The explanation of this extraordinary meeting, which had so mystified Sheila, lay in a last revolt of the miser. Once out of her presence, Max Fargus was constantly terrified at the gradual perversion of his own character. He could refuse his wife nothing, or resisted only long enough to learn anew the completeness of his surrender. From an agony of foreboding he vacillated to an ecstasy of defeat. His own impotence mystified him, for he believed that he resisted with all his being, not realizing that in an infatuation half of the man combats for the woman. Then he could never comprehend the use of money. Money spent was money lost. He would have denied angrily being a miser and would have argued that in allowing his wealth to accumulate heindividualized it and turned it into a human agency which returned him the most satisfying of sensations,—power.
For the first time in his life he felt the need of a friend to advise and to steady him. But what he had cried out to Sheila was literally true, he had not a friend in the world, not even an acquaintance to whom he could turn. In all his business dealings he had sought to make himself feared. He disdained conciliation, to prevail by sheer autocracy alone intoxicated him.
In this perplexed mood he found himself one morning, in what seemed to him the most accidental manner, face to face with his former attorney, Alonzo Bofinger. The familiar face evoked the memory of an unexampled moderation. A quick thought was followed by a bow. He stopped, giving him a smiling,
"Good morning, Sir."
The lawyer shifted his glance a moment, then with a blank countenance passed on.
"But I'm not mistaken, it must be him,"Fargus said doubtfully, and he called again, "Mr. Bofinger, hello there!"
The lawyer halted, wheeled, and said in a puzzled voice:
"Yes? What? Who is it?"
"Say now," Fargus protested, "you know me."
"Not at all, sir."
"Why, I was your client a month ago."
"Indeed?"
"You remember me now?"
"Not in the street, sir," Bofinger said with a smile. "My memory stops at my office."
"But if I let you," Fargus said, much impressed.
"That is different. How do you do? You may remember I don't know your name."
Such scrupulousness completed the favorable impression of the misanthrope. He nodded approvingly and said:
"Mr. Bofinger, you please me, I like your ways. And if you'll come around to the restaurant, I'd like to consult you—I want someadvice. My name's Fargus, Max Fargus—you know that name, I'll bet."
"What, are youtheFargus!" Bofinger exclaimed, taking a step backwards.
"The same," Fargus said with a chuckle, flattered by the tribute. "You wonder why I came to you, don't you—on the quiet?"
"I am a little puzzled, I admit it, Mr. Fargus," Bofinger replied, putting a new deference into his address.
"I've been bitten too often," Fargus said with a grim nod. "There's a lot of your profession, Mr. Bofinger, who ain't no better than crooks!"
"Far too many," Bofinger said solemnly. "But I hope a better day will come."
They arrived in the private office. For the third time Fargus fidgeted and repeated:
"I want some advice."
"Well, sir, I hope I can help you," Bofinger said encouragingly.
"Mr. Bofinger," Fargus blurted out, "you remember Miss Vaughn?"
"Perfectly."
"Mr. Bofinger, won't you have something?" Fargus said desperately. The lawyer named his drink. His host, turning from the waiter, faced him with the manner of one about to overwhelm him with his disclosure.
"She is now Mrs. Fargus—my wife."
"Indeed?" the lawyer said politely, shooting up his cuffs, but nodding without astonishment.
"Well, doesn't that surprise you?" Fargus said, opening his eyes. Shrewd and tricky in his little specialty, in the minor experiences of life he was a little dull.
"Yes and no," the lawyer answered, examining the ash of his cigar. "From the standpoint of your attorney, yes. From any other standpoint," he added with a smile, "no."
"Then you suspected all the time?"
"Pardon me," Bofinger said, raising his hand half-way. "It was not my business to suspect, my business was to believe what you said. So Miss Vaughn is your wife?"
"Yes."
"I hope you're happy."
"That's just it," Fargus said, seizing the opening, "that's the point. You put your finger on it without knowing it. I can't say I am happy—altogether happy."
"Well, let's hear about it," Bofinger said with bluff directness.
"The trouble is this," Fargus said doubtfully. "A woman has no idea of money, except to spend it and—you know yourself—it ain't easy to refuse one anything—particularly—well—when you're fond of her."
"Say, now, ain't this about it?" Bofinger said, abandoning his stilted accents for an air of rough and confidential understanding. "This is the trouble. You're in love with a pretty woman, a remarkably pretty and charming woman—a whole lot in love. Now she, like a woman, a pretty woman, thinks more of pleasure than you do, wants to be out and seeing and wants to be out and be seen."
"Yes," Fargus assented, and with a sigh he echoed faintly, "yes."
"And she probably thinks that you're much better off than you are," Bofinger said with a wise nod.
"That's it; there, that is it!"
In his eagerness, Fargus extended his hand until it touched the lawyer on the sleeve.
"Doesn't understand that just because you run a few fine places, that don't mean money—but expenses."
"Ah, Mr. Bofinger!" Fargus said, raising his hands.
"Come, now, you're worried over expenses at home, or rather at what you may be getting into, and you find the trouble is here,—dealing with a woman you're in love with ain't like talking business to a man."
"Mr. Bofinger," Fargus said solemnly, "You've struck the nail on the head. That's my case—you can't handle a woman like a man."
"Of course not. You're not the man to do it either. You'd spend everything on her!"
