XXVIIIShe was on the drive-front porch with Lizzie, making plausible pretense of rearranging the boxed evergreens. She heard the carriage turn in at the gates, though they were nearly a quarter of a mile from the house. As the horses rounded the bend she looked. But she waited on Lizzie, who was not slow to cry out with delighted surprise, "Why, there's Mr. Gallatin!"Courtney said, "Do run in and see that the sitting room's straight." Thus, she was alone when he descended. She saw him through a mist and the hand she gave him was cold, was trembling. In the doorway, she said hastily in an undertone: "Helen and Winchie are at Wenona—Richard at the laboratory. You've stopped unexpectedly on your way south—for an hour or two.""I understand," said he. "I can't trust myself to look at you. My love! My love!"She flashed up at him a glance radiant with her florid fancies of anticipation. "Come into the house," she contrived to say in an ordinary tone.As they went along the hall, side by side and talking for effect on possible listeners, she saw that he had dressed as carefully as a bridegroom. No more carefully than she had dressed, so far as she dared; still, it struck her as amusing—as suggestive of hollowness. And the voice which, as she heard it in fancy during those weeks of waiting, had been so moving, so magical—what a commonplace voice it was, and how very like affectation its Eastern intonations sounded. "That nasty remark of Richard's!" she thought. "How weak of me to let such a thing affect me." They entered the sitting room; he quickly closed the door, caught her hands, looked at her from head to foot. "Courtney!" he murmured. "I love you! I love you!"She thrilled, lifted her eyes—dropped them. A chill stole over her. She had to resist an impulse to draw her hands away. He looked really handsome, was outwardly all her imagination had been picturing—and more. Yet— What was the matter? What was lacking? Why could she see only the weakness and coarseness—the qualities that had stood out the night he was drunk and the next afternoon when she was battling against his vanity and jealousy? "It's my nerves," she decided. "I'm under a greater strain than I realize." When he kissed her, she turned her head so that his lips touched her cheek. And immediately she released her hands. "We must be careful," she apologized."Why? You're free.""Yes—but—" She paused."Why do you act so strange—so distant?""I don't know," she confessed. She felt ashamed of herself that she was visiting on him the consequences of her own folly in having let her imagination overleap all the bounds of probability in forecast. "I don't know," she repeated. "Nerves, I suppose. Or, perhaps it's a bad cold. I've felt one coming on all day. This morning I forgot to close the——""Aren't you glad to see me?""Yes—yes, indeed," she protested. "Let's sit down."She took a chair near the table. He was thus compelled to the sofa, several feet away. "We ought to have met where we first arranged," said he, constrained, embarrassed."I have to be careful. You forget Winchie."An uncomfortable silence, then he: "You've been free thirty-nine days. Yet you have not written me.""I explained to you——""Didn't you feel like writing?""Of course. But——""But—what?""I wanted to be independent as well as free."He looked at her gloomily. "Isthatwhat you call love?"She forced a smile and nodded."Do you know what I've come for? For you."She felt herself drawing together, shrinking away from him. "For me?" she echoed vaguely."To marry you."She was not looking at him; but she was seeing his face as it was when swollen and distorted by drink. She answered hastily, "Oh, I couldn't do that.""Why not?""I can't marry till—till I'm independent. I've been making a lot of plans. I'm going to work early next month.""What nonsense!" he cried. "Courtney, do you realize you've not yet said a single word of love? What is the matter? Is it our meeting in this house?""Perhaps. I don't know. I don't understand it myself." Why was her mind so perverse? Why did it thrust at her the things it was unjust to remember, generous and necessary to forget? Why was she critical, aloof, instead of responsive and generously glad? She went on: "It may be the cold. My nose feels queer, and——""We must marry, right away," he insisted, frowning upon her lack of seriousness. "We've been separated too long already."That seemed to her to explain. But it did not remove. She said, "Not until I'm independent.""But that means years—years!""Oh, no," protested she. "Not the kind of independenceImean. I simply want to be sure I could earn my living if it were necessary.""But it isn't necessary. And life is so short, dearest. And at most we'll have few enough years of happiness.""I know," said she, surprised that these truths did not move her in the least, nor his looks, his tones, so charged with entreaty she such a short time ago would have found irresistible. "But I've thought it out, and I realize everything depends on my getting that feeling of independence. I'll not risk again what I've been through.""You know very well, that couldn't happen. As for your working, why, dear, unless a woman's been bred to making a living, it's almost impossible for her.""Nevertheless I must try.""If you loved me, you'd not talk like this," cried he, bitterly.Instead of protesting, she became thoughtful. "Do you really think so?" she asked. "I wonder if that's true.""Certainly not," retreated he, alarmed. "We love each other. But your way of acting and talking has upset me. I ought not have come here. We should have met over at Tippecanoe.""You don't seem to see my point of view, Basil.""I do, but it's a mere notion. A very fine notion," he hastened to add, though he could not make his tone other than grudging, "but foolish.""It was my dependence that put me in such a frightful position with Richard. And——""Courtney," he interrupted, between anger and appeal, "please don't repeat that comparison of what you were to him and what you and I are to each other. It—hurts me, and it's not fair.""Would you promise to love me always just as you do now?""I certainly would. I shall."She lowered her eyes. Her heart sank."Wouldn't you?" he asked."No," replied she. "How can I—or anyone—honestly say how he or she'll feel about a person they don't know through and through—a month ahead—let alone a year—ten years—twenty? You know that's true, Basil. You're not honest with yourself—or with me."He was silent, was watching her with sullen, suspicious eyes."It seems to me," she went on, "that love—real love—ought to make you careful. If we were a boy and a girl, without experience or intelligence or anything but hazy, rosy emotions——""You and I never will agree about love," he interrupted, impatiently. "But that's a small matter. The only point is that we love each other. Love's like a rose, Courtney. Tear it apart to see what it's made of and you lose the rose and have only withered petals.""Yes—one kind of love. But is it the kind to build one's life upon?""I'm not going to argue with you. Have your way, if you will. You'll soon get enough of work—of this fantastic idea of independence, as you call it. As if I'd not be too afraid of losing your love not to respect your rights and consider you always and in every way.""But supposeIceased to loveyou—and were dependent on you——""I know. I know. Don't let's argue it. Go on with your plans. The sooner you begin, the sooner you'll see how foolish you are. You don't appreciate what work means—especially for a woman—the toil, the humiliations, the downright miseries—that cost youth and looks and health."It still further depressed her to see how swiftly his words depressed her—how appalling was the lift and spread of the mountain she had been dreaming of removing with one shovel and one pair of feeble hands. "Instead of discouraging me," cried she with some anger in her reproach, "you ought to be encouraging me. I should think you'd be afraid to have a woman about who might be your wife for the sake of a living—might be making a hypocrite of herself and a fool of you."He winced; she saw he was thinking of Richard. "That could never happen withus!" cried he."Never is a long time."He was squirming in irritation and impatience—and was obviously afraid she would suspect the thoughts he yet could not conceal. "Please don't insist on discussing this, Courtney. Go ahead. Try your scheme. Work! I never heard of a woman at work who wouldn't do almost anything to escape."She forced a laugh. "Then if I fail and send for you, you'll know what it means—and fly in the other direction.""Not I," replied he with an overenergy that failed in its purpose of hiding the discomfort her suggestion had caused him. "I tell you, we love each other. That makes everything different." He laughed. "Work! Thank God, you and I don't have to work. We can love."She sat with eyes down and fingers idly matching the corners of her little handkerchief. What a difference between work as a dream and work in the doing!—between imagining the glories of self-respecting independence and making the coarse, cruel struggle step by step up to those glories—between work as a pastime and work as a necessity. How unpractical she had been! She sighed. "I wish," said she, "I'd never realized that to be secure a woman must be independent. But—now that I've realized it, I've got to go on."He put on an expression of pretended deep and respectful interest that made it hard for her to hide her amusement. "What are your plans?" he asked."I'll tell you sometime. I don't feel in the humor now.""Something vague—eh?" And she saw that he assumed she was only pretending, after all. A superior man-to-woman smile had replaced his look of nervousness.She waited until he had got himself comfortably settled down into this agreeable assumption, then said tranquilly, "No. I have the place promised me."He rose impatiently. If she had needed proof as to his real opinion of women—his conviction of their inferiority, his expression would have given it. Yes, his opinion was the same as Richard's—always had been, as she could now see, recalling remarks he had made from time to time. The same prejudices as Richard; only, Basil had been less courageous—less honest. Those prejudices irritated her in Richard; in Basil they seemed laughable. But he was getting his impatience and scorn, his exasperation against her poor womanish folly somewhat under control. "Now, Courtney, can't you realize—" he began in a teacher-to-infant tone. Then, a new thought struck him. He broke off abruptly. "No—go ahead. It's just as well you should have the lesson," said he."Should learn how dependent I am on—some man?""How unfitted you are to be anything but a lady.""I know that already," replied she forlornly. "Or, rather, I'm not fitted to be either dependent or independent.""Then why not be sensible, and marry me at once?"She did not answer. She could not tell him