302CHAPTER VIIICELEBRATION
It had been a gay dinner, a memorable dinner. The mere ostensible occasion of its being in celebration of the publication of Steve Armstrong’s first novel, “The Disillusioned,” would of itself have been sufficient reason therefor. In addition, the resignation, by a peculiar coincidence to take effect the same day, of the former manager of the Traction Company, Darley Roberts, with a recommendation that was virtually a command for the advancement of his acting assistant, Harry Randall, to his place, added another reason no less patent. If a cloud existed that evening to mar the happiness of those four long-time friends gathered in commemoration of the dispensation of Providence jointly enjoyed, it most emphatically had not lifted its head above the surface. Never had Margery Randall bubbled with more spontaneous abandon; or, even in the old university days, had Elice Gleason laughed more easily. And as for Steve303Armstrong, the guest of honor, the conquering hero,—it was his hour and in its intoxicating completeness he had enjoyed it to the full; had stretched it on and on that he might enjoy it again. Now, the last course served, the last toast proposed and drunk in inadequate chocolate, and the two girl friends, after the habit of old acquaintances, left to their own private confab, Randall and Armstrong drifted instinctively upstairs to the former’s den for their after-dinner smoke. In absolute well-being, too keen almost for words, Armstrong dropped into a big leather chair, facing his host.
“By Jove, Harry,” he commented explosively, “I tell you this is something like living. I never enjoyed myself so much before in my life.”
Harry Randall, decidedly stouter than the Randall of professor days, smiled appreciatively as he selected a cigar from the convenient humidor.
“Yes, the world does look rather bright to me to-night, I’ll admit,” he acquiesced.
“Bright!” Armstrong laughed outright in pure animal exuberance. “It’s positively dazzling: the more so by comparison.” He looked at his companion with the frank understanding304of those long and intimately acquainted. “What a change a few short years can make sometimes, can’t they? What an incredible change!”
Harry Randall returned the look, but gravely this time.
“Yes, I’ve been thinking of that all the evening,” he said simply.
“So have I.” Armstrong laughed shortly; “that is, when I haven’t been too irresponsibly happy to think at all. Just to get my bearings I tried to fancy myself back where I was once when I came to tell my troubles to you; and went to pieces at the end of the narrative.” He gestured eloquently. “What a fool I was and what a liar to swear I’d never do any more literary work, or permit a book of mine to be published in any circumstances, ever!” Once more the gesture, ending in an all-comprehensive shrug. “Bah! I don’t like to think of it. The whole thing’s a nightmare, neither more nor less!”
Again Harry Randall did not smile.
“Yes; the past was a little that way,” he echoed again.
For perhaps half a minute Armstrong smoked in reminiscent gravity; swiftly as the shadow had intruded it passed.305
“Let’s forget it,” he proposed, “forget it absolutely and never speak of it again. By the way, do you own this place now?”
“No; Roberts still holds it. I made him an offer before he went away last Summer, but he wouldn’t even consider it then. I’ll try again when he returns. Margery wants it badly.”
“When he returns? Is he coming back soon?”
“I judge so, although I’ve had no word. There were a number of letters and telegrams came for him yesterday, and a batch of them to-day. I suspect that he intended being here to-night and is delayed for some reason.” Randall removed his glasses and polished them with unnecessary diligence. “I wired him when I heard what he’d done for me, but I haven’t had any answer yet. I’d have given anything to have had him here to-night. It was the one thing lacking.”
For a moment there was silence.
“He has done a lot for you, Harry, that’s a fact,” commented Armstrong, judicially. “Your new place at six thousand dollars a year is a pretty good thing even for these days.”
“A lot? Everything! He pulled me out of hell and gave me a chance when I’d never have made one myself. I owe him everything; and306I’ve never been able to do him one blessed service in return.”
Armstrong squirmed uncomfortably. The usually reticent Harry Randall like this was a novelty.
“For that matter, he’s done a lot for both of us,” admitted Armstrong, perfunctorily. “I appreciate it too, thoroughly.”
Randall looked up swiftly; in remembrance equally swift he turned away.
“Yes; he’s done miracles for both of us, more than we can possibly realize,” he said softly. “More—”
“Harry,” interrupted Margery Randall’s voice from the stairway, “I’m sorry to hasten you men, but Elice thinks she must go. Her father isn’t well, you know, and is at home alone.”
“I’ll wait, Elice. It’s early yet. See how your father is and come down when you can.” Armstrong looked at her meaningly, with all but an appeal. “This is my night, you know. You really can’t refuse to let me see you to-night.”
The girl busied herself with the lights and the gas in the grate.
“I know, Steve; but really I’d rather not see307any one longer to-night.” She took off her coat almost hurriedly. “It’s a busy time for me now before the holidays; and with father as he is—That’s why I came away so early, you know. Not to-night, please, Steve.”
Armstrong silently paced the length of the little library, pitifully bare in comparison with the home they had just left. He halted.
“Do you realize that you’ve invariably prevented, by one excuse or another, my talking with you alone in months now?” he asked abruptly. “Don’t you mean ever to give me a chance again? You know what it is I wish to speak about, Elice.”
The girl was standing—quite still now.
“Yes, I know what it is you wish,” she corroborated.
Armstrong fingered the gloves in his hand nervously. “Aren’t you going to listen then? I won’t attempt to make any apologies for the past. I can’t. But I’d hoped you’d forgotten, or at least forgiven, by this time. I’ve tried to make good, honestly, Elice; and to-night particularly—don’t stand me in the corner any longer, please. I’ve been punished enough.”
