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diff --git a/77342-h/77342-h.htm b/77342-h/77342-h.htm index 53d3a98..466a4e1 100644 --- a/77342-h/77342-h.htm +++ b/77342-h/77342-h.htm @@ -536,6 +536,252 @@ cares for good, and with Candis—his beloved princess—enter their enchanted kingdom to dwell happily there, in true fairy-tale fashion, forever after.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, there were a few odd strings to gather up and untangle....</p> + +<p>One bright hot morning Candis said: “Ronnie—let’s run away—drive up to +the country for the entire day.”</p> + +<p>His eyes fell upon a sheaf of papers. “Dear, I must go over these.”</p> + +<p>“Sooner than come with me?”</p> + +<p>“Not sooner—but I must.”</p> + +<p>She opened the door, looking back at him. “I’m sorry.” And she went out.</p> + +<p>That night she wrote a long letter to Trent in Montevideo. And six weeks +later, she lunched with him at the Colony.</p> + +<hr class='tb'> + +<p>Until their coffee arrived in a globular crystal percolator, they ate +almost in silence; then Stephen Trent looked deeply at Candis, and said +abruptly:</p> + +<p>“Have you decided?”</p> + +<p>“Decided what?” She looked at him with cool, unstartled eyes.</p> + +<p>“Decided that without love you are as wan as a flower without sun.”</p> + +<p>She said quickly, resentfully, “Ron adores me!”—then flushed for her +bad taste.</p> + +<p>Trent smiled. “No doubt. But he has a largesse of that adoration—for +Gelda Blair among others.”</p> + +<p>She said, white to the lips: “You lie.”</p> + +<p>He went on, smiling. “No, I don’t—though I would if it were necessary, +for I’m not the least of a gentleman when it comes to getting what I +want. But fortunately—and caddishly—I have the proofs in this case.”</p> + +<p>She continued to stare at him whitely. “I said I don’t believe you.”</p> + +<p>Trent shrugged. “Arnold Nelson, my most intimate associate, was on the +yachting trip with your husband and Gelda Blair.”</p> + +<p>“Well?” Her voice was cold, hostile.</p> + +<p>“Nelson was playing, at that time, the rôle of Gelda’s—protector. They +split—rather nastily—over your husband.”</p> + +<p>Candis stood up. Her face was so white, Trent sprang instinctively to +her side.</p> + +<p>She said in a clear, even voice: “Filthy gossip never interested me—nor +the people who repeat it. Good-by, Mr. Trent.”</p> + +<p>But he would not let her go so easily.</p> + +<p>He said swiftly: “Candis, for God’s sake, don’t be a fool! Candis, you +know I love you. And I swear by God I’m not lying—nor that Nelson lied +to me. I saw Gelda’s letter to him—it broke him up, admitting her +affair with Carlton.”</p> + +<p>Candis turned, and with unseeing eyes, walked out of the restaurant, got +into a cab, gave the address, drove home.</p> + +<p>Ronald was out. She went to his room, opened his desk, searched it +coldly, mechanically. It yielded nothing. But in his old leather +dressing-case she found it—found the letter that had come their first +week in America, addressed boldly on the thin, violet envelope—“Ronald +Carlton, Esquire”—and postmarked Monte Carlo.</p> + +<p>The morning it had come, Ronnie had opened it impatiently, read it +swiftly, put it carelessly into his coat pocket. She had pretended to +ignore it, recognizing his embarrassment and sensing his distaste for +the writer.</p> + +<p>But now—</p> + +<p>In her own room she read it, standing by the open window. “Of course, +it’s all over, Ron darling, but it was so sweet while it lasted. I know +now I should never have followed you—such an anticlimax was +unforgivable, in rotten taste. But I thought you might still care a +little—for you did care a little that sweet, short month, didn’t you, +Ronnie? I did appease your loneliness, even though I always knew you +loved your wife. But this time you ran away from me deliberately. Surely +not because you were afraid of me, afraid I’d give you away to your +pretty little Candis—”</p> + +<p>The letter fluttered to the floor. Candis was cold—deathly cold and +deathly sick.</p> + +<p>She thought remotely that she had always known this, ever since Ronnie, +away from her, neither came nor sent for her. But even as she admitted +this thought, her heart cried out: “He couldn’t—Ronnie couldn’t do this +ghastly thing to me. Even <em>she</em> said he loved only me.”</p> + +<p>But Ronnie had. No use to ask him to deny it—no need of a scene and +vulgar recriminations. Just to go away, quietly, leaving behind a little +note—and he would know, would understand.</p> + +<p>She thought of Trent, hating him for giving her this bitter knowledge. +Then thought of him suddenly, wonderingly, in regard to herself. Blaming +Ronald, was she herself entirely inculpable? Unsuspicious of Ronald, she +had indulged a rather dangerous interest in a rather dangerous man. +Loving Ronald, she had permitted herself to become involved in, at best, +a lukewarm flirtation. For at no time had her regard for Trent been +other than in the nature of a mild salve applied to the smart of +Ronnie’s neglect. For her, there was no excuse. At that time, not even +the excuse of an injured wife. Merely a deliberate playing with fire, a +conscious feeding of her wounded vanity. Where was the Candis of those +dim Sola days? What had happened to that Candis? Perhaps Perella Santes +could have answered her daughter’s question. A certain wild strain of +pride, a certain reckless tendency, the definite need of not only being +loved, but the constant demonstration of that love—</p> + +<p>Candis sat down by the window. She tried to think, but could only feel. +The dreadful ache within her was so sharp at times, she wanted to cry +out. But even the relief of tears was denied her. Once she thought: “Our +enchanted kingdom! Oh, God, the travesty of it! Ronnie unfaithful, and I +irretrievably cheapened.”