If I had been at my wits' end before, I was now beyond it, in such a chaos of puzzled anger that I could not even think reasonably, much less come to sensible conclusions. The Italian sailor with his impossible charge against Mr. Tabor's own impossible charge against me, were new elements which might or might not work into the situation; but at least I could not place them now; nor, for want of a motive that would bear dissection, was I ready to confess my own desire to stay on the ground until I had seen the matter through. I would go away to the sanity of the seaside, and give the vexations of the last few days time to clear. The whole experience had been so strange that I must have more perspective through which to view it clearly; and I could see nothing to gain by haste. For all that, I was perfectly clear that at length everything must come out right. Not that I could define to myselfexactly what "coming out right" would mean, except making Mr. Tabor admit himself outrageously mistaken, and his daughter—but it was better not to think about his daughter; unless I was ready to risk thinking too much about her. The very memory of her vivid face in the car-window, of her quizzical impertinences on the way, the sight of her lying motionless in the unnatural meadow, and most poignant of all, her distressed and shrouded beauty in the dim hall, lit up the last few hours as with the glamour of a dream broken suddenly by a nightmare monstrous and unconvincing. She must be put aside if possible with the rest until I could see clearly. Bob Ainslie and Mrs. Bob, boating, bathing, golf, and tennis, should be my devouring interests for the next week. After that—we should see.
For a couple of miles my car traveled through open country; then with the Sound on its left, passed through small wooded patches that gave way continually to open glades where lawns from little cottages and great ran down to the water's edge. My destined hostelry, I remembered, flourished under the original name of "Bellevue." I did not especially pine for it, with its green-lined matting, white enameled furniture, and chattering piazzas; but it hadthe unquestionable advantage of being only a couple of hundred yards from the Ainslies' cottage. There I hurried into my flannels and set forth in search of Bob, whom I found playing the gentle game of croquet with himself, the pink ball against the green. When he saw me, he gave a viking whoop that brought Mrs. Ainslie from her chair upon the veranda, while he executed a solemn war-dance around me.
"Where, O where are the Hebrew children?" he chanted, "Safe now in the promised land—where's your bag?"
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Crosby?" said Mrs. Ainslie. "Bob, what on earth will the neighbors think of you? And Mr. Crosby will hardly like being called a Hebrew—not that I have anything against the Hebrews. They are really a very fine people, but—"
"But, my dear, you are talking nonsense. Laurie, where is that bag? Or Heaven grant it be a trunk."
"It's a bag," I said, "and I left it in my room at the Bellevue, and a very good room it is."
"Bellefiddlesticks," Bob snorted. "You go back to that whited caravansary and wrest away your belongings and come over here. We are going tohouse-party in a couple of days, and we need you in our business. Your room is now southeast corner second floor, beautiful view of the Sound or within sound of the view—whichever you please."
"You are an idiot, but I love you," said I. "Nevertheless, I'm going to stay where I am. Can't be bothered with house parties. I came down here for some exercise."
"I think you look tired," Mrs. Ainslie put in thoughtfully.
"He looks sulky to me," said Bob. "All right, stay where you are until you feel the need of a decent bed. Bet I can beat you at croquet and give you two wickets."
"You are a fattening, indolent person," I said. "What I want, and what you stand in crying need of, is exercise," and I dragged him off to the hotel tennis-courts.
I was very sure in my own mind that I wanted the scuffling solitude of a hotel. My temper felt unsettled, and the last people in the world I wanted to meet were a lot of conversational visitors. Bob had a hard future cut out for him, and indeed for three days I led him a life that must have nearly killed him. Perhaps he may have scented some trouble behindmy unusual energy, for he stuck to me like a man losing to me at tennis, beating me in long games of golf, bathing with me in the morning, and taking an oar as we rowed Mrs. Bob about in the evening.
Miss Tabor had spoken of a coming visit; but of course after the disturbances in her home she would have abandoned all plans. And I certainly did not care to start the bantering flood of questions which I knew Bob could not restrain should I show even the mildest curiosity about her coming. And yet she came. I had come over prepared to drag Bob to the altar of another strenuous day, and I found her sitting alone on the veranda as quietly at ease as though nothing had happened. I was not even sure that she looked tired; certainly she looked serene. She stood up and shook hands with me smilingly. I thought the blue veins throbbed a trifle in her throat, but her manner was frankly free from embarrassment.
"You are getting a very seaside color, Mr. Crosby," she said. "Your vacation must be agreeing with you."