the truth; she would not tell him a lie. Anyhow, she wasn't sure what she did think."You will—won't you, dear? You'll not waste time that we might give to love and happiness?" And he anxiously watched her face—with its sweet feminineness that gave him hope, its mystery and its resoluteness that made him uneasy."It's a temptation," she said, absently. She saw herself trying for independence and failing—losing heart, self-respect—growing cynical through hardship—marrying Basil to escape— Just there, she suddenly surprised her elusive real self, saw deep into the inmost workings of her own mind—saw that she did not care for Basil Gallatin—that she had really been pretending to herself that she loved him because he was the alternative, the refuge, should her try for independence fail!"I'll tell you what let's do," she heard him saying. "Let's get married. Then you can take that place, whatever it is. With your future secure no matter what happened, you'd work better and would be much more likely to succeed."The appeal of this subtle proposal awakened her to her peril. It must be now or never; she must speak the truth now, or lose the courage and the strength to speak it. "Basil," she said abruptly, "I don't love you."He stared."I've been lying to myself and to you. I don't love you.""That's not true!""I never did love you," she replied—for, with the one truth out, the other forged to the front and made its amazing self visible. "No—I never did love you." How plain it all was, now! How strange that she should for even an infatuated moment have believed this was the man she needed, the man who needed her—not words alone, and kisses and thrills, but real need—for mind and heart and body—all that the three have to give and long to give and to receive.He stood before her, looking down in graciously smiling remonstrance. "That's a little too much," he said tenderly. "You can't have forgotten all we've been to each other—those hours of happiness—those moments of ecstasy—my love—my Courtney——"There was color in her cheeks, an answering tenderness in the eyes that lifted to his. "No, I've not forgotten. And as I had to learn and as there's no other way for woman or man to learn but experience, I don't regret. But we were both in love with love—not with each other. And what's more, we never could be." Now that she had flung away pretense, its veil of illusion over her sight dropped; she was seeing him as she looked at him—not his qualities that repelled, not his qualities that attracted, but the whole man—was seeing him as we see only those toward whom are amiably indifferent. She was thinking, "What a nice, well-bred man he is, but how small." Not bad, not grossly sensual, not mean—not at all mean, but the reverse. Just small.He began to recover from the stupefaction of the convincing tones of her denial of love. He was hastily donning the costume of pose that is correct for such occasions. She beamed genially upon him and said, "Now, don't work yourself up, my dear Basil. Sit down over there, and let's talk quite quietly—and naturally."It is impossible for anyone with any sense of humor whatever to indulge alone in paroxysms of emotion before a tranquil spectator. Basil stopped rolling his eyes and dilating his nostrils, and seated himself, in no very good humor. Her tone was not pleasant. It would have been perfectly proper for a man to use to a woman. It was impertinent, in weaker sex to stronger. "Oh, I'm all right," said he, crossly, as he seated himself. "But you'd better look out about those ideas of yours. They have a terribly unfeminizing effect on women.""Yes—I guess they do," replied she. A puzzling, alluring combination of seriousness and humor she looked as she sat there opposite him, her elbows on the arms of the chair, her chin resting upon the backs of her linked fingers, her eyes fixed gravely yet somehow quizzically upon him. "Have you ever thought of our life together?" asked she. "Of what we'd do—between times?""Between times?""No one—not even the most ardent lovers—can make love all the time. There haven't been any 'between times' in our life heretofore, because of the circumstances. But when we were together without interruption—with no excitement or interest of danger—with no stimulus—with just ourselves—what would we do 'between times'?—and there'd be more and more 'between times' as we got used to each other."This uninviting but obviously truthful picture sobered and exasperated him. "Haven't thought about it," he confessed. "I haven't gone into details. But I know we'll be happy. You'll step into the position you are entitled to and I can see that you get.""The social position, you mean?""Certainly. And we'll enjoy ourselves."He could not possibly have said anything that would have shown more clearly the width and depth of the gap between them—how little he understood her, how little they had in common."You'll be tremendously popular," he said with enthusiasm.She shook her head slowly. "I don't thinkIcould be happy, wasting my life, scattering myself among a lot of inane pastimes." She laughed a little. "You'd be horribly disappointed in me, Basil.""I'll risk it. They'll be crazy about you in the East." He nodded proud, confident, self-complacent encouragement. "I'll risk it!"She met his look with a quiet final "But I'll not." In another mood his proposal, his manner, his very poor sort of pride in her would have amused her. But as she listened, she remembered all she had believed about this man, all her idealizing of his mind and character. And she grew sad and sick. This small man!He planted himself firmly before her. "Now, look here, Courtney. It's useless for you to talk that sort of thing. You don't mean it. And I'm not going to give you up. You're my wife, Courtney. The only possible excuse for what you did was that you loved me.""On the contrary," replied she, "my only excuse is that I was swept away by my craving for love—for what Richard in our brief honeymoon had taught me to need——""For God's sake!" he cried. "Howcanyou say such things?""Because they are the truth," she answered with quiet dignity; and he felt ashamed of himself without knowing why. "Basil, you don't love me as I really am. You find me shocking. And I don't love you as you really are. I find you—" She hesitated."Go on. Say it."But what would be the use? The truth, all of it, any literal part of it would only hurt him, would not awaken him. By birth and by breeding and by the impassable limitations of his mind he was incapable of learning or appreciating the truth, was wedded forever to the morality that makes truth a vice and lies a virtue. So, she evaded. "I find you are like your dress," answered she, her eyes and her light tone taking the sharp sting off her words. "A charming style of your own but strictly conventional withal."He did not fully appreciate this faint hint of the truth, but he understood enough to be irritated. "You've been doing too much of what you women call thinking. And you've become like all women who try to think.""All women think," said she. "But very few of them tell the man what they think—until they've got him safely married. You ought to thank me for being candid in advance."He scowled at her smile. "I'm not going to give you up," he said sullenly. "I know you better than you know yourself. You'll come out of this mood. And—dearest—remember that, in spite of your disdain, the old-fashioned woman—tender, simple, loving—is far sweeter than these thinkers—gets more pleasure—gives more.""A baby's sweeter than a grown person," replied she, refusing to be serious. "But, Basil, the time has about passed when even a woman can stay on a baby—though most of the men and women pretend it isn't so, and a good many of them—like you and Helen—get angry if the truth's forced on you. At any rate,Ican't be a baby anymore.... Do you know what would happen if I married you?"The look that accompanied her abrupt question was so penetrating, so significant that he paled. "I don't want to hear any more of your truths that aren't true at all," he cried."I see you know what would happen. The same thing again.""Courtney!—Good God!""The same thing again. As long as my craving for real companionship was unsatisfied, I couldn't be content. The same delusion that made me fancy I loved you would trap me again—or, perhaps it wouldn't be delusion but really the man I needed—the man who needed me. A mirage isn't a delusion, you know. It's an actuality that we mislocate. I'd hunt on—and on—through the desert for my oasis—until I found it."He had not taken his fascinated gaze from her dreamy face, her eyes of unfathomable emerald. "Do you mean that?" he said huskily. "No—you can't. But you must not say those things, Courtney—you really mustn't. You'll make me afraid of you. As it is, I fear I'll have a hard time making myself forget.""I don't want you to forget. And I've told you the exact truth because I want you to realize how unsuited we are to each other."He walked up and down in violent agitation. "I don't understand it," he muttered. "Has some one—Courtney, do you love some other man?""I do not. I've seen no one practically but Richard."He halted with a jerk. "Richard!" His eyes narrowed with jealous suspicion. "Has he been trying to win you back?"She smiled at the idea, so at variance with the facts. "He treats me like another man.""Then you see him?""Every day. I work at the laboratory with him.""What!" Basil stared, dropped to the nearest chair dumfounded."Why not? ... Don't be so pitifully conventional, Basil. This is the twentieth century, not the Dark Ages. He knows you're here now—asked me to see you here rather than where it might cause gossip."As he recovered, his mind, seen clearly in his features, slowly took fire. "And you pretended you were telling me the truth!" he cried, starting up. Everything else—doubt of her—doubt of himself—all was forgotten in the torrent rush of jealousy. "And I, poor fool, believed you! But I'll tell you what the truth is. You've lost your nerve. You love me as you did. But you haven't the courage to break off here. And you're sinking back to what you were when I found you. I might have known! A woman always belongs to the nearest man." He was raging up and down the room. "I've come for you. I'll not go without you. You're mine—not his. I'll show you! I'll show you!" And he snatched his hat from the sofa and rushed out.For the moment motion was beyond her power. She saw him dart along the veranda, past the windows, take the path to the Smoke House. Terror galvanized her. She flew to the private telephone, rang long and vigorously, put the receiver to her ear. A pause; she was about to ring again when Richard's voice came: "Yes—what is it?""He's coming to you, Richard," she gasped. "I angered him. He's wild with rage. Promise you won't let him in.""I can't do that." Richard's voice was calm and natural."Your promise to me!""Don't