Spring was smiling from every twig. The birds, impatient at winter's reluctant leave-taking, had arrived before the young leaves were far enough advanced to cover them. So, every tree was alive with them, plainly in view, boldly about their courting and nesting, like lovers who, despairing of finding a quiet place, march along the highway embracing in defiance of curious eyes. One morning, half an hour after Basil went out for his habitual stroll and cigarette, Courtney changed her mind and decided to join him. She looked along the retaining wall. No Basil. She walked up and down, noting, and feeling in her own blood, the agitations of the mightiest force in the universe—those agitations that in the springtime set all nature to quivering. Ten minutes passed—fifteen—half an hour—nearly three quarters of an hour. Still no Basil. She decided he must have gone up to his rooms and fallen asleep. She resisted the temptation to go and waken him, and went slowly toward the laboratory doors. Just as she was about to jump from the wall, out of the apartment entrance came Helen, her face aglow, her eyes sparkling, all the austerity gone from her regular features. "How pretty she looks," thought Courtney. "I wonder what's delighting her so. One'd think she was in love and was loved. There never lived a sweeter, more unselfish girl. Nothing petty in her. She even has a nice way of being prudent about money."Helen did not see her, went quickly up the path and into the wood between the Smoke House and the lawns round the house. Courtney resisted the impulse to call because she had already been out of the laboratory too long. As Helen disappeared among the trees, Courtney was astounded to see appear at the apartment door—Basil! On his face a contented pleased expression, as if he were reflecting upon something highly agreeable—Helen's face—his face—Courtney stood for an instant like a flaming torch planted upon that wall—a torch with a white-hot flame of hate.As Basil was taking a last puff at his cigarette, she darted into the laboratory and sat at her case. When he entered, she was just where she had been at his going out. "Still at work!" he cried."Still at work!" said she. She forced her lips to smile, but she did not dare lift her fluttering eyelids. She looked calm and, as always, sweet; but in those few minutes all the sweetness of her nature had transformed, as the thunderstorm changes milk from food to poison. And the remembered horror of those days of desolation goaded her toward a very insanity of fear and jealousy. That smile on Helen's face—then on his.He stood behind her. If she had had a knife she would have whirled round and plunged it into his breast and then into her own. But she had not; also, this was twentieth-century and conventional life. She sat rigid, intent upon the flame of the blast tube she was using.He bent and kissed her neck. "Sweetheart!" he murmured.The fixed smile became a distortion, as she lowered her head."The spring—outdoors," he went on in the same low caressing voice. "It's hard to bear. It seems so long—so long—since—" His pause finished the sentence better than any words.Long indeed, thought she; a singularly patient and restrained lover; strangely respectful."There are more kinds of happiness in love than I imagined," he went on. "But do you never—never——""Please," she interrupted. She found her voice could be trusted; she ventured to test her eyes. She looked up at him, taking pleasure in veiling her hate behind a smile. She strove to make the smile sweet and tender. She felt that she was succeeding. "How homely he is," she thought. "And I love him—ugly and a traitor. I love him, and I'll keep on loving him—for, he's all there is between me and misery."Richard called them into the front compartment, and the three worked together at the big retort the rest of the morning. It was a strange hour and a half. She seemed to be two distinct persons—no, three. One was hating Basil and Helen—a being that seemed to concentrate all that is venomous and malignant. One was watching with interest and excitement the awful processes by which calm liquids poured together suddenly became violent, colorless liquids a marvelous radiance of exquisite color, heat became infinite cold and cold became heat that consumed hard metals as if they were bits of fluff. The third personality within her was aloof and calm, and watched her other two and wondered at them.At dinner time she and Richard walked to the house together, Basil stopping at the apartment to tidy himself, as usual. "Well, how do you think they are getting on?" she asked carelessly."I can't tell," replied Richard, "till I've got several other reactions.""Helen and Basil, I mean.""How should I know? All right, I suppose.""Didn't you tell me, a week or so ago, you thought it was a match?""Of course it's a match," said he, as if there weren't a doubt about it.She quivered at this pressure upon the thorn that was pricking and festering. "Why are you so positive?" she asked."You know as much as I do. He goes out to meet her every morning, doesn't he?"Every morning! To smoke! In a series of internal explosions whose flames scorched her soul she traced the progress of that smoking habit of his. With an outer calmness that amazed her she pursued her inquiries. "Are they—affectionate when they're alone?" she asked."How?" Richard's mind was back at his experiments.She repeated her question in a voice that was under still better control."I've never seen them but once—one day when he was helping her balance herself at the edge of the wall—she was pretending to look down into the water at something—the old trick."Courtney laughed. "The old trick—yes." She laughed again."It's all settled, no doubt," declared Richard. "And good business!"Courtney hurled a glance of fury at him. "Unless he's making a fool of her.""Oh—absurd. He's a gentleman.""Gentleman. That sounds as if it meant a lot, but does it?"Richard wished to think of his work uninterrupted by this trifle of a love affair. "Why not ask her about it? She's no doubt dying to tell—if you give her the excuse of opening the subject."Courtney went up to her balcony, seated herself in a rocking-chair. She rocked and thought, thought, thought—getting nowhere, motion without progress, like that of her chair. She did all the talking at dinner that day. She took the relations of men and women for her subject and shot arrows of wit at it. As Winchie was having dinner next door with the Donaldson children, she did not need to restrain herself. She was mocking, cynical, audacious. Basil stopped laughing and stared at his plate. Helen, all blushes, looked as if she would sink under the table. Richard remained calm—he was not hearing a word. Basil's gloom and Helen's shocked modesty delighted Courtney, edged her on to further audacities. She looked from one to the other, smiling, jeering at them—and she rattled on and on, because she felt that if she stopped scoffing and laughing, she would spring at him or at her. She had the longing to do physical violence, like one in the torment of a toothache.Richard and Basil had not been gone many minutes before she began on the unconscious Helen. A sigh gave her the opening. "Unhappy?" she said."No, indeed," answered Helen. "If anything, too happy. You know what this life here means to me.""But you must find it lonely.""Lonely! Not for an instant.""We've had almost no company this winter and spring. I must hunt up some young men for you.""I don't want them, as I've often told you." Courtney remembered that she had, and muttered, "What a blind fool I've been." Helen went sweetly on: "Beside such men as Richard and Mr. Gallatin, the ordinary young man is anything but interesting.""Still, you must marry. And you've got the looks to make a first-rate bargain."Helen looked gently disapproving of this frank mode of stating the case. "I could never marry for anything but love.""Of course. But, being a well-brought-up woman, you'll not have difficulty in loving any proper candidate.""I'm well content."Courtney bent low over the scarlet and pink and white tulips in one of the window boxes. Content! This woman who was stealing her lover—this woman who was thrusting her back into the despair of those loveless, hopeless days when Basil was gone and the icy rains poured on and on upon her desolate life! She controlled herself, repeated vaguely: "Content? Impossible unless you've got your eye on a likely man. No single woman ever was since the world began."Helen blushed consciously."Who is he?" teased Courtney. She had seen the blush, and her nerves were twitching. "Who is it?" she repeated softly. "Basil?"The blush deepened."I thought so!" exclaimed Courtney with laughing triumph. "You've yielded to his fascinations, have you?"Helen paled and her lip trembled. "Please don't," she faltered. "Don't joke me about—about him."Courtney turned hastily away to hide the devil that gleamed from her eyes; for she felt that her worst suspicions were confirmed. "Tell me," she said, as soon as she could find voice, and could make that voice gay with good-humored raillery, "how long has this—this idyll been going on?""Really—you're quite mistaken, dear," pleaded Helen."How long have you and he been keeping those trysts?""You're quite wrong. We've met by accident," protested Helen. "We just happen to meet." She hung her head. "I'll admit I—I arrange to go to look at the apartment about the time I know he comes out to smoke."Courtney was all smiles. "And he arranges to come out to smoke about the time he knows you're going to the apartment. How—delicious!""Do you think he does it deliberately?" inquired Helen eagerly.Courtney was amazed at the girl's skill in duplicity. She began to wonder how far they had gone. But her face was bright and innocent as a poison locust bloom when she said: "You sly child! What were you and he