XVII
Astrywas amusing himself driving the billiard balls about on the table, practising some of his favorite strokes. He was an unusually graceful man and he showed it as he handled his cue, his cigarette between his teeth and his eyes narrowed in thought. He had long ago ceased to be a happy man. There had been moments, years before, when he had been considered rather jolly; men liked him and women liked him too. He was greatly changed; the hardening process had destroyed some of the more tender amenities of life.
He drove the ball successfully and stopped to chalk his cue; on the wire over his head one of his parrots balanced, sidling along and talking once and a while in strange jargon. Astry watched him, half amused, then he continued to play with the balls. The house was profoundly quiet; at the moment they had no house guests, though Eva courted company for she dreaded being alone with her husband. He had asked John Charter to come to them but John had refused. The refusal did not surprise Astry; it only confirmed him in certain suspicions and, as the balls danced away from his driving cue, he was thinking of Rachel. Hers was undoubtedly the figure of the drama and he knew that she was unhappy; he divined much more though he made no sign. But he was as other men; he desired love, he craved happiness, he had been embittered by the loss of both, poisoned by the contact of treachery, and he had ceased to believe, he had even ceased to forgive. Forgiveness is godlike, and very few of us ever know it, feel it, or receive it. Forgiveness is like the work in a stone quarry; it takes hard labor and only the morally great accomplish it. But Astry saw revealed Rachel's love for Eva and the sight of it was almost irritating; it seemed as if she wasted it, that Eva gave back so little. He had come to think that Eva had very little to give.
He continued to play with the balls. Presently the old clock in the hall chimed sweetly, five o'clock. Then he heard his wife coming. She had been out and had just returned; she came through the drawing-room, her dress rustling, her light footstep uneven. He reached up and, taking the chattering parrot from the wire, put him into the conservatory and came back with his cue in his hand just as Eva looked in.
"Playing billiards alone," she remarked languidly. "I should think it would bore you to death."
"My dear Eva, I'm bored to extinction, but one must have something to do."
She came slowly into the room and, going to the window, stood there looking out.
"I suppose you'd really be happier if you weren't so rich," she remarked.
"Do you think it's altogether a matter of money? That the possession of it brings misery?"
"Sometimes I think it does. I don't seem to think of any one I know who's very rich and happy too."
Astry put his cue down on the table and sat down; he seemed willing to discuss the point. "Suppose you were poor to-morrow, Eva; would you be any less wretched?"
She gave him a startled look over her shoulder. "Who said I was wretched?"
He smiled grimly. "He who runs may read."
She drew a quick breath of alarm, pressing her cheek against the window-pane and looking out with unseeing eyes. Before her was the wide terrace, the level stretch of lawn with here and there a mound of unmelted snow, and beyond the bare, brown trees and the winter sky.
Astry spoke again with a certain moderation, a mental detachment that made her feel how wide was the chasm between them.
"I can see you're unhappy and I'm sorry. I don't know that there's much to do about it. Divorce is common but a little vulgar. I'm not sure that you care to have me offer you such an avenue of escape."
"I must have been very unpleasant," she said slowly. "I didn't intend to make people think things like that."
"Like what?" he asked gently.
"What you said—just now—that I might want a divorce."
"Do you?"
She did not reply; her face was turned now directly to the window and he only saw the hand that rested on the pane tremble slightly. He moved uneasily in his chair.
"I didn't know it was as bad as that, Eva!"
"As bad as that?" her voice trembled. "I don't understand."
"I didn't know that you wanted a divorce."
"It isn't that!"
He leaned forward, watching her, his expression singularly grave. "Would you mind telling me just what you do mean?"
Eva turned from the window and came toward him, and as the light fell on her face Astry was startled. He rose involuntarily from his seat and Eva stood still, her slender hands clutching at the back of a chair. She tried to speak twice before the words came.
"I can't bear it any longer, Johnstone; I'm going to tell the truth—the whole truth."
He did not speak; he was watching her strangely.
She shivered and then went on, not looking at him, her voice at first a mere whisper, growing a little firmer.
"Rachel married Belhaven—to save my good name."
He was still silent for a moment, regarding her.
"You mean that you—told me a falsehood that night?"
"About Rachel? Yes."
"Good God!"
She hid her face in her hands, but her voice, small and thin and quivering, struggled on. She had to confess, she had to tell him, she could endure it no longer.
"I lied about Rachel."
"And you—" he dragged out the words—"you were guilty?"
"Indeed—no! In thought, in the intention, yes." She broke off and then after a moment of agony went on, her face still hidden in her hands. "I was going to run away with him that day."
Astry did not speak, he did not even move, and Eva sank down into a chair.
"I was going and you caught me; you accused me and—" she stopped again and then went on, "and I was frightened. I'm a coward; I told you a falsehood about Rachel, then I went to her—"
"And Rachel?" his voice was hoarse.
"She forgave me, she sacrificed herself for me; she's an angel."
"And you let her marry that—that scoundrel to save you?"
"I was afraid you'd kill him."
"He ought to have been killed."
Her head sank lower.
