THE WAY OF A WOMAN
Blake was humped over his desk, his fingers deep in his hair, and his
forehead furrowed with the knotted wrinkles of utter weariness and
perplexity, as his eyes pored over the complex diagrams and figures
jotted down on the plan before him.
Griffith came shuffling into the room in his old carpet slippers. He
looked anxiously at the bent form across the desk from him, and said:
"See here, Tommy, what's the use of wasting electricity?"
Blake stared up at him, blear-eyed with overstudy and loss of sleep.
"Told you 'm going to keep going long as the wheels go 'round," he
mumbled.
"They'd keep going a heap longer if you laid off Sundays," advised
Griffith. "I'm no fanatic; but no man can keep at it day and night,
this way, without breaking."
"Sooner the better!" growled Blake. "You go tuck yourself into your
cradle."
Griffith shook his head dubiously and was shuffling out when he heard a
knock at the hall door of the living-room. He hastened to respond, and
soon returned with a dainty envelope. Blake was again poring over his
plans and figures. The older man tossed the missive upon the desk.
"Hey, wake up," he cackled. "Letter from one of your High Society lady
friends. Flunkey in livery for messenger."
"Livery?" echoed Blake. "Brown and yellow, eh?--as if his clothes had
malaria."
"No. Dark green and black."
Blake started to his feet, his face contorted with the conflict of his
emotions. "Don't joke!--for God's sake! That's hers!"
Griffith ripped the note from its envelope and held it out. Blake
clutched it from him, and opened up the sheet with trembling fingers,
to find the signature. For a moment he stood staring at it as if unable
to believe his own eyes. Then he turned to the heading of the note and
began to read.
"Well?" queried Griffith, as the other reached the end and again stood
staring at the signature.
Instead of replying, Blake dropped into his chair and buried his face
in his arms. Griffith hovered over him, gazing worriedly at the big
heaving shoulders.
"Must say you're mighty talkative," he at last remarked, and he started
toward the door. "Good-night."
"Wait!" panted Blake. "Read it!"
Griffith took the note, which was thrust out to him, and read it
through twice.
"Huh," he commented. "She wasn't so awfully sudden over it. 'Bout time,
I'd say."
"Shut up!" cried Blake, flinging himself erect in the chair, to beam
upon his friend. "You've no license to kick, you old grouch. I'm coming
to bed. But wait till to-morrow afternoon. Maybe the fur won't fly on
old Zariba!"
"Come on, then. I'll get your sulphonal."
"You will--not! No more dope in mine, Grif. I've got something a
thousand per cent better."
"She ought to've come through with it at the start-off," grumbled
Griffith. But he gladly accompanied his friend to the bedroom.
In the morning Blake awoke from a profound natural sleep, clear-eyed
and clear-brained. His first act was to telephone to a florist's to
send their largest crimson amaryllis to Miss Genevieve Leslie.
Though he forced himself to walk, he reached the Leslie mansion a full
half-hour before ten. To kill time, he swung on out the Drive into
Lincoln Park. He went a good mile, yet was back again five minutes
before the hour. Unable to wait a moment longer, he hastened up into
the stately portico and rang.
As on the previous day, he was at once bowed in and ushered to the
beautiful room of gold and ivory enamel. He entered eagerly, and was
not a little dashed to find himself alone. His spirits rebounded at the
remembrance that he was early. He stopped in the centre of the room and
stood waiting, tense with expectancy.
Very soon Genevieve came in at one of the side doorways. He started
toward her the instant he heard her light step. But her look and
bearing checked his eager advance. She was very pale, and her eyelids
were swollen from hours of weeping.
"Jenny!" he stammered. "What is it? Your note--I thought that--that--"
"You poor boy! you poor boy!" she murmured, her eyes brimming over with
tears of compassion.
"What is it?" he muttered, and he drew nearer to her.
She put out her hands and grasped his coat, and looked up at him, her
forehead creased with deep lines of grief, and the corners of her sweet
mouth drooping piteously.
"Oh, Tom! Tom!" she sobbed, "I know the worst now! I know how greatly I
wronged you by forcing you into temptation. I have been to one who
knows--one of the great physicians."
"About me?" asked Blake, greatly surprised.
"I used no names. He does not know who I am. But I told him the facts,
as you have told them to me, dear. He said--Oh, I cannot--I cannot
repeat it!"
She bent forward and pressed her face against his breast, sobbing with
an uncontrollable outburst of grief. He raised his arms to draw her to
him, but dropped them heavily.
"Well?" he asked in a harsh voice. "What of it?"
She drew herself away from him, still quivering, but striving hard to
control her emotion.
"I--I must tell you!" she forced herself to answer. "I have no right to
keep it from you. He said that it is a--a disease; that it is a matter
of pathology, not of moral courage."
