Cairns nodded, thinking of Mrs. Clydesdale. And whatever he personally was inclined to believe, he knew that gossip was not dealing very leniently with that young wife and the man who sat on the other side of the table, nervously pulling to pieces his unlighted cigarette.
But it needed no rumour, no hearsay evidence, no lifted eyebrows, no shrugs, no dubious smiles, no half-hearted defence of Elena Clydesdale, to thoroughly convince Mrs. Hammerton of Desboro's utter unfitness as a husband for the motherless girl she had begun to love with a devotion so fierce that at present it could brook no rival at all of either sex.
For Mrs. Hammerton had never before loved. She had once supposed that she loved her late husband, but soon came to regard him as a poor sort of thing. She had been extremely fond of Desboro, too, in her own way, but in the vivid fire of this new devotion to Jacqueline, any tenderness she ever might have cherished for that young man was already consumed and sacrificed to a cinder in the fiercer flame.
Into her loneliness, into her childless solitude, into the hardness, cynicism, and barren emptiness of her latter years, a young girl had stepped from nowhere, and she had suddenly filled her whole life with the swift enchantment of love.
A word or two, a smile, the magic of two arms upon her bony shoulders, the shy touch of youthful lips—these were the very simple ingredients which apparently had transmuted the brass and tinsel and moral squalor of Aunt Hannah's life into charming reality.
From sudden tenderness to grim love, to jealous, watchful, passionate adoration—these were the steps Mrs. Hammerton had taken in the brief interval of time that had elapsed since she had first seen Jacqueline.
Into the clear, truthful eyes she had looked, and had seen within only an honest mind and a clean young soul. Wisdom, too, only lacking in experience, she divined there; and less of wisdom than of intelligence; and less of that than of courage. And it all was so clear, so perfectly apparent to the cold and experienced scrutiny of the woman of the world, that, for a while, she could not entirely believe what she understood at the first glance.
When shewasconvinced, she surrendered. And never before in all her unbelieving, ironical, and material career had she experienced such a thrill of overwhelming delight as when, that evening at Silverwood, Jacqueline had drawn her head down and had touched her dry forehead with warm, young lips.
Everything about the girl fascinated her—her independence and courage; her adorable bashfulness in matters where experience had made others callous—in such little things, for example, as the response to an invitation, the meeting with fashionable strangers—but it was only the nice, friendly, and thoroughbred shyness of inexperience, not the awkwardness of under-breeding or of that meaner vanity called self-consciousness.
Poor herself, predatory, clever, hard as nails, her beady eyes ever alert for the main chance, she felt for the first time in her life the real bitterness of comparative poverty—which is the inability to give where one loves.
She had no illusions; she knew that what she had to offer the girl would soon pall; that Jacqueline would choose her own friends among the sane and simple and sincere, irrespective of social and worldly considerations; that no glitter, no sham, no tinsel could permanently hold her attention; no lesser ambition seduce her; no folly ever awake her laughter more than once. What the girl saw she would understand; and, in future, she would choose for herself what she cared to see and know of a new world now gradually opening before her.
But in the meantime Jacqueline must see before she could learn, and before she could make up her mind what to discard and what to retain.
So Mrs. Hammerton had planned that Jacqueline should be very busy during March and April; and her patience was sorely tried when she found that, for a week or two, the girl could give her only a very few minutes every other day.
At first it was a grim consolation to her that Jacqueline still remained too busy to see anybody, because that meant that Desboro, too, would be obliged to keep his distance.
For at first Mrs. Hammerton did not believe that the girl could be seriously interested in Desboro; in fact, she had an idea that, so far, all the sentiment was on Desboro's side. And both Jacqueline's reticence and her calm cordiality in speaking of Desboro were at first mistaken by Aunt Hannah for the symptoms of a friendship not sentimentally significant.
But the old lady's doubts soon became aroused; she began to watch Jacqueline askance—began to test her, using all her sly cleverness and skill. Slowly her uncertainty, uneasiness, and suspicion changed to anger and alarm.
If she had been more than angry and suspicious—if she had been positive, she would not have hesitated an instant. For on one matter she was coldly determined; the girl should not marry Desboro, or any such man as Desboro. It made no difference to her whether Desboro might be really in love with her. He was not fit for her; he was a man of weak character, idle, useless, without purpose or ability, who would never amount to anything or be anything except what he already was—an agreeable, graceful, amusing, acceptable item in the sort of society which he decorated.
She knew and despised that breed of youth; New York was full of them, and they were even less endurable to her than the similar species extant in England and on the Continent; for the New York sort were destitute of the traditions which had created the real kind—and there was no excuse for them, not even the sanction of custom. They were merely imitation of a more genuine degeneracy. And she held them in contempt.
She told Jacqueline this, as she was saying good-night on Saturday, and was alarmed and silenced by the girl's deep flush of colour; and she went home in her scrubby brougham, scared and furious by turns, and determined to settle Desboro's business for him without further hesitation.
Sunday Jacqueline could not see her; and the suspicion that the girl might be with Desboro almost drove the old lady crazy. Monday, too, Jacqueline told her over the telephone would be a very busy day; and Aunt Hannah acquiesced grimly, determined to waste no further time at the telephone and take no more chances, but go straight to Jacqueline and take her into her arms and tell her what a mother would tell her about Desboro, and how, at that very hour perhaps, he was with Mrs. Clydesdale; and what the world suspected, and what she herself knew of an intrigue that had been shamelessly carried into the very house which had sheltered Jacqueline within a day or two.
So on Monday morning Mrs. Hammerton went to see Jacqueline; and, learning that the girl had gone out early, marched home again, sat down at her desk, and wrote her a letter.
When she had finished she honestly believed that she had also finished Desboro; and, grimly persuaded that she had done a mother's duty by the motherless, she summoned a messenger and sent off the letter to a girl, who, at that very moment, had returned to her desk, a wife.
