"Then it's probably the very best thing that could happen to her."
"Won't you believe me, Bobs," Pat implored, "when I tell you——"
"I'm going to put you out of this house in a minute if you don't stop talking such trash."
"You won't help her?"
"Not by so much as stirring a finger."
Then Pat, offering up a silent prayer to the genius of histrionics, played her trump card. "Will you help—me, then?"
Her eyes were cast down; that was in the rôle she had assumed; but she heard his pipe clatter to the floor, felt the insistence of his stare fixed upon her.
"Bambina!" It was long since he had called her by the old pet-name of her childhood. The realisation of what the reversion implied almost broke down her resolution. But he instantly recovered his self-command; was wholly the physician. "Tell me about it," he said gently.
"What is there to tell more?" She threw out her arms in what she deemed the proper gesture.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Or I'd never have come to you."
"Who is the man?"
Pat shook her head. She had not invented the man even in her own mind.
"Tell me, Pat."
Her lips set firm indicating (as she had seen determination "registered" on the screen) that rather would she die than betray her lover.
"The damned scoundrel has got to marry you."
"He can't."
"Why? Is he married?"
Her head inclined slowly. She was quite pale with emotion now, living into her part thoroughly.
"Then I'll drive the dirty whelp out of town. Pat, you're not going to leave this room until you tell me."
"Real old mellerdrammer stuff," thought Pat. Sadly she said:
"What's the use, Bobs? I'll never tell. He'd marry me if he could. Oh, you needn't go guessing," she added hastily. "You've never seen or heard of him. Word of honour."
He went over to the window and stood, staring out into the soft, grey drizzle of an early thaw. When he turned to her his face was set in a still resolution.
"Pat, you're absolutely certain that he can't marry you?"
"Absolutely," returned Pat, with the conviction of truth.
"Then, will you marry me?"
"Bobs!" She started to her feet, astounded, incredulous. "You're joking."
"I'm in dead earnest."
The irrepressible coquette within her seized upon and dominated her. "Do you mean to say that you're inlovewithme? With little Pat?" she crowed.
"No."
"Oh!" The coquette retired, discomfited.
"I'm offering you a marriage of safety; a marriage of form, only. I should never make any claim on you."
"I couldn't," she gasped, still in the grip of utter amazement.
"Do you see any other way out?" he asked with grim patience.
"But why should you do it?"
"Why shouldn't I? I'd do it for your mother's sake if for no other reason. It isn't as if I had anything else to do with my life. You needn't be afraid of my ever bothering you; and when the time comes, we can get a quiet divorce."
Pat fell back into her chair, her brain still whirling. "No. No. No. No. No! Never in this world! I couldn't even think of it."
"If the idea of me as a pretended husband is so repulsive——"
"It isn't. I think you'redivine. Iadoreyou. Not that way, though. And I couldn't mess things up that way for both of us. I'd kill myself, first." She was winning back, though badly jarred, into the drama of it again. "Bobs, you will help me through. The—the other way."
"What! A criminal operation? Why, I couldn't if I were willing. I'm no obstetrician!"
Pat had the grace to turn red. "No. Not you, of course. But if you'd just send me somewhere—to one of the men in the paper——"
"That would be just as bad."
"Then you'd rather stand by and see me ruined and disgraced," she cried hotly. With a swift change to beseeching softness she murmured, "Mona would tell you to help me if she were here."
Again Osterhout turned to look out into the colorless tumult of the storm: "You're wrong, Pat. She wouldn't. She'd know me better."
"Then what am I going to do?"
He prowled up and down the room like an anxious bear.
"I don't know. We'll have to get you away somewhere. Oh, Bambina! How could you be such an infernal little fool? Why didn't I look after you better?"
"Poor old Bobs!" said she softly. "How could you know anything about it?"
"One thing you absolutely must not do," he pursued vigorously, "is to go to any of those scoundrelly quacks in the paper."
"It's easy enough to tell me whatnotto do."
"You've got to go through with it. I'll make the arrangements when the time comes. Just try not to worry any more than you can help."
Pat nodded her assent and farewell. But inwardly her mood was anything but acquiescent. If Bobs, her trusted stand-by of so many years, wouldn't help, well—Outside in the drizzle she drew out the newspaper and scanned the second legend in the discreet looking column. It gave an obscure address in Newark and was signed "Dr. Jelleco."
What work Osterhout was able to do in the two days following Pat's revelation was mainly mechanical. Neither his mind nor his real interest were enlisted. Pat's supposed situation absorbed both. There were so many phases to that problem! If only Mona were alive. That thought came to him with more poignancy than for a long time past. He would have taken Pat's secret to her at once, without hesitancy. Could he take it to any other member of the family? Certainly not Ralph Fentriss. Nor the helpless Constance. Dee? He shrank from that idea with an invincible reluctance. Life, he more than suspected, was not treating Dee over-tenderly.
He took his perplexities out into the bluster and whirl of a wild afternoon, and came back weary and a little quieted to find the subject of them stretched out on his divan, fast asleep. Her face, he observed pitifully, showed not only exhaustion but a deeper strain. He touched her limp hand and spoke her name softly. At once she sprang half erect, like a startled animal.
"Oh, Bobs! It's you. I'm so glad you've come. I'm afraid, Bobs."
"No, dear; you mustn't let yourself be," he soothed her. "There's nothing——"
"You don't understand. And I've got to tell you. That's what I'm scared about."
"Haven't you told me the whole thing, Bambina?"
"No. I'll—I'll tell you on the way over to Dee's."
"To Dee's?"
"Yes. Dee's ill. You must come at once."
He caught up his hat and gloves; his overcoat he had not taken off. "What is it?"
"Bobs, it's—it'sthat."
"That? What? Can't you speak out?"
Out in the air she took a deep breath. "It wasn't me at all that was in trouble," she announced desperately.