doing in his apartment to-day?""Oh!" cried Helen, covering her face with her hands.Courtney's features were distorted with fear and fury; the specter was stalking and leering. But her voice sounded soft and seductive as she urged: "Go on, dear. You needn't be afraid to tell me—everything."Helen lifted her flaming face. "There's nothing to tell," cried she. "When you asked me that question, something in your tone made me feel as if I had done a—a wickedly indiscreet thing. But it was all so harmless and accidental. I came earlier than usual, and he was getting the cigarette case he'd forgotten.""Highly probable!" exclaimed Courtney, apparently much amused. "And so, you could make love to each other at your ease.""Courtney!" Helen started up, horror-stricken. "Can you think I'd let him lay the weight of his finger on me?" And she burst into tears. "Oh,whathave I done!" she sobbed. "And it seemed perfectly innocent."Insane with jealousy though she was, Courtney could not but be convinced. "Don't take it so to heart, my dear," said she. "Tell me all about it.""And you could suspect me! But I deserve it. If I'd been really a good woman, I'd not have thought of him until he had spoken to me.""Dry your eyes," said Courtney, calm and practical. "How far has this gone?""Not at all," declared Helen. "We've never said a word of love to each other.""Is that the truth?""As God is my judge.""Not a kiss—no hand-holding?""Nothing.""Only looks?""Sometimes—I've hoped—from the way he looked—" She sighed. "But I'm afraid he meant nothing."Courtney studied her ingenuous face as a bank teller a note that is under suspicion of being counterfeit. Yes—Helen was telling the truth."Do you think he cares?" asked Helen wistfully. "He seems to like to talk with me. And he's very eloquent about sentimental things. He talks and he acts like a man in love. But—at times I feel as if it were with another woman."Courtney buried her face in the urn of violets. And next to her feeling of enormous relief at the clearing of Basil from the worst charge against him was gratitude that she would not have to try to play the tyrant—try to send Helen away."It may be some bad woman's gotten hold of him," continued the girl reflectively. "He may be chained by a love he's ashamed of.""That sounds like a weekly story paper.""I know there'ssomeweight on his conscience," maintained Helen.Courtney looked strangely at her and laughed. "When people look and talk remorse, they're only boasting. He's trying to make himself interesting, my dear. He wants to thrill you with the story of his life—some commonplace adventure he exaggerates into an epic drama." She laughed again, most unpleasantly. "Heaven deliver me from these 'My God! How she loves me' men!""He's not like that—not at all," protested Helen. "But—oh, I wish I knew whether he cared for me. I don't knowwhatto do! I've given him every opportunity—" She stopped short with such an expression of horror at her slip that Courtney laughed outright. "I don't mean I've done anything forward or unladylike—" stammered Helen."He's a man of the world." She pinched Helen's cheek. "He reads that innocent little mind of yours like an electric sign."Helen was hysterical with dismay. "You think he's laughing at me?""And getting ready to—to amuse himself.""Courtney!"Courtney nodded and smiled."He never could think so lightly of me. Never!""Lightly? He sees you are in love with him. Why should he suspect you of being calculating?""Calculating? I don't understand.""Unwilling to give except for an annuity—for life support."Helen's honest brown eyes were big and round. "What do you mean?""What I say," was Courtney's reply. And in a, to Helen, appallingly matter-of-fact way, she went on to explain. "And what I say is simply the sense under all the nonsense about marrying. You want to marry, don't you? You're looking about for somebody to support you and your children, aren't you? You say you love our homely, fascinating, well-to-do friend Gallatin. But not enough to go very far unless he'd sign a life contract. Didn't I hear you say one day that you didn't think it proper for people even to kiss until the preacher had dropped the flag?"Helen gazed at her with an expression of sheer horrified amazement that delighted her. "How can as sweet and pure a woman as you talk that way?"Courtney laughed gayly. "Because she's neither sweet nor pure. Because she's got intelligence and experience. I just wanted to show you that while you were pretending to think about love—ideal, romantic, unselfish love, you were really planning for food, clothing and shelter.""But I don't want to hear such talk!" cried Helen. "If I'm deluded, why, let me stay so. You are so frivolous, Courtney! Don't you believe in love at all?"Courtney reflected. "I don't know whether I do or not," she finally said.Helen looked at her with sad sympathy. "And I thought you were happy!" she sighed."I am," rejoined Courtney. "And I purpose to remain so.""But you are worried about me? You think Bas—Mr. Gallatin is not a fit man for me to marry?" The tone betrayed her anxiety, the importance she attached to Courtney's judgment; for, while Helen's conventional mind told her that Courtney was a "light-weight," like all lively, laughing persons, her instinct made her always consult her before acting in any matter from a man to what hat to wear with what dress. "You think he's—not nice?"Courtney felt Helen's nearly breathless expectation; she did not answer immediately. When she did it was from the farther side of the room, with her attention apparently on a window garden of hyacinths. "Be careful, my dear. Remember, your primness is your chief asset. If he thought—or hoped—you were—loose——""Loose!" Helen trembled, looked as if she were about to faint."It's ridiculous the way we women exaggerate the value of our favors," philosophized Courtney."I wish you wouldn't make that kind of—of jests, dear," pleaded Helen. "I know you don't mean a word of it. You feel just as I do—that a man couldn't do enough to repay any good woman for giving herself to him.""Or a woman do enough to repay a man for giving himself to her," retorted Courtney. "The account's even, or the whole thing's too low to talk about. Still—you don't understand—you can't. And so long as men think a woman the grander the more conceited and selfish she is, you're as well off, believing as you do.... As to Gallatin——""I don't care anything about him!" cried Helen. "What you've been saying has given me such a shock." She paused, then went on in a low, awful tone, "Courtney, I must tell you that I was alone with him in his sitting room for over an hour!""When?" asked Courtney, sharply."To-day—what we were talking about.""Onlyto-day?""Never before!" exclaimed Helen. "And never again.""Then—perhaps—only perhaps, mind you," mocked Courtney, "I'll put off speaking to Richard about it—and writing Mrs. Torrey."Helen could not see any humor in the situation. "Do you honestly believe, Courtney," she asked in deep distress, "that he could have thought of me as if I were—were a—a—badwoman?"Courtney's eyes were most unpleasant."I see you're disgusted and angry with me, dear," said Helen, in tears again. "I know it was unwomanly of me to think of him when he'd said nothing. But I—I couldn't help it. Iwillhelp it, though!""You think you can?"Helen showed she was astonished and hurt. "Do you imagineIcould care for a man whose way of caring for me was an insult?"Courtney counseled with a vase of jonquils. "No, I supposeyoucouldn't," she replied. "You don't know about wild, free—fierce—love— Do you?"Helen's expression was of one appalled. "How can you talk that way?" she asked. "You're very strange to-day. You're not at all yourself.""Self!" exclaimed Courtney, scornfully. "What is my self? What is your self? What is anybody's self?"She no longer had the delusion of free will that makes us talk about bettering the race by "changing human nature from within"—the delusion that the individual is responsible, though obviously the social system and the other compelling external conditions move the individual as the showman his puppet. She, helpless in the whirl of strong emotions, was beginning to understand why, at the outset of her married life, instinct had bade her arrange all the circumstances round her and Richard so that they would be compelled to live the life in common, the life of the single common interest that holds love captive as the cage the bird. She was beginning to realize how like water self is in the grip of circumstances—how self is mill pond or torrent, pure or foul, or mixture of the two, according as circumstance commands. These demon impulses—they were not her self. Self was amazed onlooker at its own strange doings—was like helpless occupant of the carriage behind the runaway team.When Helen spoke again, she showed that her thoughts were still lingering longingly where they must not, if Courtney was to be rid of the demons. "But if a man loves a woman," said Helen, "why shouldn't he be glad to give her honorable marriage?"Courtney hesitated, dared. "She might be already married.""Courtney!" And her horrified eyes told Courtney she had caught the intended hint that Basil was in love with some married woman. "It isn't possible!""Haven't such things happened?""Yes—but— No married woman a nice man would notice would ever think of another man than her husband.""I don't know about a 'nice' woman," said Courtney, slowly. "But I can imagine that ahumanwoman—if her husband neglected her, and chilled and killed her love——"Helen was not listening, was not aware that she had interrupted as she said, "Do you think Mr. Gallatin could be in love with some married woman—of—of our class?""I suspect so," replied Courtney, gazing calmly into her eyes."I'll not believe it!" cried Helen. "I'll not believe it!""You're like all girls. Because your own head's full of