The rapid reaction from the thrilling experience of the morning had made Jacqueline nervous and unfit for business, even before she arrived at her office. But she entered the office resolutely and seated herself at her desk, summoning all her reserve of self-control to aid her in concentrating her mind on the business in hand.
First she read her morning's mail and dictated her answers to a red-headed stenographer. Next she received Lionel Sissly, disposed of his ladylike business with her; sent for Mr. Mirk, went over with him his report of the shop sales, revised and approved the list of prices to be ticketed on new acquisitions, re-read the sheaf of dictated letters laid before her by the red-headed stenographer, signed them, and sent down for the first client on the appointment-list.
The first on the list was a Mr. Hyman Dobky; and his three months' note had gone to protest, and Mr. Dobky wept.
She was not very severe with him, because he wasa Lexington Avenue dealer just beginning in a small way, and she believed him to be honest at heart. He retired comforted, swabbing his eyes with his cuff.
Then came a furtive pair, Orrin Munger, the "Cubist" poet, and his loud-voiced, swaggering confrère, Adalbert Waudle, author of "Black Roses" and other phenomena which, some people whispered, resembled blackmail.
It had been with greatest reluctance, and only because it was a matter concerning a client, that she had consented to receive the dubious pair. She had not forgotten her experience with the "Cubist," and his suggestion for an informal Italian trip, and had never again desired or expected to see him.
He now offered her an abnormally flat and damp hand; and hers went behind her back and remained there clasped together, as she stood inspecting Mr. Munger with level eyes that harboured lightning.
She said quietly: "My client, Mr. Clydesdale, recently requested my opinion concerning certain jades, crystals and Chinese porcelains purchased by him from you and from Mr. Waudle. I have, so far, examined some twenty specimens. Every specimen examined by me is a forgery."
"Mr. Waudle gaped at her like a fat and expiring fish; the poet ... said not a word"
Mr. Waudle, taken completely by surprise, gaped at her like a fat and expiring fish; the poet turned a dull and muddy red, and said not a word.
"So," added Jacqueline coldly, "at Mr. Clydesdale's request I have asked you to come here and explain the situation to me."
Waudle, writer of "Pithy Points" for the infamousTattler, recovered his wits first.
"Miss Nevers," he said menacingly, "do you mean to insinuate that I am a swindler?"
"Areyou, Mr. Waudle?"
"That's actionable. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly. Please explain the forgeries."
The poet, who had sunk down upon a chair, now arose and began to make elaborate gestures preliminary to a fluency of speech which had never yet deserted him in any crisis where a lady was involved.
"My dear child——" he began.
"What!" cut in Jacqueline crisply.
"My—my dear and—and honored, but very youthful and inexperienced young lady," he stammered, a trifle out of countenance under the fierce glimmer in her eyes, "do you, for one moment, suppose that such a writer as Mr. Waudle would imperil his social and literary reputation for the sake of a few wretched dollars!"
"Fifteen thousand," commented Jacqueline quietly.
"Exactly. Fifteen thousand contemptible dollars—inartistically designed," he added, betraying a tendency to wander from the main point; and was generously proceeding to instruct her in the art of coin design when she brought him back to the point with a shock.
"You, also, are involved in this questionable transaction," she said coldly. "Can you explain these forgeries?"
"F-forgeries!" he repeated, forcibly injecting indignation into the exclamation; but his eyes grew very round, as though frightened, and a spinal limpness appeared which threatened the stability of his knees.
But the poet's fluency had not yet deserted him; he opened both arms in a gesture suggesting absolute confidence in a suspicious and inartistic world.
"I am quite guiltless of deception," he said, using a slight tremolo. "Permit me to protest against your inexperienced judgment in the matter of these ancient and precious specimens of Chinese art; I protest!" he exclaimed earnestly. "I protest in the name of that symbol of mystery and beauty—that occult lunarsomething, my dear young lady, which we both worship, and which the world calls the moon——"
"I beg your pardon——" she interrupted; but the poet was launched and she could not check him.
"I protest," he continued shrilly, "in the name of Art! In the name of all that is worth while, all that matters, all that counts, all that is meaningful, sacred, precious beyond price——"
"Mr. Munger!"
"I protest in the name of——"
"Mr. Munger!"
"Eh!" he said, coming to and rolling his round, washed-out eyes toward her.
"Be kind enough to listen," she said curtly. "I am compelled to interrupt you because to-day I am a very busy person. So I am going to be as brief with you as possible. This, then, is the situation as I understand it. A month or so ago you and your friend, Mr. Waudle, notified Mr. Clydesdale that you had just returned from Pekin with a very unusual collection of ancient Chinese art, purchased by you, as you stated, from a certain Chinese prince."
The faint note of scorn in her voice did not escape the poet, who turned redder and muddier and made a picturesque gesture of world-wide appeal; but no words came from either manufacturer of literary phrases; Waudle only closed his cod-like mouth, and the eyes set in his fat face became small and cunning like something in the farthest corner of a trap.
Jacqueline continued gravely: "At your solicitation, I understand, and depending upon your representations, my client, Mr. Clydesdale, purchased from you this collection——"
"We offered no guarantees with it," interrupted Waudle thickly. "Besides, his wife advised him to buy the collection. I am an old and valued friend of Mrs. Clydesdale. She would never dream of demanding a guarantee fromme! Ask her if——"
"Whatisa guarantee?" inquired Jacqueline. "I'm quite certain that you don't know, Mr. Waudle. And did you and Mr. Munger regard your statement concerning the Chinese prince as poetic license? Or as diverting fiction? Or what? You were not writing romance, you know. You were engaged in business. So I must ask you again who is this prince?"
"There was a prince," retorted Waudle sullenly. "Can you prove there wasn't?"
"There are several princes in China. And now I am obliged to ask you to state distinctly exactly how many of these porcelains, jades and crystals which you sold to Mr. Clydesdale were actually purchased by you from this particular Chinese prince?"
