CHAPTER XIXInstead of the little bronze figure in the buckskin dress with its straight, simple lines, as straight and simple as the soul within it, he saw a white woman, preternaturally white, the complex product of nature and art, where the dressmaker, the hair-dresser, and the jeweller had done their latest and best, with the soft, warm, dark colors of the library as a noble background, a chromatic frame. Her Paquin gown of canary yellow, cut very low, was bordered and outlined with dark-brown marabou feathers. On her dazzling neck rested a string of emeralds, the gift of Lord Yester. Her red hair was dressed, buttressed and supplemented by braids, coils and puffs, and surmounted by a diamond tiara. Her white hands were covered with rings, many of them with a history. This ornate combination was concealing and exposing an individuality more complex still, its barbaric impulses crossed and seamed and twisted by generations of acquired stress and strain. She was a radiant creature, conscious of her charms, but about her agate eyes were gathering little signals of distress, grave, insistent warnings, destined not to be heeded, saying that she had lived too fast, that she was at the zenith, the climax, that the descent would be quick and rapid. The wonderful mechanism wasn't working smoothly. "How do you do, Harold? Welcome home." And an extended hand. And this was her husband, returned from a long journey."Thank you, Edith," and he took her hand. She did not offer to kiss him and she gave him only one hand. He might have been a stranger to whom she had just been introduced. Indeed, she would have had more interest in a stranger. They had gone past even the forms of domestic procedure."Winifred," said her cousin, "Lord Yester is in the drawing-room. You get on so well together. Would you mind?""Not at all.""I just want a moment's chat with Harold."Winifred glanced at them with a cynical smile as she went out of the room. The situation appealed to her supreme love of contrast."You'll pardon my running off to-night, Harold; won't you? You see I didn't know in time, and I couldn't very well break a previous engagement. I asked Winifred to take my place and make you feel at home." And she undulated over to the railing before the fireplace and sat down in the genial glow in an indolent cat-like way. The fog had penetrated into the house and there was a chill in the dampness. She knew, too, that the fire shot strange lights into her hair and over her jewels and neck, and the desire to excite admiration was instinctive and ever present."Winifred is good company and she did her best," said Hal simply."And I knew that after a little chat with Winifred—well—that you would know all there was to know, and that there wouldn't be anything left for me to tell."It was evident that neither woman had any illusions about the other. The attitude of rest and repose was only momentary. She got up restlessly and came forward, her eyes bent with fierce concentration upon his."Of course you haven't come back with the idea of changing anything?""Your attitude would seem to make that hopeless, Edith."She was relieved. It was not to be open war, then. She turned half away, let her eyelids droop, and surveyed and measured him from underneath them. It gave her an oriental look."My dear Harold, it is too late for pretence between us. You will welcome a release quite as eagerly as I shall; and so we ought to be able to arrange matters. We have investigated your movements since you have been away and the name of the Indian woman will serve our purposes."This produced a most disagreeable impression upon Hal."No," he said with a slow drawl that had menace in it. "No, I think not."Edith turned and looked at him in amazement. It was a formality, one of those unpleasant formalities the silly law made necessary. The woman in view would never know of it, wouldn't care if she did. It seemed much the easier way. To her look of genteel astonishment he said in explanation:"You see she is nothing but a savage. She wouldn't understand our refinements."She laughed at his irony. Then he was in love, romantically in love. She laughed joyously. It seemed to make his acquiescence very certain."I won't oppose your application," she heard him say.Of course he would not. Why should he? He loved this Indian woman. Her fears of a moment ago seemed childish, silly. She felt the situation pliant in her soft, cruel hand. Her heart leaped up within her. Her barque, too, was floating with the stream. It was a pleasure barge smothered in flowers but crowned with a coronet, and as it spread its silken sails to the perfumed breeze, everywhere in the crowded roadway shipping gave way and place, salutes were fired, and everywhere the air was thick with adulation and acclaim. And no small part of the anticipated triumph were the scowls of the envious and the evening of old scores."I make two stipulations," she heard him say.She held her breath. Had he led her on only to tell her at last that he would fight her application—refuse her freedom? She knew she was at his mercy. He could exact bitter terms. He could in fact prevent the consummation of her crowning ambitions; could wreck the whole elaborate structure of her life. Her assured happiness seemed suddenly threatened. In a hysterical moment she saw it in ruins. Instantly her plans and prospects assumed an importance and insistence they had never had before. At the thought that he might stand in her way she was filled with an insane fury. Still she waited. What would he demand?"You must not bring the Indian woman's name into the affair."Heavens! Was that all? Willing victims and accomplices were to be found. What else?"And you must take no steps while my father lives."She passed in a second from death unto life. The Earl was clinging to existence by a thread. Hal hadn't even bargained for the return of the jewels he had given her. She felt that she must make some show of resistance or the terms would be changed. It was too ridiculously simple."Of course Lord Yester's wishes must not be ignored.""I cannot allow you or Lord Yester to decide that for me."He turned away as he spoke and so was not aware that Lord Yester had entered the room in time to hear this reference to himself. It is universally conceded that it requires courage to interfere between husband and wife; but then Lord Yester was a brave little man. He could wait no longer. His fate, too, was being decided in the library. He felt he must have a voice in deciding it. More than that, she needed him, this soft, plaintive soul that had come through time and space, through sin and suffering, to meet him, her complement, her supplement. Small, slender, with a delicate, sensitive face, distinguished by regular but small features, he had a fine, fresh, unspoiled capacity for suffering, which she teased and worried and played with for her infinite amusement. Quite apart from his coming coronet, she was in love with him; that is, she was a pyromaniac, and she got sensations from seeing his emotions burn, the fresh, beautiful emotions of a poet and a child."Harold, I don't think you have met Lord Norman Yester?"She was the only one of the three who was without embarrassment."Yes, I think I met Lord Yester when he was at Eton."Hal had no intention of making the other uncomfortable.The clod! thought Yester; the clumsy clod! Eton, indeed! Everything about the boy was small except his spirit. He was like a child who says: "I'm six, going on seven.""Yes?" he said with a supercilious elevation of the brows. "That was such a long time ago, I had quite forgotten it."Having put the unpleasant husband in his place, he turned to her with the utmost deference, to the wronged and neglected wife."Edith," he said gently—"Lady Effington," he corrected himself and bowed formally to her husband. It was a delightfully ingenuous thing to do. Hal smiled, but not in derision. In fact, he liked the boy. What a funny little mediaeval gentleman!"Lady Effington," continued Sir Launcelot (pocket edition), "if you can feel that I am worthy of your confidence, perhaps you will leave your interests in my hands—er—in our hands!"Again he forgot the unpleasant husband and again he bowed an apology for his breach of etiquette."Thank you, Lord Yester," she said with a gravity and dignity equal to his own. To Hal it was like a play—this elaborate formality, this adroit indirectness, this dexterity in handling high explosives in a perfectly safe and genteel way, this modern capacity to bring everything down to a common denominator. He could play the game too, but what a long way it seemed from Red Butte Ranch, Big Bill, John McCloud, McShay, and Wah-na-gi, 'the soul without a body'!"Lord Effington and I are both men of the world," Hal heard the youngster say. "It ought not to be difficult for us to—to—arrive at an understanding."Lord Yester had his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, his chest was thrown out, and he was balancing himself on the ball of his foot. It was an acquired mannerism that seemed to add to his height. Like all small men, he was fond of referring to the fact that Napoleon was not a giant.Edith inclined her beautiful head forward at an angle of supreme deference."I leave my happiness in your hands, with the utmost confidence in you both," she said gracefully as she swept out of the room. Lord Yester met her as she moved and gave her the homage of his protection to the door! The movement left the husband in the position of a rank outsider.What fun Edith must have had, Hal thought, in playing up to these ideals! Edith, who had no ideals of her own.When Yester returned the two men looked at