CHAPTER VIII
STRUGGLE
The longer Stuart wrestled with the problem of Nan's yielding to the lure of Bivens's gold the more hideous and hopeless it became. He cursed her in one breath, and with the next stretched out his arms in the darkness in desperate voiceless longing.
He rose at last and stood looking out his window on the moonlit Square. He began to feel that he had been to blame. Why had he allowed the foolish pride of a lovers' quarrel to keep them apart for two weeks? A clock in a distant tower struck three. The radiance of the massed lights of Broadway still glowed in the sky and dimmed the glory of the moon. The roar of the elevated trains sounded unusually loud and sinister. Perhaps because Bivens was on their board of directors. The whistle of their air brakes seemed to hiss his name. A crowd of revellers passed in a cab, with their feet out the windows, singing a drunken song. There was something sickening in the thought of this swiftly moving remorseless rush of a city's endless life. After all, was Nan worse than others—thousands of others caught in the merciless grip of its eternal spell?
The clock struck five, he looked out the window, startled by the first soft light of the dawn.
He came downstairs, let himself out of the front door and began to walk furiously. When at last he became conscious of his surroundings he had reached Central Park and was seated in the little summer house on a big pile of boulders near the Sixth Avenue entrance. The sun was rising. It was the first sunrise he had ever seen in New York. The effect on his imagination was startling. The red rays streaming through the park and the chirp of birds in the bushes were magic touches that transformed the world. He was back again in the South, where Nature is the one big fact of life, and the memories of the girl he had learned to love beside its beautiful waters again overwhelmed him.
He rose with a cry of pain, plunged into the crowds streaming downtown to their work and, scarcely conscious of anything save the ache within, found himself again in his room. He disarranged his bed that his sleepless night might not excite comment. He was just a little ashamed that his loss of poise had been so complete and overwhelming.
When he came downstairs he paused at the door. Harriet was playing and singing again, and the soft tones of her voice were healing. He walked gently to the door of the music-room, leaned against the panel, and watched and listened.
She played, not as a schoolgirl practising a lesson, but with a lingering touch of joy in her work caressing each note. The thrill of hope and faith in her voice was soothing. It soothed the wounded soul and slowly brought a smile to his face.
At last she stopped reluctantly, tipped her golden head sideways in a coquettish little triumphant movement, and in the quaintest imitation of a man's voice said:
"I congratulate you, Miss Harriet—I like that very much!"
"Do you, professor? Oh, I'm so glad to please you!"
She shook her curls with genuine delight, and played out the little dialogue with vivid imaginary touches.
Stuart laughed.
The girl leaped to her feet, blushing scarlet, rushed to his side and seized his hand.
"Did you see me, Jim? Was I very foolish?"
"Certainly not. I quite agree with the professor. You will some day sing before kings and queens, little girl. You sing as the birds, because it's in your soul. And I want to thank you, too. You've helped me again. I had a hard day's work before me, and you've made it easy."
"Then I shall be very happy all day, Jim!"
"Thank you, little pal—au revoir——"
He left her waving and smiling to him from the steps. He walked with new vigour and a deepening sense of gratitude.
Strange what a gracious influence the child had over him. She was always a ray of sunlight. This morning the touch of her hand and the thrill of her voice had brought his dead soul back to life again. His breath deepened and his step grew firm and swift.
He would fight for his own! He would go straight to Nan and laugh at this announcement. He would compel her to hear him. It was an absurd hour to call, but all the better. The more absurd, the deeper impression he would make and the more certain would be his success. He had written a note before—she had easily returned it unopened. She would find it a difficult undertaking to get him out of the house!
Mrs. Primrose's greeting was so cordial, so genuinely friendly, that for a moment he was puzzled. Could it be possible he had misjudged her? Could it be possible that her professions of love and admiration had been genuine? His hunger for sympathy was so keen, his sense of loneliness in his fight so utter, he could not help allowing himself the luxury of a momentary doubt.
She pressed his hand warmly and lingeringly.
"Oh, Jim, I'm so glad you've come! Why have you stayed away so long? It was so foolish of you. You gave up without a struggle. I'm shocked beyond measure at Nan."
Stuart's heart gave a bound of hope and he looked with fierce earnestness into the mother's face. It was only for an instant. Her eyes roamed and shifted and her tongue went faster.
"I told her that his millions would never bring happiness unless her heart went with them—that her love for you was a thing she couldn't lay aside as a cloak she had worn."
When Mrs. Primrose's eyes blinked and turned away under Stuart's gaze, he knew that she was lying again and ceased to listen.
"Well, I haven't given her up yet, Mrs. Primrose," he said bluntly.
"I knew you wouldn't, Jim. And I told Nan the day she promised to marry Mr. Bivens that you were worth a dozen such men, no matter how many millions he had. You have always been my choice—you know that. How she could throw you over for a little scrap of a man like that is beyond me."
Stuart could control himself no longer. He rose and faced Mrs. Primrose with a look which brought her eloquence to an abrupt end.
"Mrs. Primrose, for once in my life I am going to tell you the truth."
"Why, you always do Jim," she feebly answered.