Fargus, with an effort, allowed the statement to pass without betraying his emotion.
"I'll tell you the best way," Bofinger said, after drumming a moment with his fingers, while Fargus pricked up his ears. "Here, this is it! Get a friend to talk to her."
"How so?"
"Why, a friend—the right sort—could do this," Bofinger continued. "He could tell her confidentially—that he thought—that he rather suspected, well, that he'd heard things weren't going as well with you as people thought. In fact, he feared you were going to have a close squeeze. He needn't say anything direct now, that would make her suspicious, but he might adviseherto begyouto cut expenses down all you could."
"Mr. Bofinger," Fargus cried, slapping his hands together, as Bofinger with a satisfied chuckle turned to him for his approval, "that's an elegant idea! And you're the man to do it!"
"Me?" Bofinger exclaimed, in real surpriseat such quick success. "But I'm not exactly, do you think, in the position of a friend?"
"She'd never know it!" Fargus insisted. "I say, you're the man."
"Why, frankly, sir," the lawyer objected, "I can't see I'd do—I really don't—you can't say those things off-hand—I'd have to get acquainted more—"
Bofinger resisted so well and protested so earnestly that, an hour later, Fargus carried him away, under his arm, to that meeting which had come so near to Sheila's undoing.
The situation was a perilous one for the lawyer. There was, he knew, the insane jealousy of the misanthrope to be reckoned with, the danger that Fargus would fear more from his intimacy than from the prodigality of his wife. Fortunately for Bofinger, Sheila's attitude had completely reconciled Fargus, who wanted her to receive advice, but more that it should come from unwelcome lips.
In a fever of trepidation, Sheila awaited thenext meeting with the lawyer. The sense of peril had sent her panic-stricken, with almost affection, to the shelter of her husband. The instinct of safeguarding her home and the memory of her pinched and wandering career impelled her towards all the virtues, in an incentive to flight from the menace of the lawyer.
Many times she debated the consequences which would follow confession and an appeal to her husband's generosity. Invariably she recoiled, as before an impossibility, convinced that he would never pardon the slightest deception. She had divined under the intoxication of love the implacable, dormant fierceness of the misanthrope, and with this perception she came to recognize by what slender bonds she held his savage nature imprisoned. To surrender a moment her supremacy meant at best servitude. Besides, in her ignorance of the law she saw no escape from the marriage contract which lay in the hands of Bofinger.
To her annoyance, it was not until the thirdafternoon that the lawyer arrived. From her window she discovered him sauntering elegantly toward her, displaying to the street a brilliant tan vest, a pair of lavender trousers, and a smooth gray cutaway. A villain masked has thrice the terror of a villain seen, and to the despairing woman this outward semblance of the negligent dandy magnified immeasurably the lurking venom of the shyster beneath.
She went hurriedly down the stairs, rehearsing the dozen and one evasions she had prepared in making up the account he had come to demand.
"He cannot prove I am lying," she thought defiantly. "Let him make a scene if he wants to. As for the furniture and the expense of fitting up the house, that belongs to Fargus. On that point I won't yield." Then, as his step sounded, she opened the door and said pleasantly, "Well, you've come at last."
"Ah, Mrs. Fargus, I am unlucky! You are going out?" he said, starting back with a frown and speaking punctiliously. "But Imay come in, for a moment? Just for a moment, then."
"Fargus is not in," she said, sneering at his sleek hypocrisy, "and no one is around."
"Excuse me, every one is around!" he said savagely, pushing past her. "Neighbors have eyes as well as ears. Oblige me by not coming to the door until I ring!"
"A pleasant introduction."
He shrugged his shoulders and made a quick survey. Returning to the parlor he took his seat by the window, to command a view of the street.
"Sit there," he said, placing a chair. "Now no one can steal in on us."
He stretched out his legs, quizzing her with a smile, in which he took no pains to conceal his vanity.
"You were a little surprised to see me the other night, just a leettle, eh?"
"How long have you known Fargus?" she said instantly.
"You heard what he said."
"Then you deceived me."
"If what he said is true."
She saw that she would learn nothing from him, so, drawing back, she said angrily:
"Very well. Is this why you came?"
"No," he said sharply, and abandoning his coxcomb attitude he sat erect with a jerk, brought his brows together above his joined fingers, staring at her so fixedly that Sheila nerved herself for the dreaded demand.
"Sheila," he said moodily, "why didn't you complain of this box of a house, as I told you?"
"Because I did not intend to play blindly."
He shifted his glance, gazing moodily out of the window until, with a pucker of his lips, he said condescendingly:
"Blindly, Sheila? I thought you more clever than that. You missed a trick. We must quarrel before him. If you had obeyed me I should have pooh-poohed your extravagant ideas. We would have been at once on bad terms. Do what I tell you another time."
"Why, what is the use?"
"To work into his confidence and get rid of his infernal jealousy, my dear."
"But why make him stingy? Certainly that's not our game."
"That's but temporary," he said after a long pause.
"Now be frank with me," she said anxiously. "What are you trying to do? You've got a new plan, haven't you?"
"None whatever," he said with emphasis. "One may come. On my honor, I have nothing in mind now but to work into his confidence and become the friend of the family. The advantage to us is obvious."
The reply did not convince her. Despite his glibness she felt that he was deceiving her. She pressed him for some time, but without success. Finally, as she persisted, demanding his confidence, he cut her short by rising and saying:
"I mustn't stay too long. It's understood now you are to hate me?"