marriage, you think every man who's polite to you, or flirts a little to make the time pass more agreeably, is about to send for the preacher. Now, frankly, has Basil ever made love to you?""No," admitted Helen. "But—" She halted."But what?" came from Courtney sharp and arresting as a shot."Ifeelhe is fond of me," confessed Helen.Courtney laughed harshly. "All men are fond of all good-looking women—especially in the spring. Don't be a fool, Helen.""But a married woman has no right to him!"Courtney flushed, and her eyes flashed. "And how do you know? And what right have you to judge? Are you God?""No, but——""No!" cried Courtney. "How do you know what he—his love may mean to her? How do you know but what it may be the one thing between her and despair and ruin? You, with your timid, proper calculating little love! Why, if the woman cared enough for him—needed him so—that she sacrificed self-respect—honor—truth—all—all—for love—what could you give him to replace it? And what are your needs beside hers?"Helen's face grew hard as these words that outraged every principle of her training poured recklessly from Courtney's lips. "I'm astounded at your defending a bad woman," she said. "You'retoogenerous, Courtney. You'd feel differently if she were taking Richard away from you. But, I'm not in love with Basil. I see you know things about him. I—I—despise him. I pity him, of course, for he might have been a nice man. But I couldn't love him. I'm glad you told me. I might have engaged myself to him."Courtney's far from sane eyes twinkled at that last ingenuous bit of maidenly vanity. Helen went about her work, and she departed to the greenhouse. "She'll stop loving him as easily as she began," said she to herself. "What does her sort of women know about love? They're faithful to whatever man they marry, as a dog's faithful to whoever feeds and kennels it.... Basil Gallatin is mine! And no man—nor no woman—shall come between us."She had not forgotten Basil's expression as he stood in the apartment entrance, after histête-à-têtewith Helen. "Now—for what's inhisheart," she said. "I must know just where I stand." She recalled how she had used to say, and to think, that if a man was not freely a woman's—freely—inevitably—without any need of being held by feminine artifice—no self-respecting woman could for an instant wish to detain him. And here she was, ready to make any sacrifice to hold this man. Truly, fate seemed determined to compel her to give the lie to everything she had ever believed, to abase every instinct of pride that had plumed or still plumed the haughty front of her soul.Richard asked Helen up to his study after supper, to take dictation of an article he was doing for a scientific magazine; thus, Courtney had a chance to explore Basil. She was seated beneath the tall lamp, a big hat frame on her lap, ribbon and feathers on the small table. She knew he was watching her over the top of a newspaper; and she was not insensible to his extremely flattering expression—nor, perhaps, to the advantages her occupation gave her in the way of graceful gestures, effective posings of the head and arms as she studied the effect of different arrangements of ribbon and feathers. She glanced directly at him; he glanced away, confused—the frightened zigzag of a flushed partridge."Well?" said she. She felt more lenient toward him, now that she had discovered his innocence of overt treachery, at least; and the way he was looking at her when he fancied her quite unaware was certainly reassuring. Also, she realized now that she herself was largely responsible for these errant springtime thoughts of his—she with her struggling to keep both love and self-respect. "Well?" she repeated, when he did not speak. "What guilty thought did I almost surprise?""No guilty thought," replied he. "I was loving you—terribly—just then. I was thinking—how impossible it would be for a man who loved you ever to wander.""That's very nice," said she, with a mocking smile. "So you have been—looking over the fence?" And she went on with bending the brim of the hat frame to a more graceful curve. She was placid to all appearances; but once more the great dread was obsessing her."Not at all," protested he. "What fence? At whom?""The fence of our compact—perhaps."He sighed impatiently."Ah—well—" She laughed, eying the result of her shaping, the hat frame at one angle, her head at the opposite angle—"there's Helen."He looked grave reproach at her, altogether absorbed in trying a long plume against the frame in different positions. "Do you think, dear, it's quite respectful to Helen——""Your thoughts couldn't harm her," interrupted she—that is, she interrupted him, but not her work. "If men's thoughts smirched women, what an unsightly lot the attractive ones would be!""Where did you get such ideas?" he exclaimed, trying to conceal how her frankness had scandalized him.She worked on calmly. "By observing and reading and thinking—and feeling."He drummed uneasily upon the arm of his chair with the tips of his fingers. At length he said with some embarrassment, "It's hardly necessary for me to say that I have the highest respect for Helen.""Yes—and I also know she's very—very pretty.""Yes, she is pretty.""You respect her. You like to talk with her. You think she is physically attractive."Stiffly, "I have never thought about her in that last way.""Then, that's probably her chief charm for you," observed Courtney, placid and reflective and industrious. "When we think we don't think about things that are worth thinking about, the chances are we really haven't been thinking about anything else." With a smile and a shake of the head that might have been for the plumes which refused to please her, "I'm afraid you're falling in love with Helen.""No," replied he judicially—and how he would have been startled if he had seen her veiled eyes!—shiny green and cruel as those of a puma stretched in graceful ferocity along the leafy limb that overhangs the path. "No, I'm not the least in love with her. But I do like her. Her seriousness is very pleasant, now and then. If I did not love you, I perhaps might have grown to care for her, in a way. But—beside you, Helen is—tame.""I shouldn't call her tame—" encouragingly."Well—perhaps not. She sometimes suggests a person who could be waked up.""That's a temptation, isn't it?" she asked. And she looked straight at him over the top of the plumes. She wished to see all."No," said he, positively. "To be quite frank I'd never give her as a woman a thought—if I weren't—" He stirred uneasily, burst out in confession. "You were right a while ago. Men often don't understand themselves. But we'll not talk about that."There was such love and tenderness in the gaze meeting hers that all the squalid thoughts her mind had been fouled with the whole day washed away like the dust and dirt on the leaves and petals of her flowers in a sudden rain.He said with a gentle, manly earnestness that thrilled her: "There's only the one woman for me. And—I want our love to be what you wish. And it shall be!"She lowered her head, the tears welling. The others interrupted, and Helen sat beside her advising about the hat. When it was finished, she made Helen try it on. They all admired, and it certainly was becoming. "Now, you try it on, dear," said Helen."No, don't take it off," Courtney answered. "It's for you, of course." And she kissed her and, laughing away her thanks, went upstairs. She sat down at her dressing table and, with elbows resting on it and face supported by her hands, gazed into her own eyes. "If you do not wish to lose him," she said slowly aloud to her grave face imaged in the glass, "you must take away from him temptation to wander. A door is either open or shut. A man—a man worth while—won't stand at the threshold long. He comes in or he goes away. Basil does not realize it, but that other side of his nature will compel him to go away—unless—" Compel him to go away? She was hearing again the monotonous fall of those icy rains, was feeling again the monotonous misery of those days without love and without hope. She must choose. Choose? "The woman doesn't live—doesn't deserve to live—who'd hesitate. There's no choice. There's simply the one way."Well—since it must be so—what would be the event? Would she lose him anyhow? Would she merely be putting off his going? Would her complete yielding end in disaster of some kind, as she had feared? Or, wasn't it possible that, while most people were tangled and finally strangled by the web of their own deceit, a skillful few could use it dextrously to snare the bright birds of joy? ... She stood up, stretched her arms, swayed her slim supple figure gently. "He shall have no reason for letting one single thought wander. He shall be mine—all mine! I'll take no more risks." She continued to sway gently, her eyes closed. A look of scorn, of disgust came into her face. She shuddered. "How hideous it is to be a woman! Always slave to some man! Gold fetters cut as deep as iron, and they're heavier." She stopped swaying. "I can see how I might come to hate my master in trying to hold his love.... Love! To keep our love warm, we have to bury it in the mire."XXBecause of the light the tables in the inner laboratory were so placed that Courtney and Basil worked at opposite sides of the room with their backs toward each other. As ten o'clock approached her agitation increased; but the only outward sign was frequent stolen glances at the clock on the wall between the windows. When the hands pointed to ten, her heart fluttered; for, she heard him push back his chair and knew he was rising from his case. He stood at the window toward her side of the room. As he was gazing out over the high sill, she was free to look at him—at his back, at the back of his head. She felt the struggle raging in his mind. Her hand, blundering among the burettes