She made up her mind not to count upon that week together. She felt sure
that something would happen to prevent it, that Miss Clarke wouldn’t let
her go, that Barty would be detained by some important work.
Hers was the wildly unreasonable pessimism of a woman’s love. She
foresaw the direst misfortunes, and was almost resigned to them. She was
tired, too, after a long summer of hard work, and Miss Clarke was
increasingly disagreeable to her. She was worried about Barty, worried
about all sorts of absurd little things, so that she did not sleep well,
and could scarcely tolerate the meals in her hotel. A whole week away
somewhere with Barty? Impossible!
But on Sunday morning he actually came. She went upstairs and got her
bag, which, with such wretched misgivings, she had packed the night
before. She got into the taxi with Barty. His bag was in there. They
really were going!
“But where?” she asked, like a happy child. “Where are we going, Barty?”
“Long Beach!” he said proudly. “You told me you liked it.”
“I do!” she assured him earnestly.
After all, what if they did happen to run across Mr. Terrill?
“I’ve engaged a room,” he went on, “for Mr. and Mrs. Leadenhall. If we
see any one we know, all right. I’m pretty sick of this hole-and-corner
business, anyhow.”
It was then that she noticed there was something wrong with
Barty--something very wrong. There was about him an air of grim
recklessness, almost of desperation. He was trying to be jolly, but he
achieved only a strained sort of hilarity utterly foreign to him, and
beyond measure distressing to Jacqueline. She watched him with growing
anxiety, pretending to believe in his pretense, but positively sick at
heart with apprehension.
They went all the way down by taxi.
“Hang the expense!” he said. “I’ve worked for it!”
And she pretended to enjoy the trip. She was even jollier than Barty.
She spurred on her anxious heart to a hectic gayety. She talked and
laughed, always with her eyes on Barty’s face.
He had engaged not a room, but a suite of parlor, bedroom, and bath.
Mentally she computed the cost of this, and was appalled; but even then
she said nothing. If this was what Barty wanted, very well, she was glad
he had it. If it gave him any joy to waste what he had worked so hard to
get, very well, she would not spoil his week by a single remonstrance.
He was walking up and down the parlor, with his hands in his pockets,
and Jacqueline was in the bedroom, unpacking her bag. She had said all
the things she could think of in praise of the suite. While she tried to
think of some more praise, a blank little silence had fallen.
“Jacko,” he said, “you--you really do like this, don’t you? You really
will be happy here, won’t you--for this week?”
He spoke like a doomed man, as if this week was to be their last. He
didn’t even try to smile. Jacqueline could not bear it.
“Barty,” she said, “aren’t you well?”
“Well?” he repeated, in surprise. “Of course I’m well! I’m always well!”
She hesitated for a moment. Then she got up and went into the parlor,
barring his path, so that he had to stop short in his pacing; and she
asked him the question that had been in the back of her mind all the
time.
“Didn’t Mr. Stafford like your going away, Barty?”
“Who cares?” said he.
She hadn’t much doubt now.
“I’d like to know, though, Barty,” she said quietly. “I’d rather know.”
“I can’t see that it makes any difference what Stafford says or thinks.
After all--”
“I want to know, Barty!”
It seemed to her that this was the first time she had really felt like
Barty’s wife, with a wife’s dignity, a wife’s right to know what
concerned her husband. She saw that he felt this, too, for his
high-handed air was conspicuously absent.
“Well,” he said, “if you must know, he made the devil of a row.”
“Oh, Barty! But how unkind and unreasonable of him!”
“Well, you see,” said Barty reluctantly, “he’s sick, and--”
“Sick?”
“Some trouble with his eyes. Can’t use them for a week or so. He wanted
me to put off going away.”
“Oh, why didn’t you? Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t want to. I had told you we’d have this week together.”
“I’d have understood, Barty!”
“I know it; but, don’t you see, Jacko, you’re my wife, and you come
first.”
She began to cry foolish tears of tenderness and pride.
“That was very rash and imprudent,” she began.
“I’m not prudent where you’re concerned,” said Barty, “and I’m sick of
trying to be. If it hadn’t been that I had promised you not to tell any
one, I’d have told Stafford then that I was going away with my wife.”
“What did you tell him, Barty?”
“Nothing.”
“You must have said something!”
“I told him I had made arrangements for a week’s holiday with a friend
of mine, and I couldn’t put it off.”
Her moment of pride and delight was over now. She realized what had
happened. For her sake he had left the friend to whom he owed so much at
the time when that friend most needed him. It was the supreme proof of
his love for her, but it was a proof which she must not and could not
accept.
She gently pushed Barty into a chair. Then she sat on the arm of it and
drew his head down against her heart; and with all the wisdom, all the
ingenuity, all the art born of her love, she talked to him, argued,
pleaded, warned, cajoled. There was dismay in her heart, but she was
unwaveringly resolute, and she vanquished him.
Once more she took ruthless advantage of his masculine instinct to yield
to the beloved woman whatever she asked. For the second time she
safeguarded him to her own cost. Their love must be a help to him, not a
handicap. She was not a weak, silly creature to be indulged and
protected. She was his friend, his pal. She understood.
“I’ll stay here by myself,” she said, “and it’ll be a splendid rest for
me. Of course, I’ll miss you, Barty, but we’ll write to each other
every day; and it won’t be very long before we shall be together all the
time.”
She managed to say this without a tremor, and even with a smile; but
Barty could not respond. Almost unconsciously, she had used two terribly
potent arguments. She had evoked the sacred name of honor, telling him
that he was in honor bound not to desert Stafford; and she had warned
him that, in hazarding his future prospects, he was endangering her
happiness as well as his own. With these weapons she had defeated him.