"Disease?" repeated Blake. "Well, what if it is? I don't see what
difference that makes. If I fight it down--all well and good. If I lose
out, I lose out--that's all."
"But don't you see the difference it makes to me?" she insisted. "I
blamed you--when it wasn't your fault at all. But I did not realize,
dear. I've been under a frightful strain ever since we reached home.
Just because I do not weep and cry out, every one imagines I'm cold and
unfeeling. I've been reproached for treating you cruelly. But you see
now--"
"Of course!" he declared. "Don't you suppose I know? It's your grit.
Needn't tell me how you've felt. You're the truest, kindest little
woman that ever was!"
"Oh, Tom! that's so like you!--and after I _have_ treated you so
cruelly!"
"You? What on earth put that into your head? Maybe you mean, because
you didn't give me the second chance at once when I owned up to
failing. But it was no more than right for you to send me off. Didn't I
deserve it? I had given you cause enough to despise me--to send me off
for good."
"No, no, not despise you, Tom! You know that never could be, when there
in that terrible wilderness you proved yourself so true and kind--such
a man! And not that alone! I know all now--how you, to save me--" She
paused and looked away, her face scarlet. Yet she went on bravely:
"how, in order that I might be compelled to make certain, you endured
the frightful heat and smother of that foul forecastle, all those days
to Aden!"
"That wasn't anything," disclaimed Blake. "I slept on deck every night.
Just a picnic. I knew you were safe--no more danger of that damnable
fever--and with Jimmy to entertain you."
"While you had to hide from me all day! James said that it was
frightful in the forecastle."
"Much he knows about such places! It wasn't anything to a glass-factory
or steelworks. If it had been the stokehole, instead--I did try
stoking, one day, just to pass the time. Stood it two hours. Those
Lascars are born under the equator. I don't see how any white man can
stoke in the tropics."
"You did that?--to pass the time! While we were aft, under double
awnings, up where we could catch every breath of air! Had I known that
you did not land at Port Mozambique, I should have--should have--"
"Course you would have!" he replied. "But now you see how well it was
you didn't know."
"Perhaps--Yet I'm not so sure--I--I--"
She clasped her hands over her eyes, as all her grief and anguish came
back upon her in full flood.
"Oh, Tom! what shall we do? My dear, my poor dear! That doctor, with
his cold, hard science! I have learned the meaning of that fearful
verse of the Bible: 'Unto the third and fourth generation.' You may
succeed; you may win your great fight for self-mastery. But your
children--the curse would hang over them. One and all, they too might
suffer. Though you should hold to your self-mastery, there would still
be a chance,--epilepsy, insanity, your own form of the curse! And
should you again fall back into the pit--"
She stopped, overcome.
He drew back a little way, and stood regarding her with a look of utter
despair.
"So that is why you sent for me," he said. "I came here thinking you
might be going to give me another chance. Now you tell me it's a lot
worse than even I thought."
"No, no!" she protested. "I learned what I've told you afterward--after
I had sent you the note. You must not think--"
He broke in upon her explanation with a laugh as mirthless as were his
hard-set face and despairing eyes. She shrank back from him.
"Stop it!--stop it!" she cried. "I can't bear it!"
He fell silent, and began aimlessly fumbling through his pockets. His
gaze was fixed on the wall above and beyond her in a vacant stare.
"Tom!" she whispered, alarmed at his abstraction.
He looked down at her as if mildly surprised that she was still in the
room.
"Excuse me," he muttered. "I was just wondering what it all amounts to,
anyway. A fellow squirms and flounders, or else drifts with the
current. Maybe he helps others to keep afloat, and maybe he doesn't.
Maybe some one else helps him hold up. But, sooner or later, he goes
down for good. It will all be the same a hundred years from now."
"No!" she denied. "You know that's not true. You don't believe it."
He straightened, and raised his half-clenched fist.
"You're right, Jenny. It's the facts, but not the truth. It's up to a
man to pound away for all he's worth; not whine around about what's
going to happen to him to-morrow or next year or when he dies. Only
time I ever was a floater was when I was a kid and didn't know the real
meaning of work. Since then I've lived. I can at least say I haven't
been a parasite. And I've had the fun of the fight."
He flung out his hand, and his dulled eyes flashed with the fire of
battle.
"Lord!--what if I _have_ lost you! That's no reason for me to quit. You
did love me there--and I'll love you always, little woman! You've given
me a thousand times more than I deserve. I've got that to remember, to
keep me up to the fighting pitch. I'm going to keep on fighting this
curse, anyway. Idea of a man lying down, long as he can stagger! Even
if the curse downs me in the end, there're lots of things I can do
before I go under. There're lots of things to be done in the world--big
things! Pound away! What if a man _is_ to be laid on the shelf
to-morrow? Pound away! Keep doing--that's life! Do your best--that's
living!"
