THE WORM TURNS
In the hour or two of troubled sleep closing his wakeful night, Forbes
dreamed vividly and woke with Agatha's voice echoing in his ears. He
started up, his lips parted to speak her name, then dropped back upon
his pillows with a sense of desolate loss that tried his powers of
self-control.
So faithfully had his memory reproduced every intonation of the
familiar voice that it had seemed to bring the living woman to his
side. He recognized the maternal note which had appealed to him the
more because of his unmothered boyhood, the undertone of indulgent
humor which was characteristic of the friend on whom he had learned
to lean. Only there was no such friend. Her place had been taken by
a stranger, capable of bewildering changes of identity, Miss Kent,
Hephzibah, and now this newcomer, Agatha, self-confessed impostress
who could, even when unmasked and flouted, preserve the dignity which
is the heritage of race. He found himself thrilled by an inexplicable
pride as he remembered the even voice with which she had answered
Julia's shrillness.
The adaptable bell-boy presented himself in due time and awkwardly
assisted him with his dressing. After visiting the barber, he was
conducted to the hotel dining-room, and here the realization was
brought home to him that for many a month Agatha's tact had stood
between him and embarrassment. She had prepared his food so that he ate
without any especial sense of being at a disadvantage. His fork was
always at hand when he wanted it. His glass of water and his cup of
coffee were magically present to his need. In the hotel dining-room he
heard whispers at his back, and once a sound like smothered laughter,
and he tingled with the shamed consciousness of being a show for
curious eyes. His face burned throughout the meal, and his eating was
largely pretense.
Forbes' engagement with Julia was for ten o'clock. At quarter before
the hour, the bell-boy who had taken him in charge conducted him to a
stiff little parlor on the second floor, and left him after a whispered
explanation to the maid. Time is proverbially slow-footed from the
standpoint of lovers, but as Forbes sat waiting he felt sure that his
impatience did not explain the seemingly endless duration of those
fifteen minutes. The maid came to him at last to ask if there was
anything she could do.
"I'd like to know the time, please."
"Half past eleven, sir."
"Half past eleven," Forbes repeated. Oddly his first emotion was a
feeling of relief that Agatha did not know.
The parlor maid was offering encouragement. "Prob'ly something's
happened to detain the young lady, sir. But I don't believe she'll be
much longer."
"Let us hope not," Forbes replied dryly. The proudest of men, he winced
at the unmistakable sympathy of the woman's tone. It was not fair that
he should be subjected to such humiliation.
Julia arrived upon the stroke of noon, voluble over some undeniable
bargains in blouses. She had stopped at one of the exclusive little
shops, preferred by the knowing to the big emporiums, only intending,
she explained vivaciously, to make one small purchase. But the woman
had kept showing her the loveliest things, and all so reasonable.
There was practically no one in the place, so that it had seemed like
shopping in some strange city. And it was worth coming to town in the
hot weather just to pick up such bargains.
"I'm glad your effort was not thrown quite away," Forbes remarked with
an irony that glanced harmless from Julia's armor.
"Oh, no, Burton, I don't grudge any sacrifice I have made. Getting you
out of the clutches of that harpy was worth it all."
She waited for a suitable expression of gratitude from the gentleman
she had rescued. After a pause which Forbes failed to fill
appropriately, she spoke again, and this time with grave seriousness.
"Now, Burton, it's only two hours before my train leaves and I must
have luncheon, so we'd better lose no time deciding on the wisest
course to take in this affair."
Again Forbes failed to respond. Julia eyed him suspiciously.
"I hope you haven't an idea of passing this outrage over without taking
any action, Burton. It's that sort of laxity that makes criminals."
"Perhaps you have decided on the punishment appropriate to this
particular crime," said Forbes, his voice rich in ironic inflections,
which again passed harmlessly over Julia's head.
"To tell the truth, I have. There's only one point on which these
mercenary people are really susceptible, and that's money. My advice is
to write her that unless she returns every penny you paid her, you will
prosecute her for swindling."
"She might not be able to do that, Julia. I judge from what you all say
that she must be poor."
"Oh, she's evidently that. Everything about the place is
poverty-stricken, and the gown she wore that day was so faded that you
could hardly tell the original color. But I believe she has all that
money put aside, for don't you remember, the boy said she wanted to
send him to school."
"I remember. And you advise me to demand the money she has saved for
his schooling, and ask her to charge up my board for those months to
charity?"
Julia held to her point. "It's the sort of thing she'd feel, because
it's evident there's nothing she wouldn't do for money. I confess I
can't comprehend that temperament. Money means so little to me that I
simply don't understand how it's possible for people to worship it as
they do."
He listened with growing irritation. That this girl who had never
earned a dollar, and had never denied herself anything she wanted,
should assume so superior an attitude, offended his sense of justice.
"Perhaps if you knew more of the value of money," he cut in crisply,
"you might respect it more."
"Oh, I know I'm impractical, Burton. Dad was always making fun of me
for that." The pensiveness of her tone was still evident as she added,
"Perhaps you'd like to have me write the letter before I go."
"What letter?"
"To that woman, of course, threatening to prosecute her unless she
returns the money."
His pause was long enough to give the idea that he was considering her
suggestion. His tone when at length he spoke, implied nothing of the
sort.
"Thank you, Julia. I shall not need your services. And when I write
Miss Kent, I shall enclose a check to cover my board till the first of
November."
He heard her catch her breath. "You mean you are going to pay a premium
for being tricked and deceived?"
"She deceived me and that's not easy for me to forgive. But I'm hardly
ready to sponge my living from a girl who is making a hand-to-hand
fight with poverty."
