n'en sais rien, monsieur." + +"Mais je voudrais savoir." + +"Pourquoi?" + +"To lay a true course by the stars"; he looked at her blue eyes and she +laughed easily under the laughing flattery. + +"You must seek another compass--to-morrow," she said. Then it occurred to +her that nobody could guess her decision in regard to Quarrier; and she +partly raised her eyes, looking at him, indolent speculation under the +white lids. + +She liked him already; in fact she had liked few men as well on such +brief acquaintance. + +"You know the majority of the people here, or coming, don't you?" she +inquired. + +"Who are they?" + +She began: "The Leroy Mortimers?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Lord Alderdene and Captain Voucher, and the Page twins and Marion?" + +"Yes." + +"Rena Bonnesdel, the Tassel girl, Agatha Caithness, Mrs. Vendenning--all +sorts, all sets." And, with an effort: "If I'm to drive, I should +like--to--to know what time it is?" + +He informed her; and she, too indolent to pretend surprise, and finding +reproach easier, told him that he had no business to permit her to +forget. + +His smiling serenity under the rebuke aroused in her a slight resentment +as though he had taken something for granted. + +Besides, she had grown uneasy; she had wired Quarrier, saying she would +meet him and drive him over. He had replied at once, naming his train. +He was an exact man and expected method and precision in others. She +didn't exactly know how it might affect him if his reasonable demand was +unsatisfied. She did not know him very well yet, only well enough to be +aware that he was a gentleman so precisely, so judiciously constructed, +that, contemplating his equitable perfections, her awe and admiration +grew as one on whom dawns the exquisite adjustments of an almost human +machine. + +And, thinking of him now, she again made up her mind to give him the +answer which he now had every reason to expect from her. This decision +appeared to lubricate her conscience; it ran more smoothly now, emitting +fewer creaks. + +"You say that you know Mr. Quarrier?" she began thoughtfully. + +"Not well." + +"I--hope you will like him, Mr. Siward." + +"I do not think he likes me, Miss Landis. He has reasons not to." + +She looked up, suddenly remembering: "Oh--since that scrape? What has Mr. +Quarrier to do--" She did not finish the sentence. A troubled silence +followed; she was trying to remember the details--something she had paid +small attention to at the time--something so foreign to her, so distant +from her comprehension that it had not touched her closely enough for +her to remember exactly what this young man might have done to forfeit +the good-will of Howard Quarrier. + +She looked at Siward; it was impossible that anything very bad could +come from such a man. And, pursuing her reasoning aloud: "It couldn't +have been very awful," she argued; "something foolish about an actress, +was it not? And that could not concern Mr. Quarrier." + +"I thought you did know; I thought you--remembered--while you were +driving me over from the station--that I was dropped from my club." + +She flushed up: "Oh!--but--what had Mr. Quarrier to do with that?" + +"He is a governor of that club." + +"You mean that Mr. Quarrier had you--dropped?" + +"What else could he do? A man who is idiot enough to risk making his own +club notorious, must take the consequences. And they say I took that +risk. Therefore Mr. Quarrier, Major Belwether--all the governors did +their duty. I--I naturally conclude that no governor of the Patroons Club +feels very kindly toward me." + +Miss Landis sat very still, her small head bent, a flush still +brightening her fair face. + +She recalled a few of the details now--the scandal--something of the +story. Which particular actress it was she could not remember; but some +men who had dined too freely had made the wager, and this boy sitting +beside her had accepted it--and won it, by bringing into the sacred +precincts of the Patroons Club a foolish, shameless girl disguised in a +man's evening dress. + +That was bad enough; that somebody promptly discovered it was worse; but +worst of all was the publicity, the club's name smirched, the young man +expelled from one of the two best clubs in the metropolis. + +To read of such things in the columns of a daily paper had meant little +to her except to repell her; to hear it mentioned among people of her +own sort had left her incurious and indifferent. But now she saw it in a +new light, with the man who had figured in it seated beside her. Did +such men as he--such attractive, well-bred, amusing men as he--do that +sort of thing? + +There he sat, hat off, the sun touching his short, thick hair which +waved a little at the temples--a boyish mould to head and shoulders, a +cleanly outlined check and chin, a thoroughbred ear set close--a good +face. What sort of a man, then, was a woman to feel at ease with? What +eye, what mouth, what manner, what bearing was a woman to trust? + +"Is that the kind of man you are, Mr. Siward?" she said impulsively. + +"It appears that I was; I don't know what I am--or may be." + +"The pity of it!" she said, still swayed by impulse. "Why did you +do--didn't you know--realize what you were doing--bringing discredit on +your own club?" + +"I was in no condition to know, Miss Landis." + +The crude brutality of the expression might merely have hurt or +disgusted her had she been less intelligent. Nor, as it was, did she +fully understand why he chose to use it--unless that he meant it in self- +punishment. + +"It's rather shameful!" she said hotly. + +"Yes," he assented; "it's a bad beginning." + +"A--beginning! Do you mean to go on?" + +He did not reply; his head was partly turned from her. She sat silent +for a while. The dog had returned to lie at Siward's feet, its brown +eyes tirelessly watching the man it had chosen for its friend; and the +man, without turning his eyes, dropped one hand on the dog's head, +caressing the silky ears. + +Some sentimentalist had once said that no man who cared for animals +could be wholly bad. Inexperience inclined her to believe it. Then too, +she had that inclination for overlooking offences committed against +precept, which appears to be one of those edifying human traits peculiar +to neither sex and common to both. Besides, her knowledge of such +matters was as vague as her mind was healthy and body wholesome. Men who +dined incautiously were not remarkable for their rarity; the actress +habit, being incomprehensible to her, meant nothing; and she said, +innocently: "What men like you can find attractive in a common woman I +do not understand; there are plenty of pretty women of your own sort. +The actress cult is beyond my comprehension; I only know it is generally +condoned. But it is not for such things that we drop men, Mr. Siward. +You know that, of course." + +"For what do you drop men?" + +"For falsehood, deception, any dishonesty." + +"And you don't drop a man when you read in the papers that one of the +two best clubs in town has expelled him?" + +She gave him a troubled glance; and, naively: "But you are still a +member of the other, are you not?" Then hardening: "It was common! +common!--thoroughly disgraceful and incomprehensible!"--and with every +word uttered insensibly warming in her heart toward him whom she was +chastening; "it was not even bad--it was worse than being simply bad; it +was stupid!" + +He nodded, one hand slowly caressing the dog's head where it lay across +his knees. + +She watched him a moment, hesitated, then smiling a little: "So now I +know the worst about you; do I not?" she concluded. + +He did not answer; she waited, the smile still curving her red mouth. +Had she been too severe? She wondered. "You may help me to my feet," she +said sweetly. She was very young. + +He rose at once, holding out his hands to aid her in that pleasantly +impersonal manner so suited to him; and now they stood together in the +purple dusk of the uplands--two people young enough to take one another +seriously. + +"Let me tell you something," she said, facing him, white hands loosely +linked behind her. "I don't exactly understand how it has happened, but +you know as well as I do that we have formed a--an acquaintance--the sort +that under normal conditions requires a long time and several +conventional and preliminary chapters. . I should like to know what you +think of our performance." + +"I think," he said laughing, "that it is charming." + +"Oh, yes; men usually find the unconventional agreeable. What I want to +know is why I find it so, too?" + +"Do you?" A dull colour stained his cheek-bones. + +"Certainly I do. Is it because I've had a delightful chance to admonish +a sinner--and be--just a little sorry--that he had made such a silly +spectacle of himself?" + +He laughed, wincing a trifle. + +"Hence this agreeably righteous glow suffusing me," she concluded. "So +now that I have answered my own question, I think that we had better go. +. Don't you?" + +They walked for a while, subdued, soberly picking their path through the +dusk. After a few moments she began to feel doubtful, a little uneasy, +partly from a reaction which was natural, partly because she was not at +all sure what either Quarrier or Major Belwether would think of the +terms she was already on with Siward. Suppose they objected? She had +never thwarted either of these gentlemen. Besides she already had a +temporary interest in Siward--the interest that women always cherish, +quite unconsciously, for the man whose shortcomings they have consented +to overlook. + +As they crossed the headland, through the deepening dusk the acetylene +lamps on a cluster of motor cars spread a blinding light across the +scrub. The windows of Shotover House were brilliantly illuminated. + +"Our shooting-party has returned," she said. + +They crossed the drive through the white glare of the motor lamps; +people were passing, grooms with dogs and guns and fluffy bunches of +game-birds, several women in motor costumes, veils afloat, a man or two +in shooting-tweeds or khaki. + +As they entered the hall together, she turned to him, an indefinable +smile curving her lips; then, with a little nod, friendly and sweet, she +left him standing at the open door of the gun-room. + + + +CHAPTER III SHOTOVER + +The first person he encountered in the gun-room was Quarrier, who +favoured him with an expressionless stare, then with a bow, quite +perfunctory and non-committal. It was plain enough that he had not +expected to meet Siward at Shotover House. + +Kemp Ferrall, a dark, stocky, active man of forty, was in the act of +draining a glass, when, though the bottom he caught sight of Siward. He +finished in a gulp, and advanced, one muscular hand outstretched: +"Hello, Stephen! Heard you'd arrived, tried the Scotch, and bolted with +Sylvia Landis! That's all right, too, but you should have come for the +opening day. Lots of native woodcock--eh, Blinky?" turning to Lord +Alderdene; and again to Siward: "You know all these fellows--Mortimer +yonder--" There was the slightest ring in his voice; and Leroy Mortimer, +red-necked, bulky, and heavy eyed, emptied his glass and came over, +followed by Lord Alderdene blinking madly though his shooting-goggles +and showing all his teeth like a pointer with a "tic." Captain Voucher, +a gentleman with the vivid colouring of a healthy groom on a cold day, +came up, followed by the Page boys, Willis and Gordon, who shook hands +shyly, enchanted to be on easy terms with the notorious Mr. Siward. And +last of all Tom O'Hara arrived, reeking of the saddle and clinking a +pair of trooper's spurs over the floor--relics of his bloodless Porto +Rico campaign with Squadron A. + +It was patent to every man present that the Kemp Ferralls had determined +to ignore Siward's recent foolishness, which indicated that he might +reasonably expect the continued good-will of several sets, the orbits of +which intersected in the social system of his native city. Indeed, the +few qualified to snub him cared nothing about the matter, and it was not +likely that anybody else would take the initiative in being disagreeable +to a young man, the fortunes and misfortunes of whose race were part of +the history of Manhattan Island. Siwards, good or bad, were a matter of +course in New York. + +So everybody in the gun-room was civil enough, and he chose Scotch and +found a seat beside Alderdene, who sat biting at a smoky pipe and +fingering a tumbler of smokier Scotch, blinking away like mad through +his shooting-goggles at everybody. + +"These little brown snipe you call woodcock," he began; "we bagged nine +brace, d'you see? But of all the damnable bogs and covers--" + +"Rotten," said Mortimer thickly; "Ferrall, you're all calf and biceps, +and it's well enough for you to go floundering into bogs--" + +"Where do you expect to find native woodcock?" demanded Ferrall, +laughing. + +"On the table hereafter," growled Mortimer. + +"Oh, go and pot Beverly Plank's tame pheasants," retorted Ferrall +amiably; "Captain Voucher had a blank day, but he isn't kicking." + +"Not I," said Voucher; "the sport is capital--if one can manage to hit +the beggars--" + +"Oh, everybody misses in snap-shooting," observed Ferrall; "that is, +everybody except Stephen Siward with his unholy left barrel. Crack! +and," turning to Alderdene, "it's like taking money from you, Blinky-- +which reminds me that we've time for a little Preference before +dressing." + +His squinting lordship declined and took an easier position in his +chair, extending a pair of little bandy legs draped in baggy tweed +knickerbockers and heather-spats. Mortimer, industriously distending his +skin with whiskey, reached for the decanter. The aromatic perfume of the +spirits aroused Siward, and he instinctively nodded his desire to a +servant. + +"This salt air keeps one thirsty," he observed to Ferrall; then +something in his host's expression arrested the glass at his lips. He +had already been using the decanter a good deal; except Mortimer, nobody +was doing that sort of thing as freely as he. + +He set his glass on the table thoughtfully; a tinge of colour had crept +into his lean checks. + +Ferrall, too, suddenly uncomfortable, stood up saying something about +dressing; several men arose a trifle stiffly, feeling in every joint the +result of the first day's shooting after all those idle months. Mortimer +got up with an unfeigned groan; Siward followed, leaving his glass +untouched. + +One or two other men came in from the billiard-room. All greeted Siward +amiably--all excepting one who may not have seen him--an elderly, pink, +soft gentleman with white downy chop-whiskers and the profile of a +benevolent buck rabbit. + +"How do you do, Major Belwether?" said Siward in a low voice without +offering his hand. + +Then Major Belwether saw him, bless you! yes indeed! And though Siward +continued not to offer his hand, Major Belwether meant to have it, bless +your heart! And he fussed and fussed and beamed cordiality until he +secured it in his plump white fingers and pressed it effusively. + +There was something about his soft, warm hands which had always reminded +Siward of the temperature and texture of a newly hatched bird. It had +been some time since he had shaken hands with Major Belwether; it was +apparent that the bird had not aged any. + +"And now for the shooting!" said the Major with an arch smile. "Now for +the stag at bay and the winding horn-- + +'Where sleeps the moon On Mona's rill--' + +Eh, Siward? + +'And here's to the hound With his nose upon the ground--' + +Eh, my boy? That reminds me of a story--" He chuckled and chuckled, his +lambent eyes suffused with mirth; and slipping his arm through the +pivot-sleeve of Lord Alderdene's shooting-jacket, hooking the other in +Siward's reluctant elbow, and driving Mortimer ahead of him, he went +garrulously away up the stairs, his lordship's bandy little legs +trotting beside him, the soaking gaiters and shoes slopping at every +step. + +Mortimer, his mottled skin now sufficiently distended, greeted the story +with a yawn from ear to ear; his lordship, blinking madly, burst into +that remarkable laugh which seemed to reveal the absence of certain +vocal cords requisite to perfect harmony; and Siward smiled in his +listless, pleasant way, and turned off down his corridor, unaware that +the Sagamore pup was following close at his heels until he heard +Quarrier's even, colourless voice: "Ferrall, would you be good enough to +send Sagamore to your kennels?" + +"Oh--he's your dog! I forgot," said Siward turning around. + +Quarrier looked at him, pausing a moment. + +"Yes," he said coldly, "he's my dog." + +For a fraction of a second the two men's eyes encountered; then Siward +glanced at the dog, and turned on his heel with the slightest shrug. And +that is all there was to the incident--an anxious, perplexed puppy lugged +off by a servant, turning, jerking, twisting, resisting, looking +piteously back as his unwilling feet slid over the polished floor. + +So Siward walked on alone through the long eastern wing to his room +overlooking the sea. He sat down on the edge of his bed, glancing at the +clothing laid out for him. He felt tired and disinclined for the +exertion of undressing. The shades were up; night quicksilvered the +window-panes so that they were like a dark mirror reflecting his face. +He inspected his darkened features curiously; the blurred and sombre- +tinted visage returned the stare. + +"Not a man at all--the shadow of a man," he said aloud--"with no will, no +courage--always putting off the battle, always avoiding conclusions, +always skulking. What chance is there for a man like that?" + +As one who raises a glass to drink wine and unexpectedly finds water, he +shrugged his shoulders disgustedly and got up. A bath followed; he +dressed leisurely, and was pacing the room, fussing with his collar, +when Ferrall knocked and entered, finding a seat on the bed. + +"Stephen," he said bluntly, "I haven't seen you since that break of +yours at the club." + +"Rotten, wasn't it?" commented Siward, tying his tie. + +"Perfectly. Of course it doesn't make any difference to Grace or to me, +but I fancy you've already heard from it." + +"Oh, yes. All I care about is how my mother took it." + +"Of course; she was cut up I suppose?" + +"Yes, you know how she would look at a thing of that sort; not that any +of the nine and seventy jarring sets would care, but those few thousands +invading the edges, butting in--half or three-quarters inside--are the +people who can't afford to overlook the victim of a fashionable club's +displeasure--those, and a woman like my mother, and several other decent- +minded people who happen to count in town." + +Ferrall, his legs swinging busily, thought again; then: "Who was the +girl, Stephen?" + +"I don't think the papers mentioned her name," said Siward gravely. + +"Oh--I beg your pardon; I thought she was some notorious +actress--everybody said so. . Who were those callow fools who put you up +to it? . Never mind if you don't care to tell. But it strikes me they +are candidates for club discipline as well as you. It was up to them to +face the governors I think--" + +"No, I think not." + +Ferrall, legs swinging busily, considered him. + +"Too bad," he mused; "they need not have dropped you--" + +"Oh, they had to. But as long as the Lenox takes no action I can live +that down." + +Ferrall nodded: "I came in to say something--a message from +Grace--confound it! what was it? Oh--could you--before dinner--now-- +just sit down and with that infernal facility of yours make a sketch +of a man chasing a gun-shy dog?" + +"Why yes--if Mrs. Ferrall wishes--" + +He walked over to the desk in his shirt-sleeves, sat down, drew a blank +sheet of paper toward him, and, dipping his pen, drew carelessly a gun- +shy setter dog rushing frantically across the stubble, and after him, +bare-headed, gun in hand, the maddest of men. + +"Put a Vandyke beard on him," grinned Ferrall over his shoulder. "There! +O Lord! but you have hit it! Put a ticked saddle on the cur--there!" + +"Who is this supposed to be?" began Siward, looking up. But "Wait!" +chuckled his host, seizing the still wet sketch, and made for the door. + +Siward strolled into the bath-room, washed a spot or two of ink from his +fingers, returned and buttoned his waistcoat, then, completing an +unhurried toilet, went out and down the stairway to the big living-room. +There were two or three people there--Mrs. Leroy Mortimer, very fetching +with her Japanese-like colouring, black hair and eyes that slanted just +enough; Rena Bonnesdel, smooth, violet-eyed, blonde, and rather stunning +in a peculiarly innocent way; Miss Caithness, very pale and slimly +attractive; and the Page boys, Willis and Gordon, delightfully shy and +interested, and having a splendid time with any woman who could afford +the intellectual leisure. + +Siward spoke pleasantly to them all. Other people drifted down--Marion +Page who looked like a school-marm and rode like a demon; Eileen +Shannon, pink and white as a thorn blossom, with the deuce to pay +lurking in her grey eyes; Kathryn Tassel and Mrs. Vendenning whom he did +not know, and finally his hostess Grace Ferrall with her piquant, almost +boyish, freckled face and sweet frank eyes and the figure of an +adolescent. + +She gave Siward one pretty sun-browned hand and laid the other above +his, holding it a moment in her light clasp. + +"Stephen! Stephen!" she said under her breath, "it's because I've a few +things to scold you about that I've asked you to Shotover." + +"I suppose I know," he said. + +"I should hope you do. I've a letter to-night from your mother." + +"From my mother?" + +"I want you to go over it--with me--if we can find a minute after dinner." +She released his hand, turning partly around: "Kemp, dinner's been +announced, so cut that dog story in two! Will you give me your arm Major +Belwether? Howard!"--to her cousin, Mr. Quarrier, who turned from Miss +Landis to listen--"will you please try to recollect whom you are to take +in--and do it?" And, as she passed Siward, in a low voice, mischievous +and slangy: "Sylvia Landis for yours--as she says she didn't have enough +of you on the cliffs." + +The others appeared to know how to pair according to some previous +notice. Siward turned to Sylvia Landis with the pleasure of his good +fortune so plainly visible in his face, that her own brightened in +response. + +"You see," she said gaily, "you cannot escape me. There is no use in +looking wildly at Agatha Caithness"--he wasn't--"or pretending you're +pleased," slipping her rounded, bare arm through the arm he offered. +"You can't guess what I've done to-night--nobody can guess except Grace +Ferrall and one other person. And if you try to look happy beside me, I +may tell you--somewhere between sherry and cognac--Oh, yes; I've done two +things: I have your dog for you!" + +"Not Sagamore?" he said incredulously as he was seating her. + +"Certainly Sagamore. I said to Mr. Quarrier, 'I want Sagamore,' and when +he tried to give him to me, I made him take my cheque. Now you may draw +another for me at your leisure, Mr. Siward. Tell me, are you +pleased?"--for she was looking for the troubled hesitation in his face +and she saw it dawning. + +"Mr. Quarrier doesn't like me, you know--" + +"But I do," she said coolly. "I told him how much pleasure it would give +me. That is sufficient--is it not?--for everybody concerned." + +"He knew that you meant to--" + +"No, that concerns only you and me. Are you trying to spoil my pleasure +in what I have done?" + +"I can't take the dog, Miss Landis--" + +"Oh," she said, vexed; "I had no idea you were vindictive--" + +There was a silence; he bent forward a trifle, gravely scrutinising a +"hand-painted" name card, though it might not have astonished him to +learn that somebody's foot had held the brush. Somewhere in the vicinity +Grace Ferrall had discovered a woman who supported dozens of relatives +by painting that sort of thing for the summer residents at Vermillion +Point down the coast. So being charitable she left an order, and being +thrifty, insisted on using the cards, spite of her husband's gibes. + +People were now inspecting them with more or less curiosity; Siward +found his "hand-painting" so unattractive that he had just tipped it +over to avoid seeing it, when a burst of laughter from Lord Alderdene +made everybody turn. Mrs. Vendenning was laughing; so was Rena Bonnesdel +looking over Quarrier's shoulder at a card he was holding--not one of the +"hand"-decorated, but a sheet of note-paper containing a drawing of a +man rushing after a gun-shy dog. + +The extraordinary cackling laughter of his lordship obliterated other +sounds for a while; Rena Bonnesdel possessed herself of the drawing and +held it up amid a shout of laughter. And, to his excessive annoyance, +Siward saw that, unconsciously, he had caricatured Quarrier--Ferrall's +malicious request for a Vandyke beard making the caricature dreadfully +apparent. + +Quarrier had at first flushed up; then he forced a smile; but his +symmetrical features were never cordial when he smiled. + +"Who on earth did that?" whispered Sylvia Landis apprehensively. "Mr. +Quarrier dislikes that sort of thing--but of course he'll take it well." + +"Did he ever chase his own dog?" asked Siward, biting his lip. + +"Yes--so Blinky says--in the Carolinas last season. It's Blinky!--that's +his notion of humour. Did you ever hear such a laugh? No wonder Mr. +Quarrier is annoyed." + +The gay uproar had partly subsided, renewed here and there as the sketch +was passed along, and finally, making the circle, returned like a bad +penny to Quarrier. He smiled again, symmetrically, as he received it, +nodding his compliments to Alderdene. + +"Oh, no," cackled his lordship; "I didn't draw it, old chap!" + +"Nor I! I only wish I could," added Captain Voucher. + +"Nor I--nor I--who did it?" ran the chorus along the table. + +"I didn't do it!" said Sylvia gravely, looking across at Quarrier. And +suddenly Quarrier's large, handsome eyes met Siward's for the briefest +fraction of a second, then were averted. But into his face there crept +an expressionless pallor that did not escape Siward--no, nor Sylvia +Landis. + +Presently under cover of a rapid fire of chatter she said: "Did you draw +that?" + +"Yes; I had no idea it was meant for him. You may imagine how likely I'd +be to take any liberty with a man who already dislikes me." + +"But it resembles him--in a very dreadful way." + +"I know it. You must take my word for what I have told you." + +She looked up at him: "I do." Then: "It's a pity; Mr. Quarrier does not +consider such things humourous. He--he is very sensitive. . Oh, I wish +that fool Englishman had been in Ballyhoo!" + +"But he didn't do it!" + +"No, but he put you up to it--or Grace Ferrall did. I wish Grace would +let Mr. Quarrier alone; she has always been perfectly possessed to +plague him; she seems unable to take him seriously and he simply hates +it. I don't think he'd tolerate her if she were not his cousin. + +"I'm awfully sorry," was all Siward said; and for a while he gloomily +busied himself with whatever was brought to him. + +"Don't look that way," came a low voice beside him. + +"Do I show everything as plainly as that?" he asked, curiously. + +"I seem to read you--sometimes." + +"It's very nice of you," he said. + +"Nice?" + +"To look at me--now and then." + +"Oh," she cried resentfully, "don't be grateful." + +"I--really am not you know," he said laughing. + +"That," she rejoined slowly, "is the truth. You say conventional things +in a manner--in an agreeably personal manner that interests women. But +you are not grateful to anybody for anything; you are indifferent, and +you can't help being nice to people, so--some day--some girl will think +you are grateful, and will have a miserable time of it." + +"Miserable time?" + +"Waiting for you to say what never will enter your head to say." + +"You mean I--I--" + +"Flirt? No, I mean that you don't flirt; that you are always dreamily +occupied with your own affairs, from which listlessly congenial +occupation, when drawn, you are so unexpectedly nice that a girl +immediately desires to see how nice you can be." + +"What a charming indictment you draw!" he said, amused. + +"It's a grave one I assure you. I've been talking about you to Grace +Ferrall; I asked to be placed beside you at dinner; I told her I hadn't +had half enough of you on the cliff. Now what do you think of yourself +for being too nice to a susceptible girl? I think it's immoral. + +They both were laughing now; several people glanced at them, smiling in +sympathy. Alderdene took that opportunity to revert to the sketch, +furnishing a specimen of his own inimitable laughter as a running +accompaniment to the story of Quarrier and his dog in North Carolina, +until he had everybody, as usual, laughing, not at the story but at him. +All of which demonstration was bitterly offensive to Quarrier. He turned +his eyes once on Miss Landis and on Siward, then dropped them. + +The hostess arose; a rustle and flurry of silk and lace and the scraping +of chairs, a lingering word or laugh, and the colour vanished from the +room leaving a circle of men in black standing around the table. + +Here and there a man, lighting a cigarette, bolted his coffee and cognac +and strolled out to the gun-room. Ferrall, gesticulating vigorously, +resumed his preprandial dog story to Captain Voucher; Belwether +buttonholed Alderdene and bored him with an interminably facetious tale +until that nobleman, threatened with maxillary dislocation, fairly +wrenched himself loose and came over to Siward, squinting furiously. + +"Old ass!" he muttered; "his chop whiskers look like the chops of a +Southdown ram--and he's got the wits of one. Look here, Stephen, I hear +you fell into no end of a scrape in town--" + +"Tu quoque, Blinky? Oh, read the newspapers and let it go at that!" + +"Just as you like old chap!" returned his lordship unabashed. "All I +meant was--anything Voucher and I can do--of course--" + +"You're very good. I'm not dead you know." + +"'Not dead, you know'," repeated Major Belwether coming up behind them +with his sprightly step; "that reminds me of a good one--" He sat down +and lighted a cigar, then, vainly attempting to control his countenance +as though roguishly anticipating the treat awaiting them, he began +another endless story. + +Tradition had hallowed the popular notion that Major Belwether was a +wit. The sycophant of the outer world seldom even awaited his first word +before bursting into premature mirth. Besides he was very wealthy. + +Siward watched him with mixed emotions; the lambent-eyed, sheepy +expression had given place to the buck rabbit; his smooth baby-pink skin +and downy white side whiskers quivered in premature sympathy with his +listener's overwhelming hilarity. + +The Page boys, very callow, very much delighted, and a little in awe of +such a celebrated personage, laughed heartily. And altogether there was +sufficient attention and sufficient laughter to make a very respectable +noise. This, being the major's cue for an exit, he rose, one sleek hand +raised in sprightly protest as though to shield the invisible ladies, to +whose bournes he was bound, from an uproar too masculine and mighty for +the ears of such a sex. + +"Ass!" muttered Alderdene, getting up and pattering about the room in +his big, shiny pumps. "Give me a peg--somebody!" + +Mortimer swallowed his brandy, lingered, lifted the decanter, +mechanically considering its remaining contents and his own capacity; +then: + +"Bridge, Captain?" + +"Certainly," said Captain Voucher briskly. + +"I'll go and shoo the major into the gun-room," observed +Ferrall--"unless--" looking questioningly at Siward. + +"I've a date with your wife," observed that young man, strolling toward +the hall. + +The Page boys, Rena Bonnesdel, and Eileen Shannon were seated at a card +table together, very much engaged with one another, the sealed pack +lying neglected on the green cloth, a vast pink box of bon-bons beside +it, not neglected. + +O'Hara and Quarrier with Marion Page and Mrs. Mortimer were immersed in +the game, already stony faced and oblivious to outer sounds. + +About the rooms were distributed girls en tete-a-tete, girls eating bon- +bons and watching the cards--among them Sylvia Landis, hands loosely +clasped behind her, standing at Quarrier's elbow to observe and profit +by an expert performance. + +As Siward strolled in she raised her dainty head for an instant, smiled +in silence, and resumed a study of her fiance's game. + +A moment later, when Quarrier had emerged brilliantly from the melee, +she looked up again, triumphantly, supposing Siward was lingering +somewhere waiting to join her. And she was just a trifle surprised and +disappointed to find him nowhere in sight. She had wished him to observe +the brilliancy of Mr. Quarrier's game. + +But Siward, outside on the veranda, was saying at that moment to his +hostess: "I shall be very glad to read my mother's letter at any time +you choose." + +"It must be later, Stephen. I'm to cut in when Kemp sends for me. He has +a lot of letters to attend to. . Tell me, what do you think of Sylvia +Landis?" + +"I like her, of course," he replied pleasantly. + +Grace Ferrall stood thinking a moment: "That sketch you made proved a +great success, didn't it?" And she laughed under her breath. + +"Did it? I thought Mr. Quarrier seemed annoyed--" + +"Really? What a muff that cousin of mine is. He's such a muff, you know, +that the very sight of his pointed beard and pompadour hair and his +complacency sets me in fidgets to stir him up." + +"I don't think you'd best use me for the stick next time," said Siward. +"He's not my cousin you know." + +Mrs. Ferrall shrugged her boyish shoulders: "By the way"--she said +curiously--"who was that girl?" + +"What girl," he asked coolly, looking at his hostess, now the very +incarnation of delicate mockery with her pretty laughing mouth, her +boyish sunburn and freckles. + +"You won't tell me I suppose?" + +"I'm sorry--" + +"Was she pretty, Stephen?" + +"Yes," he said sulkily; "I wish you wouldn't--" + +"Nonsense! Do you think I'm going to let you off without some sort of +confession? If I had time now--but I haven't. Kemp has business letters: +he'll be furious; so I've got to take his cards or we won't have any +pennies to buy gasoline for our adored and shrieking Mercedes." + +She retreated backward with a gay nod of malice, turned to enter the +house, and met Sylvia Landis face to face in the hallway. + +"You minx!" she whispered; "aren't you ashamed?" + +"Very much, dear. What for?" And catching sight of Siward outside in the +starlight, divined perhaps something of her hostess' meaning, for she +laughed uneasily, like a child who winces under a stern eye. + +"You don't suppose for a moment," she began, "that I have--" + +"Yes I do. You always do." + +"Not with that sort of man," she returned naively; "he won't." + +Mrs. Ferrall regarded her suspiciously: "You always pick out exactly the +wrong man to play with--" + +They had moved back side by side into the hall, the hostess' arm linked +in the arm of the younger girl. + +"The wrong man?" repeated Sylvia, instinctively freeing her arm, her +straight brows beginning to bend inward. + +"I didn't mean that--exactly. You know how much I care for his mother--and +for him." The obstinate downward trend of the brows, the narrowing blue +gaze signalled mutiny to the woman who knew her so well. + +"What is so wrong with Mr. Siward?" she asked. + +"Nothing. There was an affair--" + +"This spring in town. I know it. Is that all?" + +"Yes--for the present," replied Grace Ferrall uncomfortably; then: "For +goodness' sake, Sylvia, don't cross examine me that way! I care a great +deal for that boy--" + +"So do I. I've made him take my dog." + +There was an abrupt pause, and presently Mrs. Ferrall began to laugh. + +"I mean it--really," said Sylvia quietly; "I like him immensely." + +"Dearest, you mean it generously--with your usual exaggeration. You have +heard that he has been foolish, and because he's so young, so likable, +every instinct, every impulse in you is aroused to--to be nice to him--" + +"And if that were--" + +"There is no harm, dear--" Mrs. Ferrall hesitated, her grey eyes +softening to a graver revery. Then looking up: "It's rather pathetic," +she said in a low voice. "Kemp thinks he's foredoomed--like all the +Siwards. It's an hereditary failing with him,--no, it's hereditary +damnation. Siward after Siward, generation after generation you know--" +She bit her lip, thinking a moment. "His grandfather was a friend of my +grand-parents, brilliant, handsome, generous, and--doomed! His own father +was found dying in a dreadful resort in London where he had wandered +when stupefied--a Siward! Think of it! So you see what that outbreak of +Stephen's means to those whose families have been New Yorkers since New +York was. It is ominous, it is more than ominous--it means that the +master-vice has seized on one more Siward. But I shall never, never +admit it to his mother." + +The younger girl sat wide-eyed, silent; the elder's gaze was upon her, +but her thoughts, remote, centred on the hapless mother of such a son. + +"Such indulgence was once fashionable; moderation is the present +fashion. Perhaps he will fall into line," said Mrs. Ferrall +thoughtfully. "The main thing is to keep him among people, not to drop +him. The gregarious may be shamed, but if anything, any incident, +happens to drive him outside by himself, if he should become solitary, +there's not a chance in the world for him. . It's a pity. I know he +meant to make himself the exception to the rule--and look! Already one +carouse of his has landed him in the daily papers!" + +Sylvia flushed and looked up: "Grace, may I ask you a plain question?" + +"Yes, child," she answered absently. + +"Has it occurred to you that what you have said about this boy touches +me very closely?" + +Mrs. Ferrall's wits returned nimbly from woolgathering, and she shot a +startled, inquiring glance at the girl beside her. + +"You--you mean the matter of heredity, Sylvia?" + +"Yes. I think my uncle Major Belwether chose you as his august +mouthpiece for that little sermon on the dangers of heredity--the danger +of being ignorant concerning what women of my race had done--before I +came into the world they found so amusing." + +"I told you several things," returned Mrs. Ferrall composedly. "Your +uncle thought it best for you to know." + +"Yes. The marriage vows sat lightly upon some of my ancestors, I gather. +In fact," she added coolly, "where the women of my race loved they +usually found the way--rather unconventionally. There was, if I +understood you, enough of divorce, of general indiscretion and +irregularity to seriously complicate any family tree and coat of arms I +might care to claim--" + +"Sylvia!" + +The girl lifted her pretty bare shoulders. "I'm sorry, but could I help +it? Very well; all I can do is to prove a decent exception. Very well; +I'm doing it, am I not?--practically scared into the first solidly +suitable marriage offered--seizing the unfortunate Howard with both hands +for fear he'd get away and leave me alone with only a queer family +record for company! Very well! Now then, I want to ask you why +everybody, in my case, didn't go about with sanctimonious faces and +dolorous mien repeating: 'Her grand-mother eloped! Her mother ran away. +Poor child, she's doomed! doomed!'" + +"Sylvia, I--" + +"Yes--why didn't they? That's the way they talk about that boy out +there!" She swept a rounded arm toward the veranda. + +"Yes, but he has already broken loose, while you--" + +"So did I--nearly! Had it not been for you, you know well enough I might +have run away with that dreadful Englishman at Newport! For I adored him +--I did! I did! and you know it. And look at my endless escapes from +compromising myself! Can you count them?--all those indiscretions when +mere living seemed to intoxicate me that first winter--and only my uncle +and you to break me in!" + +"In other words," said Mrs. Ferrall slowly, "you don't think Mr. Siward +is getting what is known as a square deal?" + +"No, I don't. Major Belwether has already hinted--no, not even that--but +has somehow managed to dampen my pleasure in Mr. Siward." + +Mrs. Ferrall considered the girl beside her--now very lovely and flushed +in her suppressed excitement. + +"After all," she said, "you are going to marry somebody else. So why +become quite so animated about a man you may never again see?" + +"I shall see him if I desire to!" + +"Oh!" + +"I am not taking the black veil, am I?" asked the girl hotly. + +"Only the wedding veil, dear. But after all your husband ought to have +something to suggest concerning a common visiting list--" + +"He may suggest--certainly. In the meantime I shall be loyal to my own +friends--and afterward, too," she murmured to herself, as her hostess +rose, calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders. + +"Go and be good to this poor young man then; I adore rows--and you'll +have a few on your hands I'll warrant. Let me remind you that your uncle +can make it unpleasant for you yet, and that your amiable fiance has a +will of his own under his pompadour and silky beard." + +"What a pity to have it clash with mine," said the girl serenely. + +Mrs. Ferrall looked at her: "Mercy on us! Howard's pompadour would stick +up straight with horror if he could hear you! Don't be silly; don't for +an impulse, for a caprice, break off anything desirable on account of a +man for whom you really care nothing--whose amiable exterior and +prospective misfortune merely enlist a very natural and generous +sympathy in you." + +"Do you suppose that I shall endure interference from anybody?--from my +uncle, from Howard?" + +"Dear, you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Don't be emotional; +don't let loose impulses that you and I know about, knew about in our +school years, know all about now, and which you and I have decided must +be eliminated--" + +"You mean subdued; they'll always be there." + +"Very well; who cares, as long as you have them in leash?" + +Looking at one another, the excited colour cooling in the younger girl's +cheeks, they laughed, one with relief, the other a little ashamed. + +"Kemp will be furious; I simply must cut in!" said Mrs. Ferrall, hastily +turning toward the gun-room. Miss Landis looked after her, subdued, +vaguely repentant, the consciousness dawning upon her that she had +probably made considerable conversation about nothing. + +"It's been so all day," she thought impatiently; "I've exaggerated; I've +worked up a scene about a man whose habits are not the slightest concern +of mine. Besides that I've neglected Howard shamefully!" She was walking +slowly, her thoughts outstripping her errant feet, but it seemed that +neither her thoughts nor her steps were leading her toward the neglected +gentleman within; for presently she found herself at the breezy veranda +door, looking rather fixedly at the stars. + +The stars, shining impartially upon the just and the unjust, illuminated +the person of Siward, who sat alone, rather limply, one knee crossed +above the other. He looked up by chance, and, seeing her star-gazing in +the doorway, straightened out and rose to his feet. + +Aware of him apparently for the first time, she stepped across the +threshold meeting his advance half-way. + +"Would you care to go down to the rocks?" he asked. "The surf is +terrific." + +"No--I don't think I care--" + +They stood listening a moment to the stupendous roar. + +"A storm somewhere at sea," he concluded. + +"Is it very fine--the surf?" + +"Very fine--and very relentless--" he laughed; "it is an unfriendly +creature, the sea, you know." + +She had begun to move toward the cliffs, he fell into step beside her; +they spoke little, a word now and then. + +The perfume of the mounting sea saturated the night with wild fragrance; +dew lay heavy on the lawns; she lifted her skirts enough to clear the +grass, heedless that her silk-shod feet were now soaking. Then at the +cliffs' edge, as she looked down into the white fury of the surf, the +stunning crash of the ocean saluted her. + +For a long while they watched in silence; once she leaned a trifle too +far over the star-lit gulf and, recoiling, involuntarily steadied +herself on his arm. + +"I suppose," she said, "no swimmer could endure that battering." + +"Not long." + +"Would there be no chance?" + +"Not one." + +She bent farther outward, fascinated, stirred, by the splendid frenzy of +the breakers. + +"I--think--," he began quietly; then a firm hand fell over her left hand; +and, half encircled by his arm she found herself drawn back. Neither +spoke; two things she was coolly aware of, that, urged, drawn by +something subtly irresistible she had leaned too far out from the cliff, +and would have leaned farther had he not taken matters into his own +keeping without apology. Another thing; the pressure of his hand over +hers remained a sensation still--a strong, steady, masterful imprint +lacking hesitation or vacillation. She was as conscious of it as though +her hand still tightened under his--and she was conscious, too, that +nothing of his touch had offended; that there had arisen in her no +tremor of instinctive recoil. For never before had she touched or +suffered a touch from a man, even a gloved greeting, that had not in +some measure subtly repelled her, nor, for that matter, a caress from a +woman without a reaction of faint discomfort. + +"Was I in any actual danger?" she asked curiously. + +"I think not. But it was too much responsibility for me." + +"I see. Any time I wish to break my neck I am to please do it alone in +future." + +"Exactly--if you don't mind," he said smiling. + +They turned, shoulder to shoulder, walking back through the drenched +herbage. + +"That," she said impulsively, "is not what I said a few moments ago to a +woman." + +"What did you say a few moments ago to a woman?" + +"I said, Mr. Siward, that I would not leave a--a certain man to go to the +devil alone!" + +"Do you know any man who is going to the devil?" + +"Do you?" she asked, letting herself go swinging out upon a tide of +intimacy she had never dreamed of risking--nor had she the slightest idea +whither the current would carry her. + +They had stopped on the lawn, ankle deep in wet grass, the stars +overhead sparkling magnificently, and in their ears the outcrash of the +sea. + +"You mean me," he concluded. + +"Do I?" + +He looked up into the lovely face; her eyes were very sweet, very +clear--clear with excitement--but very friendly. + +"Let us sit here on the steps a little while, will you?" she asked. + +So he found a place beside her, one step lower, and she leaned forward, +elbows on knees, rounded white chin in her palms, the starlight giving +her bare arms and shoulders a marble lustre and tinting her eyes a +deeper amethyst. + +And now, innocently untethered, mission and all, she laid her heart +quite bare--one chapter of it. And, like other women-errant who believe +in the influence of their sex individually and collectively, she began +wrong by telling him of her engagement--perhaps to emphasise her pure +disinterestedness in a crusade for principle only. Which naturally +dampened in him any nascent enthusiasm for being ministered to, and so +preoccupied him that he turned deaf ears to some very sweet platitudes +which might otherwise have impressed him as discoveries in philosophy. + +Officially her creed was the fashionable one in town; privately she had +her own religion, lacking some details truly enough, but shaped upon +youthful notions of right and wrong. As she had not read very widely, +she supposed that she had discovered this religion for herself; she was +not aware that everybody else had passed that way--it being the first +immature moult in young people after rejecting dogma. + +And the ripened fruit of all this philosophy she helpfully dispensed for +Siward's benefit as bearing directly on his case. + +Had he not been immersed in the unexpected proposition of her impending +matrimony, he might have been impressed, for the spell of her beauty +counted something, and besides, he had recently formulated for himself a +code of ethics, tinctured with Omar, and slightly resembling her own +discoveries in that dog-eared science. + +So it was, when she was most eloquent, most earnestly inspired--nay in +the very middle of a plea for sweetness and light and simple living, +that his reasonings found voice in the material comment: + +"I never imagined you were engaged!" + +"Is that what you have been thinking about?" she asked, innocently +astonished. + +"Yes. Why not? I never for one instant supposed--" + +"But, Mr. Siward, why should you have concerned yourself with supposing +anything? Why indulge in any speculation of that sort about me?" + +"I don't know, but I didn't," he said. + +"Of course you didn't; you'd known me for about three hours--there on the +cliff--" + +"But--Quarrier--!" + +Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen--flickering, not yet +settled. He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the +woman destined to be Quarrier's wife. He had talked too much anyway. +Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue. He had +made a plain ass of himself--that was all,--a garrulous ass. And truly it +seemed that the girl beside him, even in the starlight, could follow and +divine what he had scarcely expressed to himself; or her instincts had +taken a shorter cut to forestall his own conclusion. + +"Don't think the things you are thinking!" she said in a fierce little +voice, leaning toward him. + +"What do you mean?" he asked, taken aback. + +"You know! Don't! It is unfair--it is--is faithless--to me. I am your +friend; why not? Does it make any difference to you whom I marry? Cannot +two people remain in accord anyway? Their friendship concerns each other +and--nobody else!" She was letting herself go now; she was conscious of +it, conscious that impulse and emotion were the currents unloosed and +hurrying her onward. And with it all came exhilaration, a faint +intoxication, a delicate delight in daring to let go all and trust to +impulse and emotions. + +"Why should you feel hurt because for a moment you let me see--gave me a +glimpse of yourself--of life's battle as you foresee it? What if there is +always a reaction from all confidences exchanged? What if that miserable +French cynic did say that never was he more alone than after confessing +to a friend? He died crazy anyhow. Is not a rare moment of confidence +worth the reaction--the subsidence into the armored shell of self? Tell +me truly, Mr. Siward, isn't it?" + +Breathless, confused, exhilarated by her own rapid voice she bent her +face, brilliant with colour, and very sweet; and he looked up into it, +expectant, uncertain. + +"If such a friendship as ours is to become worth anything to you--to me, +why should it trouble you that I know--and am thinking of things that +concern you? Is it because the confidence is one-sided? Is it because +you have given and I have listened and given nothing in return to +balance the account? I do give--interest, deep interest, sympathy if you +ask it; I give confidence in return--if you desire it!" + +"What can a girl like you need of sympathy?" he said smiling. + +"You don't know! you don't know! If heredity is a dark vista, and if you +must stare through it all your life, sword in hand, always on your +guard, do you think you are the only one?" + +"Are you--one?" he said incredulously. + +"Yes"--with an involuntary shudder--"not that way. It is easier for me; I +think it is--I know it is. But there are things to combat--impulses, a +recklessness, perhaps something almost ruthless. What else I do not +know, for I have never experienced violent emotions of any sort--never +even deep emotion." + +"You are in love!" + +"Yes, thoroughly," she added with conviction, "but not violently. I--" +she hesitated, stopped short, leaning forward, peering at him through +the dusk; and: "Mr. Siward! are you laughing?" She rose and he stood up +instantly. + +There was lightning in her darkening eyes now; in his something that +glimmered and danced. She watched it, fascinated, then of a sudden the +storm broke and they were both laughing convulsively, face to face there +under the stars. + +"Mr. Siward," she breathed, "I don't know what I am laughing at; do you? +Is it at you? At myself? At my poor philosophy in shreds and tatters? Is +it some infernal mirth that you seem to be able to kindle in me--for I +never knew a man like you before?" + +"You don't know what you were laughing at?" he repeated. "It was +something about love--" + +"No I don't know why I laughed! I--I don't wish to, Mr. Siward. I do not +desire to laugh at anything you have made me say--anything you may +infer--" + +"I don't infer--" + +"You do! You made me say something--about my being ignorant of deep, of +violent emotion, when I had just informed you that I am thoroughly, +thoroughly in love--" + +"Did I make you say all that, Miss Landis?" + +"You did. Then you laughed and made me laugh too. Then you--" + +"What did I do then?" he asked, far too humbly. + +"You--you infer that I am either not in love or incapable of it, or too +ignorant of it to know what I'm talking about. That, Mr. Siward, is what +you have done to me to-night." + +"I--I'm sorry--" + +"Are you?" + +"I ought to be anyway," he said. + +It was unfortunate; an utterly inexcusable laughter seemed to bewitch +them, hovering always close to his lips and hers. + +"How can you laugh!" she said. "How dare you! I don't care for you +nearly as violently as I did, Mr. Siward. A friendship between us would +not be at all good for me. Things pass too swiftly--too intimately. There +is too much mockery in you--" She ceased suddenly, watching the sombre +alteration of his face; and, "Have I hurt you?" she asked penitently. + +"No." + +"Have I, Mr. Siward? I did not mean it." The attitude, the words, +slackening to a trailing sweetness, and then the moment's silence, +stirred him. + +"I'm rather ignorant myself of violent emotion," he said. "I suspect +normal people are. You know better than I do whether love is usually a +sedative." + +"Am I normal--after what I have confessed?" she asked. "Can't love be +well-bred?" + +"Perfectly I should say--only perhaps you are not an expert--" + +"In what?" + +"In self-analysis, for example." + +There was a vague meaning in the gaze they exchanged. + +"As for our friendship, we'll do the best we can for it, no matter what +occurs," he added, thinking of Quarrier. And, thinking of him, glanced +up to see him within ear-shot and moving straight toward them from the +veranda above. + +There was a short silence; a tentative civil word from Siward; then Miss +Landis took command of something that had a grotesque resemblance to a +situation. A few minutes later they returned slowly to the house, the +girl walking serenely between Siward and her preoccupied affianced. + +"If your shoes are as wet as my skirts and slippers you had better +change, Mr. Siward," she said, pausing at the foot of the staircase. + +So he took his conge, leaving her standing there with Quarrier, and +mounted to his room. + +In the corridor he passed Ferrall, who had finished his business +correspondence and was returning to the card-room. + +"Here's a letter that Grace wants you to see," he said. "Read it before +you turn in, Stephen." + +"All right; but I'll be down later," replied Siward passing on, the +letter in his hand. Entering his room he kicked off his wet pumps and +found dry ones. Then moved about, whistling a gay air from some recent +vaudeville, busy with rough towels and silken foot-gear, until, reshod +and dry, he was ready to descend once more. + +The encounter, the suddenly informal acquaintance with this young girl +had stirred him agreeably, leaving a slight exhilaration. Even her +engagement to Quarrier added a tinge of malice to his interest. Besides +he was young enough to feel the flattery of her concern for him--of her +rebuke, of her imprudence, her generous emotional and childish +philosophy. + +Perhaps, as like recognises like, he recognised in her the instincts of +the born drifter, momentarily at anchor--the temporary inertia of the +opportunist, the latent capacity of an unformed character for all things +and anything. Add to these her few years, her beauty, and the wholesome +ignorance so confidently acknowledged, what man could remain +unconcerned, uninterested in the development of such possibilities? Not +Siward, amused by her sagacious and impulsive prudence, worldliness, and +innocence in accepting Quarrier; and touched by her profitless, frank, +and unworldly friendliness for himself. + +Not that he objected to her marrying Quarrier; he rather admired her for +being able to do it, considering the general scramble for Quarrier. But +let that take care of itself; meanwhile, their sudden and capricious +intimacy had aroused him from the morbid reaction consequent upon the +cheap notoriety which he had brought upon himself. Let him sponge his +slate clean and begin again a better record, flattered by the solicitude +she had so prettily displayed. + +Whistling under his breath the same gay, empty melody, he opened the top +drawer of his dresser, dropped in his mother's letter, and locking the +drawer, pocketed the key. He would have time enough to read the letter +when he went to bed; he did not just now feel exactly like skimming +through the fond, foolish sermon which he knew had been preached at him +through his mother's favourite missionary, Grace Ferrall. What was the +use of dragging in the sad old questions again--of repeating his +assurances of good behaviour, of reiterating his promises of moderation +and watchfulness, of explaining his own self-confidence? Better that the +letter await his bed time--his prayers would be the sincerer the fresher +the impression; for he was old-fashioned enough to say the prayers that +an immature philosophy proved superfluous. For, he thought, if prayer is +any use, it takes only a few minutes to be on the safe side. + +So he went down-stairs leisurely, prepared to acquiesce in any +suggestion from anybody, but rather hoping to saunter across Sylvia +Landis' path before being committed. + +She was standing beside the fire with Quarrier, one foot on the fender, +apparently too preoccupied to notice him; so he strolled into the gun- +room, which was blue with tobacco smoke and aromatic with the volatile +odours from decanters. + +There were a few women there, and the majority of the men. Lord +Alderdene, Major Belwether, and Mortimer were at a table by themselves; +stacks of ivory chips and five cards spread in the centre of the green +explained the nature of their game; and Mortimer, raising his heavy +inflamed eyes and seeing Siward unoccupied, said wheezily: "Cut out that +'widow,' and give Siward his stack! Anything above two pairs for a jack +triples the ante. Come on, Siward, there's a decent chap!" + +So he seated himself for a sacrifice to the blind goddess balanced upon +her winged wheel; and the cards ran high--so high that stacks dwindled or +toppled within the half-hour, and Mortimer grew redder and redder, and +Major Belwether blander and blander, and Alderdene's face wore a +continual nervous snicker, showing every white hound's tooth, and the +ice in the tall glasses clinked ceaselessly. + +It was late when Quarrier "sat in," with an expressionless +acknowledgment of Siward's presence, and an emotionless raid upon his +neighbour's resources with the first hand dealt, in which he +participated without drawing a card. + +And always Siward, eyes on his cards, seemed to see Quarrier before him, +his overmanicured fingers caressing his silky beard, the symmetrical +pompadour dark and thick as the winter fur on a rat, tufting his smooth +blank forehead. + +It was very late when Siward first began to be aware of his increasing +deafness, the difficulty, too, that he had in making people hear, the +annoying contempt in Quarrier's woman-like eyes. He felt that he was +making a fool of himself, very noiselessly somehow--but with more racket +than he expected when he miscalculated the distance between his hand and +a decanter. + +It was time for him to go--unless he chose to ask Quarrier for an +explanation of that sneer which he found distasteful. But there was too +much noise, too much laughter. + +Besides he had a matter to attend to--the careful perusal of his mother's +letter to Mrs. Ferrall. + +Very white, he rose. After an indeterminate interval he found himself +entering his room. + +The letter was in the dresser; several things seemed to fall and break, +but he got the letter, sank down on the bed's edge and strove to +read,--set his teeth grimly, forcing his blurred eyes to a focus. But he +could make nothing of it--nor of his toilet either, nor of Ferrall, who +came in on his way to bed having noticed the electricity still in full +glare over the open transom, and who straightened out matters for the +stunned man lying face downward across the bed, his mother's letter +crushed in his nerveless hand. + + + +CHAPTER IV THE SEASON OPENS + +Breakfast at Shotover, except for the luxurious sluggards to whom trays +were sent, was served in the English fashion--any other method or +compromise being impossible. + +Ferrall, reasonable in most things, detested customs exotic, and usually +had an Englishman or two about the house to tell them so, being unable +to jeer in any language except his own. Which is partly why Alderdene +and Voucher were there. And this British sideboard breakfast was a +concession wrung from him through force of sheer necessity, although the +custom had already become practically universal in American country +houses where guests were entertained. + +But at the British breakfast he drew the line. No army of servants, +always in evidence, would he tolerate, either; no highly ornamented +human bric-a-brac decorating halls and corners; no exotic pheasants +hustled into covert and out again; no fusillade at the wretched, +frightened, bewildered aliens dumped by the thousand into unfamiliar +cover and driven toward the guns by improvised beaters. + +"We walk up our game or we follow a brace of good dogs in this white +man's country," he said with unnecessary emphasis whenever his bad taste +and his wife's absence gave him an opportunity to express to the casual +foreigner his personal opinions on field sport. "You'll load your own +guns and you'll use your own legs if you shoot with me; and your dogs +will do their own retrieving, too. And if anybody desires a Yankee's +opinion on shooting driven birds from rocking-chairs or potting tame +deer from grand-stands, they can have it right now!" + +Usually nobody wanted his further opinion; and sometimes they got it and +sometimes not, if his wife was within earshot. Otherwise Ferrall +appeared to be a normal man, energetically devoted to his business, his +pleasures, his friends, and comfortably in love with his wife. And if +some considered his vigour in business to be lacking in mercy, that +vigour was always exercised within the law. He never transgressed the +rules of war, but his headlong energy sometimes landed him close to the +dead line. He had already breakfasted, when the earliest risers entered +the morning room to saunter about the sideboards and investigate the +simmering contents of silver-covered dishes on the warmers. + +The fragrance of coffee was pleasantly perceptible; men in conventional +shooting attire roamed about the room, selected what they cared for, and +carried it to the table. Mrs. Mortimer was there consuming peaches that +matched her own complexion; Marion Page, always more congruous in field +costume and belted jacket than in anything else, and always, like her +own hunters, minutely groomed, was preparing a breakfast for her own +consumption with the leisurely precision characteristic of her whether +in the saddle, on the box, or grassing her brace of any covey that ever +flushed. + +Captain Voucher and Lord Alderdene discussed prospects between bites, +attentive to the monosyllabic opinions of Miss Page. Her twin brothers, +Gordon and Willis, shyly consuming oatmeal, listened respectfully and +waited on their sister at the slightest lifting of her thinly arched +eyebrows. + +Into this company sauntered Siward, apparently no worse for wear. For as +yet the Enemy had set upon him no proprietary insignia save a rather +becoming pallor and faint bluish shadows under the eyes. He strolled +about, exchanging amiable greetings, and presently selected a chilled +grape fruit as his breakfast. Opposite him Mortimer, breakfasting upon +his own dreadful bracer of an apple soaked in port, raised his heavy +inflamed eyes with a significant leer at the iced grape fruit. For he +was always ready to make room upon his own level for other men; but the +wordless grin and the bloodshot welcome were calmly ignored, for as yet +that freemasonry evoked no recognition from the pallid man opposite, +whose hands were steady as though that morning's sun had wakened him +from pleasant dreams. + +"The most difficult shot in the world," Alderdene was explaining, "is an +incoming pheasant, sailing on a slant before a gale." + +"A woodcock in alders doing a jack-snipe twist is worse," grunted +Mortimer, drenching another apple in port. + +"Yes," said Miss Page tersely. + +"Or a depraved ruffed cock-grouse in the short pines; isn't that the +limit?" asked Mortimer of Siward. + +But Siward only shrugged his comment and glanced out through the leaded +casements into the brilliant September sunshine. + +Outside he could see Major Belwether, pink skinned, snowy chop whiskers +brushed rabbit fashion, very voluble with Sylvia Landis, who listened +absently, head partly averted. Quarrier in tweeds and gaiters, his +morning cigar delicately balanced in his gloved fingers, strolled near +enough to be within ear-shot; and when Sylvia's inattention to Major +Belwether's observations became marked to the verge of rudeness, he came +forward and spoke. But whatever it was that he said appeared to change +her passive inattention to quiet displeasure, for, as Siward rose from +the table, he saw her turn on her heel and walk slowly toward a group of +dogs presided over by some kennel men and gamekeepers. + +She was talking to the head gamekeeper when he emerged from the house, +but she saw him on the terrace and gave him a bright nod of greeting, so +close to an invitation that he descended the stone steps and crossed the +dew-wet lawn. + +"I am asking Dawson to explain just exactly what a 'Shotover Drive' +resembles," she said, turning to include Siward in an animated +conference with the big, scraggy, head keeper. "You know, Mr. Siward, +that it is a custom peculiar to Shotover House to open the season with +what is called a Shotover Drive?" + +"I heard Alderdene talking about it," he said, smilingly inspecting the +girl's attire of khaki with its buttoned pockets, gun pads, and Cossack +cartridge loops, and the tan knee-kilts hanging heavily pleated over +gaiters and little thick-soled shoes. He had never cared very much to +see women afield, for, in a rare case where there was no affectation, +there was something else inborn that he found unpleasant--something +lacking about a woman who could take life from frightened wild things, +something shocking that a woman could look, unmoved, upon a twitching, +blood-soiled heap of feathers at her feet. + +Meanwhile Dawson, dog-whip at salute, stood knee deep among his restless +setters, explaining the ceremony with which Mr. Ferrall ushered in the +opening of each shooting season: + +"It's our own idee, Miss Landis," he said proudly; "onc't a season Mr. +Ferrall and his guests likes it for a mixed bag. 'Tis a sort of picnic, +Miss; the guns is in pairs, sixty yards apart in line, an' the rules is, +walk straight ahead, dogs to heel until first cover is reached; fire +straight or to quarter, never blankin' nor wipin' no eyes; and ground +game counts as feathers for the Shotover Cup." + +"Oh! It's a skirmish line that walks straight ahead?" said Siward, +nodding. + +"Straight ahead, Sir. No stoppin', no turnin' for hedges, fences, water +or rock. There is boats f'r deep water and fords marked and corduroy f'r +to pass the Seven Dreens. Luncheon at one, Miss--an hour's rest--then +straight on over hill, valley, rock, and river to the rondyvoo atop +Osprey Ledge. You'll see the poles and the big nests, Sir. It's there +they score for the cup, and there when the bag is counted, the traps are +ready to carry you home again." . And to Siward: "Will you draw for your +lady, Sir? It is the custom." + +"Are you my 'lady'?" he asked, turning to Sylvia. + +"Do you want me?" + +In the smiling lustre of her eyes the tiniest spark flashed out at him--a +hint of defiance for somebody, perhaps for Major Belwether who had taken +considerable pains to enlighten her as to Siward's condition the night +before; perhaps also for Quarrier, who had naturally expected to act as +her gun-bearer in emergencies. But the gaily veiled malice of the one +had annoyed her, and the cold assumption of the other had irritated her, +and she had, scarcely knowing why, turned her shoulder to both of these +gentlemen with an indefinite idea of escaping a pressure, amounting +almost to critical importunity. + +"I'm probably a poor shot?" she said, looking smilingly, straight into +Siward's eyes. "But if you'll take me--" + +"I will with pleasure," he said; "Dawson, do we draw for position? Very +well then"; and he drew a slip of paper from the box offered by the head +keeper. + +"Number seven!" said Sylvia, looking over his shoulder. "Come out to the +starting line, Mr. Siward. All the positions are marked with golf-discs. +What sort of ground have we ahead, Dawson?" + +"Kind o' stiff, Miss," grinned the keeper. "Pity your gentleman ain't +drawed the meadows an' Sachem Hill line. Will you choose your dog, Sir?" + +"You have your dog, you know," observed Sylvia demurely. And Siward, +glancing among the impatient setters, saw one white, heavily feathered +dog, straining at his leash, and wagging frantically, brown eyes fixed +on him. + +The next moment Sagamore was free, devouring his master with caresses, +the girl looking on in smiling silence; and presently, side by side, the +man, the girl, and the dog were strolling off to the starting line where +already people were gathering in groups, selecting dogs, fowling-pieces, +comparing numbers, and discussing the merits of their respective lines +of advance. + +Ferrall, busily energetic, and in high spirits, greeted them gaily, +pointing out the red disc bearing their number, seven, where it stood +out distinctly above the distant scrub of the foreland. + +"You two are certainly up against it!" he said, grinning. "There's only +one rougher line, and you're in for thorns and water and a scramble +across the back-bone of the divide!" + +"Is it any good?" asked Siward. + +"Good--if you've got the legs and Sylvia doesn't play baby--" + +"I?" she said indignantly. "Kemp, you annoy me. And I will bet you now," +she added, flushing, "that your old cup is ours." + +"Wait," said Siward, laughing, "we may not shoot straight." + +"You will! Kemp, I'll wager whatever you dare!" + +"Gloves? Stockings?--against a cigarette case?" he suggested. + +"Done," she said disdainfully, moving forward along the skirmish line +with a nod and smile for the groups now disintegrating into couples, the +Page boys with Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel, Marion Page followed +by Alderdene, Mrs. Vendenning and Major Belwether and the Tassel girl +convoyed by Leroy Mortimer. Farther along the line, taking post, she saw +Quarrier and Miss Caithness, Captain Voucher with Mrs. Mortimer, and +others too distant to recognise, moving across country with glitter and +glint of sunlight on slanting gun barrels. + +And now Ferrall was climbing into his saddle beside his pretty wife, who +sat her horse like a boy, the white flag lifted high in the sunshine, +watching the firing line until the last laggard was in position. + +"All right, Grace!" said Ferrall briskly. Down went the white flag; the +far-ranged line started into motion straight across country, dogs at +heel. + +From her saddle Mrs. Ferrall could see the advance, strung out far +afield from the dark spots moving along the Fells boundary, to the two +couples traversing the salt meadows to north. Crack! A distant report +came faintly over the uplands against the wind. + +"Voucher," observed Ferrall; "probably a snipe. Hark! he's struck them +again, Grace." + +Mrs. Ferrall, watching curiously, saw Siward's gun fly up as two big +dark spots floated up from the marsh and went swinging over his head. +Crack! Crack! Down sheered the black spots, tumbling earthward out of +the sky. + +"Duck," said Ferrall; "a double for Stephen. Lord Harry! how that man +can shoot! Isn't it a pity that--" + +He said no more; his pretty wife astride her thoroughbred sat silent, +grey eyes fixed on the distant figures of Sylvia Landis and Siward, now +shoulder deep in the reeds. + +"Was it--very bad last night?" she asked in a low voice. + +Ferrall shrugged. "He was not offensive; he walked steadily enough +up-stairs. When I went into his room he lay on the bed as if he'd been +struck by lightning. And yet--you see how he is this morning?" + +"After a while," his wife said, "it is going to alter him some +day--dreadfully--isn't it, Kemp?" + +"You mean--like Mortimer?" + +"Yes--only Leroy was always a pig." + +As they turned their horses toward the high-road Mrs. Ferrall said: "Do +you know why Sylvia isn't shooting with Howard?" + +"No," replied her husband indifferently; "do you?" + +"No." She looked out across the sunlit ocean, grave grey eyes +brightening with suppressed mischief. "But I half suspect." + +"What?" + +"Oh, all sorts of things, Kemp." + +"What's one of 'em?" asked Ferrall, looking around at her; but his wife +only laughed. + +"You don't mean she's throwing her flies at Siward--now that you've +hooked Quarrier for her! I thought she'd played him to the gaff--" + +"Please don't be coarse, Kemp," said Mrs. Ferrall, sending her horse +forward. Her husband spurred to her side, and without turning her head +she continued: "Of course Sylvia won't be foolish. If they were only +safely married; but Howard is such a pill--" + +"What does Sylvia expect with Howard's millions? A man?" + +Grace Ferrall drew bridle. "The curious thing is, Kemp, that she liked +him." + +"Likes him?" + +"No, liked him. I saw how it was; she took his silences for intellectual +meditation, his gallery, his library, his smatterings for expressions of +a cultivated personality. Then she remembered how close she came to +running off with that cashiered Englishman, and that scared her into +clutching the substantial in the shape of Howard. . Still, I wish I +hadn't meddled." + +"Meddled how?" + +"Oh, I told her to do it. We had talks until daylight. . She may marry +him--I don't know--but if you think any live woman could he contented with +a muff like that!" + +"That's immoral." + +"Kemp, I'm not. She'd be mad not to marry him; but I don't know what I'd +do to a man like that, if I were his wife. And you know what a terrific +capacity for mischief there is in Sylvia. Some day she's going to love +somebody. And it isn't likely to be Howard. And, oh, Kemp! I do grow so +tired of that sort of thing. Do you suppose anybody will ever make +decency a fashion?" + +"You're doing your best," said Ferrall, laughing at his wife's pretty, +boyish face turned back toward him over her shoulder; "you're presenting +your cousin and his millions to a girl who can dress the part--" + +"Don't, Kemp! I don't know why I meddled! . I wish I hadn't--" + +"I do. You can't let Howard alone! You're perfectly possessed to plague +him when he's with you, and now you've arranged for another woman to +keep it up for the rest of his lifetime. What does Sylvia want with a +man who possesses the instincts and intellect of a coachman? She is +asked everywhere, she has her own money. Why not let her alone? Or is it +too late?" + +"You mean let her make a fool of herself with Stephen Siward? That is +where she is drifting." + +"Do you think--" + +"Yes, I do. She has a perfect genius for selecting the wrong man; and +she's already sorry for this one. I'm sorry for Stephen, too; but it's +safe for me to be." + +"She might make something of him." + +"You know perfectly well no woman ever did make anything of a doomed +man. He'd kill her--I mean it, Kemp! He would literally kill her with +grief. She isn't like Leila Mortimer; she isn't like most girls of her +sort. You men think her a rather stunning, highly tempered, unreasonable +young girl, with a reserve of sufficiently trained intelligence to marry +the best our market offers--and close her eyes;--a thoroughbred with the +caprices of one, but also with the grafted instinct for proper mating." + +"Well, that's all right, isn't it?" asked Ferrall. "That's the way I +size her up. Isn't it correct?" + +"Yes, in a way. She has all the expensive training of the +thoroughbred--and all the ignorance, too. She is cold-blooded because +wholesome; a trifle sceptical because so absolutely unawakened. She +never experienced a deep emotion. Impulses have intoxicated her once or +twice--as when she asked my opinion about running off with Cavendish, and +that boy and girl escapade with Rivington; nothing at all except high +mettle, the innocent daring lurking in all thoroughbreds, and a great +deal of very red blood racing through that superb young body. But," +Ferrall reined in to listen, "but if ever a man awakens her--I don't care +who he is--you'll see a girl you never knew, a brand-new creature emerge +with the last rags and laces of conventionality dropping from her; a +woman, Kemp, heiress to every generous impulse, every emotion, every +vice, every virtue of all that brilliant race of hers." + +"You seem to know," he said, amused and curious. + +"I know. Major Belwether told me that he had thought of Howard as an +anchor for her. It seemed a pity--Howard with all his cold, heavy +negative inertia. . I said I'd do it. I did. And now I don't know; I +wish, almost wish I hadn't." + +"What has changed your ideas?" + +"I don't know. Howard is safer than Stephen Siward, already in the first +clutches of his master-vice. Would you mate what she inherits from her +mother and her mother's mother, with what is that poor boy's heritage +from the Siwards?" + +"After all," observed Ferrall dryly, "we're not in the angel-breeding +business." + +"We ought to be. Every decent person ought to be. If they were, +inherited vice would be as rare in this country as smallpox!" + +"People don't inherit smallpox, dear." + +"Never mind! You know what I mean. In our stock farms and kennels, we +weed out, destroy, exterminate hereditary weakness in everything. We pay +the greatest attention to the production of all offspring except our +own. Look at Stephen! How dared his parents bring him into the world? +Look at Sylvia! And now, suppose they marry!" + +"Dearest," said Ferrall, "my head is a whirl and my wits are spinning +like five toy tops. Your theories are all right; but unless you and I +are prepared to abandon several business enterprises and take to the +lecture platform, I'm afraid people are going to be wicked enough to +marry whom they like, and the human race will he run as usual with money +the favourite, and love a case of 'also-ran.' . By the way, how dared +you marry me, knowing the sort of demon I am?" + +The gathering frown on Mrs. Ferrall's brow faded; she raised her clear +grey eyes and met her husband's gaze, gay, humourous, and with a hint of +tenderness--enough to bring the colour into her pretty face. + +"You know I'm right, Kemp." + +"Always, dear. And now that we have the world off our hands for a few +minutes, suppose we gallop?" + +But she held her horse to a walk, riding forward, grave, thoughtful, +preoccupied with a new problem, only part of which she had told her +husband. + +For that night she had been awakened in her bed to find standing beside +her a white, wide-eyed figure, shivering, limbs a-chill beneath her +clinging lace. She had taken the pallid visitor to her arms and warmed +her and soothed her and whispered to her, murmuring the thousand little +words and sounds, the breathing magic mothers use with children. And +Sylvia lay there, chilled, nerveless, silent, ignorant why her +sleeplessness had turned to restlessness, to loneliness, to an awakening +perception of what she lacked and needed and began to desire. For that +sad void, peopled at intervals through her brief years with a vague +mother-phantom, had, in the new crisis of her career, become suddenly an +empty desolation, frightening her with her own utter isolation. Fill it +now she could not, now that she needed that ghost of child-comfort, that +shadowy refuge, that sweet shape she had fashioned out of dreams to +symbolise a mother she had never known. + +Driven she knew not why, she had crept from her room in search of the +still, warm, fragrant nest and the whispered reassurance and the caress +she had never before endured. Yes, now she craved it, invited it, longed +for safe arms around her, the hovering hand on her hair. Was this +Sylvia? + +And Grace Ferrall, clearing her sleepy eyes, amazed, incredulous of the +cold, child-like hands upon her shoulders, caught her in her arms with a +little laugh and sob and drew her to her breast, to soothe and caress +and reassure, to make up to her all she could of what is every child's +just heritage. + +And for a long while Sylvia, lying there, told her nothing--because she +did not know how--merely a word, a restless question half ashamed, barely +enough to shadow forth the something stirring her toward an awakening in +a new world, where with new eyes she might catch glimpses of those dim +and splendidly misty visions that float through sunlit silences when a +young girl dreams awake. + +And at length, gravely, innocently, she spoke of her engagement, and the +worldly possibilities before her; of the man she was to marry, and her +new and unexpected sense of loneliness in his presence, now that she had +seen him again after months. + +She spoke, presently, of Siward--a fugitive question or two, offered +indifferently at first, then with shy persistence and curiosity, knowing +nothing of the senseless form flung face downward across the sheets in a +room close by. And thereafter the murmured burden of the theme was +Siward, until one, heavy eyed, turned from the white dawn silvering the +windows, sighed, and fell asleep; and one lay silent, head half buried +in its tangled gold, wide awake, thinking vague thoughts that had no +ending, no beginning. And at last a rosy bar of light fell across the +wall, and the warm shadows faded from corner and curtain; and, turning +on the pillow, her face nestled in her hair, she fell asleep. + + +Nothing of this had Mrs. Ferrall told her husband. + +For the first time in her life had Sylvia suffered the caresses most +women invite or naturally lavish; for the first time had she attempted +confidences, failing because she did not know how, but curiously +contented with the older woman's arms around her. + +There was a change in Sylvia, a great change stealing in upon her as she +lay there, breathing like a child, flushed lips scarcely parted. Through +the early slanting sunlight the elder woman, leaning on one arm, looked +down at her, grey eyes very grave and tender--wise, sweet eyes that +divined with their pure clairvoyance all that might happen or might fail +to come to pass in this great change stealing over Sylvia. + + +Nothing of this could her husband understand had she words to convey it. +There was nothing he need understand except that his wife, meaning well, +had meddled and regretted. + +And now, turning in her saddle with a pretty gesture of her shoulders: + +"I meddle no more! Those who need me may come to me. Now laugh at my +tardy wisdom, Kemp!" + +"It's no laughing matter," he said, "if you're going to stand back and +let this abandoned world spin itself madly to the bow-wows--" + +"Don't be horrid. I repent. The mischief take Howard Quarrier!" + +"Amen! Come on, Grace." + +She gathered bridle. "Do you suppose Stephen Siward is going to make +trouble?" + +"How can he unless she helps him? Nonsense! All's well with Siward and +Sylvia. Shall we gallop?" + + +All was very well with Siward and Sylvia. They had passed the rabbit- +brier country scathless, with two black mallard, a jack-snipe, and a +rabbit to the credit of their score, and were now advancing through that +dimly lit enchanted land of tall grey alders where, in the sudden +twilight of the leaves, woodcock after woodcock fluttered upward +twittering, only to stop and drop, transformed at the vicious crack of +Siward's gun to fluffy balls of feather whirling earthward from mid-air. + +Sagamore came galloping back with a soft, unsoiled mass of chestnut and +brown feathers in his mouth. Siward took the dead cock, passed it back +to the keeper who followed them, patted the beautiful eager dog and +signalled him forward once more. + +"You should have fired that time," he said to Sylvia--"that is, if you +care to kill anything." + +"But I don't seem to be able to," she said. "It isn't a bit like +shooting at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by surprise--it's +all so charmingly sudden--and my heart seems to stop in one beat, and I +look and look and then--whisk! the woodcock is gone, leaving me +breathless--" + +Her voice ceased; the white setter, cutting up his ground ahead, had +stopped, rigid, one leg raised, jaws quivering and locking alternately. + +"Isn't that a stunning picture!" said Siward in a low voice. "What a +beauty he is--like a statue in white and blue-veined marble. You may +talk, Miss Landis; woodcock don't flush at the sound of the human voice +as grouse do." + +"See his brown eyes roll back at us! He wonders why we don't do +something!" whispered the girl. "Look, Mr. Siward! Now his head is +moving--oh so gradually to the left!" + +"The bird is moving on the ground," nodded Siward; "now the bird has +stopped." + +"I do wish I could see a woodcock on the ground," she breathed. "Do you +think we might by any chance?" + +Siward noiselessly sank to his knees and crouched, keen eyes minutely +busy among the shadowy browns and greys of wet earth and withered leaf. +And after a while, cautiously, he signalled the girl to kneel beside +him, and stretched out one arm, forefinger extended. + +"Sight straight along my arm," he said," as though it were a rifle +barrel." + +Her soft cheek rested against his shoulder; a stray strand of shining +hair brushing his face. + +"Under that bunch of fern," he whispered; "just the colour of the dead +leaves. Do you see? . Don't you see that big woodcock squatted flat, +bill pointed straight out and resting on the leaves?" + +After a long while she saw, suddenly, and an exquisite little shock +tightened her fingers on Siward's extended arm. + +"Oh, the feathered miracle!" she whispered; "the wonder of its +cleverness to hide like that! You look and look and stare, seeing it all +the while and not knowing that you see it. Then in a flash it is there, +motionless, a brown-shaped shadow among shadows. . The dear little +thing! . Mr. Siward, do you think--are you going to--" + +"No, I won't shoot it." + +"Thank you. . Might I sit here a moment to watch it?" + +She seated herself soundlessly among the dead leaves; he sank into place +beside her, laying his gun aside. + +"Rather rough on the dog," he said with a grimace. + +"I know. It is very good of you, Mr. Siward to do this for my pleasure. +Oh--h! Do you see! Oh, the little beauty!" + +The woodcock had risen, plumage puffed out, strutting with wings bowed +and tail spread, facing the dog. The sudden pigmy defiance thrilled her. +"Brave! Brave!" she exclaimed, enraptured; but at the sound of her voice +the bird crouched like a flash, large dark liquid eyes shining, long +bill pointed straight toward them. + +"He'll fly the way his bill points," said Siward. "Watch!" + +He rose; she sprang lightly to her feet; there came a whirring flutter, +a twittering shower of sweet notes, soft wings beating almost in their +very faces, a distant shadow against the sky, and the woodcock was gone. + +Quieting the astounded dog, gun cradled in the hollow of his left arm, +he turned to the girl beside him: "That sort of thing wins no cups," he +said. + +"It wins something else, Mr. Siward,--my very warm regard for you." + +"There is no choice between that and the Shotover Cup," he admitted, +considering her. + +"I--do you mean it?" + +"Of course I do, vigorously!" + +"Then you are much nicer than I thought you. . And after all, if the +price of a cup is the life of that brave little bird, I had rather shoot +clay pigeons. Now you will scorn me I suppose. Begin!" + +"My ideal woman has never been a life-taker," he said coolly. "Once, +when I was a boy, there was a girl--very lovely--my first sweetheart. I +saw her at the traps once, just after she had killed her seventh pigeon +straight, 'pulling it down' from overhead, you know--very clever--the +little thing was breathing on the grass, and it made sounds--" He +shrugged and walked on. "She killed her twenty-first bird straight; it +was a handsome cup, too." + +And after a silence, "So you didn't love her any more, Mr. +Siward?"--mockingly sweet. + +They laughed, and at the sound of laughter the tall-stemmed alders +echoed with the rushing roar of a cock-grouse thundering skyward. Crack! +Crack! Whirling over and over through a cloud of floating feathers, a +heavy weight struck the springy earth. There lay the big mottled bird, +splendid silky ruffs spread, dead eyes closing, a single tiny crimson +bead twinkling like a ruby on the gaping beak. + +"Dead!" said Siward to the dog who had dropped to shot; "Fetch!" And, +signalling the boy behind, he relieved the dog of his burden and tossed +the dead weight of ruffled plumage toward him. Then he broke his gun, +and, as the empty shells flew rattling backward, slipped in fresh +cartridges, locked the barrels, and walked forward, the flush of +excitement still staining his sunburnt face. + +"You deal death mercifully," said the girl in a low voice. "I wonder +what your ci-devant sweetheart would think of you." + +"A bungler had better stick to the traps," he assented, ignoring the +badinage. + +"I am wondering," she said thoughtfully, "what I think of men who kill." + +He turned sharply, hesitated, shrugged. "Wild things' lives are brief at +best--fox or flying-tick, wet nests or mink, owl, hawk, weasel or man. +But the death man deals is the most merciful. Besides," he added, +laughing, "ours is not a case of sweethearts." + +"My argument is purely in the abstract, Mr. Siward. I am asking you +whether the death men deal is more justifiable than a woman's gift of +death?" + +"Oh, well, life-taking, the giving of life--there can be only one answer +to the mystery; and I don't know it," he replied smiling. + +"I do." + +"Tell me then," he said, still amused. + +They had passed swale after swale of silver birches waist deep in +perfumed fern and brake; the big timber lay before them. She moved +forward, light gun swung easily across her leather-padded shoulder; and +on the wood's sunny edge she seated herself, straight young back against +a giant pine, gun balanced across her flattened knees. + +"You are feeling the pace a little," he said, coming up and standing in +front of her. + +"The pace? No, Mr. Siward." + +"Are you a trifle--bored?" She considered him in silence, then leaned +back luxuriously, rounded arms raised, wrists crossed to pillow her +head. + +"This is charmingly new to me," she said simply. + +"What? Not the open?" + +"No; I have camped and done the usual roughing it with only three guides +apiece and the champagne inadequately chilled. I have endured that sort +of hardship several times, Mr. Siward. . What is that furry hunch up +there in that tall thin tree?" + +"A raccoon," he said presently. "Can you see the foxy head peeping so +slyly down at us? Look at Sagamore nosing the air in that droll blind +mole-like way. He knows there's something furry up aloft somewhere; and +he knows it's none of his business." + +They watched the motionless ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest +elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; +the rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the +tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished amid bronzing leafy depths. + +In the silence the birds began to reappear. A jay screamed somewhere +deep in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig +to twig, cheeping inquiringly. + +She sat listening, bright head pillowed in her arms, idly attentive to +his low running comment on beast and bird and tree, on forest stillness +and forest sounds, on life and the wild laws of life and death governing +the great out-world 'twixt sky and earth. Sunlight and shadows moving, +speech and silence, waxed and waned. A listless contentment lay warm +upon her, weighting the heavy white lids. The blue of her eyes was very +dark now--almost purple like the colour of the sea when the wind-flaws +turn the blue to violet. + +"Did you ever hear of the 'Lesser Children'?" she asked. "Listen then: + +"'Multitudes, multitudes, under the moon they stirred! The weaker +brothers of our earthly breed; . . All came about my head and at my feet +A thousand thousand sweet, With starry eyes not even raised to plead: +Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute! + +And I beheld and saw them one by one Pass, and become as nothing in the +night.' + +"Do you know what it means? + +"'Winged mysteries of song that from the sky Once dashed long music +down--' + +"Do you understand?" she asked, smiling. + +"'Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird!'" + +She ceased, and, raising her eyes to his: "Do you know that plea for +mercy on the lesser children who die all day to-day because the season +opens for your pleasure, Mr. Siward?" + +"Is it a woodland sermon?" he inquired, too politely. + +"The poem? No; it is the case for the prosecution. The prisoner may +defend himself if he can." + +"The defence rests," he said. "The prisoner moves that he be +discharged." + +"Motion denied," she interrupted promptly. + +Somewhere in the woodland world the crows were holding a noisy session, +and she told him that was the jury debating the degree of his guilt. + +"Because you're guilty of course," she continued. "I wonder what your +sentence is to be?" + +"I'll leave it to you," he suggested lazily. + +"Suppose I sentenced you to slay no more?" + +"Oh, I'd appeal--" + +"No use; I am the tribunal of last resort." + +"Then I throw myself upon the mercy of the court." + +"You do well, Mr. Siward. This court is very merciful. . How much do you +care for bird murder? Very much? Is there anything you care for more? +Yes? And could this court grant it to you in compensation?" + +He said, deliberately, roused by the level challenge of her gaze: "The +court is incompetent to compensate the prisoner or offer any +compromise." + +"Why, Mr. Siward?" + +"Because the court herself is already compromised in her future +engagements." + +"But what has my--engagement to do with--" + +"You offered compensation for depriving me of my shooting. There could +be only one adequate compensation." + +"And that?" she asked, coolly enough. + +"Your continual companionship." + +"But you have it, Mr. Siward--" + +"I have it for a day. The season lasts three months you know." + +"And you and I are to play a continuous vaudeville for three months? Is +that your offer?" + +"Partly." + +"Then one day with me is not worth those many days of murder?" she asked +in pretended astonishment. + +"Ask yourself why those many days would be doubly empty," he said so +seriously that the pointless game began to confuse her. + +"Then"--she turned lightly from uncertain ground--"then perhaps we had +better be about that matter of the cup you prize so highly. Are you +ready, Mr. Siward? There is much to be killed yet--including time, you +know." + +But the hinted sweetness of the challenge had aroused him, and he made +no motion to rise. Nor did she. + +"I am not sure," he reflected, "just exactly what I should ask of you if +you insist on taking away--" he turned and looked about him through the +burnt gold foliage, "--if you took away all this out of my life." + +"I shall not take it; because I have nothing in exchange to offer . you +say," she answered imprudently. + +"I did not say so," he retorted. + +"You did--reminding me that the court is already engaged for a continuous +performance." + +"Was it necessary to remind you?" he asked with deliberate malice. + +She flushed up, vexed, silent, then looked directly at him with +beautiful hostile eyes. "What do you mean, Mr. Siward? Are you taking +our harmless, idle badinage as warrant for an intimacy unwarranted?" + +"Have I offended?" he asked, so impassively that a flash of resentment +brought her to her feet, angry and self-possessed. + +"How far have we to go?" she asked quietly. + +He rose to his feet, turned, hailing the keeper, repeating the question. +And at the answer they both started forward, the dog ranging ahead +through a dense growth of beech and chestnut, over a high brown ridge, +then down, always down along a leafy ravine to the water's edge--a forest +pond set in the gorgeous foliage of ripening maples. + +"I don't see," said Sylvia impatiently, "how we are going to obey +instructions and go straight ahead. There must be a stupid boat +somewhere!" + +But the game-laden keeper shook his head, pulled up his hip boots, and +pointed out a line of alder poles set in the water to mark a crossing. + +"Am I expected to wade?" asked the girl anxiously. + +"This here," observed the keeper, "is one of the most sportin' courses +on the estate. Last season I seen Miss Page go through it like a scared +deer--the young lady, sir, that took last season's cup"--in explanation to +Siward, who stood doubtfully at the water's edge, looking back at +Sylvia. + +Raising her dismayed eyes she encountered his; there was a little laugh +between them. She stepped daintily across the stones to the water's +edge, instinctively gathering her kilts in one hand. + +"Miles and I could chair you over," suggested Siward. + +"Is that fair--under the rules?" + +"Oh, yes, Miss; as long as you go straight," said the keeper. + +So they laid aside the guns and the guide's game-sack, and formed a +chair with their hands, and, bearing the girl between them, they waded +out along the driven alder stakes, knee-deep in brown water. + +Before them herons rose into heavy flapping flight, broad wings +glittering in the sun; a diver, distantly afloat among the lily pads, +settled under the water to his eyes as a submarine settles till the +conning-tower is awash. + +Her arm, lightly resting around his neck, tightened a trifle as the +water rose to his thighs; then the faint pressure relaxed as they +thrashed shoreward through the shallows, ankle deep once more, and +landed among the dry reeds on the farther bank. + +Miles, the keeper, went back for the guns. Siward stamped about in the +sun, shaking the drops from water-proof breeches and gaiters, only to be +half drenched again when Sagamore shook himself vigorously. + +"I suppose," said Sylvia, looking sideways at Siward, "your contempt for +my sporting accomplishments has not decreased. I'm sorry; I don't like +to walk in wet shoes . even to gain your approval." + +And, as the keeper came splashing across the shallows: "Miles, you may +carry my gun. I shall not need it any longer--" + +The upward roar of a bevey of grouse drowned her voice; poor Sagamore, +pointing madly in the blackberry thicket all unperceived, cast a +dismayed glance aloft where the sunlit air quivered under the winnowing +rush of heavy wings. Siward flung up his gun, heading a big quartering +bird; steadily the glittering barrels swept in the arc of fire, +hesitated, wavered; then the possibility passed; the young fellow +lowered the gun, slowly, gravely; stood a moment motionless with bent +head until the rising colour in his face had faded. + +And that was all, for a while. The astonished and disgusted keeper +stared into the thicket; the dog lay quivering, impatient for signal. +Sylvia's heart, which had seemed to stop with her voice, silenced in the +gusty thunder of heavy wings, began beating too fast. For the ringing +crack of a gun shot could have spoken no louder to her than the +glittering silence of the suspended barrels; nor any promise of his +voice sound as the startled stillness sounded now about her. For he had +made something a trifle more than mere amends for his rudeness. He was +overdoing everything--a little. + +He stood on the thicket's edge, absently unloading the weapon, scarcely +understanding what he had done and what he had not done. + +A moment later a far hail sounded across the uplands, and against the +sky figures moved distantly. + +"Alderdene and Marion Page," said Siward. "I believe we lunch yonder, do +we not, Miles?" + +They climbed the hill in silence, arriving after a few minutes to find +others already at luncheon--the Page boys, eager, enthusiastic, +recounting adventure by flood and field; Rena Bonnesdel tired and +frankly bored and decorated with more than her share of mud; Eileen +Shannon, very pretty, very effective, having done more execution with +her eyes than with the dainty fowling-piece beside her. + +Marion Page nodded to Sylvia and Siward with a crisp, business-like +question or two, then went over to inspect their bag, nodding +approbation as Miles laid the game on the grass. + +"Eight full brace," she commented. "We have five, and an odd cock- +pheasant--from Black Fells, I suppose. The people to our left have been +blazing away like Coney Island, but Rena's guide says the ferns are full +of rabbits that way, and Major Belwether can't hit fur afoot. You," she +added frankly to Siward, "ought to take the cup. The birches ahead of +you are full of woodcock. If you don't, Howard Quarrier will. He's into +a flight of jack-snipe I hear." + +Siward's eyes had suddenly narrowed; then he laughed, patting Sagamore's +cheeks. "I don't believe I shall shoot very steadily this afternoon," he +said, turning toward the group at luncheon under the trees. "I wish +Quarrier well--with the cup." + +"Nonsense," said Marion Page curtly; "you are the cleanest shot I ever +knew." And she raised her glass to him, frankly, and emptied it with the +precision characteristic of her: "Your cup! With all my heart!" + +"I also drink to your success, Mr. Siward," said Sylvia in a low voice, +lifting her champagne glass in the sunlight. "To the Shotover Cup--if you +wish it." And as other glasses sparkled aloft amid a gay tumult of +voices wishing him success, Sylvia dropped her voice, attuning it to his +ear alone: "Success for the cup, if you wish it--or, whatever you +wish--success!" and she meant it very kindly. + +His hand resting on his glass he sat, smiling silent acknowledgment to +the noisy generous toasts; he turned and looked at Sylvia when her low +voice caught his ear--looked at her very steadily, unsmiling. + +Then to the others, brightening again, he said a word or two, wittily, +with a gay compliment well placed and a phrase to end it in good taste. +And, in the little gust of hand-clapping and laughter, he turned again +to Sylvia, smilingly, saying under his breath: "As though winning the +cup could compensate me now for losing it!" + +She leaned involuntarily nearer: "You mean that you will not try for +it?" + +"Yes." + +"That is not fair--to me!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because--because I do not ask it of you." + +"You need not, now that I know your wish." + +"Mr. Siward, I--my wish--" + +But she had no chance to finish; already Rena Bonnesdel was looking at +them, and there was a hint of amused surprise in Eileen Shannon's +mischievous eyes, averted instantly, with malicious ostentation. + +Then Marion Page took possession of him so exclusively, so calmly, that +something in her cool certainty vaguely irritated Sylvia, who had never +liked her. Besides, the girl showed too plainly her indifference to +other people; which other people seldom find amusing. + +"Stephen," called out Alderdene, anxiously counting the web loops in his +khaki vest, "what do you call fair shooting at these damnable ruffed +grouse? You needn't be civil about it, you know." + +"Five shells to a bird is good shooting," answered Siward. "Don't you +think so, Miss Page?" + +"You have a better score, Mr. Siward," said Marion Page with a hostile +glance at Alderdene, who had not made good. + +"That was chance--and this year's birds. I've taken ten shells to an old +drummer in hard wood or short pines." He smiled to himself, adding: "A +drove of six in the open got off scot free a little while ago. Miss +Landis saw it." + +That he was inclined to turn it all to banter relieved her at once. "It +was pitiable," she nodded gravely to Marion; "his nerve left him when +they made such a din in the briers." + +Miss Page glanced at her indifferently. + +"What I need is practice like the chasseurs of Tarascon," admitted +Siward. + +"I willingly offer my hat, monsieur," said Sylvia. + +Marion Page, impatient to start, had turned her tailor-made back to the +company, and was instructing his crestfallen lordship very plainly: "You +fire too quickly, Blinky; two seconds is what you must count when a +grouse flushes. You must say 'Mark! Right!' or 'Mark! Left! Bang!'" + +"I might as well say 'Bang!' for all I've done to-day," he muttered, +adjusting his shooting-goggles and snapping his eyes like fury. Then +exploding into raucous laughter he moved off southward with Marion Page, +who had exchanged a swift handshake with Siward; the twins followed, +convoying Eileen and Rena, neither maiden excitedly enthusiastic. And so +the luncheon party, lord and lady, twins and maidens, guides and dogs, +trailed away across the ridge, distant silhouettes presently against the +sky, then gone. And after a little while the far, dry, accentless report +of smokeless powder announced that the opening of the season had been +resumed and the Lesser Children were dying fast in the glory of a +perfect day. + +"Are you ready, Mr. Siward?" She stood waiting for him at the edge of +the thicket; Miles resumed his game sack and her fowling-piece; the dog +came up, looking him anxiously in the eyes. + +So he walked forward beside her into the dappled light of the thicket. + +Within a few minutes the dog stood twice; and twice the whirring twitter +of woodcock startled her, echoed by the futile crack of his gun. + +"Beg pardon, sir--" + +"Yes, Miles," with a glint of humour. + +"Overshot, sir,--excusin' the liberty, Mr. Siward. Both marked down forty +yard to the left if you wish to start 'em again." + +"No," he said indifferently, "I had my chance at them. They're exempt." + +Then Sagamore, tail wildly whipping, came smack on the trail of an old +stager of a cock-grouse--on, on over rock, log, wet gully, and dry ridge, +twisting, doubling, circling, every wile, every trick employed and met, +until the dog crawling noiselessly forward, trembled and froze, and +Siward, far to left, wheeled at the muffled and almost noiseless rise. +For an instant the slanting barrels wavered, grew motionless; but only a +stray sunbeam glinting struck a flash of cold fire from the muzzle, only +the feathery whirring whisper broke the silence of suspense. Then far +away over sunny tree tops a big grouse sailed up, rocketing into the sky +on slanted wings, breasting the height of green; dipped, glided downward +with bowed wings stiffened, and was engulfed in the misty barriers of +purpling woods. + +"Vale!" said Siward aloud, "I salute you!" + +He came strolling back across the crisp leaves, the dappled sunshine +playing over his face like the flicker of a smile. + +"Miles," he said, "my nerve is gone. Such things happen. I'm all in. +Come over here, my friend, and look at the sun with me." + +The discomfited keeper obeyed. + +"Where ought that refulgent luminary to scintilate when I face Osprey +Ledge?" + +"Sir?" + +"The sun. How do I hold it?" + +"On the p'int of your right shoulder, sir.--You ain't quittin', Mr. +Siward, sir!" anxiously; "that Shotover Cup is easy yours, sir!" +eagerly; "Wot's a miss on a old drummer, Mr. Siward? Wot's twice over- +shootin' cock, sir, when a blind dropper can see you are the cleanest, +fastest, hard-shootin' shot in the null county!" + +But Siward shook his head with an absent glance at the dog, and motioned +the astonished keeper forward. + +"Line the easiest trail for us," he said; "I think we are already a +trifle tired. Twigs will do in short cover; use a hatchet in the big +timber. . And go slow till we join you." + +And when the unwilling and perplexed keeper had started, Siward, +unlocking his gun, drew out the smooth yellow cartridges and pocketed +them. + +Sylvia looked up as the sharp metallic click of the locked breech rang +out in the silence. + +"Why do you do this, Mr. Siward?" + +"I don't know; really I am honest; I don't know." + +"It could not he because I--" + +"No, of course not," he said, too seriously to reassure her. + +"Mr. Siward," in quick displeasure. + +"Yes?" + +"What you do for your amusements cannot concern me." + +"Right as usual," he said so gaily that a reluctant smile trembled on +her lips. + +"Then why have you done this? It is unreasonable--if you don't feel as I +do about killing things that are having a good time in the world." + +He stood silent, absently looking at the fowling-piece cradled in his +left arm. "Shall we sit here a moment and talk it over?" he suggested +listlessly. + +Her blue gaze swept him; his vague smile was indifferently bland. + +"If you are determined not to shoot, we might as well start for Osprey +Ledge," she suggested; "otherwise, what reason is there for our being +here together, Mr. Siward?" + +Awaiting his comment--perhaps expecting a counter-proposition--she leaned +against the tree beside which he stood. And after a while, as his +absent-minded preoccupation continued: + +"Do you think the leaves are dry enough to sit on?" + +He slipped off his shooting-coat and placed it at the base of the tree. +She waited for a second, uncertain how to meet an attitude which seemed +to take for granted matters which might, if discussed, give her at least +the privilege of yielding. However, to discuss a triviality meant +forcing emphasis where none was necessary. She seated herself; and, as +he continued to remain standing, she stripped off her shooting-gloves +and glanced up at him inquiringly: "Well, Mr. Siward, I am literally at +your feet." + +"Which redresses the balance a little," he said, finding a place near +her. + +"That is very nice of you. Can I always count on you for civil +platitudes when I stir you out of your day-dreams?" + +"You can always count on stirring me without effort." + +"No, I can't. Nobody can. You are never to be counted on; you are too +absent-minded. Like a veil you wrap yourself in a brown study, leaving +everybody outside to consider the pointed flattery of your withdrawal. +What happens to you when you are inside that magic veil? Do you change +into anything interesting?" + +He sat there, chin propped on his linked fingers, elbows on knees; and, +though there was always the hint of a smile in his pleasant eyes, always +the indefinable charm of breeding in voice and attitude, something now +was lacking. And after a moment she concluded that it was his attention. +Certainly his wits were wool-gathering again; his eyes, edged with the +shadow of a smile, saw far beyond her, far beyond the sunlit shadows +where they sat. + +In his preoccupation she had found him negatively attractive. She +glanced at him now from time to time, her eyes returning always to the +beauty of the subdued light where all about them silver-stemmed birches +clustered like slim shining pillars, crowned with their autumn canopy of +crumpled gold. + +"Enchantment!" she said under her breath. "Surely an enchanted sleeper +lies here somewhere." + +"You," he observed, "unawakened." + +"Asleep? I?" She looked around at him. "You are the dreamer here. Your +eyes are full of dreaming even now. What is your desire?" + +He leaned on one arm, watching her; she had dropped her ungloved hand, +searching among the newly fallen gold of the birch leaves drifted into +heaps. On the third finger a jewel glittered; he saw it, conscious of +its meaning--but his eyes followed the hand idly heaping up autumn gold, +a white slim hand, smoothly fascinating. Then the little, restless hand +swept near to his, almost touching it; and then instinctively he took it +in his own, curiously, lifting it a little to consider its nearer +loveliness. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps it was +sheer amazement that left her hand lying idly relaxed like a white +petalled blossom in his. His bearing, too, was so blankly impersonal +that for a moment the whole thing appeared inconsequent. Then, as her +hand lay there, scarcely imprisoned, their eyes encountered,--and hers, +intensely blue now, considered him without emotion, studied him +impersonally without purpose, incuriously acquiescent, indifferently +expectant. + +After a little while the consciousness of the contact disconcerted her; +she withdrew her fingers with an involuntary shiver. + +"Is there no chance?" he asked. + +Perplexed with her own emotion, the meaning of his low-voiced question +at first escaped her; then, like its own echo, came ringing back in her +ears, re-echoed again as he repeated it: + +"Is there no chance for me, Miss Landis?" + +The very revulsion of self-possession returning chilled her; then anger +came, quick and hot; then pride. She deliberated, choosing her words +coolly enough: "What chance do you mean, Mr. Siward?" + +"A fighting chance. Can you give it to me?" + +"A fighting chance? For what?"--very low, very dangerous. + +"For you." + +Then, in spite of her, her senses became unsteady; a sudden ringing +confusion seemed to deafen her, through which his voice, as if very far +away, sounded again: + +"Men who are worth a fighting chance ask for it sometimes--but take it +always. I take it." + +Her pallor faded under the flood of bright colour; the blue of her eyes +darkened ominously to velvet. + +"Mr. Siward," she said, very distinctly and slowly, "I am +not--even--sorry--for you." + +"Then my chance is desperate indeed," he retorted coolly. + +"Chance! Do you imagine--" Her anger choked her. + +"Are you not a little hard?" he said, paling under his tan. "I supposed +women dismissed men more gently--even such a man as I am." + +For a full minute she strove to comprehend. + +"Such a man as you!" she repeated vaguely; "you mean--" a crimson wave +dyed her skin to the temples and she leaned toward him in horror- +stricken contrition; "I didn't mean that, Mr. Siward! I--I never thought +of that! It had no weight, it was not in my thoughts. I meant only that +you had assumed what is unwarranted--that you--your question humiliated +me, knowing that I am engaged--knowing me so little--so--" + +"Yes, I knew everything. Ask yourself why I risk everything to say this +to you? There can be only one answer." + +Then after a long silence: "Have I ever--" she began tremblingly--"ever by +word or look--" + +"No." + +"Have I even--" + +"No. I've simply discovered how I feel. That's what I was dreaming about +when you asked me. I was afraid I might do this too soon; but I meant to +do it anyway before it became too late." + +"It was too late from the very moment we met, Mr. Siward." And, as he +reddened painfully again, she added quickly: "I mean that I had already +decided. Why will you take what I say so dreadfully different from the +way I intend it? Listen to me. I--I believe I am not very experienced +yet; I was a--astonished--quite stunned for a moment. Then it hurt me--and +I said that I was not sorry for you . I am sorry, now." + +And, as he said nothing: "You were a little rough, a little sudden with +me, Mr. Siward. Men have asked me that question--several times; but never +so soon, so unreasonably soon--never without some preliminary of some +sort, so that I could foresee, be more or less prepared. . But you gave +me no warning. I--if you had, I would have known how to be gentle. I--I +wish to be now. I like you--enough to say this to you, enough to be +seriously sorry; if I could bring myself to really believe +this--feeling--" + +Still he said nothing; he sat there listlessly studying the sun spots +glowing, waxing, waning on the carpet of dead leaves at his feet. + +"As for--what you have said," she added, a little smile curving the +sensitive mouth, "it is impulsive, unconsidered, a trifle boyish, Mr. +Siward. I pay myself the compliment of your sincerity; it is rather nice +to be a girl who can awaken the romance in a man within a day or two's +acquaintance. . And that is all it is--a romantic impulse with a pretty +girl. You see I am frank; I am really glad that you find me attractive. +Tell me so, if you wish. We shall not misunderstand each other again. +Shall we?" + +He raised his head, considering her, forcing the smile to meet her own. + +"We shall be better friends than ever," she asserted confidently. + +"Yes, better than ever." + +"Because what you have done means the nicest sort of friendship, you +see. You can't escape its duties and responsibilities now, Mr. Siward. I +shall expect you to spend the greater part of your life in devotedly +doing things for me. Besides, I am now privileged to worry you with +advice. Oh, you have invested me with all sorts of powers now!" + +He nodded. + +She sprang to her feet, flushed, smiling, a trifle excited. + +"Is it all over, and are we the very ideals of friends?" she asked. + +"The very ideals." + +"You are nice!" she said impulsively, holding out both gloveless hands. +He held them, she looking at him very sweetly, very confidently. + +"Allons! Without malice?" she asked. + +"Without malice." + +"Without afterthoughts?" + +"Without afterthoughts." + +"And--you are content?" persuasively. + +"Of course not," he said. + +"Oh, but you must be." + +"I must be," he repeated obediently. + +"And you are! Say it!" + +"But it does not make me unhappy not to be contented--" + +"Say it, please; or--do you desire me to be unhappy?" + +Her small, smooth hands lying between his, they stood confronting one +another in the golden light. She might easily have brought the matter to +an end; and why she did not, she knew no more than a kitten waking to +consciousness under its first caress. + +"Say it," she repeated, laughing uncertainly back into his smiling eyes +of a boy. + +"Say what?" + +"That you are contented." + +"I can't." + +"Mr. Siward, it is unkind, it is shameless--" + +"I know it; I am that sort." + +"Then I am sorry for you. Look at that!" turning her left hand in his so +that the jewel on the third finger caught the light. + +"I see it." + +"And yet--" + +"And yet." + +"That," she observed with composure, "is sheer obstinacy. . Isn't it?" + +"It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent." + +"How can it be?" impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was +unnerving her--yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. "How can you +really care for me? Do you actually believe that--devotion--comes like +that?" + +"Exactly like that." + +"So suddenly? It is impossible!" with a twist of her pretty shoulders. + +"How did it come--to you?" he asked between his teeth. + +Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands +contracted in his--tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with a +little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a +minute--more, perhaps, she did not know--she half lay in his arms, her +untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, then +tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came back, +too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice. + +He had freed her; she remembered that somebody had asked him to--perhaps +herself. That was well; she needed to breathe, to summon strength and +common-sense, find out what had been done, what reasonless madness she +had committed in the half-light of the silver-stemmed trees clustering +in shameful witness on every hand. + +Suddenly the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her, and she covered her +face with her hands, standing, almost swaying, as wave on wave of +incredulous shame seemed to sweep her from knee to brow. That phase +passed after a while; out of it she emerged, flushed, outwardly +composed, into another phase, in full self-possession once more, able to +understand what had happened without the disproportion of emotional +exaggeration. After all, she had only been kissed. Besides she was a +novice, which probably accounted, in a measure, for the unreasonable +emotion coincident with a caress to which she was unaccustomed. Without +looking up at him she found herself saying coolly enough to surprise +herself: "I never supposed I was capable of that. It appears that I am. +I haven't anything to say for myself . except that I feel fearfully +humiliated. . Don't say anything now . I do not blame you, truly I do +not. It was contemptible of me--to do it--wearing this--" she stretched out +her slender left hand, not looking at him; "it was contemptible!" . She +slowly raised her eyes, summoning all her courage to face him. + +But he only saw in the pink confusion of her lovely face the dawning +challenge of a coquette saluting her adversary in gay acknowledgment of +his fleeting moment of success. And as his face fell, then hardened into +brightness, instantly she divined how he rated her, and in a flash +realized her weapons and her security, and that the control of the +situation was hers, not in the control of this irresolute young man who +stood so silently considering her. Strange that she should be ashamed of +her own innocence, willing that he believe her accomplished in such +arts, enchanted that he no longer perhaps suspected genuine emotion in +the swift, confused sweetness of her first kiss. If only all that were +truly hidden from him, if he dare not in his heart convict her of +anything save perfection in a gay, imprudent role, what a weight lifted, +what relief, what hot self-contempt cooled! What vengeance, too, she +would take on him for the agony of her awakening--the dazed chagrin, the +dread of his wise, amused eyes--eyes that she feared had often looked +upon such scenes; eyes no doubt familiar with such unimportant details +as the shamed demeanour of a novice. + +"Why do you take it so seriously?" she said, laughing and studying him, +certain now of herself in this new disguise. + +"Do you take it lightly?" he asked, striving to smile. + +"I? Ah, I must, you know. You don't expect to marry me . do you, Mr. +Siward?" + +"I--" He choked up at that, grimly for a while. + +Walking slowly forward together she fell into step frankly beside him, +near him--too near. "Try to be sensible," she was saying gaily; "I like +you so much--and it would be horrid to have you mope, you know. And +besides, even if I cared for you, there are reasons, you know--reasons +for any girl to marry the man I am going to marry. Does my cynicism +shock you? What am I to do?" with a shrug. "Such marriages are +reasonable, and far likelier to be agreeable than when fancy is the sole +motive--certainly far more agreeable than an ill-considered yielding to +abstract emotion with nothing concrete in view. . So, you see, I could +not marry you even if I--" her voice was inclined to tremble, but she +controlled it. Would she never learn her role? "even if I loved you--" + +Then her tongue stumbled and was silent; and they walked on, side by +side, through the fading splendour of the year, exchanging no further +speech. + +Toward sunset their guide hailed them, standing high among the rocks, a +silhouette against the sky. And beyond him they saw the poles crowned +with the huge nests of the fish-hawks, marking the last rendezvous at +Osprey Ledge. + +She turned to him as they started up the last incline, thanking him in a +sweet, natural voice for his care of her--quite innocently--until in the +questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes +softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read +her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self--ere she +had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose +familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden +troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced +uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her +years with the figures 23, and headed with the unconvincing chapter +title, "Love." + + + +CHAPTER V A WINNING LOSER + +The week passed swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade +from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and +dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the +smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where +the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the +woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the +big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off +into swamps to the sad undoing of several of the younger setters. + +There was a pheasant drive at Black Fells to which the Ferralls' guests +were bidden by Beverly Plank--a curious scene, where ladies and gentlemen +stood on a lawn, backed by an army of loaders and gun-bearers, while +another improvised army of beaters drove some thousands of frightened, +bewildered, homeless foreign pheasants at the guns. And the miserable +aliens that escaped the guns were left to perish in the desolation of a +coming winter which they were unfitted to withstand. + +So the first week of the season sped gaily, ending on Saturday with a +heavy flight of northern woodcock and an uproarious fusillade among the +silver birches. + +Once Ferrall loaded two motor cars with pioneers for a day beyond his +own boundaries; and one day was spent ingloriously with the beagles; but +otherwise the Shotover estate proved more than sufficient for good bags +or target practice, as the skill of the sportsmen developed. + +Lord Alderdene, good enough on snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic +by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost +the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough +style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also +adorned with clever pen-and-ink sketches by Siward. + +Leroy Mortimer had given up shooting and established himself as a +haunter of cushions in sunny corners. Tom O'Hara had gone back to Lenox; +Mrs. Vendenning to Hot Springs. Beverly Plank, master of Black Fells, +began to pervade the house after a tentative appearance; and he and +Major Belwether pottered about the coverts, usually after luncheon--the +latter doing little damage with his fowling-piece, and nobody knew how +much with his gossiping tongue. Quarrier appeared in the field +methodically, shot with judgment, taking no chances for a brilliant +performance which might endanger his respectable average. As for the +Page boys, they kept the river ducks stirring whenever Eileen Shannon +and Rena Bonnesdel could be persuaded to share the canoes with them. +Otherwise they haunted the vicinity of those bored maidens, suffering +snubs sorrowfully, but persistently faithful. They were a great nuisance +in the evening, especially as their sister did not permit them to lose +more than ten dollars a day at cards. + +Cards--that is Bridge and Preference--ruled as usual; and the latter game +being faster suited Mortimer and Ferrall, but did not aid Siward toward +recouping his Bridge losses. + +Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested +Klondyke for Siward's benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to +him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring +rather to "carry" Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into +bankruptcy under the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke. + +Two matters occupied him; since "cup day" he had never had another +opportunity to see Sylvia Landis alone; that was the first matter. He +had touched neither wine nor spirits nor malt since the night Ferrall +had found him prone, sprawling in a stupor on his disordered bed. That +was the second matter, and it occupied him, at times required all his +attention, particularly when the physical desire for it set in, +steadily, mercilessly, mounting inexorably like a tide. . But, like the +tide, it ebbed at last, particularly when a sleepless night had +exhausted him. + +He had gone back to his shooting again after a cool review of the ethics +involved. It even amused him to think that the whimsical sermon +delivered him by a girl who had cleverness enough to marry many +millions, with Quarrier thrown in, could have so moved him to +sentimentality. He had ceded the big cup of antique silver to Quarrier, +too--a matter which troubled him little, however, as in the irritation of +the reaction he had been shooting with the brilliancy of a demon; and +the gun-room books were open to any doubting guests' inspection. + +Time, therefore, was never heavy on his hands, save when the tide +threatened--when at night he stirred and awoke, conscious of its crawling +advance, aware of its steady mounting menace. Moments at table, when the +aroma of wine made him catch his breath, moments in the gun-room +redolent of spicy spirits; a maddening volatile fragrance clinging to +the card-room, too! Yes, the long days were filled with such moments for +him. + +But afield the desire faded; and even during the day, indoors, he +shrugged desire aside. It was night that he dreaded--the long hours, +lying there tense, stark-eyed, sickened with desire. + +As for Sylvia, she and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away +into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the +coast. Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove, +they took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl +for him. Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite +time being set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he +returned from a morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away +by that time, curled up in the tonneau beside Grace Ferrall, watched the +dark pines flying past, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, while the rushing +wind drove health into her and care out of her--cleansing, purifying, +overwhelming winds flowing through and through her, till her very soul +within her seemed shining through the beauty of her eyes. Besides, she +had just confessed. + + +"He kissed you!" repeated Grace Ferrall incredulously. + +"Yes--a number of times. He was silly enough to do it, and I let him." + +"Did--did he say--" + +"I don't know what he said; I was all nerves--confused--scared--a perfect +stick in fact! . I don't believe he'd care to try again." + +Then Mrs. Ferrall deliberately settled down in her furs to extract from +the girl beside her every essential detail; and the girl, frank at +first, grew shy and silent--reticent enough to worry her friend into a +silence which lasted a long while for a cheerful little matron of her +sort. + +Presently they spoke of other matters--matters interesting to pretty +women with much to do in the coming winter between New York, Hot +Springs, and Florida; surmises as to dinners, dances, and the newcomers +in the younger sets, and the marriages to be arranged or disarranged, +and the scandals humanity is heir to, and the attitude of the bishop +toward divorce. + +And the new pavillion to be built for Saint Berold's Hospital, and the +various states of the various charities each was interested in, and the +chances of something new at the opera, and the impossibility of saving +Fifth Avenue from truck traffic, and the increasing importance of +Washington as a social centre, and the bad manners of a foreign +ambassador, and the better manners of another diplomat, and the lack of +discrimination betrayed by our ambassador to a certain great Power in +choosing people for presentation at court, and the latest unhappy +British-American marriage, and the hopelessness of the French as decent +husbands, and the recent accident to the Claymores' big yacht, and the +tendency of well-born young men toward politics, and the anything but +distinguished person of Lord Alderdene, which was, however, vastly +superior to the demeanour and person of others of his rank recently +imported, and the beauty of Miss Caithness, and the chance that Captain +Voucher had if Leila Mortimer would let him alone, and the absurdity of +the Page twins, and the furtive coarseness of Leroy Mortimer and his +general badness, and the sadness of Leila Mortimer's lot when she had +always been in love with other people,--and a little scandalous surmise +concerning Tom O'Hara, and the new house on Seventy-ninth Street +building for Mrs. Vendenning, and that charming widow's success at last +year's horse show--and whether the fashion of the function was reviving, +and whether Beverly Plank had completely broken into the social sets he +had besieged so long, or whether a few of the hunting and shooting +people merely permitted him to drive pheasants for them, and why +Katharyn Tassel made eyes at him, having sufficient money of her own to +die unwed, and--and--and then, at last, as the big motor car swung in a +circle at Wenniston Cross-Roads, and poked its brass and lacquer muzzle +toward Shotover, the talk swung back to Siward once more--having +travelled half the world over to find him. + +"He is the sweetest fellow with his mother," sighed Grace; "and that +counts heavily with me. But there's trouble ahead for her--sorrow and +trouble enough for them both, if he is a true Siward." + +"Heredity again!" said Sylvia impatiently. "Isn't he man enough to win +out? I'll bet you he settles down, marries, and--" + +"Marries? Not he! How many girls do you suppose have believed that--were +justified in believing he meant anything by his attractive manner and +nice ways of telling you how much he liked you? He had a desperate +affair with Mrs. Mortimer--innocent enough I fancy. He's had a dozen +within three years; and in a week Rena Bonnesdel has come to making eyes +at him, and Eileen gives him no end of chances which he doesn't see. As +for Marion Page, the girl had been on the edge of loving him for years! +You laugh? But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she +ever can be with anybody." + +"You mean--" + +"Yes I do. Hadn't you suspected it?" + +And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent. + +"If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could," +continued Mrs. Ferrall. "He's a perfect fool not to see how she cares +for him." + +Sylvia said: "He is indeed." + +"It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would +only ask her. But he won't." + +"Perhaps," ventured Sylvia, "she'll ask him. She strikes me as that +sort. I do not mean it unkindly--only Marion is so tailor-made and +cigaretteful--" + +Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her. + +"Did he propose to you?" + +"Yes--I think so." + +"Then it's the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to +play with him as a rule, and he doesn't have to be definite. I wonder +what he meant by being so definite with you?" + +"I suppose he meant marriage," said Sylvia serenely; yet there was the +slightest ring in her voice; and it amused Mrs. Ferrall to try her a +little further. + +"Oh, you think he really intended to commit himself?" + +"Why not?" retorted Sylvia, turning red. "Do you think he found me over- +willing, as you say he finds others?" + +"You were probably a new sensation for him," inferred Mrs. Ferrall +musingly. "You mustn't take him seriously, child--a man with his record. +Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with +everything else he tries; his pen--you know how infernally clever he is; +and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry +home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper +harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with--dogs, horses, +pen, brush, music, women"--that was too malicious, for Sylvia had flushed +up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the hand of +the girl beside her: "Child, child," she said, "he is not that sort; no +decent man ever is unless the girl is too." + +Sylvia, sitting up very straight in her furs, said: "He found me +anything but difficult--if that's what you mean." + +"I don't. Please don't be vexed, dear. I plague everybody when I see an +opening. There's really only one thing that worries me about it all." + +"What is that?" asked Sylvia without interest. + +"It's that you might be tempted to care a little for him, which, being +useless, might be unwise." + +"I am . tempted." + +"Not seriously!" + +"I don't know." She turned in a sudden nervous impatience foreign to +her. "Howard Quarrier is too perfectly imperfect for me. I'm glad I've +said it. The things he knows about and doesn't know have been a +revelation in this last week with him. There is too much surface, too +much exterior admirably fashioned. And inside is all clock-work. I've +said it; I'm glad I have. He seemed different at Newport; he seemed nice +at Lenox. The truth is, he's a horrid disappointment--and I'm bored to +death at my brilliant prospects." + +The low whizzing hum of the motor filled a silence that produced +considerable effect upon Grace Ferrall. And, after mastering her wits, +she said in a subdued voice: + +"Of course it's my meddling." + +"Of course it isn't. I asked your opinion, but I knew what I was going +to do. Only, I did think him personally possible--which made the +expediency, the mercenary view of it easier to contemplate." + +She was becoming as frankly brutal as she knew how to be, which made the +revolt the more ominous. + +"You don't think you could endure him for an hour or two a day, Sylvia?" + +"It is not that," said the girl almost sullenly. + +"But--" + +"I'm afraid of myself--call it inherited mischief if you like! If I let a +man do to me what Mr. Siward did when I was only engaged to Howard, what +might I do--" + +"You are not that sort!" said Mrs. Ferrall bluntly. "Don't be exotic, +Sylvia." + +"How do you know--if I don't know? Most girls are kissed; I--well I didn't +expect to be. But I was! I tell you, Grace, I don't know what I am or +shall be. I'm unsafe; I know that much." + +"It's moral and honest to realize it," said Mrs. Ferrall suavely; "and +in doing so you insure your own safety. Sylvia dear, I wish I hadn't +meddled; I'm meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don't give +Howard his conge for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell +upon, but Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the +impulse of the moment." + +"I know it." + +"You are too clever not to. Consider the matter wisely, dispassionately, +intelligently, dear; then if by April you simply can't stand it--talk the +thing over with me again," she ended rather vaguely and wistfully; for +it had been her heart's desire to wed Sylvia's beauty and Quarrier's +fortune, and the suitability of the one for the other was apparent +enough to make even sterner moralists wobbly in their creed. Quarrier, +as a detail of modern human architecture, she supposed might fit in +somewhere, and took that for granted in laying the corner stone for her +fairy palace which Sylvia was to inhabit. And now!--oh, vexation!--the +neglected but essentially constructive detail of human architecture had +buckled, knocking the dream palace and its princess and its splendour +about her ears. + +"Things never happen in real life," she observed plaintively; "only +romances have plots where things work out. But we people in real life, +we just go on and on in a badly constructed, plotless sort of way with +no villains, no interesting situations, no climaxes, no ensemble. No, we +grow old and irritable and meaner and meaner; we lose our good looks and +digestions, and we die in hopeless discord with the unity required in a +dollar and a half novel by a master of modern fiction." + +"But some among us amass fortunes," suggested Sylvia, laughing. + +"But we don't live happy ever after. Nobody ever had enough money in +real life." + +"Some fall in love," observed Sylvia, musing. + +"And they are not content, silly!" + +"Why? Because nobody ever had enough love in real life," mocked Sylvia. + +"You have said it, child. That is the malady of the world, and nobody +knows it until some pretty ninny like you babbles the truth. And that is +why we care for those immortals in romance, those fortunate lovers who, +in fable, are given and give enough of love; those magic shapes in verse +and tale whose hearts are satisfied when the mad author of their being +inks his last period and goes to dinner." + +Sylvia laughed awhile, then, chin on wrist, sat musing there, muffled in +her furs. + +"As for love, I think I should be moderate in the asking, in the giving. +A little--to flavour routine--would be sufficient for me I fancy." + +"You know so much about it," observed Mrs. Ferrall ironically. + +"I am permitted to speculate, am I not?" + +"Certainly. Only speculate in sound investments, dear." + +"How can you make a sound investment in love? Isn't it always sheerest +speculation?" + +"Yes, that is why simple matrimony is usually a safer speculation than +love." + +"Yes, but--love isn't matrimony." + +"Match that with its complementary platitude and you have the essence of +modern fiction," observed Mrs. Ferrall. "Love is a subject talked to +death, which explains the present shortage in the market I suppose. +You're not in love and you don't miss it. Why cultivate an artificial +taste for it? If it ever comes naturally, you'll be astonished at your +capacity for it, and the constant deterioration in quantity and quality +of the visible supply. Goodness! my epigrams make me yawn--or is it age +and the ill humour of the aged when the porridge spills over on the +family cat?" + +"I am the cat, I suppose," asked Sylvia, laughing. + +"Yes you are--and you go tearing away, back up, fur on end, leaving me by +the fire with no porridge and only the aroma of the singeing fur to +comfort me. . Still there's one thing to comfort me." + +"What?" + +"Kitty-cats come back, dear." + +"Oh, I suppose so. . Do you believe I could induce him to wear his hair +any way except pompadour? . and, dear, his beard is so dreadfully silky. +Isn't there anything he could take for it?" + +"Only a razor I'm afraid. Those long, thick, soft, eyelashes of his are +ominous. Eyes of that sort ruin a man for my taste. He might just as +reasonably wear my hat." + +"But he can't follow the fashions in eyes," laughed Sylvia. "Oh, this is +atrocious of us--it is simply horrible to sit here and say such things. I +am cold-blooded enough as it is--material enough, mean, covetous, +contemptible--" + +"Dear!" said Grace Ferrall mildly, "you are not choosing a husband; you +are choosing a career. To criticise his investments might be bad taste; +to be able to extract what amusement you can out of Howard is a direct +mercy from Heaven. Otherwise you'd go mad, you know." + +"Grace! Do you wish me to marry him?" + +"What is the alternative, dear?" + +"Why, nothing--self-respect, dowdiness, and peace." + +"Is that all?" + +"All I can see." + +"Not Stephen Siward?" + +"To marry? No. To enjoy, yes. . Grace, I have had such a good time with +him; you don't know! He is such a boy--sometimes; and I--I believe that I +am rather good for him. . Not that I'd ever again let him do that sort +of thing. . Besides, his curiosity is quenched; I am the sort he +supposed. Now he's found out he will be nice. . It's been days since +I've had a talk with him. He tried to, but I wouldn't. Besides, the +major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing +definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of +matters rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not +even appear to understand or notice--it was all done in such a horridly +vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he +took to the Patroons is better company than he finds in nine places out +of ten among his own sort." + +"Oh," said Grace Ferrall slowly, "if that is the way you feel, I don't +see why you shouldn't play with Mr. Siward whenever you like." + +"Nor I. I've been a perfect fool not to. . Howard hates him." + +"How do you know?" + +"What a question! A woman knows such things. Then, you remember that +caricature--so dreadfully like Howard? Howard has no sense of humour; he +detests such things. It was the most dreadful thing that Mr. Siward +could have done to him." + +"Meddled again!" groaned Grace. "Doesn't Howard know that I did that?" + +"Yes, but nothing I can say alters his conviction that the likeness was +intended. You know it was a likeness! And if Mr. Siward had not told me +that it was not intended, I should never have believed it to be an +accident." + +After a prolonged silence Sylvia said, overcarelessly: "I don't quite +understand Howard. With me anger lasts but a moment, and then I'm open +to overtures for peace . I think Howard's anger lasts." + +"It does," said Grace. "He was a muff as a boy--a prig with a prig's +memory under all his shallow, showy surface. I'm frank with you; I never +could take my cousin either respectfully or seriously, but I've known +him to take his own anger so seriously that years after he has visited +it upon those who had really wronged him. And he is equipped for +retaliation if he chooses. That fortune of his reaches far. . Not that I +think him capable of using such a power to satisfy a mere personal +dislike. Howard has principles, loads of them. But--the weapon is there." + +"Is it true that Mr. Siward is interested in building electric roads?" +asked Sylvia curiously. + +"I don't know, child. Why?" + +"Nothing. I wondered." + +"Why?" + +"Mr. Mortimer said so." + +"Then I suppose he is. I'll ask Kemp if you like. Why? Isn't it all +right to build them?" + +"I suppose so. Howard is in it somehow. In fact Howard's company is +behind Mr. Siward's, I believe." + +Grace Ferrall turned and looked at the girl beside her, laughing +outright. + +"Oh, Howard doesn't do mysterious financial things to nice young men +because they draw impudent pictures of him running after his dog--or for +any other reason. That, dear, is one of those skilfully developed +portions of an artistic plot; and plots exist only in romance. So do +villains; and besides, my cousin isn't one. Besides that, if Howard is +in that thing, no doubt Kemp and I are too. So your nice young man is in +very safe company." + +"You draw such silly inferences," said Sylvia coolly; but there was a +good deal of colour in her cheeks; and she knew it and pulled her big +motor veil across her face, fastening it under her chin. All of which +amused Grace Ferrall infinitely until the subtler significance of the +girl's mental processes struck her, sobering her own thoughts. Sylvia, +too, had grown serious in her preoccupation; and the partie-a-deux +terminated a few minutes later in a duet of silence over the tea-cups in +the gun-room. + +The weather had turned warm and misty; one of those sudden sea-coast +changes had greyed the blue in the sky, spreading a fine haze over land +and water, effacing the crisp sparkle of the sea, dulling the westering +sun. + +A few moments later Sylvia, glancing over her shoulder, noticed that a +fine misty drizzle had clouded the casements. That meant that her usual +evening stroll on the cliffs with Quarrier, before dressing for dinner, +was off. And she drew a little breath of unconscious relief as Marion +Page walked in, her light woollen shooting-jacket, her hat, shoes, and +the barrels of the fowling-piece tucked under her left arm-pit, all +glimmering frostily with powdered rain drops. + +She said something to Grace Ferrall about the mist promising good point- +shooting in the morning, took the order book from a servant, jotted down +her request to be called an hour before sunrise, filled in the gun-room +records with her score--the species and number bagged, and the number of +shells used--and accepting the tea offered, drew out a tiny cigarette- +case of sweet-bay wood heavily crusted with rose-gold. + +"With whom were you shooting?" asked Grace, as Marion dropped one well- +shaped leg over the other and wreathed her delicately tanned features in +smoke. + +"Stephen Siward and Blinky. They're at it yet, but I had some letters to +write." She glanced leisurely at Sylvia and touched the ash-tray with +the whitening end of her cigarette. "That dog you let Mr. Siward have is +a good one. I'm taking him to Jersey next week for the cock-shooting." + +Sylvia returned her calm gaze blankly. + +An unreasonable and disagreeable shock had passed through her. + +"My North Carolina pointers are useless for close work," observed Marion +indifferently; and she leaned back, watching the blue smoke curling +upward from her cigarette. + +Sylvia, distrait, but with downcast eyes on fire under the fringed lids, +was thinking of the cheque Siward had given her for Sagamore. The +transaction, for her, had been a business one on the surface only. She +had never meant to use the cheque. She had laid it away among a few +letters, relics, pleasant souvenirs of the summer. To her the affair had +been softened by a delicate hint of intimacy,--the delight he was to take +in something that had once been hers had given her a faint taste of the +pleasure of according pleasure to a man. And this is what he had done! + +The drizzle had turned to fog, through which rain was now pelting the +cliffs; people were returning from the open; a motor-car came whizzing +into the drive, and out of it tumbled Rena and Eileen and the faithful +Pages, the girls irritable and ready for tea, and the boys like a pair +of eager, wagging, setter puppies, pleased with everything and +everybody, utterly oblivious to the sombre repose brooding above the +tea-table. + +Their sister calmly refused them the use of her cigarettes. Eileen +presented her pretty shoulder, Rena nearly yawned at them, but, nothing +dampened, they recounted a number of incidents with reciprocal +enthusiasm to Sylvia, who was too inattentive to smile, and to Grace +Ferrall, who smiled the more sweetly through sheer inattention. + +Then Alderdene came in, blinking a greeting through his foggy goggles, +sloppy, baggy, heavy shoes wheezing, lingered in the vicinity long +enough to swallow his "peg" and acquire a disdainful opinion of his +shooting from Marion, and then took himself off, leaving the room noisy +with his laugh, which resembled the rattle of a startled kingfisher. + +In ones and twos the guests reported as the dusk-curtained fog closed in +on Shotover. Quarrier came, dry as a chip under his rain-coat, but his +silky beard was wet with rain, and moisture powdered his long, soft +eyelashes and white skin; and his flexible, pointed fingers, as he drew +off his gloves, seemed startling in their whiteness through the +gathering gloom. + +"I suppose our evening walk is out of the question," he said, standing +by Sylvia, who had nodded a greeting and then turned her head rather +hastily to see who had entered the room. It was Siward, only a vague +shape in the gloom, but perfectly recognisable to her. At the same +moment Marion Page rose leisurely and strolled toward the billiard-room. + +"Our walk?" repeated Sylvia absently--"it's raining, you know." Yet only +a day or two ago she had walked to church with Siward through the rain, +the irritated Major feeling obliged to go with them. Her eyes followed +Siward's figure, suddenly dark against the door of the lighted billiard- +room, then brilliantly illuminated, as he entered, nodded acceptance to +Mortimer's invitation, and picked up the cue just laid aside by Agatha +Caithness, who had turned to speak to Marion. Then Mortimer's bulk +loomed nearer; voices became gay and animated in the billiard-room. +Siward's handsome face was bent toward Agatha Caithness in gay +challenge; Mortimer's heavy laugh broke out; there came the rattle of +pool-balls, and the dull sound of cue-butts striking the floor; then, +crack! and the game began, with Marion Page and Siward fighting Mortimer +and Miss Caithness for something or other. + +Quarrier had been speaking for some time before Sylvia became aware of +it--something about a brisk walk in the morning somewhere; and she nodded +impatiently, watching Marion's supple waist-line as she bent far over +the illuminated table for a complicated shot at the enemy. + +His fiancee's inattention was not agreeable to Quarrier. A dozen things +had happened since his arrival which had not been agreeable to him: her +failure to meet him at the Fells Crossing, and the reason for her +failure; and her informal acquaintance with Siward, whose presence at +Shotover he had not looked for, and her sudden intimacy with the man he +had never particularly liked, and whom within six months he had come to +detest and to avoid. + +These things--the outrageous liberty Siward had permitted himself in +caricaturing him, the mortifying caprice of Sylvia for Siward on the day +of the Shotover cup-drive--had left indelible impressions in a cold and +rather heavy mind, slow to waste effort in the indulgence of any vital +emotion. + +In a few years indifference to Siward had changed to passive +disapproval; that, again, to an emotionless dislike; and when the +scandal at the Patroons Club occurred, for the first time in his life he +understood what it was to fear the man he disliked. For if Siward had +committed the insane imprudence which had cost him his title to +membership, he had also done something, knowingly or otherwise, which +awoke in Quarrier a cold, slow fear; and that fear was dormant, but +present, now, and it, for the time being, dictated his attitude and +bearing toward the man who might or might not be capable of using +viciously a knowledge which Quarrier believed that he must possess. + +For that reason, when it was not possible to avoid Siward, his bearing +toward him was carefully civil; for that reason he dampened Major +Belwether's eagerness to tell everybody all he knew about the +shamelessly imprudent girl who had figured with Siward in the scandal, +but whose identity the press had not discovered. + +Silence was always desirable to Quarrier; silence concerning all matters +was a trait inborn and congenially cultivated to a habit by him in every +affair of life--in business, in leisure, in the methodical pursuits of +such pleasures as a limited intellect permitted him, in personal and +family matters, in public questions and financial problems. + +He listened always, but never invited confidences; he had no opinion to +express when invited. And he became very, very rich. + +And over it all spread a thin membrane of vanity, nervous, not +intellectual, sensitiveness; for all sense of humour was absent in this +man, whose smile, when not a physical effort, was automatically and +methodically responsive to certain fixed cues. He smiled when he said +"Good morning," when declining or accepting invitations, when taking his +leave, when meeting anybody of any financial importance, and when +everybody except himself had begun to laugh in a theatre or a drawing- +room. This limit to any personal manifestation he considered a generous +one. And perhaps it was. + + +A sudden rain-squall, noisy against the casements, had darkened the +room; then the electric lights broke out with a mild candle-like lustre, +and Quarrier, standing beside Sylvia's chair, discovered it to be empty. + +It was not until he had dressed for dinner that he saw her again, seated +on the stairs with Marion Page--a new appearance of intimacy for both +women, who heretofore had found nothing except a passing civility in +common. + +Marion was discussing dog-breeding with that cool, crude, direct +insouciance so unpleasant to some men. Sylvia was attentive, curious, +and instinctively shrinking by turns, secretly dismayed at the +overplainness of terms employed in kennel lore by the girl at her side. + +The conversation veered toward the Sagamore pup. Marion explained that +Siward was too busy to do any Southern shooting, which was why he was +glad to have her polish Sagamore on Jersey woodcock. + +"I thought it was not good for a dog to be used by anybody except his +master," said Sylvia carelessly. + +"Only second-raters suffer. Besides, I have shot enough, now, with Mr. +Siward to use his dog as he does." + +"He is an agreeable shooting companion, smiled Sylvia. + +"He is perfect," answered Marion coolly. "The only test for a +thoroughbred is the field. He rings true." + +They exchanged carefully impersonal views on Siward's good qualities for +a moment or two; then Marion said bluntly: "Do you know anything in +particular about that Patroons Club affair?" + +"No," said Sylvia, "nothing in particular." + +"Neither do I; and I don't care to; I mean, that I don't care what he +did; and I wish that gossiping old Major would stop trying to hint it to +me." + +"My uncle!" + +"Oh! I forgot. Beg your pardon, you know, but--" + +"I'm not offended," observed Sylvia, with a shrug of her pretty, bare +shoulders. + +Marion laughed. "Such a gadabout! Besides, I'm no prude, but he and +Leroy Mortimer have no business to talk to unmarried women the way they +do. No matter how worldly wise we are, men have no right to suppose we +are." + +"Pooh!" shrugged Sylvia. "I have no patience to study out double- +entendre, so it never shocks me. Besides--" + +She was going to add that she was not at all versed in doubtful worldly +wisdom, but decided not to, as it might seem to imply disapproval of +Marion's learning. So she went on: "Besides, what have innuendoes to do +with Mr. Siward?" + +"I don't know whether I care to understand them. The Major hinted that +the woman--the one who figured in it--is--rather exclusively Mr. Siward's +'property.'" + +"Exclusively?" repeated Sylvia curiously. "She's a public actress, isn't +she?" + +"If you call the manoeuvres of a newly fledged chorus girl acting, yes, +she is. But I don't believe Mr. Siward figures in that unfashionable +role. Why, there are too many women of his own sort ready for mischief." +Marion turned to Sylvia, her eyes hard with a cynicism quite lost on the +other. "That sort of thing might suit Leroy Mortimer, but it doesn't fit +Mr. Siward," she concluded, rising as their hostess appeared from above +and the butler from below. + +And all through dinner an indefinitely unpleasant remembrance of the +conversation lingered with Sylvia, and she sat silent for minutes at a +time, returning to actualities with a long, curious side-glance across +at Siward, and an uncomprehending smile of assent for whatever Quarrier +or Major Belwether had been saying to her. + +Cards she managed to avoid after dinner, and stood by Quarrier's chair +for half an hour, absently watching the relentless method and steady +adherence to rule which characterised his Bridge-playing, the eager, +unslaked brutality of Mortimer, the set, selfish face of his pretty +wife, the chilled intensity of Miss Caithness. + +And Grace Ferrall's phrase recurred to her, "Nobody ever has enough +money!"--not even these people, whose only worry was to find investment +for the surplus they were unable to spend. Something of the meanness of +it all penetrated her. Were these the real visages of these people, +whose faces otherwise seemed so smooth and human? Was Leila Mortimer +aware of the shrillness of her voice? Did Agatha Caithness realise how +pinched her mouth and nose had grown? Did even Leroy Mortimer dream how +swollen the pouches under his eyes were; how red and puffy his hands, +shuffling a new pack; how pendulous and dreadful his red under-lip when +absorbedly making up his cards? + +Instinctively she moved a step forward for a glimpse of Quarrier's face. +The face appeared to be a study in blankness. His natural visage was +emotionless and inexpressive enough, but this face, from which every +vestige of colour had fled, fascinated her with its dead whiteness; and +the hair brushed high, the long, black lashes, the silky beard, struck +her as absolutely ghastly, as though they had been glued to a face of +wax. + +She turned on her heel, restless, depressed, inclined for companionship. +The Page boys had tempted Rena and Eileen to the billiard-room; Voucher, +Alderdene, and Major Belwether were huddled over a table, immersed in +Preference; Katharyn Tassel and Grace Ferrall sat together looking over +the announcements of Sylvia's engagement in a batch of New York papers +just arrived; Ferrall was writing at a desk, and Siward and Marion were +occupied in the former's sketch for an ideal shooting vehicle, to be +built on the buckboard principle, with a clever arrangement for dogs, +guns, ammunition, and provisions. Siward's profile, as it bent in the +lamplight over the paper, was very engaging. The boyish note +predominated as he talked while he drew, his eyes now smiling, now +seriously intent on the sketch which was developing so swiftly under his +facile pencil. + +Marion's clean-cut blond head was close to his, her supple body twisted +in her seat, one bare arm hanging over the back of the chair. Something +in her attitude seemed to exclude intrusion; her voice, too, was hushed +in comment, though his was pitched in his naturally agreeable key. + +Sylvia had taken a hesitating step toward them, but halted, turning +irresolutely; and suddenly over her crept a sensation of +isolation--something of that feeling which had roused her at midnight +from her bed and driven her to Grace Ferrall for a refuge from she knew +not what. + +The rustle of her silken dinner gown was scarcely perceptible as she +turned. Siward, moving his head slightly, glanced up, then brought his +sketch to a brilliant finish. + +"Don't you think something of this sort is practicable?" he asked +pleasantly, including Mrs. Ferrall and Katharyn Tassel in a general +appeal which brought them into the circle of two. Grace Ferrall leaned +forward, looking over Marion's shoulder, and Siward rose and stepped +back, with a quick glance into the hall--in time to catch a glimmer of +pale blue and lace on the stairs. + +"I suppose my cigarettes are in my room as usual," he said aloud to +himself, wheeling so that he could not have time to see Marion's offer +of her little gold-encrusted case, or notice her quickly raised eyes, +bright with suspicion and vexation. For she, too, had observed Sylvia's +distant entrance, had been perfectly aware of Siward's cognizance of +Sylvia's retreat; and when Siward went on sketching she had been +content. Now she could not tell whether he had deliberately and +skillfully taken his conge to follow Sylvia, or whether, in his quest +for his cigarettes, chance might meddle, as usual. Even if he returned, +she could not know with certainty how much of a part hazard had played +on the landing above, where she already heard the distant sounds of +Sylvia's voice mingling with Siward's, then a light footfall or two, and +silence. + + +He had greeted her in his usual careless, happy fashion, just as she had +reached her chamber door; and she turned at the sound of his voice, +confused, unsmiling, a little pale. + +"Is it headache, or are you too in quest of cigarettes?" he asked, as he +stopped in passing her where she stood, one slender hand on the knob of +her door. + +"I don't smoke, you know," she said, looking up at him with a cool +little laugh. "It isn't headache either. I was--boring myself, Mr. +Siward." + +"Is there any virtue in me as a remedy?" + +"Oh, I have no doubt you have lots of virtues. . Perhaps you might do as +a temporary remedy--first aid to the injured." She laughed again, +uncertainly. "But you are on a quest for cigarettes." + +"And you?" + +"A rendezvous--with the Sand-Man. . Good night." + +"Good night . if you must say it." + +"It's polite to say something . isn't it?" + +"It would be polite to say, 'With pleasure, Mr. Siward!'" + +"But you haven't invited me to do anything--not even to accept a +cigarette. Besides, you didn't expect to meet me up here?" + +The trailing accent made it near enough a question for him to say, "Yes, +I did." + +"How could you?" + +"I saw you leave the room." + +"You were sketching for Marion Page. Do you wish me to believe that you +noticed me--" + +"--And followed you? Yes, I did follow you." She looked at him, then past +him toward a corner of the wide hall where a maid in cap and apron sat +pretending to be sewing. "Careful!" she motioned with smiling lips, +"servants gossip. . Good night, again." + +"Won't you--" + +"Oh, dear! you mustn't speak so loud," she motioned, with her fresh, +sweet lips curving on the edge of that adorable smile once more. + +"Couldn't we have a moment--" + +"No--" + +"One minute--" + +"Hush! I must open my door"--lingering. "I might come out again, if you +have anything particularly important to communicate to me." + +"I have. There's a big bay-window at the end of the other corridor. Will +you come?" + +But she opened her door, with a light laugh, saying "good night" again, +and closed it noiselessly behind her. + +He walked on, turning into his corridor, but kept straight ahead, +passing his own door, on to the window at the end of the hall, then +north along a wide passageway which terminated in a bay-window +overlooking the roof of the indoor swimming tank. + +Rain rattled heavily, against the panes and on the lighted roof of +opalescent glass below, through which he could make out the shadowy +fronds of palms. + +It appeared that he had cigarettes enough, for he lighted one presently, +and, leaving his chair, curled up in the cushioned and pillowed window- +seat, gathering his knees together under his arm. + +The cigarette he had lighted went out. He had bitten into it and twisted +it so roughly that it presently crumbled; and he threw the rags of it +into a metal bowl, locking his jaws in silence. For the night threatened +to be a bad one for him. A heavy fragrance from his neighbour's wine- +glass at dinner had stirred up what had for a time lain dormant; and, by +accident, something--some sweetmeat he had tasted--was saturated in +brandy. + +Now, his restlessness at the prospect of a blank night had quickened to +uneasiness, with a hint of fever tinting his skin, but, as yet, the dull +ache in his body was scarcely more than a premonition. + +He had his own devices for tiding him over such periods--reading, +tobacco, and the long, blind, dogged tramps he took in town. But here, +to-night, in the rain, one stood every chance of walking off the cliffs; +and he was sick of reading himself sightless over the sort of books sent +wholesale to Shotover; and he was already too ill at ease, physically, +to make smoking endurable. + +Were it not for a half-defiant, half-sullen dread of the coming night, +he might have put it from his mind in spite of the slowly increasing +nervous tension and the steady dull consciousness of desire. He drew +another Sirdar from his case and sat staring at the rain-smeared night, +twisting the frail fragrant cigarette to bits between his fingers. + +After a while he began to walk monotonously to and fro the length of the +corridor, like a man timing his steps to the heavy ache of body or mind. +Once he went as far as his own door, entered, and stepping to the wash- +basin, let the icy water run over hands and wrists. This sometimes +helped to stimulate and soothe him; it did now, for a while--long enough +to change the current of his thoughts to the girl he had hoped might +have the imprudence to return for a tryst, innocent enough in itself, +yet unconventional and unreasonable enough to prove attractive to them +both. + +Probably she wouldn't come; she had kept her fluffy skirts clear of him +since Cup Day--which simply corroborated his vague estimate of her. Had +she done the contrary, his estimate would have been the same; for, +unconsciously but naturally, he had prejudged her. A girl who could +capture Quarrier at full noontide, and in the face of all Manhattan, was +a girl equipped for anything she dared--though she was probably too +clever to dare too much; a girl to be interested in, to amuse and be +amused by; a girl to be reckoned with. His restlessness and his fever +subdued by the icy water, he stood drying his hands, thinking, coolly, +how close he had come to being seriously in love with this young girl, +whose attitude was always a curious temptation, whose smile was a +charming provocation, whose youth and beauty were to him a perpetual +challenge. He admitted to himself, calmly, that he had never seen a +woman he cared as much for; that for the brief moment of his declaration +he had known an utterly new emotion, which inevitably must have become +the love he had so quietly declared it to be. He had never before felt +as he felt then, cared as he cared then. Anything had been possible for +him at that time--any degree of love, any devotion, any generous +renunciation. Clear-sighted, master of himself, he saw love before him, +and knew it when he saw it; recognised it, was ready for it, offered it, +emboldened by her soft hands so eloquent in his. + +And in his arms he held it for an instant, he thought, spite of the +sudden inertia, spite of the according of cold lips and hands still +colder, relaxed, inert; held it until he doubted. That was all; he had +been wise to doubt such sudden miracles as that. She, consummate and +charming, had soon set him right. And, after all, she liked him; and she +had been sure enough of herself to permit the impulse of a moment to +carry her with him--a little way, a very little way--merely to the formal +symbol of a passion the germ of which she recognised in him. + +Then she had become intelligent again, with a little laughter, a little +malice, a becoming tint of hesitation and confusion; all the sense, all +the arts, all the friendly sweetness of a woman thorough in training, +schooled in self-possession, clear enough to be audacious and perverse +without danger to herself, to the man, or to the main chance. + +Standing there alone in his lighted room, he wondered whether, had her +trained and inbred policy been less precise, less worldly, she might +have responded to such a man as he. Perfectly conscious that he had been +capable of loving her; aware, too, that his experience had left him on +that borderland only through his cool refusal to cross it and face a +hopeless battle already lost, he leisurely and mentally took the measure +of his own state of mind, and found all well, all intact; found himself +still master of his affections, and probably clear-minded enough to +remain so under the circumstances. + +To such a man as he, impulse to love, capacity to love, did not mean +instant capsizing with a flop into sentimental tempests, where swamped, +ardent and callow youth raises a hysterically selfish clamour for +reciprocity or death. His nature partly, partly his character, accounted +for this balance; and, in part, a rather wide experience with women of +various degrees counted more. + +So, by instinct and experience, normally temperate, only what was +abnormal and inherited might work a mischief in this man. His +listlessness, his easy acquiescence, were but consequent upon the self- +knowledge of self-control. But mastery of the master-vice required +something different; he was sick of a sickness; and because, in this +sickness, will, mind, and body are tainted too, reason and logic lack +clarity; and, to the signals of danger his reply had always been either +overconfident or weak--and it had been always the same reply: "Not yet. +There is time." And now, this last week, it had come upon him that the +time was now; the skirmish was already on; and it had alarmed him +suddenly to find that the skirmish was already a battle, and a rough +one. + + +As he stood there he heard voices on the stairs. People had already +begun to retire, because late cards and point-shooting at dawn do not +agree. And a point-shooting picnic in snugly elaborate blinds was +popular with women--or was supposed to be. + +He could distinguish by their voices, by their laughter and step, the +people who were mounting the stairway and lingering for gossip or +passing through the various corridors to court the sleep denied him; he +heard Mortimer's heavy tread and the soft shuffling step of Major +Belwether as they left the elevator; and the patter of his hostess's +satin slippers, and her gay "good night" on the stairs. + +Little by little the tumult died away. Quarrier's measured step came, +passed; Marion Page's cool, crisp voice and walk, and the giggle and +amble of the twins, and Rena and Eileen,--the last laggards, with +Ferrall's brisk, decisive tones and stride to close the procession. + +He turned and looked grimly at his bed, then, shutting off the lights, +he opened his door and went out into the deserted corridor, where the +elevator shaft was dark and only the dim night-lights burned at angles +in the passageways. + +He had his rain-coat and cap with him, not being certain of what he +might be driven to; but for the present he found the bay-window +overlooking the swimming tank sufficient to begin the vigil. + +Secure from intrusion, as there were no bedrooms on that corridor, he +tossed coat and cap into the window-seat, walked to and fro for a while +listening to the rain, then sat down, his well-shaped head between his +hands. And in silence he faced the Enemy. + +How long he had sat there he did not know. When he raised his face, all +gray and drawn with the tension of conflict, his eyes were not very +clear, nor did the figure standing there in the dim light from the hall +mean anything for a moment. + +"Mr. Siward?" in an uncertain voice, almost a whisper. + +He stood up mechanically, and she saw his face. + +"Are you ill? What is it?" + +"Ill? No." He passed his hand over his eyes. "I fancy I was close to the +edge of sleep." Some colour came back into his face; he stood smiling +now, the significance of her presence dawning on him. + +"Did you really come?" he asked. "This isn't a very lovely but +impalpable astral vision, is it?" + +"It's horridly imprudent, isn't it?" she murmured, still considering the +rather drawn and pallid face of the man before her. "I came out of pure +curiosity, Mr. Siward." + +She glanced about her. He moved a big bunch of hothouse roses so she +could pass, and she settled down lightly on the edge of the window-seat. +When he had piled some big downy cushions behind her back, she made a +quick gesture of invitation. + +"I have only a moment," she said, as he seated himself beside her. "Part +of my curiosity is satisfied in finding you here; I didn't suppose you +so faithful." + +"I can be fairly faithful. What else are you curious about?" + +"You said you had something important--" + +"--To tell you? So I did. That was bribery, perjury, false pretences, +robbery under arms, anything you will! I only wanted you to come." + +"That is a shameful confession!" she said; but her smile was gay enough, +and she noiselessly shook out her fluffy skirts and settled herself a +trifle more deeply among the pillows. + +"Of course," she observed absently, "you are dreadfully mortified at +yourself." + +"Naturally," he admitted. + +The patter of the rain attracted her attention; she peered out through +the blurred casements into the blackness. Then, picking up his cap and +indicating his raincoat, "Why?" she asked. + +"Oh--in case you hadn't come--" + +"A walk? By yourself? A night like this on the cliffs! You are not +perfectly mad, are you?" + +"Not perfectly." + +Her face grew serious and beautiful. + +"What is the matter, Mr. Siward?" + +"Things." + +"Do you care to be more explicit?" + +"Well," he said, with a humourous glance at her, "I haven't seen you for +ages. That's not wholesome for me, you know." + +"But you see me now; and it does not seem to benefit you." + +"I feel much better," he insisted, laughing; and her blue eyes grew very +lovely as the smile broke from them in uncertain response. + +"So you had nothing really important to tell me, Mr. Siward?" + +"Only that I wanted you." + +"Oh! . I said important." + +But he did not argue the question; and she leaned forward, broke a rose +from its stem, then sank back a little way among the cushions, looking +at him, idly inhaling the hothouse perfume. + +"Why have you so ostentatiously avoided me, Mr. Siward?" she asked +languidly. + +"Well, upon my word!" he said, with a touch of irritation. + +"Oh, you are so dreadfully literal!" she shrugged, brushing her +straight, sensitive nose with the pink blossom; "I only said it to give +you a chance. . If you are going to be stupid, good night!" But she made +no movement to go. . "Yes, then; I have avoided you. And it doesn't +become you to ask why." + +"Because I kissed you?" + +"You hint at the true reason so chivalrously, so delicately," she said, +"that I scarcely recognise it." The cool mockery of her voice and the +warm, quick colour tinting neck and face were incongruous. He thought +with slow surprise that she was not yet letter-perfect in her role of +the material triumphant over the spiritual. A trifle ashamed, too, he +sat silent, watching the silken petals fall one by one as she slowly +detached them with delicate, restless lips. + +"I am sorry I came," she said reflectively. "You don't know why I came, +do you? Sheer loneliness, Mr. Siward; there is something of the child in +me still, you see. I am not yet sufficiently resourceful to take it out +in a quietly tearful obligato; I never learned how to produce tears. . +So I came to you." She had stripped the petals from the rose, and now, +tossing the crushed branch from her, she leaned forward and broke from +its stem a heavy, perfumed bud, half unfolded. + +"It seems my fate to pass my life in bidding you good night," she said, +straightening up and turning to him with the careless laughter touching +mouth and eyes again. Then, resting her weight on one hand, her smooth, +white shoulder rounded beside her cheek, she looked at him out of +humourous eyes: + +"What is it that women find so attractive in you? The man's experienced +insouciance? The boy's unconscious cynicism? The mystery of your self- +sufficiency? The faulty humanity in you? The youth in you already +showing traces of wear that hint of future scars? What will you be at +thirty-five? At forty? . Ah," she added softly, "what are you now? For I +don't know, and you cannot tell me if you would. . Out of these little +windows called eyes we look at one another, and study surfaces, and try +to peep into neighbours' windows. But all is dark behind the +windows--always dark, in there where they tell us souls hide." + +She laid the shell-pink bud against her cheek that matched it, smiling +with wise sweetness to herself. + +"What counts with you?" he asked after a moment. + +"Counts? How?" + +"In your affections. What prepossesses you?" + +She laughed audaciously: "Your traits--some of them--all of them that you +reveal. You must be aware of that much already, considering everything--" + +"Then, what is it I lack? Where do I fail?" + +"But you don't lack--you don't fail! I ask nothing more of you, Mr. +Siward." + +"A man from whom a woman desires nothing is already convicted of +insufficiency. . You would recognise this very quickly if I made love to +you." + +"Is that the only way I am to discover your insufficiency, Mr. Siward?" + +"Or my sufficiency. . Have you enough curiosity to try?" + +"Oh! I thought you were to try." Then, quickly: "But I think you have +already experimented; and I did not notice your shortcomings. So there +is no use in pursuing that line of investigation any farther--is there?" + +And always with her the mischief lay in the trailing upward inflection; +in the confused sweetness of her eyes, and their lovely uncertainty. + +One slim white hand held the rose against her cheek; the other lay idly +on her knee, fresh and delicate as a fallen petal; and he laid both +hands over it and lifted it between them. + +"Mr. Siward, I am afraid this is becoming a habit with you." The gay +mockery was not quite genuine; the curve of lips too sensitive for a +voice so lightly cynical. + +He smiled, bending there, considering her hand between his; and after a +moment her muscles relaxed, and bare round arm and hand lay abandoned to +him. + +"Quite flawless--perfect," he said aloud to himself. + +"Do you--read hands?" + +"Vaguely." He touched the smooth palm: "Long life, clear mind, and"--he +laughed--"heart supreme over reason! There is written a white lie--but a +pretty one." + +"It is no lie." + +He laughed again, unconvinced. + +"It is the truth," she said, seriously insisting and bending sideways +above her own hand where it lay in his. "It is a miserable confession to +admit it, but I'm afraid intelligence would fight a losing battle with +heart if the conflict ever came. You see, I know, having nobody to study +except myself all these years. . There is the proof of it--that selfish, +smooth contour, where there should be generosity. Then, look at the +tendency of imagination toward mischief!" She laid her right forefinger +on the palm of the left hand which he held, and traced the developments +arising in the Mount of Hermes. "Is it not a horrid hand, Mr. Siward? I +don't know how much you know about palms, but--" She suddenly flushed, +and attempted to close her hand, doubling the thumb over. There was a +little half-hearted struggle, freeing one of his arms, which fell, +settling about her slender waist; a silence, a breathless moment, and he +had kissed her. Her lips were warm, this time. + +She recovered herself, avoiding his eyes, and moved backward, shielding +her face with pretty upflung elbows out-turned. "I told you it was +becoming a habit with you!" The loud beating of her pulses marred her +voice. "Must I establish a dead-line every time I commit the folly of +being alone with you?" + +"I'll draw that line," he said, taking her in his arms. + +"I--I beg you will draw it quickly, Mr. Siward." + +"I do; it passes through your heart and mine!" + +"Is--do you mean a declaration--again? You are compromising yourself, you +know. I warn you that you are committing yourself." + +"So are you. Look at me!" + +In his arms, her own arms pressed against his breast, resisting, she +raised her splendid youthful eyes; and through and through her shot +pulse on pulse, until every nerve seemed aquiver. + +"While I'm still sane," he said with a dry catch in his throat, "before +I tell you that I love you, look at me." + +"I will, if you wish," she said with a trembling smile, "but it is +useless--" + +"That is what I shall find out in time. . You must meet my eyes. That is +well; that is frank and sweet--" + +"And useless--truly it is. . Please don't tell me--anything." + +"You will not listen?" + +"There is no chance for you--if you mean love. I--I tell you in time, you +see. . I am utterly frivolous--quite selfish and mercenary." + +"I take my chance!" + +"No, I give you none! Why do you interfere! A--a girl's policy costs her +something if it be worth anything; whatever it costs it is worth it to +me. . And I do not love you. In so short a time how could I?" + +Then in his arms she fell a-trembling. Something blinded her eyes, and +she turned her head sharply, only to encounter his lips on hers in a +deep, clinging embrace that left her dazed, still resisting with the +fragments of breath and voice. + +"Not again--I beg--you. Let me go now. It is not best. Oh! truly, truly it +is all wrong with us now." She bent her head, blinded with tears, +swaying, stunned; then, with a breathless sound, turned in his arms to +meet his lips, her hands contracting in his; and, confronting, they +paused, suspending the crisis, young faces close, and hearts afire. + +"Sylvia, I love you." + +For an instant their lips clung; she had rendered him his kiss. Then, +tremblingly, "It is useless . even though I loved you." + +"Say it!" + +"I do." + +"Say it!" + +"I--I cannot! . And it is no use--no use! I do not know myself--this way. +My eyes--are wet. It is not like me; there is nothing of me in this girl +you hold so closely, so confidently. . I do care for you--how can I help +it? How could any woman help it? Is not that enough?" + +"Until you are a bride, yes." + +"A bride? Stephen!--I cannot--" + +"You cannot help it, Sylvia." + +"I must! I have my way to go." + +"My way lies that way." + +"No! no! I cannot do it; it is not best for me--not best for you. . I do +care for you; you have taught me how to say it. But--you know what I have +done--and mean to do, and must carry through. Then, how can you love a +girl like that?" + +"Dear, I know the woman I love." + +"Silly, she is what her life has made her--material, passionately +selfish, unable to renounce the root of all evil. . Even if this--this +happiness were ours always--I mean, if this madness could last our +wedded life--I am not good enough, not noble enough, to forget what I +might have had, and put away. . Is it not dreadful to admit it? Do you +not know that self-contempt is part of the price? . I have no money. I +know what you have. . I asked. And it is enough for a man who remains +unmarried. . For I cannot 'make things do'; I cannot 'contrive'; I will +not cling to the fringe of things, or play that heartbreaking role of +the shabby expatriated on the Continent. . No person in this world ever +had enough. I tell you I could find use for every flake of metal ever +mined! . You see you do not know me. From my pretty face and figure you +misjudge me. I am intelligent--not intellectual, though I might have +been, might even be yet. I am cultivated, not learned; though I care for +learning--or might, if I had time. . My role in life is to mount to a +security too high for any question as to my dominance. . Can you take me +there?" + +"There are other heights, Sylvia." + +"Higher?