be alarmed. He doesn't amount to much, if you'll pardon my saying so.""I'm coming as quickly as I can. Don't see him, Richard. Remember Winchie!""Come if you like. But I suspect you'll only aggravate him. Believe me, I can take care of him. Here he is now——"She dropped the receiver, ran out of the house and along the path.XXIXAs Vaughan hung up the receiver and turned, Gallatin flung open the door on which he had just rapped a loud challenge. He scowled at Vaughan; Vaughan eyed him with the expression that simply looks and waits. It was evident Basil expected immediate combat, was ready for it—therefore altogether unready for the form of encounter less easy. Dick's tranquillity completely disconcerted him. He advanced a step, with an aggressive, "Well, here I am.""So I see," replied Dick."You've been thinking it was cowardice that made me go away. But it wasn't. And I've come to face it out with you. You had your chance for her. You lost her. I purpose to keep her.""Very well," said Dick. "She's free. Her affairs are none of my business." And he sat down at the long table under the windows, glanced at the electric furnace as if about to resume work."But she isn't free!" cried Gallatin. "You've not freed her, though she has the right to it. You're holding on to her through the boy."Dick bent over the white crystals in the platinum tray on the shelf of the furnace.Gallatin, exasperated, waved his fists. "I demand that you free her! If she were free, she'd come with me, for she loves me."Dick took a metal rod from the case and began pushing the crystals this way and that carefully."She loves me, I tell you!"Without pausing or looking round Dick said: "If you say that again—I'll begin to believe it isn't so. There's no accounting for tastes—especially for tastes feminine. But—" He did not finish; over his face drifted a slight smile more eloquent against Basil's deficiencies than the fiercest stream of epithet."I've won her," taunted Gallatin, in wild fury, yet as if restrained by an invisible leash. "I've got her heart. You might as well release the rest." As Dick seemed now quite absorbed and unconscious of his presence, he advanced still nearer. "By God, you shall!" he cried. "She belongs to me, and I'm here to maintain my rights at any cost."Vaughan laid down the long rod with a gesture of deliberate precision and care, turned slowly toward him. His long handsome face was of a curious transparent pallor. His rather deep-set gray-blue eyes looked coldly and cruelly at his one-time guest and partner. "You evidently don't understand," said he. "There are times when one must either ignore—or kill."Basil sneered, "Well?" said he, with intent to draw on."I have been choosing to ignore. At first it would have given me the greatest pleasure to kill you. Now—you are to me much like the cur that barks and snaps at passers by." He rose. "You've come here to try to make a vulgar scandal. You'll not succeed. You have nothing to lose. I can't give you your deserts without hurting my son. So—" Dick paused, seemed to be reflecting."You hide behind him—do you?" sneered Basil. In his frenzy he felt that one or the other must die then and there or he himself would be forever dishonored.Dick apparently had not heard. In an abstracted way he said, to himself, not to Gallatin, "Yes, I think that will do." Again there was a pause, he thinking, Gallatin held silent and expectant by his expression. Suddenly Dick said sharply, "Yes—that will do." He moved the ladder to the south wall, mounted; he took from the high top shelf a jar of heavy glass, about one third full of dark red powder; he descended with it. "Close that door and lock it," he ordered.Basil, from habit of association with him as assistant, moved to obey. Hand on knob and about to swing the door, he hesitated, turned. "What are you going to do?" he demanded."When you lock that door," replied Dick, "I shall empty what's in this jar into the bowl of water there, and in a few seconds we shall both be dead."Basil shrank; a shudder ran visibly over his frame."I could kill you without killing myself," continued Dick, "and cover the scandal with the pretense of accident. It would serve you right, but—somehow it strikes me as cowardly. So—lock the door."Basil was no coward; but he had grown yellow with fear. His hand now dropped nervously from the knob."Lock the door," said Dick sharply. "There's no time to lose. I think she's on the way here.""She'll understand—and kill herself.""Why not? Helen will take care of Winchie."Basil's gaze wandered round, in search of another excuse. He braced himself, cried defiantly, "I refuse!""Very well." Dick set the jar on the table. "Then go.""You think I'm a coward. But it's not that."Dick shrugged his shoulders. "I know you're a coward. Everyone is. I'm as well pleased that you don't accept. I've no wish to die, particularly for such an absurd, stagy notion of honor. But I will not have a scandal——"Just there Courtney dashed in, her expression so disheveled that it gave her the air of being disheveled in dress. Her glance darted from Richard leaning calmly against the table and, in blouse and cap, looking like a handsome workingman, to Basil in his fashionable English tweeds, standing shamefaced and irresolute near the door—so near that she had brushed him as she entered. On Basil her gaze rested like a withering blight. Her eyes flashed green fire; her every feature hurled at him the scorn that despises. "You shabby coward!" she said, her voice low and threatening to break under the weight of its burden of fury. "You who come here and try to ruin my child and me for your vanity!""Courtney!" he pleaded, not daring to lift his eyes. "I love you. I cannot give you up.""Love! You don't know what it means! You weak vain thing! You found you couldn't have me on equal terms. So you thought you'd degrade me—compel me." She turned on Richard. "And you, too!" she blazed. "If you were a man you'd kill him—you'd kill us both—with some of your chemicals there—and protect Winchie by saying it was an accident.""Absurd," said Vaughan with an indifferent shrug. His arms were folded upon his broad chest.Trembling and blazing, she went up to him. "Look at me!" she cried, her hands on her surging bosom, her eyes glittering insanely up at him. Every instinct of prudence, the instinct of self-preservation itself had succumbed under the surge of elemental passion, of frenzied shame that she should have lowered herself to such a man as this Basil Gallatin. "This body of mine," she said in a voice of terrible calm, "it's been his—that thing's—do you hear? He has had me in his arms—me—your wife—the mother of your boy—he—that creature quaking there. And I have kissed him and caressed him and trembled with passion for him as I never did for you.... Now, will you kill us?"He did not move. But slowly the veins and muscles of his face tightened, pushed up against, strained against the ghastly whiteness of his skin. And slowly his eyes lighted with the fires of a demoniac fury that made hers seem like a child's weak hysteria. She gazed at him, fascinated. Then, with a gasp, she braced herself and waited for the frightful death that look of his signaled. But she did not flinch, nor shift her gaze from his. To Gallatin, paralyzed, watching them with eyes starting and lips ajar, it seemed an eternity while they stood thus facing each other in silence. Then, as slowly as that expression on Richard's face had come it departed, like a fiend fighting inch by inch against being flung back into the hell from which it had issued at the call of her dreadful taunts. The face remained deathly white; but those were Richard Vaughan's own eyes that gazed down at the small, delicate face of the woman, in them a look that filled her with awe, made her ashamed, gave her the impulse to sink down at his feet and burst into tears."No, Courtney," Richard said, infinite gentleness in his tone. "I'm neither god nor devil. I—all three of us—will do to-day what to-morrow we'll be glad we did. One can always die. But living again, once one's dead—that's not so simple."There fell silence. She stood before him, bosom still heaving but eyes down. Vaughan turned to Gallatin with a courtly politeness like his grandfather's. "Don't you think you'd better go—for the present at least?"Gallatin, who had been awed also, hesitated. He looked at Courtney; his jaws clenched and he fixed sullen, devouring eyes on her. "I want to talk to her alone," said he aggressively."That's for her to decide," said Richard.Courtney lifted her head to refuse. Then it occurred to her that, by talking with Basil, she might settle the whole business for good and all. With a curious deference she looked inquiringly at Richard. He shrugged his shoulders, began pushing the tray into the furnace. She let her eyes rest on Basil, said "Yes—that's best. Come on." She went out of the laboratory, Basil following her. Richard closed the door behind them. At the edge of the clearing she halted, wheeled upon him. "Well!" she began, her voice as merciless as her eyes.He was a pitiful spectacle. His feature were working in a ferment of many unattractive emotions—jealousy, pique, fear that he was ridiculous, wounded vanity, desire to regain with her the ground he felt he must have lost. "You see now, Courtney," he said, aggressive yet pleading, too, "he doesn't care a rap about you.""Well?" she repeated. Her tone was much softer; her nerves were calming, and her temper was yielding to her sense of proportions. Also, the man looked weak and shallow and ridiculous—not worth the while of a great emotion. Just small. "What of it?" she asked.He scowled in angry embarrassment at her expression which neither suggested nor encouraged tragedy. "I never heard of people acting as we've acted to-day!" he cried."But no doubt they often do," replied she. "Everybody doesn't act—all the time—as if he were in a novel or a play, or thought he was.""You can respect him after this?"Her eyes had the expression a man least likes to see in a woman's when she is looking at him. "Don't you?" said she.He reddened, and his eyes shifted. Presently he said humbly, "I—I am sorry for what I did. I was crazy with jealousy. I'm not myself—not at all."She felt the truth of this at once. "And I'm sorry for the things I said to you and to him. I was crazy with rage."He lifted his head eagerly. "I knew you didn't mean them, dear."Her brow darkened. It was annoying that the man couldn't realize; for such as she now knew him to be to aspire to her seemed impertinence. "Basil," she said, "it's all over between us. Don't let your vanity deceive you. And don't force me to tell you what I think of you. Be content with knowing what I don't think.""Be careful!" he cried angrily. "I'm not the man to stand and beg—even for you.""That's good," said she pleasantly. "Then—we can part here and now." She glanced up at the windows of the