each other; there was an awkward pause, each man cleared his throat, and each waited for the other to begin."Will you smoke?" asked Hal with a motion to the cigars. The youngster made a nervous start toward the table, then it occurred to him that he could not meet on such a friendly basis the man who had treated with inhuman cruelty the woman who had thrown herself upon his protection; so he stopped short and very awkwardly said:"No! thank you; no, no!"Again an awkward pause."Will you sit down?"That seemed consistent with dignity and he started to do so, but again recoiled."I—eh—I feel more comfortable standing, if you don't mind."Hal bowed. Yester's awkwardness was catching. He lounged across the room, sat down on the rail before the fire, and lit a cigarette. He could wait. Yester fiddled with his collar, stroked his cheek, and fidgeted."This is—this is rather a delicate situation, isn't it?" he said at last with a little deprecatory, nervous smile."Nothing seems unusual or impossible these days," said Hal easily."Well, you see," said the other, "I was intended for the diplomatic service, but I'm afraid I'm rather direct."What a kid it was, thought Hal."An engaging frankness is sometimes the highest form of diplomacy," he said encouragingly."Well, you see," said the other gathering courage, "she has come to rely on me so completely, on my judgment as it were——""She? Oh, yes, my wife.""Yes, yes," eagerly assented the lover, so absorbed in his own romance as to be beautifully oblivious to any other point of view. Hal smoked and kept an inscrutable face, while his heart sang within him, going with the wind and tide, going out of these eddies, these twists and turns, out into the broad ocean and on to a new world.Yester walked over to the writing-table and began to play nervously with its furnishings."I wanted to say certain things to you, and I—I—I find I hardly know how." Then he pulled himself together as his mind went back over their acquaintance. "You see, as she had no other friends, as she was in trouble and in bad health, my sympathies were naturally enlisted, and almost before either of us realized it—well, you see, while I think you have behaved very badly, I—eh—now that we have met, I—will you let me say, I feel very sorry for you?"The ingenuousness of this was completely disarming. Hal loved the child. But he continued to treat the situation with becoming gravity, bowed formally, and said:"That's very generous of you.""At the same time," exclaimed the little man returning to his purpose, "it is her happiness that must concern us both, isn't it? And I can only say that if you can accept the inevitable—well and good! If not," and again he balanced himself on his toes and expanded his chest; "if not, I stand ready to face the alternative."Alternative sounded ominous. What did it mean?"Alternative?" said Hal puzzled."I'll meet you under any terms and conditions you may name.""'Meet me?' Oh, yes," and he smiled in spite of himself. "Why, duelling is illegal, isn't it? It's worse than illegal; it's unfashionable." He rose and went over to the boy and looked down at him with a protecting air. "I shouldn't want to take the life of such a gallant little gentleman, and I should care even less to have you take mine. I'm afraid I'm hopelessly commonplace."Hal's attitude in spite of himself was too obvious."I'm afraid that is too evident, Lord Effington," said Yester sharply, resenting the overlordship of the other. "And may I suggest," he added with growing irritation, "that I am not so much younger and smaller than yourself that you need persist in patronizing me?""I beg your pardon. I had no intention of doing that." Then he looked at him very seriously and added: "I hope for the sake of my middle-class conscience you know what you are doing.""I feel quite capable of deciding that," replied the boy easily. "I know something of the world—something, I fancy, of women!""And you are almost of age," added Hal."I am about to attain my majority," said Yester stiffly. "And when I do——""You hope to celebrate it by your marriage to my wife?"The other bowed with an engaging smile."Quite so. Well, I shall not stand in the way of your happiness, Lord Yester.""That is very noble of you.""I'm afraid it's rather selfish of me. Your happiness happens to correspond with mine. And I hope in the future you will never have cause to think bitterly of me."In Hal's eyes lurked an embryo twinkle. What a ripping farce civilization was!"On the contrary," said Yester, happy beyond words, "I think you have behaved exceedingly well. You conceal your sufferings like a soldier and you join me in protecting the good name of the woman we have both loved. I can only say that you have acted like a gentleman, Lord Effington."Both men bowed formally."Lord Yester," said Hal; "your father once did me a great service. I hope we shall always be friends?"And they shook hands."Oh, Sir George, you know Lord Yester, I think?"Hal spoke to the physician who had entered from the hall.Both men bowed slightly. Hal turned to the heir of the Duke of Uxminster."Lady Effington will explain to you the only conditions I make. They are very slight and I am sure will meet with your approval.""Thank you," and the little fellow bowed elaborately to each man and left the room with his arms folded behind him, an attitude very much affected by Napoleon, if we may trust the pictures.It was with difficulty that Hal refrained from laughter. What a farce, but what a joyous farce! Already he was mentally speculating on the time when he could turn his back on these attitudinizing people with their picture-poster lives, on all this hollow, artificial make-believe, and return to the shirtsleeve crowd. What joy he would bring to one soul! He saw her face as he said to her:"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi; I'm coming back." He had forgotten Sir George."I beg your pardon, Sir George. Delightful little chap, Yester! Eh? I wonder if I was ever as young as that."It was evident that Yester's attentions to the wife of another man had not been a recommendation to the sedate scientist. He said dryly: "I don't know whether he's a fool or a knave.""Well, he isn't either," said Hal. "He's been reading 'Ivanhoe'! You wanted to speak to me of father, Sir George.""No, my boy; it's in regard to your wife."Sir George had not only been the Earl's medical adviser as far back as Hal could remember but he had also been his intimate friend as well. Hal was thinking of other things, planning his escape, picturing the welcome the West was keeping for her child, or he would have noticed an extra consideration in the doctor's tone, an added solicitude in his manner."Edith?" he queried indifferently and with polite surprise."Yes; sit down." The doctor motioned to the little sofa which had its back against the writing-table. Hal sat down carelessly and picked up from the seat the society journal Lady Winifred had put into his hands a few moments before and began to turn its leaves and glance at its pictures, but in a cursory way and with an inclination of the head toward the physician to indicate that he was listening. Of course Sir George did not know—how could he?—that he and Edith had passed into different worlds.Sir George himself was a study as he stood for a second regarding the other. How was it this custodian of other people's secrets and sorrows, forever intimate with sickness and pain, could look so sufficient, so impeccable, so serene? Well groomed, smooth, and polished to his finger tips, there seemed no surface where trouble or anxiety might stick.Was it an armor or was it his integument?"It's quite time you came home," the doctor said, glancing absent-mindedly at his polished finger nails. "You must give some thought to Edith. The life she is leading is exhausting, abnormal. She requires a change. You ought to take her away from London and this fast set.""She has always lived this life, Sir George. It isn't any different, is it?""You have a ranch in America. It's just the thing. Why don't you take her there?""She wouldn't go. She is joined to her idols and I'm not one of them, Sir George."The doctor was standing at the corner of the table. He satisfied himself that they were alone before speaking, then he bent toward the young man and said quietly:"Of course no one knows it as yet but me; but you ought to know it; in fact, you will know it eventually, when perhaps it is too late, so——"Hal looked up from his periodical."You alarm me, Sir George. What is it?"The physician's eye fell upon the paper in Hal's hands."Allow me," he said and held out his hand for it.Hal watched him deliberately turn the pages. He seemed to take a painfully long time to do it. Meantime the fog seemed to have penetrated the walls and to have taken possession of the place; the lights grew dim and the fire loomed ghostly in the dim distance. The air was thick and Hal seemed to breathe with difficulty. Ah, at last the doctor found what he was looking for. He handed it back and pointed to the article. There must be some mistake. He had already glanced through that article. It concerned an unfortunate woman who was found in Hyde Park under the influence of——He glanced up. Sir George was still standing there. He must have been waiting a long time. Hal spoke at last, very slowly."And that was—Edith?"The physician nodded his head gravely.Hal glanced back at the paper but he did not see it. He sat still as if everything was just as it had been before, but he knew that the earth was rocking in a convulsion, that the house of his building was tumbling about him, that he was choking with the circumambient dust, and that he could