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"The spiritual; I know. I could not breathe there, if I cared to climb. +. And I have told you what I am--all silk and lace and smooth-skinned +selfishness." She looked at him wistfully. "If you can change me, take +me." And she rose, facing him. + +"I do not give you up," he said, with a savage note hardening his voice; +and it thrilled her to hear it, and every drop of blood in her body +leaped as she yielded to his arms again, heavy-lidded, trembling, +confused, under the piercing sweetness of contact. + +The perfume of her mouth, her hair, the consenting fingers locked in +his, palm against palm, the lips, acquiescent, then afire at last, +responsive to his own; and her eyes opening from the dream under the +white lids--these were what he had of her till every vein in him pulsed +flame. Then her voice, broken, breathless: + +"Good night. Love me while you can--and forgive me! . Good night. . Where +are we? All--all this must have stunned me, blinded me. . Is this my +door, or yours? Hush! I am half dead with fear--to be here under the +light again. . If you take me again, my knees will give way. . And I +must find my door. Oh, the ghastly imprudence of it! . Good night . good +night. I--I love you!" + + + +CHAPTER VI MODUS VIVENDI + +After the first few days of his arrival at Shotover time had threatened +to hang heavily on Mortimer's mottled hands. After the second day afield +he recognised that his shooting career was practically over; he had +become too bulky during the last year to endure the physical exertion; +his habits, too, had at length made traitors of his eyes; a half hour's +snipe-shooting in the sun, and the veins in his neck swelled ominously. +Panting, eyes inflamed, fat arms wobbly, he had scored miss after miss, +and laboured onward, sullenly persistent to the end. But it was the end. +That cup day finished him; he recognised that he was done for. And, +following the Law of Pleasure, which finishes us before we are finished +with it, he did not experience any particular sense of deprivation in +the prospect. Only the wholesome dread caging. But Mortimer, not yet +done with self-indulgence in more convenient forms, cast about him +within his new limits for occupation between those hours consecrated to +the rites of the table and the card-room. + +He drove four, but found that it numbed his arms, and that the sea air +made him sleepy. Motor-cars agreed with him only when driving with a +pretty woman. Forced through ennui to fish off the rocks, he soon tired +of the sea-perch and rock-cod and the malodours of periwinkle and clam. + +Then he frankly took to Major Belwether's sunny side of the gun-room, +with illustrated papers and apples and decanter. But Major Belwether, +always as careful of his digestion as of his financial secrets, blandly +dodged the pressing invitations to rum and confidence, until Mortimer +sulkily took up his headquarters in the reading-room, on the chance of +his wife's moving elsewhere. Which she did, unobtrusively carrying +Captain Voucher with her in a sudden zeal for billiard practice on rainy +mornings now too frequent along the coast. + +Mortimer possessed that mysterious talent, so common among the +financially insolvent, for living lavishly on an invisible income. But, +plan as he would, he had never been able to increase that income through +confidential gossip with men like Quarrier or Belwether, or even +Ferrall. What information his pretty wife might have extracted he did +not know; her income had never visibly increased above the vanishing +point, although, like himself, she denied herself nothing. One short, +lively interview with her had been enough to drive all partnership ideas +out of his head. If he wanted to learn anything financially advantageous +to himself he must do it without her aid; and as he was perpetually in +hopes of the friendly hint that never came, he still moused about when +opportunity offered; and this also helped to kill time. + +Besides, he was always studying women. Years before, Grace Ferrall had +snapped her slim fingers in his face; and here, at Shotover, the field +was limited. Mrs. Vendenning had left; Agatha Caithness was still a pale +and reticent puzzle; Rena, Katharyn, and Eileen tormented him; Marion +Page, coolly au fait, yawned in his face. There remained Sylvia, who, +knowing nothing about his species, met him half-way with the sweet and +sensitive deference due a somewhat battered and infirm gentleman of +forty-eight--until a sleek aside from Major Belwether spoiled everything, +as usual, for her, leaving her painfully conscious and perplexed between +doubt and disgust. + +Meanwhile, the wealthy master of Black Fells, Beverly Plank, had found +encouragement enough at Shotover to venture on tentative informality. +There was no doubt that ultimately he must be counted on in New York; +but nobody except him was impatiently cordial for the event; and so, at +the little house party, he slipped and slid from every attempt at closer +quarters, until, rolling smoothly enough, he landed without much +discomfort somewhere between Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Mortimer. And it was not +a question as to "which would be good to him," observed Major Belwether, +with his misleading and benevolent mirth; "it was, which would be +goodest quickest!" + +And Mrs. Mortimer, abandoning Captain Voucher by the same token, +displayed certain warning notices perfectly comprehensive to her +husband. And at first he was inclined to recognise defeat. + +But the general insuccess which had so faithfully attended him recently +had aroused the long-dormant desire for a general review of the +situation with his wife--perhaps even the furtive hope of some conjugal +arrangement tending toward an exchange of views concerning possible +alliance. + +The evening previous, to his intense disgust, host, hostess, and guests +had retired early, in view of the point-shooting at dawn. For not only +was there to be no point-shooting for him, but he had risen from the +card-table heavily hit; and besides, for the first time his apples and +port had disagreed with him. + +As he had not risen until mid-day he was not sleepy. Books were an +aversion equalled only by distaste for his own company. Irritated, +bored, he had perforce sulkily entered the elevator and passed to his +room, where there was nothing on earth for him to do except to thumb +over last week's sporting periodicals and smoke himself stupid. + +But it required more than that to ensnare the goddess of slumber. He +walked about the room, haunted of slow thoughts; he stood at the rain- +smeared pane, fat fingers resting on the glass. The richly flavoured +cigar grew distasteful; and if he could not smoke, what, in pity's name, +was he to do? + +Involuntarily his distended eyes wandered to his wife's locked and +bolted door; then he thought of Beverly Plank, and his own failure to +fasten himself upon that anxiously over-cordial individual with his +houses and his villas and his yachts and his investments! + +He stepped to the switch and extinguished the lights in his room. Under +the door, along the sill, a glimmer came from his wife's bed-chamber. He +listened; the maid was still there; so he sat down in the darkness to +wait; and by-and-by he heard the outer bedroom door close, and the +subdued rustle of the departing maid. + +Then, turning on his lights, he moved ponderously and jauntily to his +wife's door and knocked discreetly. + +Leila Mortimer came to the door and opened it; her hair was coiled for +the night, her pretty figure outlined under a cascade of clinging lace. + +"What is the matter?" she asked quietly. + +"Are you point-shooting to-morrow?" + +"I wanted to chat with you." + +"I'm sorry. I'm driving to Wenniston, after breakfast, with Beverly +Plank, and I need sleep." + +"I want to talk to you," he repeated doggedly. + +She regarded him for a moment in silence, then, with an assenting +gesture, turned away into her room; and he followed, heavily +apprehensive but resolved. + +She had seated herself among a pile of cushions, one knee crossed over +the other, her slim white foot half concealed by the silken toe of her +slipper. And as he pulled a chair forward for himself, her pretty black +eyes, which slanted a little, took his measure and divined trouble. + +"Leila," he said, "why can't we have--" + +"A cigarette?" she interrupted, indicating her dainty case on the table. + +He took one, savagely aware of defiance somewhere. She lighted her own +from a candle and settled back, studying the sequence of blue smoke- +rings jetting upward to the ceiling. + +"About this man Plank," he began, louder than he had intended through +sheer self-mistrust; and his wife made a quick, disdainful sign of +caution, which subdued his voice instantly. "Why can't we take him up +--together, Leila?" he ended lamely, furious at his own uneasiness in a +matter which might concern him vitally. + +"I see no necessity of your taking him up," observed his wife serenely. +"I can do what may be useful to him in town." + +"So can I. There are clubs where he ought to be seen--" + +"I can manage such matters much better." + +"You can't manage everything," he insisted sullenly. "There are chances +of various sorts--" + +"Investments?" asked Mrs. Mortimer, with bright malice. + +"See here, Leila, you have your own way too much. I say little; I make +damned few observations; but I could, if I cared to. . It becomes you to +be civil at least. I want to talk over this Plank matter with you; I +want you to listen, too." + +A shade of faint disgust passed over her face. "I am listening," she +said. + +"Well, then, I can see several ways in which the man can be of use to +me. . I discovered him before you did, anyway. And what I want to do is +to have a frank, honourable--" + +"A--what?" + +"--An honourable understanding with you, I said," he repeated, reddening. + +"Oh!" She snapped her cigarette into the grate. "Oh! I see. And what +then?" + +"What then?" + +"Yes; what then?" + +"Why, you and I can arrange to stand behind him this winter in town, +can't we?" + +"And then?" + +"Then--damn it!--the beggar can show his gratitude, can't he?" + +"How?" she asked listlessly. + +"By making good. How else?" he retorted savagely. "He can't welch +because there's little to climb for beyond us; and even if he climbs, he +can't ignore us. I can do as many things for him in my way as you can in +yours. What is the use of being a pig, Leila? Anything he does for me +isn't going to cancel his obligations to you." + +"I know him better than you do," she observed, bending her head and +pleating the lace on her knee. "There is Dutch blood in him." + +"Not good Hollander, but common Dutch," sneered Mortimer. "And you mean +he'll squeeze a dollar till the eagle screams-don't you?" + +She sat silent, pleating her lace with steady fingers. + +"Well, that's all right, too," laughed Mortimer easily; "let the Audubon +Society worry over the eagle. It's a perfectly plain business +proposition; we can do for him in a couple of winters what he can't do +for himself in ten. Figure it out for yourself, Leila," he said, waving +a mottled fat hand at her. + +"I--have," she said under her breath. + +"Then, is it settled? + +"Settled--how?" + +"That we form ourselves into a benevolent society of two in behalf of +Plank?" + +"I--I don't want to, Roy," she said slowly. + +"Why not?" + +She did not say why not, seated there nervously pleating the fragile +stuff clinging to her knee. + +"Why not?" he repeated menacingly. Her unexpectedly quiescent attitude +had emboldened him to a bullying tone--something he had not lately +ventured on. + +She raised her eyes to his: "I--rather like him," she said quietly. + +"Then, by God! he'll pay for that!" he burst out, mask off, every +inflamed feature shockingly congested. + +"Roy! You dare not--" + +"I tell you I--" + +"You dare not!" + +The palpitating silence lengthened; slowly the blood left the swollen +veins. Heavy pendulous lip hanging, he stared at her from distended +eyes, realising that he had forgotten himself. She was right. He dared +not. And she held the whip-hand as usual. + +For every suspicion he could entertain, she had evidence of a certainty +to match it; for every chance that he might have to prove anything, she +had twenty proven facts. And he knew it. Why they had, during all these +years, made any outward pretence of conjugal unity they alone knew. The +modus vivendi suited them better than divorce: that was apparent, or had +been until recently. Recently Leila Mortimer had changed--become subdued +and softened to a degree that had perplexed her husband. Her attitude +toward him lacked a little of the bitterness and contempt she usually +reserved for him in private; she had become more prudent, almost +cautious at times. + +"I'll tell you one thing," he said with a sudden snarl: "You'd better be +careful there is no gossip about you and Plank." + +She reddened under the insult. + +"Now we'll see," he continued venomously, "how far you can go alone." + +"Do you suppose," she asked calmly, "that I am afraid of a divorce +court?" + +The question so frankly astonished him that he sat agape, unable to +reply. For years he had very naturally supposed her to be afraid of +it--afraid of not being qualified to obtain it. Indeed, he had taken that +for granted as the very corner-stone of their mutual toleration. Had he +been an ass to do so? A vague alarm took possession of him; for, with +that understanding, he had not been at all careful of his own behaviour, +neither had he been at any particular pains to conceal his doings from +her. His alarm increased. What had he against her, after all, except +ancient suspicions, now so confused and indefinite that memory itself +outlawed the case, if it ever really existed. What had she against him? +Facts--unless she was more stupid than any of her sex he had ever +encountered. And now, this defiance, this increasing prudence, this +subtle change in her, began to make him anxious for the permanency of +the small income she had allowed him during all these years--doled out +to him, as he believed, though her dormant fear of him. + +"What are you talking about?" he said harshly. + +"I believe I mentioned divorce." + +"Well, cut it out! D'ye see? Cut it, I say. You'd stand as much chance +before a referee as a snowball in hell." + +"There's no telling," she said coolly, "until one tries." + +He glared at her, then burst into a laugh. "Rot!" he said thickly. "Talk +sense, Leila! And keep this hard-headed Dutchman for yourself, if you +feel that way about it. I don't want to butt in. I only thought--for old +times' sake--perhaps you'd--" + +"Good night," she managed to say, her disgust almost strangling her. + +And he went, furtively, heavy-footed, perplexed, inwardly cursing his +blunder in stirring up a sleeping lioness whom he had so long mistaken +for a dozing cat. + +For hours he sat in his room, or paced the four walls, doubtful, +chagrined, furious by turns. Once he drew out a memorandum-book and +stood under a lighted sconce, studying the figures. His losses at +Shotover staggered him, but he had looked to his wife heretofore in such +emergencies. + +Certainly the time had come for him to do something. But what?--if his +wife was going to strike such attitudes in the very face of decency? +Certainly a husband in these days was without honour in his own +household. + +His uneasiness had produced a raging thirst. He punched an electric +button with his fleshy thumb, and prowled around, waiting. Nobody came; +he punched again, and looked at his watch. It astonished him to find the +hour was three o'clock in the morning. That discovery, however, only +appeared to increase his thirst. He opened the hall door, prepared to +descend into the depths of the house and raid a sideboard; and as he +thrust his heavy head out into the lighted corridor his eyes fell upon +two figures standing at the open door of a bedroom. One was Siward; that +was plain. Who was the girl he had kissed? One of the maids? Somebody's +wife? Who? + +Every dull pulse began to hammer in Mortimer's head. In his excitement +he stepped half-way into the corridor, then skipped nimbly back, closing +his door without a sound. + +"Sylvia Landis, by all that's holy!" he breathed to himself, and sat +down rather suddenly on the edge of the bed. + +After a while he rose and crept to the door, opened it, glued his eyes +to the crack, in time to catch a glimpse of Siward entering his own +corridor alone. + +And that night, Mortimer, lying awake in bed, busy with schemes, became +conscious of a definite idea. It took shape and matured so suddenly that +it actually shocked his moral sense. Then it scared him. + +"But--but that is blackmail!" he whispered aloud. "A man can't do that +sort of thing. What the devil ever put it into my head? . And there are +men I know--women, too--scoundrelly blackguards, who'd use that +information somehow; and make it pay, too. The scoundrels!" + +He squirmed down among the bedclothes with a sudden shiver; but the +night had turned warm. + +"Scoundrels!" he said, with milder emphasis. "Blackmailers! Contemptible +pups!" + +He fell asleep an hour later, muttering something incoherent about +scoundrels and blackmail. + +And meanwhile, in the darkened house, from all round came the noise of +knocking on doors, sounds of people stirring--a low voice here and there, +lights breaking out from transoms, the thud of rubber-shod heels, the +rattle of cartridges from the echoing gun-room. For the guests at +Shotover were awaking, lest the wet sky, whitening behind the east, ring +with the whimpering wedges of wild-fowl rushing seaward over empty +blinds. + + +The unusual stillness of the house in the late morning sunshine was +pleasant to Miss Landis. She had risen very late, unconscious of the +stir and movement before dawn; and it was only when a maid told her, as +she came from her bath, that she remembered the projected point- +shooting, and concluded, with an odd, happy sense of relief, that she +was almost alone in the house. + +A little later, glancing from her bedroom window for a fulfilment of the +promise of the sun which a glimpse of blue sky heralded, she saw Leila +Mortimer settling herself in the forward seat of a Mercedes, and Beverly +Plank climbing in beside her; and she watched Plank steer the big +machine across the wet lawn, while the machinist swung himself into the +tonneau; and away they rolled, faster, faster, rushing out into the +misty hinterland, where the long streak of distant forest already began +to brighten, edged with the first rays of watery sunshine. + +So she had the big house to herself--every bit of it and with it freedom +from obligation, from comment, from demand or exaction; freedom from +restraint; liberty to roam about, to read, to dream, to idle, to +remember! Ah, that was what she needed--a quiet interval in this hurrying +youth of hers to catch her breath once more, and stand still, and look +back a day or two and remember. + +So, to breakfast all alone was delicious; to stroll, unhurried, to the +sideboard and leisurely choose among the fresh cool fruits; to loiter +over cream-jug and cereal; to saunter out into the freshness of the +world and breathe it, and feel the sun warming cheek and throat, and the +little breezes from a sunlit sea stirring the bright strands of her +hair. + +In the increasing brilliancy of the sunshine she stretched out her +hands, warming them daintily as she might twist them before the fire on +the hearth. And here, at the fragrant hearth of the world, she stood, +sweet and fresh as the morning itself, untroubled gaze intensely blue +with the tint of the purple sea, sensitive lips scarcely parting in the +dreaming smile that made her eyes more wonderful. + +As the warmth grew on land and water, penetrating her body, a faintly +delicious glow responded in her heart,--nothing at first wistful in the +serene sense of well-being, stretching her rounded arms skyward in the +unaccustomed luxury of a liberty which had become the naively +unconscious licence of a child. The poise of sheer health stretched her +to tiptoe; then the graceful tension relaxed, and her smooth fingers +uncurled, tightened, and fell limp as her arms fell and her superb young +figure straightened, confronting the sea. + +Out over the rain-wet, odorous grass she picked her way, skirts swung +high above the delicate contour of ankle and limb, following a little +descending path she knew full of rocky angles, swept by pendant sprays +of blackberry, and then down under the jutting rock, south through +thickets of wild cherry along the crags, until, before her the way +opened downward again where a tiny crescent beach glimmered white hot in +the sun. + +From his bedroom window Mortimer peeped forth, following her progress +with a leer. + +As she descended, noticing the rifts of bronzing seaweed piled along the +tide mark, her foot dislodged a tiny triangle of rock, which rolled +clattering and ringing below; and as she sprang lightly to the sand, a +man, lying full length and motionless as the heaped seaweed, raised +himself on one arm, turning his sun-dazzled eyes on her. + +The dull shock of surprise halted her as Siward rose to his feet, still +dazed, the sand running from his brown shooting-clothes over his tightly +strapped puttees. + +"Have you the faintest idea that I supposed you were here?" she asked +briefly. Then, frank in her disappointment, she looked up at the cliffs +overhead, where her line of retreat lay. + +"Why did you not go with the others?" she added, unsmiling. + +"I--don't know. I will, if you wish." He had coloured slowly, the frank +disappointment in her face penetrating his surprise; and now he turned +around, instinctively, also looking for the path of retreat. + +"Wait," she said, aware of her own crude attitude and confused by it; +"wait a moment, Mr. Siward. I don't mean to drive you away." + +"It's self-exile," he said quietly; "quite voluntary, I assure you." + +"Mr. Siward!" + +And, as he looked up coolly, "Have you nothing more friendly to say to +me? Is your friendship for me so limited that my first caprice oversteps +the bounds? Must I always be in dread of wounding you when I give you +the privilege of knowing me better than anybody ever knew me--of seeing +me as I am, with all my faults, my failings, my impulses, my real self? +. I don't know why the pleasure of being alone to-day should have meant +exclusion for you, too. It was the unwelcome shock of seeing anybody--a +selfish enjoyment of myself--that surprised me into rudeness. That is +all. . Can you not understand?" + +"I think so. I meant no criticism--" + +"Wait, Mr. Siward!" as he moved slowly toward the path. "You force me to +say other things, which you have no right to hear. . After last +night"--the vivid tint grew in her face--"after such a night, is it +not--natural--for a girl to creep off somewhere by herself and try to +think a little?" + +He had turned full on her; the answering colour crept to his forehead. + +"Is that why?" he asked slowly. + +"Is it not a reason?" + +"It was my reason--for being here." + +She bit her bright lip. This trend to the conversation was ominous, and +she had meant to do her drifting alone in still sun-dreams, fearing no +witness, no testimony, no judgment save her own self in court with +herself. + +"I--I suppose you cannot go--now," she reflected innocently. + +"Indeed I can, and must." + +"And leave me here to dig in the sand with my heels? Merci!" + +"Do you mean--" + +"I certainly do, Mr. Siward. I don't want to dream, now; I don't care to +reflect. I did, but here you come blundering into my private world and +upset my calculations and change my intentions! It's a shame, especially +as you've been lying here doing what I wished to do for goodness knows +how long!" + +"I'm going," he said, looking at her curiously. + +"Then you are very selfish, Mr. Siward." + +"We will call it that," he said with an odd laugh. + +"Very well." She seated herself on the sand and calmly shook out her +skirts. + +"About what time would you like to be called?" he asked smilingly. + +"Thank you, I shall do no sun-dreaming." + +"Please. It is good for you." + +"No, it isn't good at all. And I am grateful to you for waking me," she +retorted with a sudden gay malice that subdued him. And she, delicate +nose in the air, laughingly watching him, went on with her punishment: +"You see what you've done, don't you?--saved me from an entire morning +wasted in sentimental reverie over what might have been. Now you can +appreciate it, can't you?--your wisdom in appearing in the flesh to save +a silly girl the effort of evoking you in the spirit! Ah, Mr. Siward, I +am vastly obliged to you! Pray sit here beside me in the flesh, for fear +that in your absence I might commit the folly that tempted me here." + +His low running laughter accompanying her voice had stimulated her to a +gay audacity, which for the instant extinguished in her the little fear +of him she had been barely conscious of. + +"Do you know," he said, "that you also aroused me from my sun-dreams?" + +"Did I? And can't you resume them?" + +"You save me the necessity." + +"Oh, that is a second-hand compliment," she said disdainfully--"a weak +plagiarism on what I conveyed very wittily. You were probably really +asleep, and dreaming of bird-murder." + +He waited for her to finish, then, amused eyes searching, he roamed +about until high on a little drifted sand dune he found a place for +himself; and while she watched him indignantly, he curled up in the +sunshine, and, dropping his head on the hot sand, calmly closed his +eyes. + +"Upon--my word!" she breathed aloud. + +He unclosed his eyes. "Now you may dream; you can't avoid it," he +observed lazily, and closed his eyes; and neither taunts nor jeers nor +questions, nor fragments of shells flung with intent to hit, stirred him +from his immobility. + +She tired of the attempt presently, and sat silent, elbows on her +thighs, hands propping her chin. Thoughts, vague as the fitful breeze, +arose, lingered, and, like the breeze, faded, dissolved into calm, +through which, cadenced by the far beat of the ebb tide, her heart +echoed, beating the steady intervals of time. + +She had not meant to dream, but as she sat there, the fine-spun golden +threads flying from the whirling loom of dreams floated about her, +settling over her, entangling her in unseen meshes, so that she stirred, +groping amid the netted brightness, drawn onward along dim paths and +through corridors of thought where, always beyond, vague splendours +seemed to beckon. + +Now lost, now restless, conscious of the perils of the shining path she +followed, the rhythm of an ocean soothing her to false security, she +dreamed on awake, unconscious of the tinted sea and sky which stained +her eyes to hues ineffable. A long while afterward a small cloud floated +across the sun; and, in the sudden shadow on the world, doubt sounded +its tiny voice, and her ears listened, and the enchantment faded and +died away. + +Turning, she looked across the sand at the man lying there; her eyes +considered him--how long she did not know, she did not heed--until, +stirring, he looked up; and she paled a trifle and closed her eyes, +stunned by the sudden clamour of pulse and heart. + +When he rose and walked over, she looked up gravely, pouring the last +handful of white sand through her stretched fingers. + +"Did you dream?" he asked lightly. + +"Yes." + +"Did you dream true?" + +"Nothing of my dream can happen," she said. "You know that, . don't +you?" + +"I know that we love . and that we dare not ignore it." + +She suffered his arm about her, his eyes looking deeply into hers--a +close, sweet caress, a union of lips, and her dimmed eyes' response. + +"Stephen," she faltered, "how can you make it so hard for me? How can +you force me to this shame!" + +"Shame?" he repeated vaguely. + +"Yes--this treachery to myself--when I cannot hope to be more to you--when +I dare not love you too much!" + +"You must dare, Sylvia!" + +"No, no, no! I know myself, I tell you. I cannot give up what is +offered--for you!--dearly, dearly as I do love you!" She turned and caught +his hands in hers, flushed, trembling, unstrung. "I cannot--I simply +cannot! How can you love me and listen to such wickedness? How can you +still care for such a girl as I am--worse than mercenary, because I have +a heart--or had, until you took it! Keep it; it is the only part of me +not all ignoble." + +"I will keep it--in trust," he said, "until you give yourself with it." + +But she only shook her head wearily, withdrawing her hands from his, and +for a time they sat silent, eyes apart. + +Then--"There is another reason," she said wistfully. + +He looked up at her, hesitated, and--"My habits?" he asked simply. + +"Yes." + +"I have them in check." + +"Are you--certain?" + +"I think I may be--now." + +"Yet," she said timidly, "you lost one fight--since you knew me." + +The dull red mantling his face wrung her heart. She turned impulsively +and laid both hands on his shoulders. "That chance I would take, with +all its uncertainty, all the dread inheritance you have come into. I +love you enough for that; and if it turned out that--that you could not +stem the tide, even with me to face it with you; and if the pity of it, +the grief of it, killed me, I would take that chance--if you loved me +through it all. . But there is something else. Hush; let me have my say +while I find the words--something else you do not understand. . Turn your +face a little; please don't look at me. This is what you do not +know--that, in three generations, every woman of my race has--gone wrong. +. Every one! and I am beginning--with such a marriage! . deliberately, +selfishly, shamelessly, perfectly conscious of the frivolous, erratic +blood in me, aware of the race record behind me. + +"Once, when I knew nothing--before I--I met you--I believed such a +marriage would not only permit me mental tranquillity, but safely anchor +me in the harbour of convention, leaving me free to become what I am +fashioned to become--autocrat and arbiter in my own world. And now! and +now! I don't know--truly I don't know what I may become. Your love forces +my hand. I am displaying all the shallowness, falseness, pettiness, all +the mean, and cruel and callous character which must be truly my real +self. . Only I shall not marry you! You are not to run the risk of what +I might prove to be when I remember in bitterness all I have renounced. +If I married you I should remember, unreconciled, what you cost me. +Better for you and for me that I marry him, and let him bear with me +when I remember that he cost me you!" + +She bent over, almost double, closing her eyes with small clenched +hands; and he saw the ring shimmering in the sunshine, and her hair, +heavily, densely gold, and the white nape of her neck, and the tiny +close-set ears, and the curved softness of cheek and chin; every smooth, +childlike contour and mould--rounded arms, slim, flowing lines of body +and limb--all valued at many millions by her as her own appraiser. + +Suddenly, deep within him, something seemed to fail, die out--perhaps a +tiny newly lighted flame of unaccustomed purity, the dawning flicker of +aspiration to better things. Whatever it was, material, spiritual, was +gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed +twilit doubt crept in--the same dull acquiescence--the same uncertainty +of self, the familiar lack of will, of incentive, the congenial tendency +to drift; and with it came weariness--perhaps reaction from the recent +skirmishes with that master-vice. + +"I suppose," he said in a dull voice, "you are right." + +"No, I am wrong--wrong!" she said, lifting her lovely face and heavy +eyes. "But I have chosen my path. . And you will forget." + +"I hope so," he said simply. + +"If you hope so, you will." + +He nodded, unconvinced, watching a flock of sand-pipers whirling into +the cove like a gray snow-squall and fearlessly settling on the beach. + +After a while, with a long breath: "Then it is settled," she concluded. + +If she expected corroboration from him she received none; and perhaps +she was not awaiting it. She sat very still, her eyes lost in thought. + +And Mortimer, peeping down at them over the thicket above, yawned +impatiently and glanced about him for the most convenient avenue of +self-effacement when the time arrived. + + + +CHAPTER VII PERSUASION + +The days of the house-party at Shotover were numbered. A fresh relay of +guests was to replace them on Monday, and so they were making the most +of the waning week on lawn and marsh, in covert and blind, or motoring +madly over the State, or riding in parties to Vermillion Light. Tennis +and lawn bowls came into fashion; even water polo and squash alternated +on days too raw for more rugged sport. + +And during all these days Beverly Plank appeared with unflagging +persistence and assiduity, until his familiar, big, round head and +patient, delft-blue, Dutch eyes became a matter of course at Shotover, +indoors and out. + +It was not that he was either accepted, tolerated, or endured; he was +simply there, and nobody took the trouble to question his all-pervading +presence until everybody had become too much habituated to him to think +about it at all. + +The accomplished establishment of Beverly Plank was probably due as much +to his own obstinate and good-tempered persistence as to Mrs. Mortimer. +He was a Harvard graduate--there are all kinds of them--enormously +wealthy, and though he had no particular personal tastes to gratify, he +was willing and able to gratify the tastes of others. He did whatever +anybody else did, and did it well enough to be amusing; and as lack of +intellectual development never barred anybody from any section of the +fashionable world, it seemed fair to infer that he would land where he +wanted to, sooner or later. + +Meanwhile, Mrs. Mortimer led him about with the confidence that was her +perquisite; and the chances were that in due time he would have house- +parties of his own at Black Fells--not the kind he had wisely denied +himself the pleasure of giving, with such neighbours as the Ferralls to +observe, but the sort he desired. However, there were many things to be +accomplished for him and by him before he could expect to use his great +yacht and his estates and his shooting boxes and the vast granite +mansion recently completed and facing Central Park just north of the new +palaces built on the edges of the outer desert where Fifth Avenue +fringes the hundreds. + +Meanwhile, he had become in a measure domesticated at Shotover, and +Shotover people gradually came to ride, drive, and motor over the Fells, +which was a good beginning, though not necessarily a promise for +anything definite in the future. + +Mortimer, riding a huge chestnut--he could still wedge himself into a +saddle--had now made it a regular practice to affect the jocular early- +bird squire, and drag Plank out of bed. And Plank, in no position to be +anything but flattered by such sans gene, laboriously and gratefully +splashed through his bath, wallowed amid the breakfast plates, and +mounted a hunter for long and apparently aimless gallops with Mortimer. + +His acquaintance among people who knew Mortimer being limited, he had no +means of determining the latter's social value except through hearsay +and a toadying newspaper or two. Therefore he was not yet aware of +Mortimer's perennial need of money; and when Mortimer laughingly alluded +to his poverty, Plank accepted the proposition in a purely comparative +sense, and laughed, too, his thrifty Dutch soul untroubled by +misgivings. + +Meanwhile, Mortimer had come, among other things, on information; how +much, and precisely of what nature, he was almost too much ashamed to +admit definitely, even to himself. Still, the idea that had led him into +this sudden intimacy with Plank, vague or not, persisted; and he was +always hovering on the edge of hinting at something which might elicit a +responsive hint from the flattered master of Black Fells. + +There was much about Plank that was unaffected, genuine, even simple, in +one sense; he cared for people for their own sakes; and only stubborn +adherence to a dogged ambition had enabled him to dispense with the +society of many people he might easily have cultivated and liked--people +nearer his own sort; and that, perhaps, was the reason he so readily +liked Mortimer, whose coarse fibre soon wore through the polish when +rubbed against by a closer, finer fibre. And Plank liked him aside from +gratitude; and they got on famously on the basis of such mutual +recognition. Then, one day, very suddenly, Mortimer stumbled on +something valuable--a thread, a mere clew, so astonishing that for an +instant it absolutely upset all his unadmitted theories and +calculations. + +It was nothing--a vague word or two--a forced laugh--and the scared silence +of this man Plank, who had blundered on the verge of a confidence to a +man he liked. + +A moment of amazement, of half-incredulous suspicion, of certainty; and +Mortimer pounced playfully upon him like a tiger--a big, fat, friendly, +jocose tiger: + +"Plank, is that what you're up to!" + +"Up to! Why, I never thought of such a--" + +"Haw! haw!" roared Mortimer. "If you could only see your face!" + +And Beverly Plank, red as a beet, comfortably suffused with reassurance +under the reaction from his scare, attempted to refute the other's +conclusions: "It doesn't mean anything, Mortimer. She's just the +handsomest girl I ever saw. I know she's engaged. I only admired her a +lot." + +"You're not the only man," said Mortimer blandly, still striving to +reconcile his preconceived theories with the awkward half-confession of +this great, red-fisted, hulking horseman riding at his stirrup. + +"I wouldn't have her dream," stammered Plank, "that I had ever thought +of such a--" + +"Why not? It would only flatter her." + +"Flatter a woman who is engaged to marry another man!" gasped Plank. + +"Certainly. Do you think any woman ever had enough admiration in this +world?" asked Mortimer coolly. "And as for Sylvia Landis, she'd be +tickled to death if anybody hinted that you had ever admired her." + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed Plank, alarmed; "You wouldn't make a joke of it! +you wouldn't be careless about such a thing! And there's Quarrier! I'm +not on joking terms with him; I'm on most formal terms." + +"Quarrier!" sneered the other, flicking at his stirrup with his crop. +"He's on formal terms with everybody, including himself. He never +laughed on purpose in his life; once a month only, to keep his mouth in; +that's his limit. Do you suppose any woman would stand for him if a +better man looked sideways at her?" And, reversing his riding crop, he +deliberately poked Mr. Plank in the ribs. + +"A--a better man!" muttered Plank, scarce crediting his ears. + +"Certainly. A man who can make good, is good; but a man who can make +better is it with the ladies--God bless 'em!" he added, displaying a +heavy set of teeth. + +Beverly Plank knew perfectly well that, in the comparison so delicately +suggested by Mortimer, his material equipment could be scarcely compared +to the immense fortune controlled by Howard Quarrier; and as he thought +it, his reflections were put into words by Mortimer, airily enough: + +"Nobody stands a chance in a show-down with Quarrier. But--" + +Plank gaped until the tension became unbearable. + +"But--what?" he blurted out. + +"Plank," said Mortimer solemnly, and his voice vibrated with feeling, +"Let me do a little thinking before I ask you a--a vital question." + +But Plank had become agitated again, and he said something so bluntly +that Mortimer wheeled on him, glowering: + +"Look here, Plank: you don't suppose I'm capable of repeating a +confidence, do you?--if you choose to make me understand it's a +confidence." + +"It isn't a confidence; it isn't anything; I mean it is confidential, of +course. All there's in it is what I said--or rather what you took me up +on so fast," ended Plank, abashed. + +"About your being in love with Syl--" + +"Confound it!" roared Plank, crimson to his hair; and he set his heavy +spurs to his mount and plunged forward in a storm of dust. Mortimer +followed, silent, profoundly immersed in his own thoughts and +deductions; and as he pounded along, turning over in his mind all the +varied information he had so unexpectedly obtained in these last few +days, a dull excitement stirred him, and he urged his huge horse forward +in a thrill of rising exhilaration such as seizes on men who hunt, no +matter what they hunt--the savage, swimming sense of intoxication which +marks the man who chases the quarry not for its own value, but because +it is his nature to chase and ride down and enjoy spoils. + +And all that afternoon, having taken to his room on pretence of +neuralgia, he lay sprawled on his bed, thinking, thinking. Not that he +meant harm to anybody, he told himself very frequently. He had, of +course, information which certain degraded men might use in a +contemptible way, but he, Mortimer, did not resemble such men in any +particular. All he desired was to do Plank a good turn. There was +nothing disreputable in doing a wealthy man a favour. . And God knew a +wealthy man's gratitude was necessary to him at that very +moment--gratitude substantially acknowledged. . He liked Plank--wished him +well; that was all right, too; but a man is an ass who doesn't wish +himself well also. . Two birds with one stone. . Three! for he hated +Quarrier. Four! . for he had no love for his wife. . Besides, it would +teach Leila a wholesome lesson--teach her that he still counted; serve +her right for her disgusting selfishness about Plank. + +No, there was to be nothing disreputable in his proceedings; that he +would be very careful about. . Probably Major Belwether might express +his gratitude substantially if he, Mortimer, went to him frankly and +volunteered not to mention to Quarrier the scene he had witnessed +between Sylvia Landis and Stephen Siward at three o'clock in the morning +in the corridor; and if, in playful corroboration, he displayed the cap +and rain-coat and the big fan, all crushed, which objects of interest he +had discovered later in the bay-window. . Yes, probably Major Belwether +would be very grateful, because he wanted Quarrier in the family; he +needed Quarrier in his business. . But, faugh! that was close enough to +blackmail to rub off! . No! . No! He wouldn't go to Belwether and +promise any such thing! . On the contrary, he felt it his duty to inform +Quarrier! Quarrier had a right to know what sort of a girl he was +threatened with for life! . A man ought not to let another man go +blindly into such a marriage. . Men owed each other something, even if +they were not particularly close friends. . And he had always had a +respect for Quarrier, even a sort of liking for him--yes, a distinct +liking! . And, anyhow, women were devils! and it behooved men to get +together and stand for one another! + +Quarrier would give her her walking papers damned quick! . And, in her +humiliation, is there anybody mad enough to fancy that she wouldn't snap +up Plank in such a fix? . And make it look like a jilt for Quarrier? . +But Plank must do his part on the minute; Plank must step up in the very +nick of time; Plank, with his millions and his ambitions, was bound to +be a winner anyway, and Sylvia might as well be his pilot and use his +money. . And Plank would be very, very grateful--very useful, a very good +friend to have. . And Leila would learn at last that he, Mortimer, had +cut his wisdom teeth, by God! + +As for Siward, he amounted to nothing; probably was one of that +contemptible sort of men who butted in and kissed a pretty girl when he +had the chance. He, Mortimer, had only disgust for such amateurs of the +social by-ways; for he himself kept to the highways, like any self- +respecting professional, even when a tour of the highways sometimes +carried him below stairs. There was no romantic shilly-shallying fol-de- +rol about him. Women learned what to expect from him in short order. En +garde, Madame!--ou Mademoiselle--tant pis! + +He laughed to himself and rolled over, digging his head into the pillows +and stretching his fat hands to ease their congestion. And most of all +he amused himself with figuring out the exact degree of his wife's +astonishment and chagrin when, without consulting her, he achieved the +triumph of Quarrier's elimination and the theatrical entry of Beverly +Plank upon the stage. He laughed when he thought of Major Belwether, +too, confounded under the loss of such a nephew-in-law, humiliated, +crushed, all his misleading jocularity, all his sleek pink-and-white +suavity, all his humbugging bonhomie knocked out of him, leaving only a +rumpled, startled old gentleman, who bore an amusing resemblance to a +very much mussed-up buck-rabbit. + +"Haw! haw!" roared Mortimer, rolling about in his bed and kicking the +slippers from his fat feet. Then, remembering that he was supposed to be +suffering silently in his room, he hunched up to a sitting posture and +regarded his environment with a subdued grin. + +Everything seems easy when it seems funny. After all, the matter was +simple--absurdly simple. A word to Quarrier, and crack! the match was +off! Girl mad as a hornet, but staggered, has no explanation to offer; +man frozen stiff with rage, mute as an iceberg. Then, zip! Enter Beverly +Plank--the girl's rescuer at a pinch--her preserver, the saviour of her +"face," the big, highly coloured, leaden-eyed deus ex machina. Would she +take fifty cents on the dollar? Would she? to buy herself a new "face"? +And put it all over Quarrier? And live happy ever after? Would she? Oh, +not at all! + +And Mortimer rolled over in another paroxysm; which wasn't good for him, +and frightened him enough to lie still awhile and think how best he +might cut down on his wine and spirits. + +The main thing, after all, was to promise Plank his opportunity, but not +tell him how he was to obtain it; for Mortimer had an uneasy idea that +there was something of the Puritan deep planted under the stolid young +man's hide, and that he might make some absurd and irrelevant objection +to the perfectly proper methods employed by his newly self-constituted +guide and mentor. No; that was no concern of Plank's. All he had to do +was to be ready. As for Quarrier, anybody could forecast his action when +once convinced of Sylvia's behaviour. + +He lay there pondering several methods of imparting the sad but +necessary information to Quarrier. One thing was certain: there was not +now time enough before the house-party dissolved to mould Plank into +acquiescent obedience. That must be finished in town--unless Plank +invited him to stay at the Fells after his time was up at Shotover. By +Heaven! That was the idea! And there'd be a chance for him at cards! . +Only, of course, Plank would ask Leila too. . But what did he care! He +was no longer afraid of her; he'd soon be independent of her and her +pittance. Let her go to the courts for her divorce! Let her-- + +He sat up rather suddenly, perplexed with a new idea which, curiously +enough, had not appealed to him before. The astonishing hint so coolly +dropped by his wife concerning her fearlessness of divorce proceedings +had only awakened him to the consciousness of his own vulnerability and +carelessness of conduct. + +Now it occurred to him, for the first time, that if it were not a mere +bluff on Leila's part, this sudden coquetting with the question of +divorce might indicate an ulterior object. Was Leila considering his +elimination in view of this ulterior object? Was there an ulterior +gentleman somewhere prepared to replace him? If so, where? And who? + +His wife's possible indiscretions had never interested him; he simply +didn't care--had no curiosity, as long as appearances were maintained. +And she had preserved appearances with a skill which required all the +indifferent and easy charity of their set to pretend completely deceived +everybody. Yes, he gave her credit for that; she had been clever. Nobody +outside of the social register knew the true state of affairs in the +house of Leroy Mortimer--which, after all, was all anybody cared about. + +And so, immersed in the details of his dirty little drama, he pondered +over the possibility of an ulterior gentleman as he moved heavily to and +fro, dressing himself--his neuralgia being much better--and presently +descended the stairs to find everybody absent, engaged, as a servant +explained, in a game of water basket-ball in the swimming pool. So he +strolled off toward the north wing of the house, which had been built +for the squash-courts and swimming pool. + +There was a good deal of an uproar in the big gymnasium as Mortimer +walked in, threading his way through the palms and orange-trees; much +splashing in the pool, cries and stifled laughter, and the quick rattle +of applause from the gallery of the squash-courts. + +The Page boys and Rena and Eileen on one side were playing the last +match game against Sylvia, Marion Page, Siward, and Ferrall on the +other; the big, slippery, glistening ball was flying about through +storms of spray. Marion caught it, but her brother Gordon got it away; +then Ferrall secured it and dived toward the red goal; but Rena +Bonnesdel caught him under water; the ball bobbed up, and Sylvia flung +both arms around it with a little warning shout and hurled it back at +Siward, who shot forward like an arrow, his opponents gathering about +him in full cry, amid laughter and excited applause from the gallery, +where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher were wildly offering odds on the +blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether were thriftily booking them. + +Mortimer climbed the slippery, marble stairway as fast as his lack of +breath permitted, anxious for his share of the harvest if the odds were +right. He ignored his wife's smilingly ironical offer, seeing no sense +in bothering about money already inside the family; but he managed to +make several apparently desirable wagers with Katharyn Tassel and one +with Beverly Plank, who was also obstinately backing the blues, the +losing side. Sylvia played forward for the blues. + +Agatha Caithness, sleeves rolled up, tall and slim and strangely pale in +her white flannels, came from the squash-court with Quarrier to watch +the finish; and Mortimer observed her sidewise, blinking, irresolute, +for he had never understood her and was always a trifle afraid of her. A +pair of icicles, she and Quarrier, with whom he had never been on +betting terms; so he made no suggestions in that direction, and +presently became absorbed in the splashing battle below. Indeed, such a +dashing of foam and showering of spray was taking place that the fronds +of the big palms hung dripping amid drenched blossoms overweighted and +prone on the wet marble edges of the pool. + +Suddenly, through the confused blur of foam and spray, the big, +glistening ball shot aloft and remained. + +"Blue! Blue!" exclaimed Grace Ferrall, clapping her hands; and a little +whirlwind of cries and hand clapping echoed from the gallery as the +breathless swimmers came climbing out of the pool, with scarcely wind +enough left for a word or strength for a gesture toward the laughing +crowd above. + +Mortimer, disgusted, turned away, already casting about him for somebody +to play cards with--it being his temperament and his temper to throw good +money after bad. But Quarrier and Miss Caithness had already returned to +the squash-courts, the majority of the swimmers to their several +dressing-rooms, and Grace Ferrall's party, equipped for motoring, to the +lawn, where they lost little time in disappearing into the golden haze +which a sudden shift of wind had spun out of the cloudless afternoon's +sunshine. + +However, he got Marion, and also, as usual, the two men who had made a +practice of taking away his money--Major Belwether and Lord Alderdene. +He hadn't particularly wanted them; he wanted somebody he could play +with, like Siward, for example, or even the two ten-dollar Pages; not +that their combined twenty would do him much good, but it would at least +permit him the pleasures of the card-table without personal loss. + +But the Pages had retired to dress, and Voucher was for motoring, and he +had no use for his wife, and he was afraid of Plank's game, and Siward, +seated on the edge of the pool and sharing a pint of ginger-ale with +Sylvia Landis, shook his head at the suggestion and resumed his division +of the ginger-ale. + +Plank and Leila Mortimer came down to congratulate them. Sylvia, always +instinctively and particularly nice to people of Plank's sort whom she +occasionally encountered, was so faultlessly amiable, that Plank, who +had never before permitted himself the privilege of monopolising her, +found himself doing it so easily that it kept him in a state of +persistent mental intoxication. + +That slow, sweet, upward training inflection to a statement which +instantly became a confided question was an unconscious trick which had +been responsible, in Sylvia's brief life, for more mistakes than +anything else. Like others before him, Beverly Plank made the mistake +that the sweetness of voice and the friendliness of eyes were +particularly personal to him, in tribute to qualities he had foolishly +enough hitherto not suspected in himself. Now he suspected them, and +whatever of real qualities desirable had been latent in him also +appeared at once, confirming his modest suspicions. Certainly he was a +wit! Was not this perfectly charming girl's responsive and delicious +laughter proof enough? Certainly he was epigrammatic! Certainly he could +be easy, polished, amusing, sympathetic, and vastly interesting all the +while. Could he not divine it in her undivided attention, the quick, +amused flicker of recognition animating her beautiful face when he had +turned a particularly successful phrase or taken a verbal hurdle without +a cropper? And above all, her kindness to him impressed him; her natural +and friendly pleasure in being agreeable. Here he was already on an +informal footing with one of the persons of whom he had been most shy +and uncertain. If people were going to be as considerate of him as she +had proved, why--why-- + +His dull, Dutch-blue eyes returned to her, fascinated. The conquest of +what he desired and meant to have became merged in a vague plan which +included such a marriage as he had dreamed of. + +Somebody had once told him that a man who could afford to dress for +dinner could go anywhere; meaning that, being a man, nature had fitted +his feet with the paraphernalia for climbing as high as he cared to +climb. + +There was just enough truth in the statement to determine him to use his +climbing irons; and he had done so, carrying his fortune with him, which +had proved neither an impediment nor an aid so far. But now he had +concluded that neither his god-sent climbing irons, his amiability, his +obstinacy, his mild, tireless persistency, nor his money counted. It had +come to a crisis where personal worth and sterling character must carry +him through sheer merit to the inner temple--that inner temple of raw +gold whose altars are served by a sexless skeleton in cap and bells! + + +Siward, inclined to be amused by the duration of the trance into which +Plank had fallen, watched the progress of that bulky young man's +infatuation as he sat there on the pool's marble edge, exchanging +trivial views on trivial subjects with Mrs. Leroy Mortimer. + +But her conversation, even when inconsequential, was never wearisome +except when she made it so for her husband's benefit. Features, person, +personality, and temperament were warmly exotic; her dark eyes with +their slight Japanese slant, the clear olive skin with its rose bloom, +the temptation of mouth and slender neck, were always provocative of the +audacity in men which she could so well meet with amusement or surprise, +or at times with a fascinating audacity of her own wholly charming +because of its setting. + +Once, in their history, during her early married life, Siward had been +very sentimental about her; but neither he nor she had approached the +danger line closer than to make daring eyes at one another across the +frontiers of good taste. And their youthful enchantment had faded so +naturally, so pleasantly, that always there had remained to them both an +agreeable after-taste--a sort of gay understanding which almost +invariably led to mutual banter when they encountered. But now something +appeared to be lacking in their rather listless badinage--something of +the usual flavour which once had salted even a laughing silence with +significance. Siward, too, had ceased to be amused at the spectacle of +Plank's calf-like infatuation; and Leila Mortimer's bored smile had +lasted so long that her olive-pink cheeks were stiff, and she relaxed +her fixed features with a little shrug that was also something of a +shiver. Then, looking prudently around, she encountered Siward's eyes; +and during a moment's hesitation they considered one another with an +increasing curiosity that slowly became tentative intelligence. And her +eyes said very plainly and wickedly to Siward's: "Oho, my friend! So it +bores you to see Mr. Plank monopolising an engaged girl who belongs to +Howard Quarrier!" + +And his eyes, wincing, denying, pretending ignorance too late, suddenly +narrowed in vexed retaliation: "Speak for yourself, my lady! You're no +more pleased than I am!" + +The next moment they both regretted the pale flash of telepathy. There +had been something wounded in his eyes; and she had not meant that. No; +a new charity for the hapless had softened her wonderfully within a +fortnight's time, and a self-pity, not entirely ignoble, had subdued the +brilliancy of her dark eyes, and made her tongue more gentle in dealing +with all failings. Besides, she was not yet perfectly certain what ailed +her, never having really cared for any one man before. No, she was not +at all certain. . But in the meanwhile she was very sorry for herself, +and for all those who drained the bitter cup that might yet pass from +her shrinking lips. Who knows! "Stephen," she said under her breath, "I +didn't mean to hurt you. . Don't scowl. Listen. I have already entirely +forgotten the nature of my offense. Pax, if you please." + +He refused to understand; and she understood that, too; and she gazed +critically upon Sylvia Landis as a very young mother might inspect a +rival infant with whom her matchless offspring was coquetting. + +Then, without appearing to, she took Plank away from temptation; so +skilfully that nobody except Siward understood that the young man had +been incontinently removed. He, Plank, never doubting that he was a +perfectly free agent, decided that the time had arrived for triumphant +retirement. It had; but Leila Mortimer, not he, had rendered the +decision, and so cleverly that it appeared even to Plank himself that he +had dragged her off with him rather masterfully. Clearly he was becoming +a devil of a fellow! + +Sylvia turned to Siward, glanced up at him, hesitated, and began to +laugh consciously: + +"What do you think of my latest sentimental acquisition?" + +"He'd be an ornament to a stock farm," replied Siward, out of humour. + +"How brutal you can be!" she mused, smiling. + +"Nonsense! He's a plain bounder, isn't he?" + +"I don't know. . Is he? He struck me a trifle appealingly--even +pathetically; they usually do, that sort. . As though the trouble they +took could ever be worth the time they lose! . There are dozens of men I +know who are far less presentable than this highly coloured and robust +young human being; and yet they are part of the accomplished scheme of +things--like degenerate horses, you know--always pathetic to me; but +they're still horses, for all that. Quid rides? Species of the same +genus can cross, of course, but I had rather be a donkey than a mule. . +And if I were a donkey I'd sing and cavort with my own kind, and let +horses flourish their own heels inside the accomplished scheme of +things. . Now I have been brutal. But--I'm easily coloured by my +environment." + +She sat, smiling maliciously down at the water, smoothing out the soaked +skirt of her swimming suit, and swinging her legs reflectively. + +"Are you reconciled?" she asked presently. + +"To what?" + +"To leaving Shotover. To-day is our last day, you know. To-morrow we all +go; and next day these familiar walls will ring with other voices, my +poor friend: + +"'Yon rising moon that looks for us again--How oft hereafter will she +wax and wane; How oft hereafter, rising, look for us Through this same +mansion--and for one in vain!'" + +"That is I--the one, you know. You may be here again; but I--I shall not +be I if I ever come to Shotover again." + +Her stockinged heels beat the devil's tattoo against the marble sides of +the pool. She reached up above her head, drawing down a flowering branch +of Japanese orange, and caressed her delicate nose with the white +blossoms, dreamily, then, mischievously: "I'm accustoming myself to this +most significant perfume," she said, looking at him askance. And she +deliberately hummed the wedding march, watching the colour rise in his +sullen face. + +"If you had the courage of a sparrow you'd make life worth something for +us both," he said. + +"I know it; I haven't; but I seem to possess the remainder of his +lordship's traits--inconsequence, self-centred selfishness, the instinct +for Fifth Avenue nest-building--all the feathered vices, all the +unlovely personality and futility and uselessness of my prototype. . +Only, as you observe, I lack the quality of courage." + +"I don't know how much courage it requires to do what you're going to +do," he said sulkily. + +"Don't you? Sometimes, when you wear a scowl like that, I think that it +may require no more courage than I am capable of. . And sometimes--I +don't know." + +She crossed her knees, one slender ankle imprisoned in her hand, leaning +forward thoughtfully above the water. + +"Our last day," she mused; "for we shall never be just you and I +again--never again, my friend, after we leave this rocky coast of Eden. . +I shall have hints of you in the sea-wind and the sound of the sea; in +the perfume of autumn woods, in the whisper of stirring leaves when the +white birches put on their gold crowns next year." She smiled, turning +to him, a little gravely: "When the Lesser Children return with April, I +shall not forget you, Mr. Siward, nor forget your mercy of a day on +them; nor your comradeship, nor your sweetness to me. . Nor your charity +for me, nor all that you overlook so far in me,--under the glamour of a +spell that seems to hold you still, and that still holds me. . I can +answer for my constancy so far, until one more spring and summer have +come and gone--until one more autumn comes, and while it lasts--as long as +any semblance of the setting remains which had once framed you; I can +answer for my constancy as long as that. . Afterwards, the snow!--symbol +of our separation. I am to be married a year from November first." + +He looked up at her in dark surprise, for he had heard that their +wedding date had been set for the coming winter. + +"A year's engagement?" he repeated, unconvinced. + +"It was my wish. I think that is sufficient for everybody concerned." +Then, averting her face, which had suddenly lost a little of its colour: +"A year is little enough," she said impatiently. "I--what has happened to +us requires an interval--a decent interval for its burial. . Death is +respectable in any form. What dies between you and me can have no +resurrection under the snow. . So I bring to the burial my tribute--a +year of life, a year of constancy, my friend; symbol of an eternity I +could have given you had I been worth it." She looked up, flushed, the +forced smile stamped on lips still trembling. "Sentiment in such a woman +as I! 'A spectacle for Gods and men,' you are saying--are you not? And +perhaps sentiment with me is only an ancient instinct, a latent +ancestral quality for which I, ages later, have no use." She was +laughing easily. "No use for sentiment, as our bodies have no use for +that fashionable little cul-de-sac, you know, though wise men say it +once served its purpose, too. . Stephen Siward, what do you think of me +now?" + +"I am learning," he replied simply. + +"What, if you please?" + +"Learning a little about what I am losing." + +"You mean--me?" + +"Yes." + +She bent forward impulsively, balancing her body on the pool's rim with +both arms, dropping her knee until her ankles swung interlocked above +the water. "Listen," she said in a low, distinct voice: "What you lose +is no other man's gain! If I warm and expand in your presence--if I say +clever things sometimes--if I am intelligent, sympathetic, and amusing--it +is because of you. You inspire it in me. Normally I am the sort of girl +you first met at the station. I tell you that I don't know myself +now--that I have not known myself since I knew you. Qualities of +understanding, ability to appreciate, to express myself without +employing the commonplaces, subtleties of intercourse--all, maybe, were +latent in me, but sterile, until you came into my life. . And when you +go, then, lacking impulse and incentive, the new facility, the new +sensitive alertness, the unconscious self-confidence, all will smoulder +and die out in me. . I know it; I realise that it was due to you--part of +me that I should never have known, of which I should have remained +totally ignorant, had it not blossomed suddenly, stimulated by you +alone." + +Slowly the clouded seriousness of her blue eyes cleared, and the smile +began to glimmer again. "That is your revenge; you recommit me to my +commonplace self; you restore me to my tinsel career, practically a +dolt. Shame on you, Stephen Siward, to treat a poor girl so! . But it's +just as well. Blunted perceptions, according to our needs, you know; and +so life is tempered for us all, else we might not endure it long. . A +pleasantly morbid suggestion for a day like this, is it not? . Shall we +take a farewell plunge, and dress? You know we say good-bye to-morrow." + +"Where do you go from here?" + +"To Lenox; the Claymores have asked us for a week; after that, Hot +Springs for another two weeks or so; after that, to Oyster Bay. . Mr. +Quarrier opens his house on Sedge Point," she added demurely, "but I +don't think he expects to invite you to 'The Sedges.'" + +"How long do you stay there?" asked Siward irritably. + +"Until we go to town in December." + +"What will you find to do all that time in Oyster Bay?" he asked more +irritably. + +"What a premature question! The yacht is there. Besides, there's the +usual neighbourhood hunting, with the usual packs and inevitable set; +the usual steeple-chasing; the usual exchange of social amenities; the +usual driving and riding; the usual, my poor friend, the usual, in all +its uncompromising certainty. . And what are you to do?" + +"When?" + +"After you leave here?" + +"I don't know." + +"You don't know where you are going?" + +"I'm going to town." + +"And then?" + +"I don't know." + +"Oh, but haven't you been asked somewhere? You have, of course." + +"Yes, and I have declined." + +"Matters of business," she inferred. "Too bad!" + +"Oh, no." + +"Then," she concluded, laughing, "you don't care to tell me where you +are going." + +"No," he said thoughtfully, "I don't care to tell you." + +She laughed again carelessly, and, placing one hand on the tiled +pavement, sprang lightly to her feet. + +"A last plunge?" she asked, as he rose at her side. + +"Yes, one last plunge together. Deep! Are you ready?" + +She raised her white arms above her head, finger-tips joined, poised an +instant on the brink, swaying forward; then, at his brief word, they +flashed downward together, cutting the crystalline sea-water, shooting +like great fish over the glass-tiled bed, shoulder to shoulder under the +water; and opening their eyes, they turned toward one another with a +swift outstretch of hands, an uncontrollable touch of lips, the very +shadow of contact; then cleaving upward, rising to the surface to lie +breathlessly floating, arms extended, and the sun filtering down through +the ground-glass roof above. + +"We are perfectly crazy," she breathed. "I'm quite mad; I see that. On +land it's bad enough for us to misbehave; but submarine sentiment! We'll +be growing scales and tails presently. . Did you ever hear of a Southern +bird--a sort of hawk, I think--that almost never alights; that lives and +eats and sleeps its whole life away on the wing? and even its courtship, +and its honeymoon? Grace Ferrall pointed one out to me last winter, near +Palm Beach--a slender bird, part black, part snowy white, with long, +pointed, delicate wings like an enormous swallow; and all day, all +night, it floats and soars and drifts in the upper air, never resting, +never alighting except during its brief nesting season. . Think of the +exquisite bliss of drifting one's life through in mid-air--to sleep, +balanced on light wings, upborne by invisible currents flowing under the +stars--to sail dreamily through the long sunshine, to float under the +moon! . And at last, I suppose, when its time has come, down it whirls +out of the sky, stone dead! . There is something thrilling in such a +death--something magnificent. . And in the exquisitely spiritual +honeymoon, vague as the shadow of a rainbow, is the very essence and +aroma of that impalpable Paradise we women prophesy in dreams! . More +sentiment! Heigho! My brother is the weeping crocodile, and the five +winds are my wits. . Shall we dress? Even with a maid and the electric +air-blast it will take time to dry my hair and dress it." + + +When he came out of his dressing-room she was apparently still in the +hands of the maid. So he sauntered through the house as far as the +library, and drawing a cheque-book from one pocket, fished out a +memorandum-book from another, and began to cast up totals with a view to +learning something about the various debts contracted at Shotover. + +He seemed to owe everybody. Fortune had smitten him hip and thigh; and, +a trifle concerned, he began covering a pad with figures until he knew +where he stood. Then he drew a considerable cheque to Major Belwether's +order, another to Alderdene. Others followed to other people for various +amounts; and he was very busily at work when, aware of another presence +near, he turned around in his chair. Sylvia Landis was writing at a desk +in the corner, and she looked up, nodding the little greeting that she +always reserved for him even after five minutes' separation. + +"I'm writing cheques," she said. "I suppose you're writing to your +mother." + +"Why do you think so?" he asked curiously. + +"You write to her every day, don't you?" + +"Yes," he said, "but how do you know?" + +She looked at him with unblushing deliberation. "You wrote every day. . +If it was to a woman, I wanted to know. . And I told Grace Ferrall that +it worried me. And then Grace told me. Is there any other confession of +my own pettiness that I can make to you." + +"Did you really care to whom I was writing?" he asked slowly. + +"Care? I--it worried me. Was it not a pitifully common impulse? 'Sisters +under our skin,' you know--I and the maid who dresses me. She would have +snooped; I didn't; that's the only generic difference. I wanted to know +just the same. . But--that was before--" + +"Before what?" + +"Before I--please don't ask me to say it. . I did, once, when you asked +me." + +"Before you cared for me. Is that what you mean?" + +"Yes. You are so cruelly literal when you wish to punish me. . You are +interrupting me, too. I owe that wretched Kemp Ferrall a lot of money, +and I'm trying to find out how much seven and nine are, to close +accounts with Marion Page." + +Siward turned and continued his writing. And when the little sheaf of +cheques was ready he counted them, laid them aside, and, drawing a flat +packet of fresh bank-notes from his portfolio, counted out the tips +expected of him below stairs. These arranged for, he straightened up and +glanced over his shoulder at Sylvia, but she was apparently absorbed in +counting something on the ends of her fingers, so he turned smilingly to +his desk and wrote a long letter to his mother--the same tender, +affectionately boyish letter he had always written her, full of +confidences, full of humour, gaily anticipating his own return to her on +the heels of the letter. + +In his first letter to her from Shotover he had spoken casually of a +Miss Landis. It seemed the name was familiar enough to his mother, who +asked about her; and he had replied in another letter or two, a trifle +emphatic in his praise of her, because from his mother's letters it was +quite evident that she knew a good deal concerning the very +unconventional affairs of Sylvia's family. + +Of his swift and somewhat equivocal courtship he had had nothing to say +in his letters; in fact recently he had nothing to say about Sylvia at +all, reserving that vital confidence for the clear sympathy and +understanding which he looked forward to when he should see her, and +which, through dark days and bitter aftermaths, through struggle and +defeat by his master-vice, had never failed him yet, never faltered for +an instant. + +So he brought his letter to a close with a tender and uneasy inquiry +concerning her health, which, she had intimated, was not exactly +satisfactory, and for that reason she had opened the house in town in +order to be near Dr. Grisby, their family doctor. + +Sealing and directing the letter, he looked up to see Sylvia standing at +his elbow. She dropped a light hand on his shoulder for a second, barely +touching him--a fugitive caress, delicate as the smile hovering on her +lips, as the shy tenderness in her eyes. + +"More letters to your sweetheart?" she asked, abandoning her hand to +him. + +"One more--the last before I see her. . I wish you could see her, +Sylvia." + +"I wish so, too," she answered simply, seating herself on the arm of his +chair as though it were a side-saddle. + +They sat there very silent for a few moments, curiously oblivious to the +chance curiosity of any one who might enter or pass. + +"Would she--care for me--do you think?" asked the girl in a low voice. + +"I think so,--for your real self." + +"I know. She could only feel contempt for me--as I am." + +"She is old-fashioned," he said reverently. + +"That means all that is best in a woman. . The old fashion of truth and +faith; the old fashion of honour, and faith in honour; the old, old +fashion of--love. . All that is best, Stephen; all that is worth the love +of a man. . Some day somebody will revive those fashions." + +"Will you?" + +"Dear, they would not become me," she said, the tenderness in her eyes +deepening a little; and she touched his head lightly in humourous +caress. + +"What shall we do with the waning daylight?" she asked. "It is my last +day with you. I told Howard it was my last day with you, and I did not +care to be disturbed." + +"You probably didn't say it that way," he commented, amused. + +"I did." + +"How much of that sort of thing is he prepared to stand?" asked Siward +curiously. + +"How much? I don't know. I don't believe he cares. It is my uncle, Major +Belwether, who is making things unpleasant for me. I had to tell Howard, +you know." + +"What!" exclaimed Siward incredulously. + +"Certainly. Do you think my conduct has passed without protest?" + +"You told Quarrier!" he repeated. + +"Did you imagine I could do otherwise?" she asked coolly. "I have that +much decency left. Certainly I told him. Do you suppose that, after what +we did--what I admitted to you--that I could meet him as usual? Do you +think I am afraid of him?" + +"I thought you were afraid of losing him," muttered Siward. + +"I was, dreadfully. And the morning after you and I had been imprudent +enough to sit up until nearly daylight--and do what we did--I made him +take a long walk with me, and I told him plainly that I cared for you, +that I was too selfish and cowardly to marry you, and that if he +couldn't endure the news he was at liberty to terminate the engagement +without notice." + +"What did he say?" stammered Siward. + +"A number of practical things." + +"You mean to say he stands it!" + +"It appears so. What else is there for him to do, unless he breaks the +engagement?" + +"And he--hasn't?" + +"No. I was informed that he held me strictly and precisely to my +promise; that he would never release me voluntarily, though I was, of +course, at liberty to do what I chose. . My poor friend, he cares no +more for love than do I. I happen to be the one woman in New York whom +he considers absolutely suitable for him; by race, by breeding, by +virtue of appearance and presence, eminently fitted to complete the +material portion of his fortune and estate." + +Her voice had hardened as she spoke; now it rang a little at the end, +and she laughed unpleasantly. + +"It appears that I was a little truer to myself than you gave me credit +for--a little truer to you--a little less treacherous, less shameless, +than you must have thought me. But I have gone to my limit of decency; . +and, were I ten times more in love with you than I am, I could not put +away the position and power offered me. But I will not lie for it, nor +betray for it. . Do you remember, once you asked me for what reasons I +dropped men from my list? And I told you, because of any falsehood or +treachery, any betrayal of trust--and for no other reason. You remember? +And did you suppose that elemental standard of decency did not include +women--even such a woman as I?" + +She dropped one arm on the back of his chair and rested her chin on it, +staring at space across his shoulders. + +"That's how it had to be, you see, when I found that I cared for you. +There was nothing to do but to tell him. I was quite certain that it was +all off; but I found that I didn't know the man. I knew he was +sensitive, but I didn't know he was sensitive to personal ridicule only, +and to nothing else in all the world that I can discover. I--I suppose, +from my frankness to him, he has concluded that no ridicule could ever +touch him through me. I mean, he trusts me enough to marry me. . He will +be safe enough, as far as my personal conduct is concerned," she added +naively. "It seems that I am capable of love; but I am incapable of its +degradation." + +Siward, leaning heavily forward over his desk, rested his head in both +hands; and she stooped from her perch on the arm of the chair, pressing +her hot cheeks against his hands--a moment only; then slipping to her +feet, she curled up in a great arm-chair by the fire, head tipped back, +blue gaze concentrated on him. + +"The thing for you to do," she said, "is to ambush me some night, and +throw me into a hansom, and drive us both to the parson's. I'd hate you +for it as much as I'd love you, but I'd make you an interesting wife." + +"I may do that yet," he said, lifting his head from his hands. + +"You've a year to do it in," she observed. . "By the way, you're to take +me in to dinner, as you did the first night. Do you remember? I asked +Grace Ferrall then. I asked her again to-day. Heigho! It was years ago, +wasn't it, that I drove up to the station and saw a very attractive and +perplexed young man looking anxiously about for somebody to take him to +Shotover. Ahem! the notorious Mr. Siward! Dear, . I didn't mean to hurt +you! You know it, silly! Mayn't I have my little joke about your +badness--your redoubtable badness of reputation? There! You had just +better smile. . How dare you frighten me by making me think I had hurt +you! . Besides, you are probably unrepentant." + +She watched him closely for a moment or two, then, "Are you +unrepentant?" + +"About what?" + +"About your general wickedness? About--" she hesitated--"about that girl, +for example." + +"What girl?" he asked coldly. + +"That reminds me that you have told me absolutely nothing about her." + +"There is nothing to tell," he said, in a tone so utterly new to her in +its finality that she sat up as though listening to an unknown voice. + +Tone and words so completely excluded her from the new intimacy into +which she had imperceptibly drifted that both suddenly developed a +significance from sheer contrast. Who was this girl, then, of whom he +had absolutely nothing to say? What was she to him? What could she be to +him--an actress, a woman of common antecedents? + +She had sometimes idly speculated in an indefinitely innocent way as to +just what a well-born man could find to interest him in such women; what +he could have to talk about to persons of that sort, where community of +tastes and traditions must be so absolutely lacking. + +Gossip, scandal of that nature, hints, silences, innuendoes, the wise +shrugs of young girls oversophisticated, the cool, hard smiles of +matrons, all had left her indifferent or bored, partly from distaste, +partly from sheer incredulity; a refusal to understand, an innate +delicacy that not only refrains from comprehension, but also denies +itself even the curiosity to inquire or the temptation of vaguest +surmise on a subject that could not exist for her. + +But now, something of the uncomfortable uneasiness had come over her +which she had been conscious of when made aware of Marion Page's worldly +wisdom, and which had imperceptibly chilled her when Grace Ferrall spoke +of Siward's escapade, coupling this woman and him in the same scandal. + +She took it for granted that there must be, for men, an attraction +toward women who figured publicly behind the foot-lights, though it +appeared very silly to her. In fact it all was silly and +undignified--part and parcel, no doubt, of that undergraduate foolishness +which seemed to cling to some men who had otherwise attained discretion. + +But it appeared to her that Siward had taken the matter with a +seriousness entirely out of proportion in his curt closure of the +subject, and she felt a little irritated, a little humiliated, a little +hurt, and took refuge in a silence that he did not offer to break. + +Early twilight had fallen in the room; the firelight grew redder. + +"Sylvia," he said abruptly, reverting to the old, light tone hinting of +the laughter in his eyes which she could no longer see, "Suppose, as you +suggested, I did ambush you--say after the opera--seize you under the very +nose of your escort and make madly for a hansom?" + +"I know of no other way," she said demurely. + +"Would you resist, physically?" + +"I would, if nobody were looking." + +"Desperately? + +"How do I know? Besides, it couldn't last long," she said, thinking of +his slimly powerful build as she had noticed it in his swimming costume. +Smiling, amused, she wondered how long she could resist him with her own +wholesome supple activity strengthened to the perfection of health in +saddle and afoot. + +"I should advise you to chloroform me," she said defiantly. "You don't +realise my accomplishments with the punching-bag." + +"So you mean to resist?" + +"Yes, I do. If I were going to surrender at once, I might as well go off +to church with you now." + +"Wenniston church!" he said promptly. "I'll order the Mercedes." + +She laughed, lazily settling herself more snugly by the fire. "Suppose +it were our fire?" she smiled. "There would be a dog lying across that +rug, and a comfortable Angora tabby dozing by the fender, and--you, +cross-legged, at my feet, with that fascinating head of yours tipped +back against my knees." + +The laughter in her voice died out, and he had risen, saying unsteadily: +"Don't! I--I can't stand that sort of thing, you know." + +She had made a mistake, too; she also had suddenly become aware of her +own limits in the same direction. + +"Forgive me, dear! I meant no mockery." + +"I know. . After a while a man finds laughter difficult." + +"I was not laughing at--anything. I was only pretending to be happy." + +"Your happiness is before you," he said sullenly. + +"My future, you mean. You know I am exchanging one for the other. . And +some day you will awake to the infamy of it; you will comprehend the +depravity of the monstrous trade I made. . And then--and then--" + +She passed one slim hand over her face--"then you will shake yourself +free from this dream of me; then, awake, my punishment at your hands +will begin. . Dear, no man in his right senses can continue to love a +girl such as I am. All that is true and ardent and generous in you has +invested my physical attractiveness and my small intellect with a magic +that cannot last, because it is magic; and you are the magician, +enmeshed for the moment in the mists of your own enchantment. When this +fades, when you unclose your eyes in clear daylight, dear, I dread to +think what I shall appear to you--what a dreadful, shrunken, bloodless +shell, hung with lace and scented, silken cerements--a jewelled mummy- +case--a thing that never was! . Do you understand my punishment a +little, now?" + +"If it were true," he said in a dull voice, "you will have forgotten, +too." + +"I pray I may," she said under her breath. + +And, after a long silence: "Do you think, before the year is out, that +you might be granted enough courage?" he asked. + +"No. I shall not even pray for it. I want what is offered me! I desire +it so blindly that already it has become part of me. I tell you the +poison is in every vein; there is nothing else but poison in me. I am +what I tell you, to the core. It is past my own strength of will to stop +me, now. If I am stopped, another must do it. My weakness for you, being +a treachery if not confessed, I was obliged to confess, horribly +frightened as I was. He might have stopped me; he did not. . And now, +what is there on earth to halt me? Love cannot. Common decency and +courage cannot. Fear of your unhappiness and mine cannot. No, even the +certitude of your contempt, some day, is powerless to halt me now. I +could not love; I am utterly incapable of loving you enough to balance +the sacrifice. And that is final." + + +Grace Ferrall came into the room and found a duel of silence in progress +under the dull fire-glow tinting the ceiling. + +"Another quarrel," she commented, turning on the current of the drop- +light above the desk from which Siward had risen at her entrance. "You +quarrel enough to marry. Why don't you?" + +"I wish we could," said Sylvia simply. + +Grace laughed. "What a little fool you are!" she said tenderly, seating +herself in Siward's chair and dropping one hand over his where it rested +on the arm. "Stephen, can't you make her--a big, strong fellow like you? +Oh, well; on your heads be it! My conscience is now clear for the first +time, and I'll never meddle again." She gave Siward's hand a perfunctory +pat and released him with a discreetly stifled yawn. "I'm disgracefully +sleepy; the wind blew like fury along the coast. Sylvia, have you had a +good time at Shotover--the time of your life?" + +Sylvia raised her eyes and encountered Siward's. + +"I certainly have," she said faintly. + +"C'est bien, cherie. Can you be as civil, Stephen--conscientiously? Oh, +that is very nice of you! But there's one thing: why on earth didn't you +make eyes at Marion? Life might be one long, blissful carnival of horse +and dog for you both. Oh, dear! there, I'm meddling again! Pinch me, +Sylvia, if I ever begin to meddle again! How did you come out at Bridge, +Stephen? What--bad as that? Gracious! this is disgraceful--this gambling +the way people do! I'm shocked and I'm going up to dress. Are you +coming, Sylvia?" + + +The dinner was very gay. The ceremony of christening the Shotover Cup, +which Quarrier had won, proceeded with presentation speech and a speech +of acceptance faultlessly commonplace, during which Quarrier wore his +smile--which was the only humorous thing he contributed. + +The cup was full. Siward eyed it, perplexed, deadly afraid, yet seeing +no avenue of escape from what must appear a public exhibition of +contempt for Quarrier if he refused to taste its contents. That meant a +bad night for him; yet he shrank more from the certain misinterpretation +of a refusal to drink from the huge loving-cup with its heavy wreath of +scented orchids, now already on its way toward him, than he feared the +waking struggle so sure to follow. + +Marion received the cup, lifted it in both hands, and said distinctly, +"Good Hunting!" as she drank to Quarrier. Her brother Gordon took it, +and drank entirely too much. Then Sylvia lifted it, her white hands half +buried among the orchids: "To you!" she murmured for Siward's ear alone; +then drank gaily, mischievously, "To the best shot at Shotover!" And +Siward took the cup: "I salute victory," he said, smiling, "always, and +everywhere! To him who takes the fighting chance and wins out! To the +best man! Health!" And he drank as a gentleman drinks, with a gay bow to +Quarrier, and with death in his heart. + +Later, the irony of it struck him so grimly that he laughed; and Sylvia, +beside him, looked up, dismayed to see the gray change in his face. + +"What is it?" she faltered, catching his eye; "why do you--why are you so +white?" + +But he only smiled, as though he had misunderstood, saying: + +"The survival of the fittest; that is the only test, after all. The man +who makes good doesn't whine for justice. There's enough of it in the +world to go round, and he who misses it gets all that's due him just the +same." + +Later, at cards, the aromatic odour from Alderdene's decanter roused him +to fierce desire, but he fought it down until only the deadened, tearing +ache remained to shake and loosen every nerve. And when Ferrall, +finishing his usual batch of business letters, arrived to cut in if +needed, Siward dropped his cards with a shudder, and rose so utterly +unnerved that Captain Voucher, noticing his drawn face, asked him if he +were not ill. + +He was leaving on an earlier train than the others, having decided to +pass through Boston and Deptford, at which latter place he meant to +leave Sagamore for the winter in care of the manager of his mother's +farm. So he took a quiet leave of those to whom the civility might not +prove an interruption--a word to Alderdene and Voucher as he passed out, +a quick clasp for Ferrall and for Grace, a carefully and cordially +formal parting from the Page boys, which pleased them ineffably. + +Eileen and Rena, who had never had half a chance at him, took it now, +delighted to discipline their faithful Pages; and he submitted in his +own engagingly agreeable way, and so skilfully that both Eileen and Rena +felt sorry that they had not earlier understood how civilly anxious he +had been to devote himself to them alone. And they looked at the Pages, +exasperated. + +In the big hall he passed Marion, and stopped to take his leave. + +No, he would do no hunting this season either at Carysford or with the +two trial packs at Eastwood. Possibly at Warrenton later, but probably +not; business threatened to detain him in town more or less. . Of course +he'd come to see her when she returned to town. . And it had been a +jolly party, and it was a shame to sound "lights out" so soon! Good-bye. +. Good night. And that was all. + +And that was all, unless he disturbed Sylvia, seated at cards with +Quarrier and Major Belwether and Leila Mortimer--and very intent on the +dummy, very still, and a trifle pallid with the pallor of concentration. + +So--that was all, then. + +Ascending the stairs, a servant handed him a letter bearing the crest of +the Lenox Club. He pocketed it unopened and continued his way. + +In the darkness of his own room he sat down, the devil's own clutch on +his shrinking nerves, a deathly desire tearing at his very vitals, and +every vein a tiny trail of fire run riot. He had been too long without +it, too long to endure the craving aroused by that gay draught from +Quarrier's loving-cup. + +The awakened fury of his desire appalled him, and for a while that +occupied him, enabling him to endure. But fear and dismay soon passed in +the purely physical distress; he walked the floor, haggard, the sweat +starting on his face; he lay with clenched hands, stiffened out across +the bed, deafened by the riotous clamour of his pulses, conscious that +he was holding out, unconscious how long he could hold out. + +Crisis after crisis swept him; sometimes he found his feet and moved +blindly about the room. + +Strange periods of calm intervened; sensation seemed deadened; and he +stood as a man who listens, scarcely daring to breathe lest the enemy +awake and seize him. + +He turned on the light, later, to look for his pipe, and he caught a +glimpse of himself in the mirror. It was a sick man who stared back at +him out of hollow eyes, and the physical revulsion shocked him into +something resembling self-command. + +"Damn you!" he said fiercely, setting his teeth and staring back at his +reflected face, "I'll kill you yet before I've finished with you!" + +Then he filled his pipe, and opening his bedroom window, sat down, +resting his arm on the sill. A splendid moon silvered the sea; through +the intense stillness he heard the surf, magnificently dissonant among +the reefs, and he listened, fascinated, loathing the tides as he feared +and loathed the inexorable tides that surged and ebbed with his accursed +desire. + +Once he said to himself, weakly--for he was deadly tired--"What am I +making the fight for, anyway?" And "Who are you making the fight for?" +echoed his heavy pulses. + +He had asked that question and received that answer before. After all, +it had been for his mother's sake alone. And now--and now?--his heart beat +out another answer; and before his eyes two other eyes seemed to open, +fearlessly, sweetly, divinely tender. But they were no longer his +mother's grave, gray eyes. + +After the second pipe he remembered his letter. It gave him something to +do, so he opened it and tried to read it, but for a long while, in his +confused physical and mental condition, he could make no sense of it. + +Little by little he began to comprehend its purport that his resignation +was regretfully requested by the governors of the Lenox Club for reasons +unassigned. + +The shock of the thing came to him after a while, like a distant, dull +report long after the flash of the explosion. Well, the affair, bad +enough at first, was turning worse, that was all. How much of that sort +of discredit could a man stand and keep his balance? . And what would +his mother say? + +Confused from his own physical suffering, the blow had fallen with a +deadened force on nerves already numbed; but his half-stupefied +acquiescence had suddenly become a painful recoil when he remembered +where the brunt of the disgrace would fall--where the centre of suffering +must always be, and the keenest grief concentrated. Roused, appalled, +almost totally unnerved, he stood staring at the letter, beginning to +realise what it would mean to his mother. A passion of remorse and +resentment swept him. She must be spared that! There must be some +way--some punishment for his offence that could not strike her through +him! It was wicked, it was contemptible, insane, to strike her! What +were the governors of the Lenox about--a lot of snivelling hypocrites, +pandering to the horrified snobbery at the Patroons! Who were they, +anyway, to discipline him! Scarce one in fifty among the members of the +two clubs was qualified to sit in judgment on a Siward! + +But that tempest of passion and mortification passed, too, leaving him +standing there, dumb, desperate, staring at the letter crushed in his +shaking hand. + +He must see somebody, some member of the Lenox, and do +something--something! Ferrall! Was that Ferrall's step on the landing? + +He sprang to the door and opened it. Quarrier, passing the corridor, +turned an expressionless visage toward him, and passed on with a nod +almost imperceptible. + +"Quarrier!" he called, swept by a sudden impulse. + +Quarrier halted and turned. + +"Could you give me a moment--here in my room? I won't detain you." + +The faint trace of surprise faded from Quarrier's face; he quietly +retraced his steps, and, entering Siward's room, stood silently +confronting its pallid tenant. + +"Will you sit down a moment?" + +Quarrier seated himself in the arm-chair by the window, and Siward found +a chair opposite. + +"Quarrier," said the younger man, turning a tensely miserable face on +his visitor, "I want to ask you something. I'll not mince matters. You +know that the Patroons have dropped me, and you know what for." + +"Yes, I know." + +"When I was called before the Board of Governors to explain the matter, +if I could, you were sitting on that Board." + +"Yes." + +"I denied the charge, but refused to explain. . You remember?" + +Quarrier nodded coldly. + +"And I was dropped by the club!" + +A slight inclination of Quarrier's symmetrical head corroborated him. + +"Now," said Siward, slowly and very distinctly, "I shall tell you +unofficially what I refused to tell the other governors officially." +And, as he began speaking, Quarrier's face flushed, then the features +became immobile, set, and inert, and his eyes grew duller and duller, as +though, under a smooth surface the soul inside of him was shrinking back +into some dark corner, silent, watchful, suspicious, and perhaps +defiant. + +"Mr. Quarrier," said Siward quietly, "I did not take that girl to the +Patroons Club--and you know it." + +Quarrier was all surface now; he had drawn away internally so far that +even his eyes seemed to recede until they scarcely glimmered through the +slits in his colourless mask. And Siward went on: + +"I knew perfectly well what sort of women I was to meet at that fool +supper Billy Fleetwood gave; and you must have, too, for the girl you +took in was no stranger to you. . Her name is Lydia Vyse, I believe." + +The slightest possible glimmer in the elder man's eyes was all the +answer he granted. + +"What happened," said Siward calmly, "was this: She bet me she could so +disguise herself that I could safely take her into any club in New York. +I bet her she couldn't. I never dreamed of trying. Besides, she was +your--dinner partner," he added with a shrug. + +His concentrated gaze seemed at length to pierce the expressionless +surface of the other man, who moved slightly in his chair and moistened +his thin lips under the glossy beard. + +"Quarrier," said Siward earnestly, "What happened in the club lobby I +don't exactly know, because I was not in a condition to know. I admit +it; that was the trouble with me. When I left Fleetwood's rooms I left +with a half dozen men. I remember crossing Fifth Avenue with them; and +the next thing I remember distinctly was loud talking in the club lobby, +and a number of men there, and a slim young fellow in Inverness and top +hat in the centre of a crowd, whose face was the face of that girl, +Lydia Vyse. And that is absolutely all. But I couldn't do more than deny +that I took her there unless I told what I knew; and of course that was +not possible, even in self-defence. But it was for you to admit that I +was right. And you did not. You dared not! You let another man blunder +into your private affairs and fall a victim to circumstantial evidence +which you could have refuted; and it was up to you to say something! And +you did not! . And now--what are you going to do? The Lenox Club has +taken this thing up. A man can't stand too much of that sort of thing. +What am I to do? I can't defend myself by betraying my accidental +knowledge of your petty, private affairs. So I leave it to you. I ask +you what are you going to do?" + +"Do you mean"--Quarrier's voice was not his own, and he brought it +harshly under command--"do you mean that you think it necessary for me to +say I knew her? What object would be attained by that? I did not take +her to the Patroons'." + +"Nor did I. Ask her how she got there. Learn the truth from her, man!" + +"What proof is there that I ever met her before I took her into supper +at Fleetwood's?" + +"Proof! Are you mad? All I ask of you is to say to the governors what I +cannot say without using your name." + +"You wish me," asked Quarrier icily, "to deny that you made that wager? +I can do that." + +"You can't do it! I did make that bet." + +"Oh! Then, what is it you wish me to say?" + +"Tell them the truth. Tell them you know I did not take her to the club. +You need not tell them why you know it. You need not tell them how much +you know about her, whose brougham she drove home in. I can't defend +myself at your expense--intrench myself behind your dirty little romance. +What could I say? I denied taking her to the club. Then Major Belwether +confronted me with my wager. Then I shut up. And so did you, Quarrier--so +did you, seated there among the governors, between Leroy Mortimer and +Belwether. It was up to you, and you did not stir!" + +"Stir!" echoed the other man, exasperated. "Of course I did not stir. +What did I know about it? Do you think I care to give a man like +Mortimer a hold on me by admitting I knew anything?--or Belwether--do you +think I care to have that man know anything about my private and +personal business? Did you expect me to say that I was in a position to +prove anything one way or another? And," he added with increasing +harshness, "how do you know what I might or might not prove? If she went +to the Patroons Club, I did not go with her; I did not see her; I don't +know whether or not you took her." + +"I have already told you that I did not take her," said Siward, turning +whiter. + +"You told that to the governors, too. Tell them again, if you like. I +decline to discuss this matter with you. I decline to countenance your +unwarranted intrusion into what you pretend to believe are my private +affairs. I decline to confer with Belwether or Mortimer. It's enough +that you are inclined to meddle--" His cold anger was stirring. He rose +to his full, muscular height, slow, menacing, his long, pale fingers +twisting his silky beard. "It's enough that you meddle!" he repeated. +"As for the matter in question, a dozen men, including myself, heard you +make a wager; and later I myself was a witness that the terms of that +wager had been carried out to the letter. I know absolutely nothing +except that, Mr. Siward; nor, it appears, do you, for you were drunk at +the time, and you have admitted it to me." + +"I have asked you," said Siward, rising, and very grave, "I have asked +you to do the right thing. Are you going to do it?" + +"Is that a threat?" inquired Quarrier, showing the edges of his well- +kept teeth. "Is this intimidation, Mr. Siward? Do I understand that you +are proposing to bespatter others with scandal unless I am frightened +into going to the governors with the flimsy excuse you attempt to offer +me? In other words, Mr. Siward, are you bent on making me pay for what +you believe you know of my private life? Is it really intimidation?" + +And still Siward stared into his half-veiled, sneering eyes, speechless. + +"There is only one name used for this kind of thing," added Quarrier, +taking a quick involuntary step backward to the door as the blaze of +fury broke out in Siward's eyes. + +"Good God! Quarrier," whispered Siward with dry lips, "what a cur you +are! What a cur!" + +And long after Quarrier had passed the door and disappeared in the +corridor, Siward stood there, frozen motionless under the icy waves of +rage that swept him. + +He had never before had an enemy worth the name; he knew he had one now. +He had never before hated; he now understood something of that, too. The +purely physical craving to take this man and crush him into eternal +quiescence had given place to a more terrible mental desire to punish. +His brain surged and surged under the first flood of a mortal hatred. +That the hatred was sterile made it the more intense, and, blinded by +it, he stood there or paced the room minute after minute, hearing +nothing but the wild clamour in his brain, seeing nothing but the +smooth, expressionless face of the man whom he could not reach. + +Toward midnight, seated in his chair by the window, a deathly lassitude +weighing his heart, he heard the steps of people on the stairway, the +click of the ascending elevator, gay voices calling good night, a ripple +of laughter, the silken swish of skirts in the corridor, doors opening +and closing; then silence creeping throughout the house on the receding +heels of departure--a stillness that settled like a mist through hall and +corridor, accented for a few moments by distant sounds, then absolute, +echoless silence. And for a long while he sat there listening. + +The cool wind from the ocean blew his curtains far into the room, where +they bellied out, fluttering, floating, subsiding, only to rise again in +the freshening breeze. He sat watching their silken convolutions, +stupidly, for a while, then rose and closed his window, and raised the +window on the south for purposes of air. + +As he turned to adjust his transom, something white thrust under the +door caught his eye, and he walked over and drew it across the sill. It +was a sealed note. He opened it, reading it as he walked back to the +drop-light burning beside his bed: + +"Did you not mean to say good-bye? Because it is to be good-bye for a +long, long time--for all our lives--as long as we live--as long as the +world lasts, and longer. . Good-bye--unless you care to say it to me." + +He stood studying the note for a while; presently, lighting a match, he +set fire to it and carried it blazing to the grate and flung it in, +watching the blackened ashes curl up, glow, whiten, and fall in flakes +to the hearth. Then he went out into the corridor, and traversed the +hall to the passage which led to the bay-window. There was nobody there. +The stars looked in on him, twinkling with a frosty light; beneath, the +shadowy fronds of palms traced a pale pattern on the glass roof of the +swimming pool. He waited a moment, turned, retraced his steps to his own +door and stood listening. Then, moving swiftly, he walked the length of +the corridor, and, halting at her door, knocked once. + +After a moment the door swung open. He stepped forward into the room, +closing the door behind him, and confronted the tall girl standing there +silhouetted against the lamp behind her. + +"You are insane to do this!" she whispered. "I let you in for fear you'd +knock again!" + +"I went to the bay-window," he said. + +"You went too late. I was there an hour ago. I waited. Do you know what +time it is?" + +"Come to the bay-window," he said, "if you fear me here." + +"Do you know it is nearly three o'clock?" she repeated. "And you leave +at six. + +"Shall we say good-bye here?" he asked coolly. + +"Certainly. I dare not go out. And you--do you know the chances we are +running? You must be perfectly mad to come to my room. Do you think +anybody could have seen--heard you--" + +"No. Good night." He offered his hand; she laid both of hers in it. He +could scarcely distinguish her features where she stood dark against the +brilliant light behind her. + +"Good-bye," he whispered, kissing her hands where they lay in his. + +"Good-bye." Her fingers closed convulsively, retaining his hands. "I +hope--I think that--you--" Her head was drooping; she could not control her +voice. + +"Good-bye, Sylvia," he said again. + +It was quite useless, she could not speak; and when he took her in his +arms she clung to him, quivering; and he kissed the wet lashes, and the +hot, trembling lips, and the smooth little hands crushed to his breast. + +"We have a year yet," she gasped. "Dear, take me by force before it +ends. I--I simply cannot endure this. I told you to take me--to tear me +from myself. Will you do it? I will love you--truly, truly! Oh, my +darling, my darling! Don't--don't give me up! Can't you do something for +us? Can't you--" + +"Will you come with me now?" + +"How can--" + +"Will you?" + +A sudden sound broke out in the night--the distant pealing of the lodge- +gate bell. Startled, she shrank back; somebody in the adjoining room had +sprung to the floor and was opening the window. + +"What is it?" she motioned with whitening lips. "Quick! oh, quick, +before you are seen! Grace may come! I--I beg of you to go!" + +As he stepped into the corridor he heard, below, a sound at the great +door, and the stirring of the night watchman on post. At his own door he +turned, listening to the movement and whispering. Ferrall, in dressing- +gown and slippers, stepped into the corridor; below, the chains were +rattling as the wicket swung open. There was a brief parley at the door, +sounds of retreating steps on the gravel outside, sounds of approaching +steps on the stairway. + +"What's that? A telegram?" said Ferrall sharply. "Here, give it to me. . +Wait! It isn't for me. It's for Mr Siward!" + +Siward, standing at his open door, swayed slightly. A thrill of pure +fear struck him through and through. He laid one hand on the door to +steady himself, and stepped forward as Ferrall came up. + +"Oh! You're awake, Stephen. Here's a telegram." He extended his hand. +Siward took the yellow envelope, fumbled it, tore it open. + +"Good God!" whispered Ferrall; "is it bad?" + +And Siward's glazed eyes stared and stared at the scrawled and inky +message: + +"YOUR MOTHER IS VERY ILL. COME AT ONCE." + +The signature was the name of their family physician, Grisby. + + + +CHAPTER VIII CONFIDENCES + +By January the complex social mechanism of the metropolis was whirling +smoothly again; the last ultra-fashionable December lingerer had +returned from the country; those of the same caste outward bound for a +Southern or exotic winter had departed; and the glittering machine, +every part assembled, refurbished, repolished, and connected, having +been given preliminary speed-tests at the horse show, and a tuning up at +the opera, was now running under full velocity; and its steady, subdued +whir quickened the clattering pulse of the city, keying it to a +sublimely syncopated ragtime. + +The commercial reaction from the chaos of the holidays had become a +carnival of recovery; shop windows grew brighter and gayer than ever, +bursting into gaudy winter florescence; the main arteries of the town +roared prosperity; cross streets were packed; Fifth Avenue, almost +impassible in the morning, choked up after three o'clock; and all the +afternoon through, and late into the night, mounted police of the +traffic squad, adrift in the tide of carriages, stemmed the flashing +currents pouring north and south from the white marble arch to the +gilded bronze battle-horse and its rider on guard at the portals of the +richest quarter of the wealthiest city in the world. + +So far, that winter, snow had fallen only twice, lasting but a day or +two each time; street and avenue remained bone dry where the white- +uniformed cleaning squads worked amid clouds of dust; and all day long +the flinty asphalt echoed the rattling slap of horses' feet; all day +long the big, shining motor-cars sped up town and down town, droning +their distant warnings. It was an open winter in New York, and, +financially, a prosperous one; and that meant a brilliant social season. +Like a set piece of fireworks, with its interdependent parts taking fire +in turn, function after function, spectacle after spectacle, glittered, +fizzed, and was extinguished, only to give place to newer and more +splendid spectacles; separate circles, sets, and groups belonging to the +social solar system whizzed, revolved, rotated, with edifying effects on +everybody concerned, unconcerned, and not at all concerned; and at +intervals, when for a moment or two something hung fire, the twinkle of +similar spectacles sputtering away in distant cities beyond the horizon +was faintly reflected in the social sky above the incandescent +metropolis. For the whole nation was footing it, heel and toe, to the +echoes of strains borne on the winds from the social capital of the +republic; and the social arbiter at Bird Centre was more of a facsimile +of his New York confrere than that confrere could ever dream of even in +the most realistic of nightmares. + +Three phenomena particularly characterised that metropolitan winter: the +reckless rage for private gambling through the mediums of bridge and +roulette; the incorporation of a company known as The Inter-County +Electric Company, capitalised at a figure calculated to disturb nobody, +and, so far, without any avowed specific policy other than that which +served to decorate a portion of its charter which otherwise might have +remained ornately and comparatively blank; the third phenomenon was the +retirement from active affairs of Stanley S. Quarrier, the father of +Howard Quarrier, and the election of the son to the presidency of the +great Algonquin Loan and Trust Company, with its network system of +dependent, subsidiary, and allied corporations. + +The day that the newspapers gave this interesting information to the +Western world, Leroy Mortimer, on being bluntly notified that he had +overdrawn his account with the Algonquin Loan and Trust, began +telephoning in every direction until he located Beverly Plank at the +Saddle Club--an organisation of wealthy men, and sufficiently exclusive +not to compromise Plank's possible chances for something better; in +fact, the Saddle Club, into which Leroy Mortimer had already managed to +pilot him, was one riser and tread upward on the stair he was climbing, +though it was more of a lobby for other clubs than a club in itself. To +be seen there was, perhaps, rather to a man's advantage, if he did not +loaf there in the evenings or use it too frequently. As Plank carefully +avoided doing either, Mortimer was fortunate in finding him there; and +he crawled out of his hansom, saying that the desk clerk would pay, and +entered the reading-room, where Plank sat writing a letter. + +Beverly Plank had grown stouter since he had returned to town from Black +Fells; but the increase of weight was evenly distributed over his six +feet odd, which made him only a trifle more ponderous and not +abdominally fat. But Mortimer had become enormous; rolls of flesh +crowded his mottled ear-lobes outward and bulged above his collar; +cushions of it padded the backs of his hands and fingers; shaving left +his heavy, distended face congested and unpleasantly shiny. But be was +as minutely groomed as ever, and he wore that satiated air of prosperity +which had always been one of his most important assets. + +The social campaign inaugurated by Leila Mortimer in behalf of Beverly +Plank had, so far, received no serious reverses. His box at the horse +show, of course, produced merely negative results; his box at the opera +might mean something some day. His name was up at the Lenox and the +Patroons; he had endowed a ward in the new pavilion of St. Berold's +Hospital; he had presented a fine Gainsborough--The Countess of Wythe--to +the Metropolitan Museum; and it was rumoured that he had consulted +several bishops concerning a new chapel for that huge bastion of the +citadel of Faith looming above the metropolitan wilderness in the north. + +So far, so good. If, as yet, he had not been permitted to go where he +wanted to go, he at least had been instructed where not to go and what +not to do; and he was as docile as he was dogged, understanding how much +longer it takes to shuffle in by way of the mews and the back door than +to sit on the front steps and wait politely for somebody to unchain the +front door. + +Meanwhile he was doggedly docile; his huge house, facing the wintry park +midway between the squat palaces of the wealthy pioneers and the outer +hundreds, remained magnificently empty save for certain afternoon +conferences of very solemn men, fellow directors and associates in +business and financial matters--save for the periodical presence of the +Mortimers: a mansion immense and shadowy, haunted by relays of yawning, +livened servants, half stupefied under the vast silence of the twilit +splendour. He was patient, not only because he was told to be, but also +because he had nothing better to do. Society stared at him as blankly as +the Mountain confronted Mahomet. But the stubborn patience of the man +was itself a strain on the Mountain; he was aware of that, and he waited +for it to come to him. As yet, however, he could detect no symptoms of +mobility in the Mountain. + +"Things are moving all the same," said Mortimer, as he entered the +reading room of the Saddle Club. "Quarrier and Belwether have listened a +damned sight more respectfully to me since they read that column about +you and the bishops and that chapel business." + +Plank turned his heavy head with a disturbed glance around the room; for +he always dreaded Mortimer's indiscretions of speech--was afraid of his +cynical frankness in the presence of others; even shrank from the brutal +bonhomie of the man when alone with him. + +"Can't you be careful?" he said; "there was a man here a moment ago." He +picked up his unfinished letter, folded and pocketed it, touched an +electric bell, and when a servant came, "Take Mr. Mortimer's order," he +said, supporting his massive head on his huge hands and resting his +elbow on the writing-desk. + +"I've got to cut out this morning bracer," said Mortimer, eyeing the +servant with indecision; but he gave his order nevertheless, and later +accepted a cigar; and when the servant had returned and again retired, +he half emptied his tall glass, refilled it with mineral water, and, +settling back in the padded arm-chair, said: "If I manage this thing as +it ought to be managed, you'll go through by April. What do you think of +that?" + +Plank's phlegmatic features flushed. "I'm more obliged to you than I can +say," he began, but Mortimer silenced him with a gesture: "Don't +interrupt. I'm going to put you through The Patroons Club by April. +That's thirty yards through the centre; d'ye see, you dunderheaded +Dutchman? It's solid gain, and it's our ball. The Lenox will take +longer; they're a 'holier-than-thou' bunch of nincompoops, and it always +horrifies them to have any man elected, no matter who he is. They'd +rather die of dry rot than elect anybody; it shocks them to think that +any man could have the presumption to be presented. They require the +spectacle of fasting and prayer--a view of a candidate seated in +sackcloth and ashes in outer darkness. You've got to wait for the Lenox, +Plank." + +"I am waiting," said Plank, squaring his massive jaws. + +"You've got to," growled Mortimer, emptying his glass aggressively. + +Plank looked out of the window, his shrewd blue eyes closing in +retrospection. + +"Another thing," continued Mortimer thickly; "the Kemp Ferralls are +disposed to be decent. I don't mean in asking you to meet some +intellectual second-raters, but in doing it handsomely. I don't know +whether it's time yet," he added, with a sidelong glance at Plank's +stolid face; "I don't want to push the mourners too hard . Well, I'll +see about it . And if it's the thing to do, and the time to do it"--he +turned on Plank with his boisterous and misleading laugh and clapped him +on the shoulder--"it will be done, as sure as snobs are snobs; and that's +the surest thing you ever bet on. Here's to them!" and he emptied his +glass and fell back into his chair, wheezing and sucking at his +unlighted cigar. + +"I want to say," began Plank, speaking the more slowly because he was +deeply in earnest, "that all this you are doing for me is very handsome +of you, Mortimer. I'd like to say--to convey to you something of how I +feel about the way you and Mrs. Mortimer--" + +"Oh, Leila has done it all." + +"Mrs. Mortimer is very kind, and you have been so, too. I--I wish there +was something--some way to--to--" + +"To what?" asked Mortimer so bluntly that Plank flushed up and +stammered: + +"To be--to do a--to show my gratitude." + +"How? You're scarcely in a position to do anything for us," said +Mortimer, brutally staring him out of countenance. + +"I know it," said Plank, the painful flush deepening. + +Mortimer, fussing and growling over his cigar, was nevertheless +stealthily intent on the game which had so long absorbed him. His wits, +clogged, dulled by excesses, were now aroused to a sort of gross +activity through the menace of necessity. At last Plank had given him an +opening. He recognised his chance. + +"There's one thing," he said deliberately, "that I won't stand for, and +that's any vulgar misconception on your part of my friendship for you. +Do you follow me?" + +"I don't misunderstand it," protested Plank, angry and astonished; "I +don't--" + +"--As though," continued Mortimer menacingly, "I were one of those needy +social tipsters, one of those shabby, pandering touts who--" + +"For Heaven's sake, Mortimer, don't talk like that! I had no intention--" + +"--One of those contemptible, parasitic leeches," persisted Mortimer, +getting redder and hoarser, "who live on men like you. Confound you, +Plank, what the devil do you mean by it?" + +"Mortimer, are you crazy, to talk to me like that?" + +"No, I'm not, but you must be! I've a mind to drop the whole cursed +business! I've every inclination to drop it! If you haven't horse-sense +enough--if you haven't innate delicacy sufficient to keep you from making +such a break--" + +"I didn't! It wasn't a break, Mortimer. I wouldn't have hurt you--" + +"You did hurt me! How can I feel the same again? I never imagined you +thought I was that sort of a social mercenary. Why, so little did I +dream that you looked on our friendship in that light that I was--on my +word of honour!--I was just now on the point of asking you for three or +four thousand, to carry me to the month's end and square my bridge +balance." + +"Mortimer, you must take it! You are a fool to think I meant anything by +saying I wanted to show my gratitude. Look here; be decent and fair with +me. I wouldn't offer you an affront--would I?--even if I were a cad. I +wouldn't do it now, just when you're getting things into shape for me. +I'm not a fool, anyway. This is in deadly earnest, I tell you, Mortimer, +and I'm getting angry about it. You've got to show your confidence in +me; you've got to take what you want from me, as you would from any +friend. I resent your failure to do it now, as though you drew a line +between me and your intimates. If you're really my friend, show it!" + +There was a pause. A curious and unaccustomed sensation had silenced +Mortimer, something almost akin to shame. It astonished him a little. He +did not quite understand why, in the very moment of success over this +stolid, shrewd young man and his thrifty Dutch instincts, he should feel +uncomfortable. Were not his services worth something? Had he not earned +at least the right to borrow from this rich man who could afford to pay +for what was done for him? Why should he feel ashamed? He had not been +treacherous; he really liked the fellow. Why shouldn't he take his +money? + +"See here, old man," said Plank, extending a huge highly coloured hand, +"is all square between us now?" + +"I think so," muttered Mortimer. + +But Plank would not relinquish his hand. + +"Then tell me how to draw that cheque! Great Heaven, Mortimer, what is +friendship, anyhow, if it doesn't include little matters like +this--little misunderstandings like this? I'm the man to be sensitive, +not you. You have been very good to me, Mortimer. I could almost wish +you in a position where the only thing I possess might square something +of my debt to you." + +A few minutes later, while he was filling in the cheque, a dusty youth +in riding clothes and spurs came in and found a seat by one of the +windows, into which he dropped, and then looked about him for a servant. + +"Hello, Fleetwood!" said Mortimer, glancing over his shoulder to see +whose spurs were ringing on the polished floor. + +Fleetwood saluted amiably with his riding-crop; including Plank, whom he +did not know, in a more formal salute. + +"Will you join us?" asked Mortimer, taking the cheque which Plank +offered and carelessly pocketing it without even a nod of thanks. "You +know Beverly Plank, of course? What! I thought everybody knew Beverly +Plank." + +Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Plank shook hands and resumed their seats. + +"Ripping weather!" observed Fleetwood, replacing his hat and rebuttoning +the glove which he had removed to shake hands with Plank. "Lot of jolly +people out this morning. I say, Mortimer, do you want that roan hunter +of mine you looked over? I mean King Dermid, because Marion Page wants +him, if you don't. She was out this morning, and she spoke of it again." + +Mortimer, lifting a replenished glass, shook his head, and drank +thirstily in silence. + +"Saw you at Westbury, I think," said Fleetwood politely to Plank, as the +two lifted their glasses to one another. + +"I hunted there for a day or two," replied Plank, modestly. "If it's +that big Irish thoroughbred you were riding that you want to sell I'd +like a look in, if Miss Page doesn't fancy him." + +Fleetwood laughed, and glanced amusedly at Plank over his glass. "It +isn't that horse, Mr. Plank. That's Drumceit, Stephen Siward's famous +horse." He interrupted himself to exchange greetings with several men +who came into the room rather noisily, their spurs resounding across the +oaken floor. One of them, Tom O'Hara, joined them, slamming his crop on +the desk beside Plank and spreading himself over an arm-chair, from the +seat of which he forcibly removed Mortimer's feet without excuse. + +"Drink? Of course I want a drink!" he replied irritably to +Fleetwood--"one, three, ten, several! Billy, whose weasel-bellied pinto +was that you were kicking your heels into in the park? Some of the +squadron men asked me--the major. Oh, beg pardon! Didn't know you were +trying to stick Mortimer with him. He might do for the troop ambulance, +inside! . What? Oh, yes; met Mr. Blank--I mean Mr. Plank--at Shotover, I +think. How d'ye do? Had the pleasure of potting your tame pheasants. +Rotten sport, you know. What do you do it for, Mr. Blank?" + +"What did you come for, if it's rotten sport?" asked Plank so simply +that it took O'Hara a moment to realise he had been snubbed. + +"I didn't mean to be offensive," he drawled. + +"I suppose you can't help it," said Plank very gently; "some people +can't, you know." And there was another silence, broken by Mortimer, +whose entire hulk was tingling with a mixture of surprise and amusement +over his protege's developing ability to take care of himself. "Did you +say that Stephen Siward is in Westbury, Billy?" + +"No; he's in town," replied Fleetwood. "I took his horses up to hunt +with. He isn't hunting, you know." + +"I didn't know. Nobody ever sees him anywhere," said Mortimer. "I guess +his mother's death cut him up." + +Fleetwood lifted his empty glass and gently shook the ice in it. "That, +and--the other business--is enough to cut any man up, isn't it?" + +"You mean the action of the Lenox Club?" asked Plank seriously. + +"Yes. He's resigned from this club, too, I hear. Somebody told me that +he has made a clean sweep of all his clubs. That's foolish. A man may be +an ass to join too many clubs but he's always a fool to resign from any +of 'em. You ask the weatherwise what resigning from a club forecasts. +It's the first ominous sign in a young man's career." + +"What's the second sign?" asked O'Hara, with a yawn. + +"Squadron talk; and you're full of it," retorted Fleetwood--"'I said to +the major,' and 'The captain told the chief trumpeter'--all that sort of +thing--and those Porto Rico spurs of yours, and the ewe-necked +glyptosaurus you block the bridle-path with every morning. You're an +awful nuisance, Tom, if anybody should ask me." + +Under cover of a rapid-fire exchange of pleasantries between Fleetwood +and O'Hara, Plank turned to Mortimer, hesitating: + +"I rather liked Siward when I met him at Shotover," he ventured. "I'm +very sorry he's down and out." + +"He drinks," shrugged Mortimer, diluting his mineral water with Irish +whisky. "He can't let it alone; he's like all the Siwards. I could have +told you that the first time I ever saw him. We all told him to cut it +out, because he was sure to do some damfool thing if he didn't. He's +done it, and his clubs have cut him out. It's his own funeral. . Well, +here's to you!" + +"Cut who out?" asked Fleetwood, ignoring O'Hara's parting shot +concerning the decadence of the Fleetwood stables and their owner. + +"Stephen Siward. I always said that he was sure, sooner or later, to +land in the family ditch. He has a right to, of course; the gutter is +public property." + +"It's a damned sad thing," said Fleetwood slowly. + +After a pause Plank said: "I think so, too. . I don't know him very +well." + +"You may know him better now," said O'Hara insolently. + +Plank reddened, and, after a moment: "I should be glad to, if he cares +to know me." + +"Mortimer doesn't care for him, but he's an awfully good fellow, all the +same," said Fleetwood, turning to Plank; "he's been an ass, but who +hasn't? I like him tremendously, and I feel very bad over the mess he +made of it after that crazy dinner I gave in my rooms. What? You hadn't +heard of it? Why man, it's the talk of the clubs." + +"I suppose that is why I haven't heard," said Plank simply; "my club- +life is still in the future." + +"Oh!" said Fleetwood with an involuntary stare, surprised, a trifle +uncomfortable, yet somehow liking Plank, and not understanding why. + +"I'm not in anything, you see; I'm only up for the Patroons and the +Lenox," added Plank gravely. + +"I see. Certainly. Er--hope you'll make 'em; hope to see you there soon. +Er--I see by the papers you've been jollying the clergy, Mr. Plank. +Awfully handsome of you, all that chapel business. I say: I've a +cousin--er--young architect; Beaux Arts, and all that--just over. I'd +awfully like to have him given a chance at that competition; invited to +try, you see. I don't suppose it could be managed, now--" + +"Would you like to have me ask the bishops?" inquired Plank, naively +shrewd. And the conversation became very cordial between the two, which +Mortimer observed, keeping one ironical eye on Plank, while he continued +a desultory discussion with O'Hara concerning a very private dinner +which somebody told somebody that somebody had given to Quarrier and the +Inter-County Electric people; which, if true, plainly indicated who was +financing the Inter-County scheme, and why Amalgamated stock had tumbled +again yesterday, and what might be looked for from the Algonquin Trust +Company's president. + +"Amalgamated Electric doesn't seem to like it a little bit," said +O'Hara. "Ferrall, Belwether, and Siward are in it up to their necks; and +if Quarrier is really the god in the machine, and if he really is doing +stunts with Amalgamated Electric, and is also mixing feet with the +Inter-County crowd, why, he is virtually paralleling his own road; and +why, in the name of common sense, is he doing that? He'll kill it; +that's what he'll do." + +"He can afford to kill it," observed Mortimer, punching the electric +button and making a significant gesture toward his empty glass as the +servant entered; "a man like Quarrier can afford to kill anything." + +"Yes; but why kill Amalgamated Electric? Why not merge? Why, it's a +crazy thing to do, it's a devil of a thing to do, to parallel your own +line!" insisted O'Hara. "That is dirty work. People don't do such things +these days. Nobody tears up dollar bills for the pleasure of tearing." + +"Nobody knows what Quarrier will do," muttered Mortimer, who had tried +hard enough to find out when the first ominous rumours arose concerning +Amalgamated, and the first fractional declines left the street +speechless and stupefied. + +O'Hara sat frowning, and fingering his glass. "As a matter of fact," he +said, "a little cold logic shows us that Quarrier isn't in it at all. No +sane man would ruin his own enterprise, when there is no need to. His +people are openly supporting Amalgamated and hammering Inter-County; +and, besides, there's Ferrall in it, and Mrs. Ferrall is Quarrier's +cousin; and there's Belwether in it, and Quarrier is engaged to marry +Sylvia Landis, who is Belwether's niece. It's a scrap with Harrington's +crowd, and the wheels inside of wheels are like Chinese boxes. Who knows +what it means? Only it's plain that Amalgamated is safe, if Quarrier +wants it to be. And unless he does he's crazy." + +Mortimer puffed stolidly at his cigar until the smoke got into his eyes +and inflamed them. He sat for a while, wiping his puffy eyelids with his +handkerchief; then, squinting sideways at Plank, and seeing him still +occupied with Fleetwood, turned bluntly on O'Hara: + +"See here: what do you mean by being nasty to Plank?" he growled. "I'm +backing him. Do you understand?" + +"It is curious," mused O'Hara coolly, "how much of a cad a fairly decent +man can be when he's out of temper!" + +"You mean Plank, or me?" demanded Mortimer, darkening angrily. + +"No; I mean myself. I'm not that way usually. I took him for a bounder, +and he's caught me with the goods on. I've been thinking that the men +who bother with such questions are usually open to suspicion themselves. +Watch me do the civil, now. I'm ashamed of myself." + +"Wait a moment. Will you be civil enough to do something for him at the +Patroons? That will mean something." + +"Is he up? Yes, I will;" and, turning in his chair, he said to Plank: +"Awfully sorry I acted like a bounder just now, after having accepted +your hospitality at the Fells. I did mean to be offensive, and I'm sorry +for that, too. Hope you'll overlook it, and be friendly." + +Plank's face took on the dark-red hue of embarrassment; he looked +questioningly at Mortimer, whose visage remained non-committal, then +directly at O'Hara. + +"I should be very glad to be friends with you," he said with an +ingenuous dignity that surprised Mortimer. It was only the native +simplicity of the man, veneered and polished by constant contact with +Mrs. Mortimer, and now showing to advantage in the grain. And it +gratified Mortimer, because he saw that it was going to make many +matters much easier for himself and his protege. + +The tall glasses were filled and drained again before they departed to +the cold plunge and dressing-rooms above, whence presently they emerged +in street garb to drive down town and lunch together at the Lenox Club, +Plank as Fleetwood's guest. + +Mortimer, very heavy and inert after luncheon, wedged himself into a +great stuffed arm-chair by the window, where he alternately nodded over +his coffee and wheezed in his breathing, and leered out at Fifth Avenue +from half-closed, puffy eyes. And there he was due to sit, sodden and +replete, until the fashionable equipages began to flash past. He'd +probably see his wife driving with Mrs. Ferrall or with Miss Caithness, +or perhaps with some doddering caryatid of the social structure; and +he'd sit there, leering with gummy eyes out of the club windows, while +servants in silent processional replenished his glass from time to time, +until in the early night the trim little shopgirls flocked out into the +highways in gossiping, fluttering coveys, trotting away across the +illuminated asphalt, north and south to their thousand dingy +destinations. And after they had gone he would probably arouse himself +to read the evening paper, or perhaps gossip with Major Belwether and +other white-haired familiars, or perhaps doze until it was time to +summon a cab and go home to dress. + +That afternoon, however, having O'Hara and Fleetwood to give him +countenance, he managed to arouse himself long enough to make Plank +known personally to several of the governors of the club and to a dozen +members, then left him to his fate. Whence, presently, Fleetwood and +O'Hara extracted him--fate at that moment being personified by a +garrulous old gentleman, one Peter Caithness, who divided with Major +Belwether the distinction of being the club bore--and together they +piloted him to the billiard room, where he beat them handily for a +dollar a point at everything they suggested. + +"You play almost as pretty a game as Stephen Siward used to play," said +O'Hara cordially. "You've something of his cue movement--something of his +infernal facility and touch. Hasn't he, Fleetwood?" + +"I wish Siward were back here," said Fleetwood thoughtfully, returning +his cue to his own rack. "I wonder what he does with himself--where he +keeps himself all the while? What the devil is there for a man to do, if +he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's +death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do--go to his +office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and +blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do +you know what he does with himself?" to O'Hara. + +"I don't even know where he lives," observed O'Hara, resuming his coat. +"He's given up his rooms, I understand." + +"What? Don't know the old Siward house?" + +"Oh! does he live there now? Of course; I forgot about his mother. He +had apartments last year, you remember. He gave dinners--corkers they +were. I went to one--like that last one you gave." + +"I wish I'd never given it," said Fleetwood gloomily. "If I hadn't, he'd +be a member here still. . What do you suppose induced him to take that +little gin-drinking cat to the Patroons? Why, man, it wasn't even an +undergraduate's trick! it was the act of a lunatic." + +For a while they talked of Siward, and of his unfortunate story and the +pity of it; and when the two men ceased, + +"Do you know," said Plank mildly, "I don't believe he ever did it." + +O'Hara looked up surprised, then shrugged. "Unfortunately he doesn't +deny it, you see." + +"I heard," said Fleetwood, lighting a cigarette, "that he did deny it; +that he said, no matter what his condition was, he couldn't have done +it. If he had been sober, the governors would have been bound to take +his word of honour. But he couldn't give that, you see. And after they +pointed out to him that he had been in no condition to know exactly what +he did do, he shut up. . And they dropped him; and he's falling yet." + +"I don't believe that sort of a man ever would do that sort of thing," +repeated Plank obstinately, his Delft-blue eyes partly closing, so that +all the Dutch shrewdness and stubbornness in his face disturbed its +highly coloured placidity. And he walked away toward the wash-room to +cleanse his ponderous pink hands of chalk-dust. + +"That's what's the matter with Plank," observed O'Hara to Fleetwood as +Plank disappeared. "It isn't that he's a bounder; but he doesn't know +things; he doesn't know enough, for instance, to wait until he's a +member of a club before he criticises the judgment of its governors. Yet +you can't help tolerating the fellow. I think I'll write a letter for +him, or put down my name. What do you think?" + +"It would be all right," said Fleetwood. "He'll need all the support he +can get, with Leroy Mortimer as his sponsor. . Wasn't Mortimer rather +nasty about Siward though, in his role of the alcoholic prophet? Whew!" + +"Siward never had any use for Mortimer," observed O'Hara. + +"I'll bet you never heard him say so," returned Fleetwood. "You know +Stephen Siward's way; he never said anything unpleasant about any man. I +wish I didn't either, but I do. So do you. So do most men. . Lord! I +wish Siward were back here. He was a good deal of a man, after all, +Tom." + +They were unconsciously using the past tense in discussing Siward, as +though he were dead, either physically or socially. + +"In one way he was always a singularly decent man," mused O'Hara, +walking toward the great marble vestibule and buttoning his overcoat. + +"How exactly do you mean?" + +"Oh, about women." + +"I believe it, too. If he did take that Vyse girl into the Patroons, it +was his limit with her--and, I believe his limit with any woman. He was +absurdly decent that way; he was indeed. And now look at the reputation +he has! Isn't it funny? isn't it, now?" + +"What sort of an effect do you suppose all this business is going to +have on Siward?" + +"It's had one effect already," replied Fleetwood, as Plank came up, +ready for the street. "Ferrall says he looks sick, and Belwether says +he's going to the devil; but that's the sort of thing the major is +likely to say. By the way, wasn't there something between that pretty +Landis girl and Siward? Somebody--some damned gossiping somebody--talked +about it somewhere, recently." + +"I don't believe that, either," said Plank, in his heavy, measured, +passionless voice, as they descended the steps of the white portico and +looked around for a cab. + +"As for me, I've got to hustle," observed O'Hara, glancing at his watch. +"I'm due to shine at a function about five. Are you coming up-town +either of you fellows? I'll give you a lift as far as Seventy-second +Street, Plank." + +"Tell you what we'll do," said Fleetwood, impulsively, turning to Plank: +"We'll drive down town, you and I, and we'll look up poor old Siward! +Shall we? He's probably all alone in that God-forsaken red brick family +tomb! Shall we? How about it, Plank?" + +O'Hara turned impatiently on his heel with a gesture of adieu, climbed +into his electric hansom, and went buzzing away up the avenue. + +"I'd like to, but I don't think I know Mr. Siward well enough to do +that," said Plank diffidently. He hesitated, colouring up. "He might +misunderstand my going with you--as a liberty--which perhaps I might not +have ventured on had he been less--less unfortunate." + +Again Fleetwood warmed toward the ruddy, ponderous young man beside him. +"See here," he said, "you are going as a friend of mine--if you care to +look at it that way." + +"Thank you," said Plank; "I should be very glad to go in that way." + +The Siward house was old only in the comparative Manhattan meaning of +the word; for in New York nothing is really very old, except the faces +of the young men. + +Decades ago it had been considered a big house, and it was still so +spoken of--a solid, dingy, red brick structure, cubical in proportions, +surmounted by heavy chimneys, the depth of its sunken windows hinting of +the thickness of wall and foundation. Window-curtains of obsolete +pattern, all alike, and all drawn, masked the blank panes. Three massive +wistaria-vines, the gnarled stems as thick as tree-trunks, crawled +upward to the roof, dividing the facade equally, and furnishing some +relief to its flatness, otherwise unbroken except by the deep reveals of +window and door. Two huge and unsymmetrical catalpa trees stood +sentinels before it, dividing curb from asphalt; and from the centres of +the shrivelled, brown grass-plots flanking the stoop under the basement +windows two aged Rose-of-Sharon trees bristled naked to the height of +the white marble capitals of the flaking pillars supporting the stained +portico. + +An old New York house, in the New York sense. Old in another sense, too, +where in a rapid land Time outstrips itself, painting, with the +antiquity of centuries, the stone and mortar which were new scarce ten +years since. + +"Nice old family mausoleum," commented Fleetwood, descending from the +hansom, followed by Plank. The latter instinctively mounted the stoop on +tiptoe, treading gingerly as one who ventures into precincts unknown but +long respected; and as Fleetwood pulled the old-fashioned bell, Plank +stole a glance over the facade, where wisps of straw trailed from +sparrows' nests, undisturbed, wedged between plinth and pillar; where, +behind the lace pane-screens, shadowy edges of heavy curtains framed the +obscurity; where the paint had blistered and peeled from the iron +railings, and the marble pillars of the portico glimmered, scarred by +frosts of winters long forgotten. + +"Cheerful monument," repeated Fleetwood with a sarcastic nod. Then the +door was opened by a very old man wearing the black "swallow-tail" +clothes and choker of an old-time butler, spotless, quite immaculate, +but cut after a fashion no young man remembers. + +"Good evening," said Fleetwood, entering, followed on tiptoe by Plank. + +"Good evening, sir." . A pause; and in the unsteady voice of age: "Mr. +Fleetwood, sir. . Mr.--." A bow, and the dim eyes peering up at Plank, +who stood fumbling for his card-case. + +Fleetwood dropped both cards on the salver unsteadily extended. The +butler ushered them into a dim room on the right. + +"How is Mr. Siward?" asked Fleetwood, pausing on the threshold and +dropping his voice. + +The old man hesitated, looking down, then still looking away from +Fleetwood: "Bravely, sir, bravely, Mr. Fleetwood." + +"The Siwards were always that," said the young man gently. + +"Yes, sir. . Thank you. Mr. Stephen--Mr. Siward," he corrected, quaintly, +"is indisposed, sir. It was a--a great shock to us all, sir!" He bowed +and turned away, holding his salver stiffly; and they heard him +muttering under his breath, "Bravely, sir, bravely. A--a great shock, +sir! . Thank you." + +Fleetwood turned to Plank, who stood silent, staring through the fading +light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light +touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the +carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished +mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, +and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to +another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish. + +"This is the real thing," observed Fleetwood cynically, "all this Fourth +Avenue antique business; dingy, cumbersome, depressing. Good God! I see +myself standing it. . Look at that old grinny-bags in a pig-tail over +there! To the cellar for his, if this were my house. . We've got some, +too, in several rooms, and I never go into 'em. They're like a scene in +a bum play, or like one of those Washington Square rat-holes, where +artists eat Welsh-rabbits with dirty fingers. Ugh!" + +"I like it," said Plank, under his breath. + +Fleetwood stared, then shrugged, and returned to the window to watch a +brand-new French motor-car drawn up before a modern mansion across the +avenue. + +The butler returned presently, saying that Mr. Siward was at home and +would receive them in the library above, as he was not yet able to pass +up and down stairs. + +"I didn't know he was as ill as that," muttered Fleetwood, as he and +Plank followed the old man up the creaking stairway. But Gumble, the +butler, said nothing in reply. + +Siward was sitting in an arm-chair by the window, one leg extended, his +left foot, stiffly cased in bandages, resting on a footstool. + +"Why, Stephen!" exclaimed Fleetwood, hastening forward, "I didn't know +you were laid up like this!" + +Siward offered his hand inquiringly; then his eyes turned toward Plank, +who stood behind Fleetwood; and, slowly disengaging his hand from +Fleetwood's sympathetic grip, he offered it to Plank. + +"It is very kind of you," he said. "Gumble, Mr. Fleetwood prefers rye, +for some inscrutable reason. Mr. Plank?" His smile was a question. + +"If you don't mind," said Plank, "I should like to have some tea--that +is, if--" + +"Tea, Gumble, for two. We'll tipple in company, Mr. Plank," he added. +"And the cigars are at your elbow, Billy," with another smile at +Fleetwood. + +"Now," said the latter, after he had lighted his cigar, "what is the +matter, Stephen?" + +Siward glanced at his stiffly extended foot. "Nothing much." He reddened +faintly, "I slipped. It's only a twisted ankle." + +For a moment or two the answer satisfied Fleetwood, then a sudden, +curious flash of suspicion came into his eyes; he glanced sharply at +Siward, who lowered his eyes, while the red tint in his hollow cheeks +deepened. + +Neither spoke for a while. Plank sipped the tea which Wands, the second +man, brought. Siward brooded over his cup, head bent. Fleetwood made +more noise than necessary with his ice. + +"I miss you like hell!" said Fleetwood musingly, measuring out the old +rye from the quaint decanter. "Why did you drop the Saddle Club, +Stephen?" + +"I'm not riding; I have no use for it," replied Siward. + +"You've cut out the Proscenium Club, too, and the Owl's Head, and the +Trophy. It's a shame, Stephen." + +"I'm tired of clubs." + +"Don't talk that way." + +"Very well, I won't," said Siward, smiling. "Tell me what is +happening--out there," he made a gesture toward the window; "all the +gossip the newspapers miss. I've talked Dr. Grisby to death; I've talked +Gumble to death; I've read myself stupid. What's going on, Billy?" + +So Fleetwood sketched for him a gay cartoon of events, caricaturing +various episodes in the social kaleidoscope which might interest him. He +gossiped cynically, but without malice, about people they both knew, +about engagements, marriages, and divorces, plans and ambitions; about +those absent from the metropolis and the newcomers to be welcomed. He +commented briefly on the opera, reviewed the newer plays at the +theatres, touched on the now dormant gaiety which had made the season at +nearby country clubs conspicuous; then drifted into the hunting field, +gossiping pleasantly in the vernacular about horses and packs and drag- +hunts and stables, and what people thought of the new English hounds of +the trial pack, and how the new M. F. H., Maitland Gray, had managed to +break so many bones at Southbury. + +Politics were touched upon, and they spoke of the possibility of Ferrall +going to the Assembly, the sport of boss-baiting having become +fashionable among amateurs, and providing a new amusement for the idle +rich. + +So city, State, and national issues were run through lightly, business +conditions noticed, the stock market speculated upon; and presently +conversation died out, with a yawn from Fleetwood as he looked into his +empty glass at the last bit of ice. + +"Don't do that, Billy," smiled Siward. "You haven't discoursed upon art, +literature, and science yet, and you can't go until you've adjusted the +affairs of the nation for the next twenty-four hours." + +"Art?" yawned Fleetwood. "Oh, pictures? Don't like 'em. Nobody ever +looks at 'em except debutantes, who do it out of deviltry, to floor a +man at a dinner or a dance." + +"How about literature?" inquired Siward gravely. "Anything doing?" + +"Nothing in it," replied Fleetwood more gravely still. "It's another +feminine bluff--like all that music talk they hand you after the opera." + +"I see. And science?" + +"Spider Flynn is matched to meet Kid Holloway; is that what you mean, +Stephen? Somebody tumbled out of an air-ship the other day; is that what +you mean? And they're selling scientific jewelry on Broadway at a dollar +a quart; is that what you want to know?" + +Siward rested his head on his hand with a smile. "Yes, that's about what +I wanted to know, Billy--all about the arts and sciences. . Much obliged. +You needn't stay any longer, if you don't want to." + +"How soon will you be out?" inquired Fleetwood. + +"Out? I don't know. I shall try to drive to the office to-morrow." + +"Why the devil did you resign from all your clubs? How can I see you if +I don't come here?" began Fleetwood impatiently. "I know, of course, +that you're not going anywhere, but a man always goes to his club. You +don't look well, Stephen. You are too much alone." + +Siward did not answer. His face and body had certainly grown thinner +since Fleetwood had last seen him. Plank, too, had been shocked at the +change in him--the dark, hard lines under the eyes; the pallor, the +curious immobility of the man, save for his fingers, which were always +restless, now moving in search of some small object to worry and turn +over and over, now nervously settling into a grasp on the arm of his +chair. + +"How is Amalgamated Electric?" asked Fleetwood, abruptly. + +"I think it's all right. Want to buy some?" replied Siward, smiling. + +Plank stirred in his chair ponderously. "Somebody is kicking it to +pieces," he said. + +"Somebody is trying to," smiled Siward. + +"Harrington," nodded Fleetwood. Siward nodded back. Plank was silent. + +"Of course," continued Fleetwood, tentatively, "you people need not +worry, with Howard Quarrier back of you." + +Nobody said anything for a while. Presently Siward's restless hands, +moving in search of something, encountered a pencil lying on the table +beside him, and he picked it up and began drawing initials and scrolls +on the margin of a newspaper; and all the scrolls framed initials, and +all the initials were the same, twining and twisting into endless +variations of the letters S. L. + +"Yes, I must go to the office to-morrow," he repeated absently. "I am +better--in fact I am quite well, except for this sprain." He looked down +at his bandaged foot, then his pencil moved listlessly again, continuing +the endless variations on the two letters. It was plain that he was +tired. + +Fleetwood rose and made his adieux almost affectionately. Plank moved +forward on tiptoe, bulky and noiseless; and Siward held out his hand, +saying something amiably formal. + +"Would you like to have me come again?" asked Plank, red with +embarrassment, yet so naively that at first Siward found no words to +answer him; then-- + +"Would you care to come, Mr. Plank?" + +"Yes." + +Siward looked at him curiously, almost cautiously. His first impressions +of the man had been summed up in one contemptuous word. Besides, barring +that, what was there in common between himself and such a type as Plank? +He had not even troubled himself to avoid him at Shotover; he had merely +been aware of him when Plank spoke to him; never otherwise, except that +afternoon beside the swimming pool, when he had made one of his rare +criticisms on Plank. + +Perhaps Plank had changed, perhaps Siward had; for he found nothing +offensive in the bulky young man now--nothing particularly attractive, +either, except for a certain simplicity, a certain direct candour in the +heavy blue eyes which met his squarely. + +"Come in for a cigar when you have a few moments idle," said Siward +slowly. + +"It will give me great pleasure," said Plank, bowing. + +And that was all. He followed Fleetwood down the stairs; Wands held +their coats, and bowed them out into the falling shadows of the winter +twilight. + +Siward, sitting beside his window, watched them enter their hansom and +drive away up the avenue. A dull flush had settled over his cheeks; the +aroma of spirits hung in the air, and he looked across the room at the +decanter. Presently he drank some of his tea, but it was lukewarm, and +he pushed the cup from him. + +The clatter of the cup brought the old butler, who toddled hither and +thither, removing trays, pulling chairs into place, fussing and +pattering about, until a maid came in noiselessly, bearing a lamp. She +pulled down the shades, drew the sad-coloured curtains, went to the +mantelpiece and peered at the clock, then brought a wineglass and a +spoon to Siward, and measured the dose in silence. He swallowed it, +shrugged, permitted her to change the position of his chair and +footstool, and nodded thanks and dismissal. + +"Gumble, are you there?" he asked carelessly. + +The butler entered from the hallway. "Yes, sir." + +"You may leave that decanter." + +But the old servant may have misunderstood, for he only bowed and ambled +off downstairs with the decanter, either heedless or deaf to his +master's sharp order to return. + +For a while Siward sat there, eyes fixed, scowling into vacancy; then +the old, listless, careworn expression returned; he rested one elbow on +the window-sill, his worn cheek on his hand, and with the other hand +fell to weaving initials with his pencil on the margin of the newspaper +lying on the table beside him. + +Lamplight brought out sharply the physical change in him--the angular +shadows flat under the cheek-bones, the hard, slightly swollen flesh in +the bluish shadows around the eyes. The mark of the master-vice was +there; its stamp in the swollen, worn-out hollows; its imprint in the +fine lines at the corners of his mouth; its sign manual in the faintest +relaxation of the under lip, which had not yet become a looseness. + +For the last of the Siwards had at last stepped into the highway which +his doomed forebears had travelled before him. + +"Gumble!" he called irritably. + +A quavering voice, an unsteady step, and the old man entered again. "Mr. +Stephen, sir?" + +"Bring that decanter back. Didn't you hear me tell you just now?" + +"Sir?" + +"Didn't you hear me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Stephen, sir." + +There was a silence. + +"Gumble!" + +"Sir?" + +"Are you going to bring that decanter?" + +The old butler bowed, and ambled from the room, and for a long while +Siward sat sullenly listening and scoring the edges of the paper with +his trembling pencil. Then the lead broke short, and he flung it from +him and pulled the bell. Wands came this time, a lank, sandy, silent +man, grown gray as a rat in the service of the Siwards. He received his +master's orders, and withdrew; and again Siward waited, biting his under +lip and tearing bits from the edges of the newspaper with fingers never +still; but nobody came with the decanter, and after a while his tense +muscles relaxed; something in his very soul seemed to snap, and he sank +back in his chair, the hot tears blinding him. + +He had got as far as that; moments of self-pity were becoming almost as +frequent as scorching intervals of self-contempt. + +So they all knew what was the matter with him--they all knew--the doctor, +the servants, his friends. Had he not surprised the quick suspicion in +Fleetwood's glance, when he told him he had slipped, and sprained his +ankle? What if he had been drunk when he fell--fell on his own +doorsteps, carried into the old Siward house by old Siward servants, +drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood's business. It was +none of the servants' business. It was nobody's business except his own. +Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and doctor +him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide +decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle +with him? Of what concern to them were his vices or his virtues? + +The tears dried in his hot eyes; he jerked the old-fashioned bell +savagely; and after a long while he heard servants whispering together +in the passageway outside his door. + +He lay very still in his chair; his hearing had become abnormally acute, +but he could not make out what they were saying; and as the dull, +intestinal aching grew sharper, parching, searing every strained muscle +in throat and chest, he struck the table beside him, and clenched his +teeth in the fierce rush of agony that swept him from head to foot, +crying out an inarticulate menace on his household. And Dr. Grisby came +into the room from the outer shadows of the hall. + +He was very small, very meagre, very bald, and clean-shaven, with a face +like a nut-cracker; and the brown wig he wore was atrocious, and curled +forward over his colourless ears. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles, each +glass divided into two lenses; and he stood on tiptoe to look out +through the upper lenses on the world, and always bent almost double to +use the lower or reading lenses. + +Besides that, he affected frilled shirts, and string ties, which nobody +had ever seen snugly tied. His loose string tie was the first thing +Siward could remember about the doctor; and that the doctor had +permitted him to pull it when he had the measles, at the age of six. + +"What's all this racket?" said the little old doctor harshly. "Got +colic? Got the toothache? I'm ashamed of you, Stephen, cutting capers +and pounding the furniture! Look up! Look at me! Out with your tongue! +Well, now, what the devil's the trouble?" + +"You--know," muttered Siward, abandoning his wrist to the little man, who +seated himself beside him. Dr. Grisby scarcely noted the pulse; the +delicate pressure had become a strong caress. + +"Know what?" he grunted. "How do I know what's the matter with you? Hey? +Now, now, don't try to explain, Steve; don't fly off the handle! All +right; grant that I do know what's bothering you; I want to see that +ankle first. Here, somebody! Light that gas. Why the mischief don't you +have the house wired for electricity, Stephen? It's wholesome. Gas +isn't. Lamps are worse, sir. Do as I tell you!" And he went on +loquaciously, grumbling and muttering, and never ceasing his talk, while +Siward, wincing as the dressing was removed, lay back and closed his +eyes. + +Half an hour later Gumble appeared, to announce dinner. + +"I don't want any," said Siward. + +"Eat!" said Dr. Grisby harshly. + +"I--don't care to." + +"Eat, I tell you! Do you think I don't mean what I say?" + +So he ate his broth and toast, the doctor curtly declining to join him. +He ate hurriedly, closing his eyes in aversion. Even the iced tea was +flat and distasteful to him. + +And at last he lay back, white and unstrung, the momentarily deadened +desperation glimmering under his half-closed eyes. And for a long while +Dr. Grisby sat, doubled almost in two, cuddling his bony little knees +and studying the patterns in the faded carpet. + +"I guess you'd better go, Stephen," he said at length. + +"Up the river--to Mulqueen's?" + +"Yes. Let's try it, Steve. You'll be on your feet in two weeks. Then +you'd better go--up the river--to Mulqueen's." + +"I--I'll go, if you say so. But I can't go now." + +"I didn't say go now. I said in two weeks." + +"Perhaps." + +"Will you give me your word?" demanded the doctor sharply. + +"No, doctor." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I may have to be here on business. There seems to be some sort +of crisis coming which I don't understand." + +"There's a crisis right here, Steve, which I understand!" snapped Dr. +Grisby. "Face it like a man! Face it like a man! You're sick--to your +bones, boy--sick! sick! Fight the fight, Steve! Fight a good fight. +There's a fighting chance; on my soul of honour, there is, Steve, a +fighting chance for you! Now! now, boy! Buckle up tight! Tuck up your +sword-sleeve! At 'em, Steve! Give 'em hell! Oh, my boy, my boy, I know; +I know!" The little man's voice broke, but he steadied it instantly with +a snap of his nut-cracker jaws, and scowled on his patient and shook his +little withered fist at him. + +His patient lay very still in the shadow. + +"I want you to go," said the doctor harshly, "before your self-control +goes. Do you understand? I want you to go before your decision is +undermined; before you begin to do devious things, sly things, cheating +things, slinking things--anything and everything to get at the thing you +crave. I've given you something to fight with, and you won't take it +faithfully. I've given you free rein in tobacco and tea and coffee. I've +helped you as much as I dare to weather the nights. Now, you help me--do +you hear?" + +"Yes . I will." + +"You say so; now do it. Do something for yourself. Do anything! If +you're sick of reading--and I don't blame you, considering the stuff you +read--get people down here to see you; get lots of people. Telephone 'em; +you've a telephone there, haven't you? There it is, by your elbow. Use +it! Call up people. Talk all the time." + +"Yes, I will." + +"Good! Now, Steve, we know what's the matter, physically, don't we? Of +course we do! Now, then, what's the matter mentally?" + +"Mentally?" repeated Siward under his breath. + +"Yes, mentally. What's the trouble? Stocks? Bonds? Lawsuits? Love?" the +slightest pause, and a narrowing of the gimlet eyes behind the lenses. +"Love?" he repeated harshly. "Which is it, boy? They're all good to let +alone." + +"Business," said Siward. But, being a Siward, he was obliged to add +"partly." + +"Business--partly," repeated the doctor. "What's the matter with +business--partly?" + +"I don't know. There are rumours. Hetherington is pounding +us--apparently. That Inter-County crowd is acting ominously, too. There's +something underhand, somewhere." He bent his head and fell to plucking +at the faded brocade on the arm of his chair, muttering to himself, +"somewhere, somehow, something underhand. I don't know what; I really +don't." + +"All right--all right," said the doctor testily; "let it go at that! +There's treachery, eh? You suspect it? You're sure of it--as reasonably +sure as a gentleman can be of something he is not fashioned to +understand? That's it, is it? All right, sir--all right! Very well--ver-y +well. Now, sir, look at me! Business symptoms admitted, what about the +'partly,' Stephen ?--what about it, eh? What about it?" + +But Siward fell silent again. + +"Eh? Did you say something? No? Oh, very well, ver-y well, sir. . +Perfectly correct, Stephen. You have not earned the right to admit +further symptoms. No, sir, you have not earned the right to admit them +to anybody, not even to yourself. Nor to--her!" + +"Doctor!" + +"Sir?" + +"I have--admitted them." + +"To yourself, Steve? I'm sorry. You have no right to--yet. I'm sorry--" + +"I have admitted them--admitted them--to her." + +"That settles it," said the doctor grimly, "that clinches it! That locks +you to the wheel! That pledges you. The squabble is on, now. It's your +honour that's engaged now, not your nerves, not your intestines. It's a +good fight--a very good fight, with no chance of losing anything but +life. You go up the river to Mulqueen's. That's the strategy in this +campaign; that's excellent manoeuvring; that's good generalship! Eh? +Mask your purpose, Steve; make a feint of camping out here under my +guns; then suddenly fling your entire force up the Hudson and fortify +yourself at Mulqueen's! Ho, that'll fix 'em! That's going to astonish +the enemy!" + +His harsh, dry, crackling laughter broke out like the distant rattle of +musketry. + +The ghost of a smile glimmered in Siward's haunted eyes, then faded as +he leaned forward. + +"She has refused me," he said simply. + +The little doctor, after an incredulous stare, began chattering with +wrath. "Refused you! Pah! Pooh! That's nothing! That signifies +absolutely nothing! It's meaningless! It's a detail. You get well--do you +hear? You go and get well; then try it again! Then you'll see! And if +she is an idiot--in the event of her irrational persistence in an +incredible and utterly indefensible attitude"--he choked up, then fairly +barked at Siward--"take her anyway, sir! Run off with her! Dominate +circumstances, sir! take charge of events! . But you can't do it till +you've clapped yourself into prison for life. . And God help you if you +let yourself escape!" + +And after a long while Siward said: "If I should ever marry--and--and--" + +"Had children, eh? Is that it? Oh, it is, eh? Well, I say, marry! I say, +have children! If you're a man, you'll breed men. The chances are they +may not inherit what you have. It skips some generations--some, now and +then. But if they do, good God! I say it's better to be born and have a +chance to fight than never to come into the arena at all! By winning +out, the world learns; by failure, the world is no less wise. The +important thing is birth. The main point is to breed--to produce--to +reproduce! but not until you stand, sword in hand, and your armed heel +on the breast of your prostrate and subconscious self!" + +He jumped up and began running about the room with short little bantam +steps, talking all the while. + +"People say, 'Shall criminals be allowed to mate and produce young? +Shall malefactors be allowed to beget? No!' And I say no, too. Never so +long as they remain criminals and malefactors; so long as the evil in +them is in the ascendant. Never, until they are cured. That's what I +say; that's what I maintain. Crime is a disease; criminals are sick +people. No marriage for them until they're cured; no children for them +until they're well. If they cure themselves, let 'em marry; let 'em +breed; for then, if their children inherit the inclination, they also +inherit the grit to cauterise the malady." + +He produced a huge handkerchief from the tails of his coat, and wiped +his damp features and polished his forehead so violently that his wig +took a new and jaunty angle. + +"I'm talking too much," he said fretfully; "I'm talking a great deal--all +the time--continually. I've other patients--several--plenty! Do you think +you're the only man I know who's trying to disfigure his liver and make +spots come out all over inside him? Do you?" + +Siward smiled again, a worn, pallid smile. + +"I can stand it while you are here, doctor, but when I'm alone +it's--hard. One of those crises is close now. I've a bad night ahead--a +bad outlook. Couldn't you--" + +"No!" + +"Just enough--" + +"No, Stephen." + +"--Enough to dull it--just a little? I don't ask for enough to make me +sleep--not even to make me doze. You have your needle; haven't you, +doctor?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, just this once--for the last time." + +"No." + +"Why? Are you afraid? You needn't be, doctor. I don't care for it except +to give me a little respite, a little rest on a night like this. I'm so +tired of this ache. If I could only have some sleep, and wake up in good +shape, I'd stand a better chance of fighting. . Wait, doctor! Just one +moment. I don't mean to be a coward, but I've had a hard fight, and--I'm +tired. . If you could see your way to helping me--" + +"I dare not help you any more that way." + +"Not this once?" + +"Not this once." + +There was a dead silence, broken at last by the doctor with a violent +gesture toward the telephone. "Talk to the girl! Why don't you talk to +the girl! If she's worth a hill o' beans she'll help you to hang on. +What's she for, if she isn't for such moments? Tell her you need her +voice; tell her you need her faith in you. Damn central! Talk out in +church! Don't make a goddess of a woman. The men who want to marry her, +and can't, will do that! The nincompoop can always be counted on to +deify the commonplace. And she is commonplace. If she isn't, she's no +good! Commend me to sanity and the commonplace. I take off my hat to it! +I honour it. God bless it! Good-night!" + +Siward lay still for a long while after the doctor had gone. More than +an hour had passed before he slowly sat up and groped for the telephone +book, opened it, and searched in a blind, hesitating way until he found +the number he was looking for. + +He had never telephoned to her; he had never written her except once, in +reply to her letter in regard to his mother's death--that strange, timid, +formal letter, in which, grief-stunned as he was, he saw only the +formality, and had answered it more formally still. And that was all +that had come of the days and nights by that northern sea--a letter and +its answer, and silence. + +And, thinking of these things, he shut the book wearily, and lay back in +the shadow of the faded curtain, closing his sunken eyes. + + + +CHAPTER IX CONFESSIONS + +In a city in transition, where yesterday is as dead as a dead century, +where those who prepare the old year for burial are already taking the +ante-mortem statement of the new, the future fulfils the functions of +the present. Time itself is considered merely as a by-product of horse- +power, discounted with flippancy as the unavoidable friction clogging +the fly-wheel of progress. + +Memory, once a fine art, is becoming a lost art in Manhattan. + +His world and his city had almost ceased to think of Siward. + +For a few weeks men spoke of him in the several clubs of which he had +lately been a member--spoke of him always in the past tense; and after a +little while spoke of him no more. + +In that section of the social system which he had inhabited, his absence +on account of his mother's death being taken for granted, people laid +him away in their minds almost as ceremoniously as they had laid away +the memory of his mother. Nothing halted because he was not present; +nothing was delayed, rearranged, or abandoned because his familiar +presence chanced to be missing. There remained only one more place to +fill at a cotillion, dinner, or bridge party; only another man for opera +box or week's end; one man the more to be counted on, one more man to be +counted out--transferred to the credit of profit and loss, and the ledger +closed for the season. + +They who remembered him, among those who had not yet lost that old- +fashioned art, were very few--a young girl here and there, over whom he +had been absent-mindedly sentimental; a debutante or two who had adored +him from a distance as a friend of elder sister or brother; here and +there an old, old lady to whom he had been considerate, and who perhaps +remembered something of the winning charm of the Siwards when the town +was young--his father, perhaps, perhaps his grandfather--these thought of +him at intervals; the remainder had no leisure to remember even if they +had not forgotten how to do it. Several cabmen missed him for a while; +now and then a privileged cafe waiter inquired about him from gay, noisy +parties entering some old haunt of his. Mr. Desmond, of art gallery and +roulette notoriety, whose business is not to forget, was politely +regretful at his absence from certain occult ceremonies which he had at +irregular intervals graced with votive offerings. And the list ended +there--almost, not quite; for there were two people who had not forgotten +Siward: Howard Quarrier and Beverly Plank; and one other, a third, who +could not yet forget him if she would--but, as yet, she had not tried +very desperately. + +The day that Siward left New York to visit everybody's friend, Mr. +Mulqueen, in the country, Plank called on him for the second time in his +life, and was presently received in the south drawing-room, the library +being limited to an informality and intimacy not for Mr. Plank. + +Siward, still lame, and using unskilfully two shiny new crutches, came +down the stairs and stumped into the drawing-room, which, in spite of +the sombre, clustering curtains, was brightly illuminated by the winter +sunshine reflected from the snow in the street. Plank was shocked at the +change in him--at the ghost of a voice, listlessly formal; at the thin, +nerveless hand offered; startled, so that he forgot his shyness, and +retained the bony hand tightly in his, and instinctively laid his other +great cushion-like paw over it, holding it imprisoned, unable to speak, +unconscious, in the impulse of the moment, of the liberty he permitted +himself, and which he had never dreamed of taking with such a man as +Siward. + +The effect on Siward was composite; his tired voice ceased; surprise, +inability to understand tinged with instinctive displeasure, were +succeeded by humourous curiosity; and, very slowly it became plain to +him that this beefy young man liked him, was naively concerned about +him, felt friendly toward him, and was showing it as spontaneously as a +child. Because he now understood something of how it is with a man who +is in the process of being forgotten, his perceptions were perhaps the +finer in these days, and the direct unconsciousness of Plank touched him +more heavily than the pair of heavy hands enclosing his. + +"I thought I'd come," began Plank, growing redder and redder as he began +to realise the enormity of familiarity committed only on the warrant of +impulse. "You don't look well." + +"It was good of you to think of me," said Siward. "Come up to the +library, if you've a few minutes to spare an invalid. Please go first; +I'm a trifle lame yet." + +"I--I am sorry," muttered Plank, "very, very sorry." + +At first, in the library, Plank was awkward and silent, finding nothing +to say, and nowhere to dispose of his hands, until Siward gave him a +cigar to occupy his fingers. Even then he continued to sit +uncomfortably, his bulk balanced on a rickety, spindle-legged chair, +which he stubbornly refused to exchange for another, at Siward's +suggestion, out of sheer embarrassment, and with a confused idea that +his refusal would somehow ultimately put him at his ease with his +surroundings. + +Siward, secretly amused, rang for tea, although the hour was early. +After a little while, either the toast or the tea appeared to act on +Plank as a lingual laxative, for he began suddenly to talk, which is +characteristic of bashful men; and Siward gravely helped him on when he +floundered and turned shy. After a little, matters went very well with +them, and Plank, much more at ease than he had ever dared to hope he +could be with Siward, talked and talked; and Siward, his crutches across +his knees, lay back in his arm-chair, chatting with that winning +informality so becoming to men who are unconscious of their charm. + +Watching Plank, it occurred to him gradually that this great, cumbersome +creature was not a shrewd, thrifty, self-made and self-finished adult at +all; only a big, wistful, lonely boy, without comrades and with nowhere +to play. On Plank's round face there remained no trace of shrewdness, of +stubbornness, nothing even of the heavy, saturnine placidity of a dogged +man who waits his turn. + +Plank spoke of himself after a while, sounding the personal note with +tentative timidity. Siward gravely encouraged him, and in a little while +the outlines of his crude autobiography appeared, embodying his +eventless boyhood in a Pennsylvania town; his career at the high school; +the dawning desire for college equipment, satisfied by his father, who +owned shares in the promising Deepvale Steel Plank Company; the unhappy +years at Harvard--hard years, for he learned with difficulty; solitary +years, for he was not sought by those whom he desired to know. Then he +ventured to speak of his father's growing interest in steel; the merging +and absorbing of independent plants; his own entry upon the scene on the +death of his father; and--the rest--material fortune and prosperity, +which, perhaps, might stand substitute as a social sponsor for him; +stand, perhaps, for something of what he lacked in himself, which only +long residence amid the best, long-formed habits for the best, or a long +inheritance of the best could give. Did Siward think so? Was the best +beyond his reach? Was it hopeless for such a man as he to try? And why? + +The innocent snobbery, the abashed but absolute simplicity of this +ponderous pilgrim from the smelting pits clambering upward through the +high school of the smoky town, groping laboriously through the chilly +halls of Harvard toward the outer breastworks of Manhattan, interested +Siward; and he said so in his pleasant way, without offence, and with a +smiling question at the end. + +"Worth while?" repeated Plank, flushing heavily, "it is worth while to +me. I have always desired to be a part of the best that there is in my +own country; and the best is here, isn't it? " + +"Not necessarily," said Siward, still smiling. "The noisiest is here, +and some of the best." + +"Which is the best?" inquired Plank naively. + +"Why, all plain people, whose education, breeding, and fortune permit +them the luxury of thinking, and whose tastes, intelligence, and sanity +enable them to express their thoughts. There are such people here, and +some of them form a portion of the gaudier and noisier galaxy we call +society." + +"That is what I wish to be part of," said Plank. "Could you tell me what +are the requirements?" + +"I don't believe I could, exactly," said Siward, amused. "With us, the +social system, as an established and finished system, has too recently +been evolved from outer chaos to be characteristic of anything except +the crudity and energy of the chaos from which it emerged. The balance +between wealth, intelligence, and breeding has not yet been +established--not from lack of wealth or intelligence. The formula has not +been announced, that is all." + +"What is the formula?" insisted Plank. + +"The formula is the receipt for a real society," replied Siward, +laughing. "At present we have its uncombined ingredients in the +raw--noisy wealth and flippant fashion, arrogant intelligence and dowdy +breeding--all excellent materials, when filtered and fused in the +retort; and many of our test tubes have already precipitated pure metal +besides, and our national laboratory is turning out fine alloys. Some +day we'll understand the formula, and we'll weld the entire mass; and +that will be society, Mr. Plank." + +"In the meanwhile," repeated Plank, unsmiling, "I want to be part of the +best we have. I want to be part of the brightness of things. I mean, +that I cannot be contented with an imitation." + +"An imitation?" + +"Of the best--of what you say is not yet society. I ask no more than your +footing among the people of this city. I wish to be able to go where +such men as you go; be permitted, asked, desired to be part of what you +always have been part of. Is it a great deal I ask? Tell me, Mr. +Siward--for I don't know--is it too much to expect?" + +"I don't think it is a very high ambition," said Siward, smiling. "What +you ask is not very much to ask of life, Mr. Plank." + +"But is there any reason why I may not hope to go where I wish to go?" + +"I think it depends upon yourself," said Siward, "upon your capacity for +being, or for making people believe you to be exactly what they require. +You ask me whether you may be able to go where you desire; and I answer +you that there is no limit to any journey except the sprinting ability +of the pilgrim." + +Plank laughed a little, and his squared jaws relaxed; then, after a few +moments' thought: + +"It is curious that what you cast away from you so easily, I am waiting +for with all the patience I have in me. And yet it is always yours to +pick up again whenever you wish; and I may never live to possess it." + +He was so perfectly right that Siward said nothing; in fact, he could +have no particular interest or sympathy for a man's quest of what he +himself did not understand the lack of. Those born without a tag +unmistakably ticketing them and their positions in the world were +perforce ticketed. Siward took it for granted that a man belonged where +he was to be met; and all he cared about was to find him civil, whether +he happened to be a policeman or a master of fox-hounds. + +He was, now that he knew Plank, contented to accept him anywhere he met +him; but Plank's upward evolutions upon the social ladder were of no +interest to him, and his naive snobbery was becoming something of a +bore. + +So Siward directed the conversation into other channels, and Plank, +accepting another cup of tea, became very communicative about his +stables and his dogs, and the preservation of game; and after a while, +looking up confidently at Siward, he said: + +"Do you think it beastly to drive pheasants the way I did at Black +Fells? I have heard that you were disgusted." + +"It isn't my idea of a square deal," said Siward frankly. + +"That settles it, then." + +"But you should not let me interfere with--" + +"I'll take your opinion, and thank you for it. It didn't seem to me to +be the thing; only it's done over here, you know. The De Coursay's and +the--" + +"Yes, I know. . Glad you feel that way about it, Plank. It's pretty +rotten sportsmanship. Don't you think so?" + +"I do. I--would you--I should like to ask you to try some square shooting +at the Fells," stammered Plank, "next season, if you would care to." + +"You're very good. I should like to, if I were going to shoot at all; +but I fancy my shooting days are over, for a while." + +"Over!" + +"Business," nodded Siward, absently grave again. "I see no prospect of +my idling for the next year or two." + +"You are in--in Amalgamated Electric, I think," ventured Plank. + +"Very much in," replied the other frankly. "You've read the papers and +heard rumours, I suppose?" + +"Some. I don't suppose anybody quite understands the attacks on +Amalgamated." + +"I don't--not yet. Do you?" + +Plank sat silent, then his shrewd under lip began to protrude. + +"I'm wondering," he began cautiously, "how much the Algonquin crowd +understands about the matter?" + +Siward's troubled eyes were on him as he spoke, watching closely, +narrowly. + +"I've heard that rumour before," he said. + +"So have I," said Plank, "and it seems incredible." He looked warily at +Siward. "Suppose it is true that the Algonquin Trust Company is +godfather to Inter-County. That doesn't explain why a man should kick +his own door down when there's a bell to ring and servants to let him +in--and out again, too." + +"I have wondered," said Siward, "whether the door he might be inclined +to kick down is really his own door any longer." + +"I, too," said Plank simply. "It may belong to a personal enemy--if he +has any. He could afford to have an enemy, I suppose." + +Siward nodded. + +"Then, hadn't you better--I beg your pardon! You have not asked me to +advise you." + +"No. I may ask your advice some day. Will you give it when I do?" + +"With pleasure," said Plank, so warmly disinterested, so plainly proud +and eager to do a service that Siward, surprised and touched, found no +word to utter. + +Plank rose. Siward attempted to stand up, but had trouble with his +crutches. + +"Please don't try," said Plank, coming over and offering his hand. "May +I stop in again soon? Oh, you are off to the country for a month or two? +I see. . You don't look very well. I hope it will benefit you. Awfully +glad to have seen you. I--I hope you won't forget me--entirely." + +"I am the man people are forgetting," returned Siward, "not you. It was +very nice of you to come. You are one of very few who remember me at +all." + +"I have very few people to remember," said Plank; "and if I had as many +as I could desire I should remember you first." + +Here he became very much embarrassed. Siward offered his hand again. +Plank shook it awkwardly, and went away on tiptoe down the stairs which +creaked decorously under his weight. + +And that ended the first interview between Plank and Siward in the first +days of the latter's decline. + +The months that passed during Siward's absence from the city began to +prove rather eventful for Plank. He was finally elected a member of the +Patroons Club, without serious opposition; he had dined twice with the +Kemp Ferralls; he and Major Belwether were seen together at the +Caithness dance, and in the Caithness box at the opera. Once a +respectable newspaper reported him at Tuxedo for the week's end; his +name, linked with the clergy, frequently occupied such space under the +column headed "Ecclesiastical News" as was devoted to the progress of +the new chapel, and many old ladies began to become familiar with his +name. + +At the right moment the Mortimers featured him between two fashionable +bishops at a dinner. Mrs. Vendenning, who adored bishops, immediately +remembered him among those asked to her famous annual bal poudre; a +celebrated yacht club admitted him to membership; a whole shoal of +excellent minor clubs which really needed new members followed suit, and +even the rock-ribbed Lenox, wearied of its own time-honoured immobility, +displayed the preliminary fidgets which boded well for the stolid +candidate. The Mountain was preparing to take the first stiff step +toward Mohammed. It was the prophet's cue to sit tight and yawn +occasionally. + +Meanwhile he didn't want to; he was becoming anxious to do things for +himself, which Leila Mortimer, of course, would not permit. It was +difficult for him to understand that any effort of his own would +probably be disastrous; that progress could come only through his own +receptive passivity; that nothing was demanded, nothing required, +nothing permitted from him as yet, save a capacity for assimilating such +opportunities as sections of the social system condescended to offer. + +For instance, he wanted to open his art gallery to the public; he said +it was good strategy; and Mrs. Mortimer sat upon the suggestion with a +shrug of her pretty shoulders. Well, then, couldn't he possibly do +something with his great, gilded ball-room? No, he couldn't; and the +less in evidence his galleries and his ball-rooms were at present the +better his chances with people who, perfectly aware that he possessed +them, were very slowly learning to overlook the insolence of the +accident that permitted him to possess what they had never known the +want of. First of all people must tire of repeating to each other that +he was nobody, and that would happen when they wearied of explaining to +one another why he was ever asked anywhere. There was time enough for +him to offer amusement to people after they had ceased to find amusement +in snubbing him; plenty of time in the future for them to lash him to a +gallop for their pleasure. In the meanwhile he was doing very well, +because he began to appear regularly in the Caithness-Bonnesdel box, and +old Peter Caithness was already boring him at the Patroons; which meant +that the thrifty old gentleman considered Plank's millions as a possible +underpinning for the sagging house of Caithness, of which his pallid +daughter Agatha was the sole sustaining caryatid in perspective. + +Yes, he was doing well; for that despotic beauty, Sylvia Landis, whose +capricious perversity had recently astonished those who remembered her +in her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was +always friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important, +considering Sylvia's unassailable position, and her kinship to the +autocratic old lady whose kindly ukase had for generations remained the +undisputed law in the social system of Manhattan. + +"There is another matter," said Leila Mortimer innocently, as Plank, +lingering after a disastrous rubber of bridge with her, her husband, and +Agatha Caithness, had followed her into her own apartments to write his +cheque for what he owed. "You've driven with me so much and you come +here so often and we are seen together so frequently that the clans are +sharpening up their dirks for us. And that helps some." + +"What!" exclaimed Plank, reddening, and twisting around in his chair. + +"Certainly. You didn't suppose I could escape, did you?" + +"Escape! What?" demanded Plank, getting redder. + +"Escape being talked about, savagely, mercilessly. Can't you see how it +helps? Oh dear, are you stupid, Beverly? + +"I don't know," replied Plank, staring, "just how stupid I am. If you +mean that I'm compromising you--" + +"Oh, please! Why do you use back-stairs words? Nobody talks about +compromising now; all that went out with New Year's calls and brown- +stone stoops." + +"What do they call it, then?" asked Plank seriously. + +"Call what? you great boy!" + +"What you say I'm doing?" + +"I don't say it." + +"Who does?" + +Leila laughed, leaned back in her big, padded chair, dropping one knee +over the other. Her dark eyes with the Japanese slant to them rested +mockingly on Plank, who had now turned completely around in his chair, +leaving his half-written cheque on her escritoire behind him. + +"You're simply credited with an affair with a pretty woman," she said, +watching the dull colour mounting to his temples, "and that is certain +to be useful to you, and it doesn't affect me. What on earth are you +blushing about?" And as he said nothing, she added, with a daring little +laugh: "You are credited with being very agreeable, you see." + +"If--if that's the way you take it--" he began. + +"Of course! What do you expect me to do--call for help before I'm hurt?" + +"You mean that this talk--gossip--doesn't hurt?" + +"How silly!" She looked at him, smiling. "You know how likely I am to +require protection from your importunities." She dropped her pretty +head, and began plaiting with her fingers the silken gown over her knee. +"Or how likely I would be to shriek for it even if"--she looked up with +childlike directness--"even if I needed it." + +"Of course you can take care of yourself," said Plank, wincing. + +"I could, if I wanted to." + +"Everybody knows that. I know it, Leroy knows it; only I don't care to +figure as that kind of man." + +Already he had lost sight of her position in the matter; and she drew a +long, quiet breath, almost like a sigh. + +"Time enough after you marry," she said deliberately, and lighted a +cigarette from a candle, recreating her knees the other way. + +He considered her, started to speak, checked himself, and swung around +to the desk again. His pen hovered over the space to be filled in. He +tried to recollect the amount, hesitated, dated the cheque and affixed +his signature, still trying to remember; then be looked at her over his +shoulder. + +"I forget the exact amount." + +She surveyed him through the haze of her cigarette, but made no answer. + +"I forget the amount," he repeated. + +"So do I," she nodded indolently. + +"But I--" + +"Let it go. Besides, I shall not accept it." + +He flushed up, astonished. "You can't refuse to take a gambling debt." + +"I do," she retorted coolly. "I'm tired of taking your money." + +"But you won it." + +"I'm tired of winning it. It is all I ever do win . from you." + +Her pretty head was wreathed in smoke. She tipped the ashes from the +cigarette's end, watching them fall to powder on the rug. + +"I don't know what you mean," he persisted doggedly. + +"Don't you? I don't believe I do, either. There are intervals in my +career which might prove eloquent if I opened my lips. But I don't, +except to make floating rings and cabalistic signs out of cigarette +smoke. Can you read their meaning? Look! There goes one, and there's +another, and another--all twisting and uncurling into hieroglyphics. They +are very significant; they might tell you a lot of things, if you would +only translate them. But you haven't the key--have you?" + +There was a heavy, jarring step in the main living-room, and Mortimer's +bulk darkened the doorway. + +"Entrez, mon ami," nodded Leila, glancing up. "Where is Agatha?" + +"I'm going to Desmond's," he grunted, ignoring his wife's question; "do +you want to try it again, Beverly?" + +"I can't make Leila take her own winnings," said Plank, holding out the +signed but unfilled cheque to Mortimer, who took it and scrutinised it +for a moment, rubbing his heavy, inflamed eyes; then, gesticulating, the +cheque fluttering in his puffy fingers: + +"Come on," he insisted. "I've a notion that I can give Desmond a whirl +that he won't forget in a hurry. Agatha's asleep; she's going to that +ball--where is it?" he demanded, turning on his wife. "Yes, yes; the Page +blow-out. You're going, I suppose?" + +Leila nodded, and lighted another cigarette. + +"All right," continued Mortimer impatiently; "you and Agatha won't start +before one. And if you think Plank had better go, why, we'll be back +here in time." + +"That means you won't be back at all," observed his wife coolly; "and +it's good policy for Beverly to go where he's asked. Can't you turn in +and sleep, now, and amuse your friend Desmond to-morrow night?" + +"No, I can't. What a fool I'd be to let a chance slip when I feel like a +winner!" + +"You never feel otherwise when you gamble," said Leila. + +"Yes, I do," he retorted peevishly. "I can tell almost every time what +the cards are going to do to me. Leila, go to sleep. We'll be back here +for you by one, or half past." + +"Look here, Leroy," began Plank, "there's one thing I can't stand for, +and that's this continual loss of sleep. If I go with you I'll not be +fit to go to the Pages." + +"What a farmer you are!" sneered Mortimer. "I believe you roost on the +foot-board of your bed, like a confounded turkey. Come on! You'd better +begin training, you know. People in this town are not going to stand for +the merry ploughboy game, you see!" + +But Plank was shrewdly covering his principal reason for declining; he +had too often "temporarily" assisted Mortimer at Desmond's and +Burbank's, when Mortimer, cleaned out and unable to draw against a +balance non-existent, had plucked him by the sleeve from the faro table +with the breathless request for a loan. + +"I tell you I can wring Desmond dry to-night," repeated Mortimer +sullenly. "It isn't a case of 'want to,' either; it's a case of 'got +to.' That old pink-and-white rabbit, Belwether, got me into a game this +afternoon, and between him and Voucher and Alderdine I'm stripped clean +as a kennel bone." + +But Plank shook his head, pretending to yawn; and Mortimer, glowering +and lingering, presently went off, his swollen hands thrust into his +trousers' pockets, his gross features dark with disgust; and presently +they heard the front door slam, and a rattling tattoo of horses' feet on +the asphalt; and Leila sprang up impatiently, and, passing Plank, +traversed the passage to the windows of the front room. + +"He's taken the horses--the beast!" she said calmly, as Plank joined her +at the great windows and looked out into the night, where the round, +drooping, flower-like globes of the electric lamps spread a lake of +silver before the house. + +It was rather rough on Leila. The Mortimers maintained one pair of +horses only; and the use given them at all hours resulted in endless +scenes, and an utter impossibility for Leila to retain the same coachman +and footman for more than a few weeks at a time. + +"He won't come back; he'll keep Martin and the horses standing in front +of Delmonico's all night. You'd better call up the stables, Beverly." + +So Plank called up a livery and arranged for transportation at one; and +Leila seated herself at a card-table and began to deal herself cold +decks, thoughtfully. + +"That bit in 'Carmen,'" she said, "it always brings the shudder; it +never palls on me, never grows stale." She whipped the ominous spade +from the pack and held it out. "La Mort!" she exclaimed in mock tragedy, +yet there was another undertone ringing through it, sounding, too, in +her following laugh. "Draw!" she commanded, holding out the pack; and +Plank drew a diamond. + +"Naturally," she nodded, shuffling the pack with her smooth, savant +fingers and laying them out as she repeated the formula: "Qui frappe? +Qui entre? Qui prend chaise? Qui parle? Oh, the deuce! it's always the +same! Tiens! je m'ennui!" There was a flash of her bare arm, a flutter, +and the cards fell in a shower over them both. + +Plank flipped a card from his knee, laughing uncertainly, aware of +symptoms in his pretty vis-a-vis which always made him uncomfortable. +For months, now, at certain intervals, these recurrent symptoms had made +him wary; but what they might portend he did not know, only that, alone +with her, moments occurred when he was heavily aware of a tension which, +after a while, affected even his few thick nerves. One of those +intervals was threatening now: her flushed cheeks, her feverish activity +with her hands, the unconscious reflex movement of her silken knees and +restless slippers, all foreboded it. Next would come the nervous +laughter, the swift epigram which bored and puzzled him, the veiled +badinage he was unequal to; and then the hint of weariness, the curious +pathos of long silences, the burnt-out beauty of her eyes from which the +fire had gone as though quenched by invisible tears within. + +He ascribed it--desired to ascribe it--to her relations with her husband. +He had naturally learned and divined how matters stood with them; he had +learned considerable in the last month or two--something of Mortimer's +record as a burly brother to the rich; something of his position among +those who made no question of his presence anywhere. Something of Leila, +too, he had heard, or rather deduced from hinted word or shrug or +smiling silence, not meant for him, but indifferent to what he might +hear and what he might think of what he heard. + +He did listen; he did patiently add two and two in the long solitudes of +his Louis XV chamber; and if the results were not always four, at least +they came within a fraction of the proper answer. And this did not alter +his policy or weaken his faith in his mentors; nor did it impair his +real gratitude to them, and his real and simple friendship for them +both. He was faithful in friendship once formed, obstinately so, for +better or for worse; but he was shrewd enough to ignore opportunities +for friendships which he foresaw could do him no good on his plodding +pilgrimage toward the temple of his inexorable desire. + +Lifting, now, his Delft-coloured eyes furtively, he studied the silk- +and-lace swathed figure of the young matron opposite, flung back into +the depths of her great chair, profile turned from him, her chin +imprisoned in her ringed fingers. The brooding abandon of the attitude +contrasted sharply with the grooming of the woman, making both the more +effective. + +"Turn in, if you want to," she said, her voice indistinct, smothered by +her pink palm. "You're to dress in Leroy's quarters." + +"I don't want to turn in just yet." + +"You said you needed sleep." + +"I do. But it's not eleven yet." + +She slipped into another posture, reaching for a cigarette, and, setting +it afire from the match he offered, exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked +dreamily through it at him. + +"Who is she?" she asked in a colourless voice. "Tell me, for I don't +know. Agatha? Marion Page? Mrs. Vendenning? or the Tassel girl?" + +"Nobody--yet," he admitted cheerfully. + +"Nobody--yet," she repeated, musing over her cigarette. "That's good +politics, if it's true." + +"Am I untruthful?" he asked simply. + +"I don't know. Are you? You're a man." + +"Don't talk that way, Leila." + +"No, I won't. What is it that you and Sylvia Landis have to talk about +so continuously every time you meet?" + +"She's merely civil to me," he explained. + +"That's more than she is to a lot of people. What do you talk about?" + +"I don't know--nothing in particular; mostly about Shotover, and the +people there last summer." + +"Doesn't she ever mention Stephen Siward?" + +"Usually. She knows I like him." + +"She likes him, too," said Leila, looking at him steadily. + +"I know it. Everybody likes him--or did. I do, yet." + +"I do, too," observed Mrs. Mortimer coolly. "I was in love with him. He +was only a boy then." + +Plank nodded in silence. + +"Where is he now--do, you know?" she asked. "Everybody says he's gone to +the devil." + +"He's in the country somewhere," replied Plank cautiously. "I stopped in +to see him the other day, but nobody seemed to know when he would +return." + +Mrs. Mortimer tossed her cigarette onto the hearth. For a long interval +of silence she lay there in her chair, changing her position restlessly +from moment to moment; and at length she lay quite still, so long that +Plank began to think she had fallen asleep in her chair. + +He rose. She did not stir, and, passing her, he instinctively glanced +down. Her cheeks, half buried against the back of the chair, were +overflushed; under the closed lids the lashes glistened wet in the +lamplight. + +Surprised, embarrassed, he halted, as though afraid to move; and she sat +up with a nervous shake of her shoulders. + +"What a life!" she said, under her breath; "what a life for a woman to +lead!" + +"Wh-whose?" he blurted out. + +"Mine!" + +He stared at her uneasily, finding nothing to say. He had never before +heard anything like this from her. + +"Can't anybody help me out of it?" she said quietly. + +"Who? How? . Do you mean--" + +"Yes, I mean it! I mean it! I--" + +And suddenly she broke down, in a strange, stammering, tearless way, +opening the dry flood-gates over which rattled an avalanche of +words--bitter, breathless phrases rushing brokenly from lips that shrank +as they formed them. + +Plank sat inert, the corroding echo of the words clattering in his ears. +And after a while he heard his own altered voice sounding persistently +in repetition: + + +"Don't say those things, Leila; don't tell me such things." + +"Why? Don't you care?" + +"Yes, yes, I care; but I can't do anything! I have no business to +hear--to see you this way." + +"To whom can I speak, then, if I can not speak to you? To whom can I +turn? Where am I to turn, in all the world?" + +"I don't know," he said fearfully; "the only way is to go on." + +"What else have I done? What else am I doing?" she cried. "Go on? Am I +not trudging on and on through life, dragging the horror of it behind me +through the mud, except when the horror drags me? To whom am I to +turn--to other beasts like him?