"Very well."
"Not difficult, eh?" he said with a laugh.
"No."
He turned upon her violently, catching her wrists.
"Don't try any tricks on me, my dear!"
"You hurt," she said in white anger, but without resistance.
"You heard?"
"I hear."
"And remember this," he said without releasing her. "When Fargus asks what we talked about, say that I told you I thought he was hard up and worried over his business."
"I hear."
"And I told you to make him go slow."
"I hear."
"There," he said, smiling and releasing his hold. "Don't be a little fool. Act square and you won't regret it. Au revoir."
It was not until he had gone that she remembered with a shudder of foreboding that he had not once referred to their contract or demanded his account. The thought left herfrightened and dismayed. Without a doubt he had changed his plan of campaign. Yet what could be his new purpose and why should he want to cater to her husband's avarice? Did he plan, when he had gained his complete confidence, to carry off by some master stroke what he would have to wait for painfully, year by year? She asked herself twenty such uneasy questions and resolved that, until she had forced Bofinger's confidence she would do nothing to further his purposes.
"Well, have you seen Mr. Bofinger yet?" Fargus asked on his return.
"He called."
"Indeed," he said with a start. "And what did you talk about?"
"Mr. Bofinger preached to me about—economy," she said slowly.
"Well, well," he said, at loss for a comment. "And how do you like him now?"
"Max, I wish you'd tell me something?" she said earnestly, laying her hand on hisshoulder. "Is he your lawyer? Does he have charge of anything for you?"
"No, no!" he said, shaking his head. "I look after my own business, thank you! Still, Bofinger is a good fellow; though you're set against him, aren't you?"
"I?" she said in surprise, "oh, I was—"
"Well?" he said fretfully.
"Why, this afternoon I liked him better. Why did you say he wasn't a lady's man? I should say just the opposite."
"Nonsense!" he said angrily. "So you like him?"
"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully. "Yes, I do. He's quite different when you talk to him, alone." She added pensively, "What funny eyes he has,—very handsome, don't you think?"
"What do you mean? What makes you say that?" Fargus said in great disturbance.
"Oh, you silly man!" she said, throwing back her head and laughing. "Don't look so fierce. The idea! A man doesn't make love to you the first time he calls!"
The card Sheila had played in her desperation succeeded so completely that she became alarmed. She had played on impulse, recking not the danger of crossing the lawyer. The effect on Fargus was so extreme that she suddenly found herself in all the dangers which now arose from her double relation. The very thought that any man might make love to his wife had sufficed to awaken all the demons of jealousy in Fargus and had caused the face of Bofinger to appear the most odious in the world. From that night the name of the lawyer never passed his lips. He avoided him studiously in the streets. He left orders at his restaurants to deny him access. It was no longer only Bofinger he held in fear but allyounger men, and he resolved bitterly never again to commit the error of introducing into his home that particular danger.
For six days Bofinger was unable to catch even a glimpse of his coat-tails or to penetrate to his office. Vaguely alarmed, he studied his time and succeeded in surprising Fargus one afternoon at the moment he was leaving for the rounds of his various establishments. Fargus, unaware of his proximity, was startled by a clasp on his arm and the glib voice of Bofinger crying in his ear:
"Here's luck! Where in thunder have you been hiding all the while?"
In dismay Fargus let fall the package under his arm.
"Evil conscience," said the lawyer, laughing as he restored the bundle. "Well, are things going any better?"
"What things?" Fargus stammered. He looked at him darkly, seeing nothing but the eyes that Sheila had found handsome.
"Hello, didn't your lady tell you how Ilectured her on expenses?" Bofinger said, examining him with uneasiness. "Guess I must have turned her against me with too much advice."
"Oh yes," Fargus said finally, forced to say something. "I remember."
"It goes better then?"
"Better."
"Well, well, glad to hear it," Bofinger said, withdrawing his arm and shooting a queer look. "Glad to have been of use. Call on me any time. By, by!"
With a nod and a luxuriant wave of his arm he ground on his heel and strode away. Fargus, a little uneasy, plodded along saying to himself that he had shown his ill-humor too abruptly. Next, remembering the little deceit in which they had been fellows, he became genuinely alarmed lest Bofinger, offended, should revenge himself by blabbing to Sheila. At this horrible idea he at once set out for Jefferson Market determined to conciliate the lawyer. The poor man, after a few weeks ofmarriage, was ready to do anything to escape facing a scene.
Entering hastily he found the office in the sole possession of Hyman Groll. He halted, startled by the unusual figure of the hunchback, and asked:
"Isn't Mr. Bofinger back?"
"Not yet."
"When do you expect him?"
"When I see him," Groll answered, shrugging his shoulders.
"You're his partner?" Fargus said, surveying the hunchback with an interest which Groll returned, each recognizing in the other a common intensity of purpose.
"I'm his partner. Can we do anything for you?"
"No, no," Fargus said hastily; "just tell him I want to see him very much."
"What name?"
"Fargus. He will know."
"You're a client of his, then?" Groll said with aroused curiosity.
"Yes, of course."
"I beg pardon—since when?"
"Why, a couple of months—"
"Indeed—what name?"
"Fargus, Max Fargus."