"I never do. Your example has been contagious. I've had to play out the farce with you. To-day I won't play. I'm too hurt, angry, wounded, sore. You have always been my bitterest foe. You brought Nan to New York to get her away from me."
The mother's eyes blazed with honest wrath.
"Yes, I did—and I'm glad I did it—you ungrateful wretch!"
"And you have always been busy poisoning her mind against me and corrupting her imagination with dreams of a life of luxury."
"And thank God I've succeeded at last in bringing her to her senses in time to save her from throwing herself away on you, Jim Stuart!"
"Thank you, mother dear, we understand each other now——"
"Don't you dare call me mother, sir!"
"Why not? I'm going to win in the end, and you're on my side. You know that I'm worth a dozen such fellows as the little scrap of a man on whom she's about to throw herself away."
"How dare you, sir!"
"Because you've just told me. I'm only quoting your words."
As Mrs. Primrose left in speechless anger, Nan quietly entered the room. Her face was set for battle in a proud defiant smile. She was totally unprepared for the way in which Stuart met her.
With a quick step he was at her side, seized both her hands in a grip of fierce tenderness and in low tones of vibrant passion said:
"This thing don't go with me, Nan. I won't accept it. I'm going to fight—fight for my own—for you are mine—mine by every law of God and man, and you are worth fighting for!"
The hard smile of defiance melted from the beautiful face, and a flush of tenderness slowly overspread her cheeks. It was sweet to be loved like that by a strong masterful man. One of the things that had stung her pride deepest during the past weeks was the thought that after all he didn't seem to care. Now that she knew how deeply he cared, her heart went out to him in instinctive tender response.
"I suppose, then," she began slowly, "I've nothing to do but agree to your plan of action?"
"That's it exactly," he replied firmly. "How could I dream that you would regard our quarrel so seriously——"
She started to speak, and he raised his hand:
"I know, dear, you said our engagement was broken. I didn't believe you meant it. I couldn't. I was hurt when you returned my note unopened, but I watched and waited every hour of every day for a word. The news of your engagement to Bivens came as a bolt out of the blue sky. I refuse to accept such an act as final. You did it out of pique. You don't mean it. You can't mean it!"
"And what are your plans?"
"I told you the other day I had a surprise for you—I have. It's worth a day—you promised me one in the country before our foolish quarrel. I want it now. You will come?"
She hesitated a moment and said:
"Yes."
Within an hour they had reached the hills overlooking Gravesend Bay, and the magnificent sweep of water below the Narrows. Nan had scarcely spoken on the way, answering Stuart's questions in friendly nods, smiles, and monosyllables.
"Before we go farther," Stuart said when they had left the car, "I want to show you a model home a friend of mine has built out here. It's my ideal, and I think you'll like it."
Nan nodded and followed his long strides along the narrow path of a single flagstone pavement to the crest of the hill which sloped to the water's edge.
As they entered the gate, half hidden in the hedge, the girl exclaimed:
"What a lovely little place!"
A gardener who was watering some flowers, on a sign from Stuart hastened up the gravel walk and opened the door.
Every window commanded entrancing views of the bay and ocean. Every ship entering or leaving the harbour of New York must pass close and could be seen for miles going to sea.
When Stuart finally led Nan out on the broad veranda of the second floor, she was in a flutter of excitement over the perfection of its details.
"I think it's wonderful, Jim!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm. "I'd like to congratulate your friend on his good taste. And just look at those dear little terraces which lead down to the boathouse—on one of them a strawberry bed, on the other a garden, on the last a grape arbor, and then the boathouse, the wharf—and look—a lovely little boat tied to the float—it's just perfect!"
"And this outlook over bay and sea and towering hills—isn't it wonderful?" he asked soberly—"the hills and sea with their song of the infinite always ringing in one's soul!"
"It's glorious," she murmured. "I've never seen anything more nearly perfect. Whose is it?"
Stuart looked into her dark eyes with desperate yearning.
"It's yours, Nan!"
"Mine?"
"Yes, dear, this is my secret. I've been building this home for you the past year. I've put all the little money my father gave me with every dollar I could save. It's paid for and here's the key. I meant to ask you out here to fix our wedding day. I ask you now. Forget the nightmare of the past two weeks and remember only that we love each other!"
The girl's eyes grew dim for a moment and she turned away that the man who watched might not know. Her lips quivered for just an instant, and her hand gripped the rail of the veranda.
When she answered it was with a light banter in her tones that cut Stuart's heart with cruel pain.
"If I'd seen it four weeks ago, Jim, I really don't see how I could have resisted it—but now"—she shook her head and laughed—"now it's too late!"
"My God, don't say that, Nan!" he pleaded. "It's never too late to do right. You know that I love you. You know that you love me."
"But I've discovered," she went on with bantering, half challenging frankness, "that I love luxury, too. I never knew how deeply and passionately before—" she paused a moment, looking toward Sea-Gate. "Isn't that the anchorage of the Atlantic Yacht Club?"
"Yes," he answered impatiently.