--sitting patiently around, grinning and +slavering, awaiting their turn when the horror of it crushes me to the +mud?" + +She stretched out a rounded, quivering arm, and laid the small fingers +of the left hand on its flawless contour. "Look!" she said, exasperated, +"I am young yet; the horror has not yet corrupted the youth in me. I am +fashioned for some reason, am I not?--for some purpose, some happiness. I +am not bad; I am human. What poison has soaked into me can be +eliminated. I tell you, no woman is capable of being so thoroughly +poisoned that the antidote proves useless. + +"But I tell you men, also, that unless she find that antidote she will +surely reinfect herself. A man can not do what that man has done to me +and expect me to recover unaided. People talk of me, and I have given +them subjects enough! But--look at me! Straight between the eyes! Every +law have I broken except that! Do you understand? That one, which you +men consider yourselves exempt from, I have not broken--yet! Shall I +speak plainer? It is the fashion to be crude. But--I can't be; I am +unfashionable, you see." + +She laughed, her haunted eyes fixed on his. + +"Is there no chance for me? Because I drag his bedraggled name about +with me is there no decent chance, no decent hope? Is there only +indecency in prospect, if a man comes to care for a married woman? Can't +a decent man love her at all? I--I think--" + +Her hands, outstretched, trembled, then flew to her face; and she stood +there swaying, until Plank perforce stepped to her side and steadied her +against him. + +So they remained for a while, until she looked up dazed, weary, ashamed, +expecting nothing of him; and when it came, leaving her still +incredulous, his arms around her, his tense, flushed face recoiling from +their first kiss, she did not seem to comprehend. + +"I can't turn on him," he stammered, "I--we are friends, you see. How can +I love you, if that is so?" + +"Could you love me?" she asked calmly. + +"I--I don't know. I did love--I do care for--another woman. I can't marry +her, though I am given to understand there is a chance. Perhaps it is +partly ambition," he said honestly, "for I am quite sure she has never +cared for me, never thought of me in that way. I think a man can't stand +that long." + +"No; only women can. Who is she?" + +"You won't ask me, will you?" + +"No. Are you sorry that I am in love with you?" + +His arms unclasped her body, and he stepped back, facing her. + +"Are you?" she asked violently. + +"No." + +"You speak like a man," she said tremulously. "Am I to be permitted to +adore you in peace, then--decently, and in peace?" + +"Don't speak that way, Leila. I--there is no woman, no friend, I care for +as much as I do you. It is easy, I think, for a woman, like you, to make +a man care for her. You will not do it, will you?" + +"I will," she said softly. + +"It's no use; I can't turn on him. I can't! He is my friend, you see." + +"Let him remain so. I shall do what I can. Let him remain a monument to +his fellow-beasts. What do I care? Do you think I desire to turn you +into his image? Do you think I hope for your degradation and mine? Are +you afraid I should not recognise love unaccompanied by the attendant +beast? I--I don't know; you had better teach me, if I prove blind. If you +can love me, do so in charity before I go blind forever." + +She laid one hand on his arm, looked at him, then turned and passed +slowly through the doorway. + +"If you are going to sleep before we start you had better be about it!" +she said, looking back at him from the stairs. + +But he had no further need of sleep; and for a long while he stood at +the windows watching the lamps of cabs and carriages sparkling through +the leafless thickets of the park like winter fire-flies. + +At one o'clock, hearing Agatha Caithness speak to Leila's maid, he left +the window, and sitting down at the desk, telephoned to Desmond's; and +he was informed that Mortimer, hard hit, had signified his intention of +recouping at Burbank's. Then he managed to get Burbank's on the wire, +and finally Mortimer himself, but was only cursed for his pains and cut +off in the middle of his pleading. + +So he wandered up-stairs into Mortimer's apartments, where he tubbed and +dressed, and finally descended, to find Agatha Caithness alone in the +library, spinning a roulette wheel and whistling an air from "La +Bacchante." + +"That's pretty," he said; "sing it." + +"No; it's better off without the words; and so are you," added Agatha +candidly, relinquishing the wheel and strolling with languid grace about +the room, hands on her hips, timing her vagrant steps to the indolent, +wicked air. And, + +"'Je rougirais de men ivresse Si tu conservais ta raison!'" + +she hummed deliberately, pivoting on her heels and advancing again +toward Plank, her pretty, pale face delicate as an enamelled cameo under +the flood of light from the crystal chandeliers. + +"I understand that Mr. Mortimer is not coming with us," she said +carelessly. "Are you going to dance with me, if I find nobody better?" + +He expressed himself flattered, cautiously. He was one of many who never +understood this tall, white, low-voiced girl, with eyes too pale for +beauty, yet strangely alluring, too. Few men denied the indefinable +enchantment of her; few men could meet her deep-lidded, transparent gaze +unmoved. In the sensitive curve of her mouth there was a kind of +sensuousness; in her low voice, in her pallor, in the slim grace of her +a vague provocation that made men restless and women silently curious +for something more definite on which to base their curiosity. + +She was wearing, over the smooth, dead-white skin of her neck, a collar +of superb diamonds and aquamarines--almost an effrontery, as the latter +were even darker than her eyes; yet the strange and effective harmony +was evident, and Plank spoke of the splendour of the gems. + +She nodded indifferently, saying they were new, and that she had picked +them up at Tiffany's; and he mentally sketched out the value of the +diamonds, a trifle surprised, because Leila Mortimer had carefully +informed him about the condition of the Caithness exchequer. + +That youthful matron herself appeared in a few moments, very lustrous, +very lovely in her fragrant, exotic brightness, and Plank for the first +time thought that she was handsome--the vigorous, youthful incarnation of +Life itself, in contrast to Agatha's almost deathly beauty. She greeted +him not only without a trace of embarrassment, but with such a friendly, +fresh, gay confidence that he scarcely recognised in her the dry-eyed, +feverish woman of an hour ago, whose very lips shrank back, scorched by +the torrent of her own invective. + +And so they drove the three short blocks to the Page's in their hired +livery; the street was inadequate for the crush of vehicles; and the +glittering pressure within the house was outrageous; all of which +confused Plank, who became easily confused by such things. + +How they got in--how they managed to present themselves--who took Leila +and Agatha from him--where they went--where he himself might be--he did +not understand very clearly. The house was large, strange, full of +strangers. He attempted to obtain his bearings by wandering about +looking for a small rococo reception-room where he remembered he had +once talked kennel talk with Marion Page, and had on another occasion +perspired freely under the arrogant and strabismic glare of her mother. +That good lady had really rather liked him; he never suspected it. + +But he couldn't find the rococo room--or perhaps he didn't recognise it. +So many people--so many, many people whom he did not know, whom he had +never before laid eyes on--high-bred faces hard as diamonds; young, gay, +laughing faces; brilliant eyes encountering his without a softening of +recognition; clean-cut, attractive men in swarms, all animated, all +amused, all at home among themselves and among the silken visions of +loveliness passing and repassing, with here an extended gloved arm and +the cordial greeting of camaraderie, there a quick smile, a swift turn +in passing, a capricious bending forward for a whisper, a compliment, a +jest--all this swept by him, around him, enveloping him with its +brightness, its gaiety, its fragrance, and left him more absolutely +alone than he had ever been in all his life. + +He tried to find Leila, and gave it up. He saw Quarrier talking to +Agatha, but the former saluted him so coldly that he turned away. + +After a while he found Marion, but she hadn't a dance left for him; +neither had Rena Bonnesdel, whom he encountered while she was adroitly +avoiding one of the ever-faithful twins. The twin caught up with her in +consequence, and she snubbed Plank for his share in the disaster, which +depressed him, and he started for the smoking-room, wherever that haven +might be found. He got into the ball-room, however, by mistake, and +adorned the wall, during the cotillon, as closely as his girth +permitted, until an old lady sent for him; and he went and talked about +bishops for nearly an hour to her, until his condition bordered on +frenzy, the old lady being deaf and peevish. + +Later, Alderdene used him to get rid of an angular, old harridan who +seemed to be one solid diamond-mine, and who drove him into a corner and +talked indelicacies until Plank's broad face flamed like the setting +sun. Then Captain Voucher unloaded a frightened debutante on him who +tried to talk about horses and couldn't; and they hated each other for a +while, until, looking around her in desperation, she found he had +vanished--which was quick work for a man of his size. + +Kathryn Tassel employed him for supper, and kept him busy while she +herself was immersed in a dawning affair with Fleetwood. She did +everything to him except to tip him; and her insolence was the last +straw. + +Then, unexpectedly in the throng, two wonderful sea-blue eyes +encountered his, deepening to violet with pleasure, and the trailing +sweetness of a voice he knew was repeating his name, and a slim, white- +gloved hand lay in his own. + +Her escort, Ferrall, nodded to him pleasantly. She leaned forward from +Ferrall's arm, saying, under her breath, "I have saved a dance for you. +Please ask me at once. Quick! do you want me?" + +"I--I do," stammered Plank. + +Ferrall, suspicious, stepped forward to exchange civilities, then +turning to the girl beside him: "See here, Sylvia, you've dragged me all +over this house on one pretext or another. Do you want any supper, or +don't you? If you don't, it's our dance." + +"No, I don't. No, it isn't. Kemp, you annoy me!" + +"That's a nice thing to say! Is it your delicately inimitable way of +giving me my conge?" + +"Yes, thank you," nodded Miss Landis coolly; "you may go now." + +"You're spoiled, that's what's the matter," retorted Ferrall wrathfully. +"I thought I was to have this dance. You said--" + +"I said 'perhaps,' because I didn't see Mr. Plank coming to claim it. +Thank you, Kemp, for finding him." + +Her nod and smile took the edge from her malice. Ferrall, who really +adored dancing, glared about for anybody, and presently cornered the +frightened and neglected debutante who had hated Plank. + +Sylvia, standing beside Plank, looked up at him with her confident and +friendly smile. + +"You don't care to dance, do you? Would you mind if we sat out this +dance?" + +"If you'd rather," he said, so wistfully that she hesitated; then with a +little shrug laid one hand on his arm, and they swung out across the +floor together, into the scented whirl. + +Plank, like many heavy men, danced beautifully; and Sylvia, who still +loved dancing with all the ardour of a schoolgirl, permitted a moment or +two of keen delight to sweep her dreamily from her purpose. But that +purpose must have been a strong one, for she returned to it in a few +minutes, and, looking up at Plank, said very gently that she cared to +dance no more. + +Her hand resting lightly on his arm, it did not seem possible that any +pressure of hers was directing them to the conservatory; yet he did not +know where he was going, and she was familiar with the house, and they +soon entered the conservatory, where, in the shadow of various palms +various youths looked up impatiently as they passed, and various maidens +sat up very straight in their chairs. + +Threading their dim way into the farther recesses they found seats among +thickets of forced lilacs over-hung by early wistaria. A spring-like +odour hung in the air; somewhere a tiny fountain grew musical in the +semi-darkness. + +"Marion told me you had been asked," she said. "We have been so +friendly; you've always asked me to dance whenever we have met; so I +thought I'd save you one. Are you flattered, Mr. Plank?" + +He said he was, very pleasantly, perfectly undeceived, and convinced of +her purpose--a purpose never even tacitly admitted between them; and the +old loneliness came over him again--not resentment, for he was willing +that she should use him. Why not? Others used him; everybody used him; +and if they found no use for him they let him alone. Mortimer, +Fleetwood, Belwether--all, all had something to exact from him. It was +for that he was tolerated--he knew it; he had slowly and unwillingly +learned it. His intrusion among these people, of whom he was not one, +would be endured only while he might be turned to some account. The +hospital used him, the clergy found plenty for him to do for them, the +museum had room for other pictures of his. Who among them all had ever +sought him without a motive? Who among them all had ever found unselfish +pleasure in him? Not one. + +Something in the dull sadness of his face, as he sat there, checked the +first elaborately careless question her lips were already framing. +Leaning a little nearer in the dim light she looked at him inquiringly +and he returned her gaze in silence. + +"What is it, Mr. Plank," she said; "is anything wrong?" + +He knew that she did not mean to ask if anything was amiss with him. She +did not care. Nobody cared. So, recognising his cue, he answered: "No, +nothing is wrong that I have heard of." + +"You wear a very solemn countenance." + +"Gaiety affects me solemnly, sometimes. It is a reaction from frivolity. +I suppose that I am over-enjoying life; that is all." + +She laughed, using her fan, although the place was cool enough and they +had not danced long. To and fro flitted the silken vanes of her fan, now +closing impatiently, now opening again like the wings of a nervous moth +in the moonlight. + +He wished she would come to her point, but he dared not lead her to it +too brusquely, because her purpose and her point were supposed to be +absolutely hidden from his thick and credulous understanding. It had +taken him some time to make this clear to himself; passing from +suspicion, through chagrin and overwounded feeling, to dull certainty +that she, too, was using him, harmlessly enough from her standpoint, but +how bitterly from his, he alone could know. + +The quickened flutter of her fan meant impatience to learn from him what +she had come to him to learn, and then, satisfied, to leave him alone +again amid the peopled solitude of clustered lights. + +He wished she would speak; he was tired of the sadness of it all. +Whenever in his isolation, in his utter destitution of friendship, he +turned guilelessly to meet a new advance, always, sooner or later, the +friendly mask was lifted enough for him to divine the cool, fixed gaze +of self-interest inspecting him through the damask slits. + +Sylvia was speaking now, and the plumy fan was under savant control, +waving graceful accompaniment to her soft voice, punctuating her +sentences at times, at times making an emphasis or outlining a gesture. + +It was the familiar sequence; topics that led to themes which adroitly +skirted the salient point; returned capriciously, just avoiding it--a +subtly charming pattern of words which required so little in reply that +his smile and nod were almost enough to keep her aria and his +accompaniment afloat. + +It began to fascinate him to watch the delicacy of her strategy, the +coquetting with her purpose; her naive advance to the very edges of it, +the airy retreat, the innocent detour, the elaborate and circuitous +return. And at last she drifted into it so naturally that it seemed +impossible that fatuous man could have the most primitive suspicion of +her premeditation. + +And Plank, now recognising his cue, answered her: "No, I have not heard +that he is in town. I stopped to see him the other day, but nobody there +knew how soon he intended to return from the country." + +"I didn't know he had gone to the country," she said without apparent +interest. + +And Plank was either too kind to terminate the subject, or too anxious +to serve his turn and release her; for he went on: "I thought I told you +at Mrs. Ferrall's that Mr. Siward had gone to the country." + +"Perhaps you did. No doubt I've forgotten." + +"I'm quite sure I did, because I remember saying that he looked very +ill, and you said, rather sharply, that he had no business to be ill. Do +you remember?" + +"Yes," she said slowly. "Is he better?" + +"I hope so." + +"You hope so?"--with the controlled emphasis of impatience. + +"Yes. Don't you, Miss Landis? When I saw him at his home, he was lame--on +crutches--and he looked rather ghastly; and all he said was that he +expected to leave for the country. I asked him to shoot next year at +Black Fells, and he seemed bothered about business, and said it might +keep him from taking any vacation." + +"He spoke about his business?" + +"Yes, he--" + +"What is the trouble with his business? Is it anything about Amalgamated +and Inter-County?" + +"I think so." + +"Is he worried?" + +Plank said deliberately: "I should be, if my interests were locked up in +Amalgamated Electric." + +"Could you tell me why that would worry you?" she asked, smiling +persuasively across at him. + +"No," he said, "I can't tell you." + +"Because I wouldn't understand?" + +"Because I myself don't understand." + +She thought awhile, brushing the rose velvet of her mouth with the fan's +edge, then, looking up confidently: + +"Mr. Siward is such a boy. I'm so glad he has you to advise him in such +matters." + +"What matters?" asked Plank bluntly. + +"Why, in--in financial matters." + +"But I don't advise him." + +"Why not?" + +"Because he hasn't asked me to, Miss Landis." + +"He ought to ask you. . He must ask you. . Don't wait for him, Mr. +Plank. He is only a boy in such things." + +And, as Plank was silent: + +"You will, won't you?" + +"Do what--make his business my business, without an invitation?" asked +Plank, so quietly that she flushed with annoyance. + +"If you pretend to be his friend is it not your duty to advise him?" she +asked impatiently. + +"No; that is for his business associates to do. Friendship comes to +grief when it crosses the frontiers of business." + +"That is a narrow view to take, Mr. Plank." + +"Yes, straight and narrow. The boundaries of friendship are straight and +narrow. It is best to keep to the trodden path; best not to walk on the +grass or trample the flowers." + +"I think you are sacrificing friendship for an epigram," she said, +careless of the undertone of contempt in her voice. + +"I have never sacrificed friendship." He turned, and looked at her +pleasantly. "I never made an epigram consciously, and I have never +required of a friend more than I had to offer in return. Have you?" + +The flush of hot displeasure stained her cheeks. + +"Are you really questioning me, Mr. Plank?" + +"Yes. You have been questioning me rather seriously--have you not?" + +"I did not comprehend your definition of friendship. I did not agree +with it. I questioned it, not you! That is all." + +Plank rested his head on one big hand and stared at the clusters of dim +blossoms behind her; and after a while he said, as though thinking +aloud: + +"Many have taken my friendship for granted, and have never offered their +own in return. I do not know about Mr. Siward. There is nothing I can do +for him, nothing be can do for me. If there is to be friendship between +us it will be disinterested; and I would rather have that than anything +in the world, I think." + +There was a pause; but when Sylvia would have broken it his gesture +committed her to silence with the dignity one might use in checking a +persistent child. + +"You question my definition of friendship, Miss Landis. I should have +let your question pass, however keenly it touched me, had it not also +touched him. Now I am going to say some things which lie within the +straight and narrow bounds I spoke of. I never knew a man I cared for as +much as I care for Mr. Siward. I know why, too. He is disinterested. I +do not believe he wastes very many thoughts on me. Perhaps he will. I +want him to like me, if it's possible. But one thing you and I may be +sure of: if he does not care to return the friendship I offer him he +will never accept anything else from me, though he might give at my +request; and that is the sort of a man he is; and that is why he is +every inch a man; and so I like him, Miss Landis. Do you wonder?" + +She did not reply. + +"Do you wonder?" he repeated sharply. + +"No," she said. + +"Then--" He straightened up, and the silent significance of his waiting +attitude was plain enough to her. + +But she shook her head impatiently, saying: "I don't know whose dance it +is, and I don't care. Please go on. It is--is pleasant. I like Mr. +Siward; I like to hear men speak of him as you do. I like you for doing +it. If you should ever come to care for my friendship that is the best +passport to it--your loyalty to Mr. Siward." + +"No man can truthfully speak otherwise than I have spoken," he said +gravely. + +"No, not of these things. But--you know w-what is--is usually said when +his name comes up among men." + +"Do you mean about his habits?" he asked simply. + +"Yes. Is it not an outrage to drag in that sort of thing? It angers me +intensely, Mr. Plank. Why do they do it? Is there a single one among +them qualified to criticise Mr. Siward? And besides, it is not true any +more! . is it?--what was once said of him with--with some truth? Is it?" + +The dull red blood mantled Plank's heavy visage. The silence grew grim +as he did his slow, laborious thinking, the while his eyes, +expressionless and almost opaque in the dim light, never left her's, +until, under the unchanging, merciless inspection, the mask dropped for +an instant from her anxious face, and he saw what he saw. + +He was no fool. What he had come to believe she at last had only +confirmed; and now the question became simple: was she worth +enlightening? And by what title did she demand his confidence? + +"You ask me if it is true any more. You mean about his habits. If I +answer you it is because I cannot be indifferent to what concerns him. +But before I answer I ask you this: Would your interest in his fortunes +matter to him?" + +She waited, head bent; then: + +"I don't know, Mr. Plank," very low. + +"Did your interest in his fortunes ever concern him?" + +"Yes, once." + +He looked at her sternly, his jaw squaring until his heavy under lip +projected. "Within my definition of friendship, is he your friend?" + +"You mean he--" + +"No, I mean you! I can answer for him. How is it with you? Do you return +what he gives--if there is really friendship between you? Or do you take +what he offers, offering nothing in return?" + +She had turned rather white under the direct impact of the questions. +The jarring repetition of his voice itself was like the dull echo of +distant blows. Yet it never occurred to her to resent it, nor his +attitude, nor his self-assumed privilege. She did not care; she no +longer cared what he said to her or thought about her; nor did she care +that her mask had fallen at last. It was not what he was saying, but +what her own heart repeated so heavily that drove the colour from her +face. Not he, but she herself had become the pitiless attorney for the +prosecution; not his voice, but the clamouring conscience within her +demanded by what right she used the name of friendship to characterise +the late relations between her and the man to whom she had denied +herself. + +Then a bitter impatience swept her, and a dawning fear, too; for she had +set her foot on the fallen mask, and the impulse rendered her reckless. + +"Why don't you speak?" she said. "Yes, I have a right to know. I care +for him as much as you do. Why don't you answer me? I tell you I care +for him!" + +"Do you?" he said in a dull voice. "Then help me out, if you can, for I +don't know what to do; and if I did, I haven't the authority of +friendship as my warrant. He is in New York. He did go to the country; +and, at his home, the servants suppose he is still away. But he isn't; +he is here, alone, and sick--sick of his old sickness. I saw him, +and"--Plank rested his head on his hand, dropping his eyes--"and he didn't +know me. I--I do not think he will remember that he met me, or that I +spoke. And--I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. And I don't know +where he is. He will go home after a while. I call--every day--to see--see +what can be done. But if he were there I would not know what to do. When +he does go home I won't know what to say--what to try to do. . And that +is an answer to your question, Miss Landis. I give it, because you say +you care for him as I do. Will you advise me what to do?--you, who are +more entitled than I am to know the truth, because he has given you the +friendship which he has as yet not accorded to me." + +But Sylvia, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, could find no voice to answer; and +after a little while they rose and moved through the fragrant gloom +toward the sparkling lights beyond. + +Her voice came back as they entered the brilliant rooms: "I should like +to find Grace Ferrall," she said very distinctly. "Please keep the +others off, Mr. Plank." + +Her small hand on his arm lay with a weight out of all proportion to its +size. Fair head averted, she no longer guided him with that impalpable +control; it was he who had become the pilot now, and he steered his own +way through the billowy ocean of silk and lace, master of the course he +had set, heavily bland to the interrupter and the importunate from whom +she turned a deaf ear and dumb lips, and lowered eyes that saw nothing. + +Fleetwood had missed his dance with her, but she scarcely heard his +eager complaints. Quarrier, coldly inquiring, confronted them; was +passed almost without recognition, and left behind, motionless, looking +after them out of his narrowing, black-fringed eyes of a woman. + +Then Ferrall came, and hearing his voice, she raised her colourless +face. + +"Will you take me home with you, Kemp, when you take Grace?" she asked. + +"Of course. I don't know where Grace is. Are you in a hurry to go? It's +only four o'clock." + +They were at the entrance to the supper-room. Plank drew up a chair for +her, and she sank down, dropping her elbows on the small table, and +resting her face between her fingers. + +"Pegged out, Sylvia?" exclaimed Ferrall incredulously. "You? What's the +younger set coming to?" and he motioned a servant to fill her glass. But +she pushed it aside with a shiver, and gave Plank a strange look which +he scarcely understood at the moment. + +"More caprices; all sorts of 'em on the programme," muttered Ferrall, +looking down at her from where he stood beside Plank. "O tempora! O +Sylvia! . Plank, would you mind hunting up my wife? I'll stay and see +that this infant doesn't fall asleep." + +But Sylvia shook her head, saying: "Please go, Kemp. I'm a little tired, +that's all. When Grace is ready, I'll leave with her." And at her +gesture Plank seated himself, while Ferrall, shrugging his square +shoulders, sauntered off in quest of his wife, stopping a moment at a +neighbouring table to speak to Agatha Caithness, who sat there with +Captain Voucher, the gemmed collar on her slender throat a pale blaze of +splendour. + +Plank was hungry, and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded, +and exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank's +voice. For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to +keep up a desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she +owed an explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank's +appetite was in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had +fashioned him, and she paid less and less attention to convention and a +trifle more to the beauty of Agatha's jewels, until the silence at the +small table in the corner remained unbroken except by the faint tinkle +of silver and crystal and the bubbling hiss of a glass refilled. + +Major Belwether, his white, fluffy, chop-whiskers brushed rabbit +fashion, peeped in at the door, started to tiptoe out again, caught +sight of them, and came trotting back, beaming rosy effusion. He leaned +roguishly over the table, his moist eyes a-twinkle with suppressed +mirth; then, bestowing a sprightly glance on Plank, which said very +plainly, "I'm up to one of my irrepressible jokes again!" he held up a +smooth, white, and over-manicured forefinger: + +"I was in Tiffany's yesterday," be said, "and I saw a young man in there +who didn't see me, and I peeped over his shoulder, and what do you think +he was doing?" + +She lifted her eyes a little wearily: + +"I don't know," she said. + +"I do," he chuckled. "He was choosing a collar of blue diamonds and aqua +marines!--Te-he!--probably to wear himself!--Te-he! Or perhaps he was going +to be married!--He-he-he!--next winter--ahem!--next November--Ha-ha! +I don't know, I'm sure, what he meant to do with that collar. I only--" + +Something in Sylvia's eyes stopped him, and, following their direction, +he turned around to find Quarrier standing at his elbow, icy and +expressionless. + +"Oh," said the aged jester, a little disconcerted, "I'm caught talking +out in church, I see! It was only a harmless little fun, Howard." + +"Do you mean you saw me?" asked Quarrier, pale as a sheet. "You are in +error. I have not been in Tiffany's in months." + +Belwether, crestfallen under the white menace of Quarrier's face, +nodded, and essayed a chuckle without success. + +Sylvia, at first listless and uninterested, looked inquiringly from the +major to Quarrier, surprised at the suppressed feeling exhibited over so +trivial a gaucherie. If Quarrier had chosen a collar like Agatha's for +her, what of it? But as he had not, on his own statement, what did it +matter? Why should he look that way at the foolish major, to whose +garrulous gossip he was accustomed, and whose inability to refrain from +prying was notorious enough. + +Turning disdainfully, she caught a glimpse of Plank's shocked and +altered face. It relapsed instantly into the usual inert expression; and +a queer, uncomfortable perplexity began to invade her. What had happened +to stir up these three men? Of what importance was an indiscretion of an +old gentleman whose fatuous vanity and consequent blunders everybody was +familiar with? And, after all, Howard had not bought anything at +Tiffany's; he said so himself. . But it was evident that Agatha had +chanced on the collar that Belwether thought he saw somebody else +examining. + +She turned, and looked at the dead-white neck of the girl. The collar +was wonderful--a miracle of pale fire. And Sylvia, musing, let her +thoughts run on, dreamy eyes brooding. She was glad that Agatha's means +permitted her now to have such things. It had been understood, for some +years, that the Caithness fortune was in rather an alarming condition. +Howard had been able recently to do a favour or two for old Peter +Caithness. She had heard the major bragging about it. Evidently Mr. +Caithness must have improved the chance, if he was able to present such +gems to his daughter. And now somebody would marry her; perhaps Captain +Voucher; perhaps even Alderdene; perhaps, as rumour had it now and then, +Plank might venture into the arena. . Poor Plank! More of a man than +people understood. She understood. She-- + +And her thoughts swung back like the returning tide to Siward, and her +heart began heavily again, and the slightly faint sensation returned. +She passed her ungloved, unsteady fingers across her eyelids and +forehead, looking up and around. The major and Howard had disappeared; +Plank, beside her, sat staring stupidly into his empty wine-glass. + +"Isn't Mrs. Ferrall coming?" she said wearily. + +Plank gathered his cumbersome bulk and stood up, trying to see through +the entrance into the ball-room. After a moment he said: "They're in +there, talking to Marion. It's a good chance to make our adieux." + +As they passed out of the supper-room Sylvia paused behind Agatha's +chair and bent over her. "The collar is beautiful," she said, "and so +are you, Agatha"; and with a little impulsive caress for the jewels she +passed on, unconscious of the delicate flush that spread from Agatha's +shoulders to her hair. And Agatha, turning, encountered only the stupid +gaze of Plank, moving ponderously past on Sylvia's heels. + +"If you'll find Leila, I'm ready at any time," she said carelessly, and +resumed her tete-a-tete with Voucher, who had plainly been annoyed at +the interruption. + +Plank went on, a new trouble dawning on his thickening mental horizon. +He had completely forgotten Leila. Even with all the demands made upon +him; even with all the time he had given to those whose use of him he +understood, how could he have forgotten Leila and the recent scene +between them, and the new attitude and new relations with her that he +must so carefully consider and ponder over before he presented himself +at the house of Mortimer again! + +Ferrall and his wife and Sylvia were making their adieux to Marion and +her mother when he came up; and he, too, took that opportunity. + +Later, on his quest for Leila, Sylvia, passing through the great hall, +shrouded in silk and ermine, turned to offer him her hand, saying in a +low voice: "I am at home to you; do you understand? Always," she added +nervously. + +He looked after her with an unconscious sigh, unaware that anything in +himself had claimed her respect. And after a moment he swung on his +broad heels to continue his search for Mrs. Mortimer. + + + +CHAPTER X THE SEAMY SIDE + +About four o'clock on the following afternoon Mrs. Mortimer's maid, who +had almost finished drying and dressing her mistress' hair, was called +to the door by a persistent knocking, which at first she had been bidden +to disregard. + +It was Mortimer's man, desiring to know whether Mrs. Mortimer could +receive Mr. Mortimer at once on matters of importance. + +"No," said Leila petulantly. "Tell Mullins to say that I can not see +anybody," and catching a glimpse of the shadowy Mullins dodging about +the dusky corridor: "What is the matter? Is Mr. Mortimer ill?" + +But Mullins could not say what the matter might be, and he went away, +only to return in a few moments bearing a scratchy note from his master, +badly blotted and still wet; and Leila, with a shrug of resignation, +took the blotched scrawl daintily between thumb and forefinger and +unfolded it. Behind her, the maid, twisting up the masses of dark, +fragrant hair, read the note very easily over her mistress' shoulder. It +ran, without preliminaries: + +"I'm going to talk to you, whether you like it or not. Do you understand +that? If you want to know what's the matter with me you'll find out fast +enough. Fire that French girl out before I arrive." + +She closed the note thoughtfully, folding and double-folding it into a +thick wad. The ink had come off, discolouring her finger-tips; she +dropped the soiled paper on the floor, and held out her hands, plump +fingers spread. And when the maid had finished removing the stains and +had repolished the pretty hands, her mistress sipped her chocolate +thoughtfully, nibbled a bit of dry toast, then motioned the maid to take +the tray and her departure, leaving her the cup. + +A few minutes later Mortimer came in, stood a moment blinking around the +room, then dropped into a seat, sullen, inert, the folds of his chin +crowded out on his collar, his heavy abdomen cradled on his short, thick +legs. He had been freshly shaved; linen and clothing were spotless, yet +the man looked unclean. + +Save for the network of purple veins in his face, there was no colour +there, none in his lips; even his flabby hands were the hue of clay. + +"Are you ill?" asked his wife coolly. + +"No, not very. I've got the jumps. What's that? Tea? Ugh! it's +chocolate. Push it out of sight, will you? I can smell it." + +Leila set the delicate cup on a table behind her. + +"What time did you return this morning?" she asked, stifling a yawn. + +"I don't know; about five or six. How the devil should I know what time +I came in?" + +Sitting there before the mirror of her dresser she stole a second glance +at his marred features in the glass. The loose mouth, the smeared eyes, +the palsy-like tremors that twitched the hands where they tightened on +the arms of his chair, became repulsive to the verge of fascination. She +tried to look away, but could not. + +"You had better see Dr. Grisby," she managed to say. + +"I'd better see you; that's what I'd better do," he retorted thickly. +"You'll do all the doctoring I want. And I want it, all right." + +"Very well. What is it?" + +He passed his swollen hand across his forehead. + +"What is it?" he repeated. "It's the limit, this time, if you want to +know. I'm all in." + +"Roulette?" raising her eyebrows without interest + +"Yes, roulette, too. Everything! They got me upstairs at Burbank's. The +game's crooked! Every box, every case, every wheel, every pack is +crooked! crooked! crooked, by God!" he burst out in a fever, struggling +to sit upright, his hands always tightening on the arms of the chair. +"It's nothing but a creeping joint, run by a bunch of hand-shakers! +I--I'll--" + +Stuttering, choking, stammering imprecations, his hoarse clamour died +away after a while. She sat there, head bent, silent, impassive, +acquiescent under the physical and mental strain to which she had never +become thoroughly hardened. How many such scenes had she witnessed! She +could not count them. They differed very little in detail, and not at +all in their ultimate object, which was to get what money she had. This +was his method of reimbursing himself for his losses. + +He made an end to his outburst after a while. Only his dreadful fat +breathing now filled the silence; and supposing he had finished, she +found her voice with an effort: + +"I am sorry. It comes at a bad time, as you know--" + +"A bad time!" he broke out violently. "How can it come at any other sort +of time? With us, all times are bad. If this is worse than the average +it can't be helped. We are in it for keeps this time!" + +"We?" + +"Yes, we!" he repeated; but his face had grown ghastly, and his +uncertain eyes were fastened on her's in the mirror. + +"What do you mean--exactly?" she asked, turning from the dresser to +confront him. + +He made no effort to answer; an expression of dull fright was growing on +his visage, as though for the first time he had begun to realise what +had happened. + +She saw it, and her heart quickened, but she spoke disdainfully: "Well, +I am ready to listen--as usual. How much do you want?" + +He made no sign; his lower lip hung loose; his eyes blinked at her. + +"What is it?" she repeated. "What have you been doing? How much have you +lost? You can't have lost very much; we hadn't much to lose. If you have +given your note to any of those gamblers, it is a shame--a shame! Leroy, +look at me! You promised me, on your honour, never to do that again. +Have you lied, after all the times I have helped you out, stripped +myself, denied myself, put off tradesmen, faced down creditors? After +all I have done, do you dare come here and ask for more--ask for what I +have not got--with not one bill settled, not one servant paid since +December--" + +"Leila, I--I've got--to tell you--" + +"What?" she demanded, appalled by the change in his face. If he was +overdoing it, he was overdoing it realistically enough. + +"I--I've used Plank's cheque!" he mumbled, and moistened his lips with +his tongue. + +She stared back at him, striving to comprehend. "Plank's!" she repeated +slowly, "Plank's cheque? What cheque? What do you mean?" + +"The one he gave you last night. I've used that. Now you know!" + +"The one he--But you couldn't! How could you? It was not filled in." + +"I filled it." + +Her dawning horror was reacting on him, as it always did, like a fierce +tonic; and his own courage came back in a sort of sullen desperation. + +"You . You are trying to frighten me, Leroy," she stammered. "You are +trying to make me do something--give you what you want--force me to give +you what you want! You can't frighten me. The cheque was made out to +me--to my order. How could you have used it, if I had not indorsed it?" + +"I indorsed it. Do you understand that!" he said savagely. + +"No, I don't; because, if you did, it's forgery." + +"I don't give a damn what you think it is!" he broke in fiercely. "All +I'm worried over is what Plank will think. I didn't mean to do it; I +didn't dream of doing it; but when Burbank cleaned me up I fished about, +and that cursed cheque came tumbling out!" + +In the rising excitement of self-defence the colour was coming back into +his battered face; he sat up straighter in his chair, and, grasping the +upholstered arms, leaned forward, speaking more distinctly and with +increasing vigour and anger: + +"When I saw that cheque in my hands I thought I'd use it +temporarily--merely as moral collateral to flash at Burbank--something to +back my I. O. U.'s. So I filled it in." + +"For how much?" she asked, not daring to believe him; but he ignored the +question and went on: "I filled it and indorsed it, and--" + +"How could you indorse it?" she interrupted coolly, now unconvinced +again and suspicious. + +"I'll tell you if you'll stop that fool tongue a moment. The cheque was +made to 'L. Mortimer,' wasn't it? So I wrote 'L. Mortimer' on the back. +Now do you know? If you are L. Mortimer, so am I. Leila begins with L; +so does Leroy, doesn't it? I didn't imitate your two-words-to-a-page +autograph. I put my own fist to a cheque made out to one L. Mortimer; +and I don't care what you think about it as long as Plank can stand it. +Now put up your nose and howl, if you like." + +But under her sudden pallor he was taking fright again, and he began to +bolster up his courage with bluster and noise, as usual: + +"Howl all you like!" he jeered. "It won't alter matters or square +accounts with Plank. What are you staring at? Do you suppose I'm not +sorry? Do you fancy I don't know what a fool I've been? What are you +turning white for? What in hell--" + +"How much have you--" She choked, then, resolutely: "How much have +you--taken?" + +"Taken!" he broke out, with an oath. "What do you mean? I've borrowed +about twenty thousand dollars. Now yelp! Eh? What?--no yelps? Probably +some weeps, then. Turn 'em on and run dry; I'll wait." And he managed to +cross one bulky leg over the other and lean back, affecting resignation, +while Leila, bolt upright in her low chair, every curved outline rigid +under the flowing, silken wrap, stared at him as though stunned. + +"Well, we're good for it, aren't we?" he said threateningly. "If he's +going to turn ugly about it, here's the house." + +"My--house?" + +"Yes, your house! I suppose you'd rather raise something on the house +than have the thing come out in the papers." + +"Do you think so?" she asked, staring into his bloodshot eyes. + +"Yes, I do. I'm damn sure of it!" + +"You are wrong." + +"You mean that you are not inclined to stand by me?" he demanded. + +"Yes, I mean that." + +"You don't intend to help me out?" + +"I do not intend to--not this time." + +He began to show his big teeth, and that nervous snickering "tick" +twitched his upper lip. + +"How about the courts?" he sneered. "Do you want to figure in them with +Plank?" + +"I don't want to," she said steadily, "but you can not frighten me any +more by that threat." + +"Oh! Can't frighten you! Perhaps you think you'll marry Plank when I get +a decree? Do you? Well, you won't for several reasons; first, because +I'll name other corespondents and that will make Plank sick; second, +because Plank wants to marry somebody else and I'm able to assist him. +So where do you come out in the shuffle?" + +"I don't know," she said, under her breath, and rested her head against +the back of the chair, as though suddenly tired. + +"Well, I know. You'll come out smirched, and you know it," said +Mortimer, gazing intently at her. "Look here, Leila: I didn't come here +to threaten you. I'm no black-mailer; I'm no criminal. I'm simply a +decent sort of a man, who is pretty badly scared over what he's done in +a moment of temptation. You know I had no thought of anything except to +borrow enough on my I. O. U.'s to make a killing at Burbank's. I had to +show them something big, so I filled in that cheque, not meaning to use +it; and before I knew it I'd indorsed it, and was plunging against it. +Then they stacked everything on me--by God, they did! and if I had not +been in the condition I was in I'd have stopped payment. But it was too +late when I realised what I was against. Leila, you know I'm not a bad +man at heart. Can't you help a fellow?" + +His manner, completely changed, had become the resentful and fretful +appeal of the victim of plot and circumstance. All the savage brutality +had been eliminated; the sneer, the truculent attempts to browbeat, the +pitiful swagger, the cynical justification, all were gone. It was really +the man himself now, normally scared and repentant; the frightened, +overfed pensioner on his wife's bounty; not the human beast maddened by +fear and dissipation, half stunned, half panic-stricken, driven by sheer +terror into a role which even he shrank from--had shrunk from all these +years. For, leech and parasite that he was, Mortimer, however much the +dirty acquisition of money might tempt him in theory, had not yet +brought himself to the point of attempting the practice, even when in +sorest straits and bitterest need. He didn't want to do it; he wished to +get along without it, partly because of native inertia and an aversion +to the mental nimbleness that he would be required to show as a law- +breaker, partly because the word "black-mail" stood for what he did not +dare suggest that he had come to, even to himself. His distaste was +genuine; there were certain things which he didn't want to commit, and +extortion was one of them. He could, at a pinch, lie to his wife, or try +to scare her into giving him money; he could, when necessary, "borrow" +from such men as Plank; but he had never cheated at cards, and he had +never attempted to black-mail anybody except his wife--which, of course, +was purely a family matter, and concerned nobody else. + +Now he was attempting it again, with more sincerity, energy, and +determination than he ever before had been forced to display. Even in +his most profane violence the rage and panic were only partly real. He +was, it is true, genuinely scared, and horribly shaken physically, but +he had counted on violence, and he stimulated his own emotions and made +them serve him, knowing all the while that in the reaction his ends +would be accomplished, as usual. This policy of alternately frightening, +dragooning, and supplicating Leila had carried him so far; and though it +was true that this was a more serious situation than he had ever yet +faced, he was convinced that his wife would pull him out somehow; and +how that was to be accomplished he did not very much care, as long as he +was pulled out safely. + +"What this household requires," he said, "is economy. He spread his +legs, denting the Aubusson carpet with his boot-heels, and glanced +askance at his wife. "Economy," he repeated, furtively wetting his lips +with a heavily coated tongue; "that's the true solution; economical +administration in domestic matters. Retrenchment, Leila! retrenchment! +Fewer folderols. I've a notion to give up that farm, and stop trying to +breed those damfool sheep. They cost a thousand apiece, and do you know +what I got for those six I sent to Westbury? Just twelve hundred dollars +from Fleetwood--the bargaining shopkeeper! Twelve hundred! Think of +that! And along comes Granby and sells a single ram for six thousand +plunks!" + +Leila's head was lowered. He could not see her expression, but he had +always been confident of his ability to talk himself out of trouble, so +he rambled on in pretence of camaraderie, currying favour, as he +believed, ingratiating himself with the coarse bluntness that served him +among some men, even among some women. + +"We'll fix it somehow," he said reassuringly; "don't you worry, Leila. +I've confidence in you, little girl! You've got me out of sticky messes +before, eh? Well, we've weathered a few, haven't we?" + +Even the horrible parody on wedded loyalty left her silent, unmoved, +dark eyes brooding; and he began to grow a little restless and anxious +as his jocularity increased without a movement in either response or +aversion from his wife. + +"You needn't be scared, if I'm not," he said reproachfully. "The house +is worth two hundred and fifty thousand, and there's only fifty on it +now. If that fat, Dutch skinflint, Plank, shows his tusks, we can clap +on another fifty." And as she made no sound or movement in reply: "As +far as Plank goes, haven't I done enough for him to square it? What have +we ever got out of him, except a thousand or two now and then when the +cards went against me? If I took it, it was practically what he owes me. +And if he thinks it's too much--look here, Leila! I've a trick up my +sleeve. I can make good any time I wish to. I'm in a position to marry +that man to the girl he's mad about--stark, raving mad." + +Mrs. Mortimer slowly raised her head and looked at her husband. + +"Leroy, are you mad?" + +"I! Not much!" he exclaimed gleefully. "I can make him the husband of +the most-run-after girl in New York--if I want to. And at the same time I +can puncture the most arrogant, the most cold-blooded, selfish, purse- +proud, inflated nincompoop that ever sat at the head of a director's +table. O-ho! Now you're staring, Leila. I can do it; I can make good. +What are you worrying about? Why, I've got a hundred ways to square that +cheque, and each separate way is a winner." + +He rose, shook out the creases in his trousers, and adjusted the squat, +gold fob which ornamented his protruding waistcoat. + +"So you'll fix it, won't you, Leila?" he said, apparently oblivious that +he had expressed himself as able to adjust the matter in one hundred +equally edifying and satisfactory manners. + +She did not answer. He lingered a moment at the door, looking back with +an ingratiating leer; but she paid him no attention, and he took himself +off, confident that her sulkiness could not result in anything +unpleasant to anybody except herself. + +Nor did it, as far as he could see. The days brought no noticeable +change in his wife's demeanour toward him. Plank, when he met him, was +civil enough, though it did occur to Mortimer that he saw very little of +Plank in these days. + +"Ungrateful beggar!" he thought bitterly; "he's toadying to Belwether +now. I can't do anything more for him, so I don't interest him." + +And for a while he wore either a truculent, aggrieved air in Plank's +presence, or the meeker demeanour of a martyr, sentimentally +misunderstood, but patient under the affliction. + +Then there came a time when he needed money. During the few days he +spent circling tentatively and apprehensively around his wife he learned +enough to know that there was nothing to be had from her at present. No +doubt the money she raised to placate Plank--if she had placated him in +that fashion--was a strain on her resources, whatever those resources +were. + +One thing was certain: Plank had not remained very long in ignorance of +the cheque drawn against his balance, if indeed, as Mortimer feared, the +bank itself had not communicated with Plank as soon as the cheque was +presented for payment. Therefore Plank must have been placated by Leila; +how, Mortimer was satisfied not to know. + +"Some of these days," he said to himself, "I'll catch her tripping, and +then there'll be a decent division of property, or--there'll be a +divorce." But, as usual, Mortimer found such practices more attractive +in theory than in execution, and he was really quite contented to go on +as things were going, if somebody would see that he had some money +occasionally. + +One of these occasions when he needed it was approaching. He had made a +"killing" at Desmond's, and had used the money to stop up the more +threatening gaps in the tottering financial fabric known as his +"personal accounts." The fabric would hold for a while, but meantime he +needed money to go on with. And Leila evidently had none. He tried +everybody except Plank. He had scarcely the impudence to go to Plank +just yet; but when, completing the vicious circle, he found his +borrowing capacity exhausted, and himself once more face to face with +the only hope, Plank, he sat down to consider seriously the possibility +of the matter. + +Of course Plank owed him more than he could ever pay--the ungrateful +parvenu!--but what Plank had thought of that cheque transaction he had +never been able to discover. + +Somehow or other he must put Plank under fresh obligations; and that +might have been possible had not Leila invaded the ground, leaving +nothing, now that Plank was secure in club life. + +Of course the first thing that presented itself to Mortimer's +consideration was the engineering of Plank's matrimonial ambitions. +Clearly the man had not changed. He was always at Sylvia's heels; he was +seen with her in public; he went to the Belwether house a great deal. No +possible doubt but that he was as infatuated as ever. And Quarrier was +going to marry her next November--that is, if he, Mortimer, chose to keep +silent about a certain midnight episode at Shotover. + +It was his inclination, except in theory, to keep silent, partly because +of his native inertia and unwillingness to go to the physical and +intellectual exertion of being a rascal, partly because he didn't really +want to be a rascal of that sort. + +Like a man with premonitions of toothache, who walks down to the +dentist's just to see what the number of the house looks like, and then +walks around the block to think it over, so Mortimer, suffering from +lack of money, walked round and round the central idea, unable to bring +himself to the point. + +Several times he called up Quarrier on the 'phone and made appointments +to lunch with him; but these meetings never resulted in anything except +luncheons which Mortimer paid for, and matters were becoming desperate. + +So one day, after having lunched too freely, he sat down and wrote Plank +the following note: + +My Dear Beverly: You will remember that I once promised you my aid in +securing what, to you, is the dearest object of your existence. I have +thought, I have pondered, I have given the matter deep and, I may add +without irreverence, prayerful consideration, knowing that the life's +happiness of my closest friend depended on my judgment and wisdom and +intelligence to secure for him the opportunity to crown his life's work +by the acquisition of the brightest jewel in the diadem of old +Manhattan. + +"By George! that's wickedly good, though!" chuckled Mortimer, refreshing +himself with his old stand-by, an apple, quartered, and soaked in very +old port. So he sopped his apple and swallowed it, and picked up his pen +again, chary of overdoing it. + +All I say to you is, be ready! The time is close at hand when you may +boldly make your avowal. But be ready! All depends upon the +psychological moment. An instant too soon, an instant too late, and you +are lost. And she is lost forever. Remember! Be faithful; trust in me, +and wait. And the instant I say, "Speak!" pour out your soul, my dear +friend, and be certain you are not pouring it out in vain. +L. M. + +Writing about "pouring out" made him thirsty, so he fortified himself +several times, and then, sealing the letter, went out to a letter-box +and stood looking at it. + +"If I mail it I'm in for it," he muttered. After a while he put the +letter in his pocket and walked on. + +"It really doesn't commit me to anything," he reflected at last, halting +before another letter-box. And as he stood there, hesitating, he glanced +up and saw Quarrier entering the Lenox Club. The next moment he flung up +the metal box lid, dropped in his letter, and followed Quarrier into the +club. + +Then events tumbled forward almost without a push from him. Quarrier was +alone in a window corner, drinking vichy and milk and glancing over the +afternoon papers. He saw Mortimer, and invited him to join him; and +Mortimer, being thirsty, took champagne. + +"I've been trying a new coach," said Quarrier, in his colourless and +rather agreeable voice; and he went on leisurely explaining the points +of the new mail-coach which had been built in Paris after plans of his +own, while Mortimer gulped glass after glass of chilled wine, which +seemed only to make him thirstier. Meantime he listened, really +interested, except that his fleshy head was too full of alcohol and his +own project to contain additional statistics concerning coaching. +Besides, Quarrier, who had never been over-cordial to him, was more so +now--enough for Mortimer to venture on a few tentative suggestions of a +financial nature; and though, as usual, Quarrier was not responsive, he +did not, as usual, get up and go away. + +A vague hope stirred Mortimer that it might not be beyond his persuasive +tongue to make this chilly, reticent young man into a friend some day--a +helpful friend. For Mortimer all his life had trusted to his tongue; and +though poorly enough repaid, the few lingual victories remained in his +memory, along with an inexhaustible vanity and hope; while his countless +defeats and the many occasions on which his tongue had played him false +were all forgotten. Besides, he had been drinking more heavily all day +than was his custom. + +So Quarrier talked, sparingly, about his new coach, about Billy +Fleetwood's renowned string of hunters, about Ashley Spencer's new +stable and his chances at Saratoga with Roy-a-neh, for which he had paid +a fabulous sum--the sum and the story probably equally fabulous. + +Mortimer's head was swimming with ideas; he was also talking a great +deal, much more than he had intended; he was saying things he had not +exactly intended to say, either, in just that way. He realised it, but +he went on, unable to stop his own tongue, the noise of which +intoxicated him. + +Once or twice he thought Quarrier looked at him rather strangely; but he +would show Quarrier that he was nobody's fool; he'd show Quarrier that +he was a friend, a good, staunch friend; and that Quarrier had long, +long undervalued him. Waves of sentiment spread through and through him; +his affection for Quarrier dampened his eyes; and still he blabbed on +and on, gazing with brimming eyes upon Quarrier, who sat back silent and +attentive as Mortimer circled and blundered nearer and nearer to the +crucial point of his destination. + +Midway in one of his linguistic ellipses Quarrier leaned forward and +caught his arm in a grip of steel. Another man had entered the room. +Mortimer, made partly conscious by the pain of Quarrier's vise-like +grip, was sober enough to recognise the impropriety of his continuing +aloud the veiled story he had been constructing with what he supposed to +be a cunning as matchless as it was impenetrable. + +Later he found himself upstairs in a private card-room, facing Quarrier +across a table, and still talking and quenching his increasing thirst. +He knew now what he was telling Quarrier; he was unveiling the parable; +he was stripping metaphor from a carefully precise story. He used +Siward's name presently; presently he used Sylvia's name. A moment +later--or was it an hour?--Quarrier stopped him, coldly, without a trace +of passion, demanding corroborative detail. And Mortimer gave it, +wagging his head and one fat forefinger as emphasis. + +"You saw that?" repeated Quarrier, deadly white of a sudden. + +"Yes; an' I--" + +"At three in the morning?" + +"Yes; an' I want--" + +"You saw him enter her room?" + +"Yes; an' I wan' tersay thish to you, because I'm your fr'en'. Don' wan' +anny fr'en's mine get fooled on women! See? Thash how I feel. I respec' +the sect! See! Women, lovely women! See? Respec' sect! Gimme y'han', +buzzer--er--brother Quar'er! Your m' fr'en'; I'm your fr'en'. I know how +it is. Gotter wife m'own. Rotten one. Stingy! Takes money outter m' +pockets. Dam 'stravagant. Ruin me! . Say, old boy, what about dividend +due 'morrow on Orange County Eclectic--mean Erlextic--no!--mean 'Letric! +Damn!--Wasser masser tongue?" + +Opening his fond and foggy eyes, and finding himself alone in the card- +room, he began to cry; and a little later, attempting to push the +electric button, he fell over a lounge and lay there, his shirt-front +soiled with wine, one fat leg trailing to the floor; not the ideal +position for slumber, perhaps, but what difference do attitudes and +postures and poses make when a gentleman, in the sacred seclusion of his +own club, is wooing the drowsy goddess with blasts of votive music +through his empurpled nose? + +In the meantime, however, he was due to dine at the Belwether house; and +when eight o'clock approached, and he had not returned to dress, Leila +called up Sylvia Landis on the telephone: + +"My dear, Leroy hasn't returned, and I suppose he's forgotten about the +Bridge. I can bring Mr. Plank, if you like." + +"Very well," said Sylvia, adding, "if Mr. Plank is there, may I speak to +him a moment?" + +So Leila rose, setting the receiver on the desk, and Plank came in from +the library and settled himself heavily in the chair: + +"Did you wish to speak to me, Miss Landis?" + +"Is that you, Mr. Plank? Yes; will you dine with us at eight? Bridge +afterward, if you don't mind." + +"Thank you." + +"And, Mr. Plank, you had a note from me this morning?" + +"Yes." + +"Please disregard it." + +"If you wish." + +"I do. It is not worth while." And as Plank made no comment, "I have no +further interest in the matter. Do you understand?" + +"No," said Plank doggedly. + +"I have nothing more to say. I am sorry. We dine at eight," concluded +Sylvia hurriedly. + +Plank hung up the receiver and sat eyeing it for a while in silence. +Then his jaw began to harden and his under lip protruded, and he folded +his great hands, resting them in front of him on the edge of the desk, +brooding there, with eyes narrowing like a sleepy giant at prayer. + +When Leila entered, in her evening wraps, she found him there, so +immersed in reverie that he failed to hear her; and she stood a moment +at the doorway, smiling to herself, thinking how pleasant it was to come +down ready for the evening and find him there, as though he belonged +where he sat, and was part of the familiar environment. + +Recently she had grown younger in a smooth-skinned, full-lipped way--so +much younger that it was spoken of. Something girlish in figure, in +spontaneity, in the hesitation of her smile, in the lack of that hard, +brilliant confidence which once characterised her, had developed; as +though she were beginning her debut again, reverting to a softness and +charm prematurely checked. Truly, her youth's discoloured blossom, +forced by the pale phantom of false spring, was refolding to a bud once +more; and the harsher tints of the inclement years were fading. + +"Beverly," she said, "I am ready." + +Plank stood up, dazed from his reverie, and walked toward her. His white +tie had become disarranged; she raised her hands, halting him, and +pulled it into shape for him, consciously innocent of the intimacy. + +"Thank you," he said. "Do you know how pretty you are this evening?" + +"Yes; I was very happy at my mirror. Do you know, the withered years +seem to be dropping from me like leaves from an autumn sapling. And I +feel young enough to say so poetically. . Did Sylvia try to flirt with +you over the wire?" + +"Yes, as usual," he said drily, descending the stairs beside her. + +"And really you don't love her any more?" she queried. + +"Scarcely." His voice was low and rather disagreeable, and she looked +up. + +"I wish I knew what you and Sylvia find to talk about so frequently, if +you're not in love." + +But he made no answer; and they drove away to the Belwether house, a +rather wide, old-style mansion of brown stone, with a stoop dividing its +ugly facade, and a series of unnecessary glass doors blockading the +vestibule. + +A drawing-room and a reception-room flanked the marble-tiled hall; +behind these the dining-room ran the width of the rear. It was a typical +gentlefolk's house of the worst period of Manhattan, and Major Belwether +belonged in it as fittingly as a melodeon belongs in a west-side flat. +The hall-way was made for such a man as he to patter through; the +velvet-covered stairs were as peculiarly fitted for him as a runway is +for a rabbit; the suave pink-and-white drawing-room, the discreet, gray +reception-room, the soft, fat rugs, the intricacies of banisters and +alcoves and curtained cubby-holes--all reflected his personality, all +corroborated the ensemble. It was his habitat, his distinctly, from the +pronounced but meaningless intricacy of the architecture to the studied +but unconvincing tints, like a man who suddenly starts to speak, but +checks himself, realising he has nothing in particular to say. + +There were half a dozen people there lounging informally between the +living-room on the second floor and Sylvia's apartments in the rear--the +residue from a luncheon and Bridge party given that afternoon by Sylvia +to a score or so of card-mad women. A few of these she had asked to +remain for an informal dinner, and a desperate game later--the sort of +people she knew well enough to lose to heavily or win from without +remorse--Grace Ferrall, Marion Page, Agatha Caithness. Trusting to the +telephone that morning, she had secured the Mortimers and Quarrier, +failing three men; and now the party, with Plank as Mortimer's +substitute, was complete, all thorough gamesters--sex mattering nothing +in the preparation for such a seance. + +In Sylvia's boudoir Grace Ferrall and Agatha Caithness sat before the +fire; Sylvia, at the mirror of her dresser, was correcting the pallor +incident to the unbroken dissipation of a brilliant season; Marion, with +her inevitable cigarette, wandered between Sylvia's quarters and the +library, where Quarrier and Major Belwether were sitting in low-voiced +confab. + +Leila, greeted gaily from the boudoir, went in. Plank entered the +library, was mauled effusively by the major, returned Quarrier's firm +hand shake, and sat down with an inquiring smile. + +"Oh, yes, we're out for blood to-night," tittered Major Belwether, +grasping Quarrier's arm humourously and shaking it to emphasise his +words--a habit that Quarrier thoroughly disliked. "Sylvia had a lot of +women here playing for the season score, so I suggested she keep the +pick of them for dinner, and call in a few choice ones to make a night +of it." + +"It's agreeable to me," said Plank, still looking at Quarrier with the +same inquiring expression, which that gentleman presently chose to +understand. + +"I haven't had a chance to look into that matter," he said carelessly. +"Some day, when you have time to go over it--" + +"I have time now," said Plank; "there's nothing to go over; there's no +reason for any secrecy. All I wrote you was that I proposed to control +the stock of Amalgamated Electric and that I wished your advice in the +matter." + +"I could not give you any advice off-hand on such an extraordinary +suggestion," returned Quarrier coldly. "If you know where the stock is, +you'll understand." + +"Do you mean what it is quoted at, or who owns it?" interrupted Plank. + +"Who owns it. Everybody knows where it has dropped to, I suppose. Most +people know, too, where it is held." + +"Yes; I do." + +"And who is manipulating it," added Quarrier indifferently. + +"Do you mean Harrington's people?" + +"I don't mean anybody in particular, Mr. Plank." + +"Oh!" said Plank, staring, "I was sure you couldn't have meant +Harrington; because," he went on deliberately, "there are other theories +floating about that mysterious pool, one of which I've proved." + +Quarrier looked at him out of his velvety-lidded eyes: + +"What have you proved?" + +"I'll tell you, if you'll appoint an interview." + +"I'll come too," began Belwether, who had been listening, loose-mouthed +and intent; "we're all in it--Howard, Kemp Ferrall, and I--" + +"And Stephen Siward," observed Plank, so quietly that Quarrier never +even raised his eyes to read the stolid face opposite. + +Presently he said: "Do you know anybody who can deliver you any +considerable block of Amalgamated Electric at the market figures?" + +"I could deliver you several blocks, if you care to bid," said Plank +bluntly. + +Belwether grew red, then pale. Quarrier stiffened in his chair, but his +eyes were only sceptical. Plank's under lip had begun to protrude again; +he swung his massive head, looking from Belwether back to Quarrier: + +"Pool or no pool," he continued, "you Amalgamated people will want to +see the stock climb back into the branches from which somebody shook it +out; and I propose to put it there. That is all I had meant to say to +you, Mr. Quarrier. I'm not averse to saying it here to you, and I do. +There's no secrecy about it. Figure out for yourself how much stock I +control, and who let it go. Settle your family questions and put your +house in order; then invite me to call, and I'll do it. And I have an +idea that we are going to stand on our own legs again, and recover our +self-respect and our fighting capacity; and I rather think we'll stop +this hold-up business, and that our Inter-County friend will let go the +sand-bag and pocket the jimmy, and talk business across the line-fence." + +Quarrier's characteristic pallor was no index to his feelings, nor was +his icy reticence. All hell might be boiling below. + +When anybody gave Quarrier a letter to read he took a long time reading +it; but if he was slow he was also minute; he went over every word again +and again, studying, absorbing each letter, each period, the +conformation of every word. And when he ended he had in his brain a +photograph of the letter which he would never forget. + +And now, slowly, minutely, methodically, he was going over and over +Plank's words, and his manner of saying them, and their surface import, +and the hidden one, if any. + +If Plank had spoken the truth--and there was no reason to doubt it--Plank +had quietly acquired a controlling interest in Amalgamated Electric. +That meant treachery in somebody. Who? Probably Siward, perhaps +Belwether. He would not look at the latter just yet; not for a minute or +two. There was time enough to see through that withered, pink-and-white +old fraud. But why had Plank done this? And why did Plank suspect him of +any desire to wreck his own property? He did suspect him, that was +certain. + +After a silence, he spoke quietly and without emotion: + +"Everybody concerned will be glad to see Amalgamated Electric declaring +dividends. This is a shock to us," he glanced impassively at the +shrunken major, "but a pleasant shock. I think it well to arrange a +meeting as soon as possible." + +"To-morrow," said Plank, with a manner of closing discussion. And in his +brusque ending of the matter Quarrier detected the ringing undertone of +an authority he never had and never would endure; and though his pale, +composed features betrayed not the subtlest shade of emotion, he was +aware that a new element had come into his life--a new force was growing +out of nothing to confront him, an unfamiliar shape loomed vaguely +ahead, throwing its huge distorted shadow across his path. He sensed it +with the instinct of kind for kind, not because Plank's millions meant +anything to him as a force; not because this lumbering, red-faced +meddler had blundered into a family affair where confidence consisted in +joining hands lest a pocket be inadvertently picked; not because Plank +had knocked at the door, expecting treachery to open, and had found it, +but because of the awful simplicity of the man and his methods. + +If Plank suspected him, he must also suspect him of complicity in the +Inter-County grab; he must suspect him of the ruthless crushing power +that corrupts or annihilates opposition, making a mockery of +legislation, a jest of the courts, and an epigram of a people's +indignation. + +And yet, in the face of all this, careless, fearless, frank to the outer +verge of stupidity--which sometimes means the inability to be afraid--this +man Plank was casually telling him things which men regard as secrets +and as weapons of defence--was actually averting him of his peril, and +telling him almost contemptuously to pull up the drawbridge and prepare +for siege, instead of rushing the castle and giving it to the sack. + +As Quarrier sat there meditating, his long, white fingers caressing his +soft, pointed beard, Sylvia came in, greeting the men collectively with +a nod, and offering her hand to Plank. + +"Dinner is announced," she said; "please go in farm fashion. Wait!" as +Plank, following the major and Quarrier, stood aside for her to pass. +"No, you go ahead, Howard; and you," to the major. + +Left for a moment in the room with Plank, she stood listening to the +others descending the stairs; then: + +"Have you seen Mr. Siward?" + +"Yes," said Plank. + +"Oh! Is he well?" + +"Not very." + +"Is he well enough to read a letter, and to answer one?" + +"Oh, yes; he's well enough in that way." + +"I supposed so. That is why I said to you, over the wire, not to trouble +him with my request." + +"You mean that I am not to say anything about your offer to buy the +hunter?" + +"No. If I make up my mind that I want the horse I'll write him--perhaps." + +Lingering still, she let one hand fall on the banisters, turning back +toward Plank, who was following: + +"I understood you to mean that--that Mr. Siward's financial affairs were +anything but satisfactory?"--the sweet, trailing, upward inflection +making it a question. + +"When did I say that?" demanded Plank. + +"Once--a month ago." + +"I didn't," said Plank bluntly. + +"Oh, I had inferred it, then, from something you said, or something you +were silent about. Is that it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Am I quite wrong, then?" she asked, looking him in the eyes. + +And Plank, who never lied, found no answer. Considering him for a moment +in silence, she turned again and descended the stairs. + +The dinner was one of those thoroughly well-chosen dinners of few +courses and faultless service suitable for card-players, who neither +care to stuff themselves as a preliminary to a battle royal, nor to +dawdle through courses, eliminating for themselves what is not good for +them. The men drank a light, sound, aromatic Irish of the major's; the +women--except Marion, who took what the men took--used claret sparingly. +Coffee was served where they sat; the men smoking, Agatha and Marion +producing their own cigarettes. + +"Don't you smoke any more?" asked Grace Ferrall of Leila Mortimer, and +at the smiling negative, "Oh, that perhaps explains it. You're growing +positively radiant, you know. You'll he wearing a braid and a tuck in +your skirt if you go on getting younger." + +Leila laughed, colouring up as Plank turned in his chair to look at her +closer. + +"No, it won't rub off, Mr. Plank," said Marion coolly, "but mine will. +This," touching a faint spot of colour under her eyes, "is art." + +"Pooh! I'm all art!" said Grace. "Observe, Mr. Plank, that under this +becoming flush are the same old freckles you saw at Shotover." And she +laughed that sweet, careless laugh of an adolescent and straightened her +boyish figure, pretty head held high, adding: "Kemp won't let me +'improve' myself, or I'd do it." + +"You are perfect," said Sylvia, rising from the table, her own lovely, +rounded, youthful figure condoning the exaggeration; "you're +sufficiently sweet as you are. Good people, if you are ready, we will go +through the ceremony of cutting for partners--unless otherwise you +decide. How say you?" + +"I don't care to enter the scramble for a man," cried Grace. "If it's to +choose, I'd as soon choose Marion." + +Plank looked at Leila, who laughed. + +"All right; choose, then!" said Sylvia. "Howard, you're dying, of +course, to play with me, but you're looking very guiltily at Agatha." + +The major asked Leila at once; so Plank fell to Sylvia, pitted against +Marion and Grace Ferrall. + +A few moments later the quiet of the library was broken by the butler +entering with decanters and ice, and glasses that tinkled frostily. + +Play began at table Number One on a passed make of no trumps by Sylvia, +and at the other table on a doubled and redoubled heart make, which sent +a delicate flush into Agatha's face, and drove the last vestige of +lingering thoughtfulness from Quarrier's, leaving it a tense, pallid, +and expressionless mask, out of which looked the velvet-fringed eyes of +a woman. + +Of all the faces there at the two tables, Sylvia's alone had not +changed, neither assuming the gambler's mask nor the infatuated glare of +the amateur. She was thoughtful, excited, delighted, or dismayed by +turns, but always wholesomely so; the game for its own sake, and not the +stakes, absorbing her, partly because she had never permitted herself to +weigh money and pleasure in the same balance, but kept a mental pair of +scales for each. + +As usual, the fever of gain was fiercest in those who could afford to +lose most. Quarrier, playing to rule with merciless precision, coldly +exacted every penalty that a lapse in his opponents permitted. Agatha, +her teeth set in her nether lip, her eyes like living jewels, answered +Quarrier's every signal, interpreted every sign, her play fitting in +exactly with his, as though she were his subconscious self balancing the +perfectly adjusted mechanism of his body and mind. + +Now and then lifting her eyes, she sent a long, limpid glance at +Quarrier like a pale shaft of light; and under his heavy-fringed lashes, +at moments, his level gaze encountered her's with a slow narrowing of +lids--as though there was more than one game in progress, more than one +stake being played for under the dull rose glow of the clustered lights. + +Sylvia, sitting dummy at the other tables mechanically alert to Plank's +cards dropping in rapid sequence as he played alternately from his own +hand and the dummy, permitted her thoughtful eyes to wander toward +Agatha from moment to moment. How alluring her subtle beauty, in its own +strange way! How perfect her accord with her partner! How faultless her +intelligence, divining the very source of every hidden motive +controlling him, forestalling his intent--acquiescent, delicate, +marvellous intelligence--the esoteric complement of two parts of a single +mind. + +The collar of diamonds and aqua marines shimmered like the reflection of +shadowy lightning across her throat; a single splendid jewel glowed on +her left hand as her fingers flashed among the cards for the make-up. + +"A hundred aces," broke in Plank's heavy voice as he played the last +trick and picked up the scoring card and pencil. + +Sylvia's blue eyes were laughing as Plank cut the new pack. Marion Page +coolly laid aside her cigarette, dealt, and made it "without" in the +original. + +"May I play?" asked Sylvia sweetly. + +"Please," growled Plank. + +So Sylvia serenely played from the "top of nothing," and Grace Ferrall +whisked a wonderful dummy across the green; and Plank's thick under lip +began to protrude, and he lowered his heavy head like a bull at bay. + +Once Marion, over-intent, touched a card in the dummy when she should +have played from her own hand; and Sylvia would have let it pass, had +not Plank calmly noted the penalty. + +"Oh, dear! It's too much like business," sighed Sylvia. "Can't we play +for the sake of the sport? I don't think it good sportsmanship to profit +by a blunder." + +"Rule," observed Marion laconically. "'Ware barbed wire, if you want the +brush." + +"I myself never was crazy for the brush," murmured Sylvia. + +Grace whispered maliciously: "But you've got it, with the mask and +pads," and her mischievous head barely tipped backward in the direction +of Quarrier. + +"Especially the mask," returned Sylvia, under her breath, and laid on +the table the last card of a Yarborough. + +Plank scored without comment. Marion cut, and resumed her cigarette. +Sylvia dealt with that witchery of rounded wrists and slim fingers +fascinating to men and women alike. Then, cards en regle, passed the +make. Plank, cautiously consulting the score, made it spades, which +being doubled, Grace led a "singleton" ace, and Plank slapped down a +strong dummy and folded his great arms. + +Toward midnight, Sylvia, absorbed in her dummy, fancied she heard the +electric bell ringing at the front door. Later, having barely made the +odd, she was turning to look at the major, when, beyond him, she saw +Leroy Mortimer enter the room, sullen, pasty-skinned, but perfectly +sober and well groomed. + +"You are a trifle late," observed Sylvia carelessly. Grace Ferrall and +Marion ignored him. Plank bade him good evening in a low voice. + +The people at the other table, having completed their rubber, looked +around at Mortimer in disagreeable surprise. + +"I'll cut in, if you want me. If you don't, say so," observed Mortimer. + +It was plain that they did not; so he settled himself in an arm-chair, +with an ugly glance at his wife and an insolent one at Quarrier; and the +game went on in silence; Leila and the major still losing heavily under +the sneering gaze of Mortimer. + +At last, "Who's carrying you?" he broke out, exasperated; and in the +shocked silence Leila, very white, made a movement to rise, but Quarrier +laid his long fingers across her arm, pressing her backward. + +"You don't know what you're saying," he remarked, looking coldly at +Mortimer. + +Plank laid down his cards, rose, and walked over to Mortimer: + +"May I have a word with you?" he asked bluntly. + +"You may. And I'll help myself to a word or two with you," retorted +Mortimer, following Plank out of the room, down the stairs to the +lighted reception-room, where they wheeled, confronting one another. + +"What is the matter?" demanded Plank. "At the club they told me you were +asleep in the card-room. I didn't tell Leila. What is wrong?" + +"I'm--I'm dead broke," said Mortimer harshly. "Billy Fleetwood took my +paper. Can you help me out? It's due to-morrow." + +Plank looked at him gravely, but made no answer. + +"Can you? "repeated Mortimer violently. "Haven't I done enough for you? +Haven't I done enough for everybody? Is anybody going to show me any +consideration? Look at Quarrier's manner to me just now! And this very +day I did him a service that all his millions can't repay. And there you +stand, too, staring at me as though I were some damned importuning +shabby-genteel, hinting around for an opening to touch you. Yes, you do! +And this very day I have done for you the--the most vital thing--the most +sacred favour one man can do for another--" + +He halted, stammered something incoherent, his battered eyes wet with +tears. The man was a wreck--nerves, stamina, mind on the very verge of +collapse. + +"I'll help you, of course," said Plank, eyeing him. "Go home, now, and +sleep. I tell you I'll help you in the morning. . Don't give way! Have +you no grit? Pull up sharp, I tell you!" + +But Mortimer had fallen into a chair, his ravaged face cradled in his +hands. "I've got all that's c-coming to me," he said hoarsely; "I'm all +in--all in! God! but I've got the jumps this trip. . You'll stand for +this, won't you, Plank? I was batty, but I woke up in time to grasp the +live wire Billy Fleetwood held--three shocks in succession--and his were +queens full to my jacks--aces to kings twice!--Alderdene and Voucher +sitting in until they'd started me off hiking hellward!" + +He began to ramble, and even to laugh weakly, passing his puffy, shaking +hands across his eyes. + +"It's good of you, Beverly; I appreciate it. But I've been good to you. +You're all to the good, my boy! Understand? All to the good. I fixed it; +I did it for you. You can have your innings now. You can have her when +you want her, I tell you." + +"What do you mean?" said Plank menacingly. + +"Mean! I mean what I told you that day at Black Fells, when we were +riding. I told you you had a chance to win out. Now the chance has +come--same's I told you. Start in, and by the time you're ready to say +'When?' she'll be there with the bottle!" + +"I don't think you are perfectly sane yet," said Plank slowly. + +"Let it go at that, then," sniggered Mortimer, struggling to his feet. +"Bring Leila back; I'm all in; I'm going home. You'll be around in the +morning, won't you?" + +"Yes," said Plank. "Have you got a cab?" + +Mortimer had one. The glass and iron doors clanged behind him, and +Plank, waiting a moment, sighed, raised his head, and, encountering the +curious gaze of a servant, trudged off up-stairs again. + +The game had ended at both tables. Quarrier and Agatha stood by the +window together, conversing in low voices. Belwether, at a desk, sat +muttering and fussing with a cheque-book. The others were in Sylvia's +apartments. + +A few moments later Kemp Ferrall arrived, in the best of spirits, very +much inclined to consider the night as still young; but his enthusiasm +met with no response, and presently he departed with his wife and Marion +in their big Mercedes, wheeling into the avenue at a reckless pace, and +streaming away through the night like a meteor run mad. + +Leila, in her wraps, emerged in a few moments, looking at Plank out of +serious eyes; and they made their brief adieux and went away in Plank's +brougham. + +When Agatha's maid arrived, Quarrier also started to take his leave; but +Sylvia, seated at a card-table, idly arranging the cards in geometrical +designs and fanciful arabesques, looked up at him, saying: + +"I wanted to say something to you, Howard." + +Agatha passed them, going into Sylvia's room for her wraps; and Quarrier +turned to Sylvia: + +"Well?" he said, with the slightest hint of impatience. + +"Can't you stay a minute?" asked Sylvia, surprised. + +"Agatha is going in the motor with me. Is it anything important?" + +She considered him without replying. She had never before detected that +manner, that hardness in a voice always so even in quality. + +"What is it?" he repeated. + +She thought a moment, putting aside for the time his manner, which she +could not comprehend; then: + +"I wanted to ask you a question--a rather ignorant one, perhaps. It's +about your Amalgamated Electric Company. May I ask it, Howard?" + +After a second's stare, "Certainly," he said. + +"It's only this: If the other people--the Inter-County, I mean--are slowly +ruining Amalgamated, why don't you stop it?" + +Quarrier's eyes narrowed. "Oh! And who have you been discussing the +matter with?" + +"Mr. Plank," she said simply. "I asked him. He shook his head, and said +I'd better ask you. And I do ask you." + +For a moment he stood mute; then his lips began to shrink back over his +beautiful teeth in one of his rare laughs. + +"I'll be very glad to explain it some day," he said; but there was no +mirth in his voice or eyes, only the snickering lip wrinkling the +pallor. + +"Will you not answer now?" she asked. + +"No, not now. But I desire you to understand it some day--some day before +November. And one or two other matters that it is necessary for you to +understand. I want to explain them, Sylvia, in such a manner that you +will never be likely to forget them. And I mean to; for they are never +out of my mind, and I wish them to be as ineffaceably impressed on +yours. . Good night." + +He took her limp hand almost briskly, released it, and stepped down the +stairs as Agatha entered, cloaked, to say good night. + +They kissed at parting--"life embracing death"--as Mortimer had sneered +on a similar occasion; then Sylvia, alone, stood in her bedroom, hands +linked behind her, her lovely head bent, groping with the very ghosts of +thought which eluded her, fleeing, vanishing, reappearing, to peep out +at her only to fade into nothing ere she could follow where they flitted +through the dark labyrinths of memory. + +The major, craning his neck in the bay-window, saw Agatha and Quarrier +enter the big, yellow motor, and disappear behind the limousine. And it +worried him horribly, because he knew perfectly well that Quarrier had +lied to him about a jewelled collar precisely like the collar worn by +Agatha Caithness; and what to do or what to say to anybody on the +subject was, for the first time in his life, utterly beyond his +garrulous ability. So, for the first time also in his chattering career, +he held his tongue, reassured at moments, at other moments panic- +stricken lest this marriage he had engineered should go amiss, and his +ambitions be nipped at the very instant of triumphant maturity. + +"This sort of thing--in your own caste--among your own kind," his panicky +thoughts ran on, "is b-bad form--rotten bad taste on both sides. If they +were married--one of them, anyway! But this isn't right; no, by gad! it's +bad taste, and no gentleman could countenance it!" + +It was plain that he could, however, his only fear being that somebody +might whisper something to turn Sylvia's innocence into a terrible +wisdom which would ruin everything, and knock the underpinning from the +new tower which his inflated fancy beheld slowly growing heavenward, +surmounting the house of Belwether. + +Another matter: he had violated his word, and had been caught at it by +his prospective nephew-in-law--broken his pledged word not to sell his +Amalgamated Electric holdings, and had done it. Yet, how could Plank +dominate, unless another also had done what he had done? And it made him +a little more comfortable to know he was sharing the fault with +somebody--probably with Siward, whom he now had the luxury of despising +for the very thing he himself had done. + +"Drunkard!" he muttered to himself; "he's in the gutter at last!" + +And he repeated it unctuously, almost reconciled to his own shortcoming, +because it was the first time, as far as he knew, that a Belwether might +legitimately enjoy the pleasures of holding the word of a Siward in +contempt. + +Sylvia had dismissed her maid, the old feeling of distaste for the touch +of another had returned since the last mad, crushed embrace in Siward's +arms had become a memory. More and more she was returning to old +instincts, old habits of thought, reverting to type once more, virgin of +lip and thought and desire, save when the old memory stopped her heart +suddenly, then sent it racing, touching her face with quick, crimson +imprint. + +Now, blue eyes dreaming under the bright masses of her loosened hair, +she sat watching the last glimmer amid the ashes whitening on the +hearth, thinking of Siward and of what had been between them, and of +what could never be--never, never be. + +One red spark among the ashes--her ambition, deathless amid the ashes of +life! When that, too, went out, life must be extinct. + +What he had roused in her had died when he went away. It could never +awake again, unless he returned to awaken it. And he never would; he +would never come again. + +One brief interlude of love, of passion, in her life could neither tint +nor taint the cool, normal sequence of her days. All that life held for +a woman of her caste--all save that--was hers when she stretched out her +hand for it--hers by right of succession, of descent; hers by warrant +unquestioned, by the unuttered text of the ukase to be launched, if +necessary, by that very, very old lady, drowsing, enthroned, as the +endless pageant wound like a jewelled river at her feet. + +So Siward could never come again, sauntering toward her through the +sunlight, smiling his absent smile. She caught her breath painfully, +straightening up; a single ash fell in the fire; the last spark went +out. + + + +CHAPTER XI THE CALL OF THE RAIN + +The park was very misty and damp and still that morning. + +There was a scent of sap and new buds in the February haze, a glimmer of +green on southern slopes, a distant bird note, tentative, then +confident, rippling from the gray tangle of naked thickets. Here and +there in hollows the tips of amber-tinted shoots pricked the soil's dark +surface; here and there in the sparse woodlands a withered leaf still +clinging to oak or beech was forced to let go by the swelling bud at its +base and fell rustling stiffly in the silence. + +Far away on the wooded bridle-path the dulled double gallop of horses +sounded, now muffled in a hollow, now louder, jarring the rising ground, +nearer, heavier, then suddenly checked to a trample, as Sylvia drew +bridle by the reservoir, and, straightening in her saddle, raised her +flushed face to the sky. + +"Rain?" she asked, as Quarrier, controlling his beautiful, restive +horse, ranged up beside her. + +"Probably," he said, scarcely glancing at the sky, where, above the +great rectangular lagoons, hundreds of sea-gulls, high in the air, hung +flapping, stemming some rushing upper gale unfelt below. + +She walked her mount, head lifted, watching the gulls; he followed, +uninterested, imperturbable in his finished horsemanship. With horses he +always appeared to advantage, whether on the box of break or coach, or +silently controlling a spike or tandem, or sitting his saddle in his +long-limbed, faultless fashion, maintaining without effort the very +essence of form. Here he was at his best, perfectly informal, informally +perfect. + +They had ridden every day since the weather permitted--even before it +permitted--thrashing and slashing through the rotting ice and snow, +galloping over the frozen, gravelly loam, amid leafless trees and a +winter-smitten perspective--drearier for the distant, eastern glimpse of +the avenue's marble and limestone facades and the vast cliffs of masonry +and brick looming above the west and south. + +On these daily rides together it was her custom to discuss practical +matters concerning their future; and it was his custom to listen until +pressed for a suggestion, an assent, or a reply. + +Sparing words--cautious, chary of self-commitment, and seldom offering to +assume the initiative--this was the surface character which she had come +to recognise and acquiesce in; this was Quarrier as he had been +developed from her hazy, preconceived ideas of the man before she had +finally accepted him at Shotover the autumn before. She also knew him as +a methodical man, exacting from others the orderly precision which +characterised his own dealings; a man of education and little learning, +of attainments and little cultivation, conversant with usages, formal, +intensely sensitive to ridicule, incapable of humour. + +This was Quarrier as she knew him or had known him. Recently she had, +little by little, become aware of an indefinable change in the man. For +one thing, he had grown more reticent. At times, too, his reserve seemed +to have something almost surly about it; under his cold composure a hint +of something concealed, watchful, and very quiet. + +Confidences she had never looked for in him nor desired. It appalled her +at moments to realise how little they had in common, and that only on +the surface--a communion of superficial interest incident to the +fulfilment of social duties and the pursuit of pleasure. Beyond that she +knew nothing of him, required nothing of him. What was there to know? +what to require? + +Now that the main line of her route through life had been surveyed and +carefully laid out, what was there more for her in life than to set out +upon her progress? It was her own road. Presumptive leader already, +logical leader from the day she married--leader, in fact, when the ukase, +her future legacy, so decreed; it was a royal road laid out for her +through the gardens and pleasant places; a road for her alone, and over +it she had chosen to pass. What more was there to desire? + +From the going of Siward, all that he had aroused in her of love, of +intelligence, of wholesome desire and sane curiosity--the intellectual +restlessness, the capacity for passion, the renaissance of the simpler +innocence--had subsided into the laissez faire of dull quiescence. If in +her he had sown, imprudently, subtle, impulsive, unworldly ideas, +flowering into sudden brilliancy in the quick magic of his +companionship, now those flowers were dead under the inexorable winter +of her ambition, where all such things lay; her lonely childhood, with +its dimmed visions of mother-love ineffable; the strange splendour of +the dreams haunting her adolescence--pageants of bravery and the glitter +of the cross, altars of self-denial and pure intent, service and +sacrifice and the scorn of wrong; and sometimes, seen dimly with +enraptured eyes through dissolving mists--the man! glimmering for an +instant, then fading, resolved into the starry void which fashioned him. + + +Riding there, head bent, her pulses timing the slow pacing of her horse, +she presently became aware, without looking up, that Quarrier was +watching her. Dreams vanished. A perfectly unreasonable sense of being +spied upon, of something stealthy about it all, flashed to her mind and +was gone, leaving her grave and perplexed. What a strange suspicion! +What an infernal inference! What grotesque train of thought could have +culminated in such a sinister idea! + +She moved slightly in her saddle to look at him, and for an instant +fancied that there was something furtive in his eyes; only for an +instant, for he quietly picked up the thread of conversation where she +had dropped it, saying that it had been raining for the last ten +minutes, and that they might as well turn their horses toward shelter. + +"I don't mind the rain," she said; "there is a spring-like odour in it. +Don't you notice it?" + +"Not particularly," he replied. + +"I was miles away a moment ago," she said; "years away, I mean--a little +girl again, with two stiff yellow braids, trying to pretend that a big +arm-chair was my mother's lap and that I could hear her whispering to +me. And there I sat, on a day like this, listening, pretending, cuddled +up tight, and looking out at the first rain of the year falling in the +backyard. There was an odour like this about it all. Memory, they say, +is largely a matter of nose!" She laughed, fearing that be might have +thought her sentimental, already regretting the familiarity of thrusting +such trivial and personal incidents upon his notice. He was probably too +indifferent to comment on it, merely nodding as she ended. + +Then, without reason, through and through her shot a shiver of +loneliness--utter loneliness and isolation. Without reason, because from +him she expected nothing, required nothing, except what he offered--the +emotionless reticence of indifference, the composure of perfect +formality. What did she want, then--companions? She had them. Friends? +She could scarcely escape from them. Intimates? She had only to choose +one or a hundred attuned responsive to her every mood, every caprice. +Lonely? With the men of New York crowding, shouldering, crushing their +way to her feet? Lonely? With the women of New York struggling already +for precedence in her favour?--omen significant of the days to come, of +those future years diamond-linked in one unbroken, triumphant glitter. + +Lonely! + +The rain was falling out of the hanging mist, something more than a +drizzle now. Quarrier spoke of it again, but she shook her head, walking +her horse slowly onward. The train of thought she followed was slower +still, winding on and on, leading her into half light and shadow, and in +and out through hidden trails she should have known by this time--always +on, skirting the objective, circling it through sudden turns. And now +she was becoming conscious of the familiar way; now she recognised the +quiet, still by-ways of the maze she seemed doomed to wander in forever. +But, for that matter, all paths of thought were alike to her, for, +sooner or later, all ultimately led to him; and this she was already +aware of as a disturbing phenomenon to consider and account for and to +provide against--when she had leisure. + +"About that Amalgamated Electric Company," she began without prelude; +"would you mind answering a question or two, Howard?" + +"You could not understand it," he said, unpleasantly disturbed by her +abruptness. + +"As you please. It is quite true I can make nothing of what the +newspapers are saying about it, except that Mr. Plank seems to be doing +a number of things." + +"Injunctions, and other matters," observed Quarrier. + +"Is anybody going to lose any money in it?" + +"Who, for example?" + +"Why--you, for example," she said, laughing. + +"I don't expect to." + +"Then it is going to turn out all right? And Mr. Plank and Kemp Ferrall +and the major and--the other people interested, are not going to be +almost ruined by the Inter-County people?" + +"Do you think a man like Plank is likely to be ruined, as you say, by +Amalgamated Electric?" + +"No. But Kemp and the major--" + +"I think the major is out of danger," replied Quarrier, looking at her +with the new, sullen narrowing of his eyes. + +"I am glad of that. Is Kemp--and the others?" + +"Ferrall could stand it if matters go wrong. What others?" + +"Why--the other owners and stockholders--" + +"What others? Who do you mean?" + +"Mr. Siward, for example," she said in an even voice, leaning over to +pat her horse's neck with her gloved hand. + +"Mr. Siward must take the chances we all take," observed Quarrier. + +"But, Howard, it would really mean ruin for him if matters went badly. +Wouldn't it?" + +"I am not familiar with the details of Mr. Siward's investments." + +"Nor am I," she said slowly. + +He made no reply. + +Lack of emotion in the man beside her she always expected, and therefore +this new, sullen note in his voice perplexed her. Too, at times, in his +increasing reticence there seemed to be almost a hint of cold +effrontery. She felt it now--an indefinite suggestion of displeasure and +the power to retaliate; something evasive, watchful, patiently hostile; +and, try as she might, she could not rid herself of the discomfort of +it, and the perplexity. + +She spoke about other things; he responded in his impassive manner. +Presently she turned her horse and Quarrier wheeled his, facing a warm, +fine rain, slanting thickly from the south. + +His silky, Vandyke beard was all wet with the moisture. She noticed it, +and unbidden arose the vision of the gun-room at Shotover: Quarrier's +soft beard wet with rain; the phantoms of people passing and repassing; +Siward's straight figure swinging past, silhouetted against the glare of +light from the billiard-room. And here she made an effort to efface the +vision, shutting her eyes as she rode there in the rain. But clearly +against the closed lids she saw the phantoms passing--spectres of dead +hours, the wraith of an old happiness masked with youth and wearing +Siward's features! + +She must stop it! What was all this crowding in upon her as she rode +forward through the driving rain--all this resurgence of ghosts long +laid, long exorcised? Had the odour of the rain stolen her senses, +awakening memory of childish solitude? Was it that which was drugging +her with remembrance of Siward and the rattle of rain in the bay-window +above the glass-roofed swimming-pool? + +She opened her eyes wide, staring straight ahead into the thickening +rain; but her thoughts were loosened now, tuned to the increasing rhythm +of her heart: and she saw him seated there, his head buried in his hands +as she stole through the dim corridors to her first tryst; saw him look +up; saw herself beside him among the cushions; tasted again the rose- +petals that her lips had stripped from the blossoms; saw once more the +dawn of something in his steady eyes; felt his arm about her, his +breath-- + +Her horse, suddenly spurred, bounded forward through the rain, and she +rode breathless, with lips half parted, as if afraid, turning her head +to look behind--as though she could outride the phantom clinging to her +stirrup, masked like youth, wearing the shadowy eyes of Love! + + +In her drenched habit, standing before her dressing-room fire, she heard +her maid soliciting entrance, and paid no heed, the door being locked--as +though a spectre could be bolted out of rooms and houses! Pacing the +floor, restless, annoyed, and dismayed by turns, she flung her wet skirt +and coat from her, piece by piece, and stood for awhile, like some +slender youth in riding breeches and shirt, facing the fire, her fingers +resting on her hips. + +In the dull light of a rainy noon-day the fire reddened the ceiling, +throwing her giant shadow across the wall, where it towered, swaying, +like a ghost above her. She caught sight of it over her shoulder, and +watched it absently; then gazed into the coals again, her chin dropping +on her bared chest. + +At her maid's repeated knocking she turned, her boots and the single +spur sparkling in the firelight, and opened the door. + +An hour later, fresh from her bath, luxurious in loose and filmy lace, +her small, white feet shod with silk, she lunched alone, cradled among +the cushions of her couch. + +Twice she strolled through the rooms leisurely, summoned by her maid to +the telephone; the first time to chat with Grace Ferrall, who, it +appeared, was a victim of dissipation, being still abed, and out of +humour with the rainy world; the second time to answer in the negative +Marion's suggestion that she motor to Lakewood with her for the week's +end before they closed their house. + +Sauntering back again, she sipped her milk and vichy, tasted the +strawberries, tasted a big black grape, discarded both, and lay back +among the cushions, her naked arms clasped behind her head, and dropping +one knee over the other, stared at the ceiling. + +Restlessness and caprice ruled her. She seldom smoked, but seeing on the +table a stray cigarette of the sort she kept for any intimates who might +desire them, she stretched out her arm, scratched a match, and lighted +it with a dainty grimace. + +Lying there, she tried to make rings; but the smoke only got into her +delicate uptilted nose and stung her tongue, and she very soon had +enough of her cigarette. + +Watching the slow fire consume it between her fingers she lay supine, +following the spirals of smoke with inattentive eyes. By-and-by the +lengthening ash fell, powdering her, and she threw the cigarette into +the grate, flicked the ashes from her bare, round arm, and, clasping her +hands under her neck, turned over and closed her eyes. + +Sleep?--with every pulse awake and throbbing, every heart-beat sending +the young blood rushing out through a body the incarnation of youth and +life itself! There was a faint flush in the hollow of each upturned +palm, where the fingers like relaxed petals curled inward; a deepening +tint in the parted lips; and under the lids, through the dusk of the +lashes, a glimmer of blue. + +Lying there, veiled gaze conscious of the rose-light which glowed and +waned on the ceiling, she awaited the flowing tide on which so often she +had embarked and drifted out into that golden gloom serene, where, +spirit becalmed, Time and Grief faded, and Desire died out upon the +unshadowed sea of dreams. + +It is long waiting for the tide when the wakeful heart beats loudly, +when the pulses quicken at a memory, and the thousand idle little +cellules of the brain, long sealed, long unused, and consigned to the +archives of What Is Ended, open one by one, releasing each its own +forgotten ghost. + +And how can the heart rest, the pulse sleep, startled to a flutter, as +one by one the tiny cells unclose unbidden, and the dead remembrance, +from its cerements freed, brightens to life? + +Words he had used, the idle lifting of his head, the forgotten +inflection of his voice, the sunlight on his hair and the sea-wind +stirring it; his figure as it turned to move away, the half-caught echo +of his laugh, faint, faint!--so that her own ears, throbbing, strained to +listen; the countless unimportant moments she had thought unmarked, yet +carefully stored up, without her knowledge, in the magic cellules of her +brain--all, all were coming back to life, more and more distinct, +startlingly clear. + +And she lay like one afraid to move, lest her stirring waken a vague +something that still slept, something she dared not arouse, dared not +meet face to face, even in dreams. An interval--perhaps an hour, perhaps +a second--passed, leaving her stranded so close to the shoals of slumber +that sleep passed only near enough to awaken her. + +The room was very still and dim, but the clamour in her brain unnerved +her, and she sat up among the cushions, looking vacantly about her with +the blue, confused eyes, the direct, unseeing gaze of a child roused by +a half-heard call. + +The call--low, imperative, sustained--continued softly persistent against +her windows--the summons of the young year's rain. + +She went to the window and stood among the filmy curtains, looking out +into the mist; a springlike aroma penetrated the room. She opened the +window a little way, and the sweet, virile odour enveloped her. + +A thousand longings rose within her; unnumbered wistful questions +stirred her, sighing, unanswered. + +Aware that her lips were moving unconsciously, she listened to the words +forming automatic repetitions of phrases long forgotten: + +"And those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the door shall +be shut in the streets." + +What was it she was repeating? + +"Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in +the way." + +What echo of the past was this? + +". And desire shall fail: because--" + +Intent, absorbed in retracing the forgotten sequence to its source, she +stood, breathing the thickening incense of the rain; and every breath +was drawing her backward, nearer, nearer to the source of memory. Ah, +the cliff chapel in the rain!--the words of a text mumbled deafly--the +yearly service for those who died at sea! And she, seated there in the +chapel dusk thinking of him who sat beside her, and how he feared a +heavier, stealthier, more secret tide crawling, purring about his feet! + +Enfin! Always, always at the end of everything, He! Always, reckoning +step by step, backward through time, He! the source, the inception, the +meaning of all! + +Unmoored at last, her spirit swaying, enveloped in memories of him, she +gave herself to the flood--overwhelmed, as tide on tide rose, rushing +over her--body, mind, and soul. + +She closed her eyes, leaning there heavily amid the cloudy curtains; she +moved back into the room and stood staring at space through wet lashes. +The hard, dry pulse in her throat hurt her till her under lip, freed +from the tyranny of her small teeth, slipped free, quivering rebellion. + +She had been walking her room to and fro, to and fro, for a long time +before she realised that she had moved at all. + +And now, impulse held the helm; a blind, unreasoning desire for relief +hurried into action on the wings of impulse. + +There was a telephone at her elbow. No need to hunt through lists to +find a number she had known so long by heart--the three figures which had +reiterated themselves so often, monotonously insistent, slyly +persuasive; repeating themselves even in her dreams, so that she awoke +at times shivering with the vision in which she had listened to +temptation, and had called to him across the wilderness of streets and +men. + + +"Is he at home?" + +"--!" + +"Would you ask him to come to the telephone?" + +"--!" + +"Please say to him that it is a--a friend. . Thank you." + +In the throbbing quiet of her room she heard the fingers of the prying +rain busy at her windows; the ticking of the small French clock, very +dull, very far away--or was it her heart? And, faintly ringing in the +receiver pressed against her ear, millions of tiny stirrings, sounds +like instruments of an elfin orchestra tuning, echoes as of steps +passing through the halls of fairy-land, a faint confusion of human-like +tones; then: + +"Who is it?" + +Her voice left her for an instant; her dry lips made no answer. + +"Who is it?" he repeated in his steady, pleasant voice. + +"It is I." + +There was absolute silence--so long that it frightened her. But before +she could speak again his voice was sounding in her ears, patient, +unconvinced: + +"I don't recognise your voice. Who am I speaking to?" + +"Sylvia." + +There was no response, and she spoke again: + +"I only wanted to say good morning. It is afternoon now; is it too late +to say good morning?" + +"No. I'm badly rattled. Is it you, Sylvia?" + +"Indeed it is. I am in my own room. I--I thought--" + +"Yes, I am listening." + +"I don't know what I did think. Is it necessary for me to telephone you +a minute account of the mental processes which ended by my calling you +up--out of the vasty deep?" + +The old ring in her voice hinting of the laughing undertone, the same +trailing sweetness of inflection--could he doubt his senses any longer? + +"I know you, now," he said. + +"I should think you might. I should very much like to know how you +are--if you don't mind saying?" + +"Thank you. I seem to be all right. Are you all right, Sylvia?" + +"Shamefully and outrageously well. What a season, too! Everybody else is +in rags--make-up rags! Isn't that a disagreeable remark? But I'll come to +the paint-brush too, of course. . We all do. Doesn't anybody ever see +you any more?" + +She heard him laugh to himself unpleasantly; then: "Does anybody want +to?" + +"Everybody, of course! You know it. You always were spoiled to death." + +"Yes--to death." + +"Stephen!" + +"Yes? " + +"Are you becoming cynical?" + +"I? Why should I?" + +"You are! Stop it! Mercy on us! If that is what is going on in a certain +house on lower Fifth Avenue, facing the corner of certain streets, it's +time somebody dropped in to--" + +"To--what?" + +"To the rescue! I've a mind to do it myself. They say you are not well, +either." + +"Who says that?" + +"Oh, the usual little ornithological cockatrice--or, rather, cantatrice. +Don't ask me, because I won't tell you. I always tell you too much, +anyway. Don't I?" + +"Do you?" + +"Of course I do. Everybody spoils you and so do I." + +"Yes--I am rather in that way, I suppose." + +"What way?" + +"Oh--spoiled." + +"Stephen!" + +"Yes?" + +And in a lower voice: "Please don't say such things--will you?" + +"No." + +"Especially to me." + +"Especially to you. No, I won't, Sylvia." + +And, after a hesitation, she continued sweetly: + +"I wonder what you were doing, all alone in that old house of yours, +when I called you up?" + +"I? Let me see. Oh, I was superintending some packing." + +"Are you going off somewhere?" + +"I think so." + +"Where?" + +"I don't know, Sylvia." + +"Stephen, how absurd! You must know where you are going! If you mean +that you don't care to tell me--" + +"I mean--that." + +"I decline to be snubbed. I'm shameless, and I wish to be informed. +Please tell me." + +"I'd rather not tell you." + +"Very well. . Good-bye. . But don't ring off just yet, Stephen. . Do you +think that, sometime, you would care to see--any people--I mean when you +begin to go out again?" + +"Who, for example?" + +"Why, anybody?" + +"No; I don't think I should care to." + +"I wish you would care to. It is not well to let go every tie, drop +everybody so completely. No man can do that to advantage. It would be so +much better for you to go about a bit--see and be seen, you know; just to +meet a few people informally; go to see some pretty girl you know well +enough to--to--" + +"To what? Make love to?" + +"That would he very good for you," she said. + +"But not for the pretty girl. Besides, I'm rather too busy to go about, +even if I were inclined to." + +"Are you really busy, Stephen?" + +"Yes--waiting. That is the very hardest sort of occupation. And I'm +obliged to be on hand every minute." + +"But you said that you were going out of town." + +"Did I? Well, I did not say it, exactly, but I am going to leave town." + +"For very long?" she asked. + +"Perhaps. I can't tell yet." + +"Stephen, before you go--if you are going for a very, very long +while--perhaps you will--you might care to say good-bye?" + +"Do you think it best?" + +"No," she said innocently; "but if you care--" + +"Do you care to have me?" + +"Yes, I do." + +There was a silence; and when his voice sounded again it had altered: + +"I do not think you would care to see me, Sylvia. I--they say I am--I +have--changed--since my--since a slight illness. I am not over it yet, not +cured--not very well yet; and a little tired, you see--a little shaken. I +am leaving New York to--to try once more to be cured. I expect to be +well--one way or another--" + +"Stephen, where are you going? Answer me!" + +"I can't answer you." + +"Is your illness serious? " + +"A--it is--it requires some--some care." + +Her fingers tightening around the receiver whitened to the delicate +nails under the pressure. Mute, struggling with the mounting impulse, +voice and lip unsteady, she still spoke with restraint: + +"You say you require care? And what care have you? Who is there with +you? Answer me!" + +"Why--everybody; the servants. I have care enough." + +"Oh, the servants! Have you a physician to advise you?" + +"Certainly--the best in the world. Sylvia, dea--, Sylvia, I didn't mean to +give you an impression--" + +"Stephen, I will have you truthful with me! I know perfectly well you +are ill. I--if I could only--if there was something, some way--Listen: I +am--I am going to do something about it, and I don't care very much what +I do!" + +"What sweet nonsense!" he laughed, but his voice was no steadier than +hers. + +"Will you drive with me?" she asked impulsively, "some afternoon--" + +"Sylvia, dear, you don't really want me to do it. Wait, listen: I--I've +got to tell you that--that I'm not fit for it. I've got to be honest with +you; I am not fit, not in physical condition to go out just yet. I've +really been ill--for weeks. Plank has been very nice to me. I want to get +well; I mean to try very hard. But the man you knew--is--changed." + +"Changed?" + +"Not in that way!" he said in a slow voice. + +"H-how, then?" she stammered, all a-thrill. + +"Nerve gone--almost. Going to get it back again, of course. Feel a +million times better already for talking with you." + +"Do--does it really help?" + +"It's the only panacea for me," he said too quickly to consider his +words. + +"The only one?" she faltered. "Do you mean to say that your +trouble--illness--has anything to do with--" + +"No, no! I only--" + +"Has it, Stephen?" + +"No!" + +"Because, if I thought--" + +"Sylvia, I'm not that sort! You mustn't talk to me that way. There's +nothing to be sorry for about me. Any man may lose his nerve, and, if he +is a man, go after it and get it back again. Every man has a fighting +chance. You said it yourself once--that a man mustn't ask for a fighting +chance; he must take it. And I'm going to take it and win out one way or +another." + +"What do you mean by 'another,' Stephen?" + +"I--Nothing. It's a phrase." + +"What do you mean? Answer me!" + +"It's a phrase," he said again; "no meaning, you know." + +"Stephen, Mr. Plank says that you are lame." + +"What did he say that for?" demanded Siward wrathfully. + +"I asked him. Kemp saw you on crutches at your window. So I asked Mr. +Plank, and he said you had discarded your crutches too soon and had +fallen and lamed yourself again. Are you able to walk yet?" + +"Yes, of course." + +"Outdoors?" + +"A--no, not just yet." + +"In other words, you are practically bedridden." + +"No, no! I can get about the room very well." + +"You couldn't go down-stairs--for an hour's drive, could you?" + +"Can't manage that for awhile," he said hastily. + +"Oh, the vanity of you, Stephen Siward! the vanity! Ashamed to let me +see you when you are not your complete and magnificently attractive +self! Silly, I shall see you! I shall drive down on the first sunny +morning and sit outside in my victoria until you can't stand the +temptation another instant. I'm going to do it. You cannot stop me; +nobody can stop me. I desire to do it, and that is sufficient, I think, +for everybody concerned. If the sun is out to-morrow, I shall be out +too! . I am so tired of not seeing you! Let central listen! I don't +care. I don't care what I am saying. I've endured it so long--I--There's +no use! I am too tired of it, and I want to see you. . Can't we see each +other without--without--thinking about things that are settled once and +for all?" + +"I can't," he said. + +"Then you'd better learn to! Because, if you think I'm going through +life without seeing you frequently you are simple! I've stood it too +long at a time. I won't go through this sort of thing again! You'd +better be amiable; you'd better be civil to me, or--or--nobody on earth +can tell what will happen! The idea of you telling me you had lost your +nerve! You've got to get it back--and help me find mine! Yes, it's gone, +gone, gone! I lost it in the rain, somewhere, to-day. . Does the scent +of the rain come in at your window? . Do you remember--There! I can't +say it. . Good-bye. Good-bye. You must get well and I must, too. Good- +bye." + + +The fruit of her imprudence was happiness--an excited happiness, which +lasted for a day. The rain lasted, too, for another day, then turned to +snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the +great blizzard--blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying +squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling +like wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars +halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy +wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; +and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men +with pick and shovel struggled with the drifts in Fifth Avenue and +Broadway. Then the storm ended at daybreak. + +All day long squadrons of white gulls wheeled and sailed in the sky +above the snowy expanse of park where the great, rectangular sheets of +water glimmered black in their white setting. As she sat at her desk she +could see them drifting into and out of the gray squares of sky framed +by her window-panes. Two days ago she had seen them stemming the sky +blasts, heralding the coming of unfelt tempests, flapping steadily +through the fragrant rain. Now, the false phantom which had mimicked +spring turned on the world the glassy glare of winter, stupefying hope, +stunning desire, clogging the life essence in all young, living things. +The first vague summons, the restlessness of awakening aspiration, the +first delicate, indrawn breath, were stilled to deathly immobility. + +Sylvia, at her escritoire, chin cradled in her hollowed hand, sat +listlessly inspecting her mail--the usual pile of bills and +advertisements, social demands and interested appeals, with here and +there a frivolous note from some intimate to punctuate the endless +importunities. + +Her housekeeper had come and gone; the Belwether establishment could jog +through another day. Various specialists, who cared for the health and +beauty of her body, had entered and made their unctuous exits. The major +had gone to Tuxedo for the week's end; her maid had bronchitis; two +horses required the veterinary, and the kitchen range a new water-back. + +Cards had come for the Caithness function; cards for young Austin +Wadsworth's wedding to a Charleston girl of rumoured beauty; Caragnini +was to sing for Mrs. Vendenning; a live llama, two-legged, had consented +to undermine Christianity for Mrs. Pyne-Johnson and her guests. + +"Would Sylvia be ready for the inspection of imported head-gears to +harmonise with the gowns being built by Constantine? + +"When-- + +"Would she receive the courteous agent of 'The Reigning Beauties of +Manhattan,' to arrange for her portrait and biographical sketch? + +"When-- + +"Would she realise that Jefferson B. Doty could turn earth into heaven +for any young chatelaine by affixing to the laundry his anti-microbe +drying machine emitting sixty sterilised hot-air blasts in thirty +seconds, at a cost of one-tenth of one mill per blast? + +"And when--" + +But she turned her head, looking wearily across the room at the brightly +burning fire beside which Mrs. Ferrall sat, nibbling mint-paste, very +serious over one of those books that "everybody was reading." + +"How far have you read?" inquired Sylvia without interest, turning over +a new letter to cut with her paper-knife. + +Grace ruffled the uncut pages of her book without looking up, then +yawned shamelessly: "She's decided to try living with him for awhile, +and if they find life agreeable she'll marry him. . Pleasant situation, +isn't it? Nice book, very; and they say that somebody is making a play +of it. I"--She yawned again, showing her small, brilliant teeth--"I +wonder what sort of people write these immoral romances!" + +"Probably immoral people," said Sylvia indifferently. "Drop it on the +coals, Grace." + +But Mrs. Ferrall reopened the book where she had laid her finger to mark +the place. "Do you think so?" she asked. + +"Think what?" + +"That rotten books and plays come from morally rotten people?" + +"I don't think about it at all," observed Sylvia, opening another letter +impatiently. + +"You're probably not very literary," said Grace mischievously. + +"Not in that way, I suppose." + +Mrs. Ferrall took another bonbon: "Did you see 'Mrs. Lane's +Experiment'?" + +"I did," said Sylvia, looking up, the pink creeping into her cheeks. + +"You thought it very strong, I suppose?" asked Grace innocently. + +"I thought it incredible." + +"But, dear, it was sheer realism! Why blink at truth? And when an author +has the courage to tell facts why not have the courage to applaud?" + +"If that is truth, it doesn't concern me," said Sylvia. "Grace, why will +you pose, even if you are married? for you have a clean mind, and you +know it!" + +"I know it," sighed Mrs. Ferrall, closing her book again, but keeping +the place with her finger; "and that's why I'm so curious about all +these depraved people. I can't understand why writers have not found out +that we women are instinctively innocent, even after we are obliged to +make our morality a profession and our innocence an art. They all hang +their romances to motives that no woman recognises as feminine; they +ascribe to us instincts which we do not possess, passions of which we +are ignorant--a ridiculous moral turpitude in the overmastering presence +of love. Pooh! If they only knew what a small part love plays with us, +after all!" + +Sylvia said slowly: "It sometimes plays a small part, after all." + +"Always," insisted Grace with emphasis. "No carefully watched girl knows +what it is, whatever her suspicions may be. When she marries, if she +doesn't marry from family pressure or from her own motives of common- +sense ambition, she marries because she likes the man, not because she +loves him." + +Sylvia was silent. + +"Because, even if she wanted to love him," continued Grace, "she would +not know how. It's the ingrained innocence which men encounter that they +don't allow for or understand in us. Even after we are married, and +whether or not we learn to love our husbands, it remains part of us as +an educated instinct; and it takes all the scientific, selfish +ruthlessness of a man to break it down. That's why I say so few among us +ever comprehend the motives attributed to us in romance or in that +parody of it called realism. Love is rarer with us than men could ever +believe--and I'm glad of it," she said maliciously, with a final snap of +her pretty teeth. + +"It was on that theory you advised me, I think," said Sylvia, looking +into the fire. + +"Advised you, child?" + +"Yes--about accepting Howard." + +"Certainly. Is it not a sound theory? Doesn't it stand inspection? +Doesn't it wear?" + +"It--wears," said Sylvia indifferently. Grace looked up from her open +book. "Is anything amiss?" she asked. + +"I don't know." + +"Of course you know, child. What is wrong? Has Howard made himself +insufferable? He's a master at it. Has he?" + +"No; I don't remember that he has. . I'm tired, physically. I'm tired of +the winter." + +"Go to Florida for Lent." + +"Horror! It's as stupid as a hothouse. It isn't that, either, dear--only, +when it was raining so deliciously the other day I was silly enough to +think I scented the spring in the park. I was glad of a change you know +--any excuse to stop this eternal carnival I live in." + +"What is the matter?" demanded Mrs. Ferrall, withdrawing her finger from +the pages and plumping the closed book down on her knee. "You'd better +tell me, Sylvia; you might just as well tell me now as later when my +persistence has vexed us both. Now, what has happened?" + +"I have been--imprudent," said Sylvia, in a low voice. + +"You mean,"--Mrs. Ferrall looked at her keenly--"that he has been here?" + +"No. I telephoned him; and I asked him to drive with me." + +"Oh, Sylvia, what nonsense! Why on earth do you stir yourself up by that +sort of silliness at this late date? What use is it? Can't you let him +alone?" + +"I--No, I can't, it seems. Grace, I was--I felt so--so strangely about it +all." + +"About what, little idiot?" + +"About leaving him--alone." + +"Are you Stephen Siward's keeper?" demanded Mrs. Ferrall, exasperated. + +"I felt as though I were, for awhile. He is ill." + +"With an illness that, thank God, you are not going to nurse through +life. Don't look at me that way, dear. I'm obliged to speak harshly; I'm +obliged to harden my heart to such a monstrous idea. You know I love +you; you know I care deeply for that poor boy--but do you think I could +be loyal to either of you and not say what I do say? He is doomed, as +sure as you sit there! He has fallen, and no one can help him. Link +after link he has broken with his own world; his master-vice holds him +faster, closer, more absolutely, than hell ever held a lost soul!" + +"Grace, I cannot endure--" + +"You must! Are you trying to drug your silly self with romance so you +won't recognise truth when you see it? Are you drifting back into old +impulses, unreasoning whims of caprice? Have you forgotten what I know +of you, and what you know of yourself? Is the taint of your transmitted +inheritance beginning to show in you--the one woman of your race who is +fashioned to withstand it and stamp it out?" + +"I am mistress of my emotions," said Sylvia, flushing. + +"Then suppress them," retorted Grace Ferrall hotly, "before they begin +to bully you. There was no earthly reason for you to talk to Stephen. No +disinterested impulse moved you. It was a sheer perverse, sentimental +restlessness--the delicate, meddlesome deviltry of your race. And if that +poison is in you, it's well for you to know it." + +"It is in me," said Sylvia, staring at the fire. + +"Then you know what to do for it." + +"No, I don't." + +"Well, I do," said Grace decisively; "and the sooner you marry Howard +and intrench yourself behind your pride, the better off you'll be. +That's where, fortunately enough, you differ from your ancestors; you +are unable to understand marital treachery. Otherwise you'd make it +lively for us all." + +"It is true," said Sylvia deliberately, "that I could not be treacherous +to anybody. But I am wondering; I am asking myself just what constitutes +treachery to myself." + +"Sentimentalising over Stephen might fill the bill," observed Grace +tartly. + +"But it doesn't seem to," mused Sylvia, her blue gaze on the coals. +"That is what I do not understand. I have no conscience concerning what +I feel for him." + +"What do you feel?" + +"I was in love with him. You knew it." + +"You liked him," insisted Grace patiently. + +"No--loved him. I know. Dear, your theories are sound in a general way, +but what is a girl going to do about it when she loves a man? You say a +young girl can't love--doesn't know how. But I do love, though it is true +that I don't know how to love very wisely. What is the use in denying +it? This winter has been a deafening, stupefying fever to me. The sheer +noise of it stunned me until I forgot how I did feel about anything. +Then--I don't know--somehow, in the rain out there, I began to wake . +Dear, the old instincts, the old desires, the old truths, came back out +of chaos; that full feeling here"--she laid her fingers on her throat +--"the sense of expectancy, the restless hope growing out of torpid +acquiescence--all returned; and, dearest, with them all came memories of +him. What am I to do? Could you tell me?" + +For a long while Mrs. Ferrall sat in troubled silence, her hand shading +her eyes. Sylvia, leaning over her desk, idling with pen and pencil, +looked around from time to time, as though awaiting the opinion of some +specialist who, in full possession of the facts, now had become +responsible for the patient. + +"If you marry him," said Mrs. Ferrall quietly, "your life will become a +hell." + +"Yes. But would it make life any easier for him?" asked Sylvia. + +"How--to know that you had been dragged down?" + +"No. I mean could I do anything for him?" + +"No woman ever did. That is a sentimental falsehood of the emotional. No +woman ever did help a man in that way. Sylvia, if love were the only +question, and if you do truly love him, I--well, I suppose I'd be fool +enough to advise you to be a fool. Even then you'd be sorry. You know +what your future may be; you know what you are fitted for. What can you +do without Howard? In this town your role would be a very minor one +without Howard's money, and you know it." + +"Yes, I know it." + +"And your sacrifice could not help that doomed boy." + +Sylvia nodded assent. + +"Then, is there any choice? Is there any question of what to do?" + +Sylvia looked out into the winter sky, through the tops of snowy trees; +everywhere the stark, deathly rigidity of winter. Under it, frozen, lay +the rain that had scented the air. Under her ambition lay the ghosts of +yesterday. + +"No," she said, "there is no question of choice. I know what must be." + +Grace, seated in the firelight, looked up as Sylvia rose from her desk +and came across the room; and when she sank down on the rug at her feet, +resting her cheek against the elder woman's knees, nothing was said for +a long time--a time of length sufficient to commit a memory to its grave, +lay it away decently and in quiet befitting. + +Sore doubt assailed Grace Ferrall, guiltily aware that once again she +had meddled; and in the calm tenor of her own placid, marital +satisfaction, looking backward along the pleasant path she had trodden +with its little monuments to love at decent intervals amid the agreeable +monotony of content, her heart and conscience misgave her lest she had +counselled this young girl wrongly, committing her to the arid +lovelessness which she herself had never known. + +Leaning there, her fingers lingering in light caress on Sylvia's bright +hair, for every doubt she brought up argument, to every sentimental +wavering within her heart she opposed the chilling reason of common +sense. Destruction to happiness lay in Sylvia's yielding to her caprice +for Siward. There was other happiness in the world besides the non- +essential one of love. That must be Sylvia's portion. And after all--and +after all, love was a matter of degree; and it was well for Sylvia that +she had the malady so lightly--well for her that it had advanced so +little, lest she suspect what its crowning miracles might be and fall +sick of a passion for what she had forever lost. + + +For a week or more the snow continued; colder, gloomier weather set in, +and the impending menace of Ash Wednesday redoubled the social pace, +culminating in the Westervelt ball on the eve of the forty days. And +Sylvia had not yet seen Siward or spoken to him again across the +wilderness of streets and men. + +In the first relaxation of Lent she had instinctively welcomed an +opportunity for spiritual consolation and a chance to take her spiritual +bearings; not because of bodily fatigue--for in the splendour of her +youthful vigour she did not know what that meant. + +Saint Berold was a pretty good saint, and his church was patronised by +Major Belwether's household. The major liked two things high: his game +and his church. Sylvia cared for neither, but had become habituated to +both the odours of sanctity and of pheasants; so to Saint Berold's she +went in cure of her soul. Besides, she was fond of Father Curtis, who, +if he were every inch a priest, was also every foot of his six feet a +man--simple, good, and brave. + +However, she found little opportunity, save at her brief confession, for +a word with Father Curtis. His days were full days to the overbrimming, +and a fashionable pack was ever at his heels, fawning and shoving and +importuning. It was fashionable to adore Father Curtis, and for that +reason she shrank from venturing any demand upon his time, and nobody +else at Saint Berold's appealed to her. Besides, the music was hard, +commonplace, even blatant at times, and, having a delicate ear, she +shrank from this also. It is probable then that what comfort she found +under Saint Berold's big, brand-new Episcopal cross she extracted from +observing the rites, usages, and laws of a creed that had been accepted +for her by that Christian gentleman, Major Belwether. Also, she may have +found some solace from the still intervals devoted to an inventory of +her sins and the wistful searching of a heart too young for sadness. If +she did it was her own affair, not Grace Ferrall's, who went with her to +Saint Berold's determined always to confess to too much gambling, but +letting it go from day to day so that the penance could not interfere +with the next seance. + +Agatha Caithness was there a great deal, looking like a saint in her +subdued plumage; and very devout, dodging nothing--neither confession nor +Quarrier's occasionally lifted eyes, though their gaze, meeting, seemed +lost in dreamy devotion or drowned in the contemplation of the spiritual +and remote. + +Plank came docilely from his Dutch Reformed church to sit beside Leila. +As for Mortimer, once a vestryman, he never came at all--made no pretence +or profession of what he elegantly expressed as "caring a damn" for +anything "in the church line," though, he added, there were "some good +lookers to be found in a few synagogues." His misconception of the +attractions of the church amused the new set of men among whom he had +recently drifted, to the unfeigned disgust of gentlemen like Major +Belwether; "club" men, in the commoner and more sinister interpretation +of the word; unfit men, who had managed to slip into good clubs; men, +once fit, who had deteriorated to the verge of ostracism; heavy, over- +fed, idle, insolent men in questionable financial situation, hard card +players, hard drinkers, hard riders, negative in their virtues, +merciless in their vices, and whose cynical misconduct formed the +sources of the stock of stories told where such men foregather. + +Mortimer had already furnished his world with sufficient material for +jests of that flavour; now they were telling a new one: how, as Leila +was standing before Tiffany's looking for her carriage, a masher +accosted her, and, at her haughty stare, said sneeringly: "Oh, you can't +play that game on me; I've seen you with Leroy Mortimer!" + +The story was repeated frequently enough. Leila heard it with a shrug; +but such things mattered to her now, and she cried over it at night, +burning that Plank should hear her name used jestingly to emphasise the +depth of her husband's degradation. + +Mortimer stayed out at night very frequently now. Also, he appeared to +make his money go farther, or was luckier at his "card killings," +because he seldom attempted to bully Leila, being apparently content +with his allowance. + +Once or twice Plank saw him with an unusually attractive girl belonging +to a world very far removed from Leila's. Somebody said she was an +actress when she did anything at all--one Lydia Vyse, somewhat celebrated +for an audacity not too delicate. But Plank was no more interested than +any man who can't afford to endanger his prospects by a closer +acquaintance with that sort of pretty woman. + +Meanwhile Mortimer kept away from home, wife, and church, and Plank +frequented them, so the two men did not meet very often; and the less +they met the less they found to say to one another. + +Now that the forty days had really begun, Major Belwether became +restless for the flesh-pots of the south, although Lenten duties sat +lightly enough upon the house of Belwether. These decent observances +were limited to a lax acknowledgment of fast days, church in moderation, +and active participation in the succession of informal affairs +calculated to sustain life in those intellectually atrophied and wealthy +people entirely dependent upon others for their amusements. + +To these people no fear of punishment hereafter can equal the terror of +being left to their own devices; and so, though the opera was over, +theatres unfashionable, formal functions suspended and dances ended, the +pace still continued at a discreet and decorous trot; and those who had +not fled to California or Palm Beach, remained to pray and play Bridge +with an unction most edifying. + +And all this while Sylvia had not seen Siward. + +Sylvia was changing. The characteristic amiability, the sensitive +reserve, the sweet composure which the world had always counted on in +her, had become exceptions and no longer the rules which governed the +caprice and impulse always latent. An indifference so pointed as to +verge on insolence amazed her intimates at times; a sudden, flushed +impatience startled the habitues of her shrine. There was a new, +unseeing hardness in her eyes; in her attitude the faintest hint of +cynicism. She acquired a habit of doing selfish things coldly, +indifferent to the canons of the art; and true selfishness, the most +delicate of all the arts, requires an expert. + +That which had most charmed--her unfeigned pleasure in pleasure, her +unfailing consideration for all, her gentleness with ignorance, her +generous unconsciousness of self--all these still remained, it is true, +though no longer characteristic, no longer to be counted on. + +For the first time a slight sense of fear tinctured the general +admiration. + +In public her indifference and growing impatience with Quarrier had not +reached the verge of bad taste, but in private she was scarcely at pains +to conceal her weariness and inattention, showing him less and less of +the formal consideration which had been their only medium of +coexistence. That he noticed it was evident even to her who carelessly +ignored the consequences of her own attitude. + +Once, speaking of the alterations in progress at The Sedges, his place +near Oyster Bay, he casually asked her opinion, and she as casually +observed that if he had an opinion about anything he wouldn't know what +to do with it. + +Once, too, she had remarked in Quarrier's hearing to Ferrall, who was +complaining about the loss of his hair, that a hairless head was a +visitation from Heaven, but a beard was a man's own fault. + +Once they came very close to a definite rupture, close enough to scare +her after all the heat had gone out of her and the matter was ended. +Quarrier had lingered late after cards, and something was said about the +impending kennel show and about Marion Page judging the English setters. + +"Agatha tells me that you are going with Marion," continued Quarrier. +"As long as Marion has chosen to make herself conspicuous there is +nothing to be said. But do you think it very good taste for you to +figure publicly on the sawdust with an eccentric girl like Marion?" + +"I see nothing conspicuous about a girl's judging a few dogs," said +Sylvia, merely from an irritable desire to contradict. + +"It's bad taste and bad form," remarked Quarrier coldly; "and Agatha +thought it a mistake for you to go there with her." + +"Agatha's opinions do not concern me." + +"Perhaps mine may have some weight." + +"Not the slightest." + +He said patiently: "This is a public show; do you understand? Not one of +those private bench exhibitions." + +"I understand. Really, Howard, you are insufferable at times." + +"Do you feel that way?" + +"Yes, I do. I am sorry to be rude, but I do feel that way!" Flushed, +impatient, she looked him squarely between his narrowing, woman's eyes: +"I do not care for you very much, Howard, and you know it. I am marrying +you with a perfectly sordid motive, and you know that, too. Therefore it +is more decent--if there is any decency left in either of us--to interfere +with one another as little as possible, unless you desire a definite +rupture. Do you?" + +"I? A--a rupture?" + +"Yes," she said hotly; "do you?" + +"Do you, Sylvia?" + +"No; I'm too cowardly, too selfish, too treacherous to myself. No, I +don't." + +"Nor do I," he said, lifting his furtive eyes. + +"Very well. You are more contemptible than I am, that is all." + +Her voice had grown unsteady; an unreasoning rush of anger had set her +whole body a-thrill, and the white heat of it was driving her to provoke +him, as though that might cleanse her of the ignominy of the bargain--as +though a bargain did not require two of the same mind to make it. + +"What do you want of me?" she said, still stinging under the angry waves +of self-contempt. "What are you marrying me for? Because, divided, we +are likely to cut small figures in our tin-trumpet world? Because, +united, we can dominate the brainless? Is there any other reason?" + +Showing his teeth in that twitching snicker that contracted the muscles +of his upper lip: "Children!" he said, looking at her. + +She turned scarlet to her hair; the deliberate grossness stunned her. +Confused, she stood confronting him, dumb under a retort the coarseness +of which she had never dreamed him capable. + +"I mean what I say," he repeated calmly. "A man cares for two things: +his fortune, and the heirs to it. If you didn't know that you have +learned it now. You hurt me deliberately. I told you a plain truth very +bluntly. It is for you to consider the situation." + +But she could not speak; anger, humiliation, shame, held her tongue- +tied. The instinctive revolt at the vague horror--the monstrous, +meaningless threat--nothing could force words from her to repudiate, to +deny what he had dared to utter. + +Except as the effrontery of brutality, except as a formless menace born +of his anger, the reason he flung at her for his marrying her conveyed +nothing to her in its grotesque impossibility. Only the intentional +coarseness of it was to be endured--if she chose to endure it; for the +rest was empty of concrete meaning to her. + + +Lent was half over before she saw him again. Neither he nor she had +taken any steps to complete the rupture; and at the Mi-careme dance, +given by the Siowa Hunt, Quarrier, who was M. F. H., took up the thread +of their suspended intercourse as methodically and calmly as though it +had never quivered to the breaking point. He led the cotillon with +agreeable precision and impersonal accuracy, favouring her at intervals; +and though she wasted no favours on him, she endured his, which was +sufficient evidence that matters were still in statu quo. + +She returned to town next morning with Grace Ferrall, irritable, sulky, +furious with herself at the cowardly relief she felt. For, spite of her +burning anger against Quarrier, the suspense at times had been wearing; +and she would not make the first move--had not decided even to accept his +move if it came--at least, had not admitted to herself that she would +accept it. It had come and the tension was over, and now, entering Mrs. +Ferrall's brougham which met them at Thirty-fourth Street Ferry, she was +furious with herself for her unfeigned feeling of relief. + +All hot with self-contempt she lay back in the comfortably upholstered +corner of the brougham, staring straight before her, sullen red mouth +unresponsive to the occasional inconsequent questions of Grace Ferrall. + +"After awhile," observed Grace, "people will begin to talk about the +discontented beauty of your face." + +Sylvia's eyebrows bent still farther inward. + +"A fretful face, but rather pretty," commented Grace maliciously. "It +won't do, dear. Your role is dignified comedy. O dear! O my!" She +stifled a yawn behind her faultlessly gloved hand. "I'm feeling these +late hours in my aged bones. It wasn't much of a dance, was it? Or am I +disillusioned? Certainly that Edgeworth boy fell in love with me--the +depraved creature--trying his primitive wiles there in the conservatory! +Little beast! There are no nice boys any more; they're all too young or +too sophisticated. . Howard does lead well, I admit that. . You're on +the box seat together again I see. Pooh! I wasn't a bit alarmed." + +"I was," said Sylvia, curling her lip in biting self-contempt. + +"Well, that's a wholesome confession, anyway. O dear, how I do yawn! and +Lent only half over. . Sylvia, what are you staring at? Oh, I--see." + +They had driven south to Washington Square, where Mrs. Ferrall had +desired to leave a note, and were now returning. Sylvia had leaned +forward to look up at Siward's house, but with Mrs. Ferrall's first word +she sank back, curiously expressionless and white; for she had seen a +woman entering the front door and had recognised her as Marion Page. + +"Well, of all indiscretions!" breathed Grace, looking helplessly at +Sylvia. "Oh, no, that sort of thing is sheer effrontery, you know! It's +rotten bad taste; it's no worse, of course--but it's bad taste. I don't +care what privileges we concede to Marion, we're not going to concede +this--unless she puts on trousers for good. It's all very well for her to +talk her plain kennel talk, and call spades by their technical names, +and smoke all over people's houses, and walk all over people's +prejudices; but there's no sense in her hunting for trouble; and she'll +get it, sure as scandal is scandal!" + +And still Sylvia remained pale and silent, eyes downcast, shrinking +close into her upholstered corner, as though some reflex instinct of +self-concealment was still automatically dominating her. + +"She ought to be spanked!" said Grace viciously. "If she were my +daughter I'd do it, too!" + +Sylvia did not stir. + +"Little idiot! Going into a man's house in the face of all Fifth Avenue +and the teeth of decency!" + +"She has courage," said Sylvia, still very white. + +"Courage! Do you mean fool-hardiness?" + +"No, courage--the courage I lacked. I knew he was too ill to leave his +room and I lacked the courage to go and see him." + +"You mean, alone?" + +"Certainly, alone." + +"You dare tell me you ever contemplated--" + +"Oh, yes. I think I should have done it yet, but--but Marion--" + +Suddenly she bent forward, resting her face in her hands; and between +the fingers a bright drop ran, glimmered, and fell. + +"O Lord!" breathed Mrs. Ferrall, and sank back, nerveless, into her own +corner of the rocking brougham. + + + +CHAPTER XII THE ASKING PRICE + +Siward, at his desk, over which the May sunshine streamed, his crutches +laid against his chair, sat poring over the piles of papers left there +by Beverly Plank some days before with a curt recommendation that he +master their contents. + +Some of the papers were typewritten, some appeared to be engraved +certificates of stock, a few were in Plank's heavy, squat handwriting. +There were several packages tied in pink tape, evidently legal papers of +some sort; and also a pile of scrap-books containing newspaper clippings +to which Siward referred occasionally, or read them at length, resting +his thin, fatigued face between two bony hands. + +The curious persistence of youth in his features seemed unaccountable in +view of the heavy marks imprinted there; but they were marks, not lines; +bluish hollows under eyes still young, marred contours of the cheek- +bone; a hardness about the hollow temples above which his short, bright +hair clustered with all its soft, youthful allure undimmed; and in every +movement, every turn of his head, there still remained much of that +indefinable attractiveness which had always characterised his race--much +of the unconscious charm usually known as breeding. + +In men of Mortimer's fibre, dissipation produced coarser +symptoms--distended veins, and sagging flesh--where in Siward it seemed +to bruise and harden, driving the colour of blood out of him and leaving +the pallor of marble, and the bluish shadows of it staining the hollows. +Only the eyes had begun to change radically; something in them had been +quenched. + +That he could never hope to become immune he had learned at last when he +had returned, physically wholesome, from his long course of training +under the famous Irish specialist on the Hudson. He had expected to be +immune, spite of the blunt and forcible language of Mulqueen when he +turned him out into the world again: + +"Ye'll be afther notin'," said Mr. Mulqueen, "that a poonch in the +plexis putts a man out; but it don't kill him. That's you! Whin a man +mixes it up wid the booze, l'ave him come here an' I'll tache him a +thrick. But it's not murther I tache; it's the hook on the jaw that +shtops, an' the poonch in the plexis that putts the booze-divil on the +bum! L'ave him take the count; he'll niver rise to the chune o' the bell +av ye l'ave him lie. But he ain't dead, Misther Sayward; mark that, me +son! An' don't ye be afther sayin', 'Th' inimy is down an' out fur good! +Pore lad! Sure, I'll shake hands over a dhrink wid him, for he can do me +no hurrt anny more!' No, sorr! L'ave him lie, an' l'ave the years av ver +life count him out; fur the day you die, he dies, an' not wan shake o' +the mixer sooner! G'wan, now, fur the rub-down. Ye've faught yer lasht +round, if ye ain't a fool!" + +He had been a fool. He had imagined that he could control himself, and +practise the moderation that other men practised when they chose. The +puerile restraint annoyed him; his implied inability to master himself +humiliated him, the more so because, secretly, he was horribly afraid in +the remote depths of his heart. + +Exactly how it happened he did not remember, except that he had gone +down town on business and had lunched with several men. There was +claret. Later he remembered another cafe, farther up town, and another, +more brilliantly lighted. After that there were vague hours--the fierce +fever of debauch wrapping night and day in flame through which he moved, +unseeing, unheeding, deafened, drenched soul and body in the living +fire; or dreaming, feeling the subsiding fury of desire pulse and ebb +and flow, rocking him to unconsciousness. + +His father's old servants had found him again, this time in the area; +and this time the same ankle, not yet strong, had been broken. + +Through the waning winter days, as he lay brooding in bitterness, +realising that it was all to do over again, Plank's shy visits became +gradually part of the routine. But it was many days before Siward +perceived in the big, lumbering, pink-fisted man anything to attract him +beyond the faintly amused curiosity of one man for another who is in +process of establishing himself as the first of a race. + +As for reciprocation in other forms except the most superficial, or of +permitting a personal note to sound ever so discreetly, Siward tolerated +no such idea. Even the tentative advances of Plank hinting on +willingness, and perhaps ability, to help Siward in the Amalgamated +tangle were pleasantly ignored. Unpaid services rendered by men like +Plank were impossible; any obligation to Plank was utterly out of the +question. Meanwhile they began to like one another--at least Siward often +found himself looking forward with pleasure to a visit from Plank. There +had never been any question of the latter's attitude toward Siward. + +Plank began to frequent the house, but never informally. It is doubtful +whether he could have practised informality in that house even at +Siward's invitation. Something of the attitude of a college lower +classman for a man in a class above seemed to typify their relations; +and that feeling is never entirely eradicated between men, no matter how +close their relationship in after-life. + +One very bad night Plank came to the house and was admitted by Gumble. +Wands, the second man, stood behind the aged butler; both were +apparently frightened. + +That something was amiss appeared plainly enough; and Plank, +instinctively producing a card, dropped it on a table and turned to go. +It may have been that the old butler recognised the innate delicacy of +the motive, or it may have been a sudden confidence born of the +necessities of the case, for he asked Plank to see his young master. + +And Plank, looking him in the eyes, considered, until his courage began +to fail. Then he went up-stairs. + +It was a bad night outside, and it was a bad night for Siward. The +master-vice had him by the throat. He sat there, clutching the arms of +his chair, his broken leg, in its plaster casing, extended in front of +him; and when be saw Plank enter he glared at him. + +Hour after hour the two men sat there, the one white with rage, but +helpless; the other, stolid, inert, deaf to demands for intercession +with the arch-vice, dumb under pleadings for a compromise. He refused to +interfere with the butler, and Siward insulted him. He refused to go and +find the decanters himself, and Siward deliberately cursed him. + +Outside the storm raged all night. Inside that house Plank faced a more +awful tempest. There was a sedative on the mantel and he offered it to +Siward, who struck it from his hand. + +Once, toward morning, Siward feigned sleep, and Plank, heavy head on his +breast, feigned it, too. Then Siward bent over stealthily and opened a +drawer in his desk; and Plank was on his feet like a flash, jerking the +morphine from Siward's fingers. + +The doctor arrived at daylight, responding to Plank's summons by +telephone, and Plank went away with the morphine and Siward's revolver +bulging in the side-pockets of his dinner coat. + +He did not come again for a week. A short note from Siward started him +toward lower Fifth Avenue. + +There was little said when he came into the room: + +"Hello, Plank! Glad to see you." + +"Hello! Are you all right?" + +"All right. . Much obliged for pulling me through. Wish you'd pull me +through this Amalgamated Electric knot-hole, too--some day!" + +"Do--do you mean it?" ventured Plank, turning red with delight. + +"Mean it? Indeed I do--if you do. Sit here; ring for whatever you want--or +perhaps you'd better go down to the sideboard. I'm not to be trusted +with the odour in the room just yet." + +"I don't care for anything," said Plank. + +"Whenever you please, then. You know the house, and you don't mind my +being unceremonious, do you?" + +"No," said Plank. + +"Good!" rejoined Siward, laughing. "I expect the same friendly lack of +ceremony from you." + +But that, for Plank, was impossible. All he could do was to care the +more for Siward without crossing the border line so suddenly made free; +all he could do was to sit there rolling and unrolling his gloves into +wads with his clumsy, highly coloured hands, and gaze consciously at +everything in the room except Siward. + +On that day, at Plank's shy suggestion, they talked over Siward's +business affairs for the first time. After that day, and for many days, +the subject became the key-note to their intercourse; and Siward at last +understood that this man desired to do him a service absolutely and +purely from a disinterested liking for him, and as an expression of that +liking. Also he was unexpectedly made aware of Plank's serenely unerring +business sagacity. + +That surface cynicism which all must learn, sooner or later, or remain +the victims of naive credulity, was, in Siward, nothing but an outer +skin, as it is in all who acquire wisdom with their cynicism. It was not +long proof against Plank's simple attitude and undisguised pleasure in +doing something for a man he liked. Under that simplicity no motive, no +self-interest could skulk; and Siward knew it. + +As for the quid pro quo, Siward had insisted from the first on a +business arrangement. The treachery of Major Belwether through sheer +fright had knocked the key-stone from the syndicate, and the dam which +made the golden pool possible collapsed, showering Plank's brokers who +worked patiently with buckets and mops. + +The double treachery of Quarrier was now perfectly apparent to Plank. +Siward, true to his word, held his stock in the face of ruin. Kemp +Ferrall, furious with the major, and beginning to suspect Quarrier, came +to Plank for consultation. + +Then the defence formed under Plank. Legal machinery was set in motion, +meeting followed meeting, until Harrington cynically showed his hand and +Quarrier smiled his rare smile; and the fight against Inter-County was +on in the open, preceded by a furious clamour of charge and counter- +charge in the columns of the daily press. + +That Quarrier had been guilty of something or other was the vague +impression of that great news-reading public which, stunned by the +reiteration of figures in the millions, turns to the simpler pleasures +of a murder trial. Besides, whatever Quarrier had done was no doubt done +within the chalk-marked courts of the game, though probably his shoes +may have become a little dusty. + +But who could hope to bring players like Quarrier before the ordinary +umpire, or to investigate his methods with the everyday investigations +reserved for everyday folk, whose road through business life lay always +between State's prison and the penitentiary and whose guide-posts were +policemen? + +Let the great syndicates join in battle; they could only slay each +other. Let the millions bury their millions; the public, though poorer, +could never be the wiser. + + +Siward, at his desk, the May sunshine pouring over him, sat conning the +heaps of typewritten sheets, striving to see between the lines some sign +of fortune for his investments, some promise of release from the +increasing financial stringency, some chance of justice being done on +those high priests who had been performing marvellous tricks upon their +altar so that by miracle, mine and thine spelled "ours," and all the +tablets of the law were lettered upside down and hind-side before, like +the Black Mass. + +Gumble knocked presently. Siward raised his perplexed eyes. + +"Miss Page, sir." + +"Oh," said Siward doubtfully; then, "Ask Miss Page to come up." + +Marion strolled in a moment later, exchanged a vigorous hand shake with +Siward, pulled up a chair and dropped into it. She was in riding-habit +and boots, faultlessly groomed as usual, her smooth, pale hair sleek in +its thick knot, collar and tie immaculate as her gloves. + +"Well," she said, "any news of your ankle, Stephen?" + +"I inquired about my ankle," said Siward, amused, "and they tell me it +is better, thank you." + +"Sit a horse pretty soon?" she asked, dropping one leg over the other +and balancing the riding-crop across her knee. + +"Not for awhile. You have a fine day for a gallop, Marion," looking +askance at the sunshine filtering through the first green leaves of the +tree outside his window. + +"It's all right--the day. I'm trying Tom O'Hara's new mare. They say +she's a little devil. I never saw a devil of a horse--did you? There may +be some out West." + +"Don't break that pretty neck of yours, Marion," he said. + +She lifted her eyes; then, briefly, "No fear." + +"Yes, there is," he said. "There's no use looking for trouble in a +horse. Women who hunt as you hunt take all that's legitimately coming to +them. Why doesn't Tom ride his own mare?" + +"She rolled on him," said Marion simply. + +"Oh. Is he hurt?" + +"Ribs." + +"Well, he's lucky." + +"Isn't he! He'll miss a few drills with his precious squadron, that's +all." + +She was looking about her, preoccupied. "Where are your cigarettes, +Stephen? Oh, I see. Don't try to move--don't be silly." + +She leaned over the desk, her fresh young face close to his, and reached +for the cigarettes. The clean-cut head, the sweetness of her youth and +femininity, boyish in its allure, were very attractive to him--more so, +perhaps, because of his isolation from the atmosphere of women. + +"It's all very well, Marion, your coming here--and it's very sweet of +you, and I enjoy it immensely," he said: "but it's a deuced imprudent +thing for you to do, and I feel bound to say so for your sake every time +you come." + +She leaned back in her chair and coolly blew a wreath of smoke at him. + +"All right," he said, unconvinced. + +"Certainly it's all right. I've done what suited me all my life. This +suits me." + +"It suits me, too," he said, "only I wish you'd tell your mother before +somebody around this neighbourhood informs her first." + +"Let 'em. You'll be out by that time. Do you think I'm going to tell my +mother now and have her stop it?" + +"Oh, Marion, you know perfectly well that it won't do for a girl to +ignore first principles. I'm horribly afraid somebody will talk about +you." + +"What would you do, then?" + +"I?" he asked, disturbed. "What could I do?" + +"Why, I suppose," she said slowly, "you'd have to marry me." + +"Then," he rejoined with a laugh, "I should think you'd be scared into +prudence by the prospect." + +"I am not easily--scared," she said, looking down. + +"Not at that prospect?" he said jestingly. + +She looked up at him; and he remembered afterward the poise of her small +head, and the slow, clear colour mounting; remembered that it conveyed +to him, somehow, a hint of courage and sincerity. + +"I am not frightened," she said gravely. + +Gravity fell upon him, too. In this young girl's eyes there was no +evasion. For a long while he had felt vaguely that matters were not +perfectly balanced between them. At moments, even, he had felt an +indefinable uneasiness in her presence. The situation troubled him, too; +and though he had known her from childhood and had long ago learned to +discount her vagaries of informality, her manners sans facon, her +careless ignoring of convention, and the unembarrassed terms of her +speech, his common-sense could not countenance this defiance of social +usage, sure to involve even such a privileged girl as she in some +unpleasantness. + +This troubled him; and now, partly sceptical, yet partly conscious, too, +of her very frank liking for himself, he looked at her, perplexed, +apprehensive, unwilling to credit her with any deeper meaning than her +words expressed. + +She had grown pink and restless under his gaze, using her cigarette +frequently, and continually flicking the ashes to the floor, until the +little finger of her glove was blackened. + +But courage characterised her race. It had required more than he knew +for her to come into his house; and now that she was there loyalty to +her professed principles--that a man and a woman were by right endowed +with equal privileges--forced her to face the consequences of her theory +in the practise. + +She had, with calm face and quivering heart, given him an opening. That +was a concession to her essential womanhood and a cowardice on her part; +and, lest she turn utterly traitor to herself, she faced him again, +cool, quiet, and terror in her heart: + +"I'd be very glad to marry you--if you c-cared to," she said. + +"Marion!" + +"Yes?" + +"Oh--I--it is--of course it's a joke." + +"No; I'm serious." + +"Serious! Nonsense!" + +"Please don't say that." + +He looked at her, appalled. + +"But I--but you don't love--can't be in love with me!" he stammered. + +"I am." + +Gloved hands tightening on either end of her riding-crop, she bent her +knee against it, balancing there, looking straight at him. + +"I meant to tell you so," she said, "if you didn't tell me first. So--I +was rather--tired waiting. So I've told you." + +"It is only a fancy," he said, scarcely knowing what he was saying. + +"I don't think so, Stephen." + +But he could not meet her candour, and he sat, silent, miserable, +staring at the papers on his desk. + +After a while she drew a deep, even breath, and rose to her feet. + +"I'm sorry," she said simply. + +"Marion--I never dreamed that--" + +"You should dream truer," she said. There was a suspicion of mist in her +clear eyes; she turned abruptly to the window and stood there for a few +moments, looking down at her brougham waiting in front of the house. "It +can't be helped, can it!" she said, turning suddenly. + +He found no answer to her question. + +"Good-bye," she said, walking to him with outstretched hand; "it's all +in a lifetime, Steve, and that's too short for a good, clean friendship +like ours to die in. I don't think I'd better come again. Look me up for +a gallop when you're fit. And you might drop me a line to say how you're +getting on. Is it all right, Stephen?" + +"All right," he said hoarsely. + +Their hands tightened in a crushing clasp; then she swung on her spurred +heel and walked out, leaving him haggard, motionless. He heard the front +door close, and he swayed forward, dropping his face in his hands, arms +half buried among the papers on his desk. + +Plank found him there, an hour later, fumbling among the papers, and at +first feared that he read in Siward's drawn and sullen face a +premonition of the ever-dreaded symptoms. + +"Quarrier has telephoned asking for a conference at last," he said +abruptly, sitting down beside Siward. + +"Well," inquired Siward, "how do you interpret that--favourably?" + +"I am inclined to think he is a bit uneasy," said Plank cautiously. +"Harrington made a secret trip to Albany last week. You didn't know +that." + +"No." + +"Well, he did. It looks to me as though there were going to be a ghost +of a chance for an investigation. That is how I am inclined to consider +Harrington's trip and Quarrier's flag of truce. But--I don't know. +There's nothing definite, of course. You are as conversant with the +situation as I am." + +"No, I am not. That is like you, Plank, to ascribe to me the same +business sense that you possess, but I haven't got it. It's very nice +and considerate of you, but I haven't it, and you know it." + +"I think you have." + +"You think so because you think generously. That doesn't alter the +facts. Now tell me what you have concluded that we ought to do and I'll +say 'Amen,' as usual." + +Plank laughed, and looked over several sheets of the typewritten matter +on the desk beside him. + +"Suppose I meet Quarrier?" he said. + +"All right. Did he suggest a date?" + +"At four, this afternoon." + +"Do you think you had better go?" + +"I think it might do no harm," said Plank. + +"Amen!" observed Siward, laughing, and touched the electric button for +the early tea, which Plank adored at any hour. + +For a while they dropped business and discussed their tea, chatting very +comfortably together. Long ago Siward had found out something of the +mental breadth of the man beside him, and that he was worth listening to +as well as talking to. For Plank had formed opinions upon a great many +subjects; and whatever culture he possessed was from sheer desire for +self-cultivation. + +"You know, Siward," he was accustomed to say with a smile, "you inherit +what I am qualifying myself to transmit." + +"It will be all one in a thousand years," was Siward's usual rejoinder. + +"That is not going to prevent my efforts to become a good ancestor to my +descendants," Plank would say laughingly. "They shall have a chance, +every one of them. And it will be up to them if they don't make good." + +Sipping their tea in the pleasant, sunny room, they discussed matters of +common interest--Plank's recent fishing trip on Long Island and the +degeneracy of liver-fed trout; the North Side Club's Experiments with +European partridges; Billy Fleetwood's new stables; forestry, and the +chance of national legislation concerning it--a subject of which Plank +was very fond, and on which he had exceedingly sound ideas. + +Drifting from one topic to another through the haze of their cigars, +silent when it pleased them to be so, there could be no doubt of their +liking for each other upon a basis at least superficially informal; and +if Plank's manner retained at times a shade of quaint reserve, Siward's +was perhaps the more frankly direct for that reason. + +"I think," observed Plank, laying his half-consumed cigar on the silver +tray, "that I'd better go down town and see what our pre-glacial friend +Quarrier wants. I may be able to furnish him with a new sensation." + +"I wonder if Quarrier ever experienced a genuine sensation," mused +Siward, arranging the papers before him into divisional piles. + +"Plenty," said Plank drily. + +"I don't think so." + +"Plenty," repeated Plank. "It's your thin-lipped, thin-nosed, pasty- +pale, symmetrical brother who is closer to the animal under his mask +than any of us imagine. I--" He hesitated. "Do you want to know my +opinion of Quarrier? I've never told you. I don't usually talk about +my--dislikes. Do you want to know?" + +"Certainly," said Siward curiously. + +"Then, first of all, he is a sentimentalist." + +"Oh! oh!" jeered Siward. + +"A sentimentalist of the weakest type," continued Plank obstinately; +"because he sentimentalises over himself. Siward, look out for the man +with elaborate whiskers! Look out for a pallid man with eccentric hair +and a silky beard! He's a sentimentalist of the sort I told you, and is +usually utterly remorseless in his dealings with women. I suppose you +think me a fool." + +"I think Quarrier is indifferent concerning women," said Siward. + +"You are wrong. He is a sensualist," insisted Plank. + +"Oh, no, Plank--not that!" + +"A sensualist. His sentimental vanity he lavishes upon himself--the +animal in him on women. His caution, born of self-consideration, is the +caution of a beast. Such men as he believe they live in the focus of a +million eyes. Part of his vanity is to deceive those eyes and be what he +is under the mask he wears; and to do that one must be the very master +of caution. That is Quarrier's vanity. To conceal, is his monomania." + +"I cannot see how you draw that conclusion." + +"Siward, he is a bad man, and crafty--every inch of him." + +"Oh, come, now! Only characters in fiction have no saving qualities. You +never heard of anybody in real life being entirely bad." + +"No, I didn't; and Quarrier isn't. For example, he is kind to valuable +animals--I mean, his own." + +"Good to animals! The bad man's invariable characteristic!" laughed +Siward. "I'm kind to 'em, too. What else is he good to?" + +"Everybody knows that he hasn't a poor relation left; not one. He is +loyal to them in a rare way; he filled one subsidiary company full of +them. It is known down town as the 'Home for Destitute Nephews.'" + +"Seriously, Plank, the man must have something good in him." + +"Because of your theory?" + +"Yes. I believe that nobody is entirely bad. So do the great masters of +fiction." + +Plank said gravely: "He is a good son to his father. That is perfectly +true--kind, considerate, dutiful, loyal. The financial world is perfectly +aware that Stanley Quarrier is to-day the most unscrupulous old +scoundrel who ever crushed a refinery or debauched a railroad! and his +son no more believes it than he credits the scandalous history of the +Red Woman of Wall Street. Why, when I was making arrangements for that +chapel Quarrier came to me, very much perturbed, because he understood +that all the memorial chapels for the cathedral had been arranged for, +and he had desired to build one to the memory of his father! His father! +Isn't it awful to think of!--a chapel to the memory of the briber of +judges and of legislatures, the cynical defier of law!