“Punished!” The girl wheeled. “I wonder—” She checked herself suddenly.308“Very well,” she digressed swiftly,—“wait. I’ll be back soon,” and she was gone.
Alone Armstrong threw hat and topcoat into a chair almost irritably; walking over to the grate, he stood gazing down into the blaze absently. For some reason it called to mind another grate and another occasion when he had looked absently therein; and almost unconsciously he caught himself glancing at the shelf above, half expecting to catch the play of light from a red decanter thereon. With the shrug of one who banishes an unpleasant memory he turned away. He was still standing, however, when the girl returned.
“Is there any way I can assist, with your father?” he asked perfunctorily.
“No, thank you. He’s asleep. It’s mental, the trouble with him, more than anything else.” She sat down and indicated a place opposite. “I’m so glad Harry Randall escaped in time.”
“And I as well?”
“Yes, and you, assuredly.”
Armstrong waited; but she said no more, and with an odd diffidence he cleared his throat unnecessarily.
“It’s sacrilege, though, for us to talk commonplaces to-night,” he anticipated hastily. “There’s309too much else to discuss, and to-day has meant too much. Do you realize what this day really means for both of us, Elice?”
The long fingers lay in the girl’s lap, quite still.
“Perhaps. But tell me if you wish.”
Again the fantastic diffidence held Armstrong in its grip; and again he freed himself with an effort.
“It means, first of all, that at last I’m on my feet, where I’ve always wished to be. It means that I’m to have my chance—and that again means independence.” He overlooked absolutely the egotism of the statement, was unconscious of it. Success loomed too big and incontestible; possible future failure lay too remote to merit consideration. “It means all of this; but beyond that it means that I have the right to tell you again that I love you. You know I love you, as always, Elice.”
“As always?”
“Forget, please. This is to-day; my day, our day. You don’t doubt I love you?”
“No; I don’t doubt it.”
Armstrong breathed deep. An instinct all but overwhelming impelled him to rise, to—he substituted with his eyes.310
“You realize all that I wish to say,” he said swiftly, “so why make a farce of it by words? We’ve drifted apart for a long time, a hideously long time, and it’s been my fault throughout; but now that it’s over won’t you come back to the beginning, Elice, to the place where we separated?” He halted for breath, for words where none were adequate. “I want you, Elice, want you—now and always. Tell me, please, that you’ve forgiven me, that you’ll come back.”
In the girl’s lap the hands crossed steadily; again that was the only move she made.
“So far as I am concerned there’s nothing to forgive, nor has there ever been,” she said gently. “As for going back, though, I can’t; because I can’t. It’s useless to lie, for you’d find me out. I’ve simply awakened.”
“You mean you—don’t care for me any more?”
“No; I care for you very much; but not in that way. It was so before the end came. I awoke before that.”
“And still you would have married me then.”
“Yes,” simply.
“And now?”
The girl did not answer, did not even look up.311
“And now,” he repeated insistently, “tell me; and now?”
This time the brown eyes lifted, met his steadily.
“Unless something happens I can’t marry you now,” she said.
Armstrong looked at her; at first dazedly, then with a trace of color gathering under his fair skin.
“Unless something happens?” he repeated. “Pardon me, but what do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” swiftly. “I was thinking of something else. I hate to hurt you; but as I said before, it’s useless to temporize. I can’t marry you now, Steve.”
In his place Armstrong settled back dumbly. Unconsciously he passed his handkerchief over his mouth. The hand that carried it trembled a bit.
“You really mean that, do you?” he groped, half to himself, “mean the break to be really final this time?” He shut his eyes, like a child suddenly awakened in the dark and afraid. “Somehow I hadn’t expected that at all, hadn’t planned on it. I suppose it was childish of me; but I’ve been taking things for granted, on the312strength of the past, and—and—” Of a sudden the rambling tongue halted. The eyes opened wide, unnaturally wide; and in their depths was again that new look of terror, but now magnified. “Tell me that you don’t mean it, Elice, really,” he pleaded. “I was just beginning to live and hope again; and now—tell me!”
Long before this the girl had ceased looking at him. Instead, with the instinctive fascination an open fire exerts over all human beings, she had turned toward the tiny jets of gas in the grate; her face propped in her hands she sat staring into the depths of the flame. She scarcely seemed to breathe, even when she spoke.
“Yes, I meant it,” she repeated patiently.
For a long time there was silence,—long enough with the man for the mood to pass, the mood of terror, and in reaction its antithesis, reckless abandon, to come in its stead. For come it did, as was inevitable; and heralding its approach sounded a laugh,—a sudden mirthless, sarcastic laugh.
“So this is the end of my day,” he said. He laughed again. “I might have known it was too good to last. What a fool I was to imagine313that just because one thing had come my way everything else was going to follow suit. What a poor, blithering fool!”
“Steve!” No lethargy in the girl’s figure now, in the face of a sudden turned toward him appealingly. “Don’t take it that way or say such things. Nothing has changed in the least. I’m still your friend, as I’ve always been; so is Harry Randall—and the rest. You’re still a successful writer; you’ve proved it to-day, and you’ll prove it further with the new book you’re working on now. I repeat, nothing has altered in the least. Don’t talk that way. It hurts me.”
In his chair, erect now, Armstrong merely smiled. But his color was higher than normal and the blue eyes were unnaturally bright.