"Oh, Max Fargus. Thank you, I'll speak to him," Groll answered with just the slightest twitch to his eyebrows.
Excusing himself Fargus hurried directly home, convinced that the lawyer would be beforehand. He arrived at the corner of Second Avenue just in time to perceive the figure of Bofinger passing into his home.
"Oh, the villain," he cried, "he is going to betray me!"
And clutching his cane in the middle, he began to run, provoking the gibes of a group of street urchins, who cheered him on. He reached the door, blown and trembling, and inserting the key entered. Immediately such an explosion of anger greeted him from above that, mystified, he checked the call on his lips and stole cautiously to the foot of the stairs.The voice of his wife was answering in terror:
"I swear I haven't! I've played square!"
"Look here, Sheila, my girl," cried the furious voice of Bofinger. "It won't go. It won't do. What I want to know is what you've been telling the old boy to set him against me!"
The first words had revealed the truth to the misanthrope, as in the storm a flash suddenly reveals the monstrous iniquities of the night. The exclamation was stifled in his throat; crumbling he fell across the banister, clinging to them with desperate fingers, while above the sounds of the altercation continued their overwhelming revelation.
"Are you going to tell me the truth?" cried the lawyer. "Sheila, either you've made a blunder or you're playing double with me."
"I am not."
"You've made him suspicious of me."
"I haven't—I swear it—on my honor."
"Honor!" he cried with a roar of laughter."Cut that out between us! Now once for all you can't fool me. I know when you're lying, and you're lying now! Ah, my girl, I've placed you long ago. You think you'll play me close and get all for yourself."
"Bofinger, you are mad!"
"See here, cut this short. I'll give you just one chance."
"What's that?" she said, but so faintly that Fargus did not hear it.
"You get me to supper here within four days—or I'll put the screws on!"
"But how can I?"
"That's a good one," he cried, repeating contemptuously her words. "You do it. That's all. We're partners and don't you forget it. Share alike! That was the terms when I could have ruined you with a word—and those, my girl, are the terms now!"
Fargus, crimped to the banisters, listening with parted mouth and terrible eyes, could hear no more. He was suffocated. He reeled to the door and with a last effort opened itwithout noise. Once in the street he slunk rapidly away, glancing backward fearfully over his shoulder, scarce restraining a mad impulse to break into a run. He scurried under the Elevated and on without stopping, until at last the river barred his way. There he collapsed on a pile of lumber and remained holding his numbed head in his hands, swaying, until a policeman startled him by touching him on the shoulder and questioning him. Then, stumbling to his feet, he fled again towards the south, but haphazard as the rush of a brute wounded to the death.
For mile after mile he scurried thus, striking east and striking west, his mind vacant and stunned, incapable of other thought than to flee as far as he could from the abomination he had left in his home. A dozen times he came near being run over, without knowing his danger or hearing the screams of warning that followed his crazy progress. In the blank shifting of faces he saw nothing but the leer and the scorn of the mocking world. Theblow had been too instant and too astounding. His numbed mind could only feel the acuteness of the anguish, without as yet being able to analyze or recognize the causes. He did not think of Sheila or Bofinger. It was the world which had crushed him, the perfidious, mocking world which in the end had thus taken its contemptuous revenge.
FOR MILE AFTER MILE HE SCURRIED THUS
FOR MILE AFTER MILE HE SCURRIED THUS.
He saw everywhere smiles of derision, heard triumphant laughter. Every one was gazing at him, enjoying the discomfiture of the ancient enemy. He saw nothing clearly, he began to stumble in his walk and to waver, clearing his way through the crowds with his cane, thrusting women and children violently out of his path.
In one narrow street in the Jewish quarter a crowd of boys at play set up a cry of "Madman!"
He turned furiously and shook his fist, cursing them. Then fleeing anew his course became embroiled, crossing and recrossing, until to his dismay, a second time, he encounteredthe group of urchins, who accompanied him a block, with derisive shouts. Fargus, clasping his temples in his hands, broke away in terror and, by some instinct avoiding his former direction, turned north, winding and twisting helplessly in the labyrinth of the ill-smelling slums. Still everything was confused, his hatred and his agony. It was always the world which pursued him with its jeers. This obsession possessed him so completely that even the noises of the city, the rumble of truck and carriage, the roar of the Elevated, the screams of the street hawkers, the hum and swish of the crowd, struck his ears as so many delirious taunts.
Through this fog and rumble, all at once, he heard a wild shriek of acclaim:
"Madman! Madman!"
Looking up wildly he found himself, to his horror, a third time in the street of his persecutors. This time the hilarity descended on him like a storm, for humanity is pitiless once its sense of ridicule is touched. From thewindows women saluted him with gibes and laughter, people crowded to the front of the shops showing him to one another, while the loungers cheered on the ragamuffins who, forming in a company behind him, chanted in unison:
"Mad dog! Mad dog!"
Some one from a window pelted him with an apple. At this moment he was in danger of losing his reason. He began frantically to run, his tormentors with shrieks of delight pursuing him. After two blocks of fruitless flight he turned suddenly on the pack about his heels and clubbed the foremost with such fury that the rest fled. Then forgetting everything but the new fear of the something within his mind which was beginning to snap, he rushed over to the west side, crossing Broadway by a miracle. All at once he heard his name pronounced. A familiar voice was saying conciliatingly:
"Oh, Mr. Fargus, do come in! What has happened to you?"