"Not you?" Stupefaction was in his voice. Gathering wrath superseded it as he demanded, "Is this some kind of an infernal joke?"
"No. It was Dee all the time. As I told you at first."
"Then why in the name——"
"You wouldn't help her because she's married. So I thought you might help me, if you thought it was me, because I wasn't."
"An admirable little game. But I'm still not sure that I quite get the point of it." His voice was so ugly that Pat's shook as she said:
"The point was to get you to tell me, if you wouldn't help me yourself, about one of those men in the newspaper——"
"Dee went to one of them?" he broke in.
She looked up at him piteously, pleadingly. "Bobs, it wasterrible. He was so—so ghastly business-like."
"What did you expect?" he returned grimly. "And now she's ill?"
"Yes."
"Fever?"
"I—I think so."
With a barked-out oath he increased his pace. Pat, striding fast to keep up said: "Bobs, dear; Dee doesn't know about it."
"About what?"
"About my pretending that I was the one. It was my own notion."
"Then you will tell her," he ordained with chill command, "as soon as she is well enough to hear it. If she gets well enough," he added.
"If? Bobs! You don't think there's any real danger——"
"Of course there is danger. What do you think fever means in such a case? You take things into your own hands, perpetrate a piece of criminal folly——"
"Bobs! I couldn't have stopped her."
"You could have told me the truth and let me handle the situation. She would never have dared if she knew that I knew. Now, if Dee dies——"
"Don't, Bobs!"
"It will be your lie that killed her."
For once the reckless soul of Pat shrunk back upon itself in awed remorse. "You've never spoken to me that way in your life," she whimpered.
"I've never felt toward you before as I feel now."
"I'm sorry, Bobs. But I had to do it. I'd do it again to save Dee."
"Save her? Aid her in a cowardly shirking of her first duty as a woman and a wife. It is bad enough to find you lying to me. But to find her a coward and a slacker——"
"You're more angry at her than you are at me, aren't you?" said Pat, in wonder and some resentment. She did not like to have anyone else put before her even for indignation.
He made no reply, but turned in at the gateway to the James ground. As they passed under the portico she stole a glance at his face. It had, by the magic of hiswill, become calm, cheerful, self-possessed, exorcised of all wrath and dismay, the face of the confident, confidence-inspiring physician going on his duty of aid. Pat marvelled and admired.
For her it was a long and thought-haunted half hour before he emerged from Dee's room.
"Is it bad?" she whispered, striving to read his expression.
"No. A slight nervous shock. Nothing more."
"Oh, Bobs! I could cry with thankfulness."
"Save your tears," he advised, "for those on whom they might make an impression."
"You don't like me much, do you?" she sighed. "Did you tell Dee about my trick?"
"Haven't I made it clear that you are to make that explanation?"
"What if I don't choose to?"
"I think you will. Whether you like it or not."
Pat said with slow malice: "Shall I tell her that you asked me to marry you?"
"Why not?"
"Oh,verywell!" She could think of nothing more effective to say.
He took his coat and hat from the chair upon which he had tossed them.
"Bobs."
He turned at the door, eyeing her with an uncompromising regard.
"Don't look at me in that poisonous way. Say you're sorry, or I'm sorry, or something."
He did not move but seemed to be considering. When he spoke his voice shook her with its gravity: "It is not going to be easy to forgive you, Pat."
"How about Dee?" she shot at him.
"That is between Dee and myself. She at least did not lie to me."
Pat flamed with a sense of unmerited injuries. "Oh, you go to hell!" she muttered. But her eyes were wondering and frightened after he left her. Dee's voice calling gave her something else to think about. She ran upstairs.
"What were you and Bobs quarrelling about?" demanded the patient.
"Nothing."
"You were. Was it about me? Is he very bitter against me?"
"I'll tell you to-morrow. You must go to sleep now."
"There's something back of this." Dee jumped from her bed and set her back to the door. "You won't leave this room till you tell me."
"Get back into bed," implored the alarmed Pat. "I'll tell you. Truly I will."
"Tell, then."
Pat related the tale of the stratagem with increasing relish in the unfolding of the drama. "Pretty clever of little Pat, what?"
"I'm sorry you had to lie to Bobs, though."
"I've kept the best of it. When I told him, Bobs asked me to marry him."
"Askedyou?"
"Yes. Isn't that a scream!" Between nervousness and exaltation of her diplomatic powers Pat burst into laughter.
"And you laugh?"
The mirth died on her lips. "Don't you think it's fun——"
"You—dirty—little—beast."
"What did I do?" faltered the younger sister. "Whypick on me? I did it all for you anyway, and I think it's pretty rotten, if you ask me, to——"
"You didn't laugh at Bobs for me."
"I didn't laugh at him at all. I was too paralysed."
"If you had I hope he'd have killed you. I would."
A monstrous conjecture rose in Pat's excited brain. "He isn't the man, is he? It isn't Bobs that you're crazy about, and the other man just a bluff? Itcouldn'tbe."
"Why couldn't it?"
"Dee! Itisn't."
"No; it isn't. But there's no reason why it couldn't be with any woman who had heart and sense enough to know him for what he is. He's the best and finest person I've ever known. And when he does the biggest and noblest thing a man could do and offers his name and honour to shield a little heartless fool, he gets laughed at."
"But it wasn't any of it true," cried Pat feebly. "Don't you see what a difference that makes?"
"No. He thought it was true."
"Oh, verywell! I guess I'm pretty rotten. But I'm just as fond of Bobs as you are, Dee Fentriss. Only, the idea of marrying him—well, it's a scream. That's all; a simple scream."
"Oh, do get out of here," said Dee wearily. She slumped down into her bed and drew the covers up.
"Good-night," said Pat, and made her exit.