"Then that's Mr. Bivens's yacht—the big, ugly black one lying close inshore with steam up. He told me he would send her into dry dock to-day. He was talking last night of a wedding cruise in her to the Mediterranean. I confess, Jim, that I want to shine, to succeed, and dazzle, and reign. Every ambitious man has this desire. Why shouldn't I? You say I have rare beauty. Well, I wish to express myself. It's a question of common sense. Marriage is my only career. This man's conquest was so easy it startled me and I came down out of the clouds. I don't know a girl in New York to-day who has youth and beauty who does not in her soul of souls aspire to the highest rank and the greatest wealth. This is perhaps the one chance of my life——"
"Do you hold yourself so cheap?"
"You see I'm not so prejudiced an observer as you, Jim. I've looked the facts squarely in the face. You can't realize how much the power of millions means to a woman who chafes at the limitations the world puts on her sex. My imagination has been set on fire by dreams of splendour and power. It's too late——"
"Don't, don't say it, Nan!"
"Why not be frank? This little cottage is a gem, I admit. But I've seen a splendid palace set in flowers and gleaming with subdued light. Soft music steals through its halls mingled with the laughter of throngs who love and admire me. Its banquet tables are laden with the costliest delicacies, while liveried servants hurry to and fro with plates and goblets of gold! And all this wild dream, Jim, seems real, a part of my very life. Perhaps somewhere in another world my spirit lived in such surroundings——"
"Perhaps," Stuart interrupted bitterly, "in the breast of a cruel, merciless half-savage princess who killed her lover to win a throne——"
Nan suddenly grasped his arm.
"What are you saying!"
"Only interpreting your dream."
"You mustn't say horrible things like that to me. It's bad enough, God knows, when I face it. But at least I'm not a murderess."
"I'm not at all sure," he persisted, with desperation. "That a girl who can deliberately kill the soul of the man who loves her, might not kill his body if put to the test——"
"For heaven's sake, Jim, if you do love me don't say such things! I'll never forget them! I can't help it—I've got to do this. The spell is on me, and I must——"
Stuart seized her arm with fierce strength that hurt.
"Then I'll break the spell. You shall not do this hideous thing. You are mine, I tell you, and I am bigger than money. I have the power to think, to create ideas, to create beauty—the power that remakes the world. I expect to have all the money we shall need. In the years to come we shall be rich whether we seek it or not. But the sweetest days of all life will be those in which we fight side by side the first battles of life in youth and poverty when we shall count the pennies and save with care for the little ones God may send us! With your sweet face bending above me and the touch of your hand, the highest success is sure. Marry me now. Here is your home. We don't need to be rich to be happy—a loving heart, generous sympathies, comradeship, high ambitions, strong young bodies and clean souls—and the angels will envy us!"
"But life is short, Jim! I can have things now. He has already promised them—a palace in town, another by the sea, a great castle in the heart of the blue southern mountains we used to watch as children, and armies of servants to do my bidding—I can live now!"
"And you call these trappings and tinsel life?"
"I want them."
"My God, Nan, haven't you a soul? Hasn't the life within no meaning for you? To me such luxury is sheer insanity. The possibilities of personal luxury have been exhausted thousands of years ago. It's commonplace, vulgar, and contemptible. If you wish for power why choose the lowest of all its forms? The way you are entering is worn bare by the feet of millions of forgotten fools whose bodies worms have eaten. Not one of them lives to-day even in a footnote of history. They sailed no unknown seas. They conquered no new worlds. They merely got dollars, spent them and died."
"And yet, Jim, you know as well as I do that money is the sign of success and power; its absence, of failure and weakness."
"To those who see the surface of things only—oh, Nan, why have you let this brood of black-winged bats build their nest in your heart?—this greed, this avarice, this envy of the rich——"
The girl lifted her hand with a gesture of impatience.
"You persist in misunderstanding me. Why should your desire for power be called high ambition, and mine a vulgar avarice? If you make a mistake in your career, you can correct it and begin again. Being a woman I cannot, for marriage is my only career. A mistake now would be to me fatal."
"And you are making the one tragic mistake no repentance can undo. You are choosing to commit the one unpardonable sin—the sin against the Spirit."
"And what, pray, is that?"
"The deliberate choice of evil, knowing it to be evil. Your heart is mine—mine, I tell you! Do you deny it?"
Again he seized her hand, gripped it fiercely, and looked into her eyes with tender, searching gaze.
Nan looked away.
"Oh, Nan, dear, believe me," he pleaded. "You can't deny this voice within the soul and live! Happiness is inside, not outside, dear. You say you want to own a castle on a mountain side. You can't do it by holding a deed and paying taxes on it. I can own it without a deed. I haven't a million, but I own this great city. This mighty harbour is mine. That's why I built our little home nest here on the hill overlooking it. It's all mine—these miles of shining ocean sands, the sea, and these landlocked waters. The great city that stretches northward, its miles of gleaming lights that will come out to-night and dim the stars, the hum and thrill of its life, the laughter and the tears, the joys and the fears—are all mine because I see and hear and feel and understand! Nor can the tax gatherer put his hand on my wealth. It's beyond his touch."
The girl's spirit was caught at last in the grip of his passionate appeal, and her rebellion ceased for the moment as she watched and listened with increasing sympathy.