“No, nothing has changed, I suppose,” he said evenly. “You’re right there. I’ve simply been in a trance—that’s all—and I’ve inadvertently come to. I seem to have the habit of doing that.” He smiled again, hopelessly cruel in his egotism. “Of course I have friendship, oceans of it, yours particularly, as I’ve had all the time. And success; it monopolizes the sky, fairly blots out the stars, and obscures the sun like an eclipse. There’s no end to the success314I have. It’s infinite. And still further, incentive: to be and to do and to fight.” The smile vanished. He could not mock in the face of that thought even yet. “Incentive! What a travesty. Elice, you’ve killed the last trace of incentive I had just now.”
“Steve!” The girl’s hands lifted imperiously. “Stop. Have you no pity?” She shook the swift-gathering flood from her eyes rebelliously and faced him fair. “You’ll be very sorry you said such things after you’ve had time to think,” she went on. “Don’t add regret to the rest to-night. Please don’t.”
“Sorry, perhaps,” echoed the man, “and regret—possibly. Anyway, what does it matter? It’s true.”
“True—no,” swiftly. “I can’t believe it. I won’t. Don’t say that. In pity, don’t.”
“But, I repeat, it is true,” doggedly. “I at least can’t help that. Elice, don’t cry so!” Of a sudden he was on his feet bending over her. “Please don’t. I love you!”
“Don’t touch me! I can’t stand it!” The girl had drawn away swiftly, the repression of years for an instant broken. “You dare to tell me that—now! Love—” She cut herself short with an effort of will and, rising hurriedly,315walked the length of the room to the window. For more than a minute, while Armstrong stood staring after her dumbly, she remained so; her face pressed against the cold pane, looking out upon the white earth. Deliberately, normally, she turned. Seemingly without an effort, so naturally that even Armstrong was deceived, she smiled.
“Pardon me,” she said evenly. “I’m not often hysterical.” She was returning slowly. “I’ll be glad when vacation comes. I think I’m—tired.” She seated herself and motioned the other back into his place,—a motion that was a command. “Now, tell me, please, that you didn’t mean what you said a moment ago when we were both irresponsible. It will make us both sleep better.”
The smile had left Armstrong’s face now, and in its place was the pallor of reaction. But he was quiet also.
“I wish I could,” he said steadily, “but I can’t. It’ll be exactly as it was before.”
The girl was still smiling,—that same normal, apparently effortless, smile.
“Nonsense!” she refuted, in tones deliberately matter-of-fact. “There’s all the difference in the world. Before you had no316audience. And now—the entire country will listen now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” dully. “It’s always been you that counted really. Success was an incident, but you were the real incentive.”
“I?” She laughed gently. “On the contrary it was I who tried to lead you away from your work, to make you practical. Don’t you remember the Graham offer?”
“Yes,” hurriedly. “I’ve thought of it a thousand times. It was the big mistake of my life when I refused his proposal. If I’d accepted then—”
“You’d not have been a successful writer whose work goes on sale to-day in every city in the United States.”
“Perhaps. But I would have had you. What do I care for success in comparison to you!”
Listening, just for an instant the girl’s nostrils tightened; again she laughed.
“We seem to be travelling in a circle,” she bantered, “and keep returning to the starting-point. It’s discouraging.”
“It’s written,” said Armstrong, simply. “We can’t avoid it. With me you’re the starting-point as you’re the end, always. Didn’t you recognize yourself so in the last novel?”317
The girl settled back in her seat wearily.
“You told me, I recall,” she said.
“And in the one before?”
“You told me that also.”
Armstrong was observing her steadily.
“You are in the new one too,” he said; “the one I’ve been working on—but which will never be completed now. You’ve killed the girl there too, Elice.”
“Steve!” The hands had gone swiftly to the girl’s ears, covered them completely. “I shan’t listen. This is worse than folly. It’s madness.”
“I can’t help it,” monotonously. “It’s myself. I can’t avoid being myself.”
“Nor I myself, Steve,” very gently. “Can’t you realize that?”
The man passed his hand across his eyes as though brushing away something tangible.
“No, I can’t realize anything,” he said dully, “except that I love you—and have lost. This and that the world is dead—and I am alone in it.”
For the second time the girl arose, and even yet quite steadily. But at last her lips were trembling.
“I think you had better go now,” she requested.318“I can’t stand this much longer; and besides, to keep it up would do no good that I can see. To-morrow is Saturday, and if you still feel there is anything you must say to me I shall be at home all day. But to-night—please go now.”
As in a dream, Armstrong arose, obeying her command—as he always obeyed in small things.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he echoed dully. “I realize I’m only making matters worse by staying, only getting us farther apart.” He buttoned his coat to the chin and drew on his gloves lingeringly. “If I were to call to-morrow, though, isn’t there a chance that you would be different? Can’t I have even—hope?”
The girl said nothing, did not appear to hear. Subconsciously she was counting the seconds, almost with prayer; counting until she should be alone.
But still Armstrong dallied, killing those same seconds wilfully.
“Aren’t you going to offer me even hope, Elice?” he repeated. “I’ll be in—hell when I go, without even hope.”
It was the final straw, that prophetic suggestion, the snapping straw. With one gesture319of hopeless, impotent misery, of infinite appeal as well, the girl threw out her hand.
“Go,” she pleaded brokenly, “go quickly. There’s a limit to everything and with me that limit is reached.” She motioned again, and Steve went out into the night.
320CHAPTER IXADMONITION
There was a light in the den as Darley Roberts, having let himself in with his latch-key, started up the stairs toward his own rooms, and, although he moved softly, Harry Randall himself faced the newcomer on the landing, his hand extended.
“I was waiting for you,” he announced without preface. “I felt sure you’d be in to-night sometime.” He was smiling a welcome, one unmistakably genuine. “Delayed, were you?”
