A TWO-EDGED SWORD
He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes.
_The Statue and the Bust._
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof
are the ways of death.--PROVERBS.
In his salad days, a long time ago, Denis had fallen in love with the
daughter of a respectable suburban fishmonger, after tumbling out of
the sky on the roof of her house. The young lady's parents were rich
but honest; the young lady herself--well, she had an extremely pretty
face, which occupied Denis to the exclusion of a blue and yellow sports
coat and a large string of pearls. His love dream lasted six weeks;
then he fell out of his aeroplane again and broke his handsome nose, or
was supposed to have done so, and Miss Tyrrell broke the engagement.
"I c-couldn't bear you with a broken nose!" she wept. Whatever Denis
broke, it was not his heart. When he looked back on the episode, it was
with devout and wondering thankfulness; but he preferred not to look
back on it at all.
This was his sole experience of the tender passion. In his
single-minded and laborious life there had been no room for more; even
Nina Tyrrell had been sandwiched between two flying accidents. Denis
was at bottom a simple soul. He had three main interests--his religion,
his aeroplanes, his friends; and they were all bound up together by a
child-like faith. He believed in others because his own heart was pure.
It was this bloom of innocence which Gardiner loved in his friend, and
which both he and Lettice were tender to protect; and it was this which
made his feeling for Dorothea at once so beautiful, and so vulnerable.
He took the revelation very simply, very seriously, with reverence and
awe; among other primitive virtues, Denis had a fine stock of awe. Love
was to him a sacrament, a gift direct from heaven; he carried it in his
heart like a jewel almost too precious for human hands to touch, and
gave humble thanks to God. A good old-fashioned churchman, Denis had
been accustomed to "say his prayers" night and morning, walking in a
decent English soul-silence the rest of the day; but this new gratitude
transcended all rules and overflowed in ceaseless praise. Nobody, he
was certain, had ever felt like this before. He was happy--happier than
it had ever entered his head to imagine, in sunshine which turned all
the gray of life to gold.
All that day he could settle to nothing, but mooned about the house,
getting in the way of Miss Simpson, who had planned to turn out his
room. Next day, in town, he looked at Wandesforde the married man with
new curiosity. He did not in the least want to unbosom himself; but
he would have liked to extract confidences from somebody who had been
through it all before. Wandesforde, however, was not given to making
confidences, and if ever he had been driven into speech his partner was
the last man he would have chosen to receive his outpourings. He put
down Denis's unusual silence to his liver, and genially advised him to
take more exercise--that venerable joke, which always seems so good to
the maker and so poor to the recipient!
That night Denis lay awake, building castles in the air. Dorothea had
told him all her sad little story as far as her marriage, one squally
day when they were sheltering in the hangar; he set up in his heart a
shrine of protective love and reverence and worshiped her there, his
little lady of the sorrows--Dorothea, with a heart full of black hate!
Yet Denis was not blind. He saw one side of her clearly enough, and was
ready to own with tender indulgence that she had plenty of endearing
imperfections, of small gray faults; but of the other side, the dark
half of the moon, she had shown him nothing, and how was he to divine
it? With him, indeed, she was what he believed her: true to her true
self, since but for her starved girlhood Dorothea would never have
learned to hate. He scarcely dared hope she loved him yet, though he
had a shy confidence that he would win her in the end; but he meant to
ask her at once, that very day when she came for her lesson. He was up
and out at six o'clock, among pearly mists, and saw the sun rise in
rose and gold over meadows spread with the thin silver of the frost.
Then he came in to breakfast, took up his letters, and met his first
check. There was a note from Miss Byrd to say they could not come.
She wrote for Dorothea, whose hand was troubling her again; perhaps she
had strained it yesterday; at any rate, she thought best not to use it
at present. But would Mr. Merion-Smith come to tea with them to-morrow
after church instead? She hoped this would be convenient and that they
might have the pleasure of his company, and she was his very sincerely,
Mary Anne Byrd. Denis's face, which had darkened, cleared again; after
all, it was not such a bad thing. Better say what he had to say in a
drawing-room than shout it through the hum of a propeller.