They went down into the dining room for lunch, and it was dust and ashes
to them. They sat facing each other across a small table. Their eyes
met, they tried to speak, but what was there to say?
This was not an episode. It had the air of a final tragedy. Their week,
their one beautiful week, was lost! And they were so young, so honestly
and utterly in love! That day, neither of them believed that happiness
would ever come again.
As they were leaving the dining room, a man rose from one of the tables
and bowed to Jacqueline.
“Who’s that?” asked Barty.
“Oh, I met him at Miss Clarke’s,” said Jacqueline.
At that moment Mr. Terrill was not of sufficient importance to have a
name. He was less than nothing.
They went up to their suite again, and Barty put into his bag the few
things he had unpacked so short a time before. Jacqueline helped him.
She brushed his hair with his military brushes, she straightened his
tie. She kissed him and sent him off with a smile.
“Oh, Barty! Oh, Barty!” she cried, after he had gone.
V
“Stopping here?” cried a delighted voice.
Odd, how people keep on existing, completely unaware how superfluous
they are! Jacqueline turned from her contemplation of the moonlit sea to
the vastly inferior spectacle of Mr. Terrill, and answered him as
civilly as she could just then.
“Yes,” she said, “for a rest.”
“Not a very quiet place for a rest,” remarked Terrill.
“I don’t like quiet places,” Jacqueline replied impatiently.
He was charmed with this. The more unreasonable she was, the more he
liked her.
“I enjoy a place like this,” he went on; “but not for a rest. What
appeals to me is the stimulation one finds in a motley crowd like this.”
“Bah!” said Jacqueline, under her breath.
If he would only go away and leave her alone! His voice and his presence
were an intolerable exasperation to her. She wanted Barty--and, failing
Barty, she wanted to think of him undisturbed; but Mr. Terrill continued
to exist, unabashed.
“It’s a curious thing,” he continued, “the transformation that certain
qualities of light can effect. Of course, it’s been pretty thoroughly
studied in the theater; but to the average mortal--well, moonlight, for
instance. I’ve seen your face in lamplight and in the sunlight, but now,
in the light of the moon--”
“It makes every one look ghastly, doesn’t it?” Jacqueline interrupted
hastily. “I hate it!”
“Hate moonlight, Miss Miles?” said he, mildly reproachful.
“Yes!” she answered stoutly. “I’m not one of those sentimental idiots!”
He seemed to grasp her meaning, for he asked, in quite a different tone,
cheerful and matter-of-fact, if he might come down to visit her while
she was stopping here.
“Oh, but--” said Jacqueline, dismayed. “You see, Mr. Terrill, I--”
He waited patiently for the reason why he must not come to see Miss
Miles, and she tried hard to think of one.
“Well,” she said lamely, “you probably wouldn’t find me at the hotel.
I--I take long walks, and I shouldn’t like you to come all that way from
the city, you know, and not find me.”
“I’d take a longer trip than that, any day,” said Terrill, “just on the
chance of seeing you!”
She had to let that pass. There was no way of explaining to him; but she
made up her mind that he should not find her in, whenever he might come.
The next morning she had a letter from Barty. He wrote:
You should have seen Stafford when I got back. There he was,
sitting in the dark. I told him I’d thought better of it--took all
the credit for your idea, little Jacko, but what else could I do?
I see now that you were right. It was so hard to leave you that I
couldn’t see it then. All the way back on the train I was thinking
things about you that you wouldn’t have liked. I thought you were a
cold-blooded little beast to send me away like that; but after I’d
seen poor old Stafford, I saw how right you were. You know, Jacko,
I’d have given up Stafford, or anything else on earth, for that
week with you, but you wouldn’t let me make a fool of myself. I’ve
got it in me, you know, Jacko. I could make the most exalted,
glorious sort of fool of myself, and I’d enjoy it; but you’ll
always be my sensible little pal.
Jacqueline put down the letter and sat for a time staring before her,
with a very odd expression on her face. Then she took it up and finished
it.
Address letters in care of Jordan Galloway, Philipsville, Long
Island. That is the nearest village, and I’ll go there for the mail
whenever I get a chance; but don’t worry if you don’t hear from me
every day, dear girl, because sometimes I may not be able to get
into the village.
And then many affectionate messages, and a check, “so that you can stay
where you are for another week.”
This check was the first money Barty had ever given her. He had paid for
things--dinners, taxis, and so on--and he had bought her presents, but
this was different. If she was his friend, his pal, why should she let
him do this?
He warned her in his letter not to swim out too far. They had often
bathed together. She was a good swimmer, strong and sound of wind, and
she knew Barty was proud of her; but she could not swim as well as he.
He could always have outdistanced her easily, if he had wished, but the
idea of competition had never occurred to them. They were pals, friends,
equals; but in almost everything he was stronger and more skillful.
He earned four times as much as she, and he was going forward while she
stood still. When they went walking, she always tired first. Whatever
they undertook, he did better than she, and it seemed to them both so
much a matter of course that she had never thought of it before.
She looked about her, at those rooms, so terribly empty without Barty.
She had made him go. She had sent away her man, telling him that she
could do without him; but could she? He would do very well with
Stafford. He would enjoy himself, no doubt, but how was it with her,
left alone here, and sick at heart, longing and longing for Barty?
Suppose she had done wrong not to let him be a “glorious fool”? Suppose
it was all a mistake to try to be a pal?