Before the hall mirror she paused to contemplate herself. "There you are, Pattie-pat," she remarked, with the little triple jerk of the head that set her shaggy locks rippling over her ears and neck. "You still look pretty good to me. But if this family was running a popularity contest with peanuts for ballots, you wouldn't get one shuck. Lord-ee! I wish Cary Scott was here for just one minute! I need moral support."
Spring was turbulent in the sap of young trees and the blood of young humans when Mary Delia James rolled along Fifth Avenue in the quietly elegant limousine provided for her special use by a correctly generous husband. Nothing about her suggested participation in the turbulence of the season. Rather, life with that most unvernal young man, T. Jameson James, would have served to allay any tendencies toward ebullience which she might otherwise have exhibited. She gave the impression of a cool impassivity.
The car had just turned into a side street when her languid expression livened. She signalled to her chauffeur, leaned out of the window and called:
"Cary! Cary Scott!"
The object of the summons turned in mid-crossing and came back, his eyes shining with pleasure.
"Dee! It is good to see you again. How's James?"
"All right, thank you. What do you mean by turning up and not letting us know?"
"Unexpected," he explained. "I hardly had time to find it out before I was here."
"The telegraph, that useful invention, is still operating. Get in; we're blocking traffic. You're dining and spending the night with us, of course."
"If I stay over," he answered dubiously. "I don't know yet. Tell me about the family."
"As usual. We're all flourishing in true Fentriss style."
"Pat? And Mr. Fentriss? And the Brownings?"
"Separated. No; I don't mean Fred and Con," she amended, laughing at the dismay in his face. "Dad and the Brownings. Fred's sticking to businessandto Con; they've got a cottage over beyond the Club; addition in June, not to the cottage, to the family. Pat's running Holiday Knoll like a veteran, though just now she's in Boston. She'll be sunk in desolation when she finds you've been here and she's missed you."
"Perhaps I'll be back again when she returns," he said carelessly, but his words belied his inward resolution so to arrange his schedule that he would run no risk of the peace-destroying encounter. As a minor determination, he decided to accept Dee's invitation for the night, since it involved no danger of seeing Pat.
"Yes; Pat's quite doing her job," continued Dee. "It's good for her to have the responsibility. But she's still a queer, restless, morbid kid. You saw a lot of her at one time, Cary. I always thought you had a steadying influence on her. What's the matter with Pat, do you think?"
"The fever of the age, perhaps."
"Oh, we've all got that. But Pat's temperature is particularly high. She rushes from one whirl to another, playing Billy-old-hell with Mark Denby one week, and Emslie Selfridge another, and Selden Thorpe, a third, and what does she get out of it? Not even excitement, or else she's a little liar. She's beaten it now because she says she's bored to suicide with this place."
"And you yourself, Dee? How is it with you?"
"Oh, I've everything I want," she said restlessly.
"Everything should include happiness; I'm glad."
"What's that? Don't know—yeh." Her voice was hard. "Please stop looking at me like a solemn owl, as ifyou were probing for symptoms. Bobs does all that I need in that line."
"Osterhout? How is he?"
"Go and see him. He needs stirring up. Youarecoming to us to-night, aren't you?"
"Only too charmed. What's this place?" he asked, as the car drew to the curb.
"My tailor's. Will you wait for me?"
"Heavens, no!" he laughed. "I'm nearly forty now. Can't spare the time."
"Then account for yourself before you go. What brings you here so suddenly and without any announcement?"
"A peculiar mission."
"Private, for a guess. Not hooked, are you, Cary?"
"Nothing of that nature. It's private, but not secret, from you. In fact, you may be able to help me."
"I? In what possible way?"
"I want to find Stanley Wollaston."
At the name a slow colour rose in Dee's cheeks until it tinged even the broadly and beautifully modelled forehead. "He's gone away. To Richmond. I can give you his address."
"Good! I've some important news for him. There's no reason why you shouldn't know it. His aunt in England has died and left him the estate. Stan's lean days are over."
The rich hue ebbed out of Dee's face. "He'll go back, then," she mused. At once she recovered herself. "Iamglad," she said.
"I knew you would be," he answered. But he thought with pity: "She still loves him"; and, with uneasiness, "and still sees him." He continued: "He'll be going back within a month at the latest. I'll go on to-morrow to find him."
He got out, bared his head, and helped her to alight.
"At seven o'clock then," she said. "Shall I get some people in? Who do you want to see?"
"No one else in the world," he answered with such conviction that she smiled up at him.
"Youarea dear, Cary. I can't tell you how much we've missed you. Pat almost went into mourning."
She did not see his expression change, ever so slightly, as he turned away. Business of his own kept Scott busy most of the afternoon. When he reached the club he found Jameson James waiting to motor him out. James was amiable in his stiff and carefully measured way.
Scott went to his room immediately upon their arrival, bathed, dressed, drank the preliminary cocktail which Dee had mixed with her own hands and sent up to him, and had started to go downstairs when he stopped, his breath piling up, as it were, in his throat from an emotion half dismay, half rapture. The unforgettable, luscious huskiness of a voice floated up from below.
"Dee; where are you?Docome and hook this last hook for me. I can't get the dam' thing to stay."
He took a step forward. Pat looked up. "Oh,Mist-er Scott!" she crowed. "It's too flawless to see you again. I thought you werenevercoming back."
He walked back with her to Holiday Knoll after dinner. Pat's face was thoughtful, moody. As they paced in silence he studied it intently, with passionate longings, with passionate misgivings. Out of a reverie she spoke.
"I've never missed anyone in my life as I've missed you. You were right."
"About what, Pat?"
"That day you took me to Philadelphia. You said I'd miss you more than I thought. D'you remember, I told you then what I thought about it. 'Oh, well, I'll miss him for a few days and then—pouf!'" There followed the impatient, boyish wriggle and hunch of the lithe shoulders. "'It'll be all over.' It wasn't all over."
"For me it has never been over. Not for a single minute."