not move or escape, only sit still until it was all over.CHAPTER XXThe doctor waited patiently while the other readjusted his disordered faculties and groped his way toward the light."Good Lord, how terrible!" said Hal, distrait. "Why, Edith is the last woman in the world—strong willed, self-willed, ambitious! Why, I can't grasp it. It doesn't seem possible. I—I can't realize it.""Oh, it's common enough these days," said the doctor, sitting down beside the boy and putting his hand on his knee in suggested sympathy. "The pace that kills! No rest, no respite! Teas, dinners, receptions, theatres, balls, races, motors, yachts; bridge, morning, noon and night; excitement, fatigue, reaction, depression; then stimulants, small at first, then more stimulants for greater depression, then over-stimulants; then sleeplessness and all the horrors of neurasthenia; then narcotics for rest and quiet, to keep from going mad; then, all of a sudden as it seems, but really by the most logical process, ahabitis formed—a fixed, implacable, relentless habit.""Poor old girl," said Hal, trying to follow the professional exegesis. "How awful. How awful! But of course people are cured of such things, Sir George. You haven't let this go on?""Unfortunately it had been going on for some time before I discovered it, and of course I have done all I can, all I know. I'm afraid it's now beyond me. She has one chance in a thousand, and that chance is in your hands: the fresh air, out-door life, simple living, rest, peace, quiet! Then, if she will help you, if she will help herself, why, who knows?"Again he put his hand on the boy's knee as much as to say: Don't take it too much to heart. We all have some affliction. If it isn't one thing, it's another, and fortunately we have work to do, and that saves us—work. All he said was:"Well, I must be going.""I want to see you a moment before you go, Sir George."It was Edith speaking. She had entered the room as usual—noiselessly.The doctor gave her a quick look. She was radiant. She had heard nothing, suspected nothing. He gave a sigh of relief."At your service, Lady Effington; I'll be in the billiard-room."She made sure he had left the room, then she came toward Hal, her head up, her face beaming, her eyes dancing, glorious, transcendent! Magnificent to look upon was this wayward woman in the first glow of triumph, but Hal did not see her. He was gazing dumbly into space."It's very splendid of you, Harold," she said as she came over and sat down beside him, just where the doctor had sat a moment ago."I have come to thank you. You and I were never meant for each other, but it has been no fault of yours, and though I shall be compelled legally to complain of your cruelty, I shall, as a matter of fact, always remember gratefully your generous and considerate treatment. Fortunately it is not too late to remedy our mistakes. Lord Yester tells me you have definitely agreed not to interfere with our plans."At the conclusion of her rhapsody she leaned forward and put her hand on his. It was almost a caress, the nearest approach to it she had bestowed on him in years. He withdrew his hand and took hers, giving it a little sympathetic pat, then he rose and walked away, the lines of his face drawn. She looked at him in wonder. Was it possible he cared for her a little bit after all?"One moment, Edith," he said. "You see I didn't know. I couldn't know. And now—well, for the moment I'm bowled over. We'll have to think this thing over, won't we? Hang it all, it isn't fair, is it? It doesn't seem quite fair.""Fair?" she echoed with a dubious smile. She saw that he was laboring under great excitement. "Fair?""To him—to the boy—to Yester.""What are you talking about?" she said with patient incredulity. He paid no attention to her. He only half heard her questions and answers. He was reasoning it out, laboring with himself."He's a mere boy, and not a bad sort either; in fact, he's really quite all right. I don't see how we can go on with it; you and I."She was like one who is suddenly and violently awakened from a halcyon dream to gaze into the glare of a dark lantern in the hands of a thief who may at any moment become an assassin. At the first glimmer of what he meant terror gripped her. She rose and came toward him."You gavemeyour word. You gaveLord Yesteryour word.""I didn't know the—the situation, did I? You see I thought I could just put my hands in my pockets and stand off and let it go on, but if I see a blind man walking over a precipice and I don't stop him, why, I might just as well push him over. It's murder either way. I can't do it. I don't see how I can do it. I've changed my mind."He tried to walk away as if it were settled. She followed him softly, like a cat, then confronted him."I won't let you change your mind." She spoke slowly and quietly, but it was a brave or a stupid man who could ignore the threat."It's no use, Edith. Sir George has told me, told me for your own sake." Again he turned away, as if he were looking for a way of escape from himself, from her, from the situation. She felt a wild impulse to scream, to leap upon him and tear him to pieces, and then it came to her that that would lend color to his veiled accusations. She must go softly, cunningly, and—wait.He walked away, over to the fireplace. Was there no way out of it? Oh, if Sir George had not spoken! If he had not known! Was there no other way? Was no compromise possible? Why should the burden of all these lives fall upon him? Why should he be handed the cross to bear? The flames, like little red demons, little fire sprites, danced here and there, threw up their hands, squirmed, writhed, trying to get away, trying to leap into the air, trying to seize an unattainable something, falling back like whipped dogs to lick and bite the smoking log! Gazing into the fantastic fire depths—he saw Wah-na-gi, and beside her John McCloud, just as they stood that fateful day he left the Red Butte Ranch. "If you do come back, you must bring this Indian woman clean hands and a pure heart, promise me that." And hehad promised. And Wah-na-gi, the soul without a body, heard him promise. He had come thousands of miles that he might keep the spirit of that promise. And now all he had to do would be to let things alone, let them go on as they were going. Why should he interfere? Why should he meddle? Would any one thank him? Every one, even Yester himself, would hate him. What possible good would it do? It was too late to interfere. His own happiness was at stake too. What of that? Why should he ruin his own happiness with theirs? He would go home a free man and who would know the difference? There would be no one to blame him except his own conscience. Oh, subterfuge, subterfuge! The lying little devil flames laughed. John McCloud would know. In fact, by some clairvoyant mystery, he already knew! Even now he was saying: "And this boy is the son of your benefactor, the son of your friend."At last he said, as if to the fire:"I couldn't do this and then go back and face Wah-na-gi and John McCloud. I promised if I came back to come with clean hands.""You are talking like a wild man," Edith said. "But you see I am not excited. You're not going to betray me into a scene and then accuse me of being as crazy as you are. I sit down and I am calm."She sat down deliberately in the high-backed chair and clutched its arms, and clung to it desperately like a drowning sailor. "I have perfect self-possession, complete control of myself, and I listen, listen to a madman. Go on."She was sincere. He was irresponsible. Nothing else would explain it.Indeed, to most of us, those who act from altruistic motives are quite as incomprehensible as those whose acts suggest diabolical and abnormal instigation. The boy was mad. He had always been "queer." He was the son of his father.By a supreme effort of the will she brought all her faculties to bear. She would first understand this and then she would know how to meet it. She was a resourceful woman and used to bending others to her will. He was the son of his father. Swiftly her mind climbed the stairs and bent over the invalid. Relentlessly she seized his life and dragged it out of the sick bed, and submitted it to a searching examination. All his life the Earl had been a sentimentalist. All his life he had made mistakes. The woman who loved him had once called them "glorious mistakes." Everybody else called them just mistakes. Out of quixotic love for the Countess Diana he had left England under a cloud, bearing the inevitable implication of another's guilt. Another man would have stayed in London and have been her lover. That was his first mistake. An exile, branded as a thief, he had tried to hide himself away from civilization, became a cattle-man, in a country where white women were a curiosity, was thrown by circumstances into relations with a pretty little Indian woman, had a child by her, and married the woman that he might not be the father of an illegitimate child. That was his second mistake. Any other man would have married her by tribal rites and, when he got ready, made her a present or made it worth while for some one else to marry her. When the death of Diana's husband, the real embezzler, called him back to a title and to the life and the land and the woman he loved, he chose to stay with the little savage who was the mother of his child. Another mistake! And so he continued. Sentimental again with regard to his duty to the child, he had driven the Indian mother to suicide. Free at last to marry the woman for whom he had made such fantastic sacrifices, they were both middle-aged people, the bloom to life, the blush of love was