THE THIN WALL
"How _dared_ he buy a ticket for me all the way to Texas!" Annesley asked
herself. "But I might have known how it would be," she thought. "Why
expect a man like him to keep a promise?"
Yet she _had_ expected it. She constantly found herself expecting to find
truth and greatness in the man who was a thief--who had been a thief for
half his life. It was strange. But everything about him was strange; and
stranger than the rest was his silent power over all who came near him,
even over herself, who knew now what he was. It would have seemed that
after his confession there would be no further room for disappointment
concerning his character; yet she was disappointed that his "plan," on
which she had been counting, had been nothing more original than to break
his word and "see what she would do."
After luncheon, when the Waldos and Masons became absorbed for a few
minutes in talk, she turned a look on her husband. "I saw the tickets,"
she said.
"Did you?" he returned, pretending--as she thought--not to understand.
"You bought one for me to Texas."
"Of course. Did you think I wouldn't? That would have been poor economy
in the game we've been playing."
It was her turn to show that she was puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"You never cared to talk things over. I saw you didn't want to, so I
didn't press. And when this complication about the Waldos came up, I
thought--perhaps I was mistaken--that you--trusted me to do the best
I could."
"Yes. That's why I expected you not to get me a ticket to Texas."
"How far _did_ you expect me to get it?"
"I--don't know."
"That's just it. Neither did I know. I got the whole ticket, so you might
choose your stopping-place."
"Oh!" Annesley was ashamed, though she was sure she had no need to be.
"That was why!"
"That was why. Things being as they are, it was well I had your ticket to
show with mine, wasn't it?"
"I--suppose so. But--what am I to do?"
"We'll talk of that in the train. There won't be time before, because of
these people, and because I must leave you for two hours before the train
goes."
"Leave me!" Annesley echoed the words blankly, then hoped that he had not
noticed the dismay in her tone.
"You will be all right with the Waldos and their friends. I'll explain to
them. There's no time to lose. I must go off at once."
Annesley was pricked with curiosity to know why and where he must go. She
would not ask. But while he was away and she was being whirled through
the park and along Riverside Drive at lightning speed, "to see New York
in a hurry," her thoughts were with her husband, imagining fantastic
things.
"My mind is like a ghost," she thought, bitterly, "haunting what once it
loved. It seems doomed to follow wherever he goes, whatever he does. But
it will be different when we're parted. I shall escape in soul and body.
I shall have my own life to live."
"That wonderful Italian house," Mrs. Waldo was saying, as the taxi slowed
down for one of her lectures, "is Paul Van Vreck's New York home. They
say it's a museum from garret to cellar (not that there _is_ a garret!),
and I believe it's a copy of some palazzo in Venice. It's shut up now;
perhaps he's in Florida, or Egypt, where he--but look, somebody's coming
out--why, Mrs. Nelson Smith, it's your _husband_! Shall we stop----"
"No, let's drive on," Annesley begged, anxiously. "My husband knows Mr.
Van Vreck. They have business together. He won't want us."
The taxi was allowed to go on to the next place of interest. Annesley had
flung herself back in the seat, but she was not sure that Knight hadn't
seen her. She knew what powers of observation his quiet almost lazy
manner could hide.
This chance meeting took place on the way to the Grand Central Station,
where they met the Masons, and were joined almost at the last moment by
Knight, just as Annesley had begun to wonder if, after all, he were not
coming.
He was as calm as though there were no haste, and said he had been
delayed in collecting the luggage from the ship. He had a good deal to
say about that luggage; and what with thanks to the Waldos for books and
flowers and chocolates, and their kindness to Annesley, Mrs. Waldo (with
the best intentions) found no chance to mention Paul Van Vreck.
Annesley had not meant to refer to him, though seeing Knight come out of
his shut-up house had given her a shivering sense of mystery; but when
the train had started, Knight came to the door of her stateroom.
"There are one or two things I should like to speak to you about, if you
don't mind," he said, in the kind yet distant manner which had replaced
the old lover-like way when they were alone together.
"Come in," she replied, and added, lowering her voice: "Mr. and Mrs.
Mason are next door."
"They are too much in love to be thinking about us, or listening," he
answered; and Annesley imagined a ring of bitterness in his tone. "I've
come to talk over plans, but before we begin I want to explain something.