"Have you wanted me so much?" Beneath the conscious coquetry there was a more wistful note.
"Oh, God, Pat!" His voice sounded thick and rough. "There has been no colour or savour, no music or fragrance in life without you."
"Why did you go away?" she demanded accusingly.
"You know, I had to go."
"Why did you come back?"
"Not to see you. I didn't want to see you. Dee told me that you were away."
"She told me you were here. I'd phoned over about some clothes. So I just thought I'd like to see you again. Don't scowl at me. You look as if you think I ought not to have come."
"No; you oughtn't."
"Are you sorry I did?"
He looked away from her into the wind-swept night.
"Are you angry because I did?"
"I love you," he burst out. "God, how I love you!"
She laughed softly. Her hand slid down his arm, clasped for a moment the wrist in which his pulses leapt madly to her touch, wreathed itself, cool and strong and smooth, around his palm. "And I love you," she half-whispered gaily. "I'm terribly in love with you"—a pause of deliberate intent—"to-night. Because you've been away from me so long."
"Ah, yes, to-night!" He made no effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "But, to-morrow——"
"To-night's to-night," she broke in happily. "We've got lots of it to ourselves. It's only nine o'clock. I broke away early on purpose." Arrested by the look on his face, she added with exasperation and protest: "Cary! You're not going to play propriety to-night? When we haven't seen each other for so long?"
She shook the gleamy mist of her hair about her face, gave a gnomish bend and twist to body and neck and peered sidelong at him from out the tangle.
Suddenly her face darted upward. Her mouth met his in a grotesque parody of a passion-laden kiss.
"Oh, bad bunny!" she admonished herself in mock reproach. He stopped, gazing at her from beneath bent brows.
"You hated that, didn't you?" she said.
"Yes."
"Because it wasn't real?"
"Because it was mockery."
"Petite gaminestuff. But I'm notpetite gamineto-night;I'm something else. I don't know what I am. Do you?"
"No."
"Don't be cross with me. Whatever it is that I am, it's sorry that it kissed you that way. I didn't mean to make a josh of it."
He smiled. "One might as well try to be cross with a moonbeam."
They had come around by the side street, and now he held the garden gate back for her. The house was dim. Pat kissed her hand to the clematis arbour.
"D'you remember?" she murmured.
"Is there one moment ever spent with you that I've forgotten?"
"Would you like to forget?"
"There are times when I would give anything in the world to forget."
"But I don'twantyou to forget."
"You want me to have to bear this always?"
"No. I don't want you to be unhappy about it. I want—I don't know what I do want. Except now. Now I want to have this evening just to ourselves." She opened a side door, spoke to a servant, moving about in the kitchen. "It's all right, Katie." Then to Scott: "Aren't you coming in?"
He hesitated, but when she added impatiently, "Oh, don't be such a crab!" he followed her.
"Go into the small conservatory," she bade him. "That'smywork. I've fussed it up into a sort of den."
She bounded upstairs and ran into her room, shook out her hair, gathered it, studied herself in the glass. Her eyes were brilliant, heavy-lidded, dreamy. She shook herself impatiently; her strong, supervitalised young body felt cramped and pent in the close-fitting tailor-madewhich she had on. She plucked at the buttons with hurried fingers, wriggled out of the garment which she kicked from her feet and left lying on the floor, tossed her corsets after it, and exhaled a long, luxurious "Ooo-oo-oofff!" of satisfaction and voluptuous relief.
Opening the door of her clothes-press, she rummaged for a moment and pulled out a long, sweeping robe, which she drew about her, moulding it to the boyish set of her shoulders and the woman's depth and contour of her bosom. She caught up a cigarette, lighted a match, then, lapsing into thought, let it droop from her fingers until the scorching brought an angry "Damn!" of pain. She threw the cigarette after the expiring match. No; she wouldn't smoke, much as her tense nerves demanded it. She would keep her mouth fresh and sweet for Cary's first kiss.
She ran down to him, putting on the far light in the hallway, so that only a dim glow invaded the conservatory-den. Scott stood at the window in an attitude of attention.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Listening."
"Music! A violin. Oh, I know. It's a visitor at the Eastmans', next door. He's good. And howflawlessof him to be playing just now. Open the window. Let's hear it all."
He obeyed. She drew in to him. Her ready fingers sought his palm.
"Want me to mix you a drink?"
"No, dear."
"That's better," she approved. "Though," she added, with her old air ofgaminerie, "it might go further and not get a call-down. What is it he's playing?"
"'The Élégie.'"
The violin was sobbing, panting, pleading like a woman in sweet distress. The wind swept the notes to them until the whole room was surcharged with the passion and grief of it.
Pat lifted Scott's hand, cuddled it to her cheek, flipped it away carelessly, turned from him, drifted out of the den into the hallway, back again, and to the divan in the far corner, where she threw herself, snuggling amidst the pillows. Her eyes grew heavy, languorous; in their depths played a shadowed gleam like the far reflection of flame in the heart of sombre waters. The long, thrilling, haunted, wind-borne prayer of the violin penetrated to the innermost fibre of her, mingling there with the passionate sense of his nearness, swaying her to undefined and flashing languors, to unthinkable urgencies.
"Oh, Cary!" she breathed, in the breaking seduction of her voice, a voice that blended and was one with the resistless pleading of the music. And again: "Oh, Cary!"
Her arms yearned out to him, drawing him through the dimness. With a cry he leapt to her, clasped her, felt her young strength and lissome grace yield to his enfoldment. Through her sundered lips he drew the wine of her breath deep, deep into his veins, until all his self was merged and lost in her passion.
Outside the great wind possessed the world, full of the turbulence, the fever, the unassuaged desire of Spring, theallegro furiosoof the elements, and through it pierced the unbearable sweetness of the stringed melody.