gone. Then, in the first glow of their new-found happiness, Diana died, and he was alone. What had the idealist to show for all his glorious "mistakes"? for his unselfish adhesion to a self-conscious conception of duty? It was ridiculous. We live in a practical world. That world has two standards—a theoretical one, that no one uses, and the practical one, the actual one. To try to live outside the actual is to try to reverse the law of gravitation. We have invented the theoretical standard to fool others into a course we would not take ourselves. It's a trap for the simple-minded. It was madness. Yes, this boy was the mad son of a mad sentimentalist. And these sentimentalists drag other people to ruin with them. But why should she, a practical woman, a woman of the world, the real world, be made the victim of these madmen? Her will, seldom thwarted and never tamed, rose up for battle and said, no, NO!"I won't be a party to this, Edith," he said, looking into the fire, and the moment he had said it he began to realize what such a decision would involve.One step forward or backward wasn't enough. One couldn't stand still. One couldn't stop. My God, where would it end? He couldn't take everything away from her and then leave her to herself. Lord Yester would gladly assume the burden and accept the consequences. If he thwarted her, if he stood between her and her desires—what? He became the nurse of an irresponsible sick woman. The love that might have made that possible was gone, never really existed. She had stolen this boy's love and was stealing his life. To make her drop it, he would have to resort to force—then what? Where would it end? Who made him a policeman or a jailer? He wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it. No one would do it. He was a fool to think of it. He wasn't doing this willingly. He was hypnotized, led, driven by some force outside himself."But I won't leave you to fight it out alone," he said. His voice sounded strange to himself. What was that he was saying? He would rebel, deny it, take it all back in the next breath."I'll give up all my own plans and I'll stand by you."He recoiled, frightened, appalled at what he had said, but one thing involved another. There it was; it was his decision, his; he had announced it. Could he become a party to this conspiracy against this innocent boy, the son of his friend, and then could he go back and tell Wah-na-gi and John McCloud exactly what he had done, and then be happy? If not, then he must go the other way, and accept the consequences, and meet them. If they were to be met, it must be boldly. Cowardice encouraged the enemy."Yes, there is no other way," he said. "I'll give up all my own plans." And for one cruel moment he stopped to think what that meant to him. "I'll stand by you, give you my hand, and we'll beat it out together." Then he pulled himself together, put a torch to his bridges, and went on, his face lit up with the light of their burning."Come now," he said with a show of spirit, going to her as she held herself with supreme self-control in the big chair. "Be a sport, old girl! Chuck it all, this rotten, artificial life, and come with me out into the open. We'll leave this man-made world, and go out into God's world, and then when you have mastered this thing, when you are free——"He was about to add that then she could marry the Duke of Uxminster or whomsoever she pleased, but Edith did not let him finish. What would become of this romantic boy in the meantime? and marriageable dukes were scarce. Besides, she had no intention of postponing indefinitely her happiness or her plans. Like all habit-victims, she refused to acknowledge even to herself her slavery. Even, supposing she had to admit it, she would reform herself! Indeed, she had made up her mind to it already and was about to begin. Her marriage to Lord Yester would help her, furnish her an irresistible motive for reformation. To keep him from eventually finding out, she would have to reform, and she had grown very fond of the boy. His romantic idealization of her was very beautiful. Hal could safely leave all this in her hands. In fact, he would have to leave it in her hands. She began to tear at her lace handkerchief in spasmodic jerks."I don't know whether to laugh or to scream," she said with a scared smile, "but you see I am calm, and I am listening to you.""I used to be a drunkard," he said. "Look at me now. You shall choose. We'll go wherever you like. We'll hunt big game in Africa, or fish for tarpon in Florida, or go after the musk-ox in the Barren Grounds. You don't know what it means to sleep under the sky, to bathe your soul in the solitude, to rest in the friendly silences, and live face to face with the Infinite."He spoke with the enthusiasm of the devotee, of what he knew and had felt. He had in his soul to be the priest, the Poet of the Open, and now, in the white heat of this tense moment, he found expression."Don't hang hack," he urged. "Don't despair, and don't discourage me."The last was almost plaintive. He knew that he needed help.She rose and looked at him through the slits of her eyes."You have never influenced one act of my life. What makes you think you can do so now?""Sir George says it's your only chance."She backed away, on guard. She began to laugh, a little hollow, false laugh. She would admit nothing."My only chance? Sir George says that?"She laughed again, the laugh of derision, of defiance. They have an expression in the courts, "theburdenof proof," and sometimes it's a heavy load to carry. Flagrant sin cries out: Prove it! The habitual criminal, caught, the stolen goods taken from his pocket, says: "I never saw it before. Some one put it there." Prove it, her laugh cried."Now, don't try that," he said gently. He did not love her, but it was piteous to see this gorgeous creature, with the world at her feet and destiny in her hand, with possibilities unlimited; it was piteous to see her throw it all away in her lust for something—God knows what—something she called "pleasure!" "life," in the mad race for sensation, for excitement, in the fatuous ambition for place in the shallow mob that called itself Society, sacrificing herself on the Altar of Self, pouring out her own blood before her own image. It was piteous! One can't stand idly by and see a maddened horse rush back into a burning stable. It was impossible not to feel sorry for her, not to want to help her."Sir George felt it was his duty to you, his duty to me," he added. She straightened up and her eyes blazed."It isn't true. I don't do it. It's a lie—a wicked, devilish lie! Who will believe him? Who will believe a man sworn not to betray his patient's secrets? He has no professional honor. Who will believe him? I don't do it. I don't do it!"He hadn't mentioned it. She had forgotten that she was admitting that she knew what he had in mind, and that the admission was fatal."I've suffered, suffered horribly from headaches and insomnia, and sometimes I've taken it, sometimes for that, but I call God to witness——"She was screaming in a fierce whisper."Hush," he said, trying to quiet her. "The doctor says you must get away from here. It's your only chance. Sir George says, if you will help me, if you will help yourself, you can win out. Come, you must let me help you. Let me try. Won't you let me try?"What was the matter with the man?"Can't you grasp it?" she said, regaining some poise by a great effort. "Don't you see that what you call silence and solitude would put me in a madhouse? Leave London? Why, London is my heaven!" And she sat down on the sofa, or rather crouched down, as if the statement was an argument and the argument unanswerable."London, Heaven, eh?"Her words broke through the wall of his prejudices and the stored-up waters of bitterness gushed forth."London that is growing sterile in Mayfair and breeding monsters in Whitechapel! London, with one man in every four a pauper; with its thousands of starving school children! With its multitudes who have nothing trying to sell it to those who have everything! With its terrible women and its hopeless men; hollow-eyed vice cheek by jowl with hollow-eyed want; luxury, overdressed, sweeping past wretches who are dying standing up, without the decency of a bed on which to throw the rotten remnants of their tortured lives! London, Heaven, eh? My God!"He had forgotten her, himself, in his indictment of the city, not London alone, but the city everywhere, the city that reversed the order and the law of nature!How far removed they were! She had relaxed, and the curl and sag of her body, the sensuous somnolent droop of the eye-lid, the voluptuous lips apart, she might have posed for a statue of lazy luxury. "London is my soul," she said softly, dreamily. "I'd rather be a stray cat crawling among its chimneys than live in splendor anywhere else. The crowds, the excitement, the strife, I love it! People amuse me, their passions, their cruelty, even their meanness, yes, even their dulness, their satiety! It all fascinates me. I'm drunk with it. I wouldn't give it up, and I couldn't if I would." She rose and came to him, and scrutinized him narrowly with soft cunning."Don't be foolish! What's your object? Why do you want to play the hypocrite with me? You don't care for me any more than I care for you. And when I am Duchess of Uxminster——""I think you'd better give that up," he said coldly."Why give it up?" she said with fierce challenge."You and I must answer for our own mistakes and sins," he said. "We mustn't unload them onto others. Lord Yester doesn't know.""Who will tell him? Who will tell him?" she cried with bravado."You will," he said.