"Most of them," said Waudle, defiantly. "Prove the contrary if you can!"
"Notallof them, then—as you assured Mr. Clydesdale?"
"I didn't say all."
"I am afraid you did, Mr. Waudle. I am afraid you evenwroteit—over your own signature."
"Very well," said Waudle, with a large and careless sweep of his hand, "if any doubt remains in Mr. Clydesdale's mind, I am fully prepared to take back whatever specimens may not actually have come from the prince——"
"There weresome, then, which did not?"
"One or two, I believe."
"And who is this Chinese prince, Mr. Waudle?" she repeated, not smiling. "What is his name?"
Munger answered; he knew exactly what answer to make, and how to deliver it with flowing gestures. He had practised it long enough:
"When I was travelling with His Excellency T'ang-K'ai-Sun by rail from Szechuan to Pekin to visit Prince——"
"The railroad is not built," interrupted the girl drily. "You could not have travelled that way."
Both men regarded her as though paralysed by her effrontery.
"Continue, please," she nodded.
The poet swallowed nothing very fast and hard, and waved his damp hand at her:
"Tuan-Fang, Viceroy of Wuchang——"
"He happens to be Viceroy of Nanking," observed the girl.
Waudle, frightened, lost his temper and turned on her, exasperated:
"Be careful! Your insinuations involve our honour and are actionable! Do you realise what you are saying?"
"Perfectly."
"I fear not. Do you imagine you are competent to speak with authority about Chinaand its people and its complex and mysterious art when you have never been in the country?"
"I have seen a little of China, Mr. Waudle. But I do not pretend to speak with undue authority about it."
"You say you've been in China?" His tone of disbelief was loud and bullying.
"I was in China with my father when I was a girl of sixteen."
"Oh! Perhaps you speak Chinese!" he sneered.
She looked at him gravely, not answering.
He laughed: "Now, Miss Nevers, you have intimated that we are liars and swindlers. Let's see how much you know for an expert! You pretend to be an authority on things Chinese. You will then understand me when I say: 'Jen chih ch'u, Hsing pen shan——'"
"I do understand you, Mr. Waudle," she cut in contemptuously. "You are repeating the 'three-word-classic,' which every school-child in China knows, and it merely means 'Men when born are naturally good.' I think I may qualify in Chinese as far as San Tzu Ching and his nursery rhymes. And I think we have had enough of this dodging——"
The author flushed hotly.
"Do you speak Wenli?" he demanded, completely flustered.
"Doyou?" she retorted impatiently.
"I do," he asserted boldly.
"Indeed!"
"I may even say that I speak very fluently the—the literary language of China—or Wenli, as it is commonly called."
"That is odd," she said, "because the literary language of China, commonly called Wenli, is not and never has been spoken. It is only a written language, Mr. Waudle."
The Cubist had now gone quite to pieces. From his colourless mop of bushy hair to the fringe on his ankle-high trousers, he presented a study in deep dejection. Only his round, pale, parrot-like eyes remained on duty, staring unwinkingly at her.
"Wereyouever actually in China?" she asked, looking around at him.
The terrified poet feebly pointed to the author of "Black Roses."
"Oh!" she said. "Wereyouin China, Mr. Waudle, or only in Japan?"
But Mr. Waudle found nothing further to say.
"Because," she said, "in Japan sometimes one is deceived into buying alleged Chinese jades and crystals and porcelains. I am afraid that you were deceived. I hope you were honestly deceived. What you have sold to Mr. Clydesdale as jade is not jade. And the porcelains are not what you represented them to be."
"That's whereyoumake a mistake!" shouted Waudle loudly. "I've had the inscription on every vase translated, and I can prove it! How much of an expert are you? Hey?"
"Ifyouwere an expert," she explained wearily, "you would understand that inscriptions on Chinese porcelains are not trustworthy. Even hundreds of years ago forgeries were perpetrated by the Chinese who desired to have their works of art mistaken for still more ancient masterpieces; and so the ancient and modern makers of porcelains inscribed them accordingly. Only when an antique porcelain itself conforms to the inscription it bears do we venture to accept thatinscription. Never otherwise."
Waudle, hypnotised, stood blinking at her, bereft of speech, almost of reason.
The poet piped feebly: "It was not our fault! We were brutally deceived in Japan. And, oh! The bitter deception to me! The cruelty of the awakening!" He got up out of his chair; words and gestures were once again at his command; tears streaked his pasty cheeks.
"Miss Nevers! My dear and honoured young lady! You know—youamong all women must realise how precious to me is the moon! Sacred, worshipped, adored—desired far more than the desire for gold—yea, than much fine gold! Sweeter, also, than honey in the honeycomb!" he sobbed. "And it was a pair of moon vases, black as midnight, pearl-orbed, lacquered, mystic, wonderful, that lured me——"
"A damned Japanese in Tokio worked them off on us!" broke out the author of "Black Roses," hoarsely. "That was the beginning. What are you going to do about it? You've got us all right, Miss Nevers. The Jap did us. We did the next man. If you want to send us up, I suppose you can! I don't care. I can't keep soul and body together by selling what I write. I tell you I've starved half my life—and when I hear about the stuff that sells—all these damned best sellers—all this cheap fiction that people buy—while they neglect me—it breaks my heart——"
He turned sharply and passed his hand over his face. It was not an attitude; for a fraction of a second it was the real thing. Yet, even while the astonished poet was peeping sideways at his guilty companion, a verse suggested itself to him; and, quite unconsciously, he began to fumble in his pockets for a pencil, while the tears still glistened on his cheeks.
"Mr. Waudle," said Jacqueline, "I am really sorry for you. Because this is a very serious affair."
There was a silence; then she reseated herself at her desk.
"My client, Mr. Clydesdale, is not vindictive. He has no desire to humiliate you publicly. But he is justly indignant. And I know he will insist that you return to him what money he paid you for your collection."
Waudle started dramatically, forgetting his genuine emotion of the moment before.