I could not answer for a moment; then, as she drew her hand from mine, "What have I done?" Istammered. "What was it all about? Did you too really believe—"
I stopped, for she was looking coldly past me, her face blank and her eyebrows raised.
"I beg your pardon," I said, taken utterly aback. Her silence seemed to strike across me like a blow. "I beg your pardon, Miss Tabor," and I swung upon my heel.
When I reached the steps, she called after me.
"Mr. Crosby!" I turned. "Bob wants to know why we shouldn't all play tennis together. He thinks that he and Mary can beat us."
I stood amazed. She was looking at me gaily, almost provokingly, every trace of coldness gone from the eyes that looked frankly into mine. She moved mentally too fast for me. I could read nothing but the end of our friendship in her look of a moment ago; and now she spoke as if no shadow of mystery or misunderstanding had ever fallen between us. Of course, the surface of it was that I had blundered, and that she had taken the only way of showing me that my memories of her trouble must be really forgotten. The last few days were never to have been.
The Ainslies came out of the door together."And you never told us that you had met Miss Tabor last Christmas," said Bob. "I call that rather cool. I just mentioned you last night, and she asked all sorts of questions about how long you had been here and how long you expected to stay. For my part, I think you must have made quite an impression."
"Indeed he has," laughed Miss Tabor. "Do you know, Mary, Mr. Crosby is the only thoroughly frivolous institution of learning I ever saw. He never spoke a word all Christmas that added to the party's fund of information, except to tell us of a new and a more indigestible way to make Welsh rarebit."
Evidently Christmas was to be the last and only time that we had met. I thanked fate and my own discomfiture that I had let fall no word to the Ainslies and we went off to our tennis. We won our game rather easily. Miss Tabor played a shade better than the average woman, covering her court with a forethoughtful ease that did the work without wasting exertion. She seemed not athletic, but to do outdoor things as some other woman might move through a ball-room. When we had finished playing, Bob was a dripping ruin, and Mrs. Ainslieand I vigorously hot; but Miss Tabor, who had done no less than her share, laid aside her racquet as coolly as she had taken it up.
All the way down to the beach she kept the three of us in such a shout of laughter that staider people glanced aside at us. I made the change into a bathing-suit with abandoned haste, yet I found her waiting. The sea was evidently a passion with her as it was with me. Her eyes were shining with excitement, her head thrown a little back, and all her slim body, tender in every graceful line, was vibrant with the thrill of the salt air. She gave me her hand as a child might have done, and we turned up the beach, running lightly until the voices of the bathers died behind us.
Suddenly she stopped. "Do you feel that way about it, too?" she asked.
"What way? As if the first plunge of the year were a sort of sacred rite?"
"Yes," she answered. "There is something about it—you feel as if it were such a splendid thing that after all your waiting for it—now, when the water is there before you, you must wait a little sacrificial moment. I didn't feel like going in just at the first among all those people. Do you understand what Imean? I suppose it's because on the first day I have always gone in alone early in the morning."
I nodded, for that had been my custom also. Without a word we turned together and went slowly down into the water. When it reached her waist, she threw her hands above her head and dived, swimming under water with long easy strokes. I looked after her a moment, then followed. We came to the surface together, drawing our breath deep and shaking the salt water from our eyes. We swam slowly back to the more crowded beach, mutually glorying in our pagan rite of baptism.
We stretched out lazily in the hot sand, leaning back against a battered and upturned dory. Lady had shaken down her hair, which her bathing cap had failed to keep altogether dry; and spread it lustrously dark upon the clean, sun-bleached planking.
"I think I understand you now a little better, Mr. Crosby," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I suppose because of the solemn rite of the first plunge. It somehow makes you clearer. If that is what you mean by romance, why I can agree with you."
I had to be honest. "No, that's not all I mean—onlypart. I want things to happen to me, not merely sensations. I'm always foolishly expecting some tilt with fortune at the next turn of the road. I suppose you were right that nothing much has happened to me, or I shouldn't hunt so for the physical uplift of the unexpected. I don't want to be merely selfish—I want to help in the world, not to harm. I know that sounds crudely sentimental, but it's hard to say. I mean, for instance, that I don't want distress to prove myself against, but I do want the shock of battle where distress exists."
"Then people must seem to you merely means to an end."