apartment. "You've got your traps up there still. Hadn't you better let me send Jimmie to help you pack them?""Thank you," replied he, haughtily. "I'll be obliged if you will."She put out her hand. "Good-by, Basil."He clinched his fists in vanity's boyish anger. "You can think of that apartment, and have no feeling?" he exclaimed."None," declared she."I'll not believe it. You couldn't be so unwomanly."Her look forecast a sarcasm. But before she spoke it changed to one that was soft and considerate. She felt that she was responsible. True he had posed as something far superior to his reality; but it was an honest fraud, deceiving himself first and most of all. She felt to blame for having been taken in—felt repentant and apologetic toward him. "Let's not quarrel," she urged. "Don't be harsh with me. I know you'll find love and make some woman very, very happy—one that is sympathetic and comes up to your ideals of womanhood." She put out her hand again, and friendly and winning was the smile round her wide mouth, in the eyes under the long, slender brows. "Please, Basil." He hesitated. "Don't be harsh. You know you don't love me any more than I love you. What's the use of pretenses? Why not part sincerely? ... Please, Basil."His hand just touched hers and his angry eyes avoided her pleading glance. "If you'll send Jimmie," he said. And with a stiff bow he moved in great dignity along the path to the apartment entrance. He went even more slowly than dignity required, for he confidently expected she would come to her senses when she saw he had indeed reached the limit of endurance of her trifling. Richard had shown he wouldn't take her back—cared nothing for her. Where then could she turn but to him? And all that vaporing about independence was—just vaporing. A woman was a woman, and he knew women. So, he walked slowly to give her a good chance. But no call came—not though he lingered over opening the door and made a long pause elaborately to wipe his clean boots on the mat. He did not look until he could do so from the security of the sitting-room windows. She was not in sight. Had she followed him softly? He went into the hall, glanced down the stairs. Not there! She had gone! ... She meant what she said; she had cast him off. There was no room for doubt—she had cast him off.... He heard a step, rushed to the door. It was Jimmie, come bringing his overcoat and gloves, and prepared to do the packing. She had really cast him off."God!" he muttered. "What a contemptible position that puts me in!" And, for the moment at least, he hated her. If he could only revenge himself—in some perfectly gentlemanly way, of course. Once that day vanity had lured him clean over the line into most ungentlemanly conduct; his face burned from the sting of her remembered denunciations—the sting of truth in them. If he could devise a gentlemanly way—something that would convince her he had made all that agitation simply because he felt that, as a gentleman, he in the circumstances must go to any lengths to keep faith with her. Yes, that would be a handsome revenge—and would save his face, too.He gave Jimmie the necessary directions and resumed his brooding. He searched his brain in vain. He could contrive no way of escape; he would have to leave that place like a whipped dog—yes, a whipped dog. Spurned by Vaughan—spurned by Courtney——A step, and the rustle of a skirt. His eyes gleamed. "I thought not!" he muttered exultantly. "Well, I'll teach her a lesson she'll never forget."He turned his back to the door, stood at the window, looking out and puffing nonchalantly at his cigarette. The step, the rustle were on the threshold. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Gallatin——"He wheeled to face Helen. His confusion was equal to hers. "Ah—Miss Helen—I—I—" he stammered."Am I intruding?" she asked. There was a charming blush in her sweet, beautiful face, and her honest dark eyes showed how perturbed she was."No indeed—no indeed," he protested."Courtney sent me——""Courtney sent you!" he exclaimed in amazement."She told me all about it," Helen hastened on. "She asked me to let you know that she had told me—how you and Richard have had a bitter falling out over the work—and that you're going away, not to come back."One look into those eyes was convincing; Helen believed what she was saying."She thought perhaps I might be able to help you about the packing. Can I?""No, but I'd be glad if you'd stop while Jimmie is doing it. I don't want to leave without saying good-by to you."All the roses fled from Helen's cheeks. "Yes—certainly," she murmured."You'll excuse my being somewhat confused? The truth is I'm very much upset.""I can't tell you how dreadfully I feel," said Helen. "Are you sure you and Richard—" She paused. Her glance stirred him like an angel face in a drunkard's dream—her face earnest, grieved, sympathetic, unable to credit anything so dreadful, so wicked as a parting in hate."Quite sure. It's—final. Please, let's not talk about it. It's all so—so revolting."In presence of those clear, noble eyes of hers, the sordidness of his "romance" now once more began to stand out. What a mess! No wonder he had taken to drink. If it had been Helen and the kind of love she inspired— "But you and I will always be friends—won't we?" he said to her.Her eyelids dropped and he saw her bosom fluttering. "I hope so," she said so low he scarcely heard. She was pale now, and drooping. "Though I'm afraid—when you get away off there, you'll forget me very soon."His heart smote him as he looked at that tall, voluptuous figure, at that lovely face, so regular, so pure. Here was a woman, a real woman, and she would have loved him—perhaps did love him. "I know I'm unworthy of a thought from you who are so good and pure," he said. "But your kindness to me has helped me. And God knows, I shall need help." Oh, that it had been his lot to anchor to this strong, white soul! How much nobler than the finest passion was a love centering about the sweet, old-fashioned ideals. What a haven those arms, that bosom would be! He felt dissolute and sin-scarred as only a vain young man can feel those dread but delightful depravities."You must not despair, Basil," came in Helen's soft voice, like oil upon his wounds. And it touched him to see how, maidenly shy though she was, she yet could not resist the appeal of this opportunity to try to do good. She went on, "It's always darkest before dawn, and the more rain falls the less there is to fall."These words seemed like heavenly wisdom delivered by a messenger of light. He sighed."You'll come out all right—and will escape from that—that—whatever it is—" Helen's cheeks modestly colored—"and be happy with somegoodwoman who is worthy of you."She looked so sad, so beautiful that before he knew it he, ever sympathetic with women, had said, "Some woman like you, Helen."She turned away. He saw that her emotions were making her tremble. How she loved him! What a prize such a love would be—and how chagrined Courtney would feel—Courtney the vampire woman who had tried to destroy him, and thought she had succeeded—and was gloating over his misery. "If we'd had the chance, Helen, how happy we could have made each other! But I mustn't talk of that.""Why not?" said she, with bold shyness. "I know that for some reason we can never be anything more to each other. But it's been a happiness—" earnestly, with tears in her eyes of the Homeric Juno and in her voice young and honest and sympathetic—"a real happiness to feel that the best of you—the part that's really you—found something to like in me."He thrilled. Here was a woman! And a woman who appreciated him. He wondered how he could have lingered under a malign spell when such beauty of soul—and body, too—was his for the asking. "Helen!" he cried. And all his wounded heart's longing and all his wounded vanity's suffering gave energy to his cry. He took her hand; he put his arm round her. Her cheek touched his. How cool yet warm she was! How lovely and sweet! And the unsullied, untouched down! How fresh! Except her male relatives, no doubt no man but himself had ever kissed her— "Helen—Helen! God forgive me, but I can't refuse this moment of pure happiness."She gently drew away. "Oh, Basil," she sobbed. "And I had said no man should ever kiss me until— But you—it seems different. You are so noble—so pure minded." Her eyes gazed into his with a trustful adoration that thrilled him."Helen—do you love me?" he cried.Her honest eyes opened wider. "Would I have let you touch me if I didn't?""Yes—I know that!" he exclaimed. "How pure you are! It's like heaven after hell."She gazed on into his eyes. A faint flush overspread her pale cheeks. She kissed him. "I love you, Basil," she said, gravely. Then all at once the color surged wave on wave over her brow, her cheeks, her neck. She hung her head, slowly drew away from his detaining vibrating arms. There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to burn of itself. Helen had by the guidance of feminine instinct hit upon exactly the right instant for drawing back. She released herself, avoided his touch just when passion having captured his imagination swept on to the conquest of the flesh. At the edges of her lowered eyes appeared two tears to hang glistening in the lashes. From her bosom rose a sigh, soft, suppressed but heart-breaking.The bright flame was leaping in his eyes. "You noble, splendid woman!" he cried, as his glance leaped from charm to charm—from delicate, regular features to sumptuous yet girlish figure. "What a jewel—in what a casket! You appeal to the best there is in me—only to the best. If I become a man again, it will be through you." And sincerity rang in his voice; for, the fire of high resolve to be a good man, to be worthy of this exalted womanhood, was burning in his blood. "Helen—will you help me? I've sinned—you never will know how dreadfully. But I love you."Her answer was a beautiful shaft of the love light from her now wonderful eyes."Helen—will you marry me?"From head to foot she trembled. All her color fled, leaving her face whiter than the milk-white skin of her voluptuous neck and shoulders. "I—love—you," she said simply."Then you will? Say you will, Helen. I cannot trust myself to go away without your strength to help me.""I will, Basil."There were tears in his eyes as in hers as he reverently kissed her hands. He had a sense of peace, of sin forgiven, of joyous return to the fold of honor and respectability. And her heart was overflowing with love, with gratitude to him and to God.
XXVIII
She was on the drive-front porch with Lizzie, making plausible pretense of rearranging the boxed evergreens. She heard the carriage turn in at the gates, though they were nearly a quarter of a mile from the house. As the horses rounded the bend she looked. But she waited on Lizzie, who was not slow to cry out with delighted surprise, "Why, there's Mr. Gallatin!"