CHAPTER XIX
Instead of the little bronze figure in the buckskin dress with its straight, simple lines, as straight and simple as the soul within it, he saw a white woman, preternaturally white, the complex product of nature and art, where the dressmaker, the hair-dresser, and the jeweller had done their latest and best, with the soft, warm, dark colors of the library as a noble background, a chromatic frame. Her Paquin gown of canary yellow, cut very low, was bordered and outlined with dark-brown marabou feathers. On her dazzling neck rested a string of emeralds, the gift of Lord Yester. Her red hair was dressed, buttressed and supplemented by braids, coils and puffs, and surmounted by a diamond tiara. Her white hands were covered with rings, many of them with a history. This ornate combination was concealing and exposing an individuality more complex still, its barbaric impulses crossed and seamed and twisted by generations of acquired stress and strain. She was a radiant creature, conscious of her charms, but about her agate eyes were gathering little signals of distress, grave, insistent warnings, destined not to be heeded, saying that she had lived too fast, that she was at the zenith, the climax, that the descent would be quick and rapid. The wonderful mechanism wasn't working smoothly. "How do you do, Harold? Welcome home." And an extended hand. And this was her husband, returned from a long journey.
"Thank you, Edith," and he took her hand. She did not offer to kiss him and she gave him only one hand. He might have been a stranger to whom she had just been introduced. Indeed, she would have had more interest in a stranger. They had gone past even the forms of domestic procedure.
"Winifred," said her cousin, "Lord Yester is in the drawing-room. You get on so well together. Would you mind?"
"Not at all."
"I just want a moment's chat with Harold."
Winifred glanced at them with a cynical smile as she went out of the room. The situation appealed to her supreme love of contrast.
"You'll pardon my running off to-night, Harold; won't you? You see I didn't know in time, and I couldn't very well break a previous engagement. I asked Winifred to take my place and make you feel at home." And she undulated over to the railing before the fireplace and sat down in the genial glow in an indolent cat-like way. The fog had penetrated into the house and there was a chill in the dampness. She knew, too, that the fire shot strange lights into her hair and over her jewels and neck, and the desire to excite admiration was instinctive and ever present.
"Winifred is good company and she did her best," said Hal simply.
"And I knew that after a little chat with Winifred—well—that you would know all there was to know, and that there wouldn't be anything left for me to tell."
It was evident that neither woman had any illusions about the other. The attitude of rest and repose was only momentary. She got up restlessly and came forward, her eyes bent with fierce concentration upon his.
"Of course you haven't come back with the idea of changing anything?"
"Your attitude would seem to make that hopeless, Edith."
She was relieved. It was not to be open war, then. She turned half away, let her eyelids droop, and surveyed and measured him from underneath them. It gave her an oriental look.
"My dear Harold, it is too late for pretence between us. You will welcome a release quite as eagerly as I shall; and so we ought to be able to arrange matters. We have investigated your movements since you have been away and the name of the Indian woman will serve our purposes."
This produced a most disagreeable impression upon Hal.
"No," he said with a slow drawl that had menace in it. "No, I think not."
Edith turned and looked at him in amazement. It was a formality, one of those unpleasant formalities the silly law made necessary. The woman in view would never know of it, wouldn't care if she did. It seemed much the easier way. To her look of genteel astonishment he said in explanation:
"You see she is nothing but a savage. She wouldn't understand our refinements."
She laughed at his irony. Then he was in love, romantically in love. She laughed joyously. It seemed to make his acquiescence very certain.
"I won't oppose your application," she heard him say.
Of course he would not. Why should he? He loved this Indian woman. Her fears of a moment ago seemed childish, silly. She felt the situation pliant in her soft, cruel hand. Her heart leaped up within her. Her barque, too, was floating with the stream. It was a pleasure barge smothered in flowers but crowned with a coronet, and as it spread its silken sails to the perfumed breeze, everywhere in the crowded roadway shipping gave way and place, salutes were fired, and everywhere the air was thick with adulation and acclaim. And no small part of the anticipated triumph were the scowls of the envious and the evening of old scores.
"I make two stipulations," she heard him say.
She held her breath. Had he led her on only to tell her at last that he would fight her application—refuse her freedom? She knew she was at his mercy. He could exact bitter terms. He could in fact prevent the consummation of her crowning ambitions; could wreck the whole elaborate structure of her life. Her assured happiness seemed suddenly threatened. In a hysterical moment she saw it in ruins. Instantly her plans and prospects assumed an importance and insistence they had never had before. At the thought that he might stand in her way she was filled with an insane fury. Still she waited. What would he demand?
"You must not bring the Indian woman's name into the affair."
Heavens! Was that all? Willing victims and accomplices were to be found. What else?
"And you must take no steps while my father lives."
She passed in a second from death unto life. The Earl was clinging to existence by a thread. Hal hadn't even bargained for the return of the jewels he had given her. She felt that she must make some show of resistance or the terms would be changed. It was too ridiculously simple.
"Of course Lord Yester's wishes must not be ignored."
"I cannot allow you or Lord Yester to decide that for me."
He turned away as he spoke and so was not aware that Lord Yester had entered the room in time to hear this reference to himself. It is universally conceded that it requires courage to interfere between husband and wife; but then Lord Yester was a brave little man. He could wait no longer. His fate, too, was being decided in the library. He felt he must have a voice in deciding it. More than that, she needed him, this soft, plaintive soul that had come through time and space, through sin and suffering, to meet him, her complement, her supplement. Small, slender, with a delicate, sensitive face, distinguished by regular but small features, he had a fine, fresh, unspoiled capacity for suffering, which she teased and worried and played with for her infinite amusement. Quite apart from his coming coronet, she was in love with him; that is, she was a pyromaniac, and she got sensations from seeing his emotions burn, the fresh, beautiful emotions of a poet and a child.
"Harold, I don't think you have met Lord Norman Yester?"
She was the only one of the three who was without embarrassment.
"Yes, I think I met Lord Yester when he was at Eton."
Hal had no intention of making the other uncomfortable.
The clod! thought Yester; the clumsy clod! Eton, indeed! Everything about the boy was small except his spirit. He was like a child who says: "I'm six, going on seven."
"Yes?" he said with a supercilious elevation of the brows. "That was such a long time ago, I had quite forgotten it."
Having put the unpleasant husband in his place, he turned to her with the utmost deference, to the wronged and neglected wife.
"Edith," he said gently—"Lady Effington," he corrected himself and bowed formally to her husband. It was a delightfully ingenuous thing to do. Hal smiled, but not in derision. In fact, he liked the boy. What a funny little mediaeval gentleman!
"Lady Effington," continued Sir Launcelot (pocket edition), "if you can feel that I am worthy of your confidence, perhaps you will leave your interests in my hands—er—in our hands!"
Again he forgot the unpleasant husband and again he bowed an apology for his breach of etiquette.
"Thank you, Lord Yester," she said with a gravity and dignity equal to his own. To Hal it was like a play—this elaborate formality, this adroit indirectness, this dexterity in handling high explosives in a perfectly safe and genteel way, this modern capacity to bring everything down to a common denominator. He could play the game too, but what a long way it seemed from Red Butte Ranch, Big Bill, John McCloud, McShay, and Wah-na-gi, 'the soul without a body'!
"Lord Effington and I are both men of the world," Hal heard the youngster say. "It ought not to be difficult for us to—to—arrive at an understanding."
Lord Yester had his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, his chest was thrown out, and he was balancing himself on the ball of his foot. It was an acquired mannerism that seemed to add to his height. Like all small men, he was fond of referring to the fact that Napoleon was not a giant.
Edith inclined her beautiful head forward at an angle of supreme deference.
"I leave my happiness in your hands, with the utmost confidence in you both," she said gracefully as she swept out of the room. Lord Yester met her as she moved and gave her the homage of his protection to the door! The movement left the husband in the position of a rank outsider.
What fun Edith must have had, Hal thought, in playing up to these ideals! Edith, who had no ideals of her own.
When Yester returned the two men looked at each other; there was an awkward pause, each man cleared his throat, and each waited for the other to begin.
"Will you smoke?" asked Hal with a motion to the cigars. The youngster made a nervous start toward the table, then it occurred to him that he could not meet on such a friendly basis the man who had treated with inhuman cruelty the woman who had thrown herself upon his protection; so he stopped short and very awkwardly said:
"No! thank you; no, no!"