"Does this rich man mean to ruin me!" he demanded, making his resonant voice tremble.
"On the contrary," she explained gently, "all he wants is the money he paid you."
As that was the only sort of ruin which Mr. Waudle had been fearing, he pressed his clenched fists into his eyes. He had never before possessed so much money. The mere idea of relinquishing it infuriated him; and he turned savagely on Jacqueline, hesitated, saw it was useless. For there remained nothing further to say to such a she-devil of an expert. He had always detested women anyway; whenever he had any money they had gotten it in one way or another. The seven thousand, his share, would have gone the same way. Now it was going back into a fat, rich man's capacious pockets—unless Mrs. Clydesdale might be persuaded to intervene. She could say thatshewanted the collection. Why not? She had aided him before in emergencies—unwillingly, it is true—but what of that? No doubt she'd do it again—if he scared her sufficiently.
Jacqueline waited a moment longer; then rose from her desk in signal that the interview was at an end.
Waudle slouched out first, his oblong, evil head hanging in a picturesque attitude of noble sorrow. The Cubist shambled after him, wrapped in abstraction, his round, pale, bird-like eyes partly sheathed under bluish eyelids that seemed ancient and wrinkled.
He was already quite oblivious to his own moral degradation; his mind was completely obsessed by the dramatic spectacle which the despair of his friend had afforded him, and by the idea for a poem with which the episode had inspired him.
He was still absently fishing for a pencil and bit of paper when his companion jogged his elbow:
"If we fight this business, and if that damn girl sets Clydesdale after us, we'll have to get out. But I don't think it will come to that."
"Can you stop her, Adalbert—and retain the money?"
"By God! I'm beginning to think I can. I believe I'll drop in to see Mrs. Clydesdale about it now. She is a very faithful friend of mine," he added gently. "And sometimes a woman will rush in to help a fellow where angels fear to tread."
The poet looked at him, then looked away, frightened.
"Be careful," he said, nervously.
"Don't worry. I know women. And I have an idea."
The poet of the Cubists shrugged; then, with a vague gesture:
"My mistress, the moon," he said, dreamily, "is more to me than any idea on earth or in Heaven."
"Very fine," sneered Waudle, "but why don't you make her keep you in pin money?"
"Adalbert," retorted the poet, "if you wish to prostitute your art, do so. Anybody can make a mistress of his art and then live off her. But the inviolable moon——"
"Oh, hell!" snapped the author of "Black Roses."
And they wandered on into the busy avenue, side by side, Waudle savagely biting his heavy under-lip, both fists rammed deep into his overcoat pockets; the Cubist wandering along beside him, a little derby hat crowning the bunch of frizzled hair on his head, his soiled drab trousers, ankle high, flapping in the wind.
Jacqueline glanced at them as they passed the window at the end of the corridor, and turned hastily away, remembering the old, unhappy days after her father's death, and how once from a window she had seen the poet as she saw him now, frizzled, soiled, drab, disappearing into murky perspective.
She turned wearily to her desk again. A sense of depression had been impending—but she knew it was only the reaction from excitement and fought it nervously.
They brought luncheon to her desk, but she sent away the tray untouched. People came by appointment and departed, only to give place to others, all equally persistent and wholly absorbed in their own affairs; and she listened patiently, forcing her tired mind to sympathise and comprehend. And, in time, everybody went away satisfied or otherwise, but in no doubt concerning the answer she had given, favourable or unfavourable to their desires. For that was her way in the business of life.
At last, once more looking over her appointment list, she found that only Clydesdale remained; and almost at the same moment, and greatly to her surprise, Mrs. Clydesdale was announced.
"Is Mr. Clydesdale with her?" she asked the clerk, who had also handed her a letter with the visiting card of Mrs. Clydesdale.
"The lady is alone," he said.
Jacqueline glanced at the card again. Then, thoughtfully:
"Please say to Mrs. Clydesdale that I will receive her," she said; laid the card on the desk and picked up the letter.
It was a very thick letter and had arrived by messenger.
The address on the envelope was in Mrs. Hammerton's familiar and vigorous back-stroke writing, and she had marked it "Private! Personal! Important!" As almost every letter from her to Jacqueline bore similar emphatic warnings, the girl smiled to herself and leisurely split the envelope with a paper knife.
She was still intent on the letter, and was still seated at her desk when Mrs. Clydesdale entered. And Jacqueline slowly looked up, dazed and deathly white, as the woman about whom she had at that moment been reading came forward to greet her. Then, with a supreme effort, she rose from her chair, managing to find the ghost of a voice to welcome Elena, who seemed unusually vivacious, and voluble to the verge of excitement.
"'My dear!' she exclaimed. 'What a perfectly charming office!'"
"My dear!" she exclaimed. "What a perfectly charming office! It's really too sweet for words, Miss Nevers! It's enough to drive us all into trade! Are you very much surprised to see me here?"
"A—little."
"It's odd—the coincidence that brought me," said Elena gaily, "—and just a trifle embarrassing to me. And as it is rather a confidential matter——" She drew her chair closer to the desk. "MayI speak to you in fullest candour and—and implicit confidence, Miss Nevers?"
"Yes."
"Then—there is a friend of mine in very serious trouble—a man I knew slightly before I was married. Since then I—have come to know him—better. And I am here now to ask you to help him."
"Yes."
"Shall I tell you his name at once?"
"If you wish."
"Then—his name is Adalbert Waudle."
Jacqueline looked up at her in weary surprise.
Elena laughed feverishly: "Adalbert is only a boy—a bad one, perhaps, but—you know that genius is queer—always unbalanced. He came to see me at noon to-day. It's a horrid mess, isn't it—what he did to my husband? I know all about it; and I know that Cary is wild, and that it was an outrageous thing for Adalbert to do. But——"
Her voice trembled a little and she forced a laugh to conceal it: "Adalbert is an old friend, Miss Nevers. I knew him as a boy. But even so, Cary couldn't understand if I pleaded for him. My husband means to send him to jail if he does not return the money. And—and I am sorry for Mrs. Waudle. Besides, I like the porcelains. And I want you to persuade Cary to keep them."