“Yes. A wreck out about seventy miles. I just got in on the relief,” laconically. The accompanying grip, however, was not curt. “You’ll read about it in the morning. Looks comfortable in there,” with a nod toward the inviting den. “Early enough yet for a chat, is it?”
“I was hoping so. That’s why I sat up.”
“Thanks. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Shortly, in lounging-robe and slippers this time, he came tiptoeing down the hall past the321other sleeping-rooms; a big alert shape that seemed mountainous beside the lesser Randall idly awaiting his return.
“Very well,” he introduced characteristically as he dropped into a convenient seat, “let’s hear all about it—everything. I’m listening.”
Randall caught the contagion of brevity, as he always did when in the other’s presence. “What would you like to hear about first?” he returned smilingly. “Have you any choice?”
“Yourself,” with a steady look. “Everything’s right, I see.”
“Yes, everything’s right,” echoed Randall, “so much so that I’m simply foolishly happy.” He paused meaningly. “And now, since—”
Roberts gestured—merely gestured.
“Aren’t you going to permit me even to thank you?” countered Randall.
“I came to hear the news,” evenly. Roberts smiled suddenly at the look on his companion’s face. “I understand about that other matter,” he digressed, ambiguously but nevertheless adequately; “let it go at that. Mrs. Randall, I presume—”
“She hung your portrait, life size, in the parlor downstairs a few days ago,” with direct malice.322
Again Roberts gestured; then he looked up. They laughed together and the tabooed subject by mutual consent passed into oblivion.
“Miss Gleason—Elice—” suggested Roberts.
“Still at her place in the university.” Randall busied himself with a strand of lint on the collar of his smoking-jacket. “Her father’s gone all to pieces, you know, and she seems a bit—tired. Otherwise she’s herself—as always.”
“No, I didn’t know,” said Roberts. “And Armstrong?”
“He’s been working steadily for months, and been straight absolutely.” Randall ventured a glance at last. “To-day was his big day; you do know that. He was in the clouds this evening.”
“I should like to have been with you.” The tone was non-committal. “Strange to say I like to see people in that frame of mind. It makes for optimism. Will his new effort, you think, stand on its own legs?”
“Yes; always providing nothing interferes. I’ve seen the first half. It’s more than good. It’s excellent. You’re in it, distinct as life, by the way.”
Roberts lit a cigar and smoked for a minute in silence.323
“I’m sorry, sincerely, that I’m there,” he said then. He gazed at his companion steadily, and with a significance Randall never forgot. “I used to fancy I wasn’t afraid of anything. I’m not afraid of most things,—dynamite or nitro-glycerine or murderous fanatics or physical pain; but in the last year I’ve learned there’s one thing on earth, one person, I’m afraid of—deathly afraid. You know who?”
“Yes.”
“I predicted once he would make good. I believed it then. Since I’ve been alone a good deal and had much time to think, and question. That’s why I am afraid.” Roberts paused to smoke, seemingly impassive. “I’d give every cent I have in the world and start anew to-morrow without breakfast if I could only know, only know to a certainty that he would keep his grip. But will he?... I’m afraid!”
Scarcely knowing what he did, Randall lit a cigar in turn and smoked like a furnace. His tongue attempted to form an assurance, but try as he might he could not give it voice. Once he had promised not to lie to that man opposite, ever; and in the depths of his own soul he knew that he, too, was afraid. At last,324in self-confessed rout, he voiced the commonplace.
“It’s my turn to ask questions now, I think,” he said. “Are you back to stay?”
Roberts looked up, only half comprehending; he roused himself.
“No. I intend to close out everything. I doubt if I ever stay anywhere permanently again. I’ll keep the house here, though.”
“You’ve decided not to sell it—even to me?”
Roberts paused.
“Yes,” he said at last; but he offered no explanation.
Randall waited, hoping for a lead whereby light might come. But none opened, and the subject dropped.
“I judge the mine’s making good,” he commented, with the trace of awkwardness he always felt when approaching the other’s personal affairs. “Will you return soon?”
“Probably not soon.” The voice was almost listless. “I put everything in shape for an indefinite absence before I came away. To answer your question: It’s a wonder, bigger than I ever hoped. It’ll still be a great mine a generation from now.”325
Randall caught his breath. The big game was yet new to him, and the volume of wealth suggested was cumulatively overpowering.
“Bigger than you expected!” he echoed. “Then that means—millions!”
Roberts glanced at his companion curiously. Slowly he smiled.
“Yes,” he said, “it means millions. I haven’t even an idea how many eventually.” The smile left his face, every trace of expression as well. “I could sell for ten to-day if I wished; but I have no intention of selling.”
Randall sat looking at the other as if hypnotized. He forgot to ask questions, forgot almost to breathe. To read of gigantic fortunes, the property of absolute strangers living a thousand or thousands of miles away, is one thing: to have one personally known, an actual acquaintance in possession—it held him speechless, staring. The other’s familiar, tolerant laugh aroused him.
“Don’t, please,” said Roberts. “They’ve been doing that to me wherever I show myself and write my name; that is, when they haven’t been proving relationship.” He laughed again shortly. “It’s wonderful how many relatives I’ve discovered of late and friends I’ve made. Don’t do it, please.”326
Randall could still color and his face went red.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized, “I—”
“Nor that either,” swiftly, almost curtly. “Just be yourself, natural. I like you that way.” He looked at the other openly, with frank intentness that heralded the unexpected.