Again an awkward pause.
"Will you sit down?"
That seemed consistent with dignity and he started to do so, but again recoiled.
"I—eh—I feel more comfortable standing, if you don't mind."
Hal bowed. Yester's awkwardness was catching. He lounged across the room, sat down on the rail before the fire, and lit a cigarette. He could wait. Yester fiddled with his collar, stroked his cheek, and fidgeted.
"This is—this is rather a delicate situation, isn't it?" he said at last with a little deprecatory, nervous smile.
"Nothing seems unusual or impossible these days," said Hal easily.
"Well, you see," said the other, "I was intended for the diplomatic service, but I'm afraid I'm rather direct."
What a kid it was, thought Hal.
"An engaging frankness is sometimes the highest form of diplomacy," he said encouragingly.
"Well, you see," said the other gathering courage, "she has come to rely on me so completely, on my judgment as it were——"
"She? Oh, yes, my wife."
"Yes, yes," eagerly assented the lover, so absorbed in his own romance as to be beautifully oblivious to any other point of view. Hal smoked and kept an inscrutable face, while his heart sang within him, going with the wind and tide, going out of these eddies, these twists and turns, out into the broad ocean and on to a new world.
Yester walked over to the writing-table and began to play nervously with its furnishings.
"I wanted to say certain things to you, and I—I—I find I hardly know how." Then he pulled himself together as his mind went back over their acquaintance. "You see, as she had no other friends, as she was in trouble and in bad health, my sympathies were naturally enlisted, and almost before either of us realized it—well, you see, while I think you have behaved very badly, I—eh—now that we have met, I—will you let me say, I feel very sorry for you?"
The ingenuousness of this was completely disarming. Hal loved the child. But he continued to treat the situation with becoming gravity, bowed formally, and said:
"That's very generous of you."
"At the same time," exclaimed the little man returning to his purpose, "it is her happiness that must concern us both, isn't it? And I can only say that if you can accept the inevitable—well and good! If not," and again he balanced himself on his toes and expanded his chest; "if not, I stand ready to face the alternative."
Alternative sounded ominous. What did it mean?
"Alternative?" said Hal puzzled.
"I'll meet you under any terms and conditions you may name."
"'Meet me?' Oh, yes," and he smiled in spite of himself. "Why, duelling is illegal, isn't it? It's worse than illegal; it's unfashionable." He rose and went over to the boy and looked down at him with a protecting air. "I shouldn't want to take the life of such a gallant little gentleman, and I should care even less to have you take mine. I'm afraid I'm hopelessly commonplace."
Hal's attitude in spite of himself was too obvious.
"I'm afraid that is too evident, Lord Effington," said Yester sharply, resenting the overlordship of the other. "And may I suggest," he added with growing irritation, "that I am not so much younger and smaller than yourself that you need persist in patronizing me?"
"I beg your pardon. I had no intention of doing that." Then he looked at him very seriously and added: "I hope for the sake of my middle-class conscience you know what you are doing."
"I feel quite capable of deciding that," replied the boy easily. "I know something of the world—something, I fancy, of women!"
"And you are almost of age," added Hal.
"I am about to attain my majority," said Yester stiffly. "And when I do——"
"You hope to celebrate it by your marriage to my wife?"
The other bowed with an engaging smile.
"Quite so. Well, I shall not stand in the way of your happiness, Lord Yester."
"That is very noble of you."
"I'm afraid it's rather selfish of me. Your happiness happens to correspond with mine. And I hope in the future you will never have cause to think bitterly of me."
In Hal's eyes lurked an embryo twinkle. What a ripping farce civilization was!
"On the contrary," said Yester, happy beyond words, "I think you have behaved exceedingly well. You conceal your sufferings like a soldier and you join me in protecting the good name of the woman we have both loved. I can only say that you have acted like a gentleman, Lord Effington."
Both men bowed formally.
"Lord Yester," said Hal; "your father once did me a great service. I hope we shall always be friends?"
And they shook hands.
"Oh, Sir George, you know Lord Yester, I think?"
Hal spoke to the physician who had entered from the hall.
Both men bowed slightly. Hal turned to the heir of the Duke of Uxminster.
"Lady Effington will explain to you the only conditions I make. They are very slight and I am sure will meet with your approval."
"Thank you," and the little fellow bowed elaborately to each man and left the room with his arms folded behind him, an attitude very much affected by Napoleon, if we may trust the pictures.
It was with difficulty that Hal refrained from laughter. What a farce, but what a joyous farce! Already he was mentally speculating on the time when he could turn his back on these attitudinizing people with their picture-poster lives, on all this hollow, artificial make-believe, and return to the shirtsleeve crowd. What joy he would bring to one soul! He saw her face as he said to her:
"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi; I'm coming back." He had forgotten Sir George.
"I beg your pardon, Sir George. Delightful little chap, Yester! Eh? I wonder if I was ever as young as that."
It was evident that Yester's attentions to the wife of another man had not been a recommendation to the sedate scientist. He said dryly: "I don't know whether he's a fool or a knave."
"Well, he isn't either," said Hal. "He's been reading 'Ivanhoe'! You wanted to speak to me of father, Sir George."
"No, my boy; it's in regard to your wife."
Sir George had not only been the Earl's medical adviser as far back as Hal could remember but he had also been his intimate friend as well. Hal was thinking of other things, planning his escape, picturing the welcome the West was keeping for her child, or he would have noticed an extra consideration in the doctor's tone, an added solicitude in his manner.
"Edith?" he queried indifferently and with polite surprise.
"Yes; sit down." The doctor motioned to the little sofa which had its back against the writing-table. Hal sat down carelessly and picked up from the seat the society journal Lady Winifred had put into his hands a few moments before and began to turn its leaves and glance at its pictures, but in a cursory way and with an inclination of the head toward the physician to indicate that he was listening. Of course Sir George did not know—how could he?—that he and Edith had passed into different worlds.
Sir George himself was a study as he stood for a second regarding the other. How was it this custodian of other people's secrets and sorrows, forever intimate with sickness and pain, could look so sufficient, so impeccable, so serene? Well groomed, smooth, and polished to his finger tips, there seemed no surface where trouble or anxiety might stick.
Was it an armor or was it his integument?
"It's quite time you came home," the doctor said, glancing absent-mindedly at his polished finger nails. "You must give some thought to Edith. The life she is leading is exhausting, abnormal. She requires a change. You ought to take her away from London and this fast set."
"She has always lived this life, Sir George. It isn't any different, is it?"
"You have a ranch in America. It's just the thing. Why don't you take her there?"
"She wouldn't go. She is joined to her idols and I'm not one of them, Sir George."
The doctor was standing at the corner of the table. He satisfied himself that they were alone before speaking, then he bent toward the young man and said quietly:
"Of course no one knows it as yet but me; but you ought to know it; in fact, you will know it eventually, when perhaps it is too late, so——"
Hal looked up from his periodical.
"You alarm me, Sir George. What is it?"
The physician's eye fell upon the paper in Hal's hands.
"Allow me," he said and held out his hand for it.
Hal watched him deliberately turn the pages. He seemed to take a painfully long time to do it. Meantime the fog seemed to have penetrated the walls and to have taken possession of the place; the lights grew dim and the fire loomed ghostly in the dim distance. The air was thick and Hal seemed to breathe with difficulty. Ah, at last the doctor found what he was looking for. He handed it back and pointed to the article. There must be some mistake. He had already glanced through that article. It concerned an unfortunate woman who was found in Hyde Park under the influence of——
He glanced up. Sir George was still standing there. He must have been waiting a long time. Hal spoke at last, very slowly.
"And that was—Edith?"
The physician nodded his head gravely.
Hal glanced back at the paper but he did not see it. He sat still as if everything was just as it had been before, but he knew that the earth was rocking in a convulsion, that the house of his building was tumbling about him, that he was choking with the circumambient dust, and that he could not move or escape, only sit still until it was all over.
CHAPTER XX
The doctor waited patiently while the other readjusted his disordered faculties and groped his way toward the light.