He went to afternoon church, and listened to the Evangelical vicar's
sermon on Christian evidences, which he seemed to rest mainly on
the fact that there have been martyrs for the faith (a proposition
over which Denis knit his brows, though he could not imagine that
the congregation then present was liable to have its faith upset by
faulty logic); and when the choir of little girls recited the General
Thanksgiving, he recited it with them, in great seriousness and
devotion. Coming out into the sunny white road, with the ink-blue sea
on one hand, the grayish cliff grass on the other, he walked down to
Dorothea's bungalow--the one bungalow of Bredon, which he already knew
sufficiently well, having lived there for several years himself. The
car was at the door; he paused to look over it before he rang the bell.
Miss Byrd received him in the drawing-room, and for the first half-hour
entertained him alone; a tall, slim woman with a complexion of wrinkled
ivory, gentle and dignified and intelligent. As a teacher she had been
subject to storms of nervous anger, for which she was not too proud to
apologize, even to a pupil; it was an incident of this sort which had
stamped her indelibly in Dorothea's affections. Always a little shy of
Denis, to-day she seemed in a state of nervous tremor; her hands were
shaking as she arranged and rearranged the cozy, and wondered for the
tenth time what could be keeping Dot. Denis, who had one manner for the
mighty and another for the humble and meek, set himself to soothe her
alarms. He was just succeeding when the door unclosed and the truant
swept in.
"Am I very frightfully late?" she inquired unconcernedly. "So sorry;
having only one hand makes you awkward, you know. Do you mind doing
this for me, Birdie?"
She stood bending her graceful head while Miss Byrd settled the rose
point of her collar. She was wearing a velvet dress, very rich, very
sumptuous, cut open at the throat and bordered with sable fur. Round
her neck went a gold chain, rough links nearly an inch across, hanging
to her knees and looking barbarously heavy. She sank into a chair, and
there was the gleam of a golden shoe, a Cinderella slipper with jeweled
straps crossing on the arch of a silken instep. What a transformation!
But the greater change was in her manner.
"Have you been to church?" she asked. "How pious of you! I haven't;
but then I'm not pious, you know. I went for a joy-ride instead. My
hand? Oh yes, thanks, I managed all right. I generally do manage to
do what I want to," she added, spreading out a slender hand with the
diamonds upon it which Lettice had admired long ago. She looked up at
Denis through her lashes. "No, I didn't want to come yesterday; not
particularly; wasn't that sad? But I did want you to come here this
afternoon--"
"That's all right, since here I am," Denis interrupted, laughing at
her. He put her off for an instant, but only for an instant; she
recovered herself, and swept on:
"And I'll tell you why: because I wanted a real heart-to-heart talk,
without any aeroplanes or things to interrupt. I've a bone to pick with
you."
"A bone to pick, have you?"
"A big, big bone. Another lump of sugar, please, Birdie--yes, that
little fella will do; I shan't let you make tea if you don't give me
enough sugar. Why didn't you ever tell us that exciting story about Mr.
Gardiner?"
She leaned back among her cushions, stirring her cup, watching Denis
with those dark eyes full of overt insolence and covert eagerness. But
Denis was not noticing subtleties of expression; this time she had got
home.
"What excitin' story about Mr. Gardiner?"
It was her turn to laugh. "Oh, you know! About that man he killed, or
didn't kill, up in the Lakes somewhere. I really think it was your
_duty_ to have told--anybody mightn't have cared to stop at his hotel
after a thing like that!"
"Who told you anything about it?"
"Louisa, of course. Louisa's always my newsmonger. She had it from the
maid of the man's wife--Mrs. Tyne, wasn't her name? No, Trent. I knew
it was some river or other. Maids tell each other everything. It only
came out yesterday, else I'd have been at you about it before. Louisa
swears Mr. Gardiner really did it, and you screened him. Did he? and
did you? Do tell! It isn't every day one comes across a thrilling tale
like this!"
"There was an inquest," said Denis stiffly. "You can read all about it
in the papers, if you choose. It was brought in accidental death."
"Well, I know that, or Mr. Gardiner would have gone to prison, wouldn't
he? But what Louisa says is that the whole truth didn't come out at the
inquest. He knocked the man down, or something, instead of his tumbling
of himself. I can quite believe he would knock a man down, if he lost
his temper. Did he really do it, and make you hush it up? I do so want
to know!"
