For the first instant she remained there standing motionless; it was
like a declaration of war. In one or two of her fragmentary rehearsals
upstairs she had supposed she would say something conventional to
begin with. But the reality struck conventionality clean out of the
realm of the possible. Her silent pause there was as significant as
the crouch of a hound; and she perceived that it was recognized to be
so by the other that was there. There was in him that quick, silent
alertness she had expected: half defiant, half timid, as of a fierce
beast that expects a blow.
Then she came a step forward and sideways to a chair, sat down in it
with a swift, almost menacing motion, and remained there still
looking.
This is what she saw:
There was the familiar background, the dark paneled wall, the
engraving, and the shelf of books convenient to the hand; the fire was
on her right, and the couch opposite. Upon the couch sat the figure of
the boy she knew so well.
He was in the same suit in which he had traveled; he had not even
changed his shoes; they were splashed a little with London mud. These
things she noticed in the minutes that followed, though she kept her
eyes upon his face.
The face itself was beyond her power of analysis. Line for line it was
Laurie's features, mouth, eyes and hair; yet its signification was not
Laurie's. One that was akin looked at her from out of those windows of
the soul--scrutinized her cautiously, questioningly, and suspiciously.
It was the face of an enemy who waits. And she sat and looked at it.
A full minute must have passed before she spoke. The face had dropped
its eyes after the first long look, as if in a kind of relaxation, and
remained motionless, staring at the fire in a sort of dejection. Yet
beneath, she perceived plainly, there was the same alert hostility;
and when she spoke the eyes rose again with a quick furtive
attentiveness. The semi-intelligent beast was soothed, but not yet
reassured.
"Laurie?" she said.
The lips moved a little in answer; then again the face glanced down
sideways at the fire; the hands dangled almost helplessly between the
knees.
There was an appearance of weakness about the attitude that astonished
and encouraged her; it appeared as if matters were not yet
consummated. Yet she had a sense of nausea at the sight....
"Laurie?" she said again suddenly.
Again the lips moved as if speaking rapidly, and the eyes looked up at
her quick and suspicious.
"Well?" said the mouth; and still the hands dangled.
"Laurie," she said steadily, bending all her will at the words,
"you're very unwell. Do you understand that?"
Again the noiseless gabbling of the lips, and again a little
commonplace sentence, "I'm all right."
His voice was unnatural--a little hoarse, and quite toneless. It was
as a voice from behind a mask.
"No," said Maggie carefully, "you're not all right. Listen, Laurie. I
tell you you're all wrong; and I've come to help you as well as I can.
Will you do your best? I'm speaking to _you_, Laurie ... to _you_."
Every time he answered, the lips flickered first as in rapid
conversation--as of a man seen talking through a window; but this time
he stammered a little over his vowels.
"I--I--I'm all right."
Maggie leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly, and her eyes fixed
steadily on that baffling face.
"Laurie; it's you I'm speaking to--_you_.... Can you hear me? Do _you_
understand?"
Again the eyes rose quick and suspicious; and her hands knit yet more
closely together as she fought down the rising nausea. She drew a long
breath first; then she delivered a little speech which she had half
rehearsed upstairs. As she spoke he looked at her again.
"Laurie," she said, "I want you to listen to me very carefully, and to
trust me. I know what is the matter with you; and I think you know
too. You can't fight--fight him by yourself.... Just hold on as
tightly as you can to me--with your mind, I mean. Do you understand?"
For a moment she thought that he perceived something of what she
meant: he looked at her so earnestly with those odd questioning eyes.
Then he jerked ever so slightly, as if some string had been suddenly
pulled, and glanced down again at the fire....
"I ... I ... I'm all right," he said.
It was horrible to see that motionlessness of body. He sat there as he
had probably sat since entering the room. His eyes moved, but scarcely
his head; and his hands hung down helplessly.
"Laurie ... attend ..." she began again. Then she broke off.
"Have you prayed, Laurie...? Do you understand what has happened to
you? You aren't really ill--at least, not exactly, but--"
Again those eyes lifted, looked, and dropped again.