"I suppose it must look that way to you""I suppose it must look that way to you"
"I suppose it must look that way to you," I said uncomfortably. "I'm getting tangled, but I want you to understand—" I hesitated. "When I asked questions in the hurry of the other night, it wasn't any desire to force my way into things that didn't concern me, to make an adventure of what distressed you—you mustn't think that. But it seemed to me that you were in trouble, and I wanted—"
I stopped, for her face had clouded as I spoke until now I dared speak no more, blaming myself that the perplexities that possessed me had again blundered across her pain. Her eyes were upon theground where her fingers burrowed absently in the sand. When she raised them to mine there were tears in them; but they were tears unshed, and eyes that looked at me kindly.
"Please don't," she said. "I do understand. I would like to let you help, but—there is nothing you can help about, nothing that I can ask or tell."
"Forgive me," I said, and looked away from her.
I think that from that morning we were better friends. Neither of us again made any allusion to the night of alarm; but it was as if both now felt a share in it, a kind of blindfold sympathy not altogether comfortless. Once when we were making a long tour of woods and beaches, she said suddenly: "You don't talk much about yourself, Mr. Crosby."
"Don't I?" I answered. "Well, I don't suppose that what I am or have done in the world would be particularly interesting. You were right the other day, after all: nothing much has happened to me, or I shouldn't be so hungry for adventures."
"Oh, but you must have had some adventure; everybody has."
I launched into a tale of a green parrot confiscated from an itinerant vendor and sold at auction in a candy store. I stopped suddenly. Was this her wayof verifying her father's opinion of me? She read my half-formed suspicion like a flash.
"Listen," she said with quick seriousness. "If I had, or could have, the faintest belief in anything really bad about you, don't you see that I shouldn't be here? I want you to remember that."
"I ought to have known," I replied. "I'm very sorry."
With that she swung back into gaiety, demanding the conclusion of the tale; but I was for the moment too deeply touched to follow. We were on our way home; and before us where the path took a little turn about a tree larger than its neighbors, a man stepped into our sight. He was walking fast, covering the ground in long nervous strides. He carried a bit of stick with which he switched smartly at the bushes along the path. For a moment we were both silent, then Lady caught her breath in a long sigh. It was the man we had met at the gate. He saw us then, and took off his hat.
"Why, Walter," Lady cried; "when did you come?"
"Just now," he said, "just now. Ainslie told me where to look for you. Good fellow, Ainslie. Said you and Mr. What's-his-name—beg pardon, I nevercan remember names—said you had gone for a walk."
She flushed a little. "Mr. Crosby, let me introduce Doctor Reid. His memory never can catch up with him, but you mustn't mind that. Walter, Mr. Crosby was a classmate of Bob Ainslie's, you know."
"So he said; so he said." Doctor Reid jerked out the words, frowning and biting his forefinger. "Excuse me, Lady, but—hold on a second. Got to go back next car, twelve forty-five." He looked at his watch. "Twelve seven now. Beg your pardon, Mr.—Mr. Crosby. Beg your pardon."
They spoke together for a moment, and we continued our walk uncomfortably. Miss Tabor seemed uneasy, and I thought that Doctor Reid restrained himself to our slower pace as if he resented having to wait and thought ill of me for my very existence. I caught him frowning sidelong at me once or twice, and shooting little anxious glances at Lady that angered me unreasonably.
I left them at the Ainslies' and went on to a hurried luncheon made tasteless by irritation. Who in Heaven's name was the man? A family physician would hardly go running about the country in thedaughter's wake—for I could not doubt that it was she that had brought him here. Why on earth should he be rude to me? I had never met the man. What business had he to behave as if he resented my being with her—or for that matter, to resent anything she did? We had planned a game of tennis for the afternoon, and Doctor Reid, I reflected, with savage satisfaction, could hardly be expected to make a third.
Bob met me at the door. "Hello, old man," he said, "we have had a bitter loss; Doctor Reid has carried Lady off with him to his distant lair."
For a moment I did not know which feeling was apparent; surprise, anger, or a new and abominable sensation that combined the sense of personal injury with an intolerable sense of loss. Then I saw in Bob's face the reflection of my own astonishment, and tried to pull myself together.
"Brace up, man," he said, pounding me heartily on the shoulder. "Don't look as if you saw Hamlet's grandmother. She's neither married nor dead—he's only taken her home in a hurry. Good Lord, if I'd known you were going to be so tragic I'd have broken it as gently as a sucking dove."
By that time I found words. "I'm all right," I said, "only you made me jump with your ornamental way of putting things. Who is he, anyway, and what the devil right has he to come and drag her away like this in the middle of her visit?"