and bottles on the glass shelves before her, tilted a test tube from its support. It fell, broke with a crash on the porcelain surface of the table. She gave a low scream it would have been loud had she not, swifter than thought, clenched her teeth and compressed her lips. He startled violently."Good God!" he cried and his tone showed that his nerves were in the same state as hers."Beg your pardon," she murmured, mechanically apologetic.If he heard, he gave no indication of it. He continued to stand motionless at the window, staring out over the lake. She tried furtively to get a glimpse of his profile, but could not. At ten minutes past ten he moved. When she saw him about to turn, she bent over her work—pouring calcium lactophosphate into a small agate mortar as if any relaxing of attention would be calamitous. He was standing at the end of her table, was looking down at her. It took all her self-control to refrain from looking up to see what was in his eyes. He was bending over her; his lips touched her hair—the crownlike coil of auburn on top of her head. She tingled to her finger tips; she knew she had won, knew he had thought it all out and had seen that his meetings with Helen were in the direction of disloyalty to the woman he loved. She looked up at him now. At first his expression was guilty and embarrassed, but the radiance of love and trust in her eyes soon changed that. He became very pale as his glance burned into hers; he turned away, and she felt that it was because he feared lest in the rush of penitent passion he would confess things it was unnecessary and unwise to put into words."Why, it's ten o'clock," said she carelessly. "Aren't you going out to smoke?"A pause, then he answered "Not to-day" in a boyishly ill-at-ease way that brought a secret tender smile to her lips. She liked these evidences that it was impossible for him to conceal himself from her because any attempt to do so made him feel dishonorable."It's beautiful outdoors. I'll go with you.""No, not just now, Courtney. I—I—that is, I think I'd best finish. Vaughan may need all four of the sulphates any moment." And he sat down before his case and began to fuss with evaporating dishes and crucibles."This is the first day you've missed in I don't know when," said she. It was just as well he should know she had begun to take note of his habit; that knowledge would strengthen his resolve to avoid in the future appearance of of evil and temptation thereto. "You've been very regular for weeks.""It's a waste of time," he replied, after a pause. "You're right, uninterrupted effort's the only kind that counts." And both went to work.But Courtney did not overestimate her triumph. Often day completely reverses the night view of things. But now, in the fancy-dispelling day more clearly than in the fancy-breeding night, she saw she must remove the temptation. If she had been a small or a stupid woman—or both, for the two qualities usually go together—she would have laid all the blame upon Helen and would have sent her away—and in vanity as to her power over him would have imagined herself once more perfectly secure. But the impulse to blame Helen and to get rid of her did not survive the second thought. It was not Helen's fault, or Basil's; it was nature's.Looking back on those months under the compact she saw how she had let foolish vanity and still more foolish hope befog and mislead her intelligence. To remove Helen would avail her nothing. The law of his nature would continue to press him on; and sooner or later, in spite of love for her, in spite of loyalty, in spite of constancy, he would be swept away from her. The compact was a beautiful ideal, but it was not life—and, so, it must yield. "I must be all to him, or I shall soon be nothing to him." And that afternoon she fixed her resolution—after thinking the situation out sanely—as sanely as she could think in those days. For she, completely possessed by her need of Basil, was like all the infatuated. That is, she was in a state not unlike those demented persons who seem to be, and are, quite sane and logical and self-possessed, once you get beyond the fixed delusion which determines the posture and outlook of their entire being.On the way to dress for supper she glanced in at Helen's open door. The girl was sitting near a window giving upon the small west balcony, her attitude so disconsolate that Courtney was at once striving with a rising wave of pity and self-reproach. "Helen will soon get over it," she reassured herself; and good sense reminded her that a young girl has not the experience of love which teaches the experienced woman to value it and makes her unable to do without it. "The love-sickness of a young girl, especially prim, unimaginative girls like Helen, isn't really personal; it's little more than a longing to be flattered and to get married and settled." But such small progress as head was making against heart was lost when Helen looked at her with a pathetic attempt to smile."Where have you been all day?" asked Courtney, eyes sinking before Helen's. She felt a most uncomfortable contempt for herself."In Wenona—lunching and shopping with Bertha Watrous."Courtney entered, seated herself on the bed. Despite her lovelorn condition, Helen winced. "You old maid, you," laughed Courtney, rising. "I never saw any woman anywhere, not even old Nanny, not even my sister Ann, so opposed to sitting on the bed.""I've been brought up to think it was—wasn't right," apologized Helen."Wasn't ladylike, you mean," said Courtney. She disposed herself in the window seat. "What are you blue about, dear?" She knew she was not intruding; Helen liked to confide her troubles—and people of that fortunate temperament were cured by confiding."I'm not blue," declared Helen. "I've simply been thinking of what you said, and if anything I'm angry.""Oh—Basil? Did you see him to-day?""I did not." Helen tossed her head. "I went about my work as usual—went to the apartment. If he'd been lying in wait I was ready for him. But he wasn't."Courtney understood what this really meant, though Helen didn't. Probably Helen would not have believed she had in fact lain in wait for Basil, even had Courtney pointed out to her the obvious meaning of her action. She was of the large majority—who do not know their own minds, who cannot explore them with a guide however competent, who when shown their own motives hotly and honestly deny. "Basil was busy to-day," Courtney explained. "Some sulphates Richard was in a hurry for."Helen looked relieved. But, still not in the least aware of her own state of mind, she went on, with a toss of the head: "Well—whenever I do see him alone, I'll make him realize I'm not the sort he thinks. The more I look at it, Courtney, the more convinced I am that he was simply leading me on.""Now, Helen!" laughed Courtney.Helen colored. "I admit," she said, shamefacedly, "I got what I deserved for being so—so forward.""That's the truth—you were forward." Courtney's tone made this necessary thrusting home of the painful truth gentle but not the less insistent. "We must never fool ourselves, dear. We women can't afford to."Studying Helen, so clearly fascinated still by the idea of winning the young eligible from the East and redeeming him, Courtney realized that if the girl was to stay on there in peace she must be made to see the absolute uselessness of angling. So long as she thought of Basil as a possibility, however remote, so long would she be in danger of falling utterly and miserably in love with him. Yes, Helen must be cured—but how? There was no way. Not until Basil was married would Helen cease to hope. "For her own sake, I ought to send her away," Courtney was thinking as the two sat there in silence. But Helen had no other place to go. True, she could go out and make her own living as a teacher—Courtney envied her the training and the certificate that were practically a guaranty of independence. But Helen abhorred independence, looked on a woman's working, away from the shelter of domesticity, as the Hindu looks on loss of caste. No, Helen must stay on, might as well stay on.... An impossible situation. And from this unanticipated quarter came one more imperative reason for making Basil wholly her own. He must be in such a state of mind that he would do nothing to encourage Helen's hope to put forth even the feeblest of its ready sprouts.Courtney rose and moved toward the door. "I must dress." She leaned against the jamb, her cheek upon her crossed hands. "Well, my dear, remember the rhyme about the lady who went for a ride on a tiger, and how, when they came back, he had the lady inside.""You're laughing at me," reproached Helen.Courtney's eyes were fixed dreamily upon vacancy, a strange sad smile about her lips. "I am not laughing," she said slowly. "Or, if I am, it is not at you.... Not at you, but at—" She could not tell Helen that she was drearily mocking her own entrapped and helpless self. "Take my advice, child. Don'teverlead a tiger out for an airing."Yes, Helen should stay on, as long as she wished to stay. "And hasn't she as much right here as I—just the same right?"At two o'clock that night, as Basil was leaving, he said—"You've hardly spoken since I came. Is it the darkness?""Yes—the darkness," she replied in the same undertone—the doors were very thick, but instinct made them careful about speech."I never knew you to be so silent—or so strange, now that I think of it." He held her by the shoulders. "Courtney, did you want me to come to-night?"She clung to him. "Do you love me, my Basil?""How queer your voice sounds. Are you frightened?""No—no, indeed.""Dear, you're not telling me——""It's nothing. Just a—a notion. There won't be so much of it next time. And still less the next time. And soon I'll be quite accustomed.""Yes, I'm sure there's not the least danger," said he, wholly misunderstanding.