"Dear, it's dreadful the way you men let your chivalry run away with
you. I suppose if you were on a jury, you couldn't bring yourself to
convict a woman of murder."
"I hardly think Miss Kent's offense can be classed in that category,"
Forbes said stiffly. "I suffered chiefly through the jolt to my sense
of dignity. That's always been a sensitive point with me."
Julia sighed. "I can't bear to have you talk that way, Burton. It's bad
enough for Mr. Warren to make light of falsehood and treachery. But it
seems to me a person capable of that, is capable of anything." She laid
her hand lightly on his. "Trust a woman's intuition, Burton. Let me
write that letter."
Her touch not only left him cold, but roused his antagonism. He felt
an irritated certainty that he was being played upon. "Thank you, but
I have nothing to say to Miss Kent that I can not entrust to a public
stenographer."
She did not take away her hand. "Let's not talk of that dreadful woman
any more," she said, in a lowered voice. "Fate has given us this
little hour out of the years, and we mustn't waste it."
Her words brought back something Agatha had said, her scathing scorn
of those who took the easy way, and then held fate accountable. The
remembrance steeled him against the insidious tenderness of her voice.
"You made your choice, Julia, as you had a right to do. And I wish you
every happiness."
The fragrance of a delicate perfume he had always associated with her
enveloped him. He felt the pressure of her body against his arm.
"What a queer, quiet hotel this is, Burton. Right in the heart of the
city and yet we're as much alone as if we were off somewhere in the
woods."
Had she been sensitive, she might have perceived a curious rigidity
in the arm against which she leaned, an ominous tightening of the
obstinately silent lips. Her vanity felt the challenge of his failure
to respond. She flung prudence to the winds. "Burton! Burton!" she
murmured, and whether her emotion was real or assumed, he did not know,
"why don't you kiss me?"
His fastidious recoil was strengthened by the suspicion that she was
attempting by playing on his passion to mold him to her will in the
matter of Agatha's punishment. He moved away a little. "Excuse me," he
said, "I shouldn't dream of taking such a liberty with the fiancée of
Murray Prendergast."
"Oh, don't!" He felt her shudder, and again wondered if it were real,
or a pretense. "All the years ahead belong to him, and just this little
moment is yours and mine."
"I lay no claim even to a moment of your time, Julia. I asked from you
all or nothing."
"Tell me just once that you love me, Burton."
At his continued silence, she drew herself away. "You're different. You
don't care for me as you did."
She waited vainly for him to deny the accusation. Then again she caught
his hand. She might have been a loyal wife, fearing that her husband's
heart was slipping from her grasp and longing to be reassured.
"Burton," she implored, "tell me whether you love me."
"I thank God--no."
She fell back, and he could hear her stormy breathing. Well as he knew
every inflection of her voice, he hardly recognized it when she spoke
again.
"That wretched woman! That creature! She's to blame. She's stolen your
heart from me."
"Don't be a fool." The brutality, foreign as it was to Forbes' training
and temperament, seemed demanded by the occasion. "My heart and all the
rest of me was yours while you chose to keep me. You threw me away like
a worn glove when my trouble came, and looked about for a more fitting
match."
"Burton, you said yourself--"
"I own I made your way easy for you, Julia. I was fool enough to be
satisfied to have you yourself and made no inconvenient demands in the
way of loyalty and truth. And the fate you are so fond of invoking was
kinder to me than I deserved."
"You love her. You love that abandoned--"
"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't dare finish." But he himself went on
talking rapidly. "As far as Miss Kent is concerned, of course I have
made it impossible for her ever to think well of me again, since after
her months of uninterrupted kindness, I could listen to your venomous
attack upon her, and not speak a word in her defense."
"How dare you! How dare you speak like that to me!"
"Whether I love her or not, I don't know. It's too bewildering for me
to be sure. But I know she's the most loyal friend, and the dearest
comrade and the bravest, most unselfish--"
Julia sprang from her place beside him with a cry. His face was toward
her, and at the sound of her voice, an extraordinary thing happened. He
saw her for an instant quite distinctly, though the face he had loved
had undergone as hideous a change as if death and decay had done their
devastating work upon it. Secure in the knowledge of his blindness, she
faced him with the mask thrown aside. He saw her features distorted
by hate, her eyes narrowed malignantly, her lips drawn back from the
teeth. Something Hephzibah Diggs had said in their memorable interview
flashed across his mind. "When she showed herself up for what she was,
you'd ought to have got down on your marrow bones and thanked the Lord."
Darkness shut down over the unwelcome vision. There was a rushing in
his ears so that he heard only faintly Julia's farewell, "I hate you!
Oh, how I hate you!" He leaned back against the cushions, realizing
that he was a sick man, but enveloped in a strange serenity. When next
the parlor maid proffered her services, he sent her to telephone for
his physician. An hour later he was comfortably ensconced in a private
hospital on the outskirts of the city, and sick as he felt, his mood
was increasingly cheerful, for the doctor considered the momentary
return of vision, elusive and disappointing as it had been, most
encouraging.
It was a week before Forbes was equal to dictating a letter to Agatha.
He passed over the peculiar circumstances of their parting, expressed
rather formally his sense of gratitude and enclosed a generous check.
His acknowledgment came with gratifying promptness. But the nurse on
opening the envelope was puzzled.
"It doesn't seem a letter at all, just bits of paper. Why, it looks
like a check, torn into little pieces."
"You can't find the number of the check among the scraps, can you?"
asked Forbes.
The nurse could and did and Forbes' suspicion became certainty. He
turned on his pillow, unreasonably wounded. The Agatha Kent he had
loved and trusted had never been, and this stranger who called herself
by the familiar name had rejected his overture of friendship.