"Beauty is always a thing of the soul, Nan," he rushed on. "The things we possess are signs of the spirit or we don't possess them—they possess us. The dress you wear expresses something within you when it fits your beautiful body so perfectly. The mere possession of houses and lands and things has no meaning unless they revealus. If they merely express the labour of an ancestor, the mind of an architect or the genius of a manager, we are only intruders on the scene, not the creator and therefore the possessor of the beauty we aim at. A home, a dress, are symbols, or nothing but goods and chattels. I have seen you wear dresses made by your own hand that revealed a whole conception of life and hats that were poems. The dress you wear to-day is perfect because it expresses you. The clothes of a millionaire's wife have no meaning except conformity to fashion and the expenditure of vast sums of money. The poetic taste, the subtle mystery of personality which you put into your dress have always been a joy to me."
In spite of her fierce determination to give no response to his appeal her fingers instinctively tightened on the hand which had seized hers. His own pressed with new courage and he went on.
"Bivens may think he owns that big black hulk lying out there belching smoke from her huge funnels. But he only pays the bills to keep her going. It takes fifty men to run her. I have a little sloop with a cabin for two. She cost me fifteen hundred dollars and I own her, because I dreamed every rib in her body, every rivet, every line of her graceful form. I created her and gave her a soul. I feel the beat of her proud little heart in the storm and the soft touch of her sleepy wings in the calm. She is part of the rhythm of my life.
"It is not money that gives value or ownership to things. You can only own that which expresses you. For that reason you cannot own the palaces of which you dream. Their service will require a hundred thieving hirelings whose very names you cannot know. This house is mine because I have built it as a work of love and art and expressed myself in it with infinite tenderness and infinite pains. It is not a palace in size, but it is a palace, glorious and wonderful, in a deeper spiritual sense, because it is a poem. Every spar of wood in it is perfect of its kind. Every stone in it is a gem because it is the right thing in the right place. There isn't a shoddy bit of material or a slipshod piece of work from the green tile in its roof to the stone boulders on which it rests. It will last our lives and generations to follow. The very mortar between the bricks and the cement between the stones are perfect because they were mixed with tears of joy that bubbled from my heart as I stood here, watched and sang my love for you——"
The lover paused a moment, overcome with his emotion, and he knew by the quick rising and falling of the girl's breast that a battle was raging.
Quick to see his advantage he drew her gently inside.
"See, Nan, there are no cheap imitations in here, no vulgar ornaments which mean nothing. There has been no copying of models. These rooms I planned with your spirit, dearest, hovering over me, and each one has its little surprise—a nook, a turn, a window opening unexpectedly on its entrancing view. The ornaments on its walls will grow as we grow—pictures we shall find and always love, and tapestries your own dear hands shall paint. This home will be a real one because it will have a soul. There can be no coarse or menial tasks within its walls because its work shall be glorified by the old immortal song of love and life."
Stuart leaned close and spoke in a low tense voice:
"And it will always be beautiful, Nan, because it will be penetrated with the touch of your hand. Every piece of furniture will glow with that radiance. Gold and precious stones can have no such lustre. See, here I have planned to place your piano. There will be no music on earth like the songs those throbbing strings shall make to my soul when they quiver beneath the touch of your hand. Here on this seat I shall lie by the window, looking out over the sea, dream and think great thoughts of life and death and immortality while you play for me. And with each passing year, dearest, the songs that you sing will be deeper and richer and more and more full of divine meaning."
The lover slipped his arm gently around the girl's yielding form, her head drooped on his shoulder, the great dark eyes blinded with tears. For a moment he held her in silence broken only by a deep sob. His hand touched her hair with the tenderest gesture as he whispered:
"We can only know a few real friends in this world, dearest—but one great love comes to any human soul, and life is all too short to lose a single day——"
"Hush—hush! Jim," the girl cried in anguish, "don't say any more, please!"
"Tell me that it's all right, dear," he urged. "You know you cannot leave me now. You know that you love me and that your love is a deathless thing."
"Yes, yes, I know," she gasped. "But I'm going to marry him! I can't help it. The spell of his millions is on me and I can't shake it off!"
So sure was Stuart of victory, Nan's outburst made no impression on his mind. He continued to soothe her as he would a tired child.
"Of course I know you don't mean that—you are only reproaching the imaginary girl who betrayed her love for money. The real Nan is sobbing here in my arms—mine forever——"
With a determined effort she drew herself from his embrace and in hard cold tones said:
"No. Jim, you must face the truth. I am going to marry this man, and the most horrible thing I can say about myself is that, deeply as I love you, I know I shall be content with the splendid career that will be mine. I shall never regret my marriage."
The lover looked at her in a dazed way as if unable to grasp the meaning of her words.
"Nan," he cried at last, "you can't mean that!"
"I do."
"But you can't do this vile thing. Since the world began I know that vain, weak, ignorant women have sold themselves to men they could not love, for money, rank and luxury. But you are not of that breed, Nan. You are not weak, you are not ignorant. You are strong in body and soul, with high aims and the inheritance of rich blood in your veins.
"You are the typical American girl, the daughter of the line of men and women who have made this Republic the glory of the world—women whose hearts have been pure, whose lives have been clean, who have kept burning in the hearts of men the great faiths of the soul. Respect for this woman has been one of the foundations of our moral life. In the worship I have paid you, there has been more than the charm of sex, there has been always this instinctive recognition of the divine. Are you going to kill my faith in God? The woman who sells herself to buy bread, stands higher in the moral world than you——" He hesitated.