Spring was smiling from every twig. The birds, impatient at winter's reluctant leave-taking, had arrived before the young leaves were far enough advanced to cover them. So, every tree was alive with them, plainly in view, boldly about their courting and nesting, like lovers who, despairing of finding a quiet place, march along the highway embracing in defiance of curious eyes. One morning, half an hour after Basil went out for his habitual stroll and cigarette, Courtney changed her mind and decided to join him. She looked along the retaining wall. No Basil. She walked up and down, noting, and feeling in her own blood, the agitations of the mightiest force in the universe—those agitations that in the springtime set all nature to quivering. Ten minutes passed—fifteen—half an hour—nearly three quarters of an hour. Still no Basil. She decided he must have gone up to his rooms and fallen asleep. She resisted the temptation to go and waken him, and went slowly toward the laboratory doors. Just as she was about to jump from the wall, out of the apartment entrance came Helen, her face aglow, her eyes sparkling, all the austerity gone from her regular features. "How pretty she looks," thought Courtney. "I wonder what's delighting her so. One'd think she was in love and was loved. There never lived a sweeter, more unselfish girl. Nothing petty in her. She even has a nice way of being prudent about money."
Helen did not see her, went quickly up the path and into the wood between the Smoke House and the lawns round the house. Courtney resisted the impulse to call because she had already been out of the laboratory too long. As Helen disappeared among the trees, Courtney was astounded to see appear at the apartment door—Basil! On his face a contented pleased expression, as if he were reflecting upon something highly agreeable—Helen's face—his face—Courtney stood for an instant like a flaming torch planted upon that wall—a torch with a white-hot flame of hate.
As Basil was taking a last puff at his cigarette, she darted into the laboratory and sat at her case. When he entered, she was just where she had been at his going out. "Still at work!" he cried.
"Still at work!" said she. She forced her lips to smile, but she did not dare lift her fluttering eyelids. She looked calm and, as always, sweet; but in those few minutes all the sweetness of her nature had transformed, as the thunderstorm changes milk from food to poison. And the remembered horror of those days of desolation goaded her toward a very insanity of fear and jealousy. That smile on Helen's face—then on his.
He stood behind her. If she had had a knife she would have whirled round and plunged it into his breast and then into her own. But she had not; also, this was twentieth-century and conventional life. She sat rigid, intent upon the flame of the blast tube she was using.
He bent and kissed her neck. "Sweetheart!" he murmured.
The fixed smile became a distortion, as she lowered her head.
"The spring—outdoors," he went on in the same low caressing voice. "It's hard to bear. It seems so long—so long—since—" His pause finished the sentence better than any words.
Long indeed, thought she; a singularly patient and restrained lover; strangely respectful.
"There are more kinds of happiness in love than I imagined," he went on. "But do you never—never——"
"Please," she interrupted. She found her voice could be trusted; she ventured to test her eyes. She looked up at him, taking pleasure in veiling her hate behind a smile. She strove to make the smile sweet and tender. She felt that she was succeeding. "How homely he is," she thought. "And I love him—ugly and a traitor. I love him, and I'll keep on loving him—for, he's all there is between me and misery."
Richard called them into the front compartment, and the three worked together at the big retort the rest of the morning. It was a strange hour and a half. She seemed to be two distinct persons—no, three. One was hating Basil and Helen—a being that seemed to concentrate all that is venomous and malignant. One was watching with interest and excitement the awful processes by which calm liquids poured together suddenly became violent, colorless liquids a marvelous radiance of exquisite color, heat became infinite cold and cold became heat that consumed hard metals as if they were bits of fluff. The third personality within her was aloof and calm, and watched her other two and wondered at them.
At dinner time she and Richard walked to the house together, Basil stopping at the apartment to tidy himself, as usual. "Well, how do you think they are getting on?" she asked carelessly.
"I can't tell," replied Richard, "till I've got several other reactions."
"Helen and Basil, I mean."
"How should I know? All right, I suppose."
"Didn't you tell me, a week or so ago, you thought it was a match?"
"Of course it's a match," said he, as if there weren't a doubt about it.
She quivered at this pressure upon the thorn that was pricking and festering. "Why are you so positive?" she asked.
"You know as much as I do. He goes out to meet her every morning, doesn't he?"
Every morning! To smoke! In a series of internal explosions whose flames scorched her soul she traced the progress of that smoking habit of his. With an outer calmness that amazed her she pursued her inquiries. "Are they—affectionate when they're alone?" she asked.
"How?" Richard's mind was back at his experiments.
She repeated her question in a voice that was under still better control.
"I've never seen them but once—one day when he was helping her balance herself at the edge of the wall—she was pretending to look down into the water at something—the old trick."
Courtney laughed. "The old trick—yes." She laughed again.
"It's all settled, no doubt," declared Richard. "And good business!"
Courtney hurled a glance of fury at him. "Unless he's making a fool of her."
"Oh—absurd. He's a gentleman."
"Gentleman. That sounds as if it meant a lot, but does it?"
Richard wished to think of his work uninterrupted by this trifle of a love affair. "Why not ask her about it? She's no doubt dying to tell—if you give her the excuse of opening the subject."
Courtney went up to her balcony, seated herself in a rocking-chair. She rocked and thought, thought, thought—getting nowhere, motion without progress, like that of her chair. She did all the talking at dinner that day. She took the relations of men and women for her subject and shot arrows of wit at it. As Winchie was having dinner next door with the Donaldson children, she did not need to restrain herself. She was mocking, cynical, audacious. Basil stopped laughing and stared at his plate. Helen, all blushes, looked as if she would sink under the table. Richard remained calm—he was not hearing a word. Basil's gloom and Helen's shocked modesty delighted Courtney, edged her on to further audacities. She looked from one to the other, smiling, jeering at them—and she rattled on and on, because she felt that if she stopped scoffing and laughing, she would spring at him or at her. She had the longing to do physical violence, like one in the torment of a toothache.
Richard and Basil had not been gone many minutes before she began on the unconscious Helen. A sigh gave her the opening. "Unhappy?" she said.
"No, indeed," answered Helen. "If anything, too happy. You know what this life here means to me."
"But you must find it lonely."
"Lonely! Not for an instant."
"We've had almost no company this winter and spring. I must hunt up some young men for you."
"I don't want them, as I've often told you." Courtney remembered that she had, and muttered, "What a blind fool I've been." Helen went sweetly on: "Beside such men as Richard and Mr. Gallatin, the ordinary young man is anything but interesting."
"Still, you must marry. And you've got the looks to make a first-rate bargain."
Helen looked gently disapproving of this frank mode of stating the case. "I could never marry for anything but love."
"Of course. But, being a well-brought-up woman, you'll not have difficulty in loving any proper candidate."
"I'm well content."
Courtney bent low over the scarlet and pink and white tulips in one of the window boxes. Content! This woman who was stealing her lover—this woman who was thrusting her back into the despair of those loveless, hopeless days when Basil was gone and the icy rains poured on and on upon her desolate life! She controlled herself, repeated vaguely: "Content? Impossible unless you've got your eye on a likely man. No single woman ever was since the world began."
Helen blushed consciously.
"Who is he?" teased Courtney. She had seen the blush, and her nerves were twitching. "Who is it?" she repeated softly. "Basil?"
The blush deepened.
"I thought so!" exclaimed Courtney with laughing triumph. "You've yielded to his fascinations, have you?"
Helen paled and her lip trembled. "Please don't," she faltered. "Don't joke me about—about him."
Courtney turned hastily away to hide the devil that gleamed from her eyes; for she felt that her worst suspicions were confirmed. "Tell me," she said, as soon as she could find voice, and could make that voice gay with good-humored raillery, "how long has this—this idyll been going on?"
"Really—you're quite mistaken, dear," pleaded Helen.
"How long have you and he been keeping those trysts?"
"You're quite wrong. We've met by accident," protested Helen. "We just happen to meet." She hung her head. "I'll admit I—I arrange to go to look at the apartment about the time I know he comes out to smoke."
Courtney was all smiles. "And he arranges to come out to smoke about the time he knows you're going to the apartment. How—delicious!"
"Do you think he does it deliberately?" inquired Helen eagerly.
Courtney was amazed at the girl's skill in duplicity. She began to wonder how far they had gone. But her face was bright and innocent as a poison locust bloom when she said: "You sly child! What were you and he doing in his apartment to-day?"
"Oh!" cried Helen, covering her face with her hands.
Courtney's features were distorted with fear and fury; the specter was stalking and leering. But her voice sounded soft and seductive as she urged: "Go on, dear. You needn't be afraid to tell me—everything."