He came to a halt, stock still, and glared about him. Some strange instinct had led him back to the scenes of his boyhood. He was before the sunken rooms of Nell's Coffee House, and Mrs. Biggs herself was watching him with fear and wonder.
"What, you too!" he cried, and whipped into fury by the sight of his first love he brandished his cane and rushed on her. The woman, with a cry, flung into the restaurant and barricaded the door.
Then a chill began to shake him, his arm fell inertly, his rage, from utter exhaustion, passed like a fever from him. He turned away and instinctively took up the familiar journey to his old home in the tenements.
"Ah, let me think," he said wearily, striking his damp forehead. The perfidy of Bofinger he had guessed from the first words of his wife. He gradually comprehended what had happened, that the lawyer had gone straight to Sheila and with her had formed a compact which had made her his wife. If the detailswere obscure the truth was blinding. When he had thought this carefully out he said again:
"What am I going to do?"
He returned to the street of his birth and hurried up the well-known stairs. The key of the room was still in his pocket—he had never surrendered the old quarters. It was a superstition and a sentiment unique in his life. He entered the room and looked about solicitously. Nothing had been disturbed. Mechanically, still confused, he went to the trunk and was taking out the bedding when in dismay he recollected himself and shoved it hurriedly back. Then seating himself on the bed, his head imprisoned in his hands, he repeated:
"What am I going to do?"
This time the question had the vigor of an explosion. He no longer could abandon himself to the torrents of his rage. That emotion had left him in weakness and fear. But gradually, in the cold succeeding calm, a germof a new passion formed and gathered violence,—the germ of vengeance.
At the end of an hour of anguish he leaped to his feet with a shout of victory and, refreshed and alert, again rushed down the stairs and set out resolutely for the upper city.
Three hours later Fargus dragged himself home, still limp with the violence of that first uncontrolled burst of vengeance, which, like all the passions, had been too intense in its inception not to necessitate an exhausted reaction. But during these three hours he had already put into motion that conception of a punishment which had come to him like a flash at the end of his maddened flight through the city.
What was hardest was to return home. When he reached the street it was already dark and the light in the second story was showing cheerily, while from the hall the veiled glow spread a feeling of delicious warmth. At the sight of the home he had grown so passionately to love such a lust for murder welledup in him that, not daring to look upon Sheila's treacherous face, he fled again.
It was almost half an hour later that he came again to his own door and forced his reluctant feet up the steps. With the key in his hand he remained a long moment, feeling all at once very old and exhausted. Then with a shudder he opened the door.
"Is that you?" the voice of his wife cried instantly. In the greeting, strangely enough, there was a note of gladness. "What kept you? I have been waiting for ever so long."
"Business," he mumbled.
His delay had frightened her. In moments of danger and deception the slightest deviation from the routine fires the imagination with vague terrors. Reassured, she began to move about quickly, humming to herself. Below Fargus listened, one hand raised, his lips moving involuntarily to her singing, aghast at her composure.
"I'm coming—coming right away," she called down. "Go in and order supper."
Before he had moved, she had run down the stairs.
"Heavens!" she cried, stopping short. "How tired you look!"
"Do I?" he said, looking on the floor. "Yes, a headache or something."
"You must take more rest," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder and looking a moment anxiously in his face, before she took her seat at the table.
He had wondered if he could keep his hands from her fair throat,—she came and he could hardly restrain himself from falling at her feet. When he looked at her at last his heart rebelled. He had believed that her perfidy had ended his infatuation. He found in her loveliness the power yet to wound—he suffered, he loved. It was not only the woman he could not give up, but the half, the happier half, of his own self.
Seeing him so weary Sheila felt a sudden movement of pity, a maternal tenderness she had not believed possible. Across the shininglittle table, which she contemplated from time to time with an affectionate eye, she saw always the intruding shadow of the lawyer, malignant and inexorable, bringing with it the damp and the chill of the outer night. It was a memory and a threat, the shadow of the cold, starved world of poverty which clung to her. Before this real menace her vanities and her whims vanished, and suddenly, on again looking at the man who had placed her amid this coziness and warmth, the tears dimmed her eyes. All at once she realized how desperately she clung to this home of hers, this one satisfying reality in a stretch of past darkness and future menace. Threatened in this joy of possession her heart was softened towards her husband, whose suffering she now comprehended with her own. She raised her head and said compassionately:
"How tired you are, dear! You aren't ill, are you?"
At this, her first caress, he twitched violently as from a shock of pain, and drawing his handhastily across his forehead he stammered inaudibly:
"No, no."
He fastened his gaze desperately on his plate; to look at her would have meant surrender. He had an immense impulse to seize her in his arms, to overwhelm the fair, treacherous face with kisses, to forego and to forget and to sink into a shameless, passionate subjection. To himself he repeated again and again:
"Yes, yes, I love her—I want to love her!"
Sheila also was stirred by the responsive emotion one endearing word had brought.
"If he loves me like that," she thought, trembling on the verge of a confession, "he might forgive me anything."
And shaken with the daring of the thought she sought the courage to throw herself on her knees and cry his mercy.
The pause lasted but a moment. Neither suspected what was in the soul of the other orthat three destinies hung on a word. A glance of affection would have brought Fargus shamelessly to her knees, a flash of courage and she would have confessed and been forgiven. The ironical moment passed. She did not quite dare. But to distract him she said gently:
"I'm going to tell Mr. Bofinger to give you as good advice as he gave me. And by the way, what has become of him all this time?"