"Reid? He's only her brother."
"Her half-brother, you mean."
"I suppose so, since the name's different. Anyhow, he's no relation to Bluebeard, so you needn't go looking for blood and thunder. I know you. It's just that somebody wasn't well at home, and they wanted her. Nothing at all serious, he said; only if Lady was on the ground she could be useful. Her mother's heart is a little weak, you know. I suppose it's that."
"Look here, Bob," said I. "There's something mysterious about that family; and although it's none of my business, I want to know whatever you can tell me about them. I want to tell you first what I know, and see if you can help me clear it up."
"Nonsense! You never saw a windmill yet without swearing it was a green dragon with yellow eyes and a three-pronged tail. They are not half so mysterious as you are with that hush-hush expression on your innocent countenance. Tabor's an importer, with a flourishing business in red ink and spaghetti and other products of Sunny It'. Mrs. Tabor's a dear little soul with nerves and an occasional palpitation. Lady's a pippin, and Reid's a strenuous sawbones that lost half a second once inhis youth and has been chasing it ever since. You've been reading too much classical literature."
"Have you known them long?"
"Why, no, not so very. Oh, come in out of the sun and take a sedative. You won't be happy till you've relieved your florid mind."
I followed him into his den and accepted a cigarette and something cool to drink. Then without more preface I told the tale of my adventure, beginning with my arrival at the Tabors' home.
"Fine!" was his unfeeling comment, "I shall lie awake nights waiting for your next instalment of confidences. What are you going to do next?"
"That's what I'm trying to decide," I growled. "And I wish you'd give me a little serious thought, if you can stand the strain. I like adventures, but my end of this one is getting rather unmanageable."
"My dear man, I'm as serious as a caged owl. You've been treated outrageously, if that's any comfort to you. Only I fail to see where your mystery comes in. Of course, it's just as they said: Mr. Tabor has heard some absurd slander, or got you mixed up with somebody else; and Mrs. Tabor worried herself into a state about it, and they turned you out. It's a shame—or it would be if the thoughtof you as a desperate character who couldn't be allowed overnight in a decent family were not so ridiculous. I'll write to Tabor myself and tell him that he's got the wrong mule by the wrong leg; or if you prefer, we'll delegate the job to one of your older and wiser friends. That's all there is to it."
"You're leaving out altogether too much. How about my door being locked? How about the dago sailor at the inn? How about Miss Tabor's warning me off for all time, and then meeting me here as if she hadn't seen me since Christmas?"
Bob smoked and frowned a moment, then brushed the difficulty aside.
"Accidents, old fellow, accidents. The locked door was a mistake, unless somebody thought you were too dangerous a reprobate to leave at large. The guinea was drunk, on your own showing. As for Lady, she has a better head than the average, but you can't get me to waste any time figuring out how any woman's mind works. I've been married three years."
"Well, I'm going to find out what it all means."
"It doesn't all mean anything. That's where your kaleidoscopic imagination gets to work. There isn't any conceivable connection between these details!and you talk as if they were veiled and awful hints all pointing one way. Your dragons are windmills, I tell you, and your helmet's a copper kettle."
"You'd think differently if you had been there. Besides, I know—" I stopped short. Bob was my friend, and whatever I chose to tell him was my own business; but even to him I was not betraying confidences.
"Bob," I said, "I can't prove it, even to you, but I know that there is something wrong; and I firmly believe that somehow or other all these things work into it. Now, if you can throw any light at all, help me out."
"I've told you all I know. I'm not exactly an intimate of these people, but I've known them off and on for three or four years, and there simply isn't anything unusual about them. They're just like every one else, only a little nicer—the last people on earth to act queerly or have a closet skeleton."
"At any rate, they seem to want to get rid of me," I said. "Well, they can't do it. If they've got some scandalous idea of me, they're going to apologize; and if they're in trouble, I'm going to make myself useful. I've fallen into an adventure, and I'm going through with it."
"I'll tell you one thing," said Bob, very solemnly for him, "if there is any family secret, it's nothing against Lady. She's about as good and white and honest—but you don't need to be told that."
"No," said I, "I don't. And perhaps that's the reason."