Through the whirling chaos of her thoughts, Jacqueline still strove to understand what this excited woman was saying; made a desperate effort to fix her attention on the words and not on the flushed and restless young wife who was uttering them.
"Will you persuade Cary to keep the collection, Miss Nevers?"
"That is for you to do, Mrs. Clydesdale."
"I tried. I called him up at his office and asked him to keep the jades and porcelains because I liked them. But he was very obstinate. What you have told him about—about being swindled has made him furious. That is why I came here. Something must be done."
"I don't think I understand you."
"There is nothing to understand. I want to keep the collection. I ask you to convince my husband——"
"How?"
"I d—don't know," stammered Elena, crimson again. "You ought to know how to—to do it."
"If Mr. Waudle returns your husband's money, no further action will be taken."
"He can not," said Elena, in a low voice.
"Why?"
"He has spent it."
"Did he tell you that?"
"Yes."
"Then I am afraid that Mr. Clydesdale will have him arrested."
There was an ominous silence. Jacqueline forced her eyes away from the terrible fascination of Elena's ghastly face, and said:
"I am sorry. But I can do nothing for you, Mrs. Clydesdale. The decision rests with your husband."
"Youmusthelp me!"
"I cannot."
"Youmust!" repeated Elena.
"How?"
"I—I don't care how you do it! But you must prevent my husband from prosecuting Mr. Waudle! It—it has got to be done—somehow."
"What do you mean?"
Elena's face was burning and her lips quivered:
"It has got to be done! I can't tell you why."
"Can you not tell your husband?"
"No."
Jacqueline was quivering, too, clinging desperately to her self-control under the menace of an impending horror which had already partly stunned her.
"Are you—afraidof this man?" she asked, with stiffening lips.
Elena bowed her head in desperation.
"What is it? Blackmail?"
"Yes. He once learned something. I have paid him—not to—to write it for the—theTattler. And to-day he came to me straight from your office and made me understand that I would have to stop my husband from—taking any action—even to recover the money——"
Jacqueline sat nervously clenching and unclenching her hands over the letter which lay under them on the blotter.
"What scandal is it you fear, Mrs. Clydesdale?" she asked, in an icy voice.
Elena coloured furiously: "Is it necessary for me to incriminate myself before you help me? I thought you more generous!"
"I can not help you. There is no way to do so."
"Yes, there is!"
"How?"
"By—by telling my husband that the—the jades arenotforgeries!"
Jacqueline's ashy cheeks blazed into colour.
"Mrs. Clydesdale," she said, "I would not do it to save myself—not even to save the dearest friend I have! And do you think I will lie to spareyou?"
In the excitement and terror of what now was instantly impending, the girl had risen, clutching Mrs. Hammerton's letter in her hand.
"You need not tell me why you—you are afraid," she stammered, her lovely lips already distorted with fear and horror, "because I—Iknow! Do you understand? I know what you are—what you have done—what you are doing!"
She fumbled in the pages of Mrs. Hammerton's letter, found an enclosure, and held it out to Elena with shaking fingers.
It was Elena's note to her husband, written on the night she left him, brought by her husband to Silverwood, left on the library table, used as a bookmark by Desboro, discovered and kept by its finder, Mrs. Hammerton, for future emergencies.
Elena re-read it now with sickened senses, and knew that in the eyes of this young girl she was utterly and irretrievably damned.
"Did you write that?" whispered Jacqueline, with lips scarcely under control.
"I—you do not understand——"
"Did you know that when I was a guest under Mr. Desboro's roof everything that he and you said in the library was overheard? Do you know that you have been watched—not by me—but even long before I knew you—watched even at the opera——"
Elena drew a quick, terrified breath; then the surging shame mantled her from brow to throat.
"That was Mrs. Hammerton!" she murmured. "I warned Jim—but he trusted her."
Jacqueline turned cold all over.
"He is your—lover," she said mechanically.
Elena looked at her, hesitated, came a step nearer, still staring. Her visage and her bearing altered subtly. For a moment they gazed at each other. Then Elena said, in a soft, but deadly, voice:
"Suppose he is my lover! Does that concernyou?" And, as the girl made no stir or sound: "However, if you think it does, you will scarcely care to know either of us any longer. I am quite satisfied. Do what you please about the man who has blackmailed me. I don't care now. I was frightened for a moment—but I don't care any longer. Because the end of all this nightmare is in sight; and I think Mr. Desboro and I are beginning to awake at last."
Until a few minutes before five Jacqueline remained seated at her desk, motionless, her head buried in her arms. Then she got to her feet somehow, and to her room, where, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, she bathed her face and arranged her hair, and strove to pinch and rub a little colour into her ghastly cheeks.
Desboro came for her in his car at five and found her standing alone in her office, dressed in a blue travelling dress, hatted and closely veiled. He partly lifted the veil, kissed the cold, unresponsive lips, the pallid cheek, the white-gloved fingers.
"Is Her Royal Shyness ready?" he whispered.
"Yes, Jim."
"All her affairs of state accomplished?" he asked laughingly.
"Yes—the day's work is done."
"Was it a hard day for you, sweetheart?"
"Yes—hard."
"I am so sorry," he murmured.
She rearranged her veil in silence.
Again, as the big car rolled away northward, and they were alone once more in the comfortable limousine, he took possession of her unresisting hand, whispering:
"I am so sorry you have had a hard day, dear. You really look very pale and tired."
"It was a—tiresome day."
He lifted her hand to his lips: "Do you love me, Jacqueline?"
"Yes."
"Above everything?"
"Yes."
"And you know that I love you above everything in the world?"
She was silent.
"Jacqueline!" he urged. "Don't youknowit?"
"I—think you—care for me."