Courtney said, "Do run in and see that the sitting room's straight." Thus, she was alone when he descended. She saw him through a mist and the hand she gave him was cold, was trembling. In the doorway, she said hastily in an undertone: "Helen and Winchie are at Wenona—Richard at the laboratory. You've stopped unexpectedly on your way south—for an hour or two."
"I understand," said he. "I can't trust myself to look at you. My love! My love!"
She flashed up at him a glance radiant with her florid fancies of anticipation. "Come into the house," she contrived to say in an ordinary tone.
As they went along the hall, side by side and talking for effect on possible listeners, she saw that he had dressed as carefully as a bridegroom. No more carefully than she had dressed, so far as she dared; still, it struck her as amusing—as suggestive of hollowness. And the voice which, as she heard it in fancy during those weeks of waiting, had been so moving, so magical—what a commonplace voice it was, and how very like affectation its Eastern intonations sounded. "That nasty remark of Richard's!" she thought. "How weak of me to let such a thing affect me." They entered the sitting room; he quickly closed the door, caught her hands, looked at her from head to foot. "Courtney!" he murmured. "I love you! I love you!"
She thrilled, lifted her eyes—dropped them. A chill stole over her. She had to resist an impulse to draw her hands away. He looked really handsome, was outwardly all her imagination had been picturing—and more. Yet— What was the matter? What was lacking? Why could she see only the weakness and coarseness—the qualities that had stood out the night he was drunk and the next afternoon when she was battling against his vanity and jealousy? "It's my nerves," she decided. "I'm under a greater strain than I realize." When he kissed her, she turned her head so that his lips touched her cheek. And immediately she released her hands. "We must be careful," she apologized.
"Why? You're free."
"Yes—but—" She paused.
"Why do you act so strange—so distant?"
"I don't know," she confessed. She felt ashamed of herself that she was visiting on him the consequences of her own folly in having let her imagination overleap all the bounds of probability in forecast. "I don't know," she repeated. "Nerves, I suppose. Or, perhaps it's a bad cold. I've felt one coming on all day. This morning I forgot to close the——"
"Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Yes—yes, indeed," she protested. "Let's sit down."
She took a chair near the table. He was thus compelled to the sofa, several feet away. "We ought to have met where we first arranged," said he, constrained, embarrassed.
"I have to be careful. You forget Winchie."
An uncomfortable silence, then he: "You've been free thirty-nine days. Yet you have not written me."
"I explained to you——"
"Didn't you feel like writing?"
"Of course. But——"
"But—what?"
"I wanted to be independent as well as free."
He looked at her gloomily. "Isthatwhat you call love?"
She forced a smile and nodded.
"Do you know what I've come for? For you."
She felt herself drawing together, shrinking away from him. "For me?" she echoed vaguely.
"To marry you."
She was not looking at him; but she was seeing his face as it was when swollen and distorted by drink. She answered hastily, "Oh, I couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
"I can't marry till—till I'm independent. I've been making a lot of plans. I'm going to work early next month."
"What nonsense!" he cried. "Courtney, do you realize you've not yet said a single word of love? What is the matter? Is it our meeting in this house?"
"Perhaps. I don't know. I don't understand it myself." Why was her mind so perverse? Why did it thrust at her the things it was unjust to remember, generous and necessary to forget? Why was she critical, aloof, instead of responsive and generously glad? She went on: "It may be the cold. My nose feels queer, and——"
"We must marry, right away," he insisted, frowning upon her lack of seriousness. "We've been separated too long already."
That seemed to her to explain. But it did not remove. She said, "Not until I'm independent."
"But that means years—years!"
"Oh, no," protested she. "Not the kind of independenceImean. I simply want to be sure I could earn my living if it were necessary."
"But it isn't necessary. And life is so short, dearest. And at most we'll have few enough years of happiness."
"I know," said she, surprised that these truths did not move her in the least, nor his looks, his tones, so charged with entreaty she such a short time ago would have found irresistible. "But I've thought it out, and I realize everything depends on my getting that feeling of independence. I'll not risk again what I've been through."
"You know very well, that couldn't happen. As for your working, why, dear, unless a woman's been bred to making a living, it's almost impossible for her."
"Nevertheless I must try."
"If you loved me, you'd not talk like this," cried he, bitterly.
Instead of protesting, she became thoughtful. "Do you really think so?" she asked. "I wonder if that's true."
"Certainly not," retreated he, alarmed. "We love each other. But your way of acting and talking has upset me. I ought not have come here. We should have met over at Tippecanoe."
"You don't seem to see my point of view, Basil."
"I do, but it's a mere notion. A very fine notion," he hastened to add, though he could not make his tone other than grudging, "but foolish."
"It was my dependence that put me in such a frightful position with Richard. And——"
"Courtney," he interrupted, between anger and appeal, "please don't repeat that comparison of what you were to him and what you and I are to each other. It—hurts me, and it's not fair."
"Would you promise to love me always just as you do now?"
"I certainly would. I shall."
She lowered her eyes. Her heart sank.
"Wouldn't you?" he asked.
"No," replied she. "How can I—or anyone—honestly say how he or she'll feel about a person they don't know through and through—a month ahead—let alone a year—ten years—twenty? You know that's true, Basil. You're not honest with yourself—or with me."
He was silent, was watching her with sullen, suspicious eyes.
"It seems to me," she went on, "that love—real love—ought to make you careful. If we were a boy and a girl, without experience or intelligence or anything but hazy, rosy emotions——"
"You and I never will agree about love," he interrupted, impatiently. "But that's a small matter. The only point is that we love each other. Love's like a rose, Courtney. Tear it apart to see what it's made of and you lose the rose and have only withered petals."
"Yes—one kind of love. But is it the kind to build one's life upon?"
"I'm not going to argue with you. Have your way, if you will. You'll soon get enough of work—of this fantastic idea of independence, as you call it. As if I'd not be too afraid of losing your love not to respect your rights and consider you always and in every way."
"But supposeIceased to loveyou—and were dependent on you——"
"I know. I know. Don't let's argue it. Go on with your plans. The sooner you begin, the sooner you'll see how foolish you are. You don't appreciate what work means—especially for a woman—the toil, the humiliations, the downright miseries—that cost youth and looks and health."
It still further depressed her to see how swiftly his words depressed her—how appalling was the lift and spread of the mountain she had been dreaming of removing with one shovel and one pair of feeble hands. "Instead of discouraging me," cried she with some anger in her reproach, "you ought to be encouraging me. I should think you'd be afraid to have a woman about who might be your wife for the sake of a living—might be making a hypocrite of herself and a fool of you."
He winced; she saw he was thinking of Richard. "That could never happen withus!" cried he.
"Never is a long time."
He was squirming in irritation and impatience—and was obviously afraid she would suspect the thoughts he yet could not conceal. "Please don't insist on discussing this, Courtney. Go ahead. Try your scheme. Work! I never heard of a woman at work who wouldn't do almost anything to escape."
She forced a laugh. "Then if I fail and send for you, you'll know what it means—and fly in the other direction."
"Not I," replied he with an overenergy that failed in its purpose of hiding the discomfort her suggestion had caused him. "I tell you, we love each other. That makes everything different." He laughed. "Work! Thank God, you and I don't have to work. We can love."
She sat with eyes down and fingers idly matching the corners of her little handkerchief. What a difference between work as a dream and work in the doing!—between imagining the glories of self-respecting independence and making the coarse, cruel struggle step by step up to those glories—between work as a pastime and work as a necessity. How unpractical she had been! She sighed. "I wish," said she, "I'd never realized that to be secure a woman must be independent. But—now that I've realized it, I've got to go on."
He put on an expression of pretended deep and respectful interest that made it hard for her to hide her amusement. "What are your plans?" he asked.
"I'll tell you sometime. I don't feel in the humor now."
"Something vague—eh?" And she saw that he assumed she was only pretending, after all. A superior man-to-woman smile had replaced his look of nervousness.
She waited until he had got himself comfortably settled down into this agreeable assumption, then said tranquilly, "No. I have the place promised me."
He rose impatiently. If she had needed proof as to his real opinion of women—his conviction of their inferiority, his expression would have given it. Yes, his opinion was the same as Richard's—always had been, as she could now see, recalling remarks he had made from time to time. The same prejudices as Richard; only, Basil had been less courageous—less honest. Those prejudices irritated her in Richard; in Basil they seemed laughable. But he was getting his impatience and scorn, his exasperation against her poor womanish folly somewhat under control. "Now, Courtney, can't you realize—" he began in a teacher-to-infant tone. Then, a new thought struck him. He broke off abruptly. "No—go ahead. It's just as well you should have the lesson," said he.
"Should learn how dependent I am on—some man?"
"How unfitted you are to be anything but a lady."
"I know that already," replied she forlornly. "Or, rather, I'm not fitted to be either dependent or independent."
"Then why not be sensible, and marry me at once?"
She did not answer. She could not tell him the truth; she would not tell him a lie. Anyhow, she wasn't sure what she did think.
"You will—won't you, dear? You'll not waste time that we might give to love and happiness?" And he anxiously watched her face—with its sweet feminineness that gave him hope, its mystery and its resoluteness that made him uneasy.