Helen lifted her flaming face. "There's nothing to tell," cried she. "When you asked me that question, something in your tone made me feel as if I had done a—a wickedly indiscreet thing. But it was all so harmless and accidental. I came earlier than usual, and he was getting the cigarette case he'd forgotten."
"Highly probable!" exclaimed Courtney, apparently much amused. "And so, you could make love to each other at your ease."
"Courtney!" Helen started up, horror-stricken. "Can you think I'd let him lay the weight of his finger on me?" And she burst into tears. "Oh,whathave I done!" she sobbed. "And it seemed perfectly innocent."
Insane with jealousy though she was, Courtney could not but be convinced. "Don't take it so to heart, my dear," said she. "Tell me all about it."
"And you could suspect me! But I deserve it. If I'd been really a good woman, I'd not have thought of him until he had spoken to me."
"Dry your eyes," said Courtney, calm and practical. "How far has this gone?"
"Not at all," declared Helen. "We've never said a word of love to each other."
"Is that the truth?"
"As God is my judge."
"Not a kiss—no hand-holding?"
"Nothing."
"Only looks?"
"Sometimes—I've hoped—from the way he looked—" She sighed. "But I'm afraid he meant nothing."
Courtney studied her ingenuous face as a bank teller a note that is under suspicion of being counterfeit. Yes—Helen was telling the truth.
"Do you think he cares?" asked Helen wistfully. "He seems to like to talk with me. And he's very eloquent about sentimental things. He talks and he acts like a man in love. But—at times I feel as if it were with another woman."
Courtney buried her face in the urn of violets. And next to her feeling of enormous relief at the clearing of Basil from the worst charge against him was gratitude that she would not have to try to play the tyrant—try to send Helen away.
"It may be some bad woman's gotten hold of him," continued the girl reflectively. "He may be chained by a love he's ashamed of."
"That sounds like a weekly story paper."
"I know there'ssomeweight on his conscience," maintained Helen.
Courtney looked strangely at her and laughed. "When people look and talk remorse, they're only boasting. He's trying to make himself interesting, my dear. He wants to thrill you with the story of his life—some commonplace adventure he exaggerates into an epic drama." She laughed again, most unpleasantly. "Heaven deliver me from these 'My God! How she loves me' men!"
"He's not like that—not at all," protested Helen. "But—oh, I wish I knew whether he cared for me. I don't knowwhatto do! I've given him every opportunity—" She stopped short with such an expression of horror at her slip that Courtney laughed outright. "I don't mean I've done anything forward or unladylike—" stammered Helen.
"He's a man of the world." She pinched Helen's cheek. "He reads that innocent little mind of yours like an electric sign."
Helen was hysterical with dismay. "You think he's laughing at me?"
"And getting ready to—to amuse himself."
"Courtney!"
Courtney nodded and smiled.
"He never could think so lightly of me. Never!"
"Lightly? He sees you are in love with him. Why should he suspect you of being calculating?"
"Calculating? I don't understand."
"Unwilling to give except for an annuity—for life support."
Helen's honest brown eyes were big and round. "What do you mean?"
"What I say," was Courtney's reply. And in a, to Helen, appallingly matter-of-fact way, she went on to explain. "And what I say is simply the sense under all the nonsense about marrying. You want to marry, don't you? You're looking about for somebody to support you and your children, aren't you? You say you love our homely, fascinating, well-to-do friend Gallatin. But not enough to go very far unless he'd sign a life contract. Didn't I hear you say one day that you didn't think it proper for people even to kiss until the preacher had dropped the flag?"
Helen gazed at her with an expression of sheer horrified amazement that delighted her. "How can as sweet and pure a woman as you talk that way?"
Courtney laughed gayly. "Because she's neither sweet nor pure. Because she's got intelligence and experience. I just wanted to show you that while you were pretending to think about love—ideal, romantic, unselfish love, you were really planning for food, clothing and shelter."
"But I don't want to hear such talk!" cried Helen. "If I'm deluded, why, let me stay so. You are so frivolous, Courtney! Don't you believe in love at all?"
Courtney reflected. "I don't know whether I do or not," she finally said.
Helen looked at her with sad sympathy. "And I thought you were happy!" she sighed.
"I am," rejoined Courtney. "And I purpose to remain so."
"But you are worried about me? You think Bas—Mr. Gallatin is not a fit man for me to marry?" The tone betrayed her anxiety, the importance she attached to Courtney's judgment; for, while Helen's conventional mind told her that Courtney was a "light-weight," like all lively, laughing persons, her instinct made her always consult her before acting in any matter from a man to what hat to wear with what dress. "You think he's—not nice?"
Courtney felt Helen's nearly breathless expectation; she did not answer immediately. When she did it was from the farther side of the room, with her attention apparently on a window garden of hyacinths. "Be careful, my dear. Remember, your primness is your chief asset. If he thought—or hoped—you were—loose——"
"Loose!" Helen trembled, looked as if she were about to faint.
"It's ridiculous the way we women exaggerate the value of our favors," philosophized Courtney.
"I wish you wouldn't make that kind of—of jests, dear," pleaded Helen. "I know you don't mean a word of it. You feel just as I do—that a man couldn't do enough to repay any good woman for giving herself to him."
"Or a woman do enough to repay a man for giving himself to her," retorted Courtney. "The account's even, or the whole thing's too low to talk about. Still—you don't understand—you can't. And so long as men think a woman the grander the more conceited and selfish she is, you're as well off, believing as you do.... As to Gallatin——"
"I don't care anything about him!" cried Helen. "What you've been saying has given me such a shock." She paused, then went on in a low, awful tone, "Courtney, I must tell you that I was alone with him in his sitting room for over an hour!"
"When?" asked Courtney, sharply.
"To-day—what we were talking about."
"Onlyto-day?"
"Never before!" exclaimed Helen. "And never again."
"Then—perhaps—only perhaps, mind you," mocked Courtney, "I'll put off speaking to Richard about it—and writing Mrs. Torrey."
Helen could not see any humor in the situation. "Do you honestly believe, Courtney," she asked in deep distress, "that he could have thought of me as if I were—were a—a—badwoman?"
Courtney's eyes were most unpleasant.
"I see you're disgusted and angry with me, dear," said Helen, in tears again. "I know it was unwomanly of me to think of him when he'd said nothing. But I—I couldn't help it. Iwillhelp it, though!"
"You think you can?"
Helen showed she was astonished and hurt. "Do you imagineIcould care for a man whose way of caring for me was an insult?"
Courtney counseled with a vase of jonquils. "No, I supposeyoucouldn't," she replied. "You don't know about wild, free—fierce—love— Do you?"
Helen's expression was of one appalled. "How can you talk that way?" she asked. "You're very strange to-day. You're not at all yourself."
"Self!" exclaimed Courtney, scornfully. "What is my self? What is your self? What is anybody's self?"
She no longer had the delusion of free will that makes us talk about bettering the race by "changing human nature from within"—the delusion that the individual is responsible, though obviously the social system and the other compelling external conditions move the individual as the showman his puppet. She, helpless in the whirl of strong emotions, was beginning to understand why, at the outset of her married life, instinct had bade her arrange all the circumstances round her and Richard so that they would be compelled to live the life in common, the life of the single common interest that holds love captive as the cage the bird. She was beginning to realize how like water self is in the grip of circumstances—how self is mill pond or torrent, pure or foul, or mixture of the two, according as circumstance commands. These demon impulses—they were not her self. Self was amazed onlooker at its own strange doings—was like helpless occupant of the carriage behind the runaway team.
When Helen spoke again, she showed that her thoughts were still lingering longingly where they must not, if Courtney was to be rid of the demons. "But if a man loves a woman," said Helen, "why shouldn't he be glad to give her honorable marriage?"
Courtney hesitated, dared. "She might be already married."
"Courtney!" And her horrified eyes told Courtney she had caught the intended hint that Basil was in love with some married woman. "It isn't possible!"
"Haven't such things happened?"
"Yes—but— No married woman a nice man would notice would ever think of another man than her husband."
"I don't know about a 'nice' woman," said Courtney, slowly. "But I can imagine that ahumanwoman—if her husband neglected her, and chilled and killed her love——"
Helen was not listening, was not aware that she had interrupted as she said, "Do you think Mr. Gallatin could be in love with some married woman—of—of our class?"
"I suspect so," replied Courtney, gazing calmly into her eyes.