"Go on, Jim, say the worst. And still I'm going to do it."
"Knowing full well that no ceremony of Church or State, no words of priest or judge, no pealing of organ, or pomp or pageantry can make this thing a marriage? There is but one vile word in the English tongue that fits the woman——"
Nan straightened her figure with a smile of defiance:
"Say it!"
The lover dropped in silence to the window seat and buried his face in his hands in a paroxysm of emotion beyond control.
At length he rose and looked at the girl he loved long and tenderly.
"God in heaven! It's inconceivable, when I took into your beautiful face! Have you no pity in your heart?"
The full lips smiled a cruel little smile.
"Men are strong, Jim. They can stand hard blows. You come of fighting stock. I know that you will survive——"
"And the solemn pledge of love and loyalty we gave to each other—this means nothing to you?"
"Our engagement was informal. The world knew nothing of it."
"No, but God knew, Nan, and our young souls were their own witness."
"I'm sorry to hurt you, Jim. But I must—it's fate; the big world, I somehow feel I'm akin to, is calling me and I'm going——"
"And Bivens is this big world! If you will throw me over for money, can't you wait until a real man goes with it? It wouldn't be so bad if I felt you had chosen one who was my equal physically and mentally in culture and breeding—but Bivens!"
"You underestimate his ability. You may hate him—but he is a man of genius."
"He is everything you loathe, and yet you are going to marry him. Great God! don't you understand what a close, intimate, personal thing marriage is! You are the most fastidious girl I have ever known. The ceremony with which you keep your beautiful body is a religion. Bivens is physically everything you despise. His teeth are yellow with nicotine, and his lips cracked and stained with tobacco. With every quivering fibre of your delicate and sensitive being you know that you loathe him. And yet you are going to give your body to be his—without reserve—you, the delicate, the exquisite beauty—you who worship your dainty body in a mirror daily. God—have you no real reverence for your own being?"
"No, Jim," she interrupted at last, with deep pity in her heart for his suffering, "I don't think I have, and it's better so after all. I'll never love another, I shall not try."
"Then if you will sell yourself, Nan, dear, let's make a better bargain—wait! You are giving up too easily. Bivens has only a couple of millions, and he may lose them. Don't hold yourself so cheap. If you were on the block for sale I'd give a million for each dimple in your cheek. That pile of glorious black hair is worth a million—I'd give it without haggling at the price! Come, let's have more bids! The smile that plays about your lips should bring millions. The arch of your proud young neck should add another—and your deep dark eyes, I swear are worth a million each."
Stuart's voice had grown husky and sank into a sob as she placed her hand on his arm and gently said:
"Hush, Jim, dear, we must go now. I can't stand any more. I've let you go on like this and say anything you pleased because I'm heartsick to see how cruelly I've hurt you—but there's a limit."
"Yes, I know, forgive me."
Without another word he led her from the place, closed the little gate quietly and returned to her home.
Alone inside the parlour they stood in silence a moment and she took his hand in hers.
"I'm sorry, but it must be good-bye. Your love has been a sweet and wonderful thing in my life——"
"And you throw it aside as a worthless rag."
"No," she answered smiling. "It shall be mine always—good-bye."
She raised her lips to his in a cold kiss.
Dazed with anguish, he turned and left. The door closed on his retreating figure, and Nan sank among the cushions and burst into a flood of passionate tears.
CHAPTER IX
DESPAIR
To the very dawn of Nan's wedding day Stuart had refused to give up hope.
The little financier had sent him an invitation, and worst of all had called to ask that he act as his best man. He refused so curtly that Bivens was deeply wounded. He hastened to soothe his feelings with a plausible explanation.
"The fact is, Bivens, I've always hated church funerals and weddings—of the two I prefer funerals——"
"Nonsense!"
"I assure you I'm not joking. Those long hideous veils and white shroud-like dresses to me always symbolize Death. The pallor of the bride's face perhaps adds to my delusion—but it's painfully real. I never go to a church wedding. The apparition haunts me for days."
Bivens smiled wanly.
"But what will you do when your time comes, old man? You can't run away then."
"That's just what I will do—run away and take my girl with me. We'll elope and be married in street clothes. It's more human."
While he spoke, Stuart's eyes suddenly sparkled with the thought that his words, spoken in jest, might be a prophecy of what could really happen. It had happened again and again. The miracle might happen to him.
"But I say, Jim, that's all rot. I want you to stand by me. I've always taken as much of your friendship as you would give and been grateful for it. I don't make new friends easily. I want you, and you've just got to do it."
Stuart shook his head and firmly set his jaws. A grim temptation flashed through his imagination. If he should accept, it might be the one thing which would prevent Nan's betrayal of her love at the altar. Might he not by the power of his personality, the hypnotic force of his yearning passion and will, stop the ceremony? In the moment of deathlike silence which should follow the minister's words asking if there were any cause known why these two should not be made one, might not a single movement of his body at that moment, a groan of pain, a sob, a cry of agony in a supreme act of his will, cause the white figure to reel and fall at his feet? It was possible.