Once you made a guess in connection with Paul Van Vreck. Probably you
think that what you saw confirms it. Of course, the Waldos were telling
you whose house it was; and as luck would have it, I came out at that
instant.
"Whether there was anything in your guess or not doesn't matter. You're
too sensible to mention it to any one except me. But I can't have you
torturing yourself with the idea that such dealings as you imagine with
Van Vreck are still going on, if they ever did go on. Because I have
faith in your discretion, and because I owe it to you, I'm going to
explain why I went to Van Vreck's house this afternoon--why I was obliged
to go. I knew he would have got back from Florida. I hear from him
sometimes, and I had to tell him that any business I'd ever done for him
was done for the last time, because--I was going to settle down to ranch
life in Texas.
"Also I handed to him the Malindore diamond. His firm lost it. His firm
has by this time been paid the insurance. It's up to him how to dispose
of the property.
"That's all I have to say about Van Vreck. I thought in fairness you
ought to know that I didn't keep the diamond. And I thought I might tell
you that my call at Van Vreck's didn't mean entering any new deal."
"Thank you," Annesley said, stiffly. "I am glad."
She _was_ glad, yet she wished the man to understand how impersonal was
her gladness; how impossible it was that any atonement could bring them
together again in spirit; how dead was the past which he had slain. And
he did understand as clearly from her few words as if she had preached
him an hour's sermon.
"Now, for what you are to do," he went on, crisply. "Although you and I
never discussed the situation on board ship, I realized what the Waldos
were letting you in for. I supposed you'd feel that your staying in New
York was out of the question. I bought our tickets to Texas. At the same
time I got a map and a guide-book which gives information about places on
the way and beyond.
"The Masons being on the train to Kansas City was a new complication.
But it wasn't my fault. And it only means that the game of keeping up
appearances must be played a little farther.
"Would you like to go to California? If you want to take back your maiden
name and be Miss Grayle--or if you care to have a new name to begin a new
life with, a quite respectable fellow called Michael Donaldson could
introduce you to a few influential people in Los Angeles. No danger of
meeting Madalena de Santiago there, though it's only a day's journey
from San Francisco, where she's very likely arrived by this time. She
has reasons for not liking Los Angeles. In her early days she had
some--er-financial troubles there, and she wouldn't enjoy being reminded
of them."
"Is Los Angeles farther than El Paso?" Annesley inquired, keeping her
voice steady, though there was a sickly chill in her heart.
"A good way farther," Knight went on, in the same businesslike tone which
separated him thousands of miles from the Knight she used to know. "Here,
I'll show you how the land lies."
Opening a map of a western railroad, he drew a little closer to her on
the seat, and pointed out place after place along the black line; told
her when they would arrive at Kansas City, and how they would go on
without change to Albuquerque.
There, he said, he must take another train for El Paso, and from El Paso
he must go a distance of twenty miles to the ranch, which lay close to
the border of Mexico, on the Rio Grande.
"But you," he said, quietly, "you can keep straight along in the train
we'll get into at Chicago till you come to Los Angeles. There'll be time
in Chicago to buy your ticket to California, and I can write letters of
introduction. They'll be to good people. You needn't be afraid."
Yet Annesley _was_ afraid, deathly afraid. Not that Knight's friends
would not be "good people," but of going on alone to an unknown place in
an unknown country. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, to
have stayed in New York--if only the Waldos hadn't interfered. But to
have this man--who, after all, was her one link with the old world--get
out of the train which was hurling them through space and leave her to go
on alone!
That was a fearful thing. She could not face the thought--at least not
yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she
had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too
tight--stretched to the point of breaking.
"Does that plan suit you--as well as any other?" Knight was asking.
"I--can't decide yet," the girl answered; and to keep tears back seemed
the most important thing just then. "It doesn't matter, does it, as I
_must_ go on past Kansas City?"
"No, it doesn't matter," Knight agreed. "You've plenty of time. I suppose
you'd like me to leave you now, to rest till dinner time? Here's the
guide-book. You might care to look it over."
But when he had gone Annesley let the book lie unopened on the seat. She
was very tired. She could not think far ahead. Her mind would occupy
itself with the features of the journey, not with her own affairs.