The strain died. Was it after a minute, or an hour, or a night that was an age in their intertwined lives? He was back at the window, leaning against the casement, drawing the rushing wind into his lungs, his heart bursting, his soul a whirl of fire.
Behind him, in the gloom, sounded the shaken softness of her breathing. He bent his head upon his arms.
"Oh, God!" he said. "Pat. Little Pat!"
She came to him then, spread her gracious arms wide, flung the gleaming fog of her hair to the wind, enclasped him, claimed his soul with her lips.
"I'mnotsorry," she panted. "I'm not! I'm not! I'mglad!"
Nothing irked Pat more than being awakened too early. Consequently Katie's knock upon her door, at the third discreet repetition, elicited a plaintive growl of protest.
"Oh,goaway!"
"Special delivery letter for you, Miss Pat."
"Shove it under the door and don't bother me." She flumped over in bed, burrowing her face among the pillows like an annoyed baby.
Very much did Pat wish to sleep. Until long after midnight she had lain awake, thinking excitedly. To be roused out of the profound oblivion which she had finally achieved, thus untimely, was a little too much. But that letter got between her and her rest. From Cary Scott, of course. She visualised the oblong blue stamp, insistent, intrusive, "immediate." Oh,well! Up she jumped, caught the envelope from the floor, and dived back into bed to read it.
It was mainly repetition of what he had said last night when they parted: nothing but the absolute necessity of going would have taken him away from her at such a time; he would be back in a few days at the latest; she must wait until then; must not let herself worry, must not make herself unhappy, must trust in him. It ended, "I love you, Pat." Through the quiet directness of the wording Pat felt the stress of an overwhelming emotion. It was not so much worry or unhappiness that filled Pat's thoughts as a confused and colourful bewilderment, a sense of unreality. There intervened a reflection from her mis-educationthrough the media of flash fiction and the conventional false moralizings of the screen. In a variety of presentations they all taught the same lesson, that when girls "went wrong" they invariably "got into trouble." She passed her hands down along her slender, boyish body and experienced a sharp qualm of fear and disgust and anger, a visualisation of gross and sodden changes in those slim contours. It couldn't happen toher. In spite of the movies, other girls "took a chance" and "got away with it." Ada Clare, for instance, according to common gossip; nothing had happened to her. Cissie Parmenter had lightly hinted at "experiences." Pat thought it would be exciting to tell Cissie. But would it be safe? She would like to have Cissie's reassurance that everything would be all right. But why should she need reassurance? She steadied herself with the thought, entertained wholly without idea of blasphemy or irreverence, that God wouldn't let anything like that come about, the God to whom she had paid such assiduous homage by going regularly to church and asking every night for what she specially wanted on the morrow or in the further future. It was her naïve idea of an unwritten pact with the Deity that the performance of her little ritual, be it never so self-seeking, entitled her, of right, to definite rewards and exemptions, claimable as required. This was one of them. Surely He would keep to His part of the bargain. Otherwise, what good would religion be to anyone?
It occurred to her uncomfortably that He had somewhere said, "The wages of sin is death," which she secretly deemed bad grammar even if it was in the Bible. But Pat did not really feel that this was sin; rather it was accident. Technically it might be sin; she admitted so much. But if it were really sin she would, as a sound Christian, feelremorse. And she did not feel remorse. Therefore it could not in any serious sense be sin. Irrefutable logic! What did she feel? She asked herself. A sense of the fullness of life, of adventure boldly dared. She had met one of the great crises of a woman's life,thecrisis, indeed. It must be so, since all the stories and movies and plays agreed on the point. The singular aspect of it was that she was conscious of no inner change. She was the same Pat Fentriss, only a day older than yesterday. Being a "woman," if this was it, was not so different from being a "girl."
And Mr. Scott. According to the conventions, as she had absorbed them through the sensationalised and distorted lens to which her intellectual vision had become habituated, the lover should lose all "respect" for the unfortunate girl, this being the first symptom of the waning of his love. Well, it wasn't working that way withherlover. The few, broken words of parting last night, the still passion of his letter, told a different story. Possibly, reflected Pat, the people who set forth what purported to be life, on screen, stage, and the printed page, didn't know so much about it after all. Or possibly she and Cary Scott were different from other people. She felt convinced that she was.
From this she fell to speculating upon Scott's probable attitude toward the ingenious and comforting theory of conduct and responsibility which she just had formulated specially to fit the present crisis. Somehow it did not seem quite satisfactory in the illumination of his imagined view. She had thought of him always and rather mournfully as a non-religious if not actually irreligious man; but it was disturbingly cast up from the depths of her mind that if Cary Scott had a God, he would never try either to make cheap excuses to nor shift responsibilityupon Him. And suddenly in that light her exculpatory arguments seemed shallow and paltering. This uncomfortable consideration she thrust determinedly into the background, and concentrated her thought upon her next meeting with Scott.
All things considered, she was not, on the whole, sorry that he had gone away, assuming, of course, that he came back very soon. It gave her time to think, to figure things out free from the immediate glamour of his presence and the disturbing gladness of his return after the long disseverance. Did she really love him? She supposed she must; otherwise—— Yet there was still strong within her the impulse toward the companionship of youth which had inspired her petulant remonstrance to Dr. Bobs over his opinion as to the desirable age for her husband: "I don't want to marry mygrandfather!" Would she marry Cary Scott if he were free? Even now she doubted it. Not at once, anyway. She wanted her own freedom for a time yet, freedom to enjoy life, to range, to pick and choose. But she had made her choice. Tradition would hold that she had taken an irrevocable step, committed herself. Tradition be damned! She didn't believe it. Would Cary take that view? If, on his return, he should assume the proprietary attitude, evince a sense of possessiveness—Pat clenched her fists but at once softened with the recollection of his sure comprehension, his unerring tact, his instinctive sense of her deeper emotions and reactions.