--this hoary old +thief, who beggared the widow and stripped the orphan, and whose only +match, as a great unpunished criminal, was that sinister little +predecessor of his, who dreamed even of debauching the executive of +these United States!" + +Siward had never before seen Plank aroused, and he said so, smiling. + +"That is true," said Plank earnestly; "I waste little temper over my +likes and dislikes. But what I know, and what I legitimately infer +concerning the younger Quarrier is enough to rouse any man's anger. I +won't tell you what I know. I can't. It has nothing to do with his +financial methods, nothing to do with this business; but it is bad--bad +all through! The blow his father struck at the integrity of the bench +the son strikes at the very key-stone of all social safeguard. It isn't +my business; I cannot interfere; but Siward, I'm a damned restless +witness, and the old, primitive longing comes back on me to strike--to +take a stick and use it to splinters on that man whom I am going down +town to politely confer with! . And I must go now. Good-bye. . Take care +of that ankle. Any books I can send you--anything you want? No? All +right. And don't worry over Amalgamated Electric, for I really believe +we are beginning to frighten them badly." + +"Good-bye," said Siward. "Don't forget that I'm always at home." + +"You must get out," muttered Plank; "you must get well, and get out into +the sunshine." And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall, +where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him. + +He had come in a big yellow and black touring-car; and now, with a brief +word to his mechanic, he climbed into the tonneau, and away they sped +down town--a glitter of bull's-eye, brass, and varnish, with the mellow, +horn notes floating far in their wake. + +It was exactly four o'clock when he was ushered into Quarrier's private +suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper +stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire. + +Quarrier was alone, gloved and hatted, as though on the point of +leaving. He showed a slight surprise at seeing Plank, as if he had not +been expecting him; and the manner of offering his hand subtly +emphasised it as he came forward with a trace of inquiry in his +greeting. + +"You said four o'clock, I believe," observed Plank bluntly. + +"Ah, yes. It was about that--ah--matter--ah--I beg your pardon; can you +recollect?" + +"I don't know what it is you want. You requested this meeting," said +Plank, yawning. + +"Certainly. I recollect it perfectly now. Will you sit here, Mr. +Plank--for a moment--" + +"If it concerns Inter-County, it will take longer than a moment--unless +you cannot spare the time now," said Plank. "Shall we call it off?" + +"As a matter of fact I am rather short of time just now." + +"Then let us postpone it. I shall probably be at my office if you are +anxious to see me." + +Quarrier looked at him, then laid aside his hat and sat down. There was +little to be done in diplomacy with an oaf like that. + +"Mr. Plank," he said, without any emphasis at all, "there should be some +way for us to come together. Have you considered it?" + +"No, I haven't," replied Plank. + +"I mean, for you and me to try to understand each other." + +"For us?" asked Plank, raising his blond eyebrows. "Do you mean +Amalgamated Electric and Inter-County, impersonally?" + +"I mean for us, personally." + +"There is no way," said Plank, with conviction. + +"I think there is." + +"You are wasting time thinking it, Mr. Quarrier." + +Quarrier's velvet-fringed eyes began to narrow, but his calm voice +remained unchanged: "We are merely wasting energy in this duel," he +said. + +"Oh, no; I don't feel wasted." + +"We are also wasting opportunities," continued Quarrier slowly. "This +whole matter is involving us in a tangle of litigation requiring our +constant effort, constant attention." + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Quarrier, but you take it too seriously. I have +found, in this affair, nothing except a rather agreeable mental +exhilaration." + +"Mr. Plank, if you are not inclined to be serious--" + +"I am," said Plank so savagely that Quarrier, startled, could not doubt +him. "I like this sort of thing, Mr. Quarrier. Anything that is hard to +overcome, I like to overcome. The pleasure in life, to me, is to win +out. I am fighting you with the greatest possible satisfaction to +myself." + +"Perhaps you see victory ahead," said Quarrier calmly. + +"I do, Mr. Quarrier, I do. But not in the manner you fear I may hope for +it." + +"Do you mind saying in what manner you are already discounting your +victory, Mr Plank?" + +"No, I don't mind telling you. I have no batteries to mask. I don't care +how much you know about my resources; so I'll tell you what I see, Mr. +Quarrier. I see a parody of the popular battle between razor-back and +rattler. The rattler only strives to strike and kill, not to swallow. +Mr. Quarrier, that old razor-back isn't going home hungry; but--he's +going home." + +"I'm afraid I am not familiar enough with the natural history you quote +to follow you," said Quarrier with a sneer, his long fingers busy with +the silky point of his beard. + +"No, you won't follow me home; you'll come with me, when it's all over. +Now is it very plain to you, Mr. Quarrier?" + +Quarrier said, without emotion: "I repeat that it would be easy for you +and me to merge our differences on a basis absolutely satisfactory to +you and to me--and to Harrington." + +"You are mistaken," said Plank, rising. "Good afternoon." + +Quarrier rose, too. "You decline to discuss the matter?" he asked. + +"It has been discussed sufficiently." + +"Then why did you come here?" + +"To see for myself how afraid of me you really are," said Plank. "Now I +know, and so do you." + +"You desire to make it a personal matter?" inquired Quarrier, in a low +voice, his face dead white in the late sunlight which illuminated the +room. + +"Personal? No--impersonal; because there could be absolutely nothing +personal between us, Mr. Quarrier; and the only thing in the world that +there ought to be between us are a few stout, steel bars. Beg pardon for +talking shop. I'm a shopkeeper, and I'm in the steel business, and I +lack opportunities for cultivation. Good day." + +"Mr. Plank--" + +"Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business +differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered +or modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my +policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly +aware of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this +attitude toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting +in arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful +interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby +is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my +chances, every one; and I take them--every one. For it is a good fight, +Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; not +because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because +such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours. +Your name, Harrington's, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long, +long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be +remembered." + +He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier's +unwinking eyes. + +"Take your fighting chance--it is the cleanest thing you ever touched; +and use it cleanly, or there'll be no mercy shown you when your time +comes. Let the courts alone--do you hear me? Let the legislature alone. +Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to shove +his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. They'll +be warmer than his feet by this time next year." + +For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm +dropped heavily--the old stolid expression came back into his face, +leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving +slowly toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand. + +Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered +Mortimer, and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks; +neither had Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at +his battered and bloodshot appearance. + +"Oh," said Mortimer, "you down here?" + +"Have you been out of town?" asked Plank cautiously. + +Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the +elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his +pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps +of the rotunda. + +"See here," he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily +even after the short chase across the lobby, "I meant to tell you +something. Come over here and sit down a moment." + +Still grasping Plank's elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him +toward a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down, +while Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at +the heat under his breath. + +"Look here," he said; "I promised you something once, didn't I?" + +"Did you?" said Plank, with his bland, expressionless stare of an +overgrown baby. + +"Oh, cut that out! You know damn well I did; and when I say a thing I +make good. D'ye see?" + +"I don't see," said Plank, "what you are talking about." + +"I'm talking about what I said I'd do for you. Haven't I made good? +Haven't I put you into everything I said I would? Don't you go +everywhere? Don't people ask you everywhere?" + +"Yes--in a way," said Plank wearily. "I am very grateful; I always will +be. . Can I do anything for you, Leroy?" + +Mortimer became indignant at the implied distrust of the purity of his +motives; and Plank, failing to stem the maudlin tirade, relapsed into +patient silence, speculating within himself as to what it could be that +Mortimer wanted. + +It came out presently. Mortimer had attended a "killing" at Desmond's, +and, as usual, had provided the piece de resistance for his soft-voiced +host. All he wanted was a temporary deposit to tide over matters. He had +never approached Plank in vain, and he did not do so now, for Plank had +a pocket cheque-book and a stylograph. + +"It's damn little to ask, isn't it?" he muttered resentfully. "That will +only square matters with Desmond; it doesn't leave me anything to go on +with," and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl. + +Plank was discreetly silent. + +"And that is not what I chased you for, either," continued Mortimer. "I +didn't intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in +another way!" He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the +elevators gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble +rotunda; then his protruding eyes sought Plank's again: + +"Beverly, old boy, I've got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any +decent man would like to have him--by the scruff of his neck. He's fit +only to kick; and I'm going to kick him good and plenty; and in the +process he's going to let go of several things." Mortimer leered, +pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: "I mean, he's +going to drop several things that don't belong to him. Leave it to me to +shake him down; he'll drop them all right. . One of 'em's yours." + +Plank looked at him. + +"I told you once that I'd let you know when to step up and say 'Good +evening' didn't I?" + +Plank continued to stare. + +"Didn't I?" repeated Mortimer peevishly, beginning to lose countenance. + +"I don't understand you," said Plank, "and I don't think I want to +understand you." + +"What do you mean?" demanded Mortimer thickly; "don't you want to marry +that girl!" but he shrank dismayed under the slow blaze that lighted +Plank's blue eyes. + +"All right," he stammered, struggling to his fat legs and instinctively +backing away; "I thought you meant business. I--what the devil do I care +who you marry! It's the last time I try to do anything for you, or for +anybody else! Mark that, my friend. I've plenty to worry over; I've a +lot to keep me busy without lying awake to figure out how to do +kindnesses to old friends. Damn this ingratitude, anyway!" + +Plank gazed at him for a moment; the anger in his face had died out. + +"I am not ungrateful," he said. "You may say almost anything except +that, Leroy. I am not disloyal, no matter what else I may be. But you +have made a bad mistake. You made it that day at Black Fells when you +offered to interfere. I supposed you understood then that I could never +tolerate from anybody anything of such a nature. It appears that you +didn't. However, you understand it now. So let us forget the matter." + +But Mortimer, keenly appreciative of the pleasures of being +misunderstood, squeezed some moisture out of his distended eyes, and sat +down, a martyr to his emotions. "To think," he gulped, "that you, of all +men, should turn on me like this!" + +"I didn't mean to. Can't you understand, Leroy, that you hurt me?" + +"Hurt hell!" retorted Mortimer vindictively. "You've had sensation +battered out of you by this time. I guess society has landed you a few +while I was boosting you over the outworks. Don't play that old con game +on me! You tried to get her and you couldn't. Now I come along and offer +to put you next and you yell about your hurt feelings! Oh, splash! +There's another lady, that's all." + +"Let it go at that, then," said Plank, reddening. + +"But I tell you--" + +"Drop it!" snapped Plank. + +"Oh, very well! if you're going to take it that way again--" + +"I am. Cut it! And now let me ask you a question: Where were you going +when I met you?" + +"What do you want to know for?" asked Mortimer sullenly. + +"Why, I'll tell you, Leroy. If you have any idea of identifying yourself +with Quarrier's people, of seeking him at this juncture with the +expectation of investing any money in his schemes, you had better not do +so." + +"Investing!" sneered Mortimer. "Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to +invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated +Electric gang. Don't worry. If there's any shaking down to be done, I'll +do it, my friend," and he rose, and started toward the elevators. + +"Wait," said Plank. "Why, man, you can't frighten Quarrier! What did you +sell your holdings for? Why didn't you come to us--to me? What's the use +of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can't scare a man like +that." + +Mortimer fairly grinned in his face. + +"Your big mistake," he sneered, "is in undervaluing others. You don't +think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I'm going to try to +take care of myself all the same." He laughed, showing his big teeth, +and the vanity in him began to drug him. "No, you think I don't know +much. But men like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you +to understand," he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution +which in saner moments he was only too certain that his present business +required--"I want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of +them is that I'm not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I'm not afraid +of you!" + +"Leroy--" + +"No, not afraid of you, either!" repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare. +"Don't try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me, +Beverly! I'm getting tired of it; I'm tired of it now, by God! You keep +a civil tongue in your head after this--do you understand?--and we'll get +on all right. If you don't, I've the means to make you!" + +"Are you crazy?" + +"Not a bit of it! Too damn sane for you and Leila to hoodwink!" + +"You are crazy!" repeated Plank, aghast. + +"Am I? You and Leila can take the matter into court, if you want +to--unless I do. And"--here he leaned forward, showing his teeth +again--"the next time you kiss her, close the door!" + +Then he went away up the marble steps and entered an elevator; and +Plank, grave and pale, went out into the street and entered his big +touring-car. But the drive up town and through the sunlit park gave him +no pleasure, and he entered his great house with a heavy, lifeless step, +head bent, as though counting every crevice in the stones under his +lagging feet. For the first time in all his life he was afraid of a man. + + +The man he was afraid of had gone directly to Quarrier's office, missing +the gentleman he was seeking by such a small fraction of a minute that +he realised they must have passed each other in the elevators, he +ascending while Quarrier was descending. + +Mortimer turned and hurried to the elevator, hoping to come up with +Quarrier in the rotunda, or possibly in the street outside; but he was +too late, and, furious to think of the time he had wasted with Plank, he +crawled into a hansom and bade the driver take him to a number he gave, +designating one of the new limestone basement houses on the upper west +side. + +All the way up town, as he jolted about in his seat, he angrily +regretted the meeting with Plank, even in spite of the cheque. What +demon had possessed him to boast--to display his hand when there had been +no necessity? Plank was still ready to give him aid at a crisis--had +always been ready. Time enough when Plank turned stingy to use +persuasion; time enough when Plank attempted to dodge him to employ a +club. And now, for no earthly reason, intoxicated with his own vanity, +catering to his own long-smouldering resentment, he had used his club on +a willing horse--deliberately threatened a man whose gratitude had been +good for many a cheque yet. + +"Ass that I am!" fumed Mortimer; "now when I'm stuck I'll have to go at +him with the club, if I want any money out of him. Confound him, he's +putting me in a false position! He's trying to make it look like +extortion! I won't do it! I'm no blackmailer! I'll starve, before I go +to him again! No blundering, clumsy Dutchman can make a blackmailer out +of me by holding hands with that scoundrelly wife of mine! That's the +reason he did it, too! Between them they are trying to make my loans +from Plank look like blackmail! It would serve them right if I took them +up--if I called their bluff, and stuck Plank up in earnest! But I won't, +to please them! I won't do any dirty thing like that, to humour them! +Not much!" + +He lay back, rolling about in the jouncing cab, scowling at space. + +"Not much!" he repeated. "I'll shake down Quarrier, though! I'll make +him pay for his treachery--scaring me out of Amalgamated! That will be +restitution, not extortion!" + +He was the angrier because he had been for days screwing up his courage +to the point of seeking Quarrier face to face. He had not wished to do +it; the scene, and his own attitude in it, could only be repugnant to +him, although he continually explained to himself that it was +restitution, not extortion. + +But whatever it was, he didn't like to figure in it, and he had hung +back as long as circumstances permitted. But his new lodgings and his +new friends were expensive; and Plank, he supposed, was off somewhere +fishing; so he hung on as long as it was possible; then, exasperated by +necessity, started for Quarrier's office, only to miss him by a few +seconds because he was fool enough to waste his temper and his +opportunity in making an enemy out of a friend! + +"Oh," he groaned, "what an ass I am!" And he got out of his cab in front +of a very new limestone basement house with red geraniums blooming on +the window-sills, and let himself in with a latch-key. + +The interior of the house was attractive in a rather bright, new, clean +fashion. There seemed to be a great deal of white wood-work about, a +wilderness of slender white spindles supporting the dark, rich mahogany +handrail of the stairway; elaborate white grilles between snowy, +Corinthian pillars separating the hall from the drawing-room, where a +pale gilt mirror over a white, colonial mantel reflected a glass +chandelier and panelled walls hung with pale blue silk. + +All was new, very clean, very quiet; the maid, too, who appeared at the +sound of the closing door and took his hat and gloves was as newly +groomed as the floors and wood-work, and so noiseless as to be +conspicuous in her swift, silent movements. + +Yet there was something about it all--about the bluish silvery half- +light, the spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid in +her flamboyant cap and apron--that arrested attention and fixed it. The +soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the contrast +between the maid's black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was +nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains +were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no half- +lights. The very stillness was gay with suspense, like a pretty woman's +suppressed laughter glimmering in her eyes. + +And into this tinted light, framed in palest blue and white, waddled +Mortimer, appropriate as a June-bug scrambling in a Sevres teacup. + +"Anybody here?" he growled, leering into the drawing-room at a tiny +grand piano cased in unvarnished Circassian walnut. + +"There is nobody at home, sir," said the maid. + +"Music lesson over?" + +"Yes, sir, at three." + +He began to ascend the stairway, breathing heavily, thud, thud over the +deep velvet strip, his fat hand grasping the banister rail. + +Somewhere on the second floor a small dog barked, and Mortimer traversed +the ball and opened the door into a room hung with gold Spanish leather +and pale green curtains. + +"Hello, Tinto!" he said affably as a tiny Japanese spaniel hurled +herself at him, barking furiously, then began writhing and weaving +herself about him, gurgling recognition and welcome. + +He sat down heavily in a padded easy-chair. The spaniel sprang into his +lap, wheezing, sniffling, goggling its protruding eyes. Mortimer liked +the dog, but he didn't like what the owner of the dog said about the +resemblance between his own and Tinto's eyes. + +"Get down!" he said; "you're shedding black and white hairs all over +me." But the dog didn't want to get down, and Mortimer's good nature +permitted her to curl up on his fat knees and sleep that nervous, +twitching sleep peculiar to overpampered toy canines. + +The southern sun was warm in the room; the windows open, but not a +silken hanging stirred. + +Presently another maid entered, with an apple cut into thin wafers and a +decanter of port; and Mortimer lay back in his chair, sopping his apple +in the thick, crimson wine, and feeding morsels of the combination to +himself and to Tinto at intervals until the apple was all gone and the +decanter three-fourths empty. + +It was very still in the room--so still, that Mortimer, opening his eyes +at longer and longer intervals to peer at the door, finally opened them +no more. + +The droning gurgle that he made kept Tinto awake. When his lower jaw +sagged, and he began to really show what snoring could be, Tinto, very +nervous, got up and hopped down. + + +It was still daylight when Mortimer awoke, conscious of people about +him. As he opened his eyes, a man laughed; several people seated by the +windows joined in. Then, straightening up with an effort, something +tumbled from his head to the floor and he started to rise. + +"Oh, look out, Leroy! Don't step on my hat!" cried a girl's voice; and +he sank back in his chair, gazing stupidly around. + +"Hello! you people!" he said, amused; "I guess I've been asleep. Oh, is +that you Millbank? Whose hat was that--yours, Lydia?" + +He yawned, laughed, turning his heavy eyes from one to another, +recognising a couple of young girls at the window. He didn't want to get +up; but there is, in the society he now adorned, a stringency of +etiquette known as "re-finement," and which, to ignore, is to become +unpopular. + +So he got onto his massive legs and went over to shake hands with a +gravity becoming the ceremony. + +"How d'ye do, Miss Hutchinson? Thought you were at Asbury Park. How de +do, Miss Del Garcia. Have you been out in Millbank's motor yet?" + +"We broke down at McGowan's Pass," said Miss Del Garcia, laughing the +laugh that had made her so attractive in "A Word to the Wise." + +"Muddy gasoline," nodded Millbank tersely--an iron-jawed, over-groomed +man of forty, with a florid face shaved blue. + +"We passed Mr. Plank's big touring-car," observed Lydia Vyse, shifting +Tinto to the couch and brushing the black and white hairs from her +automobile coat. "How much does a car like that cost, Leroy?" + +"About twenty-five thousand," he said gloomily. Then, looking up, "Hold +on, Millbank, don't be going! Why can't you all dine with us? Never mind +your car; ours is all right, and we'll run out into the country for +dinner. How about it, Miss Del Garcia?" + +But both Miss Del Garcia and Miss Hutchinson had accepted another +invitation, in which Millbank was also included. + +They stood about, veils floating, leather decorated coats thrown back, +lingering for awhile to talk the garage talk which fascinates people of +their type; then Millbank looked at the clock, made his adieux to Lydia, +nodded significantly to Mortimer, and followed the others down-stairs. + +There was something amiss with his motor, for it made a startling racket +in the street, finally plunging forward with a kick. + +Lydia laughed as the two young girls in the tonneau turned to nod to her +in mock despair; then she came running back up-stairs, holding her skirt +free from her hurrying little feet. + +"Well?" she inquired, as Mortimer turned back from the window to +confront her. + +"Nothing doing, little girl," he said with a sombre smile. + +She looked at him, slowly divesting herself of her light leather-trimmed +coat. + +"I missed him," said Mortimer. + +She flung the coat over a chair, stood a moment, her fingers busy with +her hair-pegs, then sat down on the couch, taking Tinto into her lap. +She was very pretty, dark, slim, marvellously graceful in her every +movement. + +"I missed him," repeated Mortimer. + +"Can't you see him to-morrow?" she asked. + +"I suppose so," said Mortimer slowly. "Oh, Lord! how I hate this +business!" + +"Hasn't he misused your confidence? Hasn't he taken your money?" she +asked. "It may be unpleasant for you to make him unbelt, but you're a +coward if you don't!" + +"Easy! easy, now!" muttered Mortimer; "I'm going to shake it out of him. +I said I would, and I will." + +"I should hope so; it's yours." + +"Certainly it's mine. I wish I'd held fast now. I never supposed Plank +would take hold. It was that drivelling old Belwether who scared me +stiff! The minute I saw him scurrying to cover like a singed cat I was +fool enough to climb the first tree. I've had my lesson, little girl." + +"I hope you'll give Howard his. Somebody ought to," she said quietly. + +Then gathering up her hat and coat she went into her own apartments. +Mortimer picked up a cheap magazine, looked over the portraits of the +actresses, then, hunching up into a comfortable position, settled +himself to read the theatrical comment. + +Later, Lydia not appearing, and his own valet arriving to turn on the +electricity, bring him his White Rock and Irish and the Evening +Telegraph, he hoisted his legs into another chair and sprawled there +luxuriously over his paper until it was time to dress. + +About half past eight they dined in a white and pink dining-room +furnished in dull gray walnut, and served by a stealthy, white-haired, +pink-skinned butler, chiefly remarkable because it seemed utterly +impossible to get a glimpse of his eyes. Nobody could tell whether there +was anything the matter with them or not--and whether they were only very +deep set or were weak, like an albino's, or were slightly crossed, the +guests of the house never knew. Lydia herself didn't know, and had given +up trying to find out. + +They had planned to go for a spin in Mortimer's motor after dinner, but +in view of the Quarrier fiasco neither was in the mood for anything. + +Mortimer, as usual, ate and drank heavily. He was a carnivorous man, and +liked plenty of thick, fat, underdone meat. As for Lydia, her appetite +was as erratic as her own impulses. Her table, always wastefully +elaborate, no doubt furnished subsistence for all the relatives of her +household below stairs, and left sufficient for any ambitious butler to +make a decent profit on. + +"Do you know, Leroy," she observed, as they left the table and sauntered +back into the pale blue drawing-room, "do you know that the servants +haven't been paid for three months?" + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake," he expostulated, "don't begin that sort of +thing! I get enough of that at home; I get it every time I show my +nose!" + +"I only mentioned it," she said carelessly. + +"I heard you all right. It isn't any pleasanter for me than for you. In +fact, I'm sick of it; I'm dead tired of being up against it every day of +my life. When a man has anything somebody gets it before he can +sidestep. When a man's dead broke there's nobody in sight to touch." + +"You had an opportunity to make Howard pay you back." + +"Didn't I tell you I missed him?" + +"Yes. What are you going to do?" + +"Do?" + +"Of course. You are going to do something, I suppose." + +They had reached the gold and green room above. Lydia began pacing the +length of a beautiful Kermanshah rug--a pale, delicate marvel of rose and +green on a ground of ivory--lovely, but doomed to fade sooner than the +pretty woman who trod it with restless, silk-shod feet. + +Mortimer had not responded to her last question. She said presently: +"You have never told me how you intend to make him pay you back." + +"What?" inquired Mortimer, turning very red. + +"I said that you haven't yet told me how you intend to make Howard +return the money you lost through his juggling with your stock." + +"I don't exactly know myself," admitted Mortimer, still overflushed. "I +mean to put it to him squarely, as a debt of honour that he owes. I +asked him whether to invest. Damn him! he never warned me not to. He is +morally responsible. Any man who would sit there and nod monotonously +like a mandarin, knowing all the while what he was doing to wreck the +company, and let a friend put into a rotten concern all the cash he +could scrape together, is a swindler!" + +"I think so too," she said, studying the rose arabesques in the rug. + +There was a little click of her teeth when she ended her inspection and +looked across at Mortimer. Something in her expressionless gaze seemed +to reassure him, and give him a confidence he may have lacked. + +"I want him to understand that I won't swallow that sort of contemptible +treatment," asserted Mortimer, lighting a thick, dark cigar. + +"I hope you'll make him understand," she said, seating herself and +resting her clasped, brilliantly ringed hands in her lap. + +"Oh, I will--never fear! He has abused my confidence abominably; he has +practically swindled me, Lydia. Don't you think so?" + +She nodded. + +"I'll tell him so, too," blustered Mortimer, shaking himself into an +upright posture, and laying a pudgy, clinched fist on the table. "I'm +not afraid of him! He'll find that out, too. I know enough to stagger +him. Not that I mean to use it. I'm not going to have him think that my +demands on him for my own property resemble extortion." + +"Extortion?" she repeated. + +"Yes. I don't want him to think I'm trying to intimidate him. I won't +have him think I'm a grafter; but I've half a mind to shake that money +out of him, in one way or another." + +He struck the table and looked at her for further sign of approval. + +"I'm not afraid of him," he repeated. "I wish to God he were here, and +I'd tell him so!" + +She said coolly: "I was wishing that too." + +For a while they sat silent, preoccupied, avoiding each other's direct +gaze. When she rose he started, watching her in a dazed way as she +walked to the telephone. + +"Shall I?" she asked quietly, turning to him, her hand on the receiver. + +"Wait. W-what are you going to do?" he stammered. + +"Call him up. Shall I?" + +A dull throb of fright pulsed through him. + +"You say you are not afraid of him, Leroy." + +"No!" he said with an oath, "I am not. Go ahead!" + +She unhooked the receiver. After a second or two her low, even voice +sounded. There came a pause. She rested one elbow on the walnut shelf, +the receiver tight to her ear. Then: + +"Mr. Quarrier, please. . Yes, Mr. Howard Quarrier. . No, no name. Say it +is on business of immediate importance. . Very well, then; you may say +that Miss Vyse insists on speaking to him. . Yes, I'll hold the wire." + +She turned, the receiver at her ear, and looked narrowly at Mortimer. + +"Won't he speak to you?" he demanded. + +"I'm going to find out. Hush a moment!" and in the same calm, almost +childish voice: "Oh, Howard, is that you? Yes, I know I promised not to +do this, but that was before things happened! . Well, what am I to do +when it is necessary to talk to you? . Yes, it is necessary! . I tell +you it is necessary! . I am sorry it is not convenient for you to talk +to me, but I really must ask you to listen! . No, I shall not write. I +want to talk to you to-night--now! Yes, you may come here, if you care +to! . I think you had better come, Howard. . Because I am liable to +continue ringing your telephone until you are willing to listen. . No, +there is nobody here. I am alone. What time? . Very well; I shall expect +you. Good-bye." + +She hung up the receiver and turned to Mortimer: + +"He's coming up at once. Did I say anything to scare him particularly?" + +"One thing's sure as preaching," said Mortimer; "he's a coward, and I'm +dammed glad of it," he added naively, relighting his cigar, which had +gone out. + +"If he comes up in his motor he'll be here in a few minutes," she said. +"Suppose you take your hat and go out. I don't want him to think what he +will think if he walks into the room and finds you waiting. You have +your key, Leroy. Walk down the block; and when you see him come in, give +him five minutes." + +Her voice had become a little breathless, and her colour was high. +Mortimer, too, seemed apprehensive. Things had suddenly begun to work +themselves out too swiftly. + +"Do you think that's best?" he faltered, looking about for his hat. +"Tell Merkle that nobody has been here, if Quarrier should ask him. Do +you think we're doing it in the best way, Lydia? By God, it smells of a +put-up job to me! But I guess it's all right. It's better for me to just +happen in, isn't it? Don't forget to put Merkle wise." + +He descended the stairs hastily. Merkle, of the invisible eyes, held his +hat and gloves and opened the door for him. + +Once on the dark street, his impulse was to flee--get out, get away from +the whole business. A sullen shame was pumping the hot blood up into his +neck and cheeks. He strove to find an inoffensive name for what he was +proposing to do, but ugly terms, synonym after synonym, crowded in to +characterise the impending procedure, and he walked on angrily, half +frightened, looking back from moment to moment at the house he had just +left. + +On the corner he halted, breathing spasmodically, for he had struck a +smarter pace than he had been aware of. + +Few people passed him. Once he caught a glimmer of a policeman's buttons +along the park wall, and an unpleasant shiver passed over him. At the +same moment an electric hansom flew noiselessly past him. He shrank back +into the shadow of a porte-cochere. The hansom halted before the +limestone basement house. A tall figure left it, stood a moment in the +middle of the sidewalk, then walked quickly to the front door. It +opened, and the man vanished. + +The hansom still waited at the door. Mortimer, his hands shaking, looked +at his watch by the light of the electric bulbs flanking the gateway +under which he stood. + +There was not much time in which to make up his mind, yet his fright was +increasing to a pitch which began to enrage him with that coward's +courage which it is impossible to reckon with. + +He had missed Quarrier once to-day when he had been keyed to the +encounter. Was he going to miss him again through sheer terror? Besides, +was not Quarrier a coward? Besides, was it not his own money? Had he not +been vilely swindled by a pretended friend? Urging, lashing himself into +a heavy, shuffling motion, he emerged from the porte-cochere and lurched +off down the street. No time to think now, no time for second thought, +for hesitation, for weakness. He had waited too long already. He had +waited ten minutes, instead of five. Was Quarrier going to escape again? +Was he going to get out of the house before--" + +Fumbling with his latch-key, but with sense enough left to make no +noise, he let himself in, passed silently through the reception-hall and +up to the drawing-room floor, where for a second he stood listening. +Then something of the perverted sportsman sent the blood quivering into +his veins. He had him! He had run him down! The game was at bay. + +An inrush of exhilaration steadied him. He laid his hand on the banister +and mounted, gloves and hat-brim crushed in the other hand. When he +entered the room he pretended to see only Lydia. + +"Hello, little girl!" he said, laughing, "are you surprised to--" + +At that moment he caught sight of Quarrier, and the start he gave was +genuine enough. Never had he seen in a man's visage such white +concentration of anger. + +"Quarrier!" he stammered, for his acting was becoming real enough to +supplant art. + +Quarrier had risen; his narrowing eyes moved from Mortimer to Lydia, +then reverted to the man in the combination. + +"Rather unexpected, isn't it?" said Mortimer, staring at Quarrier. + +"Is it?" returned Quarrier in a low voice. + +"I suppose so," sneered Mortimer. "Did you expect to find me here?" + +"No. Did you expect to find me?" asked the other, with emphasis +unmistakable. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Mortimer hoarsely. "What the devil do you +mean by asking me if I expected to find you here? If I had, I'd not have +travelled down to your office to-day to see you; I'd have come here for +you. Naturally people suppose that an engaged man is likely to give up +this sort of thing." + +Quarrier, motionless, white to the lips, turned his eyes from one to the +other. + +"It doesn't look very well, does it?" asked Mortimer; and he stood +there, smiling, danger written all over him. "It's beginning rather +early," he continued, with a sneer. "Most engaged men with a conscience +wait until they're married before they return to the gay and frivolous. +But here you are, it seems, handsome, jolly, and irresistible as ever!" + +Quarrier looked at Lydia, and his lips moved: "You asked me to come," he +said. + +"No; you offered to. I wished to talk to you over the wire, but "--her +lip curled, and she shrugged her shoulders--"you seemed to be afraid of +something or other." + +"I couldn't talk to you in my own house, with guests in the room." + +"Why not? Did I say anything your fashionable guests might take +exception to? Am I likely to do anything of that kind?--you coward!" + +Quarrier stood very still, then noiselessly turned and made one step +toward the door. + +"One moment," interposed Mortimer blandly. "As long as I travelled down +town to see you, and find you here so unexpectedly, I may as well take +advantage of this opportunity to regulate a little matter. You don't +mind our talking shop for a moment, Lydia? Thank you. It's just a little +business matter between Mr. Quarrier and myself--a matter concerning a +few shares of stock which I once held in one of his companies, bought at +par, and tumbled to ten and--What is the fraction, Quarrier? I forget." + +Quarrier thought deeply for a moment; then he raised his head, looking +full at Mortimer, and under his silky beard an edge of teeth glimmered. +"Did you wish me to take back those shares at par?" he asked. + +"Exactly! I knew you would! I knew you'd see it in that way!" cried +Mortimer heartily. "Confound it all, Quarrier, I've always said you were +that sort of man--that you'd never let a friend in on the top floor, and +kick him clear to the cellar! As a matter of fact, I sold out at ten and +three-eighths. Wait! Here's a pencil. Lydia, give me that pad on your +desk. Here you are, Quarrier. It's easy enough to figure out how much +you owe me." + +And as Quarrier slowly began tracing figures on the pad, Mortimer +rambled on, growing more demonstrative and boisterous every moment. +"It's white of you, Quarrier--I'll say that! Legally, of course, you +could laugh at me; but I've always said your business conscience would +never let you stand for this sort of thing. 'You can talk and talk,' +I've told people, many a time, 'but you'll never convince me that Howard +Quarrier hasn't a heart.' No, by jinks! they couldn't make me believe +it. And here's my proof--here's my vindication! Lydia, would you mind +hunting up that cheque-book I left here before dinn--" + +He had made a mistake. The girl flushed. He choked up, and cast a +startled glance at Quarrier. But Quarrier, if he heard, made no motion +of understanding. Perhaps it had not been necessary to convince him of +the conspiracy. + +When he had finished his figures he reviewed them, tracing each total +with his pencil's point; then quietly handed the pad to Mortimer who +went over it, and nodded that it was correct. + +Lydia rose. Quarrier said, without looking at her: "I have a blank +cheque with me. May I use one of these pens?" + +So he had brought a cheque! Had he supposed that a cheque might be +necessary when Lydia called him up? Was he prepared to meet any demand +of hers, too, even before Mortimer appeared on the scene? + +"As long as you have a cheque with you, Howard," said Lydia quietly, +"suppose you simply add to Mr. Mortimer's amount what you had intended +to offer me?" + +He stared at her without answering. + +"That little remembrance for old time's sake. Don't you recollect?" + +"No," said Quarrier. + +"Why, Howard! Didn't you promise me all sorts of things when I wanted to +go to your friend Mr. Siward, and explain that it was not his fault I +got into the Patroons Club? Don't you remember I felt dreadfully that he +was expelled--that I was simply wild to write to the governors and tell +them how I took Merkle's clothes and drove to the club and waited until +I saw a lot of men go in, and then crowded in with the push?" + +Mortimer was staring at Quarrier out of his protruding eyes. The girl +leaned forward, deliberate, self-possessed, the red lips edged with +growing scorn. + +"That was a dirty trick!" said Mortimer heavily. He took the pad, added +a figure, passed it to Lydia, and she coolly wrote a total, underscoring +it heavily. + +"That is the amount," she said. + +Quarrier looked at the pad which she had tossed upon the desk. Then he +slowly wetted his pen with ink, and, laying the loose cheque flat, began +to fill it in. Afterward he dried it, and, reading it carefully, pushed +it aside and rose. + +"It wouldn't be advisable for you to stop payment, you know," observed +Mortimer insolently, lying back in his chair and stretching his legs. + +"I know," said Quarrier, pausing to turn on them a deathly stare. Then +he went away. After awhile they heard the door close. But there was no +sound from the electric hansom, and Mortimer rose and walked to the +window. + +"He's gone," he said. + +Lydia stood at the desk, examining the cheque. + +"We ought to afford a decent touring-car now," she suggested--"like that +yellow and black Serin-Chanteur car of Mr. Plank's." + + + +CHAPTER XIII THE SELLING PRICE + +The heat, which had been severe in June, driving the last fashionable +loiterer into the country, continued fiercely throughout July. August +was stifling; the chestnut leaves in the parks curled up and grew +brittle; the elms were blotched; brown stretches scarred the lawns; the +blazing colour of the geranium beds seemed to intensify the heat, like a +bed of living coals. + +Nobody who was anybody remained in town--except some wealthy business +men and their million odd employes; but the million, being nobodies, +didn't count. + +Nobody came into town; that is to say that a million odd strangers came +as usual, swelling the sweltering, resident population sufficiently to +animate the main commercial thoroughfares morning and evening, but they +didn't count; the money they spent was, however, very carefully counted. + +The fashionable columns of the newspapers informed the fashionable +ex-urbanated that the city was empty--though the East Side reeked like +a cattle-pen, and another million or two gasped on the hot, tin roofs +under the stars, or buried their dirty faces in the parched park grass. + +What the press meant to say was that the wealthy section of the city +within the shadow of St. Patrick's twin white spires and north of Fifty- +ninth Street was as empty and silent as an abandoned gold-mine. Which +was true. Miles of elaborate, untenanted dwellings glimmered blank under +the moon and stood tomb-like in barren magnificence against the blazing +blue of noon. Miles of plate-glass windows, boarded, or bearing between +lowered shade and dusty pane the significant parti-coloured placard +warning the honest thief, stared out at the heated park or, in the cross +streets, confronted each other with inert hauteur, awaiting the pleasure +of their absent owners. + +The humidity increased; the horses' heads hung heavily under their +ridiculously pitiful straw bonnets. When the sun was vertical nobody +stirred; when the bluish shadows began to creep out over baked +sidewalks, broadening to a strip of superheated shade, a few stirred +abroad in the deserted streets; here a policeman, thin blue summer tunic +open, helmet in hand, swabbing the sweat from forehead and neck; there a +white uniformed street sweeper dragging his rubber-edged mop or a +section of wet hose; perhaps a haggard peddler of lemonade making for +the Park wall around the Metropolitan Museum where, a little later, the +East Side would venture out to sit on the benches, or the great electric +tourists' busses would halt to dump out a living cargo--perhaps only the +bent figure of a woman, very shabby, very old, dragging her ancient +bones along the silent splendour of Fifth Avenue, and peering about the +gutters for something she never finds--always peering, always mumbling +the endless, wordless, soundless miserere of the poor. + +Quarrier's huge limestone mansion, looming golden in the sun, was +tenantless; its owner, closing even The Sedges, his Long Island house, +and driven northward for a breath of air, was expected at Shotover. + +The house of Mrs. Mortimer was closed and boarded up; the Caithness +mansion was closed; the Ferralls', the Bonnesdels', the Pages', the +Shannons', Mrs. Vendenning's, all were sealed up like vaults. A +caretaker apparently guarded Major Belwether's house, peeping out at +intervals from behind the basement windows. As for Plank's great pile of +masonry, edging the outer Hundreds in the north, several lighted windows +were to be seen in it at night, and a big yellow and black touring-car +whizzed down town from its bronze gateway every morning with perfect +regularity. + +For there was a fight on that had steadily grown hotter with the +weather, and Plank had little time to concern himself with the +temperature or to mop his red features over the weather bureau report. +Harrington and Quarrier were after him, horse, foot, and dragoons; +Harrington had even taken a house at Seabright in order to be near in +person; and Quarrier's move from Long Island to Shotover House was not +as flippant as it might appear, for he had his private car there and a +locomotive at Black Fells Crossing station, and he was within striking +distance of Rochester, Utica, Syracuse, and Albany. Which was what +Harrington thought necessary. + +The vast unseen machinery set in motion by Harrington and Quarrier had +begun to grind in May; and, at the first audible rumble, the aspect of +things financial in the country changed. A few industrials began to +rocket, nobody knew why; but the market's first tremor left it baggy and +spineless, and the reaction, already overdue, became a sodden and soggy +slump. Nobody knew why. + +The noise of the fray in the papers, which had first excited then +stunned the outside public, continued in a delirium of rumour, report, +forecast, and summing up at the week's end. + +Scare heads, involving everybody and everything, from the District- +Attorney to Plank's office boy, succeeded one another. Plank's name +headed column after column. Already becoming familiar in the society and +financial sections, it began to appear in neighbouring paragraphs. Who +was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less inaccuracy, +humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers tried to tell +that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments good-natured or +ill-natured according to circumstances over which somebody ought to have +some control. What was Harrington trying to do to Plank--if he was trying +to do anything? They told that pretty clearly. What was Quarrier going +to do to Plank? That, also, they explained in lively detail. A few +clergymen who stuck to their churches began to volunteer pulpit opinions +concerning the ethics of the battle. A minister who was generally +supposed to make an unmitigated nuisance of himself in politics dealt +Plank an unexpected blow by saying that he was a "hero." Some papers +called him "Hero" Plank for awhile, but soon tired of it or forgot it +under the stress of the increasing heat. + +Besides Plank scarcely noticed what the press said of him. He was too +busy; his days were full days, brimming over deep into the night. +Brokers, lawyers, sycophants, tipsters, treacherous ex-employes of +Quarrier, detectives, up-State petty officials, lobbyists from Albany, +newspaper men, men from Wall Street, Broad Street, Mulberry Street, +Forty-second Street--all these he saw in units, relays, regiments--either +at his offices or after dinner--and sometimes after midnight in his own +house. And these were only a few, picked from the interested or +disinterested thousands who besieged him with advice, importunity, +threats, and attempted blackmail. And he handled them all in turn, +stolidly but with decision. His obstinate under lip protruded further +and further with rare recessions; his heavy head was like the lowered +head of a bull. Undaunted, inexorable, slow to the verge of stupidity at +times, at times swift as a startled tiger, this new, amazing personality +steadily developing, looming higher, heavier, athwart the financial +horizon--in stature holding his own among giants, then growing, +gradually, inch by inch, dominated his surrounding level sky line. + +The youth in him was the tragedy to the old; the sudden silence of the +man the danger to the secretive. Harrington was already an old man; +Quarrier's own weapon had always been secrecy; but the silence of Plank +confused him, for he had never learned to parry well another's use of +his own weapon. The left-handed swordsman dreads to cross with a man who +fights with the left hand. And Harrington, hoary, seamed, scarred, +maimed in onslaughts of long forgotten battles, looked long and hard +upon this weird of his own dead youth which now rose towering to +confront him, menacing him with the armed point of the same shield +behind which he himself had so long found shelter--the Law! + +The closing of the courts enforced armed truces along certain lines of +Plank's battle front; the adjournment of the legislature emptied Albany. +Once it was rumoured that Plank had passed an entire morning with the +Governor of the greatest State in the Union and that the conference was +to be repeated. A swarm of newspaper men settled about the Governor's +summer cottage at Saratoga, but they learned nothing, nor could they +find a trace of Plank's tracks in the trodden trails of the great Spa. + +Besides, the racing had begun; Desmond, Burbank, Sneed, and others of +the gilded guild had opened new club-houses; the wretched, half-starved +natives in the surrounding hills were violating the game-laws to distend +the paunches of the overfed with five-inch troutlings and grouse and +woodcock slaughtered out of season; so there was plenty of copy for +newspaper men without the daily speculative paragraph devoted to the +doings of Beverly Plank. Some scandal, too--but newspapers never touch +that; and after all it was nobody's affair that Leroy Mortimer drove a +large yellow and black Serin-Chanteur touring-car, new model, all over +Saratoga county. Perhaps the similarity of machines gave rise to the +rumour of Plank's presence; perhaps not, because the car was often +driven by a tall, slender girl with dark eyes and hair; and nobody ever +saw that sort of pretty woman in Plank's Serin, or saw Leroy Mortimer +for many days without a companion of that species. + +Mortimer's health was excellent. The races had not proved remunerative +however, and his new motor-car was horribly expensive. So was Lydia. And +he began to be seriously afraid that by the end of August he would be +obliged to apply to Quarrier once more for some slight temporary token +of that gentleman's goodwill. He told Lydia this, and she seemed to +agree with him. This pleased him. She had not pleased him very much +recently. For one thing she was becoming too friendly with some of his +friends--Desmond in particular. + +Plank, it was known, had opened his great house at Black Fells. His +servants, gamekeepers, were there; his stables, kennels, greenhouses, +model stock-farm--all had been put in immaculate condition pending the +advent of the master. But Plank had not appeared; his new sea-going +steam yacht still lay in the East River, and, at rare intervals, a +significant glimmer of bunting disclosed the owner's presence aboard for +an hour or two. That was all, however; and the cliff-watchers at +Shotover House and the Fells looked seaward in vain for the big Siwanoa, +as yacht after yacht, heralded by the smudge on the horizon, turned from +a gray speck to a white one, and crept in from the sea to anchor. + +The Ferralls were at Shotover with their first instalment of guests. +Sylvia was there, Quarrier expected--because Kemp Ferrall's break with +him was not a social one, and Grace's real affection for Sylvia blinded +neither her nor her husband to the material and social importance of the +intimacy. Siward was not invited; neither had an invitation to him been +even discussed in view of what Grace was aware of, and what everybody +knew concerning the implacable relations existing between him, +personally, and Howard Quarrier. + +Bridge, yachting, and motoring were the August sports; the shooting set +had not yet arrived, of course; in fact there was still another relay +expected before the season opened and brought the shooting coterie for +the first two weeks. But Sylvia was expected to last through and hold +over with a brief interlude for a week's end at Lenox. So was Quarrier; +and Grace, always animated by a lively but harmless malice, hoped to +Heaven that Plank might arrive before Quarrier left, because she adored +the tension of situations and was delightedly persuaded that Plank was +more than able to hold his own with her irritating cousin. + +"Oh, to see them together in a small room," she sighed ecstatically in +Sylvia's ear; "I'd certainly poke them up if they only turned around +sulkily in the corners of the cage and evinced a desire to lie down." + +"What a mischief-maker you are," said Sylvia listlessly; and though +Grace became very vivacious in describing her plans to extract amusement +out of Plank's hoped-for presence Sylvia remained uninterested. + +There seemed, in fact, little to interest her that summer at Shotover +House; and, though she never refused any plans made for her, and her +attitude was one of quiet acquiescence always--she never expressed a +preference for anything, a desire to do anything; and, if let alone, was +prone to pace the cliffs or stretch her slim, rounded body on the sand +of some little, sheltered, crescent beach, apparently content with the +thunderous calm of sea and sky. + +Her interest, too, in people had seemingly been extinguished. Once or +twice she did inquire as to Marion's whereabouts, and learned that Miss +Page was fishing in Minnesota somewhere but would return to Shotover +when the shooting opened. Somebody, Captain Voucher, perhaps, mentioned +to somebody in her hearing that Siward was still in New York. If she +heard she made no sign, no inquiry. The next morning she remained abed +with a headache, and Grace motored to Wendover without her; but Sylvia +spent the balance of the day on the cliffs, and played Bridge with the +devil's own luck till dawn, piling up a score that staggered Mr. +Fleetwood, who had been instructing her in adversary play a day or two +before. + +The hot month dragged on; Quarrier came; Agatha Caithness arrived a few +days later--scheme of the Ferralls involving Alderdene!--but the Siwanoa +did not come, and Plank remained invisible. Leila Mortimer arrived from +Swan's Harbour toward the middle of the month, offering no information +as to the whereabouts of what Major Belwether delicately designated as +her "legitimate." But everybody knew he was at last to be crossed off +and struck clean out, and the ugly history of the winter, now so +impudently corroborated at Saratoga, gave many a hostess the opportunity +long desired. Mortimer, as far as his own particular circle was +concerned, was down and out; Leila, accepted as a matter of course +without him, remained quietly uncommunicative. If the outward physical +change in her was due to her marital rupture people thought it was well +that it had come in time, for she bloomed like a lovely exotic; and her +silences and enthusiasms, and the fragrant freshness of her developing +attitude toward the world first disconcerted, then amused, then touched +those who had supposed themselves to be so long a buckler for her +foibles and a shield for her caprice. + +"Gad," said Alderdene, "she's well rid of him if he's been choking her +this long--the rank, rotten weed that he is, sapping the life from her so +when she hung over toward another fellow's bush we thought she was frail +in the stem--God bless us all for a simpering lot of blatherskites!" + +And if, in the corner of the gun-room, there was a man among them who +had ever ventured to hold Leila's smooth little hand, unrebuked, in days +gone by, none the less he knew that Alderdene spoke truth; and none the +less he knew that what witness he might be called to bear at the end of +the end of all must only incriminate himself and not that young matron +who now, before their very eyes, was budding again, reverting to the +esoteric charm of youth reincarnated. + +"A suit before a referee would settle him," mused Voucher; "he hasn't a +leg to stand on. Lord! The same cat that tripped up Stephen Siward!" + +Fleetwood's quick eyes glimmered for an instant in Quarrier's direction. +Quarrier was in the billiard-room, out of earshot, practising balk-line +problems with Major Belwether; and Fleetwood said: "The same cat that +tripped up Stephen Siward. Yes. But who let her loose?" + +"It was your dinner; you ought to know," said Voucher bluntly. + +"I do know. He brought her"--nodding toward the billiard-room. + +"Belwether?" + +"No," yawned Fleetwood. + +Somebody said presently: "Isn't he one of the Governors? Oh, I say, that +was rather rough on Siward though." + +"Yes, rough. The law of trespass ought to have operated; a man's liable +for the damage done by his own live-stock." + +"That's a brutal way of talking," said somebody. And the subject was +closed with the entrance of Agatha in white flannels on her way to the +squash court where she had an appointment with Quarrier. + +"A strange girl," said somebody after she had disappeared with Quarrier. + +"That pallor is stunning," said a big, ruddy youth, with sunburn on his +neck and forehead. + +"It isn't healthy," said Fleetwood. + +"It attracts me," persisted the ruddy young man, voicing naively that +curious truth concerning the attraction that disease so often exerts on +health--the strange curiosity the normal has for the sub-normal--that +fascination of the wholesome for the unhealthy. It is, perhaps, more +curiosity than anything, unless, deep hidden under the normal, there lie +one single, perverted nerve. + +Sylvia, passing the hall, glanced in through the gun-room door with an +absentminded smile at the men and their laughing greeting, as they rose +with uplifted glasses to salute her. + +"The sweetest of all," observed a man, disconsolately emptying his +glass. "Oh irony! What a marriage!" + +"Do you know any girl who would not change places with her?" asked +another. + +Every man there insisted that he knew one girl at least who would not +exchange Sylvia's future for her own. That was very nice of them; it is +to be hoped they believed it. Some of them did--for the moment, anyhow. +Then Alderdene, blinking furiously, emitted one of his ear-racking +laughs; and everybody, as usual, laughed too. + +"You damned cynic," observed Voucher affectionately. + +"Somebody," said Fleetwood, "insists that she doubled up poor Siward." + +"She never met Siward until she was engaged to Howard," remarked +Voucher. + +"Well?" + +"Oh, don't you consider that enough to squelch the story?" + +"Engaged girls," mused Alderdene, "never double up except at Bridge." + +"Everybody has been or is in love with Sylvia Landis," said Voucher, +"and it's a man's own fault if he's hit. Once she did it, innocently +enough, and enjoyed it, never realising that it hurt a man to be doubled +up." + +Fleetwood yawned again and said: "She can have me to-morrow. But she +won't. She's tired of the sport. Any girl would get enough with the pack +at her heels day in and day out. Besides she's done for--unless she +looses Quarrier and starts on a duke-hunt over in Blinky's country! . Is +anybody on for a sail? Is anybody on for anything? No? Oh, very well. +Shove that decanter north by west, Billy." + +This was characteristic of the dog-days at Shotover. The dog-days in +town were very different; the city threw open the parks to the poor at +night; horses fell dead in the streets; pallid urchins, stripped naked, +splashed and rolled and screeched in the basin of the City Hall fountain +under the indifferent eyes of the police. + +As for Plank he was too busy to know what the thermometer was about; he +had no time for anything outside of his own particular business except +to go every day to the big, darkened house in lower Fifth Avenue where +the days had been hard on Siward and the nights harder. + +Siward, however, could walk now, using his crutches still, but often +stopping to gently test his left foot and see how much weight he was +able to bear on it--even taking a tentative step or two without crutch +support. He drove when he thought it prudent to use the horses in the +heat, usually very early in the morning, though sometimes at night with +Plank when the latter had time to run his touring-car through the park +and out into the Bronx or Westchester for a breath of air. + +But Plank wanted him to go away, get out of the city for his +convalescence, and Siward flatly declined, demanding that Plank permit +him to do his share in the fight against the Inter-County people. + +And Plank, utterly unable to persuade him, and the more hampered because +of his anxiety about Siward--though that young man did not know it--wore +himself out providing Siward with such employment in the matter as would +lightly occupy him without doing any good to the enemy. + +So Siward, stripped to his pajamas, pored over reams of typewritten +matter and took his brief walking exercise in the comparative cool of +the evening and drove when he dared use his horses; or, sitting beside +Plank, whizzed northward through the starry darkness of the suburbs. + +When it was that he first began to like Plank very much he could not +exactly remember. He was not, perhaps, aware of how much he liked him. +Plank's unexpected fits of shyness, of formality, often and often amused +him. But there was a subtler feeling under the unexpressed amusement, +and, beneath all, a constantly increasing sub-stratum of respect. Too, +he found himself curiously at ease with Plank, as with one born to his +own caste. And this feeling, unconscious, but more and more apparent, +meant more to Plank than anything that had ever happened to him. It was +a tonic in hours of doubt, a pleasure in his brief leisure, a pride +never to be hinted at, never to be guessed, never to be dreamed of by +any living soul save Plank alone. + +Then, one sultry day toward the last week in August, a certain judge of +a certain court, known among some as "Harrington's judge," sent secretly +for Plank. And Plank knew that the crisis was over. But neither +Harrington nor Quarrier dreamed of such a thing. + +Fear sat heavy on that judge's soul--the godless, selfish fear that sends +the first coward slinking from the councils of conspiracy to seek +immunity from those slowly grinding millstones that grind exceeding +fine. + +Quarrier at Shotover, with his private car and his locomotive within an +hour's drive, strolled with Sylvia on the eve of her departure for Lenox +with Leila Mortimer; then, when their conference was ended, he returned +to Agatha, calmly unconscious of impending events. + +Harrington, at Seabright, paced his veranda, awaiting this same judge, +annoyed as two boats came in without the expected guest. And never for +one instant did he dream that his creature sat closeted with Plank, +tremulous, sallow, nearing the edge of cringing avowal--only held back +from utter collapse by the agonising necessity of completing a bargain +that might save himself from the degradation of the punishment that had +seemed inevitable. All day long he sat with Plank. Nobody except those +two knew he was there. And after a very long time Plank consented that +nobody else except Siward and Harrington and Quarrier should ever know. +So he called up Harrington on the telephone, saying that there was, in +the office, somebody who desired to speak to him. And when Harrington +caught the judge's first faint, stammered word he reeled where he stood, +ashen, unbelieving, speechless. The shaking but remorseless voice went +on, dinning horribly in his ear, then ceased, and Plank's heavy voice +sounded the curt coup de grace. + +Harrington was an old man, a very old man, mortally hurt; but he +steadied himself along the wall of his study to the desk and sank into +the chair. + +There he sat, feeling the scars of old wounds throbbing, feeling his age +and the tragedy of it, and the new sensation of fear--fear of the wraith +of his own youth, wearing the mask of Plank, and menacing him with the +menace he had used on others so long ago--so very long ago. + +After a little while he passed a thin hand over his eyes, over his gray +head, over the mouth that all men watched with fear, over the shaven jaw +now grimly set, but trembling. His hand, too, shook with palsy as he +wrote, painfully picking out the words and figures of the cipher from +his code-book; but he closed his thin lips and squared his unsteady jaw +and wrote his message to Quarrier: + +"It is all up. Plank will take over Inter-County. Come at once." + +And that was all there was to be done until he could come into Plank's +camp with arms and banners, a conquered man, cynical of the mercy he +dared not expect and which, in all his life, he had never, never shown +to man, to woman, or to child. + +Plank slept the sleep of utter exhaustion that night; the morning found +him haggard but strong, cool in his triumph, serious, stern faced, +almost sad that his work was done, the battle won. + +From his own house he telegraphed a curt summons to Harrington and to +Quarrier for a conference in his own office; then, finishing whatever +business his morning mail required, put on his hat and went to see the +one man in the world he was most glad for. + +He found him at breakfast, sipping coffee and wrinkling his brows over +the eternal typewritten pages. And Plank's face cleared at the sight and +he sat down, laughing aloud. + +"It's all over, Siward," he said. "Harrington knows it; Quarrier knows +it by this time. Their judge crawled in yesterday and threw himself on +our mercy; and the men whose whip he obeyed will be on their way to +surrender by this time. . Well! Haven't you a word?" + +"Many," said Siward slowly; "too many to utter, but not enough to +express what I feel. If you will take two on account, here they are in +one phrase: thank you." + +"Debt's cancelled," said Plank, laughing. "Do you want to hear the +details?" + +They talked for an hour, and, in the telling, even Plank's stolidity +gave way sufficient to make his heavy voice ring at moments, and the +glimmer of excitement edge his eyes. Yet, in the telling, he scarcely +mentioned himself, never hinted of the personal part--the inspiration +which was his alone; the brunt of the battle which centred in him; the +tireless vigilance; the loneliness of the nights when he lay awake, +perplexed with doubt and nobody to counsel him--because men who wage such +wars are lonely men and must work out their own salvation. No, nobody +but his peers could advise him; and he had thought that his enemy was +his peer, until that enemy surrendered. + +The narrative exchanged by Plank in return for Siward's intensely +interested questions was a simple, limpid review of a short but terrific +campaign that only yesterday had threatened to rage through court after +court, year after year. In the sudden shock of the cessation from +battle, Plank himself was a little dazed. Yet he himself had expected +the treason that ended all; he himself had foreseen it. He had counted +on it as a good general counts on such things, confidently, but with a +dozen plans as substitutes in case that plan failed--each plan as +elaborately worked out to the last detail as though it alone existed as +the only hope of victory. But if Siward suspected something of this it +was not from Plank that he learned it. + +"Plank," he said at last, "there is nothing in the world that men admire +more than a man. It is a good deal of a privilege for me to tell you +so." + +Plank turned red with surprise and embarrassment, stammering out +something incoherent. + +That was all that was said about the victory. Siward, unusually gay for +awhile, presently turned sombre; and it was Plank's turn to lift him out +of it by careless remarks about his rapid convalescence, and the chance +for vacation he so much needed. + +Once Siward looked up vacantly: "Where am I to go?" he asked. "I'd as +soon stay here." + +"But I'm going," insisted Plank. "The Fells is all ready for us." + +"The Fells! I can't go there!" + +"W-what?" faltered Plank, looking at Siward with hurt eyes. + +"Can't you--don't you understand?" said Siward in a low voice. + +"No. You once promised--" + +"Plank, I'll go anywhere except there with you. I'd rather be with you +than with anybody. Can I say more than that?" + +"I think you ought to, Siward. A--a fellow feels the refusal of his +offered roof-tree." + +"Man! man! it isn't your roof I am refusing. I want to go; I'd give +anything to go. If it were anywhere except where it is, I'd go fast +enough. Now do you understand? If--if Shotover House and Shotover people +were not next door to the Fells, I'd go. Now do you understand?" + +Plank said: "I don't know whether I understand. If you mean Quarrier, +he's on his way here, and he'll have business to keep him here for the +next few months, I assure you. But"--he looked very gravely across at +Siward--"if you don't mean Quarrier--" He hesitated, ill at ease under the +expressionless scrutiny of the other. + +"Do you know what's the matter with me, Plank?" he asked at length. + +"I think so." + +"I have wondered. I wonder now how much you know." + +"Very little, Siward." + +"How much?" + +Plank looked up, hesitated, and shook his head: "One infers from what +one hears." + +"Infers what?" + +"The truth, I suppose," replied Plank simply. + +"And what," insisted Siward, "have you inferred that you believe to be +the truth? Don't parry, Plank; it isn't easy for me, and I--I never +before spoke this way to any man. . It is likely I should have spoken to +my mother about it. . I had expected to. It may be weakness--I don't +know; but I'd like to talk a little about it to somebody. And there's +nobody fit to listen, except you." + +"If you feel that way," said Plank slowly, "I will be very glad to +listen." + +"I feel that way. I've been through--some things; I've been pretty sick, +Plank. It tires a man out; a man's head and shoulders get tired. Oh, I +don't mean the usual reaction from self-contempt, disgust--the dreadful, +aching sadness of it all which lasts even while desire, stunned for the +moment, wakens into craving. I don't mean that. It is something else--a +deathly, mental solitude that terrifies. I tell you, no man except a man +smitten by my malady knows what solitude can be! . There! I didn't mean +to be theatrical; I had no intention of--" + +"Go on," cut in Plank heavily. + +"Go on! . Yes, I want to. You know what a pillow is to a tired man's +shoulders. I want to use your sane intelligence to rest on a moment. +It's my brain that's tired, Plank." + +Although everybody had cynically used Plank, nobody had ever before +found him a necessity. + +"Go on," he said unsteadily. "If I can be of use to you, Siward, in +God's name let me be, for I have never been necessary to anybody in all +my life." + +Siward rested his head on one clinched hand: "How much chance do you +think I have?" he asked wearily. + +"Chance to get well?" + +"Yes." + +Plank considered for a moment, then: "You are not trying, Siward." + +"I have been trying since--since March." + +"Since March?" + +"Yes." + +Plank looked at him curiously: "What happened in March?" + +"Had I better tell you?" + +"You know better than I." + +Siward, cheek crushed against his fist, his elbow on the desk, gazed at +him steadily: + +"In March," he said, "Miss Landis spoke to me. I've made a better fight +since." + +Plank's serious face darkened. "Is she the only anchor you have?" + +"Plank, I am not even sure of her. I have made a better fight since +then; that is all I dare say. I know what men think about a man like me; +I knew they demand character, pride, self-denial. But, Plank, I am +driving faster and faster toward the breakers, and these anchors are +dragging. For it is not, in my case, the physical failure to obey the +will; it is the will itself that has been attacked from the first. That +is the horror of it. And what is there behind the will-power to +strengthen it? Only the source of will-power--the mind. It is the mind +that cannot help me. What am I to do?" + +"There is a spiritual strength," said Plank timidly. + +"I have never dreamed of denying it," said Siward. "I have tried to find +it through the accepted sources--accepted by me, too. God has not helped +me in the conventional way or through traditional methods; but that has +not inclined me to doubt Him as the tribunal of last resort," he added +hastily. "I don't for a moment waver in faith because I am ignorant of +the proper manner to approach Him. The Arbiter of all knows that I +desire to be decent. He must be aware, too, that all anchors save one +have failed to hold me." + +"You mean--Miss Landis?" + +"Yes. It may be weakness; it may be to my shame that the cables of pride +and self-respect, even the spiritual respect for the Highest, cannot +hold me when this one anchor holds. All I know is that it holds--so far. +It held me at Shotover; it holds me again, now. And the rocks were close +abeam, Plank--very close--when she spoke to me over the wires, through the +rain, that dark day in March." + +He moistened his lips feverishly. + +"She said that I might see her. I have waited a long time. I have taken +my fighting chance again and I've won out, so far." + +He looked up at Plank, curiously embarrassed: + +"Your body is normal; your intelligence wholesome, balanced, sane; and I +want to ask you if you think that perhaps, without understanding how, I +have found in her, or through her, in some way, the spiritual source +that I think might help me to help myself?" + +And, as Plank made no reply: + +"Or am I talking sentimental cant? Don't answer, if you think that. I +can't trust my own mind any more, anyway; and," with an ugly laugh, +"I'll know it all some day--the sooner the better!" + +"Don't say that!" growled Plank. "You were sane a moment ago." + +Siward looked up sharply, but the other silenced him with a gesture. + +"Wait! You asked me a perfectly sane question--so wholesome, so normal, +that I'm trying to frame an answer worthy of it! I intimated that after +the physical, the mental, the ethical phenomena, there remained always +the spiritual instinct. Like a wireless current, if a man can establish +communication it is well for him, whatever the method. You assented, I +think." + +"Yes." + +"And you ask me if I believe it possible that she can be the medium?" + +"Yes." + +Plank said deliberately: "Yes, I do think so." + +The silence was again broken by Plank: "Siward, you have asked me what I +think. Now you must listen to the end. If you believed that through +her--her love, marrying her--you stood the best chance in the world to win +out, it would be cowardly to ask her to take the risk. As much as I care +for you I had rather see you lose the fight than accept such a risk from +her. Now you know what I think--but you don't know all. Siward, I say to +you that if you are man enough to take her, take her! And I say that of +the two risks she is running to-day, the chance she might take with you +is infinitely the lesser risk. For with you, if you continue slowly +losing your fight, the mental suffering only will be hers. But if she +closes this bargain with Quarrier, selling to him her body, the light +will go out of her soul for ever." + +He leaned heavily toward Siward, stretching out his powerful arm: + +"You marry her; and keep open your spiritual communication through her, +if that is the way it has been established, and hang on to your God that +way until your body is dead! I tell you, Siward, to marry her. I don't +care how you do it; I don't care how you get her. Take her! Yours, of +the two, is the stronger character, or she would not be where she is. +Does she want what you cannot give her? Cure that desire--it is more +contemptible than the craving that shatters you! I say, let the one-eyed +lead the blind. Miracles are worked out by mathematics--if you have faith +enough." + +He rose, striding the length of the room once or twice, turned, holding +out his broad hand: + +"Good-bye," he said. "Harrington is about due at my office; Quarrier +will probably turn up to-night. I am not vindictive; I shall be just +with them--as just as I know how, which is to be as merciful as I dare +be. Good-bye, Siward. I--I believe you and she are going to get well." + +When he had gone, Siward lay back in his chair, very still, eyes closed. +A faint colour had mounted to his face and remained there. + +It was late in the afternoon when he went down-stairs, using his +crutches lightly. Gumble handed him a straw hat and opened the door, and +Siward cautiously descended the stoop, stood for a few moments on the +sidewalk, looking up at the blue sky, then wheeled and slowly made his +way toward Washington Square. The avenue was deserted; his own house +appeared to be the only remaining house still open in all that old- +fashioned but respectable quarter. + +He swung leisurely southward, a slim, well-built young fellow, strangely +out of place on crutches. The poor always looked at him; beggars never +importuned him, yet found him agreeable to watch. Children, who seldom +look up into the air far enough to notice grown people, always became +conscious of him when he passed; often smiled, sometimes spoke. As for +stray curs and tramp cats, they were for ever making advances. As long +as he could remember, there was scarcely a week in town but some +homeless dog attached himself to Siward's heels, sometimes trotting +several blocks, sometimes following him home--where the outcast was +always cared for, washed, fed, and ultimately shipped out to the farm, +where scores of these "fresh-air" dogs resided on his bounty and rolled +in luxury on his lawns. + +Cats, too, were prone to notice him, rising as he passed to hoist an +interrogative tail and make tentative observations. + +In Washington Square, these, and the ragged children, knew him best of +all. The children came from Minetta Lane and the purlieus south and west +of it; the cats from the Mews, which Siward always thought most +appropriate. + +And now, as he passed the marble arch and entered the square, glancing +behind him he saw the inevitable cat trotting, and, at his left, a very +dirty little girl pretending to trundle a hoop, but plainly enough +keeping sociable pace with him. + +"Hello!" said Siward. The cat stopped; the child tossed her clustering +curls, gave him a rapid but fearless sidelong glance, laughed, and ran +on in the wake of her hoop. When she caught it she sat down on a bench +opposite the fountain and looked around at Siward. + +"It's pretty warm, isn't it?" said Siward, coming up and seating himself +on the same bench. + +"Are you lame?" asked the child. + +"Oh, a little." + +"Is your leg broken?" + +"Oh, no, not now." + +"Is that your cat?" + +Siward looked around; the cat was seated on the bench beside him. But he +was accustomed to that sort of thing, and he caressed the creature with +his gloved hand. + +"Are you rich?" asked the child, shaking her blond curls from her eyes +and staring up solemnly at him. + +"Not very," he answered, smiling. "Why do you ask?" + +"You look rich, somehow," said the child shyly. + +"What! With these old and very faded clothes?" + +She shook her head, swinging her plump legs: "You look it, somehow. It +isn't the clothes that matter." + +"I'll tell you one thing," said Siward, laughing "I'm rich enough to buy +all the hokey-pokey you can eat!" and he glanced meaningly at the pedlar +of that staple who had taken station between a vender of peaches and a +Greek flower-seller. + +The child looked, too, but made no comment. + +"How about it?" asked Siward. + +"I'd rather have something to remember you by," said the girl +innocently. + +"What?" he said, perplexed. + +"A rose. They are five cents, and hokey-pokey costs that much--I mean, +for as much as you can eat." + +"Do you really want a rose?" he said amused. + +But the child fell shy, and he beckoned the Greek and selected a dozen +big, perfumed jacks. + +Then, as the child sat silent, her ragged arms piled with roses, he +asked her jestingly what else she desired. + +"Nothing. I like to look at you," she answered simply. + +"And I like to look at you. Will you tell me your name?" + +"Molly." + +But that is all the information he could extract. Presently she said she +was going, hesitated, looked a very earnest good-bye, and darted away +across the park, her hoop over one arm, the crimson roses bobbing above +her shoulders. Something in her flight attracted the errant cat, for +she, too, jumped down and bounded after the little flying feet, but, +catlike, halted half-way to scratch, and then forgetting what she was +about, wandered off toward the Mews again, whence she had been lured by +instinctive fascination. + +Siward, intensely amused, sat there in the late sunlight which streamed +through the park, casting long shadows from the elms and sycamores. It +was that time of the day, just before sunset, when the old square looked +to him as he remembered it as a child. Even the marble arch, pink in the +evening sun, did not disturb the harmony of his memories. He saw his +father once more, walking home from down town, tall, slim, laughingly +stopping to watch him as he played there with the other children--the +nurses, seated in a row, crocheting under the sycamores; he saw the old- +fashioned carriage pass, Mockett on the box, Wands beside him, and his +pretty mother leaning forward to wave her hand to him as the long- +tailed, long-maned horses wheeled into Fifth Avenue. Little unimportant +scenes, trivial episodes, grew in the spectral garden of memory: the +first time he ever saw Marion Page, when, aged five, she was attempting +to get into the fountain, pursued by a shrieking nurse; and a certain +flight across the grass he had indulged in with Leila Mortimer, then +Leila Egerton, aged six, in hot pursuit, because she found that it bored +him horribly to be kissed, and she was bound to do it. He had a fight +once, over by that gnarled, old, silver poplar-tree, with Kemp +Ferrall--he could not remember what about, only that they ended by +unanimously assaulting their nurses and were dragged howling homeward. + +He turned, looking across to where the gray towers of the University +once stood. There had been an old stone church there, too; and, south of +that, old, old houses with hip-roofs and dormers where now the high +white cliffs of modern architecture rose, riddled with tiny windows, +every vane glittering in the sun. South, the old houses still remained, +now degraded to sordid uses. North, the square, red-brick mansions, with +their white pillars and steps, still faced the sunset--the last +practically unbroken rank of the old regime, the last of the old guard, +standing fast and still confronting, still resisting the Inevitable +looming in limestone and granite, story piled on story, aloft in the +kindling, southern sky. + +A cab, driven smartly, passed through the park, the horses' feet +slapping the asphalt till the echoes rattled back from the marble arch. +He followed it idly with his eyes up Fifth Avenue; saw it suddenly halt +in the middle of the street; saw a woman spring out, stand for a moment +talking to her companion, then turn and look toward the square. + +She stood so long, and she was so far away, that he presently grew tired +of watching her. A dozen ragged urchins were prowling around the +fountain, casting sidelong glances at a distant policeman. But it was +not hot enough that evening to permit the children to splash in the +water, and the policeman drove them off. + +"Poor little devils!" said Siward to himself; and he rose, adjusted his +crutches, and started through the park with a vague idea of seeing what +could be done. + +As he limped onward, the sun level in his eyes, he heard somebody speak +behind him, but did not catch the words or apply the hail to himself. +Then, "Mr. Siward!" came the low, breathless voice at his elbow. + +His heart stopped as he did. The sun had dazzled his eyes, and when he +turned on his crutches he could not see clearly for a second. That past, +he looked at Sylvia, looked at her outstretched hand, took it +mechanically, still staring at her with only a dazed unbelief in his +eyes. + +"I am in town for a day," she said. "Leila Mortimer and I were driving +up town from the bank when we saw you; and the next thing that happened +was me, on Fifth Avenue, running after you--no, the next thing was my +flying leap from the hansom, and my standing there looking down the +street and across the square where you sat. Then Leila told me I was +probably crazy, and I immediately confirmed her diagnosis by running +after you!" + +She stood laughing, flushed, sunburned, and breathless, her left hand +still in his, her right hand laid over it. + +"Oh," she said, with a sudden change to anxiety, "does it tire you to +stand?" + +"No. I was going to saunter along." + +"May I saunter with you for a moment? I mean--I only mean, I am glad to +see you." + +"Do you think I am going to let you go now?" he asked, astonished. + +She looked at him, then her eyes evaded his: "Let us walk a little," she +said, withdrawing her hand, "if you think you are strong enough." + +"Strong! Look, Sylvia!" and he stood unsupported by his crutches, then +walked a little way, slowly, but quite firmly. "I am rather a coward +about my foot, that is all. I shall not lug these things about after to- +day." + +"Did the doctor say you might?" + +"Yes, after to-day. I could walk home now without them. I could do a +good many things I couldn't do a few minutes ago. Isn't that curious?" + +"Very," she said, avoiding his eyes. + +He laughed. She dared not look at him. The excitement and impetus of +sheer impulse had carried her this far; now all the sadness of it was +clutching hard at her throat and for awhile she could not speak--walking +there in her dainty, summer gown beside him, the very incarnation of +youth and health, with the sea-tan on wrist and throat, and he, white, +hollow-eyed, crippled, limping, at her elbow! + +Yet at that very moment his whole frame seemed to glow and his heart +clamour with the courage in it, for he was thinking of Plank's words and +he knew Plank had spoken the truth. She could not give herself to +Quarrier, if he stood firm. His was the stronger will after all; his was +the right to interfere, to stop her, to check her, to take her, draw her +back--as he had once drawn her from the fascination of destruction when +she had swayed out too far over the cliffs at Shotover. + +"Do you remember that?" he asked, and spoke of the incident. + +"Yes, I remember," she replied, smiling. + +"Doctors say" he continued, "that there is a weak streak in people who +are affected by great heights, or who find a dizzy fascination drawing +them toward the brink of precipices." + +"Do you mean me?" she asked, amused. + +But he continued serenely: "You have seen those pigeons called 'tumbler +pigeons' suddenly turn a cart-wheel in mid-air? Scientists say it's not +for pleasure they do it; it's because they get dizzy. In other words, +they are not perfectly normal." + +She said, laughing: "Well, you never saw me turn a cart-wheel!" + +"Only a moral one," he replied airily. + +"Stephen, what on earth do you mean? You're not going to be +disagreeable, are you?" + +"I am going to be so agreeable," he said, laughing, "that you will find +it very difficult to tear yourself away." + +"I have no doubt of it, but I must, and very soon." + +"I'm not going to let you." + +"It can't be helped," she said, looking up at him. "I came in with +Leila. We're asked to Lenox for the week's end. We go to Stockbridge on +the early train to-morrow morning. + +"I don't care," he said doggedly; "I'm not going to let you go yet." + +"If I took to my heels here in the park would you chase me, Stephen?" +she asked with mock anxiety. + +"Yes; and if I couldn't run fast enough I'd call that policeman. Now do +you begin to understand?" + +"Oh, I've always understood that you were spoiled. I'm partly guilty of +the spoiling process, too. Listen: I'll walk with you a little way"--she +looked at him--"a little way," she continued gently; "then I must go. +There is only a caretaker in our house and Leila will be furious if I +leave her all alone. Besides, we're going to dine there and it won't be +very gay if I don't give a few orders first." + +"But you brought your maid?" + +"Naturally." + +"Then telephone her that you and Leila are dining out." + +"Where, silly? Do you want us to dine somewhere with you?" + +"Want you! You've got to!" + +"Stephen, it isn't best." + +"It is best." + +She turned to him impulsively: "Oh, I do want to so much! Do you think I +might? It is perfectly delicious to see you again. I--you have no idea--" + +"Yes, I have," he said sternly. + +They turned, walking past the fountain toward Fifth Avenue again. +Furtively she glanced at his hands with the city pallor on them as they +grasped the cross-bars of the crutches, then looked up at his worn face. +He was much thinner, but now in the softly fading light the shadows +under the eyes and cheek-bones seemed less sharp, his face fuller and +more boyish; the contour of head and shoulders, the short, crisp hair +were as she remembered--and the old charm held her, the old fascination +grew, tightening her throat, stealing through every vein, stirring her +pulses, awakening imperceptibly once more the best in her. The twilight +of a thousand years seemed to slip from the world as she looked out at +it through eyes opening from a long, long sleep; the marble arch burned +rosy in the evening glow; a fairy haze hung over the enchanted avenue, +stretching away, away into the blue magic of the city of dreams. + +"There is no use," she said under her breath; "I can't go back to Leila. +Stephen, the dreadful part of it is that I--I wish she were in Jericho! I +wish the whole world were in Ballyhoo, and you and I alone once more!" + +Under their gay laughter quivered the undertone of excitement. Sylvia +said: + +"I'd like to talk to you all alone. It won't do, of course; but I may +say what I'd like--mayn't I? What time is it? If I'm dining with you +we've got to have Leila for convention's sake, if not from motives of +sheer decency, which you and I seem to lack, Stephen." + +"We lack decency," said Siward, "and we're proud of it. As for Leila, I +am going to arrange for her very simply but very beautifully. Plank will +take care of her. Sylvia! There's not a soul in town and we can be as +imprudent as we please." + +"No, we can't. Agatha's at the Santa Regina. She came down with us." + +"But we are not going to dine at the Santa Regina. We're going where +Agatha wouldn't intrude her colourless nose--to a thoroughly +unfashionable and selectly common resort overlooking the classic Harlem; +and we're going to whiz thither in Plank's car, and remain thither until +you yawn for mercy, whence we will return thence--" + +"Stephen, you silly! I'm perfectly mad to go with you!" + +"You'll be madder when you get there, if the table has not improved." + +"Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!" Then with +sudden self-reproach and quick solicitude: "Am I making you walk too +far? Wouldn't you like to go in now?" + +"No, I'm not tired; I'm millions of years younger, and I'm as strong as +the nine gods of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven't I waited for +this?" and under his breath, fiercely, "Haven't I waited!" he repeated, +turning on her. + +"Do--do you mean that as a reproach?" she asked, lowering her eyes. + +"No. I knew you would not come on 'the first sunny day.'" + +"Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I +am?" + +"I did not think you would come," he repeated, halting to rest on his +crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; +and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, +listless, sombre in its fixedness. + +The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked +speech. At length she stammered: "I did not come b-because I simply +couldn't stand it!" + +His face cleared as he turned quietly: "Child, you must not confuse +matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is +passing--ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted +order of things is being reversed. You don't know what I mean, do you? +Ah, well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you +remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was." + +"Truly I don't understand, Stephen. But then--I am out of training since +you went--went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more dull? I--it +has not been very gay with me. I don't see--looking back across all the +noise, all the chaos of the winter--I do not see how I stood it alone." + +"Alone?" + +"N-not seeing you--sometimes." + +He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. "Didn't you enjoy the +winter?" + +"Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?" + +His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the +fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation: + +"Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that! +Dear, do you dream for one moment that--that I could--" + +"No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean." + +After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the +frown gathering between his temples. + +They were passing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white facade and +green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city. + +"We'll telephone here," he said. + +Side by side they went up the great, broad stoop and entered the lobby. + +"If you'll speak to Leila, I'll get Plank on the wire. Say that we'll +stop for you at seven." + +She gave her number; then, at the nod of the operator, entered a small +booth. Siward was given another booth in a few moments. + +Plank answered from his office; his voice sounded grave and tired but it +quickened, tinged with surprise, when Siward made known his plan for the +evening. + +"Is Mrs. Mortimer in town?" he demanded. "I had a wire from her that she +expected to be here and I hoped to see her at the station to-morrow on +her way to Lenox." + +"She's stopping with Miss Landis. Can't you manage to come?" asked +Siward anxiously. + +"I don't know. Do you wish it particularly? I have just seen Quarrier +and Harrington. I can't quite understand Quarrier's attitude. There's a +certain hint of defiance about it. Harrington is all caved in. He is +ready to thank us for any mercies. But Quarrier--there's something I +don't fancy, don't exactly understand about his attitude. He's like a +dangerous man whom you've searched for concealed weapons, and who knows +you've overlooked the knife up his sleeve. That's why I've expected to +spend a quiet evening, studying up the matter and examining every +loophole." + +"You've got to dine somewhere," said Siward. "If you could fix it to +dine with us--But I won't urge you." + +"All right. I don't know why I shouldn't. I don't know why I feel this +way about things. I--I rather felt--you'll laugh, Siward!--that somehow I'd +better not go out of my own house to-night; that I was safer, better off +in my own house, studying this Quarrier matter out. I'm tired, I +suppose; and this man Quarrier has come close to worrying me. But it's +all right, of course, if you wish it. You know I haven't any nerves." + +"If you are tired--" began Siward. + +"No, no, I'm not. I'll go. Will you say that we'll stop for them at +seven? Really, it's all right, Siward." + +"I don't want to urge you," repeated Siward. + +"You're not. I'll go. But--wait one moment tell me, did Quarrier know +that Mrs. Mortimer was to stop with Miss Landis?" + +"Wait a moment. Hold the wire." + +He opened the door of the booth and saw Sylvia waiting for him, seated +by the operator's desk. She rose at once when she saw he wished to speak +with her. + +"Tell me something," he said in a low voice; "did Mr. Quarrier know that +Leila was to stay overnight with you?" + +"Yes," she answered quietly, surprised. "Why?" + +Siward nodded vaguely, closed the door again, and said to Plank: + +"Yes, Quarrier knows it. Do you think he'll be there to-night? I don't +suppose Miss Landis and Mrs. Mortimer know he is in town." + +Plank's troubled voice came back over the wire: "I don't know. I don't +know what to think. I suppose I'm a little, just a trifle, overworked. +Somebody once said that I had one nerve in me somewhere, and Quarrier's +probably found it; that's all." + +"If you think it better not to come--" + +"I'll come. I'll stop for you in the motor. Don't worry, old fellow! +And--take your fighting chance! Good-bye!" + +Siward, absorbed in his own thoughts, rose and walked slowly out of the +booth, utterly unconscious that he had left his crutches leaning upright +in the corner. It was only the surprise dawning into tremulous delight +on Sylvia's face that at last arrested him. + +"See what you have done!" he said, laughing through his own surprise. +"I've a mind to leave them there now, and trust to your new cure." + +But she was instantly concerned and anxious, and entering the booth +brought out the crutches and forced him to take them. + +"No risks now!" she said decisively. "We have too much at stake this +evening. Leila is coming. Isn't it perfectly delightful?" + +"Perfectly," he said, his eyes full of the old laughing confidence +again; "and the most delightful part of it all is that you don't know +how delightful it is going to be." + +"Don't I? Very well. Only I inform you that I mean to be perfectly +happy! And that means that I'm going to do as I please! And that +means--oh, it may mean anything! What are you laughing at, Stephen? I +know I'm excited. I don't care! What girl wouldn't be? And I don't know +what's ahead of me at all; and I don't want to know--I don't care!" + +Her reckless, little laugh rang sweetly in the old-fashioned, deserted +hall; her lovely, daring eyes met his undaunted. + +"You won't make love to me, will you, Stephen?" + +"Will you promise me the same?" + +"I don't know, silly! How do I know what I might say to you, you big, +blundering boy, who can't take care of himself? I don't know at all; I +won't promise. I'm likely to do anything to-night--even before Leila and +Mr. Plank--when you are with me. Shame on you for the shameless girl +you've educated!" Her voice fell, tremulously, and for an instant +standing there she remembered her education and his part in it. + +The slow colour in his face reflected the pink confusion in hers. + +"O tongue! tongue!" she stammered, "I can't hold you in! I can't curb +you, and I can't make you say what you ought to be saying to that boy. +There's trouble coming for somebody; there's trouble here already! Call +me a cab, Stephen, or I'll be dragging you into that big, old-fashioned +parlour and planting you on a chair and placing myself opposite, to moon +over you until somebody puts us out! There! Now will you call me a +hansom? . And I will be all ready at seven. . And don't dare to keep me +waiting one second! . Come before seven. You don't want to frighten me, +do you? Very well then, at a quarter to seven--so I shall not be +frightened. And, Stephen, Stephen, we're doing exactly what we ought not +to do. You know it, don't you? So do I. Nothing can stop us, can it? +Good-bye!" + + +CHAPTER XIV THE BARGAIN + +If a man's grief does not awaken his dignity, then he has none. In that +event, grief is not even respectable. And so it was with Leroy Mortimer +when Lydia at last turned on him. If you caress an Angora too long and +too persistently it runs away. And before it goes it scratches. + +Under all the physical degeneration of mind and flesh there had still +remained in Mortimer the capacity for animal affection; and that does +not mean sensuality alone, but generosity and a sort of routine devotion +as characteristic components of a character which had now disintegrated +into the simplest and most primitive elements. + +Lydia Vyse left Saratoga when the financial stringency began to make it +unpleasant for her to remain. She told Mortimer without the slightest +compunction that she was going. + +He did not believe her and he gave her the new car--the big yellow-and- +black Serin-Chanteur. She sold it the same day to a bookmaker--an old +friend of hers; withdrew several jewels from limbo--gems which Mortimer +had given her--and gathered together everything for which, if he turned +ugly, she might not be criminally liable. + +She had never liked him--she had long disliked him. Such women have an +instinct for their own kind, and no matter how low in the scale a man of +the other kind sinks he can never entirely supply the type of running +mate that such women require, understand, and usually conceive a passion +for. + +Not liking him she had no hesitation in the matter; disliking him, +whatever unpleasant had occurred during their companionship remained as +an irritant to poison memory. She resented a thousand little incidents +that he scarcely knew had ever existed, but which she treasured without +wasting emotion until the sum total and the time coincided to retaliate. +Not that she would have cared to harm him seriously; she was willing +enough to disoblige him, however--decorate him, before she left him, with +one extra scratch for the sake of auld lang syne. So she wrote a note to +the governors of the Patroons Club, saying that both Quarrier and +Mortimer were aware that the guilt of her escapade could not be attached +to Siward; that she knew nothing of Siward, had accepted his wager +without meaning to attempt to win it, had never again seen him, and had, +on the impulse of the moment, made her entry in the wake of several men. +She added that when Quarrier, as governor, had concurred in Siward's +expulsion he knew perfectly well that Siward was not guilty, because she +herself had so informed Quarrier. Since then she had also told Mortimer, +but he had taken no steps to do justice to Siward, although he, +Mortimer, was still a governor of the Patroons Club. + +This being about all she could think of to make mischief for two men +whose recent companionship had nourished and irritated her, she shipped +her trunks by express, packed her jewel-case and valise, and met Desmond +at the station. + +Desmond had business in Europe; Lydia had as much business there as +anywhere; and, although she had been faithless to Mortimer for a +comparatively short time, within that time Desmond already had sworn at +her and struck her. So she was quite ready to follow Desmond anywhere in +this world or the next. And that, too, had not made her the more +considerate toward Mortimer. + +When the latter returned from the races to find her gone the last +riddled props to what passed for his manhood gave way and the rotten +fabric came crashing into the mud. + +He had loved her as far as he had been capable of imitating that passion +on the transposed plane to which he had fallen; he was stupefied at +first, then grew violent with the furniture, then hysterically profane, +then pitiable in the abandoned degradation of his grief. And, suspecting +Desmond, he started to find him. They put him out of Desmond's club- +house when he became noisy; they refused him admittance to several +similar resorts where his noise threatened to continue; his landlord +lost no time in interviewing him upon the subject of damage to furniture +from kicks and to the walls and carpets from the contents of smashed +bottles. + +Creditors with sharp noses scented the whirlwind afar off and hemmed him +in with unsettled accounts, mostly hers. Somebody placed a lien on his +horses; a deputy sheriff began to follow him about; all credit ceased as +by magic, and men crossed the street to avoid meeting with an old +companion in direst need. + +Still, alternately stupefied by his own grief and maddened into the +necessity for action, he packed a suitcase, crawled out of the rear +door, toiled across country and found a farmer to drive him twenty miles +over a sandy road to a local railroad crossing, where he managed to +board a train for Albany. + +At Albany, as he stood panting and sweating on the long, concrete +platform which paralleled track No. 1, he saw a private car, switched +from a Boston and Albany train, shunted to the rear of the Merchants' +Express. + +The private car was lettered in gold on the central panel, "Algonquin." +He boarded the Pullman coupled to it forward, pushed through the +vestibule, shoved aside the Japanese steward and darky cook, forcing his +way straight into the private car. Quarrier, reading a magazine, looked +up at him in astonishment. For a full moment neither spoke. Then +Mortimer dropped his suit-case, sat down in an armchair opposite +Quarrier, and leisurely mopped his reeking face and neck. + +"Scotch and lithia!" he said hoarsely; the Japanese steward looked at +Quarrier; then, at that gentleman's almost imperceptible nod, went away +to execute the commission. + +He executed a great many similar commissions during the trip to New +York. When they arrived there at five o'clock, Quarrier offered Mortimer +his hand, and held the trembling, puffy fingers as he leaned closer, +saying with cold precision and emotionless emphasis something that +appeared to require the full concentration of Mortimer's half-drugged +faculties. + +And when at length Mortimer drove away in a hansom, Quarrier's Japanese +steward went with him--perhaps to carry his suit case--a courtesy that did +credit to Quarrier's innate thoughtfulness and consideration for others. +He was very considerate; he even called Agatha up on the telephone and +talked with her for ten minutes. Then he telephoned to Plank's office, +learned that Harrington was already there, telephoned the garage for a +Mercedes which he always kept ready in town, and presently went bowling +away to a conference on which the last few hours had put an entirely new +aspect. + +It had taken Plank only a few minutes to perceive that something had +occurred to change a point of view which he had believed it impossible +for Quarrier to change. Something had gone wrong in his own careful +calculations; some cog had slipped, some rivet given way, some bed-plate +cracked. And Harrington evidently had not been aware of it; but Quarrier +knew it. There was something wrong. + +It was too late now to go tinkering in the dark for trouble. Plank +understood that. Coolly, as though utterly unaware that the machinery +might not stand the strain, he started it full speed. And when he +stopped it at last Harrington's grist had been ground to atoms, and +Quarrier had looked on without comment. There seemed to be little more +for them to do except to pay the miller. + +"To-morrow," said Quarrier, rising to go. It was on the edge of Plank's +lips to say, "to-day!"--but he was silent, knowing that Harrington would +speak for him. And the old man did, without words, turning his iron +visage on Quarrier with the silent dignity of despair. But Quarrier +coldly demanded a day before they reckoned with Plank. And Plank, +profoundly disturbed, shrugged his massive shoulders in contemptuous +assent. + +So Quarrier and Harrington went away--the younger partner taking leave of +the older with a sneer for an outworn prop which no man could ever again +have use for. Old and beaten--that was all Harrington now stood for in +Quarrier's eyes. Never a thought of the past undaunted courage, never a +memory of the old victories which had made the Quarrier fortune possible +--only contempt for age, a sneer for the mind and body that had failed at +last. The old robber was done for, his armour rotten, his buckler +broken, his sword blade rusted to the core. The least of his victims +might now finish him with a club where he swayed in his loosened saddle, +or leave him to that horseman on the pale horse watching him yonder on +the horizon. + +For now, whether Harrington lived or died, he must be counted as nothing +in this new struggle darkly outlining its initial strategy in Quarrier's +brain. What was coming was coming between himself and Plank alone; and +whatever the result--whether an armed truce leaving affairs indefinitely +in statu quo, or the other alternative, an alliance with Plank, leaving +Harrington like a king in his mail, propped upon his throne, dead eyes +doubly darkened under the closed helmet--the result must be attained +swiftly, with secrecy, and with the aid of no man. For he did not count +Mortimer a man. + +So Quarrier's thin lips twitched and the glimmer of teeth showed under +the silky beard as he listened without comment to the old man's +hesitating words--a tremulous suggestion for a conference that +evening--and he said again, "to-morrow," and left him there alone, +groping with uncertain hands toward the door of the hired coupe which +had brought him to the place of his earthly downfall; the place where he +had met his own weird face to face--the wraith that bore the mask of +Plank. + +Quarrier, brooding sullenly in his Mercedes, was already far up town on +his way to Major Belwether's house. + +At the door, Sylvia's maid received him smilingly, saying that her +mistress was not at home but that Mrs. Mortimer was--which saved Quarrier +the necessity of asking for the private conference with Leila which was +exactly what he had come for. But her first unguarded words on receiving +him as he rose at her entrance into the darkened drawing-room changed +that plan, too--changed it all so utterly, and so much for the better, +that he almost smiled to think of the crudity of human combinations and +inventions as compared to the masterly machinations of Fate. No need for +him to complicate matters when here were pawns enough to play the game +for him. No need for him to do anything except give them their initial +velocity and let them tumble into one another and totter or fall. Leila +said, laughingly: "Oh, you are too late, Howard. We are dining with Mr. +Plank at Riverside Inn. What in the world are you doing in town so +suddenly?" + +"A business telegram. I might have come down with you and Sylvia if I +had known. . Is Plank dining with you alone?" + +"I haven't seen him," smiled Leila evasively. "He will tell us his plans +of course when he comes." + +"Oh," said Quarrier, dropping his eyes and glancing furtively toward the +curtained windows through which he could see the street and his Mercedes +waiting at the curb. At the same instant a hansom drove up; Sylvia +sprang out, ran lightly up the low steps, and the silent, shrouded house +rang with the clamour of the bell. + +Leila looked curiously at Quarrier, who sat motionless, head partly +averted, as though listening to something heard by him alone. He +believed perhaps that he was listening to the voice of Fate again, and +it may have been so, for already, for the third time, all his plans were +changing to suit this new ally of his--this miraculous Fate which was +shaping matters for him as he waited. Sylvia had started up-stairs like +a fragrant whirlwind, but her flying feet halted at Leila's constrained +voice from the drawing-room, and she spun around and came into the +darkened room like an April breeze. + +"Leila! They'll be here at a quarter to seven--" + +Her breath seemed to leave her body as a shadowy figure rose in the +uncertain light and confronted her. + +"You!" + +He said: "Didn't you recognise the Mercedes outside?" + +She had not even seen it, so excited, so deeply engaged had she been +with the riotous tumult of her own thoughts. And still her hurt, +unbelieving gaze widened to dismay as she stood there halted on the +threshold; and still his eyes, narrowing, held her under their +expressionless inspection. + +"When did you come? Why?" she asked in an altered voice. + +"I came on business. Naturally, being here, I came to see you. I +understand you are dining out?" + +"Yes, we are dining out." + +"I'm sorry I didn't wire you because we might have dined together. I saw +Plank this afternoon. He did not say you were to dine with him. Shall I +see you later in the evening, Sylvia?" + +"I--it will be too late--" + +"Oh! To-morrow then. What train do you take?" + +Sylvia did not answer; he picked up his hat, repeating the question +carelessly, and still she made no reply. + +"Shall I see you to-morrow?" he asked, swinging on her rather suddenly. + +"I think--not. I--there will be no time--" + +He bowed quietly to Leila, offering his hand. "Who did you say was to +dine with you--besides Plank?" + +Leila stood silent, then, withdrawing her fingers, walked to the window. + +Quarrier, his hat in his gloved hands, looked from one to the other, his +inquiring eyes returning and focused on Sylvia. + +"Who are you dining with?" he asked with authority. + +"Mr. Plank and Mr. Siward." + +"Mr. Siward!" he repeated in surprised displeasure, as though he had not +already divined it. + +"Yes. A man I like." + +"A man I dislike," he rejoined with the slightest emphasis. + +"I am sorry," she said simply. + +"So am I, Sylvia. And I am going to ask you to make him an excuse. Any +excuse will do." + +"Excuse? What do you mean, Howard?" + +"I mean that I do not care to have you seen with Mr. Siward. Have I ever +demanded very much of you, Sylvia? Very well; I demand this of you now." + +And still she stood there, her eyes wide, her colour gone, repeating: +"Excuse? What excuse? What do you mean by 'excuse,' Howard?" + +"I have told you. You know my wishes. If he has a telephone you can +communicate with him--" + +"And say that I--that you forbid me--" + +"If you choose. Yes; say that I object to him. Is there anything +extraordinary in a man objecting to his future wife dining in the +country at a common inn with a notorious outcast from every decent club +and circle in New York?" + +"What!" she whispered, white as death. "What did you say?" + +"Shall I repeat what everybody except you seems to be aware of? Do you +care to have me explain to you exactly why decent people have ostracised +this man with whom you are proposing to figure in a public resort?" + +He turned to Leila, who stood at the window, her back turned toward +them: "Mrs. Mortimer, when Mr. Plank arrives, you will be kind enough to +explain why Sylvia is unable to accompany you." + +If Leila heard she neither turned nor made sign of comprehension. + +"We will dine at the Santa Regina," he said to Sylvia. "Agatha is there +and I'll find somebody at the club to--" + +"Why bother to find anybody?" said Leila, wheeling on him, exasperated. +"Why not dine there with Agatha alone? It will not be the first time I +fancy!" + +"What do you mean?" he said fiercely, under his breath. The colour had +left his face, too, and in his eyes Leila saw for the first time an +expression that she had never before surprised in any eyes except her +husband's. It was the expression of fright; she recognised it. But +Sylvia stared, unenlightened, at an altered visage she scarcely knew for +Quarrier's. + +"What do I mean?" repeated Leila; "I mean what I say; and if you don't +understand it you can find the key to it, I fancy. Nor shall I answer to +you for my guests. I invite whom I choose. Mr. Siward is one, Mr. Plank +is another. Sylvia, if you care to come I shall be delighted." + +"I do care to come," said Sylvia. Her heart was beating violently, her +eyes were on Quarrier. + +"If you go," said Quarrier, showing the glimmering edge of teeth under +his beard, "you will answer to me for it." + +"I will answer you now, Howard; I am going with Mrs. Mortimer. What have +you to say?" + +"I'll say it to-morrow," he replied, contemplating her in a dull, +impassive manner as though absorbed in other things. + +"Say what there is to be said now!" she insisted, the hot colour +staining her cheeks again. "Do you desire me to free you? Is that all? I +will if you wish." + +"No. And I shall not free you, Sylvia. This--all this can be adjusted in +time." + +"As you please," she said slowly. + +"In time," he repeated, his passionless voice now under perfect control. +He turned and looked at Leila; all the wickedness of his anger was +concentrated in his gaze. Then he took his leave of them as formally, as +precisely as though he had forgotten the whole scene; and a minute later +the big Mercedes ran out into a half-circle, backed, wheeled, and rolled +away through the thickening dusk, the glare of the acetylenes sweeping +the deserted street. + +Into the twilight sped Quarrier, head bent, but his soft, dark-lashed +eyes of a woman fixed steadily ahead. Every energy, every thought was +now bent to this newest phase of the same question which he and Fate +were finding simpler to solve every minute. Of all the luxuries he +permitted himself openly or furtively, one--the rarest of them all--his +self-denial had practically eliminated from the list: the luxury of +punishing where no end was served save that of mere personal +satisfaction. The temptation of this luxury now presented itself; and +the means of gratification were so simple, so secret, so easy to +command, that the temptation became almost a duty. + +Siward he had not turned out of his way to injure; Siward had been in +the way, that was all, and his ruin was to have been merely an agreeable +coincidence with the purposed ruin of Amalgamated Electric before Inter- +County absorbed the fragments. But here was a new phase; Mrs. Mortimer, +whom he had expected to use, and if necessary sacrifice, had suddenly +turned vicious. And he now hated her as coldly as he hated Major +Belwether for betraying suspicions of a similar nature. As for Plank, +fear and hatred of him was becoming hatred and contempt. He had the +means of checking Plank if Mortimer did not drop dead before midnight. +There remained Sylvia, whom he had selected as the fittest object +attainable to transmit his name. Long ago, whatever of liking, of +affection, of passion he had ever entertained for her had quieted to +indifference and the unemotional contemplation of a future methodically +arranged for. Now of a sudden, this young girl he had bought--he knowing +what she sold and what he was paying for--had become exposed to the +infection of a suspicion concerning himself and another woman; a woman +unmarried, and of his own caste, and numbered among her own friends. + +And he knew enough of Sylvia to know that if anybody could once arouse +her suspicion nothing on earth could induce her to look into his face +again. Suppose Leila should do so this evening? + +Certainly Quarrier had several matters to ponder over and provide for; +and first and foremost of all to provide for his own security and the +vital necessity of preserving his name and his character untainted. In +this he had to deal with that miserable judge who had betrayed him; with +Mortimer, who had once black-mailed him and who now was temporarily in +his service; with Mrs. Mortimer, who--God knew how, when, or where--had +become suspicious of Agatha and himself; with Major Belwether, who had +deserted him before he could sacrifice the major, and whom he now hated +and feared for having stumbled over suspicions similar to Mrs. +Mortimer's. He had to deal with Sylvia herself, and with Siward--reckon +with Siward's knowledge of matters which it were best that Sylvia should +not know. + +But first of all, and most important of all, he had to deal with Beverly +Plank. And he was going to do it in a manner that Plank could not have +foreseen; he was going to stop Plank where he stood, and to do this he +was deliberately using his knowledge of the man and paying Plank the +compliment of counting on his sense of honour to defeat him. + +For he had suddenly found the opportunity to defend himself; he had +discovered the joint in Plank's old-fashioned armour--the armour of the +old paladins--who placed a woman's honour before all else in the world. +Now, through his creature, Mortimer, he could menace Plank with a threat +to involve him and Leila in a vile publicity; now he was in a position +to demand a hearing and a compromise through his new ambassador, +Mortimer, knowing that he could at last halt Plank by threatening Leila +with this shameful danger. Plank must sign the truce or face with Leila +an action for damages and divorce. + +First of all he went to the Lenox Club and dressed. Then he dined +sparingly and alone. The Mercedes was waiting when he came out ready to +run down to the great Hotel Corona, whither the Japanese steward had +conducted Mortimer. Mortimer had dined heavily, but his disorganised +physical condition was such that it had scarcely affected him at all. + +Again Quarrier went over patiently and carefully the very simple part he +had reserved for Mortimer that evening, explaining exactly what to say +to Leila and what to say to Plank in case of insolent interruption. Then +he told Mortimer to be ready at nine o'clock, turned on his heel with a +curt word to the Japanese, descended to the street, entered his motor- +car again, and sped away to the Hotel Santa Regina. + +Miss Caithness was at home, came the message in exchange for his cards +for Agatha and Mrs. Vendenning. He entered the gilded elevator, stepped +out on the sixth floor into a tiny, rococo, public reception-room. +Nobody was there besides himself; Agatha's maid came presently, and he +turned and followed her into the large and very handsome parlour +belonging to the suite which Agatha was occupying with Mrs. Vendenning +for the few days that they were to stop in town. + +"Hello," she said serenely, sauntering in, her long, pale hands +bracketed on her narrow hips, her lips disclosing her teeth in a smile +so like that nervous muscular recession which passed for a smile on +Quarrier's visage that for one moment he recognised it and thought she +was mocking him. But she strolled up to him, meeting his eye calmly, and +lifted her slim neck, lips passive under his impetuous kiss. + +"Is Mrs. Vendenning out?" he asked, laying his hands on the bare +shoulders of the tall, pallid girl--tall as he, and as pallid. + +"No, Mrs. Ven. is in, Howard." + +"Now? You mean she is coming in to interrupt--" + +"Oh no; she isn't fond of you, Howard." + +"You said--" he began almost angrily, but she laid her fingers across his +lips. + +"I said a very foolish thing, Howard. I said that I'd manage to dispense +with Mrs. Ven. this evening." + +"You mean that you couldn't manage it?" + +"Not at all; I could easily have managed it. But--I didn't care to." + +She looked at him calmly at close range as he held her embraced, lifted +her arms and, with slender, white fingers patted her hair into place +where his arm around her head had disarranged it, watching him all the +while out of her pale, haunted eyes. + +"You promised me," he said, "that you--" + +"Oh Howard! Do men still believe in promises?" + +Quarrier's face had colour enough now; his voice, too, had lost its +passionless, monotonous precision. Whatever was in the man of emotion +was astir; his impatient voice, his lack of poise, the almost human lack +of caution in his speech betrayed him in a new and interesting light. + +"Look here, Agatha, how long is this going to last? Are you trying to +make a fool of me? What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?" + +"Wrong? Oh dear no! How could there be anything wrong between you and +me--" + +"Agatha, what is the matter! Look here; let's settle this thing now and +settle it one way or the other! I won't stand it; I--I can't!" + +"Very well," she said, releasing herself from his tightening arms and +stepping back with another glance at the mirror and another light touch +of her finger-tips on her burnished hair. "Very well," she repeated, +gazing again into the mirror; "what am I to understand, Howard?" + +"You know what to understand," he said in a low voice; "you know what we +both understood when--when--" + +"When what?" + +"When I--when you--" + +"Oh what, Howard?" she prompted indolently; and he answered in brutal +exasperation, and for the first time so plainly that a hint of rose +tinted her strange, pale beauty and between her lips the breath came +less regularly as she stood there looking at the dull, silvery rug under +her feet. + +"Did you ever misunderstand me?" he demanded hotly. "Did I give you any +chance to? Were you ignorant of what that meant," with a gesture toward +the splendid crescent of flashing gems, scintillating where the low, +lace bodice met the silky lustre of her skin. "Did you misinterpret the +collar? Or the sudden change of fortune in your own family's concerns? +Answer me, Agatha, once for all. But you need not answer after all: I +know you have never misunderstood me!" + +"I misunderstood nothing," she said; "you are quite right." + +"Then what are you going to do?" + +"Do?" she asked in slow surprise. "What am I to do, Howard?" + +"You have said that you loved me." + +"I said the truth, I think." + +"Then--" + +"Well?" + +"How long are you going to keep me at arm's length?" he asked violently. + +"That lies with you," she said, smiling. She looked at him for a moment, +then, resting her hands on her hips, she began to pace the floor, to and +fro, to and fro, and at every turn she raised her head to look at him. +All the strange grace of her became insolent provocation--her pale eyes, +clear, limpid, harbouring no delusions, haunted with the mockery of +wisdom, challenged and checked him. "Howard," she said, "why should I be +the fool you want me to be because I love you? Why should I be even if I +wished to be? You desire an understanding? Voila! You have it. I love +you; I never misunderstood you from the first; I could not afford to. +You know what I am; you know what you arouse in me?" + +Slim, pale, depraved in all but body she stood, eyeing him a moment, the +very incarnation of vicious perversity. + +"You know what you arouse in me," she repeated. "But don't count on it!" + +"You have encouraged--permitted me to count--" His anger choked him--or was +it the haunting wisdom of her eyes that committed him to silence. + +"I don't know," she said, musingly, "what it is in you that I am so mad +about--whether it is your brutality, or the utter corruption of you that +holds me, or your wicked eyes of a woman, or the fascination of the mask +you turn on the world, and the secret visage, naked in its vice, that +you reserve for me. But I love you--in my own fashion. Count on that, +Howard; for that is all you can surely count on. And now, at last, you +know." + +As he stood there, it came to him slowly that, deep within him he had +always known this; that he had never really counted on anything else +though he had throttled his doubts by covering her throat with diamonds. +Her strangeness, her pallor, her acquiescence, the delicate hint of +depravity in her, the subtle response to all that was worst in him had +attracted him, only to learn, little by little, that the taint of +corruption was only a taint infecting others, not her; that the promise +of evil was only a promise; that he had to deal with a young body but an +old intelligence, and a mind so old that at moments her faded gaze +almost appalled him with its indolent clairvoyance. + +Long since he knew, too, that in all the world he could never again find +such a mate for him. This had, unadmitted even to himself, always +remained a hidden secret within this secret man--an unacknowledged, +undrawn-on reserve in case of the failure which he, even in sanguine +moods, knew in his inmost corrupted soul that his quest was doomed to. + +And now he had no more need of secrets from himself; now, turning his +gaze inward, he looked upon all with which he had chosen to deceive +himself. And there was nothing left for self-deception. + +"If I marry you!" he said calmly "at least I know what I am getting." + +"I will marry you, Howard. I've got to marry somebody pretty soon. You +or Captain Voucher." + +For an instant a vicious light flashed in his narrowing eyes. She saw it +and shook her head with weary cynicism: + +"No, not that. It could not attract me even with you. It is really +vulgar--that arrangement. Noblesse oblige, mon ami. There is a depravity +in marrying you that makes all lesser vices stale as virtues." + +He said nothing; she looked at him, lazily amused; then, inattentive, +turned and paced the floor again. + +"Shall I see you to-morrow?" he demanded. + +"If you wish. Captain Voucher came down on the same train with me. I'll +set him adrift if you like." + +"Is he preparing for a declaration?" sneered Quarrier. + +"I think so," she said simply. + +"Well if he comes to-night after I'm gone, you wait a final word from +me. Do you understand?" he repeated with repressed violence. + +"No, Howard. Are you going to propose to me to-morrow?" + +"You'll know to-morrow," he retorted angrily. "I tell you to wait. I've +a right to that much consideration anyway." + +"Very well, Howard," she said, recognising in him the cowardice which +she had always suspected to be there. + +She bade him good night; he touched her hand but made no offer to kiss +her. She laughed a little to herself, watching him striding toward the +elevator, then, closing the door, she stood still in the centre of the +room, staring at her own reflection, full length, in the gilded pier- +glass, her lips edged with a sneer so like Quarrier's that, the next +moment she laughed aloud, imitating Quarrier's rare laugh from sheer +perversity. + +"I think," she said to her reflected figure in the glass, "I think that +you are either mentally ill or inherently a kind of devil. And I don't +much care which." + +And she turned leisurely, her slim hands balanced lightly on her narrow +hips, and strolled into the second dressing-room, where Mrs. Vendenning +sat sullenly indulging in that particular species of solitaire known as +"The Idiot's Delight." + +"Well?" inquired Mrs. Vendenning, looking up at the tall, pale girl she +was chaperoning so carefully during their sojourn in town. + +"Oh, you know the rhyme to that," yawned Agatha; "let's ring up +somebody. I'm bored stiff." + +"What did Howard Quarrier want?" + +"He knows, I think, but he hasn't yet informed me." + +"I'll tell you one thing, Agatha," said Mrs. Vendenning, gathering up +the packs for a new shuffle: "Grace Ferrall doesn't fancy Howard's +attention to you and she's beginning to say so. When you go back to +Shotover you'd better let him alone." + +"I'm not going back to Shotover," said Agatha. + +"What?" + +"No; I don't think so. However, I'll let you know to-morrow. It all +depends--but I don't expect to." She turned as her maid tapped on the +door. "Oh, Captain Voucher. Are you at home to him?" flipping the +pasteboard onto the table among the scattered cards. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Vendenning aggressively, "unless you expect him to flop +down on his knees to-night. Do you?" + +"I don't--to-night. Perhaps to-morrow. I don't know; I can't tell yet." +And to her maid she nodded that they were at home to Captain Voucher. + +Quarrier had met him, too, just as he was leaving the hotel lobby. They +exchanged the careful salutations of men who had no use for one another. +On the Englishman's clean-cut face a deeper hue settled as he passed; on +Quarrier's, not a trace of emotion; but when he entered his motor he sat +bolt upright, stiff-backed and stiff-necked, his long gray-gloved +fingers moving restlessly over his pointed heard. + + +The night was magnificent; myriads of summer stars spangled the heavens. +Even in the reeking city itself a slight freshness grew in the air, +although there was no wind to stir the parched leaves of the park trees, +among which fire-flies floated--their intermittent phosphorescence +breaking out with a silvery, star-like brilliancy. + +Plank, driving his big motor northward through the night, Leila Mortimer +beside him, twice mistook the low glimmer of a fire-fly for the distant +lamp of a motor, which amused Leila, and her clear, young laughter +floated back to the ears of Sylvia and Siward, curled up in their +corners of the huge tonneau. But they were too profoundly occupied with +each other to heed the sudden care-free laughter of the young matron, +though in these days her laughter was infrequent enough to set the more +merciless tongues wagging when it did sound. + +Plank had never seen fit to speak to her of her husband's scarcely +veiled menace that day he had encountered him in the rotunda of the +Algonquin Trust Company. His first thought was to do so--to talk it over +with her, consider the threat and the possibility of its seriousness, +and then come to some logical and definite decision as to what their +future relations should be. Again and again he had been on the point of +doing this when alone with Leila--uncomfortable, even apprehensive, +because of their frank intimacy; but he had never had the opportunity to +do so without deliberately dragging in the subject by the ears in all +its ugliness and implied reproach for her imprudence, and seeing that +dreadful, vacant change in Leila's face, which the mere mention of her +husband's name was sure to bring, turn into horror unspeakable. + +A man not prone to fear his fellows, he now feared Mortimer, but that +fear struck him only through Leila--or had so reached him until the days +of his closing struggle with Quarrier. Whether the long strain had +unnerved him, whether minutely providing against every possible danger +he had been over-scrupulous, over-anxious, morbidly exact--or whether a +foresight almost abnormal had evoked a sinister possibility--he did not +know; but that threat of Mortimer's to involve Plank with Leila in one +common ruin, that boast that he was able to do so could not be ignored +as a possible weapon if Quarrier should by any chance learn of it. + +In all his life he had taken Leila into his arms but once; had kissed +her but once--but that once had been enough to arm Mortimer with danger +from head to foot. Some prying servant had either listened or seen +--perhaps a glimmer of a mirror had betrayed them. At all events, whoever +had seen or heard had informed Mortimer, and now the man was equipped; +the one and only man in all the world who could with truth accuse Plank; +the only man of whom he stood in honest fear. + +And it was characteristic of Plank that never for one moment had it +occurred to him that the sheer fault of it all lay with Leila; that it +was her imprudence alone that now threatened herself and the man she +loved--that threatened his very success in life as long as Mortimer +should live. + +All this, Plank, in his thorough, painstaking review of the subject, had +taken into account; and he could not see how it could possibly bear upon +the matters now finally to be adjusted between Quarrier and himself, +because Quarrier was in New York and Mortimer in Saratoga, and unless +the latter had already sold his information the former could not strike +at him through knowledge of it. + +And yet a curious reluctancy, a hesitation inexplicable--unless overwork +explained it--had come over him when Siward had proposed their dining +together on the very eve of his completed victory over Quarrier. + +It seemed absurd, and Plank was too stolid to entertain superstitions, +but he could not, even with Leila laughing there beside him, shake off +the dull instinct that all was not well--that Quarrier's attitude was +still the attitude of a dangerous man; that he, Plank, should have had +this evening in his room alone to study out the matters he had so +patiently plodded through in the long hours while Siward slept. + +Yet not for one instant did he dream of shifting the responsibility--if +responsibility entailed blame--on Siward, who, against Plank's judgment +and desire, had on the very eve of consummation drawn him away from that +sleepless vigilance which must for ever be the price of a business man's +safety. + +Leila, gay and excited as a schoolgirl, chattered on ceaselessly to +Plank; all the silence, all the secrecy of the arid years turning to +laughter on her red lips, pouring out, in broken phrases of delight, +words strung together for the sheer pleasure of speech and the happiness +of her lot to be with him unrestrained. + +He remembered once listening to the song of a wild bird on the edge of a +clearing at night, and how, standing entranced, the low, distant jar of +thunder sounded at moments, scarcely audible--like his heart now, at +intervals, dully persistent amid the gaiety of her voice. + +"And would you believe it, Beverly," she said, "I formed the habit at +Shotover of walking across the boundary and strolling into your +greenhouses and deliberately helping myself. And every time I did it I +was certain one of your men would march me out!" + +He laughed, but did not tell her that his men had reported the first +episode and that he had instructed them that Mrs. Mortimer and her +friends were to do exactly as they pleased at the Fells. However she +knew it, because a garrulous gardener, proud of his service with Plank, +had informed her. + +"Beverly," she said, "you are a dear. If people only knew what I know!" + +He began to turn red; she could see it even in the flickering, lamp-shot +darkness. And she teased him for a while, very gently, even tenderly; +and their voices grew lower in a half-serious badinage that ended with a +quiet, indrawn breath, a sigh, and silence. + +And now the river swept into view, a darkly luminous sheet set with +reflected stars. Mirrored lights gleamed in it; sudden bright, yellow +flashes zigzagged into its sombre depths; the foliage edged it with a +deeper gloom over which, on the heights, twinkled the multicoloured +lights of Riverside Inn. + +Up the broad, gentle grade they sped, curving in and out among the +clumps of trees and shrubbery, then on a level, sweeping in a great +circle up to the steps of the inn. + +Now all about them from the brilliantly lighted verandas the gay tumult +broke out like an uproarious welcome after the swift silence of their +journey; the stir of jolly people keen for pleasure; the clatter of +crockery; the coming and going of waiters, of guests, of hansoms, +coupes, victorias, and scores of motor-cars wheeling and turning through +the blinding glare of their own headlights. + +Somewhere a gipsy orchestra, full of fitful crescendoes and throbbing +suspensions of caprice, furnished resonant accompaniment to the joyous +clamour; the scent of fountain spray and flowers was in the air. + +"I didn't know you had telephoned for a table," said Siward, as a head- +waiter came up smiling and bowing to Plank. "I confess, in the new +excitement of things, I clean forgot it! What a man you are to think of +other people!" + +Plank reddened again, muttering something evasive, and went forward with +Leila. + +Sylvia, moving leisurely beside Siward who was walking slowly but +confidently without crutches, whispered to him: "I never really liked +Mr. Plank before I understood his attitude toward you." + +"He is a man, every inch," said Siward simply. + +"I think that generally includes what men of your sort demand, doesn't +it?" she asked. + +"Men of my sort sometimes demand in others what they themselves are +lacking in," said Siward, laughing. "Sylvia, look at this jolly crowd! +Look at all those tables! It seems an age since I have done anything of +this sort. I feel like a boy of eighteen--the same funny, quickening +fascination in me toward everything gay and bright and alive!" He looked +around at her, laughingly. "As for you," he said, "you look about +sixteen. You certainly are the most beautiful thing this beautiful world +ever saw!" + +"Schoolboy courtship!" she mocked him, lingering as he made his slow way +through the crowded place. The tint of excitement was in her eyes and +cheeks; the echo of it in her low, happy voice. "Where on earth is Mr. +Plank? Oh, I see them! They have a table by the balcony rail, in the +corner; and it seems to be rather secluded, Stephen, so I shall, of +course, expect you to say nothing further about beauty of any species. . +Are you a trifle tired? No? . Well, you need not be indignant. I don't +care whether you tumble. Indeed, I don't believe there is really +anything the matter with you--you are walking with the same old careless +saunter. Mr. Plank," as they arrived and seated themselves, "Mr. Siward +has just admitted that he uses crutches only because they are +ornamental. Leila, isn't this air delicious? All sorts of people, too, +aren't there, Mr. Plank? Such curious-looking women, some of them--quite +pretty, too, in a certain way. Are you hungry, St--Mr. Siward?" + +"Are you, St--Mr. Siward?" mimicked Leila promptly. + +"I am," said Siward, laughing at Sylvia's significant colour and noting +Plank's direct gaze as the waiter filled Leila's slender-stemmed glass. +And "nothing but Apollinaris," he said coolly, as the waiter approached +him; but though his voice was easy enough, a dull patch of colour came +out under the cheek-bones. + +"That is all I care for, either," said Sylvia with elaborate +carelessness. + +Plank and Leila immediately began to make conversation. Siward, his eyes +bent on the glass of mineral water at his elbow, looked up in silence at +Sylvia questioningly. + +There was something in her face he did not quite comprehend. She made as +though to speak, looked at him, hesitated, her lovely face eloquent +under the impulse. Then, leaning toward him, she said: + +"'And thy ways shall be my ways.'" + +"Sylvia, you must not deny yourself, just because I--" + +"Let me. It is the happiest thing I have ever done for myself." + +"But I don't wish it." + +"Ah, but I do," she said, the low excited laughter scarcely fluttering +her lips. "Listen: I never before, in all my life, gave up anything for +your sake, only this one little pitiful thing." + +"I won't let you!" he breathed; "it is nonsense to--" + +"You must let me! Am I to be on friendly terms with--with your mortal +enemy?" She was still smiling, but now her sensitive mouth quivered +suddenly. + +He sat silent, considering her, his restless fingers playing with his +glass in which the harmless bubbles were breaking. + +"I drink to your health, Stephen," she said under her breath. "I drink +to your happiness, too; and--and to your fortune, and to all that you +desire from fortune." And she raised her glass in the star-light, +looking over it into his eyes. + +"All I desire from fortune?" he repeated significantly. + +"All--almost all--" + +"No, all," he demanded. + +But she only raised the glass to her lips, still looking at him as she +drank. + +They became unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage +scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep +into their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing +thing wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful, +unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her--as though +awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through +the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling to the +edge of autumn, broke out into a delicate riot of exquisite florescence; +the very sounds of her voice, every intonation, every accent, every +pause, were charming surprises; her laughter was a miracle, her beauty a +revelation. + +Leila, aware of it, exchanged glance after glance with Plank. Siward, +alternately the leader in it all, then the enchanted listener, +bewitched, enthralled, felt care slipping from his shoulders like a +mantle, and sadness exhaling from a heart that was beating strongly, +steadily, fearlessly--as a heart should beat in the breast of him who has +taken at last his fighting chance. He took it now, under her eyes, for +honour, for manhood, and for the ideal which had made manhood no longer +an empty term muttered in desperation by a sick body, and a mind too +sick to control it. + +Yes, at last the lifelong battle was on. He knew it. He knew, too, +whatever his fate with her or without her, he must always go on with the +battle for the safe-guarding of that manhood the consciousness of which +she had aroused. + +All he knew was that, through the medium of his love for her, whatever +in him of the spiritual remained, or had been generated, was now awake, +alive, strong, vital, indestructible--an impalpable current flowing from +a sane intelligence, through medium of her, back to the eternal truth, +returning always, always, to the deathless source from whence it came. + +Lingering over the fruit, the champagne breaking in the glasses standing +on the table between them, rim to rim, Leila and Plank had fallen into a +low, desultory, yet guarded exchange of words and silences. + +Sylvia sprang up and pushed her chair into the farther corner against +the balcony rail, where no light fell except the radiance of the stars. +Here Siward joined her, dragging his chair around so that it faced her +as she leaned back, tilted against a shadowy column. + +"Is this Bohemianism, Stephen? If it is, I rather like it. Don't you? +You are going to smoke now, aren't you? Ah, that is delightful!" +daintily sniffing the aroma from his cigarette. "It always reminds me of +you--there on the cliffs, that first day. Do you remember?--the smoke +from your cigarette whirling up in my face? . You say you remember. . +Oh, of course there's nothing else to say when a girl asks you . is +there? Oh, I won't argue with you, if you insist that you do remember. +You will not be like any other man if you do, that's all. . The little +things that women remember! . And believe that men remember! It is +pitiful in a way. There! I am not going to spill over, and I don't care +a copper penny whether you really do remember or not! . Yes, I do care! +. Oh, all women care. It is their first disappointment to learn how much +a man can forget and still remember to care for them--a little! . +Stephen, I said a little; and that is all that you are permitted to care +for me; isn't it? . Please, don't. You are deliberately beginning to say +things! . Stephen, you silly! you are making love to me!" + +In the darkness his hand encountered hers on the wooden rail, and the +tremor of the contact silenced her. She freed one finger, then let it +rest with its slender fellow-prisoners. There was no use in trying to +speak just then--utterly useless her voice in the soft, rounded throat +imprisoned by the swelling pulses that tightened and hammered and +tightened. + +Years seemed to fall away from her, slipping back, back into girlhood, +into childhood, drawing not her alone on the gliding tide, but carrying +him with her. An exquisite languor held her. Through it vague hints of +those splendid visions of her lonely childhood rose, shaping themselves +in the starry darkness--the old mystery of dreams, the old, innocent +desires, the old simplicity of clairvoyance wherein right was right and +wrong, wrong--in all the conventional significance of right and wrong, in +all the old-fashioned, undisturbed faith of childhood. + +Drifting deliciously, her eyes sometimes meeting his, sometimes lost in +the magic of her reverie, she lay there in her chair, her unresisting +fingers locked in his. + +Odd little thoughts came hovering into her reverie--thoughts that seemed +distantly familiar, the direct, unconscious impulses of a child. To feel +was once more the only motive for expression; to think fearlessly was +once more inherent; to desire was to demand--unlock her lips, naively, +and ask for what she wished. + +Under the spell, she turned her blue gaze on him, and her lips parted +without a tremor: + +"What do you offer for what you ask? And do you still ask it? Is it me +you are asking me for? Because you love me? And what do you give--love?" + +"Weigh it with the--other," he said. + +"I have--often--every moment since I have known you. And what a winter!" +Her voice was almost inaudible. "What a winter--without you!" + +"That hell is ended for me, too. Sylvia, I know what I ask. And I ask. I +know what I offer. Will you take it?" + +"Yes," she said. + +He rose, blindly. She stood up, pale, wide-eyed, confronting him, +stammering out the bargain: + +"I take all--all! every virtue, every vice of you. I give all--all! all I +have been, all I am, all I shall be! Is that enough? Oh, if there were +only more to give! Stephen, if there were only more!" + +Her hands had fallen into his, and they looked each other in the eyes. + +Suddenly, through the hush of the enchanted moment, a sullen sound +broke--the sound of a voice they knew, threateningly raised, louder and +louder, growling, profanely menacing. + +Aghast, they turned in the darkness, peering toward the lighted space +beyond. Leroy Mortimer, his face shockingly congested, stood unsteadily +balancing there, confronting his wife, who sat staring at him in horror. +At the same instant Plank rose and laid a hand on Mortimer's shoulder, +but Mortimer shook him off with a warning oath. + +"You and I will settle with each other to-morrow!" he said thickly, +pointing a puffy finger at Plank. "You'll find me at the Algonquin +Trust. Do you hear? That's where you'll settle this matter--in the +president's office!" He stood swaying and leering at Plank, repeating +loudly: "In Quarrier's office! Understand? That's where you'll settle +up! See?" + +Leila, white face quivering, shrank as though he had struck her, and he +turned on her again, grinning: "As for you, you come home! And that'll +be about all for yours." + +"Are you insane, to make a scene like this?" whispered Plank. + +But Mortimer swung on him insultingly: "That's about all from you, too!" +he said. "Leila, are you coming?" + +He stepped heavily toward her; but Plank's sudden crushing grip was on +his fat arm above the elbow, and he emitted a roar of surprise and pain. + +"Don't touch him! Don't, in Heaven's name!" stammered Leila, as Plank, +releasing him, stepped back beside her chair. "Can't you see that I must +go with him! I--I must go." She cast one terrified glance around her, +where scores of strange faces met hers; and at every table people were +standing up to see better. + +Plank, who had dropped Mortimer's arm as the latter emitted his bellow +of amazement, stepped toward him again, dropping his voice as he spoke: + +"You go! Do you hear?" he said quietly. "I'll do what you ask me, +to-morrow! I will do what you ask, if you'll go now!" + +"You come--do you hear!" snarled Mortimer, turning on his wife, who had +already risen. "If you don't I'll make a row here that you'll never hear +the end of as long as you live! And there'll be nothing to talk over in +Quarrier's office, if I do." + +Leila looked at Plank, rose, and moved swiftly toward the veranda steps, +her head resolutely lowered, the burning shame flaming in her face. +Mortimer cast one triumphant glance at Plank, then waddled unsteadily +after his wife. + +"Hold on," he growled; "I've a Mercedes here! I'll drive you back--wait! +Here it is! Here we are!" And to Quarrier's machinist he said: "You get +into the tonneau. I want to show Mrs. Mortimer what night-driving is. Do +you hear? I tell you I'm going to drive this machine and show you how!" + +Leila scarcely heard him. She obeyed the impulse of his hand on her arm, +and mounted to the seat, staring straight ahead of her with dazed and +straining eyes that saw nothing. + +Then Mortimer clambered to his seat, and, without an instant's warning, +opened up and seized the wheel. + +Unprepared, the machinist attempted to swing aboard, missed his footing +in the uncertain light, and fell sprawling on the gravel. Plank saw him +from the veranda and instantly vaulted the rail to the lawn below. + +"You damn fool!" yelled Mortimer, looking around, "what in hell do you +think you'll do?" And he clapped on full speed as Plank made a leap for +the car and missed. + +Mortimer laughed, and turned his head to look back, and the next instant +something seemed to wrench the steering-wheel from its roots. There was +a blinding glare of light, a scream, and the great machine bounded into +the air full length, turned completely over, and lay across a flower- +bed, partly on one side. + +Something was afire, too. Men were rushing from the verandas, women +screamed, and stood up wringing their hands; a mounted policeman came +galloping through the darkness; people shouted: "Throw sand on it! Get +shovels, for God's sake! Lift that tonneau! There's a woman under it." + +But they were mistaken, for Leila lay at the foot of the slope, one +little bloody hand clutching the dead grass; and Plank knelt beside her, +giving his orders quietly to those who came running down the hill from +the roadway above, which was now fiercely illuminated by burning +gasoline. At last they got sand enough to quench the fire and men +sufficient to lift the weight from the dead man's neck, and drag what +was left of him onto the grass. + +"Don't look," whispered Siward, drawing Sylvia back. + +He and she both had put their shoulders to the tonneau along with the +others; and now they stood there together in the shifting lantern-light, +sickened, shivering under the summer stars, staring at the gathering +crowd around that shapeless lump on the grass. + +Plank passed them, walking beside an improvised stretcher, calm, almost +smiling, as Sylvia sprang forward with a little sob of inquiry. + +"There's the doctor, over there; that man is a doctor; he knows," +repeated Plank with studied deliberation, looking down at Leila's +deathly face. "He says it's all right; he says he'll get a candle, and +that he can tell by the flame's effect on the pupils of the eyes what +exactly is the matter. No," to Siward beside him, pressing forward +through the crowd which eddied from the dead man to the stretcher; "no, +there is not a bone broken. She is stunned, that's all; she fell in the +shrubbery. We'll have an ambulance here pretty quick. Stephen," using +his first name unconsciously, "won't you look out for Sylvia? I'm going +back on the ambulance. If you'll find somebody to drive my machine, I +wish you would take Sylvia back. No, I don't want you to drive, +Stephen--if you don't mind. Get that machinist, please. I'm rattled, and +I don't want you to drive." + +Leila lay on the stretcher, her bloodless face upturned to the stars. +Beyond, under a blanket, something else lay very still on the lawn. + +Plank beckoned a policeman, and whispered to him. + +Then, far away in the darkness, a distant clamour grew on the night air, +nearer, nearer. + +Plank, standing beside the stretcher, raised his head, listening to the +ambulance arriving at full speed. + + + +CHAPTER XV THE ENEMY LISTENS + +In September, her marriage to Siward excitingly imminent, Sylvia had +been seized with a passion for wholesale renunciation and rigid self- +chastisement. All that had been so materially desirable to her in life, +all that she had heretofore worshipped, in and belonging to her own +world, she now denied. Down went the miniature golden calf from the +altar in her private shrine, its tiny crashing fall making considerable +racket throughout her world, and the planets and satellites adjacent to +that section of the social system which she had long been expected to +dominate. + +The spectacle of their youthful ruler-elect in sackcloth as the future +bride of a business man had more than disconcerted them. The amazing +announcement of Quarrier's engagement to Agatha Caithness stupefied the +elect, rendering in one harrowing instant null and void the thousand +petty plans and plots, intrigues and schemes, upon which future social +constructions on the social structure had been based. + +The grief and amazement of Major Belwether, already distracted by his +non-participation, through his own fault, in Plank's consolidation of +Amalgamated with Inter-County, was pitiable to the verge of the +unpleasant. Like panic-stricken rabbits, his thoughts ran in circles, +and he skipped in their wake, scurrying from Quarrier to Harrington, +from Harrington to Plank, from Plank to Siward, in distracted hope of +recovering his equilibrium and squatting safely somewhere in somebody's +luxuriantly perpetual cabbage-patch. He even squeezed under the fence +and hopped humbly about old Peter Caithness, who suddenly assumed +monumental proportions among those who had so long tolerated him. + +But Quarrier coldly drove him away and the increasing crowds besieging +poor, bewildered old Peter Caithness trod upon the major, and there was +nothing for him to do but to scuttle back to his own brush-heap and +huddle there, squeaking pitifully. + +As for Grace Ferrall, she lost no time in tears, but took Agatha +publicly to her bosom, turned furiously on Quarrier in private, and for +the first time in her life permitted herself the luxury of telling him +exactly what she thought of him. + +"You had your chance," she said; "but you are all surface! There's +nothing to you but soft beard and manicuring, and the reticence of +stupidity! The one girl for you--and you couldn't hold on to her! The one +chance of your life--and it's escaped you, leaving a tuft of pompadour +hair and a pair of woman's eyes protruding from the golden dust-heap +your father buried you in. Now you'd better sit there and let it cover +your mouth, and try to breathe through your nose. Agatha is looking for +a new sensation; she's tried everything, now she's going to try you, +that's all. She will be an invaluable leader, Howard, and we shall not +yawn, I assure you. But, oh! the chance you've lost, for lack of a drop +of red blood, and a barber to give you the beard of a man!" + +Which merely deepened the fear and hatred which Quarrier had entertained +for his pretty cousin from the depths of his silk-wadded cradle. As for +Kemp Ferrall, now third vice-president of Inter-County, he only laughed +with the tolerance of a man in safety; and, looking at Quarrier through +the pickets of the financial fence, not only forgot how close his escape +had been, but, being a busy and progressive young man, began to consider +how he might ultimately extract a little profit from the expensive +tenant of the enclosure. + +Grace made the journey to town to express herself freely for Sylvia's +benefit; but when she saw Sylvia, the girl's radiant beauty checked her, +and all she could say was: "My dear! my dear, I knew you would do it! I +knew you would fling him on his head. It's in your blood, you little +jade! you little jilt! you mix of a baggage! I knew you'd behave like +all the women of your race!" + +Sylvia held Mrs. Ferrall's pretty face impressed between both her hands, +and looking her mischievously in the eyes, she whispered: + +"'Comme vous, maman, faut-il faire?--Eh! mes petits-enfants, pourquoi, +Quand j'ai fait comme ma grand' mere, Ne feriez-vous pas comme moi?'" + +"O Lord!" said Mrs. Ferrall, "I'll never meddle again--and the entire +world may marry and take the consequences!" Then she drove to the Santa +Regina, where Marion was to join her in her return to Shotover; and she +was already trying to make up her disturbed mind as to which might prove +the more suitable for Marion--Captain Voucher, gloomily recovering from +his defeat by Quarrier, or Billy Fleetwood, who didn't want to marry +anybody. + +In the meanwhile, Siward's new duties as second vice-president of Inter- +County had given him scant leisure for open-air convalescence. He was +busy with Plank; he was also busy with the private investigation stirred +up at the Patroons' Club and the Lenox, and which was slowly but +inevitably resulting in clearing him, so that his restoration to good +standing and full membership remained now only a matter of formal +procedure. + +So Siward was becoming a very busy man among men; and Plank, still +carrying on his broad shoulders burdens unbearable by any man save such +a man as he, shook his heavy head, and ordered Siward into the open. And +Siward, who had learned to obey, obeyed. + +But September had nearly ended, when Leila, in Plank's private car, +attended by Siward and Sylvia and two trained nurses, arrived at the +Fells. The nurses--Plank's idea--were a surprise to Leila; and the day +after her arrival at the Fells she dismissed them, got out of bed, and +dressed and came downstairs all alone, on a pair of sound though +faltering legs. + +Sylvia and Siward were in the music-room, very busily figuring out the +probable cost of a house in that section of the city east of Park +Avenue, where the newly married imprudent are forming colonies--a just +punishment for those reckless brides who marry for love, and are obliged +to drive over two car-tracks to reach their wealthy friends and +relatives of the Golden Zone. + +And Leila, in her pretty invalid's gown of lace, stood silently at the +music-room door, watching them. Her thick, dark hair was braided, and +looped up under a black bow behind; and she looked like a curious and +impertinent schoolgirl peeping at them there through the crack of the +door, bending forward, her joined hands flattened between her knees. + +"Oh," she said at length, in a frankly disappointed voice, "is that all +you do when your chaperone is abed?" + +"Angel!" cried Sylvia, springing up, "how in the world did you ever +manage to come downstairs?" + +"On the usual number of feet. If you think it's very gay up there--" She +laid her hands in Sylvia's, and looked at Siward with all the old +mockery in her eyes--eyes which slanted a little at the corners, +Japanese-wise: "Stephen, you are growing positively plump. You'd better +not do that until Sylvia marries you. Look at him, dear! He's getting +all smooth in the cheeks, like a horrid undergraduate boy!" + +She released one hand and greeted Siward. "Thank you," she said +serenely, replying to his inquiry, "I am perfectly well. You pay me no +compliment when you ask me, after you have seen me." And to Sylvia, +looking at her white flannels: "What have you been playing? What do you +find to do with yourself, Sylvia, with that plump sun-burned boy at your +heels all day long? Are there no men about?" + +"One's coming to-day," said Sylvia, laughing; and slipping her arm +around Leila's waist, she strolled with her out through the tall glass +doors to the terrace, with a backward glance of airy dismissal for +Siward. + +Plank had wired from New York, the night before, that he was coming; in +another hour he would be there. Leila knew it perfectly well, and she +looked into the wickedly expressive young face of the girl beside her, +eyes soft but unsmiling. + +"Child, child," she murmured, "you do not know how much of a man a man +can be!" + +"Yes, I do!" said Sylvia hotly. + +Leila smiled. "Hush, you little silly! I've talked Stephen and praised +Stephen to you for days and days, and the moment I dare mention another +man you fly at me, hair on end!" + +"Oh, Leila, I know it! I'm perfectly mad about him, that's all. But +don't you think he is looking like himself again? And, Leila, isn't he +strangely attractive?--I don't mean just because I happen to be in love +with him, but give me a perfectly cold and unbiassed opinion, dear, +because there is simply no use in a girl's blinding herself to facts, or +in ignoring certain fixed laws of symmetry, which it is perfectly +obvious that Mr. Siward fulfils in those well-known and established +proportions which--" + +"Sylvia!" + +"What?" she asked, startled. + +"Nothing. Only for two solid weeks--" + +"Of course, if you are not interested--" + +"But I am, child--I am! desperately interested! He is handsome! I knew +him before you did, and I thought so then!" + +"Did you?" said Sylvia, troubled. + +"Yes, I did. When I wore short skirts I kissed him, too!" + +"Did you? W--what did he wear?" + +"Knickerbockers, silly! You don't think he was still in the cradle, do +you? I'm not as aged as that!" + +"I missed a great deal in my childhood," said Sylvia naively. + +"By not knowing Stephen? Pooh! He used to pinch me, and then we'd put +out our tongues in mutual derision. Once--" + +"Stop!" said Sylvia faintly. "And anyhow, you probably taught him. . +Look at him as he saunters across the lawn, Leila--look at him!" + +"Well? I see him." + +"Isn't he almost an ideal?" + +"He is. He certainly is, dear." + +"Do you think he walks as though he were perfectly well?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Leila thoughtfully. "Sometimes people whose +walk is a gracefully languid saunter develop adipose tissue after +forty." + +"Nonsense! Really, Leila, do you think he walks like a perfectly well +man?" + +"He may be coming down with whooping-cough--" + +Sylvia rose indignantly, but Leila pulled her back to the sun-warmed +marble bench: + +"A girl in love loses her sense of humour temporarily. Sit down, you +little vixen!" + +"Leila, you laugh at everything when I don't feel like it." + +"I'm not in love, and that's why." + +"You are in love!" + +Leila looked at her, then under her breath: "In love, am I--with the +whole young world ringing with the laughter I had forgotten the very +sound of? Do you call that love?--with the sea and sky laughing back at +me, and the wind in my ears fairly tremulous with laughter? Do you, who +look out upon the pretty world so seriously through those sea-blue eyes +of yours, think that I can be in love?" + +"Oh, Leila, a girl's happiness is serious enough, isn't it? Dear, it +frightens me! I was so close to losing it--once." + +"I lost mine," said Leila, closing her eyes for a moment. "I shall not +sigh if I find it again." + +They sat there in the sun, Leila's hand lying idly in Sylvia's, the soft +sea-wind stirring their hair, and in their ears the thunderous undertone +of the mounting sea. + +"Look at Stephen!" murmured Sylvia, her enraptured eyes following him as +he strolled hatless and coatless along the cliff's edge, the sun +glimmering on his short hair, a tall, slim, well-coupled, strongly knit +shape against the sky and sea. + +But Leila's quick ear had caught a significant sound from the gravel +drive behind her, and she stood up, a delicious colour tinting her face. + +"Are you going in?" asked Sylvia. Then she, too, heard the subdued +whirring of a motor from the front of the house, and she looked at Leila +as she turned and recrossed the terrace, walking slowly but erect, her +pretty head held high. + +Then Sylvia faced the sea again and presently descended the terrace, +crossing the long lawn toward the headland, where Siward stood looking +out across the water. + +Leila, from the music-room, watched her; then she heard Plank's voice, +and his step on the stair, and she called out to him gaily: + +"I am downstairs, thank you. How dared you send me those foolish +nurses!" + +She was laughing when he came into the room, standing there erect, head +high, a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and she offered him both hands +which he took between his own, holding them strongly, and looking into +her face with steady, questioning eyes. + +"Well?" she said, still smiling, but her scarlet under-lip trembled a +little; then: "Yes, you may say what you wish--what I--I wish you to say. +. There can be no harm in talking about it. But--will you be very gentle +with me? Don't m-make me cry; I h-have--I am t-trying to remember how it +feels to laugh once more." + + +Sylvia, lying in the hot sand on the tiny crescent beach under the +cliffs, listened gravely to Siward's figures, as, note-book in hand, he +went over the real-estate problem, commenting thoughtfully as he +discussed the houses offered. + +"Twenty by a hundred and two; good rear, north side of the street--next +door to the Tommy Barclays, you know, Sylvia; only they're asking forty- +two-five." + +"That is an outrage!" said Sylvia seriously; "besides, I remember there +was a wretched cellar, and only a butler's pantry extension. I'd much +rather have that little house in Sixty-fourth Street, where the +Fetherbraynes live--next house on the west, you know. Then we can pull it +down and build--when we want to." + +"We won't be able to afford to build for a while, you know," said Siward +doubtfully. + +"What do we care, dear? We'll have millions of things to do, anyway, and +what is the use of building?" + +"As many things to do as that?" he said, looking over his note-book with +a smile. + +"More! Are we not just beginning to live, and open our eyes, silly? +Listen: Books, books, books, from top to bottom of the house, that is +what I want first of all--except my piano." + +"Do let us have a little plumbing, dear," he said so seriously that for +a fraction of a second she was on the verge of taking him seriously. + +"Why extravagant plumbing when books furnish sufficient circulation for +the flow of soul, dear?" she retorted gravely. + +"Nobody we know will ever come to see us, if they think we read books," +said Siward. + +"Isn't it delightful!" sighed Sylvia. "We're going to become frumps! I +mustn't forget the blue stockings for my trousseau, and you mustn't +forget the California claret for the cellar, dear. We will need it when +we read Henry James to each other." + +Siward, resting his weight on one hand, laughed, and looked out at the +surf drenching the reefs with silver. + +"To think," he said, "that I could ever have been enough afraid of the +sea to hate it! After all, at low tide the reef is always there in the +same place and none the worse for the drenching. All that surf only +shows how strong a rock can be." + +He smiled, and turned to look at Sylvia; and she lay there, silent, blue +eyes looking back into his. Suddenly they glimmered with tears, and she +stretched out both arms, drawing his head down to hers convulsively, her +quivering mouth crushed against his lips. Then she rose to her knees, to +her feet, dazed, brushing the tears from her eyes. + +"To think--to think," she stammered," that I might have let you face the +world alone! Dearest, dearest, we must fight a good fight. The sea is +always there--always, always there!" + +He looked straight into her eyes, fearlessly, tenderly, and she looked +back with the divine, untroubled gaze of a child, laying her slender, +sun-tanned hands in his. + +And, deep in his body, as he stood there, he heard the low challenge of +his soul on guard; and he knew that the Enemy listened. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Fighting Chance, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIGHTING CHANCE *** + +This file should be named 7fght10.txt or 7fght10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7fght11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7fght10a.txt + +This ebook was prepared by Jeffrey Kraus-yao. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Fighting Chance + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7492] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 10, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIGHTING CHANCE *** + + + + +This ebook was prepared by Jeffrey Kraus-yao. + + + + +[Illustration: “She was standing beside the fire with Quarrier, one foot +on the fender.”] + + + +The Fighting Chance + +By Robert W. Chambers + + +Author of “Cardigan,” “The Maid at Arms,” “The Firing Line,” etc. + + + +DEDICATED TO MY FATHER + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER +I. Acquaintance +II. Imprudence +III. Shotover +IV. The Season Opens +V. A Winning Loser +VI. Modus Vivendi +VII. Persuasion +VIII. Confidences +IX. Confessions +X. The Seamy Side +XI. The Call of the Rain +XII. The Asking Price +XIII. The Selling Price +XIV. The Bargain +XV. The Enemy Listens + + + + +THE FIGHTING CHANCE + + +CHAPTER I ACQUAINTANCE + +The speed of the train slackened; a broad tidal river flashed into sight +below the trestle, spreading away on either hand through yellowing level +meadows. And now, above the roaring undertone of the cars, from far +ahead floated back the treble bell-notes of the locomotive; there came a +gritting vibration of brakes; slowly, more slowly the cars glided to a +creaking standstill beside a sun-scorched platform gay with the bright +flutter of sunshades and summer gowns. + +“Shotover! Shotover!” rang the far cry along the cars; and an absent- +minded young man in the Pullman pocketed the uncut magazine he had been +dreaming over and, picking up gun case and valise, followed a line of +fellow-passengers to the open air, where one by one they were engulfed +and lost to view amid the gay confusion on the platform. + +The absent-minded young man, however, did not seem to know exactly where +he was bound for. He stood hesitating, leisurely inspecting the flashing +ranks of vehicles--depot wagons, omnibusses, and motor cars already +eddying around a dusty gravel drive centred by the conventional railroad +flower bed and fountain. + +Sunshine blazed on foliage plants arranged geometrically, on scarlet +stars composed of geraniums, on thickets of tall flame-tinted cannas. +And around this triumph of landscape gardening, phaeton, Tilbury, +Mercedes, and Toledo backed, circled, tooted; gaily gowned women, whips +aslant, horses dancing, greeted expected guests; laughing young men +climbed into dog-carts and took the reins from nimble grooms; young +girls, extravagantly veiled, made room in comfortable touring-cars for +feminine guests whose extravagant veils were yet to be unpacked; slim +young men in leather trappings, caps adorned with elaborate masks or +goggles, manipulated rakish steering-gears; preoccupied machinists were +fussing with valve and radiator or were cranking up; and, through the +jolly tumult, the melancholy bell of the locomotive sounded, and the +long train moved out through the September sunshine amid clouds of snowy +steam. + +And all this time the young man, gun case in one hand, suit case in the +other, looked about him in his good-humoured, leisurely manner for +anybody or any vehicle which might be waiting for him. His amiable +inspection presently brought a bustling baggage-master within range of +vision; and he spoke to this official, mentioning his host’s name. + +“Lookin’ for Mr. Ferrall?” repeated the baggage-master, spinning a trunk +dexterously into rank with its fellows. “Say, one of Mr. Ferrall’s men +was here just now--there he is, over there uncrating that there bird- +dog!” + +The young man’s eyes followed the direction indicated by the grimy +thumb; a red-faced groom in familiar livery was kneeling beside a dog’s +travelling crate, attempting to unlock it, while behind the bars an +excited white setter whined and thrust forth first one silky paw then +the other. + +The young man watched the scene for a moment, then: + +“Are you one of Mr. Ferrall’s men?” he asked in his agreeable voice. + +The groom looked up, then stood up: + +“Yis, Sorr.” + +“Take these; I’m Mr. Siward--for Shotover House. I dare say you have room +for me and the dog, too.” + +The groom opened his mouth to speak, but Siward took the crate key from +his fingers, knelt, and tried the lock. It resisted. From the depths of +the crate a beseeching paw fell upon his cuff. + +“Certainly, old fellow,” he said soothingly, “I know how you feel about +it; I know you’re in a hurry--and we’ll have you out in a second--steady, +boy!--something’s jammed, you see! Only one moment now! There you are!” + +The dog attempted to bolt as the crate door opened, but the young man +caught him by the leather collar and the groom snapped on a leash. + +“Beg pardon, Sorr,” began the groom, carried almost off his feet by the +frantic circling of the dog--“beg pardon, Sorr, but I’ll be afther seem’ +if anny of Mr. Ferrall’s men drove over for you--” + +“Oh! Are you not one of Mr. Ferrall’s men?” + +“Yis, Sorr, but I hadn’t anny orders to meet anny wan--” + +“Haven’t you anything here to drive me in?” + +“Yis, Sorr--I’ll look to see--” + +The raw groom, much embarrassed, and keeping his feet with difficulty +against the plunging dog, turned toward the gravel drive where now only +a steam motor and a depot-wagon remained. As they looked the motor +steamed out, honking hoarsely; the depot-wagon followed, leaving the +circle at the end of the station empty of vehicles. + +“Didn’t Mr. Ferrall expect me?” asked Siward. + +“Aw, yis, Sorr; but the gintlemen for Shotover House does ginerally +allways coom by Black Fells, Sorr--” + +“Oh, Lord!” said the young man, “I remember now. I should have gone on +to Black Fells Crossing; Mr. Ferrall wrote me!” Then, amused: “I suppose +you have only a baggage-wagon here?” + +“No, Sorr--a phayton”--he hesitated. + +“Well? Isn’t a phaeton all right?” + +“Yis, Sorr--if th’ yoong lady says so--beg pardon, Sorr, Miss Landis is +driving.” + +“Oh--h! I see. … Is Miss Landis a guest at Shotover House?” + +“Yis, Sorr. An’ if ye would joost ask her--the phayton do be coming now, +Sorr!” + +The phaeton was coming; the horse, a showy animal, executed side-steps; +blue ribbons fluttered from the glittering head-stall; a young girl in +white was driving. + +Siward advanced to the platform’s edge as the phaeton drew up; the young +lady looked inquiringly at the groom, at the dog, and leisurely at him. + +So he took off his hat, naming himself in that well-bred and agreeable +manner characteristic of men of his sort,--and even his smile appeared to +be part and parcel of a conventional ensemble so harmonious as to remain +inconspicuous. + +“You should have gone on to Black Fells Crossing,” observed Miss Landis, +coolly controlling the nervous horse. “Didn’t you know it?” + +He said he remembered now that such were the directions given him. + +The girl glanced at him incuriously, and with more curiosity at the dog. +“Is that the Sagamore pup, Flynn?” she asked. + +“It is, Miss.” + +“Can’t you take him on the rumble with you?” And, to Siward: “There is +room for your gun and suit case.” + +“And for me?” he asked, smiling. + +“I think so. Be careful of that Sagamore pup, Flynn. Hold him between +your knees. Are you ready, Mr. Siward?” + +So he climbed in; the groom hoisted the dog to the rumble and sprang up +behind; the horse danced and misbehaved, making a spectacle of himself +and an agreeable picture of his driver; then the pretty little phaeton +swung northward out of the gravel drive and went whirling along a road +all misty with puffs of yellow dust which the afternoon sun turned to +floating golden powder. + +“Did you send my telegram, Flynn?” she asked without turning her head. + +“I did, Miss.” + +It being the most important telegram she had ever sent in all her life, +Miss Landis became preoccupied,--quite oblivious to extraneous details, +including Siward, until the horse began acting badly again. Her slightly +disdainful and perfect control of the reins interested the young man. He +might have said something civil and conventional about that, but did not +make the effort to invade a reserve which appeared to embarrass nobody. + +A stacatto note from the dog, prolonged infinitely in hysterical +crescendo, demanded comment from somebody. + +“What is the matter with him, Flynn?” she asked. + +Siward said: “You should let him run, Miss Landis.” + +She nodded, smiling, inattentive, absorbed in her own affairs, still +theorising concerning her telegram. She drove on for a while, and might +have forgotten the dog entirely had he not once more lifted his voice in +melancholy. + +“You say he ought to run for a mile or two? Do you think he’ll bolt, Mr. +Siward?” + +“Is he a new dog?” + +“Yes, fresh from the kennels; supposed to be house-and wagon-broken, +steady to shot and wing--” She shrugged her pretty shoulders. “You see +how he’s acting already!” + +“Do you mind if I try him?” suggested Siward. + +“You mean that you are going to let him run?” + +“I think so.” + +“And if he bolts?” + +“I’ll take my chances.” + +“Yes, but please consider my chances, Mr. Siward. The dog doesn’t belong +to me.” + +“But he ought to run--” + +“But suppose he runs away? He’s a horridly expensive creature--if you +care to take the risk.” + +“I’ll take the risk,” said Siward, smiling as she drew rein. “Now Flynn, +give me the leash. Quiet! Quiet, puppy! Everything is coming your way; +that’s the beauty of patience; great thing, patience!” He took the +leader; the dog sprang from the rumble. “Now, my friend, look at me! No, +don’t twist and squirm and scramble; look me square in the eye; so! … +Now we know each ether and we respect each other--because you are going +to be a good puppy … and obey … Down charge!” + +The dog, trembling with eager comprehension, dropped like a shot, muzzle +laid flat between his paws. Siward unleashed him, looked down at him for +a second, stooped and caressed the silky head, then with a laugh swung +himself into the phaeton beside the driver, who, pretty head turned, had +been looking on intently. + +“Your dog is yard-broken,” he said. “Look at him.” + +“I see. Do you think he will follow us?” + +“I think so.” + +The horse started, Miss Landis looking back over her shoulder at the dog +who lay motionless, crouched flat in the road. + +Then Siward turned. “Come on, Sagamore!” he said gaily; and the dog +sprang forward, circled about the moving phaeton, splitting the air with +yelps of ecstasy, then tore ahead, mad with the delight of stretching +cramped muscles amid the long rank grass and shrubbery of the roadside. + +The girl watched him doubtfully; when he disappeared far away up the +road she turned the blue inquiry of her eyes on Siward. + +“He’ll be back,” said the young fellow, laughing; and presently the dog +reappeared on a tearing gallop, white flag tossing, glorious in his new +liberty, enchanted with the confidence this tall young man had reposed +in him--this adorable young man, this wonderful friend who had suddenly +appeared to release him from an undignified and abominable situation in +a crate. + +“A good dog,” said Siward; and the girl looked around at him, partly +because his voice was pleasant, partly because a vague memory was +beginning to stir within her, coupling something unpleasant with the +name of Siward. + +She had been conscious of it when he first named himself, but, absorbed +in the overwhelming importance of her telegram, had left the analysis of +the matter for the future. + +She thought again of her telegram, theorised a little, came to no +conclusion except to let the matter rest for the present, and mentally +turned to the next and far less important problem--the question of this +rather attractive young man at her side, and why the name of Siward +should be linked in her mind with anything disagreeable. + +Tentatively following the elusive mental dews that might awaken +something definite concerning her hazy impression of the man beside her, +she spoke pleasantly, conventionally, touching idly any topic that might +have a bearing; and, under a self-possession so detached as to give an +impression of indifference, eyes, ears, and intelligence admitted that +he was agreeable to look at, pleasant of voice, and difficult to +reconcile with anything unpleasant. + +Which gradually aroused her interest--the incongruous usually interesting +girls of her age--for he had wit enough to amuse her, sufficient +inconsequence to please her, and something listless, at times almost +absent-minded, almost inattentive, that might have piqued her had it not +inoculated her, as it always does any woman, with the nascent germ of +curiosity. Besides, there was, in the hint of his momentary +preoccupation, a certain charm. + +They discussed shooting and the opening of the season; dogs and the +training of dogs; and why some go gun-shy and why some ace blinkers. +From sport and its justification, they became inconsequential; and she +was beginning to enjoy the freshness of their chance acquaintance, his +nice attitude toward things, his irrelevancy, his gaiety. + +Laughter thawed her; for notwithstanding the fearless confidence she had +been taught for men of her own kind, self-possession and reserve, if not +inherent, had also been drilled into her, and she required a great deal +in a man before she paid him the tribute of one of her pretty laughs. + +Apparently they were advancing rather rapidly. + +“Don’t you think we ought to call the dog in, Mr. Siward?” + +“Yes; he’s had enough!” + +She drew rein; he sprang out and whistled; and the Sagamore pup, dusty +and happy came romping back. Siward motioned him to the rumble, but the +dog leaped to the front. + +“I don’t mind,” said the girl. “Let him sit here between us. And you +might occupy yourself by pulling some of those burrs from his ears--if +you will?” + +“Of course I will. Look up here, puppy! No! Don’t try to lick my face, +for that is bad manners. Demonstrations are odious, as the poet says.” + +“It’s always bad manners, isn’t it?” asked Miss Landis. + +“What? Being affectionate?” + +“Yes, and admitting it.” + +“I believe it is. Do you hear that--Sagamore? But never mind; I’ll break +the rules some day when we’re alone.” + +The dog laid one paw on Siward’s knee, looking him wistfully in the +eyes. + +“More demonstrations,” observed the girl. “Mr. Siward! You are hugging +him! This amounts to a dual conspiracy in bad manners.” + +“Awfully glad to admit you to the conspiracy,” he said. “There’s one +vacancy--if you are eligible.” + +“I am; I was discovered recently kissing my saddle-mare.” + +“That settles it! Sagamore, give the young lady the grip.” + +Sylvia Landis glanced at the dog, then impulsively shifting the whip to +her left hand, held out the right. And very gravely the Sagamore pup +laid one paw in her dainty white gloved palm. + +“You darling!” murmured the girl, resuming her whip. + +“I notice,” observed Siward, “that you are perfectly qualified for +membership in our association for the promotion of bad manners. In fact +I should suggest you for the presidency--” + +“I suppose you think all sorts of things because I gushed over that +dog.” + +“Of course I do.” + +“Well you need not,” she rejoined, delicate nose up-tilted. “I never +kissed a baby in all my life--and never mean to. Which is probably more +than you can say.” + +“Yes, its more than I can say. + +“That admission elects you president,” she concluded. But after a +moment’s silent driving she turned partly toward him with mock +seriousness: “Is it not horridly unnatural in me to feel that way about +babies? And about people, too; I simply cannot endure demonstrations. As +for dogs and horses--well, I’ve admitted how I behave; and, being so +shamelessly affectionate by disposition, why can’t I be nice to babies? +I’ve a hazy but dreadful notion that there’s something wrong about me, +Mr. Siward.” + +He scrutinised the pretty features, anxiously; “I can’t see it,” he +said. + +“But I mean it--almost seriously. I don’t want to be so aloof, but--I +don’t like to touch other people. It is rather horrid of me I suppose to +be like those silky, plumy, luxurious Angora cats who never are civil to +you and who always jump out of your arms at the first opportunity.” + +He laughed--and there was malice in his eyes, but he did not know her +well enough to pursue the subject through so easy an opening. + +It had occurred to her, too, that her simile might invite elaboration, +and she sensed the laugh in his silence, and liked him for remaining +silent where he might easily have been wittily otherwise. + +This set her so much at ease, left her so confident, that they were on +terms of gayest understanding presently, she gossiping about the guests +at Shotover House, outlining the diversions planned for the two weeks +before them. + +“But we shall see little of one another; you will be shooting most of +the time,” she said--with the very faintest hint of challenge--too +delicate, too impersonal to savour of coquetry. But the germ of it was +there. + +“Do you shoot?” + +“Yes; why?” + +“I am reconciled to the shooting, then.” + +“Oh, that is awfully civil of you. Sometimes I’d rather play Bridge.” + +“So should I--sometimes.” + +“I’ll remember that, Mr. Siward; and when all the men are waiting for +you to start out after grouse perhaps I may take that moment to whisper: +‘May I play?’” + +He laughed. + +“You mean that you really would stay and play double dummy when every +other living man will be off to the coverts? Double dummy--to improve my +game?” + +“Certainly! I need improvement.” + +“Then there is something wrong with you, too, Mr. Siward.” + +She laughed and started to flick her whip, but at her first motion the +horse gave trouble. + +“The bit doesn’t fit,” observed Siward. + +“You are perfectly right,” she returned, surprised. “I ought to have +remembered; it is shameful to drive a horse improperly bitted.” And, +after a moment: “You are considerate toward animals; it is good in a +man.” + +“Oh, it’s no merit. When animals are uncomfortable it worries me. It’s +one sort of selfishness, you see.” + +“What nonsense,” she said; and her smile was very friendly. “Why doesn’t +a nice man ever admit he’s nice when told so?” + +It seems they had advanced that far. For she was beginning to find this +young man not only safe but promising; she had met nobody recently half +as amusing, and the outlook at Shotover House had been unpromising with +only the overgrateful Page twins to practise on--the other men +collectively and individually boring her. And suddenly, welcome as manna +from the sky, behold this highly agreeable boy to play with--until +Quarrier arrived. Her telegram had been addressed to Mr. Quarrier. + +“What was it you were saying about selfishness?” she asked. “Oh, I +remember. It was nonsense.” + +“Certainly.” + +She laughed, adding: “Selfishness is so simply defined you know.” + +“Is it? How.” + +“A refusal to renounce. That covers everything,” she concluded. + +“Sometimes renunciation is weakness--isn’t it?” he suggested. + +“In what case for example?” + +“Well, suppose we take love.” + +“Very well, you may take it if you like it.” + +“Suppose you loved a man!” he insisted. + +“Let him beware! What then?” + +“--And, suppose it would distress your family if you married him?” + +“I’d give him up.” + +“If you loved him?” + +“Love? That is the poorest excuse for selfishness, Mr. Siward.” + +“So you would ruin your happiness and his--” + +“A girl ought to find more happiness in renouncing a selfish love than +in love itself,” announced Miss Landis with that serious conviction +characteristic of her years. + +“Of course,” assented Siward with a touch of malice, “if you really do +find more happiness in renouncing love than in love itself, it would be +foolish not to do it--” + +“Mr. Siward! You are derisive. Besides, you are not acute. A woman is +always an opportunist. When the event takes place I shall know what to +do.” + +“You mean when you want to marry the man you mustn’t? + +“Exactly. I probably shall.” + +“Marry him? + +“Wish to!” + +“I see. But you won’t, of course.” + +She drew rein, bringing the horse to a walk at the foot of a long hill. + +“We are going much too fast,” said Miss Landis, smiling. + +“Driving too fast for--” + +“No, not driving, going--you and I.” + +“Oh, you mean--” + +“Yes I do. We are on all sorts of terms, already.” + +“In the country, you know, people--” + +“Yes I know all about it, and what old and valued friends one makes at a +week’s end. But it has been a matter of half-hours with us, Mr. Siward.” + +“Let us sit very still and think it over,” he suggested. And they both +laughed. + +It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her +telegram. The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had +time to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr. Howard Quarrier. The +last week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was +no complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material +of interest in the eight words: “I will consider your request when you +arrive. + +“I wonder if you know Howard Quarrier?” she said. + +After a second’s hesitation he replied: “Yes--a little. Everybody does.” + +“You do know him?” + +“Only at--the club.” + +“Oh, the Lenox?” + +“The Lenox--and the Patroons.” + +Preoccupied, driving with careless, almost inattentive perfection, she +thought idly of her twenty-three years, wondering how life could have +passed so quickly leaving her already stranded on the shoals of an +engagement to marry Howard Quarrier. Then her thoughts, errant, wandered +half the world over before they returned to Siward; and when at length +they did, and meaning to be civil, she spoke again of his acquaintance +with Quarrier at the Patroons Club--the club itself being sufficient to +settle Siward’s status in every community. + +“I’m trying to remember what it is I have heard about you,” she +continued amiably; “you are--” + +An odd expression in his eyes arrested her--long enough to note their +colour and expression--and she continued, pleasantly; “--you are Stephen +Siward, are you not? You see I know your name perfectly well--” Her +straight brows contracted a trifle; she drove on, lips compressed, +following an elusive train of thought which vaguely, persistently, +coupled his name with something indefinitely unpleasant. And she could +not reconcile this with his appearance. However, the train of unlinked +ideas which she pursued began to form the semblance of a chain. Coupling +his name with Quarrier’s, and with a club, aroused memory; vague +uneasiness stirred her to a glimmering comprehension. Siward? Stephen +Siward? One of the New York Siwards then;--one of that race-- + +Suddenly the truth flashed upon her,--the crude truth lacking definite +detail, lacking circumstance and colour and atmosphere,--merely the raw +and ugly truth. + +Had he looked at her--and he did, once--he could have seen only the +unruffled and very sweet profile of a young girl. Composure was one of +the masks she had learned to wear--when she chose. + +And she was thinking very hard all the while; “So this is the man? I +might have known his name. Where were my five wits? Siward!--Stephen +Siward! … He is very young, too … much too young to be so horrid. … +Yet--it wasn’t so dreadful, after all; only the publicity! Dear me! I +knew we were going too fast.” + +“Miss Landis,” he said. + +“Mr. Siward?”