It was piteous. For the instant the sense of nausea vanished,
swallowed up in emotion. Why ... why, he was there all the
while--Laurie ... dear Laurie....
With one motion, swift and impetuous, she had thrown herself forward
on to her knees, and clasped at the hanging hands.
"Laurie! Laurie!" she cried. "You haven't prayed ... you've been
playing, and the machinery has caught you. But it isn't too late! Oh,
God! it's not too late. Pray with me! Say the Our Father...."
Again slowly the eyes moved round. He had started ever so little at
her rush, and the seizing of his hands; and now she felt those hands
moving weakly in her own, as of a sleeping child who tries to detach
himself from his mother's arms.
"I ... I ... I'm all--"
She grasped his hands more fiercely, staring straight up into those
strange piteous eyes that revealed so little, except formless
commotion and uneasiness.
"Say the Our Father with me. 'Our Father--'"
Then his hands tore back, with a movement as fierce as her own, and
the eyes blazed with an unreal light. She still clung to his wrists,
looking up, struck with a paralysis of fear at the change, and the
furious hostility that flamed up in the face. The lips writhed back,
half snarling, half smiling....
"Let go! let go!" he hissed at her. "What are you--"
"The Our Father, Laurie ... the Our--"
He wrenched himself backwards, striking her under the chin with his
knee. The couch slid backwards a foot against the wall, and he was on
his feet. She remained terror-stricken, shocked, looking up at the
dully flushed face that glared down on her.
"Laurie! Laurie...! Don't you understand? Say one prayer--"
"How dare you?" he whispered; "how dare you--"
She stood up suddenly--wrenching her will back to self-command. Her
breath still came quick and panting; and she waited until once more
she breathed naturally. And all the while he stood looking down at her
with eyes of extraordinary malevolence.
"Well, will you sit quietly and listen?" she said. "Will you do that?"
Still he stared at her, with lips closed, breathing rapidly through
his nostrils. With a sudden movement she turned and went to her chair,
sat down and waited.
He still watched her; then, with his eyes on her, with movements as of
a man in the act of self-defense, wheeled out the sofa to its place,
and sat down. She waited till the tension of his figure seemed to
relax again, till the quick glances at her from beneath drooping
eyelids ceased, and once more he settled down with dangling hands to
look at the fire. Then she began again, quietly and decisively.
"Your mother isn't well," she said. "No ... just listen quietly. What
is going to happen tomorrow? I'm speaking to _you_, Laurie to _you_.
Do you understand?"
"I'm all right," he said dully.
She disregarded it.
"I want to help you, Laurie. You know that, don't you? I'm Maggie
Deronnais. You remember?"
"Yes--Maggie Deronnais," said the boy, staring at the fire.
"Yes, I'm Maggie. You trust me, don't you, Laurie? You can believe
what I say? Well, I want you to fight too. You and I together. Will
you let me do what I can?"
Again the eyes rose, with that odd questioning look. Maggie thought
she perceived something else there too. She gathered her forces
quietly in silence an instant or two, feeling her heart quicken like
the pulse of a moving engine. Then she sprang to her feet.
"Listen, then--in the name of Jesus of Nazareth--"
He recoiled violently with a movement so fierce that the words died on
her lips. For one moment she thought he was going to spring. And again
he was on his feet, snarling. There was silence for an interminable
instant; then a stream of words, scorching and ferocious, snarled at
her like the furious growling of a dog--a string of blasphemies and
filth.
Just so much she understood. Yet she held her ground, unable to speak,
conscious of the torrent of language that swirled against her from
that suffused face opposite, yet not understanding a tenth part of
what she heard.
... "In the name of..."
On the instant the words ceased; but so overpowering was the venom and
malice of the silence that followed that again she was silent,
perceiving that the utmost she could do was to hold her ground. So the
two stood. If the words were horrible to hear, the silence was more
horrible a thousand times; it was as when a man faces the suddenly
opened door of a furnace and sees the white cavern within.
He was the first to speak.
"You had better take care," he said.