I waited where I was for the rest of the week; partly because I was resolved not to put myself in the wrong afresh by following Miss Tabor's movements too immediately, and partly to give time for Bob's promised vindication of my character to take effect. I could not, however, believe that it would, in itself, make any great difference; for the more I considered, the more it seemed to me that I had been right in my suspicion, and that the whole empty charge had been merely an excuse for driving me from the house and a device for terminating the acquaintance. I discovered during those few days the truth of the saying that to think is the hardest thing in the world; for my attempts to reason out the situation persistently resolved themselves into adventurous dreams and emotional reminiscences until I suspended judgment in despair and put the whole matter from my mind. And it was with an eager relief at last that I bade good-by to theAinslies and retraced my journey. Bob had received in the meantime no answer to his letter; but by that time I was not to be surprised.
I took my old room at the inn, got myself into white flannels with leisurely determination, and set forth to call upon Miss Tabor. It was not hot, and all the air was clear with that sparkling zest common enough in autumn but rare in the heat of midsummer; and as I hurried along, the beauty of the world flowed over me in a great, joyous wave of hope and resolution. The little distance between the inn and the Tabors' I covered before I realized it.
"Is Miss Tabor at home?" I asked the maid at the door.
She took my card and hesitated. "I'll go and see, sir," she said finally, and ushered me into the big living-room.
I was all alone; voices came dimly from other parts of the house, and the room where I sat was cool and pleasant. I found my heart beating a little faster, and wondered at myself. Presently the maid returned.
"Miss Tabor is not at home," she said.
Somehow, I had not expected it, and for a moment I stood looking at her foolishly as she heldopen the door. "She is in town, is she not?" I asked clumsily.
"I am not sure, sir; she is not at home, sir," the woman repeated woodenly.
I trudged back through the glare of the impossibly brilliant day sick with disappointment, and wondering if she had really been away. Could there be any reason why my card had not been taken to her? Had some general order gone out against me? Then I brought my imagination to a sudden halt. I was getting to be a fool. The probability was that the maid had simply spoken the truth; and in any case, the whole matter was easy of determination. At the inn I wrote a short note to Miss Tabor, saying that I was in town for a few days, regretting that I had missed her and asking when I should find a convenient hour to call. This despatched, I found myself in a state of empty hurry with nothing to do; and after supper and a game or so of erratic pool, I set out to walk off an incipient and unreasoning attack of blues.
By the time I had tramped through a couple of townships and turned toward home I was fairly cheerful again. Landmarks had begun to look unfamiliar in the gathering gloom, and I took myturnings a little uncertainly; so that it was with a thrill of surprise that I found myself on a crossroad that ran alongside the Tabor place. The great house was largely dark and peaceful. Windows below glowed dimly through the dusk; and above, a single square shone brightly. Two men were coming slowly up the long driveway in front, which paralleled the road on which I stood; and as they approached the house, it seemed to me that they were walking not upon the gravel of the drive, but upon the grass beside it. When they reached the steps they turned aside, and skirting the house with a more evident avoidance of paths, crossed a stretch of lawn to what appeared to be a stable or garage some distance behind it. There was a furtiveness about the whole proceeding that I did not like, and I stood still a moment watching. Presently a match was struck in a room above the garage, and the gas flared on. Then, after a little, one of the men came out, running quietly across the lawn until he came to a stop beside the house and directly before me. The light from the upper window fell upon him and he stepped aside into the shade, but not before I had plainly seen his face. It was Lady's half-brother, Doctor Reid.
He seemed excited, or perhaps anxious; for his movements were more jerky than ever, and he moved restlessly and continually as he waited in the shadow. Once or twice he glanced nervously over his shoulder, and I instinctively drew back under the bulk of a big maple beside the road. Then he would move out beyond the edge of the shrubbery where he could see the lighted room above the garage, then return to his watching under the window. Once or twice he whistled softly. There was no answer, and at last I saw his hand go back and a tiny pebble tinkled against the glass. Then I held my breath, my heart hammering in my ears, for Lady Tabor had come to the window.
She softly raised it and leaned out, her face very white in the darkness.
"Is that you, Walter?" she called under her breath.
"Yes," he answered, "I have him in the garage. All clear in there? He mustn't be seen, you know, mustn't be seen at all."
She laid her finger on her lips and nodded. Then the window closed silently and she was gone. Reid turned and ran back to the garage. When he came out again the other man was with him, and theycrept past me among the shrubs, talking softly. The other man was tall, with a breadth of shoulder and thickness of chest that would have done credit to a professional strong man; yet his voice came in an absurd treble squeak, with an odd precision of articulation and phrasing.
"It is very important that we shall go quietly," he was saying.