--very gently. It was her way to be gentle when generous. + +“I think,” he said, “that you are beginning to remember where you may +have heard my name.” + +“Yes--a little--” She looked at him with the direct gaze of a child, but +the lovely eyes were troubled. His smile was not very genuine, but he +met her gaze steadily enough. + +“It was rather nice of Mrs. Ferrall to ask me,” he said, “after the mess +I made of things last spring.” + +“Grace Ferrall is a dear,” she replied. + +After a moment he ventured: “I suppose you saw it in the papers.” + +“I think so; I had completely forgotten it; your name seemed to--” + +“I see.” Then, listlessly: “I couldn’t have ventured to remind you +that--that perhaps you might not care to be so amiable--” + +“Mr. Siward,” she said impulsively, “you are nice to me! Why shouldn’t I +be amiable? It was--it was--I’ve forgotten just how dreadfully you did +behave--” + +“Pretty badly.” + +“Very?” + +“They say so.” + +“And what is your opinion Mr. Siward?” + +“Oh, I ought to have known better.” Something about him reminded her of +a bad small boy; and suddenly in spite of her better sense, in spite of +her instinctive caution, she found herself on the very verge of +laughter. What was it in the man that disarmed and invited a +confidence--scarcely justified it appeared? What was it now that moved +her to overlook what few overlook--not the fault, but its publicity? Was +it his agreeable bearing, his pleasant badinage, his amiably listless +moments of preoccupation, his youth that appealed to her--aroused her +charity, her generosity, her curiosity? + +And had other people continued to accept him, too? What would Quarrier +think of his presence at Shotover? She began to realise that she was a +little afraid of Quarrier’s opinions. And his opinions were always +judgments. However Grace Ferrall had thought it proper to ask him, and +that meant social absolution. As far as that went she also was perfectly +ready to absolve him if he needed it. But perhaps he didn’t care!--She +looked at him, furtively. He seemed to be tranquil enough in his +abstraction. Trouble appeared to slide very easily from his broad young +shoulders. Perhaps he was already taking much for granted in her +gentleness with him. And gradually speculation became interest and +interest a young girl’s innocent curiosity to learn something of a man +whose record it seemed almost impossible to reconcile with his +personality. + +“I was wondering,” he said looking up to encounter her clear eyes, +“whose house that is over there?” + +“Beverly Plank’s shooting-box; Black Fells,” she replied nodding toward +the vast pile of blackish rocks against the sky, upon which sprawled a +heavy stone house infested with chimneys. + +“Plank? Oh yes.” + +He smiled to remember the battering blows rained upon the ramparts of +society by the master of Black Fells. + +But the smile faded; and, glancing at him, the girl was surprised to see +the subtle change in his face--the white worn look, then the old +listless apathy which, all at once to her, hinted of something graver +than preoccupation. + +“Are we near the sea?” he asked. + +“Very near. Only a moment to the top of this hill. … Now look!” + +There lay the sea--the same grey-blue crawling void that had ever +fascinated and repelled him--always wrinkled, always in flat monotonous +motion, spreading away, away to the sad world’s ends. + +“Full of menace--always,” he said, unconscious that he had spoken aloud. + +“The sea!” + +He spoke without turning: “The sea is a relentless thing for a man to +fight. … There are other tides more persistent than the sea, but like +it--like it in its menace.” + +His face seemed thinner, older; she noticed his cheek bones for the +first time. Then, meeting her eyes, youth returned with a laugh and a +touch of colour; and, without understanding exactly how, she was aware, +presently, that they had insensibly slipped back to their light badinage +and gay inconsequences--back to a footing which, strangely, seemed to be +already an old footing, familiar, pleasant, and natural to return to. + +“Is that Shotover House?” he asked as they came to the crest of the last +hillock between them and the sea. + +“At last, Mr. Siward,” she said mockingly; “and now your troubles are +nearly ended.” + +“And yours, Miss Landis?” + +“I don’t know,” she murmured to herself, thinking of the telegram with +the faintest misgiving. + +For she was very young, and she had not had half enough out of life as +yet; and besides, her theories and preconceived plans for the safe and +sound ordering of her life appeared to lack weight--nay, they were +dwindling already into insignificance. + +Theory had almost decided her to answer Mr. Quarrier’s suggestion with a +‘Yes.’ However, he was coming from the Lakes in a day or two. She could +decide definitely when she had discussed the matter with him. + +“I wish that I owned this dog,” observed Siward, as the phaeton entered +the macadamised drive. + +“I wish so, too,” she said, “but he belongs to Mr. Quarrier.” + + + +CHAPTER II IMPRUDENCE + +A house of native stone built into and among weather-scarred rocks, one +massive wing butting seaward, others nosing north and south among cedars +and outcropping ledges--the whole silver-grey mass of masonry reddening +under a westering sun, every dormer, every leaded diamond pane aflame; +this was Shotover as Siward first beheld it. + +Like the craggy vertebrae of a half-buried fossil splitting the sod, a +ragged line of rock rose as a barrier to inland winds; the foreland, set +here and there with tiny lawns and pockets of bright flowers, fell away +to the cliffs; and here, sheer wet black rocks fronted the eternal +battering of the Atlantic. + +As the phaeton drew up under a pillared porte-cochere, one or two +servants appeared; a rather imposing specimen bowed them through the +doors into the hall where, in a wide chimney place, the embers of a +drift-wood fire glimmered like a heap of dusty jewels. Bars of sunlight +slanted on wall and rug, on stone floor and carved staircase, on the +bronze foliations of the railed gallery above, where, in the golden +gloom through a high window, sun-tipped tree tops against a sky of azure +stirred like burnished foliage in a tapestry. + +“There is nobody here, of course,” observed Miss Landis to Siward as +they halted in front of the fire-place; “the season opens to-day in this +county, you see.” She shrugged her pretty shoulders: “And the women who +don’t shoot make the first field-luncheon a function.” + +She turned, nodded her adieux, then, over her shoulder, casually: “If +you haven’t an appointment with the Sand-Man before dinner you may find +me in the gun-room.” + +“I’ll be there in about three minutes,” he said; “and what about this +dog?”--looking down at the Sagamore pup who stood before him, wagging, +attentive, always the gentleman to the tips of his toes. + +Miss Landis laughed. “Take him to your room if you like. Dogs have the +run of the house.” + +So he followed a servant to the floor above where a smiling and very +ornamental maid preceded him through a corridor and into that heavy wing +of the house which fronted the sea. + +“Tea is served in the gun-room, sir,” said the pretty maid, and +disappeared to give place to a melancholy and silent young man who +turned on the bath, laid out fresh raiment, and whispering, “Scotch or +Irish, sir?” presently effaced himself. + +Before he quenched his own thirst Siward filled a bowl and set it on the +floor, and it seemed as though the dog would never finish gulping and +slobbering in the limpid icy water. + +“It’s the salt air, my boy,” commented the young man, gravely refilling +his own glass as though accepting the excuse on his own account. + +Then man and beast completed ablutions and grooming and filed out +through the wide corridor, around the gallery, and down the broad +stairway to the gun-room--an oaken vaulted place illuminated by the sun, +where mellow lights sparkled on glass-cased rows of fowling pieces and +rifles, on the polished antlers of shaggy moose heads. + +Miss Landis sat curled up in a cushioned corner under the open casement +panes, offering herself a cup of tea. She looked up, nodding invitation; +he found a place beside her. A servant whispered, “Scotch or Irish, +sir,” then set the crystal paraphernalia at his elbow. + +He said something about the salt air, casually; the girl gazed +meditatively at space. + +The sound of wheels on the gravel outside aroused her from a silence +which had become a brown study; and, to Siward, presently, she said: +“Here endeth our first rendezvous.” + +“Then let us arrange another immediately,” he said, stirring the ice in +his glass. + +The girl considered him with speculative eyes: “I shouldn’t exactly know +what to do with you for the next hour if I didn’t abandon you.” + +“Why bother to do anything with me? Why even give yourself the trouble +of deserting me? That solves the problem.” + +“I really don’t mean that you are a problem to me, Mr. Siward,” she +said, amused; “I mean that I am going to drive again.” + +“I see.” + +“No you don’t see at all. There’s a telegram; I’m not driving for +pleasure--” + +She had not meant that either, and it annoyed her that she had expressed +herself in such terms. As a matter of fact, at the telegraphed request +of Mr. Quarrier, she was going to Black Fells Crossing to meet his train +from the Lakes and drive him back to Shotover. The drive, therefore, was +of course a drive for pleasure. + +“I see,” repeated Siward amiably. + +“Perhaps you do,” she observed, rising to her graceful height. He was on +his feet at once, so carelessly, so good-humouredly acquiescent that +without any reason at all she hesitated. + +“I had meant to show you about--the cliffs--the kennels and stables; I’m +sorry,” she concluded, lingering. + +“I’m awfully sorry,” he rejoined without meaning anything in particular. +That was the trouble, whatever he said, apparently meant so much. + +With the agreeable sensation of being regretted, she leisurely gloved +herself, then walked through the gun-room and hall, Siward strolling +beside her. + +The dog followed them as they turned toward the door and passed out +across the terraced veranda to the driveway where a Tandem cart was +drawn up, faultlessly appointed. Quarrier’s mania was Tandem. She +thought it rather nice of her to remember this. + +She inspected the ensemble without visible interest for a few moments; +the wind freshened from the sea, fluttering her veil, and she turned +toward the east to face it. In the golden splendour of declining day the +white sails of yachts crowded landward on the last leg before beating +westward into Blue Harbour; a small white cruiser, steaming south, left +a mile long stratum of rose-tinted smoke hanging parallel to the +horizon’s plane; the westering sun struck sparks from her bright-work. + +The magic light on land and water seemed to fascinate the girl; she had +walked a little way toward the cliffs, Siward following silently, +offering no comment on the beauty of sky and cliff. As they halted once +more the enchantment seemed to spread; a delicate haze enveloped the +sea; hints of rose colour tinted the waves; over the uplands a pale +mauve bloom grew; the sunlight turned redder, slanting on the rocks, and +every kelp-covered reef became a spongy golden mound, sprayed with +liquid flame. + +They had turned their backs to the Tandem; the grooms looked after them, +standing motionless at the horses’ heads. + +“Mr. Siward, this is too fine to miss,” she said. “I will walk as far as +the headland with you. … Please smoke if you care to.” + +He did care to; several matches were extinguished by the wind until she +spread her skids as a barrier; and kneeling in their shelter he got his +light. + +“Tobacco smoke diluted with sea breeze is delicious,” she said, as the +wind whirled the aromatic smoke of his cigarette up into her face. +“Don’t move, Mr. Siward; I like it; there is to me always a faint odour +of sweet-brier in the mélange. Did you ever notice it?” + +The breeze-blown conversation became fragmentary, veering as +capriciously as the purple wind-flaws that spread across the shoals. But +always to her question or comment she found in his response the charm of +freshness, of quick intelligence, or of a humourous and idle perversity +which stimulates without demanding. + +Once, glancing back at the house where the T-cart and horses stood, she +said that she had better return; or perhaps she only thought she said +it, for he made no response that time. And a few moments later they +reached the headland, and the Atlantic lay below, flowing azure from +horizon to horizon--under a universe of depthless blue. And for a long +while neither spoke. + +With her the spell endured until conscience began to stir. Then she +awoke, uneasy as always, under the shadow of restraint or pressure, +until her eyes fell on him and lingered. + +A subtle change had come into his face; its leanness struck her for the +first time; that, and an utter detachment from his surroundings, a +sombre oblivion to everything--and to her. + +How curiously had his face altered, how shadowy it had grown, effacing +the charm of youth, in it. + +The slight amusement with which she had become conscious of her own +personal exclusion grew to an interest tinged with curiosity. + +The interest continued, but when his silence became irksome to her she +said so very frankly. His absent eyes, still clouded, met hers, +unsmiling. + +“I hate the sea,” he said. + +“You--hate it!” she repeated, too incredulous to be disappointed. + +“There’s no rest in it; it tires. A man who plays with it must be on his +guard every second. To spend a lifetime on it is ridiculous--a whole life +of intelligent effort, against perpetual, brutal, inanimate resistance-- +one endless uninterrupted fight--a ceaseless human manoeuvre against +senseless menace; and then the counter attack of the lifeless monster, +the bellowing advance, the shock--and no battle won--nothing final, +nothing settled, no! only the same eternal nightmare of surveillance, +the same sleepless watch for stupid treachery.” + +“But--you don’t have to fight it!” she said, astonished. + +“No; but it is no secret--what it does to those who do. … Some escape; +but only by dying ashore before it gets them. That is the way some of us +reach Heaven; we die too quick for the Enemy to catch us.” + +He was laughing when she said: “It is not a fight with the sea; it is +the battle of Life itself you mean.” + +“Yes, in a way, the battle of Life.” + +“Oh, you are morbid then. Is there anybody ever born who has not a fight +on his hands?” + +“No; only I have known men tired out, unfairly, before life had declared +war on them.” + +“Just what do you mean?” + +“Oh, something about fair play--what our popular idol summarises as a +‘square deal’.” He laughed again, easily, his face clearing. + +“Nobody worth a square deal ever laments because he hasn’t had it,” she +said. + +“I dare say that’s true, too,” he admitted listlessly. + +“Mr. Siward, exactly what did you mean?” + +“I was thinking of men I knew; for example a man who through generations +has inherited every impulse and desire that he should not harbour--a man +with intellect enough to be aware of it, with decency enough to desire +decency. … What chance has he with the storms which have been brewing +for him even before he opened his eyes on earth? Is that a square deal?” + +The troubled concentration of her face was reflected now in his own; the +wind came whipping and flicking at them from league-wide tossing wastes; +the steady thunder of the sea accented the silence. + +She said: “I suppose everybody has infinite capacity for decency or +mischief. I know that I have. And I fancy that this capacity always +remains, no matter how moral one’s life may be. ‘Watch and pray’ was not +addressed to the guilty alone, Mr. Siward.” + +“Oh, yes, of course. As for the balanced capacity for good and evil, how +about the inherited desire for the latter?” + +“Who is free from that, too? Do you suppose anybody really desires to be +good?” + +“You mean most people are so afraid not to be, that virtue becomes a +habit?” + +“Perhaps. It’s a plain business proposition anyway. It pays.” + +“Celestial insurance?” he asked, laughing. + +“I don’t know, Mr. Siward; do you?” + +But he, turning to the sea, had become engrossed in his own thoughts +again; and again she was first curious, then impatient at the ease with +which he excluded her. She remembered, too, that the cart was waiting; +that she had scarcely time now to make the train. + +She stood irresolute, inert, disinclined to bestir herself. An inborn +aptitude for drifting, which threatened to become a talent for +indecision, had always alternated in her with sudden impulsive +conclusions; and when her pride was involved, in decisions which +sometimes scarcely withstood the analysis of reason. + +Physically healthy, mentally unawakened, sentimentally incredulous, +totally ignorant of any master passion, and conventionally drilled, her +beauty and sweet temper had carried her easily on the frothy crest of +her first season, over the eligible and ineligible alike, leaving her at +Lenox, a rather tired and breathless girl, in love with pleasure and the +world which treated her so well. + +The death of her mother abroad had made little impression upon her--her +uncle, Major Belwether, having cared for her since her father’s death +when she was ten years old. So, although the scandal of her mother’s +self-exile had been in a measure condoned by a tardy marriage to the man +for whom she had left everything, her daughter had grown up ignorant of +any particular feeling for a mother she could scarcely remember. + +However, she wore black and went nowhere for the second winter, during +which time she learned a great deal concerning the unconventional +proclivities of the women of her race and family, enough to impress her +so seriously that on an exaggerated impulse she had come to one of her +characteristic decisions. + +That decision was to break the unsavoury record at the first justifiable +opportunity. And the opportunity came in the shape of Quarrier. As +though wedlock were actually the sanctuary which an alarmed nation +pretends it to be! + +Now, approaching the threshold of a third and last season, and having +put away her almost meaningless mourning, there had stolen into her +sense of security something irksome in the promise she had made to give +Quarrier a definite answer before winter. + +Perhaps it had been the lack of interest in the people at Shotover, +perhaps a mental review of her ancestors’ capricious records--perhaps a +characteristic impulse that had directed a telegram to Quarrier after a +midnight confab with Grace Ferrall. + +However it may have been, she had summoned him. And now he was on his +way to get his answer, the best whip, the most eagerly discussed, and +one of the wealthiest unmarried men in America. + +Lingering irresolutely, considering with idle eyes the shadows +lengthening across the sun-shot moorland, the sound of Siward’s even +voice aroused her from a meditation bordering on lassitude. + +She answered vaguely. He spoke again; all the agreeable, gentle, +humourous charm dominant once more--releasing her from the growing +tension of her own thoughts, absolving her from the duty of immediate +decision. + +“I feel curiously lazy,” she said; “perhaps from our long drive.” She +seated herself on the turf. “Talk to me, Mr. Siward--in that lazy way of +yours.” + +What he had to say proved inconsequent enough, an irrelevant suggestion +concerning the training of field-dogs for close covert work and the +reasons for not breaking such dogs on quail. Then the question of cross- +breeding came up, and he gave his opinion on the qualities of +“droppers.” To which she replied, sleepily; and the conversation veered +again toward the mystery of heredity, and the hopelessness of escape +from its laws as illustrated now by the Sagamore pup, galloping nose in +the wind, having scented afar the traces of the forbidden rabbit. + +“His ancestors turned ‘round and ‘round to flatten the long reeds and +grasses in their lairs before lying down,” observed Siward. “He does it, +too, where there is nothing to flatten out. Did you ever notice how many +times a dog turns around before lying down? And there goes the carefully +schooled Sagamore, chasing rabbits! Why? Because his wild ancestors +chased rabbits. … Heredity? It’s a steady, unseen, pulling, dragging +force. Like lightning, too, it shatters, sometimes, where there is +resistance.” + +“Do you mean, Mr. Siward, that heredity is an excuse for moral +weakness?” + +“I don’t know. Those inheriting nothing of evil say it is no excuse.” + +“It is no excuse.” + +“You speak with authority,” he said. + +“With more than you are aware of,” she murmured, not meaning to say it. + +She stood up impulsively, her fresh face turned to the distant house, +her rounded young figure poised in relief against the sky. + +“Inherited or not, idleness, procrastination, are my besetting sins. +Can’t you suggest the remedy, Mr. Siward?” + +“But they are only the thieves of Time; and we kill the poor old +gentleman.” + +“Leagued assassins,” she repeated pensively. + +Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she +looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric. + +“Payment for my iniquities--the first instalment,” she said, still +looking down over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her. +“Thank you, Mr. Siward. I think we ought to start, don’t you?” + +He straightened up, smiling, awaiting her further pleasure. Her pleasure +being capricious, she seated herself again, saying: “What I meant to say +was this: evils that spring from heredity are no excuse for misconduct +in people of our sort. Environment, not heredity, counts. And it’s our +business, who have every chance in the world, to make good!” + +He looked down, amused at the piquant incongruity of voice and +vernacular. + +“What time is it?” she asked irrelevantly. + +He glanced at his watch. She turned her eyes toward the level sun, +conscious, and a little conscience-stricken that it was too late for her +to drive to Black Fells Crossing--unless she started at once. + +The sun hung low over the pines; all the scrubby foreland ran molten +gold in every tufted furrow; flock after flock of twittering little +birds whirled into the briers and out again, scattering inland into +undulating flight. + +The zenith turned shell pink; through clotted shoals of clouds spread +spaces of palest green like calm lakes in the sky. + +It grew stiller; the wind went down with the sun. + +Doubtless he had forgotten to tell her the time; she had almost +forgotten that she had asked him. With the silence of sunset a languor, +the indolence of content, crept over her; she saw him close his watch +with the absent-minded air which she already associated with him, and +she let the question go from sheer disinclination for the effort of +repetition--let the projected drive go--acquiescent, content that matters +shape themselves without any interference from her. The sense of ease, +of physical well-being invaded her with an agreeable relaxation as +though tension somewhere had slackened. + +They chatted on, casually, impersonally, in rather subdued tones. The +dog returned now and then to see that all was well. All was well enough, +it appeared, for she sat beside Siward, quite content, knees clasped in +her hands, exchanging impressions of life with a man who so far had been +sympathetically considerate in demanding from her no intellectual +effort. + +The conversation drifted illogically; sometimes he stirred her to +amusement, even a hushed laughter; sometimes she smilingly agreed with +his views, sometimes she let them go, uncriticised; or, intent on her +own ideas, shook her small head in amused disapproval. + +The stillness over all, the deepening mellow light, the blessed +indolence of the young world--and their few years in it--Youth! That was +perhaps the key to it all, after all. + +“To-morrow,” she mused aloud, knees cradled in her clasped fingers, +“to-morrow they’ll shoot--with great circumstance and fuss--a few native +woodcock--there’s no flight yet from the north!--a few grouse, fewer +snipe, a stray duck or two. Others will drive motor cars over bad roads; +others will ride, sail, golf--anything to kill the eternal enemy.” + +“And you?” + +“Je n’en sais rien, monsieur.” + +“Mais je voudrais savoir.” + +“Pourquoi?” + +“To lay a true course by the stars”; he looked at her blue eyes and she +laughed easily under the laughing flattery. + +“You must seek another compass--to-morrow,” she said. Then it occurred to +her that nobody could guess her decision in regard to Quarrier; and she +partly raised her eyes, looking at him, indolent speculation under the +white lids. + +She liked him already; in fact she had liked few men as well on such +brief acquaintance. + +“You know the majority of the people here, or coming, don’t you?” she +inquired. + +“Who are they?” + +She began: “The Leroy Mortimers?” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“Lord Alderdene and Captain Voucher, and the Page twins and Marion?” + +“Yes.” + +“Rena Bonnesdel, the Tassel girl, Agatha Caithness, Mrs. Vendenning--all +sorts, all sets.” And, with an effort: “If I’m to drive, I should +like--to--to know what time it is?” + +He informed her; and she, too indolent to pretend surprise, and finding +reproach easier, told him that he had no business to permit her to +forget. + +His smiling serenity under the rebuke aroused in her a slight resentment +as though he had taken something for granted. + +Besides, she had grown uneasy; she had wired Quarrier, saying she would +meet him and drive him over. He had replied at once, naming his train. +He was an exact man and expected method and precision in others. She +didn’t exactly know how it might affect him if his reasonable demand was +unsatisfied. She did not know him very well yet, only well enough to be +aware that he was a gentleman so precisely, so judiciously constructed, +that, contemplating his equitable perfections, her awe and admiration +grew as one on whom dawns the exquisite adjustments of an almost human +machine. + +And, thinking of him now, she again made up her mind to give him the +answer which he now had every reason to expect from her. This decision +appeared to lubricate her conscience; it ran more smoothly now, emitting +fewer creaks. + +“You say that you know Mr. Quarrier?” she began thoughtfully. + +“Not well.” + +“I--hope you will like him, Mr. Siward.” + +“I do not think he likes me, Miss Landis. He has reasons not to.” + +She looked up, suddenly remembering: “Oh--since that scrape? What has Mr. +Quarrier to do--” She did not finish the sentence. A troubled silence +followed; she was trying to remember the details--something she had paid +small attention to at the time--something so foreign to her, so distant +from her comprehension that it had not touched her closely enough for +her to remember exactly what this young man might have done to forfeit +the good-will of Howard Quarrier. + +She looked at Siward; it was impossible that anything very bad could +come from such a man. And, pursuing her reasoning aloud: “It couldn’t +have been very awful,” she argued; “something foolish about an actress, +was it not? And that could not concern Mr. Quarrier.” + +“I thought you did know; I thought you--remembered--while you were +driving me over from the station--that I was dropped from my club.” + +She flushed up: “Oh!--but--what had Mr. Quarrier to do with that?” + +“He is a governor of that club.” + +“You mean that Mr. Quarrier had you--dropped?” + +“What else could he do? A man who is idiot enough to risk making his own +club notorious, must take the consequences. And they say I took that +risk. Therefore Mr. Quarrier, Major Belwether--all the governors did +their duty. I--I naturally conclude that no governor of the Patroons Club +feels very kindly toward me.” + +Miss Landis sat very still, her small head bent, a flush still +brightening her fair face. + +She recalled a few of the details now--the scandal--something of the +story. Which particular actress it was she could not remember; but some +men who had dined too freely had made the wager, and this boy sitting +beside her had accepted it--and won it, by bringing into the sacred +precincts of the Patroons Club a foolish, shameless girl disguised in a +man’s evening dress. + +That was bad enough; that somebody promptly discovered it was worse; but +worst of all was the publicity, the club’s name smirched, the young man +expelled from one of the two best clubs in the metropolis. + +To read of such things in the columns of a daily paper had meant little +to her except to repell her; to hear it mentioned among people of her +own sort had left her incurious and indifferent. But now she saw it in a +new light, with the man who had figured in it seated beside her. Did +such men as he--such attractive, well-bred, amusing men as he--do that +sort of thing? + +There he sat, hat off, the sun touching his short, thick hair which +waved a little at the temples--a boyish mould to head and shoulders, a +cleanly outlined check and chin, a thoroughbred ear set close--a good +face. What sort of a man, then, was a woman to feel at ease with? What +eye, what mouth, what manner, what bearing was a woman to trust? + +“Is that the kind of man you are, Mr. Siward?” she said impulsively. + +“It appears that I was; I don’t know what I am--or may be.” + +“The pity of it!” she said, still swayed by impulse. “Why did you +do--didn’t you know--realize what you were doing--bringing discredit on +your own club?” + +“I was in no condition to know, Miss Landis.” + +The crude brutality of the expression might merely have hurt or +disgusted her had she been less intelligent. Nor, as it was, did she +fully understand why he chose to use it--unless that he meant it in self- +punishment. + +“It’s rather shameful!” she said hotly. + +“Yes,” he assented; “it’s a bad beginning.” + +“A--beginning! Do you mean to go on?” + +He did not reply; his head was partly turned from her. She sat silent +for a while. The dog had returned to lie at Siward’s feet, its brown +eyes tirelessly watching the man it had chosen for its friend; and the +man, without turning his eyes, dropped one hand on the dog’s head, +caressing the silky ears. + +Some sentimentalist had once said that no man who cared for animals +could be wholly bad. Inexperience inclined her to believe it. Then too, +she had that inclination for overlooking offences committed against +precept, which appears to be one of those edifying human traits peculiar +to neither sex and common to both. Besides, her knowledge of such +matters was as vague as her mind was healthy and body wholesome. Men who +dined incautiously were not remarkable for their rarity; the actress +habit, being incomprehensible to her, meant nothing; and she said, +innocently: “What men like you can find attractive in a common woman I +do not understand; there are plenty of pretty women of your own sort. +The actress cult is beyond my comprehension; I only know it is generally +condoned. But it is not for such things that we drop men, Mr. Siward. +You know that, of course.” + +“For what do you drop men?” + +“For falsehood, deception, any dishonesty.” + +“And you don’t drop a man when you read in the papers that one of the +two best clubs in town has expelled him?” + +She gave him a troubled glance; and, naively: “But you are still a +member of the other, are you not?” Then hardening: “It was common! +common!--thoroughly disgraceful and incomprehensible!”--and with every +word uttered insensibly warming in her heart toward him whom she was +chastening; “it was not even bad--it was worse than being simply bad; it +was stupid!” + +He nodded, one hand slowly caressing the dog’s head where it lay across +his knees. + +She watched him a moment, hesitated, then smiling a little: “So now I +know the worst about you; do I not?” she concluded. + +He did not answer; she waited, the smile still curving her red mouth. +Had she been too severe? She wondered. “You may help me to my feet,” she +said sweetly. She was very young. + +He rose at once, holding out his hands to aid her in that pleasantly +impersonal manner so suited to him; and now they stood together in the +purple dusk of the uplands--two people young enough to take one another +seriously. + +“Let me tell you something,” she said, facing him, white hands loosely +linked behind her. “I don’t exactly understand how it has happened, but +you know as well as I do that we have formed a--an acquaintance--the sort +that under normal conditions requires a long time and several +conventional and preliminary chapters. … I should like to know what you +think of our performance.” + +“I think,” he said laughing, “that it is charming.” + +“Oh, yes; men usually find the unconventional agreeable. What I want to +know is why I find it so, too?” + +“Do you?” A dull colour stained his cheek-bones. + +“Certainly I do. Is it because I’ve had a delightful chance to admonish +a sinner--and be--just a little sorry--that he had made such a silly +spectacle of himself?” + +He laughed, wincing a trifle. + +“Hence this agreeably righteous glow suffusing me,” she concluded. “So +now that I have answered my own question, I think that we had better go. +… Don’t you?” + +They walked for a while, subdued, soberly picking their path through the +dusk. After a few moments she began to feel doubtful, a little uneasy, +partly from a reaction which was natural, partly because she was not at +all sure what either Quarrier or Major Belwether would think of the +terms she was already on with Siward. Suppose they objected? She had +never thwarted either of these gentlemen. Besides she already had a +temporary interest in Siward--the interest that women always cherish, +quite unconsciously, for the man whose shortcomings they have consented +to overlook. + +As they crossed the headland, through the deepening dusk the acetylene +lamps on a cluster of motor cars spread a blinding light across the +scrub. The windows of Shotover House were brilliantly illuminated. + +“Our shooting-party has returned,” she said. + +They crossed the drive through the white glare of the motor lamps; +people were passing, grooms with dogs and guns and fluffy bunches of +game-birds, several women in motor costumes, veils afloat, a man or two +in shooting-tweeds or khaki. + +As they entered the hall together, she turned to him, an indefinable +smile curving her lips; then, with a little nod, friendly and sweet, she +left him standing at the open door of the gun-room. + + + +CHAPTER III SHOTOVER + +The first person he encountered in the gun-room was Quarrier, who +favoured him with an expressionless stare, then with a bow, quite +perfunctory and non-committal. It was plain enough that he had not +expected to meet Siward at Shotover House. + +Kemp Ferrall, a dark, stocky, active man of forty, was in the act of +draining a glass, when, though the bottom he caught sight of Siward. He +finished in a gulp, and advanced, one muscular hand outstretched: +“Hello, Stephen! Heard you’d arrived, tried the Scotch, and bolted with +Sylvia Landis! That’s all right, too, but you should have come for the +opening day. Lots of native woodcock--eh, Blinky?” turning to Lord +Alderdene; and again to Siward: “You know all these fellows--Mortimer +yonder--” There was the slightest ring in his voice; and Leroy Mortimer, +red-necked, bulky, and heavy eyed, emptied his glass and came over, +followed by Lord Alderdene blinking madly though his shooting-goggles +and showing all his teeth like a pointer with a “tic.” Captain Voucher, +a gentleman with the vivid colouring of a healthy groom on a cold day, +came up, followed by the Page boys, Willis and Gordon, who shook hands +shyly, enchanted to be on easy terms with the notorious Mr. Siward. And +last of all Tom O’Hara arrived, reeking of the saddle and clinking a +pair of trooper’s spurs over the floor--relics of his bloodless Porto +Rico campaign with Squadron A. + +It was patent to every man present that the Kemp Ferralls had determined +to ignore Siward’s recent foolishness, which indicated that he might +reasonably expect the continued good-will of several sets, the orbits of +which intersected in the social system of his native city. Indeed, the +few qualified to snub him cared nothing about the matter, and it was not +likely that anybody else would take the initiative in being disagreeable +to a young man, the fortunes and misfortunes of whose race were part of +the history of Manhattan Island. Siwards, good or bad, were a matter of +course in New York. + +So everybody in the gun-room was civil enough, and he chose Scotch and +found a seat beside Alderdene, who sat biting at a smoky pipe and +fingering a tumbler of smokier Scotch, blinking away like mad through +his shooting-goggles at everybody. + +“These little brown snipe you call woodcock,” he began; “we bagged nine +brace, d’you see? But of all the damnable bogs and covers--” + +“Rotten,” said Mortimer thickly; “Ferrall, you’re all calf and biceps, +and it’s well enough for you to go floundering into bogs--” + +“Where do you expect to find native woodcock?” demanded Ferrall, +laughing. + +“On the table hereafter,” growled Mortimer. + +“Oh, go and pot Beverly Plank’s tame pheasants,” retorted Ferrall +amiably; “Captain Voucher had a blank day, but he isn’t kicking.” + +“Not I,” said Voucher; “the sport is capital--if one can manage to hit +the beggars--” + +“Oh, everybody misses in snap-shooting,” observed Ferrall; “that is, +everybody except Stephen Siward with his unholy left barrel. Crack! +and,” turning to Alderdene, “it’s like taking money from you, Blinky-- +which reminds me that we’ve time for a little Preference before +dressing.” + +His squinting lordship declined and took an easier position in his +chair, extending a pair of little bandy legs draped in baggy tweed +knickerbockers and heather-spats. Mortimer, industriously distending his +skin with whiskey, reached for the decanter. The aromatic perfume of the +spirits aroused Siward, and he instinctively nodded his desire to a +servant. + +“This salt air keeps one thirsty,” he observed to Ferrall; then +something in his host’s expression arrested the glass at his lips. He +had already been using the decanter a good deal; except Mortimer, nobody +was doing that sort of thing as freely as he. + +He set his glass on the table thoughtfully; a tinge of colour had crept +into his lean checks. + +Ferrall, too, suddenly uncomfortable, stood up saying something about +dressing; several men arose a trifle stiffly, feeling in every joint the +result of the first day’s shooting after all those idle months. Mortimer +got up with an unfeigned groan; Siward followed, leaving his glass +untouched. + +One or two other men came in from the billiard-room. All greeted Siward +amiably--all excepting one who may not have seen him--an elderly, pink, +soft gentleman with white downy chop-whiskers and the profile of a +benevolent buck rabbit. + +“How do you do, Major Belwether?” said Siward in a low voice without +offering his hand. + +Then Major Belwether saw him, bless you! yes indeed! And though Siward +continued not to offer his hand, Major Belwether meant to have it, bless +your heart! And he fussed and fussed and beamed cordiality until he +secured it in his plump white fingers and pressed it effusively. + +There was something about his soft, warm hands which had always reminded +Siward of the temperature and texture of a newly hatched bird. It had +been some time since he had shaken hands with Major Belwether; it was +apparent that the bird had not aged any. + +“And now for the shooting!” said the Major with an arch smile. “Now for +the stag at bay and the winding horn-- + +‘Where sleeps the moon On Mona’s rill--’ + +Eh, Siward? + +‘And here’s to the hound With his nose upon the ground--’ + +Eh, my boy? That reminds me of a story--” He chuckled and chuckled, his +lambent eyes suffused with mirth; and slipping his arm through the +pivot-sleeve of Lord Alderdene’s shooting-jacket, hooking the other in +Siward’s reluctant elbow, and driving Mortimer ahead of him, he went +garrulously away up the stairs, his lordship’s bandy little legs +trotting beside him, the soaking gaiters and shoes slopping at every +step. + +Mortimer, his mottled skin now sufficiently distended, greeted the story +with a yawn from ear to ear; his lordship, blinking madly, burst into +that remarkable laugh which seemed to reveal the absence of certain +vocal cords requisite to perfect harmony; and Siward smiled in his +listless, pleasant way, and turned off down his corridor, unaware that +the Sagamore pup was following close at his heels until he heard +Quarrier’s even, colourless voice: “Ferrall, would you be good enough to +send Sagamore to your kennels?” + +“Oh--he’s your dog! I forgot,” said Siward turning around. + +Quarrier looked at him, pausing a moment. + +“Yes,” he said coldly, “he’s my dog.” + +For a fraction of a second the two men’s eyes encountered; then Siward +glanced at the dog, and turned on his heel with the slightest shrug. And +that is all there was to the incident--an anxious, perplexed puppy lugged +off by a servant, turning, jerking, twisting, resisting, looking +piteously back as his unwilling feet slid over the polished floor. + +So Siward walked on alone through the long eastern wing to his room +overlooking the sea. He sat down on the edge of his bed, glancing at the +clothing laid out for him. He felt tired and disinclined for the +exertion of undressing. The shades were up; night quicksilvered the +window-panes so that they were like a dark mirror reflecting his face. +He inspected his darkened features curiously; the blurred and sombre- +tinted visage returned the stare. + +“Not a man at all--the shadow of a man,” he said aloud--“with no will, no +courage--always putting off the battle, always avoiding conclusions, +always skulking. What chance is there for a man like that?” + +As one who raises a glass to drink wine and unexpectedly finds water, he +shrugged his shoulders disgustedly and got up. A bath followed; he +dressed leisurely, and was pacing the room, fussing with his collar, +when Ferrall knocked and entered, finding a seat on the bed. + +“Stephen,” he said bluntly, “I haven’t seen you since that break of +yours at the club.” + +“Rotten, wasn’t it?” commented Siward, tying his tie. + +“Perfectly. Of course it doesn't make any difference to Grace or to me, +but I fancy you’ve already heard from it.” + +“Oh, yes. All I care about is how my mother took it.” + +“Of course; she was cut up I suppose?” + +“Yes, you know how she would look at a thing of that sort; not that any +of the nine and seventy jarring sets would care, but those few thousands +invading the edges, butting in--half or three-quarters inside--are the +people who can’t afford to overlook the victim of a fashionable club’s +displeasure--those, and a woman like my mother, and several other decent- +minded people who happen to count in town.” + +Ferrall, his legs swinging busily, thought again; then: “Who was the +girl, Stephen?” + +“I don’t think the papers mentioned her name,” said Siward gravely. + +“Oh--I beg your pardon; I thought she was some notorious +actress--everybody said so. … Who were those callow fools who put you up +to it? … Never mind if you don’t care to tell. But it strikes me they +are candidates for club discipline as well as you. It was up to them to +face the governors I think--” + +“No, I think not.” + +Ferrall, legs swinging busily, considered him. + +“Too bad,” he mused; “they need not have dropped you--” + +“Oh, they had to. But as long as the Lenox takes no action I can live +that down.” + +Ferrall nodded: “I came in to say something--a message from +Grace--confound it! what was it? Oh--could you--before dinner--now-- +just sit down and with that infernal facility of yours make a sketch +of a man chasing a gun-shy dog?” + +“Why yes--if Mrs. Ferrall wishes--” + +He walked over to the desk in his shirt-sleeves, sat down, drew a blank +sheet of paper toward him, and, dipping his pen, drew carelessly a gun- +shy setter dog rushing frantically across the stubble, and after him, +bare-headed, gun in hand, the maddest of men. + +“Put a Vandyke beard on him,” grinned Ferrall over his shoulder. “There! +O Lord! but you have hit it! Put a ticked saddle on the cur--there!” + +“Who is this supposed to be?” began Siward, looking up. But “Wait!” +chuckled his host, seizing the still wet sketch, and made for the door. + +Siward strolled into the bath-room, washed a spot or two of ink from his +fingers, returned and buttoned his waistcoat, then, completing an +unhurried toilet, went out and down the stairway to the big living-room. +There were two or three people there--Mrs. Leroy Mortimer, very fetching +with her Japanese-like colouring, black hair and eyes that slanted just +enough; Rena Bonnesdel, smooth, violet-eyed, blonde, and rather stunning +in a peculiarly innocent way; Miss Caithness, very pale and slimly +attractive; and the Page boys, Willis and Gordon, delightfully shy and +interested, and having a splendid time with any woman who could afford +the intellectual leisure. + +Siward spoke pleasantly to them all. Other people drifted down--Marion +Page who looked like a school-marm and rode like a demon; Eileen +Shannon, pink and white as a thorn blossom, with the deuce to pay +lurking in her grey eyes; Kathryn Tassel and Mrs. Vendenning whom he did +not know, and finally his hostess Grace Ferrall with her piquant, almost +boyish, freckled face and sweet frank eyes and the figure of an +adolescent. + +She gave Siward one pretty sun-browned hand and laid the other above +his, holding it a moment in her light clasp. + +“Stephen! Stephen!” she said under her breath, “it’s because I’ve a few +things to scold you about that I’ve asked you to Shotover.” + +“I suppose I know,” he said. + +“I should hope you do. I’ve a letter to-night from your mother.” + +“From my mother?” + +“I want you to go over it--with me--if we can find a minute after dinner.” +She released his hand, turning partly around: “Kemp, dinner’s been +announced, so cut that dog story in two! Will you give me your arm Major +Belwether? Howard!”--to her cousin, Mr. Quarrier, who turned from Miss +Landis to listen--“will you please try to recollect whom you are to take +in--and do it?” And, as she passed Siward, in a low voice, mischievous +and slangy: “Sylvia Landis for yours--as she says she didn’t have enough +of you on the cliffs.” + +The others appeared to know how to pair according to some previous +notice. Siward turned to Sylvia Landis with the pleasure of his good +fortune so plainly visible in his face, that her own brightened in +response. + +“You see,” she said gaily, “you cannot escape me. There is no use in +looking wildly at Agatha Caithness”--he wasn’t--“or pretending you’re +pleased,” slipping her rounded, bare arm through the arm he offered. +“You can’t guess what I’ve done to-night--nobody can guess except Grace +Ferrall and one other person. And if you try to look happy beside me, I +may tell you--somewhere between sherry and cognac--Oh, yes; I’ve done two +things: I have your dog for you!” + +“Not Sagamore?” he said incredulously as he was seating her. + +“Certainly Sagamore. I said to Mr. Quarrier, ‘I want Sagamore,’ and when +he tried to give him to me, I made him take my cheque. Now you may draw +another for me at your leisure, Mr. Siward. Tell me, are you +pleased?”--for she was looking for the troubled hesitation in his face +and she saw it dawning. + +“Mr. Quarrier doesn’t like me, you know--” + +“But I do,” she said coolly. “I told him how much pleasure it would give +me. That is sufficient--is it not?--for everybody concerned.” + +“He knew that you meant to--” + +“No, that concerns only you and me. Are you trying to spoil my pleasure +in what I have done?” + +“I can’t take the dog, Miss Landis--” + +“Oh,” she said, vexed; “I had no idea you were vindictive--” + +There was a silence; he bent forward a trifle, gravely scrutinising a +“hand-painted” name card, though it might not have astonished him to +learn that somebody’s foot had held the brush. Somewhere in the vicinity +Grace Ferrall had discovered a woman who supported dozens of relatives +by painting that sort of thing for the summer residents at Vermillion +Point down the coast. So being charitable she left an order, and being +thrifty, insisted on using the cards, spite of her husband’s gibes. + +People were now inspecting them with more or less curiosity; Siward +found his “hand-painting” so unattractive that he had just tipped it +over to avoid seeing it, when a burst of laughter from Lord Alderdene +made everybody turn. Mrs. Vendenning was laughing; so was Rena Bonnesdel +looking over Quarrier’s shoulder at a card he was holding--not one of the +“hand”-decorated, but a sheet of note-paper containing a drawing of a +man rushing after a gun-shy dog. + +The extraordinary cackling laughter of his lordship obliterated other +sounds for a while; Rena Bonnesdel possessed herself of the drawing and +held it up amid a shout of laughter. And, to his excessive annoyance, +Siward saw that, unconsciously, he had caricatured Quarrier--Ferrall’s +malicious request for a Vandyke beard making the caricature dreadfully +apparent. + +Quarrier had at first flushed up; then he forced a smile; but his +symmetrical features were never cordial when he smiled. + +“Who on earth did that?” whispered Sylvia Landis apprehensively. “Mr. +Quarrier dislikes that sort of thing--but of course he’ll take it well.” + +“Did he ever chase his own dog?” asked Siward, biting his lip. + +“Yes--so Blinky says--in the Carolinas last season. It’s Blinky!--that’s +his notion of humour. Did you ever hear such a laugh? No wonder Mr. +Quarrier is annoyed.” + +The gay uproar had partly subsided, renewed here and there as the sketch +was passed along, and finally, making the circle, returned like a bad +penny to Quarrier. He smiled again, symmetrically, as he received it, +nodding his compliments to Alderdene. + +“Oh, no,” cackled his lordship; “I didn’t draw it, old chap!” + +“Nor I! I only wish I could,” added Captain Voucher. + +“Nor I--nor I--who did it?” ran the chorus along the table. + +“I didn’t do it!” said Sylvia gravely, looking across at Quarrier. And +suddenly Quarrier’s large, handsome eyes met Siward’s for the briefest +fraction of a second, then were averted. But into his face there crept +an expressionless pallor that did not escape Siward--no, nor Sylvia +Landis. + +Presently under cover of a rapid fire of chatter she said: “Did you draw +that?” + +“Yes; I had no idea it was meant for him. You may imagine how likely I’d +be to take any liberty with a man who already dislikes me.” + +“But it resembles him--in a very dreadful way.” + +“I know it. You must take my word for what I have told you.” + +She looked up at him: “I do.” Then: “It’s a pity; Mr. Quarrier does not +consider such things humourous. He--he is very sensitive. … Oh, I wish +that fool Englishman had been in Ballyhoo!” + +“But he didn’t do it!” + +“No, but he put you up to it--or Grace Ferrall did. I wish Grace would +let Mr. Quarrier alone; she has always been perfectly possessed to +plague him; she seems unable to take him seriously and he simply hates +it. I don’t think he’d tolerate her if she were not his cousin. + +“I’m awfully sorry,” was all Siward said; and for a while he gloomily +busied himself with whatever was brought to him. + +“Don’t look that way,” came a low voice beside him. + +“Do I show everything as plainly as that?” he asked, curiously. + +“I seem to read you--sometimes.” + +“It’s very nice of you,” he said. + +“Nice?” + +“To look at me--now and then.” + +“Oh,” she cried resentfully, “don’t be grateful.” + +“I--really am not you know,” he said laughing. + +“That,” she rejoined slowly, “is the truth. You say conventional things +in a manner--in an agreeably personal manner that interests women. But +you are not grateful to anybody for anything; you are indifferent, and +you can’t help being nice to people, so--some day--some girl will think +you are grateful, and will have a miserable time of it.” + +“Miserable time?” + +“Waiting for you to say what never will enter your head to say.” + +“You mean I--I--” + +“Flirt? No, I mean that you don’t flirt; that you are always dreamily +occupied with your own affairs, from which listlessly congenial +occupation, when drawn, you are so unexpectedly nice that a girl +immediately desires to see how nice you can be.” + +“What a charming indictment you draw!” he said, amused. + +“It’s a grave one I assure you. I’ve been talking about you to Grace +Ferrall; I asked to be placed beside you at dinner; I told her I hadn’t +had half enough of you on the cliff. Now what do you think of yourself +for being too nice to a susceptible girl? I think it’s immoral. + +They both were laughing now; several people glanced at them, smiling in +sympathy. Alderdene took that opportunity to revert to the sketch, +furnishing a specimen of his own inimitable laughter as a running +accompaniment to the story of Quarrier and his dog in North Carolina, +until he had everybody, as usual, laughing, not at the story but at him. +All of which demonstration was bitterly offensive to Quarrier. He turned +his eyes once on Miss Landis and on Siward, then dropped them. + +The hostess arose; a rustle and flurry of silk and lace and the scraping +of chairs, a lingering word or laugh, and the colour vanished from the +room leaving a circle of men in black standing around the table. + +Here and there a man, lighting a cigarette, bolted his coffee and cognac +and strolled out to the gun-room. Ferrall, gesticulating vigorously, +resumed his preprandial dog story to Captain Voucher; Belwether +buttonholed Alderdene and bored him with an interminably facetious tale +until that nobleman, threatened with maxillary dislocation, fairly +wrenched himself loose and came over to Siward, squinting furiously. + +“Old ass!” he muttered; “his chop whiskers look like the chops of a +Southdown ram--and he’s got the wits of one. Look here, Stephen, I hear +you fell into no end of a scrape in town--” + +“Tu quoque, Blinky? Oh, read the newspapers and let it go at that!” + +“Just as you like old chap!” returned his lordship unabashed. “All I +meant was--anything Voucher and I can do--of course--” + +“You’re very good. I’m not dead you know.” + +“‘Not dead, you know’,” repeated Major Belwether coming up behind them +with his sprightly step; “that reminds me of a good one--” He sat down +and lighted a cigar, then, vainly attempting to control his countenance +as though roguishly anticipating the treat awaiting them, he began +another endless story. + +Tradition had hallowed the popular notion that Major Belwether was a +wit. The sycophant of the outer world seldom even awaited his first word +before bursting into premature mirth. Besides he was very wealthy. + +Siward watched him with mixed emotions; the lambent-eyed, sheepy +expression had given place to the buck rabbit; his smooth baby-pink skin +and downy white side whiskers quivered in premature sympathy with his +listener’s overwhelming hilarity. + +The Page boys, very callow, very much delighted, and a little in awe of +such a celebrated personage, laughed heartily. And altogether there was +sufficient attention and sufficient laughter to make a very respectable +noise. This, being the major’s cue for an exit, he rose, one sleek hand +raised in sprightly protest as though to shield the invisible ladies, to +whose bournes he was bound, from an uproar too masculine and mighty for +the ears of such a sex. + +“Ass!” muttered Alderdene, getting up and pattering about the room in +his big, shiny pumps. “Give me a peg--somebody!” + +Mortimer swallowed his brandy, lingered, lifted the decanter, +mechanically considering its remaining contents and his own capacity; +then: + +“Bridge, Captain?” + +“Certainly,” said Captain Voucher briskly. + +“I’ll go and shoo the major into the gun-room,” observed +Ferrall--“unless--” looking questioningly at Siward. + +“I’ve a date with your wife,” observed that young man, strolling toward +the hall. + +The Page boys, Rena Bonnesdel, and Eileen Shannon were seated at a card +table together, very much engaged with one another, the sealed pack +lying neglected on the green cloth, a vast pink box of bon-bons beside +it, not neglected. + +O’Hara and Quarrier with Marion Page and Mrs. Mortimer were immersed in +the game, already stony faced and oblivious to outer sounds. + +About the rooms were distributed girls en tête-à-tête, girls eating bon- +bons and watching the cards--among them Sylvia Landis, hands loosely +clasped behind her, standing at Quarrier’s elbow to observe and profit +by an expert performance. + +As Siward strolled in she raised her dainty head for an instant, smiled +in silence, and resumed a study of her fiancé’s game. + +A moment later, when Quarrier had emerged brilliantly from the mêlée, +she looked up again, triumphantly, supposing Siward was lingering +somewhere waiting to join her. And she was just a trifle surprised and +disappointed to find him nowhere in sight. She had wished him to observe +the brilliancy of Mr. Quarrier’s game. + +But Siward, outside on the veranda, was saying at that moment to his +hostess: “I shall be very glad to read my mother’s letter at any time +you choose.” + +“It must be later, Stephen. I’m to cut in when Kemp sends for me. He has +a lot of letters to attend to. … Tell me, what do you think of Sylvia +Landis?” + +“I like her, of course,” he replied pleasantly. + +Grace Ferrall stood thinking a moment: “That sketch you made proved a +great success, didn’t it?” And she laughed under her breath. + +“Did it? I thought Mr. Quarrier seemed annoyed--” + +“Really? What a muff that cousin of mine is. He’s such a muff, you know, +that the very sight of his pointed beard and pompadour hair and his +complacency sets me in fidgets to stir him up.” + +“I don’t think you’d best use me for the stick next time,” said Siward. +“He’s not my cousin you know.” + +Mrs. Ferrall shrugged her boyish shoulders: “By the way”--she said +curiously--“who was that girl?” + +“What girl,” he asked coolly, looking at his hostess, now the very +incarnation of delicate mockery with her pretty laughing mouth, her +boyish sunburn and freckles. + +“You won’t tell me I suppose?” + +“I’m sorry--” + +“Was she pretty, Stephen?” + +“Yes,” he said sulkily; “I wish you wouldn’t--” + +“Nonsense! Do you think I’m going to let you off without some sort of +confession? If I had time now--but I haven’t. Kemp has business letters: +he’ll be furious; so I’ve got to take his cards or we won’t have any +pennies to buy gasoline for our adored and shrieking Mercedes.” + +She retreated backward with a gay nod of malice, turned to enter the +house, and met Sylvia Landis face to face in the hallway. + +“You minx!” she whispered; “aren’t you ashamed?” + +“Very much, dear. What for?” And catching sight of Siward outside in the +starlight, divined perhaps something of her hostess’ meaning, for she +laughed uneasily, like a child who winces under a stern eye. + +“You don’t suppose for a moment,” she began, “that I have--” + +“Yes I do. You always do.” + +“Not with that sort of man,” she returned naïvely; “he won’t.” + +Mrs. Ferrall regarded her suspiciously: “You always pick out exactly the +wrong man to play with--” + +They had moved back side by side into the hall, the hostess’ arm linked +in the arm of the younger girl. + +“The wrong man?” repeated Sylvia, instinctively freeing her arm, her +straight brows beginning to bend inward. + +“I didn’t mean that--exactly. You know how much I care for his mother--and +for him.” The obstinate downward trend of the brows, the narrowing blue +gaze signalled mutiny to the woman who knew her so well. + +“What is so wrong with Mr. Siward?” she asked. + +“Nothing. There was an affair--” + +“This spring in town. I know it. Is that all?” + +“Yes--for the present,” replied Grace Ferrall uncomfortably; then: “For +goodness’ sake, Sylvia, don’t cross examine me that way! I care a great +deal for that boy--” + +“So do I. I’ve made him take my dog.” + +There was an abrupt pause, and presently Mrs. Ferrall began to laugh. + +“I mean it--really,” said Sylvia quietly; “I like him immensely.” + +“Dearest, you mean it generously--with your usual exaggeration. You have +heard that he has been foolish, and because he’s so young, so likable, +every instinct, every impulse in you is aroused to--to be nice to him--” + +“And if that were--” + +“There is no harm, dear--” Mrs. Ferrall hesitated, her grey eyes +softening to a graver revery. Then looking up: “It’s rather pathetic,” +she said in a low voice. “Kemp thinks he’s foredoomed--like all the +Siwards. It’s an hereditary failing with him,--no, it’s hereditary +damnation. Siward after Siward, generation after generation you know--” +She bit her lip, thinking a moment. “His grandfather was a friend of my +grand-parents, brilliant, handsome, generous, and--doomed! His own father +was found dying in a dreadful resort in London where he had wandered +when stupefied--a Siward! Think of it! So you see what that outbreak of +Stephen’s means to those whose families have been New Yorkers since New +York was. It is ominous, it is more than ominous--it means that the +master-vice has seized on one more Siward. But I shall never, never +admit it to his mother.” + +The younger girl sat wide-eyed, silent; the elder’s gaze was upon her, +but her thoughts, remote, centred on the hapless mother of such a son. + +“Such indulgence was once fashionable; moderation is the present +fashion. Perhaps he will fall into line,” said Mrs. Ferrall +thoughtfully. “The main thing is to keep him among people, not to drop +him. The gregarious may be shamed, but if anything, any incident, +happens to drive him outside by himself, if he should become solitary, +there’s not a chance in the world for him. … It’s a pity. I know he +meant to make himself the exception to the rule--and look! Already one +carouse of his has landed him in the daily papers!” + +Sylvia flushed and looked up: “Grace, may I ask you a plain question?” + +“Yes, child,” she answered absently. + +“Has it occurred to you that what you have said about this boy touches +me very closely?” + +Mrs. Ferrall’s wits returned nimbly from woolgathering, and she shot a +startled, inquiring glance at the girl beside her. + +“You--you mean the matter of heredity, Sylvia?” + +“Yes. I think my uncle Major Belwether chose you as his august +mouthpiece for that little sermon on the dangers of heredity--the danger +of being ignorant concerning what women of my race had done--before I +came into the world they found so amusing.” + +“I told you several things,” returned Mrs. Ferrall composedly. “Your +uncle thought it best for you to know.” + +“Yes. The marriage vows sat lightly upon some of my ancestors, I gather. +In fact,” she added coolly, “where the women of my race loved they +usually found the way--rather unconventionally. There was, if I +understood you, enough of divorce, of general indiscretion and +irregularity to seriously complicate any family tree and coat of arms I +might care to claim--” + +“Sylvia!” + +The girl lifted her pretty bare shoulders. “I’m sorry, but could I help +it? Very well; all I can do is to prove a decent exception. Very well; +I’m doing it, am I not?--practically scared into the first solidly +suitable marriage offered--seizing the unfortunate Howard with both hands +for fear he’d get away and leave me alone with only a queer family +record for company! Very well! Now then, I want to ask you why +everybody, in my case, didn’t go about with sanctimonious faces and +dolorous mien repeating: ‘Her grand-mother eloped! Her mother ran away. +Poor child, she’s doomed! doomed!’” + +“Sylvia, I--” + +“Yes--why didn’t they? That’s the way they talk about that boy out +there!” She swept a rounded arm toward the veranda. + +“Yes, but he has already broken loose, while you--” + +“So did I--nearly! Had it not been for you, you know well enough I might +have run away with that dreadful Englishman at Newport! For I adored him +--I did! I did! and you know it. And look at my endless escapes from +compromising myself! Can you count them?--all those indiscretions when +mere living seemed to intoxicate me that first winter--and only my uncle +and you to break me in!” + +“In other words,” said Mrs. Ferrall slowly, “you don’t think Mr. Siward +is getting what is known as a square deal?” + +“No, I don’t. Major Belwether has already hinted--no, not even that--but +has somehow managed to dampen my pleasure in Mr. Siward.” + +Mrs. Ferrall considered the girl beside her--now very lovely and flushed +in her suppressed excitement. + +“After all,” she said, “you are going to marry somebody else. So why +become quite so animated about a man you may never again see?” + +“I shall see him if I desire to!” + +“Oh!” + +“I am not taking the black veil, am I?” asked the girl hotly. + +“Only the wedding veil, dear. But after all your husband ought to have +something to suggest concerning a common visiting list--” + +“He may suggest--certainly. In the meantime I shall be loyal to my own +friends--and afterward, too,” she murmured to herself, as her hostess +rose, calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders. + +“Go and be good to this poor young man then; I adore rows--and you’ll +have a few on your hands I’ll warrant. Let me remind you that your uncle +can make it unpleasant for you yet, and that your amiable fiancé has a +will of his own under his pompadour and silky beard.” + +“What a pity to have it clash with mine,” said the girl serenely. + +Mrs. Ferrall looked at her: “Mercy on us! Howard’s pompadour would stick +up straight with horror if he could hear you! Don’t be silly; don’t for +an impulse, for a caprice, break off anything desirable on account of a +man for whom you really care nothing--whose amiable exterior and +prospective misfortune merely enlist a very natural and generous +sympathy in you.” + +“Do you suppose that I shall endure interference from anybody?--from my +uncle, from Howard?” + +“Dear, you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Don’t be emotional; +don’t let loose impulses that you and I know about, knew about in our +school years, know all about now, and which you and I have decided must +be eliminated--” + +“You mean subdued; they’ll always be there.” + +“Very well; who cares, as long as you have them in leash?” + +Looking at one another, the excited colour cooling in the younger girl’s +cheeks, they laughed, one with relief, the other a little ashamed. + +“Kemp will be furious; I simply must cut in!” said Mrs. Ferrall, hastily +turning toward the gun-room. Miss Landis looked after her, subdued, +vaguely repentant, the consciousness dawning upon her that she had +probably made considerable conversation about nothing. + +“It’s been so all day,” she thought impatiently; “I’ve exaggerated; I’ve +worked up a scene about a man whose habits are not the slightest concern +of mine. Besides that I’ve neglected Howard shamefully!” She was walking +slowly, her thoughts outstripping her errant feet, but it seemed that +neither her thoughts nor her steps were leading her toward the neglected +gentleman within; for presently she found herself at the breezy veranda +door, looking rather fixedly at the stars. + +The stars, shining impartially upon the just and the unjust, illuminated +the person of Siward, who sat alone, rather limply, one knee crossed +above the other. He looked up by chance, and, seeing her star-gazing in +the doorway, straightened out and rose to his feet. + +Aware of him apparently for the first time, she stepped across the +threshold meeting his advance half-way. + +“Would you care to go down to the rocks?” he asked. “The surf is +terrific.” + +“No--I don’t think I care--” + +They stood listening a moment to the stupendous roar. + +“A storm somewhere at sea,” he concluded. + +“Is it very fine--the surf?” + +“Very fine--and very relentless--” he laughed; “it is an unfriendly +creature, the sea, you know.” + +She had begun to move toward the cliffs, he fell into step beside her; +they spoke little, a word now and then. + +The perfume of the mounting sea saturated the night with wild fragrance; +dew lay heavy on the lawns; she lifted her skirts enough to clear the +grass, heedless that her silk-shod feet were now soaking. Then at the +cliffs’ edge, as she looked down into the white fury of the surf, the +stunning crash of the ocean saluted her. + +For a long while they watched in silence; once she leaned a trifle too +far over the star-lit gulf and, recoiling, involuntarily steadied +herself on his arm. + +“I suppose,” she said, “no swimmer could endure that battering.” + +“Not long.” + +“Would there be no chance?” + +“Not one.” + +She bent farther outward, fascinated, stirred, by the splendid frenzy of +the breakers. + +“I--think--,” he began quietly; then a firm hand fell over her left hand; +and, half encircled by his arm she found herself drawn back. Neither +spoke; two things she was coolly aware of, that, urged, drawn by +something subtly irresistible she had leaned too far out from the cliff, +and would have leaned farther had he not taken matters into his own +keeping without apology. Another thing; the pressure of his hand over +hers remained a sensation still--a strong, steady, masterful imprint +lacking hesitation or vacillation. She was as conscious of it as though +her hand still tightened under his--and she was conscious, too, that +nothing of his touch had offended; that there had arisen in her no +tremor of instinctive recoil. For never before had she touched or +suffered a touch from a man, even a gloved greeting, that had not in +some measure subtly repelled her, nor, for that matter, a caress from a +woman without a reaction of faint discomfort. + +“Was I in any actual danger?” she asked curiously. + +“I think not. But it was too much responsibility for me.” + +“I see. Any time I wish to break my neck I am to please do it alone in +future.” + +“Exactly--if you don’t mind,” he said smiling. + +They turned, shoulder to shoulder, walking back through the drenched +herbage. + +“That,” she said impulsively, “is not what I said a few moments ago to a +woman.” + +“What did you say a few moments ago to a woman?” + +“I said, Mr. Siward, that I would not leave a--a certain man to go to the +devil alone!” + +“Do you know any man who is going to the devil?” + +“Do you?” she asked, letting herself go swinging out upon a tide of +intimacy she had never dreamed of risking--nor had she the slightest idea +whither the current would carry her. + +They had stopped on the lawn, ankle deep in wet grass, the stars +overhead sparkling magnificently, and in their ears the outcrash of the +sea. + +“You mean me,” he concluded. + +“Do I?” + +He looked up into the lovely face; her eyes were very sweet, very +clear--clear with excitement--but very friendly. + +“Let us sit here on the steps a little while, will you?” she asked. + +So he found a place beside her, one step lower, and she leaned forward, +elbows on knees, rounded white chin in her palms, the starlight giving +her bare arms and shoulders a marble lustre and tinting her eyes a +deeper amethyst. + +And now, innocently untethered, mission and all, she laid her heart +quite bare--one chapter of it. And, like other women-errant who believe +in the influence of their sex individually and collectively, she began +wrong by telling him of her engagement--perhaps to emphasise her pure +disinterestedness in a crusade for principle only. Which naturally +dampened in him any nascent enthusiasm for being ministered to, and so +preoccupied him that he turned deaf ears to some very sweet platitudes +which might otherwise have impressed him as discoveries in philosophy. + +Officially her creed was the fashionable one in town; privately she had +her own religion, lacking some details truly enough, but shaped upon +youthful notions of right and wrong. As she had not read very widely, +she supposed that she had discovered this religion for herself; she was +not aware that everybody else had passed that way--it being the first +immature moult in young people after rejecting dogma. + +And the ripened fruit of all this philosophy she helpfully dispensed for +Siward’s benefit as bearing directly on his case. + +Had he not been immersed in the unexpected proposition of her impending +matrimony, he might have been impressed, for the spell of her beauty +counted something, and besides, he had recently formulated for himself a +code of ethics, tinctured with Omar, and slightly resembling her own +discoveries in that dog-eared science. + +So it was, when she was most eloquent, most earnestly inspired--nay in +the very middle of a plea for sweetness and light and simple living, +that his reasonings found voice in the material comment: + +“I never imagined you were engaged!” + +“Is that what you have been thinking about?” she asked, innocently +astonished. + +“Yes. Why not? I never for one instant supposed--” + +“But, Mr. Siward, why should you have concerned yourself with supposing +anything? Why indulge in any speculation of that sort about me?” + +“I don’t know, but I didn’t,” he said. + +“Of course you didn’t; you’d known me for about three hours--there on the +cliff--” + +“But--Quarrier--!” + +Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen--flickering, not yet +settled. He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the +woman destined to be Quarrier’s wife. He had talked too much anyway. +Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue. He had +made a plain ass of himself--that was all,--a garrulous ass. And truly it +seemed that the girl beside him, even in the starlight, could follow and +divine what he had scarcely expressed to himself; or her instincts had +taken a shorter cut to forestall his own conclusion. + +“Don’t think the things you are thinking!” she said in a fierce little +voice, leaning toward him. + +“What do you mean?” he asked, taken aback. + +“You know! Don’t! It is unfair--it is--is faithless--to me. I am your +friend; why not? Does it make any difference to you whom I marry? Cannot +two people remain in accord anyway? Their friendship concerns each other +and--nobody else!” She was letting herself go now; she was conscious of +it, conscious that impulse and emotion were the currents unloosed and +hurrying her onward. And with it all came exhilaration, a faint +intoxication, a delicate delight in daring to let go all and trust to +impulse and emotions. + +“Why should you feel hurt because for a moment you let me see--gave me a +glimpse of yourself--of life’s battle as you foresee it? What if there is +always a reaction from all confidences exchanged? What if that miserable +French cynic did say that never was he more alone than after confessing +to a friend? He died crazy anyhow. Is not a rare moment of confidence +worth the reaction--the subsidence into the armored shell of self? Tell +me truly, Mr. Siward, isn’t it?” + +Breathless, confused, exhilarated by her own rapid voice she bent her +face, brilliant with colour, and very sweet; and he looked up into it, +expectant, uncertain. + +“If such a friendship as ours is to become worth anything to you--to me, +why should it trouble you that I know--and am thinking of things that +concern you? Is it because the confidence is one-sided? Is it because +you have given and I have listened and given nothing in return to +balance the account? I do give--interest, deep interest, sympathy if you +ask it; I give confidence in return--if you desire it!” + +“What can a girl like you need of sympathy?” he said smiling. + +“You don’t know! you don’t know! If heredity is a dark vista, and if you +must stare through it all your life, sword in hand, always on your +guard, do you think you are the only one?” + +“Are you--one?” he said incredulously. + +“Yes”--with an involuntary shudder--“not that way. It is easier for me; I +think it is--I know it is. But there are things to combat--impulses, a +recklessness, perhaps something almost ruthless. What else I do not +know, for I have never experienced violent emotions of any sort--never +even deep emotion.” + +“You are in love!” + +“Yes, thoroughly,” she added with conviction, “but not violently. I--” +she hesitated, stopped short, leaning forward, peering at him through +the dusk; and: “Mr. Siward! are you laughing?” She rose and he stood up +instantly. + +There was lightning in her darkening eyes now; in his something that +glimmered and danced. She watched it, fascinated, then of a sudden the +storm broke and they were both laughing convulsively, face to face there +under the stars. + +“Mr. Siward,” she breathed, “I don’t know what I am laughing at; do you? +Is it at you? At myself? At my poor philosophy in shreds and tatters? Is +it some infernal mirth that you seem to be able to kindle in me--for I +never knew a man like you before?” + +“You don’t know what you were laughing at?” he repeated. “It was +something about love--” + +“No I don’t know why I laughed! I--I don’t wish to, Mr. Siward. I do not +desire to laugh at anything you have made me say--anything you may +infer--” + +“I don’t infer--” + +“You do! You made me say something--about my being ignorant of deep, of +violent emotion, when I had just informed you that I am thoroughly, +thoroughly in love--” + +“Did I make you say all that, Miss Landis?” + +“You did. Then you laughed and made me laugh too. Then you--” + +“What did I do then?” he asked, far too humbly. + +“You--you infer that I am either not in love or incapable of it, or too +ignorant of it to know what I’m talking about. That, Mr. Siward, is what +you have done to me to-night.” + +“I--I’m sorry--” + +“Are you?” + +“I ought to be anyway,” he said. + +It was unfortunate; an utterly inexcusable laughter seemed to bewitch +them, hovering always close to his lips and hers. + +“How can you laugh!” she said. “How dare you! I don’t care for you +nearly as violently as I did, Mr. Siward. A friendship between us would +not be at all good for me. Things pass too swiftly--too intimately. There +is too much mockery in you--” She ceased suddenly, watching the sombre +alteration of his face; and, “Have I hurt you?” she asked penitently. + +“No.” + +“Have I, Mr. Siward? I did not mean it.” The attitude, the words, +slackening to a trailing sweetness, and then the moment’s silence, +stirred him. + +“I’m rather ignorant myself of violent emotion,” he said. “I suspect +normal people are. You know better than I do whether love is usually a +sedative.” + +“Am I normal--after what I have confessed?” she asked. “Can’t love be +well-bred?” + +“Perfectly I should say--only perhaps you are not an expert--” + +“In what?” + +“In self-analysis, for example.” + +There was a vague meaning in the gaze they exchanged. + +“As for our friendship, we’ll do the best we can for it, no matter what +occurs,” he added, thinking of Quarrier. And, thinking of him, glanced +up to see him within ear-shot and moving straight toward them from the +veranda above. + +There was a short silence; a tentative civil word from Siward; then Miss +Landis took command of something that had a grotesque resemblance to a +situation. A few minutes later they returned slowly to the house, the +girl walking serenely between Siward and her preoccupied affianced. + +“If your shoes are as wet as my skirts and slippers you had better +change, Mr. Siward,” she said, pausing at the foot of the staircase. + +So he took his congé, leaving her standing there with Quarrier, and +mounted to his room. + +In the corridor he passed Ferrall, who had finished his business +correspondence and was returning to the card-room. + +“Here’s a letter that Grace wants you to see,” he said. “Read it before +you turn in, Stephen.” + +“All right; but I’ll be down later,” replied Siward passing on, the +letter in his hand. Entering his room he kicked off his wet pumps and +found dry ones. Then moved about, whistling a gay air from some recent +vaudeville, busy with rough towels and silken foot-gear, until, reshod +and dry, he was ready to descend once more. + +The encounter, the suddenly informal acquaintance with this young girl +had stirred him agreeably, leaving a slight exhilaration. Even her +engagement to Quarrier added a tinge of malice to his interest. Besides +he was young enough to feel the flattery of her concern for him--of her +rebuke, of her imprudence, her generous emotional and childish +philosophy. + +Perhaps, as like recognises like, he recognised in her the instincts of +the born drifter, momentarily at anchor--the temporary inertia of the +opportunist, the latent capacity of an unformed character for all things +and anything. Add to these her few years, her beauty, and the wholesome +ignorance so confidently acknowledged, what man could remain +unconcerned, uninterested in the development of such possibilities? Not +Siward, amused by her sagacious and impulsive prudence, worldliness, and +innocence in accepting Quarrier; and touched by her profitless, frank, +and unworldly friendliness for himself. + +Not that he objected to her marrying Quarrier; he rather admired her for +being able to do it, considering the general scramble for Quarrier. But +let that take care of itself; meanwhile, their sudden and capricious +intimacy had aroused him from the morbid reaction consequent upon the +cheap notoriety which he had brought upon himself. Let him sponge his +slate clean and begin again a better record, flattered by the solicitude +she had so prettily displayed. + +Whistling under his breath the same gay, empty melody, he opened the top +drawer of his dresser, dropped in his mother’s letter, and locking the +drawer, pocketed the key. He would have time enough to read the letter +when he went to bed; he did not just now feel exactly like skimming +through the fond, foolish sermon which he knew had been preached at him +through his mother’s favourite missionary, Grace Ferrall. What was the +use of dragging in the sad old questions again--of repeating his +assurances of good behaviour, of reiterating his promises of moderation +and watchfulness, of explaining his own self-confidence? Better that the +letter await his bed time--his prayers would be the sincerer the fresher +the impression; for he was old-fashioned enough to say the prayers that +an immature philosophy proved superfluous. For, he thought, if prayer is +any use, it takes only a few minutes to be on the safe side. + +So he went down-stairs leisurely, prepared to acquiesce in any +suggestion from anybody, but rather hoping to saunter across Sylvia +Landis’ path before being committed. + +She was standing beside the fire with Quarrier, one foot on the fender, +apparently too preoccupied to notice him; so he strolled into the gun- +room, which was blue with tobacco smoke and aromatic with the volatile +odours from decanters. + +There were a few women there, and the majority of the men. Lord +Alderdene, Major Belwether, and Mortimer were at a table by themselves; +stacks of ivory chips and five cards spread in the centre of the green +explained the nature of their game; and Mortimer, raising his heavy +inflamed eyes and seeing Siward unoccupied, said wheezily: “Cut out that +‘widow,’ and give Siward his stack! Anything above two pairs for a jack +triples the ante. Come on, Siward, there’s a decent chap!” + +So he seated himself for a sacrifice to the blind goddess balanced upon +her winged wheel; and the cards ran high--so high that stacks dwindled or +toppled within the half-hour, and Mortimer grew redder and redder, and +Major Belwether blander and blander, and Alderdene’s face wore a +continual nervous snicker, showing every white hound’s tooth, and the +ice in the tall glasses clinked ceaselessly. + +It was late when Quarrier “sat in,” with an expressionless +acknowledgment of Siward’s presence, and an emotionless raid upon his +neighbour’s resources with the first hand dealt, in which he +participated without drawing a card. + +And always Siward, eyes on his cards, seemed to see Quarrier before him, +his overmanicured fingers caressing his silky beard, the symmetrical +pompadour dark and thick as the winter fur on a rat, tufting his smooth +blank forehead. + +It was very late when Siward first began to be aware of his increasing +deafness, the difficulty, too, that he had in making people hear, the +annoying contempt in Quarrier’s woman-like eyes. He felt that he was +making a fool of himself, very noiselessly somehow--but with more racket +than he expected when he miscalculated the distance between his hand and +a decanter. + +It was time for him to go--unless he chose to ask Quarrier for an +explanation of that sneer which he found distasteful. But there was too +much noise, too much laughter. + +Besides he had a matter to attend to--the careful perusal of his mother’s +letter to Mrs. Ferrall. + +Very white, he rose. After an indeterminate interval he found himself +entering his room. + +The letter was in the dresser; several things seemed to fall and break, +but he got the letter, sank down on the bed’s edge and strove to +read,--set his teeth grimly, forcing his blurred eyes to a focus. But he +could make nothing of it--nor of his toilet either, nor of Ferrall, who +came in on his way to bed having noticed the electricity still in full +glare over the open transom, and who straightened out matters for the +stunned man lying face downward across the bed, his mother’s letter +crushed in his nerveless hand. + + + +CHAPTER IV THE SEASON OPENS + +Breakfast at Shotover, except for the luxurious sluggards to whom trays +were sent, was served in the English fashion--any other method or +compromise being impossible. + +Ferrall, reasonable in most things, detested customs exotic, and usually +had an Englishman or two about the house to tell them so, being unable +to jeer in any language except his own. Which is partly why Alderdene +and Voucher were there. And this British sideboard breakfast was a +concession wrung from him through force of sheer necessity, although the +custom had already become practically universal in American country +houses where guests were entertained. + +But at the British breakfast he drew the line. No army of servants, +always in evidence, would he tolerate, either; no highly ornamented +human bric-à-brac decorating halls and corners; no exotic pheasants +hustled into covert and out again; no fusillade at the wretched, +frightened, bewildered aliens dumped by the thousand into unfamiliar +cover and driven toward the guns by improvised beaters. + +“We walk up our game or we follow a brace of good dogs in this white +man’s country,” he said with unnecessary emphasis whenever his bad taste +and his wife’s absence gave him an opportunity to express to the casual +foreigner his personal opinions on field sport. “You’ll load your own +guns and you’ll use your own legs if you shoot with me; and your dogs +will do their own retrieving, too. And if anybody desires a Yankee’s +opinion on shooting driven birds from rocking-chairs or potting tame +deer from grand-stands, they can have it right now!” + +Usually nobody wanted his further opinion; and sometimes they got it and +sometimes not, if his wife was within earshot. Otherwise Ferrall +appeared to be a normal man, energetically devoted to his business, his +pleasures, his friends, and comfortably in love with his wife. And if +some considered his vigour in business to be lacking in mercy, that +vigour was always exercised within the law. He never transgressed the +rules of war, but his headlong energy sometimes landed him close to the +dead line. He had already breakfasted, when the earliest risers entered +the morning room to saunter about the sideboards and investigate the +simmering contents of silver-covered dishes on the warmers. + +The fragrance of coffee was pleasantly perceptible; men in conventional +shooting attire roamed about the room, selected what they cared for, and +carried it to the table. Mrs. Mortimer was there consuming peaches that +matched her own complexion; Marion Page, always more congruous in field +costume and belted jacket than in anything else, and always, like her +own hunters, minutely groomed, was preparing a breakfast for her own +consumption with the leisurely precision characteristic of her whether +in the saddle, on the box, or grassing her brace of any covey that ever +flushed. + +Captain Voucher and Lord Alderdene discussed prospects between bites, +attentive to the monosyllabic opinions of Miss Page. Her twin brothers, +Gordon and Willis, shyly consuming oatmeal, listened respectfully and +waited on their sister at the slightest lifting of her thinly arched +eyebrows. + +Into this company sauntered Siward, apparently no worse for wear. For as +yet the Enemy had set upon him no proprietary insignia save a rather +becoming pallor and faint bluish shadows under the eyes. He strolled +about, exchanging amiable greetings, and presently selected a chilled +grape fruit as his breakfast. Opposite him Mortimer, breakfasting upon +his own dreadful bracer of an apple soaked in port, raised his heavy +inflamed eyes with a significant leer at the iced grape fruit. For he +was always ready to make room upon his own level for other men; but the +wordless grin and the bloodshot welcome were calmly ignored, for as yet +that freemasonry evoked no recognition from the pallid man opposite, +whose hands were steady as though that morning’s sun had wakened him +from pleasant dreams. + +“The most difficult shot in the world,” Alderdene was explaining, “is an +incoming pheasant, sailing on a slant before a gale.” + +“A woodcock in alders doing a jack-snipe twist is worse,” grunted +Mortimer, drenching another apple in port. + +“Yes,” said Miss Page tersely. + +“Or a depraved ruffed cock-grouse in the short pines; isn’t that the +limit?” asked Mortimer of Siward. + +But Siward only shrugged his comment and glanced out through the leaded +casements into the brilliant September sunshine. + +Outside he could see Major Belwether, pink skinned, snowy chop whiskers +brushed rabbit fashion, very voluble with Sylvia Landis, who listened +absently, head partly averted. Quarrier in tweeds and gaiters, his +morning cigar delicately balanced in his gloved fingers, strolled near +enough to be within ear-shot; and when Sylvia’s inattention to Major +Belwether’s observations became marked to the verge of rudeness, he came +forward and spoke. But whatever it was that he said appeared to change +her passive inattention to quiet displeasure, for, as Siward rose from +the table, he saw her turn on her heel and walk slowly toward a group of +dogs presided over by some kennel men and gamekeepers. + +She was talking to the head gamekeeper when he emerged from the house, +but she saw him on the terrace and gave him a bright nod of greeting, so +close to an invitation that he descended the stone steps and crossed the +dew-wet lawn. + +“I am asking Dawson to explain just exactly what a ‘Shotover Drive’ +resembles,” she said, turning to include Siward in an animated +conference with the big, scraggy, head keeper. “You know, Mr. Siward, +that it is a custom peculiar to Shotover House to open the season with +what is called a Shotover Drive?” + +“I heard Alderdene talking about it,” he said, smilingly inspecting the +girl’s attire of khaki with its buttoned pockets, gun pads, and Cossack +cartridge loops, and the tan knee-kilts hanging heavily pleated over +gaiters and little thick-soled shoes. He had never cared very much to +see women afield, for, in a rare case where there was no affectation, +there was something else inborn that he found unpleasant--something +lacking about a woman who could take life from frightened wild things, +something shocking that a woman could look, unmoved, upon a twitching, +blood-soiled heap of feathers at her feet. + +Meanwhile Dawson, dog-whip at salute, stood knee deep among his restless +setters, explaining the ceremony with which Mr. Ferrall ushered in the +opening of each shooting season: + +“It’s our own idee, Miss Landis,” he said proudly; “onc’t a season Mr. +Ferrall and his guests likes it for a mixed bag. ’Tis a sort of picnic, +Miss; the guns is in pairs, sixty yards apart in line, an’ the rules is, +walk straight ahead, dogs to heel until first cover is reached; fire +straight or to quarter, never blankin’ nor wipin’ no eyes; and ground +game counts as feathers for the Shotover Cup.” + +“Oh! It’s a skirmish line that walks straight ahead?” said Siward, +nodding. + +“Straight ahead, Sir. No stoppin’, no turnin’ for hedges, fences, water +or rock. There is boats f’r deep water and fords marked and corduroy f’r +to pass the Seven Dreens. Luncheon at one, Miss--an hour’s rest--then +straight on over hill, valley, rock, and river to the rondyvoo atop +Osprey Ledge. You’ll see the poles and the big nests, Sir. It’s there +they score for the cup, and there when the bag is counted, the traps are +ready to carry you home again.” … And to Siward: “Will you draw for your +lady, Sir? It is the custom.” + +“Are you my ‘lady’?” he asked, turning to Sylvia. + +“Do you want me?” + +In the smiling lustre of her eyes the tiniest spark flashed out at him--a +hint of defiance for somebody, perhaps for Major Belwether who had taken +considerable pains to enlighten her as to Siward’s condition the night +before; perhaps also for Quarrier, who had naturally expected to act as +her gun-bearer in emergencies. But the gaily veiled malice of the one +had annoyed her, and the cold assumption of the other had irritated her, +and she had, scarcely knowing why, turned her shoulder to both of these +gentlemen with an indefinite idea of escaping a pressure, amounting +almost to critical importunity. + +“I’m probably a poor shot?” she said, looking smilingly, straight into +Siward’s eyes. “But if you’ll take me--” + +“I will with pleasure,” he said; “Dawson, do we draw for position? Very +well then”; and he drew a slip of paper from the box offered by the head +keeper. + +“Number seven!” said Sylvia, looking over his shoulder. “Come out to the +starting line, Mr. Siward. All the positions are marked with golf-discs. +What sort of ground have we ahead, Dawson?” + +“Kind o’ stiff, Miss,” grinned the keeper. “Pity your gentleman ain’t +drawed the meadows an’ Sachem Hill line. Will you choose your dog, Sir?” + +“You have your dog, you know,” observed Sylvia demurely. And Siward, +glancing among the impatient setters, saw one white, heavily feathered +dog, straining at his leash, and wagging frantically, brown eyes fixed +on him. + +The next moment Sagamore was free, devouring his master with caresses, +the girl looking on in smiling silence; and presently, side by side, the +man, the girl, and the dog were strolling off to the starting line where +already people were gathering in groups, selecting dogs, fowling-pieces, +comparing numbers, and discussing the merits of their respective lines +of advance. + +Ferrall, busily energetic, and in high spirits, greeted them gaily, +pointing out the red disc bearing their number, seven, where it stood +out distinctly above the distant scrub of the foreland. + +“You two are certainly up against it!” he said, grinning. “There’s only +one rougher line, and you’re in for thorns and water and a scramble +across the back-bone of the divide!” + +“Is it any good?” asked Siward. + +“Good--if you’ve got the legs and Sylvia doesn’t play baby--” + +“I?” she said indignantly. “Kemp, you annoy me. And I will bet you now,” +she added, flushing, “that your old cup is ours.” + +“Wait,” said Siward, laughing, “we may not shoot straight.” + +“You will! Kemp, I’ll wager whatever you dare!” + +“Gloves? Stockings?--against a cigarette case?” he suggested. + +“Done,” she said disdainfully, moving forward along the skirmish line +with a nod and smile for the groups now disintegrating into couples, the +Page boys with Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel, Marion Page followed +by Alderdene, Mrs. Vendenning and Major Belwether and the Tassel girl +convoyed by Leroy Mortimer. Farther along the line, taking post, she saw +Quarrier and Miss Caithness, Captain Voucher with Mrs. Mortimer, and +others too distant to recognise, moving across country with glitter and +glint of sunlight on slanting gun barrels. + +And now Ferrall was climbing into his saddle beside his pretty wife, who +sat her horse like a boy, the white flag lifted high in the sunshine, +watching the firing line until the last laggard was in position. + +“All right, Grace!” said Ferrall briskly. Down went the white flag; the +far-ranged line started into motion straight across country, dogs at +heel. + +From her saddle Mrs. Ferrall could see the advance, strung out far +afield from the dark spots moving along the Fells boundary, to the two +couples traversing the salt meadows to north. Crack! A distant report +came faintly over the uplands against the wind. + +“Voucher,” observed Ferrall; “probably a snipe. Hark! he’s struck them +again, Grace.” + +Mrs. Ferrall, watching curiously, saw Siward’s gun fly up as two big +dark spots floated up from the marsh and went swinging over his head. +Crack! Crack! Down sheered the black spots, tumbling earthward out of +the sky. + +“Duck,” said Ferrall; “a double for Stephen. Lord Harry! how that man +can shoot! Isn’t it a pity that--” + +He said no more; his pretty wife astride her thoroughbred sat silent, +grey eyes fixed on the distant figures of Sylvia Landis and Siward, now +shoulder deep in the reeds. + +“Was it--very bad last night?” she asked in a low voice. + +Ferrall shrugged. “He was not offensive; he walked steadily enough +up-stairs. When I went into his room he lay on the bed as if he’d been +struck by lightning. And yet--you see how he is this morning?” + +“After a while,” his wife said, “it is going to alter him some +day--dreadfully--isn’t it, Kemp?” + +“You mean--like Mortimer?” + +“Yes--only Leroy was always a pig.” + +As they turned their horses toward the high-road Mrs. Ferrall said: “Do +you know why Sylvia isn’t shooting with Howard?” + +“No,” replied her husband indifferently; “do you?” + +“No.” She looked out across the sunlit ocean, grave grey eyes +brightening with suppressed mischief. “But I half suspect.” + +“What?” + +“Oh, all sorts of things, Kemp.” + +“What’s one of ‘em?” asked Ferrall, looking around at her; but his wife +only laughed. + +“You don’t mean she’s throwing her flies at Siward--now that you’ve +hooked Quarrier for her! I thought she’d played him to the gaff--” + +“Please don’t be coarse, Kemp,” said Mrs. Ferrall, sending her horse +forward. Her husband spurred to her side, and without turning her head +she continued: “Of course Sylvia won’t be foolish. If they were only +safely married; but Howard is such a pill--” + +“What does Sylvia expect with Howard’s millions? A man?” + +Grace Ferrall drew bridle. “The curious thing is, Kemp, that she liked +him.” + +“Likes him?” + +“No, liked him. I saw how it was; she took his silences for intellectual +meditation, his gallery, his library, his smatterings for expressions of +a cultivated personality. Then she remembered how close she came to +running off with that cashiered Englishman, and that scared her into +clutching the substantial in the shape of Howard. … Still, I wish I +hadn’t meddled.” + +“Meddled how?” + +“Oh, I told her to do it. We had talks until daylight. … She may marry +him--I don’t know--but if you think any live woman could he contented with +a muff like that!” + +“That’s immoral.” + +“Kemp, I’m not. She’d be mad not to marry him; but I don’t know what I’d +do to a man like that, if I were his wife. And you know what a terrific +capacity for mischief there is in Sylvia. Some day she’s going to love +somebody. And it isn’t likely to be Howard. And, oh, Kemp! I do grow so +tired of that sort of thing. Do you suppose anybody will ever make +decency a fashion?” + +“You’re doing your best,” said Ferrall, laughing at his wife’s pretty, +boyish face turned back toward him over her shoulder; “you’re presenting +your cousin and his millions to a girl who can dress the part--” + +“Don’t, Kemp! I don’t know why I meddled! … I wish I hadn’t--” + +“I do. You can’t let Howard alone! You’re perfectly possessed to plague +him when he’s with you, and now you’ve arranged for another woman to +keep it up for the rest of his lifetime. What does Sylvia want with a +man who possesses the instincts and intellect of a coachman? She is +asked everywhere, she has her own money. Why not let her alone? Or is it +too late?” + +“You mean let her make a fool of herself with Stephen Siward? That is +where she is drifting.” + +“Do you think--” + +“Yes, I do. She has a perfect genius for selecting the wrong man; and +she’s already sorry for this one. I’m sorry for Stephen, too; but it’s +safe for me to be.” + +“She might make something of him.” + +“You know perfectly well no woman ever did make anything of a doomed +man. He’d kill her--I mean it, Kemp! He would literally kill her with +grief. She isn’t like Leila Mortimer; she isn’t like most girls of her +sort. You men think her a rather stunning, highly tempered, unreasonable +young girl, with a reserve of sufficiently trained intelligence to marry +the best our market offers--and close her eyes;--a thoroughbred with the +caprices of one, but also with the grafted instinct for proper mating.” + +“Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?” asked Ferrall. “That’s the way I +size her up. Isn’t it correct?” + +“Yes, in a way. She has all the expensive training of the +thoroughbred--and all the ignorance, too. She is cold-blooded because +wholesome; a trifle sceptical because so absolutely unawakened. She +never experienced a deep emotion. Impulses have intoxicated her once or +twice--as when she asked my opinion about running off with Cavendish, and +that boy and girl escapade with Rivington; nothing at all except high +mettle, the innocent daring lurking in all thoroughbreds, and a great +deal of very red blood racing through that superb young body. But,” +Ferrall reined in to listen, “but if ever a man awakens her--I don’t care +who he is--you’ll see a girl you never knew, a brand-new creature emerge +with the last rags and laces of conventionality dropping from her; a +woman, Kemp, heiress to every generous impulse, every emotion, every +vice, every virtue of all that brilliant race of hers.” + +“You seem to know,” he said, amused and curious. + +“I know. Major Belwether told me that he had thought of Howard as an +anchor for her. It seemed a pity--Howard with all his cold, heavy +negative inertia. … I said I’d do it. I did. And now I don’t know; I +wish, almost wish I hadn’t.” + +“What has changed your ideas?” + +“I don’t know. Howard is safer than Stephen Siward, already in the first +clutches of his master-vice. Would you mate what she inherits from her +mother and her mother’s mother, with what is that poor boy’s heritage +from the Siwards?” + +“After all,” observed Ferrall dryly, “we’re not in the angel-breeding +business.” + +“We ought to be. Every decent person ought to be. If they were, +inherited vice would be as rare in this country as smallpox!” + +“People don’t inherit smallpox, dear.” + +“Never mind! You know what I mean. In our stock farms and kennels, we +weed out, destroy, exterminate hereditary weakness in everything. We pay +the greatest attention to the production of all offspring except our +own. Look at Stephen! How dared his parents bring him into the world? +Look at Sylvia! And now, suppose they marry!” + +“Dearest,” said Ferrall, “my head is a whirl and my wits are spinning +like five toy tops. Your theories are all right; but unless you and I +are prepared to abandon several business enterprises and take to the +lecture platform, I’m afraid people are going to be wicked enough to +marry whom they like, and the human race will he run as usual with money +the favourite, and love a case of ‘also-ran.’ … By the way, how dared +you marry me, knowing the sort of demon I am?” + +The gathering frown on Mrs. Ferrall’s brow faded; she raised her clear +grey eyes and met her husband’s gaze, gay, humourous, and with a hint of +tenderness--enough to bring the colour into her pretty face. + +“You know I’m right, Kemp.” + +“Always, dear. And now that we have the world off our hands for a few +minutes, suppose we gallop?” + +But she held her horse to a walk, riding forward, grave, thoughtful, +preoccupied with a new problem, only part of which she had told her +husband. + +For that night she had been awakened in her bed to find standing beside +her a white, wide-eyed figure, shivering, limbs a-chill beneath her +clinging lace. She had taken the pallid visitor to her arms and warmed +her and soothed her and whispered to her, murmuring the thousand little +words and sounds, the breathing magic mothers use with children. And +Sylvia lay there, chilled, nerveless, silent, ignorant why her +sleeplessness had turned to restlessness, to loneliness, to an awakening +perception of what she lacked and needed and began to desire. For that +sad void, peopled at intervals through her brief years with a vague +mother-phantom, had, in the new crisis of her career, become suddenly an +empty desolation, frightening her with her own utter isolation. Fill it +now she could not, now that she needed that ghost of child-comfort, that +shadowy refuge, that sweet shape she had fashioned out of dreams to +symbolise a mother she had never known. + +Driven she knew not why, she had crept from her room in search of the +still, warm, fragrant nest and the whispered reassurance and the caress +she had never before endured. Yes, now she craved it, invited it, longed +for safe arms around her, the hovering hand on her hair. Was this +Sylvia? + +And Grace Ferrall, clearing her sleepy eyes, amazed, incredulous of the +cold, child-like hands upon her shoulders, caught her in her arms with a +little laugh and sob and drew her to her breast, to soothe and caress +and reassure, to make up to her all she could of what is every child’s +just heritage. + +And for a long while Sylvia, lying there, told her nothing--because she +did not know how--merely a word, a restless question half ashamed, barely +enough to shadow forth the something stirring her toward an awakening in +a new world, where with new eyes she might catch glimpses of those dim +and splendidly misty visions that float through sunlit silences when a +young girl dreams awake. + +And at length, gravely, innocently, she spoke of her engagement, and the +worldly possibilities before her; of the man she was to marry, and her +new and unexpected sense of loneliness in his presence, now that she had +seen him again after months. + +She spoke, presently, of Siward--a fugitive question or two, offered +indifferently at first, then with shy persistence and curiosity, knowing +nothing of the senseless form flung face downward across the sheets in a +room close by. And thereafter the murmured burden of the theme was +Siward, until one, heavy eyed, turned from the white dawn silvering the +windows, sighed, and fell asleep; and one lay silent, head half buried +in its tangled gold, wide awake, thinking vague thoughts that had no +ending, no beginning. And at last a rosy bar of light fell across the +wall, and the warm shadows faded from corner and curtain; and, turning +on the pillow, her face nestled in her hair, she fell asleep. + + +Nothing of this had Mrs. Ferrall told her husband. + +For the first time in her life had Sylvia suffered the caresses most +women invite or naturally lavish; for the first time had she attempted +confidences, failing because she did not know how, but curiously +contented with the older woman’s arms around her. + +There was a change in Sylvia, a great change stealing in upon her as she +lay there, breathing like a child, flushed lips scarcely parted. Through +the early slanting sunlight the elder woman, leaning on one arm, looked +down at her, grey eyes very grave and tender--wise, sweet eyes that +divined with their pure clairvoyance all that might happen or might fail +to come to pass in this great change stealing over Sylvia. + + +Nothing of this could her husband understand had she words to convey it. +There was nothing he need understand except that his wife, meaning well, +had meddled and regretted. + +And now, turning in her saddle with a pretty gesture of her shoulders: + +“I meddle no more! Those who need me may come to me. Now laugh at my +tardy wisdom, Kemp!” + +“It’s no laughing matter,” he said, “if you’re going to stand back and +let this abandoned world spin itself madly to the bow-wows--” + +“Don’t be horrid. I repent. The mischief take Howard Quarrier!” + +“Amen! Come on, Grace.” + +She gathered bridle. “Do you suppose Stephen Siward is going to make +trouble?” + +“How can he unless she helps him? Nonsense! All’s well with Siward and +Sylvia. Shall we gallop?” + + +All was very well with Siward and Sylvia. They had passed the rabbit- +brier country scathless, with two black mallard, a jack-snipe, and a +rabbit to the credit of their score, and were now advancing through that +dimly lit enchanted land of tall grey alders where, in the sudden +twilight of the leaves, woodcock after woodcock fluttered upward +twittering, only to stop and drop, transformed at the vicious crack of +Siward’s gun to fluffy balls of feather whirling earthward from mid-air. + +Sagamore came galloping back with a soft, unsoiled mass of chestnut and +brown feathers in his mouth. Siward took the dead cock, passed it back +to the keeper who followed them, patted the beautiful eager dog and +signalled him forward once more. + +“You should have fired that time,” he said to Sylvia--“that is, if you +care to kill anything.” + +“But I don’t seem to be able to,” she said. “It isn’t a bit like +shooting at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by surprise--it’s +all so charmingly sudden--and my heart seems to stop in one beat, and I +look and look and then--whisk! the woodcock is gone, leaving me +breathless--” + +Her voice ceased; the white setter, cutting up his ground ahead, had +stopped, rigid, one leg raised, jaws quivering and locking alternately. + +“Isn’t that a stunning picture!” said Siward in a low voice. “What a +beauty he is--like a statue in white and blue-veined marble. You may +talk, Miss Landis; woodcock don’t flush at the sound of the human voice +as grouse do.” + +“See his brown eyes roll back at us! He wonders why we don’t do +something!” whispered the girl. “Look, Mr. Siward! Now his head is +moving--oh so gradually to the left!” + +“The bird is moving on the ground,” nodded Siward; “now the bird has +stopped.” + +“I do wish I could see a woodcock on the ground,” she breathed. “Do you +think we might by any chance?” + +Siward noiselessly sank to his knees and crouched, keen eyes minutely +busy among the shadowy browns and greys of wet earth and withered leaf. +And after a while, cautiously, he signalled the girl to kneel beside +him, and stretched out one arm, forefinger extended. + +“Sight straight along my arm,” he said,” as though it were a rifle +barrel.” + +Her soft cheek rested against his shoulder; a stray strand of shining +hair brushing his face. + +“Under that bunch of fern,” he whispered; “just the colour of the dead +leaves. Do you see? … Don’t you see that big woodcock squatted flat, +bill pointed straight out and resting on the leaves?” + +After a long while she saw, suddenly, and an exquisite little shock +tightened her fingers on Siward’s extended arm. + +“Oh, the feathered miracle!” she whispered; “the wonder of its +cleverness to hide like that! You look and look and stare, seeing it all +the while and not knowing that you see it. Then in a flash it is there, +motionless, a brown-shaped shadow among shadows. … The dear little +thing! … Mr. Siward, do you think--are you going to--” + +“No, I won’t shoot it.” + +“Thank you. … Might I sit here a moment to watch it?” + +She seated herself soundlessly among the dead leaves; he sank into place +beside her, laying his gun aside. + +“Rather rough on the dog,” he said with a grimace. + +“I know. It is very good of you, Mr. Siward to do this for my pleasure. +Oh--h! Do you see! Oh, the little beauty!” + +The woodcock had risen, plumage puffed out, strutting with wings bowed +and tail spread, facing the dog. The sudden pigmy defiance thrilled her. +“Brave! Brave!” she exclaimed, enraptured; but at the sound of her voice +the bird crouched like a flash, large dark liquid eyes shining, long +bill pointed straight toward them. + +“He’ll fly the way his bill points,” said Siward. “Watch!” + +He rose; she sprang lightly to her feet; there came a whirring flutter, +a twittering shower of sweet notes, soft wings beating almost in their +very faces, a distant shadow against the sky, and the woodcock was gone. + +Quieting the astounded dog, gun cradled in the hollow of his left arm, +he turned to the girl beside him: “That sort of thing wins no cups,” he +said. + +“It wins something else, Mr. Siward,--my very warm regard for you.” + +“There is no choice between that and the Shotover Cup,” he admitted, +considering her. + +“I--do you mean it?” + +“Of course I do, vigorously!” + +“Then you are much nicer than I thought you. … And after all, if the +price of a cup is the life of that brave little bird, I had rather shoot +clay pigeons. Now you will scorn me I suppose. Begin!” + +“My ideal woman has never been a life-taker,” he said coolly. “Once, +when I was a boy, there was a girl--very lovely--my first sweetheart. I +saw her at the traps once, just after she had killed her seventh pigeon +straight, ‘pulling it down’ from overhead, you know--very clever--the +little thing was breathing on the grass, and it made sounds--” He +shrugged and walked on. “She killed her twenty-first bird straight; it +was a handsome cup, too.” + +And after a silence, “So you didn’t love her any more, Mr. +Siward?”--mockingly sweet. + +They laughed, and at the sound of laughter the tall-stemmed alders +echoed with the rushing roar of a cock-grouse thundering skyward. Crack! +Crack! Whirling over and over through a cloud of floating feathers, a +heavy weight struck the springy earth. There lay the big mottled bird, +splendid silky ruffs spread, dead eyes closing, a single tiny crimson +bead twinkling like a ruby on the gaping beak. + +“Dead!” said Siward to the dog who had dropped to shot; “Fetch!” And, +signalling the boy behind, he relieved the dog of his burden and tossed +the dead weight of ruffled plumage toward him. Then he broke his gun, +and, as the empty shells flew rattling backward, slipped in fresh +cartridges, locked the barrels, and walked forward, the flush of +excitement still staining his sunburnt face. + +“You deal death mercifully,” said the girl in a low voice. “I wonder +what your ci-devant sweetheart would think of you.” + +“A bungler had better stick to the traps,” he assented, ignoring the +badinage. + +“I am wondering,” she said thoughtfully, “what I think of men who kill.” + +He turned sharply, hesitated, shrugged. “Wild things’ lives are brief at +best--fox or flying-tick, wet nests or mink, owl, hawk, weasel or man. +But the death man deals is the most merciful. Besides,” he added, +laughing, “ours is not a case of sweethearts.” + +“My argument is purely in the abstract, Mr. Siward. I am asking you +whether the death men deal is more justifiable than a woman’s gift of +death?” + +“Oh, well, life-taking, the giving of life--there can be only one answer +to the mystery; and I don’t know it,” he replied smiling. + +“I do.” + +“Tell me then,” he said, still amused. + +They had passed swale after swale of silver birches waist deep in +perfumed fern and brake; the big timber lay before them. She moved +forward, light gun swung easily across her leather-padded shoulder; and +on the wood’s sunny edge she seated herself, straight young back against +a giant pine, gun balanced across her flattened knees. + +“You are feeling the pace a little,” he said, coming up and standing in +front of her. + +“The pace? No, Mr. Siward.” + +“Are you a trifle--bored?” She considered him in silence, then leaned +back luxuriously, rounded arms raised, wrists crossed to pillow her +head. + +“This is charmingly new to me,” she said simply. + +“What? Not the open?” + +“No; I have camped and done the usual roughing it with only three guides +apiece and the champagne inadequately chilled. I have endured that sort +of hardship several times, Mr. Siward. … What is that furry hunch up +there in that tall thin tree?” + +“A raccoon,” he said presently. “Can you see the foxy head peeping so +slyly down at us? Look at Sagamore nosing the air in that droll blind +mole-like way. He knows there’s something furry up aloft somewhere; and +he knows it’s none of his business.” + +They watched the motionless ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest +elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; +the rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the +tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished amid bronzing leafy depths. + +In the silence the birds began to reappear. A jay screamed somewhere +deep in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig +to twig, cheeping inquiringly. + +She sat listening, bright head pillowed in her arms, idly attentive to +his low running comment on beast and bird and tree, on forest stillness +and forest sounds, on life and the wild laws of life and death governing +the great out-world ’twixt sky and earth. Sunlight and shadows moving, +speech and silence, waxed and waned. A listless contentment lay warm +upon her, weighting the heavy white lids. The blue of her eyes was very +dark now--almost purple like the colour of the sea when the wind-flaws +turn the blue to violet. + +“Did you ever hear of the ‘Lesser Children’?” she asked. “Listen then: + +“‘Multitudes, multitudes, under the moon they stirred! The weaker +brothers of our earthly breed; … … All came about my head and at my feet +A thousand thousand sweet, With starry eyes not even raised to plead: +Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute! + +And I beheld and saw them one by one Pass, and become as nothing in the +night.’ + +“Do you know what it means? + +“‘Winged mysteries of song that from the sky Once dashed long music +down--’ + +“Do you understand?” she asked, smiling. + +“‘Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird!’” + +She ceased, and, raising her eyes to his: “Do you know that plea for +mercy on the lesser children who die all day to-day because the season +opens for your pleasure, Mr. Siward?” + +“Is it a woodland sermon?” he inquired, too politely. + +“The poem? No; it is the case for the prosecution. The prisoner may +defend himself if he can.” + +“The defence rests,” he said. “The prisoner moves that he be +discharged.” + +“Motion denied,” she interrupted promptly. + +Somewhere in the woodland world the crows were holding a noisy session, +and she told him that was the jury debating the degree of his guilt. + +“Because you’re guilty of course,” she continued. “I wonder what your +sentence is to be?” + +“I’ll leave it to you,” he suggested lazily. + +“Suppose I sentenced you to slay no more?” + +“Oh, I’d appeal--” + +“No use; I am the tribunal of last resort.” + +“Then I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.” + +“You do well, Mr. Siward. This court is very merciful. … How much do you +care for bird murder? Very much? Is there anything you care for more? +Yes? And could this court grant it to you in compensation?” + +He said, deliberately, roused by the level challenge of her gaze: “The +court is incompetent to compensate the prisoner or offer any +compromise.” + +“Why, Mr. Siward?” + +“Because the court herself is already compromised in her future +engagements.” + +“But what has my--engagement to do with--” + +“You offered compensation for depriving me of my shooting. There could +be only one adequate compensation.” + +“And that?” she asked, coolly enough. + +“Your continual companionship.” + +“But you have it, Mr. Siward--” + +“I have it for a day. The season lasts three months you know.” + +“And you and I are to play a continuous vaudeville for three months? Is +that your offer?” + +“Partly.” + +“Then one day with me is not worth those many days of murder?” she asked +in pretended astonishment. + +“Ask yourself why those many days would be doubly empty,” he said so +seriously that the pointless game began to confuse her. + +“Then”--she turned lightly from uncertain ground--“then perhaps we had +better be about that matter of the cup you prize so highly. Are you +ready, Mr. Siward? There is much to be killed yet--including time, you +know.” + +But the hinted sweetness of the challenge had aroused him, and he made +no motion to rise. Nor did she. + +“I am not sure,” he reflected, “just exactly what I should ask of you if +you insist on taking away--” he turned and looked about him through the +burnt gold foliage, “--if you took away all this out of my life.” + +“I shall not take it; because I have nothing in exchange to offer … you +say,” she answered imprudently. + +“I did not say so,” he retorted. + +“You did--reminding me that the court is already engaged for a continuous +performance.” + +“Was it necessary to remind you?” he asked with deliberate malice. + +She flushed up, vexed, silent, then looked directly at him with +beautiful hostile eyes. “What do you mean, Mr. Siward? Are you taking +our harmless, idle badinage as warrant for an intimacy unwarranted?” + +“Have I offended?” he asked, so impassively that a flash of resentment +brought her to her feet, angry and self-possessed. + +“How far have we to go?” she asked quietly. + +He rose to his feet, turned, hailing the keeper, repeating the question. +And at the answer they both started forward, the dog ranging ahead +through a dense growth of beech and chestnut, over a high brown ridge, +then down, always down along a leafy ravine to the water’s edge--a forest +pond set in the gorgeous foliage of ripening maples. + +“I don’t see,” said Sylvia impatiently, “how we are going to obey +instructions and go straight ahead. There must be a stupid boat +somewhere!” + +But the game-laden keeper shook his head, pulled up his hip boots, and +pointed out a line of alder poles set in the water to mark a crossing. + +“Am I expected to wade?” asked the girl anxiously. + +“This here,” observed the keeper, “is one of the most sportin’ courses +on the estate. Last season I seen Miss Page go through it like a scared +deer--the young lady, sir, that took last season’s cup”--in explanation to +Siward, who stood doubtfully at the water’s edge, looking back at +Sylvia. + +Raising her dismayed eyes she encountered his; there was a little laugh +between them. She stepped daintily across the stones to the water’s +edge, instinctively gathering her kilts in one hand. + +“Miles and I could chair you over,” suggested Siward. + +“Is that fair--under the rules?” + +“Oh, yes, Miss; as long as you go straight,” said the keeper. + +So they laid aside the guns and the guide’s game-sack, and formed a +chair with their hands, and, bearing the girl between them, they waded +out along the driven alder stakes, knee-deep in brown water. + +Before them herons rose into heavy flapping flight, broad wings +glittering in the sun; a diver, distantly afloat among the lily pads, +settled under the water to his eyes as a submarine settles till the +conning-tower is awash. + +Her arm, lightly resting around his neck, tightened a trifle as the +water rose to his thighs; then the faint pressure relaxed as they +thrashed shoreward through the shallows, ankle deep once more, and +landed among the dry reeds on the farther bank. + +Miles, the keeper, went back for the guns. Siward stamped about in the +sun, shaking the drops from water-proof breeches and gaiters, only to be +half drenched again when Sagamore shook himself vigorously. + +“I suppose,” said Sylvia, looking sideways at Siward, “your contempt for +my sporting accomplishments has not decreased. I’m sorry; I don’t like +to walk in wet shoes … even to gain your approval.” + +And, as the keeper came splashing across the shallows: “Miles, you may +carry my gun. I shall not need it any longer--” + +The upward roar of a bevey of grouse drowned her voice; poor Sagamore, +pointing madly in the blackberry thicket all unperceived, cast a +dismayed glance aloft where the sunlit air quivered under the winnowing +rush of heavy wings. Siward flung up his gun, heading a big quartering +bird; steadily the glittering barrels swept in the arc of fire, +hesitated, wavered; then the possibility passed; the young fellow +lowered the gun, slowly, gravely; stood a moment motionless with bent +head until the rising colour in his face had faded. + +And that was all, for a while. The astonished and disgusted keeper +stared into the thicket; the dog lay quivering, impatient for signal. +Sylvia’s heart, which had seemed to stop with her voice, silenced in the +gusty thunder of heavy wings, began beating too fast. For the ringing +crack of a gun shot could have spoken no louder to her than the +glittering silence of the suspended barrels; nor any promise of his +voice sound as the startled stillness sounded now about her. For he had +made something a trifle more than mere amends for his rudeness. He was +overdoing everything--a little. + +He stood on the thicket’s edge, absently unloading the weapon, scarcely +understanding what he had done and what he had not done. + +A moment later a far hail sounded across the uplands, and against the +sky figures moved distantly. + +“Alderdene and Marion Page,” said Siward. “I believe we lunch yonder, do +we not, Miles?” + +They climbed the hill in silence, arriving after a few minutes to find +others already at luncheon--the Page boys, eager, enthusiastic, +recounting adventure by flood and field; Rena Bonnesdel tired and +frankly bored and decorated with more than her share of mud; Eileen +Shannon, very pretty, very effective, having done more execution with +her eyes than with the dainty fowling-piece beside her. + +Marion Page nodded to Sylvia and Siward with a crisp, business-like +question or two, then went over to inspect their bag, nodding +approbation as Miles laid the game on the grass. + +“Eight full brace,” she commented. “We have five, and an odd cock- +pheasant--from Black Fells, I suppose. The people to our left have been +blazing away like Coney Island, but Rena’s guide says the ferns are full +of rabbits that way, and Major Belwether can’t hit fur afoot. You,” she +added frankly to Siward, “ought to take the cup. The birches ahead of +you are full of woodcock. If you don’t, Howard Quarrier will. He’s into +a flight of jack-snipe I hear.” + +Siward’s eyes had suddenly narrowed; then he laughed, patting Sagamore’s +cheeks. “I don’t believe I shall shoot very steadily this afternoon,” he +said, turning toward the group at luncheon under the trees. “I wish +Quarrier well--with the cup.” + +“Nonsense,” said Marion Page curtly; “you are the cleanest shot I ever +knew.” And she raised her glass to him, frankly, and emptied it with the +precision characteristic of her: “Your cup! With all my heart!” + +“I also drink to your success, Mr. Siward,” said Sylvia in a low voice, +lifting her champagne glass in the sunlight. “To the Shotover Cup--if you +wish it.” And as other glasses sparkled aloft amid a gay tumult of +voices wishing him success, Sylvia dropped her voice, attuning it to his +ear alone: “Success for the cup, if you wish it--or, whatever you +wish--success!” and she meant it very kindly. + +His hand resting on his glass he sat, smiling silent acknowledgment to +the noisy generous toasts; he turned and looked at Sylvia when her low +voice caught his ear--looked at her very steadily, unsmiling. + +Then to the others, brightening again, he said a word or two, wittily, +with a gay compliment well placed and a phrase to end it in good taste. +And, in the little gust of hand-clapping and laughter, he turned again +to Sylvia, smilingly, saying under his breath: “As though winning the +cup could compensate me now for losing it!” + +She leaned involuntarily nearer: “You mean that you will not try for +it?” + +“Yes.” + +“That is not fair--to me!” + +“Why not?” + +“Because--because I do not ask it of you.” + +“You need not, now that I know your wish.” + +“Mr. Siward, I--my wish--” + +But she had no chance to finish; already Rena Bonnesdel was looking at +them, and there was a hint of amused surprise in Eileen Shannon’s +mischievous eyes, averted instantly, with malicious ostentation. + +Then Marion Page took possession of him so exclusively, so calmly, that +something in her cool certainty vaguely irritated Sylvia, who had never +liked her. Besides, the girl showed too plainly her indifference to +other people; which other people seldom find amusing. + +“Stephen,” called out Alderdene, anxiously counting the web loops in his +khaki vest, “what do you call fair shooting at these damnable ruffed +grouse? You needn’t be civil about it, you know.” + +“Five shells to a bird is good shooting,” answered Siward. “Don’t you +think so, Miss Page?” + +“You have a better score, Mr. Siward,” said Marion Page with a hostile +glance at Alderdene, who had not made good. + +“That was chance--and this year’s birds. I’ve taken ten shells to an old +drummer in hard wood or short pines.” He smiled to himself, adding: “A +drove of six in the open got off scot free a little while ago. Miss +Landis saw it.” + +That he was inclined to turn it all to banter relieved her at once. “It +was pitiable,” she nodded gravely to Marion; “his nerve left him when +they made such a din in the briers.” + +Miss Page glanced at her indifferently. + +“What I need is practice like the chasseurs of Tarascon,” admitted +Siward. + +“I willingly offer my hat, monsieur,” said Sylvia. + +Marion Page, impatient to start, had turned her tailor-made back to the +company, and was instructing his crestfallen lordship very plainly: “You +fire too quickly, Blinky; two seconds is what you must count when a +grouse flushes. You must say ‘Mark! Right!’ or ‘Mark! Left! Bang!’” + +“I might as well say ‘Bang!’ for all I’ve done to-day,” he muttered, +adjusting his shooting-goggles and snapping his eyes like fury. Then +exploding into raucous laughter he moved off southward with Marion Page, +who had exchanged a swift handshake with Siward; the twins followed, +convoying Eileen and Rena, neither maiden excitedly enthusiastic. And so +the luncheon party, lord and lady, twins and maidens, guides and dogs, +trailed away across the ridge, distant silhouettes presently against the +sky, then gone. And after a little while the far, dry, accentless report +of smokeless powder announced that the opening of the season had been +resumed and the Lesser Children were dying fast in the glory of a +perfect day. + +“Are you ready, Mr. Siward?” She stood waiting for him at the edge of +the thicket; Miles resumed his game sack and her fowling-piece; the dog +came up, looking him anxiously in the eyes. + +So he walked forward beside her into the dappled light of the thicket. + +Within a few minutes the dog stood twice; and twice the whirring twitter +of woodcock startled her, echoed by the futile crack of his gun. + +“Beg pardon, sir--” + +“Yes, Miles,” with a glint of humour. + +“Overshot, sir,--excusin’ the liberty, Mr. Siward. Both marked down forty +yard to the left if you wish to start ‘em again.” + +“No,” he said indifferently, “I had my chance at them. They’re exempt.” + +Then Sagamore, tail wildly whipping, came smack on the trail of an old +stager of a cock-grouse--on, on over rock, log, wet gully, and dry ridge, +twisting, doubling, circling, every wile, every trick employed and met, +until the dog crawling noiselessly forward, trembled and froze, and +Siward, far to left, wheeled at the muffled and almost noiseless rise. +For an instant the slanting barrels wavered, grew motionless; but only a +stray sunbeam glinting struck a flash of cold fire from the muzzle, only +the feathery whirring whisper broke the silence of suspense. Then far +away over sunny tree tops a big grouse sailed up, rocketing into the sky +on slanted wings, breasting the height of green; dipped, glided downward +with bowed wings stiffened, and was engulfed in the misty barriers of +purpling woods. + +“Vale!” said Siward aloud, “I salute you!” + +He came strolling back across the crisp leaves, the dappled sunshine +playing over his face like the flicker of a smile. + +“Miles,” he said, “my nerve is gone. Such things happen. I’m all in. +Come over here, my friend, and look at the sun with me.” + +The discomfited keeper obeyed. + +“Where ought that refulgent luminary to scintilate when I face Osprey +Ledge?” + +“Sir?” + +“The sun. How do I hold it?” + +“On the p’int of your right shoulder, sir.--You ain’t quittin’, Mr. +Siward, sir!” anxiously; “that Shotover Cup is easy yours, sir!” +eagerly; “Wot’s a miss on a old drummer, Mr. Siward? Wot’s twice over- +shootin’ cock, sir, when a blind dropper can see you are the cleanest, +fastest, hard-shootin’ shot in the null county!” + +But Siward shook his head with an absent glance at the dog, and motioned +the astonished keeper forward. + +“Line the easiest trail for us,” he said; “I think we are already a +trifle tired. Twigs will do in short cover; use a hatchet in the big +timber. … And go slow till we join you.” + +And when the unwilling and perplexed keeper had started, Siward, +unlocking his gun, drew out the smooth yellow cartridges and pocketed +them. + +Sylvia looked up as the sharp metallic click of the locked breech rang +out in the silence. + +“Why do you do this, Mr. Siward?” + +“I don’t know; really I am honest; I don’t know.” + +“It could not he because I--” + +“No, of course not,” he said, too seriously to reassure her. + +“Mr. Siward,” in quick displeasure. + +“Yes?” + +“What you do for your amusements cannot concern me.” + +“Right as usual,” he said so gaily that a reluctant smile trembled on +her lips. + +“Then why have you done this? It is unreasonable--if you don’t feel as I +do about killing things that are having a good time in the world.” + +He stood silent, absently looking at the fowling-piece cradled in his +left arm. “Shall we sit here a moment and talk it over?” he suggested +listlessly. + +Her blue gaze swept him; his vague smile was indifferently bland. + +“If you are determined not to shoot, we might as well start for Osprey +Ledge,” she suggested; “otherwise, what reason is there for our being +here together, Mr. Siward?” + +Awaiting his comment--perhaps expecting a counter-proposition--she leaned +against the tree beside which he stood. And after a while, as his +absent-minded preoccupation continued: + +“Do you think the leaves are dry enough to sit on?” + +He slipped off his shooting-coat and placed it at the base of the tree. +She waited for a second, uncertain how to meet an attitude which seemed +to take for granted matters which might, if discussed, give her at least +the privilege of yielding. However, to discuss a triviality meant +forcing emphasis where none was necessary. She seated herself; and, as +he continued to remain standing, she stripped off her shooting-gloves +and glanced up at him inquiringly: “Well, Mr. Siward, I am literally at +your feet.” + +“Which redresses the balance a little,” he said, finding a place near +her. + +“That is very nice of you. Can I always count on you for civil +platitudes when I stir you out of your day-dreams?” + +“You can always count on stirring me without effort.” + +“No, I can’t. Nobody can. You are never to be counted on; you are too +absent-minded. Like a veil you wrap yourself in a brown study, leaving +everybody outside to consider the pointed flattery of your withdrawal. +What happens to you when you are inside that magic veil? Do you change +into anything interesting?” + +He sat there, chin propped on his linked fingers, elbows on knees; and, +though there was always the hint of a smile in his pleasant eyes, always +the indefinable charm of breeding in voice and attitude, something now +was lacking. And after a moment she concluded that it was his attention. +Certainly his wits were wool-gathering again; his eyes, edged with the +shadow of a smile, saw far beyond her, far beyond the sunlit shadows +where they sat. + +In his preoccupation she had found him negatively attractive. She +glanced at him now from time to time, her eyes returning always to the +beauty of the subdued light where all about them silver-stemmed birches +clustered like slim shining pillars, crowned with their autumn canopy of +crumpled gold. + +“Enchantment!” she said under her breath. “Surely an enchanted sleeper +lies here somewhere.” + +“You,” he observed, “unawakened.” + +“Asleep? I?” She looked around at him. “You are the dreamer here. Your +eyes are full of dreaming even now. What is your desire?” + +He leaned on one arm, watching her; she had dropped her ungloved hand, +searching among the newly fallen gold of the birch leaves drifted into +heaps. On the third finger a jewel glittered; he saw it, conscious of +its meaning--but his eyes followed the hand idly heaping up autumn gold, +a white slim hand, smoothly fascinating. Then the little, restless hand +swept near to his, almost touching it; and then instinctively he took it +in his own, curiously, lifting it a little to consider its nearer +loveliness. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps it was +sheer amazement that left her hand lying idly relaxed like a white +petalled blossom in his. His bearing, too, was so blankly impersonal +that for a moment the whole thing appeared inconsequent. Then, as her +hand lay there, scarcely imprisoned, their eyes encountered,--and hers, +intensely blue now, considered him without emotion, studied him +impersonally without purpose, incuriously acquiescent, indifferently +expectant. + +After a little while the consciousness of the contact disconcerted her; +she withdrew her fingers with an involuntary shiver. + +“Is there no chance?” he asked. + +Perplexed with her own emotion, the meaning of his low-voiced question +at first escaped her; then, like its own echo, came ringing back in her +ears, re-echoed again as he repeated it: + +“Is there no chance for me, Miss Landis?” + +The very revulsion of self-possession returning chilled her; then anger +came, quick and hot; then pride. She deliberated, choosing her words +coolly enough: “What chance do you mean, Mr. Siward?” + +“A fighting chance. Can you give it to me?” + +“A fighting chance? For what?”--very low, very dangerous. + +“For you.” + +Then, in spite of her, her senses became unsteady; a sudden ringing +confusion seemed to deafen her, through which his voice, as if very far +away, sounded again: + +“Men who are worth a fighting chance ask for it sometimes--but take it +always. I take it.” + +Her pallor faded under the flood of bright colour; the blue of her eyes +darkened ominously to velvet. + +“Mr. Siward,” she said, very distinctly and slowly, “I am +not--even--sorry--for you.” + +“Then my chance is desperate indeed,” he retorted coolly. + +“Chance! Do you imagine--” Her anger choked her. + +“Are you not a little hard?” he said, paling under his tan. “I supposed +women dismissed men more gently--even such a man as I am.” + +For a full minute she strove to comprehend. + +“Such a man as you!” she repeated vaguely; “you mean--” a crimson wave +dyed her skin to the temples and she leaned toward him in horror- +stricken contrition; “I didn’t mean that, Mr. Siward! I--I never thought +of that! It had no weight, it was not in my thoughts. I meant only that +you had assumed what is unwarranted--that you--your question humiliated +me, knowing that I am engaged--knowing me so little--so--” + +“Yes, I knew everything. Ask yourself why I risk everything to say this +to you? There can be only one answer.” + +Then after a long silence: “Have I ever--” she began tremblingly--“ever by +word or look--” + +“No.” + +“Have I even--” + +“No. I’ve simply discovered how I feel. That’s what I was dreaming about +when you asked me. I was afraid I might do this too soon; but I meant to +do it anyway before it became too late.” + +“It was too late from the very moment we met, Mr. Siward.” And, as he +reddened painfully again, she added quickly: “I mean that I had already +decided. Why will you take what I say so dreadfully different from the +way I intend it? Listen to me. I--I believe I am not very experienced +yet; I was a--astonished--quite stunned for a moment. Then it hurt me--and +I said that I was not sorry for you … I am sorry, now.” + +And, as he said nothing: “You were a little rough, a little sudden with +me, Mr. Siward. Men have asked me that question--several times; but never +so soon, so unreasonably soon--never without some preliminary of some +sort, so that I could foresee, be more or less prepared. … But you gave +me no warning. I--if you had, I would have known how to be gentle. I--I +wish to be now. I like you--enough to say this to you, enough to be +seriously sorry; if I could bring myself to really believe +this--feeling--” + +Still he said nothing; he sat there listlessly studying the sun spots +glowing, waxing, waning on the carpet of dead leaves at his feet. + +“As for--what you have said,” she added, a little smile curving the +sensitive mouth, “it is impulsive, unconsidered, a trifle boyish, Mr. +Siward. I pay myself the compliment of your sincerity; it is rather nice +to be a girl who can awaken the romance in a man within a day or two’s +acquaintance. … And that is all it is--a romantic impulse with a pretty +girl. You see I am frank; I am really glad that you find me attractive. +Tell me so, if you wish. We shall not misunderstand each other again. +Shall we?” + +He raised his head, considering her, forcing the smile to meet her own. + +“We shall be better friends than ever,” she asserted confidently. + +“Yes, better than ever.” + +“Because what you have done means the nicest sort of friendship, you +see. You can’t escape its duties and responsibilities now, Mr. Siward. I +shall expect you to spend the greater part of your life in devotedly +doing things for me. Besides, I am now privileged to worry you with +advice. Oh, you have invested me with all sorts of powers now!” + +He nodded. + +She sprang to her feet, flushed, smiling, a trifle excited. + +“Is it all over, and are we the very ideals of friends?” she asked. + +“The very ideals.” + +“You are nice!” she said impulsively, holding out both gloveless hands. +He held them, she looking at him very sweetly, very confidently. + +“Allons! Without malice?” she asked. + +“Without malice.” + +“Without afterthoughts?” + +“Without afterthoughts.” + +“And--you are content?” persuasively. + +“Of course not,” he said. + +“Oh, but you must be.” + +“I must be,” he repeated obediently. + +“And you are! Say it!” + +“But it does not make me unhappy not to be contented--” + +“Say it, please; or--do you desire me to be unhappy?” + +Her small, smooth hands lying between his, they stood confronting one +another in the golden light. She might easily have brought the matter to +an end; and why she did not, she knew no more than a kitten waking to +consciousness under its first caress. + +“Say it,” she repeated, laughing uncertainly back into his smiling eyes +of a boy. + +“Say what?” + +“That you are contented.” + +“I can’t.” + +“Mr. Siward, it is unkind, it is shameless--” + +“I know it; I am that sort.” + +“Then I am sorry for you. Look at that!” turning her left hand in his so +that the jewel on the third finger caught the light. + +“I see it.” + +“And yet--” + +“And yet.” + +“That,” she observed with composure, “is sheer obstinacy. … Isn’t it?” + +“It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent.” + +“How can it be?” impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was +unnerving her--yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. “How can you +really care for me? Do you actually believe that--devotion--comes like +that?” + +“Exactly like that.” + +“So suddenly? It is impossible!” with a twist of her pretty shoulders. + +“How did it come--to you?” he asked between his teeth. + +Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands +contracted in his--tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with a +little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a +minute--more, perhaps, she did not know--she half lay in his arms, her +untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, then +tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came back, +too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice. + +He had freed her; she remembered that somebody had asked him to--perhaps +herself. That was well; she needed to breathe, to summon strength and +common-sense, find out what had been done, what reasonless madness she +had committed in the half-light of the silver-stemmed trees clustering +in shameful witness on every hand. + +Suddenly the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her, and she covered her +face with her hands, standing, almost swaying, as wave on wave of +incredulous shame seemed to sweep her from knee to brow. That phase +passed after a while; out of it she emerged, flushed, outwardly +composed, into another phase, in full self-possession once more, able to +understand what had happened without the disproportion of emotional +exaggeration. After all, she had only been kissed. Besides she was a +novice, which probably accounted, in a measure, for the unreasonable +emotion coincident with a caress to which she was unaccustomed. Without +looking up at him she found herself saying coolly enough to surprise +herself: “I never supposed I was capable of that. It appears that I am. +I haven’t anything to say for myself … except that I feel fearfully +humiliated. … Don’t say anything now … I do not blame you, truly I do +not. It was contemptible of me--to do it--wearing this--” she stretched out +her slender left hand, not looking at him; “it was contemptible!” … She +slowly raised her eyes, summoning all her courage to face him. + +But he only saw in the pink confusion of her lovely face the dawning +challenge of a coquette saluting her adversary in gay acknowledgment of +his fleeting moment of success. And as his face fell, then hardened into +brightness, instantly she divined how he rated her, and in a flash +realized her weapons and her security, and that the control of the +situation was hers, not in the control of this irresolute young man who +stood so silently considering her. Strange that she should be ashamed of +her own innocence, willing that he believe her accomplished in such +arts, enchanted that he no longer perhaps suspected genuine emotion in +the swift, confused sweetness of her first kiss. If only all that were +truly hidden from him, if he dare not in his heart convict her of +anything save perfection in a gay, imprudent rôle, what a weight lifted, +what relief, what hot self-contempt cooled! What vengeance, too, she +would take on him for the agony of her awakening--the dazed chagrin, the +dread of his wise, amused eyes--eyes that she feared had often looked +upon such scenes; eyes no doubt familiar with such unimportant details +as the shamed demeanour of a novice. + +“Why do you take it so seriously?” she said, laughing and studying him, +certain now of herself in this new disguise. + +“Do you take it lightly?” he asked, striving to smile. + +“I? Ah, I must, you know. You don’t expect to marry me … do you, Mr. +Siward?” + +“I--” He choked up at that, grimly for a while. + +Walking slowly forward together she fell into step frankly beside him, +near him--too near. “Try to be sensible,” she was saying gaily; “I like +you so much--and it would be horrid to have you mope, you know. And +besides, even if I cared for you, there are reasons, you know--reasons +for any girl to marry the man I am going to marry. Does my cynicism +shock you? What am I to do?” with a shrug. “Such marriages are +reasonable, and far likelier to be agreeable than when fancy is the sole +motive--certainly far more agreeable than an ill-considered yielding to +abstract emotion with nothing concrete in view. … So, you see, I could +not marry you even if I--” her voice was inclined to tremble, but she +controlled it. Would she never learn her rôle? “even if I loved you--” + +Then her tongue stumbled and was silent; and they walked on, side by +side, through the fading splendour of the year, exchanging no further +speech. + +Toward sunset their guide hailed them, standing high among the rocks, a +silhouette against the sky. And beyond him they saw the poles crowned +with the huge nests of the fish-hawks, marking the last rendezvous at +Osprey Ledge. + +She turned to him as they started up the last incline, thanking him in a +sweet, natural voice for his care of her--quite innocently--until in the +questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes +softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read +her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self--ere she +had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose +familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden +troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced +uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her +years with the figures 23, and headed with the unconvincing chapter +title, “Love.” + + + +CHAPTER V A WINNING LOSER + +The week passed swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade +from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and +dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the +smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where +the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the +woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the +big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off +into swamps to the sad undoing of several of the younger setters. + +There was a pheasant drive at Black Fells to which the Ferralls’ guests +were bidden by Beverly Plank--a curious scene, where ladies and gentlemen +stood on a lawn, backed by an army of loaders and gun-bearers, while +another improvised army of beaters drove some thousands of frightened, +bewildered, homeless foreign pheasants at the guns. And the miserable +aliens that escaped the guns were left to perish in the desolation of a +coming winter which they were unfitted to withstand. + +So the first week of the season sped gaily, ending on Saturday with a +heavy flight of northern woodcock and an uproarious fusillade among the +silver birches. + +Once Ferrall loaded two motor cars with pioneers for a day beyond his +own boundaries; and one day was spent ingloriously with the beagles; but +otherwise the Shotover estate proved more than sufficient for good bags +or target practice, as the skill of the sportsmen developed. + +Lord Alderdene, good enough on snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic +by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost +the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough +style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also +adorned with clever pen-and-ink sketches by Siward. + +Leroy Mortimer had given up shooting and established himself as a +haunter of cushions in sunny corners. Tom O’Hara had gone back to Lenox; +Mrs. Vendenning to Hot Springs. Beverly Plank, master of Black Fells, +began to pervade the house after a tentative appearance; and he and +Major Belwether pottered about the coverts, usually after luncheon--the +latter doing little damage with his fowling-piece, and nobody knew how +much with his gossiping tongue. Quarrier appeared in the field +methodically, shot with judgment, taking no chances for a brilliant +performance which might endanger his respectable average. As for the +Page boys, they kept the river ducks stirring whenever Eileen Shannon +and Rena Bonnesdel could be persuaded to share the canoes with them. +Otherwise they haunted the vicinity of those bored maidens, suffering +snubs sorrowfully, but persistently faithful. They were a great nuisance +in the evening, especially as their sister did not permit them to lose +more than ten dollars a day at cards. + +Cards--that is Bridge and Preference--ruled as usual; and the latter game +being faster suited Mortimer and Ferrall, but did not aid Siward toward +recouping his Bridge losses. + +Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested +Klondyke for Siward’s benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to +him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring +rather to “carry” Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into +bankruptcy under the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke. + +Two matters occupied him; since “cup day” he had never had another +opportunity to see Sylvia Landis alone; that was the first matter. He +had touched neither wine nor spirits nor malt since the night Ferrall +had found him prone, sprawling in a stupor on his disordered bed. That +was the second matter, and it occupied him, at times required all his +attention, particularly when the physical desire for it set in, +steadily, mercilessly, mounting inexorably like a tide. … But, like the +tide, it ebbed at last, particularly when a sleepless night had +exhausted him. + +He had gone back to his shooting again after a cool review of the ethics +involved. It even amused him to think that the whimsical sermon +delivered him by a girl who had cleverness enough to marry many +millions, with Quarrier thrown in, could have so moved him to +sentimentality. He had ceded the big cup of antique silver to Quarrier, +too--a matter which troubled him little, however, as in the irritation of +the reaction he had been shooting with the brilliancy of a demon; and +the gun-room books were open to any doubting guests’ inspection. + +Time, therefore, was never heavy on his hands, save when the tide +threatened--when at night he stirred and awoke, conscious of its crawling +advance, aware of its steady mounting menace. Moments at table, when the +aroma of wine made him catch his breath, moments in the gun-room +redolent of spicy spirits; a maddening volatile fragrance clinging to +the card-room, too! Yes, the long days were filled with such moments for +him. + +But afield the desire faded; and even during the day, indoors, he +shrugged desire aside. It was night that he dreaded--the long hours, +lying there tense, stark-eyed, sickened with desire. + +As for Sylvia, she and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away +into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the +coast. Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove, +they took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl +for him. Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite +time being set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he +returned from a morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away +by that time, curled up in the tonneau beside Grace Ferrall, watched the +dark pines flying past, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, while the rushing +wind drove health into her and care out of her--cleansing, purifying, +overwhelming winds flowing through and through her, till her very soul +within her seemed shining through the beauty of her eyes. Besides, she +had just confessed. + + +“He kissed you!” repeated Grace Ferrall incredulously. + +“Yes--a number of times. He was silly enough to do it, and I let him.” + +“Did--did he say--” + +“I don’t know what he said; I was all nerves--confused--scared--a perfect +stick in fact! … I don’t believe he’d care to try again.” + +Then Mrs. Ferrall deliberately settled down in her furs to extract from +the girl beside her every essential detail; and the girl, frank at +first, grew shy and silent--reticent enough to worry her friend into a +silence which lasted a long while for a cheerful little matron of her +sort. + +Presently they spoke of other matters--matters interesting to pretty +women with much to do in the coming winter between New York, Hot +Springs, and Florida; surmises as to dinners, dances, and the newcomers +in the younger sets, and the marriages to be arranged or disarranged, +and the scandals humanity is heir to, and the attitude of the bishop +toward divorce. + +And the new pavillion to be built for Saint Berold’s Hospital, and the +various states of the various charities each was interested in, and the +chances of something new at the opera, and the impossibility of saving +Fifth Avenue from truck traffic, and the increasing importance of +Washington as a social centre, and the bad manners of a foreign +ambassador, and the better manners of another diplomat, and the lack of +discrimination betrayed by our ambassador to a certain great Power in +choosing people for presentation at court, and the latest unhappy +British-American marriage, and the hopelessness of the French as decent +husbands, and the recent accident to the Claymores’ big yacht, and the +tendency of well-born young men toward politics, and the anything but +distinguished person of Lord Alderdene, which was, however, vastly +superior to the demeanour and person of others of his rank recently +imported, and the beauty of Miss Caithness, and the chance that Captain +Voucher had if Leila Mortimer would let him alone, and the absurdity of +the Page twins, and the furtive coarseness of Leroy Mortimer and his +general badness, and the sadness of Leila Mortimer’s lot when she had +always been in love with other people,--and a little scandalous surmise +concerning Tom O’Hara, and the new house on Seventy-ninth Street +building for Mrs. Vendenning, and that charming widow’s success at last +year’s horse show--and whether the fashion of the function was reviving, +and whether Beverly Plank had completely broken into the social sets he +had besieged so long, or whether a few of the hunting and shooting +people merely permitted him to drive pheasants for them, and why +Katharyn Tassel made eyes at him, having sufficient money of her own to +die unwed, and--and--and then, at last, as the big motor car swung in a +circle at Wenniston Cross-Roads, and poked its brass and lacquer muzzle +toward Shotover, the talk swung back to Siward once more--having +travelled half the world over to find him. + +“He is the sweetest fellow with his mother,” sighed Grace; “and that +counts heavily with me. But there’s trouble ahead for her--sorrow and +trouble enough for them both, if he is a true Siward.” + +“Heredity again!” said Sylvia impatiently. “Isn’t he man enough to win +out? I’ll bet you he settles down, marries, and--” + +“Marries? Not he! How many girls do you suppose have believed that--were +justified in believing he meant anything by his attractive manner and +nice ways of telling you how much he liked you? He had a desperate +affair with Mrs. Mortimer--innocent enough I fancy. He’s had a dozen +within three years; and in a week Rena Bonnesdel has come to making eyes +at him, and Eileen gives him no end of chances which he doesn’t see. As +for Marion Page, the girl had been on the edge of loving him for years! +You laugh? But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she +ever can be with anybody.” + +“You mean--” + +“Yes I do. Hadn’t you suspected it?” + +And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent. + +“If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could,” +continued Mrs. Ferrall. “He’s a perfect fool not to see how she cares +for him.” + +Sylvia said: “He is indeed.” + +“It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would +only ask her. But he won’t.” + +“Perhaps,” ventured Sylvia, “she’ll ask him. She strikes me as that +sort. I do not mean it unkindly--only Marion is so tailor-made and +cigaretteful--” + +Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her. + +“Did he propose to you?” + +“Yes--I think so.” + +“Then it’s the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to +play with him as a rule, and he doesn’t have to be definite. I wonder +what he meant by being so definite with you?” + +“I suppose he meant marriage,” said Sylvia serenely; yet there was the +slightest ring in her voice; and it amused Mrs. Ferrall to try her a +little further. + +“Oh, you think he really intended to commit himself?” + +“Why not?” retorted Sylvia, turning red. “Do you think he found me over- +willing, as you say he finds others?” + +“You were probably a new sensation for him,” inferred Mrs. Ferrall +musingly. “You mustn’t take him seriously, child--a man with his record. +Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with +everything else he tries; his pen--you know how infernally clever he is; +and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry +home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper +harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with--dogs, horses, +pen, brush, music, women”--that was too malicious, for Sylvia had flushed +up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the hand of +the girl beside her: “Child, child,” she said, “he is not that sort; no +decent man ever is unless the girl is too.” + +Sylvia, sitting up very straight in her furs, said: “He found me +anything but difficult--if that’s what you mean.” + +“I don’t. Please don’t be vexed, dear. I plague everybody when I see an +opening. There’s really only one thing that worries me about it all.” + +“What is that?” asked Sylvia without interest. + +“It’s that you might be tempted to care a little for him, which, being +useless, might be unwise.” + +“I am … tempted.” + +“Not seriously!” + +“I don’t know.” She turned in a sudden nervous impatience foreign to +her. “Howard Quarrier is too perfectly imperfect for me. I’m glad I’ve +said it. The things he knows about and doesn’t know have been a +revelation in this last week with him. There is too much surface, too +much exterior admirably fashioned. And inside is all clock-work. I’ve +said it; I’m glad I have. He seemed different at Newport; he seemed nice +at Lenox. The truth is, he’s a horrid disappointment--and I’m bored to +death at my brilliant prospects.” + +The low whizzing hum of the motor filled a silence that produced +considerable effect upon Grace Ferrall. And, after mastering her wits, +she said in a subdued voice: + +“Of course it’s my meddling.” + +“Of course it isn’t. I asked your opinion, but I knew what I was going +to do. Only, I did think him personally possible--which made the +expediency, the mercenary view of it easier to contemplate.” + +She was becoming as frankly brutal as she knew how to be, which made the +revolt the more ominous. + +“You don’t think you could endure him for an hour or two a day, Sylvia?” + +“It is not that,” said the girl almost sullenly. + +“But--” + +“I’m afraid of myself--call it inherited mischief if you like! If I let a +man do to me what Mr. Siward did when I was only engaged to Howard, what +might I do--” + +“You are not that sort!” said Mrs. Ferrall bluntly. “Don’t be exotic, +Sylvia.” + +“How do you know--if I don’t know? Most girls are kissed; I--well I didn’t +expect to be. But I was! I tell you, Grace, I don’t know what I am or +shall be. I’m unsafe; I know that much.” + +“It’s moral and honest to realize it,” said Mrs. Ferrall suavely; “and +in doing so you insure your own safety. Sylvia dear, I wish I hadn’t +meddled; I’m meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don’t give +Howard his congé for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell +upon, but Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the +impulse of the moment.” + +“I know it.” + +“You are too clever not to. Consider the matter wisely, dispassionately, +intelligently, dear; then if by April you simply can’t stand it--talk the +thing over with me again,” she ended rather vaguely and wistfully; for +it had been her heart’s desire to wed Sylvia’s beauty and Quarrier’s +fortune, and the suitability of the one for the other was apparent +enough to make even sterner moralists wobbly in their creed. Quarrier, +as a detail of modern human architecture, she supposed might fit in +somewhere, and took that for granted in laying the corner stone for her +fairy palace which Sylvia was to inhabit. And now!--oh, vexation!--the +neglected but essentially constructive detail of human architecture had +buckled, knocking the dream palace and its princess and its splendour +about her ears. + +“Things never happen in real life,” she observed plaintively; “only +romances have plots where things work out. But we people in real life, +we just go on and on in a badly constructed, plotless sort of way with +no villains, no interesting situations, no climaxes, no ensemble. No, we +grow old and irritable and meaner and meaner; we lose our good looks and +digestions, and we die in hopeless discord with the unity required in a +dollar and a half novel by a master of modern fiction.” + +“But some among us amass fortunes,” suggested Sylvia, laughing. + +“But we don’t live happy ever after. Nobody ever had enough money in +real life.” + +“Some fall in love,” observed Sylvia, musing. + +“And they are not content, silly!” + +“Why? Because nobody ever had enough love in real life,” mocked Sylvia. + +“You have said it, child. That is the malady of the world, and nobody +knows it until some pretty ninny like you babbles the truth. And that is +why we care for those immortals in romance, those fortunate lovers who, +in fable, are given and give enough of love; those magic shapes in verse +and tale whose hearts are satisfied when the mad author of their being +inks his last period and goes to dinner.” + +Sylvia laughed awhile, then, chin on wrist, sat musing there, muffled in +her furs. + +“As for love, I think I should be moderate in the asking, in the giving. +A little--to flavour routine--would be sufficient for me I fancy.” + +“You know so much about it,” observed Mrs. Ferrall ironically. + +“I am permitted to speculate, am I not?” + +“Certainly. Only speculate in sound investments, dear.” + +“How can you make a sound investment in love? Isn’t it always sheerest +speculation?” + +“Yes, that is why simple matrimony is usually a safer speculation than +love.” + +“Yes, but--love isn’t matrimony.” + +“Match that with its complementary platitude and you have the essence of +modern fiction,” observed Mrs. Ferrall. “Love is a subject talked to +death, which explains the present shortage in the market I suppose. +You’re not in love and you don’t miss it. Why cultivate an artificial +taste for it? If it ever comes naturally, you’ll be astonished at your +capacity for it, and the constant deterioration in quantity and quality +of the visible supply. Goodness! my epigrams make me yawn--or is it age +and the ill humour of the aged when the porridge spills over on the +family cat?” + +“I am the cat, I suppose,” asked Sylvia, laughing. + +“Yes you are--and you go tearing away, back up, fur on end, leaving me by +the fire with no porridge and only the aroma of the singeing fur to +comfort me. … Still there’s one thing to comfort me.” + +“What?” + +“Kitty-cats come back, dear.” + +“Oh, I suppose so. … Do you believe I could induce him to wear his hair +any way except pompadour? … and, dear, his beard is so dreadfully silky. +Isn’t there anything he could take for it?” + +“Only a razor I’m afraid. Those long, thick, soft, eyelashes of his are +ominous. Eyes of that sort ruin a man for my taste. He might just as +reasonably wear my hat.” + +“But he can’t follow the fashions in eyes,” laughed Sylvia. “Oh, this is +atrocious of us--it is simply horrible to sit here and say such things. I +am cold-blooded enough as it is--material enough, mean, covetous, +contemptible--” + +“Dear!” said Grace Ferrall mildly, “you are not choosing a husband; you +are choosing a career. To criticise his investments might be bad taste; +to be able to extract what amusement you can out of Howard is a direct +mercy from Heaven. Otherwise you’d go mad, you know.” + +“Grace! Do you wish me to marry him?” + +“What is the alternative, dear?” + +“Why, nothing--self-respect, dowdiness, and peace.” + +“Is that all?” + +“All I can see.” + +“Not Stephen Siward?” + +“To marry? No. To enjoy, yes. … Grace, I have had such a good time with +him; you don’t know! He is such a boy--sometimes; and I--I believe that I +am rather good for him. … Not that I’d ever again let him do that sort +of thing. … Besides, his curiosity is quenched; I am the sort he +supposed. Now he’s found out he will be nice. … It’s been days since +I’ve had a talk with him. He tried to, but I wouldn’t. Besides, the +major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing +definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of +matters rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not +even appear to understand or notice--it was all done in such a horridly +vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he +took to the Patroons is better company than he finds in nine places out +of ten among his own sort.” + +“Oh,” said Grace Ferrall slowly, “if that is the way you feel, I don’t +see why you shouldn’t play with Mr. Siward whenever you like.” + +“Nor I. I’ve been a perfect fool not to. … Howard hates him.” + +“How do you know?” + +“What a question! A woman knows such things. Then, you remember that +caricature--so dreadfully like Howard? Howard has no sense of humour; he +detests such things. It was the most dreadful thing that Mr. Siward +could have done to him.” + +“Meddled again!” groaned Grace. “Doesn’t Howard know that I did that?” + +“Yes, but nothing I can say alters his conviction that the likeness was +intended. You know it was a likeness! And if Mr. Siward had not told me +that it was not intended, I should never have believed it to be an +accident.” + +After a prolonged silence Sylvia said, overcarelessly: “I don’t quite +understand Howard. With me anger lasts but a moment, and then I’m open +to overtures for peace … I think Howard’s anger lasts.” + +“It does,” said Grace. “He was a muff as a boy--a prig with a prig’s +memory under all his shallow, showy surface. I’m frank with you; I never +could take my cousin either respectfully or seriously, but I’ve known +him to take his own anger so seriously that years after he has visited +it upon those who had really wronged him. And he is equipped for +retaliation if he chooses. That fortune of his reaches far. … Not that I +think him capable of using such a power to satisfy a mere personal +dislike. Howard has principles, loads of them. But--the weapon is there.” + +“Is it true that Mr. Siward is interested in building electric roads?” +asked Sylvia curiously. + +“I don’t know, child. Why?” + +“Nothing. I wondered.” + +“Why?” + +“Mr. Mortimer said so.” + +“Then I suppose he is. I’ll ask Kemp if you like. Why? Isn’t it all +right to build them?” + +“I suppose so. Howard is in it somehow. In fact Howard’s company is +behind Mr. Siward’s, I believe.” + +Grace Ferrall turned and looked at the girl beside her, laughing +outright. + +“Oh, Howard doesn’t do mysterious financial things to nice young men +because they draw impudent pictures of him running after his dog--or for +any other reason. That, dear, is one of those skilfully developed +portions of an artistic plot; and plots exist only in romance. So do +villains; and besides, my cousin isn’t one. Besides that, if Howard is +in that thing, no doubt Kemp and I are too. So your nice young man is in +very safe company.” + +“You draw such silly inferences,” said Sylvia coolly; but there was a +good deal of colour in her cheeks; and she knew it and pulled her big +motor veil across her face, fastening it under her chin. All of which +amused Grace Ferrall infinitely until the subtler significance of the +girl’s mental processes struck her, sobering her own thoughts. Sylvia, +too, had grown serious in her preoccupation; and the partie-à-deux +terminated a few minutes later in a duet of silence over the tea-cups in +the gun-room. + +The weather had turned warm and misty; one of those sudden sea-coast +changes had greyed the blue in the sky, spreading a fine haze over land +and water, effacing the crisp sparkle of the sea, dulling the westering +sun. + +A few moments later Sylvia, glancing over her shoulder, noticed that a +fine misty drizzle had clouded the casements. That meant that her usual +evening stroll on the cliffs with Quarrier, before dressing for dinner, +was off. And she drew a little breath of unconscious relief as Marion +Page walked in, her light woollen shooting-jacket, her hat, shoes, and +the barrels of the fowling-piece tucked under her left arm-pit, all +glimmering frostily with powdered rain drops. + +She said something to Grace Ferrall about the mist promising good point- +shooting in the morning, took the order book from a servant, jotted down +her request to be called an hour before sunrise, filled in the gun-room +records with her score--the species and number bagged, and the number of +shells used--and accepting the tea offered, drew out a tiny cigarette- +case of sweet-bay wood heavily crusted with rose-gold. + +“With whom were you shooting?” asked Grace, as Marion dropped one well- +shaped leg over the other and wreathed her delicately tanned features in +smoke. + +“Stephen Siward and Blinky. They’re at it yet, but I had some letters to +write.” She glanced leisurely at Sylvia and touched the ash-tray with +the whitening end of her cigarette. “That dog you let Mr. Siward have is +a good one. I’m taking him to Jersey next week for the cock-shooting.” + +Sylvia returned her calm gaze blankly. + +An unreasonable and disagreeable shock had passed through her. + +“My North Carolina pointers are useless for close work,” observed Marion +indifferently; and she leaned back, watching the blue smoke curling +upward from her cigarette. + +Sylvia, distrait, but with downcast eyes on fire under the fringed lids, +was thinking of the cheque Siward had given her for Sagamore. The +transaction, for her, had been a business one on the surface only. She +had never meant to use the cheque. She had laid it away among a few +letters, relics, pleasant souvenirs of the summer. To her the affair had +been softened by a delicate hint of intimacy,--the delight he was to take +in something that had once been hers had given her a faint taste of the +pleasure of according pleasure to a man. And this is what he had done! + +The drizzle had turned to fog, through which rain was now pelting the +cliffs; people were returning from the open; a motor-car came whizzing +into the drive, and out of it tumbled Rena and Eileen and the faithful +Pages, the girls irritable and ready for tea, and the boys like a pair +of eager, wagging, setter puppies, pleased with everything and +everybody, utterly oblivious to the sombre repose brooding above the +tea-table. + +Their sister calmly refused them the use of her cigarettes. Eileen +presented her pretty shoulder, Rena nearly yawned at them, but, nothing +dampened, they recounted a number of incidents with reciprocal +enthusiasm to Sylvia, who was too inattentive to smile, and to Grace +Ferrall, who smiled the more sweetly through sheer inattention. + +Then Alderdene came in, blinking a greeting through his foggy goggles, +sloppy, baggy, heavy shoes wheezing, lingered in the vicinity long +enough to swallow his “peg” and acquire a disdainful opinion of his +shooting from Marion, and then took himself off, leaving the room noisy +with his laugh, which resembled the rattle of a startled kingfisher. + +In ones and twos the guests reported as the dusk-curtained fog closed in +on Shotover. Quarrier came, dry as a chip under his rain-coat, but his +silky beard was wet with rain, and moisture powdered his long, soft +eyelashes and white skin; and his flexible, pointed fingers, as he drew +off his gloves, seemed startling in their whiteness through the +gathering gloom. + +“I suppose our evening walk is out of the question,” he said, standing +by Sylvia, who had nodded a greeting and then turned her head rather +hastily to see who had entered the room. It was Siward, only a vague +shape in the gloom, but perfectly recognisable to her. At the same +moment Marion Page rose leisurely and strolled toward the billiard-room. + +“Our walk?” repeated Sylvia absently--“it’s raining, you know.” Yet only +a day or two ago she had walked to church with Siward through the rain, +the irritated Major feeling obliged to go with them. Her eyes followed +Siward’s figure, suddenly dark against the door of the lighted billiard- +room, then brilliantly illuminated, as he entered, nodded acceptance to +Mortimer’s invitation, and picked up the cue just laid aside by Agatha +Caithness, who had turned to speak to Marion. Then Mortimer’s bulk +loomed nearer; voices became gay and animated in the billiard-room. +Siward’s handsome face was bent toward Agatha Caithness in gay +challenge; Mortimer’s heavy laugh broke out; there came the rattle of +pool-balls, and the dull sound of cue-butts striking the floor; then, +crack! and the game began, with Marion Page and Siward fighting Mortimer +and Miss Caithness for something or other. + +Quarrier had been speaking for some time before Sylvia became aware of +it--something about a brisk walk in the morning somewhere; and she nodded +impatiently, watching Marion’s supple waist-line as she bent far over +the illuminated table for a complicated shot at the enemy. + +His fiancée’s inattention was not agreeable to Quarrier. A dozen things +had happened since his arrival which had not been agreeable to him: her +failure to meet him at the Fells Crossing, and the reason for her +failure; and her informal acquaintance with Siward, whose presence at +Shotover he had not looked for, and her sudden intimacy with the man he +had never particularly liked, and whom within six months he had come to +detest and to avoid. + +These things--the outrageous liberty Siward had permitted himself in +caricaturing him, the mortifying caprice of Sylvia for Siward on the day +of the Shotover cup-drive--had left indelible impressions in a cold and +rather heavy mind, slow to waste effort in the indulgence of any vital +emotion. + +In a few years indifference to Siward had changed to passive +disapproval; that, again, to an emotionless dislike; and when the +scandal at the Patroons Club occurred, for the first time in his life he +understood what it was to fear the man he disliked. For if Siward had +committed the insane imprudence which had cost him his title to +membership, he had also done something, knowingly or otherwise, which +awoke in Quarrier a cold, slow fear; and that fear was dormant, but +present, now, and it, for the time being, dictated his attitude and +bearing toward the man who might or might not be capable of using +viciously a knowledge which Quarrier believed that he must possess. + +For that reason, when it was not possible to avoid Siward, his bearing +toward him was carefully civil; for that reason he dampened Major +Belwether’s eagerness to tell everybody all he knew about the +shamelessly imprudent girl who had figured with Siward in the scandal, +but whose identity the press had not discovered. + +Silence was always desirable to Quarrier; silence concerning all matters +was a trait inborn and congenially cultivated to a habit by him in every +affair of life--in business, in leisure, in the methodical pursuits of +such pleasures as a limited intellect permitted him, in personal and +family matters, in public questions and financial problems. + +He listened always, but never invited confidences; he had no opinion to +express when invited. And he became very, very rich. + +And over it all spread a thin membrane of vanity, nervous, not +intellectual, sensitiveness; for all sense of humour was absent in this +man, whose smile, when not a physical effort, was automatically and +methodically responsive to certain fixed cues. He smiled when he said +“Good morning,” when declining or accepting invitations, when taking his +leave, when meeting anybody of any financial importance, and when +everybody except himself had begun to laugh in a theatre or a drawing- +room. This limit to any personal manifestation he considered a generous +one. And perhaps it was. + + +A sudden rain-squall, noisy against the casements, had darkened the +room; then the electric lights broke out with a mild candle-like lustre, +and Quarrier, standing beside Sylvia’s chair, discovered it to be empty. + +It was not until he had dressed for dinner that he saw her again, seated +on the stairs with Marion Page--a new appearance of intimacy for both +women, who heretofore had found nothing except a passing civility in +common. + +Marion was discussing dog-breeding with that cool, crude, direct +insouciance so unpleasant to some men. Sylvia was attentive, curious, +and instinctively shrinking by turns, secretly dismayed at the +overplainness of terms employed in kennel lore by the girl at her side. + +The conversation veered toward the Sagamore pup. Marion explained that +Siward was too busy to do any Southern shooting, which was why he was +glad to have her polish Sagamore on Jersey woodcock. + +“I thought it was not good for a dog to be used by anybody except his +master,” said Sylvia carelessly. + +“Only second-raters suffer. Besides, I have shot enough, now, with Mr. +Siward to use his dog as he does.” + +“He is an agreeable shooting companion, smiled Sylvia. + +“He is perfect,” answered Marion coolly. “The only test for a +thoroughbred is the field. He rings true.” + +They exchanged carefully impersonal views on Siward’s good qualities for +a moment or two; then Marion said bluntly: “Do you know anything in +particular about that Patroons Club affair?” + +“No,” said Sylvia, “nothing in particular.” + +“Neither do I; and I don’t care to; I mean, that I don’t care what he +did; and I wish that gossiping old Major would stop trying to hint it to +me.” + +“My uncle!” + +“Oh! I forgot. Beg your pardon, you know, but--” + +“I’m not offended,” observed Sylvia, with a shrug of her pretty, bare +shoulders. + +Marion laughed. “Such a gadabout! Besides, I’m no prude, but he and +Leroy Mortimer have no business to talk to unmarried women the way they +do. No matter how worldly wise we are, men have no right to suppose we +are.” + +“Pooh!” shrugged Sylvia. “I have no patience to study out double- +entendre, so it never shocks me. Besides--” + +She was going to add that she was not at all versed in doubtful worldly +wisdom, but decided not to, as it might seem to imply disapproval of +Marion’s learning. So she went on: “Besides, what have innuendoes to do +with Mr. Siward?” + +“I don’t know whether I care to understand them. The Major hinted that +the woman--the one who figured in it--is--rather exclusively Mr. Siward’s +‘property.’” + +“Exclusively?” repeated Sylvia curiously. “She’s a public actress, isn’t +she?” + +“If you call the manoeuvres of a newly fledged chorus girl acting, yes, +she is. But I don’t believe Mr. Siward figures in that unfashionable +rôle. Why, there are too many women of his own sort ready for mischief.” +Marion turned to Sylvia, her eyes hard with a cynicism quite lost on the +other. “That sort of thing might suit Leroy Mortimer, but it doesn’t fit +Mr. Siward,” she concluded, rising as their hostess appeared from above +and the butler from below. + +And all through dinner an indefinitely unpleasant remembrance of the +conversation lingered with Sylvia, and she sat silent for minutes at a +time, returning to actualities with a long, curious side-glance across +at Siward, and an uncomprehending smile of assent for whatever Quarrier +or Major Belwether had been saying to her. + +Cards she managed to avoid after dinner, and stood by Quarrier’s chair +for half an hour, absently watching the relentless method and steady +adherence to rule which characterised his Bridge-playing, the eager, +unslaked brutality of Mortimer, the set, selfish face of his pretty +wife, the chilled intensity of Miss Caithness. + +And Grace Ferrall’s phrase recurred to her, “Nobody ever has enough +money!”--not even these people, whose only worry was to find investment +for the surplus they were unable to spend. Something of the meanness of +it all penetrated her. Were these the real visages of these people, +whose faces otherwise seemed so smooth and human? Was Leila Mortimer +aware of the shrillness of her voice? Did Agatha Caithness realise how +pinched her mouth and nose had grown? Did even Leroy Mortimer dream how +swollen the pouches under his eyes were; how red and puffy his hands, +shuffling a new pack; how pendulous and dreadful his red under-lip when +absorbedly making up his cards? + +Instinctively she moved a step forward for a glimpse of Quarrier’s face. +The face appeared to be a study in blankness. His natural visage was +emotionless and inexpressive enough, but this face, from which every +vestige of colour had fled, fascinated her with its dead whiteness; and +the hair brushed high, the long, black lashes, the silky beard, struck +her as absolutely ghastly, as though they had been glued to a face of +wax. + +She turned on her heel, restless, depressed, inclined for companionship. +The Page boys had tempted Rena and Eileen to the billiard-room; Voucher, +Alderdene, and Major Belwether were huddled over a table, immersed in +Preference; Katharyn Tassel and Grace Ferrall sat together looking over +the announcements of Sylvia’s engagement in a batch of New York papers +just arrived; Ferrall was writing at a desk, and Siward and Marion were +occupied in the former’s sketch for an ideal shooting vehicle, to be +built on the buckboard principle, with a clever arrangement for dogs, +guns, ammunition, and provisions. Siward’s profile, as it bent in the +lamplight over the paper, was very engaging. The boyish note +predominated as he talked while he drew, his eyes now smiling, now +seriously intent on the sketch which was developing so swiftly under his +facile pencil. + +Marion’s clean-cut blond head was close to his, her supple body twisted +in her seat, one bare arm hanging over the back of the chair. Something +in her attitude seemed to exclude intrusion; her voice, too, was hushed +in comment, though his was pitched in his naturally agreeable key. + +Sylvia had taken a hesitating step toward them, but halted, turning +irresolutely; and suddenly over her crept a sensation of +isolation--something of that feeling which had roused her at midnight +from her bed and driven her to Grace Ferrall for a refuge from she knew +not what. + +The rustle of her silken dinner gown was scarcely perceptible as she +turned. Siward, moving his head slightly, glanced up, then brought his +sketch to a brilliant finish. + +“Don’t you think something of this sort is practicable?” he asked +pleasantly, including Mrs. Ferrall and Katharyn Tassel in a general +appeal which brought them into the circle of two. Grace Ferrall leaned +forward, looking over Marion’s shoulder, and Siward rose and stepped +back, with a quick glance into the hall--in time to catch a glimmer of +pale blue and lace on the stairs. + +“I suppose my cigarettes are in my room as usual,” he said aloud to +himself, wheeling so that he could not have time to see Marion’s offer +of her little gold-encrusted case, or notice her quickly raised eyes, +bright with suspicion and vexation. For she, too, had observed Sylvia’s +distant entrance, had been perfectly aware of Siward’s cognizance of +Sylvia’s retreat; and when Siward went on sketching she had been +content. Now she could not tell whether he had deliberately and +skillfully taken his congé to follow Sylvia, or whether, in his quest +for his cigarettes, chance might meddle, as usual. Even if he returned, +she could not know with certainty how much of a part hazard had played +on the landing above, where she already heard the distant sounds of +Sylvia’s voice mingling with Siward’s, then a light footfall or two, and +silence. + + +He had greeted her in his usual careless, happy fashion, just as she had +reached her chamber door; and she turned at the sound of his voice, +confused, unsmiling, a little pale. + +“Is it headache, or are you too in quest of cigarettes?” he asked, as he +stopped in passing her where she stood, one slender hand on the knob of +her door. + +“I don’t smoke, you know,” she said, looking up at him with a cool +little laugh. “It isn’t headache either. I was--boring myself, Mr. +Siward.” + +“Is there any virtue in me as a remedy?” + +“Oh, I have no doubt you have lots of virtues. … Perhaps you might do as +a temporary remedy--first aid to the injured.” She laughed again, +uncertainly. “But you are on a quest for cigarettes.” + +“And you?” + +“A rendezvous--with the Sand-Man. … Good night.” + +“Good night … if you must say it.” + +“It’s polite to say something … isn’t it?” + +“It would be polite to say, ‘With pleasure, Mr. Siward!’” + +“But you haven’t invited me to do anything--not even to accept a +cigarette. Besides, you didn’t expect to meet me up here?” + +The trailing accent made it near enough a question for him to say, “Yes, +I did.” + +“How could you?” + +“I saw you leave the room.” + +“You were sketching for Marion Page. Do you wish me to believe that you +noticed me--” + +“--And followed you? Yes, I did follow you.” She looked at him, then past +him toward a corner of the wide hall where a maid in cap and apron sat +pretending to be sewing. “Careful!” she motioned with smiling lips, +“servants gossip. … Good night, again.” + +“Won’t you--” + +“Oh, dear! you mustn’t speak so loud,” she motioned, with her fresh, +sweet lips curving on the edge of that adorable smile once more. + +“Couldn’t we have a moment--” + +“No--” + +“One minute--” + +“Hush! I must open my door”--lingering. “I might come out again, if you +have anything particularly important to communicate to me.” + +“I have. There’s a big bay-window at the end of the other corridor. Will +you come?” + +But she opened her door, with a light laugh, saying “good night” again, +and closed it noiselessly behind her. + +He walked on, turning into his corridor, but kept straight ahead, +passing his own door, on to the window at the end of the hall, then +north along a wide passageway which terminated in a bay-window +overlooking the roof of the indoor swimming tank. + +Rain rattled heavily, against the panes and on the lighted roof of +opalescent glass below, through which he could make out the shadowy +fronds of palms. + +It appeared that he had cigarettes enough, for he lighted one presently, +and, leaving his chair, curled up in the cushioned and pillowed window- +seat, gathering his knees together under his arm. + +The cigarette he had lighted went out. He had bitten into it and twisted +it so roughly that it presently crumbled; and he threw the rags of it +into a metal bowl, locking his jaws in silence. For the night threatened +to be a bad one for him. A heavy fragrance from his neighbour’s wine- +glass at dinner had stirred up what had for a time lain dormant; and, by +accident, something--some sweetmeat he had tasted--was saturated in +brandy. + +Now, his restlessness at the prospect of a blank night had quickened to +uneasiness, with a hint of fever tinting his skin, but, as yet, the dull +ache in his body was scarcely more than a premonition. + +He had his own devices for tiding him over such periods--reading, +tobacco, and the long, blind, dogged tramps he took in town. But here, +to-night, in the rain, one stood every chance of walking off the cliffs; +and he was sick of reading himself sightless over the sort of books sent +wholesale to Shotover; and he was already too ill at ease, physically, +to make smoking endurable. + +Were it not for a half-defiant, half-sullen dread of the coming night, +he might have put it from his mind in spite of the slowly increasing +nervous tension and the steady dull consciousness of desire. He drew +another Sirdar from his case and sat staring at the rain-smeared night, +twisting the frail fragrant cigarette to bits between his fingers. + +After a while he began to walk monotonously to and fro the length of the +corridor, like a man timing his steps to the heavy ache of body or mind. +Once he went as far as his own door, entered, and stepping to the wash- +basin, let the icy water run over hands and wrists. This sometimes +helped to stimulate and soothe him; it did now, for a while--long enough +to change the current of his thoughts to the girl he had hoped might +have the imprudence to return for a tryst, innocent enough in itself, +yet unconventional and unreasonable enough to prove attractive to them +both. + +Probably she wouldn’t come; she had kept her fluffy skirts clear of him +since Cup Day--which simply corroborated his vague estimate of her. Had +she done the contrary, his estimate would have been the same; for, +unconsciously but naturally, he had prejudged her. A girl who could +capture Quarrier at full noontide, and in the face of all Manhattan, was +a girl equipped for anything she dared--though she was probably too +clever to dare too much; a girl to be interested in, to amuse and be +amused by; a girl to be reckoned with. His restlessness and his fever +subdued by the icy water, he stood drying his hands, thinking, coolly, +how close he had come to being seriously in love with this young girl, +whose attitude was always a curious temptation, whose smile was a +charming provocation, whose youth and beauty were to him a perpetual +challenge. He admitted to himself, calmly, that he had never seen a +woman he cared as much for; that for the brief moment of his declaration +he had known an utterly new emotion, which inevitably must have become +the love he had so quietly declared it to be. He had never before felt +as he felt then, cared as he cared then. Anything had been possible for +him at that time--any degree of love, any devotion, any generous +renunciation. Clear-sighted, master of himself, he saw love before him, +and knew it when he saw it; recognised it, was ready for it, offered it, +emboldened by her soft hands so eloquent in his. + +And in his arms he held it for an instant, he thought, spite of the +sudden inertia, spite of the according of cold lips and hands still +colder, relaxed, inert; held it until he doubted. That was all; he had +been wise to doubt such sudden miracles as that. She, consummate and +charming, had soon set him right. And, after all, she liked him; and she +had been sure enough of herself to permit the impulse of a moment to +carry her with him--a little way, a very little way--merely to the formal +symbol of a passion the germ of which she recognised in him. + +Then she had become intelligent again, with a little laughter, a little +malice, a becoming tint of hesitation and confusion; all the sense, all +the arts, all the friendly sweetness of a woman thorough in training, +schooled in self-possession, clear enough to be audacious and perverse +without danger to herself, to the man, or to the main chance. + +Standing there alone in his lighted room, he wondered whether, had her +trained and inbred policy been less precise, less worldly, she might +have responded to such a man as he. Perfectly conscious that he had been +capable of loving her; aware, too, that his experience had left him on +that borderland only through his cool refusal to cross it and face a +hopeless battle already lost, he leisurely and mentally took the measure +of his own state of mind, and found all well, all intact; found himself +still master of his affections, and probably clear-minded enough to +remain so under the circumstances. + +To such a man as he, impulse to love, capacity to love, did not mean +instant capsizing with a flop into sentimental tempests, where swamped, +ardent and callow youth raises a hysterically selfish clamour for +reciprocity or death. His nature partly, partly his character, accounted +for this balance; and, in part, a rather wide experience with women of +various degrees counted more. + +So, by instinct and experience, normally temperate, only what was +abnormal and inherited might work a mischief in this man. His +listlessness, his easy acquiescence, were but consequent upon the self- +knowledge of self-control. But mastery of the master-vice required +something different; he was sick of a sickness; and because, in this +sickness, will, mind, and body are tainted too, reason and logic lack +clarity; and, to the signals of danger his reply had always been either +overconfident or weak--and it had been always the same reply: “Not yet. +There is time.” And now, this last week, it had come upon him that the +time was now; the skirmish was already on; and it had alarmed him +suddenly to find that the skirmish was already a battle, and a rough +one. + + +As he stood there he heard voices on the stairs. People had already +begun to retire, because late cards and point-shooting at dawn do not +agree. And a point-shooting picnic in snugly elaborate blinds was +popular with women--or was supposed to be. + +He could distinguish by their voices, by their laughter and step, the +people who were mounting the stairway and lingering for gossip or +passing through the various corridors to court the sleep denied him; he +heard Mortimer’s heavy tread and the soft shuffling step of Major +Belwether as they left the elevator; and the patter of his hostess’s +satin slippers, and her gay “good night” on the stairs. + +Little by little the tumult died away. Quarrier’s measured step came, +passed; Marion Page’s cool, crisp voice and walk, and the giggle and +amble of the twins, and Rena and Eileen,--the last laggards, with +Ferrall’s brisk, decisive tones and stride to close the procession. + +He turned and looked grimly at his bed, then, shutting off the lights, +he opened his door and went out into the deserted corridor, where the +elevator shaft was dark and only the dim night-lights burned at angles +in the passageways. + +He had his rain-coat and cap with him, not being certain of what he +might be driven to; but for the present he found the bay-window +overlooking the swimming tank sufficient to begin the vigil. + +Secure from intrusion, as there were no bedrooms on that corridor, he +tossed coat and cap into the window-seat, walked to and fro for a while +listening to the rain, then sat down, his well-shaped head between his +hands. And in silence he faced the Enemy. + +How long he had sat there he did not know. When he raised his face, all +gray and drawn with the tension of conflict, his eyes were not very +clear, nor did the figure standing there in the dim light from the hall +mean anything for a moment. + +“Mr. Siward?” in an uncertain voice, almost a whisper. + +He stood up mechanically, and she saw his face. + +“Are you ill? What is it?” + +“Ill? No.