"It's a temptation," she said, absently. She saw herself trying for independence and failing—losing heart, self-respect—growing cynical through hardship—marrying Basil to escape— Just there, she suddenly surprised her elusive real self, saw deep into the inmost workings of her own mind—saw that she did not care for Basil Gallatin—that she had really been pretending to herself that she loved him because he was the alternative, the refuge, should her try for independence fail!
"I'll tell you what let's do," she heard him saying. "Let's get married. Then you can take that place, whatever it is. With your future secure no matter what happened, you'd work better and would be much more likely to succeed."
The appeal of this subtle proposal awakened her to her peril. It must be now or never; she must speak the truth now, or lose the courage and the strength to speak it. "Basil," she said abruptly, "I don't love you."
He stared.
"I've been lying to myself and to you. I don't love you."
"That's not true!"
"I never did love you," she replied—for, with the one truth out, the other forged to the front and made its amazing self visible. "No—I never did love you." How plain it all was, now! How strange that she should for even an infatuated moment have believed this was the man she needed, the man who needed her—not words alone, and kisses and thrills, but real need—for mind and heart and body—all that the three have to give and long to give and to receive.
He stood before her, looking down in graciously smiling remonstrance. "That's a little too much," he said tenderly. "You can't have forgotten all we've been to each other—those hours of happiness—those moments of ecstasy—my love—my Courtney——"
There was color in her cheeks, an answering tenderness in the eyes that lifted to his. "No, I've not forgotten. And as I had to learn and as there's no other way for woman or man to learn but experience, I don't regret. But we were both in love with love—not with each other. And what's more, we never could be." Now that she had flung away pretense, its veil of illusion over her sight dropped; she was seeing him as she looked at him—not his qualities that repelled, not his qualities that attracted, but the whole man—was seeing him as we see only those toward whom are amiably indifferent. She was thinking, "What a nice, well-bred man he is, but how small." Not bad, not grossly sensual, not mean—not at all mean, but the reverse. Just small.
He began to recover from the stupefaction of the convincing tones of her denial of love. He was hastily donning the costume of pose that is correct for such occasions. She beamed genially upon him and said, "Now, don't work yourself up, my dear Basil. Sit down over there, and let's talk quite quietly—and naturally."
It is impossible for anyone with any sense of humor whatever to indulge alone in paroxysms of emotion before a tranquil spectator. Basil stopped rolling his eyes and dilating his nostrils, and seated himself, in no very good humor. Her tone was not pleasant. It would have been perfectly proper for a man to use to a woman. It was impertinent, in weaker sex to stronger. "Oh, I'm all right," said he, crossly, as he seated himself. "But you'd better look out about those ideas of yours. They have a terribly unfeminizing effect on women."
"Yes—I guess they do," replied she. A puzzling, alluring combination of seriousness and humor she looked as she sat there opposite him, her elbows on the arms of the chair, her chin resting upon the backs of her linked fingers, her eyes fixed gravely yet somehow quizzically upon him. "Have you ever thought of our life together?" asked she. "Of what we'd do—between times?"
"Between times?"
"No one—not even the most ardent lovers—can make love all the time. There haven't been any 'between times' in our life heretofore, because of the circumstances. But when we were together without interruption—with no excitement or interest of danger—with no stimulus—with just ourselves—what would we do 'between times'?—and there'd be more and more 'between times' as we got used to each other."
This uninviting but obviously truthful picture sobered and exasperated him. "Haven't thought about it," he confessed. "I haven't gone into details. But I know we'll be happy. You'll step into the position you are entitled to and I can see that you get."
"The social position, you mean?"
"Certainly. And we'll enjoy ourselves."
He could not possibly have said anything that would have shown more clearly the width and depth of the gap between them—how little he understood her, how little they had in common.
"You'll be tremendously popular," he said with enthusiasm.
She shook her head slowly. "I don't thinkIcould be happy, wasting my life, scattering myself among a lot of inane pastimes." She laughed a little. "You'd be horribly disappointed in me, Basil."
"I'll risk it. They'll be crazy about you in the East." He nodded proud, confident, self-complacent encouragement. "I'll risk it!"
She met his look with a quiet final "But I'll not." In another mood his proposal, his manner, his very poor sort of pride in her would have amused her. But as she listened, she remembered all she had believed about this man, all her idealizing of his mind and character. And she grew sad and sick. This small man!
He planted himself firmly before her. "Now, look here, Courtney. It's useless for you to talk that sort of thing. You don't mean it. And I'm not going to give you up. You're my wife, Courtney. The only possible excuse for what you did was that you loved me."
"On the contrary," replied she, "my only excuse is that I was swept away by my craving for love—for what Richard in our brief honeymoon had taught me to need——"
"For God's sake!" he cried. "Howcanyou say such things?"
"Because they are the truth," she answered with quiet dignity; and he felt ashamed of himself without knowing why. "Basil, you don't love me as I really am. You find me shocking. And I don't love you as you really are. I find you—" She hesitated.
"Go on. Say it."
But what would be the use? The truth, all of it, any literal part of it would only hurt him, would not awaken him. By birth and by breeding and by the impassable limitations of his mind he was incapable of learning or appreciating the truth, was wedded forever to the morality that makes truth a vice and lies a virtue. So, she evaded. "I find you are like your dress," answered she, her eyes and her light tone taking the sharp sting off her words. "A charming style of your own but strictly conventional withal."
He did not fully appreciate this faint hint of the truth, but he understood enough to be irritated. "You've been doing too much of what you women call thinking. And you've become like all women who try to think."
"All women think," said she. "But very few of them tell the man what they think—until they've got him safely married. You ought to thank me for being candid in advance."
He scowled at her smile. "I'm not going to give you up," he said sullenly. "I know you better than you know yourself. You'll come out of this mood. And—dearest—remember that, in spite of your disdain, the old-fashioned woman—tender, simple, loving—is far sweeter than these thinkers—gets more pleasure—gives more."
"A baby's sweeter than a grown person," replied she, refusing to be serious. "But, Basil, the time has about passed when even a woman can stay on a baby—though most of the men and women pretend it isn't so, and a good many of them—like you and Helen—get angry if the truth's forced on you. At any rate,Ican't be a baby anymore.... Do you know what would happen if I married you?"
The look that accompanied her abrupt question was so penetrating, so significant that he paled. "I don't want to hear any more of your truths that aren't true at all," he cried.
"I see you know what would happen. The same thing again."
"Courtney!—Good God!"
"The same thing again. As long as my craving for real companionship was unsatisfied, I couldn't be content. The same delusion that made me fancy I loved you would trap me again—or, perhaps it wouldn't be delusion but really the man I needed—the man who needed me. A mirage isn't a delusion, you know. It's an actuality that we mislocate. I'd hunt on—and on—through the desert for my oasis—until I found it."
He had not taken his fascinated gaze from her dreamy face, her eyes of unfathomable emerald. "Do you mean that?" he said huskily. "No—you can't. But you must not say those things, Courtney—you really mustn't. You'll make me afraid of you. As it is, I fear I'll have a hard time making myself forget."
"I don't want you to forget. And I've told you the exact truth because I want you to realize how unsuited we are to each other."
He walked up and down in violent agitation. "I don't understand it," he muttered. "Has some one—Courtney, do you love some other man?"
"I do not. I've seen no one practically but Richard."
He halted with a jerk. "Richard!" His eyes narrowed with jealous suspicion. "Has he been trying to win you back?"
She smiled at the idea, so at variance with the facts. "He treats me like another man."
"Then you see him?"
"Every day. I work at the laboratory with him."
"What!" Basil stared, dropped to the nearest chair dumfounded.
"Why not? ... Don't be so pitifully conventional, Basil. This is the twentieth century, not the Dark Ages. He knows you're here now—asked me to see you here rather than where it might cause gossip."
As he recovered, his mind, seen clearly in his features, slowly took fire. "And you pretended you were telling me the truth!" he cried, starting up. Everything else—doubt of her—doubt of himself—all was forgotten in the torrent rush of jealousy. "And I, poor fool, believed you! But I'll tell you what the truth is. You've lost your nerve. You love me as you did. But you haven't the courage to break off here. And you're sinking back to what you were when I found you. I might have known! A woman always belongs to the nearest man." He was raging up and down the room. "I've come for you. I'll not go without you. You're mine—not his. I'll show you! I'll show you!" And he snatched his hat from the sofa and rushed out.
For the moment motion was beyond her power. She saw him dart along the veranda, past the windows, take the path to the Smoke House. Terror galvanized her. She flew to the private telephone, rang long and vigorously, put the receiver to her ear. A pause; she was about to ring again when Richard's voice came: "Yes—what is it?"
"He's coming to you, Richard," she gasped. "I angered him. He's wild with rage. Promise you won't let him in."
"I can't do that." Richard's voice was calm and natural.
"Your promise to me!"
"Don't be alarmed. He doesn't amount to much, if you'll pardon my saying so."
"I'm coming as quickly as I can. Don't see him, Richard. Remember Winchie!"
"Come if you like. But I suspect you'll only aggravate him. Believe me, I can take care of him. Here he is now——"
She dropped the receiver, ran out of the house and along the path.