But it would be too cheap. It would be a worthless victory, a victory of the flesh without the spirit—and he refused to take the body without the soul.
With a frown he turned to Bivens:
"It's no use talking, Cal, I've made up my mind. I won't do it."
"Well, if you won't, you won't," the little man said with a sigh. "At least you'll come to the church. For God's sake let me get a glimpse of one friendly face. I'll be scared to death. You know I'm not used to this."
Stuart smiled:
"All right, I'll be there."
"And a seat, Jim, where I can see you. I want a friend near the door when I start, or I'll never make it—I'll drop on the way. You won't fail?"
"No. You can depend on me."
As Bivens closed the door the young lawyer threw himself back in his chair with a bitter laugh.
"What a farce our lives become sometimes. If we could all see behind the scenes would there be a single illusion left—I wonder?"
His memory rested with bitterness on the fact that he had feared to lift the curtain on Nan's character at one point in their final struggle over this marriage. He had fought with desperation to win and hold her heart, but he had fought fairly. There had always been a way—he might have won by the sacrifice of character. He had not offered to yield his ideal, accept her views, and change his life purpose. The act would have been dishonourable only to his own sense of right. He would have done exactly what Bivens asked. He had never questioned this decision to the day of her wedding. But when the fateful morning came he was stunned by the feeling of incredible despair which crept into his heart. The day was chill and damp. Dull, grayish, half-black clouds rolled over the city from the sea—clouds that hung low and wet over the cold pavements without breaking into rain.
He knew that Nan was as superstitious as the old black mammy of the South who had nursed her. Aunt Sallie had come to New York for the wedding of her "baby," and Stuart could hear her now crooning over the sayings of wedding days:
"Marry in May you'll rue the day; marry in Lent you'll live to repent——"
"Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health, Wednesday best of all; Thursday for crosses, Friday for losses, and Saturday no luck at all." It was Monday, and Nan must have known it when she fixed the day—but there was another important saying he recalled now:
"Happy is the bride the sun shines on——"
Perhaps these lowering clouds and the coming storm might cause her to hesitate and postpone the marriage. All morning he sat brooding by his window, watching the swaying branches of the trees in the Square—and though he knew at best that he was a fool—confidently expecting the miracle of a message. As the hour of noon approached, despair slowly settled over his heart.
How could he reconcile himself to the horrible reality? This woman and the dreams of her had become part of his very being. The memory of his hopes began to strangle him—the wonderful life they were to live together, whose pictured scenes stretched out now before him—of home, of love, of motherhood and fatherhood hallowed by adoration, the pain, the glory, the passion, the tenderness, the sanctity, the mystery of it all—and this the end. A marriage sordid, cold, vulgar to such a man—this little tobacco-stained, bead-eyed weasel.
And she had talked to him about her career. As if she didn't know that the career of any woman was immeasurably grander than that of any man—if she fulfil her destiny that links her to God in the creation of a child—a being whose simple word may mould a million wills and change the fate of centuries—and yet she had deliberately strangled her soul and chosen this little pig, who rooted in the dirt for gold, to be the father of her children.
He rose, breathing hard and brushed a tear from his eye—a tear that had come unbidden in spite of his iron will.
He wished he had not made the foolish promise to Bivens. He knew now that he had never really believed he would have to keep it. And yet the day had come and the hour had struck, and no miracle had been wrought.
He walked with leaden steps through Tenth Street to Broadway, stopped and gazed for a moment on the graceful spire of the church before whose altar Nan would soon stand and perjure herself for money. How could she! He had long felt that in every true man's religion was a supreme belief in himself—in a woman's, faith in some one else. He knew that she believed in him, not in the man to whom she was surrendering herself. And yet she wished to consummate this act of blasphemy—in the House of God before His high altar.
"Why? Why? Why?"
His heart fairly shrieked its cry of despair. He moved mechanically toward the church and waked from his reverie to find himself jammed in a solid mass of humanity. Never before had he realized the utter vulgarity of a public wedding. Why should any one wish a crowd of curious fools to witness even the happiest wedding? Its meaning is surely frank enough without shouting it from the housetops. Should not its joys and mystery be something too shy and sweet and holy for a vulgar crowd of strangers to gaze on? And stripped of the sanctity of love, this ceremony becomes merely a calling of a mob to witness the sale of a woman's body. There could be no illusions about the fact and it was hideous.
He forced his way into the side door and stood waiting the arrival of the bride and groom. When Bivens came, the sight of him roused the slumbering devil in Stuart. The excitement of his triumph had evidently steadied the little man's nerves. His yellow teeth were shining in a broad grin, and from his piercing eyes there flashed the conscious success of the adventurer. His fine clothes and well-groomed body gave him dignity. Never had his shrimp-like figure looked so slippery and plausible.
He extended his slender hand and touched Stuart's in passing. To save his life the lawyer could not repress a shudder. In that moment he could have committed murder with joy. The agony of defeat was on him.
He knew he could beat this man in every fair fight with his bare hands or with equal weapons. And yet there he was carrying off with a grin before his very eyes the woman he loved. He felt in that moment his kinship with all the rebels and disinherited of the earth.
At last the bride came and the surpliced choir moved slowly and solemnly down the aisles through a sea of eager faces as the great organ pealed forth the first bars of the wedding march from "Lohengrin."