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “I fancy I was close to the +edge of sleep.” Some colour came back into his face; he stood smiling +now, the significance of her presence dawning on him. + +“Did you really come?” he asked. “This isn’t a very lovely but +impalpable astral vision, is it?” + +“It’s horridly imprudent, isn’t it?” she murmured, still considering the +rather drawn and pallid face of the man before her. “I came out of pure +curiosity, Mr. Siward.” + +She glanced about her. He moved a big bunch of hothouse roses so she +could pass, and she settled down lightly on the edge of the window-seat. +When he had piled some big downy cushions behind her back, she made a +quick gesture of invitation. + +“I have only a moment,” she said, as he seated himself beside her. “Part +of my curiosity is satisfied in finding you here; I didn’t suppose you +so faithful.” + +“I can be fairly faithful. What else are you curious about?” + +“You said you had something important--” + +“--To tell you? So I did. That was bribery, perjury, false pretences, +robbery under arms, anything you will! I only wanted you to come.” + +“That is a shameful confession!” she said; but her smile was gay enough, +and she noiselessly shook out her fluffy skirts and settled herself a +trifle more deeply among the pillows. + +“Of course,” she observed absently, “you are dreadfully mortified at +yourself.” + +“Naturally,” he admitted. + +The patter of the rain attracted her attention; she peered out through +the blurred casements into the blackness. Then, picking up his cap and +indicating his raincoat, “Why?” she asked. + +“Oh--in case you hadn’t come--” + +“A walk? By yourself? A night like this on the cliffs! You are not +perfectly mad, are you?” + +“Not perfectly.” + +Her face grew serious and beautiful. + +“What is the matter, Mr. Siward?” + +“Things.” + +“Do you care to be more explicit?” + +“Well,” he said, with a humourous glance at her, “I haven’t seen you for +ages. That’s not wholesome for me, you know.” + +“But you see me now; and it does not seem to benefit you.” + +“I feel much better,” he insisted, laughing; and her blue eyes grew very +lovely as the smile broke from them in uncertain response. + +“So you had nothing really important to tell me, Mr. Siward?” + +“Only that I wanted you.” + +“Oh! … I said important.” + +But he did not argue the question; and she leaned forward, broke a rose +from its stem, then sank back a little way among the cushions, looking +at him, idly inhaling the hothouse perfume. + +“Why have you so ostentatiously avoided me, Mr. Siward?” she asked +languidly. + +“Well, upon my word!” he said, with a touch of irritation. + +“Oh, you are so dreadfully literal!” she shrugged, brushing her +straight, sensitive nose with the pink blossom; “I only said it to give +you a chance. … If you are going to be stupid, good night!” But she made +no movement to go. … “Yes, then; I have avoided you. And it doesn’t +become you to ask why.” + +“Because I kissed you?” + +“You hint at the true reason so chivalrously, so delicately,” she said, +“that I scarcely recognise it.” The cool mockery of her voice and the +warm, quick colour tinting neck and face were incongruous. He thought +with slow surprise that she was not yet letter-perfect in her rôle of +the material triumphant over the spiritual. A trifle ashamed, too, he +sat silent, watching the silken petals fall one by one as she slowly +detached them with delicate, restless lips. + +“I am sorry I came,” she said reflectively. “You don’t know why I came, +do you? Sheer loneliness, Mr. Siward; there is something of the child in +me still, you see. I am not yet sufficiently resourceful to take it out +in a quietly tearful obligato; I never learned how to produce tears. … +So I came to you.” She had stripped the petals from the rose, and now, +tossing the crushed branch from her, she leaned forward and broke from +its stem a heavy, perfumed bud, half unfolded. + +“It seems my fate to pass my life in bidding you good night,” she said, +straightening up and turning to him with the careless laughter touching +mouth and eyes again. Then, resting her weight on one hand, her smooth, +white shoulder rounded beside her cheek, she looked at him out of +humourous eyes: + +“What is it that women find so attractive in you? The man’s experienced +insouciance? The boy’s unconscious cynicism? The mystery of your self- +sufficiency? The faulty humanity in you? The youth in you already +showing traces of wear that hint of future scars? What will you be at +thirty-five? At forty? … Ah,” she added softly, “what are you now? For I +don’t know, and you cannot tell me if you would. … Out of these little +windows called eyes we look at one another, and study surfaces, and try +to peep into neighbours’ windows. But all is dark behind the +windows--always dark, in there where they tell us souls hide.” + +She laid the shell-pink bud against her cheek that matched it, smiling +with wise sweetness to herself. + +“What counts with you?” he asked after a moment. + +“Counts? How?” + +“In your affections. What prepossesses you?” + +She laughed audaciously: “Your traits--some of them--all of them that you +reveal. You must be aware of that much already, considering everything--” + +“Then, what is it I lack? Where do I fail?” + +“But you don’t lack--you don’t fail! I ask nothing more of you, Mr. +Siward.” + +“A man from whom a woman desires nothing is already convicted of +insufficiency. … You would recognise this very quickly if I made love to +you.” + +“Is that the only way I am to discover your insufficiency, Mr. Siward?” + +“Or my sufficiency. … Have you enough curiosity to try?” + +“Oh! I thought you were to try.” Then, quickly: “But I think you have +already experimented; and I did not notice your shortcomings. So there +is no use in pursuing that line of investigation any farther--is there?” + +And always with her the mischief lay in the trailing upward inflection; +in the confused sweetness of her eyes, and their lovely uncertainty. + +One slim white hand held the rose against her cheek; the other lay idly +on her knee, fresh and delicate as a fallen petal; and he laid both +hands over it and lifted it between them. + +“Mr. Siward, I am afraid this is becoming a habit with you.” The gay +mockery was not quite genuine; the curve of lips too sensitive for a +voice so lightly cynical. + +He smiled, bending there, considering her hand between his; and after a +moment her muscles relaxed, and bare round arm and hand lay abandoned to +him. + +“Quite flawless--perfect,” he said aloud to himself. + +“Do you--read hands?” + +“Vaguely.” He touched the smooth palm: “Long life, clear mind, and”--he +laughed--“heart supreme over reason! There is written a white lie--but a +pretty one.” + +“It is no lie.” + +He laughed again, unconvinced. + +“It is the truth,” she said, seriously insisting and bending sideways +above her own hand where it lay in his. “It is a miserable confession to +admit it, but I’m afraid intelligence would fight a losing battle with +heart if the conflict ever came. You see, I know, having nobody to study +except myself all these years. … There is the proof of it--that selfish, +smooth contour, where there should be generosity. Then, look at the +tendency of imagination toward mischief!” She laid her right forefinger +on the palm of the left hand which he held, and traced the developments +arising in the Mount of Hermes. “Is it not a horrid hand, Mr. Siward? I +don’t know how much you know about palms, but--” She suddenly flushed, +and attempted to close her hand, doubling the thumb over. There was a +little half-hearted struggle, freeing one of his arms, which fell, +settling about her slender waist; a silence, a breathless moment, and he +had kissed her. Her lips were warm, this time. + +She recovered herself, avoiding his eyes, and moved backward, shielding +her face with pretty upflung elbows out-turned. “I told you it was +becoming a habit with you!” The loud beating of her pulses marred her +voice. “Must I establish a dead-line every time I commit the folly of +being alone with you?” + +“I’ll draw that line,” he said, taking her in his arms. + +“I--I beg you will draw it quickly, Mr. Siward.” + +“I do; it passes through your heart and mine!” + +“Is--do you mean a declaration--again? You are compromising yourself, you +know. I warn you that you are committing yourself.” + +“So are you. Look at me!” + +In his arms, her own arms pressed against his breast, resisting, she +raised her splendid youthful eyes; and through and through her shot +pulse on pulse, until every nerve seemed aquiver. + +“While I’m still sane,” he said with a dry catch in his throat, “before +I tell you that I love you, look at me.” + +“I will, if you wish,” she said with a trembling smile, “but it is +useless--” + +“That is what I shall find out in time. … You must meet my eyes. That is +well; that is frank and sweet--” + +“And useless--truly it is. … Please don’t tell me--anything.” + +“You will not listen?” + +“There is no chance for you--if you mean love. I--I tell you in time, you +see. … I am utterly frivolous--quite selfish and mercenary.” + +“I take my chance!” + +“No, I give you none! Why do you interfere! A--a girl’s policy costs her +something if it be worth anything; whatever it costs it is worth it to +me. … And I do not love you. In so short a time how could I?” + +Then in his arms she fell a-trembling. Something blinded her eyes, and +she turned her head sharply, only to encounter his lips on hers in a +deep, clinging embrace that left her dazed, still resisting with the +fragments of breath and voice. + +“Not again--I beg--you. Let me go now. It is not best. Oh! truly, truly it +is all wrong with us now.” She bent her head, blinded with tears, +swaying, stunned; then, with a breathless sound, turned in his arms to +meet his lips, her hands contracting in his; and, confronting, they +paused, suspending the crisis, young faces close, and hearts afire. + +“Sylvia, I love you.” + +For an instant their lips clung; she had rendered him his kiss. Then, +tremblingly, “It is useless … even though I loved you.” + +“Say it!” + +“I do.” + +“Say it!” + +“I--I cannot! … And it is no use--no use! I do not know myself--this way. +My eyes--are wet. It is not like me; there is nothing of me in this girl +you hold so closely, so confidently. … I do care for you--how can I help +it? How could any woman help it? Is not that enough?” + +“Until you are a bride, yes.” + +“A bride? Stephen!--I cannot--” + +“You cannot help it, Sylvia.” + +“I must! I have my way to go.” + +“My way lies that way.” + +“No! no! I cannot do it; it is not best for me--not best for you. … I do +care for you; you have taught me how to say it. But--you know what I have +done--and mean to do, and must carry through. Then, how can you love a +girl like that?” + +“Dear, I know the woman I love.” + +“Silly, she is what her life has made her--material, passionately +selfish, unable to renounce the root of all evil. … Even if this--this +happiness were ours always--I mean, if this madness could last our +wedded life--I am not good enough, not noble enough, to forget what I +might have had, and put away. … Is it not dreadful to admit it? Do you +not know that self-contempt is part of the price? … I have no money. I +know what you have. … I asked. And it is enough for a man who remains +unmarried. … For I cannot ‘make things do’; I cannot ‘contrive’; I will +not cling to the fringe of things, or play that heartbreaking rôle of +the shabby expatriated on the Continent. … No person in this world ever +had enough. I tell you I could find use for every flake of metal ever +mined! … You see you do not know me. From my pretty face and figure you +misjudge me. I am intelligent--not intellectual, though I might have +been, might even be yet. I am cultivated, not learned; though I care for +learning--or might, if I had time. … My rôle in life is to mount to a +security too high for any question as to my dominance. … Can you take me +there?” + +“There are other heights, Sylvia.” + +“Higher?” + +“Yes, dear.” + +“The spiritual; I know. I could not breathe there, if I cared to climb. +… And I have told you what I am--all silk and lace and smooth-skinned +selfishness.” She looked at him wistfully. “If you can change me, take +me.” And she rose, facing him. + +“I do not give you up,” he said, with a savage note hardening his voice; +and it thrilled her to hear it, and every drop of blood in her body +leaped as she yielded to his arms again, heavy-lidded, trembling, +confused, under the piercing sweetness of contact. + +The perfume of her mouth, her hair, the consenting fingers locked in +his, palm against palm, the lips, acquiescent, then afire at last, +responsive to his own; and her eyes opening from the dream under the +white lids--these were what he had of her till every vein in him pulsed +flame. Then her voice, broken, breathless: + +“Good night. Love me while you can--and forgive me! … Good night. … Where +are we? All--all this must have stunned me, blinded me. … Is this my +door, or yours? Hush! I am half dead with fear--to be here under the +light again. … If you take me again, my knees will give way. … And I +must find my door. Oh, the ghastly imprudence of it! … Good night … good +night. I--I love you!” + + + +CHAPTER VI MODUS VIVENDI + +After the first few days of his arrival at Shotover time had threatened +to hang heavily on Mortimer’s mottled hands. After the second day afield +he recognised that his shooting career was practically over; he had +become too bulky during the last year to endure the physical exertion; +his habits, too, had at length made traitors of his eyes; a half hour’s +snipe-shooting in the sun, and the veins in his neck swelled ominously. +Panting, eyes inflamed, fat arms wobbly, he had scored miss after miss, +and laboured onward, sullenly persistent to the end. But it was the end. +That cup day finished him; he recognised that he was done for. And, +following the Law of Pleasure, which finishes us before we are finished +with it, he did not experience any particular sense of deprivation in +the prospect. Only the wholesome dread caging. But Mortimer, not yet +done with self-indulgence in more convenient forms, cast about him +within his new limits for occupation between those hours consecrated to +the rites of the table and the card-room. + +He drove four, but found that it numbed his arms, and that the sea air +made him sleepy. Motor-cars agreed with him only when driving with a +pretty woman. Forced through ennui to fish off the rocks, he soon tired +of the sea-perch and rock-cod and the malodours of periwinkle and clam. + +Then he frankly took to Major Belwether’s sunny side of the gun-room, +with illustrated papers and apples and decanter. But Major Belwether, +always as careful of his digestion as of his financial secrets, blandly +dodged the pressing invitations to rum and confidence, until Mortimer +sulkily took up his headquarters in the reading-room, on the chance of +his wife’s moving elsewhere. Which she did, unobtrusively carrying +Captain Voucher with her in a sudden zeal for billiard practice on rainy +mornings now too frequent along the coast. + +Mortimer possessed that mysterious talent, so common among the +financially insolvent, for living lavishly on an invisible income. But, +plan as he would, he had never been able to increase that income through +confidential gossip with men like Quarrier or Belwether, or even +Ferrall. What information his pretty wife might have extracted he did +not know; her income had never visibly increased above the vanishing +point, although, like himself, she denied herself nothing. One short, +lively interview with her had been enough to drive all partnership ideas +out of his head. If he wanted to learn anything financially advantageous +to himself he must do it without her aid; and as he was perpetually in +hopes of the friendly hint that never came, he still moused about when +opportunity offered; and this also helped to kill time. + +Besides, he was always studying women. Years before, Grace Ferrall had +snapped her slim fingers in his face; and here, at Shotover, the field +was limited. Mrs. Vendenning had left; Agatha Caithness was still a pale +and reticent puzzle; Rena, Katharyn, and Eileen tormented him; Marion +Page, coolly au fait, yawned in his face. There remained Sylvia, who, +knowing nothing about his species, met him half-way with the sweet and +sensitive deference due a somewhat battered and infirm gentleman of +forty-eight--until a sleek aside from Major Belwether spoiled everything, +as usual, for her, leaving her painfully conscious and perplexed between +doubt and disgust. + +Meanwhile, the wealthy master of Black Fells, Beverly Plank, had found +encouragement enough at Shotover to venture on tentative informality. +There was no doubt that ultimately he must be counted on in New York; +but nobody except him was impatiently cordial for the event; and so, at +the little house party, he slipped and slid from every attempt at closer +quarters, until, rolling smoothly enough, he landed without much +discomfort somewhere between Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Mortimer. And it was not +a question as to “which would be good to him,” observed Major Belwether, +with his misleading and benevolent mirth; “it was, which would be +goodest quickest!” + +And Mrs. Mortimer, abandoning Captain Voucher by the same token, +displayed certain warning notices perfectly comprehensive to her +husband. And at first he was inclined to recognise defeat. + +But the general insuccess which had so faithfully attended him recently +had aroused the long-dormant desire for a general review of the +situation with his wife--perhaps even the furtive hope of some conjugal +arrangement tending toward an exchange of views concerning possible +alliance. + +The evening previous, to his intense disgust, host, hostess, and guests +had retired early, in view of the point-shooting at dawn. For not only +was there to be no point-shooting for him, but he had risen from the +card-table heavily hit; and besides, for the first time his apples and +port had disagreed with him. + +As he had not risen until mid-day he was not sleepy. Books were an +aversion equalled only by distaste for his own company. Irritated, +bored, he had perforce sulkily entered the elevator and passed to his +room, where there was nothing on earth for him to do except to thumb +over last week’s sporting periodicals and smoke himself stupid. + +But it required more than that to ensnare the goddess of slumber. He +walked about the room, haunted of slow thoughts; he stood at the rain- +smeared pane, fat fingers resting on the glass. The richly flavoured +cigar grew distasteful; and if he could not smoke, what, in pity’s name, +was he to do? + +Involuntarily his distended eyes wandered to his wife’s locked and +bolted door; then he thought of Beverly Plank, and his own failure to +fasten himself upon that anxiously over-cordial individual with his +houses and his villas and his yachts and his investments! + +He stepped to the switch and extinguished the lights in his room. Under +the door, along the sill, a glimmer came from his wife’s bed-chamber. He +listened; the maid was still there; so he sat down in the darkness to +wait; and by-and-by he heard the outer bedroom door close, and the +subdued rustle of the departing maid. + +Then, turning on his lights, he moved ponderously and jauntily to his +wife’s door and knocked discreetly. + +Leila Mortimer came to the door and opened it; her hair was coiled for +the night, her pretty figure outlined under a cascade of clinging lace. + +“What is the matter?” she asked quietly. + +“Are you point-shooting to-morrow?” + +“I wanted to chat with you.” + +“I’m sorry. I’m driving to Wenniston, after breakfast, with Beverly +Plank, and I need sleep.” + +“I want to talk to you,” he repeated doggedly. + +She regarded him for a moment in silence, then, with an assenting +gesture, turned away into her room; and he followed, heavily +apprehensive but resolved. + +She had seated herself among a pile of cushions, one knee crossed over +the other, her slim white foot half concealed by the silken toe of her +slipper. And as he pulled a chair forward for himself, her pretty black +eyes, which slanted a little, took his measure and divined trouble. + +“Leila,” he said, “why can’t we have--” + +“A cigarette?” she interrupted, indicating her dainty case on the table. + +He took one, savagely aware of defiance somewhere. She lighted her own +from a candle and settled back, studying the sequence of blue smoke- +rings jetting upward to the ceiling. + +“About this man Plank,” he began, louder than he had intended through +sheer self-mistrust; and his wife made a quick, disdainful sign of +caution, which subdued his voice instantly. “Why can’t we take him up +--together, Leila?” he ended lamely, furious at his own uneasiness in a +matter which might concern him vitally. + +“I see no necessity of your taking him up,” observed his wife serenely. +“I can do what may be useful to him in town.” + +“So can I. There are clubs where he ought to be seen--” + +“I can manage such matters much better.” + +“You can’t manage everything,” he insisted sullenly. “There are chances +of various sorts--” + +“Investments?” asked Mrs. Mortimer, with bright malice. + +“See here, Leila, you have your own way too much. I say little; I make +damned few observations; but I could, if I cared to. … It becomes you to +be civil at least. I want to talk over this Plank matter with you; I +want you to listen, too.” + +A shade of faint disgust passed over her face. “I am listening,” she +said. + +“Well, then, I can see several ways in which the man can be of use to +me. … I discovered him before you did, anyway. And what I want to do is +to have a frank, honourable--” + +“A--what?” + +“--An honourable understanding with you, I said,” he repeated, reddening. + +“Oh!” She snapped her cigarette into the grate. “Oh! I see. And what +then?” + +“What then?” + +“Yes; what then?” + +“Why, you and I can arrange to stand behind him this winter in town, +can’t we?” + +“And then?” + +“Then--damn it!--the beggar can show his gratitude, can’t he?” + +“How?” she asked listlessly. + +“By making good. How else?” he retorted savagely. “He can’t welch +because there’s little to climb for beyond us; and even if he climbs, he +can’t ignore us. I can do as many things for him in my way as you can in +yours. What is the use of being a pig, Leila? Anything he does for me +isn’t going to cancel his obligations to you.” + +“I know him better than you do,” she observed, bending her head and +pleating the lace on her knee. “There is Dutch blood in him.” + +“Not good Hollander, but common Dutch,” sneered Mortimer. “And you mean +he’ll squeeze a dollar till the eagle screams-don’t you?” + +She sat silent, pleating her lace with steady fingers. + +“Well, that’s all right, too,” laughed Mortimer easily; “let the Audubon +Society worry over the eagle. It’s a perfectly plain business +proposition; we can do for him in a couple of winters what he can’t do +for himself in ten. Figure it out for yourself, Leila,” he said, waving +a mottled fat hand at her. + +“I--have,” she said under her breath. + +“Then, is it settled? + +“Settled--how?” + +“That we form ourselves into a benevolent society of two in behalf of +Plank?” + +“I--I don’t want to, Roy,” she said slowly. + +“Why not?” + +She did not say why not, seated there nervously pleating the fragile +stuff clinging to her knee. + +“Why not?” he repeated menacingly. Her unexpectedly quiescent attitude +had emboldened him to a bullying tone--something he had not lately +ventured on. + +She raised her eyes to his: “I--rather like him,” she said quietly. + +“Then, by God! he’ll pay for that!” he burst out, mask off, every +inflamed feature shockingly congested. + +“Roy! You dare not--” + +“I tell you I--” + +“You dare not!” + +The palpitating silence lengthened; slowly the blood left the swollen +veins. Heavy pendulous lip hanging, he stared at her from distended +eyes, realising that he had forgotten himself. She was right. He dared +not. And she held the whip-hand as usual. + +For every suspicion he could entertain, she had evidence of a certainty +to match it; for every chance that he might have to prove anything, she +had twenty proven facts. And he knew it. Why they had, during all these +years, made any outward pretence of conjugal unity they alone knew. The +modus vivendi suited them better than divorce: that was apparent, or had +been until recently. Recently Leila Mortimer had changed--become subdued +and softened to a degree that had perplexed her husband. Her attitude +toward him lacked a little of the bitterness and contempt she usually +reserved for him in private; she had become more prudent, almost +cautious at times. + +“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said with a sudden snarl: “You’d better be +careful there is no gossip about you and Plank.” + +She reddened under the insult. + +“Now we’ll see,” he continued venomously, “how far you can go alone.” + +“Do you suppose,” she asked calmly, “that I am afraid of a divorce +court?” + +The question so frankly astonished him that he sat agape, unable to +reply. For years he had very naturally supposed her to be afraid of +it--afraid of not being qualified to obtain it. Indeed, he had taken that +for granted as the very corner-stone of their mutual toleration. Had he +been an ass to do so? A vague alarm took possession of him; for, with +that understanding, he had not been at all careful of his own behaviour, +neither had he been at any particular pains to conceal his doings from +her. His alarm increased. What had he against her, after all, except +ancient suspicions, now so confused and indefinite that memory itself +outlawed the case, if it ever really existed. What had she against him? +Facts--unless she was more stupid than any of her sex he had ever +encountered. And now, this defiance, this increasing prudence, this +subtle change in her, began to make him anxious for the permanency of +the small income she had allowed him during all these years--doled out +to him, as he believed, though her dormant fear of him. + +“What are you talking about?” he said harshly. + +“I believe I mentioned divorce.” + +“Well, cut it out! D’ye see? Cut it, I say. You’d stand as much chance +before a referee as a snowball in hell.” + +“There’s no telling,” she said coolly, “until one tries.” + +He glared at her, then burst into a laugh. “Rot!” he said thickly. “Talk +sense, Leila! And keep this hard-headed Dutchman for yourself, if you +feel that way about it. I don’t want to butt in. I only thought--for old +times’ sake--perhaps you’d--” + +“Good night,” she managed to say, her disgust almost strangling her. + +And he went, furtively, heavy-footed, perplexed, inwardly cursing his +blunder in stirring up a sleeping lioness whom he had so long mistaken +for a dozing cat. + +For hours he sat in his room, or paced the four walls, doubtful, +chagrined, furious by turns. Once he drew out a memorandum-book and +stood under a lighted sconce, studying the figures. His losses at +Shotover staggered him, but he had looked to his wife heretofore in such +emergencies. + +Certainly the time had come for him to do something. But what?--if his +wife was going to strike such attitudes in the very face of decency? +Certainly a husband in these days was without honour in his own +household. + +His uneasiness had produced a raging thirst. He punched an electric +button with his fleshy thumb, and prowled around, waiting. Nobody came; +he punched again, and looked at his watch. It astonished him to find the +hour was three o’clock in the morning. That discovery, however, only +appeared to increase his thirst. He opened the hall door, prepared to +descend into the depths of the house and raid a sideboard; and as he +thrust his heavy head out into the lighted corridor his eyes fell upon +two figures standing at the open door of a bedroom. One was Siward; that +was plain. Who was the girl he had kissed? One of the maids? Somebody’s +wife? Who? + +Every dull pulse began to hammer in Mortimer’s head. In his excitement +he stepped half-way into the corridor, then skipped nimbly back, closing +his door without a sound. + +“Sylvia Landis, by all that’s holy!” he breathed to himself, and sat +down rather suddenly on the edge of the bed. + +After a while he rose and crept to the door, opened it, glued his eyes +to the crack, in time to catch a glimpse of Siward entering his own +corridor alone. + +And that night, Mortimer, lying awake in bed, busy with schemes, became +conscious of a definite idea. It took shape and matured so suddenly that +it actually shocked his moral sense. Then it scared him. + +“But--but that is blackmail!” he whispered aloud. “A man can’t do that +sort of thing. What the devil ever put it into my head? … And there are +men I know--women, too--scoundrelly blackguards, who’d use that +information somehow; and make it pay, too. The scoundrels!” + +He squirmed down among the bedclothes with a sudden shiver; but the +night had turned warm. + +“Scoundrels!” he said, with milder emphasis. “Blackmailers! Contemptible +pups!” + +He fell asleep an hour later, muttering something incoherent about +scoundrels and blackmail. + +And meanwhile, in the darkened house, from all round came the noise of +knocking on doors, sounds of people stirring--a low voice here and there, +lights breaking out from transoms, the thud of rubber-shod heels, the +rattle of cartridges from the echoing gun-room. For the guests at +Shotover were awaking, lest the wet sky, whitening behind the east, ring +with the whimpering wedges of wild-fowl rushing seaward over empty +blinds. + + +The unusual stillness of the house in the late morning sunshine was +pleasant to Miss Landis. She had risen very late, unconscious of the +stir and movement before dawn; and it was only when a maid told her, as +she came from her bath, that she remembered the projected point- +shooting, and concluded, with an odd, happy sense of relief, that she +was almost alone in the house. + +A little later, glancing from her bedroom window for a fulfilment of the +promise of the sun which a glimpse of blue sky heralded, she saw Leila +Mortimer settling herself in the forward seat of a Mercedes, and Beverly +Plank climbing in beside her; and she watched Plank steer the big +machine across the wet lawn, while the machinist swung himself into the +tonneau; and away they rolled, faster, faster, rushing out into the +misty hinterland, where the long streak of distant forest already began +to brighten, edged with the first rays of watery sunshine. + +So she had the big house to herself--every bit of it and with it freedom +from obligation, from comment, from demand or exaction; freedom from +restraint; liberty to roam about, to read, to dream, to idle, to +remember! Ah, that was what she needed--a quiet interval in this hurrying +youth of hers to catch her breath once more, and stand still, and look +back a day or two and remember. + +So, to breakfast all alone was delicious; to stroll, unhurried, to the +sideboard and leisurely choose among the fresh cool fruits; to loiter +over cream-jug and cereal; to saunter out into the freshness of the +world and breathe it, and feel the sun warming cheek and throat, and the +little breezes from a sunlit sea stirring the bright strands of her +hair. + +In the increasing brilliancy of the sunshine she stretched out her +hands, warming them daintily as she might twist them before the fire on +the hearth. And here, at the fragrant hearth of the world, she stood, +sweet and fresh as the morning itself, untroubled gaze intensely blue +with the tint of the purple sea, sensitive lips scarcely parting in the +dreaming smile that made her eyes more wonderful. + +As the warmth grew on land and water, penetrating her body, a faintly +delicious glow responded in her heart,--nothing at first wistful in the +serene sense of well-being, stretching her rounded arms skyward in the +unaccustomed luxury of a liberty which had become the naively +unconscious licence of a child. The poise of sheer health stretched her +to tiptoe; then the graceful tension relaxed, and her smooth fingers +uncurled, tightened, and fell limp as her arms fell and her superb young +figure straightened, confronting the sea. + +Out over the rain-wet, odorous grass she picked her way, skirts swung +high above the delicate contour of ankle and limb, following a little +descending path she knew full of rocky angles, swept by pendant sprays +of blackberry, and then down under the jutting rock, south through +thickets of wild cherry along the crags, until, before her the way +opened downward again where a tiny crescent beach glimmered white hot in +the sun. + +From his bedroom window Mortimer peeped forth, following her progress +with a leer. + +As she descended, noticing the rifts of bronzing seaweed piled along the +tide mark, her foot dislodged a tiny triangle of rock, which rolled +clattering and ringing below; and as she sprang lightly to the sand, a +man, lying full length and motionless as the heaped seaweed, raised +himself on one arm, turning his sun-dazzled eyes on her. + +The dull shock of surprise halted her as Siward rose to his feet, still +dazed, the sand running from his brown shooting-clothes over his tightly +strapped puttees. + +“Have you the faintest idea that I supposed you were here?” she asked +briefly. Then, frank in her disappointment, she looked up at the cliffs +overhead, where her line of retreat lay. + +“Why did you not go with the others?” she added, unsmiling. + +“I--don’t know. I will, if you wish.” He had coloured slowly, the frank +disappointment in her face penetrating his surprise; and now he turned +around, instinctively, also looking for the path of retreat. + +“Wait,” she said, aware of her own crude attitude and confused by it; +“wait a moment, Mr. Siward. I don’t mean to drive you away.” + +“It’s self-exile,” he said quietly; “quite voluntary, I assure you.” + +“Mr. Siward!” + +And, as he looked up coolly, “Have you nothing more friendly to say to +me? Is your friendship for me so limited that my first caprice oversteps +the bounds? Must I always be in dread of wounding you when I give you +the privilege of knowing me better than anybody ever knew me--of seeing +me as I am, with all my faults, my failings, my impulses, my real self? +… I don’t know why the pleasure of being alone to-day should have meant +exclusion for you, too. It was the unwelcome shock of seeing anybody--a +selfish enjoyment of myself--that surprised me into rudeness. That is +all. … Can you not understand?” + +“I think so. I meant no criticism--” + +“Wait, Mr. Siward!” as he moved slowly toward the path. “You force me to +say other things, which you have no right to hear. … After last +night”--the vivid tint grew in her face--“after such a night, is it +not--natural--for a girl to creep off somewhere by herself and try to +think a little?” + +He had turned full on her; the answering colour crept to his forehead. + +“Is that why?” he asked slowly. + +“Is it not a reason?” + +“It was my reason--for being here.” + +She bit her bright lip. This trend to the conversation was ominous, and +she had meant to do her drifting alone in still sun-dreams, fearing no +witness, no testimony, no judgment save her own self in court with +herself. + +“I--I suppose you cannot go--now,” she reflected innocently. + +“Indeed I can, and must.” + +“And leave me here to dig in the sand with my heels? Merci!” + +“Do you mean--” + +“I certainly do, Mr. Siward. I don’t want to dream, now; I don’t care to +reflect. I did, but here you come blundering into my private world and +upset my calculations and change my intentions! It’s a shame, especially +as you’ve been lying here doing what I wished to do for goodness knows +how long!” + +“I’m going,” he said, looking at her curiously. + +“Then you are very selfish, Mr. Siward.” + +“We will call it that,” he said with an odd laugh. + +“Very well.” She seated herself on the sand and calmly shook out her +skirts. + +“About what time would you like to be called?” he asked smilingly. + +“Thank you, I shall do no sun-dreaming.” + +“Please. It is good for you.” + +“No, it isn’t good at all. And I am grateful to you for waking me,” she +retorted with a sudden gay malice that subdued him. And she, delicate +nose in the air, laughingly watching him, went on with her punishment: +“You see what you’ve done, don’t you?--saved me from an entire morning +wasted in sentimental reverie over what might have been. Now you can +appreciate it, can’t you?--your wisdom in appearing in the flesh to save +a silly girl the effort of evoking you in the spirit! Ah, Mr. Siward, I +am vastly obliged to you! Pray sit here beside me in the flesh, for fear +that in your absence I might commit the folly that tempted me here.” + +His low running laughter accompanying her voice had stimulated her to a +gay audacity, which for the instant extinguished in her the little fear +of him she had been barely conscious of. + +“Do you know,” he said, “that you also aroused me from my sun-dreams?” + +“Did I? And can’t you resume them?” + +“You save me the necessity.” + +“Oh, that is a second-hand compliment,” she said disdainfully--“a weak +plagiarism on what I conveyed very wittily. You were probably really +asleep, and dreaming of bird-murder.” + +He waited for her to finish, then, amused eyes searching, he roamed +about until high on a little drifted sand dune he found a place for +himself; and while she watched him indignantly, he curled up in the +sunshine, and, dropping his head on the hot sand, calmly closed his +eyes. + +“Upon--my word!” she breathed aloud. + +He unclosed his eyes. “Now you may dream; you can’t avoid it,” he +observed lazily, and closed his eyes; and neither taunts nor jeers nor +questions, nor fragments of shells flung with intent to hit, stirred him +from his immobility. + +She tired of the attempt presently, and sat silent, elbows on her +thighs, hands propping her chin. Thoughts, vague as the fitful breeze, +arose, lingered, and, like the breeze, faded, dissolved into calm, +through which, cadenced by the far beat of the ebb tide, her heart +echoed, beating the steady intervals of time. + +She had not meant to dream, but as she sat there, the fine-spun golden +threads flying from the whirling loom of dreams floated about her, +settling over her, entangling her in unseen meshes, so that she stirred, +groping amid the netted brightness, drawn onward along dim paths and +through corridors of thought where, always beyond, vague splendours +seemed to beckon. + +Now lost, now restless, conscious of the perils of the shining path she +followed, the rhythm of an ocean soothing her to false security, she +dreamed on awake, unconscious of the tinted sea and sky which stained +her eyes to hues ineffable. A long while afterward a small cloud floated +across the sun; and, in the sudden shadow on the world, doubt sounded +its tiny voice, and her ears listened, and the enchantment faded and +died away. + +Turning, she looked across the sand at the man lying there; her eyes +considered him--how long she did not know, she did not heed--until, +stirring, he looked up; and she paled a trifle and closed her eyes, +stunned by the sudden clamour of pulse and heart. + +When he rose and walked over, she looked up gravely, pouring the last +handful of white sand through her stretched fingers. + +“Did you dream?” he asked lightly. + +“Yes.” + +“Did you dream true?” + +“Nothing of my dream can happen,” she said. “You know that, … don’t +you?” + +“I know that we love … and that we dare not ignore it.” + +She suffered his arm about her, his eyes looking deeply into hers--a +close, sweet caress, a union of lips, and her dimmed eyes’ response. + +“Stephen,” she faltered, “how can you make it so hard for me? How can +you force me to this shame!” + +“Shame?” he repeated vaguely. + +“Yes--this treachery to myself--when I cannot hope to be more to you--when +I dare not love you too much!” + +“You must dare, Sylvia!” + +“No, no, no! I know myself, I tell you. I cannot give up what is +offered--for you!--dearly, dearly as I do love you!” She turned and caught +his hands in hers, flushed, trembling, unstrung. “I cannot--I simply +cannot! How can you love me and listen to such wickedness? How can you +still care for such a girl as I am--worse than mercenary, because I have +a heart--or had, until you took it! Keep it; it is the only part of me +not all ignoble.” + +“I will keep it--in trust,” he said, “until you give yourself with it.” + +But she only shook her head wearily, withdrawing her hands from his, and +for a time they sat silent, eyes apart. + +Then--“There is another reason,” she said wistfully. + +He looked up at her, hesitated, and--“My habits?” he asked simply. + +“Yes.” + +“I have them in check.” + +“Are you--certain?” + +“I think I may be--now.” + +“Yet,” she said timidly, “you lost one fight--since you knew me.” + +The dull red mantling his face wrung her heart. She turned impulsively +and laid both hands on his shoulders. “That chance I would take, with +all its uncertainty, all the dread inheritance you have come into. I +love you enough for that; and if it turned out that--that you could not +stem the tide, even with me to face it with you; and if the pity of it, +the grief of it, killed me, I would take that chance--if you loved me +through it all. … But there is something else. Hush; let me have my say +while I find the words--something else you do not understand. … Turn your +face a little; please don’t look at me. This is what you do not +know--that, in three generations, every woman of my race has--gone wrong. +… Every one! and I am beginning--with such a marriage! … deliberately, +selfishly, shamelessly, perfectly conscious of the frivolous, erratic +blood in me, aware of the race record behind me. + +“Once, when I knew nothing--before I--I met you--I believed such a +marriage would not only permit me mental tranquillity, but safely anchor +me in the harbour of convention, leaving me free to become what I am +fashioned to become--autocrat and arbiter in my own world. And now! and +now! I don’t know--truly I don’t know what I may become. Your love forces +my hand. I am displaying all the shallowness, falseness, pettiness, all +the mean, and cruel and callous character which must be truly my real +self. … Only I shall not marry you! You are not to run the risk of what +I might prove to be when I remember in bitterness all I have renounced. +If I married you I should remember, unreconciled, what you cost me. +Better for you and for me that I marry him, and let him bear with me +when I remember that he cost me you!” + +She bent over, almost double, closing her eyes with small clenched +hands; and he saw the ring shimmering in the sunshine, and her hair, +heavily, densely gold, and the white nape of her neck, and the tiny +close-set ears, and the curved softness of cheek and chin; every smooth, +childlike contour and mould--rounded arms, slim, flowing lines of body +and limb--all valued at many millions by her as her own appraiser. + +Suddenly, deep within him, something seemed to fail, die out--perhaps a +tiny newly lighted flame of unaccustomed purity, the dawning flicker of +aspiration to better things. Whatever it was, material, spiritual, was +gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed +twilit doubt crept in--the same dull acquiescence--the same uncertainty +of self, the familiar lack of will, of incentive, the congenial tendency +to drift; and with it came weariness--perhaps reaction from the recent +skirmishes with that master-vice. + +“I suppose,” he said in a dull voice, “you are right.” + +“No, I am wrong--wrong!” she said, lifting her lovely face and heavy +eyes. “But I have chosen my path. … And you will forget.” + +“I hope so,” he said simply. + +“If you hope so, you will.” + +He nodded, unconvinced, watching a flock of sand-pipers whirling into +the cove like a gray snow-squall and fearlessly settling on the beach. + +After a while, with a long breath: “Then it is settled,” she concluded. + +If she expected corroboration from him she received none; and perhaps +she was not awaiting it. She sat very still, her eyes lost in thought. + +And Mortimer, peeping down at them over the thicket above, yawned +impatiently and glanced about him for the most convenient avenue of +self-effacement when the time arrived. + + + +CHAPTER VII PERSUASION + +The days of the house-party at Shotover were numbered. A fresh relay of +guests was to replace them on Monday, and so they were making the most +of the waning week on lawn and marsh, in covert and blind, or motoring +madly over the State, or riding in parties to Vermillion Light. Tennis +and lawn bowls came into fashion; even water polo and squash alternated +on days too raw for more rugged sport. + +And during all these days Beverly Plank appeared with unflagging +persistence and assiduity, until his familiar, big, round head and +patient, delft-blue, Dutch eyes became a matter of course at Shotover, +indoors and out. + +It was not that he was either accepted, tolerated, or endured; he was +simply there, and nobody took the trouble to question his all-pervading +presence until everybody had become too much habituated to him to think +about it at all. + +The accomplished establishment of Beverly Plank was probably due as much +to his own obstinate and good-tempered persistence as to Mrs. Mortimer. +He was a Harvard graduate--there are all kinds of them--enormously +wealthy, and though he had no particular personal tastes to gratify, he +was willing and able to gratify the tastes of others. He did whatever +anybody else did, and did it well enough to be amusing; and as lack of +intellectual development never barred anybody from any section of the +fashionable world, it seemed fair to infer that he would land where he +wanted to, sooner or later. + +Meanwhile, Mrs. Mortimer led him about with the confidence that was her +perquisite; and the chances were that in due time he would have house- +parties of his own at Black Fells--not the kind he had wisely denied +himself the pleasure of giving, with such neighbours as the Ferralls to +observe, but the sort he desired. However, there were many things to be +accomplished for him and by him before he could expect to use his great +yacht and his estates and his shooting boxes and the vast granite +mansion recently completed and facing Central Park just north of the new +palaces built on the edges of the outer desert where Fifth Avenue +fringes the hundreds. + +Meanwhile, he had become in a measure domesticated at Shotover, and +Shotover people gradually came to ride, drive, and motor over the Fells, +which was a good beginning, though not necessarily a promise for +anything definite in the future. + +Mortimer, riding a huge chestnut--he could still wedge himself into a +saddle--had now made it a regular practice to affect the jocular early- +bird squire, and drag Plank out of bed. And Plank, in no position to be +anything but flattered by such sans gêne, laboriously and gratefully +splashed through his bath, wallowed amid the breakfast plates, and +mounted a hunter for long and apparently aimless gallops with Mortimer. + +His acquaintance among people who knew Mortimer being limited, he had no +means of determining the latter’s social value except through hearsay +and a toadying newspaper or two. Therefore he was not yet aware of +Mortimer’s perennial need of money; and when Mortimer laughingly alluded +to his poverty, Plank accepted the proposition in a purely comparative +sense, and laughed, too, his thrifty Dutch soul untroubled by +misgivings. + +Meanwhile, Mortimer had come, among other things, on information; how +much, and precisely of what nature, he was almost too much ashamed to +admit definitely, even to himself. Still, the idea that had led him into +this sudden intimacy with Plank, vague or not, persisted; and he was +always hovering on the edge of hinting at something which might elicit a +responsive hint from the flattered master of Black Fells. + +There was much about Plank that was unaffected, genuine, even simple, in +one sense; he cared for people for their own sakes; and only stubborn +adherence to a dogged ambition had enabled him to dispense with the +society of many people he might easily have cultivated and liked--people +nearer his own sort; and that, perhaps, was the reason he so readily +liked Mortimer, whose coarse fibre soon wore through the polish when +rubbed against by a closer, finer fibre. And Plank liked him aside from +gratitude; and they got on famously on the basis of such mutual +recognition. Then, one day, very suddenly, Mortimer stumbled on +something valuable--a thread, a mere clew, so astonishing that for an +instant it absolutely upset all his unadmitted theories and +calculations. + +It was nothing--a vague word or two--a forced laugh--and the scared silence +of this man Plank, who had blundered on the verge of a confidence to a +man he liked. + +A moment of amazement, of half-incredulous suspicion, of certainty; and +Mortimer pounced playfully upon him like a tiger--a big, fat, friendly, +jocose tiger: + +“Plank, is that what you’re up to!” + +“Up to! Why, I never thought of such a--” + +“Haw! haw!” roared Mortimer. “If you could only see your face!” + +And Beverly Plank, red as a beet, comfortably suffused with reassurance +under the reaction from his scare, attempted to refute the other’s +conclusions: “It doesn’t mean anything, Mortimer. She’s just the +handsomest girl I ever saw. I know she’s engaged. I only admired her a +lot.” + +“You’re not the only man,” said Mortimer blandly, still striving to +reconcile his preconceived theories with the awkward half-confession of +this great, red-fisted, hulking horseman riding at his stirrup. + +“I wouldn’t have her dream,” stammered Plank, “that I had ever thought +of such a--” + +“Why not? It would only flatter her.” + +“Flatter a woman who is engaged to marry another man!” gasped Plank. + +“Certainly. Do you think any woman ever had enough admiration in this +world?” asked Mortimer coolly. “And as for Sylvia Landis, she’d be +tickled to death if anybody hinted that you had ever admired her.” + +“Good Lord!” exclaimed Plank, alarmed; “You wouldn’t make a joke of it! +you wouldn’t be careless about such a thing! And there’s Quarrier! I’m +not on joking terms with him; I’m on most formal terms.” + +“Quarrier!” sneered the other, flicking at his stirrup with his crop. +“He’s on formal terms with everybody, including himself. He never +laughed on purpose in his life; once a month only, to keep his mouth in; +that’s his limit. Do you suppose any woman would stand for him if a +better man looked sideways at her?” And, reversing his riding crop, he +deliberately poked Mr. Plank in the ribs. + +“A--a better man!” muttered Plank, scarce crediting his ears. + +“Certainly. A man who can make good, is good; but a man who can make +better is it with the ladies--God bless ‘em!” he added, displaying a +heavy set of teeth. + +Beverly Plank knew perfectly well that, in the comparison so delicately +suggested by Mortimer, his material equipment could be scarcely compared +to the immense fortune controlled by Howard Quarrier; and as he thought +it, his reflections were put into words by Mortimer, airily enough: + +“Nobody stands a chance in a show-down with Quarrier. But--” + +Plank gaped until the tension became unbearable. + +“But--what?” he blurted out. + +“Plank,” said Mortimer solemnly, and his voice vibrated with feeling, +“Let me do a little thinking before I ask you a--a vital question.” + +But Plank had become agitated again, and he said something so bluntly +that Mortimer wheeled on him, glowering: + +“Look here, Plank: you don’t suppose I’m capable of repeating a +confidence, do you?--if you choose to make me understand it’s a +confidence.” + +“It isn’t a confidence; it isn’t anything; I mean it is confidential, of +course. All there’s in it is what I said--or rather what you took me up +on so fast,” ended Plank, abashed. + +“About your being in love with Syl--” + +“Confound it!” roared Plank, crimson to his hair; and he set his heavy +spurs to his mount and plunged forward in a storm of dust. Mortimer +followed, silent, profoundly immersed in his own thoughts and +deductions; and as he pounded along, turning over in his mind all the +varied information he had so unexpectedly obtained in these last few +days, a dull excitement stirred him, and he urged his huge horse forward +in a thrill of rising exhilaration such as seizes on men who hunt, no +matter what they hunt--the savage, swimming sense of intoxication which +marks the man who chases the quarry not for its own value, but because +it is his nature to chase and ride down and enjoy spoils. + +And all that afternoon, having taken to his room on pretence of +neuralgia, he lay sprawled on his bed, thinking, thinking. Not that he +meant harm to anybody, he told himself very frequently. He had, of +course, information which certain degraded men might use in a +contemptible way, but he, Mortimer, did not resemble such men in any +particular. All he desired was to do Plank a good turn. There was +nothing disreputable in doing a wealthy man a favour. … And God knew a +wealthy man’s gratitude was necessary to him at that very +moment--gratitude substantially acknowledged. … He liked Plank--wished him +well; that was all right, too; but a man is an ass who doesn’t wish +himself well also. … Two birds with one stone. … Three! for he hated +Quarrier. Four! … for he had no love for his wife. … Besides, it would +teach Leila a wholesome lesson--teach her that he still counted; serve +her right for her disgusting selfishness about Plank. + +No, there was to be nothing disreputable in his proceedings; that he +would be very careful about. … Probably Major Belwether might express +his gratitude substantially if he, Mortimer, went to him frankly and +volunteered not to mention to Quarrier the scene he had witnessed +between Sylvia Landis and Stephen Siward at three o’clock in the morning +in the corridor; and if, in playful corroboration, he displayed the cap +and rain-coat and the big fan, all crushed, which objects of interest he +had discovered later in the bay-window. … Yes, probably Major Belwether +would be very grateful, because he wanted Quarrier in the family; he +needed Quarrier in his business. … But, faugh! that was close enough to +blackmail to rub off! … No! … No! He wouldn’t go to Belwether and +promise any such thing! … On the contrary, he felt it his duty to inform +Quarrier! Quarrier had a right to know what sort of a girl he was +threatened with for life! … A man ought not to let another man go +blindly into such a marriage. … Men owed each other something, even if +they were not particularly close friends. … And he had always had a +respect for Quarrier, even a sort of liking for him--yes, a distinct +liking! … And, anyhow, women were devils! and it behooved men to get +together and stand for one another! + +Quarrier would give her her walking papers damned quick! … And, in her +humiliation, is there anybody mad enough to fancy that she wouldn’t snap +up Plank in such a fix? … And make it look like a jilt for Quarrier? … +But Plank must do his part on the minute; Plank must step up in the very +nick of time; Plank, with his millions and his ambitions, was bound to +be a winner anyway, and Sylvia might as well be his pilot and use his +money. … And Plank would be very, very grateful--very useful, a very good +friend to have. … And Leila would learn at last that he, Mortimer, had +cut his wisdom teeth, by God! + +As for Siward, he amounted to nothing; probably was one of that +contemptible sort of men who butted in and kissed a pretty girl when he +had the chance. He, Mortimer, had only disgust for such amateurs of the +social by-ways; for he himself kept to the highways, like any self- +respecting professional, even when a tour of the highways sometimes +carried him below stairs. There was no romantic shilly-shallying fol-de- +rol about him. Women learned what to expect from him in short order. En +garde, Madame!--ou Mademoiselle--tant pis! + +He laughed to himself and rolled over, digging his head into the pillows +and stretching his fat hands to ease their congestion. And most of all +he amused himself with figuring out the exact degree of his wife’s +astonishment and chagrin when, without consulting her, he achieved the +triumph of Quarrier’s elimination and the theatrical entry of Beverly +Plank upon the stage. He laughed when he thought of Major Belwether, +too, confounded under the loss of such a nephew-in-law, humiliated, +crushed, all his misleading jocularity, all his sleek pink-and-white +suavity, all his humbugging bonhomie knocked out of him, leaving only a +rumpled, startled old gentleman, who bore an amusing resemblance to a +very much mussed-up buck-rabbit. + +“Haw! haw!” roared Mortimer, rolling about in his bed and kicking the +slippers from his fat feet. Then, remembering that he was supposed to be +suffering silently in his room, he hunched up to a sitting posture and +regarded his environment with a subdued grin. + +Everything seems easy when it seems funny. After all, the matter was +simple--absurdly simple. A word to Quarrier, and crack! the match was +off! Girl mad as a hornet, but staggered, has no explanation to offer; +man frozen stiff with rage, mute as an iceberg. Then, zip! Enter Beverly +Plank--the girl’s rescuer at a pinch--her preserver, the saviour of her +“face,” the big, highly coloured, leaden-eyed deus ex machina. Would she +take fifty cents on the dollar? Would she? to buy herself a new “face”? +And put it all over Quarrier? And live happy ever after? Would she? Oh, +not at all! + +And Mortimer rolled over in another paroxysm; which wasn’t good for him, +and frightened him enough to lie still awhile and think how best he +might cut down on his wine and spirits. + +The main thing, after all, was to promise Plank his opportunity, but not +tell him how he was to obtain it; for Mortimer had an uneasy idea that +there was something of the Puritan deep planted under the stolid young +man’s hide, and that he might make some absurd and irrelevant objection +to the perfectly proper methods employed by his newly self-constituted +guide and mentor. No; that was no concern of Plank’s. All he had to do +was to be ready. As for Quarrier, anybody could forecast his action when +once convinced of Sylvia’s behaviour. + +He lay there pondering several methods of imparting the sad but +necessary information to Quarrier. One thing was certain: there was not +now time enough before the house-party dissolved to mould Plank into +acquiescent obedience. That must be finished in town--unless Plank +invited him to stay at the Fells after his time was up at Shotover. By +Heaven! That was the idea! And there’d be a chance for him at cards! … +Only, of course, Plank would ask Leila too. … But what did he care! He +was no longer afraid of her; he’d soon be independent of her and her +pittance. Let her go to the courts for her divorce! Let her-- + +He sat up rather suddenly, perplexed with a new idea which, curiously +enough, had not appealed to him before. The astonishing hint so coolly +dropped by his wife concerning her fearlessness of divorce proceedings +had only awakened him to the consciousness of his own vulnerability and +carelessness of conduct. + +Now it occurred to him, for the first time, that if it were not a mere +bluff on Leila’s part, this sudden coquetting with the question of +divorce might indicate an ulterior object. Was Leila considering his +elimination in view of this ulterior object? Was there an ulterior +gentleman somewhere prepared to replace him? If so, where? And who? + +His wife’s possible indiscretions had never interested him; he simply +didn’t care--had no curiosity, as long as appearances were maintained. +And she had preserved appearances with a skill which required all the +indifferent and easy charity of their set to pretend completely deceived +everybody. Yes, he gave her credit for that; she had been clever. Nobody +outside of the social register knew the true state of affairs in the +house of Leroy Mortimer--which, after all, was all anybody cared about. + +And so, immersed in the details of his dirty little drama, he pondered +over the possibility of an ulterior gentleman as he moved heavily to and +fro, dressing himself--his neuralgia being much better--and presently +descended the stairs to find everybody absent, engaged, as a servant +explained, in a game of water basket-ball in the swimming pool. So he +strolled off toward the north wing of the house, which had been built +for the squash-courts and swimming pool. + +There was a good deal of an uproar in the big gymnasium as Mortimer +walked in, threading his way through the palms and orange-trees; much +splashing in the pool, cries and stifled laughter, and the quick rattle +of applause from the gallery of the squash-courts. + +The Page boys and Rena and Eileen on one side were playing the last +match game against Sylvia, Marion Page, Siward, and Ferrall on the +other; the big, slippery, glistening ball was flying about through +storms of spray. Marion caught it, but her brother Gordon got it away; +then Ferrall secured it and dived toward the red goal; but Rena +Bonnesdel caught him under water; the ball bobbed up, and Sylvia flung +both arms around it with a little warning shout and hurled it back at +Siward, who shot forward like an arrow, his opponents gathering about +him in full cry, amid laughter and excited applause from the gallery, +where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher were wildly offering odds on the +blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether were thriftily booking them. + +Mortimer climbed the slippery, marble stairway as fast as his lack of +breath permitted, anxious for his share of the harvest if the odds were +right. He ignored his wife’s smilingly ironical offer, seeing no sense +in bothering about money already inside the family; but he managed to +make several apparently desirable wagers with Katharyn Tassel and one +with Beverly Plank, who was also obstinately backing the blues, the +losing side. Sylvia played forward for the blues. + +Agatha Caithness, sleeves rolled up, tall and slim and strangely pale in +her white flannels, came from the squash-court with Quarrier to watch +the finish; and Mortimer observed her sidewise, blinking, irresolute, +for he had never understood her and was always a trifle afraid of her. A +pair of icicles, she and Quarrier, with whom he had never been on +betting terms; so he made no suggestions in that direction, and +presently became absorbed in the splashing battle below. Indeed, such a +dashing of foam and showering of spray was taking place that the fronds +of the big palms hung dripping amid drenched blossoms overweighted and +prone on the wet marble edges of the pool. + +Suddenly, through the confused blur of foam and spray, the big, +glistening ball shot aloft and remained. + +“Blue! Blue!” exclaimed Grace Ferrall, clapping her hands; and a little +whirlwind of cries and hand clapping echoed from the gallery as the +breathless swimmers came climbing out of the pool, with scarcely wind +enough left for a word or strength for a gesture toward the laughing +crowd above. + +Mortimer, disgusted, turned away, already casting about him for somebody +to play cards with--it being his temperament and his temper to throw good +money after bad. But Quarrier and Miss Caithness had already returned to +the squash-courts, the majority of the swimmers to their several +dressing-rooms, and Grace Ferrall’s party, equipped for motoring, to the +lawn, where they lost little time in disappearing into the golden haze +which a sudden shift of wind had spun out of the cloudless afternoon’s +sunshine. + +However, he got Marion, and also, as usual, the two men who had made a +practice of taking away his money--Major Belwether and Lord Alderdene. +He hadn’t particularly wanted them; he wanted somebody he could play +with, like Siward, for example, or even the two ten-dollar Pages; not +that their combined twenty would do him much good, but it would at least +permit him the pleasures of the card-table without personal loss. + +But the Pages had retired to dress, and Voucher was for motoring, and he +had no use for his wife, and he was afraid of Plank’s game, and Siward, +seated on the edge of the pool and sharing a pint of ginger-ale with +Sylvia Landis, shook his head at the suggestion and resumed his division +of the ginger-ale. + +Plank and Leila Mortimer came down to congratulate them. Sylvia, always +instinctively and particularly nice to people of Plank’s sort whom she +occasionally encountered, was so faultlessly amiable, that Plank, who +had never before permitted himself the privilege of monopolising her, +found himself doing it so easily that it kept him in a state of +persistent mental intoxication. + +That slow, sweet, upward training inflection to a statement which +instantly became a confided question was an unconscious trick which had +been responsible, in Sylvia’s brief life, for more mistakes than +anything else. Like others before him, Beverly Plank made the mistake +that the sweetness of voice and the friendliness of eyes were +particularly personal to him, in tribute to qualities he had foolishly +enough hitherto not suspected in himself. Now he suspected them, and +whatever of real qualities desirable had been latent in him also +appeared at once, confirming his modest suspicions. Certainly he was a +wit! Was not this perfectly charming girl’s responsive and delicious +laughter proof enough? Certainly he was epigrammatic! Certainly he could +be easy, polished, amusing, sympathetic, and vastly interesting all the +while. Could he not divine it in her undivided attention, the quick, +amused flicker of recognition animating her beautiful face when he had +turned a particularly successful phrase or taken a verbal hurdle without +a cropper? And above all, her kindness to him impressed him; her natural +and friendly pleasure in being agreeable. Here he was already on an +informal footing with one of the persons of whom he had been most shy +and uncertain. If people were going to be as considerate of him as she +had proved, why--why-- + +His dull, Dutch-blue eyes returned to her, fascinated. The conquest of +what he desired and meant to have became merged in a vague plan which +included such a marriage as he had dreamed of. + +Somebody had once told him that a man who could afford to dress for +dinner could go anywhere; meaning that, being a man, nature had fitted +his feet with the paraphernalia for climbing as high as he cared to +climb. + +There was just enough truth in the statement to determine him to use his +climbing irons; and he had done so, carrying his fortune with him, which +had proved neither an impediment nor an aid so far. But now he had +concluded that neither his god-sent climbing irons, his amiability, his +obstinacy, his mild, tireless persistency, nor his money counted. It had +come to a crisis where personal worth and sterling character must carry +him through sheer merit to the inner temple--that inner temple of raw +gold whose altars are served by a sexless skeleton in cap and bells! + + +Siward, inclined to be amused by the duration of the trance into which +Plank had fallen, watched the progress of that bulky young man’s +infatuation as he sat there on the pool’s marble edge, exchanging +trivial views on trivial subjects with Mrs. Leroy Mortimer. + +But her conversation, even when inconsequential, was never wearisome +except when she made it so for her husband’s benefit. Features, person, +personality, and temperament were warmly exotic; her dark eyes with +their slight Japanese slant, the clear olive skin with its rose bloom, +the temptation of mouth and slender neck, were always provocative of the +audacity in men which she could so well meet with amusement or surprise, +or at times with a fascinating audacity of her own wholly charming +because of its setting. + +Once, in their history, during her early married life, Siward had been +very sentimental about her; but neither he nor she had approached the +danger line closer than to make daring eyes at one another across the +frontiers of good taste. And their youthful enchantment had faded so +naturally, so pleasantly, that always there had remained to them both an +agreeable after-taste--a sort of gay understanding which almost +invariably led to mutual banter when they encountered. But now something +appeared to be lacking in their rather listless badinage--something of +the usual flavour which once had salted even a laughing silence with +significance. Siward, too, had ceased to be amused at the spectacle of +Plank’s calf-like infatuation; and Leila Mortimer’s bored smile had +lasted so long that her olive-pink cheeks were stiff, and she relaxed +her fixed features with a little shrug that was also something of a +shiver. Then, looking prudently around, she encountered Siward’s eyes; +and during a moment’s hesitation they considered one another with an +increasing curiosity that slowly became tentative intelligence. And her +eyes said very plainly and wickedly to Siward’s: “Oho, my friend! So it +bores you to see Mr. Plank monopolising an engaged girl who belongs to +Howard Quarrier!” + +And his eyes, wincing, denying, pretending ignorance too late, suddenly +narrowed in vexed retaliation: “Speak for yourself, my lady! You’re no +more pleased than I am!” + +The next moment they both regretted the pale flash of telepathy. There +had been something wounded in his eyes; and she had not meant that. No; +a new charity for the hapless had softened her wonderfully within a +fortnight’s time, and a self-pity, not entirely ignoble, had subdued the +brilliancy of her dark eyes, and made her tongue more gentle in dealing +with all failings. Besides, she was not yet perfectly certain what ailed +her, never having really cared for any one man before. No, she was not +at all certain. … But in the meanwhile she was very sorry for herself, +and for all those who drained the bitter cup that might yet pass from +her shrinking lips. Who knows! “Stephen,” she said under her breath, “I +didn’t mean to hurt you. … Don’t scowl. Listen. I have already entirely +forgotten the nature of my offense. Pax, if you please.” + +He refused to understand; and she understood that, too; and she gazed +critically upon Sylvia Landis as a very young mother might inspect a +rival infant with whom her matchless offspring was coquetting. + +Then, without appearing to, she took Plank away from temptation; so +skilfully that nobody except Siward understood that the young man had +been incontinently removed. He, Plank, never doubting that he was a +perfectly free agent, decided that the time had arrived for triumphant +retirement. It had; but Leila Mortimer, not he, had rendered the +decision, and so cleverly that it appeared even to Plank himself that he +had dragged her off with him rather masterfully. Clearly he was becoming +a devil of a fellow! + +Sylvia turned to Siward, glanced up at him, hesitated, and began to +laugh consciously: + +“What do you think of my latest sentimental acquisition?” + +“He’d be an ornament to a stock farm,” replied Siward, out of humour. + +“How brutal you can be!” she mused, smiling. + +“Nonsense! He’s a plain bounder, isn’t he?” + +“I don’t know. … Is he? He struck me a trifle appealingly--even +pathetically; they usually do, that sort. … As though the trouble they +took could ever be worth the time they lose! … There are dozens of men I +know who are far less presentable than this highly coloured and robust +young human being; and yet they are part of the accomplished scheme of +things--like degenerate horses, you know--always pathetic to me; but +they’re still horses, for all that. Quid rides? Species of the same +genus can cross, of course, but I had rather be a donkey than a mule. … +And if I were a donkey I’d sing and cavort with my own kind, and let +horses flourish their own heels inside the accomplished scheme of +things. … Now I have been brutal. But--I’m easily coloured by my +environment.” + +She sat, smiling maliciously down at the water, smoothing out the soaked +skirt of her swimming suit, and swinging her legs reflectively. + +“Are you reconciled?” she asked presently. + +“To what?” + +“To leaving Shotover. To-day is our last day, you know. To-morrow we all +go; and next day these familiar walls will ring with other voices, my +poor friend: + +“‘Yon rising moon that looks for us again--How oft hereafter will she +wax and wane; How oft hereafter, rising, look for us Through this same +mansion--and for one in vain!’” + +“That is I--the one, you know. You may be here again; but I--I shall not +be I if I ever come to Shotover again.” + +Her stockinged heels beat the devil’s tattoo against the marble sides of +the pool. She reached up above her head, drawing down a flowering branch +of Japanese orange, and caressed her delicate nose with the white +blossoms, dreamily, then, mischievously: “I’m accustoming myself to this +most significant perfume,” she said, looking at him askance. And she +deliberately hummed the wedding march, watching the colour rise in his +sullen face. + +“If you had the courage of a sparrow you’d make life worth something for +us both,” he said. + +“I know it; I haven’t; but I seem to possess the remainder of his +lordship’s traits--inconsequence, self-centred selfishness, the instinct +for Fifth Avenue nest-building--all the feathered vices, all the +unlovely personality and futility and uselessness of my prototype. … +Only, as you observe, I lack the quality of courage.” + +“I don’t know how much courage it requires to do what you’re going to +do,” he said sulkily. + +“Don’t you? Sometimes, when you wear a scowl like that, I think that it +may require no more courage than I am capable of. … And sometimes--I +don’t know.” + +She crossed her knees, one slender ankle imprisoned in her hand, leaning +forward thoughtfully above the water. + +“Our last day,” she mused; “for we shall never be just you and I +again--never again, my friend, after we leave this rocky coast of Eden. … +I shall have hints of you in the sea-wind and the sound of the sea; in +the perfume of autumn woods, in the whisper of stirring leaves when the +white birches put on their gold crowns next year.” She smiled, turning +to him, a little gravely: “When the Lesser Children return with April, I +shall not forget you, Mr. Siward, nor forget your mercy of a day on +them; nor your comradeship, nor your sweetness to me. … Nor your charity +for me, nor all that you overlook so far in me,--under the glamour of a +spell that seems to hold you still, and that still holds me. … I can +answer for my constancy so far, until one more spring and summer have +come and gone--until one more autumn comes, and while it lasts--as long as +any semblance of the setting remains which had once framed you; I can +answer for my constancy as long as that. … Afterwards, the snow!--symbol +of our separation. I am to be married a year from November first.” + +He looked up at her in dark surprise, for he had heard that their +wedding date had been set for the coming winter. + +“A year’s engagement?” he repeated, unconvinced. + +“It was my wish. I think that is sufficient for everybody concerned.” +Then, averting her face, which had suddenly lost a little of its colour: +“A year is little enough,” she said impatiently. “I--what has happened to +us requires an interval--a decent interval for its burial. … Death is +respectable in any form. What dies between you and me can have no +resurrection under the snow. … So I bring to the burial my tribute--a +year of life, a year of constancy, my friend; symbol of an eternity I +could have given you had I been worth it.” She looked up, flushed, the +forced smile stamped on lips still trembling. “Sentiment in such a woman +as I! ‘A spectacle for Gods and men,’ you are saying--are you not? And +perhaps sentiment with me is only an ancient instinct, a latent +ancestral quality for which I, ages later, have no use.” She was +laughing easily. “No use for sentiment, as our bodies have no use for +that fashionable little cul-de-sac, you know, though wise men say it +once served its purpose, too. … Stephen Siward, what do you think of me +now?” + +“I am learning,” he replied simply. + +“What, if you please?” + +“Learning a little about what I am losing.” + +“You mean--me?” + +“Yes.” + +She bent forward impulsively, balancing her body on the pool’s rim with +both arms, dropping her knee until her ankles swung interlocked above +the water. “Listen,” she said in a low, distinct voice: “What you lose +is no other man’s gain! If I warm and expand in your presence--if I say +clever things sometimes--if I am intelligent, sympathetic, and amusing--it +is because of you. You inspire it in me. Normally I am the sort of girl +you first met at the station. I tell you that I don’t know myself +now--that I have not known myself since I knew you. Qualities of +understanding, ability to appreciate, to express myself without +employing the commonplaces, subtleties of intercourse--all, maybe, were +latent in me, but sterile, until you came into my life. … And when you +go, then, lacking impulse and incentive, the new facility, the new +sensitive alertness, the unconscious self-confidence, all will smoulder +and die out in me. … I know it; I realise that it was due to you--part of +me that I should never have known, of which I should have remained +totally ignorant, had it not blossomed suddenly, stimulated by you +alone.” + +Slowly the clouded seriousness of her blue eyes cleared, and the smile +began to glimmer again. “That is your revenge; you recommit me to my +commonplace self; you restore me to my tinsel career, practically a +dolt. Shame on you, Stephen Siward, to treat a poor girl so! … But it’s +just as well. Blunted perceptions, according to our needs, you know; and +so life is tempered for us all, else we might not endure it long. … A +pleasantly morbid suggestion for a day like this, is it not? … Shall we +take a farewell plunge, and dress? You know we say good-bye to-morrow.” + +“Where do you go from here?” + +“To Lenox; the Claymores have asked us for a week; after that, Hot +Springs for another two weeks or so; after that, to Oyster Bay. … Mr. +Quarrier opens his house on Sedge Point,” she added demurely, “but I +don’t think he expects to invite you to ‘The Sedges.’” + +“How long do you stay there?” asked Siward irritably. + +“Until we go to town in December.” + +“What will you find to do all that time in Oyster Bay?” he asked more +irritably. + +“What a premature question! The yacht is there. Besides, there’s the +usual neighbourhood hunting, with the usual packs and inevitable set; +the usual steeple-chasing; the usual exchange of social amenities; the +usual driving and riding; the usual, my poor friend, the usual, in all +its uncompromising certainty. … And what are you to do?” + +“When?” + +“After you leave here?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“You don’t know where you are going?” + +“I’m going to town.” + +“And then?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Oh, but haven’t you been asked somewhere? You have, of course.” + +“Yes, and I have declined.” + +“Matters of business,” she inferred. “Too bad!” + +“Oh, no.” + +“Then,” she concluded, laughing, “you don’t care to tell me where you +are going.” + +“No,” he said thoughtfully, “I don’t care to tell you.” + +She laughed again carelessly, and, placing one hand on the tiled +pavement, sprang lightly to her feet. + +“A last plunge?” she asked, as he rose at her side. + +“Yes, one last plunge together. Deep! Are you ready?” + +She raised her white arms above her head, finger-tips joined, poised an +instant on the brink, swaying forward; then, at his brief word, they +flashed downward together, cutting the crystalline sea-water, shooting +like great fish over the glass-tiled bed, shoulder to shoulder under the +water; and opening their eyes, they turned toward one another with a +swift outstretch of hands, an uncontrollable touch of lips, the very +shadow of contact; then cleaving upward, rising to the surface to lie +breathlessly floating, arms extended, and the sun filtering down through +the ground-glass roof above. + +“We are perfectly crazy,” she breathed. “I’m quite mad; I see that. On +land it’s bad enough for us to misbehave; but submarine sentiment! We’ll +be growing scales and tails presently. … Did you ever hear of a Southern +bird--a sort of hawk, I think--that almost never alights; that lives and +eats and sleeps its whole life away on the wing? and even its courtship, +and its honeymoon? Grace Ferrall pointed one out to me last winter, near +Palm Beach--a slender bird, part black, part snowy white, with long, +pointed, delicate wings like an enormous swallow; and all day, all +night, it floats and soars and drifts in the upper air, never resting, +never alighting except during its brief nesting season. … Think of the +exquisite bliss of drifting one’s life through in mid-air--to sleep, +balanced on light wings, upborne by invisible currents flowing under the +stars--to sail dreamily through the long sunshine, to float under the +moon! … And at last, I suppose, when its time has come, down it whirls +out of the sky, stone dead! … There is something thrilling in such a +death--something magnificent. … And in the exquisitely spiritual +honeymoon, vague as the shadow of a rainbow, is the very essence and +aroma of that impalpable Paradise we women prophesy in dreams! … More +sentiment! Heigho! My brother is the weeping crocodile, and the five +winds are my wits. … Shall we dress? Even with a maid and the electric +air-blast it will take time to dry my hair and dress it.” + + +When he came out of his dressing-room she was apparently still in the +hands of the maid. So he sauntered through the house as far as the +library, and drawing a cheque-book from one pocket, fished out a +memorandum-book from another, and began to cast up totals with a view to +learning something about the various debts contracted at Shotover. + +He seemed to owe everybody. Fortune had smitten him hip and thigh; and, +a trifle concerned, he began covering a pad with figures until he knew +where he stood. Then he drew a considerable cheque to Major Belwether’s +order, another to Alderdene. Others followed to other people for various +amounts; and he was very busily at work when, aware of another presence +near, he turned around in his chair. Sylvia Landis was writing at a desk +in the corner, and she looked up, nodding the little greeting that she +always reserved for him even after five minutes’ separation. + +“I’m writing cheques,” she said. “I suppose you’re writing to your +mother.” + +“Why do you think so?” he asked curiously. + +“You write to her every day, don’t you?” + +“Yes,” he said, “but how do you know?” + +She looked at him with unblushing deliberation. “You wrote every day. … +If it was to a woman, I wanted to know. … And I told Grace Ferrall that +it worried me. And then Grace told me. Is there any other confession of +my own pettiness that I can make to you.” + +“Did you really care to whom I was writing?” he asked slowly. + +“Care? I--it worried me. Was it not a pitifully common impulse? ‘Sisters +under our skin,’ you know--I and the maid who dresses me. She would have +snooped; I didn’t; that’s the only generic difference. I wanted to know +just the same. … But--that was before--” + +“Before what?” + +“Before I--please don’t ask me to say it. … I did, once, when you asked +me.” + +“Before you cared for me. Is that what you mean?” + +“Yes. You are so cruelly literal when you wish to punish me. … You are +interrupting me, too. I owe that wretched Kemp Ferrall a lot of money, +and I’m trying to find out how much seven and nine are, to close +accounts with Marion Page.” + +Siward turned and continued his writing. And when the little sheaf of +cheques was ready he counted them, laid them aside, and, drawing a flat +packet of fresh bank-notes from his portfolio, counted out the tips +expected of him below stairs. These arranged for, he straightened up and +glanced over his shoulder at Sylvia, but she was apparently absorbed in +counting something on the ends of her fingers, so he turned smilingly to +his desk and wrote a long letter to his mother--the same tender, +affectionately boyish letter he had always written her, full of +confidences, full of humour, gaily anticipating his own return to her on +the heels of the letter. + +In his first letter to her from Shotover he had spoken casually of a +Miss Landis. It seemed the name was familiar enough to his mother, who +asked about her; and he had replied in another letter or two, a trifle +emphatic in his praise of her, because from his mother’s letters it was +quite evident that she knew a good deal concerning the very +unconventional affairs of Sylvia’s family. + +Of his swift and somewhat equivocal courtship he had had nothing to say +in his letters; in fact recently he had nothing to say about Sylvia at +all, reserving that vital confidence for the clear sympathy and +understanding which he looked forward to when he should see her, and +which, through dark days and bitter aftermaths, through struggle and +defeat by his master-vice, had never failed him yet, never faltered for +an instant. + +So he brought his letter to a close with a tender and uneasy inquiry +concerning her health, which, she had intimated, was not exactly +satisfactory, and for that reason she had opened the house in town in +order to be near Dr. Grisby, their family doctor. + +Sealing and directing the letter, he looked up to see Sylvia standing at +his elbow. She dropped a light hand on his shoulder for a second, barely +touching him--a fugitive caress, delicate as the smile hovering on her +lips, as the shy tenderness in her eyes. + +“More letters to your sweetheart?” she asked, abandoning her hand to +him. + +“One more--the last before I see her. … I wish you could see her, +Sylvia.” + +“I wish so, too,” she answered simply, seating herself on the arm of his +chair as though it were a side-saddle. + +They sat there very silent for a few moments, curiously oblivious to the +chance curiosity of any one who might enter or pass. + +“Would she--care for me--do you think?” asked the girl in a low voice. + +“I think so,--for your real self.” + +“I know. She could only feel contempt for me--as I am.” + +“She is old-fashioned,” he said reverently. + +“That means all that is best in a woman. … The old fashion of truth and +faith; the old fashion of honour, and faith in honour; the old, old +fashion of--love. … All that is best, Stephen; all that is worth the love +of a man. … Some day somebody will revive those fashions.” + +“Will you?” + +“Dear, they would not become me,” she said, the tenderness in her eyes +deepening a little; and she touched his head lightly in humourous +caress. + +“What shall we do with the waning daylight?” she asked. “It is my last +day with you. I told Howard it was my last day with you, and I did not +care to be disturbed.” + +“You probably didn’t say it that way,” he commented, amused. + +“I did.” + +“How much of that sort of thing is he prepared to stand?” asked Siward +curiously. + +“How much? I don’t know. I don’t believe he cares. It is my uncle, Major +Belwether, who is making things unpleasant for me. I had to tell Howard, +you know.” + +“What!” exclaimed Siward incredulously. + +“Certainly. Do you think my conduct has passed without protest?” + +“You told Quarrier!” he repeated. + +“Did you imagine I could do otherwise?” she asked coolly. “I have that +much decency left. Certainly I told him. Do you suppose that, after what +we did--what I admitted to you--that I could meet him as usual? Do you +think I am afraid of him?” + +“I thought you were afraid of losing him,” muttered Siward. + +“I was, dreadfully. And the morning after you and I had been imprudent +enough to sit up until nearly daylight--and do what we did--I made him +take a long walk with me, and I told him plainly that I cared for you, +that I was too selfish and cowardly to marry you, and that if he +couldn’t endure the news he was at liberty to terminate the engagement +without notice.” + +“What did he say?” stammered Siward. + +“A number of practical things.” + +“You mean to say he stands it!” + +“It appears so. What else is there for him to do, unless he breaks the +engagement?” + +“And he--hasn’t?” + +“No. I was informed that he held me strictly and precisely to my +promise; that he would never release me voluntarily, though I was, of +course, at liberty to do what I chose. … My poor friend, he cares no +more for love than do I. I happen to be the one woman in New York whom +he considers absolutely suitable for him; by race, by breeding, by +virtue of appearance and presence, eminently fitted to complete the +material portion of his fortune and estate.” + +Her voice had hardened as she spoke; now it rang a little at the end, +and she laughed unpleasantly. + +“It appears that I was a little truer to myself than you gave me credit +for--a little truer to you--a little less treacherous, less shameless, +than you must have thought me. But I have gone to my limit of decency; … +and, were I ten times more in love with you than I am, I could not put +away the position and power offered me. But I will not lie for it, nor +betray for it. … Do you remember, once you asked me for what reasons I +dropped men from my list? And I told you, because of any falsehood or +treachery, any betrayal of trust--and for no other reason. You remember? +And did you suppose that elemental standard of decency did not include +women--even such a woman as I?” + +She dropped one arm on the back of his chair and rested her chin on it, +staring at space across his shoulders. + +“That’s how it had to be, you see, when I found that I cared for you. +There was nothing to do but to tell him. I was quite certain that it was +all off; but I found that I didn’t know the man. I knew he was +sensitive, but I didn’t know he was sensitive to personal ridicule only, +and to nothing else in all the world that I can discover. I--I suppose, +from my frankness to him, he has concluded that no ridicule could ever +touch him through me. I mean, he trusts me enough to marry me. … He will +be safe enough, as far as my personal conduct is concerned,” she added +naively. “It seems that I am capable of love; but I am incapable of its +degradation.” + +Siward, leaning heavily forward over his desk, rested his head in both +hands; and she stooped from her perch on the arm of the chair, pressing +her hot cheeks against his hands--a moment only; then slipping to her +feet, she curled up in a great arm-chair by the fire, head tipped back, +blue gaze concentrated on him. + +“The thing for you to do,” she said, “is to ambush me some night, and +throw me into a hansom, and drive us both to the parson’s. I’d hate you +for it as much as I’d love you, but I’d make you an interesting wife.” + +“I may do that yet,” he said, lifting his head from his hands. + +“You’ve a year to do it in,” she observed. … “By the way, you’re to take +me in to dinner, as you did the first night. Do you remember? I asked +Grace Ferrall then. I asked her again to-day. Heigho! It was years ago, +wasn’t it, that I drove up to the station and saw a very attractive and +perplexed young man looking anxiously about for somebody to take him to +Shotover. Ahem! the notorious Mr. Siward! Dear, … I didn’t mean to hurt +you! You know it, silly! Mayn’t I have my little joke about your +badness--your redoubtable badness of reputation? There! You had just +better smile. … How dare you frighten me by making me think I had hurt +you! … Besides, you are probably unrepentant.” + +She watched him closely for a moment or two, then, “Are you +unrepentant?” + +“About what?” + +“About your general wickedness? About--” she hesitated--“about that girl, +for example.” + +“What girl?” he asked coldly. + +“That reminds me that you have told me absolutely nothing about her.” + +“There is nothing to tell,” he said, in a tone so utterly new to her in +its finality that she sat up as though listening to an unknown voice. + +Tone and words so completely excluded her from the new intimacy into +which she had imperceptibly drifted that both suddenly developed a +significance from sheer contrast. Who was this girl, then, of whom he +had absolutely nothing to say? What was she to him? What could she be to +him--an actress, a woman of common antecedents? + +She had sometimes idly speculated in an indefinitely innocent way as to +just what a well-born man could find to interest him in such women; what +he could have to talk about to persons of that sort, where community of +tastes and traditions must be so absolutely lacking. + +Gossip, scandal of that nature, hints, silences, innuendoes, the wise +shrugs of young girls oversophisticated, the cool, hard smiles of +matrons, all had left her indifferent or bored, partly from distaste, +partly from sheer incredulity; a refusal to understand, an innate +delicacy that not only refrains from comprehension, but also denies +itself even the curiosity to inquire or the temptation of vaguest +surmise on a subject that could not exist for her. + +But now, something of the uncomfortable uneasiness had come over her +which she had been conscious of when made aware of Marion Page’s worldly +wisdom, and which had imperceptibly chilled her when Grace Ferrall spoke +of Siward’s escapade, coupling this woman and him in the same scandal. + +She took it for granted that there must be, for men, an attraction +toward women who figured publicly behind the foot-lights, though it +appeared very silly to her. In fact it all was silly and +undignified--part and parcel, no doubt, of that undergraduate foolishness +which seemed to cling to some men who had otherwise attained discretion. + +But it appeared to her that Siward had taken the matter with a +seriousness entirely out of proportion in his curt closure of the +subject, and she felt a little irritated, a little humiliated, a little +hurt, and took refuge in a silence that he did not offer to break. + +Early twilight had fallen in the room; the firelight grew redder. + +“Sylvia,” he said abruptly, reverting to the old, light tone hinting of +the laughter in his eyes which she could no longer see, “Suppose, as you +suggested, I did ambush you--say after the opera--seize you under the very +nose of your escort and make madly for a hansom?” + +“I know of no other way,” she said demurely. + +“Would you resist, physically?” + +“I would, if nobody were looking.” + +“Desperately? + +“How do I know? Besides, it couldn’t last long,” she said, thinking of +his slimly powerful build as she had noticed it in his swimming costume. +Smiling, amused, she wondered how long she could resist him with her own +wholesome supple activity strengthened to the perfection of health in +saddle and afoot. + +“I should advise you to chloroform me,” she said defiantly. “You don’t +realise my accomplishments with the punching-bag.” + +“So you mean to resist?” + +“Yes, I do. If I were going to surrender at once, I might as well go off +to church with you now.” + +“Wenniston church!” he said promptly. “I’ll order the Mercedes.” + +She laughed, lazily settling herself more snugly by the fire. “Suppose +it were our fire?” she smiled. “There would be a dog lying across that +rug, and a comfortable Angora tabby dozing by the fender, and--you, +cross-legged, at my feet, with that fascinating head of yours tipped +back against my knees.” + +The laughter in her voice died out, and he had risen, saying unsteadily: +“Don’t! I--I can’t stand that sort of thing, you know.” + +She had made a mistake, too; she also had suddenly become aware of her +own limits in the same direction. + +“Forgive me, dear! I meant no mockery.” + +“I know. … After a while a man finds laughter difficult.” + +“I was not laughing at--anything. I was only pretending to be happy.” + +“Your happiness is before you,” he said sullenly. + +“My future, you mean. You know I am exchanging one for the other. … And +some day you will awake to the infamy of it; you will comprehend the +depravity of the monstrous trade I made. … And then--and then--” + +She passed one slim hand over her face--“then you will shake yourself +free from this dream of me; then, awake, my punishment at your hands +will begin. … Dear, no man in his right senses can continue to love a +girl such as I am. All that is true and ardent and generous in you has +invested my physical attractiveness and my small intellect with a magic +that cannot last, because it is magic; and you are the magician, +enmeshed for the moment in the mists of your own enchantment. When this +fades, when you unclose your eyes in clear daylight, dear, I dread to +think what I shall appear to you--what a dreadful, shrunken, bloodless +shell, hung with lace and scented, silken cerements--a jewelled mummy- +case--a thing that never was! … Do you understand my punishment a +little, now?” + +“If it were true,” he said in a dull voice, “you will have forgotten, +too.” + +“I pray I may,” she said under her breath. + +And, after a long silence: “Do you think, before the year is out, that +you might be granted enough courage?” he asked. + +“No. I shall not even pray for it. I want what is offered me! I desire +it so blindly that already it has become part of me. I tell you the +poison is in every vein; there is nothing else but poison in me. I am +what I tell you, to the core. It is past my own strength of will to stop +me, now. If I am stopped, another must do it. My weakness for you, being +a treachery if not confessed, I was obliged to confess, horribly +frightened as I was. He might have stopped me; he did not. … And now, +what is there on earth to halt me? Love cannot. Common decency and +courage cannot. Fear of your unhappiness and mine cannot. No, even the +certitude of your contempt, some day, is powerless to halt me now. I +could not love; I am utterly incapable of loving you enough to balance +the sacrifice. And that is final.” + + +Grace Ferrall came into the room and found a duel of silence in progress +under the dull fire-glow tinting the ceiling. + +“Another quarrel,” she commented, turning on the current of the drop- +light above the desk from which Siward had risen at her entrance. “You +quarrel enough to marry. Why don’t you?” + +“I wish we could,” said Sylvia simply. + +Grace laughed. “What a little fool you are!” she said tenderly, seating +herself in Siward’s chair and dropping one hand over his where it rested +on the arm. “Stephen, can’t you make her--a big, strong fellow like you? +Oh, well; on your heads be it! My conscience is now clear for the first +time, and I’ll never meddle again.” She gave Siward’s hand a perfunctory +pat and released him with a discreetly stifled yawn. “I’m disgracefully +sleepy; the wind blew like fury along the coast. Sylvia, have you had a +good time at Shotover--the time of your life?” + +Sylvia raised her eyes and encountered Siward’s. + +“I certainly have,” she said faintly. + +“C’est bien, chérie. Can you be as civil, Stephen--conscientiously? Oh, +that is very nice of you! But there’s one thing: why on earth didn’t you +make eyes at Marion? Life might be one long, blissful carnival of horse +and dog for you both. Oh, dear! there, I’m meddling again! Pinch me, +Sylvia, if I ever begin to meddle again! How did you come out at Bridge, +Stephen? What--bad as that? Gracious! this is disgraceful--this gambling +the way people do! I’m shocked and I’m going up to dress. Are you +coming, Sylvia?” + + +The dinner was very gay. The ceremony of christening the Shotover Cup, +which Quarrier had won, proceeded with presentation speech and a speech +of acceptance faultlessly commonplace, during which Quarrier wore his +smile--which was the only humorous thing he contributed. + +The cup was full. Siward eyed it, perplexed, deadly afraid, yet seeing +no avenue of escape from what must appear a public exhibition of +contempt for Quarrier if he refused to taste its contents. That meant a +bad night for him; yet he shrank more from the certain misinterpretation +of a refusal to drink from the huge loving-cup with its heavy wreath of +scented orchids, now already on its way toward him, than he feared the +waking struggle so sure to follow. + +Marion received the cup, lifted it in both hands, and said distinctly, +“Good Hunting!” as she drank to Quarrier. Her brother Gordon took it, +and drank entirely too much. Then Sylvia lifted it, her white hands half +buried among the orchids: “To you!” she murmured for Siward’s ear alone; +then drank gaily, mischievously, “To the best shot at Shotover!” And +Siward took the cup: “I salute victory,” he said, smiling, “always, and +everywhere! To him who takes the fighting chance and wins out! To the +best man! Health!” And he drank as a gentleman drinks, with a gay bow to +Quarrier, and with death in his heart. + +Later, the irony of it struck him so grimly that he laughed; and Sylvia, +beside him, looked up, dismayed to see the gray change in his face. + +“What is it?” she faltered, catching his eye; “why do you--why are you so +white?” + +But he only smiled, as though he had misunderstood, saying: + +“The survival of the fittest; that is the only test, after all. The man +who makes good doesn’t whine for justice. There’s enough of it in the +world to go round, and he who misses it gets all that’s due him just the +same.” + +Later, at cards, the aromatic odour from Alderdene’s decanter roused him +to fierce desire, but he fought it down until only the deadened, tearing +ache remained to shake and loosen every nerve. And when Ferrall, +finishing his usual batch of business letters, arrived to cut in if +needed, Siward dropped his cards with a shudder, and rose so utterly +unnerved that Captain Voucher, noticing his drawn face, asked him if he +were not ill. + +He was leaving on an earlier train than the others, having decided to +pass through Boston and Deptford, at which latter place he meant to +leave Sagamore for the winter in care of the manager of his mother’s +farm. So he took a quiet leave of those to whom the civility might not +prove an interruption--a word to Alderdene and Voucher as he passed out, +a quick clasp for Ferrall and for Grace, a carefully and cordially +formal parting from the Page boys, which pleased them ineffably. + +Eileen and Rena, who had never had half a chance at him, took it now, +delighted to discipline their faithful Pages; and he submitted in his +own engagingly agreeable way, and so skilfully that both Eileen and Rena +felt sorry that they had not earlier understood how civilly anxious he +had been to devote himself to them alone. And they looked at the Pages, +exasperated. + +In the big hall he passed Marion, and stopped to take his leave. + +No, he would do no hunting this season either at Carysford or with the +two trial packs at Eastwood. Possibly at Warrenton later, but probably +not; business threatened to detain him in town more or less. … Of course +he’d come to see her when she returned to town. … And it had been a +jolly party, and it was a shame to sound “lights out” so soon! Good-bye. +… Good night. And that was all. + +And that was all, unless he disturbed Sylvia, seated at cards with +Quarrier and Major Belwether and Leila Mortimer--and very intent on the +dummy, very still, and a trifle pallid with the pallor of concentration. + +So--that was all, then. + +Ascending the stairs, a servant handed him a letter bearing the crest of +the Lenox Club. He pocketed it unopened and continued his way. + +In the darkness of his own room he sat down, the devil’s own clutch on +his shrinking nerves, a deathly desire tearing at his very vitals, and +every vein a tiny trail of fire run riot. He had been too long without +it, too long to endure the craving aroused by that gay draught from +Quarrier’s loving-cup. + +The awakened fury of his desire appalled him, and for a while that +occupied him, enabling him to endure. But fear and dismay soon passed in +the purely physical distress; he walked the floor, haggard, the sweat +starting on his face; he lay with clenched hands, stiffened out across +the bed, deafened by the riotous clamour of his pulses, conscious that +he was holding out, unconscious how long he could hold out. + +Crisis after crisis swept him; sometimes he found his feet and moved +blindly about the room. + +Strange periods of calm intervened; sensation seemed deadened; and he +stood as a man who listens, scarcely daring to breathe lest the enemy +awake and seize him. + +He turned on the light, later, to look for his pipe, and he caught a +glimpse of himself in the mirror. It was a sick man who stared back at +him out of hollow eyes, and the physical revulsion shocked him into +something resembling self-command. + +“Damn you!” he said fiercely, setting his teeth and staring back at his +reflected face, “I’ll kill you yet before I’ve finished with you!” + +Then he filled his pipe, and opening his bedroom window, sat down, +resting his arm on the sill. A splendid moon silvered the sea; through +the intense stillness he heard the surf, magnificently dissonant among +the reefs, and he listened, fascinated, loathing the tides as he feared +and loathed the inexorable tides that surged and ebbed with his accursed +desire. + +Once he said to himself, weakly--for he was deadly tired--“What am I +making the fight for, anyway?” And “Who are you making the fight for?” +echoed his heavy pulses. + +He had asked that question and received that answer before. After all, +it had been for his mother’s sake alone. And now--and now?--his heart beat +out another answer; and before his eyes two other eyes seemed to open, +fearlessly, sweetly, divinely tender. But they were no longer his +mother’s grave, gray eyes. + +After the second pipe he remembered his letter. It gave him something to +do, so he opened it and tried to read it, but for a long while, in his +confused physical and mental condition, he could make no sense of it. + +Little by little he began to comprehend its purport that his resignation +was regretfully requested by the governors of the Lenox Club for reasons +unassigned. + +The shock of the thing came to him after a while, like a distant, dull +report long after the flash of the explosion. Well, the affair, bad +enough at first, was turning worse, that was all. How much of that sort +of discredit could a man stand and keep his balance? … And what would +his mother say? + +Confused from his own physical suffering, the blow had fallen with a +deadened force on nerves already numbed; but his half-stupefied +acquiescence had suddenly become a painful recoil when he remembered +where the brunt of the disgrace would fall--where the centre of suffering +must always be, and the keenest grief concentrated. Roused, appalled, +almost totally unnerved, he stood staring at the letter, beginning to +realise what it would mean to his mother. A passion of remorse and +resentment swept him. She must be spared that! There must be some +way--some punishment for his offence that could not strike her through +him! It was wicked, it was contemptible, insane, to strike her! What +were the governors of the Lenox about--a lot of snivelling hypocrites, +pandering to the horrified snobbery at the Patroons! Who were they, +anyway, to discipline him! Scarce one in fifty among the members of the +two clubs was qualified to sit in judgment on a Siward! + +But that tempest of passion and mortification passed, too, leaving him +standing there, dumb, desperate, staring at the letter crushed in his +shaking hand. + +He must see somebody, some member of the Lenox, and do +something--something! Ferrall! Was that Ferrall’s step on the landing? + +He sprang to the door and opened it. Quarrier, passing the corridor, +turned an expressionless visage toward him, and passed on with a nod +almost imperceptible. + +“Quarrier!” he called, swept by a sudden impulse. + +Quarrier halted and turned. + +“Could you give me a moment--here in my room? I won’t detain you.” + +The faint trace of surprise faded from Quarrier’s face; he quietly +retraced his steps, and, entering Siward’s room, stood silently +confronting its pallid tenant. + +“Will you sit down a moment?” + +Quarrier seated himself in the arm-chair by the window, and Siward found +a chair opposite. + +“Quarrier,” said the younger man, turning a tensely miserable face on +his visitor, “I want to ask you something. I’ll not mince matters. You +know that the Patroons have dropped me, and you know what for.” + +“Yes, I know.” + +“When I was called before the Board of Governors to explain the matter, +if I could, you were sitting on that Board.” + +“Yes.” + +“I denied the charge, but refused to explain. … You remember?” + +Quarrier nodded coldly. + +“And I was dropped by the club!” + +A slight inclination of Quarrier’s symmetrical head corroborated him. + +“Now,” said Siward, slowly and very distinctly, “I shall tell you +unofficially what I refused to tell the other governors officially.” +And, as he began speaking, Quarrier’s face flushed, then the features +became immobile, set, and inert, and his eyes grew duller and duller, as +though, under a smooth surface the soul inside of him was shrinking back +into some dark corner, silent, watchful, suspicious, and perhaps +defiant. + +“Mr. Quarrier,” said Siward quietly, “I did not take that girl to the +Patroons Club--and you know it.” + +Quarrier was all surface now; he had drawn away internally so far that +even his eyes seemed to recede until they scarcely glimmered through the +slits in his colourless mask. And Siward went on: + +“I knew perfectly well what sort of women I was to meet at that fool +supper Billy Fleetwood gave; and you must have, too, for the girl you +took in was no stranger to you. … Her name is Lydia Vyse, I believe.” + +The slightest possible glimmer in the elder man’s eyes was all the +answer he granted. + +“What happened,” said Siward calmly, “was this: She bet me she could so +disguise herself that I could safely take her into any club in New York. +I bet her she couldn’t. I never dreamed of trying. Besides, she was +your--dinner partner,” he added with a shrug. + +His concentrated gaze seemed at length to pierce the expressionless +surface of the other man, who moved slightly in his chair and moistened +his thin lips under the glossy beard. + +“Quarrier,” said Siward earnestly, “What happened in the club lobby I +don’t exactly know, because I was not in a condition to know. I admit +it; that was the trouble with me. When I left Fleetwood’s rooms I left +with a half dozen men. I remember crossing Fifth Avenue with them; and +the next thing I remember distinctly was loud talking in the club lobby, +and a number of men there, and a slim young fellow in Inverness and top +hat in the centre of a crowd, whose face was the face of that girl, +Lydia Vyse. And that is absolutely all. But I couldn’t do more than deny +that I took her there unless I told what I knew; and of course that was +not possible, even in self-defence. But it was for you to admit that I +was right. And you did not. You dared not! You let another man blunder +into your private affairs and fall a victim to circumstantial evidence +which you could have refuted; and it was up to you to say something! And +you did not! … And now--what are you going to do? The Lenox Club has +taken this thing up. A man can’t stand too much of that sort of thing. +What am I to do? I can’t defend myself by betraying my accidental +knowledge of your petty, private affairs. So I leave it to you. I ask +you what are you going to do?” + +“Do you mean”--Quarrier’s voice was not his own, and he brought it +harshly under command--“do you mean that you think it necessary for me to +say I knew her? What object would be attained by that? I did not take +her to the Patroons’.” + +“Nor did I. Ask her how she got there. Learn the truth from her, man!” + +“What proof is there that I ever met her before I took her into supper +at Fleetwood’s?” + +“Proof! Are you mad? All I ask of you is to say to the governors what I +cannot say without using your name.” + +“You wish me,” asked Quarrier icily, “to deny that you made that wager? +I can do that.” + +“You can’t do it! I did make that bet.” + +“Oh! Then, what is it you wish me to say?” + +“Tell them the truth. Tell them you know I did not take her to the club. +You need not tell them why you know it. You need not tell them how much +you know about her, whose brougham she drove home in. I can’t defend +myself at your expense--intrench myself behind your dirty little romance. +What could I say? I denied taking her to the club. Then Major Belwether +confronted me with my wager. Then I shut up. And so did you, Quarrier--so +did you, seated there among the governors, between Leroy Mortimer and +Belwether. It was up to you, and you did not stir!” + +“Stir!” echoed the other man, exasperated. “Of course I did not stir. +What did I know about it? Do you think I care to give a man like +Mortimer a hold on me by admitting I knew anything?--or Belwether--do you +think I care to have that man know anything about my private and +personal business? Did you expect me to say that I was in a position to +prove anything one way or another? And,” he added with increasing +harshness, “how do you know what I might or might not prove? If she went +to the Patroons Club, I did not go with her; I did not see her; I don’t +know whether or not you took her.” + +“I have already told you that I did not take her,” said Siward, turning +whiter. + +“You told that to the governors, too. Tell them again, if you like. I +decline to discuss this matter with you. I decline to countenance your +unwarranted intrusion into what you pretend to believe are my private +affairs. I decline to confer with Belwether or Mortimer. It’s enough +that you are inclined to meddle--” His cold anger was stirring. He rose +to his full, muscular height, slow, menacing, his long, pale fingers +twisting his silky beard. “It’s enough that you meddle!” he repeated. +“As for the matter in question, a dozen men, including myself, heard you +make a wager; and later I myself was a witness that the terms of that +wager had been carried out to the letter. I know absolutely nothing +except that, Mr. Siward; nor, it appears, do you, for you were drunk at +the time, and you have admitted it to me.” + +“I have asked you,” said Siward, rising, and very grave, “I have asked +you to do the right thing. Are you going to do it?” + +“Is that a threat?” inquired Quarrier, showing the edges of his well- +kept teeth. “Is this intimidation, Mr. Siward? Do I understand that you +are proposing to bespatter others with scandal unless I am frightened +into going to the governors with the flimsy excuse you attempt to offer +me? In other words, Mr. Siward, are you bent on making me pay for what +you believe you know of my private life? Is it really intimidation?” + +And still Siward stared into his half-veiled, sneering eyes, speechless. + +“There is only one name used for this kind of thing,” added Quarrier, +taking a quick involuntary step backward to the door as the blaze of +fury broke out in Siward’s eyes. + +“Good God! Quarrier,” whispered Siward with dry lips, “what a cur you +are! What a cur!” + +And long after Quarrier had passed the door and disappeared in the +corridor, Siward stood there, frozen motionless under the icy waves of +rage that swept him. + +He had never before had an enemy worth the name; he knew he had one now. +He had never before hated; he now understood something of that, too. The +purely physical craving to take this man and crush him into eternal +quiescence had given place to a more terrible mental desire to punish. +His brain surged and surged under the first flood of a mortal hatred. +That the hatred was sterile made it the more intense, and, blinded by +it, he stood there or paced the room minute after minute, hearing +nothing but the wild clamour in his brain, seeing nothing but the +smooth, expressionless face of the man whom he could not reach. + +Toward midnight, seated in his chair by the window, a deathly lassitude +weighing his heart, he heard the steps of people on the stairway, the +click of the ascending elevator, gay voices calling good night, a ripple +of laughter, the silken swish of skirts in the corridor, doors opening +and closing; then silence creeping throughout the house on the receding +heels of departure--a stillness that settled like a mist through hall and +corridor, accented for a few moments by distant sounds, then absolute, +echoless silence. And for a long while he sat there listening. + +The cool wind from the ocean blew his curtains far into the room, where +they bellied out, fluttering, floating, subsiding, only to rise again in +the freshening breeze. He sat watching their silken convolutions, +stupidly, for a while, then rose and closed his window, and raised the +window on the south for purposes of air. + +As he turned to adjust his transom, something white thrust under the +door caught his eye, and he walked over and drew it across the sill. It +was a sealed note. He opened it, reading it as he walked back to the +drop-light burning beside his bed: + +“Did you not mean to say good-bye? Because it is to be good-bye for a +long, long time--for all our lives--as long as we live--as long as the +world lasts, and longer. … Good-bye--unless you care to say it to me.” + +He stood studying the note for a while; presently, lighting a match, he +set fire to it and carried it blazing to the grate and flung it in, +watching the blackened ashes curl up, glow, whiten, and fall in flakes +to the hearth. Then he went out into the corridor, and traversed the +hall to the passage which led to the bay-window. There was nobody there. +The stars looked in on him, twinkling with a frosty light; beneath, the +shadowy fronds of palms traced a pale pattern on the glass roof of the +swimming pool. He waited a moment, turned, retraced his steps to his own +door and stood listening. Then, moving swiftly, he walked the length of +the corridor, and, halting at her door, knocked once. + +After a moment the door swung open. He stepped forward into the room, +closing the door behind him, and confronted the tall girl standing there +silhouetted against the lamp behind her. + +“You are insane to do this!” she whispered. “I let you in for fear you’d +knock again!” + +“I went to the bay-window,” he said. + +“You went too late. I was there an hour ago. I waited. Do you know what +time it is?” + +“Come to the bay-window,” he said, “if you fear me here.” + +“Do you know it is nearly three o’clock?” she repeated. “And you leave +at six. + +“Shall we say good-bye here?” he asked coolly. + +“Certainly. I dare not go out. And you--do you know the chances we are +running? You must be perfectly mad to come to my room. Do you think +anybody could have seen--heard you--” + +“No. Good night.” He offered his hand; she laid both of hers in it. He +could scarcely distinguish her features where she stood dark against the +brilliant light behind her. + +“Good-bye,” he whispered, kissing her hands where they lay in his. + +“Good-bye.” Her fingers closed convulsively, retaining his hands. “I +hope--I think that--you--” Her head was drooping; she could not control her +voice. + +“Good-bye, Sylvia,” he said again. + +It was quite useless, she could not speak; and when he took her in his +arms she clung to him, quivering; and he kissed the wet lashes, and the +hot, trembling lips, and the smooth little hands crushed to his breast. + +“We have a year yet,” she gasped. “Dear, take me by force before it +ends. I--I simply cannot endure this. I told you to take me--to tear me +from myself. Will you do it? I will love you--truly, truly! Oh, my +darling, my darling! Don’t--don’t give me up! Can’t you do something for +us? Can’t you--” + +“Will you come with me now?” + +“How can--” + +“Will you?” + +A sudden sound broke out in the night--the distant pealing of the lodge- +gate bell. Startled, she shrank back; somebody in the adjoining room had +sprung to the floor and was opening the window. + +“What is it?” she motioned with whitening lips. “Quick! oh, quick, +before you are seen! Grace may come! I--I beg of you to go!” + +As he stepped into the corridor he heard, below, a sound at the great +door, and the stirring of the night watchman on post. At his own door he +turned, listening to the movement and whispering. Ferrall, in dressing- +gown and slippers, stepped into the corridor; below, the chains were +rattling as the wicket swung open. There was a brief parley at the door, +sounds of retreating steps on the gravel outside, sounds of approaching +steps on the stairway. + +“What’s that? A telegram?” said Ferrall sharply. “Here, give it to me. … +Wait! It isn’t for me. It’s for Mr Siward!” + +Siward, standing at his open door, swayed slightly. A thrill of pure +fear struck him through and through. He laid one hand on the door to +steady himself, and stepped forward as Ferrall came up. + +“Oh! You’re awake, Stephen. Here’s a telegram.” He extended his hand. +Siward took the yellow envelope, fumbled it, tore it open. + +“Good God!” whispered Ferrall; “is it bad?” + +And Siward’s glazed eyes stared and stared at the scrawled and inky +message: + +“YOUR MOTHER IS VERY ILL. COME AT ONCE.” + +The signature was the name of their family physician, Grisby. + + + +CHAPTER VIII CONFIDENCES + +By January the complex social mechanism of the metropolis was whirling +smoothly again; the last ultra-fashionable December lingerer had +returned from the country; those of the same caste outward bound for a +Southern or exotic winter had departed; and the glittering machine, +every part assembled, refurbished, repolished, and connected, having +been given preliminary speed-tests at the horse show, and a tuning up at +the opera, was now running under full velocity; and its steady, subdued +whir quickened the clattering pulse of the city, keying it to a +sublimely syncopated ragtime. + +The commercial reaction from the chaos of the holidays had become a +carnival of recovery; shop windows grew brighter and gayer than ever, +bursting into gaudy winter florescence; the main arteries of the town +roared prosperity; cross streets were packed; Fifth Avenue, almost +impassible in the morning, choked up after three o’clock; and all the +afternoon through, and late into the night, mounted police of the +traffic squad, adrift in the tide of carriages, stemmed the flashing +currents pouring north and south from the white marble arch to the +gilded bronze battle-horse and its rider on guard at the portals of the +richest quarter of the wealthiest city in the world. + +So far, that winter, snow had fallen only twice, lasting but a day or +two each time; street and avenue remained bone dry where the white- +uniformed cleaning squads worked amid clouds of dust; and all day long +the flinty asphalt echoed the rattling slap of horses’ feet; all day +long the big, shining motor-cars sped up town and down town, droning +their distant warnings. It was an open winter in New York, and, +financially, a prosperous one; and that meant a brilliant social season. +Like a set piece of fireworks, with its interdependent parts taking fire +in turn, function after function, spectacle after spectacle, glittered, +fizzed, and was extinguished, only to give place to newer and more +splendid spectacles; separate circles, sets, and groups belonging to the +social solar system whizzed, revolved, rotated, with edifying effects on +everybody concerned, unconcerned, and not at all concerned; and at +intervals, when for a moment or two something hung fire, the twinkle of +similar spectacles sputtering away in distant cities beyond the horizon +was faintly reflected in the social sky above the incandescent +metropolis. For the whole nation was footing it, heel and toe, to the +echoes of strains borne on the winds from the social capital of the +republic; and the social arbiter at Bird Centre was more of a facsimile +of his New York confrère than that confrère could ever dream of even in +the most realistic of nightmares. + +Three phenomena particularly characterised that metropolitan winter: the +reckless rage for private gambling through the mediums of bridge and +roulette; the incorporation of a company known as The Inter-County +Electric Company, capitalised at a figure calculated to disturb nobody, +and, so far, without any avowed specific policy other than that which +served to decorate a portion of its charter which otherwise might have +remained ornately and comparatively blank; the third phenomenon was the +retirement from active affairs of Stanley S. Quarrier, the father of +Howard Quarrier, and the election of the son to the presidency of the +great Algonquin Loan and Trust Company, with its network system of +dependent, subsidiary, and allied corporations. + +The day that the newspapers gave this interesting information to the +Western world, Leroy Mortimer, on being bluntly notified that he had +overdrawn his account with the Algonquin Loan and Trust, began +telephoning in every direction until he located Beverly Plank at the +Saddle Club--an organisation of wealthy men, and sufficiently exclusive +not to compromise Plank’s possible chances for something better; in +fact, the Saddle Club, into which Leroy Mortimer had already managed to +pilot him, was one riser and tread upward on the stair he was climbing, +though it was more of a lobby for other clubs than a club in itself. To +be seen there was, perhaps, rather to a man’s advantage, if he did not +loaf there in the evenings or use it too frequently. As Plank carefully +avoided doing either, Mortimer was fortunate in finding him there; and +he crawled out of his hansom, saying that the desk clerk would pay, and +entered the reading-room, where Plank sat writing a letter. + +Beverly Plank had grown stouter since he had returned to town from Black +Fells; but the increase of weight was evenly distributed over his six +feet odd, which made him only a trifle more ponderous and not +abdominally fat. But Mortimer had become enormous; rolls of flesh +crowded his mottled ear-lobes outward and bulged above his collar; +cushions of it padded the backs of his hands and fingers; shaving left +his heavy, distended face congested and unpleasantly shiny. But be was +as minutely groomed as ever, and he wore that satiated air of prosperity +which had always been one of his most important assets. + +The social campaign inaugurated by Leila Mortimer in behalf of Beverly +Plank had, so far, received no serious reverses. His box at the horse +show, of course, produced merely negative results; his box at the opera +might mean something some day. His name was up at the Lenox and the +Patroons; he had endowed a ward in the new pavilion of St. Berold’s +Hospital; he had presented a fine Gainsborough--The Countess of Wythe--to +the Metropolitan Museum; and it was rumoured that he had consulted +several bishops concerning a new chapel for that huge bastion of the +citadel of Faith looming above the metropolitan wilderness in the north. + +So far, so good. If, as yet, he had not been permitted to go where he +wanted to go, he at least had been instructed where not to go and what +not to do; and he was as docile as he was dogged, understanding how much +longer it takes to shuffle in by way of the mews and the back door than +to sit on the front steps and wait politely for somebody to unchain the +front door. + +Meanwhile he was doggedly docile; his huge house, facing the wintry park +midway between the squat palaces of the wealthy pioneers and the outer +hundreds, remained magnificently empty save for certain afternoon +conferences of very solemn men, fellow directors and associates in +business and financial matters--save for the periodical presence of the +Mortimers: a mansion immense and shadowy, haunted by relays of yawning, +livened servants, half stupefied under the vast silence of the twilit +splendour. He was patient, not only because he was told to be, but also +because he had nothing better to do. Society stared at him as blankly as +the Mountain confronted Mahomet. But the stubborn patience of the man +was itself a strain on the Mountain; he was aware of that, and he waited +for it to come to him. As yet, however, he could detect no symptoms of +mobility in the Mountain. + +“Things are moving all the same,” said Mortimer, as he entered the +reading room of the Saddle Club. “Quarrier and Belwether have listened a +damned sight more respectfully to me since they read that column about +you and the bishops and that chapel business.” + +Plank turned his heavy head with a disturbed glance around the room; for +he always dreaded Mortimer’s indiscretions of speech--was afraid of his +cynical frankness in the presence of others; even shrank from the brutal +bonhomie of the man when alone with him. + +“Can’t you be careful?” he said; “there was a man here a moment ago.” He +picked up his unfinished letter, folded and pocketed it, touched an +electric bell, and when a servant came, “Take Mr. Mortimer’s order,” he +said, supporting his massive head on his huge hands and resting his +elbow on the writing-desk. + +“I’ve got to cut out this morning bracer,” said Mortimer, eyeing the +servant with indecision; but he gave his order nevertheless, and later +accepted a cigar; and when the servant had returned and again retired, +he half emptied his tall glass, refilled it with mineral water, and, +settling back in the padded arm-chair, said: “If I manage this thing as +it ought to be managed, you’ll go through by April. What do you think of +that?” + +Plank’s phlegmatic features flushed. “I’m more obliged to you than I can +say,” he began, but Mortimer silenced him with a gesture: “Don’t +interrupt. I’m going to put you through The Patroons Club by April. +That’s thirty yards through the centre; d’ye see, you dunderheaded +Dutchman? It’s solid gain, and it’s our ball. The Lenox will take +longer; they’re a ‘holier-than-thou’ bunch of nincompoops, and it always +horrifies them to have any man elected, no matter who he is. They’d +rather die of dry rot than elect anybody; it shocks them to think that +any man could have the presumption to be presented. They require the +spectacle of fasting and prayer--a view of a candidate seated in +sackcloth and ashes in outer darkness. You’ve got to wait for the Lenox, +Plank.” + +“I am waiting,” said Plank, squaring his massive jaws. + +“You’ve got to,” growled Mortimer, emptying his glass aggressively. + +Plank looked out of the window, his shrewd blue eyes closing in +retrospection. + +“Another thing,” continued Mortimer thickly; “the Kemp Ferralls are +disposed to be decent. I don’t mean in asking you to meet some +intellectual second-raters, but in doing it handsomely. I don’t know +whether it’s time yet,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Plank’s +stolid face; “I don’t want to push the mourners too hard … Well, I’ll +see about it … And if it’s the thing to do, and the time to do it”--he +turned on Plank with his boisterous and misleading laugh and clapped him +on the shoulder--“it will be done, as sure as snobs are snobs; and that’s +the surest thing you ever bet on. Here’s to them!” and he emptied his +glass and fell back into his chair, wheezing and sucking at his +unlighted cigar. + +“I want to say,” began Plank, speaking the more slowly because he was +deeply in earnest, “that all this you are doing for me is very handsome +of you, Mortimer. I’d like to say--to convey to you something of how I +feel about the way you and Mrs. Mortimer--” + +“Oh, Leila has done it all.” + +“Mrs. Mortimer is very kind, and you have been so, too. I--I wish there +was something--some way to--to--” + +“To what?” asked Mortimer so bluntly that Plank flushed up and +stammered: + +“To be--to do a--to show my gratitude.” + +“How? You’re scarcely in a position to do anything for us,” said +Mortimer, brutally staring him out of countenance. + +“I know it,” said Plank, the painful flush deepening. + +Mortimer, fussing and growling over his cigar, was nevertheless +stealthily intent on the game which had so long absorbed him. His wits, +clogged, dulled by excesses, were now aroused to a sort of gross +activity through the menace of necessity. At last Plank had given him an +opening. He recognised his chance. + +“There’s one thing,” he said deliberately, “that I won’t stand for, and +that’s any vulgar misconception on your part of my friendship for you. +Do you follow me?” + +“I don’t misunderstand it,” protested Plank, angry and astonished; “I +don’t--” + +“--As though,” continued Mortimer menacingly, “I were one of those needy +social tipsters, one of those shabby, pandering touts who--” + +“For Heaven’s sake, Mortimer, don’t talk like that! I had no intention--” + +“--One of those contemptible, parasitic leeches,” persisted Mortimer, +getting redder and hoarser, “who live on men like you. Confound you, +Plank, what the devil do you mean by it?” + +“Mortimer, are you crazy, to talk to me like that?” + +“No, I’m not, but you must be! I’ve a mind to drop the whole cursed +business! I’ve every inclination to drop it! If you haven’t horse-sense +enough--if you haven’t innate delicacy sufficient to keep you from making +such a break--” + +“I didn’t! It wasn’t a break, Mortimer. I wouldn’t have hurt you--” + +“You did hurt me! How can I feel the same again? I never imagined you +thought I was that sort of a social mercenary. Why, so little did I +dream that you looked on our friendship in that light that I was--on my +word of honour!--I was just now on the point of asking you for three or +four thousand, to carry me to the month’s end and square my bridge +balance.” + +“Mortimer, you must take it! You are a fool to think I meant anything by +saying I wanted to show my gratitude. Look here; be decent and fair with +me. I wouldn’t offer you an affront--would I?--even if I were a cad. I +wouldn’t do it now, just when you’re getting things into shape for me. +I’m not a fool, anyway. This is in deadly earnest, I tell you, Mortimer, +and I’m getting angry about it. You’ve got to show your confidence in +me; you’ve got to take what you want from me, as you would from any +friend. I resent your failure to do it now, as though you drew a line +between me and your intimates. If you’re really my friend, show it!” + +There was a pause. A curious and unaccustomed sensation had silenced +Mortimer, something almost akin to shame. It astonished him a little. He +did not quite understand why, in the very moment of success over this +stolid, shrewd young man and his thrifty Dutch instincts, he should feel +uncomfortable. Were not his services worth something? Had he not earned +at least the right to borrow from this rich man who could afford to pay +for what was done for him? Why should he feel ashamed? He had not been +treacherous; he really liked the fellow. Why shouldn’t he take his +money? + +“See here, old man,” said Plank, extending a huge highly coloured hand, +“is all square between us now?” + +“I think so,” muttered Mortimer. + +But Plank would not relinquish his hand. + +“Then tell me how to draw that cheque! Great Heaven, Mortimer, what is +friendship, anyhow, if it doesn’t include little matters like +this--little misunderstandings like this? I’m the man to be sensitive, +not you. You have been very good to me, Mortimer. I could almost wish +you in a position where the only thing I possess might square something +of my debt to you.” + +A few minutes later, while he was filling in the cheque, a dusty youth +in riding clothes and spurs came in and found a seat by one of the +windows, into which he dropped, and then looked about him for a servant. + +“Hello, Fleetwood!” said Mortimer, glancing over his shoulder to see +whose spurs were ringing on the polished floor. + +Fleetwood saluted amiably with his riding-crop; including Plank, whom he +did not know, in a more formal salute. + +“Will you join us?” asked Mortimer, taking the cheque which Plank +offered and carelessly pocketing it without even a nod of thanks. “You +know Beverly Plank, of course? What! I thought everybody knew Beverly +Plank.” + +Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Plank shook hands and resumed their seats. + +“Ripping weather!” observed Fleetwood, replacing his hat and rebuttoning +the glove which he had removed to shake hands with Plank. “Lot of jolly +people out this morning. I say, Mortimer, do you want that roan hunter +of mine you looked over? I mean King Dermid, because Marion Page wants +him, if you don’t. She was out this morning, and she spoke of it again.” + +Mortimer, lifting a replenished glass, shook his head, and drank +thirstily in silence. + +“Saw you at Westbury, I think,” said Fleetwood politely to Plank, as the +two lifted their glasses to one another. + +“I hunted there for a day or two,” replied Plank, modestly. “If it’s +that big Irish thoroughbred you were riding that you want to sell I’d +like a look in, if Miss Page doesn’t fancy him.” + +Fleetwood laughed, and glanced amusedly at Plank over his glass. “It +isn’t that horse, Mr. Plank. That’s Drumceit, Stephen Siward’s famous +horse.” He interrupted himself to exchange greetings with several men +who came into the room rather noisily, their spurs resounding across the +oaken floor. One of them, Tom O’Hara, joined them, slamming his crop on +the desk beside Plank and spreading himself over an arm-chair, from the +seat of which he forcibly removed Mortimer’s feet without excuse. + +“Drink? Of course I want a drink!” he replied irritably to +Fleetwood--“one, three, ten, several! Billy, whose weasel-bellied pinto +was that you were kicking your heels into in the park? Some of the +squadron men asked me--the major. Oh, beg pardon! Didn’t know you were +trying to stick Mortimer with him. He might do for the troop ambulance, +inside! … What? Oh, yes; met Mr. Blank--I mean Mr. Plank--at Shotover, I +think. How d’ye do? Had the pleasure of potting your tame pheasants. +Rotten sport, you know. What do you do it for, Mr. Blank?” + +“What did you come for, if it’s rotten sport?” asked Plank so simply +that it took O’Hara a moment to realise he had been snubbed. + +“I didn’t mean to be offensive,” he drawled. + +“I suppose you can’t help it,” said Plank very gently; “some people +can’t, you know.” And there was another silence, broken by Mortimer, +whose entire hulk was tingling with a mixture of surprise and amusement +over his protégé’s developing ability to take care of himself. “Did you +say that Stephen Siward is in Westbury, Billy?” + +“No; he’s in town,” replied Fleetwood. “I took his horses up to hunt +with. He isn’t hunting, you know.” + +“I didn’t know. Nobody ever sees him anywhere,” said Mortimer. “I guess +his mother’s death cut him up.” + +Fleetwood lifted his empty glass and gently shook the ice in it. “That, +and--the other business--is enough to cut any man up, isn’t it?” + +“You mean the action of the Lenox Club?” asked Plank seriously. + +“Yes. He’s resigned from this club, too, I hear. Somebody told me that +he has made a clean sweep of all his clubs. That’s foolish. A man may be +an ass to join too many clubs but he’s always a fool to resign from any +of ’em. You ask the weatherwise what resigning from a club forecasts. +It’s the first ominous sign in a young man’s career.” + +“What’s the second sign?” asked O’Hara, with a yawn. + +“Squadron talk; and you’re full of it,” retorted Fleetwood--“‘I said to +the major,’ and ‘The captain told the chief trumpeter’--all that sort of +thing--and those Porto Rico spurs of yours, and the ewe-necked +glyptosaurus you block the bridle-path with every morning. You’re an +awful nuisance, Tom, if anybody should ask me.” + +Under cover of a rapid-fire exchange of pleasantries between Fleetwood +and O’Hara, Plank turned to Mortimer, hesitating: + +“I rather liked Siward when I met him at Shotover,” he ventured. “I’m +very sorry he’s down and out.” + +“He drinks,” shrugged Mortimer, diluting his mineral water with Irish +whisky. “He can’t let it alone; he’s like all the Siwards. I could have +told you that the first time I ever saw him. We all told him to cut it +out, because he was sure to do some damfool thing if he didn’t. He’s +done it, and his clubs have cut him out. It’s his own funeral. … Well, +here’s to you!” + +“Cut who out?” asked Fleetwood, ignoring O’Hara’s parting shot +concerning the decadence of the Fleetwood stables and their owner. + +“Stephen Siward. I always said that he was sure, sooner or later, to +land in the family ditch. He has a right to, of course; the gutter is +public property.” + +“It’s a damned sad thing,” said Fleetwood slowly. + +After a pause Plank said: “I think so, too. … I don’t know him very +well.” + +“You may know him better now,” said O’Hara insolently. + +Plank reddened, and, after a moment: “I should be glad to, if he cares +to know me.” + +“Mortimer doesn’t care for him, but he’s an awfully good fellow, all the +same,” said Fleetwood, turning to Plank; “he’s been an ass, but who +hasn’t? I like him tremendously, and I feel very bad over the mess he +made of it after that crazy dinner I gave in my rooms. What? You hadn’t +heard of it? Why man, it’s the talk of the clubs.” + +“I suppose that is why I haven’t heard,” said Plank simply; “my club- +life is still in the future.” + +“Oh!” said Fleetwood with an involuntary stare, surprised, a trifle +uncomfortable, yet somehow liking Plank, and not understanding why. + +“I’m not in anything, you see; I’m only up for the Patroons and the +Lenox,” added Plank gravely. + +“I see. Certainly. Er--hope you’ll make ’em; hope to see you there soon. +Er--I see by the papers you’ve been jollying the clergy, Mr. Plank. +Awfully handsome of you, all that chapel business. I say: I’ve a +cousin--er--young architect; Beaux Arts, and all that--just over. I’d +awfully like to have him given a chance at that competition; invited to +try, you see. I don’t suppose it could be managed, now--” + +“Would you like to have me ask the bishops?” inquired Plank, naively +shrewd. And the conversation became very cordial between the two, which +Mortimer observed, keeping one ironical eye on Plank, while he continued +a desultory discussion with O’Hara concerning a very private dinner +which somebody told somebody that somebody had given to Quarrier and the +Inter-County Electric people; which, if true, plainly indicated who was +financing the Inter-County scheme, and why Amalgamated stock had tumbled +again yesterday, and what might be looked for from the Algonquin Trust +Company’s president. + +“Amalgamated Electric doesn’t seem to like it a little bit,” said +O’Hara. “Ferrall, Belwether, and Siward are in it up to their necks; and +if Quarrier is really the god in the machine, and if he really is doing +stunts with Amalgamated Electric, and is also mixing feet with the +Inter-County crowd, why, he is virtually paralleling his own road; and +why, in the name of common sense, is he doing that? He’ll kill it; +that’s what he’ll do.” + +“He can afford to kill it,” observed Mortimer, punching the electric +button and making a significant gesture toward his empty glass as the +servant entered; “a man like Quarrier can afford to kill anything.” + +“Yes; but why kill Amalgamated Electric? Why not merge? Why, it’s a +crazy thing to do, it’s a devil of a thing to do, to parallel your own +line!” insisted O’Hara. “That is dirty work. People don’t do such things +these days. Nobody tears up dollar bills for the pleasure of tearing.” + +“Nobody knows what Quarrier will do,” muttered Mortimer, who had tried +hard enough to find out when the first ominous rumours arose concerning +Amalgamated, and the first fractional declines left the street +speechless and stupefied. + +O’Hara sat frowning, and fingering his glass. “As a matter of fact,” he +said, “a little cold logic shows us that Quarrier isn’t in it at all. No +sane man would ruin his own enterprise, when there is no need to. His +people are openly supporting Amalgamated and hammering Inter-County; +and, besides, there’s Ferrall in it, and Mrs. Ferrall is Quarrier’s +cousin; and there’s Belwether in it, and Quarrier is engaged to marry +Sylvia Landis, who is Belwether’s niece. It’s a scrap with Harrington’s +crowd, and the wheels inside of wheels are like Chinese boxes. Who knows +what it means? Only it’s plain that Amalgamated is safe, if Quarrier +wants it to be. And unless he does he’s crazy.” + +Mortimer puffed stolidly at his cigar until the smoke got into his eyes +and inflamed them. He sat for a while, wiping his puffy eyelids with his +handkerchief; then, squinting sideways at Plank, and seeing him still +occupied with Fleetwood, turned bluntly on O’Hara: + +“See here: what do you mean by being nasty to Plank?” he growled. “I’m +backing him. Do you understand?” + +“It is curious,” mused O’Hara coolly, “how much of a cad a fairly decent +man can be when he’s out of temper!” + +“You mean Plank, or me?” demanded Mortimer, darkening angrily. + +“No; I mean myself. I’m not that way usually. I took him for a bounder, +and he’s caught me with the goods on. I’ve been thinking that the men +who bother with such questions are usually open to suspicion themselves. +Watch me do the civil, now. I’m ashamed of myself.” + +“Wait a moment. Will you be civil enough to do something for him at the +Patroons? That will mean something.” + +“Is he up? Yes, I will;” and, turning in his chair, he said to Plank: +“Awfully sorry I acted like a bounder just now, after having accepted +your hospitality at the Fells. I did mean to be offensive, and I’m sorry +for that, too. Hope you’ll overlook it, and be friendly.” + +Plank’s face took on the dark-red hue of embarrassment; he looked +questioningly at Mortimer, whose visage remained non-committal, then +directly at O’Hara. + +“I should be very glad to be friends with you,” he said with an +ingenuous dignity that surprised Mortimer. It was only the native +simplicity of the man, veneered and polished by constant contact with +Mrs. Mortimer, and now showing to advantage in the grain. And it +gratified Mortimer, because he saw that it was going to make many +matters much easier for himself and his protégé. + +The tall glasses were filled and drained again before they departed to +the cold plunge and dressing-rooms above, whence presently they emerged +in street garb to drive down town and lunch together at the Lenox Club, +Plank as Fleetwood’s guest. + +Mortimer, very heavy and inert after luncheon, wedged himself into a +great stuffed arm-chair by the window, where he alternately nodded over +his coffee and wheezed in his breathing, and leered out at Fifth Avenue +from half-closed, puffy eyes. And there he was due to sit, sodden and +replete, until the fashionable equipages began to flash past. He’d +probably see his wife driving with Mrs. Ferrall or with Miss Caithness, +or perhaps with some doddering caryatid of the social structure; and +he’d sit there, leering with gummy eyes out of the club windows, while +servants in silent processional replenished his glass from time to time, +until in the early night the trim little shopgirls flocked out into the +highways in gossiping, fluttering coveys, trotting away across the +illuminated asphalt, north and south to their thousand dingy +destinations. And after they had gone he would probably arouse himself +to read the evening paper, or perhaps gossip with Major Belwether and +other white-haired familiars, or perhaps doze until it was time to +summon a cab and go home to dress. + +That afternoon, however, having O’Hara and Fleetwood to give him +countenance, he managed to arouse himself long enough to make Plank +known personally to several of the governors of the club and to a dozen +members, then left him to his fate. Whence, presently, Fleetwood and +O’Hara extracted him--fate at that moment being personified by a +garrulous old gentleman, one Peter Caithness, who divided with Major +Belwether the distinction of being the club bore--and together they +piloted him to the billiard room, where he beat them handily for a +dollar a point at everything they suggested. + +“You play almost as pretty a game as Stephen Siward used to play,” said +O’Hara cordially. “You’ve something of his cue movement--something of his +infernal facility and touch. Hasn’t he, Fleetwood?” + +“I wish Siward were back here,” said Fleetwood thoughtfully, returning +his cue to his own rack. “I wonder what he does with himself--where he +keeps himself all the while? What the devil is there for a man to do, if +he doesn’t do anything? He’s not going out anywhere since his mother’s +death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do--go to his +office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and +blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do +you know what he does with himself?” to O’Hara. + +“I don’t even know where he lives,” observed O’Hara, resuming his coat. +“He’s given up his rooms, I understand.” + +“What? Don’t know the old Siward house?” + +“Oh! does he live there now? Of course; I forgot about his mother. He +had apartments last year, you remember. He gave dinners--corkers they +were. I went to one--like that last one you gave.” + +“I wish I’d never given it,” said Fleetwood gloomily. “If I hadn’t, he’d +be a member here still. … What do you suppose induced him to take that +little gin-drinking cat to the Patroons? Why, man, it wasn’t even an +undergraduate’s trick! it was the act of a lunatic.” + +For a while they talked of Siward, and of his unfortunate story and the +pity of it; and when the two men ceased, + +“Do you know,” said Plank mildly, “I don’t believe he ever did it.” + +O’Hara looked up surprised, then shrugged. “Unfortunately he doesn’t +deny it, you see.” + +“I heard,” said Fleetwood, lighting a cigarette, “that he did deny it; +that he said, no matter what his condition was, he couldn’t have done +it. If he had been sober, the governors would have been bound to take +his word of honour. But he couldn’t give that, you see. And after they +pointed out to him that he had been in no condition to know exactly what +he did do, he shut up. … And they dropped him; and he’s falling yet.” + +“I don’t believe that sort of a man ever would do that sort of thing,” +repeated Plank obstinately, his Delft-blue eyes partly closing, so that +all the Dutch shrewdness and stubbornness in his face disturbed its +highly coloured placidity. And he walked away toward the wash-room to +cleanse his ponderous pink hands of chalk-dust. + +“That’s what’s the matter with Plank,” observed O’Hara to Fleetwood as +Plank disappeared. “It isn’t that he’s a bounder; but he doesn’t know +things; he doesn’t know enough, for instance, to wait until he’s a +member of a club before he criticises the judgment of its governors. Yet +you can’t help tolerating the fellow. I think I’ll write a letter for +him, or put down my name. What do you think?” + +“It would be all right,” said Fleetwood. “He’ll need all the support he +can get, with Leroy Mortimer as his sponsor. … Wasn’t Mortimer rather +nasty about Siward though, in his rôle of the alcoholic prophet? Whew!” + +“Siward never had any use for Mortimer,” observed O’Hara. + +“I’ll bet you never heard him say so,” returned Fleetwood. “You know +Stephen Siward’s way; he never said anything unpleasant about any man. I +wish I didn’t either, but I do. So do you. So do most men. … Lord! I +wish Siward were back here. He was a good deal of a man, after all, +Tom.” + +They were unconsciously using the past tense in discussing Siward, as +though he were dead, either physically or socially. + +“In one way he was always a singularly decent man,” mused O’Hara, +walking toward the great marble vestibule and buttoning his overcoat. + +“How exactly do you mean?” + +“Oh, about women.” + +“I believe it, too. If he did take that Vyse girl into the Patroons, it +was his limit with her--and, I believe his limit with any woman. He was +absurdly decent that way; he was indeed. And now look at the reputation +he has! Isn’t it funny? isn’t it, now?” + +“What sort of an effect do you suppose all this business is going to +have on Siward?” + +“It’s had one effect already,” replied Fleetwood, as Plank came up, +ready for the street. “Ferrall says he looks sick, and Belwether says +he’s going to the devil; but that’s the sort of thing the major is +likely to say. By the way, wasn’t there something between that pretty +Landis girl and Siward? Somebody--some damned gossiping somebody--talked +about it somewhere, recently.” + +“I don’t believe that, either,” said Plank, in his heavy, measured, +passionless voice, as they descended the steps of the white portico and +looked around for a cab. + +“As for me, I’ve got to hustle,” observed O’Hara, glancing at his watch. +“I’m due to shine at a function about five. Are you coming up-town +either of you fellows? I’ll give you a lift as far as Seventy-second +Street, Plank.” + +“Tell you what we’ll do,” said Fleetwood, impulsively, turning to Plank: +“We’ll drive down town, you and I, and we’ll look up poor old Siward! +Shall we? He’s probably all alone in that God-forsaken red brick family +tomb! Shall we? How about it, Plank?” + +O’Hara turned impatiently on his heel with a gesture of adieu, climbed +into his electric hansom, and went buzzing away up the avenue. + +“I’d like to, but I don’t think I know Mr. Siward well enough to do +that,” said Plank diffidently. He hesitated, colouring up. “He might +misunderstand my going with you--as a liberty--which perhaps I might not +have ventured on had he been less--less unfortunate.” + +Again Fleetwood warmed toward the ruddy, ponderous young man beside him. +“See here,” he said, “you are going as a friend of mine--if you care to +look at it that way.” + +“Thank you,” said Plank; “I should be very glad to go in that way.” + +The Siward house was old only in the comparative Manhattan meaning of +the word; for in New York nothing is really very old, except the faces +of the young men. + +Decades ago it had been considered a big house, and it was still so +spoken of--a solid, dingy, red brick structure, cubical in proportions, +surmounted by heavy chimneys, the depth of its sunken windows hinting of +the thickness of wall and foundation. Window-curtains of obsolete +pattern, all alike, and all drawn, masked the blank panes. Three massive +wistaria-vines, the gnarled stems as thick as tree-trunks, crawled +upward to the roof, dividing the façade equally, and furnishing some +relief to its flatness, otherwise unbroken except by the deep reveals of +window and door. Two huge and unsymmetrical catalpa trees stood +sentinels before it, dividing curb from asphalt; and from the centres of +the shrivelled, brown grass-plots flanking the stoop under the basement +windows two aged Rose-of-Sharon trees bristled naked to the height of +the white marble capitals of the flaking pillars supporting the stained +portico. + +An old New York house, in the New York sense. Old in another sense, too, +where in a rapid land Time outstrips itself, painting, with the +antiquity of centuries, the stone and mortar which were new scarce ten +years since. + +“Nice old family mausoleum,” commented Fleetwood, descending from the +hansom, followed by Plank. The latter instinctively mounted the stoop on +tiptoe, treading gingerly as one who ventures into precincts unknown but +long respected; and as Fleetwood pulled the old-fashioned bell, Plank +stole a glance over the façade, where wisps of straw trailed from +sparrows’ nests, undisturbed, wedged between plinth and pillar; where, +behind the lace pane-screens, shadowy edges of heavy curtains framed the +obscurity; where the paint had blistered and peeled from the iron +railings, and the marble pillars of the portico glimmered, scarred by +frosts of winters long forgotten. + +“Cheerful monument,” repeated Fleetwood with a sarcastic nod. Then the +door was opened by a very old man wearing the black “swallow-tail” +clothes and choker of an old-time butler, spotless, quite immaculate, +but cut after a fashion no young man remembers. + +“Good evening,” said Fleetwood, entering, followed on tiptoe by Plank. + +“Good evening, sir.” … A pause; and in the unsteady voice of age: “Mr. +Fleetwood, sir. … Mr.--.” A bow, and the dim eyes peering up at Plank, +who stood fumbling for his card-case. + +Fleetwood dropped both cards on the salver unsteadily extended. The +butler ushered them into a dim room on the right. + +“How is Mr. Siward?” asked Fleetwood, pausing on the threshold and +dropping his voice. + +The old man hesitated, looking down, then still looking away from +Fleetwood: “Bravely, sir, bravely, Mr. Fleetwood.” + +“The Siwards were always that,” said the young man gently. + +“Yes, sir. … Thank you. Mr. Stephen--Mr. Siward,” he corrected, quaintly, +“is indisposed, sir. It was a--a great shock to us all, sir!” He bowed +and turned away, holding his salver stiffly; and they heard him +muttering under his breath, “Bravely, sir, bravely. A--a great shock, +sir! … Thank you.” + +Fleetwood turned to Plank, who stood silent, staring through the fading +light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light +touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the +carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished +mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, +and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to +another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish. + +“This is the real thing,” observed Fleetwood cynically, “all this Fourth +Avenue antique business; dingy, cumbersome, depressing. Good God! I see +myself standing it. … Look at that old grinny-bags in a pig-tail over +there! To the cellar for his, if this were my house. … We’ve got some, +too, in several rooms, and I never go into ’em. They’re like a scene in +a bum play, or like one of those Washington Square rat-holes, where +artists eat Welsh-rabbits with dirty fingers. Ugh!” + +“I like it,” said Plank, under his breath. + +Fleetwood stared, then shrugged, and returned to the window to watch a +brand-new French motor-car drawn up before a modern mansion across the +avenue. + +The butler returned presently, saying that Mr. Siward was at home and +would receive them in the library above, as he was not yet able to pass +up and down stairs. + +“I didn’t know he was as ill as that,” muttered Fleetwood, as he and +Plank followed the old man up the creaking stairway. But Gumble, the +butler, said nothing in reply. + +Siward was sitting in an arm-chair by the window, one leg extended, his +left foot, stiffly cased in bandages, resting on a footstool. + +“Why, Stephen!” exclaimed Fleetwood, hastening forward, “I didn’t know +you were laid up like this!” + +Siward offered his hand inquiringly; then his eyes turned toward Plank, +who stood behind Fleetwood; and, slowly disengaging his hand from +Fleetwood’s sympathetic grip, he offered it to Plank. + +“It is very kind of you,” he said. “Gumble, Mr. Fleetwood prefers rye, +for some inscrutable reason. Mr. Plank?” His smile was a question. + +“If you don’t mind,” said Plank, “I should like to have some tea--that +is, if--” + +“Tea, Gumble, for two. We’ll tipple in company, Mr. Plank,” he added. +“And the cigars are at your elbow, Billy,” with another smile at +Fleetwood. + +“Now,” said the latter, after he had lighted his cigar, “what is the +matter, Stephen?” + +Siward glanced at his stiffly extended foot. “Nothing much.” He reddened +faintly, “I slipped. It’s only a twisted ankle.” + +For a moment or two the answer satisfied Fleetwood, then a sudden, +curious flash of suspicion came into his eyes; he glanced sharply at +Siward, who lowered his eyes, while the red tint in his hollow cheeks +deepened. + +Neither spoke for a while. Plank sipped the tea which Wands, the second +man, brought. Siward brooded over his cup, head bent. Fleetwood made +more noise than necessary with his ice. + +“I miss you like hell!” said Fleetwood musingly, measuring out the old +rye from the quaint decanter. “Why did you drop the Saddle Club, +Stephen?” + +“I’m not riding; I have no use for it,” replied Siward. + +“You’ve cut out the Proscenium Club, too, and the Owl’s Head, and the +Trophy. It’s a shame, Stephen.” + +“I’m tired of clubs.” + +“Don’t talk that way.” + +“Very well, I won’t,” said Siward, smiling. “Tell me what is +happening--out there,” he made a gesture toward the window; “all the +gossip the newspapers miss. I’ve talked Dr. Grisby to death; I’ve talked +Gumble to death; I’ve read myself stupid. What’s going on, Billy?” + +So Fleetwood sketched for him a gay cartoon of events, caricaturing +various episodes in the social kaleidoscope which might interest him. He +gossiped cynically, but without malice, about people they both knew, +about engagements, marriages, and divorces, plans and ambitions; about +those absent from the metropolis and the newcomers to be welcomed. He +commented briefly on the opera, reviewed the newer plays at the +theatres, touched on the now dormant gaiety which had made the season at +nearby country clubs conspicuous; then drifted into the hunting field, +gossiping pleasantly in the vernacular about horses and packs and drag- +hunts and stables, and what people thought of the new English hounds of +the trial pack, and how the new M. F. H., Maitland Gray, had managed to +break so many bones at Southbury. + +Politics were touched upon, and they spoke of the possibility of Ferrall +going to the Assembly, the sport of boss-baiting having become +fashionable among amateurs, and providing a new amusement for the idle +rich. + +So city, State, and national issues were run through lightly, business +conditions noticed, the stock market speculated upon; and presently +conversation died out, with a yawn from Fleetwood as he looked into his +empty glass at the last bit of ice. + +“Don’t do that, Billy,” smiled Siward. “You haven’t discoursed upon art, +literature, and science yet, and you can’t go until you’ve adjusted the +affairs of the nation for the next twenty-four hours.” + +“Art?” yawned Fleetwood. “Oh, pictures? Don’t like ’em. Nobody ever +looks at ’em except débutantes, who do it out of deviltry, to floor a +man at a dinner or a dance.” + +“How about literature?” inquired Siward gravely. “Anything doing?” + +“Nothing in it,” replied Fleetwood more gravely still. “It’s another +feminine bluff--like all that music talk they hand you after the opera.” + +“I see. And science?” + +“Spider Flynn is matched to meet Kid Holloway; is that what you mean, +Stephen? Somebody tumbled out of an air-ship the other day; is that what +you mean? And they’re selling scientific jewelry on Broadway at a dollar +a quart; is that what you want to know?” + +Siward rested his head on his hand with a smile. “Yes, that’s about what +I wanted to know, Billy--all about the arts and sciences. … Much obliged. +You needn’t stay any longer, if you don’t want to.” + +“How soon will you be out?” inquired Fleetwood. + +“Out? I don’t know. I shall try to drive to the office to-morrow.” + +“Why the devil did you resign from all your clubs? How can I see you if +I don’t come here?” began Fleetwood impatiently. “I know, of course, +that you’re not going anywhere, but a man always goes to his club. You +don’t look well, Stephen. You are too much alone.” + +Siward did not answer. His face and body had certainly grown thinner +since Fleetwood had last seen him. Plank, too, had been shocked at the +change in him--the dark, hard lines under the eyes; the pallor, the +curious immobility of the man, save for his fingers, which were always +restless, now moving in search of some small object to worry and turn +over and over, now nervously settling into a grasp on the arm of his +chair. + +“How is Amalgamated Electric?” asked Fleetwood, abruptly. + +“I think it’s all right. Want to buy some?” replied Siward, smiling. + +Plank stirred in his chair ponderously. “Somebody is kicking it to +pieces,” he said. + +“Somebody is trying to,” smiled Siward. + +“Harrington,” nodded Fleetwood. Siward nodded back. Plank was silent. + +“Of course,” continued Fleetwood, tentatively, “you people need not +worry, with Howard Quarrier back of you.” + +Nobody said anything for a while. Presently Siward’s restless hands, +moving in search of something, encountered a pencil lying on the table +beside him, and he picked it up and began drawing initials and scrolls +on the margin of a newspaper; and all the scrolls framed initials, and +all the initials were the same, twining and twisting into endless +variations of the letters S. L. + +“Yes, I must go to the office to-morrow,” he repeated absently. “I am +better--in fact I am quite well, except for this sprain.” He looked down +at his bandaged foot, then his pencil moved listlessly again, continuing +the endless variations on the two letters. It was plain that he was +tired. + +Fleetwood rose and made his adieux almost affectionately. Plank moved +forward on tiptoe, bulky and noiseless; and Siward held out his hand, +saying something amiably formal. + +“Would you like to have me come again?” asked Plank, red with +embarrassment, yet so naively that at first Siward found no words to +answer him; then-- + +“Would you care to come, Mr. Plank?” + +“Yes.” + +Siward looked at him curiously, almost cautiously. His first impressions +of the man had been summed up in one contemptuous word. Besides, barring +that, what was there in common between himself and such a type as Plank? +He had not even troubled himself to avoid him at Shotover; he had merely +been aware of him when Plank spoke to him; never otherwise, except that +afternoon beside the swimming pool, when he had made one of his rare +criticisms on Plank. + +Perhaps Plank had changed, perhaps Siward had; for he found nothing +offensive in the bulky young man now--nothing particularly attractive, +either, except for a certain simplicity, a certain direct candour in the +heavy blue eyes which met his squarely. + +“Come in for a cigar when you have a few moments idle,” said Siward +slowly. + +“It will give me great pleasure,” said Plank, bowing. + +And that was all. He followed Fleetwood down the stairs; Wands held +their coats, and bowed them out into the falling shadows of the winter +twilight. + +Siward, sitting beside his window, watched them enter their hansom and +drive away up the avenue. A dull flush had settled over his cheeks; the +aroma of spirits hung in the air, and he looked across the room at the +decanter. Presently he drank some of his tea, but it was lukewarm, and +he pushed the cup from him. + +The clatter of the cup brought the old butler, who toddled hither and +thither, removing trays, pulling chairs into place, fussing and +pattering about, until a maid came in noiselessly, bearing a lamp. She +pulled down the shades, drew the sad-coloured curtains, went to the +mantelpiece and peered at the clock, then brought a wineglass and a +spoon to Siward, and measured the dose in silence. He swallowed it, +shrugged, permitted her to change the position of his chair and +footstool, and nodded thanks and dismissal. + +“Gumble, are you there?” he asked carelessly. + +The butler entered from the hallway. “Yes, sir.” + +“You may leave that decanter.” + +But the old servant may have misunderstood, for he only bowed and ambled +off downstairs with the decanter, either heedless or deaf to his +master’s sharp order to return. + +For a while Siward sat there, eyes fixed, scowling into vacancy; then +the old, listless, careworn expression returned; he rested one elbow on +the window-sill, his worn cheek on his hand, and with the other hand +fell to weaving initials with his pencil on the margin of the newspaper +lying on the table beside him. + +Lamplight brought out sharply the physical change in him--the angular +shadows flat under the cheek-bones, the hard, slightly swollen flesh in +the bluish shadows around the eyes. The mark of the master-vice was +there; its stamp in the swollen, worn-out hollows; its imprint in the +fine lines at the corners of his mouth; its sign manual in the faintest +relaxation of the under lip, which had not yet become a looseness. + +For the last of the Siwards had at last stepped into the highway which +his doomed forebears had travelled before him. + +“Gumble!” he called irritably. + +A quavering voice, an unsteady step, and the old man entered again. “Mr. +Stephen, sir?” + +“Bring that decanter back. Didn’t you hear me tell you just now?” + +“Sir?” + +“Didn’t you hear me?” + +“Yes, Mr. Stephen, sir.” + +There was a silence. + +“Gumble!” + +“Sir?” + +“Are you going to bring that decanter?” + +The old butler bowed, and ambled from the room, and for a long while +Siward sat sullenly listening and scoring the edges of the paper with +his trembling pencil. Then the lead broke short, and he flung it from +him and pulled the bell. Wands came this time, a lank, sandy, silent +man, grown gray as a rat in the service of the Siwards. He received his +master’s orders, and withdrew; and again Siward waited, biting his under +lip and tearing bits from the edges of the newspaper with fingers never +still; but nobody came with the decanter, and after a while his tense +muscles relaxed; something in his very soul seemed to snap, and he sank +back in his chair, the hot tears blinding him. + +He had got as far as that; moments of self-pity were becoming almost as +frequent as scorching intervals of self-contempt. + +So they all knew what was the matter with him--they all knew--the doctor, +the servants, his friends. Had he not surprised the quick suspicion in +Fleetwood’s glance, when he told him he had slipped, and sprained his +ankle? What if he had been drunk when he fell--fell on his own +doorsteps, carried into the old Siward house by old Siward servants, +drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood’s business. It was +none of the servants’ business. It was nobody’s business except his own. +Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and doctor +him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide +decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle +with him? Of what concern to them were his vices or his virtues? + +The tears dried in his hot eyes; he jerked the old-fashioned bell +savagely; and after a long while he heard servants whispering together +in the passageway outside his door. + +He lay very still in his chair; his hearing had become abnormally acute, +but he could not make out what they were saying; and as the dull, +intestinal aching grew sharper, parching, searing every strained muscle +in throat and chest, he struck the table beside him, and clenched his +teeth in the fierce rush of agony that swept him from head to foot, +crying out an inarticulate menace on his household. And Dr. Grisby came +into the room from the outer shadows of the hall. + +He was very small, very meagre, very bald, and clean-shaven, with a face +like a nut-cracker; and the brown wig he wore was atrocious, and curled +forward over his colourless ears. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles, each +glass divided into two lenses; and he stood on tiptoe to look out +through the upper lenses on the world, and always bent almost double to +use the lower or reading lenses. + +Besides that, he affected frilled shirts, and string ties, which nobody +had ever seen snugly tied. His loose string tie was the first thing +Siward could remember about the doctor; and that the doctor had +permitted him to pull it when he had the measles, at the age of six. + +“What’s all this racket?” said the little old doctor harshly. “Got +colic? Got the toothache? I’m ashamed of you, Stephen, cutting capers +and pounding the furniture! Look up! Look at me! Out with your tongue! +Well, now, what the devil’s the trouble?” + +“You--know,” muttered Siward, abandoning his wrist to the little man, who +seated himself beside him. Dr. Grisby scarcely noted the pulse; the +delicate pressure had become a strong caress. + +“Know what?” he grunted. “How do I know what’s the matter with you? Hey? +Now, now, don’t try to explain, Steve; don’t fly off the handle! All +right; grant that I do know what’s bothering you; I want to see that +ankle first. Here, somebody! Light that gas. Why the mischief don’t you +have the house wired for electricity, Stephen? It’s wholesome. Gas +isn’t. Lamps are worse, sir. Do as I tell you!” And he went on +loquaciously, grumbling and muttering, and never ceasing his talk, while +Siward, wincing as the dressing was removed, lay back and closed his +eyes. + +Half an hour later Gumble appeared, to announce dinner. + +“I don’t want any,” said Siward. + +“Eat!” said Dr. Grisby harshly. + +“I--don’t care to.” + +“Eat, I tell you! Do you think I don’t mean what I say?” + +So he ate his broth and toast, the doctor curtly declining to join him. +He ate hurriedly, closing his eyes in aversion. Even the iced tea was +flat and distasteful to him. + +And at last he lay back, white and unstrung, the momentarily deadened +desperation glimmering under his half-closed eyes. And for a long while +Dr. Grisby sat, doubled almost in two, cuddling his bony little knees +and studying the patterns in the faded carpet. + +“I guess you’d better go, Stephen,” he said at length. + +“Up the river--to Mulqueen’s?” + +“Yes. Let’s try it, Steve. You’ll be on your feet in two weeks. Then +you’d better go--up the river--to Mulqueen’s.” + +“I--I’ll go, if you say so. But I can’t go now.” + +“I didn’t say go now. I said in two weeks.” + +“Perhaps.” + +“Will you give me your word?” demanded the doctor sharply. + +“No, doctor.” + +“Why not?” + +“Because I may have to be here on business. There seems to be some sort +of crisis coming which I don’t understand.” + +“There’s a crisis right here, Steve, which I understand!” snapped Dr. +Grisby. “Face it like a man! Face it like a man! You’re sick--to your +bones, boy--sick! sick! Fight the fight, Steve! Fight a good fight. +There’s a fighting chance; on my soul of honour, there is, Steve, a +fighting chance for you! Now! now, boy! Buckle up tight! Tuck up your +sword-sleeve! At ’em, Steve! Give ’em hell! Oh, my boy, my boy, I know; +I know!” The little man’s voice broke, but he steadied it instantly with +a snap of his nut-cracker jaws, and scowled on his patient and shook his +little withered fist at him. + +His patient lay very still in the shadow. + +“I want you to go,” said the doctor harshly, “before your self-control +goes. Do you understand? I want you to go before your decision is +undermined; before you begin to do devious things, sly things, cheating +things, slinking things--anything and everything to get at the thing you +crave. I’ve given you something to fight with, and you won’t take it +faithfully. I’ve given you free rein in tobacco and tea and coffee. I’ve +helped you as much as I dare to weather the nights. Now, you help me--do +you hear?” + +“Yes … I will.” + +“You say so; now do it. Do something for yourself. Do anything! If +you’re sick of reading--and I don’t blame you, considering the stuff you +read--get people down here to see you; get lots of people. Telephone ’em; +you’ve a telephone there, haven’t you? There it is, by your elbow. Use +it! Call up people. Talk all the time.” + +“Yes, I will.” + +“Good! Now, Steve, we know what’s the matter, physically, don’t we? Of +course we do! Now, then, what’s the matter mentally?” + +“Mentally?” repeated Siward under his breath. + +“Yes, mentally. What’s the trouble? Stocks? Bonds? Lawsuits? Love?” the +slightest pause, and a narrowing of the gimlet eyes behind the lenses. +“Love?” he repeated harshly. “Which is it, boy? They’re all good to let +alone.” + +“Business,” said Siward. But, being a Siward, he was obliged to add +“partly.” + +“Business--partly,” repeated the doctor. “What’s the matter with +business--partly?” + +“I don’t know. There are rumours. Hetherington is pounding +us--apparently. That Inter-County crowd is acting ominously, too. There’s +something underhand, somewhere.” He bent his head and fell to plucking +at the faded brocade on the arm of his chair, muttering to himself, +“somewhere, somehow, something underhand. I don’t know what; I really +don’t.” + +“All right--all right,” said the doctor testily; “let it go at that! +There’s treachery, eh? You suspect it? You’re sure of it--as reasonably +sure as a gentleman can be of something he is not fashioned to +understand? That’s it, is it? All right, sir--all right! Very well--ver-y +well. Now, sir, look at me! Business symptoms admitted, what about the +‘partly,’ Stephen ?--what about it, eh? What about it?” + +But Siward fell silent again. + +“Eh? Did you say something? No? Oh, very well, ver-y well, sir. … +Perfectly correct, Stephen. You have not earned the right to admit +further symptoms. No, sir, you have not earned the right to admit them +to anybody, not even to yourself. Nor to--her!” + +“Doctor!” + +“Sir?” + +“I have--admitted them.” + +“To yourself, Steve? I’m sorry. You have no right to--yet. I’m sorry--” + +“I have admitted them--admitted them--to her.” + +“That settles it,” said the doctor grimly, “that clinches it! That locks +you to the wheel! That pledges you. The squabble is on, now. It’s your +honour that’s engaged now, not your nerves, not your intestines. It’s a +good fight--a very good fight, with no chance of losing anything but +life. You go up the river to Mulqueen’s. That’s the strategy in this +campaign; that’s excellent manoeuvring; that’s good generalship! Eh? +Mask your purpose, Steve; make a feint of camping out here under my +guns; then suddenly fling your entire force up the Hudson and fortify +yourself at Mulqueen’s! Ho, that’ll fix ’em! That’s going to astonish +the enemy!” + +His harsh, dry, crackling laughter broke out like the distant rattle of +musketry. + +The ghost of a smile glimmered in Siward’s haunted eyes, then faded as +he leaned forward. + +“She has refused me,” he said simply. + +The little doctor, after an incredulous stare, began chattering with +wrath. “Refused you! Pah! Pooh! That’s nothing! That signifies +absolutely nothing! It’s meaningless! It’s a detail. You get well--do you +hear? You go and get well; then try it again! Then you’ll see! And if +she is an idiot--in the event of her irrational persistence in an +incredible and utterly indefensible attitude”--he choked up, then fairly +barked at Siward--“take her anyway, sir! Run off with her! Dominate +circumstances, sir! take charge of events! … But you can’t do it till +you’ve clapped yourself into prison for life. … And God help you if you +let yourself escape!” + +And after a long while Siward said: “If I should ever marry--and--and--” + +“Had children, eh? Is that it? Oh, it is, eh? Well, I say, marry! I say, +have children! If you’re a man, you’ll breed men. The chances are they +may not inherit what you have. It skips some generations--some, now and +then. But if they do, good God! I say it’s better to be born and have a +chance to fight than never to come into the arena at all! By winning +out, the world learns; by failure, the world is no less wise. The +important thing is birth. The main point is to breed--to produce--to +reproduce! but not until you stand, sword in hand, and your armed heel +on the breast of your prostrate and subconscious self!” + +He jumped up and began running about the room with short little bantam +steps, talking all the while. + +“People say, ‘Shall criminals be allowed to mate and produce young? +Shall malefactors be allowed to beget? No!’ And I say no, too. Never so +long as they remain criminals and malefactors; so long as the evil in +them is in the ascendant. Never, until they are cured. That’s what I +say; that’s what I maintain. Crime is a disease; criminals are sick +people. No marriage for them until they’re cured; no children for them +until they’re well. If they cure themselves, let ’em marry; let ’em +breed; for then, if their children inherit the inclination, they also +inherit the grit to cauterise the malady.” + +He produced a huge handkerchief from the tails of his coat, and wiped +his damp features and polished his forehead so violently that his wig +took a new and jaunty angle. + +“I’m talking too much,” he said fretfully; “I’m talking a great deal--all +the time--continually. I’ve other patients--several--plenty! Do you think +you’re the only man I know who’s trying to disfigure his liver and make +spots come out all over inside him? Do you?” + +Siward smiled again, a worn, pallid smile. + +“I can stand it while you are here, doctor, but when I’m alone +it’s--hard. One of those crises is close now. I’ve a bad night ahead--a +bad outlook. Couldn’t you--” + +“No!” + +“Just enough--” + +“No, Stephen.” + +“--Enough to dull it--just a little? I don’t ask for enough to make me +sleep--not even to make me doze. You have your needle; haven’t you, +doctor?