"It's incredible! To let your sister marry that scoundrel to save his life, to shield you!"
"She's forgiven me," Eva's voice broke pitifully. "I told her—she—"
He had risen in his agitation and he swung around now, facing her. "Did she know?"
"That I was guilty?" Eva turned darkly crimson. "No, not until the other day—I told her—and she forgave me."
"It's past belief."
"That she should forgive me? Rachel? She's so good to me."
"I know Rachel, but it's past belief that you could let her do it, sacrifice her to save that hound."
"Wait!" Eva rose; she tried to face him steadily. "Listen, you told me that if she didn't marry him you'd kill him."
"Well?"
"That you'd kill him because of me. I told her that and she married him to save my good name."
"It was my business to take care of your good name."
"No, it was mine," she was gaining strength now. "It was mine and I'd failed. I was weak, wicked, foolish; I thought I loved him."
"You thought you loved him? Do you mean you didn't?"
"Not—not afterwards."
"Not after you saw the coward shield himself behind a woman?"
She wrung her hands together. "Yes, it was that; I hated that!"
Astry stood looking at her, a strange conflict of emotions in his face. "Are you telling me the truth, Eva, or are you trying to shield him again?"
"I'm telling you the truth. I thought I loved him, I was afraid of you,—you frightened me sometimes then,—and I had loved him once, I—"
"You never loved me then?"
She hesitated; again a dark blush mounted from throat to brow. "At first I married you because—because Aunt Drusilla wanted it, because—" she stopped.
"Yes—because?" he was watching her sternly.
"Because I wanted to make a great match."
"Oh, for my money!"
"If you want to put it that way."
"And afterwards you called back Belhaven?"
Again she assented.
"You thought it easy to be free of the millionaire after—" He stopped, something in the mute agony of her attitude, her evident humiliation, checking him.
"I thought I loved Belhaven," she said simply, determined not to spare herself. "I was going to run away with him. He begged me to—but it wasn't any more his fault than mine. I'm trying to tell you the truth, the whole truth. Then came that night and your anger and—and I saw he was afraid."
"The hound!"
"I saw he was afraid," her voice trailed on, quivering, "and I saw how Rachel suffered. Johnstone, I've been punished; I deserve it, but—the way is fearful, that way of the transgressors. Not my feet only, but my heart bleeds. I went to Rachel; I begged her, I've begged her twice, to get a divorce, to marry Charter; they love each other. She won't do it—because—" Eva's voice broke with a sob—"she says she can't, that it would ruin me."
"So it would—now."
"Then let it! I can't bear this, Johnstone; cast me out, help Rachel to get free. I can't bear it any longer, it's killing me!"
"You've quite forgotten me, Eva."
"No, no, I haven't!" She burst into sudden, violent weeping. "I haven't; I know now—I know you've suffered too. Johnstone, you won't kill him?"
"Not now. It would disgrace Rachel. Think what I—your husband—owe to Rachel."
"Then it's for her, you mean? It can't be done on her account?"
He nodded; speech was not easy.
Eva stood up, stretching out her arms with her impotent, childish gesture of despair. "I never thought—oh, God, why can't I die?"
"Why didn't you tell me the truth then, as you're telling me now? What if I killed him?"
"I was afraid; I'm a coward, I've told you so!" She stopped and stood looking at him, then suddenly her face quivered. "Can you forgive me? I've suffered, I'd like to feel that you'd forgiven me."
"Does it make any difference? Does it matter?"
"It matters to me."
He turned and met her eyes and his face paled. "Eva," he said gently, "did you ever even for one moment love me?"
She pressed her hands together tightly, looking at him strangely.
"Would—would it make it easier to forgive me?"
"Yes," he replied slowly, "I, too, have traveled a long way, Eva; I, too, came to find that there was no love for me; I, too, have suffered,—I'm really quite human. But I could forgive you, I would forgive you even this, if I felt that you'd ever been honest with me, ever loved your husband for a moment in your life."
She drew a step nearer, her eyes dilated. "Did—did you ever love me?"
"Once."
"And I lost it?"
"You didn't want it."
She covered her face with her hands again.
"And you—did you ever love me?" he asked bitterly.
"Not then."
"Do you mean?" he paused, and then unsteadily: "Have you come back to your husband, Eva?"
"Not then—but now!"
Astry stood still; for a moment the fundamental forces of life seemed suspended. He was amazed. Then he took a step forward, but before he spoke Eva suddenly swayed and would have fallen but for his arms around her.
He lifted her and carried her up-stairs. She was unconscious and her head lay helpless, her pretty soft hair against his breast. He carried her across the hall and into her own room and laid her on the bed with a touch as tender as a woman's. The disdain and anger and bitterness that had been waging a battle in his soul receded before the wave of humanity, of pity, almost of tenderness, that suddenly submerged his being. Her helplessness, the appeal of her childish face, the evident grief and humiliation that she had suffered to tell him the truth, touched his heart. He summoned her maid and then went out softly and closed the door.
Before him he seemed to see the long, cruel way that her small, bleeding feet had traveled, coming back at last to him.
In his heart he had already forgiven her.