As I sat there on a rock, I heard a crackling of twigs, and Penton
thrust his way through the intervening branches to my bare rock and my
bare self ... I hastily, I do not know why, put on my bathrobe....
"Hello, Penton."
"Good morning, Johnnie. I felt you'd be down here for your morning bath
... I came to have a serious talk with you."
"Yes?"
"I want you to take calmly what I am about to say!"
Penton was much impressed with my stories of tramp days and tales of
adventure on land and sea, which you may be sure my sense of the
dramatic had encouraged me to lay on thick--and he, plainly, did not
desire any heat in the discussion which was to follow....
"Recently it has come to my attention that there has been a lot of
gossip about you and Hildreth ... your conduct together." He drew his
lips together tightly, settled himself for a long siege....
"Why, Penton," I began, protestingly and hypocritically,--I had planned
far other and franker conduct in such an emergency--but here I was,
deprecating the truth--
"Why, Penton, God knows--"
"Never mind ... if it is true, I am very sorry for you--for Hildreth's
sake, for yours, for mine ... but I want to warn you, if it is not true,
to look out ... you, as a friend, owe me some obligations ... I have
taken you in here, accepted you as one almost of my family, and--"
"But, Penton, this is unfair," I lied, "unfair even to suspect me--"
"If it had been anybody but you, Johnnie, I would have been suspicious
weeks ago ... Oh, I know, Hildreth ... she is giving all the
manifestations ... how her face shines, how beautiful she has grown, as
she does, with a new heart interest!... and her taking my little cottage
... ousting me from it....
"If it was anyone else," and he fetched a deep sigh, with tears standing
in his eyes, leaving the sentence incomplete.
At that moment I was impelled almost to cast myself at his feet, to
confess, and beg forgiveness....
"I want to warn you," he went on, "of Hildreth ... once before this has
happened ... she is a varietist by nature, as I am essentially a
monogamist."
"--and the free love idea, it was you who taught her this, brought her
into contact with Havelock Ellis, Ellen Key, Rosa Von Mayerreder?"
"I deny that. I believe in human freedom ... divorce ... remarriage ...
but not in extreme sex-radicalism ... Hildreth has misinterpreted me ...
the people you mention are great idealists, but in many ways they go too
far ... true--I brought Hildreth into contact with these books; but only
that she might use her own judgment, not accept them wholly and blindly,
as she has done...."
I looked at the man. He was sincere. An incredible, naïve, almost
idiotic purity shone in his face....
Again I was impelled to confess. Again I held my tongue. Again I lied.
"Penton, what you have just said about you and Hildreth and your lives
together, I shall consider as sacred between us."
He gave me his hand.
"Promise me one thing, that you will not take Hildreth as your
sweetheart ... be true to our friendship first, Johnnie."
"Penton, I am only flesh and blood; I will promise, if anything happens,
to tell you, ultimately, the truth."
He looked at me with close scrutiny again, at this ambiguous speech.
"Johnnie, _have_ you told me the absolute truth?"
"Yes!" evading his eyes.
"--because there is a wild strain in Hildreth that only needs a little
rousing--" He paused.
* * * * *
"Johnnie," as we walked away, "don't you think you had better pack up
and leave? _The next time_ I am going to sue for a divorce."
* * * * *
We walked home arm in arm. I simulated so well that it was Baxter who
begged pardon for even suspecting me.
But I felt like a dog. I, for my part, determined to bid farewell to
Hildreth that very evening, before she retired for the night, in her
cottage--take train to New York, and so to Paris, without first
finishing my _Judas_, as I had intended.
We would bury forever in the secret places of our hearts what had
already happened between us ... this was my first impulse....
My next was--that we should up and run away together, and defy Penton
Baxter and the world.
* * * * *
Hildreth could see by the strangeness in my behaviour, as I came into
the cottage, to kiss her good-night ... and stay a little while--a new
custom of ours, as we grew bolder--could see that I had something on my
mind.
I related to her all that had taken place between me and Penton that
morning....
"The cad," she cried, "the nasty cad, to talk to you so about me ... I
would have told you myself because you are my lover ... but he had no
right to tell you ... as far as he has proof positive, you are merely a
mutual friend....
"But that's the way with him. He has mixed his own life up so that it is
all public, to him.
"Yes," she cried impetuously and passionately ... "it's true ... I have
not been faithful to him before...."
"--and you returned to him? wasn't that weak?"