“It’s possible,” he digressed evenly, “that I’ll be here some time, but the chances are I’ll only stay a day or so. After to-night we’ll probably not see much of each other, maybe nothing at all, ever. We’re rather different types and our roads lead differently.” He smiled to dissipate the mystification he saw gathering on the other’s face. “This is a preface. What I’m aiming at directly is to say a thing or two that have been on my mind for some time—in case I don’t have the opportunity again.” Once more the smile,—the same smile that had won the confidence of the other against heavy odds in the beginning of their acquaintance. “Do you mind if I’m a bit—fatherly to you?”
“No.” Swift as thought, as panoramic memory, Harry Randall had remembered everything; and, without shame, his eyes were moist. “I’d like you to be so. I understand.”
Roberts looked away at the red and green wall opposite.327
“It’s just this, then; and if you wish me to stop say the word; I get reports of various things in various ways. It’s part of my philosophy to know of events in advance if I can. I’ve heard that you are speculating a bit. Is it true?”
Randall started involuntarily; but the other was not looking.
“How in the world did you know?” he questioned.
“Never mind how I know. I’d tell you if it would do any good; but it wouldn’t. It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Randall moistened his lips; “a little.”
“Things coming a trifle slow for you, are they? Hard to meet expenses—”
“No; it’s not that; but—”
“I understand perfectly.” Roberts was still inspecting the pattern of the paper with minute attention. “As perhaps your best friend, though, don’t do it. If at any time you need money, really need it, remember I am your friend, and don’t hesitate to tell me. But outside of that—” He halted significantly, waiting; then, sufficient time having elapsed, he looked at the other again directly.
“Now for the fatherly admonition,” he digressed328evenly, “or whatever you please to call it. You’re doing well here, and will do better as time goes by. You’re on your own feet, solid. Don’t gamble with things as they are, ever. It’s contagious, I know, when a man gets a little surplus, and looking over the rise of the horizon sees such an infinite field beyond; but steer clear. Some men can gamble and lose, and forget it and come up smiling again. Others are fashioned by nature differently. Once down they stay down; and regret as long as they live. It’s a fundamental difference no power can change. I hope I haven’t hurt you unforgivably, Randall?”
Harry Randall glanced up, and his eyes held steady.
“No; and I’ll not forget. I promise you that.” Involuntarily he started to rise, his hand half extended, his eyes bright; but he sat down again. “If I could only thank you right, Roberts,” he voiced tensely, “could only show you in some way that I appreciate—” He halted, the sentence so consciously inadequate, incomplete,—“If I only could,” he repeated helplessly.
A moment they sat there so, looking at each other, merely looking. Then at last, with an329obvious weariness Randall had never seen him exhibit before, Roberts slowly arose. Still another moment he stood there, looking down.
“‘Roberts,’” he echoed in a low tone, “‘Roberts,’ always ‘Roberts’! Not ‘Darley,’ even then.” He turned abruptly toward his own rooms, his great shoulders all but blocking the doorway as he passed out. “Good-night,” he said.
330CHAPTER XDECISION
The light on the porch was dim, and as Elice Gleason, answering the ring, opened the outer door she stared as one who sees unbelievable things. For a moment she did not utter a sound, merely stood there gazing at the visitor with a look that was only partially credulous; in sudden weakness, oddly unlike her normal composure, she covered her face with her hands.
“Elice!” Unbidden, the man came wholly within. “A thousand pardons for startling you. I should have let you know—’phoned at least. I—pardon me, please.”
With an effort the girl removed her hands, but Darley Roberts saw she was still trembling.
“No need to apologize.” She closed the door mechanically. “You did surprise me, it’s true; but that wasn’t the trouble really. I’ve been expecting something to happen all day, something that hasn’t happened yet, and when you rang I fancied—” She laughed, as though331the inadequate explanation were complete and withal a thing of trivial moment. “You remember once I told you I believed, after all, you had nerves. I’m making the tardy discovery that I’ve got them myself.”
In his turn Roberts smiled and ignored the obvious. He seldom anticipated, this man.
“Yes, we all have them, I guess,” he dismissed, “along with an appendix and a few other superfluous items.” He was still standing just within the doorway. “First of all, though, I don’t intrude? Harry Randall told me about your father.”
“He’s been much better to-day, and he’s asleep this evening already.” In swift reaction the girl was herself again, more than her recent self, positively gay. “Intrude!” she laughed softly. “You’re actually becoming humorous; and as you would say, your dearest enemies have never accused you of that before. Come.”
Between genteel poverty and absolute poverty there are distinguishing signs and Darley Roberts observed all things; but not once from his point of vantage in the den he recalled so well did he seem to take observations—any more than he seemed to see the alteration, likewise unmistakable, in the girl herself.332
“It seems as though it were only yesterday instead of—I don’t like to think how many ages ago, I was here last,” he commented as he relaxed in familiar comfort. “If you just had one of those linen things you used to work on, and—”
The ball of white, like a crumpled handkerchief, which had been lying idle in the girl’s lap was unrolled and, before the speaker’s eyes, there appeared against the colorless background a clover with four leaves.
“Elice!” It was unfeigned surprise. “Is this another regiment or are you still working on that last one yet?”
The girl sorted her silks in demure impassivity.
“Another regiment entirely—or is it an army? I’ve forgotten how many comprise a regiment.” She went to work with steady fingers. “These lunch cloths of mine are becoming as staple as soap or quinine.”
Roberts watched as the needle went through and through, but he did not smile. He could not.
“Another regiment! Then I haven’t really been sleeping,” he said. “For a moment when that four-leafed clover showed—By the way, do you happen to recall what day of the month this is?”333
“Yes.” The girl’s eyes did not leave her work. “I remembered it the first thing when I got up this morning.”
“You remembered? And still you were surprised when I came. Didn’t you think I’d remember too?”