</p> + +<p>It was after six o’clock when she finally rose, changed her frock, +packed a dressingbag and left the apartment.</p> + +<p>Behind her, on the top of Ronnie’s desk and beside the thin violet note, +she left a second note:</p> + +<p>“Our enchanted kingdom was a mirage, Ronnie. And in its horrible desert +we have become lost to each other. Good-by, my dear. And forgive me—as +I want some day to forgive you.—Candis.” + +<hr class='tb'> + +<p>Ronnie stared at those two notes with a queer wonder. Then with a +violent shudder he tore the tinted one into shreds without even a +passing thought, save one of savage hatred, for the writer. He had kept +that note as an instrument of flagellation, loathing himself whenever he +thought of it, loathing its writer. For him, she did not exist—had +never really existed save for a brief, bitterly regretted moment of +loneliness, in a world that held only Candis and himself.</p> + +<p>Candis! What had she done? What might she do? That passionate pride of +hers—where would it carry her? Away from him certainly—but where? +Where to look for her? Not back in Kingscombe, certainly.</p> + +<p>It was after daybreak, that the thought came so swiftly, so terribly +surely, that he could not tolerate it at first. Trent, of course. Trent +was back. Trent was in love with Candis. He had seen <em>that</em> in +Cannes—and Candis had read him Trent’s letters, some of them—not all, +perhaps.</p> + +<p>An hour later Ronnie had located Stephen Trent in his hotel overlooking +Central Park. The lift shot violently to the fifteenth floor. “To your +right,” said its operator.</p> + +<p>Before the number Ronnie paused a brief moment. Then he knocked swiftly.</p> + +<p>Trent opened the door almost immediately. He was in dressing-robe and +slippers, and he said without surprise: “Hullo, Carlton.”</p> + +<p>Ronnie said briefly, but evenly: “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, +Trent. But Candis has disappeared and I felt you might know of her +whereabouts. Do you?”</p> + +<p>Trent smiled faintly. “I’m sorry—but I haven’t the slightest idea.”</p> + +<p>Ronald looked at him: the man was telling the truth.</p> + +<p>He said: “In that case, I’ll not keep you longer. I regret having +disturbed you so early.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said Trent courteously, and held open the door.</p> + +<p>But as Ronnie stepped into the hall, he called to him, as an +afterthought: “Oh, I say, Carlton—”</p> + +<p>Ronnie turned abruptly. Trent had gone to the front of the room. He came +back, bearing in his hand a small dressing-case. He held it out to +Ronnie.</p> + +<p>He said: “By the way, here is something you may wish to take with you.”</p> + +<p>And staring down at it, Ronnie recognized the bag—read the small +initials C. C.—then he looked up and met squarely the taunting eyes of +the man opposite him.... + +<hr class='tb'> + +<p>Trent dropped without a sound. And Ronnie, taking Candis’ bag from his +relaxed grip, closed the door behind him, walked quietly down the long +corridor, and rang for the lift.</p> + +<p>It was a scant month later that Ronald Carlton descended from a train at +Sola, Texas.</p> + +<p>Sola and August. That had been the combination six years ago when he and +Candis— He closed his eyes swiftly, as if to shut out an entering pain.</p> + +<p>Everywhere that he could look for, he had searched—a battalion of +clever men had searched; but from that moment wherein she had walked out +of Trent’s apartment, leaving that mute evidence behind her, she had +disappeared as though actually swallowed by that black gulf which lay +between them.</p> + +<p>The shack beyond Devil’s Horn was more sun-scorched and desolate than +ever. But there was life within it. Some one had rented it, for its +kitchen door stood open and there were three pots of oleanders blooming +palely on its blistered veranda.</p> + +<p>Ronnie stood just beyond the veranda steps, staring unseeingly at those +waxy oleanders. He had come back—for here lay their real enchanted +kingdom, their years of enchanted happiness. But strangers dwelt in it +now—had found the wonder and beauty of it.</p> + +<p>She came suddenly out of the open kitchen door. She wore a pink-checked +gingham dress, and her arms were bare and brown.</p> + +<p>She looked at Ronnie and said very slowly, almost dreamily: “I knew—I +always knew—you’d come back—just as I came back—to our enchanted +kingdom.”</p> + +<p>But he did not move toward her.</p> + +<p>He said, a little catch in his voice: “Candis, I’ve—I’ve been so +wretched.”</p> + +<p>And only then, when he saw her eyes, did he go to her.</p> + +<p>She said swiftly, “Oh, I know, I know.... But it was all just a dream, +dearest. I found that out the night I ran away—ran away from one +horrible dream into another. I thought I’d go away with Trent—to make +you suffer as you had made me. But when I saw him, when I realized the +<em>cheapness</em> of my motive—I woke suddenly, woke to the knowledge that +our real enchanted kingdom was just ourselves, Ronnie—just you and I.”</p> + +<p>She broke off and for a long moment their eyes held. Then Ronnie dropped +to his knees, buried his face against her side.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Candis—forgive me,” he whispered, “—and love me—love me!”</p> + +<p>Candis did not answer. But she pressed the dark head closer to her +heart—for that dark head <em>was</em> her heart—would always be her heart.</p> + + <div class='tn'> Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the April, 1929 issue of <i>The Red Book</i> magazine. |