II
IN the midst of these eddying swirls of gossip, little muddy pools in the thin ice on which he trod, William Fox made his way with singular self-absorption. Even the vortex of the political campaign had not succeeded in decentralizing his thoughts, and he could not now lose sight of the impending climax.
The clamor of applause, the proffered Cabinet portfolio, which was not without significance as an effort on the part of the Administration to bind him to its interests and avert his candidacy in the ensuing year, all fell short of their effect. Such brilliant prospects were indeed stultified to his mental vision by the chilling knowledge that he must soon outrage the feelings of his friends and reanimate his enemies. There were moments when the future which lay before him loomed so black and unfriendly that he could not endure the thought, and he found it well nigh impossible to picture himself playing the rôle of lover and husband to the woman who had twice thwarted hislife; first by her careless rejection of his love and then by her determined demand upon his honor. He should marry her, but beyond that bald fact his mind refused to go. He had erred and he would resolutely pay the cost and it would be heavy. He realized that, realized the probable collapse of his career, the long years of building up which must follow, the impossibility of living down the scandal of such a marriage under such circumstances.
He knew that Margaret was in town, but he had not yet gone to see her; it seemed impossible that he should go. Yet the plain actualities of the case could not be denied. He was aware, however, of a feeling of keen thankfulness that the House, under pressure of some special business, was sitting late, and that the organization of committees and the hundred other calls involved him in such a round of duty that he could well excuse delay.
Yet when the House rose one day at five o’clock, and he had time to go to see Margaret, he went instead on foot to Allestree’s studio. He had seen but little of his cousin in the past few months; perhaps because he was haunted with a secret dread that Rose would finally marry Allestree, and he hated the thought, with all a lover’s selfishness.
The snow was falling fast and the streets weresheeted in white when he and Sandy approached the old house on the corner, and he noticed that the windows of Lerwick’s curiosity-shop were coated thick with frost. A bright light in the upper window assured him that the painter was still at work, and stamping the snow from his feet he ascended the narrow stair to the studio.
Allestree, in his shirt sleeves, was engaged in putting away some old canvases and cleaning up his workshop, and was somewhat startled by the unexpected entrance of Sandy and his master.
“I hardly thought to find you here so late,” Fox remarked as he greeted him, “but I saw the light and came up.”
“I was house cleaning,” Allestree explained; “I can’t trust the janitor in here until I put things in shape. Besides, mother is away and there’s no hurry about going home.”
Fox expressed surprise at his aunt’s absence at this season, and Allestree explained further that she had gone to Orange to visit a younger sister who was ill there; a fact which the nephew of both had forgotten.
“I’ve intended to go to see Aunt Jane every day,” Fox remarked, seating himself on the end of Allestree’s brass wood-box and looking at the general disorder with an absent eye, “but I’ve beenbusy and—” he laughed bitterly—“she has let me know pretty plainly that she doesn’t approve of me.”
“A sure sign of her devotion,” retorted Allestree dryly; “she is always taking sides when her affections are involved. I’ve often thought you were more after her own heart than I, William.”
“God help her, I hope not!” Fox exclaimed with such abrupt passion that his cousin stared.
“I heard this morning that you had been offered the State Department,” he said quietly; “are congratulations in order?”
The other man laughed with great bitterness. “My dear Robert,” he replied, “I’ve been offered the moon, but being merely mundane I can’t pull it down.”
“Well, I’m not sure that the Cabinet is even desirable for you! I’ve known it to quietly swallow up more than one bit of Presidential timber,” Allestree observed, turning his attention to the canvases he was tying together with unsteady fingers.
“Desirable or not, I have refused it,” Fox said curtly.
There was a pause; Allestree put away some boxes and collected his scattered brushes. Fox, looking about the studio with a moody glance, observedthat a curtain was drawn before the little tea-table where Rose had made tea, and the chair in which she had posed was gone. He was not at a loss to understand these signs, and he recalled the whole little scene, with its air of domesticity, their gayety, the tender beauty of her drooping profile as she bent over her tea-cups, he even remembered how the light from the alcohol lamp glowed softly on her face and caught the golden tints in her hair. He stifled a groan. The whole covetous passion of his soul had surged up at the thought, and he was to see her married at last to this good, harmless, slow cousin who was so worthy of her because of his clean unspotted life and his honest love! He glanced keenly at Allestree and saw the haggard trouble of his face, the lines on his brow and about his mouth, with almost a pang of joy. There was no assurance of happiness here, only a kindred trouble. The hard element of his personal feeling melted a little, and he turned to the painter with renewed friendliness. “You have heard of the Temples?” he said guardedly; “is the old man out of his troubles, and has Rose returned?”
Allestree shook his head, avoiding his eye. “The judge is still in the quagmire; he was miserably imposed upon and I fancy there is nothing left buthis salary. He has been making gigantic efforts to save that old house; you know it’s mortgaged, and he seems ill and worn, though he goes regularly to court.”
“Who holds the mortgage?” Fox asked absently.
Allestree named a large trust company, and began an eager search behind his easels, apparently excluding Rose from his reply. But Fox was not done. “And his daughter?” he said, in a low voice, caressing Sandy who had laid his head upon his knee as a gentle reminder that it was time to go.
“She is still in Paris; she wrote my mother that she was succeeding very well with her lessons and hoped for the best.” Allestree’s voice betrayed his extreme reluctance to produce even these hard facts.
Fox rose abruptly and going to the window thrust aside the curtain and looked out. The storm had increased and the street light opposite shone behind a dazzling whirl of snow-flakes which were swept before the wind and hurled themselves against the pane in a wild rush of blinding white.
Fox turned away and began to walk to and fro, his hands plunged into his pockets and his head sunk on his breast. Allestree glancing at him onceor twice was shocked by the drawn grayness of his face, the absolute despair in his dark, deep-set eyes. At last he looked up with a bitter smile. “Good God!” he exclaimed abruptly, “if I were only coward enough to shoot myself!”
“A very unprofitable move,” remarked his cousin coldly, “and it leaves the blame to others.”
Fox nodded. “Precisely,” he said, “and to a woman. But, my dear Allestree, if you want to create a hell for a man, find one who loves a young lovely untried girl with all his soul, and then force him to marry another woman!”
His cousin bit his lip, the color rushing over his face. “No easy matter, I fancy,” he said; “you couldn’t make the man do it; he’d back out at last!”
Fox gave him a strange look; he had never intended to make such an admission to Allestree, it had been wrung from him by the stress of his own feeling and now he would not recall it. “You think so? You think it cannot be done? The shooting would be preferable,” he added grimly, “but, unhappily, a man’s honor lives after him.”
His cousin turned sharply and held out his hand; the gesture was involuntary. “Upon my soul, William, I’m sorry for you!” he exclaimed, with much feeling.
Fox took his hand and wrung it. “You’ll make her happy, Allestree!” he exclaimed with profound emotion; “she’ll marry you.”
Allestree smiled sadly. “She’s refused me,” he said, with a tone of finality which carried conviction if not relief.
Fox turned away with a smothered groan, and groping for his hat and coat went out without another word.
At that moment the tumult of his heart repudiated every other claim and demanded happiness with an unscrupulous passion which excelled Margaret’s own.