Edith was standing in the doorway, the man behind her. "Chip, Mr. Lacon knows we met in England."Edith was standing in the doorway, the man behind her. "Chip, Mr. Lacon knows we met in England."
"I never said so," she interrupted, hurriedly.
Lacon smiled, as nearly as his saddened face could smile. "I didn't say you said so," he corrected, gently. "I said I understood. There's a difference. And, since I do understand, I feel it right to offer you—to offer you both—"
Exhaustion compelled her to drop into a seat. "What are you going to say?"
"Nothing that can hurt you, I hope—or—or Mr. Walker, either. Suppose we all sit down?"
He followed his own suggestion with a dignity almost serene. Chip took mechanically the seat from which he had just risen. It offered him the resource of looking more directly at the range of glistening peaks than at either of his two companions.
"The point for our consideration is this," Lacon resumed, as calmly as if he were taking part in a meeting at the Bundespalast. "Admitting that you've both made a mistake, is there any possibility of retracing your steps?—or must you go on paying the penalty?"
Chip spoke without turning his eyes from the mountains: "What do you mean by—the penalty?"
"I suppose I mean the necessity of making four people unhappy instead of two."
"That is," Chip went on, "there are two who must be unhappy in any case."
"Precisely. There are two for whom there'snoescape. Whatever happens now, nothing can savethem. But, since that is so, the question arises whether it wouldn't be, let us say, a greater economy of human material if the other two—"
Edith looked mystified. "I don't know what you mean. Which are the two who must be unhappy in any case?"
Chip answered quietly, without turning his head: "He's one; my—my wife is the other."
"Oh!" With something between a sigh and a gasp she fell back against a pillar of the rotunda.
"It's the sort of economy of human material," Chip went on, his eye following the lines of the Wetterhorn up and down, "that a man achieves in saving himself from a sinking ship and leaving his wife and children to drown—assuming that he can't rescue them."
"The comparison isn't quite exact," Lacon replied, courteously. "Wouldn't it rather bethat if a man can save only one of two women, he nevertheless does what he can?"
Edith still looked bewildered. "I don't know what you're talking about, either of you. What is it? Why are we here? Am I one of the two women to be saved?"
"The suggestion is," Chip said, dryly, "that Mr. Lacon wouldn't oppose your divorcing him, while my—my present wife might divorce me; after which you and I could marry again. Isn't that it, sir?"
The older man nodded assent. "It's well to use plain English when we can."
Chip continued to measure the Wetterhorn with his eye. "Rather comic the whole thing would be, wouldn't it?"
"Possibly," Lacon replied, imperturbably. "But we've accepted the comic in the institution of marriage, we Americans. It's too late for us to attempt to take it without its possibilities of opera bouffe."
"But aren't there laws?" Edith asked.
Again Lacon's lips glimmered with the ghost of a smile. "Yes; but they're very complacent laws. They reduce marriage to the legal permission for two persons to live together as manand wife as long as mutually agreeable; but the license is easily rescinded—and renewed."
"But surely marriage is more than that," she protested.
Lacon's ghost of a smile persisted. "Haven't we proved that it isn't?—for us, at any rate. Hesitation to use our freedom in the future would only stultify our action in the past. If we go in for an institution with qualities of opera bouffe isn't it well to do it light-heartedly?—or as light-heartedly as we can."
Edith looked at him reproachfully. "Should you be doing it light-heartedly?"
"I said as light-heartedly as we can."
"What makes you think that Chip and I—I mean," she corrected, with some confusion, "Mr. Walker and I—want to do it at all?"
"Isn't that rather evident?"
"I didn't know it was."
Chip glanced at them over his shoulder. It seemed to him that Lacon's look was one of pity.
"You met in England," the latter said, displaying a hesitation unusual in him, "with something—something more than pleasure, as I judge; and—and Mr. Walker is here."
"Yes, by accident," she declared, hurriedly. "It was by accident in England, too."
He lifted his fine white hand in protest. "Oh, I'm not blaming you. On the contrary, nothing could be more natural than that you should both feel as I—I imagine you do. You're the wife of his youth—he's the husband of yours. The best things you've ever had in your two lives are those you've had in common. That you should want to bridge over the past, and, if possible, go back—"
"We've burned our bridges," she interrupted, quickly.
"Even burned bridges can be rebuilt if there's the will to do it. The whole question turns on the will. If you have that I want you to understand that I shall not be—be an obstacle to the—to the reconstruction."
"Don't youcare?"