“I didn’t doubt it.”
“And come to commemorate the date, December the sixth?”
“Commemorate, yes. Come? I didn’t know. I hoped—until it grew dark; then—one loses certainty alone after dark.”
“It wasn’t that which you had expected all day to happen, though,” said Roberts, evenly.
The girl did not dissimulate.
“No,” she said simply.
One step nearer had they approached the mystery, one step only, but the man came no further—then.
“And weren’t you going to commemorate it yourself, since you remembered?” he digressed.
“Yes, I have done so. I’ve been celebrating all day. I haven’t washed a dish; they’re all stacked out in the kitchen. And this—” she stood up deliberately and turned about that the other might see—“is my party gown, worn in honor of the occasion.” She returned to her334place and again the needle passed methodically in and out of the linen. “Are you satisfied?”
“Satisfied!” It was the rebellious cry of a dominant thing trapped and suffering. “Satisfied!” By pure force of will he held back the flood. “Elice, won’t you please put up that work—for to-night? It’s—ghastly.”
As though paralyzed, the white hands paused, for half a minute lay idle. Without comment she obeyed.
“You know what I mean,” said the man. “It makes me irresponsible. I want to throttle the something somewhere to blame.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. If I had expected for an instant—”
“Don’t, please!” It was supplication from one accustomed to command. “Talk about human beings being pawns in the game or straws before the whirlwind!” Again the curt repression by pure force of will, and the inevitable pause with the digression complete following. “I haven’t heard your report of yourself yet, Elice. It’s due me, overdue. I promised you not to write, and kept my word, you know.”
The girl looked at him with eyes that tried to smile.
“Ask me anything else and I’ll answer,” she335said. “This I can’t answer, because there’s nothing to be said. I’ve merely been waiting.”
“As you were to-night, when I startled you?”
The girl’s lips tightened, but they relaxed. She was in command now.
“Yes,” she said.
It was the second step; and for the second time the man approached no nearer—then.
“Won’t you let me ask you questions instead,” countered the girl, “as a favor?”
“Certainly, if you prefer.”
“‘If I prefer.’” She mouthed the words deliberately. “Very well, then. What have you been doing since I saw you last?”
Roberts gave her an odd look.
“Getting older mostly,” he said.
“I might have chronicled that fact myself,” echoed the girl.
“Very fast,” added the man, evenly. “Did you notice my hair?”
“It is grayer—a bit,” reluctantly.
“Grayer!” Roberts laughed. “I made a microscopical examination recently for one hair of the original color to preserve as a relic. It was too late. Do you care to volunteer in the search?”
The girl ignored the invitation.336
“What else did you do?” she asked.
“Worked some.” Roberts held up his great hands, calloused heavily over the palms. “I’ve learned several things by actual experience: drilling, dynamiting, sharpening steel, mucking ore, assaying—everything.”
“And what else?” relentlessly.
“Prospected a little. Ran out of provisions and went two days without a bite to eat. Returned to find a strike on at the mine—and the strikers in possession.” He halted reminiscently. “I knocked a man down that day: the leader. He dared me and there were a dozen others backing him up. It was him or me and it couldn’t be avoided. In the affair I hurt my hand; while it was healing I went to ’Frisco and took in the theatres.” He held up the member indicated, reversed this time for inspection. A white jagged scar ran diagonally over the knuckles. “It’s entirely well now.”
The girl caught her breath. No query this time.
The hand returned idly to the man’s lap. He looked away.
“It’s a rough life out there,” he resumed evenly, “wild and primitive; but it’s fascinating in a way. Besides, it’s one of the things I337wanted to know. I think I do know it. I don’t believe any one could fool me on a mine now.”
Elice Gleason looked at him steadily, until perforce he returned her gaze.
“Granted,” she admitted steadily; “but is it worth while?”
“Worth while? How do I know—or any one. It’s necessary for some one to know. It’s part of the big game. Farther than that—My hair is all gray now—and I don’t know.”
His companion looked away, with a little gesture of impatience.
“Last of all, the mine itself?” she suggested.
Roberts hesitated, his face inscrutable as a book closed.
“If I knew what you wanted to know,” he said at last, “I’d tell you; but I don’t. It’s fabulous, if that answers your question. It’s like Aladdin’s lamp: there’s nothing material on the face of the earth it won’t give for the asking. It’s producing enough now daily to keep a sane man a year. It’s power infinite for good or evil, and creating more power day by day.” He halted, then unconsciously repeated himself. “Yes, power infinite, neither more nor less.”
There was a long silence before his companion spoke.338
“And power, you said once, was the thing you wanted most. You have it at last.”
“Yes, I have it at last, that’s true. I can command the services of a thousand men, to work for me or amuse me; or for another if I direct. I can pass current anywhere at any time, and make any one I care to name pass current with me. The master key is in my possession tight. I can choose my tools for whatever I wish done from a multitude. The material is limitless, for I can pay. Besides, as I said before, this power is increasing inevitably, whether I’m asleep or awake, growing by its own momentum. I have it at last, yes; but it neither is nor ever was what I wanted most, Elice. I said I wanted it, you’re right; but I never said I wanted it most. You know what I want most in the world, Elice.”
Listening, Elice Gleason folded her hands tight, until the blood left the fingers.
“Yes, I know,” she said steadily. “We understand each other; it’s useless to pretend otherwise. I’ve tried, and you’ve seen through the disguise and smiled. It’s simply useless.” The clasped hands opened in a gesture of dismissal. “But don’t let’s speak of it now. I want to hear your plans for the future. What339are you going to do now that you have—power?”
