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