"Good Lord, how terrible!" said Hal, distrait. "Why, Edith is the last woman in the world—strong willed, self-willed, ambitious! Why, I can't grasp it. It doesn't seem possible. I—I can't realize it."
"Oh, it's common enough these days," said the doctor, sitting down beside the boy and putting his hand on his knee in suggested sympathy. "The pace that kills! No rest, no respite! Teas, dinners, receptions, theatres, balls, races, motors, yachts; bridge, morning, noon and night; excitement, fatigue, reaction, depression; then stimulants, small at first, then more stimulants for greater depression, then over-stimulants; then sleeplessness and all the horrors of neurasthenia; then narcotics for rest and quiet, to keep from going mad; then, all of a sudden as it seems, but really by the most logical process, ahabitis formed—a fixed, implacable, relentless habit."
"Poor old girl," said Hal, trying to follow the professional exegesis. "How awful. How awful! But of course people are cured of such things, Sir George. You haven't let this go on?"
"Unfortunately it had been going on for some time before I discovered it, and of course I have done all I can, all I know. I'm afraid it's now beyond me. She has one chance in a thousand, and that chance is in your hands: the fresh air, out-door life, simple living, rest, peace, quiet! Then, if she will help you, if she will help herself, why, who knows?"
Again he put his hand on the boy's knee as much as to say: Don't take it too much to heart. We all have some affliction. If it isn't one thing, it's another, and fortunately we have work to do, and that saves us—work. All he said was:
"Well, I must be going."
"I want to see you a moment before you go, Sir George."
It was Edith speaking. She had entered the room as usual—noiselessly.
The doctor gave her a quick look. She was radiant. She had heard nothing, suspected nothing. He gave a sigh of relief.
"At your service, Lady Effington; I'll be in the billiard-room."
She made sure he had left the room, then she came toward Hal, her head up, her face beaming, her eyes dancing, glorious, transcendent! Magnificent to look upon was this wayward woman in the first glow of triumph, but Hal did not see her. He was gazing dumbly into space.
"It's very splendid of you, Harold," she said as she came over and sat down beside him, just where the doctor had sat a moment ago.
"I have come to thank you. You and I were never meant for each other, but it has been no fault of yours, and though I shall be compelled legally to complain of your cruelty, I shall, as a matter of fact, always remember gratefully your generous and considerate treatment. Fortunately it is not too late to remedy our mistakes. Lord Yester tells me you have definitely agreed not to interfere with our plans."
At the conclusion of her rhapsody she leaned forward and put her hand on his. It was almost a caress, the nearest approach to it she had bestowed on him in years. He withdrew his hand and took hers, giving it a little sympathetic pat, then he rose and walked away, the lines of his face drawn. She looked at him in wonder. Was it possible he cared for her a little bit after all?
"One moment, Edith," he said. "You see I didn't know. I couldn't know. And now—well, for the moment I'm bowled over. We'll have to think this thing over, won't we? Hang it all, it isn't fair, is it? It doesn't seem quite fair."
"Fair?" she echoed with a dubious smile. She saw that he was laboring under great excitement. "Fair?"
"To him—to the boy—to Yester."
"What are you talking about?" she said with patient incredulity. He paid no attention to her. He only half heard her questions and answers. He was reasoning it out, laboring with himself.
"He's a mere boy, and not a bad sort either; in fact, he's really quite all right. I don't see how we can go on with it; you and I."
She was like one who is suddenly and violently awakened from a halcyon dream to gaze into the glare of a dark lantern in the hands of a thief who may at any moment become an assassin. At the first glimmer of what he meant terror gripped her. She rose and came toward him.
"You gavemeyour word. You gaveLord Yesteryour word."
"I didn't know the—the situation, did I? You see I thought I could just put my hands in my pockets and stand off and let it go on, but if I see a blind man walking over a precipice and I don't stop him, why, I might just as well push him over. It's murder either way. I can't do it. I don't see how I can do it. I've changed my mind."
He tried to walk away as if it were settled. She followed him softly, like a cat, then confronted him.
"I won't let you change your mind." She spoke slowly and quietly, but it was a brave or a stupid man who could ignore the threat.
"It's no use, Edith. Sir George has told me, told me for your own sake." Again he turned away, as if he were looking for a way of escape from himself, from her, from the situation. She felt a wild impulse to scream, to leap upon him and tear him to pieces, and then it came to her that that would lend color to his veiled accusations. She must go softly, cunningly, and—wait.
He walked away, over to the fireplace. Was there no way out of it? Oh, if Sir George had not spoken! If he had not known! Was there no other way? Was no compromise possible? Why should the burden of all these lives fall upon him? Why should he be handed the cross to bear? The flames, like little red demons, little fire sprites, danced here and there, threw up their hands, squirmed, writhed, trying to get away, trying to leap into the air, trying to seize an unattainable something, falling back like whipped dogs to lick and bite the smoking log! Gazing into the fantastic fire depths—he saw Wah-na-gi, and beside her John McCloud, just as they stood that fateful day he left the Red Butte Ranch. "If you do come back, you must bring this Indian woman clean hands and a pure heart, promise me that." And hehad promised. And Wah-na-gi, the soul without a body, heard him promise. He had come thousands of miles that he might keep the spirit of that promise. And now all he had to do would be to let things alone, let them go on as they were going. Why should he interfere? Why should he meddle? Would any one thank him? Every one, even Yester himself, would hate him. What possible good would it do? It was too late to interfere. His own happiness was at stake too. What of that? Why should he ruin his own happiness with theirs? He would go home a free man and who would know the difference? There would be no one to blame him except his own conscience. Oh, subterfuge, subterfuge! The lying little devil flames laughed. John McCloud would know. In fact, by some clairvoyant mystery, he already knew! Even now he was saying: "And this boy is the son of your benefactor, the son of your friend."
At last he said, as if to the fire:
"I couldn't do this and then go back and face Wah-na-gi and John McCloud. I promised if I came back to come with clean hands."
"You are talking like a wild man," Edith said. "But you see I am not excited. You're not going to betray me into a scene and then accuse me of being as crazy as you are. I sit down and I am calm."
She sat down deliberately in the high-backed chair and clutched its arms, and clung to it desperately like a drowning sailor. "I have perfect self-possession, complete control of myself, and I listen, listen to a madman. Go on."
She was sincere. He was irresponsible. Nothing else would explain it.
Indeed, to most of us, those who act from altruistic motives are quite as incomprehensible as those whose acts suggest diabolical and abnormal instigation. The boy was mad. He had always been "queer." He was the son of his father.
By a supreme effort of the will she brought all her faculties to bear. She would first understand this and then she would know how to meet it. She was a resourceful woman and used to bending others to her will. He was the son of his father. Swiftly her mind climbed the stairs and bent over the invalid. Relentlessly she seized his life and dragged it out of the sick bed, and submitted it to a searching examination. All his life the Earl had been a sentimentalist. All his life he had made mistakes. The woman who loved him had once called them "glorious mistakes." Everybody else called them just mistakes. Out of quixotic love for the Countess Diana he had left England under a cloud, bearing the inevitable implication of another's guilt. Another man would have stayed in London and have been her lover. That was his first mistake. An exile, branded as a thief, he had tried to hide himself away from civilization, became a cattle-man, in a country where white women were a curiosity, was thrown by circumstances into relations with a pretty little Indian woman, had a child by her, and married the woman that he might not be the father of an illegitimate child. That was his second mistake. Any other man would have married her by tribal rites and, when he got ready, made her a present or made it worth while for some one else to marry her. When the death of Diana's husband, the real embezzler, called him back to a title and to the life and the land and the woman he loved, he chose to stay with the little savage who was the mother of his child. Another mistake! And so he continued. Sentimental again with regard to his duty to the child, he had driven the Indian mother to suicide. Free at last to marry the woman for whom he had made such fantastic sacrifices, they were both middle-aged people, the bloom to life, the blush of love was gone. Then, in the first glow of their new-found happiness, Diana died, and he was alone. What had the idealist to show for all his glorious "mistakes"? for his unselfish adhesion to a self-conscious conception of duty? It was ridiculous. We live in a practical world. That world has two standards—a theoretical one, that no one uses, and the practical one, the actual one. To try to live outside the actual is to try to reverse the law of gravitation. We have invented the theoretical standard to fool others into a course we would not take ourselves. It's a trap for the simple-minded. It was madness. Yes, this boy was the mad son of a mad sentimentalist. And these sentimentalists drag other people to ruin with them. But why should she, a practical woman, a woman of the world, the real world, be made the victim of these madmen? Her will, seldom thwarted and never tamed, rose up for battle and said, no, NO!