That speech decided two fates. In Fargus every human emotion froze. From the rage of subjection he passed violently to the rage of murder. Where a moment before he had been on the point of stretching forth his hands in supplication he was now shaken with a blinding passion to possess himself with something murderous, with which to rush on her and blot out forever both her treachery and his infatuation.
"Fargus!" she cried in horror. "What is it? Why do you look so?"
"Me?" he mumbled, thrusting away from him the knife by his plate with a gesture shecould not understand. "What—what was it?"
"I asked if Mr. Bofinger was away," she said, following him in alarm. "And why you haven't seen him."
"Ah, Bofinger!" he cried, and his fist cracked on the table like the sound of a curse.
"What jealousy!" she thought to herself, and reassured she began to laugh openly.
"Why do you laugh?" he demanded fiercely.
"Monster of jealousy!" she said, smiling. "What a lot of trouble that naughty remark of mine has made!"
"Go on," he said, drawing his eyebrows together. Then to himself he added furiously: "Actress—vile actress, lie now to me if you can."
"I'm penitent, my dear; I own up," she said with mock humility. "Your friend talked economy and poverty to me until I expected he was going to send you back to your old ways. So to be rid of him I made up my mind to make you jealous. You remember?" Andlooking at him with challenging eyes she burst out laughing. "Since then, you can't bear to hear his name. Isn't that true?"
"No," he said gruffly, cursing her cleverness. "No, I am not jealous."
"Fib!" she said, wagging a finger. "And it's all my fault."
"No."
"You're not made for telling lies," she said with a shake of her head. "Leave that for those who know. Shall we ask Mr. Bofinger to supper then—to-morrow night?"
He did not answer, raging at the skill with which she enmeshed him.
"And you're not jealous!" she cried, clapping her hands triumphantly.
Then rising and coming to his side with the fawning movement of a cat she laid her hand on his arm, saying with a sudden shift to seriousness:
"Forgive me my foolish teasing. I'll feel awfully hurt if you let that come between you and an old friend. As for Mr. Bofinger,you silly man, he oils his hair and his eyes have a squint!"
"Then you want him?" he said, without raising his eyes from her jeweled, supple fingers.
"Please—for to-morrow," she answered with the air of making an atonement. "And—I'll not be so wicked again."
Strangely enough, in the presence of such perfected acting Fargus found new strength and a fierce delight in matching wits.
"Well, well!" he said, forcing a fierce smile. "That was all, was it? And you are sure you want Mr. Bofinger?"
"Please."
"That decides it then!" he said grimly; and to him the words were as the casting of a die.
The emotion of vengeance is supreme among human passions. Beyond love itself, of which it is often the ultimate phase, it is so exacting and absorbing that only the most intense natures can guard it long in their hearts without being thereby consumed. The generalityof men prefer to excuse and forget. The man who can pursue a vengeance relentlessly, and at the sacrifice of his own desires, has in him either a little of the woman or of the savage, in whom the egotism of civilization is unknown; or a touch of that madness which distinguishes fanatics and misanthropes, those who are ready to sacrifice themselves for humanity or those who despise it. In measure as this supreme passion dominated Fargus it educated him and, from a first tempestuous upsetting, it calmed him and gave to him the strength of deception, the joy of matching his wits against the woman and a confidence in the ultimate day. His demeanor during the supper at which Bofinger was present surprised him. Forewarned he viewed their adroit maneuvering to develop a quarrel with scorn and amusement. He found in himself another man, the creature of his new purpose, who suffered no longer. But at times the other returned with the intensity of pain.
Two days after the supper with Bofinger,Fargus returned one night with a vigor and a zest that impressed Sheila at once.
"Ah, you're different to-night," she said, looking at him with interest.
"Yes, Sheila, I am," he cried, taking her hand and squeezing it joyfully. "Luck, great luck!"
Wondering much she followed him up-stairs, where without preliminaries he brought out a bundle of papers and said with a smile:
"Sheila, we're going to have a business talk. Something unexpected has happened. First—there!"
Picking out of the bundle a book he offered it to her with an expectant smile. She took it with a feeling of apprehension, watching him in almost dismay. It was a bank book inscribed with her name.
"For me?" she cried, "but—what—why?"
"You have said you don't have enough money," he answered drily. "You are now to run the house—all expenses except rent.Every three months four hundred dollars will be paid in to your account."
She looked and saw that amount entered to her credit. This development in her husband so overwhelmed her that she could not for a time muster words to thank him. When she started he cut her short.
"Now listen, Sheila, you've been wondering, haven't you, what has worried me these last days." He stopped with a questioning look, reveling in his new power of deception. "Three days ago I was afraid that the chance to make millions was going to escape me. To-day I have it in my hand. Yes, Sheila, millions—millions!"
Across her mind there passed the terrible thought that Bofinger had found an opening, and she said anxiously:
"Is it a secret?"
"Absolutely," he answered. "A secret for every one!"
"It's a plan, then, of Mr. Bofinger's!" she said with conviction.
"Bofinger, heavens no!" he cried in real alarm. "He has no idea of it; and, Sheila, no one must know, no one!"