So far as the immediate future went, he was not free to marry her, nor likely to be. That problem need not be faced now. Suppose later she fell in love and wanted to marry someone else; what would be her course then? Oh,well! Let that take care of itself when it came. Meantime she had something more immediate to look forward toin Cary's return. She anticipated it with a mingling of trepidation, eagerness, warmth, and excited curiosity, the latter element being predominant.
On the following morning she had another letter, and still a third on the day after. She quite gloried in his devotion. But she did not answer the letters. She rather wanted to but found a difficulty in beginning. She preferred to plan out what she should say to him when they met again, and was in the act of building up a quite thrilling and eloquent statement of her feelings when the phone summoned her.
"Pat?" It was Dee's voice, queer and strained. "Can you come over at once?"
"Yes. What's happened?"
"Jim has been hurt."
"Jim? How?"
"Hit by a car."
"Oh, Dee! Is it bad?"
"Yes. I think so. They're bringing him here."
"I'll be right over."
Pat made a dash for her runabout. When she reached the James house there were two cars in the driveway, Dr. Osterhout's and a large touring car strange to her. There was blood on the steps which Pat mounted.
"Is he killed?" she asked, chokingly, of a maid who was hurrying through the hall.
"No'm," said the girl. "I don't think so." Then added in awe-stricken tones: "He was swearin' somethin' awful when they brung him in. The poo-er man!"
Pat followed her to the front room. Dr. Osterhout's head was thrust out, at her knock.
"What can I do, Bobs?" she asked.
He nodded, approving the steadiness of her voice and control. "Locate a trained nurse and bring her here."
"I'll have one in half an hour. How is he?"
"Bad."
Within the time prescribed Pat was back with the nurse. She found Dee in the library waiting. The young wife's face was sallow, her eyes wide and shining and fixed.
"Oh, Dee! don't!" begged Pat. "You look so afraid."
"I am afraid," was the monotoned reply.
"Is he going to die?"
"I don't know. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid he isn't."
"Dee!"
"I know, I know how it sounds. I don't care. When the word first came they said he was killed. I was glad."
Pat stared at her aghast.
"Why should I lie and pretend?" whispered the wife fiercely. "Why shouldn't I want to be free of him? You know how it is between us. I'm a marriage-slave to a man who has no thought of anything but himself." She gulped and writhed in an access of strong physical nausea.
Pat's strong hands fell upon her wrists. "Stop, Dee! You mustn't let yourself go that way. Tell me how it happened."
"I don't know anything about it. The Marburys' car struck him, down near the station."
"Poor Jimmie!"
"Poor Jimmie? Poor me! Shall I tell you what happened last week?"
"No. Not now, Dee. You're——"
"I'm all right, I tell you. And I'm going to tell you. We fought it out to a finish. He wants to have children.Children, after the agreement he broke! Well, I couldn't tell him the whole reason why I wouldn't; but I told him this, and it's true, too, as far as it goes. I said to him:'Jim, if you'd ever had one single thought for anybody in your life but yourself I might feel different. But if there's anything in heredity I'd as soon hand down idiocy to a child as your strain. Now, if you want a separation, get it.' What do you think he said? 'Oh, no, my dear. That's heroics. I'm just about the same as other men. You don't get off so easily. As for selfishness, you didn't marry me in any spirit of altruism.'"
"He had you there, Dee."
"Yes; he had me there. Then he said, 'I'm going to hold you until you make good or break away yourself.'"
"'Then I'll break,' I said. 'I'll leave you.' He only smiled. 'You won't find it too easy,' he said. I could have killed him."
"Are you really going to leave him?" asked Pat, wide-eyed.
"I was. Now"—she jerked her hand upward—"how can I? What kind of a brute would I look?"
"Perhaps he will die. Poor Jimmie!"
"If you say 'Poor Jimmie' once again I'll scream at the top of my voice."
A man in chauffeur's livery came down the stairs. He looked beseechingly at Dee. "I couldn't help it, Mrs. James," he gulped. "I never seen him until he grabbed the kid an' then I couldn't turn."
"What kid?" asked Pat.
"Didn't you hear how it happened?"
"No. Tell us."
"I was comin' down the road by the turn above the bridge when a little girl run out from the curb. Mr. James must have been right behind her. I honked and the kid stopped dead. I give the wheel a twist and the kid jumped right under the fender. I knew there wasn't no chance, but I jerked her again and felt her hitsomethin' hard, and the kid yelled once, and there was Mr. James under the wheels. He'd seen the little girl and he made a dive for her and shoved her out from under just as I—I got him. It was the nerviest thing"—the man's rough voice broke. "He must-a knowed he didn't have a chance. A—a—man's thinkin' little of himself to do that for a Dago kid he never seen before."
Dee was leaning forward with fixed stare and twitching lips which barely formed the words: "Did Jim do that?"
"Yes'm. He sure did. He'd oughta get the Carnegie medal for it."
"And the little girl?" said Pat, thrilled. "He saved her?"
The man shook a doleful head. "He shoved her out from under my wheels and she rolled right into a truck passin' the other way."
"Killed?"
He nodded, speechlessly.
Dee burst into laughter. She laughed and laughed and laughed.
Never in all her career of coquetry had Pat devoted more careful planning than to her meeting with Cary Scott when he should return. At first sight of him all her elaborate campaign was dissipated in consternation.
"Mist-er Scott!" she cried.
He had come out from the city direct to Holiday Knoll and was standing in the library, as she came downstairs to meet him, the morning light brilliant on his haggard face. At her exclamation a wry smile twisted his lips.
"Still that, to you?" he asked.
She moved toward him slowly, a little shyly, with fluttering hands outstretched, lips upturned, rather from the wish to comfort his manifest suffering than from any impulse of passion within herself. He drew her into his arms, bent over her, kissed her gently. She felt him tremble in her clasp.
"What is it, Cary?" she whispered. "You looktooappalling."