"Of course, of course," Reid whispered. Then they passed beyond hearing under the shadow of the house. Presently I saw them again, silhouetted against the gray wall. They were standing close together upon the narrow terrace that ran between the driveway and the side of the house, and Reid was fumbling at a pair of French windows. They opened with a faint click; and motioning the other man before him, he stepped in, closing the windows after them.
I walked on, full of an impatient wonder at this new mystery, which, like its predecessors, would neither fit into any reasonable explanation nor suffer itself to be put aside as unmeaning. In front of the house I passed a big limousine, drawn up by the roadside, its engine purring softly and its lamps boring bright tunnels through the gloom.I knew it for the Tabors' by the monogram on the panels; and as I went by, I noticed the chauffeur lying sleepily back in his seat puffing at a cigar. Of course it had brought the stranger, and was waiting to take him back; but on what errand a man could be brought to the house like a guest and sneak in at a window like a thief was a question beyond me to fathom.
After all, I thought, as I reached my room, what business was it of mine? By every canon of custom and good taste I should accept my rebuke and drop quietly out of the lives of the Tabors. By staying I was forcing myself upon them, certainly against the wishes of Doctor Reid and Mr. Tabor, and possibly even against those of Miss Tabor, herself. Nevertheless, I made up my mind perversely. Of course, if Miss Tabor wished it, I should go, but unless she told me to go herself and of her own free will, canons of politeness might go hang; rightly or wrongly, I would see the thing to a finish.
I went to bed with my natural pleasure in the unexpected surfeited into a baffled irritation. I was the more annoyed when the morning brought no answer to my note; nor did the arrival of Doctor Reid about the middle of the forenoon tend to improve my state of mind. I found him fidgeting on the veranda, winding his watch and frowning at the furniture.
"Good morning, Mr. Crosby, good morning," he began. "I came down to have a few minutes' talk with you, but," he looked again at his watch, "I'm on my way down to my office and I find I'm a little late. Would it trouble you too much to walk along with me? Sorry to ask you, but I'm late already."
I got my hat, and we hurried out into the glaring sunshine. Reid gave the impression, I discovered, of being a much faster walker than he actually was; I had no difficulty in keeping up with him. Somethingof the same quality was noticeable in his conversation.
"Beautiful morning. I always like to get in a little exercise before work. Beautiful morning for a walk. Fine. Fine. Now about that note of yours. No reason at all for your coming back here, you know. Acquaintance must be entirely broken off. No excuse whatever for going on with it. Impossible. Perfectly impossible."
I bristled at once. "Is that a message from Miss Tabor or an objection on the part of the family? I'd like to understand this."
"By my—Miss Tabor's authority, of course. Certainly. She regrets the necessity you impose on her of telling you that she can't receive your call. Maid told you yesterday she was not at home. Civil answer. No occasion for carrying the matter any further. Nothing more to be said. Nothing." He looked at his watch again and kicked the head off a feathery dandelion.
"Mr. Tabor told me," I said, made deliberate by his jerkiness, "that I was not a fit acquaintance for his family. That was absurd, and by this time he knows it. If I'm forbidden to call, that settles the matter; but there's got to be some sensible reason."
"Certainly that settles the matter. Nothing more to be said. Nothing at all against your character. I don't know anything about that. Haven't heard a word about it. Nothing against you. Mrs.—Miss Tabor doesn't wish to see you, that's all. Very unpleasant position for you. I see that. Very unpleasant for me to say so. But you bring it on yourself. Ought to have stayed away. Nothing else to do."
"Do you mean to say," I demanded, "that now that my reputation is cleared that makes no difference?"
"Exactly. No objection to you, whatever. Must have been all a mistake. Very unfortunate. Very much to be regretted. Simply, you aren't wanted. Very distressing to have to say this. You ought to have seen it. Nothing for you to come back for. Nothing to do but to drop it. Drop it right where it is. Nothing to be done."
The situation opened under me. Indefinite slander had been at least something to fight about, but to this there was simply no answer. I felt like a fool, and what was worse, like an intrusive fool; and I had a sickening sense that all the delightful kindliness of the days at the beach might have beenthe exaggeration of unwilling courtesy. But another moment of that memory brought back my faith. For me, I was certainly in the wrong, and probably an officious idiot. Yet the one thing of which I could be sure was Lady's honesty. I was not running from my guns just yet.