"Never fear," she cried, relieved. "Not a word shall pass my lips, I promise you! But, Max, you say millions," she added incredulously; "in your enthusiasm don't you—what do you really mean?"
"No, millions!" he cried, smiting his palms. Then leaning forward and grasping a knee in either squat hand he began nervously:
"To-morrow I'm leaving for Mexico. When I come back, if all goes well, there is nothing you can wish for you can't have."
At this extraordinary promise, all of a sudden, like a mist, there rolled up before the woman a glittering vision of luxury and splendor; carriages beautifully fashioned, rolling behind swift horses, boxes at the opera dimmed by apparitions of bewildering satins and silks, which in turn disappeared before the fascination of glistening jewelry. She shut her eyes and with a sigh relaxed in the gentle happiness.Fargus lost not a sign of her emotion. He smiled as a master smiles. He held her. He proceeded rapidly, finding in the thought of her deception a joy which she imagined came from his words.
"Four years ago I staked out a miner who came to me with tales of the Mexican silver mines. I supplied him on condition to have two thirds of his findings. He is not the first I've done that for. He wrote me a week ago that he was returning successful. To-day I saw him and, Sheila, not only has he discovered a mine that promises everything, but he brings me the chance to buy up one which they think is worked out, but which really is filled with millions. There is in this business," he said, nodding wisely, "something queer, a bit of treachery; but let the owners look to themselves. The more fools they to be deceived! I shall go to-morrow and investigate both with an expert, on the quiet. Now, in order that I can close as soon as I am sure, I have brought these papers to you to sign."
She received the papers without a glance, saying breathlessly:
"And you really believe there is a chance?"
"A chance? A certainty!"
She leaned over and took his hands, saying with tears in her eyes:
"O Max, if it is only true!"
"There, there, read over the papers," he said nervously, withdrawing his hands. "If everything goes well I shall sell some of my restaurants and cinch the bargain. The papers are a formality—your consent to the sales in case they are made. Of course," he added with a shrug, "if nothing turns up I shan't sell."
"Oh, don't speak of such a thing!" she said with a superstitious shiver. "Where shall I sign?"
"There and there," he said, imposing his finger and hiding his eyes. "To-morrow we'll go before a notary and you can acknowledge your signature."
"And why that?" she said, signing carelessly.
"To show, my dear, that your signature is given willingly and not by compulsion."
She lifted her head and met his glance. The two burst into laughter.
The next morning the deeds were duly executed at the Union Bank, where Sheila was identified. After lunch she insisted on packing everything herself. She arranged his tie, smoothed his coat, studying him with an affection as sincere and deep as her hunger for the vision of wealth he had so marvelously held out to her.
"Now remember," he said sternly, "if anyone asks, say I'm off on business."
"I will."
"But you don't know where."
"Never fear."
"You might say, if necessary, that it was to look up some oyster beds."
"I will."
"Good-by, then," he blurted out, reaching out his hand.
"Not like that!" she cried in protest, andflinging herself into his arms she kissed him. Then holding herself from him, seizing his shoulders, she cried fervently:
"Oh, Max, bring me only what you promised, and I'll give you all without reserve. All!"
It was fully a month before Sheila received word of Max Fargus. The weeks passed in skirmishes with Bofinger, who, dissatisfied with her explanations, continually harassed her. To his insistent demands she answered always that Fargus had left without further explanation than that he was going to investigate the oyster fields.
"And that's all you know?" the lawyer demanded with one of his inquisitorial looks.
"Absolutely."
"He writes to you?"
"Me? I haven't heard a word," she answered truthfully.
"Well, it looks peculiar," he said suspiciously. "He has never done this before that I can find out."
"Perhaps he has a plan to extend his business," she said, committing the mistake of trying to explain.
He looked at her with an antagonistic eye.
"Sheila, I bet something's gone wrong between you two."
She protested in surprise.
"You haven't been cutting up, have you?" he continued angrily. "Doing anything to make him jealous?"
"Me? What could I do?" she answered. "I might as well live in a convent."
"How long is he going to be away?"
"I don't know."
"And he hasn't written?"
"No."
"And that doesn't worry you?"
"Me?" she said, slipping over the dangerous answer. "Why should it?"
Twenty times Bofinger returned to the catechism without discovering in her manner a single flaw. She held the lawyer always in terror, but according to the nature of her sex,which is disconcerted only by the unknown, the daily contact educated her and brought a new confidence. Besides she was defending the millions Fargus had promised her with the instinct of a mother for her children. They had grown very real to her, these children of her hopes. She believed in them because she had always wanted to believe. So now without restraint she began to abandon herself to all the delights of the imagination.
She began the morning by ransacking the society columns for details of the last night's functions, promising herself, with a delicious rage, that the time would soon come when she would read her own name there. She ran the shops, purchasing in her imagination enough to fill their little house three times over. She hung over the shining counters of the jewelers, setting aside for the future day bracelets and brooches unending, and decided, so natural did her new destiny seem to her, that she would wear nothing but rubies and pearls. She remained late abed, having her breakfast servedin her room and tired out the morning with preparations for her afternoon parade on the Avenue.
At times her happiness became so intense that she had a superstitious dread lest at the last moment Providence might thwart her. She went thrice a week to church, where she promised to be a faithful and exemplary wife if only Fargus might be permitted to return successful, hoping by this bargain to conciliate God and range him on her side, for she was a bit uneasy over her past. Also it must be admitted that her conception of Paradise had a flavor of upper Fifth Avenue.