"I know of _one_ who has lived!" whispered Genevieve. "Jenny! Then it's
not true? You'll give me another chance? You still love me?"
"Wait! No, you must not!" she replied, shrinking back again. "I
cannot--I will not give way! I must think of the future--not mine, but
_theirs!_ I must do what is right. I tell you, there is one supreme
duty in a woman's lot--she should choose rightly the man who is to be
the father of her children! It is a crime to bring into the world
children who are cursed!"
A flame of color leaped into her face, but she stood with upraised
head, regarding him with clear and candid eyes that glowed with the
ecstasy of self-sacrifice.
Before her look, his gaze softened to deepest tenderness and reverence.
When he spoke, his voice was hushed, almost awed.
"Now I understand, Jenny. It's--it's a holy thing you've done--telling
me! I'll never forget it, night or day, so long as I live. Good-bye!"
He turned to go; but in an instant she was before him with hands
outflung to stop him.
"Wait! You do not understand. Listen! I did not mean what you
think--only--only if you fail! Can you imagine I could be so unjust? If
you do not fail--if you win--Oh, can't you see?"
He stared at her, dazed by the sudden glimmering of hope through the
blackness of his despair.
"But you said that, even if I should win--" he muttered.
"Yes, yes; he told me there would still be a risk. But I cannot believe
it. At least it would not be so grave a risk. Oh, if you can but win,
Tom!"
"I'll try," he answered soberly.
"You will win--you shall win! I will help you."
"You?"
"Yes. Don't you understand? That is why I sent for you--to tell you
that."
"But you said--"
"I don't care what I said. It's all different now. I see what I should
do. I have failed far worse than you. There on that savage coast you
required me to do my share; but always you stood ready to advise and
help me. Yet after all that--How ungrateful you must think me!"
"No, never!" he cried. "You sha'n't say that. I can't stand it. You're
the truest, kindest--"
"It's like you to say it!" she broke in. "But look at the facts. Did
you ever set me a task that called for the very utmost of my
strength--perhaps more; and then turn coldly away, with the cruel word
that I must win alone or perish?"
"It's not the same case at all," he remonstrated. "You're not fair to
yourself. I'm a man."
"And I've called myself a woman," she replied. "After those weeks with
you I thought myself no longer a shallow, unthinking girl. A woman! Now
I see, Tom--I know! I have failed in the woman's part. But now I shall
stand by you in your fight. I shall do my part, and you will win!"
Blake's eyes shone soft and blue, and he again held out his arms to
her. But in the same moment the glow faded and his arms fell to his
side.
"I almost forgot," he murmured. "You said that I must win by my own
strength--that you must be sure of my strength."
"That was before I learned the truth," she replied. "I no longer ask so
much. I shall--I must help you, as you helped me. I owe you life and
more than life. You know that. You cannot think me so ungrateful as not
to do all I can."
"No," he replied, with sudden resolve. "You are to do as you first
said--as we agreed."
"You mean, not help you? But I must, Tom, now that I realize."
"All I want is another chance," he said. "It's more than I deserve. I
can't accept still more."
"You'll not let me help you? Yet what the doctor said makes it all so
different."
"Not to me," replied Blake, setting his jaw. "I've started in on this
fight, and I'm going through with it the way I began. It'll be a big
help to know how you feel now; but, just the same, I'm going to fight
it out alone. The doctors may say what they please,--if I haven't will
power enough to win, without being propped up, I'm not fit to marry any
woman, much less you!"
"Tom!" she cried. "You _are_ the man I thought you. You _will_ win!"
She held out her hands to him. He took them in his big palms, and bent
over to kiss her on the forehead.
"There!" he said, stepping away. "That's a lot more than I'm entitled
to now, Jenny. It's time I left, to go and try to earn it."
"You won't allow me to help?" she begged.
"No," he answered, with a quiet firmness that she knew could not be
shaken.
"At least you cannot keep me from praying for you," she said.
"That's true; and it will be a help to know how you feel about it now,"
he admitted.
"You will come again--soon?"
"No, not until I begin to see my way out on the Zariba Dam."
"Oh, that will be soon, I'm sure."
"I hope so. Good-bye!"
He turned and hurried from the room with an abruptness that in other
circumstances she might have thought rude. But she understood. He was
so determined in his purpose that he would not take the slightest risk
that might be incurred by lingering.
She went to a front window, and watched him down the Drive. His step
was quick but firm, and his head and shoulders were bent slightly
forward, as if to meet and push through all obstacles.