XXIX
As Vaughan hung up the receiver and turned, Gallatin flung open the door on which he had just rapped a loud challenge. He scowled at Vaughan; Vaughan eyed him with the expression that simply looks and waits. It was evident Basil expected immediate combat, was ready for it—therefore altogether unready for the form of encounter less easy. Dick's tranquillity completely disconcerted him. He advanced a step, with an aggressive, "Well, here I am."
"So I see," replied Dick.
"You've been thinking it was cowardice that made me go away. But it wasn't. And I've come to face it out with you. You had your chance for her. You lost her. I purpose to keep her."
"Very well," said Dick. "She's free. Her affairs are none of my business." And he sat down at the long table under the windows, glanced at the electric furnace as if about to resume work.
"But she isn't free!" cried Gallatin. "You've not freed her, though she has the right to it. You're holding on to her through the boy."
Dick bent over the white crystals in the platinum tray on the shelf of the furnace.
Gallatin, exasperated, waved his fists. "I demand that you free her! If she were free, she'd come with me, for she loves me."
Dick took a metal rod from the case and began pushing the crystals this way and that carefully.
"She loves me, I tell you!"
Without pausing or looking round Dick said: "If you say that again—I'll begin to believe it isn't so. There's no accounting for tastes—especially for tastes feminine. But—" He did not finish; over his face drifted a slight smile more eloquent against Basil's deficiencies than the fiercest stream of epithet.
"I've won her," taunted Gallatin, in wild fury, yet as if restrained by an invisible leash. "I've got her heart. You might as well release the rest." As Dick seemed now quite absorbed and unconscious of his presence, he advanced still nearer. "By God, you shall!" he cried. "She belongs to me, and I'm here to maintain my rights at any cost."
Vaughan laid down the long rod with a gesture of deliberate precision and care, turned slowly toward him. His long handsome face was of a curious transparent pallor. His rather deep-set gray-blue eyes looked coldly and cruelly at his one-time guest and partner. "You evidently don't understand," said he. "There are times when one must either ignore—or kill."
Basil sneered, "Well?" said he, with intent to draw on.
"I have been choosing to ignore. At first it would have given me the greatest pleasure to kill you. Now—you are to me much like the cur that barks and snaps at passers by." He rose. "You've come here to try to make a vulgar scandal. You'll not succeed. You have nothing to lose. I can't give you your deserts without hurting my son. So—" Dick paused, seemed to be reflecting.
"You hide behind him—do you?" sneered Basil. In his frenzy he felt that one or the other must die then and there or he himself would be forever dishonored.
Dick apparently had not heard. In an abstracted way he said, to himself, not to Gallatin, "Yes, I think that will do." Again there was a pause, he thinking, Gallatin held silent and expectant by his expression. Suddenly Dick said sharply, "Yes—that will do." He moved the ladder to the south wall, mounted; he took from the high top shelf a jar of heavy glass, about one third full of dark red powder; he descended with it. "Close that door and lock it," he ordered.
Basil, from habit of association with him as assistant, moved to obey. Hand on knob and about to swing the door, he hesitated, turned. "What are you going to do?" he demanded.
"When you lock that door," replied Dick, "I shall empty what's in this jar into the bowl of water there, and in a few seconds we shall both be dead."
Basil shrank; a shudder ran visibly over his frame.
"I could kill you without killing myself," continued Dick, "and cover the scandal with the pretense of accident. It would serve you right, but—somehow it strikes me as cowardly. So—lock the door."
Basil was no coward; but he had grown yellow with fear. His hand now dropped nervously from the knob.
"Lock the door," said Dick sharply. "There's no time to lose. I think she's on the way here."
"She'll understand—and kill herself."
"Why not? Helen will take care of Winchie."
Basil's gaze wandered round, in search of another excuse. He braced himself, cried defiantly, "I refuse!"
"Very well." Dick set the jar on the table. "Then go."
"You think I'm a coward. But it's not that."
Dick shrugged his shoulders. "I know you're a coward. Everyone is. I'm as well pleased that you don't accept. I've no wish to die, particularly for such an absurd, stagy notion of honor. But I will not have a scandal——"
Just there Courtney dashed in, her expression so disheveled that it gave her the air of being disheveled in dress. Her glance darted from Richard leaning calmly against the table and, in blouse and cap, looking like a handsome workingman, to Basil in his fashionable English tweeds, standing shamefaced and irresolute near the door—so near that she had brushed him as she entered. On Basil her gaze rested like a withering blight. Her eyes flashed green fire; her every feature hurled at him the scorn that despises. "You shabby coward!" she said, her voice low and threatening to break under the weight of its burden of fury. "You who come here and try to ruin my child and me for your vanity!"
"Courtney!" he pleaded, not daring to lift his eyes. "I love you. I cannot give you up."
"Love! You don't know what it means! You weak vain thing! You found you couldn't have me on equal terms. So you thought you'd degrade me—compel me." She turned on Richard. "And you, too!" she blazed. "If you were a man you'd kill him—you'd kill us both—with some of your chemicals there—and protect Winchie by saying it was an accident."
"Absurd," said Vaughan with an indifferent shrug. His arms were folded upon his broad chest.
Trembling and blazing, she went up to him. "Look at me!" she cried, her hands on her surging bosom, her eyes glittering insanely up at him. Every instinct of prudence, the instinct of self-preservation itself had succumbed under the surge of elemental passion, of frenzied shame that she should have lowered herself to such a man as this Basil Gallatin. "This body of mine," she said in a voice of terrible calm, "it's been his—that thing's—do you hear? He has had me in his arms—me—your wife—the mother of your boy—he—that creature quaking there. And I have kissed him and caressed him and trembled with passion for him as I never did for you.... Now, will you kill us?"
He did not move. But slowly the veins and muscles of his face tightened, pushed up against, strained against the ghastly whiteness of his skin. And slowly his eyes lighted with the fires of a demoniac fury that made hers seem like a child's weak hysteria. She gazed at him, fascinated. Then, with a gasp, she braced herself and waited for the frightful death that look of his signaled. But she did not flinch, nor shift her gaze from his. To Gallatin, paralyzed, watching them with eyes starting and lips ajar, it seemed an eternity while they stood thus facing each other in silence. Then, as slowly as that expression on Richard's face had come it departed, like a fiend fighting inch by inch against being flung back into the hell from which it had issued at the call of her dreadful taunts. The face remained deathly white; but those were Richard Vaughan's own eyes that gazed down at the small, delicate face of the woman, in them a look that filled her with awe, made her ashamed, gave her the impulse to sink down at his feet and burst into tears.
"No, Courtney," Richard said, infinite gentleness in his tone. "I'm neither god nor devil. I—all three of us—will do to-day what to-morrow we'll be glad we did. One can always die. But living again, once one's dead—that's not so simple."
There fell silence. She stood before him, bosom still heaving but eyes down. Vaughan turned to Gallatin with a courtly politeness like his grandfather's. "Don't you think you'd better go—for the present at least?"
Gallatin, who had been awed also, hesitated. He looked at Courtney; his jaws clenched and he fixed sullen, devouring eyes on her. "I want to talk to her alone," said he aggressively.
"That's for her to decide," said Richard.
Courtney lifted her head to refuse. Then it occurred to her that, by talking with Basil, she might settle the whole business for good and all. With a curious deference she looked inquiringly at Richard. He shrugged his shoulders, began pushing the tray into the furnace. She let her eyes rest on Basil, said "Yes—that's best. Come on." She went out of the laboratory, Basil following her. Richard closed the door behind them. At the edge of the clearing she halted, wheeled upon him. "Well!" she began, her voice as merciless as her eyes.
He was a pitiful spectacle. His feature were working in a ferment of many unattractive emotions—jealousy, pique, fear that he was ridiculous, wounded vanity, desire to regain with her the ground he felt he must have lost. "You see now, Courtney," he said, aggressive yet pleading, too, "he doesn't care a rap about you."
"Well?" she repeated. Her tone was much softer; her nerves were calming, and her temper was yielding to her sense of proportions. Also, the man looked weak and shallow and ridiculous—not worth the while of a great emotion. Just small. "What of it?" she asked.
He scowled in angry embarrassment at her expression which neither suggested nor encouraged tragedy. "I never heard of people acting as we've acted to-day!" he cried.
"But no doubt they often do," replied she. "Everybody doesn't act—all the time—as if he were in a novel or a play, or thought he was."
"You can respect him after this?"
Her eyes had the expression a man least likes to see in a woman's when she is looking at him. "Don't you?" said she.
He reddened, and his eyes shifted. Presently he said humbly, "I—I am sorry for what I did. I was crazy with jealousy. I'm not myself—not at all."
She felt the truth of this at once. "And I'm sorry for the things I said to you and to him. I was crazy with rage."
He lifted his head eagerly. "I knew you didn't mean them, dear."
Her brow darkened. It was annoying that the man couldn't realize; for such as she now knew him to be to aspire to her seemed impertinence. "Basil," she said, "it's all over between us. Don't let your vanity deceive you. And don't force me to tell you what I think of you. Be content with knowing what I don't think."
"Be careful!" he cried angrily. "I'm not the man to stand and beg—even for you."