"I won't be a party to this, Edith," he said, looking into the fire, and the moment he had said it he began to realize what such a decision would involve.
One step forward or backward wasn't enough. One couldn't stand still. One couldn't stop. My God, where would it end? He couldn't take everything away from her and then leave her to herself. Lord Yester would gladly assume the burden and accept the consequences. If he thwarted her, if he stood between her and her desires—what? He became the nurse of an irresponsible sick woman. The love that might have made that possible was gone, never really existed. She had stolen this boy's love and was stealing his life. To make her drop it, he would have to resort to force—then what? Where would it end? Who made him a policeman or a jailer? He wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it. No one would do it. He was a fool to think of it. He wasn't doing this willingly. He was hypnotized, led, driven by some force outside himself.
"But I won't leave you to fight it out alone," he said. His voice sounded strange to himself. What was that he was saying? He would rebel, deny it, take it all back in the next breath.
"I'll give up all my own plans and I'll stand by you."
He recoiled, frightened, appalled at what he had said, but one thing involved another. There it was; it was his decision, his; he had announced it. Could he become a party to this conspiracy against this innocent boy, the son of his friend, and then could he go back and tell Wah-na-gi and John McCloud exactly what he had done, and then be happy? If not, then he must go the other way, and accept the consequences, and meet them. If they were to be met, it must be boldly. Cowardice encouraged the enemy.
"Yes, there is no other way," he said. "I'll give up all my own plans." And for one cruel moment he stopped to think what that meant to him. "I'll stand by you, give you my hand, and we'll beat it out together." Then he pulled himself together, put a torch to his bridges, and went on, his face lit up with the light of their burning.
"Come now," he said with a show of spirit, going to her as she held herself with supreme self-control in the big chair. "Be a sport, old girl! Chuck it all, this rotten, artificial life, and come with me out into the open. We'll leave this man-made world, and go out into God's world, and then when you have mastered this thing, when you are free——"
He was about to add that then she could marry the Duke of Uxminster or whomsoever she pleased, but Edith did not let him finish. What would become of this romantic boy in the meantime? and marriageable dukes were scarce. Besides, she had no intention of postponing indefinitely her happiness or her plans. Like all habit-victims, she refused to acknowledge even to herself her slavery. Even, supposing she had to admit it, she would reform herself! Indeed, she had made up her mind to it already and was about to begin. Her marriage to Lord Yester would help her, furnish her an irresistible motive for reformation. To keep him from eventually finding out, she would have to reform, and she had grown very fond of the boy. His romantic idealization of her was very beautiful. Hal could safely leave all this in her hands. In fact, he would have to leave it in her hands. She began to tear at her lace handkerchief in spasmodic jerks.
"I don't know whether to laugh or to scream," she said with a scared smile, "but you see I am calm, and I am listening to you."
"I used to be a drunkard," he said. "Look at me now. You shall choose. We'll go wherever you like. We'll hunt big game in Africa, or fish for tarpon in Florida, or go after the musk-ox in the Barren Grounds. You don't know what it means to sleep under the sky, to bathe your soul in the solitude, to rest in the friendly silences, and live face to face with the Infinite."
He spoke with the enthusiasm of the devotee, of what he knew and had felt. He had in his soul to be the priest, the Poet of the Open, and now, in the white heat of this tense moment, he found expression.
"Don't hang hack," he urged. "Don't despair, and don't discourage me."
The last was almost plaintive. He knew that he needed help.
She rose and looked at him through the slits of her eyes.
"You have never influenced one act of my life. What makes you think you can do so now?"
"Sir George says it's your only chance."
She backed away, on guard. She began to laugh, a little hollow, false laugh. She would admit nothing.
"My only chance? Sir George says that?"
She laughed again, the laugh of derision, of defiance. They have an expression in the courts, "theburdenof proof," and sometimes it's a heavy load to carry. Flagrant sin cries out: Prove it! The habitual criminal, caught, the stolen goods taken from his pocket, says: "I never saw it before. Some one put it there." Prove it, her laugh cried.
"Now, don't try that," he said gently. He did not love her, but it was piteous to see this gorgeous creature, with the world at her feet and destiny in her hand, with possibilities unlimited; it was piteous to see her throw it all away in her lust for something—God knows what—something she called "pleasure!" "life," in the mad race for sensation, for excitement, in the fatuous ambition for place in the shallow mob that called itself Society, sacrificing herself on the Altar of Self, pouring out her own blood before her own image. It was piteous! One can't stand idly by and see a maddened horse rush back into a burning stable. It was impossible not to feel sorry for her, not to want to help her.
"Sir George felt it was his duty to you, his duty to me," he added. She straightened up and her eyes blazed.
"It isn't true. I don't do it. It's a lie—a wicked, devilish lie! Who will believe him? Who will believe a man sworn not to betray his patient's secrets? He has no professional honor. Who will believe him? I don't do it. I don't do it!"
He hadn't mentioned it. She had forgotten that she was admitting that she knew what he had in mind, and that the admission was fatal.
"I've suffered, suffered horribly from headaches and insomnia, and sometimes I've taken it, sometimes for that, but I call God to witness——"
She was screaming in a fierce whisper.
"Hush," he said, trying to quiet her. "The doctor says you must get away from here. It's your only chance. Sir George says, if you will help me, if you will help yourself, you can win out. Come, you must let me help you. Let me try. Won't you let me try?"
What was the matter with the man?
"Can't you grasp it?" she said, regaining some poise by a great effort. "Don't you see that what you call silence and solitude would put me in a madhouse? Leave London? Why, London is my heaven!" And she sat down on the sofa, or rather crouched down, as if the statement was an argument and the argument unanswerable.
"London, Heaven, eh?"
Her words broke through the wall of his prejudices and the stored-up waters of bitterness gushed forth.
"London that is growing sterile in Mayfair and breeding monsters in Whitechapel! London, with one man in every four a pauper; with its thousands of starving school children! With its multitudes who have nothing trying to sell it to those who have everything! With its terrible women and its hopeless men; hollow-eyed vice cheek by jowl with hollow-eyed want; luxury, overdressed, sweeping past wretches who are dying standing up, without the decency of a bed on which to throw the rotten remnants of their tortured lives! London, Heaven, eh? My God!"
He had forgotten her, himself, in his indictment of the city, not London alone, but the city everywhere, the city that reversed the order and the law of nature!
How far removed they were! She had relaxed, and the curl and sag of her body, the sensuous somnolent droop of the eye-lid, the voluptuous lips apart, she might have posed for a statue of lazy luxury. "London is my soul," she said softly, dreamily. "I'd rather be a stray cat crawling among its chimneys than live in splendor anywhere else. The crowds, the excitement, the strife, I love it! People amuse me, their passions, their cruelty, even their meanness, yes, even their dulness, their satiety! It all fascinates me. I'm drunk with it. I wouldn't give it up, and I couldn't if I would." She rose and came to him, and scrutinized him narrowly with soft cunning.
"Don't be foolish! What's your object? Why do you want to play the hypocrite with me? You don't care for me any more than I care for you. And when I am Duchess of Uxminster——"
"I think you'd better give that up," he said coldly.
"Why give it up?" she said with fierce challenge.
"You and I must answer for our own mistakes and sins," he said. "We mustn't unload them onto others. Lord Yester doesn't know."
"Who will tell him? Who will tell him?" she cried with bravado.
"You will," he said.