"My dear," said Miss Byrd gently, "don't you see you're worrying Mr.
Merion-Smith!"
"Am I?" said Dorothea. She shot a cool, leisurely, searching glance at
Denis's troubled face. "Well, I'm sure I don't see what there is to
worry anybody in what I've been saying--unless, of course, it's true!"
Denis had to say something. He felt for and found his voice, hoping it
sounded more natural to her than it did to himself. "It was--rather a
bad business," he got out. "I--don't much care for talkin' about it. I
don't think Miss O'Connor quite realizes what it meant for us--we saw
it, you know; and Mrs. Trent too--" He stuck fast. Was that the best he
could do for his friend? The old excuse rose to his lips. "But I can
assure you it was an accident!"
"Oh, well, of course I'm sorry if I said what I oughtn't. I only meant
it for a joke!" said Dorothea conventionally.
Denis turned away to the window. What evil fiend had prompted her
to dig up that story? It was none the sweeter for its long burial.
On Dorothea's lips it made him feel sick. He had a passing pain and
wonder at her tone, so discordant, so unlike herself. But that was due
to shyness, he told himself, the struggles of a wild thing to escape
capture, and putting the thought by he went on steadily to his purpose.
It was not easy to turn Denis when his mind was made up. He spoke the
sentence he had prepared before entering the house.
"Have you seen your back tire?"
"My tire? No! Is it down?"
Out she ran--as he had guessed she would; but it was at any cost to get
away from him, not for the car's sake--and that he did not guess. He
followed her. Dorothea, pretending to examine her tires, looked up and
knew herself caught.
"Why, they're all right," she said, rising from the last of the wheels.
"Did you think I had a puncture?"
"No, and I never said I did. I wanted to speak to you," said Denis
coolly.
She faced him across the car, as cool as he. "Better not."
"I want to ask you something. I want to know if you will do me the very
great honor of becoming my wife."
How quietly he said it, looking at her with his steady eyes! Dorothea
shook her head. "Never."
"Ah, but I'm not askin' for an answer at once."
"Never. Never. Never," she repeated with rising emphasis. "I _never_
will--and you wouldn't ask it if you knew!"
"You're not engaged already?"
"Oh, no!" she cried, with a laugh that set his teeth on edge. She
turned towards the door. Denis instinctively put out a hand to detain
her. She flashed round, quick and dangerous as a cat.
"Don't touch me, don't stop me--you'll be sorry for it if you do!"
Denis was in far too great pain and confusion to obey, or even to take
in what she said. "You weren't like this yesterday!" he said, pleading.
"I always was. Always. I had my reasons for pretending to tolerate you
for a time, but I always felt the same."
"You said you loved me!"
"It wasn't true, it wasn't true. I hate you."
"But why? What have I done?"
"Told lies, and screened a murderer."
"_What?_"
"It's your own fault, you would have it," said Dorothea, trembling with
passion. "I _told_ you not to stop me, and you would. Saying it was an
accident--that old story! I was sure enough before, I know for certain
now."
Denis's hand went up to his head. "What are you talking about?"
"About Major Trent, whom Mr. Gardiner killed. He did kill him. He
knocked him down with a chisel, and he died. Didn't he? _Didn't he?_
You know you can't deny it!"
He could not, nor could he meet her eyes, so he missed their
expression. Certain things are so cruelly hard that they must be
carried through at a rush, or not at all. Dorothea's vengeance had
turned into a two-edged sword in her hands, and she hewed with it
recklessly because it was cutting her to the bone.
"Why, it's not a year yet since he died, and do you think I'd _let_
myself love a man who--who almost helped to kill him?" she cried
with anguish. "Oh, I hate, hate, _hate_ you, and I always will. Oh,
Guy, Guy, do they think I'd forget so soon, and be friends with your
murderers? I'd kill myself sooner!"
Sobbing vehemently, she fled into the house.
When Denis got home, he found a belated letter from Lettice, which
should have been delivered that morning, but had been carried on by
mistake to the next farm. It had come, said Miss Simpson, just after he
started; the boy must actually have passed him in the drive.