“Do?” Roberts looked at her steadily. “That depends upon one condition absolutely. It’s superfluous for me to name that one.”
The girl flashed him a look from eyes unnaturally bright.
“Please,” she pleaded, “leave it alone for a time. You have two courses outlined, an option. It would be unlike you otherwise. What are those two?”
“I didn’t mean to be insistent, Elice,” said Roberts, gently. “Take my word for it, I shan’t be again, whatever you decide. Yes; I see two ways ahead. In one, work will be secondary, another’s happiness first, always first. In the other, I shall work—to forget. The incentive of the game itself is gone. I’ve won the game. But there is no other way to forget and retain self-respect; so I shall work—to the end.”
“And you must decide soon?”
“Yes, at once. I can’t remain longer in uncertainty. Nothing is so bad as that. It’s like a bungling execution: infinitely better for all concerned to be complete. To-morrow I take up the trail one way or the other.”340
Opposite, the girl caught her breath for an instant; but though the other saw he said nothing. He had promised he would not.
“You’ll leave then to-morrow, if—” That was all.
“Yes.”
“And never come back, never?”
“Not unless I am sent for. Life is short and holds enough pain at best. I have several projects in mind, and I shall be free to follow them where they lead. I’ll go to Mexico first. They’ve barely scratched the resources down there. Later I go to South America. Afterward—I haven’t planned. I’ll simply follow the lead. There’s work enough to do.”
The girl looked at him—through eyes that held their old marvel, almost their old fear.
“You can cut yourself off so, from all the old life, really?” she voiced.
“Yes, Elice.”
It was finality absolute, the last word, the ultimatum.
“And still you love me?” breathed the girl low.
“More than I love life. You don’t doubt it.”
From her seat the girl arose abruptly and341passed the length of the room with long, unconscious strides, like a man. She made no effort at dissimulation or concealment now. The time for that was past. She merely fought—openly, but in silence. Once she sat down for a moment; but for a moment only. Again she was on her feet. A bit later she asked the time, and very quietly Roberts told her. She went to the window in the front of the house commanding the street and scrutinized its length. She returned and resumed her seat.
“Can I help you in any way, Elice?” asked Roberts, gently.
The girl shook her head.
“No,” she said steadily. “No one can help me. I can’t even help myself. That’s the curse of it. There’s nothing to do but wait.” The folded hands changed position one above the other, and after a moment returned as before. “Do you understand?” she queried without preface.
An instant Roberts hesitated, but an instant only.
“Yes, I think so. You intimated you were expecting some one to come.”
“Something to happen,” substituted the girl.
“It’s all the same,” evenly.342
Silence followed for a space while they sat there so; breaking it, the girl looked at the other directly.
“I have refused him definitely,” she said, without consciousness of the seeming ambiguity of the remark. “I did so last night.”
“Yes,” very low; and that was all.
The girl drew a long breath, like one preparing for the unknown.
“I could see no other way of finding out for sure. Like yourself, nothing seemed to me so bad as uncertainty.”
“Yes,” once more; just “yes.”
“He sat just where you are sitting now; and when I told him he laughed.” A second the brown eyes dropped, then in infinite pathos they returned to the listener’s face. “You know how he laughs when he’s irresponsible. It was horrible.”
“I know,” echoed Roberts. “I’ve heard it.”
“And then he went away. I sent him away. I couldn’t stand any more then. It seemed to me I’d go mad if I tried.”
Although the room was warm, the girl was shivering; rising, Roberts lit the gas in the grate. But he said nothing, absolutely nothing.
Through wide-open eyes the girl watched him343as he returned to his seat. Involuntarily she threw out both arms in a gesture of impotency absolute.
“That’s all,” she completed, “except that I told him to return—if he felt he must. I’ve been expecting him every minute all day; anticipating horrors. But I haven’t heard a word.”
It was the mystery at last, impersonate. Like a live presence it stood there between these two human beings in the room, holding them apart, and each in his separate place.
Not for a moment but for minutes this time they sat in silence. Neither thought of speaking commonplaces now, nor again of things intimate. The period for these was past; the present too compellingly vital. What the man was thinking he did not say nor reveal by so much as an expression. He had given his word not to do so; and with Darley Roberts a promise was sacred. A question he did ask, though, at last.
“Wouldn’t you like me to go and find out for certain, Elice?” he suggested. “I’ll do so if you wish.”
“No.” It was almost a plea. “We’ll find out soon, very soon, I’m positive. I’ll know344whatever he does. He’s certain to tell me; and I wish you here if he comes. Besides, neither of us could do anything whatever to alter the inevitable, even if we tried. We must simply wait; it can’t be much longer now.”
Once more there was a long silence, ghastly in its dragging moments, and again broken by the man.
“I shan’t trouble you to go through the argument again, Elice,” he said, “or attempt to alter your decision, whatever it may be. I can’t presume to judge another’s soul. But, merely to know for certain: you’ve decided positively to marry him, if—” The sentence ended in silence and a gesture.
His companion did not answer, appeared almost not to hear.
“Tell me, please,” repeated the man gently. “You may as well. It won’t hurt either of us any more for you to say it—if you’ve so decided.”
“Yes,” answered the girl this time. “I’ve tried and tried to find an escape; but there is none.” She passed her hand over her throat as though the words choked her, but her voice was now steady. “His blood would be upon my head, always, if I could prevent and still let him345go—down. God help you and me both, but I can’t do otherwise!”
A moment longer Roberts sat still—fixedly still; he stood up, his great hands clenched until they were as white as the scar itself.
