CHAPTER III.
Glennknew now that he had been mistaken. The heart he had tended drew all its life still from him. His knowledge of men and women was great. He could not deceive himself. Nature demanded a climax. He must advance or retreat. He realized that he was coming to love her too well—in a sweeter, nearer way. They were to each other now more of a necessity than an inspirational force. He must go away—it was best: for their art, for their peace of mind. It was some time before he could tell her this. He could no longer trust himself to be tender with her. He dared not risk himself; he was not equal to it. It seemed to him their companionship was never so beautiful as now when he wasabout to break it. He was testing his strength and asking his own soul if it were fit for the work and the awful sacrifice. It was during a short interview that he found courage to tell her how his doctor had advised a change of scene and air. A sea voyage, with perhaps a year abroad; possibly Egypt—personally he hardly expected to get beyond the old yellow city of his youthful escapades—Paris, where the aromatic breath of absinthe had tinged the air. There would be no strain then. She knew what it meant. She knew it was not for his health alone that he was putting the sea between them.
“It may be just what you need to strengthen you. In travel I fancy you will find oceans of material for penwork and gulfs of inspiration. And in Paris, that you have learned to love, you might know real life and real joy.” The words cost her an effort, but they were bravely said.
Richmond Briarley sat in his office alone that night. He had just opened his safe and froma package of legal documents drawn a paper which he unfolded and read, a note secured by mortgage, now past due. At the bottom it was signed by the husband and wife. “Albert Winston and Mildred Hughes Winston.” His lips clamped, the circular wrinkles deepened round his mouth. When he first knew Mildred Hughes he was very young and poorer than he was young. He had gone away and left her to this man, who was well launched, expecting her to escape the hardships of the poor. In time he would forget her. He remembered how he had told her so and left her—that day was more to him than all the rest of his life. It was full of her. “Forgetfulness!” He had never learned the meaning of the word. With one swift survey of the room, he slowly tore off the woman’s signature—this was the last remnant of a life that had been lived. As someone opened the door his dream faded with the sound. The next minute Glenn Andrews had come in, and was standing behind him. He rose abruptly, closed the safedoor, and hid the small paper in his hand. “Hello, Andrews.” He held himself down to a semblance of calm. “I thought it was about time that you blew in. What are you doing with that grip?”
“Taking it up to pack it,” he said, as he took out cigars for both.
“Indeed! Are you really off? Are you romancing?”
“Most of my romancing is set to the same notes—bank notes. It serves that purpose well enough. I sail day after to-morrow,” he added, carelessly.
“So you are going to kick over the traces, eh? It’s lucky not to be tied so that you couldn’t break away.”
“New York becomes more and more intolerable every day, and I feel that I must get out of it for awhile. I will still do some work on the magazine, of course. Wait; give me a light.” Andrews took the paper that Briarley had twisted and touched it to the gas jet above his head.It went out before it reached the cigar. With a gesture of impatience he looked around and found the matches.
They smoked on, talking together for some time, Glenn toying with the paper in his hand, carelessly rolling and unrolling it. He got a glimpse of it, and said, quickly: “Look here,” passing it over. “Is this of much importance? Maybe you have burned the wrong thing.”
“Oh, no! That’s nothing,” Briarley answered, with an indifferent gesture. “Albert Winston, the poor devil, is dead, and he died beaten. One man has no business to take a mortgage on another’s home, anyhow. I may be an unresponsive brute, but I couldn’t turn a woman and children into the street.” His throat was dry as he turned his back and laid the scorched paper over the flames. “We might as well finish it—let the ashes settle it.”
“Do you mean to say that Winston died in poverty?” Andrews asked, as he got up to leave.
“He hadn’t a dollar.”
“Let me see; whom did he marry?”
“Mildred Hughes,” Briarley hazarded, repeating her name calmly.
“Oh, that’s so; I do remember her. Half the fellows at college were daft about her. Winston’s money won her, they thought.”
“Where are you off to, now?” asked Briarley.
Andrews turned. “I’ve got the ends of a million threads to wind up before I start.”
“And some to break, no doubt.”
“Let me hear from you occasionally,” Glenn said, as he grasped the other’s hand, and felt like adding, “I have guessed your secret, Briarley, my friend. Some men are heroes simply because they didn’t marry.”
“I’ll try to come down to see you off. But if I shouldn’t make it, remember to get all you can out of life, my boy, and I wish you the best of good luck.”
Andrews looked worn, overworked. Richmond Briarley had hoped that the returns from the opera would take some of the strain off of the ambitious fellow—but the unfortunate affair with Stephen Kent had ended that hope.