"I'll not believe it!" cried Helen. "I'll not believe it!"
"You're like all girls. Because your own head's full of marriage, you think every man who's polite to you, or flirts a little to make the time pass more agreeably, is about to send for the preacher. Now, frankly, has Basil ever made love to you?"
"No," admitted Helen. "But—" She halted.
"But what?" came from Courtney sharp and arresting as a shot.
"Ifeelhe is fond of me," confessed Helen.
Courtney laughed harshly. "All men are fond of all good-looking women—especially in the spring. Don't be a fool, Helen."
"But a married woman has no right to him!"
Courtney flushed, and her eyes flashed. "And how do you know? And what right have you to judge? Are you God?"
"No, but——"
"No!" cried Courtney. "How do you know what he—his love may mean to her? How do you know but what it may be the one thing between her and despair and ruin? You, with your timid, proper calculating little love! Why, if the woman cared enough for him—needed him so—that she sacrificed self-respect—honor—truth—all—all—for love—what could you give him to replace it? And what are your needs beside hers?"
Helen's face grew hard as these words that outraged every principle of her training poured recklessly from Courtney's lips. "I'm astounded at your defending a bad woman," she said. "You'retoogenerous, Courtney. You'd feel differently if she were taking Richard away from you. But, I'm not in love with Basil. I see you know things about him. I—I—despise him. I pity him, of course, for he might have been a nice man. But I couldn't love him. I'm glad you told me. I might have engaged myself to him."
Courtney's far from sane eyes twinkled at that last ingenuous bit of maidenly vanity. Helen went about her work, and she departed to the greenhouse. "She'll stop loving him as easily as she began," said she to herself. "What does her sort of women know about love? They're faithful to whatever man they marry, as a dog's faithful to whoever feeds and kennels it.... Basil Gallatin is mine! And no man—nor no woman—shall come between us."
She had not forgotten Basil's expression as he stood in the apartment entrance, after histête-à-têtewith Helen. "Now—for what's inhisheart," she said. "I must know just where I stand." She recalled how she had used to say, and to think, that if a man was not freely a woman's—freely—inevitably—without any need of being held by feminine artifice—no self-respecting woman could for an instant wish to detain him. And here she was, ready to make any sacrifice to hold this man. Truly, fate seemed determined to compel her to give the lie to everything she had ever believed, to abase every instinct of pride that had plumed or still plumed the haughty front of her soul.
Richard asked Helen up to his study after supper, to take dictation of an article he was doing for a scientific magazine; thus, Courtney had a chance to explore Basil. She was seated beneath the tall lamp, a big hat frame on her lap, ribbon and feathers on the small table. She knew he was watching her over the top of a newspaper; and she was not insensible to his extremely flattering expression—nor, perhaps, to the advantages her occupation gave her in the way of graceful gestures, effective posings of the head and arms as she studied the effect of different arrangements of ribbon and feathers. She glanced directly at him; he glanced away, confused—the frightened zigzag of a flushed partridge.
"Well?" said she. She felt more lenient toward him, now that she had discovered his innocence of overt treachery, at least; and the way he was looking at her when he fancied her quite unaware was certainly reassuring. Also, she realized now that she herself was largely responsible for these errant springtime thoughts of his—she with her struggling to keep both love and self-respect. "Well?" she repeated, when he did not speak. "What guilty thought did I almost surprise?"
"No guilty thought," replied he. "I was loving you—terribly—just then. I was thinking—how impossible it would be for a man who loved you ever to wander."
"That's very nice," said she, with a mocking smile. "So you have been—looking over the fence?" And she went on with bending the brim of the hat frame to a more graceful curve. She was placid to all appearances; but once more the great dread was obsessing her.
"Not at all," protested he. "What fence? At whom?"
"The fence of our compact—perhaps."
He sighed impatiently.
"Ah—well—" She laughed, eying the result of her shaping, the hat frame at one angle, her head at the opposite angle—"there's Helen."
He looked grave reproach at her, altogether absorbed in trying a long plume against the frame in different positions. "Do you think, dear, it's quite respectful to Helen——"
"Your thoughts couldn't harm her," interrupted she—that is, she interrupted him, but not her work. "If men's thoughts smirched women, what an unsightly lot the attractive ones would be!"
"Where did you get such ideas?" he exclaimed, trying to conceal how her frankness had scandalized him.
She worked on calmly. "By observing and reading and thinking—and feeling."
He drummed uneasily upon the arm of his chair with the tips of his fingers. At length he said with some embarrassment, "It's hardly necessary for me to say that I have the highest respect for Helen."
"Yes—and I also know she's very—very pretty."
"Yes, she is pretty."
"You respect her. You like to talk with her. You think she is physically attractive."
Stiffly, "I have never thought about her in that last way."
"Then, that's probably her chief charm for you," observed Courtney, placid and reflective and industrious. "When we think we don't think about things that are worth thinking about, the chances are we really haven't been thinking about anything else." With a smile and a shake of the head that might have been for the plumes which refused to please her, "I'm afraid you're falling in love with Helen."
"No," replied he judicially—and how he would have been startled if he had seen her veiled eyes!—shiny green and cruel as those of a puma stretched in graceful ferocity along the leafy limb that overhangs the path. "No, I'm not the least in love with her. But I do like her. Her seriousness is very pleasant, now and then. If I did not love you, I perhaps might have grown to care for her, in a way. But—beside you, Helen is—tame."
"I shouldn't call her tame—" encouragingly.
"Well—perhaps not. She sometimes suggests a person who could be waked up."
"That's a temptation, isn't it?" she asked. And she looked straight at him over the top of the plumes. She wished to see all.
"No," said he, positively. "To be quite frank I'd never give her as a woman a thought—if I weren't—" He stirred uneasily, burst out in confession. "You were right a while ago. Men often don't understand themselves. But we'll not talk about that."
There was such love and tenderness in the gaze meeting hers that all the squalid thoughts her mind had been fouled with the whole day washed away like the dust and dirt on the leaves and petals of her flowers in a sudden rain.
He said with a gentle, manly earnestness that thrilled her: "There's only the one woman for me. And—I want our love to be what you wish. And it shall be!"
She lowered her head, the tears welling. The others interrupted, and Helen sat beside her advising about the hat. When it was finished, she made Helen try it on. They all admired, and it certainly was becoming. "Now, you try it on, dear," said Helen.
"No, don't take it off," Courtney answered. "It's for you, of course." And she kissed her and, laughing away her thanks, went upstairs. She sat down at her dressing table and, with elbows resting on it and face supported by her hands, gazed into her own eyes. "If you do not wish to lose him," she said slowly aloud to her grave face imaged in the glass, "you must take away from him temptation to wander. A door is either open or shut. A man—a man worth while—won't stand at the threshold long. He comes in or he goes away. Basil does not realize it, but that other side of his nature will compel him to go away—unless—" Compel him to go away? She was hearing again the monotonous fall of those icy rains, was feeling again the monotonous misery of those days without love and without hope. She must choose. Choose? "The woman doesn't live—doesn't deserve to live—who'd hesitate. There's no choice. There's simply the one way."
Well—since it must be so—what would be the event? Would she lose him anyhow? Would she merely be putting off his going? Would her complete yielding end in disaster of some kind, as she had feared? Or, wasn't it possible that, while most people were tangled and finally strangled by the web of their own deceit, a skillful few could use it dextrously to snare the bright birds of joy? ... She stood up, stretched her arms, swayed her slim supple figure gently. "He shall have no reason for letting one single thought wander. He shall be mine—all mine! I'll take no more risks." She continued to sway gently, her eyes closed. A look of scorn, of disgust came into her face. She shuddered. "How hideous it is to be a woman! Always slave to some man! Gold fetters cut as deep as iron, and they're heavier." She stopped swaying. "I can see how I might come to hate my master in trying to hold his love.... Love! To keep our love warm, we have to bury it in the mire."
XX
Because of the light the tables in the inner laboratory were so placed that Courtney and Basil worked at opposite sides of the room with their backs toward each other. As ten o'clock approached her agitation increased; but the only outward sign was frequent stolen glances at the clock on the wall between the windows. When the hands pointed to ten, her heart fluttered; for, she heard him push back his chair and knew he was rising from his case. He stood at the window toward her side of the room. As he was gazing out over the high sill, she was free to look at him—at his back, at the back of his head. She felt the struggle raging in his mind. Her hand, blundering among the burettes and bottles on the glass shelves before her, tilted a test tube from its support. It fell, broke with a crash on the porcelain surface of the table. She gave a low scream it would have been loud had she not, swifter than thought, clenched her teeth and compressed her lips. He startled violently.