Everything was strange and new. Even the train was wonderful. She had
thought, in the immense station, that the cars looked like a procession
of splendidly built bungalows each painted a different colour and having
brightly polished metal balconies at the end. And inside, the car was
still like a bungalow, or perhaps a houseboat, with neat little panelled
rooms opening all the way down a long aisle.
The coffee-coloured porter and maid were delightful. They smiled at her
kindly, and when they smiled it seemed sadder than ever not to be happy.
The Masons' talk at dinner was disconcerting. They took it for granted
that she and Knight were an adoring newly married couple, like
themselves. Annesley was thankful to escape, and to go to bed in her
little panelled room.
"To-morrow, when I'm rested, things will be easier," she told herself.
But to-morrow came and she was not rested; for again she had not slept.
In Chicago there were hours to wait before train time. The Masons
proposed taking a motor-car to see the sights, and lunching together at
a famous Chinese restaurant.
At a sign from her, Knight consented. It was better to be with the Masons
than with him alone. After luncheon, however, Knight drew her aside.
"What about Los Angeles?" he inquired. "Have you decided?"
Annesley felt incapable of deciding anything, and her unhappy face
betrayed her state of mind.
"If you'd rather think it over longer," he said, "I can buy your ticket
at Albuquerque."
"Very well," Annesley replied. She did not remember where Albuquerque
was, though Knight had pointed it out on the map; and she did not care
to remember. All she wanted was not to decide then.
Knight turned away without speaking. But there was a look almost of hope
in his eyes. Things could not be what they had been; yet they were better
than they might be.
At Kansas City the Masons bade the Nelson Smiths good-bye. And from that
moment the Nelson Smiths ceased to exist. There were no initials on their
luggage.
The man kept to his own stateroom. Annesley, alone next door, had plenty
of books to read, parting gifts from the Waldos; but the most engrossing
novel ever written could not have held her attention. The landscape
changed kaleidoscopically. She wondered when they would arrive at
Albuquerque, wondered, yet did not want to know.
"Would you rather go to the dining car alone, or have me take you?"
Knight came to ask.
"It's better to go together, or people may think it strange," she said.
Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. The Masons having gone, the
other travellers--strangers whom they would not meet again--were not of
much importance. Yet she let her words pass. And at dinner that evening
she forced herself to ask, "Do we get to Albuquerque to-night?"
"Not till to-morrow forenoon," Knight informed her casually. He feared
for a moment that she might say she could not wait so long before making
up her mind; but she only looked startled, opened her lips as if to
speak, and closed them again.
Next day there were no more apple orchards and flat or rolling meadow
lands. The train had brought them into another world, a world unlike
anything that Annesley had seen before. At the stations were flat-faced,
half-breed Indians and Mexicans; some poorly clad, others gaily dressed,
with big straw hats painted with flowers, and green leggings laced with
faded gold. In the distance were hills and mountains, and the train ran
through stretches of red desert sprinkled with rough grass, or cleft with
river-beds, where golden sands played over by winds were ruffled into
little waves.
Toward noon Knight showed himself at the open door of the stateroom.
"We'll be in Albuquerque before long now," he announced. "That's where I
change, you know, for Texas. The train stops for a while, and I can get
your ticket for Los Angeles. Those letters of introduction I told you
about are ready. I've left a blank for your name. I suppose you've made
up your mind what you want to do?"
Some people with handbags pushed past, and Knight had to step into the
room to avoid them. The moment, long delayed, was upon her!
Annesley remembered how she had put off deciding whether or not to sail
for America with Knight. Now a still more formidable decision was before
her and had to be faced. She glanced up at the tall, standing figure.
Knight was not looking at her. His eyes were on the desert landscape
flying past the windows.
"What I _want_ to do!" she echoed. "There's nothing in this world that
I want to do."
"Then"--and Knight did not take his eyes from the window--"why not
drift?"
"Drift?"
"Yes. To Texas. Oh, I know! I asked you that before, and you said you
wouldn't. But hasn't destiny decided? Would it have sent you these
thousands of miles with me unless it meant you to fight it out on those
lines? You've travelled far enough, side by side with me, to learn that a
man and a woman with only a thin wall between them can be as far apart as
if they were separated by a continent.
"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't _I_ who tell you so.
It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or--will
you try the thin wall?"