"That's not the question. We've already assumed the fact that my caring—as well as that of a certain other person whom Mr. Walker would have to consider—is secondary. It's too late to do anything for us—assuming that she understands, or may come to understand, the position as I do. Your refusing happiness foryourselves in order to stand by us, or even to stand by the children—the younger children, I mean—wouldn't do us any good. On the contrary, as far as I'm concerned, if there could be any such thing as mitigation—"
He broke off. Seeing the immobile features swept as by convulsion, Chip took up the sentence: "It would be that Edith should feel free."
"Precisely."
"And her not feeling free would involve the continuance of—the penalty."
"In its extreme form." He regained control of himself. "That the penalty should be abrogated altogether is out of the question. Some of us must go on paying it—all four of us, indeed, to some degree. And yet, any relief for one would be some relief for all. Do you see what I mean?"
The question was addressed to Edith specially.
"I'm not sure that I do," she replied, looking at him wistfully. "Is it this?—that, assuming what you do assume, it would be easier for you if I—I went away?"
"I shouldn't put it in just those words, Ionly mean that what's hardest for you is hardest for me. I couldn't hold you to the letter of one contract if you were keeping the spirit of another. Do you see now?"
She didn't answer at once, so that Chip intervened: "Hasn't some one said—Shakespeare or some one—that the letter killeth? It seems to me I've heard that."
"You probably have. Some one has said it. But He also added, as a balancing clause, 'The Spirit giveth life.' That's the vital part of it. To find out where the spirit is in our present situation is the question now."
She looked at him tearfully. "Well,whereis it?"
He rose quietly. "That's for you and Mr. Walker to discover for yourselves. I've gone as far as I dare."
"You're not going away?" she asked, hastily.
He smiled at them both. For the first time in Chip's acquaintance with him it was a positive smile. "I think you'll most easily find your way alone."
"Oh no. Wait!" she begged; but he had already lifted his hat in his stately way and begun to walk back toward the hotel.
Then came the bliss of being alone together. In spite of everything, they felt that. Edith leaned across the rude table, her hands clasped upon it. She spoke rapidly, as if to make full use of the time.
"Oh, Chip, what are we to do?"
He too leaned across the table, his arms folded upon it, the extinct cigar still between his fingers. He gazed deep into her eyes. "It's a chance. It will never come again. Shall we take it?—or let it go?"
"Could you take it, if I did?"
"Could you—if I did?"
She tried to reflect. "It's the spirit," she said, haltingly, after a minute. "Oughtn't we to get at that?—just as he said. We've had so much of—of the letter."
"Ah, but whatisthe spirit? Howdoyou get at it? That's the point."
She tried to reflect further—further and harder and faster. "Wouldn't it be—what wefeel?"
"What we feel is that—that we love each other, isn't it?—that we love each other as much as we did years ago—more!—more! Isn't that it?"
She nodded. "Yes, more—oh, much more! And yet—"
"Yes?" he said, eagerly. "Yes? And what, then?"
"And yet—oh, Chip, I feel something else!" She leaned still further toward him, as if to annihilate the slight distance between them. "Don't you?"
"Something else—how?"
"Something else—higher—as if our loving each other wasn't the thing of most importance. I thought it was. All these years—I mean latterly—I've thought it was. When we met in England I was sure it was. Since I've been back with him I've felt that I would have died gladly just to have one more day with you, like those at Maidenhead and Tunbridge Wells. But now—oh, Chip, I don't knowwhatto say!"
"Is it because he's been so generous?"
She shook her head. "Not altogether. No; I don't think it's that at all. He's more than generous; he's tender. You can't think how tender he is—and always has been—with me and with the children. That's why I married him—why I thought I could find a sort of rest with him. You see that, don't you?—withoutjudging me too harshly. He's that kind. I'm used to it with him. He can't help being generous. I knew he would be when I told him we'd met in England. I told him because I couldn't do anything else. It was a way of talking about you—even if it was only that way. But, oh, Chip, if I left him now and went back to you—"
"Yes, darling? What?" He spoke huskily, covering both her hands with one of his and crushing them. "If you left him now and came back to me—what?"
She hurried on. "And then there's—there's the other woman. We mustn't forgether. What's her name, Chip?"
"Lily. She was Lily Bland."
"Yes, yes; of course. I knew that. And she loves you? But how could she help loving you? I'd hate her if she didn't. Curiously enough I don't hate her now. I wonder why? I suppose it's because I'm so sorry for her. She's a sweet woman, isn't she?"
He answered, with head averted. "She's as noble in her way as—as this man is in his."
"That's just what I thought. I used to see her when she came to our house to call for thechildren. It never occurred to me that you'd marry her. If it had I don't know what I should have—But it's no use going back to that now. What would you do about her, Chip, if we decided to—to take the chance that's opened up—?"