"You make me out an intruder," I retorted. "Well, that's been the whole case from the first. All along, I've done nothing out of the ordinary course of acquaintance with an ordinary family. But your family isn't ordinary. You put up invisible fences and then accuse me of trespassing. I don't want to drag your skeleton out of the closet; but a blind man can see that it's there. If you had a counterfeiting plant in the house, for instance, I could understand all this nonsense. It's too palpably manufactured."
I could see that I had hit him, for he grew jerkier than ever. "Counterfeiting, nonsense. Absolutely absurd. Insult to suggest such a thing. Now, let's drop this and come right down to the facts. May as well be practical. Nothing more to say. You're not to call. Told you so already. Very disagreeable business. But, of course, you won't make any further trouble. Absolutely impossible. Hard on you, of course, but nothing to be done."
"Very well," said I, "you tell me this matter is between Miss Tabor and myself. We'll keep it so, and the rest of you may toast in Tophet. I tell you plainly I don't doubt your literal word, but I do doubt your motives and your authority. If Miss Tabor herself tells me to go, I'll go. Otherwise, I'll await my chance to see her; and if that's intruding, why, I'll intrude. Now, be as practical as you please."
He gave way with a suddenness that astonished me. "Just as you say, Mr. Crosby, just as you say. No difference whatever to me. Glad to be relieved of the business. Better call this afternoon, and have it over with. Always best to settle things at once. She'll be in all day. Quickest way of ending the whole trouble."
"I'll call this afternoon."
"Right. Say about three-thirty. I go in here. Sorry to have brought you so far. Sorry to have had this to do at all. Very unpleasant for both of us, but life's full of unpleasantness. Sorry I shan't see you again. Can't be helped. Good-by."
I made the best of my way back, with an indistinct sense of having fought with a small tornado, and wondering whether I had won a minor victoryor sealed an irrevocable defeat. True, I had gained the point of receiving my dismissal in person, but Reid's very readiness of acquiescence indicated the completeness of his confidence in my discomfiture. I spent the interim planning things to say which I knew I should miserably forget when the time came to say them; and I went to keep my appointment with Miss Tabor feeling illogically like a malefactor going up for trial, and remembering with sickly lucidity every word of the skeptical common sense that I had been flouting from the first.
She was sitting near the great Dutch fireplace, and as I crossed the room she slid her book upon the table and stood up. She did not offer me her hand, nor did she notice mine.
"How do you do, Mr. Crosby?" she said.
There was an acid formality about the meaningless little sentence that took the color out of all I had intended to say. There was no answer except that I was very well; and the hollow inanity of that under the circumstances left me standing speechless, defeated before the beginning. She was standing very straight, and her eyes looked beyond me blankly, as they had on the Ainslies' veranda. Now she brought them to mine for an instant, andmotioned me to a chair that faced hers at a little distance as if it had been placed there beforehand.
"We had better sit down," she said. "I want to talk quietly to you, Mr. Crosby."
"Your brother told me that this would be a good time for me to come," said I unmeaningly.
For a long time she was silent, turning over and over with reflective fingers a little ivory paper cutter. The handle of it was carved to represent a fish with its mouth open grasping the blade. Somewhere in the room a clock ticked twice to every three of my heart-beats. Finally she looked up decisively.
"You wanted to see me, Mr. Crosby. I suppose it is about something in particular. Please tell me what it is."
"You must know as well as I do," I answered, trying to steady my tone. "I have been told that my attempt to call is an intrusion, and that you do not wish to see me again. I preferred to be told that by you, yourself."
Her eyes rested steadily upon mine. "Well," she said, "I tell you now that it is perfectly true."
There was the same formality about it all, the same sense of mechanical arrangement; not as if she were playing a part, but as if she were goingthrough with an unpleasant purpose according to a preconceived plan. I tried to shift the burden of the situation.
"Why?" I asked. "It seems to me that this part of intruder has been made up and put upon me. Except for crossing lines that need never have been drawn, I don't understand what I have done."
"Perhaps not. If you think a little, you will remember that when I asked you to go that night when—when you brought me here, I told you to forget us—that you were not to ask questions, nor try to see me again. I thought I made it very clear at that time. Are you the judge of my right to close my own door?"
For a moment I was too much bewildered to answer. "When we met at the Ainslies'," I blurted, "you met me as a friend, as though nothing had broken what we began in the holidays. I can't believe that you were only playing a courteous part. You were your own open self. Everything was all right, I am very sure, until—until this man, this—your brother came for you."