Nan was leaning on the arm of a stranger he had never seen before—an uncle from the West. She was pale—deathly pale and walked with a hesitating movement as though weak from illness. Suddenly his heart went out to her in a flood of pity and tenderness. He tried to make her feel this, but she passed without a glance. She had not seen him. The procession moved slowly back to the altar, and a solemn hush fell on the throng.
Stuart listened to the ceremony with a vague impersonal interest, as if it were something going on in another world.
A single question was burning itself into his brain—the price of a woman!
"Have we all our price?" he asked, searching deep into his own soul. Something pathetic in the white face of the bride had touched the deepest sources of his being.
"Have I, too, my price, oh, boastful soul?" he cried. "Would I sell my honour for a million? No. For ten, fifty, a hundred millions? No—not in the market place, no—but would I sell by a compromise of principle in the secret conclave of my party—at a sale the world could never know—would I sell for the Presidency of the Republic? Or would I sell now to win this woman? Would I? Would I? If so, I should hold her blameless. Have all men and all women a price if we but name it? Answer! Answer!" And then from the depths of his being came the burning words:
"No. By God, I swear it. No!"
He looked up with a start, wondering vaguely if the crowd had heard this cry from something inside which he knew in that moment was bigger than the world without.
No, they were intent on the drama at the altar. The minister was saying:
"With this ring I thee wed——" he couldn't see, but he knew the ring was being placed on the third finger of the left hand—chosen by tradition because a vein of blood was supposed to run direct from that finger to the heart—what a solemn farce!
And now he was saying:
"What God hath joined together—let not man put asunder——"
"'God!' Surely he didn't say 'God,'" Stuart brooded. "Does God, the august, mysterious, awful creator of the universe, work like this? Did not the God of heaven and earth give this woman to him beneath the sunny skies of the South while their souls sang for joy?"
They were moving again down the aisle, the organ throbbing the recessional from Mendelssohn. A wave of emotion swept the crowd inside and they became a mob of vulgar, chattering, gossiping fools swarming over the church as if it were the grandstand of a racecourse, without hesitation tearing down and stealing its decorations for souvenirs.
When Stuart reached the door it was pouring rain. He was glad of it. The splash of the rain in his face was refreshing and the breath of the storm was good. He walked for an hour facing the wind, not knowing or caring where it might lead.
By a curious law of reaction, all resentment and anger were gone, and only a great pity for Nan began to fill his heart.
CHAPTER X
GROPING
Stuart reached home from his walk thoroughly tired and dropped into a feverish sleep. A strange dream haunted this attempt to rest. He found himself laughing and chatting with Bivens on terms of intimate friendship. All feeling of resentment against him had gone. The little man had grown to be a great figure and he was happy in remembering their boyhood associations. And strangest of all, they had united in a feeling of hatred for Nan. She was the common enemy of both, and not only so, she was the enemy of all men. As she passed through the street, crowds were hissing and insulting her, and as she was entering her home they tried to kill her. A stone struck her beautiful forehead, and the blood was trickling down the white drawn face. He was hurling himself against the mob in a vain effort to reach her side, and while the crowd laughed and mocked, an officer mounted the steps and, instead of driving the mob back, began to strike her furiously with his club.
Stuart waked with a cry—pressed his head and looked about the room, bewildered. The tip of a swinging limb was pounding against his window pane.
He opened the window quickly and broke the twig.
"What a nightmare!" he exclaimed, with a shiver.
For hours its horror haunted his imagination.
He dressed and started to his club for dinner, changed his mind and turned down Broadway for the old Café Boulevard on Second Avenue. He stopped again in front of the dingy Bible House at the head of the Bowery and watched the flood of shopgirls and clerks passing across the street from the department stores. What an endless throng! Hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands, men and women, girls and boys, hurrying homeward. He had never noticed them before—this mighty host of three hundred thousand women and five hundred thousand men who rush into these swarming hives every morning and stream out again in the gathering dusk of spring and the deepening nights of winter.
For the first time they seemed human beings who might have hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, even as he.
How strange the world began to look through the new eyes of pity a great sorrow had given him. How worn the faces of these children. They must be horribly overworked. What a pitiful, starved life for a child. He thought of his own childhood, and saw himself with swift bare feet roaming the open fields of the South.
He was struck with the wistful faces of the very young girls—eager and wise beyond their years. What an incongruous thing this mingling of the tense eagerness of young girlhood in the straight open stare of worldly wisdom with which some of them looked at him, and, passing, turned to look again. It made him shiver. They ought to be at school, these children; why were they here, jostling, elbowing, and fighting their way through this crowd? A floor walker passed, holding a pretty girl's arm. His position was unmistakable. No other man strolls through the world with just his step and just his elevation of chin—a chin that will hold its angle in death. Among the hurrying throng that jostled by were men and women with the deep cut lines of sorrow and tragedy in faces that had seen better days, but had somehow lost their way.
Stuart's heart went out to the passing crowd in a throb of sympathy—these slaves of the Modern Invisible Master without a soul—who asked always and without comment for efficiency and economy. They must make money for him or fall by the wayside, and, if they fell, the master never knew and couldn't care.