The culmination of these weeks of delirium arrived in a visit to the opera. It was an intoxication such as she had never known. Ensconced in the glittering orchestra, the display on the stage, the surge and the sweep of the immense music, awakened all her senses. Radiant and palpitating she leaned back languidly, her glance traveling among the boxes, back and forth over the bewildering horseshoe,dreaming of the day when she too would take her place among these princesses of fashion,—and it took her quite a while to decide which box she would occupy. During the second entre-acte she joined the parade in the foyer. Feeling that the excitement gave her a moment of unusual brilliancy, she placed herself in prominence, wondering anxiously if she would be noticed among all the gorgeous toilettes. To her delight she drew many glances and on leaving had the delicious satisfaction of hearing a voice say in a whisper half impertinent and half admiration:
"Who is she?"
"Oh, when I can dress as they do!" she thought with a sigh of delight, "they will know who I am!"
The incense of this flattery caused her to imagine the conquests she should then number—little infidelities to Fargus, a number of which, despite all her vows, she committed in that moment of ecstasy. On leaving the opera she took a carriage for the mere vanityof being obsequiously handed through the door. Then, arrived home, she paid the driver double his fare in the embarrassment she felt that he should set her down in such an unfashionable quarter.
The next morning, remembering with alarm the infidelities she had imagined to her poor husband, she hastened to church where she renounced them in trembling, hoping perhaps that the divine Providence had not noticed such a minuscule frailty.
At the end of the month Bofinger, on repairing to Sheila's, stumbled on a messenger who was bringing a telegram to the door. Convinced for a long time that the absence of Fargus held some mystery of which the woman knew the secret he avidly seized on the occasion offered. Slipping a quarter into the palm of the surprised messenger he bade him return five minutes later. Then he went in hurriedly and going at once to the attack said:
"Well, Sheila, what news?"
"About Fargus? Nothing."
"What! Not even a letter?"
"No, indeed."
"But he's telegraphed?" he persisted.
"He'd never think of that," she said with conviction.
"So," he said smiling. "And you're still satisfied there's nothing to fear?"
"Why, I am a little worried," she said, deciding to answer thus. "But then I suppose it's only one of his funny ways."
At this moment the bell rang and Sheila, answering the door, received the telegram.
"Hello, what's that?" the lawyer cried from the parlor.
"Only someone at the wrong number," she said, shutting the door.
Bofinger rose and with two steps reached her side at the moment she was trying to conceal the telegram in her dress.
"Indeed!" he said ironically, twisting the dispatch from her hand. "So this doesn't count?"
Sheila, paralyzed with fear, felt the floor swim beneath her. Bofinger, tearing off the cover, found to his great disappointment only this:
Begin journey tomorrow."Max Fargus."
Begin journey tomorrow.
"Max Fargus."
Without attempting to conceal his vexation, he was tendering the dispatch to Sheila when all at once snatching it back he scanned it for the source.
"Mexico!" he exclaimed, and, looking at her with the gleam of the lawyer who has entrapped his witness, he raised his voice to a shout, "MEXICO!"
Sheila, who had feared that the contents might reveal the story of the mine, comprehended rapidly that she might yet extricate herself.
"Mexico?" she cried with well acted incredulity, and seizing the telegram she read it. "But—but I don't understand! Why Mexico?"
"You do it well," he said scornfully. "So Fargus has gone to Mexico. Why?"
"My dear fellow," she said, sitting down and studying the telegram, "I am as astonished as you."
"Sheila, you're lying to me."
"You tell me that a dozen times a day," she said with a shrug. "It gets tiresome. Still, I would like to know why he is in Mexico and what he means by beginning his journey. Does he mean his return or what?"
Deceived by her air of candid bewilderment Bofinger tried a new method.
"Sheila," he said, looking at her earnestly, "I believe you. But, my dear girl, if you are deceiving me, you are running big risks. Fargus is too clever for you alone. You need me, whether you find it out now or later."
"Perhaps," she said, glancing at the telegram to escape his scrutiny, "perhaps he has some idea of bringing up a Mexican establishment?"
"You think he's coming back now?"
"Oh, of course."
"You are doubtless right," he added, smilingtoo graciously not to raise her doubts, "and we'll soon know."
A week later, the mail brought her the following brief letter, with a Southern postmark.
Dear Sheila:Fargus has been away a leettle too long. You may be satisfied, I am not. I'm off for Mexico.Alonzo Bofinger.
Dear Sheila:
Fargus has been away a leettle too long. You may be satisfied, I am not. I'm off for Mexico.
Alonzo Bofinger.
"Oh, if he finds him, then everything is lost!" she cried in consternation. "If only I knew how to warn Fargus!"
At the end of three weeks she received a telegram from Bofinger which completed her despair, for he sent but the one word:
"Progress."
Six weeks of torture succeeded, during which she was torn between the fear that the lawyer should learn of the mines and the agony which gradually possessed her as she became convinced that some dreadful accident had happened to Fargus, forever sweeping away herbrief vision of fortune. This was the secret of the overwhelming grief which had so mystified Bofinger on the night when he had returned to reveal to the distracted woman the fall of all her hopes and the extraordinary sentence which for seven years she must undergo by the provisions of the common law.