He laughed: "Will Your Royal Shyness never unbend! Isthatall the credit you give me for my worship and adoration?"
She said, after a silence: "If it lies with me, you really will love me some day."
"Dearest!" he protested, laughing but perplexed. "Don't you know that I love younow—that I am absolutely mad about you?"
She did not answer, and he waited, striving to see her expression through the veil. But when he offered to lift it, she gently avoided him.
"Did you go to business?" she asked quietly.
"I? Oh, yes, I went back to the office. But Lord! Jacqueline, I couldn't keep my attention on the tape or on the silly orders people fired at me over the wire. So I left young Seely in charge and went to lunch with Jack Cairns; and then he and I returned to the office, where I've been fidgeting about ever since. I think it's been the longest day I ever lived."
"It has been a long day," she assented gravely. "Did Mr. Cairns speak to you of Cynthia?"
"He mentioned her, I believe."
"Do you remember what he said about her?"
"Well, yes. I think he spoke about her very nicely—about her being interesting and ambitious and talented—something of that sort—but how could I keep my mind on what he was saying about another girl?"
Jacqueline looked out of the window across a waste of swamp and trestle and squalid buildings toward University Heights. She said presently, without turning:
"Some day, may I ask Cynthia to visit me?"
"Dearest girl! Of course! Isn't it your house——"
"Silverwood?"
"Certainly——"
"No, Jim."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"What I say. Silverwood is not yet even partly mine. It must remain entirely yours—until I know you—better."
"Why on earth do you say such silly——"
"What is yours must remain yours," she repeated, in a low voice, "just as my shop, and office, and my apartment must remain mine—for a time."
"For how long?"
"I can not tell."
"Do you mean for always?"
"I don't know."
"And I don't understand you, dear," he said impatiently.
"You will, Jim."
He smiled uneasily: "For how long must we twain, who are now one, maintain solitary sovereignty over our separate domains?"
"Until I know you better."
"And how long is that going to take?" he asked, smilingly apprehensive and deeply perplexed by her quiet and serious attitude toward him.
"I don't know how long, I wish I did."
"Jacqueline, dear, has anything unpleasant happened to disturb you since I last saw you?"
She made no reply.
"Won't you tell me, dear," he insisted uneasily.
"I will tell you this, Jim. Whatever may have occurred to disturb me is already a matter of the past. Life and its business lie before us; that is all I know. This is our beginning, Jim; and happiness depends on what we make of our lives from now on—from now on."
The stray lock of golden hair had fallen across her cheek, accenting the skin's pallor through the veil. She rested her elbow on the window ledge, her tired head on her hand, and gazed at the sunset behind the Palisades. Far below, over the grey and wrinkled river, smoke from a steamboat drifted, a streak of bronze and purple, in the sunset light.
"Whathas happened?" he muttered under his breath. And, turning toward her: "You must tell me, Jacqueline. It is now my right to know."
"Don't ask me."
His face hardened; for a moment the lean muscles of the jaw worked visibly.
"Has anybody said anything about me to you?"
No reply.
"Has—has Mrs. Hammerton been to see you?"
"No."
He was silent for a moment, then:
"I'll tell you now, Jacqueline; she did not wish me to marry you. Did you know it?"
"I know it."
"I believe," he said, "that she has been capable of warning you against me. Did she?"
No reply.
"And yet you married me?" he said, after a silence.
She said nothing.
"So you could not have believed her, whatever she may have said," he concluded calmly.
"Jim?"
"Yes, dear."
"I married you because I loved you. I love you still. Remember it when you are impatient with me—when you are hurt—perhaps angry——"
"Angry withyou, my darling!"
"You are going to be—very often—I am afraid."
"Angry?"
"I—don't know. I don't know how it will be with us. If only you will remember that I love you—no matter how I seem——"
"Dear, if you tell me that you do love me, I will know that it must be so!"
"I tell you that I do. I could never love anybody else. You are all that I have in the world; all I care for. You are absolutely everything to me. I loved you and married you; I took you for mine just as you were and are. And if I didn't quite understand all that—that you are—I took you, nevertheless—for better or for worse—and I mean to hold you. And I know now that, knowing more about you, I would do the same thing if it were to be done again. I would marry you to-morrow—knowing what I know."
"What more do you know about me than you did this morning, Jacqueline?" he asked, terribly troubled.
But she refused to answer.
He said, reddening: "If you have heard any gossip concerning Mrs. Clydesdale, it is false. Wasthatwhat you heard? Because it is an absolute lie."
But she had learned from Mrs. Clydesdale's reckless lips the contrary, and she rested her aching head on her hand and stared out at the endless lines of houses along Broadway, as the car swung into Yonkers, veered to the west past the ancient manor house, then rollednorthward again toward Hastings.
"Don't you believe me?" he asked at length. "That gossip is a lie—if that is what you heard."
She thought: "This is how gentlemen are supposed to behave under such circumstances." And she shivered.
"Are you cold?" he asked, with an effort.
"A little."
He drew the fur robe closer around her, and leaned back in his corner, deeply worried, impatient, but helpless in the face of her evident weariness and reticence, which he could not seem to penetrate or comprehend. Only that something ominous had happened—that something was dreadfully wrong—he now thoroughly understood.
In the purposeless career of a man of his sort, there is much that it is well to forget. And in Desboro's brief career there were many things that he would not care to have such a girl as Jacqueline hear about—so much, alas! of folly and stupidity, so much of idleness, so much unworthy, that now in his increasing chagrin and mortification, in the painful reaction from happy pride to alarm and self-contempt, he could not even guess what had occurred, or for which particular folly he was beginning to pay.
Long since, both in his rooms in town, and at Silverwood, he had destroyed the silly souvenirs of idleness and folly. He thought now of the burning sacrifice he had so carelessly made that day in the library—and how the flames had shrivelled up letter and fan, photograph and slipper. And he could not remember that he had left a rag of lace or a perfumed envelope unburned.