He ate his dinner in a whirl of confused emotion and again found himself on Broadway walking at a furious pace uptown. He had no idea how furious the pace until he suddenly noticed that he was an object of mild curiosity. He slackened his speed, conscious at last that big forces were fighting within the first pitched battle for the mastery of life.
Could high ideals survive the white heat of this furnace—the focus of the modern world's fiercest desire to live and to will—the money centre of the earth? Was not the whole structure of Society at last thoroughly materialistic? Was not religion merely a tradition, honour and virtue merely the themes of song and story? Had not self and self-interest at last become the sole force behind all great deeds? It looked that way. Then why should any man be a sentimental fool? Why not grasp the main chance?
Why not turn now and beat Bivens at his own game? There was yet time to accept his offer, join his powerful group of the exploiters of modern industry, crush this little shrimp in the hollow of his fist at last, and take the woman he loved from him by the law of might. Deep within he felt throbbing forces of savage cruelty that in the centuries of the past had given his ancestors the leadership of men before the finer virtues of love and mercy which permitted a Bivens to exist had been born. The big nostrils of his long straight nose dilated, the white hard teeth of his strong jaw snapped, and his eyes flashed.
Why not?
Again and again these fierce questions surged within. The "Great White Way" flashed its splendours of electric light. But there was no warmth in it for his spirit. He noted to-night for the first time that the lights were not hung on high for the joy of those who pass. They were flames in the temple of the new god Mammon. They were the signs of hucksters who had goods to sell to the crowds at a profit. The profusion of light, the rush of eager throngs to the theatres, the flash and clatter of passing carriages, the streets piled with débris, the half-finished steel skyscraper whose black ribs stood out against the stars, all brought to his imagination this evening the impression of exhaustless power.
But what power?
Certainly not the power of love, pity, heroism, and unselfish devotion to ideals. There could be but one answer. These flaming signs in the sky were the signals of the advance skirmish line of a huge host—growing in number and power each hour—the army of Mammon!
He paused before a theatre into which a stream of pleasure seekers were pouring. The ticket speculators were yelling their wares on the sidewalk. The play was a famous musical comedy. He knew to-night why musical comedy had such vogue in the money centres of the world. It had become the supreme expression of the utterly absurd—the reduction of life to the terms of an absurdity expressed in rhythmic and sensuous beauty. For men whose god was money, it would doubtless become ultimately the only form of public entertainment.
He began to negotiate with one of the young Hebrew philanthropists of the pavement for a ticket, but stopped in disgust and moved on. There was something inside that hadn't surrendered. He began to be dimly conscious of the fact that the real fight had scarcely begun. The philanthropist's feelings were hurt by his abrupt departure. He followed for half a block holding to Stuart's coat, protesting his affectionate and earnest desire to promote his pleasure without a cent of profit. He offered to cut the price of a seat to $3.50 and solemnly swore that the unfeeling and unprincipled manager had made him pay $3.00 for the ticket.
Stuart paused a moment, his imagination caught by the ravenous eagerness of the man's face. Here surely was a true worshipper in the modern temple.
The young lawyer smiled and said:
"I salute you, my brother—I'm thinking of joining you soon!"
The speculator suddenly let go his sleeve and hurried back to his place, glancing over his shoulder with a vague fear that the lunatic might follow him.
Stuart hurried on to one of the more dignified and serious theatres just off Broadway. He bought a ticket and entered, wondering if he would find the house empty. To his surprise it was full—orchestra, balcony, and gallery. The play was a serious effort by a brilliant young dramatist of the modern school of realism. In two minutes from the rising of the curtain the play had gripped him with relentless power. Slowly, remorseless as fate, he saw the purpose of the author unfold itself in a series of tense and terrible scenes. The comedy over which the crowd laughed with such contagious merriment was even more sinister than the serious parts. No matter what the situation—whether set to laughter, to terror, or to tears—beneath it all throbbed one insistant question:
"Has the woman who sells herself for money a soul?"
With breathless interest he watched the cruel carving of her body into tiny pieces. Without sniffling, whining, or apology, with arms bared and gleaming scalpel firmly gripped in a hand that never quivered once, the author dissected her. Always he could hear this white invisible figure bending over each scene talking to the audience in his quiet terrible way:
"Well, if be she has a soul, we shall find it. Perhaps it's here!" The knife flashed and the crowd laughed. The result was so unexpected, yet so remarkable they had to laugh.
"We'll try again!" the white figure said with a smile, "Perhaps we should go deeper."
And then with firm strong hand the last secret of muscle and nerve and bone was laid bare and the white face looked into the eyes of the audience through a mist of tears.
"I'm sorry, my friends. But we must face the truth. It's better to know the truth, however bitter, than to believe a lie. I do not dogmatize. I do not draw conclusions. I merely show you the thing that is."
With a soft rush the big curtain came down in a silence that could be felt. The dazed crowd waked from the spell and poured into the aisles, while Stuart still sat gripping the arms of his seat with strangling emotion.
At last he said to himself with choking emphasis:
"He was cruel, inhuman, unjust—I refuse to believe it—she has a soul—— She has a soul!"
And yet a question had been raised in his mind that was destined to change the whole motive and purpose of his life.