"I haven't slept very well."
She drew back to survey him. "I don't believe you've slept at all," she pronounced. "Have you?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does! You mustn't take it that way."
His expression told her that her coolness amazed him. And, then, suddenly, by reflex from him, it amazed herself. It was so exactly the reverse of the programmed course of events as presented in the familiar media of her reading. She, the woman, the "betrayed," was striving to comfort and reassure him, the man, the "betrayer."
"Did you expect that I should take it lightly, Pat?"
"No, but——"
"I love you," he said. No more than that, hardly above his breath. But it was as if he had pronounced the final word of passion, of yearning, of devotion; his full confession of the bond which is at once primal and eternal between man and woman.
She dropped her head. The thick clusters of her hair rippled forward, almost concealing the eyes which she lifted, aslant, alight, mischievous, yet craving, to his.
"Do you?" she whispered. "Do you truly?" She nestled again, close in his embrace.
"And you, Pat?" he asked.
"I don't know," she answered, troubled. "I've hardly been able to think—since. I suppose I must; but——"
"We have a great deal to say to each other," he began gravely, when she broke in:
"I've had so much else to think about. Have you heard about poor Dee?"
"Dee? No. What is it?"
"It isn't exactly Dee. It's Jimmie. He was run over by a car three days ago."
"Not killed!"
"Almost. It's his back. Bobs says they can save him but it would be kinder to let him die. He'll never be anything but a helpless log."
"Good Heavens! Poor Dee! I must go over there."
"We'll go over together. I'll tell you as we go." She ran to get her hat, returned at once, setting it in place on her mutinous hair, stood studying him for a moment through half-closed eyes, then leapt to him, flung her arms about his body, pressed her cheek to his, murmuring, "It'stooflawless to have you back, Cary!"
Outside, she said, "Dee was going to leave him."
"No! For what earthly reason?"
"I can't tell you. Yes, I can. I can tell you anything—now." She flushed, but looked at him unflinchingly. "It's strange, isn't it?"
"It's unutterably sweet," he said. "It's the companionship that is deeper and more lasting than any other association."
"But there's always been that between us," she mused. "Only, it's different now. I don't quite understand; there's so much I don't understand, Cary, dear. But I know that I want to tell you. I don't believe Dee would mind."
She repeated Dee's bitter protest over James's breach of faith, her refusal to accept maternity, her recent resolution to quit her husband at whatever cost of scandal. "And now she can't," she concluded.
"You mean that she won't."
"Yes. Dee's a good sport. She'll stick to a man when he's down. The worst of it is, she told him why she wouldn't have a baby of his; because he was just a bunch of pure selfishness. And then he goes and pulls a real hero stunt and deliberately throws his life away for a Dago brat—and doesn't save the darn thing, anyway," concluded Pat, her lips quivering. "Where does that leave Dee?"
"Was it what Dee said that drove him to do it?"
"No. It was too quick for that. He did it instinctively. It must have been in him all the while to do the big, self-sacrificing thing when it was put up to him. Like the men on theTitanicthat everybody thought were wasters. That's what makes it so rotten for Dee. She thinks she's misjudged him all the time. I believe she'd give her life now to have a child for him."
"Well?" queried Scott.
Pat shook a mournful head. "No, never. Not a chance. Haven't I told you? He'll live in a plaster cast the rest of his life if he does live. I wouldn't!... I've had a hell of a time with Dee, Cary."
"Poor darling! Do you think Dee will want to see me?"
"Yes. I'm sure she will. Perhaps not to-day."
"Has this really turned her to James again, Pat?"
"Has it made her really love him, you mean? How could she? Women aren't that way. But all she can think of now is her remorse."
He paced along beside her in deep thought for a time before he said: "Was there any other reason for her leaving him?"
"The other man?" She gave him a quick look. "I suppose that had something to do with it. Cary, was it a rotten trick for Dee to marry Jimmie?"
"I'm afraid it was, rather. Poor child! She's paying for it."
"Do women always pay for it?"
"No. Sometimes the men do."
"You know Dee's man, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where he is now?"
"Not at this moment. But I know he is intending to come back here in a few days."
"To see Dee?"
"I'm afraid so."
"He mustn't."
"No; he mustn't."
"Can't you stop him?"
"If I can reach him."
"Cary, youmuststop him."
"Is she still in love with him?"
"Terribly."
"I'll do my best."
At the James house they found Dr. Osterhout. Pat went up to Dee after bidding Cary come to the Knoll directly after dinner. Going out with the physician he asked how serious James's case really was.
"As serious as it could possibly be," was the grim reply. "He'll live."
"Then Pat was right. He'll never be any better?"
"Not much. A paralytic. With a good deal of suffering."
"Can't you help him die?" muttered Scott.
The medical man turned an uncompromising look upon the other. "When I acquire the wisdom of Deity, then I'll assume the prerogatives of Deity. Not before."
"It's a merciless attitude. In a case like this——"
"In a case like this," the physician cut him short, "the man's life may be valuable to others if not to himself. And suppose after I'd killed him, as you so casually suggest"—the other's gesture of protest did not serve to stop him—"and some new operation was discovered that would restore this kind of case; where should I stand with myself?"
"Is that likely?"
"It's most unlikely. But it's possible. In any case, we doctors do not kill."
"You don't give a thought to Dee."
A ripple of pain twisted the harsh features. "I'm trying not to. My business is with my patient."
"Does he know?"
"Yes. He wormed the truth out of me. He wants Dee to get a separation."
"A separation? I don't understand. What is his idea?"
"To relieve her from being tied to a corpse, as he says.He's taken to thinking of others besides himself at this late date, has T. Jameson James. A close look at Death sometimes works these miracles."
"Trying to make his peace with Heaven?"
"No. He's honest in this, just as he has always been in his selfishness. He's thinking only of Dee."