“I think I’d better go now,” he said, “before Armstrong comes.” The great shoulders of him were swelling and receding visibly with each breath. “I don’t know, of course; but I fear to go passive and unresisting to the stake myself, and to remain passive and unresisting when I saw the same fire that was to be my fate touching you, scorching you slowly to death—and for a fault that was neither of your making nor mine, for which we are in no respect responsible—I’m afraid that is beyond me, Elice. I’d better go at once, before he comes.”
“No.” The girl, too, was on her feet facing him. “Please don’t. You don’t really mean what you just said.”
“Don’t I? You believe in miracles. I’m human and I’d throttle him if he came while I was here—and came as he came once before!”
“Stop! in pity. If it does happen he’ll not be to blame; it will be because he can’t help it. You’re big and strong and he’ll need you as well as me. Wait.”346
The man drew back a step, but his great jaw was set immovably.
“You can’t realize what you’re asking,” he said. “Remember my conviction is not your conviction. I still believe that two predominate over one and that nature’s law comes first. I’ll go because it is your decision and final; but I can’t change elemental things at command. Don’t ask it or expect it, because it is impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, though,” desperately. “Nothing is impossible with you.”
Roberts’ great head shook a negative.
“This is. I can’t discuss it longer. Good-bye, Elice.”
The girl’s brown eyes followed him as, decisively now, he prepared to leave, and in hopeless, abject misery. She spoke one word.
“Darley,” she said.
The listener halted, motionless as a figure in clay.
“Darley,” repeated the girl; and again that was all.
“‘Darley!’” It was the man’s voice this time, but it sounded as though coming from a distance. “‘Darley!’ At last!—and now!”
“Darley,” yet once again, “as I love you and you love me don’t—desert me now!”347
On the room fell a silence like death,—to those two actors worse than death; for it held thought infinite and complete realization at last of what might have been and was not; of what as well, unless a miracle intervened, could never be. In it they stood, each where he was, two figures in clay instead of one. Interrupting, awakening, torturing, sounded the thing they had so long expected; the impact of a step upon the floor of the porch without; a moment later another, uncertain, and another; a pause, and then, startlingly loud, the trill of an electric bell.
For an instant neither stirred. It was the expected; and still there is a limit to human endurance. The girl was trembling, in a nervous tension too great to bear longer. An effort indeed she made at control; but it was a pitiful effort and futile. In surrender absolute, abandon absolute, she dropped back into her seat, her arms crossed pathetically on the surface of the library table, her face buried from sight therein.
“Answer it, please,” she pleaded. “I can’t. I’m ashamed, unutterably; but I can’t!”
Again the alarm of the bell sounded; curtly short this time and insistent.348
Without a word or even a pause Darley Roberts obeyed. As he passed out he closed the door carefully behind him.
Five minutes that seemed to the girl a lifetime dragged by. Listening, she heard the opening of the front door, the murmur of low, speaking voices,—a murmur ceasing as abruptly as it began; then, wonder of wonders, the door closed again with a snap and a retreating step sounded once, twice, as when it had come, on the floor of the porch. Following, she marked the even footfall of Roberts returning. The electric switch that he had turned on snapped back as he had found it, the intervening door opened, and he entered. But, strange to say, he did not pause or say a word. As one awakening from a dream and not yet wholly conscious, he returned silently to his former place. On his face was a look she had never seen before, which she could not fathom.
“Darley.” Unbelieving the girl leaned toward him appealingly. “Tell me. Wasn’t it—he?”
The man looked at her then, and there was that in his gray eyes that tinged her face crimson.
“No. It was Harry Randall,” he said. “It’s all right, Elice. The miracle came.”349
“The miracle!” The voice was uncertain again, but from a far different cause this time. “Don’t keep me waiting. Tell me. Is he—well?”
This time Roberts actually smiled,—smiled as he had not done before in months.
“Yes; and writing like mad! That’s the miracle. He’s been at it steady now for twenty hours, and won’t even pause to eat. He sent for Harry to deliver the message. It’s inspiration he’s working under and he couldn’t stop to come himself, wouldn’t. He said to tell you, and me, that it was all right. He’d found himself at last. Those were his words,—he’d found himself at last.” As suddenly as it had come the smile passed, and Roberts stood up, his big hands locked behind his back.
“We’ve thought we understood him all these years,” he said steadily, “but at last I realize that we haven’t at all. It would be humorous if it hadn’t been so near to tragedy, so very near. Anyway, it’s clear now. Harry Randall sees it too. That’s why he wouldn’t stay. Steve Armstrong never cared for you really at all, Elice. He thought he did—but he didn’t. It was himself he cared for; and a fancy. Neither you nor I nor any one can change him350or help him more than temporarily. We’re free. He’ll stand or go under as it was written in the beginning.” The voice lowered until it throbbed with the conviction that was in the speaker’s soul. “No man alive who really cared could find inspiration where he found it. The world is before us and we’re free, Elice, free!”
Unconsciously, in answer to an instinct she obeyed without reason, the girl too arose, an exaltation in her face no artist could reproduce nor words describe.
“Yes,” she said. “I see it all too at last. We’ve all been blind.” She caught her breath at the thought that would intrude, force it back as she would. “And still we came so near, so very, very near—”
“Yes; but it’s past.” The man opposite was advancing. Not the impassive, cold Darley Roberts the world knew, but the other Darley Roberts revealed to one alone; the isolate human alone and lonely. “But it’s past, past, do you hear? And to-day is December the sixth, our anniversary—ours.” He halted, waiting. He smiled, with a tenderness infinite. “Is it ‘Darley’ still, Elice? Won’t you come and say it again?”
THE END