"I don't know. I've never thought about it. I—I suppose she'd let me go—just as he's letting you go—if I put it to her in the right way."
"And what would be the right way?"
"Oh, Lord, Edith, don't ask me. How doIknow? I should have to tell her—the truth."
"And what would happen then?—to her I mean."
"I've no idea. She'd bear up against it. She's that sort of person. But then, inwardly, she'd very likely break her heart."
"Oh, Chip, is it worth while? Think!"
"Iamthinking."
"Is it the spirit? That's the thing to find out."
He shook his head sadly. "I don't know how to tell."
"But suppose I do? Would you trust to me? Would you believe that the thing I feltto be right for me was the right thing for us both?"
"I think I should."
"Well, then, listen. It's this way. You know, Chip, I love you." She had his hand now in both of hers, twisting her fingers nervously in and out between his. "I don't have to tell you, do I? I love you. Oh, how I love you! It's as if the very heart had gone out of my body into yours. And yet, Chip—oh, don't be angry—it seems to me that if I left him now and went back to you I should become something vile. Itisn'tbecause he's so noble and good. No, it isn't that. And it isn't just the idea of passing from one man to another and back again. Wehaveturned marriage into opera bouffe, we Americans, and we might as well take it as we've made it. It isn't that at all. It's—it's exactly what you said just now: it's like a man swimming away from a sinking ship, and leaving his wife and children to drown, because he can't rescue them. Better a thousand times to go down with them, isn't it? You may call it waste of human material, if you like, and yet—well, you know what I mean. I should be leaving him to drown and you'dbe leaving her to drown; and, even though wecan'tgive them happiness by standing by, yet it's some satisfaction just tostandby. Isn't that it? Isn't that the spirit?"
He withdrew his hand from hers to cover his eyes with it. He spoke hoarsely: "It may be. I—I think it is."
"But,ifit is, then the spirit of the contract is different now from what it would have been—well, you know when. Then it meant that I should have stood byyou—forgiven you, if that's the word—and shown myself truly your wife, for better or for worse. I didn't understand that. I only knew about the better. I didn't see that a man and a woman might take each other for worse—and still be true. If I had seen it—oh, what a happy woman I should have been to-day, and in all these years in which I haven't been happy at all! That was the spirit of the contract then, I suppose—but now it's different. It confuses me a little. Doesn't it confuse you?"
"Perhaps."
"Let me take your hand again; I can talk to you better like that. Now—now—we've undertaken new responsibilities. We've involvedothers. We've let them involve themselves. We can't turn our back upon them, can we? No. I thought that's what you'd say. We can't. The contract we've made with them must come before the one we made with each other. We're bound, not only in law but in honor. Aren't we?"
He made some inarticulate sign of assent.
"And I suppose that's what he meant by the penalty—the penalty in its extreme form: that we've put ourselves where we can't keep the higher contract, the complete one, we made together—because we're bound by one lower and incomplete, to which we've got to be faithful. Isn't that the spiritnow, don't you think?"
Again he muttered something inarticulately assenting.
"Well, then, Chip, I'm going." She rose with the words.
"No, no; not yet." He caught her hand in both of his, holding it as he leaned across the table.
"Yes, Chip, now. What do we gain by my staying? We see the thing we've got to do—and we must do it. We must begin on the instant. If I were to stay a minute longer now,it would be—it would be for things we've recognized as no longer permissible. I'm going. I'm going now!"
There was something in her face that induced him to relax his hold. She withdrew her hand slowly, her eyes on his.
"Aren't you going to say good-by?"
She shook her head, from the little doorway of the rotunda. "No. What's the use? What good-by is possible between you and me? I'm—I'm just going."
And she was gone.
With a quick movement he sprang to the opening between two of the small pillars. "Edith!" She turned. "Edith! Come here. Come here, for God's sake! Only one word more."
She came back slowly, not to the door, but to the opening through which he leaned, his knee on the seat inside. "What is it?"
He got possession of her hand. "Tell me again that quotation he gave us."
She repeated it: "'The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.'"
"Good, isn't it? I suppose itisfrom Shakespeare?"
"I don't know. I'll ask him—I'll look it up. If ever I see you again I'll tell you."
"I wish you would, because—because, if it gives uslife, perhaps it'll carry us along."
With a quick movement he drew her to him and kissed her passionately on the lips.
A minute later he had sunk back on the seat out of which he had sprung. He knew she was disappearing through the crowd that, satiated with gazing, was sauntering away from the parapet. But he made no attempt to follow her with so much as a glance. Slowly, vaguely, mistily, like a man tired of the earthly vision, he was letting his eyes roam along the line of shining spiritual presences.
THE END