"Does he really care for her, Osterhout?"
"I think he'd die without her."
"Isn't there a good chance of his dying anyway?"
"Nothing to bank on."
"What does Dee say to the separation idea?"
"Won't listen. Just turns away and stops her ears."
More than ever convinced that Wollaston must be kept away from Dorrisdale at all costs, Scott put in the hours between his talk with Osterhout and his appointment with Pat, striving to locate the Englishman on the long-distance telephone, but without success.
Upon his arrival at the Knoll, Scott found only Ralph Fentriss in possession.
"Pat is just starting back from Dee's," said the ostensible head of the Fentriss household, after a hearty greeting. "She telephoned. Pretty rough on Dee, this, isn't it?"
"She's standing up under it like the sport she is," said Scott. They chatted of local matters, Fentriss being patently restless. At the sound of Pat's step on the threshold he said with relief:
"You'll excuse me, Cary. I've got a business engagement downtown."
The visitor repressed a smile. So Ralph Fentriss's evening "business engagements" remained a constant quantity. A casual sort of father. Had he been less casual, had Pat been less unprotected—a throb of remorse and self-contempt sickened Scott to the core of his heart.How could he have let himself be so swept away!... Pat stood before him in the doorway, and at once his bitter self-accusation sank into nothingness before the delight of her victorious charm. How could he have helped being carried away, loving her as he did!
She tossed her hat on the table, her gloves at him and herself into the arm chair.
"Now we can talk," said she. "Youbegin."
At their morning meeting it had seemed to him that the indeterminate and hovering tragedy of the James household had aged and sobered Pat, given more of the womanly to her elfin fascination. Now she seemed again allgamine, provocative, elusive, challenging. He stood looking down at her gravely.
"Owl-face!" she mocked, protruding the tip of a red tongue.
"Pat, will you marry me?"
The smile died from her eyes and lips. "How could we? You're married."
"I'll get free."
"How can you?"
"I'd rather not tell you."
"You've got to tell me," she retorted imperiously.
"Yes," he admitted. "I've got to, if you insist. You've the right to know."
She softened. "Have I? Tell me, then."
"I have—evidence." He spoke with an effort.
"Against your wife?"
"Yes."
"Why haven't you used it before?"
"I haven't wanted to. And—I considered that it would not be entirely honourable."
"If it wasn't honourable before, how is it now?" demanded the keen Pat.
"I don't know that it is," he muttered. "But there's another question of honour now, a paramount question, between you and me."
"Tell me why it wouldn't be honourable to use your evidence," persisted Pat, ignoring the other issue.
"You're making it very hard. It's true that she—my wife—has been unfaithful. But that was after we had been long separated in everything but the formalities, and morally I was in no position to blame her."
"You'd been untrue to her?"
"Yes."
"With another woman. Were youverymuch in love with her, Cary, the other woman?" she asked wistfully.
For a moment he hesitated, too long a moment, for a flash of hateful intuition shot through Pat's quick brain. "There wasmorethan one. There may have been a dozen. Oh, I think you'rerevolting!"
"I'm not going to lie to you, Pat. I regarded myself as free of all responsibility to her——"
"You're free of all responsibility to me," she choked. "Don't think that I want——"
"No. I am bound to you by the strongest tie I have ever known. I love you."
"You've loved a hundred other women," charged Pat, savagely revelling in her exaggeration.
"I've loved no one as I love you." Despite the banality of the words there was in his speech a quiet force that calmed and convinced her. "Not so that I ever wished to be free and marry."
"Of course," she said loftily, "there's no reason why I should be jealous of your past."
"It is your future that I have been jealous of always," he replied. "That is a thousand times harder to bear. And now I am asking you to give it to me."
"You'd do a dishonourable thing, a thing you consider dishonourable, to be free?" she asked.
"To marry you," he said doggedly. "Yes. There's nothing I'd stop at."
She gave her little, delighted crow. "I believe you wouldn't. But I'm not going to let you."
"You can't prevent me."
"I wouldn't marry you if you did."
His brows took on their ironic lift. "That is heroics, Pat; motion picture heroics. 'To save the other woman.'" Pat pouted. "It's misplaced nobility, my dear. She isn't entitled to it. She doesn't care for me. You do."
"Not enough to marry you, though. Not enough to besure. It's all so puzzling, Cary." Her deep, soft voice shook. "I—I don't understand myself. But I'm just not sure. Is that terrible of me, dear, not to want to marry you?"
"Don't you love me, Pat?" he asked, incredulous of the doubt itself.
"I suppose I do, now. If it would only last, like this."
"But it can't go on like this," he cried hoarsely.
"Why can't it?" she murmured protestingly. The eternal feminine within her, eternally static, eternally conservative, eternally fatalistic where its own interests are concerned, was asserting itself. Better the thing as it is, however precarious, than a step in the dark. Change, to a woman's apprehension, is a challenge to the unknown.
"Surely you must know. Surely you must realize the constant risk, the constant danger——"
"Of being found out? I'm not afraid for myself. You know, Cary, dear, I never can quite believe in danger until it comes. I suppose I ought to. I suppose I ought to feel different in lots of ways. Yet I don't feel different. Not really. Tell me why, Cary."
He bent and kissed the sweet, troubled eyes, the soft, questioning lips. "My darling!" he said brokenly. "My little Pat! I wish to God, I'd never come back——"
"No; don't wish that. I think I'm glad you came, anyway. It's been very dull without you, Cary," she added with childish plaintiveness.
"Then why——"
"Don't ask me any more whys to-night. Please! My head's so tired with thinking. Throw open the windows. Wide! I want to breathe the spring."
He obeyed. The soft, odour-drenched, earthy wind flowed in, surrounded them, englamoured them, swept them into each other's arms.
"I'm so tired, Cary, dear," murmured Pat. "So tired! Just hold me. Hold me close."