"Good God!" he cried and his tone showed that his nerves were in the same state as hers.
"Beg your pardon," she murmured, mechanically apologetic.
If he heard, he gave no indication of it. He continued to stand motionless at the window, staring out over the lake. She tried furtively to get a glimpse of his profile, but could not. At ten minutes past ten he moved. When she saw him about to turn, she bent over her work—pouring calcium lactophosphate into a small agate mortar as if any relaxing of attention would be calamitous. He was standing at the end of her table, was looking down at her. It took all her self-control to refrain from looking up to see what was in his eyes. He was bending over her; his lips touched her hair—the crownlike coil of auburn on top of her head. She tingled to her finger tips; she knew she had won, knew he had thought it all out and had seen that his meetings with Helen were in the direction of disloyalty to the woman he loved. She looked up at him now. At first his expression was guilty and embarrassed, but the radiance of love and trust in her eyes soon changed that. He became very pale as his glance burned into hers; he turned away, and she felt that it was because he feared lest in the rush of penitent passion he would confess things it was unnecessary and unwise to put into words.
"Why, it's ten o'clock," said she carelessly. "Aren't you going out to smoke?"
A pause, then he answered "Not to-day" in a boyishly ill-at-ease way that brought a secret tender smile to her lips. She liked these evidences that it was impossible for him to conceal himself from her because any attempt to do so made him feel dishonorable.
"It's beautiful outdoors. I'll go with you."
"No, not just now, Courtney. I—I—that is, I think I'd best finish. Vaughan may need all four of the sulphates any moment." And he sat down before his case and began to fuss with evaporating dishes and crucibles.
"This is the first day you've missed in I don't know when," said she. It was just as well he should know she had begun to take note of his habit; that knowledge would strengthen his resolve to avoid in the future appearance of of evil and temptation thereto. "You've been very regular for weeks."
"It's a waste of time," he replied, after a pause. "You're right, uninterrupted effort's the only kind that counts." And both went to work.
But Courtney did not overestimate her triumph. Often day completely reverses the night view of things. But now, in the fancy-dispelling day more clearly than in the fancy-breeding night, she saw she must remove the temptation. If she had been a small or a stupid woman—or both, for the two qualities usually go together—she would have laid all the blame upon Helen and would have sent her away—and in vanity as to her power over him would have imagined herself once more perfectly secure. But the impulse to blame Helen and to get rid of her did not survive the second thought. It was not Helen's fault, or Basil's; it was nature's.
Looking back on those months under the compact she saw how she had let foolish vanity and still more foolish hope befog and mislead her intelligence. To remove Helen would avail her nothing. The law of his nature would continue to press him on; and sooner or later, in spite of love for her, in spite of loyalty, in spite of constancy, he would be swept away from her. The compact was a beautiful ideal, but it was not life—and, so, it must yield. "I must be all to him, or I shall soon be nothing to him." And that afternoon she fixed her resolution—after thinking the situation out sanely—as sanely as she could think in those days. For she, completely possessed by her need of Basil, was like all the infatuated. That is, she was in a state not unlike those demented persons who seem to be, and are, quite sane and logical and self-possessed, once you get beyond the fixed delusion which determines the posture and outlook of their entire being.
On the way to dress for supper she glanced in at Helen's open door. The girl was sitting near a window giving upon the small west balcony, her attitude so disconsolate that Courtney was at once striving with a rising wave of pity and self-reproach. "Helen will soon get over it," she reassured herself; and good sense reminded her that a young girl has not the experience of love which teaches the experienced woman to value it and makes her unable to do without it. "The love-sickness of a young girl, especially prim, unimaginative girls like Helen, isn't really personal; it's little more than a longing to be flattered and to get married and settled." But such small progress as head was making against heart was lost when Helen looked at her with a pathetic attempt to smile.
"Where have you been all day?" asked Courtney, eyes sinking before Helen's. She felt a most uncomfortable contempt for herself.
"In Wenona—lunching and shopping with Bertha Watrous."
Courtney entered, seated herself on the bed. Despite her lovelorn condition, Helen winced. "You old maid, you," laughed Courtney, rising. "I never saw any woman anywhere, not even old Nanny, not even my sister Ann, so opposed to sitting on the bed."
"I've been brought up to think it was—wasn't right," apologized Helen.
"Wasn't ladylike, you mean," said Courtney. She disposed herself in the window seat. "What are you blue about, dear?" She knew she was not intruding; Helen liked to confide her troubles—and people of that fortunate temperament were cured by confiding.
"I'm not blue," declared Helen. "I've simply been thinking of what you said, and if anything I'm angry."
"Oh—Basil? Did you see him to-day?"
"I did not." Helen tossed her head. "I went about my work as usual—went to the apartment. If he'd been lying in wait I was ready for him. But he wasn't."
Courtney understood what this really meant, though Helen didn't. Probably Helen would not have believed she had in fact lain in wait for Basil, even had Courtney pointed out to her the obvious meaning of her action. She was of the large majority—who do not know their own minds, who cannot explore them with a guide however competent, who when shown their own motives hotly and honestly deny. "Basil was busy to-day," Courtney explained. "Some sulphates Richard was in a hurry for."
Helen looked relieved. But, still not in the least aware of her own state of mind, she went on, with a toss of the head: "Well—whenever I do see him alone, I'll make him realize I'm not the sort he thinks. The more I look at it, Courtney, the more convinced I am that he was simply leading me on."
"Now, Helen!" laughed Courtney.
Helen colored. "I admit," she said, shamefacedly, "I got what I deserved for being so—so forward."
"That's the truth—you were forward." Courtney's tone made this necessary thrusting home of the painful truth gentle but not the less insistent. "We must never fool ourselves, dear. We women can't afford to."
Studying Helen, so clearly fascinated still by the idea of winning the young eligible from the East and redeeming him, Courtney realized that if the girl was to stay on there in peace she must be made to see the absolute uselessness of angling. So long as she thought of Basil as a possibility, however remote, so long would she be in danger of falling utterly and miserably in love with him. Yes, Helen must be cured—but how? There was no way. Not until Basil was married would Helen cease to hope. "For her own sake, I ought to send her away," Courtney was thinking as the two sat there in silence. But Helen had no other place to go. True, she could go out and make her own living as a teacher—Courtney envied her the training and the certificate that were practically a guaranty of independence. But Helen abhorred independence, looked on a woman's working, away from the shelter of domesticity, as the Hindu looks on loss of caste. No, Helen must stay on, might as well stay on.... An impossible situation. And from this unanticipated quarter came one more imperative reason for making Basil wholly her own. He must be in such a state of mind that he would do nothing to encourage Helen's hope to put forth even the feeblest of its ready sprouts.
Courtney rose and moved toward the door. "I must dress." She leaned against the jamb, her cheek upon her crossed hands. "Well, my dear, remember the rhyme about the lady who went for a ride on a tiger, and how, when they came back, he had the lady inside."
"You're laughing at me," reproached Helen.
Courtney's eyes were fixed dreamily upon vacancy, a strange sad smile about her lips. "I am not laughing," she said slowly. "Or, if I am, it is not at you.... Not at you, but at—" She could not tell Helen that she was drearily mocking her own entrapped and helpless self. "Take my advice, child. Don'teverlead a tiger out for an airing."
Yes, Helen should stay on, as long as she wished to stay. "And hasn't she as much right here as I—just the same right?"
At two o'clock that night, as Basil was leaving, he said—"You've hardly spoken since I came. Is it the darkness?"
"Yes—the darkness," she replied in the same undertone—the doors were very thick, but instinct made them careful about speech.
"I never knew you to be so silent—or so strange, now that I think of it." He held her by the shoulders. "Courtney, did you want me to come to-night?"
She clung to him. "Do you love me, my Basil?"
"How queer your voice sounds. Are you frightened?"
"No—no, indeed."
"Dear, you're not telling me——"
"It's nothing. Just a—a notion. There won't be so much of it next time. And still less the next time. And soon I'll be quite accustomed."
"Yes, I'm sure there's not the least danger," said he, wholly misunderstanding.