Had the ghosts of their owners risen to confront him on his own hearthstone, standing already between him and this young girl he had married?
What whisper had reached her guiltless ears? What rumour, what breath of innuendo? Must a man still be harassed who has done with folly for all time—who aspires to better things—who strives to change his whole mode of life merely for the sake of the woman he loves—merely to be more worthy of her?
As he sat there so silently in the car beside her, his dark thoughts travelled back again along the weary, endless road to yesterday. Since he had known and loved her, his thoughts had often and unwillingly sought that shadowy road where the only company were ghosts—phantoms of dead years that sometimes smiled, sometimes reproached, sometimes menaced him with suddenly remembered eyes and voiceless but familiar words forever printed on his memory.
Out of that grey vista, out of that immaterial waste where only impalpable shapes peopled the void, vanished, grew out of nothing only to reappear,somethinghad come to trouble the peace of mind of the woman he loved—some spectre of folly had arisen and had whispered in her ear, so that, at the mockery, the light had died out in her fearless eyes and her pure mind was clouded and her tender heart was weighted with this thing—whatever it might be—this echo of folly which had returned to mock them both.
"Dearest," he said, drawing her to him so that her cold cheek rested against his, "whatever I was, I am no longer. You said you could forgive."
"I do—forgive."
"Can you not forget, too?"
"I will try—with your help."
"How can I help you? Tell me."
"By letting me love you—as wisely as I can—in my own fashion. By letting me learn more of you—more about men. I don't understand men. I thought I did—but I don't. By letting me find out what is the wisest and the best and the most unselfish way to love you. For I don't know yet. I don't know. All I know is that I am married to the man I loved—the man I still love. But how I am going to love him I—I don't yet know."
He was silent; the hot flush on his face did not seem to warm her cheek where it rested so coldly against his.
"I want to hold you because it is best for us both," she said, as though speaking to herself.
"But—you need make no effort to hold me, Jacqueline!" e protested, amazed.
"I want to hold you, Jim," she repeated. "You are my husband. I—I must hold you. And I don't know how I am to do it. I don't know how."
"My darling! Who has been talking to you? What have they said?"
"It hasgotto be done, somehow," she interrupted, wearily. "I must learn how to hold you; and you must give me time, Jim——"
"Give you time!" he repeated, exasperated.
"Yes—to learn how to love you best—so I can serve you best. That is why I married you—not selfishly, Jim—and I thought I knew—I thought I knew——"
Her cheek slipped from his and rested on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and she covered her face with her gloved hands.
"I love you dearly, dearly," he whispered brokenly. "If the whisper of any past stupidity of mine has hurt you, God knows best what punishment He visits on me at this moment! If there were any torture I could endure to spare you, Jacqueline, I would beg for it—welcome it! It is a bitter and a hopeless and a ridiculous thing to say; but if I had only known there was such a woman as you in the world I would have understood better how to live. I suppose many a man understands it when it is too late. I realise now, for the first time, how changeless, how irrevocably fixed, are the truths youth learns to smile at—the immutable laws youth scoffs at——"
He choked, controlled his voice, and went on:
"If youth could only understand it, the truths of childhood are the only truths. The first laws we learn are the eternal ones. And their only meaning is self-discipline. But youth is restive and mistakes curiosity for intelligence, insubordination for the courage of independence. The stupidity of orthodoxy incites revolt. To disregard becomes less difficult; to forget becomes a habit. To think for one's self seems admirable; but when youth attempts that, it thinks only what it pleases or does not think at all. I am not trying to find excuses or to evade my responsibility, dear. I had every chance, no excuse for what I have—sometimes—been. And now—on this day—this most blessed and most solemn day of my life—I can only say to you I am sorry, and that I mean so to live—always—that no man or woman can reproach me."
She lay very silent against his shoulder. Blindly striving to understand him, and men—blindly searching for some clue to the pathof duty—the path she must find somehow and follow for his sake—through the obscurity and mental confusion she seemed to hear at moments Elena Clydesdale's shameless and merciless words, and the deadly repetition seemed to stun her.
Vainly she strove against the recurring horror; once or twice, unconsciously, her hands crept upward and closed her ears, as though she could shut out what was dinning in her brain.
With every reserve atom of mental strength and self-control she battled against this thing which was stupefying her, fought it off, held it, drove it back—not very far, but far enough to give her breathing room. But no sooner did she attempt to fix her mind on the man beside her, and begin once more to grope for the clue to duty—how most unselfishly she might serve him for his salvation and her own—than the horror she had driven back stirred stealthily and crawled nearer. And the battle was on once more.
Twilight had fallen over the Westchester hills; a familiar country lay along the road they travelled. In the early darkness, glancing from the windows he divined unseen landmarks, counted the miles unconsciously as the car sped across invisible bridges that clattered or resounded under the heavy wheels.
The stars came out; against them woodlands and hills took shadowy shape, marking for him remembered haunts. And at last, far across the hills the lighted windows of Silverwood glimmered all a-row; the wet gravel crunched under the slowing wheels, tall Norway spruces towered phantomlike on every side; the car stopped.
"Home," he whispered to her; and she rested her arm on his shoulder and drew herself erect.
Every servant and employee on the Desboro estate was there to receive them; she offered her slim hand and spoke to every one. Then, on her husband's arm, and her proud little head held high, she entered the House of Desboro for the first time bearing the family name—entered smiling, with death in her heart.
At last the dinner was at an end. Farris served the coffee and set the silver lamp and cigarettes on the library table, and retired.
Luminous red shadows from the fireplace played over wall and ceiling—the same fireplace where Desboro had made his offering—as though flame could purify and ashes end the things that men have done!
In her frail dinner gown of lace, she lay in a great chair before the blaze, gazing at nothing. He, seated on the rug beside her chair, held her limp hand and rested his face against it, staring at the ashes on the hearth.
And this was marriage! Thus he was beginning his wedded life—here in the house of his fathers, here at the same hearthstone where the dead brides of dead forebears had sat as his bride was sitting now.