"That's good," said she pleasantly. "Then—we can part here and now." She glanced up at the windows of the apartment. "You've got your traps up there still. Hadn't you better let me send Jimmie to help you pack them?"
"Thank you," replied he, haughtily. "I'll be obliged if you will."
She put out her hand. "Good-by, Basil."
He clinched his fists in vanity's boyish anger. "You can think of that apartment, and have no feeling?" he exclaimed.
"None," declared she.
"I'll not believe it. You couldn't be so unwomanly."
Her look forecast a sarcasm. But before she spoke it changed to one that was soft and considerate. She felt that she was responsible. True he had posed as something far superior to his reality; but it was an honest fraud, deceiving himself first and most of all. She felt to blame for having been taken in—felt repentant and apologetic toward him. "Let's not quarrel," she urged. "Don't be harsh with me. I know you'll find love and make some woman very, very happy—one that is sympathetic and comes up to your ideals of womanhood." She put out her hand again, and friendly and winning was the smile round her wide mouth, in the eyes under the long, slender brows. "Please, Basil." He hesitated. "Don't be harsh. You know you don't love me any more than I love you. What's the use of pretenses? Why not part sincerely? ... Please, Basil."
His hand just touched hers and his angry eyes avoided her pleading glance. "If you'll send Jimmie," he said. And with a stiff bow he moved in great dignity along the path to the apartment entrance. He went even more slowly than dignity required, for he confidently expected she would come to her senses when she saw he had indeed reached the limit of endurance of her trifling. Richard had shown he wouldn't take her back—cared nothing for her. Where then could she turn but to him? And all that vaporing about independence was—just vaporing. A woman was a woman, and he knew women. So, he walked slowly to give her a good chance. But no call came—not though he lingered over opening the door and made a long pause elaborately to wipe his clean boots on the mat. He did not look until he could do so from the security of the sitting-room windows. She was not in sight. Had she followed him softly? He went into the hall, glanced down the stairs. Not there! She had gone! ... She meant what she said; she had cast him off. There was no room for doubt—she had cast him off.... He heard a step, rushed to the door. It was Jimmie, come bringing his overcoat and gloves, and prepared to do the packing. She had really cast him off.
"God!" he muttered. "What a contemptible position that puts me in!" And, for the moment at least, he hated her. If he could only revenge himself—in some perfectly gentlemanly way, of course. Once that day vanity had lured him clean over the line into most ungentlemanly conduct; his face burned from the sting of her remembered denunciations—the sting of truth in them. If he could devise a gentlemanly way—something that would convince her he had made all that agitation simply because he felt that, as a gentleman, he in the circumstances must go to any lengths to keep faith with her. Yes, that would be a handsome revenge—and would save his face, too.
He gave Jimmie the necessary directions and resumed his brooding. He searched his brain in vain. He could contrive no way of escape; he would have to leave that place like a whipped dog—yes, a whipped dog. Spurned by Vaughan—spurned by Courtney——
A step, and the rustle of a skirt. His eyes gleamed. "I thought not!" he muttered exultantly. "Well, I'll teach her a lesson she'll never forget."
He turned his back to the door, stood at the window, looking out and puffing nonchalantly at his cigarette. The step, the rustle were on the threshold. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Gallatin——"
He wheeled to face Helen. His confusion was equal to hers. "Ah—Miss Helen—I—I—" he stammered.
"Am I intruding?" she asked. There was a charming blush in her sweet, beautiful face, and her honest dark eyes showed how perturbed she was.
"No indeed—no indeed," he protested.
"Courtney sent me——"
"Courtney sent you!" he exclaimed in amazement.
"She told me all about it," Helen hastened on. "She asked me to let you know that she had told me—how you and Richard have had a bitter falling out over the work—and that you're going away, not to come back."
One look into those eyes was convincing; Helen believed what she was saying.
"She thought perhaps I might be able to help you about the packing. Can I?"
"No, but I'd be glad if you'd stop while Jimmie is doing it. I don't want to leave without saying good-by to you."
All the roses fled from Helen's cheeks. "Yes—certainly," she murmured.
"You'll excuse my being somewhat confused? The truth is I'm very much upset."
"I can't tell you how dreadfully I feel," said Helen. "Are you sure you and Richard—" She paused. Her glance stirred him like an angel face in a drunkard's dream—her face earnest, grieved, sympathetic, unable to credit anything so dreadful, so wicked as a parting in hate.
"Quite sure. It's—final. Please, let's not talk about it. It's all so—so revolting."
In presence of those clear, noble eyes of hers, the sordidness of his "romance" now once more began to stand out. What a mess! No wonder he had taken to drink. If it had been Helen and the kind of love she inspired— "But you and I will always be friends—won't we?" he said to her.
Her eyelids dropped and he saw her bosom fluttering. "I hope so," she said so low he scarcely heard. She was pale now, and drooping. "Though I'm afraid—when you get away off there, you'll forget me very soon."
His heart smote him as he looked at that tall, voluptuous figure, at that lovely face, so regular, so pure. Here was a woman, a real woman, and she would have loved him—perhaps did love him. "I know I'm unworthy of a thought from you who are so good and pure," he said. "But your kindness to me has helped me. And God knows, I shall need help." Oh, that it had been his lot to anchor to this strong, white soul! How much nobler than the finest passion was a love centering about the sweet, old-fashioned ideals. What a haven those arms, that bosom would be! He felt dissolute and sin-scarred as only a vain young man can feel those dread but delightful depravities.
"You must not despair, Basil," came in Helen's soft voice, like oil upon his wounds. And it touched him to see how, maidenly shy though she was, she yet could not resist the appeal of this opportunity to try to do good. She went on, "It's always darkest before dawn, and the more rain falls the less there is to fall."
These words seemed like heavenly wisdom delivered by a messenger of light. He sighed.
"You'll come out all right—and will escape from that—that—whatever it is—" Helen's cheeks modestly colored—"and be happy with somegoodwoman who is worthy of you."
She looked so sad, so beautiful that before he knew it he, ever sympathetic with women, had said, "Some woman like you, Helen."
She turned away. He saw that her emotions were making her tremble. How she loved him! What a prize such a love would be—and how chagrined Courtney would feel—Courtney the vampire woman who had tried to destroy him, and thought she had succeeded—and was gloating over his misery. "If we'd had the chance, Helen, how happy we could have made each other! But I mustn't talk of that."
"Why not?" said she, with bold shyness. "I know that for some reason we can never be anything more to each other. But it's been a happiness—" earnestly, with tears in her eyes of the Homeric Juno and in her voice young and honest and sympathetic—"a real happiness to feel that the best of you—the part that's really you—found something to like in me."
He thrilled. Here was a woman! And a woman who appreciated him. He wondered how he could have lingered under a malign spell when such beauty of soul—and body, too—was his for the asking. "Helen!" he cried. And all his wounded heart's longing and all his wounded vanity's suffering gave energy to his cry. He took her hand; he put his arm round her. Her cheek touched his. How cool yet warm she was! How lovely and sweet! And the unsullied, untouched down! How fresh! Except her male relatives, no doubt no man but himself had ever kissed her— "Helen—Helen! God forgive me, but I can't refuse this moment of pure happiness."
She gently drew away. "Oh, Basil," she sobbed. "And I had said no man should ever kiss me until— But you—it seems different. You are so noble—so pure minded." Her eyes gazed into his with a trustful adoration that thrilled him.
"Helen—do you love me?" he cried.
Her honest eyes opened wider. "Would I have let you touch me if I didn't?"
"Yes—I know that!" he exclaimed. "How pure you are! It's like heaven after hell."
She gazed on into his eyes. A faint flush overspread her pale cheeks. She kissed him. "I love you, Basil," she said, gravely. Then all at once the color surged wave on wave over her brow, her cheeks, her neck. She hung her head, slowly drew away from his detaining vibrating arms. There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to burn of itself. Helen had by the guidance of feminine instinct hit upon exactly the right instant for drawing back. She released herself, avoided his touch just when passion having captured his imagination swept on to the conquest of the flesh. At the edges of her lowered eyes appeared two tears to hang glistening in the lashes. From her bosom rose a sigh, soft, suppressed but heart-breaking.
The bright flame was leaping in his eyes. "You noble, splendid woman!" he cried, as his glance leaped from charm to charm—from delicate, regular features to sumptuous yet girlish figure. "What a jewel—in what a casket! You appeal to the best there is in me—only to the best. If I become a man again, it will be through you." And sincerity rang in his voice; for, the fire of high resolve to be a good man, to be worthy of this exalted womanhood, was burning in his blood. "Helen—will you help me? I've sinned—you never will know how dreadfully. But I love you."
Her answer was a beautiful shaft of the love light from her now wonderful eyes.
"Helen—will you marry me?"
From head to foot she trembled. All her color fled, leaving her face whiter than the milk-white skin of her voluptuous neck and shoulders. "I—love—you," she said simply.
"Then you will? Say you will, Helen. I cannot trust myself to go away without your strength to help me."
"I will, Basil."
There were tears in his eyes as in hers as he reverently kissed her hands. He had a sense of peace, of sin forgiven, of joyous return to the fold of honor and respectability. And her heart was overflowing with love, with gratitude to him and to God.