She gave a scornful little laugh, leaning back indolently in her chair.
"Really, Mr. Crosby, aren't you rather overstatingthe case? Have we been such very great friends? I have known you ten days—twelve days."
I nodded dumbly.
"I have no wish to hurt you," she went on more gently, "but we have really nothing like a friendship to appeal to. I am not breaking anything, because there is nothing to break. When you left here—I thought that you understood me. I don't know what my family disliked in you, and I don't think I care to know. It has nothing to do with me. But this is what I dislike. You called up my father the next morning, and demanded reasons. You went to the beach, where you knew I was invited. Was I to cut you there? Was I to explain to mutual friends that I didn't want to meet you? I don't think you have treated our acquaintanceship particularly well, or that you have shown much regard for my plain request."
I sat stunned, the bulk of my offense looming stark before me. Then, with a great surge, the memory came back of the girl who had stood with me by the water's edge, who had run childishly hand in hand with me upon the beach, who had walked with me and talked with me, who had shown me unembarrassed her gay and sweet imaginings.These things had been the truth; this was the unreality.
Perhaps she saw something of what was passing in my mind, for she shook her head. "Don't think that because I had no heart to mar your outing, I did not mean what I had said. It was easier to be friends for a little—easier for us both. But surely you should have played your part. At the Ainslies' I wanted to treat you as I should have treated anybody. Do you think that you have been fair? Do you think you should have risked following me? For it was a risk. You have come back here where we are the only people you know, and as soon as you come you ask for me. I don't like to say it, Mr. Crosby, but you have acted inconsiderately. I am very anxious that this time you should clearly understand."
I got to my feet in silence. Something had happened that I could not help; and as I stood there, I knew that my world had come to an end, and as in the first shock of a physical injury, felt numbly conscious of the deliberate suffering that was to follow. She had risen too, looking somehow curiously small and frail. Then, of a sudden, my manhood caught at me. The wall was without seam or crevice, darkeningthe sky; and I knew that I could break it with a breath.
"I will go," I said, "when I am sure. Look at me, Lady, for you know that I know."
There was a sharp snap. She glanced at her hands, then dropped the broken paper knife at her feet and faced me haughtily. "Know?" she said, with a dry tension in her voice, "I only know that this is to be good-by." She held out a rigid hand.
I took it and stood looking soberly down at her.
"Is that all?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Don't make it hard for me." Then her eyes grew suddenly afraid. She caught away her hand and shrank back a step, catching at the chain about her throat.
"Oh, don't, don't," she begged. "Please, please go—you don't understand."
I held myself with all my strength. "No, I don't understand," I whispered.
She caught her breath with half a sob, forlornly and as a child might.
"You must not understand. You are never to see me again."
"You know I can't do that," I said.
"You must do it," she answered very gravely."Be kind to me—" she paused, "because it's hard for me to send you away."
"You must tell me one thing more than that," said I; "is there—is there any one else?"
Her eyes fell. "That is it," she said at last, "there is somebody else."
"That is all, then," I said quietly. "I shall stay away until you send for me;" and I left her.
I have no remembrance of the walk back to the inn; but I closed my door behind me softly, as if I were shutting a door upon my dreams. Now I knew that the dull round of daily life, of little happenings and usual days, stretched before me, weary and indefinite. It made little difference to think that I might some day be sent for. Evidently it was to be Europe this summer after all. My only desire was to make my going a thing immediate and complete; to rupture so absolutely the threads of the woof that we had woven that I could feel myself separated from all, enough aloof from love to think of life. I did not stop to ask myself questions or to wonder precisely what was the nature of the impossibility that was driving me away. There would be time enough for that.
I began to pack feverishly, gathering my belongingsfrom their disposition about the room. I felt tired, as a man feels tired who has lost a battle; so that after I had packed a little I sank wearily into the chair before my bureau. Then after what may have been a minute or an hour of dull unconscious thought, I fell again to my task; pulling open the drawers from where I sat, and searching their depths for little odds and ends which I piled upon the bureau top. The bottom of the second drawer was covered with an old newspaper; and I smiled as I noticed that its fabric was already turning brittle and yellowish, and read the obsolete violence of the head-lines. Then a name half-way down the page caught me with a shock, and I slowly read and re-read the lines of tiny print, forming the empty phrases in my mind with no clear sense of their meaning. They were like the streams of silly words that run through one's head in a fever, or half-way along the road to sleep; and it was an eternity before they meant anything.