But had any bride ever before faced that hearth so silent, so motionless, so pale as was this young girl whose fingers rested so limply in his and whose cold palm grew no warmer against his cheek?
What had he done to her? What had he done to himself—that the joy of things had died out in her eyes—that speech had died on her lips—that nothing in her seemed alive, nothing responded, nothing stirred.
Now, all the bitterness that life and its unwisdom had stored up for him through the swift and reckless years, he tasted. For that cup may not pass. Somewhere, sooner or later, the same lips that have so lightly emptied sweeter draughts must drain this one. None may refuse it, none wave it away until the cup be empty.
"Jacqueline?"
She moved slightly in her chair.
"Tell me," he said, "what is it that can make amends?"
"They—are made."
"But the hurt is still there. What can heal it, dear?"
"I—don't know."
"Time?"
"Perhaps."
"Love?"
"Yes—in time."
"How long?"
"I do not know, Jim."
"Then—what is there for me to do?"
She was silent.
"Could you tell me, Jacqueline?"
"Yes. Have patience—with me."
"Withyou?"
"It will be necessary."
"How do you mean, dear?"
"I mean you must have patience with me—in many ways. And still be in love with me. And still be loyal to me—and—faithful. I don't know whether a man can do these things. I don't know men. But I know myself—and what I require of men—and of you."
"What you require of me I can be if you love me."
"Then never doubt it. And when I know that you have become what I require you to be, you could not doubt my loving you even if you wished to.Thenyou will know;untilthen—you mustbelieve."
He sat thinking before the hearth, the slow flush rising to his temples and remaining.
"What is it you mean to do, Jacqueline?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Nothing, except what I have always done. The business of life remains unchanged; it is always there to be done."
"I mean—are you going to—change—toward me?"
"I have not changed."
"Your confidence in me has gone."
"I have recovered it."
"You believe in me still?"
"Oh, yes—yes!" Her little hand inside his clenched convulsively and her voice broke.
Kneeling beside her, he drew her into his arms and felt her breath suddenly hot and feverish against his shoulder. But if there had been tears in her eyes they dried unshed, for he saw no traces of them when he kissed her.
"In God's name," he whispered, "let the past bury its accursed dead and give me a chance. I love you, worship you, adore you. Give me my chance in life again, Jacqueline!"
"I—I give it to you—as far as in me lies. But it rests with you, Jim, what you will be."
His own philosophy returned to mock him out of the stainless mouth of this young girl! But he said passionately:
"How can I be arbiter of my own fate unless I haveall you can give me of love and faith and unswerving loyalty?"
"I give you these."
"Then—as a sign—return the kiss I give you—now."
There was no response.
"Can you not, Jacqueline?"
"Not—yet."
"You—you can not respond!"
"Not—that way—yet."
"Is—have I—has what you know of me killed all feeling, all tenderness in you?"
"No."
"Then—why can you not respond——"
"I can not, Jim—I can not."
He flushed hotly: "Do you—do I inspire you with—do I repel you—physically?"
She caught his hand, cheeks afire, dismayed, striving to check him:
"Please—don't say such—it is—not—true——"
"It seems to be——"
"No! I—I ask you—not to say it—think it——"
"How can I help thinking it—thinking that you only care for me—that the only attraction on your part is—is intellectual——"
She disengaged her hand from his and shrank away into the velvet depths of her chair.
"I can't help it," he said. "I've got to say what I think. Never since I have told you I loved you have you ever hinted at any response, even to the lightest caress. We are married. Whatever—however foolish I may have been—God knows you have made me pay for it this day. How long am I to continue paying? I tell you a man can't remain repentant too long under the stern and chilling eyes of retribution. If you are going to treat me as though I were physically unfit to touch, I can make no further protest. But, Jacqueline, no man was ever aided by a punishment that wounds his self-respect."
"I must consider mine, too," she said, in a ghost of a voice.
"Very well," he said, "if you think you must maintain it at the expense of mine——"
"Jim!"
The low cry left her lips trembling.
"What?" he said, angrily.
"Have—have you already forgotten what I said?"
"What did you say?"
"I asked—I asked you to be patient with me—because—I love you——"
But the words halted; she bowed her head in her hands, quivering, scarcely conscious that he was on his knees again at her feet, scarcely hearing his broken words of repentance and shame for the sorry and contemptible rôle he had been playing.
No tears came to help her even then, only a dry, still agony possessed her. But the crisis passed and wore away; sight and hearing and the sense of touch returned to her. She saw his head bowed in contrition on her knees, heard his voice, bitter in self-accusation, felt his hands crisping over hers, crushing them till her new rings cut her.
For a while she looked down at him as though dazed; then the real pain from her wedding ring aroused her and she gently withdrew that hand and rested it on his thick, short, curly hair.
For a long while they remained so. He had ceased to speak; her brooding gaze rested on him, unchanged save for the subtle tenderness of the lips, which still quivered at moments.
Clocks somewhere in the house were striking midnight. A little later a log fell from the dying fire, breaking in ashes.
He felt her stir, change her position slightly; and he lifted his head. After a moment she laid her hand on his arm, and he aided her to rise.
As they moved slowly, side by side, through the house, they saw that it was filled with flowers everywhere, twisted ropes of them on the banisters, too, where they ascended.
Her own maid, who had arrived by train, rose from a seat in the upper corridor to meet her. The two rooms, which were connected by a sitting room, disclosed themselves, almost smothered in flowers.
Jacqueline stood in the sitting room for a moment, gazing vaguely around her at the flowers and steadying herself by one hand on the centre-table, which a great bowlful of white carnations almost covered.
Then, as her maid reappeared at the door of her room, she turned and looked at Desboro.
There was a silence; his face was very white, hers was deathly.
He said: "Shall we say good-night?"
"It is—for you—to say."
"Then—good-night, Jacqueline."
"Good-night."