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then, just this once--for the last time.” + +“No.” + +“Why? Are you afraid? You needn’t be, doctor. I don’t care for it except +to give me a little respite, a little rest on a night like this. I’m so +tired of this ache. If I could only have some sleep, and wake up in good +shape, I’d stand a better chance of fighting. … Wait, doctor! Just one +moment. I don’t mean to be a coward, but I’ve had a hard fight, and--I’m +tired. … If you could see your way to helping me--” + +“I dare not help you any more that way.” + +“Not this once?” + +“Not this once.” + +There was a dead silence, broken at last by the doctor with a violent +gesture toward the telephone. “Talk to the girl! Why don’t you talk to +the girl! If she’s worth a hill o’ beans she’ll help you to hang on. +What’s she for, if she isn’t for such moments? Tell her you need her +voice; tell her you need her faith in you. Damn central! Talk out in +church! Don’t make a goddess of a woman. The men who want to marry her, +and can’t, will do that! The nincompoop can always be counted on to +deify the commonplace. And she is commonplace. If she isn’t, she’s no +good! Commend me to sanity and the commonplace. I take off my hat to it! +I honour it. God bless it! Good-night!” + +Siward lay still for a long while after the doctor had gone. More than +an hour had passed before he slowly sat up and groped for the telephone +book, opened it, and searched in a blind, hesitating way until he found +the number he was looking for. + +He had never telephoned to her; he had never written her except once, in +reply to her letter in regard to his mother’s death--that strange, timid, +formal letter, in which, grief-stunned as he was, he saw only the +formality, and had answered it more formally still. And that was all +that had come of the days and nights by that northern sea--a letter and +its answer, and silence. + +And, thinking of these things, he shut the book wearily, and lay back in +the shadow of the faded curtain, closing his sunken eyes. + + + +CHAPTER IX CONFESSIONS + +In a city in transition, where yesterday is as dead as a dead century, +where those who prepare the old year for burial are already taking the +ante-mortem statement of the new, the future fulfils the functions of +the present. Time itself is considered merely as a by-product of horse- +power, discounted with flippancy as the unavoidable friction clogging +the fly-wheel of progress. + +Memory, once a fine art, is becoming a lost art in Manhattan. + +His world and his city had almost ceased to think of Siward. + +For a few weeks men spoke of him in the several clubs of which he had +lately been a member--spoke of him always in the past tense; and after a +little while spoke of him no more. + +In that section of the social system which he had inhabited, his absence +on account of his mother’s death being taken for granted, people laid +him away in their minds almost as ceremoniously as they had laid away +the memory of his mother. Nothing halted because he was not present; +nothing was delayed, rearranged, or abandoned because his familiar +presence chanced to be missing. There remained only one more place to +fill at a cotillion, dinner, or bridge party; only another man for opera +box or week’s end; one man the more to be counted on, one more man to be +counted out--transferred to the credit of profit and loss, and the ledger +closed for the season. + +They who remembered him, among those who had not yet lost that old- +fashioned art, were very few--a young girl here and there, over whom he +had been absent-mindedly sentimental; a débutante or two who had adored +him from a distance as a friend of elder sister or brother; here and +there an old, old lady to whom he had been considerate, and who perhaps +remembered something of the winning charm of the Siwards when the town +was young--his father, perhaps, perhaps his grandfather--these thought of +him at intervals; the remainder had no leisure to remember even if they +had not forgotten how to do it. Several cabmen missed him for a while; +now and then a privileged café waiter inquired about him from gay, noisy +parties entering some old haunt of his. Mr. Desmond, of art gallery and +roulette notoriety, whose business is not to forget, was politely +regretful at his absence from certain occult ceremonies which he had at +irregular intervals graced with votive offerings. And the list ended +there--almost, not quite; for there were two people who had not forgotten +Siward: Howard Quarrier and Beverly Plank; and one other, a third, who +could not yet forget him if she would--but, as yet, she had not tried +very desperately. + +The day that Siward left New York to visit everybody’s friend, Mr. +Mulqueen, in the country, Plank called on him for the second time in his +life, and was presently received in the south drawing-room, the library +being limited to an informality and intimacy not for Mr. Plank. + +Siward, still lame, and using unskilfully two shiny new crutches, came +down the stairs and stumped into the drawing-room, which, in spite of +the sombre, clustering curtains, was brightly illuminated by the winter +sunshine reflected from the snow in the street. Plank was shocked at the +change in him--at the ghost of a voice, listlessly formal; at the thin, +nerveless hand offered; startled, so that he forgot his shyness, and +retained the bony hand tightly in his, and instinctively laid his other +great cushion-like paw over it, holding it imprisoned, unable to speak, +unconscious, in the impulse of the moment, of the liberty he permitted +himself, and which he had never dreamed of taking with such a man as +Siward. + +The effect on Siward was composite; his tired voice ceased; surprise, +inability to understand tinged with instinctive displeasure, were +succeeded by humourous curiosity; and, very slowly it became plain to +him that this beefy young man liked him, was naively concerned about +him, felt friendly toward him, and was showing it as spontaneously as a +child. Because he now understood something of how it is with a man who +is in the process of being forgotten, his perceptions were perhaps the +finer in these days, and the direct unconsciousness of Plank touched him +more heavily than the pair of heavy hands enclosing his. + +“I thought I’d come,” began Plank, growing redder and redder as he began +to realise the enormity of familiarity committed only on the warrant of +impulse. “You don’t look well.” + +“It was good of you to think of me,” said Siward. “Come up to the +library, if you’ve a few minutes to spare an invalid. Please go first; +I’m a trifle lame yet.” + +“I--I am sorry,” muttered Plank, “very, very sorry.” + +At first, in the library, Plank was awkward and silent, finding nothing +to say, and nowhere to dispose of his hands, until Siward gave him a +cigar to occupy his fingers. Even then he continued to sit +uncomfortably, his bulk balanced on a rickety, spindle-legged chair, +which he stubbornly refused to exchange for another, at Siward’s +suggestion, out of sheer embarrassment, and with a confused idea that +his refusal would somehow ultimately put him at his ease with his +surroundings. + +Siward, secretly amused, rang for tea, although the hour was early. +After a little while, either the toast or the tea appeared to act on +Plank as a lingual laxative, for he began suddenly to talk, which is +characteristic of bashful men; and Siward gravely helped him on when he +floundered and turned shy. After a little, matters went very well with +them, and Plank, much more at ease than he had ever dared to hope he +could be with Siward, talked and talked; and Siward, his crutches across +his knees, lay back in his arm-chair, chatting with that winning +informality so becoming to men who are unconscious of their charm. + +Watching Plank, it occurred to him gradually that this great, cumbersome +creature was not a shrewd, thrifty, self-made and self-finished adult at +all; only a big, wistful, lonely boy, without comrades and with nowhere +to play. On Plank’s round face there remained no trace of shrewdness, of +stubbornness, nothing even of the heavy, saturnine placidity of a dogged +man who waits his turn. + +Plank spoke of himself after a while, sounding the personal note with +tentative timidity. Siward gravely encouraged him, and in a little while +the outlines of his crude autobiography appeared, embodying his +eventless boyhood in a Pennsylvania town; his career at the high school; +the dawning desire for college equipment, satisfied by his father, who +owned shares in the promising Deepvale Steel Plank Company; the unhappy +years at Harvard--hard years, for he learned with difficulty; solitary +years, for he was not sought by those whom he desired to know. Then he +ventured to speak of his father’s growing interest in steel; the merging +and absorbing of independent plants; his own entry upon the scene on the +death of his father; and--the rest--material fortune and prosperity, +which, perhaps, might stand substitute as a social sponsor for him; +stand, perhaps, for something of what he lacked in himself, which only +long residence amid the best, long-formed habits for the best, or a long +inheritance of the best could give. Did Siward think so? Was the best +beyond his reach? Was it hopeless for such a man as he to try? And why? + +The innocent snobbery, the abashed but absolute simplicity of this +ponderous pilgrim from the smelting pits clambering upward through the +high school of the smoky town, groping laboriously through the chilly +halls of Harvard toward the outer breastworks of Manhattan, interested +Siward; and he said so in his pleasant way, without offence, and with a +smiling question at the end. + +“Worth while?” repeated Plank, flushing heavily, “it is worth while to +me. I have always desired to be a part of the best that there is in my +own country; and the best is here, isn’t it? “ + +“Not necessarily,” said Siward, still smiling. “The noisiest is here, +and some of the best.” + +“Which is the best?” inquired Plank naively. + +“Why, all plain people, whose education, breeding, and fortune permit +them the luxury of thinking, and whose tastes, intelligence, and sanity +enable them to express their thoughts. There are such people here, and +some of them form a portion of the gaudier and noisier galaxy we call +society.” + +“That is what I wish to be part of,” said Plank. “Could you tell me what +are the requirements?” + +“I don’t believe I could, exactly,” said Siward, amused. “With us, the +social system, as an established and finished system, has too recently +been evolved from outer chaos to be characteristic of anything except +the crudity and energy of the chaos from which it emerged. The balance +between wealth, intelligence, and breeding has not yet been +established--not from lack of wealth or intelligence. The formula has not +been announced, that is all.” + +“What is the formula?” insisted Plank. + +“The formula is the receipt for a real society,” replied Siward, +laughing. “At present we have its uncombined ingredients in the +raw--noisy wealth and flippant fashion, arrogant intelligence and dowdy +breeding--all excellent materials, when filtered and fused in the +retort; and many of our test tubes have already precipitated pure metal +besides, and our national laboratory is turning out fine alloys. Some +day we’ll understand the formula, and we’ll weld the entire mass; and +that will be society, Mr. Plank.” + +“In the meanwhile,” repeated Plank, unsmiling, “I want to be part of the +best we have. I want to be part of the brightness of things. I mean, +that I cannot be contented with an imitation.” + +“An imitation?” + +“Of the best--of what you say is not yet society. I ask no more than your +footing among the people of this city. I wish to be able to go where +such men as you go; be permitted, asked, desired to be part of what you +always have been part of. Is it a great deal I ask? Tell me, Mr. +Siward--for I don’t know--is it too much to expect?” + +“I don’t think it is a very high ambition,” said Siward, smiling. “What +you ask is not very much to ask of life, Mr. Plank.” + +“But is there any reason why I may not hope to go where I wish to go?” + +“I think it depends upon yourself,” said Siward, “upon your capacity for +being, or for making people believe you to be exactly what they require. +You ask me whether you may be able to go where you desire; and I answer +you that there is no limit to any journey except the sprinting ability +of the pilgrim.” + +Plank laughed a little, and his squared jaws relaxed; then, after a few +moments’ thought: + +“It is curious that what you cast away from you so easily, I am waiting +for with all the patience I have in me. And yet it is always yours to +pick up again whenever you wish; and I may never live to possess it.” + +He was so perfectly right that Siward said nothing; in fact, he could +have no particular interest or sympathy for a man’s quest of what he +himself did not understand the lack of. Those born without a tag +unmistakably ticketing them and their positions in the world were +perforce ticketed. Siward took it for granted that a man belonged where +he was to be met; and all he cared about was to find him civil, whether +he happened to be a policeman or a master of fox-hounds. + +He was, now that he knew Plank, contented to accept him anywhere he met +him; but Plank’s upward evolutions upon the social ladder were of no +interest to him, and his naïve snobbery was becoming something of a +bore. + +So Siward directed the conversation into other channels, and Plank, +accepting another cup of tea, became very communicative about his +stables and his dogs, and the preservation of game; and after a while, +looking up confidently at Siward, he said: + +“Do you think it beastly to drive pheasants the way I did at Black +Fells? I have heard that you were disgusted.” + +“It isn’t my idea of a square deal,” said Siward frankly. + +“That settles it, then.” + +“But you should not let me interfere with--” + +“I’ll take your opinion, and thank you for it. It didn’t seem to me to +be the thing; only it’s done over here, you know. The De Coursay’s and +the--” + +“Yes, I know. … Glad you feel that way about it, Plank. It’s pretty +rotten sportsmanship. Don’t you think so?” + +“I do. I--would you--I should like to ask you to try some square shooting +at the Fells,” stammered Plank, “next season, if you would care to.” + +“You’re very good. I should like to, if I were going to shoot at all; +but I fancy my shooting days are over, for a while.” + +“Over!” + +“Business,” nodded Siward, absently grave again. “I see no prospect of +my idling for the next year or two.” + +“You are in--in Amalgamated Electric, I think,” ventured Plank. + +“Very much in,” replied the other frankly. “You’ve read the papers and +heard rumours, I suppose?” + +“Some. I don’t suppose anybody quite understands the attacks on +Amalgamated.” + +“I don’t--not yet. Do you?” + +Plank sat silent, then his shrewd under lip began to protrude. + +“I’m wondering,” he began cautiously, “how much the Algonquin crowd +understands about the matter?” + +Siward’s troubled eyes were on him as he spoke, watching closely, +narrowly. + +“I’ve heard that rumour before,” he said. + +“So have I,” said Plank, “and it seems incredible.” He looked warily at +Siward. “Suppose it is true that the Algonquin Trust Company is +godfather to Inter-County. That doesn’t explain why a man should kick +his own door down when there’s a bell to ring and servants to let him +in--and out again, too.” + +“I have wondered,” said Siward, “whether the door he might be inclined +to kick down is really his own door any longer.” + +“I, too,” said Plank simply. “It may belong to a personal enemy--if he +has any. He could afford to have an enemy, I suppose.” + +Siward nodded. + +“Then, hadn’t you better--I beg your pardon! You have not asked me to +advise you.” + +“No. I may ask your advice some day. Will you give it when I do?” + +“With pleasure,” said Plank, so warmly disinterested, so plainly proud +and eager to do a service that Siward, surprised and touched, found no +word to utter. + +Plank rose. Siward attempted to stand up, but had trouble with his +crutches. + +“Please don’t try,” said Plank, coming over and offering his hand. “May +I stop in again soon? Oh, you are off to the country for a month or two? +I see. … You don’t look very well. I hope it will benefit you. Awfully +glad to have seen you. I--I hope you won’t forget me--entirely.” + +“I am the man people are forgetting,” returned Siward, “not you. It was +very nice of you to come. You are one of very few who remember me at +all.” + +“I have very few people to remember,” said Plank; “and if I had as many +as I could desire I should remember you first.” + +Here he became very much embarrassed. Siward offered his hand again. +Plank shook it awkwardly, and went away on tiptoe down the stairs which +creaked decorously under his weight. + +And that ended the first interview between Plank and Siward in the first +days of the latter’s decline. + +The months that passed during Siward’s absence from the city began to +prove rather eventful for Plank. He was finally elected a member of the +Patroons Club, without serious opposition; he had dined twice with the +Kemp Ferralls; he and Major Belwether were seen together at the +Caithness dance, and in the Caithness box at the opera. Once a +respectable newspaper reported him at Tuxedo for the week’s end; his +name, linked with the clergy, frequently occupied such space under the +column headed “Ecclesiastical News” as was devoted to the progress of +the new chapel, and many old ladies began to become familiar with his +name. + +At the right moment the Mortimers featured him between two fashionable +bishops at a dinner. Mrs. Vendenning, who adored bishops, immediately +remembered him among those asked to her famous annual bal poudré; a +celebrated yacht club admitted him to membership; a whole shoal of +excellent minor clubs which really needed new members followed suit, and +even the rock-ribbed Lenox, wearied of its own time-honoured immobility, +displayed the preliminary fidgets which boded well for the stolid +candidate. The Mountain was preparing to take the first stiff step +toward Mohammed. It was the prophet’s cue to sit tight and yawn +occasionally. + +Meanwhile he didn’t want to; he was becoming anxious to do things for +himself, which Leila Mortimer, of course, would not permit. It was +difficult for him to understand that any effort of his own would +probably be disastrous; that progress could come only through his own +receptive passivity; that nothing was demanded, nothing required, +nothing permitted from him as yet, save a capacity for assimilating such +opportunities as sections of the social system condescended to offer. + +For instance, he wanted to open his art gallery to the public; he said +it was good strategy; and Mrs. Mortimer sat upon the suggestion with a +shrug of her pretty shoulders. Well, then, couldn’t he possibly do +something with his great, gilded ball-room? No, he couldn’t; and the +less in evidence his galleries and his ball-rooms were at present the +better his chances with people who, perfectly aware that he possessed +them, were very slowly learning to overlook the insolence of the +accident that permitted him to possess what they had never known the +want of. First of all people must tire of repeating to each other that +he was nobody, and that would happen when they wearied of explaining to +one another why he was ever asked anywhere. There was time enough for +him to offer amusement to people after they had ceased to find amusement +in snubbing him; plenty of time in the future for them to lash him to a +gallop for their pleasure. In the meanwhile he was doing very well, +because he began to appear regularly in the Caithness-Bonnesdel box, and +old Peter Caithness was already boring him at the Patroons; which meant +that the thrifty old gentleman considered Plank’s millions as a possible +underpinning for the sagging house of Caithness, of which his pallid +daughter Agatha was the sole sustaining caryatid in perspective. + +Yes, he was doing well; for that despotic beauty, Sylvia Landis, whose +capricious perversity had recently astonished those who remembered her +in her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was +always friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important, +considering Sylvia’s unassailable position, and her kinship to the +autocratic old lady whose kindly ukase had for generations remained the +undisputed law in the social system of Manhattan. + +“There is another matter,” said Leila Mortimer innocently, as Plank, +lingering after a disastrous rubber of bridge with her, her husband, and +Agatha Caithness, had followed her into her own apartments to write his +cheque for what he owed. “You’ve driven with me so much and you come +here so often and we are seen together so frequently that the clans are +sharpening up their dirks for us. And that helps some.” + +“What!” exclaimed Plank, reddening, and twisting around in his chair. + +“Certainly. You didn’t suppose I could escape, did you?” + +“Escape! What?” demanded Plank, getting redder. + +“Escape being talked about, savagely, mercilessly. Can’t you see how it +helps? Oh dear, are you stupid, Beverly? + +“I don’t know,” replied Plank, staring, “just how stupid I am. If you +mean that I’m compromising you--” + +“Oh, please! Why do you use back-stairs words? Nobody talks about +compromising now; all that went out with New Year’s calls and brown- +stone stoops.” + +“What do they call it, then?” asked Plank seriously. + +“Call what? you great boy!” + +“What you say I’m doing?” + +“I don’t say it.” + +“Who does?” + +Leila laughed, leaned back in her big, padded chair, dropping one knee +over the other. Her dark eyes with the Japanese slant to them rested +mockingly on Plank, who had now turned completely around in his chair, +leaving his half-written cheque on her escritoire behind him. + +“You’re simply credited with an affair with a pretty woman,” she said, +watching the dull colour mounting to his temples, “and that is certain +to be useful to you, and it doesn’t affect me. What on earth are you +blushing about?” And as he said nothing, she added, with a daring little +laugh: “You are credited with being very agreeable, you see.” + +“If--if that’s the way you take it--” he began. + +“Of course! What do you expect me to do--call for help before I’m hurt?” + +“You mean that this talk--gossip--doesn’t hurt?” + +“How silly!” She looked at him, smiling. “You know how likely I am to +require protection from your importunities.” She dropped her pretty +head, and began plaiting with her fingers the silken gown over her knee. +“Or how likely I would be to shriek for it even if”--she looked up with +childlike directness--“even if I needed it.” + +“Of course you can take care of yourself,” said Plank, wincing. + +“I could, if I wanted to.” + +“Everybody knows that. I know it, Leroy knows it; only I don’t care to +figure as that kind of man.” + +Already he had lost sight of her position in the matter; and she drew a +long, quiet breath, almost like a sigh. + +“Time enough after you marry,” she said deliberately, and lighted a +cigarette from a candle, recreating her knees the other way. + +He considered her, started to speak, checked himself, and swung around +to the desk again. His pen hovered over the space to be filled in. He +tried to recollect the amount, hesitated, dated the cheque and affixed +his signature, still trying to remember; then be looked at her over his +shoulder. + +“I forget the exact amount.” + +She surveyed him through the haze of her cigarette, but made no answer. + +“I forget the amount,” he repeated. + +“So do I,” she nodded indolently. + +“But I--” + +“Let it go. Besides, I shall not accept it.” + +He flushed up, astonished. “You can’t refuse to take a gambling debt.” + +“I do,” she retorted coolly. “I’m tired of taking your money.” + +“But you won it.” + +“I’m tired of winning it. It is all I ever do win … from you.” + +Her pretty head was wreathed in smoke. She tipped the ashes from the +cigarette’s end, watching them fall to powder on the rug. + +“I don’t know what you mean,” he persisted doggedly. + +“Don’t you? I don’t believe I do, either. There are intervals in my +career which might prove eloquent if I opened my lips. But I don’t, +except to make floating rings and cabalistic signs out of cigarette +smoke. Can you read their meaning? Look! There goes one, and there’s +another, and another--all twisting and uncurling into hieroglyphics. They +are very significant; they might tell you a lot of things, if you would +only translate them. But you haven’t the key--have you?” + +There was a heavy, jarring step in the main living-room, and Mortimer’s +bulk darkened the doorway. + +“Entrez, mon ami,” nodded Leila, glancing up. “Where is Agatha?” + +“I’m going to Desmond’s,” he grunted, ignoring his wife’s question; “do +you want to try it again, Beverly?” + +“I can’t make Leila take her own winnings,” said Plank, holding out the +signed but unfilled cheque to Mortimer, who took it and scrutinised it +for a moment, rubbing his heavy, inflamed eyes; then, gesticulating, the +cheque fluttering in his puffy fingers: + +“Come on,” he insisted. “I’ve a notion that I can give Desmond a whirl +that he won’t forget in a hurry. Agatha’s asleep; she’s going to that +ball--where is it?” he demanded, turning on his wife. “Yes, yes; the Page +blow-out. You’re going, I suppose?” + +Leila nodded, and lighted another cigarette. + +“All right,” continued Mortimer impatiently; “you and Agatha won’t start +before one. And if you think Plank had better go, why, we’ll be back +here in time.” + +“That means you won’t be back at all,” observed his wife coolly; “and +it’s good policy for Beverly to go where he’s asked. Can’t you turn in +and sleep, now, and amuse your friend Desmond to-morrow night?” + +“No, I can’t. What a fool I’d be to let a chance slip when I feel like a +winner!” + +“You never feel otherwise when you gamble,” said Leila. + +“Yes, I do,” he retorted peevishly. “I can tell almost every time what +the cards are going to do to me. Leila, go to sleep. We’ll be back here +for you by one, or half past.” + +“Look here, Leroy,” began Plank, “there’s one thing I can’t stand for, +and that’s this continual loss of sleep. If I go with you I’ll not be +fit to go to the Pages.” + +“What a farmer you are!” sneered Mortimer. “I believe you roost on the +foot-board of your bed, like a confounded turkey. Come on! You’d better +begin training, you know. People in this town are not going to stand for +the merry ploughboy game, you see!” + +But Plank was shrewdly covering his principal reason for declining; he +had too often “temporarily” assisted Mortimer at Desmond’s and +Burbank’s, when Mortimer, cleaned out and unable to draw against a +balance non-existent, had plucked him by the sleeve from the faro table +with the breathless request for a loan. + +“I tell you I can wring Desmond dry to-night,” repeated Mortimer +sullenly. “It isn’t a case of ‘want to,’ either; it’s a case of ‘got +to.’ That old pink-and-white rabbit, Belwether, got me into a game this +afternoon, and between him and Voucher and Alderdine I’m stripped clean +as a kennel bone.” + +But Plank shook his head, pretending to yawn; and Mortimer, glowering +and lingering, presently went off, his swollen hands thrust into his +trousers’ pockets, his gross features dark with disgust; and presently +they heard the front door slam, and a rattling tattoo of horses’ feet on +the asphalt; and Leila sprang up impatiently, and, passing Plank, +traversed the passage to the windows of the front room. + +“He’s taken the horses--the beast!” she said calmly, as Plank joined her +at the great windows and looked out into the night, where the round, +drooping, flower-like globes of the electric lamps spread a lake of +silver before the house. + +It was rather rough on Leila. The Mortimers maintained one pair of +horses only; and the use given them at all hours resulted in endless +scenes, and an utter impossibility for Leila to retain the same coachman +and footman for more than a few weeks at a time. + +“He won’t come back; he’ll keep Martin and the horses standing in front +of Delmonico’s all night. You’d better call up the stables, Beverly.” + +So Plank called up a livery and arranged for transportation at one; and +Leila seated herself at a card-table and began to deal herself cold +decks, thoughtfully. + +“That bit in ‘Carmen,’” she said, “it always brings the shudder; it +never palls on me, never grows stale.” She whipped the ominous spade +from the pack and held it out. “La Mort!” she exclaimed in mock tragedy, +yet there was another undertone ringing through it, sounding, too, in +her following laugh. “Draw!” she commanded, holding out the pack; and +Plank drew a diamond. + +“Naturally,” she nodded, shuffling the pack with her smooth, savant +fingers and laying them out as she repeated the formula: “Qui frappe? +Qui entre? Qui prend chaise? Qui parle? Oh, the deuce! it’s always the +same! Tiens! je m’ennui!” There was a flash of her bare arm, a flutter, +and the cards fell in a shower over them both. + +Plank flipped a card from his knee, laughing uncertainly, aware of +symptoms in his pretty vis-à-vis which always made him uncomfortable. +For months, now, at certain intervals, these recurrent symptoms had made +him wary; but what they might portend he did not know, only that, alone +with her, moments occurred when he was heavily aware of a tension which, +after a while, affected even his few thick nerves. One of those +intervals was threatening now: her flushed cheeks, her feverish activity +with her hands, the unconscious reflex movement of her silken knees and +restless slippers, all foreboded it. Next would come the nervous +laughter, the swift epigram which bored and puzzled him, the veiled +badinage he was unequal to; and then the hint of weariness, the curious +pathos of long silences, the burnt-out beauty of her eyes from which the +fire had gone as though quenched by invisible tears within. + +He ascribed it--desired to ascribe it--to her relations with her husband. +He had naturally learned and divined how matters stood with them; he had +learned considerable in the last month or two--something of Mortimer’s +record as a burly brother to the rich; something of his position among +those who made no question of his presence anywhere. Something of Leila, +too, he had heard, or rather deduced from hinted word or shrug or +smiling silence, not meant for him, but indifferent to what he might +hear and what he might think of what he heard. + +He did listen; he did patiently add two and two in the long solitudes of +his Louis XV chamber; and if the results were not always four, at least +they came within a fraction of the proper answer. And this did not alter +his policy or weaken his faith in his mentors; nor did it impair his +real gratitude to them, and his real and simple friendship for them +both. He was faithful in friendship once formed, obstinately so, for +better or for worse; but he was shrewd enough to ignore opportunities +for friendships which he foresaw could do him no good on his plodding +pilgrimage toward the temple of his inexorable desire. + +Lifting, now, his Delft-coloured eyes furtively, he studied the silk- +and-lace swathed figure of the young matron opposite, flung back into +the depths of her great chair, profile turned from him, her chin +imprisoned in her ringed fingers. The brooding abandon of the attitude +contrasted sharply with the grooming of the woman, making both the more +effective. + +“Turn in, if you want to,” she said, her voice indistinct, smothered by +her pink palm. “You’re to dress in Leroy’s quarters.” + +“I don’t want to turn in just yet.” + +“You said you needed sleep.” + +“I do. But it’s not eleven yet.” + +She slipped into another posture, reaching for a cigarette, and, setting +it afire from the match he offered, exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked +dreamily through it at him. + +“Who is she?” she asked in a colourless voice. “Tell me, for I don’t +know. Agatha? Marion Page? Mrs. Vendenning? or the Tassel girl?” + +“Nobody--yet,” he admitted cheerfully. + +“Nobody--yet,” she repeated, musing over her cigarette. “That’s good +politics, if it’s true.” + +“Am I untruthful?” he asked simply. + +“I don’t know. Are you? You’re a man.” + +“Don’t talk that way, Leila.” + +“No, I won’t. What is it that you and Sylvia Landis have to talk about +so continuously every time you meet?” + +“She’s merely civil to me,” he explained. + +“That’s more than she is to a lot of people. What do you talk about?” + +“I don’t know--nothing in particular; mostly about Shotover, and the +people there last summer.” + +“Doesn’t she ever mention Stephen Siward?” + +“Usually. She knows I like him.” + +“She likes him, too,” said Leila, looking at him steadily. + +“I know it. Everybody likes him--or did. I do, yet.” + +“I do, too,” observed Mrs. Mortimer coolly. “I was in love with him. He +was only a boy then.” + +Plank nodded in silence. + +“Where is he now--do, you know?” she asked. “Everybody says he’s gone to +the devil.” + +“He’s in the country somewhere,” replied Plank cautiously. “I stopped in +to see him the other day, but nobody seemed to know when he would +return.” + +Mrs. Mortimer tossed her cigarette onto the hearth. For a long interval +of silence she lay there in her chair, changing her position restlessly +from moment to moment; and at length she lay quite still, so long that +Plank began to think she had fallen asleep in her chair. + +He rose. She did not stir, and, passing her, he instinctively glanced +down. Her cheeks, half buried against the back of the chair, were +overflushed; under the closed lids the lashes glistened wet in the +lamplight. + +Surprised, embarrassed, he halted, as though afraid to move; and she sat +up with a nervous shake of her shoulders. + +“What a life!” she said, under her breath; “what a life for a woman to +lead!” + +“Wh-whose?” he blurted out. + +“Mine!” + +He stared at her uneasily, finding nothing to say. He had never before +heard anything like this from her. + +“Can’t anybody help me out of it?” she said quietly. + +“Who? How? … Do you mean--” + +“Yes, I mean it! I mean it! I--” + +And suddenly she broke down, in a strange, stammering, tearless way, +opening the dry flood-gates over which rattled an avalanche of +words--bitter, breathless phrases rushing brokenly from lips that shrank +as they formed them. + +Plank sat inert, the corroding echo of the words clattering in his ears. +And after a while he heard his own altered voice sounding persistently +in repetition: + + +“Don’t say those things, Leila; don’t tell me such things.” + +“Why? Don’t you care?” + +“Yes, yes, I care; but I can’t do anything! I have no business to +hear--to see you this way.” + +“To whom can I speak, then, if I can not speak to you? To whom can I +turn? Where am I to turn, in all the world?” + +“I don’t know,” he said fearfully; “the only way is to go on.” + +“What else have I done? What else am I doing?” she cried. “Go on? Am I +not trudging on and on through life, dragging the horror of it behind me +through the mud, except when the horror drags me? To whom am I to +turn--to other beasts like him?--sitting patiently around, grinning and +slavering, awaiting their turn when the horror of it crushes me to the +mud?” + +She stretched out a rounded, quivering arm, and laid the small fingers +of the left hand on its flawless contour. “Look!” she said, exasperated, +“I am young yet; the horror has not yet corrupted the youth in me. I am +fashioned for some reason, am I not?--for some purpose, some happiness. I +am not bad; I am human. What poison has soaked into me can be +eliminated. I tell you, no woman is capable of being so thoroughly +poisoned that the antidote proves useless. + +“But I tell you men, also, that unless she find that antidote she will +surely reinfect herself. A man can not do what that man has done to me +and expect me to recover unaided. People talk of me, and I have given +them subjects enough! But--look at me! Straight between the eyes! Every +law have I broken except that! Do you understand? That one, which you +men consider yourselves exempt from, I have not broken--yet! Shall I +speak plainer? It is the fashion to be crude. But--I can’t be; I am +unfashionable, you see.” + +She laughed, her haunted eyes fixed on his. + +“Is there no chance for me? Because I drag his bedraggled name about +with me is there no decent chance, no decent hope? Is there only +indecency in prospect, if a man comes to care for a married woman? Can’t +a decent man love her at all? I--I think--” + +Her hands, outstretched, trembled, then flew to her face; and she stood +there swaying, until Plank perforce stepped to her side and steadied her +against him. + +So they remained for a while, until she looked up dazed, weary, ashamed, +expecting nothing of him; and when it came, leaving her still +incredulous, his arms around her, his tense, flushed face recoiling from +their first kiss, she did not seem to comprehend. + +“I can’t turn on him,” he stammered, “I--we are friends, you see. How can +I love you, if that is so?” + +“Could you love me?” she asked calmly. + +“I--I don’t know. I did love--I do care for--another woman. I can’t marry +her, though I am given to understand there is a chance. Perhaps it is +partly ambition,” he said honestly, “for I am quite sure she has never +cared for me, never thought of me in that way. I think a man can’t stand +that long.” + +“No; only women can. Who is she?” + +“You won’t ask me, will you?” + +“No. Are you sorry that I am in love with you?” + +His arms unclasped her body, and he stepped back, facing her. + +“Are you?” she asked violently. + +“No.” + +“You speak like a man,” she said tremulously. “Am I to be permitted to +adore you in peace, then--decently, and in peace?” + +“Don’t speak that way, Leila. I--there is no woman, no friend, I care for +as much as I do you. It is easy, I think, for a woman, like you, to make +a man care for her. You will not do it, will you?” + +“I will,” she said softly. + +“It’s no use; I can’t turn on him. I can’t! He is my friend, you see.” + +“Let him remain so. I shall do what I can. Let him remain a monument to +his fellow-beasts. What do I care? Do you think I desire to turn you +into his image? Do you think I hope for your degradation and mine? Are +you afraid I should not recognise love unaccompanied by the attendant +beast? I--I don’t know; you had better teach me, if I prove blind. If you +can love me, do so in charity before I go blind forever.” + +She laid one hand on his arm, looked at him, then turned and passed +slowly through the doorway. + +“If you are going to sleep before we start you had better be about it!” +she said, looking back at him from the stairs. + +But he had no further need of sleep; and for a long while he stood at +the windows watching the lamps of cabs and carriages sparkling through +the leafless thickets of the park like winter fire-flies. + +At one o’clock, hearing Agatha Caithness speak to Leila’s maid, he left +the window, and sitting down at the desk, telephoned to Desmond’s; and +he was informed that Mortimer, hard hit, had signified his intention of +recouping at Burbank’s. Then he managed to get Burbank’s on the wire, +and finally Mortimer himself, but was only cursed for his pains and cut +off in the middle of his pleading. + +So he wandered up-stairs into Mortimer’s apartments, where he tubbed and +dressed, and finally descended, to find Agatha Caithness alone in the +library, spinning a roulette wheel and whistling an air from “La +Bacchante.” + +“That’s pretty,” he said; “sing it.” + +“No; it’s better off without the words; and so are you,” added Agatha +candidly, relinquishing the wheel and strolling with languid grace about +the room, hands on her hips, timing her vagrant steps to the indolent, +wicked air. And, + +“‘Je rougirais de men ivresse Si tu conservais ta raison!’” + +she hummed deliberately, pivoting on her heels and advancing again +toward Plank, her pretty, pale face delicate as an enamelled cameo under +the flood of light from the crystal chandeliers. + +“I understand that Mr. Mortimer is not coming with us,” she said +carelessly. “Are you going to dance with me, if I find nobody better?” + +He expressed himself flattered, cautiously. He was one of many who never +understood this tall, white, low-voiced girl, with eyes too pale for +beauty, yet strangely alluring, too. Few men denied the indefinable +enchantment of her; few men could meet her deep-lidded, transparent gaze +unmoved. In the sensitive curve of her mouth there was a kind of +sensuousness; in her low voice, in her pallor, in the slim grace of her +a vague provocation that made men restless and women silently curious +for something more definite on which to base their curiosity. + +She was wearing, over the smooth, dead-white skin of her neck, a collar +of superb diamonds and aquamarines--almost an effrontery, as the latter +were even darker than her eyes; yet the strange and effective harmony +was evident, and Plank spoke of the splendour of the gems. + +She nodded indifferently, saying they were new, and that she had picked +them up at Tiffany’s; and he mentally sketched out the value of the +diamonds, a trifle surprised, because Leila Mortimer had carefully +informed him about the condition of the Caithness exchequer. + +That youthful matron herself appeared in a few moments, very lustrous, +very lovely in her fragrant, exotic brightness, and Plank for the first +time thought that she was handsome--the vigorous, youthful incarnation of +Life itself, in contrast to Agatha’s almost deathly beauty. She greeted +him not only without a trace of embarrassment, but with such a friendly, +fresh, gay confidence that he scarcely recognised in her the dry-eyed, +feverish woman of an hour ago, whose very lips shrank back, scorched by +the torrent of her own invective. + +And so they drove the three short blocks to the Page’s in their hired +livery; the street was inadequate for the crush of vehicles; and the +glittering pressure within the house was outrageous; all of which +confused Plank, who became easily confused by such things. + +How they got in--how they managed to present themselves--who took Leila +and Agatha from him--where they went--where he himself might be--he did +not understand very clearly. The house was large, strange, full of +strangers. He attempted to obtain his bearings by wandering about +looking for a small rococo reception-room where he remembered he had +once talked kennel talk with Marion Page, and had on another occasion +perspired freely under the arrogant and strabismic glare of her mother. +That good lady had really rather liked him; he never suspected it. + +But he couldn’t find the rococo room--or perhaps he didn’t recognise it. +So many people--so many, many people whom he did not know, whom he had +never before laid eyes on--high-bred faces hard as diamonds; young, gay, +laughing faces; brilliant eyes encountering his without a softening of +recognition; clean-cut, attractive men in swarms, all animated, all +amused, all at home among themselves and among the silken visions of +loveliness passing and repassing, with here an extended gloved arm and +the cordial greeting of camaraderie, there a quick smile, a swift turn +in passing, a capricious bending forward for a whisper, a compliment, a +jest--all this swept by him, around him, enveloping him with its +brightness, its gaiety, its fragrance, and left him more absolutely +alone than he had ever been in all his life. + +He tried to find Leila, and gave it up. He saw Quarrier talking to +Agatha, but the former saluted him so coldly that he turned away. + +After a while he found Marion, but she hadn’t a dance left for him; +neither had Rena Bonnesdel, whom he encountered while she was adroitly +avoiding one of the ever-faithful twins. The twin caught up with her in +consequence, and she snubbed Plank for his share in the disaster, which +depressed him, and he started for the smoking-room, wherever that haven +might be found. He got into the ball-room, however, by mistake, and +adorned the wall, during the cotillon, as closely as his girth +permitted, until an old lady sent for him; and he went and talked about +bishops for nearly an hour to her, until his condition bordered on +frenzy, the old lady being deaf and peevish. + +Later, Alderdene used him to get rid of an angular, old harridan who +seemed to be one solid diamond-mine, and who drove him into a corner and +talked indelicacies until Plank’s broad face flamed like the setting +sun. Then Captain Voucher unloaded a frightened débutante on him who +tried to talk about horses and couldn’t; and they hated each other for a +while, until, looking around her in desperation, she found he had +vanished--which was quick work for a man of his size. + +Kathryn Tassel employed him for supper, and kept him busy while she +herself was immersed in a dawning affair with Fleetwood. She did +everything to him except to tip him; and her insolence was the last +straw. + +Then, unexpectedly in the throng, two wonderful sea-blue eyes +encountered his, deepening to violet with pleasure, and the trailing +sweetness of a voice he knew was repeating his name, and a slim, white- +gloved hand lay in his own. + +Her escort, Ferrall, nodded to him pleasantly. She leaned forward from +Ferrall’s arm, saying, under her breath, “I have saved a dance for you. +Please ask me at once. Quick! do you want me?” + +“I--I do,” stammered Plank. + +Ferrall, suspicious, stepped forward to exchange civilities, then +turning to the girl beside him: “See here, Sylvia, you’ve dragged me all +over this house on one pretext or another. Do you want any supper, or +don’t you? If you don’t, it’s our dance.” + +“No, I don’t. No, it isn’t. Kemp, you annoy me!” + +“That’s a nice thing to say! Is it your delicately inimitable way of +giving me my congé?” + +“Yes, thank you,” nodded Miss Landis coolly; “you may go now.” + +“You’re spoiled, that’s what’s the matter,” retorted Ferrall wrathfully. +“I thought I was to have this dance. You said--” + +“I said ‘perhaps,’ because I didn’t see Mr. Plank coming to claim it. +Thank you, Kemp, for finding him.” + +Her nod and smile took the edge from her malice. Ferrall, who really +adored dancing, glared about for anybody, and presently cornered the +frightened and neglected debutante who had hated Plank. + +Sylvia, standing beside Plank, looked up at him with her confident and +friendly smile. + +“You don’t care to dance, do you? Would you mind if we sat out this +dance?” + +“If you’d rather,” he said, so wistfully that she hesitated; then with a +little shrug laid one hand on his arm, and they swung out across the +floor together, into the scented whirl. + +Plank, like many heavy men, danced beautifully; and Sylvia, who still +loved dancing with all the ardour of a schoolgirl, permitted a moment or +two of keen delight to sweep her dreamily from her purpose. But that +purpose must have been a strong one, for she returned to it in a few +minutes, and, looking up at Plank, said very gently that she cared to +dance no more. + +Her hand resting lightly on his arm, it did not seem possible that any +pressure of hers was directing them to the conservatory; yet he did not +know where he was going, and she was familiar with the house, and they +soon entered the conservatory, where, in the shadow of various palms +various youths looked up impatiently as they passed, and various maidens +sat up very straight in their chairs. + +Threading their dim way into the farther recesses they found seats among +thickets of forced lilacs over-hung by early wistaria. A spring-like +odour hung in the air; somewhere a tiny fountain grew musical in the +semi-darkness. + +“Marion told me you had been asked,” she said. “We have been so +friendly; you’ve always asked me to dance whenever we have met; so I +thought I’d save you one. Are you flattered, Mr. Plank?” + +He said he was, very pleasantly, perfectly undeceived, and convinced of +her purpose--a purpose never even tacitly admitted between them; and the +old loneliness came over him again--not resentment, for he was willing +that she should use him. Why not? Others used him; everybody used him; +and if they found no use for him they let him alone. Mortimer, +Fleetwood, Belwether--all, all had something to exact from him. It was +for that he was tolerated--he knew it; he had slowly and unwillingly +learned it. His intrusion among these people, of whom he was not one, +would be endured only while he might be turned to some account. The +hospital used him, the clergy found plenty for him to do for them, the +museum had room for other pictures of his. Who among them all had ever +sought him without a motive? Who among them all had ever found unselfish +pleasure in him? Not one. + +Something in the dull sadness of his face, as he sat there, checked the +first elaborately careless question her lips were already framing. +Leaning a little nearer in the dim light she looked at him inquiringly +and he returned her gaze in silence. + +“What is it, Mr. Plank,” she said; “is anything wrong?” + +He knew that she did not mean to ask if anything was amiss with him. She +did not care. Nobody cared. So, recognising his cue, he answered: “No, +nothing is wrong that I have heard of.” + +“You wear a very solemn countenance.” + +“Gaiety affects me solemnly, sometimes. It is a reaction from frivolity. +I suppose that I am over-enjoying life; that is all.” + +She laughed, using her fan, although the place was cool enough and they +had not danced long. To and fro flitted the silken vanes of her fan, now +closing impatiently, now opening again like the wings of a nervous moth +in the moonlight. + +He wished she would come to her point, but he dared not lead her to it +too brusquely, because her purpose and her point were supposed to be +absolutely hidden from his thick and credulous understanding. It had +taken him some time to make this clear to himself; passing from +suspicion, through chagrin and overwounded feeling, to dull certainty +that she, too, was using him, harmlessly enough from her standpoint, but +how bitterly from his, he alone could know. + +The quickened flutter of her fan meant impatience to learn from him what +she had come to him to learn, and then, satisfied, to leave him alone +again amid the peopled solitude of clustered lights. + +He wished she would speak; he was tired of the sadness of it all. +Whenever in his isolation, in his utter destitution of friendship, he +turned guilelessly to meet a new advance, always, sooner or later, the +friendly mask was lifted enough for him to divine the cool, fixed gaze +of self-interest inspecting him through the damask slits. + +Sylvia was speaking now, and the plumy fan was under savant control, +waving graceful accompaniment to her soft voice, punctuating her +sentences at times, at times making an emphasis or outlining a gesture. + +It was the familiar sequence; topics that led to themes which adroitly +skirted the salient point; returned capriciously, just avoiding it--a +subtly charming pattern of words which required so little in reply that +his smile and nod were almost enough to keep her aria and his +accompaniment afloat. + +It began to fascinate him to watch the delicacy of her strategy, the +coquetting with her purpose; her naive advance to the very edges of it, +the airy retreat, the innocent detour, the elaborate and circuitous +return. And at last she drifted into it so naturally that it seemed +impossible that fatuous man could have the most primitive suspicion of +her premeditation. + +And Plank, now recognising his cue, answered her: “No, I have not heard +that he is in town. I stopped to see him the other day, but nobody there +knew how soon he intended to return from the country.” + +“I didn’t know he had gone to the country,” she said without apparent +interest. + +And Plank was either too kind to terminate the subject, or too anxious +to serve his turn and release her; for he went on: “I thought I told you +at Mrs. Ferrall’s that Mr. Siward had gone to the country.” + +“Perhaps you did. No doubt I’ve forgotten.” + +“I’m quite sure I did, because I remember saying that he looked very +ill, and you said, rather sharply, that he had no business to be ill. Do +you remember?” + +“Yes,” she said slowly. “Is he better?” + +“I hope so.” + +“You hope so?”--with the controlled emphasis of impatience. + +“Yes. Don’t you, Miss Landis? When I saw him at his home, he was lame--on +crutches--and he looked rather ghastly; and all he said was that he +expected to leave for the country. I asked him to shoot next year at +Black Fells, and he seemed bothered about business, and said it might +keep him from taking any vacation.” + +“He spoke about his business?” + +“Yes, he--” + +“What is the trouble with his business? Is it anything about Amalgamated +and Inter-County?” + +“I think so.” + +“Is he worried?” + +Plank said deliberately: “I should be, if my interests were locked up in +Amalgamated Electric.” + +“Could you tell me why that would worry you?” she asked, smiling +persuasively across at him. + +“No,” he said, “I can’t tell you.” + +“Because I wouldn’t understand?” + +“Because I myself don’t understand.” + +She thought awhile, brushing the rose velvet of her mouth with the fan’s +edge, then, looking up confidently: + +“Mr. Siward is such a boy. I’m so glad he has you to advise him in such +matters.” + +“What matters?” asked Plank bluntly. + +“Why, in--in financial matters.” + +“But I don’t advise him.” + +“Why not?” + +“Because he hasn’t asked me to, Miss Landis.” + +“He ought to ask you. … He must ask you. … Don’t wait for him, Mr. +Plank. He is only a boy in such things.” + +And, as Plank was silent: + +“You will, won’t you?” + +“Do what--make his business my business, without an invitation?” asked +Plank, so quietly that she flushed with annoyance. + +“If you pretend to be his friend is it not your duty to advise him?” she +asked impatiently. + +“No; that is for his business associates to do. Friendship comes to +grief when it crosses the frontiers of business.” + +“That is a narrow view to take, Mr. Plank.” + +“Yes, straight and narrow. The boundaries of friendship are straight and +narrow. It is best to keep to the trodden path; best not to walk on the +grass or trample the flowers.” + +“I think you are sacrificing friendship for an epigram,” she said, +careless of the undertone of contempt in her voice. + +“I have never sacrificed friendship.” He turned, and looked at her +pleasantly. “I never made an epigram consciously, and I have never +required of a friend more than I had to offer in return. Have you?” + +The flush of hot displeasure stained her cheeks. + +“Are you really questioning me, Mr. Plank?” + +“Yes. You have been questioning me rather seriously--have you not?” + +“I did not comprehend your definition of friendship. I did not agree +with it. I questioned it, not you! That is all.” + +Plank rested his head on one big hand and stared at the clusters of dim +blossoms behind her; and after a while he said, as though thinking +aloud: + +“Many have taken my friendship for granted, and have never offered their +own in return. I do not know about Mr. Siward. There is nothing I can do +for him, nothing be can do for me. If there is to be friendship between +us it will be disinterested; and I would rather have that than anything +in the world, I think.” + +There was a pause; but when Sylvia would have broken it his gesture +committed her to silence with the dignity one might use in checking a +persistent child. + +“You question my definition of friendship, Miss Landis. I should have +let your question pass, however keenly it touched me, had it not also +touched him. Now I am going to say some things which lie within the +straight and narrow bounds I spoke of. I never knew a man I cared for as +much as I care for Mr. Siward. I know why, too. He is disinterested. I +do not believe he wastes very many thoughts on me. Perhaps he will. I +want him to like me, if it’s possible. But one thing you and I may be +sure of: if he does not care to return the friendship I offer him he +will never accept anything else from me, though he might give at my +request; and that is the sort of a man he is; and that is why he is +every inch a man; and so I like him, Miss Landis. Do you wonder?” + +She did not reply. + +“Do you wonder?” he repeated sharply. + +“No,” she said. + +“Then--” He straightened up, and the silent significance of his waiting +attitude was plain enough to her. + +But she shook her head impatiently, saying: “I don’t know whose dance it +is, and I don’t care. Please go on. It is--is pleasant. I like Mr. +Siward; I like to hear men speak of him as you do. I like you for doing +it. If you should ever come to care for my friendship that is the best +passport to it--your loyalty to Mr. Siward.” + +“No man can truthfully speak otherwise than I have spoken,” he said +gravely. + +“No, not of these things. But--you know w-what is--is usually said when +his name comes up among men.” + +“Do you mean about his habits?” he asked simply. + +“Yes. Is it not an outrage to drag in that sort of thing? It angers me +intensely, Mr. Plank. Why do they do it? Is there a single one among +them qualified to criticise Mr. Siward? And besides, it is not true any +more! … is it?--what was once said of him with--with some truth? Is it?” + +The dull red blood mantled Plank’s heavy visage. The silence grew grim +as he did his slow, laborious thinking, the while his eyes, +expressionless and almost opaque in the dim light, never left her’s, +until, under the unchanging, merciless inspection, the mask dropped for +an instant from her anxious face, and he saw what he saw. + +He was no fool. What he had come to believe she at last had only +confirmed; and now the question became simple: was she worth +enlightening? And by what title did she demand his confidence? + +“You ask me if it is true any more. You mean about his habits. If I +answer you it is because I cannot be indifferent to what concerns him. +But before I answer I ask you this: Would your interest in his fortunes +matter to him?” + +She waited, head bent; then: + +“I don’t know, Mr. Plank,” very low. + +“Did your interest in his fortunes ever concern him?” + +“Yes, once.” + +He looked at her sternly, his jaw squaring until his heavy under lip +projected. “Within my definition of friendship, is he your friend?” + +“You mean he--” + +“No, I mean you! I can answer for him. How is it with you? Do you return +what he gives--if there is really friendship between you? Or do you take +what he offers, offering nothing in return?” + +She had turned rather white under the direct impact of the questions. +The jarring repetition of his voice itself was like the dull echo of +distant blows. Yet it never occurred to her to resent it, nor his +attitude, nor his self-assumed privilege. She did not care; she no +longer cared what he said to her or thought about her; nor did she care +that her mask had fallen at last. It was not what he was saying, but +what her own heart repeated so heavily that drove the colour from her +face. Not he, but she herself had become the pitiless attorney for the +prosecution; not his voice, but the clamouring conscience within her +demanded by what right she used the name of friendship to characterise +the late relations between her and the man to whom she had denied +herself. + +Then a bitter impatience swept her, and a dawning fear, too; for she had +set her foot on the fallen mask, and the impulse rendered her reckless. + +“Why don’t you speak?” she said. “Yes, I have a right to know. I care +for him as much as you do. Why don’t you answer me? I tell you I care +for him!” + +“Do you?” he said in a dull voice. “Then help me out, if you can, for I +don’t know what to do; and if I did, I haven’t the authority of +friendship as my warrant. He is in New York. He did go to the country; +and, at his home, the servants suppose he is still away. But he isn’t; +he is here, alone, and sick--sick of his old sickness. I saw him, +and”--Plank rested his head on his hand, dropping his eyes--“and he didn’t +know me. I--I do not think he will remember that he met me, or that I +spoke. And--I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. And I don’t know +where he is. He will go home after a while. I call--every day--to see--see +what can be done. But if he were there I would not know what to do. When +he does go home I won’t know what to say--what to try to do. … And that +is an answer to your question, Miss Landis. I give it, because you say +you care for him as I do. Will you advise me what to do?--you, who are +more entitled than I am to know the truth, because he has given you the +friendship which he has as yet not accorded to me.” + +But Sylvia, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, could find no voice to answer; and +after a little while they rose and moved through the fragrant gloom +toward the sparkling lights beyond. + +Her voice came back as they entered the brilliant rooms: “I should like +to find Grace Ferrall,” she said very distinctly. “Please keep the +others off, Mr. Plank.” + +Her small hand on his arm lay with a weight out of all proportion to its +size. Fair head averted, she no longer guided him with that impalpable +control; it was he who had become the pilot now, and he steered his own +way through the billowy ocean of silk and lace, master of the course he +had set, heavily bland to the interrupter and the importunate from whom +she turned a deaf ear and dumb lips, and lowered eyes that saw nothing. + +Fleetwood had missed his dance with her, but she scarcely heard his +eager complaints. Quarrier, coldly inquiring, confronted them; was +passed almost without recognition, and left behind, motionless, looking +after them out of his narrowing, black-fringed eyes of a woman. + +Then Ferrall came, and hearing his voice, she raised her colourless +face. + +“Will you take me home with you, Kemp, when you take Grace?” she asked. + +“Of course. I don’t know where Grace is. Are you in a hurry to go? It’s +only four o’clock.” + +They were at the entrance to the supper-room. Plank drew up a chair for +her, and she sank down, dropping her elbows on the small table, and +resting her face between her fingers. + +“Pegged out, Sylvia?” exclaimed Ferrall incredulously. “You? What’s the +younger set coming to?” and he motioned a servant to fill her glass. But +she pushed it aside with a shiver, and gave Plank a strange look which +he scarcely understood at the moment. + +“More caprices; all sorts of ’em on the programme,” muttered Ferrall, +looking down at her from where he stood beside Plank. “O tempora! O +Sylvia! … Plank, would you mind hunting up my wife? I’ll stay and see +that this infant doesn’t fall asleep.” + +But Sylvia shook her head, saying: “Please go, Kemp. I’m a little tired, +that’s all. When Grace is ready, I’ll leave with her.” And at her +gesture Plank seated himself, while Ferrall, shrugging his square +shoulders, sauntered off in quest of his wife, stopping a moment at a +neighbouring table to speak to Agatha Caithness, who sat there with +Captain Voucher, the gemmed collar on her slender throat a pale blaze of +splendour. + +Plank was hungry, and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded, +and exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank’s +voice. For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to +keep up a desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she +owed an explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank’s +appetite was in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had +fashioned him, and she paid less and less attention to convention and a +trifle more to the beauty of Agatha’s jewels, until the silence at the +small table in the corner remained unbroken except by the faint tinkle +of silver and crystal and the bubbling hiss of a glass refilled. + +Major Belwether, his white, fluffy, chop-whiskers brushed rabbit +fashion, peeped in at the door, started to tiptoe out again, caught +sight of them, and came trotting back, beaming rosy effusion. He leaned +roguishly over the table, his moist eyes a-twinkle with suppressed +mirth; then, bestowing a sprightly glance on Plank, which said very +plainly, “I’m up to one of my irrepressible jokes again!” he held up a +smooth, white, and over-manicured forefinger: + +“I was in Tiffany’s yesterday,” be said, “and I saw a young man in there +who didn’t see me, and I peeped over his shoulder, and what do you think +he was doing?” + +She lifted her eyes a little wearily: + +“I don’t know,” she said. + +“I do,” he chuckled. “He was choosing a collar of blue diamonds and aqua +marines!--Te-he!--probably to wear himself!--Te-he! Or perhaps he was going +to be married!--He-he-he!--next winter--ahem!--next November--Ha-ha! +I don’t know, I’m sure, what he meant to do with that collar. I only--” + +Something in Sylvia’s eyes stopped him, and, following their direction, +he turned around to find Quarrier standing at his elbow, icy and +expressionless. + +“Oh,” said the aged jester, a little disconcerted, “I’m caught talking +out in church, I see! It was only a harmless little fun, Howard.” + +“Do you mean you saw me?” asked Quarrier, pale as a sheet. “You are in +error. I have not been in Tiffany’s in months.” + +Belwether, crestfallen under the white menace of Quarrier’s face, +nodded, and essayed a chuckle without success. + +Sylvia, at first listless and uninterested, looked inquiringly from the +major to Quarrier, surprised at the suppressed feeling exhibited over so +trivial a gaucherie. If Quarrier had chosen a collar like Agatha’s for +her, what of it? But as he had not, on his own statement, what did it +matter? Why should he look that way at the foolish major, to whose +garrulous gossip he was accustomed, and whose inability to refrain from +prying was notorious enough. + +Turning disdainfully, she caught a glimpse of Plank’s shocked and +altered face. It relapsed instantly into the usual inert expression; and +a queer, uncomfortable perplexity began to invade her. What had happened +to stir up these three men? Of what importance was an indiscretion of an +old gentleman whose fatuous vanity and consequent blunders everybody was +familiar with? And, after all, Howard had not bought anything at +Tiffany’s; he said so himself. … But it was evident that Agatha had +chanced on the collar that Belwether thought he saw somebody else +examining. + +She turned, and looked at the dead-white neck of the girl. The collar +was wonderful--a miracle of pale fire. And Sylvia, musing, let her +thoughts run on, dreamy eyes brooding. She was glad that Agatha’s means +permitted her now to have such things. It had been understood, for some +years, that the Caithness fortune was in rather an alarming condition. +Howard had been able recently to do a favour or two for old Peter +Caithness. She had heard the major bragging about it. Evidently Mr. +Caithness must have improved the chance, if he was able to present such +gems to his daughter. And now somebody would marry her; perhaps Captain +Voucher; perhaps even Alderdene; perhaps, as rumour had it now and then, +Plank might venture into the arena. … Poor Plank! More of a man than +people understood. She understood. She-- + +And her thoughts swung back like the returning tide to Siward, and her +heart began heavily again, and the slightly faint sensation returned. +She passed her ungloved, unsteady fingers across her eyelids and +forehead, looking up and around. The major and Howard had disappeared; +Plank, beside her, sat staring stupidly into his empty wine-glass. + +“Isn’t Mrs. Ferrall coming?” she said wearily. + +Plank gathered his cumbersome bulk and stood up, trying to see through +the entrance into the ball-room. After a moment he said: “They’re in +there, talking to Marion. It’s a good chance to make our adieux.” + +As they passed out of the supper-room Sylvia paused behind Agatha’s +chair and bent over her. “The collar is beautiful,” she said, “and so +are you, Agatha”; and with a little impulsive caress for the jewels she +passed on, unconscious of the delicate flush that spread from Agatha’s +shoulders to her hair. And Agatha, turning, encountered only the stupid +gaze of Plank, moving ponderously past on Sylvia’s heels. + +“If you’ll find Leila, I’m ready at any time,” she said carelessly, and +resumed her tête-à-tête with Voucher, who had plainly been annoyed at +the interruption. + +Plank went on, a new trouble dawning on his thickening mental horizon. +He had completely forgotten Leila. Even with all the demands made upon +him; even with all the time he had given to those whose use of him he +understood, how could he have forgotten Leila and the recent scene +between them, and the new attitude and new relations with her that he +must so carefully consider and ponder over before he presented himself +at the house of Mortimer again! + +Ferrall and his wife and Sylvia were making their adieux to Marion and +her mother when he came up; and he, too, took that opportunity. + +Later, on his quest for Leila, Sylvia, passing through the great hall, +shrouded in silk and ermine, turned to offer him her hand, saying in a +low voice: “I am at home to you; do you understand? Always,” she added +nervously. + +He looked after her with an unconscious sigh, unaware that anything in +himself had claimed her respect. And after a moment he swung on his +broad heels to continue his search for Mrs. Mortimer. + + + +CHAPTER X THE SEAMY SIDE + +About four o’clock on the following afternoon Mrs. Mortimer’s maid, who +had almost finished drying and dressing her mistress’ hair, was called +to the door by a persistent knocking, which at first she had been bidden +to disregard. + +It was Mortimer’s man, desiring to know whether Mrs. Mortimer could +receive Mr. Mortimer at once on matters of importance. + +“No,” said Leila petulantly. “Tell Mullins to say that I can not see +anybody,” and catching a glimpse of the shadowy Mullins dodging about +the dusky corridor: “What is the matter? Is Mr. Mortimer ill?” + +But Mullins could not say what the matter might be, and he went away, +only to return in a few moments bearing a scratchy note from his master, +badly blotted and still wet; and Leila, with a shrug of resignation, +took the blotched scrawl daintily between thumb and forefinger and +unfolded it. Behind her, the maid, twisting up the masses of dark, +fragrant hair, read the note very easily over her mistress’ shoulder. It +ran, without preliminaries: + +“I’m going to talk to you, whether you like it or not. Do you understand +that? If you want to know what’s the matter with me you’ll find out fast +enough. Fire that French girl out before I arrive.” + +She closed the note thoughtfully, folding and double-folding it into a +thick wad. The ink had come off, discolouring her finger-tips; she +dropped the soiled paper on the floor, and held out her hands, plump +fingers spread. And when the maid had finished removing the stains and +had repolished the pretty hands, her mistress sipped her chocolate +thoughtfully, nibbled a bit of dry toast, then motioned the maid to take +the tray and her departure, leaving her the cup. + +A few minutes later Mortimer came in, stood a moment blinking around the +room, then dropped into a seat, sullen, inert, the folds of his chin +crowded out on his collar, his heavy abdomen cradled on his short, thick +legs. He had been freshly shaved; linen and clothing were spotless, yet +the man looked unclean. + +Save for the network of purple veins in his face, there was no colour +there, none in his lips; even his flabby hands were the hue of clay. + +“Are you ill?” asked his wife coolly. + +“No, not very. I’ve got the jumps. What’s that? Tea? Ugh! it’s +chocolate. Push it out of sight, will you? I can smell it.” + +Leila set the delicate cup on a table behind her. + +“What time did you return this morning?” she asked, stifling a yawn. + +“I don’t know; about five or six. How the devil should I know what time +I came in?” + +Sitting there before the mirror of her dresser she stole a second glance +at his marred features in the glass. The loose mouth, the smeared eyes, +the palsy-like tremors that twitched the hands where they tightened on +the arms of his chair, became repulsive to the verge of fascination. She +tried to look away, but could not. + +“You had better see Dr. Grisby,” she managed to say. + +“I’d better see you; that’s what I’d better do,” he retorted thickly. +“You’ll do all the doctoring I want. And I want it, all right.” + +“Very well. What is it?” + +He passed his swollen hand across his forehead. + +“What is it?” he repeated. “It’s the limit, this time, if you want to +know. I’m all in.” + +“Roulette?” raising her eyebrows without interest + +“Yes, roulette, too. Everything! They got me upstairs at Burbank’s. The +game’s crooked! Every box, every case, every wheel, every pack is +crooked! crooked! crooked, by God!” he burst out in a fever, struggling +to sit upright, his hands always tightening on the arms of the chair. +“It’s nothing but a creeping joint, run by a bunch of hand-shakers! +I--I’ll--” + +Stuttering, choking, stammering imprecations, his hoarse clamour died +away after a while. She sat there, head bent, silent, impassive, +acquiescent under the physical and mental strain to which she had never +become thoroughly hardened. How many such scenes had she witnessed! She +could not count them. They differed very little in detail, and not at +all in their ultimate object, which was to get what money she had. This +was his method of reimbursing himself for his losses. + +He made an end to his outburst after a while. Only his dreadful fat +breathing now filled the silence; and supposing he had finished, she +found her voice with an effort: + +“I am sorry. It comes at a bad time, as you know--” + +“A bad time!” he broke out violently. “How can it come at any other sort +of time? With us, all times are bad. If this is worse than the average +it can’t be helped. We are in it for keeps this time!” + +“We?” + +“Yes, we!” he repeated; but his face had grown ghastly, and his +uncertain eyes were fastened on her’s in the mirror. + +“What do you mean--exactly?” she asked, turning from the dresser to +confront him. + +He made no effort to answer; an expression of dull fright was growing on +his visage, as though for the first time he had begun to realise what +had happened. + +She saw it, and her heart quickened, but she spoke disdainfully: “Well, +I am ready to listen--as usual. How much do you want?” + +He made no sign; his lower lip hung loose; his eyes blinked at her. + +“What is it?” she repeated. “What have you been doing? How much have you +lost? You can’t have lost very much; we hadn’t much to lose. If you have +given your note to any of those gamblers, it is a shame--a shame! Leroy, +look at me! You promised me, on your honour, never to do that again. +Have you lied, after all the times I have helped you out, stripped +myself, denied myself, put off tradesmen, faced down creditors? After +all I have done, do you dare come here and ask for more--ask for what I +have not got--with not one bill settled, not one servant paid since +December--” + +“Leila, I--I’ve got--to tell you--” + +“What?” she demanded, appalled by the change in his face. If he was +overdoing it, he was overdoing it realistically enough. + +“I--I’ve used Plank’s cheque!” he mumbled, and moistened his lips with +his tongue. + +She stared back at him, striving to comprehend. “Plank’s!” she repeated +slowly, “Plank’s cheque? What cheque? What do you mean?” + +“The one he gave you last night. I’ve used that. Now you know!” + +“The one he--But you couldn’t! How could you? It was not filled in.” + +“I filled it.” + +Her dawning horror was reacting on him, as it always did, like a fierce +tonic; and his own courage came back in a sort of sullen desperation. + +“You … You are trying to frighten me, Leroy,” she stammered. “You are +trying to make me do something--give you what you want--force me to give +you what you want! You can’t frighten me. The cheque was made out to +me--to my order. How could you have used it, if I had not indorsed it?” + +“I indorsed it. Do you understand that!” he said savagely. + +“No, I don’t; because, if you did, it’s forgery.” + +“I don’t give a damn what you think it is!” he broke in fiercely. “All +I’m worried over is what Plank will think. I didn’t mean to do it; I +didn’t dream of doing it; but when Burbank cleaned me up I fished about, +and that cursed cheque came tumbling out!” + +In the rising excitement of self-defence the colour was coming back into +his battered face; he sat up straighter in his chair, and, grasping the +upholstered arms, leaned forward, speaking more distinctly and with +increasing vigour and anger: + +“When I saw that cheque in my hands I thought I’d use it +temporarily--merely as moral collateral to flash at Burbank--something to +back my I. O. U.’s. So I filled it in.” + +“For how much?” she asked, not daring to believe him; but he ignored the +question and went on: “I filled it and indorsed it, and--” + +“How could you indorse it?” she interrupted coolly, now unconvinced +again and suspicious. + +“I’ll tell you if you’ll stop that fool tongue a moment. The cheque was +made to ‘L. Mortimer,’ wasn’t it? So I wrote ‘L. Mortimer’ on the back. +Now do you know? If you are L. Mortimer, so am I. Leila begins with L; +so does Leroy, doesn’t it? I didn’t imitate your two-words-to-a-page +autograph. I put my own fist to a cheque made out to one L. Mortimer; +and I don’t care what you think about it as long as Plank can stand it. +Now put up your nose and howl, if you like.” + +But under her sudden pallor he was taking fright again, and he began to +bolster up his courage with bluster and noise, as usual: + +“Howl all you like!” he jeered. “It won’t alter matters or square +accounts with Plank. What are you staring at? Do you suppose I’m not +sorry? Do you fancy I don’t know what a fool I’ve been? What are you +turning white for? What in hell--” + +“How much have you--” She choked, then, resolutely: “How much have +you--taken?” + +“Taken!” he broke out, with an oath. “What do you mean? I’ve borrowed +about twenty thousand dollars. Now yelp! Eh? What?--no yelps? Probably +some weeps, then. Turn ’em on and run dry; I’ll wait.” And he managed to +cross one bulky leg over the other and lean back, affecting resignation, +while Leila, bolt upright in her low chair, every curved outline rigid +under the flowing, silken wrap, stared at him as though stunned. + +“Well, we’re good for it, aren’t we?” he said threateningly. “If he’s +going to turn ugly about it, here’s the house.” + +“My--house?” + +“Yes, your house! I suppose you’d rather raise something on the house +than have the thing come out in the papers.” + +“Do you think so?” she asked, staring into his bloodshot eyes. + +“Yes, I do. I’m damn sure of it!” + +“You are wrong.” + +“You mean that you are not inclined to stand by me?” he demanded. + +“Yes, I mean that.” + +“You don’t intend to help me out?” + +“I do not intend to--not this time.” + +He began to show his big teeth, and that nervous snickering “tick” +twitched his upper lip. + +“How about the courts?” he sneered. “Do you want to figure in them with +Plank?” + +“I don’t want to,” she said steadily, “but you can not frighten me any +more by that threat.” + +“Oh! Can’t frighten you! Perhaps you think you’ll marry Plank when I get +a decree? Do you? Well, you won’t for several reasons; first, because +I’ll name other corespondents and that will make Plank sick; second, +because Plank wants to marry somebody else and I’m able to assist him. +So where do you come out in the shuffle?” + +“I don’t know,” she said, under her breath, and rested her head against +the back of the chair, as though suddenly tired. + +“Well, I know. You’ll come out smirched, and you know it,” said +Mortimer, gazing intently at her. “Look here, Leila: I didn’t come here +to threaten you. I’m no black-mailer; I’m no criminal. I’m simply a +decent sort of a man, who is pretty badly scared over what he’s done in +a moment of temptation. You know I had no thought of anything except to +borrow enough on my I. O. U.’s to make a killing at Burbank’s. I had to +show them something big, so I filled in that cheque, not meaning to use +it; and before I knew it I’d indorsed it, and was plunging against it. +Then they stacked everything on me--by God, they did! and if I had not +been in the condition I was in I’d have stopped payment. But it was too +late when I realised what I was against. Leila, you know I’m not a bad +man at heart. Can’t you help a fellow?” + +His manner, completely changed, had become the resentful and fretful +appeal of the victim of plot and circumstance. All the savage brutality +had been eliminated; the sneer, the truculent attempts to browbeat, the +pitiful swagger, the cynical justification, all were gone. It was really +the man himself now, normally scared and repentant; the frightened, +overfed pensioner on his wife’s bounty; not the human beast maddened by +fear and dissipation, half stunned, half panic-stricken, driven by sheer +terror into a rôle which even he shrank from--had shrunk from all these +years. For, leech and parasite that he was, Mortimer, however much the +dirty acquisition of money might tempt him in theory, had not yet +brought himself to the point of attempting the practice, even when in +sorest straits and bitterest need. He didn’t want to do it; he wished to +get along without it, partly because of native inertia and an aversion +to the mental nimbleness that he would be required to show as a law- +breaker, partly because the word “black-mail” stood for what he did not +dare suggest that he had come to, even to himself. His distaste was +genuine; there were certain things which he didn’t want to commit, and +extortion was one of them. He could, at a pinch, lie to his wife, or try +to scare her into giving him money; he could, when necessary, “borrow” +from such men as Plank; but he had never cheated at cards, and he had +never attempted to black-mail anybody except his wife--which, of course, +was purely a family matter, and concerned nobody else. + +Now he was attempting it again, with more sincerity, energy, and +determination than he ever before had been forced to display. Even in +his most profane violence the rage and panic were only partly real. He +was, it is true, genuinely scared, and horribly shaken physically, but +he had counted on violence, and he stimulated his own emotions and made +them serve him, knowing all the while that in the reaction his ends +would be accomplished, as usual. This policy of alternately frightening, +dragooning, and supplicating Leila had carried him so far; and though it +was true that this was a more serious situation than he had ever yet +faced, he was convinced that his wife would pull him out somehow; and +how that was to be accomplished he did not very much care, as long as he +was pulled out safely. + +“What this household requires,” he said, “is economy. He spread his +legs, denting the Aubusson carpet with his boot-heels, and glanced +askance at his wife. “Economy,” he repeated, furtively wetting his lips +with a heavily coated tongue; “that’s the true solution; economical +administration in domestic matters. Retrenchment, Leila! retrenchment! +Fewer folderols. I’ve a notion to give up that farm, and stop trying to +breed those damfool sheep. They cost a thousand apiece, and do you know +what I got for those six I sent to Westbury? Just twelve hundred dollars +from Fleetwood--the bargaining shopkeeper! Twelve hundred! Think of +that! And along comes Granby and sells a single ram for six thousand +plunks!” + +Leila’s head was lowered. He could not see her expression, but he had +always been confident of his ability to talk himself out of trouble, so +he rambled on in pretence of camaraderie, currying favour, as he +believed, ingratiating himself with the coarse bluntness that served him +among some men, even among some women. + +“We’ll fix it somehow,” he said reassuringly; “don’t you worry, Leila. +I’ve confidence in you, little girl! You’ve got me out of sticky messes +before, eh? Well, we’ve weathered a few, haven’t we?” + +Even the horrible parody on wedded loyalty left her silent, unmoved, +dark eyes brooding; and he began to grow a little restless and anxious +as his jocularity increased without a movement in either response or +aversion from his wife. + +“You needn’t be scared, if I’m not,” he said reproachfully. “The house +is worth two hundred and fifty thousand, and there’s only fifty on it +now. If that fat, Dutch skinflint, Plank, shows his tusks, we can clap +on another fifty.” And as she made no sound or movement in reply: “As +far as Plank goes, haven’t I done enough for him to square it? What have +we ever got out of him, except a thousand or two now and then when the +cards went against me? If I took it, it was practically what he owes me. +And if he thinks it’s too much--look here, Leila! I’ve a trick up my +sleeve. I can make good any time I wish to. I’m in a position to marry +that man to the girl he’s mad about--stark, raving mad.” + +Mrs. Mortimer slowly raised her head and looked at her husband. + +“Leroy, are you mad?” + +“I! Not much!” he exclaimed gleefully. “I can make him the husband of +the most-run-after girl in New York--if I want to. And at the same time I +can puncture the most arrogant, the most cold-blooded, selfish, purse- +proud, inflated nincompoop that ever sat at the head of a director’s +table. O-ho! Now you’re staring, Leila. I can do it; I can make good. +What are you worrying about? Why, I’ve got a hundred ways to square that +cheque, and each separate way is a winner.” + +He rose, shook out the creases in his trousers, and adjusted the squat, +gold fob which ornamented his protruding waistcoat. + +“So you’ll fix it, won’t you, Leila?” he said, apparently oblivious that +he had expressed himself as able to adjust the matter in one hundred +equally edifying and satisfactory manners. + +She did not answer. He lingered a moment at the door, looking back with +an ingratiating leer; but she paid him no attention, and he took himself +off, confident that her sulkiness could not result in anything +unpleasant to anybody except herself. + +Nor did it, as far as he could see. The days brought no noticeable +change in his wife’s demeanour toward him. Plank, when he met him, was +civil enough, though it did occur to Mortimer that he saw very little of +Plank in these days. + +“Ungrateful beggar!” he thought bitterly; “he’s toadying to Belwether +now. I can’t do anything more for him, so I don’t interest him.” + +And for a while he wore either a truculent, aggrieved air in Plank’s +presence, or the meeker demeanour of a martyr, sentimentally +misunderstood, but patient under the affliction. + +Then there came a time when he needed money. During the few days he +spent circling tentatively and apprehensively around his wife he learned +enough to know that there was nothing to be had from her at present. No +doubt the money she raised to placate Plank--if she had placated him in +that fashion--was a strain on her resources, whatever those resources +were. + +One thing was certain: Plank had not remained very long in ignorance of +the cheque drawn against his balance, if indeed, as Mortimer feared, the +bank itself had not communicated with Plank as soon as the cheque was +presented for payment. Therefore Plank must have been placated by Leila; +how, Mortimer was satisfied not to know. + +“Some of these days,” he said to himself, “I’ll catch her tripping, and +then there’ll be a decent division of property, or--there’ll be a +divorce.” But, as usual, Mortimer found such practices more attractive +in theory than in execution, and he was really quite contented to go on +as things were going, if somebody would see that he had some money +occasionally. + +One of these occasions when he needed it was approaching. He had made a +“killing” at Desmond’s, and had used the money to stop up the more +threatening gaps in the tottering financial fabric known as his +“personal accounts.” The fabric would hold for a while, but meantime he +needed money to go on with. And Leila evidently had none. He tried +everybody except Plank. He had scarcely the impudence to go to Plank +just yet; but when, completing the vicious circle, he found his +borrowing capacity exhausted, and himself once more face to face with +the only hope, Plank, he sat down to consider seriously the possibility +of the matter. + +Of course Plank owed him more than he could ever pay--the ungrateful +parvenu!--but what Plank had thought of that cheque transaction he had +never been able to discover. + +Somehow or other he must put Plank under fresh obligations; and that +might have been possible had not Leila invaded the ground, leaving +nothing, now that Plank was secure in club life. + +Of course the first thing that presented itself to Mortimer’s +consideration was the engineering of Plank’s matrimonial ambitions. +Clearly the man had not changed. He was always at Sylvia’s heels; he was +seen with her in public; he went to the Belwether house a great deal. No +possible doubt but that he was as infatuated as ever. And Quarrier was +going to marry her next November--that is, if he, Mortimer, chose to keep +silent about a certain midnight episode at Shotover. + +It was his inclination, except in theory, to keep silent, partly because +of his native inertia and unwillingness to go to the physical and +intellectual exertion of being a rascal, partly because he didn’t really +want to be a rascal of that sort. + +Like a man with premonitions of toothache, who walks down to the +dentist’s just to see what the number of the house looks like, and then +walks around the block to think it over, so Mortimer, suffering from +lack of money, walked round and round the central idea, unable to bring +himself to the point. + +Several times he called up Quarrier on the ’phone and made appointments +to lunch with him; but these meetings never resulted in anything except +luncheons which Mortimer paid for, and matters were becoming desperate. + +So one day, after having lunched too freely, he sat down and wrote Plank +the following note: + +My Dear Beverly: You will remember that I once promised you my aid in +securing what, to you, is the dearest object of your existence. I have +thought, I have pondered, I have given the matter deep and, I may add +without irreverence, prayerful consideration, knowing that the life’s +happiness of my closest friend depended on my judgment and wisdom and +intelligence to secure for him the opportunity to crown his life’s work +by the acquisition of the brightest jewel in the diadem of old +Manhattan. + +“By George! that’s wickedly good, though!” chuckled Mortimer, refreshing +himself with his old stand-by, an apple, quartered, and soaked in very +old port. So he sopped his apple and swallowed it, and picked up his pen +again, chary of overdoing it. + +All I say to you is, be ready! The time is close at hand when you may +boldly make your avowal. But be ready! All depends upon the +psychological moment. An instant too soon, an instant too late, and you +are lost. And she is lost forever. Remember! Be faithful; trust in me, +and wait. And the instant I say, “Speak!” pour out your soul, my dear +friend, and be certain you are not pouring it out in vain. +L. M. + +Writing about “pouring out” made him thirsty, so he fortified himself +several times, and then, sealing the letter, went out to a letter-box +and stood looking at it. + +“If I mail it I’m in for it,” he muttered. After a while he put the +letter in his pocket and walked on. + +“It really doesn’t commit me to anything,” he reflected at last, halting +before another letter-box. And as he stood there, hesitating, he glanced +up and saw Quarrier entering the Lenox Club. The next moment he flung up +the metal box lid, dropped in his letter, and followed Quarrier into the +club. + +Then events tumbled forward almost without a push from him. Quarrier was +alone in a window corner, drinking vichy and milk and glancing over the +afternoon papers. He saw Mortimer, and invited him to join him; and +Mortimer, being thirsty, took champagne. + +“I’ve been trying a new coach,” said Quarrier, in his colourless and +rather agreeable voice; and he went on leisurely explaining the points +of the new mail-coach which had been built in Paris after plans of his +own, while Mortimer gulped glass after glass of chilled wine, which +seemed only to make him thirstier. Meantime he listened, really +interested, except that his fleshy head was too full of alcohol and his +own project to contain additional statistics concerning coaching. +Besides, Quarrier, who had never been over-cordial to him, was more so +now--enough for Mortimer to venture on a few tentative suggestions of a +financial nature; and though, as usual, Quarrier was not responsive, he +did not, as usual, get up and go away. + +A vague hope stirred Mortimer that it might not be beyond his persuasive +tongue to make this chilly, reticent young man into a friend some day--a +helpful friend. For Mortimer all his life had trusted to his tongue; and +though poorly enough repaid, the few lingual victories remained in his +memory, along with an inexhaustible vanity and hope; while his countless +defeats and the many occasions on which his tongue had played him false +were all forgotten. Besides, he had been drinking more heavily all day +than was his custom. + +So Quarrier talked, sparingly, about his new coach, about Billy +Fleetwood’s renowned string of hunters, about Ashley Spencer’s new +stable and his chances at Saratoga with Roy-a-neh, for which he had paid +a fabulous sum--the sum and the story probably equally fabulous. + +Mortimer’s head was swimming with ideas; he was also talking a great +deal, much more than he had intended; he was saying things he had not +exactly intended to say, either, in just that way. He realised it, but +he went on, unable to stop his own tongue, the noise of which +intoxicated him. + +Once or twice he thought Quarrier looked at him rather strangely; but he +would show Quarrier that he was nobody’s fool; he’d show Quarrier that +he was a friend, a good, staunch friend; and that Quarrier had long, +long undervalued him. Waves of sentiment spread through and through him; +his affection for Quarrier dampened his eyes; and still he blabbed on +and on, gazing with brimming eyes upon Quarrier, who sat back silent and +attentive as Mortimer circled and blundered nearer and nearer to the +crucial point of his destination. + +Midway in one of his linguistic ellipses Quarrier leaned forward and +caught his arm in a grip of steel. Another man had entered the room. +Mortimer, made partly conscious by the pain of Quarrier’s vise-like +grip, was sober enough to recognise the impropriety of his continuing +aloud the veiled story he had been constructing with what he supposed to +be a cunning as matchless as it was impenetrable. + +Later he found himself upstairs in a private card-room, facing Quarrier +across a table, and still talking and quenching his increasing thirst. +He knew now what he was telling Quarrier; he was unveiling the parable; +he was stripping metaphor from a carefully precise story. He used +Siward’s name presently; presently he used Sylvia’s name. A moment +later--or was it an hour?--Quarrier stopped him, coldly, without a trace +of passion, demanding corroborative detail. And Mortimer gave it, +wagging his head and one fat forefinger as emphasis. + +“You saw that?” repeated Quarrier, deadly white of a sudden. + +“Yes; an’ I--” + +“At three in the morning?” + +“Yes; an’ I want--” + +“You saw him enter her room?” + +“Yes; an’ I wan’ tersay thish to you, because I’m your fr’en’. Don’ wan’ +anny fr’en’s mine get fooled on women! See? Thash how I feel. I respec’ +the sect! See! Women, lovely women! See? Respec’ sect! Gimme y’han’, +buzzer--er--brother Quar’er! Your m’ fr’en’; I’m your fr’en’. I know how +it is. Gotter wife m’own. Rotten one. Stingy! Takes money outter m’ +pockets. Dam ’stravagant. Ruin me! … Say, old boy, what about dividend +due ’morrow on Orange County Eclectic--mean Erlextic--no!--mean ’Letric! +Damn!--Wasser masser tongue?” + +Opening his fond and foggy eyes, and finding himself alone in the card- +room, he began to cry; and a little later, attempting to push the +electric button, he fell over a lounge and lay there, his shirt-front +soiled with wine, one fat leg trailing to the floor; not the ideal +position for slumber, perhaps, but what difference do attitudes and +postures and poses make when a gentleman, in the sacred seclusion of his +own club, is wooing the drowsy goddess with blasts of votive music +through his empurpled nose? + +In the meantime, however, he was due to dine at the Belwether house; and +when eight o’clock approached, and he had not returned to dress, Leila +called up Sylvia Landis on the telephone: + +“My dear, Leroy hasn’t returned, and I suppose he’s forgotten about the +Bridge. I can bring Mr. Plank, if you like.” + +“Very well,” said Sylvia, adding, “if Mr. Plank is there, may I speak to +him a moment?” + +So Leila rose, setting the receiver on the desk, and Plank came in from +the library and settled himself heavily in the chair: + +“Did you wish to speak to me, Miss Landis?” + +“Is that you, Mr. Plank? Yes; will you dine with us at eight? Bridge +afterward, if you don’t mind.” + +“Thank you.” + +“And, Mr. Plank, you had a note from me this morning?” + +“Yes.” + +“Please disregard it.” + +“If you wish.” + +“I do. It is not worth while.” And as Plank made no comment, “I have no +further interest in the matter. Do you understand?” + +“No,” said Plank doggedly. + +“I have nothing more to say. I am sorry. We dine at eight,” concluded +Sylvia hurriedly. + +Plank hung up the receiver and sat eyeing it for a while in silence. +Then his jaw began to harden and his under lip protruded, and he folded +his great hands, resting them in front of him on the edge of the desk, +brooding there, with eyes narrowing like a sleepy giant at prayer. + +When Leila entered, in her evening wraps, she found him there, so +immersed in reverie that he failed to hear her; and she stood a moment +at the doorway, smiling to herself, thinking how pleasant it was to come +down ready for the evening and find him there, as though he belonged +where he sat, and was part of the familiar environment. + +Recently she had grown younger in a smooth-skinned, full-lipped way--so +much younger that it was spoken of. Something girlish in figure, in +spontaneity, in the hesitation of her smile, in the lack of that hard, +brilliant confidence which once characterised her, had developed; as +though she were beginning her début again, reverting to a softness and +charm prematurely checked. Truly, her youth’s discoloured blossom, +forced by the pale phantom of false spring, was refolding to a bud once +more; and the harsher tints of the inclement years were fading. + +“Beverly,” she said, “I am ready.” + +Plank stood up, dazed from his reverie, and walked toward her. His white +tie had become disarranged; she raised her hands, halting him, and +pulled it into shape for him, consciously innocent of the intimacy. + +“Thank you,” he said. “Do you know how pretty you are this evening?” + +“Yes; I was very happy at my mirror. Do you know, the withered years +seem to be dropping from me like leaves from an autumn sapling. And I +feel young enough to say so poetically. … Did Sylvia try to flirt with +you over the wire?” + +“Yes, as usual,” he said drily, descending the stairs beside her. + +“And really you don’t love her any more?” she queried. + +“Scarcely.” His voice was low and rather disagreeable, and she looked +up. + +“I wish I knew what you and Sylvia find to talk about so frequently, if +you’re not in love.” + +But he made no answer; and they drove away to the Belwether house, a +rather wide, old-style mansion of brown stone, with a stoop dividing its +ugly façade, and a series of unnecessary glass doors blockading the +vestibule. + +A drawing-room and a reception-room flanked the marble-tiled hall; +behind these the dining-room ran the width of the rear. It was a typical +gentlefolk’s house of the worst period of Manhattan, and Major Belwether +belonged in it as fittingly as a melodeon belongs in a west-side flat. +The hall-way was made for such a man as he to patter through; the +velvet-covered stairs were as peculiarly fitted for him as a runway is +for a rabbit; the suave pink-and-white drawing-room, the discreet, gray +reception-room, the soft, fat rugs, the intricacies of banisters and +alcoves and curtained cubby-holes--all reflected his personality, all +corroborated the ensemble. It was his habitat, his distinctly, from the +pronounced but meaningless intricacy of the architecture to the studied +but unconvincing tints, like a man who suddenly starts to speak, but +checks himself, realising he has nothing in particular to say. + +There were half a dozen people there lounging informally between the +living-room on the second floor and Sylvia’s apartments in the rear--the +residue from a luncheon and Bridge party given that afternoon by Sylvia +to a score or so of card-mad women. A few of these she had asked to +remain for an informal dinner, and a desperate game later--the sort of +people she knew well enough to lose to heavily or win from without +remorse--Grace Ferrall, Marion Page, Agatha Caithness. Trusting to the +telephone that morning, she had secured the Mortimers and Quarrier, +failing three men; and now the party, with Plank as Mortimer’s +substitute, was complete, all thorough gamesters--sex mattering nothing +in the preparation for such a séance. + +In Sylvia’s boudoir Grace Ferrall and Agatha Caithness sat before the +fire; Sylvia, at the mirror of her dresser, was correcting the pallor +incident to the unbroken dissipation of a brilliant season; Marion, with +her inevitable cigarette, wandered between Sylvia’s quarters and the +library, where Quarrier and Major Belwether were sitting in low-voiced +confab. + +Leila, greeted gaily from the boudoir, went in. Plank entered the +library, was mauled effusively by the major, returned Quarrier’s firm +hand shake, and sat down with an inquiring smile. + +“Oh, yes, we’re out for blood to-night,” tittered Major Belwether, +grasping Quarrier’s arm humourously and shaking it to emphasise his +words--a habit that Quarrier thoroughly disliked. “Sylvia had a lot of +women here playing for the season score, so I suggested she keep the +pick of them for dinner, and call in a few choice ones to make a night +of it.” + +“It’s agreeable to me,” said Plank, still looking at Quarrier with the +same inquiring expression, which that gentleman presently chose to +understand. + +“I haven’t had a chance to look into that matter,” he said carelessly. +“Some day, when you have time to go over it--” + +“I have time now,” said Plank; “there’s nothing to go over; there’s no +reason for any secrecy. All I wrote you was that I proposed to control +the stock of Amalgamated Electric and that I wished your advice in the +matter.” + +“I could not give you any advice off-hand on such an extraordinary +suggestion,” returned Quarrier coldly. “If you know where the stock is, +you’ll understand.” + +“Do you mean what it is quoted at, or who owns it?” interrupted Plank. + +“Who owns it. Everybody knows where it has dropped to, I suppose. Most +people know, too, where it is held.” + +“Yes; I do.” + +“And who is manipulating it,” added Quarrier indifferently. + +“Do you mean Harrington’s people?” + +“I don’t mean anybody in particular, Mr. Plank.” + +“Oh!” said Plank, staring, “I was sure you couldn’t have meant +Harrington; because,” he went on deliberately, “there are other theories +floating about that mysterious pool, one of which I’ve proved.” + +Quarrier looked at him out of his velvety-lidded eyes: + +“What have you proved?” + +“I’ll tell you, if you’ll appoint an interview.” + +“I’ll come too,” began Belwether, who had been listening, loose-mouthed +and intent; “we’re all in it--Howard, Kemp Ferrall, and I--” + +“And Stephen Siward,” observed Plank, so quietly that Quarrier never +even raised his eyes to read the stolid face opposite. + +Presently he said: “Do you know anybody who can deliver you any +considerable block of Amalgamated Electric at the market figures?” + +“I could deliver you several blocks, if you care to bid,” said Plank +bluntly. + +Belwether grew red, then pale. Quarrier stiffened in his chair, but his +eyes were only sceptical. Plank’s under lip had begun to protrude again; +he swung his massive head, looking from Belwether back to Quarrier: + +“Pool or no pool,” he continued, “you Amalgamated people will want to +see the stock climb back into the branches from which somebody shook it +out; and I propose to put it there. That is all I had meant to say to +you, Mr. Quarrier. I’m not averse to saying it here to you, and I do. +There’s no secrecy about it. Figure out for yourself how much stock I +control, and who let it go. Settle your family questions and put your +house in order; then invite me to call, and I’ll do it. And I have an +idea that we are going to stand on our own legs again, and recover our +self-respect and our fighting capacity; and I rather think we’ll stop +this hold-up business, and that our Inter-County friend will let go the +sand-bag and pocket the jimmy, and talk business across the line-fence.” + +Quarrier’s characteristic pallor was no index to his feelings, nor was +his icy reticence. All hell might be boiling below. + +When anybody gave Quarrier a letter to read he took a long time reading +it; but if he was slow he was also minute; he went over every word again +and again, studying, absorbing each letter, each period, the +conformation of every word. And when he ended he had in his brain a +photograph of the letter which he would never forget. + +And now, slowly, minutely, methodically, he was going over and over +Plank’s words, and his manner of saying them, and their surface import, +and the hidden one, if any. + +If Plank had spoken the truth--and there was no reason to doubt it--Plank +had quietly acquired a controlling interest in Amalgamated Electric. +That meant treachery in somebody. Who? Probably Siward, perhaps +Belwether. He would not look at the latter just yet; not for a minute or +two. There was time enough to see through that withered, pink-and-white +old fraud. But why had Plank done this? And why did Plank suspect him of +any desire to wreck his own property? He did suspect him, that was +certain. + +After a silence, he spoke quietly and without emotion: + +“Everybody concerned will be glad to see Amalgamated Electric declaring +dividends. This is a shock to us,” he glanced impassively at the +shrunken major, “but a pleasant shock. I think it well to arrange a +meeting as soon as possible.” + +“To-morrow,” said Plank, with a manner of closing discussion. And in his +brusque ending of the matter Quarrier detected the ringing undertone of +an authority he never had and never would endure; and though his pale, +composed features betrayed not the subtlest shade of emotion, he was +aware that a new element had come into his life--a new force was growing +out of nothing to confront him, an unfamiliar shape loomed vaguely +ahead, throwing its huge distorted shadow across his path. He sensed it +with the instinct of kind for kind, not because Plank’s millions meant +anything to him as a force; not because this lumbering, red-faced +meddler had blundered into a family affair where confidence consisted in +joining hands lest a pocket be inadvertently picked; not because Plank +had knocked at the door, expecting treachery to open, and had found it, +but because of the awful simplicity of the man and his methods. + +If Plank suspected him, he must also suspect him of complicity in the +Inter-County grab; he must suspect him of the ruthless crushing power +that corrupts or annihilates opposition, making a mockery of +legislation, a jest of the courts, and an epigram of a people’s +indignation. + +And yet, in the face of all this, careless, fearless, frank to the outer +verge of stupidity--which sometimes means the inability to be afraid--this +man Plank was casually telling him things which men regard as secrets +and as weapons of defence--was actually averting him of his peril, and +telling him almost contemptuously to pull up the drawbridge and prepare +for siege, instead of rushing the castle and giving it to the sack. + +As Quarrier sat there meditating, his long, white fingers caressing his +soft, pointed beard, Sylvia came in, greeting the men collectively with +a nod, and offering her hand to Plank. + +“Dinner is announced,” she said; “please go in farm fashion. Wait!” as +Plank, following the major and Quarrier, stood aside for her to pass. +“No, you go ahead, Howard; and you,” to the major. + +Left for a moment in the room with Plank, she stood listening to the +others descending the stairs; then: + +“Have you seen Mr. Siward?” + +“Yes,” said Plank. + +“Oh! Is he well?” + +“Not very.” + +“Is he well enough to read a letter, and to answer one?” + +“Oh, yes; he’s well enough in that way.” + +“I supposed so. That is why I said to you, over the wire, not to trouble +him with my request.” + +“You mean that I am not to say anything about your offer to buy the +hunter?” + +“No. If I make up my mind that I want the horse I’ll write him--perhaps.” + +Lingering still, she let one hand fall on the banisters, turning back +toward Plank, who was following: + +“I understood you to mean that--that Mr. Siward’s financial affairs were +anything but satisfactory?”--the sweet, trailing, upward inflection +making it a question. + +“When did I say that?” demanded Plank. + +“Once--a month ago.” + +“I didn’t,” said Plank bluntly. + +“Oh, I had inferred it, then, from something you said, or something you +were silent about. Is that it?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Am I quite wrong, then?” she asked, looking him in the eyes. + +And Plank, who never lied, found no answer. Considering him for a moment +in silence, she turned again and descended the stairs. + +The dinner was one of those thoroughly well-chosen dinners of few +courses and faultless service suitable for card-players, who neither +care to stuff themselves as a preliminary to a battle royal, nor to +dawdle through courses, eliminating for themselves what is not good for +them. The men drank a light, sound, aromatic Irish of the major’s; the +women--except Marion, who took what the men took--used claret sparingly. +Coffee was served where they sat; the men smoking, Agatha and Marion +producing their own cigarettes. + +“Don’t you smoke any more?” asked Grace Ferrall of Leila Mortimer, and +at the smiling negative, “Oh, that perhaps explains it. You’re growing +positively radiant, you know. You’ll he wearing a braid and a tuck in +your skirt if you go on getting younger.” + +Leila laughed, colouring up as Plank turned in his chair to look at her +closer. + +“No, it won’t rub off, Mr. Plank,” said Marion coolly, “but mine will. +This,” touching a faint spot of colour under her eyes, “is art.” + +“Pooh! I’m all art!” said Grace. “Observe, Mr. Plank, that under this +becoming flush are the same old freckles you saw at Shotover.” And she +laughed that sweet, careless laugh of an adolescent and straightened her +boyish figure, pretty head held high, adding: “Kemp won’t let me +‘improve’ myself, or I’d do it.” + +“You are perfect,” said Sylvia, rising from the table, her own lovely, +rounded, youthful figure condoning the exaggeration; “you’re +sufficiently sweet as you are. Good people, if you are ready, we will go +through the ceremony of cutting for partners--unless otherwise you +decide. How say you?” + +“I don’t care to enter the scramble for a man,” cried Grace. “If it’s to +choose, I’d as soon choose Marion.” + +Plank looked at Leila, who laughed. + +“All right; choose, then!” said Sylvia. “Howard, you’re dying, of +course, to play with me, but you’re looking very guiltily at Agatha.” + +The major asked Leila at once; so Plank fell to Sylvia, pitted against +Marion and Grace Ferrall. + +A few moments later the quiet of the library was broken by the butler +entering with decanters and ice, and glasses that tinkled frostily. + +Play began at table Number One on a passed make of no trumps by Sylvia, +and at the other table on a doubled and redoubled heart make, which sent +a delicate flush into Agatha’s face, and drove the last vestige of +lingering thoughtfulness from Quarrier’s, leaving it a tense, pallid, +and expressionless mask, out of which looked the velvet-fringed eyes of +a woman. + +Of all the faces there at the two tables, Sylvia’s alone had not +changed, neither assuming the gambler’s mask nor the infatuated glare of +the amateur. She was thoughtful, excited, delighted, or dismayed by +turns, but always wholesomely so; the game for its own sake, and not the +stakes, absorbing her, partly because she had never permitted herself to +weigh money and pleasure in the same balance, but kept a mental pair of +scales for each. + +As usual, the fever of gain was fiercest in those who could afford to +lose most. Quarrier, playing to rule with merciless precision, coldly +exacted every penalty that a lapse in his opponents permitted. Agatha, +her teeth set in her nether lip, her eyes like living jewels, answered +Quarrier’s every signal, interpreted every sign, her play fitting in +exactly with his, as though she were his subconscious self balancing the +perfectly adjusted mechanism of his body and mind. + +Now and then lifting her eyes, she sent a long, limpid glance at +Quarrier like a pale shaft of light; and under his heavy-fringed lashes, +at moments, his level gaze encountered her’s with a slow narrowing of +lids--as though there was more than one game in progress, more than one +stake being played for under the dull rose glow of the clustered lights. + +Sylvia, sitting dummy at the other tables mechanically alert to Plank’s +cards dropping in rapid sequence as he played alternately from his own +hand and the dummy, permitted her thoughtful eyes to wander toward +Agatha from moment to moment. How alluring her subtle beauty, in its own +strange way! How perfect her accord with her partner! How faultless her +intelligence, divining the very source of every hidden motive +controlling him, forestalling his intent--acquiescent, delicate, +marvellous intelligence--the esoteric complement of two parts of a single +mind. + +The collar of diamonds and aqua marines shimmered like the reflection of +shadowy lightning across her throat; a single splendid jewel glowed on +her left hand as her fingers flashed among the cards for the make-up. + +“A hundred aces,” broke in Plank’s heavy voice as he played the last +trick and picked up the scoring card and pencil. + +Sylvia’s blue eyes were laughing as Plank cut the new pack. Marion Page +coolly laid aside her cigarette, dealt, and made it “without” in the +original. + +“May I play?” asked Sylvia sweetly. + +“Please,” growled Plank. + +So Sylvia serenely played from the “top of nothing,” and Grace Ferrall +whisked a wonderful dummy across the green; and Plank’s thick under lip +began to protrude, and he lowered his heavy head like a bull at bay. + +Once Marion, over-intent, touched a card in the dummy when she should +have played from her own hand; and Sylvia would have let it pass, had +not Plank calmly noted the penalty. + +“Oh, dear! It’s too much like business,” sighed Sylvia. “Can’t we play +for the sake of the sport? I don’t think it good sportsmanship to profit +by a blunder.” + +“Rule,” observed Marion laconically. “’Ware barbed wire, if you want the +brush.” + +“I myself never was crazy for the brush,” murmured Sylvia. + +Grace whispered maliciously: “But you’ve got it, with the mask and +pads,” and her mischievous head barely tipped backward in the direction +of Quarrier. + +“Especially the mask,” returned Sylvia, under her breath, and laid on +the table the last card of a Yarborough. + +Plank scored without comment. Marion cut, and resumed her cigarette. +Sylvia dealt with that witchery of rounded wrists and slim fingers +fascinating to men and women alike. Then, cards en règle, passed the +make. Plank, cautiously consulting the score, made it spades, which +being doubled, Grace led a “singleton” ace, and Plank slapped down a +strong dummy and folded his great arms. + +Toward midnight, Sylvia, absorbed in her dummy, fancied she heard the +electric bell ringing at the front door. Later, having barely made the +odd, she was turning to look at the major, when, beyond him, she saw +Leroy Mortimer enter the room, sullen, pasty-skinned, but perfectly +sober and well groomed. + +“You are a trifle late,” observed Sylvia carelessly. Grace Ferrall and +Marion ignored him. Plank bade him good evening in a low voice. + +The people at the other table, having completed their rubber, looked +around at Mortimer in disagreeable surprise. + +“I’ll cut in, if you want me. If you don’t, say so,” observed Mortimer. + +It was plain that they did not; so he settled himself in an arm-chair, +with an ugly glance at his wife and an insolent one at Quarrier; and the +game went on in silence; Leila and the major still losing heavily under +the sneering gaze of Mortimer. + +At last, “Who’s carrying you?” he broke out, exasperated; and in the +shocked silence Leila, very white, made a movement to rise, but Quarrier +laid his long fingers across her arm, pressing her backward. + +“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he remarked, looking coldly at +Mortimer. + +Plank laid down his cards, rose, and walked over to Mortimer: + +“May I have a word with you?” he asked bluntly. + +“You may. And I’ll help myself to a word or two with you,” retorted +Mortimer, following Plank out of the room, down the stairs to the +lighted reception-room, where they wheeled, confronting one another. + +“What is the matter?” demanded Plank. “At the club they told me you were +asleep in the card-room. I didn’t tell Leila. What is wrong?” + +“I’m--I’m dead broke,” said Mortimer harshly. “Billy Fleetwood took my +paper. Can you help me out? It’s due to-morrow.” + +Plank looked at him gravely, but made no answer. + +“Can you? “repeated Mortimer violently. “Haven’t I done enough for you? +Haven’t I done enough for everybody? Is anybody going to show me any +consideration? Look at Quarrier’s manner to me just now! And this very +day I did him a service that all his millions can’t repay. And there you +stand, too, staring at me as though I were some damned importuning +shabby-genteel, hinting around for an opening to touch you. Yes, you do! +And this very day I have done for you the--the most vital thing--the most +sacred favour one man can do for another--” + +He halted, stammered something incoherent, his battered eyes wet with +tears. The man was a wreck--nerves, stamina, mind on the very verge of +collapse. + +“I’ll help you, of course,” said Plank, eyeing him. “Go home, now, and +sleep. I tell you I’ll help you in the morning. … Don’t give way! Have +you no grit? Pull up sharp, I tell you!” + +But Mortimer had fallen into a chair, his ravaged face cradled in his +hands. “I’ve got all that’s c-coming to me,” he said hoarsely; “I’m all +in--all in! God! but I’ve got the jumps this trip. … You’ll stand for +this, won’t you, Plank? I was batty, but I woke up in time to grasp the +live wire Billy Fleetwood held--three shocks in succession--and his were +queens full to my jacks--aces to kings twice!--Alderdene and Voucher +sitting in until they’d started me off hiking hellward!” + +He began to ramble, and even to laugh weakly, passing his puffy, shaking +hands across his eyes. + +“It’s good of you, Beverly; I appreciate it. But I’ve been good to you. +You’re all to the good, my boy! Understand? All to the good. I fixed it; +I did it for you. You can have your innings now. You can have her when +you want her, I tell you.” + +“What do you mean?” said Plank menacingly. + +“Mean! I mean what I told you that day at Black Fells, when we were +riding. I told you you had a chance to win out. Now the chance has +come--same’s I told you. Start in, and by the time you’re ready to say +‘When?’ she’ll be there with the bottle!” + +“I don’t think you are perfectly sane yet,” said Plank slowly. + +“Let it go at that, then,” sniggered Mortimer, struggling to his feet. +“Bring Leila back; I’m all in; I’m going home. You’ll be around in the +morning, won’t you?” + +“Yes,” said Plank. “Have you got a cab?” + +Mortimer had one. The glass and iron doors clanged behind him, and +Plank, waiting a moment, sighed, raised his head, and, encountering the +curious gaze of a servant, trudged off up-stairs again. + +The game had ended at both tables. Quarrier and Agatha stood by the +window together, conversing in low voices. Belwether, at a desk, sat +muttering and fussing with a cheque-book. The others were in Sylvia’s +apartments. + +A few moments later Kemp Ferrall arrived, in the best of spirits, very +much inclined to consider the night as still young; but his enthusiasm +met with no response, and presently he departed with his wife and Marion +in their big Mercedes, wheeling into the avenue at a reckless pace, and +streaming away through the night like a meteor run mad. + +Leila, in her wraps, emerged in a few moments, looking at Plank out of +serious eyes; and they made their brief adieux and went away in Plank’s +brougham. + +When Agatha’s maid arrived, Quarrier also started to take his leave; but +Sylvia, seated at a card-table, idly arranging the cards in geometrical +designs and fanciful arabesques, looked up at him, saying: + +“I wanted to say something to you, Howard.” + +Agatha passed them, going into Sylvia’s room for her wraps; and Quarrier +turned to Sylvia: + +“Well?” he said, with the slightest hint of impatience. + +“Can’t you stay a minute?” asked Sylvia, surprised. + +“Agatha is going in the motor with me. Is it anything important?” + +She considered him without replying. She had never before detected that +manner, that hardness in a voice always so even in quality. + +“What is it?” he repeated. + +She thought a moment, putting aside for the time his manner, which she +could not comprehend; then: + +“I wanted to ask you a question--a rather ignorant one, perhaps. It’s +about your Amalgamated Electric Company. May I ask it, Howard?” + +After a second’s stare, “Certainly,” he said. + +“It’s only this: If the other people--the Inter-County, I mean--are slowly +ruining Amalgamated, why don’t you stop it?” + +Quarrier’s eyes narrowed. “Oh! And who have you been discussing the +matter with?” + +“Mr. Plank,” she said simply. “I asked him. He shook his head, and said +I’d better ask you. And I do ask you.” + +For a moment he stood mute; then his lips began to shrink back over his +beautiful teeth in one of his rare laughs. + +“I’ll be very glad to explain it some day,” he said; but there was no +mirth in his voice or eyes, only the snickering lip wrinkling the +pallor. + +“Will you not answer now?” she asked. + +“No, not now. But I desire you to understand it some day--some day before +November. And one or two other matters that it is necessary for you to +understand. I want to explain them, Sylvia, in such a manner that you +will never be likely to forget them. And I mean to; for they are never +out of my mind, and I wish them to be as ineffaceably impressed on +yours. … Good night.” + +He took her limp hand almost briskly, released it, and stepped down the +stairs as Agatha entered, cloaked, to say good night. + +They kissed at parting--“life embracing death”--as Mortimer had sneered +on a similar occasion; then Sylvia, alone, stood in her bedroom, hands +linked behind her, her lovely head bent, groping with the very ghosts of +thought which eluded her, fleeing, vanishing, reappearing, to peep out +at her only to fade into nothing ere she could follow where they flitted +through the dark labyrinths of memory. + +The major, craning his neck in the bay-window, saw Agatha and Quarrier +enter the big, yellow motor, and disappear behind the limousine. And it +worried him horribly, because he knew perfectly well that Quarrier had +lied to him about a jewelled collar precisely like the collar worn by +Agatha Caithness; and what to do or what to say to anybody on the +subject was, for the first time in his life, utterly beyond his +garrulous ability. So, for the first time also in his chattering career, +he held his tongue, reassured at moments, at other moments panic- +stricken lest this marriage he had engineered should go amiss, and his +ambitions be nipped at the very instant of triumphant maturity. + +“This sort of thing--in your own caste--among your own kind,” his panicky +thoughts ran on, “is b-bad form--rotten bad taste on both sides. If they +were married--one of them, anyway! But this isn’t right; no, by gad! it’s +bad taste, and no gentleman could countenance it!” + +It was plain that he could, however, his only fear being that somebody +might whisper something to turn Sylvia’s innocence into a terrible +wisdom which would ruin everything, and knock the underpinning from the +new tower which his inflated fancy beheld slowly growing heavenward, +surmounting the house of Belwether. + +Another matter: he had violated his word, and had been caught at it by +his prospective nephew-in-law--broken his pledged word not to sell his +Amalgamated Electric holdings, and had done it. Yet, how could Plank +dominate, unless another also had done what he had done? And it made him +a little more comfortable to know he was sharing the fault with +somebody--probably with Siward, whom he now had the luxury of despising +for the very thing he himself had done. + +“Drunkard!” he muttered to himself; “he’s in the gutter at last!” + +And he repeated it unctuously, almost reconciled to his own shortcoming, +because it was the first time, as far as he knew, that a Belwether might +legitimately enjoy the pleasures of holding the word of a Siward in +contempt. + +Sylvia had dismissed her maid, the old feeling of distaste for the touch +of another had returned since the last mad, crushed embrace in Siward’s +arms had become a memory. More and more she was returning to old +instincts, old habits of thought, reverting to type once more, virgin of +lip and thought and desire, save when the old memory stopped her heart +suddenly, then sent it racing, touching her face with quick, crimson +imprint. + +Now, blue eyes dreaming under the bright masses of her loosened hair, +she sat watching the last glimmer amid the ashes whitening on the +hearth, thinking of Siward and of what had been between them, and of +what could never be--never, never be. + +One red spark among the ashes--her ambition, deathless amid the ashes of +life! When that, too, went out, life must be extinct. + +What he had roused in her had died when he went away. It could never +awake again, unless he returned to awaken it. And he never would; he +would never come again. + +One brief interlude of love, of passion, in her life could neither tint +nor taint the cool, normal sequence of her days. All that life held for +a woman of her caste--all save that--was hers when she stretched out her +hand for it--hers by right of succession, of descent; hers by warrant +unquestioned, by the unuttered text of the ukase to be launched, if +necessary, by that very, very old lady, drowsing, enthroned, as the +endless pageant wound like a jewelled river at her feet. + +So Siward could never come again, sauntering toward her through the +sunlight, smiling his absent smile. She caught her breath painfully, +straightening up; a single ash fell in the fire; the last spark went +out. + + + +CHAPTER XI THE CALL OF THE RAIN + +The park was very misty and damp and still that morning. + +There was a scent of sap and new buds in the February haze, a glimmer of +green on southern slopes, a distant bird note, tentative, then +confident, rippling from the gray tangle of naked thickets. Here and +there in hollows the tips of amber-tinted shoots pricked the soil’s dark +surface; here and there in the sparse woodlands a withered leaf still +clinging to oak or beech was forced to let go by the swelling bud at its +base and fell rustling stiffly in the silence. + +Far away on the wooded bridle-path the dulled double gallop of horses +sounded, now muffled in a hollow, now louder, jarring the rising ground, +nearer, heavier, then suddenly checked to a trample, as Sylvia drew +bridle by the reservoir, and, straightening in her saddle, raised her +flushed face to the sky. + +“Rain?” she asked, as Quarrier, controlling his beautiful, restive +horse, ranged up beside her. + +“Probably,” he said, scarcely glancing at the sky, where, above the +great rectangular lagoons, hundreds of sea-gulls, high in the air, hung +flapping, stemming some rushing upper gale unfelt below. + +She walked her mount, head lifted, watching the gulls; he followed, +uninterested, imperturbable in his finished horsemanship. With horses he +always appeared to advantage, whether on the box of break or coach, or +silently controlling a spike or tandem, or sitting his saddle in his +long-limbed, faultless fashion, maintaining without effort the very +essence of form. Here he was at his best, perfectly informal, informally +perfect. + +They had ridden every day since the weather permitted--even before it +permitted--thrashing and slashing through the rotting ice and snow, +galloping over the frozen, gravelly loam, amid leafless trees and a +winter-smitten perspective--drearier for the distant, eastern glimpse of +the avenue’s marble and limestone façades and the vast cliffs of masonry +and brick looming above the west and south. + +On these daily rides together it was her custom to discuss practical +matters concerning their future; and it was his custom to listen until +pressed for a suggestion, an assent, or a reply. + +Sparing words--cautious, chary of self-commitment, and seldom offering to +assume the initiative--this was the surface character which she had come +to recognise and acquiesce in; this was Quarrier as he had been +developed from her hazy, preconceived ideas of the man before she had +finally accepted him at Shotover the autumn before. She also knew him as +a methodical man, exacting from others the orderly precision which +characterised his own dealings; a man of education and little learning, +of attainments and little cultivation, conversant with usages, formal, +intensely sensitive to ridicule, incapable of humour. + +This was Quarrier as she knew him or had known him. Recently she had, +little by little, become aware of an indefinable change in the man. For +one thing, he had grown more reticent. At times, too, his reserve seemed +to have something almost surly about it; under his cold composure a hint +of something concealed, watchful, and very quiet. + +Confidences she had never looked for in him nor desired. It appalled her +at moments to realise how little they had in common, and that only on +the surface--a communion of superficial interest incident to the +fulfilment of social duties and the pursuit of pleasure. Beyond that she +knew nothing of him, required nothing of him. What was there to know? +what to require? + +Now that the main line of her route through life had been surveyed and +carefully laid out, what was there more for her in life than to set out +upon her progress? It was her own road. Presumptive leader already, +logical leader from the day she married--leader, in fact, when the ukase, +her future legacy, so decreed; it was a royal road laid out for her +through the gardens and pleasant places; a road for her alone, and over +it she had chosen to pass. What more was there to desire? + +From the going of Siward, all that he had aroused in her of love, of +intelligence, of wholesome desire and sane curiosity--the intellectual +restlessness, the capacity for passion, the renaissance of the simpler +innocence--had subsided into the laissez faire of dull quiescence. If in +her he had sown, imprudently, subtle, impulsive, unworldly ideas, +flowering into sudden brilliancy in the quick magic of his +companionship, now those flowers were dead under the inexorable winter +of her ambition, where all such things lay; her lonely childhood, with +its dimmed visions of mother-love ineffable; the strange splendour of +the dreams haunting her adolescence--pageants of bravery and the glitter +of the cross, altars of self-denial and pure intent, service and +sacrifice and the scorn of wrong; and sometimes, seen dimly with +enraptured eyes through dissolving mists--the man! glimmering for an +instant, then fading, resolved into the starry void which fashioned him. + + +Riding there, head bent, her pulses timing the slow pacing of her horse, +she presently became aware, without looking up, that Quarrier was +watching her. Dreams vanished. A perfectly unreasonable sense of being +spied upon, of something stealthy about it all, flashed to her mind and +was gone, leaving her grave and perplexed. What a strange suspicion! +What an infernal inference! What grotesque train of thought could have +culminated in such a sinister idea! + +She moved slightly in her saddle to look at him, and for an instant +fancied that there was something furtive in his eyes; only for an +instant, for he quietly picked up the thread of conversation where she +had dropped it, saying that it had been raining for the last ten +minutes, and that they might as well turn their horses toward shelter. + +“I don’t mind the rain,” she said; “there is a spring-like odour in it. +Don’t you notice it?” + +“Not particularly,” he replied. + +“I was miles away a moment ago,” she said; “years away, I mean--a little +girl again, with two stiff yellow braids, trying to pretend that a big +arm-chair was my mother’s lap and that I could hear her whispering to +me. And there I sat, on a day like this, listening, pretending, cuddled +up tight, and looking out at the first rain of the year falling in the +backyard. There was an odour like this about it all. Memory, they say, +is largely a matter of nose!” She laughed, fearing that be might have +thought her sentimental, already regretting the familiarity of thrusting +such trivial and personal incidents upon his notice. He was probably too +indifferent to comment on it, merely nodding as she ended. + +Then, without reason, through and through her shot a shiver of +loneliness--utter loneliness and isolation. Without reason, because from +him she expected nothing, required nothing, except what he offered--the +emotionless reticence of indifference, the composure of perfect +formality. What did she want, then--companions? She had them. Friends? +She could scarcely escape from them. Intimates? She had only to choose +one or a hundred attuned responsive to her every mood, every caprice. +Lonely? With the men of New York crowding, shouldering, crushing their +way to her feet? Lonely? With the women of New York struggling already +for precedence in her favour?--omen significant of the days to come, of +those future years diamond-linked in one unbroken, triumphant glitter. + +Lonely! + +The rain was falling out of the hanging mist, something more than a +drizzle now. Quarrier spoke of it again, but she shook her head, walking +her horse slowly onward. The train of thought she followed was slower +still, winding on and on, leading her into half light and shadow, and in +and out through hidden trails she should have known by this time--always +on, skirting the objective, circling it through sudden turns. And now +she was becoming conscious of the familiar way; now she recognised the +quiet, still by-ways of the maze she seemed doomed to wander in forever. +But, for that matter, all paths of thought were alike to her, for, +sooner or later, all ultimately led to him; and this she was already +aware of as a disturbing phenomenon to consider and account for and to +provide against--when she had leisure. + +“About that Amalgamated Electric Company,” she began without prelude; +“would you mind answering a question or two, Howard?” + +“You could not understand it,” he said, unpleasantly disturbed by her +abruptness. + +“As you please. It is quite true I can make nothing of what the +newspapers are saying about it, except that Mr. Plank seems to be doing +a number of things.” + +“Injunctions, and other matters,” observed Quarrier. + +“Is anybody going to lose any money in it?” + +“Who, for example?” + +“Why--you, for example,” she said, laughing. + +“I don’t expect to.” + +“Then it is going to turn out all right? And Mr. Plank and Kemp Ferrall +and the major and--the other people interested, are not going to be +almost ruined by the Inter-County people?” + +“Do you think a man like Plank is likely to be ruined, as you say, by +Amalgamated Electric?” + +“No. But Kemp and the major--” + +“I think the major is out of danger,” replied Quarrier, looking at her +with the new, sullen narrowing of his eyes. + +“I am glad of that. Is Kemp--and the others?” + +“Ferrall could stand it if matters go wrong. What others?” + +“Why--the other owners and stockholders--” + +“What others? Who do you mean?” + +“Mr. Siward, for example,” she said in an even voice, leaning over to +pat her horse’s neck with her gloved hand. + +“Mr. Siward must take the chances we all take,” observed Quarrier. + +“But, Howard, it would really mean ruin for him if matters went badly. +Wouldn’t it?” + +“I am not familiar with the details of Mr. Siward’s investments.” + +“Nor am I,” she said slowly. + +He made no reply. + +Lack of emotion in the man beside her she always expected, and therefore +this new, sullen note in his voice perplexed her. Too, at times, in his +increasing reticence there seemed to be almost a hint of cold +effrontery. She felt it now--an indefinite suggestion of displeasure and +the power to retaliate; something evasive, watchful, patiently hostile; +and, try as she might, she could not rid herself of the discomfort of +it, and the perplexity. + +She spoke about other things; he responded in his impassive manner. +Presently she turned her horse and Quarrier wheeled his, facing a warm, +fine rain, slanting thickly from the south. + +His silky, Vandyke beard was all wet with the moisture. She noticed it, +and unbidden arose the vision of the gun-room at Shotover: Quarrier’s +soft beard wet with rain; the phantoms of people passing and repassing; +Siward’s straight figure swinging past, silhouetted against the glare of +light from the billiard-room. And here she made an effort to efface the +vision, shutting her eyes as she rode there in the rain. But clearly +against the closed lids she saw the phantoms passing--spectres of dead +hours, the wraith of an old happiness masked with youth and wearing +Siward’s features! + +She must stop it! What was all this crowding in upon her as she rode +forward through the driving rain--all this resurgence of ghosts long +laid, long exorcised? Had the odour of the rain stolen her senses, +awakening memory of childish solitude? Was it that which was drugging +her with remembrance of Siward and the rattle of rain in the bay-window +above the glass-roofed swimming-pool? + +She opened her eyes wide, staring straight ahead into the thickening +rain; but her thoughts were loosened now, tuned to the increasing rhythm +of her heart: and she saw him seated there, his head buried in his hands +as she stole through the dim corridors to her first tryst; saw him look +up; saw herself beside him among the cushions; tasted again the rose- +petals that her lips had stripped from the blossoms; saw once more the +dawn of something in his steady eyes; felt his arm about her, his +breath-- + +Her horse, suddenly spurred, bounded forward through the rain, and she +rode breathless, with lips half parted, as if afraid, turning her head +to look behind--as though she could outride the phantom clinging to her +stirrup, masked like youth, wearing the shadowy eyes of Love! + + +In her drenched habit, standing before her dressing-room fire, she heard +her maid soliciting entrance, and paid no heed, the door being locked--as +though a spectre could be bolted out of rooms and houses! Pacing the +floor, restless, annoyed, and dismayed by turns, she flung her wet skirt +and coat from her, piece by piece, and stood for awhile, like some +slender youth in riding breeches and shirt, facing the fire, her fingers +resting on her hips. + +In the dull light of a rainy noon-day the fire reddened the ceiling, +throwing her giant shadow across the wall, where it towered, swaying, +like a ghost above her. She caught sight of it over her shoulder, and +watched it absently; then gazed into the coals again, her chin dropping +on her bared chest. + +At her maid’s repeated knocking she turned, her boots and the single +spur sparkling in the firelight, and opened the door. + +An hour later, fresh from her bath, luxurious in loose and filmy lace, +her small, white feet shod with silk, she lunched alone, cradled among +the cushions of her couch. + +Twice she strolled through the rooms leisurely, summoned by her maid to +the telephone; the first time to chat with Grace Ferrall, who, it +appeared, was a victim of dissipation, being still abed, and out of +humour with the rainy world; the second time to answer in the negative +Marion’s suggestion that she motor to Lakewood with her for the week’s +end before they closed their house. + +Sauntering back again, she sipped her milk and vichy, tasted the +strawberries, tasted a big black grape, discarded both, and lay back +among the cushions, her naked arms clasped behind her head, and dropping +one knee over the other, stared at the ceiling. + +Restlessness and caprice ruled her. She seldom smoked, but seeing on the +table a stray cigarette of the sort she kept for any intimates who might +desire them, she stretched out her arm, scratched a match, and lighted +it with a dainty grimace. + +Lying there, she tried to make rings; but the smoke only got into her +delicate uptilted nose and stung her tongue, and she very soon had +enough of her cigarette. + +Watching the slow fire consume it between her fingers she lay supine, +following the spirals of smoke with inattentive eyes. By-and-by the +lengthening ash fell, powdering her, and she threw the cigarette into +the grate, flicked the ashes from her bare, round arm, and, clasping her +hands under her neck, turned over and closed her eyes. + +Sleep?--with every pulse awake and throbbing, every heart-beat sending +the young blood rushing out through a body the incarnation of youth and +life itself! There was a faint flush in the hollow of each upturned +palm, where the fingers like relaxed petals curled inward; a deepening +tint in the parted lips; and under the lids, through the dusk of the +lashes, a glimmer of blue. + +Lying there, veiled gaze conscious of the rose-light which glowed and +waned on the ceiling, she awaited the flowing tide on which so often she +had embarked and drifted out into that golden gloom serene, where, +spirit becalmed, Time and Grief faded, and Desire died out upon the +unshadowed sea of dreams. + +It is long waiting for the tide when the wakeful heart beats loudly, +when the pulses quicken at a memory, and the thousand idle little +cellules of the brain, long sealed, long unused, and consigned to the +archives of What Is Ended, open one by one, releasing each its own +forgotten ghost. + +And how can the heart rest, the pulse sleep, startled to a flutter, as +one by one the tiny cells unclose unbidden, and the dead remembrance, +from its cerements freed, brightens to life? + +Words he had used, the idle lifting of his head, the forgotten +inflection of his voice, the sunlight on his hair and the sea-wind +stirring it; his figure as it turned to move away, the half-caught echo +of his laugh, faint, faint!--so that her own ears, throbbing, strained to +listen; the countless unimportant moments she had thought unmarked, yet +carefully stored up, without her knowledge, in the magic cellules of her +brain--all, all were coming back to life, more and more distinct, +startlingly clear. + +And she lay like one afraid to move, lest her stirring waken a vague +something that still slept, something she dared not arouse, dared not +meet face to face, even in dreams. An interval--perhaps an hour, perhaps +a second--passed, leaving her stranded so close to the shoals of slumber +that sleep passed only near enough to awaken her. + +The room was very still and dim, but the clamour in her brain unnerved +her, and she sat up among the cushions, looking vacantly about her with +the blue, confused eyes, the direct, unseeing gaze of a child roused by +a half-heard call. + +The call--low, imperative, sustained--continued softly persistent against +her windows--the summons of the young year’s rain. + +She went to the window and stood among the filmy curtains, looking out +into the mist; a springlike aroma penetrated the room. She opened the +window a little way, and the sweet, virile odour enveloped her. + +A thousand longings rose within her; unnumbered wistful questions +stirred her, sighing, unanswered. + +Aware that her lips were moving unconsciously, she listened to the words +forming automatic repetitions of phrases long forgotten: + +“And those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the door shall +be shut in the streets.” + +What was it she was repeating? + +“Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in +the way.” + +What echo of the past was this? + +“… And desire shall fail: because--” + +Intent, absorbed in retracing the forgotten sequence to its source, she +stood, breathing the thickening incense of the rain; and every breath +was drawing her backward, nearer, nearer to the source of memory. Ah, +the cliff chapel in the rain!--the words of a text mumbled deafly--the +yearly service for those who died at sea! And she, seated there in the +chapel dusk thinking of him who sat beside her, and how he feared a +heavier, stealthier, more secret tide crawling, purring about his feet! + +Enfin! Always, always at the end of everything, He! Always, reckoning +step by step, backward through time, He! the source, the inception, the +meaning of all! + +Unmoored at last, her spirit swaying, enveloped in memories of him, she +gave herself to the flood--overwhelmed, as tide on tide rose, rushing +over her--body, mind, and soul. + +She closed her eyes, leaning there heavily amid the cloudy curtains; she +moved back into the room and stood staring at space through wet lashes. +The hard, dry pulse in her throat hurt her till her under lip, freed +from the tyranny of her small teeth, slipped free, quivering rebellion. + +She had been walking her room to and fro, to and fro, for a long time +before she realised that she had moved at all. + +And now, impulse held the helm; a blind, unreasoning desire for relief +hurried into action on the wings of impulse. + +There was a telephone at her elbow. No need to hunt through lists to +find a number she had known so long by heart--the three figures which had +reiterated themselves so often, monotonously insistent, slyly +persuasive; repeating themselves even in her dreams, so that she awoke +at times shivering with the vision in which she had listened to +temptation, and had called to him across the wilderness of streets and +men. + + +“Is he at home?” + +“--!” + +“Would you ask him to come to the telephone?” + +“--!” + +“Please say to him that it is a--a friend. … Thank you.” + +In the throbbing quiet of her room she heard the fingers of the prying +rain busy at her windows; the ticking of the small French clock, very +dull, very far away--or was it her heart? And, faintly ringing in the +receiver pressed against her ear, millions of tiny stirrings, sounds +like instruments of an elfin orchestra tuning, echoes as of steps +passing through the halls of fairy-land, a faint confusion of human-like +tones; then: + +“Who is it?” + +Her voice left her for an instant; her dry lips made no answer. + +“Who is it?” he repeated in his steady, pleasant voice. + +“It is I.” + +There was absolute silence--so long that it frightened her. But before +she could speak again his voice was sounding in her ears, patient, +unconvinced: + +“I don’t recognise your voice. Who am I speaking to?” + +“Sylvia.” + +There was no response, and she spoke again: + +“I only wanted to say good morning. It is afternoon now; is it too late +to say good morning?” + +“No. I’m badly rattled. Is it you, Sylvia?” + +“Indeed it is. I am in my own room. I--I thought--” + +“Yes, I am listening.” + +“I don’t know what I did think. Is it necessary for me to telephone you +a minute account of the mental processes which ended by my calling you +up--out of the vasty deep?” + +The old ring in her voice hinting of the laughing undertone, the same +trailing sweetness of inflection--could he doubt his senses any longer? + +“I know you, now,” he said. + +“I should think you might. I should very much like to know how you +are--if you don’t mind saying?” + +“Thank you. I seem to be all right. Are you all right, Sylvia?” + +“Shamefully and outrageously well. What a season, too! Everybody else is +in rags--make-up rags! Isn’t that a disagreeable remark? But I’ll come to +the paint-brush too, of course. … We all do. Doesn’t anybody ever see +you any more?” + +She heard him laugh to himself unpleasantly; then: “Does anybody want +to?” + +“Everybody, of course! You know it. You always were spoiled to death.” + +“Yes--to death.” + +“Stephen!” + +“Yes? “ + +“Are you becoming cynical?” + +“I? Why should I?” + +“You are! Stop it! Mercy on us! If that is what is going on in a certain +house on lower Fifth Avenue, facing the corner of certain streets, it’s +time somebody dropped in to--” + +“To--what?” + +“To the rescue! I’ve a mind to do it myself. They say you are not well, +either.” + +“Who says that?” + +“Oh, the usual little ornithological cockatrice--or, rather, cantatrice. +Don’t ask me, because I won’t tell you. I always tell you too much, +anyway. Don’t I?” + +“Do you?” + +“Of course I do. Everybody spoils you and so do I.” + +“Yes--I am rather in that way, I suppose.” + +“What way?” + +“Oh--spoiled.” + +“Stephen!” + +“Yes?” + +And in a lower voice: “Please don’t say such things--will you?” + +“No.” + +“Especially to me.” + +“Especially to you. No, I won’t, Sylvia.” + +And, after a hesitation, she continued sweetly: + +“I wonder what you were doing, all alone in that old house of yours, +when I called you up?” + +“I? Let me see. Oh, I was superintending some packing.” + +“Are you going off somewhere?” + +“I think so.” + +“Where?” + +“I don’t know, Sylvia.” + +“Stephen, how absurd! You must know where you are going! If you mean +that you don’t care to tell me--” + +“I mean--that.” + +“I decline to be snubbed. I’m shameless, and I wish to be informed. +Please tell me.” + +“I’d rather not tell you.” + +“Very well. … Good-bye. … But don’t ring off just yet, Stephen. … Do you +think that, sometime, you would care to see--any people--I mean when you +begin to go out again?” + +“Who, for example?” + +“Why, anybody?” + +“No; I don’t think I should care to.” + +“I wish you would care to. It is not well to let go every tie, drop +everybody so completely. No man can do that to advantage. It would be so +much better for you to go about a bit--see and be seen, you know; just to +meet a few people informally; go to see some pretty girl you know well +enough to--to--” + +“To what? Make love to?” + +“That would he very good for you,” she said. + +“But not for the pretty girl. Besides, I’m rather too busy to go about, +even if I were inclined to.” + +“Are you really busy, Stephen?” + +“Yes--waiting. That is the very hardest sort of occupation. And I’m +obliged to be on hand every minute.” + +“But you said that you were going out of town.” + +“Did I? Well, I did not say it, exactly, but I am going to leave town.” + +“For very long?” she asked. + +“Perhaps. I can’t tell yet.” + +“Stephen, before you go--if you are going for a very, very long +while--perhaps you will--you might care to say good-bye?” + +“Do you think it best?” + +“No,” she said innocently; “but if you care--” + +“Do you care to have me?” + +“Yes, I do.” + +There was a silence; and when his voice sounded again it had altered: + +“I do not think you would care to see me, Sylvia. I--they say I am--I +have--changed--since my--since a slight illness. I am not over it yet, not +cured--not very well yet; and a little tired, you see--a little shaken. I +am leaving New York to--to try once more to be cured. I expect to be +well--one way or another--” + +“Stephen, where are you going? Answer me!” + +“I can’t answer you.” + +“Is your illness serious? “ + +“A--it is--it requires some--some care.” + +Her fingers tightening around the receiver whitened to the delicate +nails under the pressure. Mute, struggling with the mounting impulse, +voice and lip unsteady, she still spoke with restraint: + +“You say you require care? And what care have you? Who is there with +you? Answer me!” + +“Why--everybody; the servants. I have care enough.” + +“Oh, the servants! Have you a physician to advise you?” + +“Certainly--the best in the world. Sylvia, dea--, Sylvia, I didn’t mean to +give you an impression--” + +“Stephen, I will have you truthful with me! I know perfectly well you +are ill. I--if I could only--if there was something, some way--Listen: I +am--I am going to do something about it, and I don’t care very much what +I do!” + +“What sweet nonsense!” he laughed, but his voice was no steadier than +hers. + +“Will you drive with me?” she asked impulsively, “some afternoon--” + +“Sylvia, dear, you don’t really want me to do it. Wait, listen: I--I’ve +got to tell you that--that I’m not fit for it. I’ve got to be honest with +you; I am not fit, not in physical condition to go out just yet. I’ve +really been ill--for weeks. Plank has been very nice to me. I want to get +well; I mean to try very hard. But the man you knew--is--changed.” + +“Changed?” + +“Not in that way!” he said in a slow voice. + +“H-how, then?” she stammered, all a-thrill. + +“Nerve gone--almost. Going to get it back again, of course. Feel a +million times better already for talking with you.” + +“Do--does it really help?” + +“It’s the only panacea for me,” he said too quickly to consider his +words. + +“The only one?” she faltered. “Do you mean to say that your +trouble--illness--has anything to do with--” + +“No, no! I only--” + +“Has it, Stephen?” + +“No!” + +“Because, if I thought--” + +“Sylvia, I’m not that sort! You mustn’t talk to me that way. There’s +nothing to be sorry for about me. Any man may lose his nerve, and, if he +is a man, go after it and get it back again. Every man has a fighting +chance. You said it yourself once--that a man mustn’t ask for a fighting +chance; he must take it. And I’m going to take it and win out one way or +another.” + +“What do you mean by ‘another,’ Stephen?” + +“I--Nothing. It’s a phrase.” + +“What do you mean? Answer me!” + +“It’s a phrase,” he said again; “no meaning, you know.” + +“Stephen, Mr. Plank says that you are lame.” + +“What did he say that for?” demanded Siward wrathfully. + +“I asked him. Kemp saw you on crutches at your window. So I asked Mr. +Plank, and he said you had discarded your crutches too soon and had +fallen and lamed yourself again. Are you able to walk yet?” + +“Yes, of course.” + +“Outdoors?” + +“A--no, not just yet.” + +“In other words, you are practically bedridden.” + +“No, no! I can get about the room very well.” + +“You couldn’t go down-stairs--for an hour’s drive, could you?” + +“Can’t manage that for awhile,” he said hastily. + +“Oh, the vanity of you, Stephen Siward! the vanity! Ashamed to let me +see you when you are not your complete and magnificently attractive +self! Silly, I shall see you! I shall drive down on the first sunny +morning and sit outside in my victoria until you can’t stand the +temptation another instant. I’m going to do it. You cannot stop me; +nobody can stop me. I desire to do it, and that is sufficient, I think, +for everybody concerned. If the sun is out to-morrow, I shall be out +too! … I am so tired of not seeing you! Let central listen! I don’t +care. I don’t care what I am saying. I’ve endured it so long--I--There’s +no use! I am too tired of it, and I want to see you. … Can’t we see each +other without--without--thinking about things that are settled once and +for all?” + +“I can’t,” he said. + +“Then you’d better learn to! Because, if you think I’m going through +life without seeing you frequently you are simple! I’ve stood it too +long at a time. I won’t go through this sort of thing again! You’d +better be amiable; you’d better be civil to me, or--or--nobody on earth +can tell what will happen! The idea of you telling me you had lost your +nerve! You’ve got to get it back--and help me find mine! Yes, it’s gone, +gone, gone! I lost it in the rain, somewhere, to-day. … Does the scent +of the rain come in at your window? … Do you remember--There! I can’t +say it. … Good-bye. Good-bye. You must get well and I must, too. Good- +bye.” + + +The fruit of her imprudence was happiness--an excited happiness, which +lasted for a day. The rain lasted, too, for another day, then turned to +snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the +great blizzard--blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying +squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling +like wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars +halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy +wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; +and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men +with pick and shovel struggled with the drifts in Fifth Avenue and +Broadway. Then the storm ended at daybreak. + +All day long squadrons of white gulls wheeled and sailed in the sky +above the snowy expanse of park where the great, rectangular sheets of +water glimmered black in their white setting. As she sat at her desk she +could see them drifting into and out of the gray squares of sky framed +by her window-panes. Two days ago she had seen them stemming the sky +blasts, heralding the coming of unfelt tempests, flapping steadily +through the fragrant rain. Now, the false phantom which had mimicked +spring turned on the world the glassy glare of winter, stupefying hope, +stunning desire, clogging the life essence in all young, living things. +The first vague summons, the restlessness of awakening aspiration, the +first delicate, indrawn breath, were stilled to deathly immobility. + +Sylvia, at her escritoire, chin cradled in her hollowed hand, sat +listlessly inspecting her mail--the usual pile of bills and +advertisements, social demands and interested appeals, with here and +there a frivolous note from some intimate to punctuate the endless +importunities. + +Her housekeeper had come and gone; the Belwether establishment could jog +through another day. Various specialists, who cared for the health and +beauty of her body, had entered and made their unctuous exits. The major +had gone to Tuxedo for the week’s end; her maid had bronchitis; two +horses required the veterinary, and the kitchen range a new water-back. + +Cards had come for the Caithness function; cards for young Austin +Wadsworth’s wedding to a Charleston girl of rumoured beauty; Caragnini +was to sing for Mrs. Vendenning; a live llama, two-legged, had consented +to undermine Christianity for Mrs. Pyne-Johnson and her guests. + +“Would Sylvia be ready for the inspection of imported head-gears to +harmonise with the gowns being built by Constantine? + +“When-- + +“Would she receive the courteous agent of ‘The Reigning Beauties of +Manhattan,’ to arrange for her portrait and biographical sketch? + +“When-- + +“Would she realise that Jefferson B. Doty could turn earth into heaven +for any young chatelaine by affixing to the laundry his anti-microbe +drying machine emitting sixty sterilised hot-air blasts in thirty +seconds, at a cost of one-tenth of one mill per blast? + +“And when--” + +But she turned her head, looking wearily across the room at the brightly +burning fire beside which Mrs. Ferrall sat, nibbling mint-paste, very +serious over one of those books that “everybody was reading.” + +“How far have you read?” inquired Sylvia without interest, turning over +a new letter to cut with her paper-knife. + +Grace ruffled the uncut pages of her book without looking up, then +yawned shamelessly: “She’s decided to try living with him for awhile, +and if they find life agreeable she’ll marry him. … Pleasant situation, +isn’t it? Nice book, very; and they say that somebody is making a play +of it. I”--She yawned again, showing her small, brilliant teeth--“I +wonder what sort of people write these immoral romances!” + +“Probably immoral people,” said Sylvia indifferently. “Drop it on the +coals, Grace.” + +But Mrs. Ferrall reopened the book where she had laid her finger to mark +the place. “Do you think so?” she asked. + +“Think what?” + +“That rotten books and plays come from morally rotten people?” + +“I don’t think about it at all,” observed Sylvia, opening another letter +impatiently. + +“You’re probably not very literary,” said Grace mischievously. + +“Not in that way, I suppose.” + +Mrs. Ferrall took another bonbon: “Did you see ‘Mrs. Lane’s +Experiment’?” + +“I did,” said Sylvia, looking up, the pink creeping into her cheeks. + +“You thought it very strong, I suppose?” asked Grace innocently. + +“I thought it incredible.” + +“But, dear, it was sheer realism! Why blink at truth? And when an author +has the courage to tell facts why not have the courage to applaud?” + +“If that is truth, it doesn’t concern me,” said Sylvia. “Grace, why will +you pose, even if you are married? for you have a clean mind, and you +know it!” + +“I know it,” sighed Mrs. Ferrall, closing her book again, but keeping +the place with her finger; “and that’s why I’m so curious about all +these depraved people. I can’t understand why writers have not found out +that we women are instinctively innocent, even after we are obliged to +make our morality a profession and our innocence an art. They all hang +their romances to motives that no woman recognises as feminine; they +ascribe to us instincts which we do not possess, passions of which we +are ignorant--a ridiculous moral turpitude in the overmastering presence +of love. Pooh! If they only knew what a small part love plays with us, +after all!” + +Sylvia said slowly: “It sometimes plays a small part, after all.” + +“Always,” insisted Grace with emphasis. “No carefully watched girl knows +what it is, whatever her suspicions may be. When she marries, if she +doesn’t marry from family pressure or from her own motives of common- +sense ambition, she marries because she likes the man, not because she +loves him.” + +Sylvia was silent. + +“Because, even if she wanted to love him,” continued Grace, “she would +not know how. It’s the ingrained innocence which men encounter that they +don’t allow for or understand in us. Even after we are married, and +whether or not we learn to love our husbands, it remains part of us as +an educated instinct; and it takes all the scientific, selfish +ruthlessness of a man to break it down. That’s why I say so few among us +ever comprehend the motives attributed to us in romance or in that +parody of it called realism. Love is rarer with us than men could ever +believe--and I’m glad of it,” she said maliciously, with a final snap of +her pretty teeth. + +“It was on that theory you advised me, I think,” said Sylvia, looking +into the fire. + +“Advised you, child?” + +“Yes--about accepting Howard.” + +“Certainly. Is it not a sound theory? Doesn’t it stand inspection? +Doesn’t it wear?” + +“It--wears,” said Sylvia indifferently. Grace looked up from her open +book. “Is anything amiss?” she asked. + +“I don't know.” + +“Of course you know, child. What is wrong? Has Howard made himself +insufferable? He’s a master at it. Has he?” + +“No; I don’t remember that he has. … I’m tired, physically. I’m tired of +the winter.” + +“Go to Florida for Lent.” + +“Horror! It’s as stupid as a hothouse. It isn’t that, either, dear--only, +when it was raining so deliciously the other day I was silly enough to +think I scented the spring in the park. I was glad of a change you know +--any excuse to stop this eternal carnival I live in.” + +“What is the matter?” demanded Mrs. Ferrall, withdrawing her finger from +the pages and plumping the closed book down on her knee. “You’d better +tell me, Sylvia; you might just as well tell me now as later when my +persistence has vexed us both. Now, what has happened?” + +“I have been--imprudent,” said Sylvia, in a low voice. + +“You mean,”--Mrs. Ferrall looked at her keenly--“that he has been here?” + +“No. I telephoned him; and I asked him to drive with me.” + +“Oh, Sylvia, what nonsense! Why on earth do you stir yourself up by that +sort of silliness at this late date? What use is it? Can’t you let him +alone?” + +“I--No, I can’t, it seems. Grace, I was--I felt so--so strangely about it +all.” + +“About what, little idiot?” + +“About leaving him--alone.” + +“Are you Stephen Siward’s keeper?” demanded Mrs. Ferrall, exasperated. + +“I felt as though I were, for awhile. He is ill.” + +“With an illness that, thank God, you are not going to nurse through +life. Don’t look at me that way, dear. I’m obliged to speak harshly; I’m +obliged to harden my heart to such a monstrous idea. You know I love +you; you know I care deeply for that poor boy--but do you think I could +be loyal to either of you and not say what I do say? He is doomed, as +sure as you sit there! He has fallen, and no one can help him. Link +after link he has broken with his own world; his master-vice holds him +faster, closer, more absolutely, than hell ever held a lost soul!” + +“Grace, I cannot endure--” + +“You must! Are you trying to drug your silly self with romance so you +won’t recognise truth when you see it? Are you drifting back into old +impulses, unreasoning whims of caprice? Have you forgotten what I know +of you, and what you know of yourself? Is the taint of your transmitted +inheritance beginning to show in you--the one woman of your race who is +fashioned to withstand it and stamp it out?” + +“I am mistress of my emotions,” said Sylvia, flushing. + +“Then suppress them,” retorted Grace Ferrall hotly, “before they begin +to bully you. There was no earthly reason for you to talk to Stephen. No +disinterested impulse moved you. It was a sheer perverse, sentimental +restlessness--the delicate, meddlesome deviltry of your race. And if that +poison is in you, it’s well for you to know it.” + +“It is in me,” said Sylvia, staring at the fire. + +“Then you know what to do for it.” + +“No, I don’t.” + +“Well, I do,” said Grace decisively; “and the sooner you marry Howard +and intrench yourself behind your pride, the better off you’ll be. +That’s where, fortunately enough, you differ from your ancestors; you +are unable to understand marital treachery. Otherwise you’d make it +lively for us all.” + +“It is true,” said Sylvia deliberately, “that I could not be treacherous +to anybody. But I am wondering; I am asking myself just what constitutes +treachery to myself.” + +“Sentimentalising over Stephen might fill the bill,” observed Grace +tartly. + +“But it doesn’t seem to,” mused Sylvia, her blue gaze on the coals. +“That is what I do not understand. I have no conscience concerning what +I feel for him.” + +“What do you feel?” + +“I was in love with him. You knew it.” + +“You liked him,” insisted Grace patiently. + +“No--loved him. I know. Dear, your theories are sound in a general way, +but what is a girl going to do about it when she loves a man? You say a +young girl can’t love--doesn’t know how. But I do love, though it is true +that I don’t know how to love very wisely. What is the use in denying +it? This winter has been a deafening, stupefying fever to me. The sheer +noise of it stunned me until I forgot how I did feel about anything. +Then--I don’t know--somehow, in the rain out there, I began to wake … +Dear, the old instincts, the old desires, the old truths, came back out +of chaos; that full feeling here”--she laid her fingers on her throat +--“the sense of expectancy, the restless hope growing out of torpid +acquiescence--all returned; and, dearest, with them all came memories of +him. What am I to do? Could you tell me?” + +For a long while Mrs. Ferrall sat in troubled silence, her hand shading +her eyes. Sylvia, leaning over her desk, idling with pen and pencil, +looked around from time to time, as though awaiting the opinion of some +specialist who, in full possession of the facts, now had become +responsible for the patient. + +“If you marry him,” said Mrs. Ferrall quietly, “your life will become a +hell.” + +“Yes. But would it make life any easier for him?” asked Sylvia. + +“How--to know that you had been dragged down?” + +“No. I mean could I do anything for him?” + +“No woman ever did. That is a sentimental falsehood of the emotional. No +woman ever did help a man in that way. Sylvia, if love were the only +question, and if you do truly love him, I--well, I suppose I’d be fool +enough to advise you to be a fool. Even then you’d be sorry. You know +what your future may be; you know what you are fitted for. What can you +do without Howard? In this town your rôle would be a very minor one +without Howard’s money, and you know it.” + +“Yes, I know it.” + +“And your sacrifice could not help that doomed boy.” + +Sylvia nodded assent. + +“Then, is there any choice? Is there any question of what to do?” + +Sylvia looked out into the winter sky, through the tops of snowy trees; +everywhere the stark, deathly rigidity of winter. Under it, frozen, lay +the rain that had scented the air. Under her ambition lay the ghosts of +yesterday. + +“No,” she said, “there is no question of choice. I know what must be.” + +Grace, seated in the firelight, looked up as Sylvia rose from her desk +and came across the room; and when she sank down on the rug at her feet, +resting her cheek against the elder woman’s knees, nothing was said for +a long time--a time of length sufficient to commit a memory to its grave, +lay it away decently and in quiet befitting. + +Sore doubt assailed Grace Ferrall, guiltily aware that once again she +had meddled; and in the calm tenor of her own placid, marital +satisfaction, looking backward along the pleasant path she had trodden +with its little monuments to love at decent intervals amid the agreeable +monotony of content, her heart and conscience misgave her lest she had +counselled this young girl wrongly, committing her to the arid +lovelessness which she herself had never known. + +Leaning there, her fingers lingering in light caress on Sylvia’s bright +hair, for every doubt she brought up argument, to every sentimental +wavering within her heart she opposed the chilling reason of common +sense. Destruction to happiness lay in Sylvia’s yielding to her caprice +for Siward. There was other happiness in the world besides the non- +essential one of love. That must be Sylvia’s portion. And after all--and +after all, love was a matter of degree; and it was well for Sylvia that +she had the malady so lightly--well for her that it had advanced so +little, lest she suspect what its crowning miracles might be and fall +sick of a passion for what she had forever lost. + + +For a week or more the snow continued; colder, gloomier weather set in, +and the impending menace of Ash Wednesday redoubled the social pace, +culminating in the Westervelt ball on the eve of the forty days. And +Sylvia had not yet seen Siward or spoken to him again across the +wilderness of streets and men. + +In the first relaxation of Lent she had instinctively welcomed an +opportunity for spiritual consolation and a chance to take her spiritual +bearings; not because of bodily fatigue--for in the splendour of her +youthful vigour she did not know what that meant. + +Saint Berold was a pretty good saint, and his church was patronised by +Major Belwether’s household. The major liked two things high: his game +and his church. Sylvia cared for neither, but had become habituated to +both the odours of sanctity and of pheasants; so to Saint Berold’s she +went in cure of her soul. Besides, she was fond of Father Curtis, who, +if he were every inch a priest, was also every foot of his six feet a +man--simple, good, and brave. + +However, she found little opportunity, save at her brief confession, for +a word with Father Curtis. His days were full days to the overbrimming, +and a fashionable pack was ever at his heels, fawning and shoving and +importuning. It was fashionable to adore Father Curtis, and for that +reason she shrank from venturing any demand upon his time, and nobody +else at Saint Berold’s appealed to her. Besides, the music was hard, +commonplace, even blatant at times, and, having a delicate ear, she +shrank from this also. It is probable then that what comfort she found +under Saint Berold’s big, brand-new Episcopal cross she extracted from +observing the rites, usages, and laws of a creed that had been accepted +for her by that Christian gentleman, Major Belwether. Also, she may have +found some solace from the still intervals devoted to an inventory of +her sins and the wistful searching of a heart too young for sadness. If +she did it was her own affair, not Grace Ferrall’s, who went with her to +Saint Berold’s determined always to confess to too much gambling, but +letting it go from day to day so that the penance could not interfere +with the next séance. + +Agatha Caithness was there a great deal, looking like a saint in her +subdued plumage; and very devout, dodging nothing--neither confession nor +Quarrier’s occasionally lifted eyes, though their gaze, meeting, seemed +lost in dreamy devotion or drowned in the contemplation of the spiritual +and remote. + +Plank came docilely from his Dutch Reformed church to sit beside Leila. +As for Mortimer, once a vestryman, he never came at all--made no pretence +or profession of what he elegantly expressed as “caring a damn” for +anything “in the church line,” though, he added, there were “some good +lookers to be found in a few synagogues.” His misconception of the +attractions of the church amused the new set of men among whom he had +recently drifted, to the unfeigned disgust of gentlemen like Major +Belwether; “club” men, in the commoner and more sinister interpretation +of the word; unfit men, who had managed to slip into good clubs; men, +once fit, who had deteriorated to the verge of ostracism; heavy, over- +fed, idle, insolent men in questionable financial situation, hard card +players, hard drinkers, hard riders, negative in their virtues, +merciless in their vices, and whose cynical misconduct formed the +sources of the stock of stories told where such men foregather. + +Mortimer had already furnished his world with sufficient material for +jests of that flavour; now they were telling a new one: how, as Leila +was standing before Tiffany’s looking for her carriage, a masher +accosted her, and, at her haughty stare, said sneeringly: “Oh, you can’t +play that game on me; I’ve seen you with Leroy Mortimer!” + +The story was repeated frequently enough. Leila heard it with a shrug; +but such things mattered to her now, and she cried over it at night, +burning that Plank should hear her name used jestingly to emphasise the +depth of her husband’s degradation. + +Mortimer stayed out at night very frequently now. Also, he appeared to +make his money go farther, or was luckier at his “card killings,” +because he seldom attempted to bully Leila, being apparently content +with his allowance. + +Once or twice Plank saw him with an unusually attractive girl belonging +to a world very far removed from Leila’s. Somebody said she was an +actress when she did anything at all--one Lydia Vyse, somewhat celebrated +for an audacity not too delicate. But Plank was no more interested than +any man who can’t afford to endanger his prospects by a closer +acquaintance with that sort of pretty woman. + +Meanwhile Mortimer kept away from home, wife, and church, and Plank +frequented them, so the two men did not meet very often; and the less +they met the less they found to say to one another. + +Now that the forty days had really begun, Major Belwether became +restless for the flesh-pots of the south, although Lenten duties sat +lightly enough upon the house of Belwether. These decent observances +were limited to a lax acknowledgment of fast days, church in moderation, +and active participation in the succession of informal affairs +calculated to sustain life in those intellectually atrophied and wealthy +people entirely dependent upon others for their amusements. + +To these people no fear of punishment hereafter can equal the terror of +being left to their own devices; and so, though the opera was over, +theatres unfashionable, formal functions suspended and dances ended, the +pace still continued at a discreet and decorous trot; and those who had +not fled to California or Palm Beach, remained to pray and play Bridge +with an unction most edifying. + +And all this while Sylvia had not seen Siward. + +Sylvia was changing. The characteristic amiability, the sensitive +reserve, the sweet composure which the world had always counted on in +her, had become exceptions and no longer the rules which governed the +caprice and impulse always latent. An indifference so pointed as to +verge on insolence amazed her intimates at times; a sudden, flushed +impatience startled the habitués of her shrine. There was a new, +unseeing hardness in her eyes; in her attitude the faintest hint of +cynicism. She acquired a habit of doing selfish things coldly, +indifferent to the canons of the art; and true selfishness, the most +delicate of all the arts, requires an expert. + +That which had most charmed--her unfeigned pleasure in pleasure, her +unfailing consideration for all, her gentleness with ignorance, her +generous unconsciousness of self--all these still remained, it is true, +though no longer characteristic, no longer to be counted on. + +For the first time a slight sense of fear tinctured the general +admiration. + +In public her indifference and growing impatience with Quarrier had not +reached the verge of bad taste, but in private she was scarcely at pains +to conceal her weariness and inattention, showing him less and less of +the formal consideration which had been their only medium of +coexistence. That he noticed it was evident even to her who carelessly +ignored the consequences of her own attitude. + +Once, speaking of the alterations in progress at The Sedges, his place +near Oyster Bay, he casually asked her opinion, and she as casually +observed that if he had an opinion about anything he wouldn’t know what +to do with it. + +Once, too, she had remarked in Quarrier’s hearing to Ferrall, who was +complaining about the loss of his hair, that a hairless head was a +visitation from Heaven, but a beard was a man’s own fault. + +Once they came very close to a definite rupture, close enough to scare +her after all the heat had gone out of her and the matter was ended. +Quarrier had lingered late after cards, and something was said about the +impending kennel show and about Marion Page judging the English setters. + +“Agatha tells me that you are going with Marion,” continued Quarrier. +“As long as Marion has chosen to make herself conspicuous there is +nothing to be said. But do you think it very good taste for you to +figure publicly on the sawdust with an eccentric girl like Marion?” + +“I see nothing conspicuous about a girl’s judging a few dogs,” said +Sylvia, merely from an irritable desire to contradict. + +“It’s bad taste and bad form,” remarked Quarrier coldly; “and Agatha +thought it a mistake for you to go there with her.” + +“Agatha’s opinions do not concern me.” + +“Perhaps mine may have some weight.” + +“Not the slightest.” + +He said patiently: “This is a public show; do you understand? Not one of +those private bench exhibitions.” + +“I understand. Really, Howard, you are insufferable at times.” + +“Do you feel that way?” + +“Yes, I do. I am sorry to be rude, but I do feel that way!” Flushed, +impatient, she looked him squarely between his narrowing, woman’s eyes: +“I do not care for you very much, Howard, and you know it. I am marrying +you with a perfectly sordid motive, and you know that, too. Therefore it +is more decent--if there is any decency left in either of us--to interfere +with one another as little as possible, unless you desire a definite +rupture. Do you?” + +“I? A--a rupture?” + +“Yes,” she said hotly; “do you?” + +“Do you, Sylvia?” + +“No; I’m too cowardly, too selfish, too treacherous to myself. No, I +don’t.” + +“Nor do I,” he said, lifting his furtive eyes. + +“Very well. You are more contemptible than I am, that is all.” + +Her voice had grown unsteady; an unreasoning rush of anger had set her +whole body a-thrill, and the white heat of it was driving her to provoke +him, as though that might cleanse her of the ignominy of the bargain--as +though a bargain did not require two of the same mind to make it. + +“What do you want of me?” she said, still stinging under the angry waves +of self-contempt. “What are you marrying me for? Because, divided, we +are likely to cut small figures in our tin-trumpet world? Because, +united, we can dominate the brainless? Is there any other reason?” + +Showing his teeth in that twitching snicker that contracted the muscles +of his upper lip: “Children!” he said, looking at her. + +She turned scarlet to her hair; the deliberate grossness stunned her. +Confused, she stood confronting him, dumb under a retort the coarseness +of which she had never dreamed him capable. + +“I mean what I say,” he repeated calmly. “A man cares for two things: +his fortune, and the heirs to it. If you didn’t know that you have +learned it now. You hurt me deliberately. I told you a plain truth very +bluntly. It is for you to consider the situation.” + +But she could not speak; anger, humiliation, shame, held her tongue- +tied. The instinctive revolt at the vague horror--the monstrous, +meaningless threat--nothing could force words from her to repudiate, to +deny what he had dared to utter. + +Except as the effrontery of brutality, except as a formless menace born +of his anger, the reason he flung at her for his marrying her conveyed +nothing to her in its grotesque impossibility. Only the intentional +coarseness of it was to be endured--if she chose to endure it; for the +rest was empty of concrete meaning to her. + + +Lent was half over before she saw him again. Neither he nor she had +taken any steps to complete the rupture; and at the Mi-carême dance, +given by the Siowa Hunt, Quarrier, who was M. F. H., took up the thread +of their suspended intercourse as methodically and calmly as though it +had never quivered to the breaking point. He led the cotillon with +agreeable precision and impersonal accuracy, favouring her at intervals; +and though she wasted no favours on him, she endured his, which was +sufficient evidence that matters were still in statu quo. + +She returned to town next morning with Grace Ferrall, irritable, sulky, +furious with herself at the cowardly relief she felt. For, spite of her +burning anger against Quarrier, the suspense at times had been wearing; +and she would not make the first move--had not decided even to accept his +move if it came--at least, had not admitted to herself that she would +accept it. It had come and the tension was over, and now, entering Mrs. +Ferrall’s brougham which met them at Thirty-fourth Street Ferry, she was +furious with herself for her unfeigned feeling of relief. + +All hot with self-contempt she lay back in the comfortably upholstered +corner of the brougham, staring straight before her, sullen red mouth +unresponsive to the occasional inconsequent questions of Grace Ferrall. + +“After awhile,” observed Grace, “people will begin to talk about the +discontented beauty of your face.” + +Sylvia’s eyebrows bent still farther inward. + +“A fretful face, but rather pretty,” commented Grace maliciously. “It +won’t do, dear. Your rôle is dignified comedy. O dear! O my!” She +stifled a yawn behind her faultlessly gloved hand. “I’m feeling these +late hours in my aged bones. It wasn’t much of a dance, was it? Or am I +disillusioned? Certainly that Edgeworth boy fell in love with me--the +depraved creature--trying his primitive wiles there in the conservatory! +Little beast! There are no nice boys any more; they’re all too young or +too sophisticated. … Howard does lead well, I admit that. … You’re on +the box seat together again I see. Pooh! I wasn’t a bit alarmed.” + +“I was,” said Sylvia, curling her lip in biting self-contempt. + +“Well, that’s a wholesome confession, anyway. O dear, how I do yawn! and +Lent only half over. … Sylvia, what are you staring at? Oh, I--see.” + +They had driven south to Washington Square, where Mrs. Ferrall had +desired to leave a note, and were now returning. Sylvia had leaned +forward to look up at Siward’s house, but with Mrs. Ferrall’s first word +she sank back, curiously expressionless and white; for she had seen a +woman entering the front door and had recognised her as Marion Page. + +“Well, of all indiscretions!” breathed Grace, looking helplessly at +Sylvia. “Oh, no, that sort of thing is sheer effrontery, you know! It’s +rotten bad taste; it’s no worse, of course--but it’s bad taste. I don’t +care what privileges we concede to Marion, we’re not going to concede +this--unless she puts on trousers for good. It’s all very well for her to +talk her plain kennel talk, and call spades by their technical names, +and smoke all over people’s houses, and walk all over people’s +prejudices; but there’s no sense in her hunting for trouble; and she’ll +get it, sure as scandal is scandal!” + +And still Sylvia remained pale and silent, eyes downcast, shrinking +close into her upholstered corner, as though some reflex instinct of +self-concealment was still automatically dominating her. + +“She ought to be spanked!” said Grace viciously. “If she were my +daughter I’d do it, too!” + +Sylvia did not stir. + +“Little idiot! Going into a man’s house in the face of all Fifth Avenue +and the teeth of decency!” + +“She has courage,” said Sylvia, still very white. + +“Courage! Do you mean fool-hardiness?” + +“No, courage--the courage I lacked. I knew he was too ill to leave his +room and I lacked the courage to go and see him.” + +“You mean, alone?” + +“Certainly, alone.” + +“You dare tell me you ever contemplated--” + +“Oh, yes. I think I should have done it yet, but--but Marion--” + +Suddenly she bent forward, resting her face in her hands; and between +the fingers a bright drop ran, glimmered, and fell. + +“O Lord!” breathed Mrs. Ferrall, and sank back, nerveless, into her own +corner of the rocking brougham. + + + +CHAPTER XII THE ASKING PRICE + +Siward, at his desk, over which the May sunshine streamed, his crutches +laid against his chair, sat poring over the piles of papers left there +by Beverly Plank some days before with a curt recommendation that he +master their contents. + +Some of the papers were typewritten, some appeared to be engraved +certificates of stock, a few were in Plank’s heavy, squat handwriting. +There were several packages tied in pink tape, evidently legal papers of +some sort; and also a pile of scrap-books containing newspaper clippings +to which Siward referred occasionally, or read them at length, resting +his thin, fatigued face between two bony hands. + +The curious persistence of youth in his features seemed unaccountable in +view of the heavy marks imprinted there; but they were marks, not lines; +bluish hollows under eyes still young, marred contours of the cheek- +bone; a hardness about the hollow temples above which his short, bright +hair clustered with all its soft, youthful allure undimmed; and in every +movement, every turn of his head, there still remained much of that +indefinable attractiveness which had always characterised his race--much +of the unconscious charm usually known as breeding. + +In men of Mortimer’s fibre, dissipation produced coarser +symptoms--distended veins, and sagging flesh--where in Siward it seemed +to bruise and harden, driving the colour of blood out of him and leaving +the pallor of marble, and the bluish shadows of it staining the hollows. +Only the eyes had begun to change radically; something in them had been +quenched. + +That he could never hope to become immune he had learned at last when he +had returned, physically wholesome, from his long course of training +under the famous Irish specialist on the Hudson. He had expected to be +immune, spite of the blunt and forcible language of Mulqueen when he +turned him out into the world again: + +“Ye’ll be afther notin’,” said Mr. Mulqueen, “that a poonch in the +plexis putts a man out; but it don’t kill him. That’s you! Whin a man +mixes it up wid the booze, l’ave him come here an’ I’ll tache him a +thrick. But it’s not murther I tache; it’s the hook on the jaw that +shtops, an’ the poonch in the plexis that putts the booze-divil on the +bum! L’ave him take the count; he’ll niver rise to the chune o’ the bell +av ye l’ave him lie. But he ain’t dead, Misther Sayward; mark that, me +son! An’ don’t ye be afther sayin’, ‘Th’ inimy is down an’ out fur good! +Pore lad! Sure, I’ll shake hands over a dhrink wid him, for he can do me +no hurrt anny more!’ No, sorr! L’ave him lie, an’ l’ave the years av ver +life count him out; fur the day you die, he dies, an’ not wan shake o’ +the mixer sooner! G’wan, now, fur the rub-down. Ye’ve faught yer lasht +round, if ye ain’t a fool!” + +He had been a fool. He had imagined that he could control himself, and +practise the moderation that other men practised when they chose. The +puerile restraint annoyed him; his implied inability to master himself +humiliated him, the more so because, secretly, he was horribly afraid in +the remote depths of his heart. + +Exactly how it happened he did not remember, except that he had gone +down town on business and had lunched with several men. There was +claret. Later he remembered another café, farther up town, and another, +more brilliantly lighted. After that there were vague hours--the fierce +fever of debauch wrapping night and day in flame through which he moved, +unseeing, unheeding, deafened, drenched soul and body in the living +fire; or dreaming, feeling the subsiding fury of desire pulse and ebb +and flow, rocking him to unconsciousness. + +His father’s old servants had found him again, this time in the area; +and this time the same ankle, not yet strong, had been broken. + +Through the waning winter days, as he lay brooding in bitterness, +realising that it was all to do over again, Plank’s shy visits became +gradually part of the routine. But it was many days before Siward +perceived in the big, lumbering, pink-fisted man anything to attract him +beyond the faintly amused curiosity of one man for another who is in +process of establishing himself as the first of a race. + +As for reciprocation in other forms except the most superficial, or of +permitting a personal note to sound ever so discreetly, Siward tolerated +no such idea. Even the tentative advances of Plank hinting on +willingness, and perhaps ability, to help Siward in the Amalgamated +tangle were pleasantly ignored. Unpaid services rendered by men like +Plank were impossible; any obligation to Plank was utterly out of the +question. Meanwhile they began to like one another--at least Siward often +found himself looking forward with pleasure to a visit from Plank. There +had never been any question of the latter’s attitude toward Siward. + +Plank began to frequent the house, but never informally. It is doubtful +whether he could have practised informality in that house even at +Siward’s invitation. Something of the attitude of a college lower +classman for a man in a class above seemed to typify their relations; +and that feeling is never entirely eradicated between men, no matter how +close their relationship in after-life. + +One very bad night Plank came to the house and was admitted by Gumble. +Wands, the second man, stood behind the aged butler; both were +apparently frightened. + +That something was amiss appeared plainly enough; and Plank, +instinctively producing a card, dropped it on a table and turned to go. +It may have been that the old butler recognised the innate delicacy of +the motive, or it may have been a sudden confidence born of the +necessities of the case, for he asked Plank to see his young master. + +And Plank, looking him in the eyes, considered, until his courage began +to fail. Then he went up-stairs. + +It was a bad night outside, and it was a bad night for Siward. The +master-vice had him by the throat. He sat there, clutching the arms of +his chair, his broken leg, in its plaster casing, extended in front of +him; and when be saw Plank enter he glared at him. + +Hour after hour the two men sat there, the one white with rage, but +helpless; the other, stolid, inert, deaf to demands for intercession +with the arch-vice, dumb under pleadings for a compromise. He refused to +interfere with the butler, and Siward insulted him. He refused to go and +find the decanters himself, and Siward deliberately cursed him. + +Outside the storm raged all night. Inside that house Plank faced a more +awful tempest. There was a sedative on the mantel and he offered it to +Siward, who struck it from his hand. + +Once, toward morning, Siward feigned sleep, and Plank, heavy head on his +breast, feigned it, too. Then Siward bent over stealthily and opened a +drawer in his desk; and Plank was on his feet like a flash, jerking the +morphine from Siward’s fingers. + +The doctor arrived at daylight, responding to Plank’s summons by +telephone, and Plank went away with the morphine and Siward’s revolver +bulging in the side-pockets of his dinner coat. + +He did not come again for a week. A short note from Siward started him +toward lower Fifth Avenue. + +There was little said when he came into the room: + +“Hello, Plank! Glad to see you.” + +“Hello! Are you all right?” + +“All right. … Much obliged for pulling me through. Wish you’d pull me +through this Amalgamated Electric knot-hole, too--some day!” + +“Do--do you mean it?” ventured Plank, turning red with delight. + +“Mean it? Indeed I do--if you do. Sit here; ring for whatever you want--or +perhaps you’d better go down to the sideboard. I’m not to be trusted +with the odour in the room just yet.” + +“I don’t care for anything,” said Plank. + +“Whenever you please, then. You know the house, and you don’t mind my +being unceremonious, do you?” + +“No,” said Plank. + +“Good!” rejoined Siward, laughing. “I expect the same friendly lack of +ceremony from you.” + +But that, for Plank, was impossible. All he could do was to care the +more for Siward without crossing the border line so suddenly made free; +all he could do was to sit there rolling and unrolling his gloves into +wads with his clumsy, highly coloured hands, and gaze consciously at +everything in the room except Siward. + +On that day, at Plank’s shy suggestion, they talked over Siward’s +business affairs for the first time. After that day, and for many days, +the subject became the key-note to their intercourse; and Siward at last +understood that this man desired to do him a service absolutely and +purely from a disinterested liking for him, and as an expression of that +liking. Also he was unexpectedly made aware of Plank’s serenely unerring +business sagacity. + +That surface cynicism which all must learn, sooner or later, or remain +the victims of naive credulity, was, in Siward, nothing but an outer +skin, as it is in all who acquire wisdom with their cynicism. It was not +long proof against Plank’s simple attitude and undisguised pleasure in +doing something for a man he liked. Under that simplicity no motive, no +self-interest could skulk; and Siward knew it. + +As for the quid pro quo, Siward had insisted from the first on a +business arrangement. The treachery of Major Belwether through sheer +fright had knocked the key-stone from the syndicate, and the dam which +made the golden pool possible collapsed, showering Plank’s brokers who +worked patiently with buckets and mops. + +The double treachery of Quarrier was now perfectly apparent to Plank. +Siward, true to his word, held his stock in the face of ruin. Kemp +Ferrall, furious with the major, and beginning to suspect Quarrier, came +to Plank for consultation. + +Then the defence formed under Plank. Legal machinery was set in motion, +meeting followed meeting, until Harrington cynically showed his hand and +Quarrier smiled his rare smile; and the fight against Inter-County was +on in the open, preceded by a furious clamour of charge and counter- +charge in the columns of the daily press. + +That Quarrier had been guilty of something or other was the vague +impression of that great news-reading public which, stunned by the +reiteration of figures in the millions, turns to the simpler pleasures +of a murder trial. Besides, whatever Quarrier had done was no doubt done +within the chalk-marked courts of the game, though probably his shoes +may have become a little dusty. + +But who could hope to bring players like Quarrier before the ordinary +umpire, or to investigate his methods with the everyday investigations +reserved for everyday folk, whose road through business life lay always +between State’s prison and the penitentiary and whose guide-posts were +policemen? + +Let the great syndicates join in battle; they could only slay each +other. Let the millions bury their millions; the public, though poorer, +could never be the wiser. + + +Siward, at his desk, the May sunshine pouring over him, sat conning the +heaps of typewritten sheets, striving to see between the lines some sign +of fortune for his investments, some promise of release from the +increasing financial stringency, some chance of justice being done on +those high priests who had been performing marvellous tricks upon their +altar so that by miracle, mine and thine spelled “ours,” and all the +tablets of the law were lettered upside down and hind-side before, like +the Black Mass. + +Gumble knocked presently. Siward raised his perplexed eyes. + +“Miss Page, sir.” + +“Oh,” said Siward doubtfully; then, “Ask Miss Page to come up.” + +Marion strolled in a moment later, exchanged a vigorous hand shake with +Siward, pulled up a chair and dropped into it. She was in riding-habit +and boots, faultlessly groomed as usual, her smooth, pale hair sleek in +its thick knot, collar and tie immaculate as her gloves. + +“Well,” she said, “any news of your ankle, Stephen?” + +“I inquired about my ankle,” said Siward, amused, “and they tell me it +is better, thank you.” + +“Sit a horse pretty soon?” she asked, dropping one leg over the other +and balancing the riding-crop across her knee. + +“Not for awhile. You have a fine day for a gallop, Marion,” looking +askance at the sunshine filtering through the first green leaves of the +tree outside his window. + +“It’s all right--the day. I’m trying Tom O’Hara’s new mare. They say +she’s a little devil. I never saw a devil of a horse--did you? There may +be some out West.” + +“Don’t break that pretty neck of yours, Marion,” he said. + +She lifted her eyes; then, briefly, “No fear.” + +“Yes, there is,” he said. “There’s no use looking for trouble in a +horse. Women who hunt as you hunt take all that’s legitimately coming to +them. Why doesn’t Tom ride his own mare?” + +“She rolled on him,” said Marion simply. + +“Oh. Is he hurt?” + +“Ribs.” + +“Well, he’s lucky.” + +“Isn’t he! He’ll miss a few drills with his precious squadron, that’s +all.” + +She was looking about her, preoccupied. “Where are your cigarettes, +Stephen? Oh, I see. Don’t try to move--don’t be silly.” + +She leaned over the desk, her fresh young face close to his, and reached +for the cigarettes. The clean-cut head, the sweetness of her youth and +femininity, boyish in its allure, were very attractive to him--more so, +perhaps, because of his isolation from the atmosphere of women. + +“It’s all very well, Marion, your coming here--and it’s very sweet of +you, and I enjoy it immensely,” he said: “but it’s a deuced imprudent +thing for you to do, and I feel bound to say so for your sake every time +you come.” + +She leaned back in her chair and coolly blew a wreath of smoke at him. + +“All right,” he said, unconvinced. + +“Certainly it’s all right. I’ve done what suited me all my life. This +suits me.” + +“It suits me, too,” he said, “only I wish you’d tell your mother before +somebody around this neighbourhood informs her first.” + +“Let ’em. You’ll be out by that time. Do you think I’m going to tell my +mother now and have her stop it?” + +“Oh, Marion, you know perfectly well that it won’t do for a girl to +ignore first principles. I’m horribly afraid somebody will talk about +you.” + +“What would you do, then?” + +“I?” he asked, disturbed. “What could I do?” + +“Why, I suppose,” she said slowly, “you’d have to marry me.” + +“Then,” he rejoined with a laugh, “I should think you’d be scared into +prudence by the prospect.” + +“I am not easily--scared,” she said, looking down. + +“Not at that prospect?” he said jestingly. + +She looked up at him; and he remembered afterward the poise of her small +head, and the slow, clear colour mounting; remembered that it conveyed +to him, somehow, a hint of courage and sincerity. + +“I am not frightened,” she said gravely. + +Gravity fell upon him, too. In this young girl’s eyes there was no +evasion. For a long while he had felt vaguely that matters were not +perfectly balanced between them. At moments, even, he had felt an +indefinable uneasiness in her presence. The situation troubled him, too; +and though he had known her from childhood and had long ago learned to +discount her vagaries of informality, her manners sans façon, her +careless ignoring of convention, and the unembarrassed terms of her +speech, his common-sense could not countenance this defiance of social +usage, sure to involve even such a privileged girl as she in some +unpleasantness. + +This troubled him; and now, partly sceptical, yet partly conscious, too, +of her very frank liking for himself, he looked at her, perplexed, +apprehensive, unwilling to credit her with any deeper meaning than her +words expressed. + +She had grown pink and restless under his gaze, using her cigarette +frequently, and continually flicking the ashes to the floor, until the +little finger of her glove was blackened. + +But courage characterised her race. It had required more than he knew +for her to come into his house; and now that she was there loyalty to +her professed principles--that a man and a woman were by right endowed +with equal privileges--forced her to face the consequences of her theory +in the practise. + +She had, with calm face and quivering heart, given him an opening. That +was a concession to her essential womanhood and a cowardice on her part; +and, lest she turn utterly traitor to herself, she faced him again, +cool, quiet, and terror in her heart: + +“I’d be very glad to marry you--if you c-cared to,” she said. + +“Marion!” + +“Yes?” + +“Oh--I--it is--of course it’s a joke.” + +“No; I’m serious.” + +“Serious! Nonsense!” + +“Please don’t say that.” + +He looked at her, appalled. + +“But I--but you don’t love--can’t be in love with me!” he stammered. + +“I am.” + +Gloved hands tightening on either end of her riding-crop, she bent her +knee against it, balancing there, looking straight at him. + +“I meant to tell you so,” she said, “if you didn’t tell me first. So--I +was rather--tired waiting. So I’ve told you.” + +“It is only a fancy,” he said, scarcely knowing what he was saying. + +“I don’t think so, Stephen.” + +But he could not meet her candour, and he sat, silent, miserable, +staring at the papers on his desk. + +After a while she drew a deep, even breath, and rose to her feet. + +“I’m sorry,” she said simply. + +“Marion--I never dreamed that--” + +“You should dream truer,” she said. There was a suspicion of mist in her +clear eyes; she turned abruptly to the window and stood there for a few +moments, looking down at her brougham waiting in front of the house. “It +can’t be helped, can it!” she said, turning suddenly. + +He found no answer to her question. + +“Good-bye,” she said, walking to him with outstretched hand; “it’s all +in a lifetime, Steve, and that’s too short for a good, clean friendship +like ours to die in. I don’t think I’d better come again. Look me up for +a gallop when you’re fit. And you might drop me a line to say how you’re +getting on. Is it all right, Stephen?” + +“All right,” he said hoarsely. + +Their hands tightened in a crushing clasp; then she swung on her spurred +heel and walked out, leaving him haggard, motionless. He heard the front +door close, and he swayed forward, dropping his face in his hands, arms +half buried among the papers on his desk. + +Plank found him there, an hour later, fumbling among the papers, and at +first feared that he read in Siward’s drawn and sullen face a +premonition of the ever-dreaded symptoms. + +“Quarrier has telephoned asking for a conference at last,” he said +abruptly, sitting down beside Siward. + +“Well,” inquired Siward, “how do you interpret that--favourably?” + +“I am inclined to think he is a bit uneasy,” said Plank cautiously. +“Harrington made a secret trip to Albany last week. You didn’t know +that.” + +“No.” + +“Well, he did. It looks to me as though there were going to be a ghost +of a chance for an investigation. That is how I am inclined to consider +Harrington’s trip and Quarrier’s flag of truce. But--I don’t know. +There’s nothing definite, of course. You are as conversant with the +situation as I am.” + +“No, I am not. That is like you, Plank, to ascribe to me the same +business sense that you possess, but I haven’t got it. It’s very nice +and considerate of you, but I haven’t it, and you know it.” + +“I think you have.” + +“You think so because you think generously. That doesn’t alter the +facts. Now tell me what you have concluded that we ought to do and I’ll +say ‘Amen,’ as usual.” + +Plank laughed, and looked over several sheets of the typewritten matter +on the desk beside him. + +“Suppose I meet Quarrier?” he said. + +“All right. Did he suggest a date?” + +“At four, this afternoon.” + +“Do you think you had better go?” + +“I think it might do no harm,” said Plank. + +“Amen!” observed Siward, laughing, and touched the electric button for +the early tea, which Plank adored at any hour. + +For a while they dropped business and discussed their tea, chatting very +comfortably together. Long ago Siward had found out something of the +mental breadth of the man beside him, and that he was worth listening to +as well as talking to. For Plank had formed opinions upon a great many +subjects; and whatever culture he possessed was from sheer desire for +self-cultivation. + +“You know, Siward,” he was accustomed to say with a smile, “you inherit +what I am qualifying myself to transmit.” + +“It will be all one in a thousand years,” was Siward’s usual rejoinder. + +“That is not going to prevent my efforts to become a good ancestor to my +descendants,” Plank would say laughingly. “They shall have a chance, +every one of them. And it will be up to them if they don’t make good.” + +Sipping their tea in the pleasant, sunny room, they discussed matters of +common interest--Plank’s recent fishing trip on Long Island and the +degeneracy of liver-fed trout; the North Side Club’s Experiments with +European partridges; Billy Fleetwood’s new stables; forestry, and the +chance of national legislation concerning it--a subject of which Plank +was very fond, and on which he had exceedingly sound ideas. + +Drifting from one topic to another through the haze of their cigars, +silent when it pleased them to be so, there could be no doubt of their +liking for each other upon a basis at least superficially informal; and +if Plank’s manner retained at times a shade of quaint reserve, Siward’s +was perhaps the more frankly direct for that reason. + +“I think,” observed Plank, laying his half-consumed cigar on the silver +tray, “that I’d better go down town and see what our pre-glacial friend +Quarrier wants. I may be able to furnish him with a new sensation.” + +“I wonder if Quarrier ever experienced a genuine sensation,” mused +Siward, arranging the papers before him into divisional piles. + +“Plenty,” said Plank drily. + +“I don’t think so.” + +“Plenty,” repeated Plank. “It’s your thin-lipped, thin-nosed, pasty- +pale, symmetrical brother who is closer to the animal under his mask +than any of us imagine. I--” He hesitated. “Do you want to know my +opinion of Quarrier? I’ve never told you. I don’t usually talk about +my--dislikes. Do you want to know?” + +“Certainly,” said Siward curiously. + +“Then, first of all, he is a sentimentalist.” + +“Oh! oh!” jeered Siward. + +“A sentimentalist of the weakest type,” continued Plank obstinately; +“because he sentimentalises over himself. Siward, look out for the man +with elaborate whiskers! Look out for a pallid man with eccentric hair +and a silky beard! He’s a sentimentalist of the sort I told you, and is +usually utterly remorseless in his dealings with women. I suppose you +think me a fool.” + +“I think Quarrier is indifferent concerning women,” said Siward. + +“You are wrong. He is a sensualist,” insisted Plank. + +“Oh, no, Plank--not that!” + +“A sensualist. His sentimental vanity he lavishes upon himself--the +animal in him on women. His caution, born of self-consideration, is the +caution of a beast. Such men as he believe they live in the focus of a +million eyes. Part of his vanity is to deceive those eyes and be what he +is under the mask he wears; and to do that one must be the very master +of caution. That is Quarrier’s vanity. To conceal, is his monomania.” + +“I cannot see how you draw that conclusion.” + +“Siward, he is a bad man, and crafty--every inch of him.” + +“Oh, come, now! Only characters in fiction have no saving qualities. You +never heard of anybody in real life being entirely bad.” + +“No, I didn’t; and Quarrier isn’t. For example, he is kind to valuable +animals--I mean, his own.” + +“Good to animals! The bad man’s invariable characteristic!” laughed +Siward. “I’m kind to ’em, too. What else is he good to?” + +“Everybody knows that he hasn’t a poor relation left; not one. He is +loyal to them in a rare way; he filled one subsidiary company full of +them. It is known down town as the ‘Home for Destitute Nephews.’” + +“Seriously, Plank, the man must have something good in him.” + +“Because of your theory?” + +“Yes. I believe that nobody is entirely bad. So do the great masters of +fiction.” + +Plank said gravely: “He is a good son to his father. That is perfectly +true--kind, considerate, dutiful, loyal. The financial world is perfectly +aware that Stanley Quarrier is to-day the most unscrupulous old +scoundrel who ever crushed a refinery or debauched a railroad! and his +son no more believes it than he credits the scandalous history of the +Red Woman of Wall Street. Why, when I was making arrangements for that +chapel Quarrier came to me, very much perturbed, because he understood +that all the memorial chapels for the cathedral had been arranged for, +and he had desired to build one to the memory of his father! His father! +Isn’t it awful to think of!--a chapel to the memory of the briber of +judges and of legislatures, the cynical defier of law!--this hoary old +thief, who beggared the widow and stripped the orphan, and whose only +match, as a great unpunished criminal, was that sinister little +predecessor of his, who dreamed even of debauching the executive of +these United States!” + +Siward had never before seen Plank aroused, and he said so, smiling. + +“That is true,” said Plank earnestly; “I waste little temper over my +likes and dislikes. But what I know, and what I legitimately infer +concerning the younger Quarrier is enough to rouse any man’s anger. I +won’t tell you what I know. I can’t. It has nothing to do with his +financial methods, nothing to do with this business; but it is bad--bad +all through! The blow his father struck at the integrity of the bench +the son strikes at the very key-stone of all social safeguard. It isn’t +my business; I cannot interfere; but Siward, I’m a damned restless +witness, and the old, primitive longing comes back on me to strike--to +take a stick and use it to splinters on that man whom I am going down +town to politely confer with! … And I must go now. Good-bye. … Take care +of that ankle. Any books I can send you--anything you want? No? All +right. And don’t worry over Amalgamated Electric, for I really believe +we are beginning to frighten them badly.” + +“Good-bye,” said Siward. “Don’t forget that I’m always at home.” + +“You must get out,” muttered Plank; “you must get well, and get out into +the sunshine.” And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall, +where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him. + +He had come in a big yellow and black touring-car; and now, with a brief +word to his mechanic, he climbed into the tonneau, and away they sped +down town--a glitter of bull’s-eye, brass, and varnish, with the mellow, +horn notes floating far in their wake. + +It was exactly four o’clock when he was ushered into Quarrier’s private +suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper +stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire. + +Quarrier was alone, gloved and hatted, as though on the point of +leaving. He showed a slight surprise at seeing Plank, as if he had not +been expecting him; and the manner of offering his hand subtly +emphasised it as he came forward with a trace of inquiry in his +greeting. + +“You said four o’clock, I believe,” observed Plank bluntly. + +“Ah, yes. It was about that--ah--matter--ah--I beg your pardon; can you +recollect?” + +“I don’t know what it is you want. You requested this meeting,” said +Plank, yawning. + +“Certainly. I recollect it perfectly now. Will you sit here, Mr. +Plank--for a moment--” + +“If it concerns Inter-County, it will take longer than a moment--unless +you cannot spare the time now,” said Plank. “Shall we call it off?” + +“As a matter of fact I am rather short of time just now.” + +“Then let us postpone it. I shall probably be at my office if you are +anxious to see me.” + +Quarrier looked at him, then laid aside his hat and sat down. There was +little to be done in diplomacy with an oaf like that. + +“Mr. Plank,” he said, without any emphasis at all, “there should be some +way for us to come together. Have you considered it?” + +“No, I haven’t,” replied Plank. + +“I mean, for you and me to try to understand each other.” + +“For us?” asked Plank, raising his blond eyebrows. “Do you mean +Amalgamated Electric and Inter-County, impersonally?” + +“I mean for us, personally.” + +“There is no way,” said Plank, with conviction. + +“I think there is.” + +“You are wasting time thinking it, Mr. Quarrier.” + +Quarrier’s velvet-fringed eyes began to narrow, but his calm voice +remained unchanged: “We are merely wasting energy in this duel,” he +said. + +“Oh, no; I don’t feel wasted.” + +“We are also wasting opportunities,” continued Quarrier slowly. “This +whole matter is involving us in a tangle of litigation requiring our +constant effort, constant attention.” + +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Quarrier, but you take it too seriously. I have +found, in this affair, nothing except a rather agreeable mental +exhilaration.” + +“Mr. Plank, if you are not inclined to be serious--” + +“I am,” said Plank so savagely that Quarrier, startled, could not doubt +him. “I like this sort of thing, Mr. Quarrier. Anything that is hard to +overcome, I like to overcome. The pleasure in life, to me, is to win +out. I am fighting you with the greatest possible satisfaction to +myself.” + +“Perhaps you see victory ahead,” said Quarrier calmly. + +“I do, Mr. Quarrier, I do. But not in the manner you fear I may hope for +it.” + +“Do you mind saying in what manner you are already discounting your +victory, Mr Plank?” + +“No, I don’t mind telling you. I have no batteries to mask. I don’t care +how much you know about my resources; so I’ll tell you what I see, Mr. +Quarrier. I see a parody of the popular battle between razor-back and +rattler. The rattler only strives to strike and kill, not to swallow. +Mr. Quarrier, that old razor-back isn’t going home hungry; but--he’s +going home.” + +“I’m afraid I am not familiar enough with the natural history you quote +to follow you,” said Quarrier with a sneer, his long fingers busy with +the silky point of his beard. + +“No, you won’t follow me home; you’ll come with me, when it’s all over. +Now is it very plain to you, Mr. Quarrier?” + +Quarrier said, without emotion: “I repeat that it would be easy for you +and me to merge our differences on a basis absolutely satisfactory to +you and to me--and to Harrington.” + +“You are mistaken,” said Plank, rising. “Good afternoon.” + +Quarrier rose, too. “You decline to discuss the matter?” he asked. + +“It has been discussed sufficiently.” + +“Then why did you come here?” + +“To see for myself how afraid of me you really are,” said Plank. “Now I +know, and so do you.” + +“You desire to make it a personal matter?” inquired Quarrier, in a low +voice, his face dead white in the late sunlight which illuminated the +room. + +“Personal? No--impersonal; because there could be absolutely nothing +personal between us, Mr. Quarrier; and the only thing in the world that +there ought to be between us are a few stout, steel bars. Beg pardon for +talking shop. I’m a shopkeeper, and I’m in the steel business, and I +lack opportunities for cultivation. Good day.” + +“Mr. Plank--” + +“Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business +differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered +or modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my +policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly +aware of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this +attitude toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting +in arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful +interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby +is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my +chances, every one; and I take them--every one. For it is a good fight, +Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; not +because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because +such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours. +Your name, Harrington’s, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long, +long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be +remembered.” + +He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier’s +unwinking eyes. + +“Take your fighting chance--it is the cleanest thing you ever touched; +and use it cleanly, or there’ll be no mercy shown you when your time +comes. Let the courts alone--do you hear me? Let the legislature alone. +Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to shove +his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. They’ll +be warmer than his feet by this time next year.” + +For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm +dropped heavily--the old stolid expression came back into his face, +leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving +slowly toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand. + +Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered +Mortimer, and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks; +neither had Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at +his battered and bloodshot appearance. + +“Oh,” said Mortimer, “you down here?” + +“Have you been out of town?” asked Plank cautiously. + +Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the +elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his +pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps +of the rotunda. + +“See here,” he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily +even after the short chase across the lobby, “I meant to tell you +something. Come over here and sit down a moment.” + +Still grasping Plank’s elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him +toward a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down, +while Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at +the heat under his breath. + +“Look here,” he said; “I promised you something once, didn’t I?” + +“Did you?” said Plank, with his bland, expressionless stare of an +overgrown baby. + +“Oh, cut that out! You know damn well I did; and when I say a thing I +make good. D’ye see?” + +“I don’t see,” said Plank, “what you are talking about.” + +“I’m talking about what I said I’d do for you. Haven’t I made good? +Haven’t I put you into everything I said I would? Don’t you go +everywhere? Don’t people ask you everywhere?” + +“Yes--in a way,” said Plank wearily. “I am very grateful; I always will +be. … Can I do anything for you, Leroy?” + +Mortimer became indignant at the implied distrust of the purity of his +motives; and Plank, failing to stem the maudlin tirade, relapsed into +patient silence, speculating within himself as to what it could be that +Mortimer wanted. + +It came out presently. Mortimer had attended a “killing” at Desmond’s, +and, as usual, had provided the pièce de résistance for his soft-voiced +host. All he wanted was a temporary deposit to tide over matters. He had +never approached Plank in vain, and he did not do so now, for Plank had +a pocket cheque-book and a stylograph. + +“It’s damn little to ask, isn’t it?” he muttered resentfully. “That will +only square matters with Desmond; it doesn’t leave me anything to go on +with,” and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl. + +Plank was discreetly silent. + +“And that is not what I chased you for, either,” continued Mortimer. “I +didn’t intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in +another way!” He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the +elevators gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble +rotunda; then his protruding eyes sought Plank’s again: + +“Beverly, old boy, I’ve got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any +decent man would like to have him--by the scruff of his neck. He’s fit +only to kick; and I’m going to kick him good and plenty; and in the +process he’s going to let go of several things.” Mortimer leered, +pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: “I mean, he’s +going to drop several things that don’t belong to him. Leave it to me to +shake him down; he’ll drop them all right. … One of ’em’s yours.” + +Plank looked at him. + +“I told you once that I’d let you know when to step up and say ‘Good +evening’ didn’t I?” + +Plank continued to stare. + +“Didn’t I?” repeated Mortimer peevishly, beginning to lose countenance. + +“I don’t understand you,” said Plank, “and I don’t think I want to +understand you.” + +“What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer thickly; “don’t you want to marry +that girl!” but he shrank dismayed under the slow blaze that lighted +Plank’s blue eyes. + +“All right,” he stammered, struggling to his fat legs and instinctively +backing away; “I thought you meant business. I--what the devil do I care +who you marry! It’s the last time I try to do anything for you, or for +anybody else! Mark that, my friend. I’ve plenty to worry over; I’ve a +lot to keep me busy without lying awake to figure out how to do +kindnesses to old friends. Damn this ingratitude, anyway!” + +Plank gazed at him for a moment; the anger in his face had died out. + +“I am not ungrateful,” he said. “You may say almost anything except +that, Leroy. I am not disloyal, no matter what else I may be. But you +have made a bad mistake. You made it that day at Black Fells when you +offered to interfere. I supposed you understood then that I could never +tolerate from anybody anything of such a nature. It appears that you +didn’t. However, you understand it now. So let us forget the matter.” + +But Mortimer, keenly appreciative of the pleasures of being +misunderstood, squeezed some moisture out of his distended eyes, and sat +down, a martyr to his emotions. “To think,” he gulped, “that you, of all +men, should turn on me like this!” + +“I didn’t mean to. Can’t you understand, Leroy, that you hurt me?” + +“Hurt hell!” retorted Mortimer vindictively. “You’ve had sensation +battered out of you by this time. I guess society has landed you a few +while I was boosting you over the outworks. Don’t play that old con game +on me! You tried to get her and you couldn’t. Now I come along and offer +to put you next and you yell about your hurt feelings! Oh, splash! +There’s another lady, that’s all.” + +“Let it go at that, then,” said Plank, reddening. + +“But I tell you--” + +“Drop it!” snapped Plank. + +“Oh, very well! if you’re going to take it that way again--” + +“I am. Cut it! And now let me ask you a question: Where were you going +when I met you?” + +“What do you want to know for?” asked Mortimer sullenly. + +“Why, I’ll tell you, Leroy. If you have any idea of identifying yourself +with Quarrier’s people, of seeking him at this juncture with the +expectation of investing any money in his schemes, you had better not do +so.” + +“Investing!” sneered Mortimer. “Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to +invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated +Electric gang. Don’t worry. If there’s any shaking down to be done, I’ll +do it, my friend,” and he rose, and started toward the elevators. + +“Wait,” said Plank. “Why, man, you can’t frighten Quarrier! What did you +sell your holdings for? Why didn’t you come to us--to me? What’s the use +of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can’t scare a man like +that.” + +Mortimer fairly grinned in his face. + +“Your big mistake,” he sneered, “is in undervaluing others. You don’t +think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I’m going to try to +take care of myself all the same.” He laughed, showing his big teeth, +and the vanity in him began to drug him. “No, you think I don’t know +much. But men like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you +to understand,” he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution +which in saner moments he was only too certain that his present business +required--“I want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of +them is that I’m not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I’m not afraid +of you!” + +“Leroy--” + +“No, not afraid of you, either!” repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare. +“Don’t try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me, +Beverly! I’m getting tired of it; I’m tired of it now, by God! You keep +a civil tongue in your head after this--do you understand?--and we’ll get +on all right. If you don’t, I’ve the means to make you!” + +“Are you crazy?” + +“Not a bit of it! Too damn sane for you and Leila to hoodwink!” + +“You are crazy!” repeated Plank, aghast. + +“Am I? You and Leila can take the matter into court, if you want +to--unless I do. And”--here he leaned forward, showing his teeth +again--“the next time you kiss her, close the door!” + +Then he went away up the marble steps and entered an elevator; and +Plank, grave and pale, went out into the street and entered his big +touring-car. But the drive up town and through the sunlit park gave him +no pleasure, and he entered his great house with a heavy, lifeless step, +head bent, as though counting every crevice in the stones under his +lagging feet. For the first time in all his life he was afraid of a man. + + +The man he was afraid of had gone directly to Quarrier’s office, missing +the gentleman he was seeking by such a small fraction of a minute that +he realised they must have passed each other in the elevators, he +ascending while Quarrier was descending. + +Mortimer turned and hurried to the elevator, hoping to come up with +Quarrier in the rotunda, or possibly in the street outside; but he was +too late, and, furious to think of the time he had wasted with Plank, he +crawled into a hansom and bade the driver take him to a number he gave, +designating one of the new limestone basement houses on the upper west +side. + +All the way up town, as he jolted about in his seat, he angrily +regretted the meeting with Plank, even in spite of the cheque. What +demon had possessed him to boast--to display his hand when there had been +no necessity? Plank was still ready to give him aid at a crisis--had +always been ready. Time enough when Plank turned stingy to use +persuasion; time enough when Plank attempted to dodge him to employ a +club. And now, for no earthly reason, intoxicated with his own vanity, +catering to his own long-smouldering resentment, he had used his club on +a willing horse--deliberately threatened a man whose gratitude had been +good for many a cheque yet. + +“Ass that I am!” fumed Mortimer; “now when I’m stuck I’ll have to go at +him with the club, if I want any money out of him. Confound him, he’s +putting me in a false position! He’s trying to make it look like +extortion! I won’t do it! I’m no blackmailer! I’ll starve, before I go +to him again! No blundering, clumsy Dutchman can make a blackmailer out +of me by holding hands with that scoundrelly wife of mine! That’s the +reason he did it, too! Between them they are trying to make my loans +from Plank look like blackmail! It would serve them right if I took them +up--if I called their bluff, and stuck Plank up in earnest! But I won’t, +to please them! I won’t do any dirty thing like that, to humour them! +Not much!” + +He lay back, rolling about in the jouncing cab, scowling at space. + +“Not much!” he repeated. “I’ll shake down Quarrier, though! I’ll make +him pay for his treachery--scaring me out of Amalgamated! That will be +restitution, not extortion!” + +He was the angrier because he had been for days screwing up his courage +to the point of seeking Quarrier face to face. He had not wished to do +it; the scene, and his own attitude in it, could only be repugnant to +him, although he continually explained to himself that it was +restitution, not extortion. + +But whatever it was, he didn’t like to figure in it, and he had hung +back as long as circumstances permitted. But his new lodgings and his +new friends were expensive; and Plank, he supposed, was off somewhere +fishing; so he hung on as long as it was possible; then, exasperated by +necessity, started for Quarrier’s office, only to miss him by a few +seconds because he was fool enough to waste his temper and his +opportunity in making an enemy out of a friend! + +“Oh,” he groaned, “what an ass I am!” And he got out of his cab in front +of a very new limestone basement house with red geraniums blooming on +the window-sills, and let himself in with a latch-key. + +The interior of the house was attractive in a rather bright, new, clean +fashion. There seemed to be a great deal of white wood-work about, a +wilderness of slender white spindles supporting the dark, rich mahogany +handrail of the stairway; elaborate white grilles between snowy, +Corinthian pillars separating the hall from the drawing-room, where a +pale gilt mirror over a white, colonial mantel reflected a glass +chandelier and panelled walls hung with pale blue silk. + +All was new, very clean, very quiet; the maid, too, who appeared at the +sound of the closing door and took his hat and gloves was as newly +groomed as the floors and wood-work, and so noiseless as to be +conspicuous in her swift, silent movements. + +Yet there was something about it all--about the bluish silvery half- +light, the spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid in +her flamboyant cap and apron--that arrested attention and fixed it. The +soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the contrast +between the maid’s black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was +nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains +were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no half- +lights. The very stillness was gay with suspense, like a pretty woman’s +suppressed laughter glimmering in her eyes. + +And into this tinted light, framed in palest blue and white, waddled +Mortimer, appropriate as a June-bug scrambling in a Sèvres teacup. + +“Anybody here?” he growled, leering into the drawing-room at a tiny +grand piano cased in unvarnished Circassian walnut. + +“There is nobody at home, sir,” said the maid. + +“Music lesson over?” + +“Yes, sir, at three.” + +He began to ascend the stairway, breathing heavily, thud, thud over the +deep velvet strip, his fat hand grasping the banister rail. + +Somewhere on the second floor a small dog barked, and Mortimer traversed +the ball and opened the door into a room hung with gold Spanish leather +and pale green curtains. + +“Hello, Tinto!” he said affably as a tiny Japanese spaniel hurled +herself at him, barking furiously, then began writhing and weaving +herself about him, gurgling recognition and welcome. + +He sat down heavily in a padded easy-chair. The spaniel sprang into his +lap, wheezing, sniffling, goggling its protruding eyes. Mortimer liked +the dog, but he didn’t like what the owner of the dog said about the +resemblance between his own and Tinto’s eyes. + +“Get down!” he said; “you’re shedding black and white hairs all over +me.” But the dog didn’t want to get down, and Mortimer’s good nature +permitted her to curl up on his fat knees and sleep that nervous, +twitching sleep peculiar to overpampered toy canines. + +The southern sun was warm in the room; the windows open, but not a +silken hanging stirred. + +Presently another maid entered, with an apple cut into thin wafers and a +decanter of port; and Mortimer lay back in his chair, sopping his apple +in the thick, crimson wine, and feeding morsels of the combination to +himself and to Tinto at intervals until the apple was all gone and the +decanter three-fourths empty. + +It was very still in the room--so still, that Mortimer, opening his eyes +at longer and longer intervals to peer at the door, finally opened them +no more. + +The droning gurgle that he made kept Tinto awake. When his lower jaw +sagged, and he began to really show what snoring could be, Tinto, very +nervous, got up and hopped down. + + +It was still daylight when Mortimer awoke, conscious of people about +him. As he opened his eyes, a man laughed; several people seated by the +windows joined in. Then, straightening up with an effort, something +tumbled from his head to the floor and he started to rise. + +“Oh, look out, Leroy! Don’t step on my hat!” cried a girl’s voice; and +he sank back in his chair, gazing stupidly around. + +“Hello! you people!” he said, amused; “I guess I’ve been asleep. Oh, is +that you Millbank? Whose hat was that--yours, Lydia?” + +He yawned, laughed, turning his heavy eyes from one to another, +recognising a couple of young girls at the window. He didn’t want to get +up; but there is, in the society he now adorned, a stringency of +etiquette known as “re-finement,” and which, to ignore, is to become +unpopular. + +So he got onto his massive legs and went over to shake hands with a +gravity becoming the ceremony. + +“How d’ye do, Miss Hutchinson? Thought you were at Asbury Park. How de +do, Miss Del Garcia. Have you been out in Millbank’s motor yet?” + +“We broke down at McGowan’s Pass,” said Miss Del Garcia, laughing the +laugh that had made her so attractive in “A Word to the Wise.” + +“Muddy gasoline,” nodded Millbank tersely--an iron-jawed, over-groomed +man of forty, with a florid face shaved blue. + +“We passed Mr. Plank’s big touring-car,” observed Lydia Vyse, shifting +Tinto to the couch and brushing the black and white hairs from her +automobile coat. “How much does a car like that cost, Leroy?” + +“About twenty-five thousand,” he said gloomily. Then, looking up, “Hold +on, Millbank, don’t be going! Why can’t you all dine with us? Never mind +your car; ours is all right, and we’ll run out into the country for +dinner. How about it, Miss Del Garcia?” + +But both Miss Del Garcia and Miss Hutchinson had accepted another +invitation, in which Millbank was also included. + +They stood about, veils floating, leather decorated coats thrown back, +lingering for awhile to talk the garage talk which fascinates people of +their type; then Millbank looked at the clock, made his adieux to Lydia, +nodded significantly to Mortimer, and followed the others down-stairs. + +There was something amiss with his motor, for it made a startling racket +in the street, finally plunging forward with a kick. + +Lydia laughed as the two young girls in the tonneau turned to nod to her +in mock despair; then she came running back up-stairs, holding her skirt +free from her hurrying little feet. + +“Well?” she inquired, as Mortimer turned back from the window to +confront her. + +“Nothing doing, little girl,” he said with a sombre smile. + +She looked at him, slowly divesting herself of her light leather-trimmed +coat. + +“I missed him,” said Mortimer. + +She flung the coat over a chair, stood a moment, her fingers busy with +her hair-pegs, then sat down on the couch, taking Tinto into her lap. +She was very pretty, dark, slim, marvellously graceful in her every +movement. + +“I missed him,” repeated Mortimer. + +“Can’t you see him to-morrow?” she asked. + +“I suppose so,” said Mortimer slowly. “Oh, Lord! how I hate this +business!” + +“Hasn’t he misused your confidence? Hasn’t he taken your money?” she +asked. “It may be unpleasant for you to make him unbelt, but you’re a +coward if you don’t!” + +“Easy! easy, now!” muttered Mortimer; “I’m going to shake it out of him. +I said I would, and I will.” + +“I should hope so; it’s yours.” + +“Certainly it’s mine. I wish I’d held fast now. I never supposed Plank +would take hold. It was that drivelling old Belwether who scared me +stiff! The minute I saw him scurrying to cover like a singed cat I was +fool enough to climb the first tree. I’ve had my lesson, little girl.” + +“I hope you’ll give Howard his. Somebody ought to,” she said quietly. + +Then gathering up her hat and coat she went into her own apartments. +Mortimer picked up a cheap magazine, looked over the portraits of the +actresses, then, hunching up into a comfortable position, settled +himself to read the theatrical comment. + +Later, Lydia not appearing, and his own valet arriving to turn on the +electricity, bring him his White Rock and Irish and the Evening +Telegraph, he hoisted his legs into another chair and sprawled there +luxuriously over his paper until it was time to dress. + +About half past eight they dined in a white and pink dining-room +furnished in dull gray walnut, and served by a stealthy, white-haired, +pink-skinned butler, chiefly remarkable because it seemed utterly +impossible to get a glimpse of his eyes. Nobody could tell whether there +was anything the matter with them or not--and whether they were only very +deep set or were weak, like an albino’s, or were slightly crossed, the +guests of the house never knew. Lydia herself didn’t know, and had given +up trying to find out. + +They had planned to go for a spin in Mortimer’s motor after dinner, but +in view of the Quarrier fiasco neither was in the mood for anything. + +Mortimer, as usual, ate and drank heavily. He was a carnivorous man, and +liked plenty of thick, fat, underdone meat. As for Lydia, her appetite +was as erratic as her own impulses. Her table, always wastefully +elaborate, no doubt furnished subsistence for all the relatives of her +household below stairs, and left sufficient for any ambitious butler to +make a decent profit on. + +“Do you know, Leroy,” she observed, as they left the table and sauntered +back into the pale blue drawing-room, “do you know that the servants +haven’t been paid for three months?” + +“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” he expostulated, “don’t begin that sort of +thing! I get enough of that at home; I get it every time I show my +nose!” + +“I only mentioned it,” she said carelessly. + +“I heard you all right. It isn’t any pleasanter for me than for you. In +fact, I’m sick of it; I’m dead tired of being up against it every day of +my life. When a man has anything somebody gets it before he can +sidestep. When a man’s dead broke there’s nobody in sight to touch.” + +“You had an opportunity to make Howard pay you back.” + +“Didn’t I tell you I missed him?” + +“Yes. What are you going to do?” + +“Do?” + +“Of course. You are going to do something, I suppose.” + +They had reached the gold and green room above. Lydia began pacing the +length of a beautiful Kermanshah rug--a pale, delicate marvel of rose and +green on a ground of ivory--lovely, but doomed to fade sooner than the +pretty woman who trod it with restless, silk-shod feet. + +Mortimer had not responded to her last question. She said presently: +“You have never told me how you intend to make him pay you back.” + +“What?” inquired Mortimer, turning very red. + +“I said that you haven’t yet told me how you intend to make Howard +return the money you lost through his juggling with your stock.” + +“I don’t exactly know myself,” admitted Mortimer, still overflushed. “I +mean to put it to him squarely, as a debt of honour that he owes. I +asked him whether to invest. Damn him! he never warned me not to. He is +morally responsible. Any man who would sit there and nod monotonously +like a mandarin, knowing all the while what he was doing to wreck the +company, and let a friend put into a rotten concern all the cash he +could scrape together, is a swindler!” + +“I think so too,” she said, studying the rose arabesques in the rug. + +There was a little click of her teeth when she ended her inspection and +looked across at Mortimer. Something in her expressionless gaze seemed +to reassure him, and give him a confidence he may have lacked. + +“I want him to understand that I won’t swallow that sort of contemptible +treatment,” asserted Mortimer, lighting a thick, dark cigar. + +“I hope you’ll make him understand,” she said, seating herself and +resting her clasped, brilliantly ringed hands in her lap. + +“Oh, I will--never fear! He has abused my confidence abominably; he has +practically swindled me, Lydia. Don’t you think so?” + +She nodded. + +“I’ll tell him so, too,” blustered Mortimer, shaking himself into an +upright posture, and laying a pudgy, clinched fist on the table. “I’m +not afraid of him! He’ll find that out, too. I know enough to stagger +him. Not that I mean to use it. I’m not going to have him think that my +demands on him for my own property resemble extortion.” + +“Extortion?” she repeated. + +“Yes. I don’t want him to think I’m trying to intimidate him. I won’t +have him think I’m a grafter; but I’ve half a mind to shake that money +out of him, in one way or another.” + +He struck the table and looked at her for further sign of approval. + +“I’m not afraid of him,” he repeated. “I wish to God he were here, and +I’d tell him so!” + +She said coolly: “I was wishing that too.” + +For a while they sat silent, preoccupied, avoiding each other’s direct +gaze. When she rose he started, watching her in a dazed way as she +walked to the telephone. + +“Shall I?” she asked quietly, turning to him, her hand on the receiver. + +“Wait. W-what are you going to do?” he stammered. + +“Call him up. Shall I?” + +A dull throb of fright pulsed through him. + +“You say you are not afraid of him, Leroy.” + +“No!” he said with an oath, “I am not. Go ahead!” + +She unhooked the receiver. After a second or two her low, even voice +sounded. There came a pause. She rested one elbow on the walnut shelf, +the receiver tight to her ear. Then: + +“Mr. Quarrier, please. … Yes, Mr. Howard Quarrier. … No, no name. Say it +is on business of immediate importance. … Very well, then; you may say +that Miss Vyse insists on speaking to him. … Yes, I’ll hold the wire.” + +She turned, the receiver at her ear, and looked narrowly at Mortimer. + +“Won’t he speak to you?” he demanded. + +“I’m going to find out. Hush a moment!” and in the same calm, almost +childish voice: “Oh, Howard, is that you? Yes, I know I promised not to +do this, but that was before things happened! … Well, what am I to do +when it is necessary to talk to you? … Yes, it is necessary! … I tell +you it is necessary! … I am sorry it is not convenient for you to talk +to me, but I really must ask you to listen! … No, I shall not write. I +want to talk to you to-night--now! Yes, you may come here, if you care +to! … I think you had better come, Howard. … Because I am liable to +continue ringing your telephone until you are willing to listen. … No, +there is nobody here. I am alone. What time? … Very well; I shall expect +you. Good-bye.” + +She hung up the receiver and turned to Mortimer: + +“He’s coming up at once. Did I say anything to scare him particularly?” + +“One thing’s sure as preaching,” said Mortimer; “he’s a coward, and I’m +dammed glad of it,” he added naively, relighting his cigar, which had +gone out. + +“If he comes up in his motor he’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said. +“Suppose you take your hat and go out. I don’t want him to think what he +will think if he walks into the room and finds you waiting. You have +your key, Leroy. Walk down the block; and when you see him come in, give +him five minutes.” + +Her voice had become a little breathless, and her colour was high. +Mortimer, too, seemed apprehensive. Things had suddenly begun to work +themselves out too swiftly. + +“Do you think that’s best?” he faltered, looking about for his hat. +“Tell Merkle that nobody has been here, if Quarrier should ask him. Do +you think we’re doing it in the best way, Lydia? By God, it smells of a +put-up job to me! But I guess it’s all right. It’s better for me to just +happen in, isn’t it? Don’t forget to put Merkle wise.” + +He descended the stairs hastily. Merkle, of the invisible eyes, held his +hat and gloves and opened the door for him. + +Once on the dark street, his impulse was to flee--get out, get away from +the whole business. A sullen shame was pumping the hot blood up into his +neck and cheeks. He strove to find an inoffensive name for what he was +proposing to do, but ugly terms, synonym after synonym, crowded in to +characterise the impending procedure, and he walked on angrily, half +frightened, looking back from moment to moment at the house he had just +left. + +On the corner he halted, breathing spasmodically, for he had struck a +smarter pace than he had been aware of. + +Few people passed him. Once he caught a glimmer of a policeman’s buttons +along the park wall, and an unpleasant shiver passed over him. At the +same moment an electric hansom flew noiselessly past him. He shrank back +into the shadow of a porte-cochere. The hansom halted before the +limestone basement house. A tall figure left it, stood a moment in the +middle of the sidewalk, then walked quickly to the front door. It +opened, and the man vanished. + +The hansom still waited at the door. Mortimer, his hands shaking, looked +at his watch by the light of the electric bulbs flanking the gateway +under which he stood. + +There was not much time in which to make up his mind, yet his fright was +increasing to a pitch which began to enrage him with that coward’s +courage which it is impossible to reckon with. + +He had missed Quarrier once to-day when he had been keyed to the +encounter. Was he going to miss him again through sheer terror? Besides, +was not Quarrier a coward? Besides, was it not his own money? Had he not +been vilely swindled by a pretended friend? Urging, lashing himself into +a heavy, shuffling motion, he emerged from the porte-cochere and lurched +off down the street. No time to think now, no time for second thought, +for hesitation, for weakness. He had waited too long already. He had +waited ten minutes, instead of five. Was Quarrier going to escape again? +Was he going to get out of the house before--” + +Fumbling with his latch-key, but with sense enough left to make no +noise, he let himself in, passed silently through the reception-hall and +up to the drawing-room floor, where for a second he stood listening. +Then something of the perverted sportsman sent the blood quivering into +his veins. He had him! He had run him down! The game was at bay. + +An inrush of exhilaration steadied him. He laid his hand on the banister +and mounted, gloves and hat-brim crushed in the other hand. When he +entered the room he pretended to see only Lydia. + +“Hello, little girl!” he said, laughing, “are you surprised to--” + +At that moment he caught sight of Quarrier, and the start he gave was +genuine enough. Never had he seen in a man’s visage such white +concentration of anger. + +“Quarrier!” he stammered, for his acting was becoming real enough to +supplant art. + +Quarrier had risen; his narrowing eyes moved from Mortimer to Lydia, +then reverted to the man in the combination. + +“Rather unexpected, isn’t it?” said Mortimer, staring at Quarrier. + +“Is it?” returned Quarrier in a low voice. + +“I suppose so,” sneered Mortimer. “Did you expect to find me here?” + +“No. Did you expect to find me?” asked the other, with emphasis +unmistakable. + +“What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer hoarsely. “What the devil do you +mean by asking me if I expected to find you here? If I had, I’d not have +travelled down to your office to-day to see you; I’d have come here for +you. Naturally people suppose that an engaged man is likely to give up +this sort of thing.” + +Quarrier, motionless, white to the lips, turned his eyes from one to the +other. + +“It doesn’t look very well, does it?” asked Mortimer; and he stood +there, smiling, danger written all over him. “It’s beginning rather +early,” he continued, with a sneer. “Most engaged men with a conscience +wait until they’re married before they return to the gay and frivolous. +But here you are, it seems, handsome, jolly, and irresistible as ever!” + +Quarrier looked at Lydia, and his lips moved: “You asked me to come,” he +said. + +“No; you offered to. I wished to talk to you over the wire, but ”--her +lip curled, and she shrugged her shoulders--“you seemed to be afraid of +something or other.” + +“I couldn’t talk to you in my own house, with guests in the room.” + +“Why not? Did I say anything your fashionable guests might take +exception to? Am I likely to do anything of that kind?--you coward!” + +Quarrier stood very still, then noiselessly turned and made one step +toward the door. + +“One moment,” interposed Mortimer blandly. “As long as I travelled down +town to see you, and find you here so unexpectedly, I may as well take +advantage of this opportunity to regulate a little matter. You don’t +mind our talking shop for a moment, Lydia? Thank you. It’s just a little +business matter between Mr. Quarrier and myself--a matter concerning a +few shares of stock which I once held in one of his companies, bought at +par, and tumbled to ten and--What is the fraction, Quarrier? I forget.” + +Quarrier thought deeply for a moment; then he raised his head, looking +full at Mortimer, and under his silky beard an edge of teeth glimmered. +“Did you wish me to take back those shares at par?” he asked. + +“Exactly! I knew you would! I knew you’d see it in that way!” cried +Mortimer heartily. “Confound it all, Quarrier, I’ve always said you were +that sort of man--that you’d never let a friend in on the top floor, and +kick him clear to the cellar! As a matter of fact, I sold out at ten and +three-eighths. Wait! Here’s a pencil. Lydia, give me that pad on your +desk. Here you are, Quarrier. It’s easy enough to figure out how much +you owe me.” + +And as Quarrier slowly began tracing figures on the pad, Mortimer +rambled on, growing more demonstrative and boisterous every moment. +“It’s white of you, Quarrier--I’ll say that! Legally, of course, you +could laugh at me; but I’ve always said your business conscience would +never let you stand for this sort of thing. ‘You can talk and talk,’ +I’ve told people, many a time, ‘but you’ll never convince me that Howard +Quarrier hasn’t a heart.’ No, by jinks! they couldn’t make me believe +it. And here’s my proof--here’s my vindication! Lydia, would you mind +hunting up that cheque-book I left here before dinn--” + +He had made a mistake. The girl flushed. He choked up, and cast a +startled glance at Quarrier. But Quarrier, if he heard, made no motion +of understanding. Perhaps it had not been necessary to convince him of +the conspiracy. + +When he had finished his figures he reviewed them, tracing each total +with his pencil’s point; then quietly handed the pad to Mortimer who +went over it, and nodded that it was correct. + +Lydia rose. Quarrier said, without looking at her: “I have a blank +cheque with me. May I use one of these pens?” + +So he had brought a cheque! Had he supposed that a cheque might be +necessary when Lydia called him up? Was he prepared to meet any demand +of hers, too, even before Mortimer appeared on the scene? + +“As long as you have a cheque with you, Howard,” said Lydia quietly, +“suppose you simply add to Mr. Mortimer’s amount what you had intended +to offer me?” + +He stared at her without answering. + +“That little remembrance for old time’s sake. Don’t you recollect?” + +“No,” said Quarrier. + +“Why, Howard! Didn’t you promise me all sorts of things when I wanted to +go to your friend Mr. Siward, and explain that it was not his fault I +got into the Patroons Club? Don’t you remember I felt dreadfully that he +was expelled--that I was simply wild to write to the governors and tell +them how I took Merkle’s clothes and drove to the club and waited until +I saw a lot of men go in, and then crowded in with the push?” + +Mortimer was staring at Quarrier out of his protruding eyes. The girl +leaned forward, deliberate, self-possessed, the red lips edged with +growing scorn. + +“That was a dirty trick!” said Mortimer heavily. He took the pad, added +a figure, passed it to Lydia, and she coolly wrote a total, underscoring +it heavily. + +“That is the amount,” she said. + +Quarrier looked at the pad which she had tossed upon the desk. Then he +slowly wetted his pen with ink, and, laying the loose cheque flat, began +to fill it in. Afterward he dried it, and, reading it carefully, pushed +it aside and rose. + +“It wouldn’t be advisable for you to stop payment, you know,” observed +Mortimer insolently, lying back in his chair and stretching his legs. + +“I know,” said Quarrier, pausing to turn on them a deathly stare. Then +he went away. After awhile they heard the door close. But there was no +sound from the electric hansom, and Mortimer rose and walked to the +window. + +“He’s gone,” he said. + +Lydia stood at the desk, examining the cheque. + +“We ought to afford a decent touring-car now,” she suggested--“like that +yellow and black Serin-Chanteur car of Mr. Plank’s.” + + + +CHAPTER XIII THE SELLING PRICE + +The heat, which had been severe in June, driving the last fashionable +loiterer into the country, continued fiercely throughout July. August +was stifling; the chestnut leaves in the parks curled up and grew +brittle; the elms were blotched; brown stretches scarred the lawns; the +blazing colour of the geranium beds seemed to intensify the heat, like a +bed of living coals. + +Nobody who was anybody remained in town--except some wealthy business +men and their million odd employés; but the million, being nobodies, +didn’t count. + +Nobody came into town; that is to say that a million odd strangers came +as usual, swelling the sweltering, resident population sufficiently to +animate the main commercial thoroughfares morning and evening, but they +didn’t count; the money they spent was, however, very carefully counted. + +The fashionable columns of the newspapers informed the fashionable +ex-urbanated that the city was empty--though the East Side reeked like +a cattle-pen, and another million or two gasped on the hot, tin roofs +under the stars, or buried their dirty faces in the parched park grass. + +What the press meant to say was that the wealthy section of the city +within the shadow of St. Patrick’s twin white spires and north of Fifty- +ninth Street was as empty and silent as an abandoned gold-mine. Which +was true. Miles of elaborate, untenanted dwellings glimmered blank under +the moon and stood tomb-like in barren magnificence against the blazing +blue of noon. Miles of plate-glass windows, boarded, or bearing between +lowered shade and dusty pane the significant parti-coloured placard +warning the honest thief, stared out at the heated park or, in the cross +streets, confronted each other with inert hauteur, awaiting the pleasure +of their absent owners. + +The humidity increased; the horses’ heads hung heavily under their +ridiculously pitiful straw bonnets. When the sun was vertical nobody +stirred; when the bluish shadows began to creep out over baked +sidewalks, broadening to a strip of superheated shade, a few stirred +abroad in the deserted streets; here a policeman, thin blue summer tunic +open, helmet in hand, swabbing the sweat from forehead and neck; there a +white uniformed street sweeper dragging his rubber-edged mop or a +section of wet hose; perhaps a haggard peddler of lemonade making for +the Park wall around the Metropolitan Museum where, a little later, the +East Side would venture out to sit on the benches, or the great electric +tourists’ busses would halt to dump out a living cargo--perhaps only the +bent figure of a woman, very shabby, very old, dragging her ancient +bones along the silent splendour of Fifth Avenue, and peering about the +gutters for something she never finds--always peering, always mumbling +the endless, wordless, soundless miserere of the poor. + +Quarrier’s huge limestone mansion, looming golden in the sun, was +tenantless; its owner, closing even The Sedges, his Long Island house, +and driven northward for a breath of air, was expected at Shotover. + +The house of Mrs. Mortimer was closed and boarded up; the Caithness +mansion was closed; the Ferralls’, the Bonnesdels’, the Pages’, the +Shannons’, Mrs. Vendenning’s, all were sealed up like vaults. A +caretaker apparently guarded Major Belwether’s house, peeping out at +intervals from behind the basement windows. As for Plank’s great pile of +masonry, edging the outer Hundreds in the north, several lighted windows +were to be seen in it at night, and a big yellow and black touring-car +whizzed down town from its bronze gateway every morning with perfect +regularity. + +For there was a fight on that had steadily grown hotter with the +weather, and Plank had little time to concern himself with the +temperature or to mop his red features over the weather bureau report. +Harrington and Quarrier were after him, horse, foot, and dragoons; +Harrington had even taken a house at Seabright in order to be near in +person; and Quarrier’s move from Long Island to Shotover House was not +as flippant as it might appear, for he had his private car there and a +locomotive at Black Fells Crossing station, and he was within striking +distance of Rochester, Utica, Syracuse, and Albany. Which was what +Harrington thought necessary. + +The vast unseen machinery set in motion by Harrington and Quarrier had +begun to grind in May; and, at the first audible rumble, the aspect of +things financial in the country changed. A few industrials began to +rocket, nobody knew why; but the market’s first tremor left it baggy and +spineless, and the reaction, already overdue, became a sodden and soggy +slump. Nobody knew why. + +The noise of the fray in the papers, which had first excited then +stunned the outside public, continued in a delirium of rumour, report, +forecast, and summing up at the week’s end. + +Scare heads, involving everybody and everything, from the District- +Attorney to Plank’s office boy, succeeded one another. Plank’s name +headed column after column. Already becoming familiar in the society and +financial sections, it began to appear in neighbouring paragraphs. Who +was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less inaccuracy, +humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers tried to tell +that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments good-natured or +ill-natured according to circumstances over which somebody ought to have +some control. What was Harrington trying to do to Plank--if he was trying +to do anything? They told that pretty clearly. What was Quarrier going +to do to Plank? That, also, they explained in lively detail. A few +clergymen who stuck to their churches began to volunteer pulpit opinions +concerning the ethics of the battle. A minister who was generally +supposed to make an unmitigated nuisance of himself in politics dealt +Plank an unexpected blow by saying that he was a “hero.” Some papers +called him “Hero” Plank for awhile, but soon tired of it or forgot it +under the stress of the increasing heat. + +Besides Plank scarcely noticed what the press said of him. He was too +busy; his days were full days, brimming over deep into the night. +Brokers, lawyers, sycophants, tipsters, treacherous ex-employés of +Quarrier, detectives, up-State petty officials, lobbyists from Albany, +newspaper men, men from Wall Street, Broad Street, Mulberry Street, +Forty-second Street--all these he saw in units, relays, regiments--either +at his offices or after dinner--and sometimes after midnight in his own +house. And these were only a few, picked from the interested or +disinterested thousands who besieged him with advice, importunity, +threats, and attempted blackmail. And he handled them all in turn, +stolidly but with decision. His obstinate under lip protruded further +and further with rare recessions; his heavy head was like the lowered +head of a bull. Undaunted, inexorable, slow to the verge of stupidity at +times, at times swift as a startled tiger, this new, amazing personality +steadily developing, looming higher, heavier, athwart the financial +horizon--in stature holding his own among giants, then growing, +gradually, inch by inch, dominated his surrounding level sky line. + +The youth in him was the tragedy to the old; the sudden silence of the +man the danger to the secretive. Harrington was already an old man; +Quarrier’s own weapon had always been secrecy; but the silence of Plank +confused him, for he had never learned to parry well another’s use of +his own weapon. The left-handed swordsman dreads to cross with a man who +fights with the left hand. And Harrington, hoary, seamed, scarred, +maimed in onslaughts of long forgotten battles, looked long and hard +upon this weird of his own dead youth which now rose towering to +confront him, menacing him with the armed point of the same shield +behind which he himself had so long found shelter--the Law! + +The closing of the courts enforced armed truces along certain lines of +Plank’s battle front; the adjournment of the legislature emptied Albany. +Once it was rumoured that Plank had passed an entire morning with the +Governor of the greatest State in the Union and that the conference was +to be repeated. A swarm of newspaper men settled about the Governor’s +summer cottage at Saratoga, but they learned nothing, nor could they +find a trace of Plank’s tracks in the trodden trails of the great Spa. + +Besides, the racing had begun; Desmond, Burbank, Sneed, and others of +the gilded guild had opened new club-houses; the wretched, half-starved +natives in the surrounding hills were violating the game-laws to distend +the paunches of the overfed with five-inch troutlings and grouse and +woodcock slaughtered out of season; so there was plenty of copy for +newspaper men without the daily speculative paragraph devoted to the +doings of Beverly Plank. Some scandal, too--but newspapers never touch +that; and after all it was nobody’s affair that Leroy Mortimer drove a +large yellow and black Serin-Chanteur touring-car, new model, all over +Saratoga county. Perhaps the similarity of machines gave rise to the +rumour of Plank’s presence; perhaps not, because the car was often +driven by a tall, slender girl with dark eyes and hair; and nobody ever +saw that sort of pretty woman in Plank’s Serin, or saw Leroy Mortimer +for many days without a companion of that species. + +Mortimer’s health was excellent. The races had not proved remunerative +however, and his new motor-car was horribly expensive. So was Lydia. And +he began to be seriously afraid that by the end of August he would be +obliged to apply to Quarrier once more for some slight temporary token +of that gentleman’s goodwill. He told Lydia this, and she seemed to +agree with him. This pleased him. She had not pleased him very much +recently. For one thing she was becoming too friendly with some of his +friends--Desmond in particular. + +Plank, it was known, had opened his great house at Black Fells. His +servants, gamekeepers, were there; his stables, kennels, greenhouses, +model stock-farm--all had been put in immaculate condition pending the +advent of the master. But Plank had not appeared; his new sea-going +steam yacht still lay in the East River, and, at rare intervals, a +significant glimmer of bunting disclosed the owner’s presence aboard for +an hour or two. That was all, however; and the cliff-watchers at +Shotover House and the Fells looked seaward in vain for the big Siwanoa, +as yacht after yacht, heralded by the smudge on the horizon, turned from +a gray speck to a white one, and crept in from the sea to anchor. + +The Ferralls were at Shotover with their first instalment of guests. +Sylvia was there, Quarrier expected--because Kemp Ferrall’s break with +him was not a social one, and Grace’s real affection for Sylvia blinded +neither her nor her husband to the material and social importance of the +intimacy. Siward was not invited; neither had an invitation to him been +even discussed in view of what Grace was aware of, and what everybody +knew concerning the implacable relations existing between him, +personally, and Howard Quarrier. + +Bridge, yachting, and motoring were the August sports; the shooting set +had not yet arrived, of course; in fact there was still another relay +expected before the season opened and brought the shooting coterie for +the first two weeks. But Sylvia was expected to last through and hold +over with a brief interlude for a week’s end at Lenox. So was Quarrier; +and Grace, always animated by a lively but harmless malice, hoped to +Heaven that Plank might arrive before Quarrier left, because she adored +the tension of situations and was delightedly persuaded that Plank was +more than able to hold his own with her irritating cousin. + +“Oh, to see them together in a small room,” she sighed ecstatically in +Sylvia’s ear; “I’d certainly poke them up if they only turned around +sulkily in the corners of the cage and evinced a desire to lie down.” + +“What a mischief-maker you are,” said Sylvia listlessly; and though +Grace became very vivacious in describing her plans to extract amusement +out of Plank’s hoped-for presence Sylvia remained uninterested. + +There seemed, in fact, little to interest her that summer at Shotover +House; and, though she never refused any plans made for her, and her +attitude was one of quiet acquiescence always--she never expressed a +preference for anything, a desire to do anything; and, if let alone, was +prone to pace the cliffs or stretch her slim, rounded body on the sand +of some little, sheltered, crescent beach, apparently content with the +thunderous calm of sea and sky. + +Her interest, too, in people had seemingly been extinguished. Once or +twice she did inquire as to Marion’s whereabouts, and learned that Miss +Page was fishing in Minnesota somewhere but would return to Shotover +when the shooting opened. Somebody, Captain Voucher, perhaps, mentioned +to somebody in her hearing that Siward was still in New York. If she +heard she made no sign, no inquiry. The next morning she remained abed +with a headache, and Grace motored to Wendover without her; but Sylvia +spent the balance of the day on the cliffs, and played Bridge with the +devil’s own luck till dawn, piling up a score that staggered Mr. +Fleetwood, who had been instructing her in adversary play a day or two +before. + +The hot month dragged on; Quarrier came; Agatha Caithness arrived a few +days later--scheme of the Ferralls involving Alderdene!--but the Siwanoa +did not come, and Plank remained invisible. Leila Mortimer arrived from +Swan’s Harbour toward the middle of the month, offering no information +as to the whereabouts of what Major Belwether delicately designated as +her “legitimate.” But everybody knew he was at last to be crossed off +and struck clean out, and the ugly history of the winter, now so +impudently corroborated at Saratoga, gave many a hostess the opportunity +long desired. Mortimer, as far as his own particular circle was +concerned, was down and out; Leila, accepted as a matter of course +without him, remained quietly uncommunicative. If the outward physical +change in her was due to her marital rupture people thought it was well +that it had come in time, for she bloomed like a lovely exotic; and her +silences and enthusiasms, and the fragrant freshness of her developing +attitude toward the world first disconcerted, then amused, then touched +those who had supposed themselves to be so long a buckler for her +foibles and a shield for her caprice. + +“Gad,” said Alderdene, “she’s well rid of him if he’s been choking her +this long--the rank, rotten weed that he is, sapping the life from her so +when she hung over toward another fellow’s bush we thought she was frail +in the stem--God bless us all for a simpering lot of blatherskites!” + +And if, in the corner of the gun-room, there was a man among them who +had ever ventured to hold Leila’s smooth little hand, unrebuked, in days +gone by, none the less he knew that Alderdene spoke truth; and none the +less he knew that what witness he might be called to bear at the end of +the end of all must only incriminate himself and not that young matron +who now, before their very eyes, was budding again, reverting to the +esoteric charm of youth reincarnated. + +“A suit before a referee would settle him,” mused Voucher; “he hasn’t a +leg to stand on. Lord! The same cat that tripped up Stephen Siward!” + +Fleetwood’s quick eyes glimmered for an instant in Quarrier’s direction. +Quarrier was in the billiard-room, out of earshot, practising balk-line +problems with Major Belwether; and Fleetwood said: “The same cat that +tripped up Stephen Siward. Yes. But who let her loose?” + +“It was your dinner; you ought to know,” said Voucher bluntly. + +“I do know. He brought her”--nodding toward the billiard-room. + +“Belwether?” + +“No,” yawned Fleetwood. + +Somebody said presently: “Isn’t he one of the Governors? Oh, I say, that +was rather rough on Siward though.” + +“Yes, rough. The law of trespass ought to have operated; a man’s liable +for the damage done by his own live-stock.” + +“That’s a brutal way of talking,” said somebody. And the subject was +closed with the entrance of Agatha in white flannels on her way to the +squash court where she had an appointment with Quarrier. + +“A strange girl,” said somebody after she had disappeared with Quarrier. + +“That pallor is stunning,” said a big, ruddy youth, with sunburn on his +neck and forehead. + +“It isn’t healthy,” said Fleetwood. + +“It attracts me,” persisted the ruddy young man, voicing naively that +curious truth concerning the attraction that disease so often exerts on +health--the strange curiosity the normal has for the sub-normal--that +fascination of the wholesome for the unhealthy. It is, perhaps, more +curiosity than anything, unless, deep hidden under the normal, there lie +one single, perverted nerve. + +Sylvia, passing the hall, glanced in through the gun-room door with an +absentminded smile at the men and their laughing greeting, as they rose +with uplifted glasses to salute her. + +“The sweetest of all,” observed a man, disconsolately emptying his +glass. “Oh irony! What a marriage!” + +“Do you know any girl who would not change places with her?” asked +another. + +Every man there insisted that he knew one girl at least who would not +exchange Sylvia’s future for her own. That was very nice of them; it is +to be hoped they believed it. Some of them did--for the moment, anyhow. +Then Alderdene, blinking furiously, emitted one of his ear-racking +laughs; and everybody, as usual, laughed too. + +“You damned cynic,” observed Voucher affectionately. + +“Somebody,” said Fleetwood, “insists that she doubled up poor Siward.” + +“She never met Siward until she was engaged to Howard,” remarked +Voucher. + +“Well?” + +“Oh, don’t you consider that enough to squelch the story?” + +“Engaged girls,” mused Alderdene, “never double up except at Bridge.” + +“Everybody has been or is in love with Sylvia Landis,” said Voucher, +“and it’s a man’s own fault if he’s hit. Once she did it, innocently +enough, and enjoyed it, never realising that it hurt a man to be doubled +up.” + +Fleetwood yawned again and said: “She can have me to-morrow. But she +won’t. She’s tired of the sport. Any girl would get enough with the pack +at her heels day in and day out. Besides she’s done for--unless she +looses Quarrier and starts on a duke-hunt over in Blinky’s country! … Is +anybody on for a sail? Is anybody on for anything? No? Oh, very well. +Shove that decanter north by west, Billy.” + +This was characteristic of the dog-days at Shotover. The dog-days in +town were very different; the city threw open the parks to the poor at +night; horses fell dead in the streets; pallid urchins, stripped naked, +splashed and rolled and screeched in the basin of the City Hall fountain +under the indifferent eyes of the police. + +As for Plank he was too busy to know what the thermometer was about; he +had no time for anything outside of his own particular business except +to go every day to the big, darkened house in lower Fifth Avenue where +the days had been hard on Siward and the nights harder. + +Siward, however, could walk now, using his crutches still, but often +stopping to gently test his left foot and see how much weight he was +able to bear on it--even taking a tentative step or two without crutch +support. He drove when he thought it prudent to use the horses in the +heat, usually very early in the morning, though sometimes at night with +Plank when the latter had time to run his touring-car through the park +and out into the Bronx or Westchester for a breath of air. + +But Plank wanted him to go away, get out of the city for his +convalescence, and Siward flatly declined, demanding that Plank permit +him to do his share in the fight against the Inter-County people. + +And Plank, utterly unable to persuade him, and the more hampered because +of his anxiety about Siward--though that young man did not know it--wore +himself out providing Siward with such employment in the matter as would +lightly occupy him without doing any good to the enemy. + +So Siward, stripped to his pajamas, pored over reams of typewritten +matter and took his brief walking exercise in the comparative cool of +the evening and drove when he dared use his horses; or, sitting beside +Plank, whizzed northward through the starry darkness of the suburbs. + +When it was that he first began to like Plank very much he could not +exactly remember. He was not, perhaps, aware of how much he liked him. +Plank’s unexpected fits of shyness, of formality, often and often amused +him. But there was a subtler feeling under the unexpressed amusement, +and, beneath all, a constantly increasing sub-stratum of respect. Too, +he found himself curiously at ease with Plank, as with one born to his +own caste. And this feeling, unconscious, but more and more apparent, +meant more to Plank than anything that had ever happened to him. It was +a tonic in hours of doubt, a pleasure in his brief leisure, a pride +never to be hinted at, never to be guessed, never to be dreamed of by +any living soul save Plank alone. + +Then, one sultry day toward the last week in August, a certain judge of +a certain court, known among some as “Harrington’s judge,” sent secretly +for Plank. And Plank knew that the crisis was over. But neither +Harrington nor Quarrier dreamed of such a thing. + +Fear sat heavy on that judge’s soul--the godless, selfish fear that sends +the first coward slinking from the councils of conspiracy to seek +immunity from those slowly grinding millstones that grind exceeding +fine. + +Quarrier at Shotover, with his private car and his locomotive within an +hour’s drive, strolled with Sylvia on the eve of her departure for Lenox +with Leila Mortimer; then, when their conference was ended, he returned +to Agatha, calmly unconscious of impending events. + +Harrington, at Seabright, paced his veranda, awaiting this same judge, +annoyed as two boats came in without the expected guest. And never for +one instant did he dream that his creature sat closeted with Plank, +tremulous, sallow, nearing the edge of cringing avowal--only held back +from utter collapse by the agonising necessity of completing a bargain +that might save himself from the degradation of the punishment that had +seemed inevitable. All day long he sat with Plank. Nobody except those +two knew he was there. And after a very long time Plank consented that +nobody else except Siward and Harrington and Quarrier should ever know. +So he called up Harrington on the telephone, saying that there was, in +the office, somebody who desired to speak to him. And when Harrington +caught the judge’s first faint, stammered word he reeled where he stood, +ashen, unbelieving, speechless. The shaking but remorseless voice went +on, dinning horribly in his ear, then ceased, and Plank’s heavy voice +sounded the curt coup de grâce. + +Harrington was an old man, a very old man, mortally hurt; but he +steadied himself along the wall of his study to the desk and sank into +the chair. + +There he sat, feeling the scars of old wounds throbbing, feeling his age +and the tragedy of it, and the new sensation of fear--fear of the wraith +of his own youth, wearing the mask of Plank, and menacing him with the +menace he had used on others so long ago--so very long ago. + +After a little while he passed a thin hand over his eyes, over his gray +head, over the mouth that all men watched with fear, over the shaven jaw +now grimly set, but trembling. His hand, too, shook with palsy as he +wrote, painfully picking out the words and figures of the cipher from +his code-book; but he closed his thin lips and squared his unsteady jaw +and wrote his message to Quarrier: + +“It is all up. Plank will take over Inter-County. Come at once.” + +And that was all there was to be done until he could come into Plank’s +camp with arms and banners, a conquered man, cynical of the mercy he +dared not expect and which, in all his life, he had never, never shown +to man, to woman, or to child. + +Plank slept the sleep of utter exhaustion that night; the morning found +him haggard but strong, cool in his triumph, serious, stern faced, +almost sad that his work was done, the battle won. + +From his own house he telegraphed a curt summons to Harrington and to +Quarrier for a conference in his own office; then, finishing whatever +business his morning mail required, put on his hat and went to see the +one man in the world he was most glad for. + +He found him at breakfast, sipping coffee and wrinkling his brows over +the eternal typewritten pages. And Plank’s face cleared at the sight and +he sat down, laughing aloud. + +“It’s all over, Siward,” he said. “Harrington knows it; Quarrier knows +it by this time. Their judge crawled in yesterday and threw himself on +our mercy; and the men whose whip he obeyed will be on their way to +surrender by this time. … Well! Haven’t you a word?” + +“Many,” said Siward slowly; “too many to utter, but not enough to +express what I feel. If you will take two on account, here they are in +one phrase: thank you.” + +“Debt’s cancelled,” said Plank, laughing. “Do you want to hear the +details?” + +They talked for an hour, and, in the telling, even Plank’s stolidity +gave way sufficient to make his heavy voice ring at moments, and the +glimmer of excitement edge his eyes. Yet, in the telling, he scarcely +mentioned himself, never hinted of the personal part--the inspiration +which was his alone; the brunt of the battle which centred in him; the +tireless vigilance; the loneliness of the nights when he lay awake, +perplexed with doubt and nobody to counsel him--because men who wage such +wars are lonely men and must work out their own salvation. No, nobody +but his peers could advise him; and he had thought that his enemy was +his peer, until that enemy surrendered. + +The narrative exchanged by Plank in return for Siward’s intensely +interested questions was a simple, limpid review of a short but terrific +campaign that only yesterday had threatened to rage through court after +court, year after year. In the sudden shock of the cessation from +battle, Plank himself was a little dazed. Yet he himself had expected +the treason that ended all; he himself had foreseen it. He had counted +on it as a good general counts on such things, confidently, but with a +dozen plans as substitutes in case that plan failed--each plan as +elaborately worked out to the last detail as though it alone existed as +the only hope of victory. But if Siward suspected something of this it +was not from Plank that he learned it. + +“Plank,” he said at last, “there is nothing in the world that men admire +more than a man. It is a good deal of a privilege for me to tell you +so.” + +Plank turned red with surprise and embarrassment, stammering out +something incoherent. + +That was all that was said about the victory. Siward, unusually gay for +awhile, presently turned sombre; and it was Plank’s turn to lift him out +of it by careless remarks about his rapid convalescence, and the chance +for vacation he so much needed. + +Once Siward looked up vacantly: “Where am I to go?” he asked. “I’d as +soon stay here.” + +“But I’m going,” insisted Plank. “The Fells is all ready for us.” + +“The Fells! I can’t go there!” + +“W-what?” faltered Plank, looking at Siward with hurt eyes. + +“Can’t you--don’t you understand?” said Siward in a low voice. + +“No. You once promised--” + +“Plank, I’ll go anywhere except there with you. I’d rather be with you +than with anybody. Can I say more than that?” + +“I think you ought to, Siward. A--a fellow feels the refusal of his +offered roof-tree.” + +“Man! man! it isn’t your roof I am refusing. I want to go; I’d give +anything to go. If it were anywhere except where it is, I’d go fast +enough. Now do you understand? If--if Shotover House and Shotover people +were not next door to the Fells, I’d go. Now do you understand?” + +Plank said: “I don’t know whether I understand. If you mean Quarrier, +he’s on his way here, and he’ll have business to keep him here for the +next few months, I assure you. But”--he looked very gravely across at +Siward--“if you don’t mean Quarrier--” He hesitated, ill at ease under the +expressionless scrutiny of the other. + +“Do you know what’s the matter with me, Plank?” he asked at length. + +“I think so.” + +“I have wondered. I wonder now how much you know.” + +“Very little, Siward.” + +“How much?” + +Plank looked up, hesitated, and shook his head: “One infers from what +one hears.” + +“Infers what?” + +“The truth, I suppose,” replied Plank simply. + +“And what,” insisted Siward, “have you inferred that you believe to be +the truth? Don’t parry, Plank; it isn’t easy for me, and I--I never +before spoke this way to any man. … It is likely I should have spoken to +my mother about it. … I had expected to. It may be weakness--I don’t +know; but I’d like to talk a little about it to somebody. And there’s +nobody fit to listen, except you.” + +“If you feel that way,” said Plank slowly, “I will be very glad to +listen.” + +“I feel that way. I’ve been through--some things; I’ve been pretty sick, +Plank. It tires a man out; a man’s head and shoulders get tired. Oh, I +don’t mean the usual reaction from self-contempt, disgust--the dreadful, +aching sadness of it all which lasts even while desire, stunned for the +moment, wakens into craving. I don’t mean that. It is something else--a +deathly, mental solitude that terrifies. I tell you, no man except a man +smitten by my malady knows what solitude can be! … There! I didn’t mean +to be theatrical; I had no intention of--” + +“Go on,” cut in Plank heavily. + +“Go on! … Yes, I want to. You know what a pillow is to a tired man’s +shoulders. I want to use your sane intelligence to rest on a moment. +It’s my brain that’s tired, Plank.” + +Although everybody had cynically used Plank, nobody had ever before +found him a necessity. + +“Go on,” he said unsteadily. “If I can be of use to you, Siward, in +God’s name let me be, for I have never been necessary to anybody in all +my life.” + +Siward rested his head on one clinched hand: “How much chance do you +think I have?” he asked wearily. + +“Chance to get well?” + +“Yes.” + +Plank considered for a moment, then: “You are not trying, Siward.” + +“I have been trying since--since March.” + +“Since March?” + +“Yes.” + +Plank looked at him curiously: “What happened in March?” + +“Had I better tell you?” + +“You know better than I.” + +Siward, cheek crushed against his fist, his elbow on the desk, gazed at +him steadily: + +“In March,” he said, “Miss Landis spoke to me. I’ve made a better fight +since.” + +Plank’s serious face darkened. “Is she the only anchor you have?” + +“Plank, I am not even sure of her. I have made a better fight since +then; that is all I dare say. I know what men think about a man like me; +I knew they demand character, pride, self-denial. But, Plank, I am +driving faster and faster toward the breakers, and these anchors are +dragging. For it is not, in my case, the physical failure to obey the +will; it is the will itself that has been attacked from the first. That +is the horror of it. And what is there behind the will-power to +strengthen it? Only the source of will-power--the mind. It is the mind +that cannot help me. What am I to do?” + +“There is a spiritual strength,” said Plank timidly. + +“I have never dreamed of denying it,” said Siward. “I have tried to find +it through the accepted sources--accepted by me, too. God has not helped +me in the conventional way or through traditional methods; but that has +not inclined me to doubt Him as the tribunal of last resort,” he added +hastily. “I don’t for a moment waver in faith because I am ignorant of +the proper manner to approach Him. The Arbiter of all knows that I +desire to be decent. He must be aware, too, that all anchors save one +have failed to hold me.” + +“You mean--Miss Landis?” + +“Yes. It may be weakness; it may be to my shame that the cables of pride +and self-respect, even the spiritual respect for the Highest, cannot +hold me when this one anchor holds. All I know is that it holds--so far. +It held me at Shotover; it holds me again, now. And the rocks were close +abeam, Plank--very close--when she spoke to me over the wires, through the +rain, that dark day in March.” + +He moistened his lips feverishly. + +“She said that I might see her. I have waited a long time. I have taken +my fighting chance again and I’ve won out, so far.” + +He looked up at Plank, curiously embarrassed: + +“Your body is normal; your intelligence wholesome, balanced, sane; and I +want to ask you if you think that perhaps, without understanding how, I +have found in her, or through her, in some way, the spiritual source +that I think might help me to help myself?” + +And, as Plank made no reply: + +“Or am I talking sentimental cant? Don’t answer, if you think that. I +can’t trust my own mind any more, anyway; and,” with an ugly laugh, +“I’ll know it all some day--the sooner the better!” + +“Don’t say that!” growled Plank. “You were sane a moment ago.” + +Siward looked up sharply, but the other silenced him with a gesture. + +“Wait! You asked me a perfectly sane question--so wholesome, so normal, +that I’m trying to frame an answer worthy of it! I intimated that after +the physical, the mental, the ethical phenomena, there remained always +the spiritual instinct. Like a wireless current, if a man can establish +communication it is well for him, whatever the method. You assented, I +think.” + +“Yes.” + +“And you ask me if I believe it possible that she can be the medium?” + +“Yes.” + +Plank said deliberately: “Yes, I do think so.” + +The silence was again broken by Plank: “Siward, you have asked me what I +think. Now you must listen to the end. If you believed that through +her--her love, marrying her--you stood the best chance in the world to win +out, it would be cowardly to ask her to take the risk. As much as I care +for you I had rather see you lose the fight than accept such a risk from +her. Now you know what I think--but you don’t know all. Siward, I say to +you that if you are man enough to take her, take her! And I say that of +the two risks she is running to-day, the chance she might take with you +is infinitely the lesser risk. For with you, if you continue slowly +losing your fight, the mental suffering only will be hers. But if she +closes this bargain with Quarrier, selling to him her body, the light +will go out of her soul for ever.” + +He leaned heavily toward Siward, stretching out his powerful arm: + +“You marry her; and keep open your spiritual communication through her, +if that is the way it has been established, and hang on to your God that +way until your body is dead! I tell you, Siward, to marry her. I don’t +care how you do it; I don’t care how you get her. Take her! Yours, of +the two, is the stronger character, or she would not be where she is. +Does she want what you cannot give her? Cure that desire--it is more +contemptible than the craving that shatters you! I say, let the one-eyed +lead the blind. Miracles are worked out by mathematics--if you have faith +enough.” + +He rose, striding the length of the room once or twice, turned, holding +out his broad hand: + +“Good-bye,” he said. “Harrington is about due at my office; Quarrier +will probably turn up to-night. I am not vindictive; I shall be just +with them--as just as I know how, which is to be as merciful as I dare +be. Good-bye, Siward. I--I believe you and she are going to get well.” + +When he had gone, Siward lay back in his chair, very still, eyes closed. +A faint colour had mounted to his face and remained there. + +It was late in the afternoon when he went down-stairs, using his +crutches lightly. Gumble handed him a straw hat and opened the door, and +Siward cautiously descended the stoop, stood for a few moments on the +sidewalk, looking up at the blue sky, then wheeled and slowly made his +way toward Washington Square. The avenue was deserted; his own house +appeared to be the only remaining house still open in all that old- +fashioned but respectable quarter. + +He swung leisurely southward, a slim, well-built young fellow, strangely +out of place on crutches. The poor always looked at him; beggars never +importuned him, yet found him agreeable to watch. Children, who seldom +look up into the air far enough to notice grown people, always became +conscious of him when he passed; often smiled, sometimes spoke. As for +stray curs and tramp cats, they were for ever making advances. As long +as he could remember, there was scarcely a week in town but some +homeless dog attached himself to Siward’s heels, sometimes trotting +several blocks, sometimes following him home--where the outcast was +always cared for, washed, fed, and ultimately shipped out to the farm, +where scores of these “fresh-air” dogs resided on his bounty and rolled +in luxury on his lawns. + +Cats, too, were prone to notice him, rising as he passed to hoist an +interrogative tail and make tentative observations. + +In Washington Square, these, and the ragged children, knew him best of +all. The children came from Minetta Lane and the purlieus south and west +of it; the cats from the Mews, which Siward always thought most +appropriate. + +And now, as he passed the marble arch and entered the square, glancing +behind him he saw the inevitable cat trotting, and, at his left, a very +dirty little girl pretending to trundle a hoop, but plainly enough +keeping sociable pace with him. + +“Hello!” said Siward. The cat stopped; the child tossed her clustering +curls, gave him a rapid but fearless sidelong glance, laughed, and ran +on in the wake of her hoop. When she caught it she sat down on a bench +opposite the fountain and looked around at Siward. + +“It’s pretty warm, isn’t it?” said Siward, coming up and seating himself +on the same bench. + +“Are you lame?” asked the child. + +“Oh, a little.” + +“Is your leg broken?” + +“Oh, no, not now.” + +“Is that your cat?” + +Siward looked around; the cat was seated on the bench beside him. But he +was accustomed to that sort of thing, and he caressed the creature with +his gloved hand. + +“Are you rich?” asked the child, shaking her blond curls from her eyes +and staring up solemnly at him. + +“Not very,” he answered, smiling. “Why do you ask?” + +“You look rich, somehow,” said the child shyly. + +“What! With these old and very faded clothes?” + +She shook her head, swinging her plump legs: “You look it, somehow. It +isn’t the clothes that matter.” + +“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Siward, laughing “I’m rich enough to buy +all the hokey-pokey you can eat!” and he glanced meaningly at the pedlar +of that staple who had taken station between a vender of peaches and a +Greek flower-seller. + +The child looked, too, but made no comment. + +“How about it?” asked Siward. + +“I’d rather have something to remember you by,” said the girl +innocently. + +“What?” he said, perplexed. + +“A rose. They are five cents, and hokey-pokey costs that much--I mean, +for as much as you can eat.” + +“Do you really want a rose?” he said amused. + +But the child fell shy, and he beckoned the Greek and selected a dozen +big, perfumed jacks. + +Then, as the child sat silent, her ragged arms piled with roses, he +asked her jestingly what else she desired. + +“Nothing. I like to look at you,” she answered simply. + +“And I like to look at you. Will you tell me your name?” + +“Molly.” + +But that is all the information he could extract. Presently she said she +was going, hesitated, looked a very earnest good-bye, and darted away +across the park, her hoop over one arm, the crimson roses bobbing above +her shoulders. Something in her flight attracted the errant cat, for +she, too, jumped down and bounded after the little flying feet, but, +catlike, halted half-way to scratch, and then forgetting what she was +about, wandered off toward the Mews again, whence she had been lured by +instinctive fascination. + +Siward, intensely amused, sat there in the late sunlight which streamed +through the park, casting long shadows from the elms and sycamores. It +was that time of the day, just before sunset, when the old square looked +to him as he remembered it as a child. Even the marble arch, pink in the +evening sun, did not disturb the harmony of his memories. He saw his +father once more, walking home from down town, tall, slim, laughingly +stopping to watch him as he played there with the other children--the +nurses, seated in a row, crocheting under the sycamores; he saw the old- +fashioned carriage pass, Mockett on the box, Wands beside him, and his +pretty mother leaning forward to wave her hand to him as the long- +tailed, long-maned horses wheeled into Fifth Avenue. Little unimportant +scenes, trivial episodes, grew in the spectral garden of memory: the +first time he ever saw Marion Page, when, aged five, she was attempting +to get into the fountain, pursued by a shrieking nurse; and a certain +flight across the grass he had indulged in with Leila Mortimer, then +Leila Egerton, aged six, in hot pursuit, because she found that it bored +him horribly to be kissed, and she was bound to do it. He had a fight +once, over by that gnarled, old, silver poplar-tree, with Kemp +Ferrall--he could not remember what about, only that they ended by +unanimously assaulting their nurses and were dragged howling homeward. + +He turned, looking across to where the gray towers of the University +once stood. There had been an old stone church there, too; and, south of +that, old, old houses with hip-roofs and dormers where now the high +white cliffs of modern architecture rose, riddled with tiny windows, +every vane glittering in the sun. South, the old houses still remained, +now degraded to sordid uses. North, the square, red-brick mansions, with +their white pillars and steps, still faced the sunset--the last +practically unbroken rank of the old régime, the last of the old guard, +standing fast and still confronting, still resisting the Inevitable +looming in limestone and granite, story piled on story, aloft in the +kindling, southern sky. + +A cab, driven smartly, passed through the park, the horses’ feet +slapping the asphalt till the echoes rattled back from the marble arch. +He followed it idly with his eyes up Fifth Avenue; saw it suddenly halt +in the middle of the street; saw a woman spring out, stand for a moment +talking to her companion, then turn and look toward the square. + +She stood so long, and she was so far away, that he presently grew tired +of watching her. A dozen ragged urchins were prowling around the +fountain, casting sidelong glances at a distant policeman. But it was +not hot enough that evening to permit the children to splash in the +water, and the policeman drove them off. + +“Poor little devils!” said Siward to himself; and he rose, adjusted his +crutches, and started through the park with a vague idea of seeing what +could be done. + +As he limped onward, the sun level in his eyes, he heard somebody speak +behind him, but did not catch the words or apply the hail to himself. +Then, “Mr. Siward!” came the low, breathless voice at his elbow. + +His heart stopped as he did. The sun had dazzled his eyes, and when he +turned on his crutches he could not see clearly for a second. That past, +he looked at Sylvia, looked at her outstretched hand, took it +mechanically, still staring at her with only a dazed unbelief in his +eyes. + +“I am in town for a day,” she said. “Leila Mortimer and I were driving +up town from the bank when we saw you; and the next thing that happened +was me, on Fifth Avenue, running after you--no, the next thing was my +flying leap from the hansom, and my standing there looking down the +street and across the square where you sat. Then Leila told me I was +probably crazy, and I immediately confirmed her diagnosis by running +after you!” + +She stood laughing, flushed, sunburned, and breathless, her left hand +still in his, her right hand laid over it. + +“Oh,” she said, with a sudden change to anxiety, “does it tire you to +stand?” + +“No. I was going to saunter along.” + +“May I saunter with you for a moment? I mean--I only mean, I am glad to +see you.” + +“Do you think I am going to let you go now?” he asked, astonished. + +She looked at him, then her eyes evaded his: “Let us walk a little,” she +said, withdrawing her hand, “if you think you are strong enough.” + +“Strong! Look, Sylvia!” and he stood unsupported by his crutches, then +walked a little way, slowly, but quite firmly. “I am rather a coward +about my foot, that is all. I shall not lug these things about after to- +day.” + +“Did the doctor say you might?” + +“Yes, after to-day. I could walk home now without them. I could do a +good many things I couldn’t do a few minutes ago. Isn’t that curious?” + +“Very,” she said, avoiding his eyes. + +He laughed. She dared not look at him. The excitement and impetus of +sheer impulse had carried her this far; now all the sadness of it was +clutching hard at her throat and for awhile she could not speak--walking +there in her dainty, summer gown beside him, the very incarnation of +youth and health, with the sea-tan on wrist and throat, and he, white, +hollow-eyed, crippled, limping, at her elbow! + +Yet at that very moment his whole frame seemed to glow and his heart +clamour with the courage in it, for he was thinking of Plank’s words and +he knew Plank had spoken the truth. She could not give herself to +Quarrier, if he stood firm. His was the stronger will after all; his was +the right to interfere, to stop her, to check her, to take her, draw her +back--as he had once drawn her from the fascination of destruction when +she had swayed out too far over the cliffs at Shotover. + +“Do you remember that?” he asked, and spoke of the incident. + +“Yes, I remember,” she replied, smiling. + +“Doctors say” he continued, “that there is a weak streak in people who +are affected by great heights, or who find a dizzy fascination drawing +them toward the brink of precipices.” + +“Do you mean me?” she asked, amused. + +But he continued serenely: “You have seen those pigeons called ‘tumbler +pigeons’ suddenly turn a cart-wheel in mid-air? Scientists say it’s not +for pleasure they do it; it’s because they get dizzy. In other words, +they are not perfectly normal.” + +She said, laughing: “Well, you never saw me turn a cart-wheel!” + +“Only a moral one,” he replied airily. + +“Stephen, what on earth do you mean? You’re not going to be +disagreeable, are you?” + +“I am going to be so agreeable,” he said, laughing, “that you will find +it very difficult to tear yourself away.” + +“I have no doubt of it, but I must, and very soon.” + +“I’m not going to let you.” + +“It can’t be helped,” she said, looking up at him. “I came in with +Leila. We’re asked to Lenox for the week’s end. We go to Stockbridge on +the early train to-morrow morning. + +“I don’t care,” he said doggedly; “I’m not going to let you go yet.” + +“If I took to my heels here in the park would you chase me, Stephen?” +she asked with mock anxiety. + +“Yes; and if I couldn’t run fast enough I’d call that policeman. Now do +you begin to understand?” + +“Oh, I’ve always understood that you were spoiled. I’m partly guilty of +the spoiling process, too. Listen: I’ll walk with you a little way”--she +looked at him--“a little way,” she continued gently; “then I must go. +There is only a caretaker in our house and Leila will be furious if I +leave her all alone. Besides, we’re going to dine there and it won’t be +very gay if I don’t give a few orders first.” + +“But you brought your maid?” + +“Naturally.” + +“Then telephone her that you and Leila are dining out.” + +“Where, silly? Do you want us to dine somewhere with you?” + +“Want you! You’ve got to!” + +“Stephen, it isn’t best.” + +“It is best.” + +She turned to him impulsively: “Oh, I do want to so much! Do you think I +might? It is perfectly delicious to see you again. I--you have no idea--” + +“Yes, I have,” he said sternly. + +They turned, walking past the fountain toward Fifth Avenue again. +Furtively she glanced at his hands with the city pallor on them as they +grasped the cross-bars of the crutches, then looked up at his worn face. +He was much thinner, but now in the softly fading light the shadows +under the eyes and cheek-bones seemed less sharp, his face fuller and +more boyish; the contour of head and shoulders, the short, crisp hair +were as she remembered--and the old charm held her, the old fascination +grew, tightening her throat, stealing through every vein, stirring her +pulses, awakening imperceptibly once more the best in her. The twilight +of a thousand years seemed to slip from the world as she looked out at +it through eyes opening from a long, long sleep; the marble arch burned +rosy in the evening glow; a fairy haze hung over the enchanted avenue, +stretching away, away into the blue magic of the city of dreams. + +“There is no use,” she said under her breath; “I can’t go back to Leila. +Stephen, the dreadful part of it is that I--I wish she were in Jericho! I +wish the whole world were in Ballyhoo, and you and I alone once more!” + +Under their gay laughter quivered the undertone of excitement. Sylvia +said: + +“I’d like to talk to you all alone. It won’t do, of course; but I may +say what I’d like--mayn’t I? What time is it? If I’m dining with you +we’ve got to have Leila for convention’s sake, if not from motives of +sheer decency, which you and I seem to lack, Stephen.” + +“We lack decency,” said Siward, “and we’re proud of it. As for Leila, I +am going to arrange for her very simply but very beautifully. Plank will +take care of her. Sylvia! There’s not a soul in town and we can be as +imprudent as we please.” + +“No, we can’t. Agatha’s at the Santa Regina. She came down with us.” + +“But we are not going to dine at the Santa Regina. We’re going where +Agatha wouldn’t intrude her colourless nose--to a thoroughly +unfashionable and selectly common resort overlooking the classic Harlem; +and we’re going to whiz thither in Plank’s car, and remain thither until +you yawn for mercy, whence we will return thence--” + +“Stephen, you silly! I’m perfectly mad to go with you!” + +“You’ll be madder when you get there, if the table has not improved.” + +“Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!” Then with +sudden self-reproach and quick solicitude: “Am I making you walk too +far? Wouldn’t you like to go in now?” + +“No, I’m not tired; I’m millions of years younger, and I’m as strong as +the nine gods of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven’t I waited for +this?” and under his breath, fiercely, “Haven’t I waited!” he repeated, +turning on her. + +“Do--do you mean that as a reproach?” she asked, lowering her eyes. + +“No. I knew you would not come on ‘the first sunny day.’” + +“Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I +am?” + +“I did not think you would come,” he repeated, halting to rest on his +crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; +and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, +listless, sombre in its fixedness. + +The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked +speech. At length she stammered: “I did not come b-because I simply +couldn’t stand it!” + +His face cleared as he turned quietly: “Child, you must not confuse +matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is +passing--ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted +order of things is being reversed. You don’t know what I mean, do you? +Ah, well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you +remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was.” + +“Truly I don’t understand, Stephen. But then--I am out of training since +you went--went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more dull? I--it +has not been very gay with me. I don’t see--looking back across all the +noise, all the chaos of the winter--I do not see how I stood it alone.” + +“Alone?” + +“N-not seeing you--sometimes.” + +He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. “Didn’t you enjoy the +winter?” + +“Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?” + +His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the +fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation: + +“Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that! +Dear, do you dream for one moment that--that I could--” + +“No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean.” + +After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the +frown gathering between his temples. + +They were passing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white façade and +green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city. + +“We’ll telephone here,” he said. + +Side by side they went up the great, broad stoop and entered the lobby. + +“If you’ll speak to Leila, I’ll get Plank on the wire. Say that we’ll +stop for you at seven.” + +She gave her number; then, at the nod of the operator, entered a small +booth. Siward was given another booth in a few moments. + +Plank answered from his office; his voice sounded grave and tired but it +quickened, tinged with surprise, when Siward made known his plan for the +evening. + +“Is Mrs. Mortimer in town?” he demanded. “I had a wire from her that she +expected to be here and I hoped to see her at the station to-morrow on +her way to Lenox.” + +“She’s stopping with Miss Landis. Can’t you manage to come?” asked +Siward anxiously. + +“I don’t know. Do you wish it particularly? I have just seen Quarrier +and Harrington. I can’t quite understand Quarrier’s attitude. There’s a +certain hint of defiance about it. Harrington is all caved in. He is +ready to thank us for any mercies. But Quarrier--there’s something I +don’t fancy, don’t exactly understand about his attitude. He’s like a +dangerous man whom you’ve searched for concealed weapons, and who knows +you’ve overlooked the knife up his sleeve. That’s why I’ve expected to +spend a quiet evening, studying up the matter and examining every +loophole.” + +“You’ve got to dine somewhere,” said Siward. “If you could fix it to +dine with us--But I won’t urge you.” + +“All right. I don’t know why I shouldn’t. I don’t know why I feel this +way about things. I--I rather felt--you’ll laugh, Siward!--that somehow I’d +better not go out of my own house to-night; that I was safer, better off +in my own house, studying this Quarrier matter out. I’m tired, I +suppose; and this man Quarrier has come close to worrying me. But it’s +all right, of course, if you wish it. You know I haven’t any nerves.” + +“If you are tired--” began Siward. + +“No, no, I’m not. I’ll go. Will you say that we’ll stop for them at +seven? Really, it’s all right, Siward.” + +“I don’t want to urge you,” repeated Siward. + +“You’re not. I’ll go. But--wait one moment tell me, did Quarrier know +that Mrs. Mortimer was to stop with Miss Landis?” + +“Wait a moment. Hold the wire.” + +He opened the door of the booth and saw Sylvia waiting for him, seated +by the operator’s desk. She rose at once when she saw he wished to speak +with her. + +“Tell me something,” he said in a low voice; “did Mr. Quarrier know that +Leila was to stay overnight with you?” + +“Yes,” she answered quietly, surprised. “Why?” + +Siward nodded vaguely, closed the door again, and said to Plank: + +“Yes, Quarrier knows it. Do you think he’ll be there to-night? I don’t +suppose Miss Landis and Mrs. Mortimer know he is in town.” + +Plank’s troubled voice came back over the wire: “I don’t know. I don’t +know what to think. I suppose I’m a little, just a trifle, overworked. +Somebody once said that I had one nerve in me somewhere, and Quarrier’s +probably found it; that’s all.” + +“If you think it better not to come--” + +“I’ll come. I’ll stop for you in the motor. Don’t worry, old fellow! +And--take your fighting chance! Good-bye!” + +Siward, absorbed in his own thoughts, rose and walked slowly out of the +booth, utterly unconscious that he had left his crutches leaning upright +in the corner. It was only the surprise dawning into tremulous delight +on Sylvia’s face that at last arrested him. + +“See what you have done!” he said, laughing through his own surprise. +“I’ve a mind to leave them there now, and trust to your new cure.” + +But she was instantly concerned and anxious, and entering the booth +brought out the crutches and forced him to take them. + +“No risks now!” she said decisively. “We have too much at stake this +evening. Leila is coming. Isn’t it perfectly delightful?” + +“Perfectly,” he said, his eyes full of the old laughing confidence +again; “and the most delightful part of it all is that you don’t know +how delightful it is going to be.” + +“Don’t I? Very well. Only I inform you that I mean to be perfectly +happy! And that means that I’m going to do as I please! And that +means--oh, it may mean anything! What are you laughing at, Stephen? I +know I’m excited. I don’t care! What girl wouldn’t be? And I don’t know +what’s ahead of me at all; and I don’t want to know--I don’t care!” + +Her reckless, little laugh rang sweetly in the old-fashioned, deserted +hall; her lovely, daring eyes met his undaunted. + +“You won’t make love to me, will you, Stephen?” + +“Will you promise me the same?” + +“I don’t know, silly! How do I know what I might say to you, you big, +blundering boy, who can’t take care of himself? I don’t know at all; I +won’t promise. I’m likely to do anything to-night--even before Leila and +Mr. Plank--when you are with me. Shame on you for the shameless girl +you’ve educated!” Her voice fell, tremulously, and for an instant +standing there she remembered her education and his part in it. + +The slow colour in his face reflected the pink confusion in hers. + +“O tongue! tongue!” she stammered, “I can’t hold you in! I can’t curb +you, and I can’t make you say what you ought to be saying to that boy. +There’s trouble coming for somebody; there’s trouble here already! Call +me a cab, Stephen, or I’ll be dragging you into that big, old-fashioned +parlour and planting you on a chair and placing myself opposite, to moon +over you until somebody puts us out! There! Now will you call me a +hansom? … And I will be all ready at seven. … And don’t dare to keep me +waiting one second! … Come before seven. You don’t want to frighten me, +do you? Very well then, at a quarter to seven--so I shall not be +frightened. And, Stephen, Stephen, we’re doing exactly what we ought not +to do. You know it, don’t you? So do I. Nothing can stop us, can it? +Good-bye!” + + +CHAPTER XIV THE BARGAIN + +If a man’s grief does not awaken his dignity, then he has none. In that +event, grief is not even respectable. And so it was with Leroy Mortimer +when Lydia at last turned on him. If you caress an Angora too long and +too persistently it runs away. And before it goes it scratches. + +Under all the physical degeneration of mind and flesh there had still +remained in Mortimer the capacity for animal affection; and that does +not mean sensuality alone, but generosity and a sort of routine devotion +as characteristic components of a character which had now disintegrated +into the simplest and most primitive elements. + +Lydia Vyse left Saratoga when the financial stringency began to make it +unpleasant for her to remain. She told Mortimer without the slightest +compunction that she was going. + +He did not believe her and he gave her the new car--the big yellow-and- +black Serin-Chanteur. She sold it the same day to a bookmaker--an old +friend of hers; withdrew several jewels from limbo--gems which Mortimer +had given her--and gathered together everything for which, if he turned +ugly, she might not be criminally liable. + +She had never liked him--she had long disliked him. Such women have an +instinct for their own kind, and no matter how low in the scale a man of +the other kind sinks he can never entirely supply the type of running +mate that such women require, understand, and usually conceive a passion +for. + +Not liking him she had no hesitation in the matter; disliking him, +whatever unpleasant had occurred during their companionship remained as +an irritant to poison memory. She resented a thousand little incidents +that he scarcely knew had ever existed, but which she treasured without +wasting emotion until the sum total and the time coincided to retaliate. +Not that she would have cared to harm him seriously; she was willing +enough to disoblige him, however--decorate him, before she left him, with +one extra scratch for the sake of auld lang syne. So she wrote a note to +the governors of the Patroons Club, saying that both Quarrier and +Mortimer were aware that the guilt of her escapade could not be attached +to Siward; that she knew nothing of Siward, had accepted his wager +without meaning to attempt to win it, had never again seen him, and had, +on the impulse of the moment, made her entry in the wake of several men. +She added that when Quarrier, as governor, had concurred in Siward’s +expulsion he knew perfectly well that Siward was not guilty, because she +herself had so informed Quarrier. Since then she had also told Mortimer, +but he had taken no steps to do justice to Siward, although he, +Mortimer, was still a governor of the Patroons Club. + +This being about all she could think of to make mischief for two men +whose recent companionship had nourished and irritated her, she shipped +her trunks by express, packed her jewel-case and valise, and met Desmond +at the station. + +Desmond had business in Europe; Lydia had as much business there as +anywhere; and, although she had been faithless to Mortimer for a +comparatively short time, within that time Desmond already had sworn at +her and struck her. So she was quite ready to follow Desmond anywhere in +this world or the next. And that, too, had not made her the more +considerate toward Mortimer. + +When the latter returned from the races to find her gone the last +riddled props to what passed for his manhood gave way and the rotten +fabric came crashing into the mud. + +He had loved her as far as he had been capable of imitating that passion +on the transposed plane to which he had fallen; he was stupefied at +first, then grew violent with the furniture, then hysterically profane, +then pitiable in the abandoned degradation of his grief. And, suspecting +Desmond, he started to find him. They put him out of Desmond’s club- +house when he became noisy; they refused him admittance to several +similar resorts where his noise threatened to continue; his landlord +lost no time in interviewing him upon the subject of damage to furniture +from kicks and to the walls and carpets from the contents of smashed +bottles. + +Creditors with sharp noses scented the whirlwind afar off and hemmed him +in with unsettled accounts, mostly hers. Somebody placed a lien on his +horses; a deputy sheriff began to follow him about; all credit ceased as +by magic, and men crossed the street to avoid meeting with an old +companion in direst need. + +Still, alternately stupefied by his own grief and maddened into the +necessity for action, he packed a suitcase, crawled out of the rear +door, toiled across country and found a farmer to drive him twenty miles +over a sandy road to a local railroad crossing, where he managed to +board a train for Albany. + +At Albany, as he stood panting and sweating on the long, concrete +platform which paralleled track No. 1, he saw a private car, switched +from a Boston and Albany train, shunted to the rear of the Merchants’ +Express. + +The private car was lettered in gold on the central panel, “Algonquin.” +He boarded the Pullman coupled to it forward, pushed through the +vestibule, shoved aside the Japanese steward and darky cook, forcing his +way straight into the private car. Quarrier, reading a magazine, looked +up at him in astonishment. For a full moment neither spoke. Then +Mortimer dropped his suit-case, sat down in an armchair opposite +Quarrier, and leisurely mopped his reeking face and neck. + +“Scotch and lithia!” he said hoarsely; the Japanese steward looked at +Quarrier; then, at that gentleman’s almost imperceptible nod, went away +to execute the commission. + +He executed a great many similar commissions during the trip to New +York. When they arrived there at five o’clock, Quarrier offered Mortimer +his hand, and held the trembling, puffy fingers as he leaned closer, +saying with cold precision and emotionless emphasis something that +appeared to require the full concentration of Mortimer’s half-drugged +faculties. + +And when at length Mortimer drove away in a hansom, Quarrier’s Japanese +steward went with him--perhaps to carry his suit case--a courtesy that did +credit to Quarrier’s innate thoughtfulness and consideration for others. +He was very considerate; he even called Agatha up on the telephone and +talked with her for ten minutes. Then he telephoned to Plank’s office, +learned that Harrington was already there, telephoned the garage for a +Mercedes which he always kept ready in town, and presently went bowling +away to a conference on which the last few hours had put an entirely new +aspect. + +It had taken Plank only a few minutes to perceive that something had +occurred to change a point of view which he had believed it impossible +for Quarrier to change. Something had gone wrong in his own careful +calculations; some cog had slipped, some rivet given way, some bed-plate +cracked. And Harrington evidently had not been aware of it; but Quarrier +knew it. There was something wrong. + +It was too late now to go tinkering in the dark for trouble. Plank +understood that. Coolly, as though utterly unaware that the machinery +might not stand the strain, he started it full speed. And when he +stopped it at last Harrington’s grist had been ground to atoms, and +Quarrier had looked on without comment. There seemed to be little more +for them to do except to pay the miller. + +“To-morrow,” said Quarrier, rising to go. It was on the edge of Plank’s +lips to say, “to-day!”--but he was silent, knowing that Harrington would +speak for him. And the old man did, without words, turning his iron +visage on Quarrier with the silent dignity of despair. But Quarrier +coldly demanded a day before they reckoned with Plank. And Plank, +profoundly disturbed, shrugged his massive shoulders in contemptuous +assent. + +So Quarrier and Harrington went away--the younger partner taking leave of +the older with a sneer for an outworn prop which no man could ever again +have use for. Old and beaten--that was all Harrington now stood for in +Quarrier’s eyes. Never a thought of the past undaunted courage, never a +memory of the old victories which had made the Quarrier fortune possible +--only contempt for age, a sneer for the mind and body that had failed at +last. The old robber was done for, his armour rotten, his buckler +broken, his sword blade rusted to the core. The least of his victims +might now finish him with a club where he swayed in his loosened saddle, +or leave him to that horseman on the pale horse watching him yonder on +the horizon. + +For now, whether Harrington lived or died, he must be counted as nothing +in this new struggle darkly outlining its initial strategy in Quarrier’s +brain. What was coming was coming between himself and Plank alone; and +whatever the result--whether an armed truce leaving affairs indefinitely +in statu quo, or the other alternative, an alliance with Plank, leaving +Harrington like a king in his mail, propped upon his throne, dead eyes +doubly darkened under the closed helmet--the result must be attained +swiftly, with secrecy, and with the aid of no man. For he did not count +Mortimer a man. + +So Quarrier’s thin lips twitched and the glimmer of teeth showed under +the silky beard as he listened without comment to the old man’s +hesitating words--a tremulous suggestion for a conference that +evening--and he said again, “to-morrow,” and left him there alone, +groping with uncertain hands toward the door of the hired coupé which +had brought him to the place of his earthly downfall; the place where he +had met his own weird face to face--the wraith that bore the mask of +Plank. + +Quarrier, brooding sullenly in his Mercedes, was already far up town on +his way to Major Belwether’s house. + +At the door, Sylvia’s maid received him smilingly, saying that her +mistress was not at home but that Mrs. Mortimer was--which saved Quarrier +the necessity of asking for the private conference with Leila which was +exactly what he had come for. But her first unguarded words on receiving +him as he rose at her entrance into the darkened drawing-room changed +that plan, too--changed it all so utterly, and so much for the better, +that he almost smiled to think of the crudity of human combinations and +inventions as compared to the masterly machinations of Fate. No need for +him to complicate matters when here were pawns enough to play the game +for him. No need for him to do anything except give them their initial +velocity and let them tumble into one another and totter or fall. Leila +said, laughingly: “Oh, you are too late, Howard. We are dining with Mr. +Plank at Riverside Inn. What in the world are you doing in town so +suddenly?” + +“A business telegram. I might have come down with you and Sylvia if I +had known. … Is Plank dining with you alone?” + +“I haven’t seen him,” smiled Leila evasively. “He will tell us his plans +of course when he comes.” + +“Oh,” said Quarrier, dropping his eyes and glancing furtively toward the +curtained windows through which he could see the street and his Mercedes +waiting at the curb. At the same instant a hansom drove up; Sylvia +sprang out, ran lightly up the low steps, and the silent, shrouded house +rang with the clamour of the bell. + +Leila looked curiously at Quarrier, who sat motionless, head partly +averted, as though listening to something heard by him alone. He +believed perhaps that he was listening to the voice of Fate again, and +it may have been so, for already, for the third time, all his plans were +changing to suit this new ally of his--this miraculous Fate which was +shaping matters for him as he waited. Sylvia had started up-stairs like +a fragrant whirlwind, but her flying feet halted at Leila’s constrained +voice from the drawing-room, and she spun around and came into the +darkened room like an April breeze. + +“Leila! They’ll be here at a quarter to seven--” + +Her breath seemed to leave her body as a shadowy figure rose in the +uncertain light and confronted her. + +“You!” + +He said: “Didn’t you recognise the Mercedes outside?” + +She had not even seen it, so excited, so deeply engaged had she been +with the riotous tumult of her own thoughts. And still her hurt, +unbelieving gaze widened to dismay as she stood there halted on the +threshold; and still his eyes, narrowing, held her under their +expressionless inspection. + +“When did you come? Why?” she asked in an altered voice. + +“I came on business. Naturally, being here, I came to see you. I +understand you are dining out?” + +“Yes, we are dining out.” + +“I’m sorry I didn’t wire you because we might have dined together. I saw +Plank this afternoon. He did not say you were to dine with him. Shall I +see you later in the evening, Sylvia?” + +“I--it will be too late--” + +“Oh! To-morrow then. What train do you take?” + +Sylvia did not answer; he picked up his hat, repeating the question +carelessly, and still she made no reply. + +“Shall I see you to-morrow?” he asked, swinging on her rather suddenly. + +“I think--not. I--there will be no time--” + +He bowed quietly to Leila, offering his hand. “Who did you say was to +dine with you--besides Plank?” + +Leila stood silent, then, withdrawing her fingers, walked to the window. + +Quarrier, his hat in his gloved hands, looked from one to the other, his +inquiring eyes returning and focused on Sylvia. + +“Who are you dining with?” he asked with authority. + +“Mr. Plank and Mr. Siward.” + +“Mr. Siward!” he repeated in surprised displeasure, as though he had not +already divined it. + +“Yes. A man I like.” + +“A man I dislike,” he rejoined with the slightest emphasis. + +“I am sorry,” she said simply. + +“So am I, Sylvia. And I am going to ask you to make him an excuse. Any +excuse will do.” + +“Excuse? What do you mean, Howard?” + +“I mean that I do not care to have you seen with Mr. Siward. Have I ever +demanded very much of you, Sylvia? Very well; I demand this of you now.” + +And still she stood there, her eyes wide, her colour gone, repeating: +“Excuse? What excuse? What do you mean by ‘excuse,’ Howard?” + +“I have told you. You know my wishes. If he has a telephone you can +communicate with him--” + +“And say that I--that you forbid me--” + +“If you choose. Yes; say that I object to him. Is there anything +extraordinary in a man objecting to his future wife dining in the +country at a common inn with a notorious outcast from every decent club +and circle in New York?” + +“What!” she whispered, white as death. “What did you say?” + +“Shall I repeat what everybody except you seems to be aware of? Do you +care to have me explain to you exactly why decent people have ostracised +this man with whom you are proposing to figure in a public resort?” + +He turned to Leila, who stood at the window, her back turned toward +them: “Mrs. Mortimer, when Mr. Plank arrives, you will be kind enough to +explain why Sylvia is unable to accompany you.” + +If Leila heard she neither turned nor made sign of comprehension. + +“We will dine at the Santa Regina,” he said to Sylvia. “Agatha is there +and I’ll find somebody at the club to--” + +“Why bother to find anybody?” said Leila, wheeling on him, exasperated. +“Why not dine there with Agatha alone? It will not be the first time I +fancy!” + +“What do you mean?” he said fiercely, under his breath. The colour had +left his face, too, and in his eyes Leila saw for the first time an +expression that she had never before surprised in any eyes except her +husband’s. It was the expression of fright; she recognised it. But +Sylvia stared, unenlightened, at an altered visage she scarcely knew for +Quarrier’s. + +“What do I mean?” repeated Leila; “I mean what I say; and if you don’t +understand it you can find the key to it, I fancy. Nor shall I answer to +you for my guests. I invite whom I choose. Mr. Siward is one, Mr. Plank +is another. Sylvia, if you care to come I shall be delighted.” + +“I do care to come,” said Sylvia. Her heart was beating violently, her +eyes were on Quarrier. + +“If you go,” said Quarrier, showing the glimmering edge of teeth under +his beard, “you will answer to me for it.” + +“I will answer you now, Howard; I am going with Mrs. Mortimer. What have +you to say?” + +“I’ll say it to-morrow,” he replied, contemplating her in a dull, +impassive manner as though absorbed in other things. + +“Say what there is to be said now!” she insisted, the hot colour +staining her cheeks again. “Do you desire me to free you? Is that all? I +will if you wish.” + +“No. And I shall not free you, Sylvia. This--all this can be adjusted in +time.” + +“As you please,” she said slowly. + +“In time,” he repeated, his passionless voice now under perfect control. +He turned and looked at Leila; all the wickedness of his anger was +concentrated in his gaze. Then he took his leave of them as formally, as +precisely as though he had forgotten the whole scene; and a minute later +the big Mercedes ran out into a half-circle, backed, wheeled, and rolled +away through the thickening dusk, the glare of the acetylenes sweeping +the deserted street. + +Into the twilight sped Quarrier, head bent, but his soft, dark-lashed +eyes of a woman fixed steadily ahead. Every energy, every thought was +now bent to this newest phase of the same question which he and Fate +were finding simpler to solve every minute. Of all the luxuries he +permitted himself openly or furtively, one--the rarest of them all--his +self-denial had practically eliminated from the list: the luxury of +punishing where no end was served save that of mere personal +satisfaction. The temptation of this luxury now presented itself; and +the means of gratification were so simple, so secret, so easy to +command, that the temptation became almost a duty. + +Siward he had not turned out of his way to injure; Siward had been in +the way, that was all, and his ruin was to have been merely an agreeable +coincidence with the purposed ruin of Amalgamated Electric before Inter- +County absorbed the fragments. But here was a new phase; Mrs. Mortimer, +whom he had expected to use, and if necessary sacrifice, had suddenly +turned vicious. And he now hated her as coldly as he hated Major +Belwether for betraying suspicions of a similar nature. As for Plank, +fear and hatred of him was becoming hatred and contempt. He had the +means of checking Plank if Mortimer did not drop dead before midnight. +There remained Sylvia, whom he had selected as the fittest object +attainable to transmit his name. Long ago, whatever of liking, of +affection, of passion he had ever entertained for her had quieted to +indifference and the unemotional contemplation of a future methodically +arranged for. Now of a sudden, this young girl he had bought--he knowing +what she sold and what he was paying for--had become exposed to the +infection of a suspicion concerning himself and another woman; a woman +unmarried, and of his own caste, and numbered among her own friends. + +And he knew enough of Sylvia to know that if anybody could once arouse +her suspicion nothing on earth could induce her to look into his face +again. Suppose Leila should do so this evening? + +Certainly Quarrier had several matters to ponder over and provide for; +and first and foremost of all to provide for his own security and the +vital necessity of preserving his name and his character untainted. In +this he had to deal with that miserable judge who had betrayed him; with +Mortimer, who had once black-mailed him and who now was temporarily in +his service; with Mrs. Mortimer, who--God knew how, when, or where--had +become suspicious of Agatha and himself; with Major Belwether, who had +deserted him before he could sacrifice the major, and whom he now hated +and feared for having stumbled over suspicions similar to Mrs. +Mortimer’s. He had to deal with Sylvia herself, and with Siward--reckon +with Siward’s knowledge of matters which it were best that Sylvia should +not know. + +But first of all, and most important of all, he had to deal with Beverly +Plank. And he was going to do it in a manner that Plank could not have +foreseen; he was going to stop Plank where he stood, and to do this he +was deliberately using his knowledge of the man and paying Plank the +compliment of counting on his sense of honour to defeat him. + +For he had suddenly found the opportunity to defend himself; he had +discovered the joint in Plank’s old-fashioned armour--the armour of the +old paladins--who placed a woman’s honour before all else in the world. +Now, through his creature, Mortimer, he could menace Plank with a threat +to involve him and Leila in a vile publicity; now he was in a position +to demand a hearing and a compromise through his new ambassador, +Mortimer, knowing that he could at last halt Plank by threatening Leila +with this shameful danger. Plank must sign the truce or face with Leila +an action for damages and divorce. + +First of all he went to the Lenox Club and dressed. Then he dined +sparingly and alone. The Mercedes was waiting when he came out ready to +run down to the great Hotel Corona, whither the Japanese steward had +conducted Mortimer. Mortimer had dined heavily, but his disorganised +physical condition was such that it had scarcely affected him at all. + +Again Quarrier went over patiently and carefully the very simple part he +had reserved for Mortimer that evening, explaining exactly what to say +to Leila and what to say to Plank in case of insolent interruption. Then +he told Mortimer to be ready at nine o’clock, turned on his heel with a +curt word to the Japanese, descended to the street, entered his motor- +car again, and sped away to the Hotel Santa Regina. + +Miss Caithness was at home, came the message in exchange for his cards +for Agatha and Mrs. Vendenning. He entered the gilded elevator, stepped +out on the sixth floor into a tiny, rococo, public reception-room. +Nobody was there besides himself; Agatha’s maid came presently, and he +turned and followed her into the large and very handsome parlour +belonging to the suite which Agatha was occupying with Mrs. Vendenning +for the few days that they were to stop in town. + +“Hello,” she said serenely, sauntering in, her long, pale hands +bracketed on her narrow hips, her lips disclosing her teeth in a smile +so like that nervous muscular recession which passed for a smile on +Quarrier’s visage that for one moment he recognised it and thought she +was mocking him. But she strolled up to him, meeting his eye calmly, and +lifted her slim neck, lips passive under his impetuous kiss. + +“Is Mrs. Vendenning out?” he asked, laying his hands on the bare +shoulders of the tall, pallid girl--tall as he, and as pallid. + +“No, Mrs. Ven. is in, Howard.” + +“Now? You mean she is coming in to interrupt--” + +“Oh no; she isn’t fond of you, Howard.” + +“You said--” he began almost angrily, but she laid her fingers across his +lips. + +“I said a very foolish thing, Howard. I said that I’d manage to dispense +with Mrs. Ven. this evening.” + +“You mean that you couldn’t manage it?” + +“Not at all; I could easily have managed it. But--I didn’t care to.” + +She looked at him calmly at close range as he held her embraced, lifted +her arms and, with slender, white fingers patted her hair into place +where his arm around her head had disarranged it, watching him all the +while out of her pale, haunted eyes. + +“You promised me,” he said, “that you--” + +“Oh Howard! Do men still believe in promises?” + +Quarrier’s face had colour enough now; his voice, too, had lost its +passionless, monotonous precision. Whatever was in the man of emotion +was astir; his impatient voice, his lack of poise, the almost human lack +of caution in his speech betrayed him in a new and interesting light. + +“Look here, Agatha, how long is this going to last? Are you trying to +make a fool of me? What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?” + +“Wrong? Oh dear no! How could there be anything wrong between you and +me--” + +“Agatha, what is the matter! Look here; let’s settle this thing now and +settle it one way or the other! I won’t stand it; I--I can’t!” + +“Very well,” she said, releasing herself from his tightening arms and +stepping back with another glance at the mirror and another light touch +of her finger-tips on her burnished hair. “Very well,” she repeated, +gazing again into the mirror; “what am I to understand, Howard?” + +“You know what to understand,” he said in a low voice; “you know what we +both understood when--when--” + +“When what?” + +“When I--when you--” + +“Oh what, Howard?” she prompted indolently; and he answered in brutal +exasperation, and for the first time so plainly that a hint of rose +tinted her strange, pale beauty and between her lips the breath came +less regularly as she stood there looking at the dull, silvery rug under +her feet. + +“Did you ever misunderstand me?” he demanded hotly. “Did I give you any +chance to? Were you ignorant of what that meant,” with a gesture toward +the splendid crescent of flashing gems, scintillating where the low, +lace bodice met the silky lustre of her skin. “Did you misinterpret the +collar? Or the sudden change of fortune in your own family’s concerns? +Answer me, Agatha, once for all. But you need not answer after all: I +know you have never misunderstood me!” + +“I misunderstood nothing,” she said; “you are quite right.” + +“Then what are you going to do?” + +“Do?” she asked in slow surprise. “What am I to do, Howard?” + +“You have said that you loved me.” + +“I said the truth, I think.” + +“Then--” + +“Well?” + +“How long are you going to keep me at arm’s length?” he asked violently. + +“That lies with you,” she said, smiling. She looked at him for a moment, +then, resting her hands on her hips, she began to pace the floor, to and +fro, to and fro, and at every turn she raised her head to look at him. +All the strange grace of her became insolent provocation--her pale eyes, +clear, limpid, harbouring no delusions, haunted with the mockery of +wisdom, challenged and checked him. “Howard,” she said, “why should I be +the fool you want me to be because I love you? Why should I be even if I +wished to be? You desire an understanding? Voilà! You have it. I love +you; I never misunderstood you from the first; I could not afford to. +You know what I am; you know what you arouse in me?” + +Slim, pale, depraved in all but body she stood, eyeing him a moment, the +very incarnation of vicious perversity. + +“You know what you arouse in me,” she repeated. “But don’t count on it!” + +“You have encouraged--permitted me to count--” His anger choked him--or was +it the haunting wisdom of her eyes that committed him to silence. + +“I don’t know,” she said, musingly, “what it is in you that I am so mad +about--whether it is your brutality, or the utter corruption of you that +holds me, or your wicked eyes of a woman, or the fascination of the mask +you turn on the world, and the secret visage, naked in its vice, that +you reserve for me. But I love you--in my own fashion. Count on that, +Howard; for that is all you can surely count on. And now, at last, you +know.” + +As he stood there, it came to him slowly that, deep within him he had +always known this; that he had never really counted on anything else +though he had throttled his doubts by covering her throat with diamonds. +Her strangeness, her pallor, her acquiescence, the delicate hint of +depravity in her, the subtle response to all that was worst in him had +attracted him, only to learn, little by little, that the taint of +corruption was only a taint infecting others, not her; that the promise +of evil was only a promise; that he had to deal with a young body but an +old intelligence, and a mind so old that at moments her faded gaze +almost appalled him with its indolent clairvoyance. + +Long since he knew, too, that in all the world he could never again find +such a mate for him. This had, unadmitted even to himself, always +remained a hidden secret within this secret man--an unacknowledged, +undrawn-on reserve in case of the failure which he, even in sanguine +moods, knew in his inmost corrupted soul that his quest was doomed to. + +And now he had no more need of secrets from himself; now, turning his +gaze inward, he looked upon all with which he had chosen to deceive +himself. And there was nothing left for self-deception. + +“If I marry you!” he said calmly “at least I know what I am getting.” + +“I will marry you, Howard. I’ve got to marry somebody pretty soon. You +or Captain Voucher.” + +For an instant a vicious light flashed in his narrowing eyes. She saw it +and shook her head with weary cynicism: + +“No, not that. It could not attract me even with you. It is really +vulgar--that arrangement. Noblesse oblige, mon ami. There is a depravity +in marrying you that makes all lesser vices stale as virtues.” + +He said nothing; she looked at him, lazily amused; then, inattentive, +turned and paced the floor again. + +“Shall I see you to-morrow?” he demanded. + +“If you wish. Captain Voucher came down on the same train with me. I’ll +set him adrift if you like.” + +“Is he preparing for a declaration?” sneered Quarrier. + +“I think so,” she said simply. + +“Well if he comes to-night after I’m gone, you wait a final word from +me. Do you understand?” he repeated with repressed violence. + +“No, Howard. Are you going to propose to me to-morrow?” + +“You’ll know to-morrow,” he retorted angrily. “I tell you to wait. I’ve +a right to that much consideration anyway.” + +“Very well, Howard,” she said, recognising in him the cowardice which +she had always suspected to be there. + +She bade him good night; he touched her hand but made no offer to kiss +her. She laughed a little to herself, watching him striding toward the +elevator, then, closing the door, she stood still in the centre of the +room, staring at her own reflection, full length, in the gilded pier- +glass, her lips edged with a sneer so like Quarrier’s that, the next +moment she laughed aloud, imitating Quarrier’s rare laugh from sheer +perversity. + +“I think,” she said to her reflected figure in the glass, “I think that +you are either mentally ill or inherently a kind of devil. And I don’t +much care which.” + +And she turned leisurely, her slim hands balanced lightly on her narrow +hips, and strolled into the second dressing-room, where Mrs. Vendenning +sat sullenly indulging in that particular species of solitaire known as +“The Idiot’s Delight.” + +“Well?” inquired Mrs. Vendenning, looking up at the tall, pale girl she +was chaperoning so carefully during their sojourn in town. + +“Oh, you know the rhyme to that,” yawned Agatha; “let’s ring up +somebody. I’m bored stiff.” + +“What did Howard Quarrier want?” + +“He knows, I think, but he hasn’t yet informed me.” + +“I’ll tell you one thing, Agatha,” said Mrs. Vendenning, gathering up +the packs for a new shuffle: “Grace Ferrall doesn’t fancy Howard’s +attention to you and she’s beginning to say so. When you go back to +Shotover you’d better let him alone.” + +“I’m not going back to Shotover,” said Agatha. + +“What?” + +“No; I don’t think so. However, I’ll let you know to-morrow. It all +depends--but I don’t expect to.” She turned as her maid tapped on the +door. “Oh, Captain Voucher. Are you at home to him?” flipping the +pasteboard onto the table among the scattered cards. + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Vendenning aggressively, “unless you expect him to flop +down on his knees to-night. Do you?” + +“I don’t--to-night. Perhaps to-morrow. I don’t know; I can’t tell yet.” +And to her maid she nodded that they were at home to Captain Voucher. + +Quarrier had met him, too, just as he was leaving the hotel lobby. They +exchanged the careful salutations of men who had no use for one another. +On the Englishman’s clean-cut face a deeper hue settled as he passed; on +Quarrier’s, not a trace of emotion; but when he entered his motor he sat +bolt upright, stiff-backed and stiff-necked, his long gray-gloved +fingers moving restlessly over his pointed heard. + + +The night was magnificent; myriads of summer stars spangled the heavens. +Even in the reeking city itself a slight freshness grew in the air, +although there was no wind to stir the parched leaves of the park trees, +among which fire-flies floated--their intermittent phosphorescence +breaking out with a silvery, star-like brilliancy. + +Plank, driving his big motor northward through the night, Leila Mortimer +beside him, twice mistook the low glimmer of a fire-fly for the distant +lamp of a motor, which amused Leila, and her clear, young laughter +floated back to the ears of Sylvia and Siward, curled up in their +corners of the huge tonneau. But they were too profoundly occupied with +each other to heed the sudden care-free laughter of the young matron, +though in these days her laughter was infrequent enough to set the more +merciless tongues wagging when it did sound. + +Plank had never seen fit to speak to her of her husband’s scarcely +veiled menace that day he had encountered him in the rotunda of the +Algonquin Trust Company. His first thought was to do so--to talk it over +with her, consider the threat and the possibility of its seriousness, +and then come to some logical and definite decision as to what their +future relations should be. Again and again he had been on the point of +doing this when alone with Leila--uncomfortable, even apprehensive, +because of their frank intimacy; but he had never had the opportunity to +do so without deliberately dragging in the subject by the ears in all +its ugliness and implied reproach for her imprudence, and seeing that +dreadful, vacant change in Leila’s face, which the mere mention of her +husband’s name was sure to bring, turn into horror unspeakable. + +A man not prone to fear his fellows, he now feared Mortimer, but that +fear struck him only through Leila--or had so reached him until the days +of his closing struggle with Quarrier. Whether the long strain had +unnerved him, whether minutely providing against every possible danger +he had been over-scrupulous, over-anxious, morbidly exact--or whether a +foresight almost abnormal had evoked a sinister possibility--he did not +know; but that threat of Mortimer’s to involve Plank with Leila in one +common ruin, that boast that he was able to do so could not be ignored +as a possible weapon if Quarrier should by any chance learn of it. + +In all his life he had taken Leila into his arms but once; had kissed +her but once--but that once had been enough to arm Mortimer with danger +from head to foot. Some prying servant had either listened or seen +--perhaps a glimmer of a mirror had betrayed them. At all events, whoever +had seen or heard had informed Mortimer, and now the man was equipped; +the one and only man in all the world who could with truth accuse Plank; +the only man of whom he stood in honest fear. + +And it was characteristic of Plank that never for one moment had it +occurred to him that the sheer fault of it all lay with Leila; that it +was her imprudence alone that now threatened herself and the man she +loved--that threatened his very success in life as long as Mortimer +should live. + +All this, Plank, in his thorough, painstaking review of the subject, had +taken into account; and he could not see how it could possibly bear upon +the matters now finally to be adjusted between Quarrier and himself, +because Quarrier was in New York and Mortimer in Saratoga, and unless +the latter had already sold his information the former could not strike +at him through knowledge of it. + +And yet a curious reluctancy, a hesitation inexplicable--unless overwork +explained it--had come over him when Siward had proposed their dining +together on the very eve of his completed victory over Quarrier. + +It seemed absurd, and Plank was too stolid to entertain superstitions, +but he could not, even with Leila laughing there beside him, shake off +the dull instinct that all was not well--that Quarrier’s attitude was +still the attitude of a dangerous man; that he, Plank, should have had +this evening in his room alone to study out the matters he had so +patiently plodded through in the long hours while Siward slept. + +Yet not for one instant did he dream of shifting the responsibility--if +responsibility entailed blame--on Siward, who, against Plank’s judgment +and desire, had on the very eve of consummation drawn him away from that +sleepless vigilance which must for ever be the price of a business man’s +safety. + +Leila, gay and excited as a schoolgirl, chattered on ceaselessly to +Plank; all the silence, all the secrecy of the arid years turning to +laughter on her red lips, pouring out, in broken phrases of delight, +words strung together for the sheer pleasure of speech and the happiness +of her lot to be with him unrestrained. + +He remembered once listening to the song of a wild bird on the edge of a +clearing at night, and how, standing entranced, the low, distant jar of +thunder sounded at moments, scarcely audible--like his heart now, at +intervals, dully persistent amid the gaiety of her voice. + +“And would you believe it, Beverly,” she said, “I formed the habit at +Shotover of walking across the boundary and strolling into your +greenhouses and deliberately helping myself. And every time I did it I +was certain one of your men would march me out!” + +He laughed, but did not tell her that his men had reported the first +episode and that he had instructed them that Mrs. Mortimer and her +friends were to do exactly as they pleased at the Fells. However she +knew it, because a garrulous gardener, proud of his service with Plank, +had informed her. + +“Beverly,” she said, “you are a dear. If people only knew what I know!” + +He began to turn red; she could see it even in the flickering, lamp-shot +darkness. And she teased him for a while, very gently, even tenderly; +and their voices grew lower in a half-serious badinage that ended with a +quiet, indrawn breath, a sigh, and silence. + +And now the river swept into view, a darkly luminous sheet set with +reflected stars. Mirrored lights gleamed in it; sudden bright, yellow +flashes zigzagged into its sombre depths; the foliage edged it with a +deeper gloom over which, on the heights, twinkled the multicoloured +lights of Riverside Inn. + +Up the broad, gentle grade they sped, curving in and out among the +clumps of trees and shrubbery, then on a level, sweeping in a great +circle up to the steps of the inn. + +Now all about them from the brilliantly lighted verandas the gay tumult +broke out like an uproarious welcome after the swift silence of their +journey; the stir of jolly people keen for pleasure; the clatter of +crockery; the coming and going of waiters, of guests, of hansoms, +coupés, victorias, and scores of motor-cars wheeling and turning through +the blinding glare of their own headlights. + +Somewhere a gipsy orchestra, full of fitful crescendoes and throbbing +suspensions of caprice, furnished resonant accompaniment to the joyous +clamour; the scent of fountain spray and flowers was in the air. + +“I didn’t know you had telephoned for a table,” said Siward, as a head- +waiter came up smiling and bowing to Plank. “I confess, in the new +excitement of things, I clean forgot it! What a man you are to think of +other people!” + +Plank reddened again, muttering something evasive, and went forward with +Leila. + +Sylvia, moving leisurely beside Siward who was walking slowly but +confidently without crutches, whispered to him: “I never really liked +Mr. Plank before I understood his attitude toward you.” + +“He is a man, every inch,” said Siward simply. + +“I think that generally includes what men of your sort demand, doesn’t +it?” she asked. + +“Men of my sort sometimes demand in others what they themselves are +lacking in,” said Siward, laughing. “Sylvia, look at this jolly crowd! +Look at all those tables! It seems an age since I have done anything of +this sort. I feel like a boy of eighteen--the same funny, quickening +fascination in me toward everything gay and bright and alive!” He looked +around at her, laughingly. “As for you,” he said, “you look about +sixteen. You certainly are the most beautiful thing this beautiful world +ever saw!” + +“Schoolboy courtship!” she mocked him, lingering as he made his slow way +through the crowded place. The tint of excitement was in her eyes and +cheeks; the echo of it in her low, happy voice. “Where on earth is Mr. +Plank? Oh, I see them! They have a table by the balcony rail, in the +corner; and it seems to be rather secluded, Stephen, so I shall, of +course, expect you to say nothing further about beauty of any species. … +Are you a trifle tired? No? … Well, you need not be indignant. I don’t +care whether you tumble. Indeed, I don’t believe there is really +anything the matter with you--you are walking with the same old careless +saunter. Mr. Plank,” as they arrived and seated themselves, “Mr. Siward +has just admitted that he uses crutches only because they are +ornamental. Leila, isn’t this air delicious? All sorts of people, too, +aren’t there, Mr. Plank? Such curious-looking women, some of them--quite +pretty, too, in a certain way. Are you hungry, St--Mr. Siward?” + +“Are you, St--Mr. Siward?” mimicked Leila promptly. + +“I am,” said Siward, laughing at Sylvia’s significant colour and noting +Plank’s direct gaze as the waiter filled Leila’s slender-stemmed glass. +And “nothing but Apollinaris,” he said coolly, as the waiter approached +him; but though his voice was easy enough, a dull patch of colour came +out under the cheek-bones. + +“That is all I care for, either,” said Sylvia with elaborate +carelessness. + +Plank and Leila immediately began to make conversation. Siward, his eyes +bent on the glass of mineral water at his elbow, looked up in silence at +Sylvia questioningly. + +There was something in her face he did not quite comprehend. She made as +though to speak, looked at him, hesitated, her lovely face eloquent +under the impulse. Then, leaning toward him, she said: + +“‘And thy ways shall be my ways.’” + +“Sylvia, you must not deny yourself, just because I--” + +“Let me. It is the happiest thing I have ever done for myself.” + +“But I don’t wish it.” + +“Ah, but I do,” she said, the low excited laughter scarcely fluttering +her lips. “Listen: I never before, in all my life, gave up anything for +your sake, only this one little pitiful thing.” + +“I won’t let you!” he breathed; “it is nonsense to--” + +“You must let me! Am I to be on friendly terms with--with your mortal +enemy?” She was still smiling, but now her sensitive mouth quivered +suddenly. + +He sat silent, considering her, his restless fingers playing with his +glass in which the harmless bubbles were breaking. + +“I drink to your health, Stephen,” she said under her breath. “I drink +to your happiness, too; and--and to your fortune, and to all that you +desire from fortune.” And she raised her glass in the star-light, +looking over it into his eyes. + +“All I desire from fortune?” he repeated significantly. + +“All--almost all--” + +“No, all,” he demanded. + +But she only raised the glass to her lips, still looking at him as she +drank. + +They became unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage +scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep +into their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing +thing wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful, +unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her--as though +awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through +the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling to the +edge of autumn, broke out into a delicate riot of exquisite florescence; +the very sounds of her voice, every intonation, every accent, every +pause, were charming surprises; her laughter was a miracle, her beauty a +revelation. + +Leila, aware of it, exchanged glance after glance with Plank. Siward, +alternately the leader in it all, then the enchanted listener, +bewitched, enthralled, felt care slipping from his shoulders like a +mantle, and sadness exhaling from a heart that was beating strongly, +steadily, fearlessly--as a heart should beat in the breast of him who has +taken at last his fighting chance. He took it now, under her eyes, for +honour, for manhood, and for the ideal which had made manhood no longer +an empty term muttered in desperation by a sick body, and a mind too +sick to control it. + +Yes, at last the lifelong battle was on. He knew it. He knew, too, +whatever his fate with her or without her, he must always go on with the +battle for the safe-guarding of that manhood the consciousness of which +she had aroused. + +All he knew was that, through the medium of his love for her, whatever +in him of the spiritual remained, or had been generated, was now awake, +alive, strong, vital, indestructible--an impalpable current flowing from +a sane intelligence, through medium of her, back to the eternal truth, +returning always, always, to the deathless source from whence it came. + +Lingering over the fruit, the champagne breaking in the glasses standing +on the table between them, rim to rim, Leila and Plank had fallen into a +low, desultory, yet guarded exchange of words and silences. + +Sylvia sprang up and pushed her chair into the farther corner against +the balcony rail, where no light fell except the radiance of the stars. +Here Siward joined her, dragging his chair around so that it faced her +as she leaned back, tilted against a shadowy column. + +“Is this Bohemianism, Stephen? If it is, I rather like it. Don’t you? +You are going to smoke now, aren’t you? Ah, that is delightful!” +daintily sniffing the aroma from his cigarette. “It always reminds me of +you--there on the cliffs, that first day. Do you remember?--the smoke +from your cigarette whirling up in my face? … You say you remember. … +Oh, of course there’s nothing else to say when a girl asks you … is +there? Oh, I won’t argue with you, if you insist that you do remember. +You will not be like any other man if you do, that’s all. … The little +things that women remember! … And believe that men remember! It is +pitiful in a way. There! I am not going to spill over, and I don’t care +a copper penny whether you really do remember or not! … Yes, I do care! +… Oh, all women care. It is their first disappointment to learn how much +a man can forget and still remember to care for them--a little! … +Stephen, I said a little; and that is all that you are permitted to care +for me; isn’t it? … Please, don’t. You are deliberately beginning to say +things! … Stephen, you silly! you are making love to me!” + +In the darkness his hand encountered hers on the wooden rail, and the +tremor of the contact silenced her. She freed one finger, then let it +rest with its slender fellow-prisoners. There was no use in trying to +speak just then--utterly useless her voice in the soft, rounded throat +imprisoned by the swelling pulses that tightened and hammered and +tightened. + +Years seemed to fall away from her, slipping back, back into girlhood, +into childhood, drawing not her alone on the gliding tide, but carrying +him with her. An exquisite languor held her. Through it vague hints of +those splendid visions of her lonely childhood rose, shaping themselves +in the starry darkness--the old mystery of dreams, the old, innocent +desires, the old simplicity of clairvoyance wherein right was right and +wrong, wrong--in all the conventional significance of right and wrong, in +all the old-fashioned, undisturbed faith of childhood. + +Drifting deliciously, her eyes sometimes meeting his, sometimes lost in +the magic of her reverie, she lay there in her chair, her unresisting +fingers locked in his. + +Odd little thoughts came hovering into her reverie--thoughts that seemed +distantly familiar, the direct, unconscious impulses of a child. To feel +was once more the only motive for expression; to think fearlessly was +once more inherent; to desire was to demand--unlock her lips, naively, +and ask for what she wished. + +Under the spell, she turned her blue gaze on him, and her lips parted +without a tremor: + +“What do you offer for what you ask? And do you still ask it? Is it me +you are asking me for? Because you love me? And what do you give--love?” + +“Weigh it with the--other,” he said. + +“I have--often--every moment since I have known you. And what a winter!” +Her voice was almost inaudible. “What a winter--without you!” + +“That hell is ended for me, too. Sylvia, I know what I ask. And I ask. I +know what I offer. Will you take it?” + +“Yes,” she said. + +He rose, blindly. She stood up, pale, wide-eyed, confronting him, +stammering out the bargain: + +“I take all--all! every virtue, every vice of you. I give all--all! all I +have been, all I am, all I shall be! Is that enough? Oh, if there were +only more to give! Stephen, if there were only more!” + +Her hands had fallen into his, and they looked each other in the eyes. + +Suddenly, through the hush of the enchanted moment, a sullen sound +broke--the sound of a voice they knew, threateningly raised, louder and +louder, growling, profanely menacing. + +Aghast, they turned in the darkness, peering toward the lighted space +beyond. Leroy Mortimer, his face shockingly congested, stood unsteadily +balancing there, confronting his wife, who sat staring at him in horror. +At the same instant Plank rose and laid a hand on Mortimer’s shoulder, +but Mortimer shook him off with a warning oath. + +“You and I will settle with each other to-morrow!” he said thickly, +pointing a puffy finger at Plank. “You’ll find me at the Algonquin +Trust. Do you hear? That’s where you’ll settle this matter--in the +president’s office!” He stood swaying and leering at Plank, repeating +loudly: “In Quarrier’s office! Understand? That’s where you’ll settle +up! See?” + +Leila, white face quivering, shrank as though he had struck her, and he +turned on her again, grinning: “As for you, you come home! And that’ll +be about all for yours.” + +“Are you insane, to make a scene like this?” whispered Plank. + +But Mortimer swung on him insultingly: “That’s about all from you, too!” +he said. “Leila, are you coming?” + +He stepped heavily toward her; but Plank’s sudden crushing grip was on +his fat arm above the elbow, and he emitted a roar of surprise and pain. + +“Don’t touch him! Don’t, in Heaven’s name!” stammered Leila, as Plank, +releasing him, stepped back beside her chair. “Can’t you see that I must +go with him! I--I must go.” She cast one terrified glance around her, +where scores of strange faces met hers; and at every table people were +standing up to see better. + +Plank, who had dropped Mortimer’s arm as the latter emitted his bellow +of amazement, stepped toward him again, dropping his voice as he spoke: + +“You go! Do you hear?” he said quietly. “I’ll do what you ask me, +to-morrow! I will do what you ask, if you’ll go now!” + +“You come--do you hear!” snarled Mortimer, turning on his wife, who had +already risen. “If you don’t I’ll make a row here that you’ll never hear +the end of as long as you live! And there’ll be nothing to talk over in +Quarrier’s office, if I do.” + +Leila looked at Plank, rose, and moved swiftly toward the veranda steps, +her head resolutely lowered, the burning shame flaming in her face. +Mortimer cast one triumphant glance at Plank, then waddled unsteadily +after his wife. + +“Hold on,” he growled; “I’ve a Mercedes here! I’ll drive you back--wait! +Here it is! Here we are!” And to Quarrier’s machinist he said: “You get +into the tonneau. I want to show Mrs. Mortimer what night-driving is. Do +you hear? I tell you I’m going to drive this machine and show you how!” + +Leila scarcely heard him. She obeyed the impulse of his hand on her arm, +and mounted to the seat, staring straight ahead of her with dazed and +straining eyes that saw nothing. + +Then Mortimer clambered to his seat, and, without an instant’s warning, +opened up and seized the wheel. + +Unprepared, the machinist attempted to swing aboard, missed his footing +in the uncertain light, and fell sprawling on the gravel. Plank saw him +from the veranda and instantly vaulted the rail to the lawn below. + +“You damn fool!” yelled Mortimer, looking around, “what in hell do you +think you’ll do?” And he clapped on full speed as Plank made a leap for +the car and missed. + +Mortimer laughed, and turned his head to look back, and the next instant +something seemed to wrench the steering-wheel from its roots. There was +a blinding glare of light, a scream, and the great machine bounded into +the air full length, turned completely over, and lay across a flower- +bed, partly on one side. + +Something was afire, too. Men were rushing from the verandas, women +screamed, and stood up wringing their hands; a mounted policeman came +galloping through the darkness; people shouted: “Throw sand on it! Get +shovels, for God’s sake! Lift that tonneau! There’s a woman under it.” + +But they were mistaken, for Leila lay at the foot of the slope, one +little bloody hand clutching the dead grass; and Plank knelt beside her, +giving his orders quietly to those who came running down the hill from +the roadway above, which was now fiercely illuminated by burning +gasoline. At last they got sand enough to quench the fire and men +sufficient to lift the weight from the dead man’s neck, and drag what +was left of him onto the grass. + +“Don’t look,” whispered Siward, drawing Sylvia back. + +He and she both had put their shoulders to the tonneau along with the +others; and now they stood there together in the shifting lantern-light, +sickened, shivering under the summer stars, staring at the gathering +crowd around that shapeless lump on the grass. + +Plank passed them, walking beside an improvised stretcher, calm, almost +smiling, as Sylvia sprang forward with a little sob of inquiry. + +“There’s the doctor, over there; that man is a doctor; he knows,” +repeated Plank with studied deliberation, looking down at Leila’s +deathly face. “He says it’s all right; he says he’ll get a candle, and +that he can tell by the flame’s effect on the pupils of the eyes what +exactly is the matter. No,” to Siward beside him, pressing forward +through the crowd which eddied from the dead man to the stretcher; “no, +there is not a bone broken. She is stunned, that’s all; she fell in the +shrubbery. We’ll have an ambulance here pretty quick. Stephen,” using +his first name unconsciously, “won’t you look out for Sylvia? I’m going +back on the ambulance. If you’ll find somebody to drive my machine, I +wish you would take Sylvia back. No, I don’t want you to drive, +Stephen--if you don’t mind. Get that machinist, please. I’m rattled, and +I don’t want you to drive.” + +Leila lay on the stretcher, her bloodless face upturned to the stars. +Beyond, under a blanket, something else lay very still on the lawn. + +Plank beckoned a policeman, and whispered to him. + +Then, far away in the darkness, a distant clamour grew on the night air, +nearer, nearer. + +Plank, standing beside the stretcher, raised his head, listening to the +ambulance arriving at full speed. + + + +CHAPTER XV THE ENEMY LISTENS + +In September, her marriage to Siward excitingly imminent, Sylvia had +been seized with a passion for wholesale renunciation and rigid self- +chastisement. All that had been so materially desirable to her in life, +all that she had heretofore worshipped, in and belonging to her own +world, she now denied. Down went the miniature golden calf from the +altar in her private shrine, its tiny crashing fall making considerable +racket throughout her world, and the planets and satellites adjacent to +that section of the social system which she had long been expected to +dominate. + +The spectacle of their youthful ruler-elect in sackcloth as the future +bride of a business man had more than disconcerted them. The amazing +announcement of Quarrier’s engagement to Agatha Caithness stupefied the +elect, rendering in one harrowing instant null and void the thousand +petty plans and plots, intrigues and schemes, upon which future social +constructions on the social structure had been based. + +The grief and amazement of Major Belwether, already distracted by his +non-participation, through his own fault, in Plank’s consolidation of +Amalgamated with Inter-County, was pitiable to the verge of the +unpleasant. Like panic-stricken rabbits, his thoughts ran in circles, +and he skipped in their wake, scurrying from Quarrier to Harrington, +from Harrington to Plank, from Plank to Siward, in distracted hope of +recovering his equilibrium and squatting safely somewhere in somebody’s +luxuriantly perpetual cabbage-patch. He even squeezed under the fence +and hopped humbly about old Peter Caithness, who suddenly assumed +monumental proportions among those who had so long tolerated him. + +But Quarrier coldly drove him away and the increasing crowds besieging +poor, bewildered old Peter Caithness trod upon the major, and there was +nothing for him to do but to scuttle back to his own brush-heap and +huddle there, squeaking pitifully. + +As for Grace Ferrall, she lost no time in tears, but took Agatha +publicly to her bosom, turned furiously on Quarrier in private, and for +the first time in her life permitted herself the luxury of telling him +exactly what she thought of him. + +“You had your chance,” she said; “but you are all surface! There’s +nothing to you but soft beard and manicuring, and the reticence of +stupidity! The one girl for you--and you couldn’t hold on to her! The one +chance of your life--and it’s escaped you, leaving a tuft of pompadour +hair and a pair of woman’s eyes protruding from the golden dust-heap +your father buried you in. Now you’d better sit there and let it cover +your mouth, and try to breathe through your nose. Agatha is looking for +a new sensation; she’s tried everything, now she’s going to try you, +that’s all. She will be an invaluable leader, Howard, and we shall not +yawn, I assure you. But, oh! the chance you’ve lost, for lack of a drop +of red blood, and a barber to give you the beard of a man!” + +Which merely deepened the fear and hatred which Quarrier had entertained +for his pretty cousin from the depths of his silk-wadded cradle. As for +Kemp Ferrall, now third vice-president of Inter-County, he only laughed +with the tolerance of a man in safety; and, looking at Quarrier through +the pickets of the financial fence, not only forgot how close his escape +had been, but, being a busy and progressive young man, began to consider +how he might ultimately extract a little profit from the expensive +tenant of the enclosure. + +Grace made the journey to town to express herself freely for Sylvia’s +benefit; but when she saw Sylvia, the girl’s radiant beauty checked her, +and all she could say was: “My dear! my dear, I knew you would do it! I +knew you would fling him on his head. It’s in your blood, you little +jade! you little jilt! you mix of a baggage! I knew you’d behave like +all the women of your race!” + +Sylvia held Mrs. Ferrall’s pretty face impressed between both her hands, +and looking her mischievously in the eyes, she whispered: + +“‘Comme vous, maman, faut-il faire?--Eh! mes petits-enfants, pourquoi, +Quand j’ai fait comme ma grand’ mère, Ne feriez-vous pas comme moi?’” + +“O Lord!” said Mrs. Ferrall, “I’ll never meddle again--and the entire +world may marry and take the consequences!” Then she drove to the Santa +Regina, where Marion was to join her in her return to Shotover; and she +was already trying to make up her disturbed mind as to which might prove +the more suitable for Marion--Captain Voucher, gloomily recovering from +his defeat by Quarrier, or Billy Fleetwood, who didn’t want to marry +anybody. + +In the meanwhile, Siward’s new duties as second vice-president of Inter- +County had given him scant leisure for open-air convalescence. He was +busy with Plank; he was also busy with the private investigation stirred +up at the Patroons’ Club and the Lenox, and which was slowly but +inevitably resulting in clearing him, so that his restoration to good +standing and full membership remained now only a matter of formal +procedure. + +So Siward was becoming a very busy man among men; and Plank, still +carrying on his broad shoulders burdens unbearable by any man save such +a man as he, shook his heavy head, and ordered Siward into the open. And +Siward, who had learned to obey, obeyed. + +But September had nearly ended, when Leila, in Plank’s private car, +attended by Siward and Sylvia and two trained nurses, arrived at the +Fells. The nurses--Plank’s idea--were a surprise to Leila; and the day +after her arrival at the Fells she dismissed them, got out of bed, and +dressed and came downstairs all alone, on a pair of sound though +faltering legs. + +Sylvia and Siward were in the music-room, very busily figuring out the +probable cost of a house in that section of the city east of Park +Avenue, where the newly married imprudent are forming colonies--a just +punishment for those reckless brides who marry for love, and are obliged +to drive over two car-tracks to reach their wealthy friends and +relatives of the Golden Zone. + +And Leila, in her pretty invalid’s gown of lace, stood silently at the +music-room door, watching them. Her thick, dark hair was braided, and +looped up under a black bow behind; and she looked like a curious and +impertinent schoolgirl peeping at them there through the crack of the +door, bending forward, her joined hands flattened between her knees. + +“Oh,” she said at length, in a frankly disappointed voice, “is that all +you do when your chaperone is abed?” + +“Angel!” cried Sylvia, springing up, “how in the world did you ever +manage to come downstairs?” + +“On the usual number of feet. If you think it’s very gay up there--” She +laid her hands in Sylvia’s, and looked at Siward with all the old +mockery in her eyes--eyes which slanted a little at the corners, +Japanese-wise: “Stephen, you are growing positively plump. You’d better +not do that until Sylvia marries you. Look at him, dear! He’s getting +all smooth in the cheeks, like a horrid undergraduate boy!” + +She released one hand and greeted Siward. “Thank you,” she said +serenely, replying to his inquiry, “I am perfectly well. You pay me no +compliment when you ask me, after you have seen me.” And to Sylvia, +looking at her white flannels: “What have you been playing? What do you +find to do with yourself, Sylvia, with that plump sun-burned boy at your +heels all day long? Are there no men about?” + +“One’s coming to-day,” said Sylvia, laughing; and slipping her arm +around Leila’s waist, she strolled with her out through the tall glass +doors to the terrace, with a backward glance of airy dismissal for +Siward. + +Plank had wired from New York, the night before, that he was coming; in +another hour he would be there. Leila knew it perfectly well, and she +looked into the wickedly expressive young face of the girl beside her, +eyes soft but unsmiling. + +“Child, child,” she murmured, “you do not know how much of a man a man +can be!” + +“Yes, I do!” said Sylvia hotly. + +Leila smiled. “Hush, you little silly! I’ve talked Stephen and praised +Stephen to you for days and days, and the moment I dare mention another +man you fly at me, hair on end!” + +“Oh, Leila, I know it! I’m perfectly mad about him, that’s all. But +don’t you think he is looking like himself again? And, Leila, isn’t he +strangely attractive?--I don’t mean just because I happen to be in love +with him, but give me a perfectly cold and unbiassed opinion, dear, +because there is simply no use in a girl’s blinding herself to facts, or +in ignoring certain fixed laws of symmetry, which it is perfectly +obvious that Mr. Siward fulfils in those well-known and established +proportions which--” + +“Sylvia!” + +“What?” she asked, startled. + +“Nothing. Only for two solid weeks--” + +“Of course, if you are not interested--” + +“But I am, child--I am! desperately interested! He is handsome! I knew +him before you did, and I thought so then!” + +“Did you?” said Sylvia, troubled. + +“Yes, I did. When I wore short skirts I kissed him, too!” + +“Did you? W--what did he wear?” + +“Knickerbockers, silly! You don’t think he was still in the cradle, do +you? I’m not as aged as that!” + +“I missed a great deal in my childhood,” said Sylvia naïvely. + +“By not knowing Stephen? Pooh! He used to pinch me, and then we’d put +out our tongues in mutual derision. Once--” + +“Stop!” said Sylvia faintly. “And anyhow, you probably taught him. … +Look at him as he saunters across the lawn, Leila--look at him!” + +“Well? I see him.” + +“Isn’t he almost an ideal?” + +“He is. He certainly is, dear.” + +“Do you think he walks as though he were perfectly well?” + +“Well, I don’t know,” said Leila thoughtfully. “Sometimes people whose +walk is a gracefully languid saunter develop adipose tissue after +forty.” + +“Nonsense! Really, Leila, do you think he walks like a perfectly well +man?” + +“He may be coming down with whooping-cough--” + +Sylvia rose indignantly, but Leila pulled her back to the sun-warmed +marble bench: + +“A girl in love loses her sense of humour temporarily. Sit down, you +little vixen!” + +“Leila, you laugh at everything when I don’t feel like it.” + +“I’m not in love, and that’s why.” + +“You are in love!” + +Leila looked at her, then under her breath: “In love, am I--with the +whole young world ringing with the laughter I had forgotten the very +sound of? Do you call that love?--with the sea and sky laughing back at +me, and the wind in my ears fairly tremulous with laughter? Do you, who +look out upon the pretty world so seriously through those sea-blue eyes +of yours, think that I can be in love?” + +“Oh, Leila, a girl’s happiness is serious enough, isn’t it? Dear, it +frightens me! I was so close to losing it--once.” + +“I lost mine,” said Leila, closing her eyes for a moment. “I shall not +sigh if I find it again.” + +They sat there in the sun, Leila’s hand lying idly in Sylvia’s, the soft +sea-wind stirring their hair, and in their ears the thunderous undertone +of the mounting sea. + +“Look at Stephen!” murmured Sylvia, her enraptured eyes following him as +he strolled hatless and coatless along the cliff’s edge, the sun +glimmering on his short hair, a tall, slim, well-coupled, strongly knit +shape against the sky and sea. + +But Leila’s quick ear had caught a significant sound from the gravel +drive behind her, and she stood up, a delicious colour tinting her face. + +“Are you going in?” asked Sylvia. Then she, too, heard the subdued +whirring of a motor from the front of the house, and she looked at Leila +as she turned and recrossed the terrace, walking slowly but erect, her +pretty head held high. + +Then Sylvia faced the sea again and presently descended the terrace, +crossing the long lawn toward the headland, where Siward stood looking +out across the water. + +Leila, from the music-room, watched her; then she heard Plank’s voice, +and his step on the stair, and she called out to him gaily: + +“I am downstairs, thank you. How dared you send me those foolish +nurses!” + +She was laughing when he came into the room, standing there erect, head +high, a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and she offered him both hands +which he took between his own, holding them strongly, and looking into +her face with steady, questioning eyes. + +“Well?” she said, still smiling, but her scarlet under-lip trembled a +little; then: “Yes, you may say what you wish--what I--I wish you to say. +… There can be no harm in talking about it. But--will you be very gentle +with me? Don’t m-make me cry; I h-have--I am t-trying to remember how it +feels to laugh once more.” + + +Sylvia, lying in the hot sand on the tiny crescent beach under the +cliffs, listened gravely to Siward’s figures, as, note-book in hand, he +went over the real-estate problem, commenting thoughtfully as he +discussed the houses offered. + +“Twenty by a hundred and two; good rear, north side of the street--next +door to the Tommy Barclays, you know, Sylvia; only they’re asking forty- +two-five.” + +“That is an outrage!” said Sylvia seriously; “besides, I remember there +was a wretched cellar, and only a butler’s pantry extension. I’d much +rather have that little house in Sixty-fourth Street, where the +Fetherbraynes live--next house on the west, you know. Then we can pull it +down and build--when we want to.” + +“We won’t be able to afford to build for a while, you know,” said Siward +doubtfully. + +“What do we care, dear? We’ll have millions of things to do, anyway, and +what is the use of building?” + +“As many things to do as that?” he said, looking over his note-book with +a smile. + +“More! Are we not just beginning to live, and open our eyes, silly? +Listen: Books, books, books, from top to bottom of the house, that is +what I want first of all--except my piano.” + +“Do let us have a little plumbing, dear,” he said so seriously that for +a fraction of a second she was on the verge of taking him seriously. + +“Why extravagant plumbing when books furnish sufficient circulation for +the flow of soul, dear?” she retorted gravely. + +“Nobody we know will ever come to see us, if they think we read books,” +said Siward. + +“Isn’t it delightful!” sighed Sylvia. “We’re going to become frumps! I +mustn’t forget the blue stockings for my trousseau, and you mustn’t +forget the California claret for the cellar, dear. We will need it when +we read Henry James to each other.” + +Siward, resting his weight on one hand, laughed, and looked out at the +surf drenching the reefs with silver. + +“To think,” he said, “that I could ever have been enough afraid of the +sea to hate it! After all, at low tide the reef is always there in the +same place and none the worse for the drenching. All that surf only +shows how strong a rock can be.” + +He smiled, and turned to look at Sylvia; and she lay there, silent, blue +eyes looking back into his. Suddenly they glimmered with tears, and she +stretched out both arms, drawing his head down to hers convulsively, her +quivering mouth crushed against his lips. Then she rose to her knees, to +her feet, dazed, brushing the tears from her eyes. + +“To think--to think,” she stammered,” that I might have let you face the +world alone! Dearest, dearest, we must fight a good fight. The sea is +always there--always, always there!” + +He looked straight into her eyes, fearlessly, tenderly, and she looked +back with the divine, untroubled gaze of a child, laying her slender, +sun-tanned hands in his. + +And, deep in his body, as he stood there, he heard the low challenge of +his soul on guard; and he knew that the Enemy listened. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Fighting Chance, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIGHTING CHANCE *** + +This file should be named 8fght10.txt or 8fght10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8fght11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8fght10a.txt + +This ebook was prepared by Jeffrey Kraus-yao. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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