IN WHICH ARE SEALED ORDERS
She stood before me for just a moment undecided. The twilight was
coming and the room was dim.
"Auntie will miss me," said she, "after a time."
"I have missed you all the time," was my reply.
"But you sent for me?"
"Of course I did. Doesn't this look as though I had?"
"I don't quite understand----"
"Shall I call Jimmy to explain? He called you a heartless jade----"
"The little imp! How dare he!"
"--As in fact all of our brotherhood has come to call you: 'The
heartless jade.'"
"I made fudges for him! And the little wretch told me I wasn't playing
the game! What did he mean? Oh, Harry, I wouldn't have come if I
hadn't wanted to play the game fairly. I'm sorry for what I said." She
spoke now suddenly, impulsively.
"What was it you said?"
"When I said--when I called you--a coward. I didn't mean it."
"You said it."
"But not the way you thought. I only meant, you took an unfair
advantage of a girl, running off with her, this way, and giving her no
chance to--to get away. But now you do give me a chance--you meant to,
all along--and in every way, as I've just done telling auntie, you've
been perfectly fine, perfectly splendid, perfectly bully, too! It has
been a hard place for a man, too, but--Harry, dear boy, I'll have to
say it, you've been some considerable gentleman through it all! There
now!" And she stood, aloof, agitated, very likely flushed, though I
could not tell in the dark.
"Thank you, Helena," I said.
"And as to your being any other sort of a coward--that you had
physical fear--that you wouldn't do a man's part--why, I never did
mean that at all. How could I? And if I had--why, even Auntie Lucinda
said your going out after that Chinaman the other night was
heroic--even if he couldn't have cooked a bit!--and you know Auntie
Lucinda has always been against you."
"Yes, and you both called me a coward, because I quit my law office
and ran away from misfortune."
"Yes, we did. And I meant that, too! I say it now to your face, Harry.
But maybe I don't know all about that----"
"Maybe not."
"Well, I wouldn't want to be unjust, of course, but I _don't_ think a
man ought to throw away his life. You're young. You could start over
again, and you ought to have tried. Your father made his own money,
and so did my father--why, look at the Sally M. mine, that has given
me my own fortune. Do you suppose that grew on a bush to be shaken
off? So why couldn't you go out in the same way and do something in
the world--I don't mean just make money, you know, but _do_ something?
That's what a girl likes. And you were able enough. You are young and
strong, and you have your education; and I've heard my father say,
before he died--and other men agreed with him--that you were the best
lawyer at our bar, and that you had an extraordinary mind, and a clear
sense of justice, and, and----"
"Go on. Did he say that?"
"Yes."
"But with all my fine qualities of mind and heart," said I, "I lost
all when I lost my money!"
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you what I mean--you dropped me because you thought me
poor. Well, I don't blame you. It takes money to live, and you
deserved all that the world can give. I don't blame you. There were
other men in the world for you. The trouble with me was that there was
no other woman in the world for me. All our trouble--all our many
meetings and partings--have come out of those two facts."
"Did you think that of me?" she asked at length, slowly. I suppose she
was pale, but I could not see.
"I certainly did. How could I think anything else?"
"Harry!" she half whispered. "Why, Harry, Harry!"
"Admit that you did!" I exclaimed bitterly, "and let me start from
that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and
she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you'd break
your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should
you? Why does a man work? It's for a home, for the sake of power, and
mostly for the sake of the game."
"Yes."
"And I could play that game--I can play it now, and win at it, any
time I like. I quit it not because I was afraid of the game--it's the
easiest thing in the world to make money, if that's all you really
want to do. That's all your father wanted, or mine, and it was easy. I
can play that game. But why? Ah! if it were to win a quiet home, the
woman I loved, independence, usefulness, contentment,--yes! But when
all those stakes were out of the game, Helena, I didn't care to play
it any more. And that was why you thought I ran away. I did run
away--from myself, and you."
She was silent now, and perhaps paler--I could not see.
"--But wherever I have gone, Helena, all over the world, I've found
those two people there ahead of me, and I couldn't escape
them--myself, and you!"
"Did you think that of me, Harry?" She half whispered once more.
"Yes, I did. And did you think that of me?"
"Yes, I did. But I did not understand."
"No. Like many a woman, you got cause and effect mixed up: and you
never troubled yourself to get it straight. Let me tell you, unless
two people can come to each other without compromises and without
explanations and without reservations, they would better never come
at all. I don't want you cheap, you oughtn't to want me cheap. So how
can it end any way other than the way it has? If it was my loss of
fortune that made you chuck me, I oughtn't ever to give you a second
thought, for you wouldn't be worth it. The fact you did, and that I
do, hasn't anything to do with it at all."
"No."
"And if you don't think me able and disposed to play a man's part in
the world, you oughtn't to care a copper for me, that is plain, isn't
it?"
"Yes, quite plain."
"And the fact that you did, and that you do, has nothing to do with
it--nothing in the world, has it, Helena?"
"No." She must have been very pale, though I could not tell.
"Therefore, as logic shows us, my dear, and because we never did get
our premises straight, and so never will get our conclusions straight,
either--we don't belong together and never can come together, can we?"
"No." I could barely hear her whisper.
"No. And that is why, just before you came, I was trying to pull
myself together and to advance as best an unhappy devil may, upon
Chaos and the Dark! And that's all I see ahead, Helena, without
you--Chaos and the Dark."
"It was all you saw that night, in the little boat," she said after a
time. "Yet you went?"
"Oh, yes, but that was different."
"Is this all, Harry?" she said, and moved toward the door.
"Yes, my dear; it is all--but all the rest."
Her color must have risen, for I saw dimly that she raised both her
hands to her bosom, her throat. Thus the heartless jade stood, her
head drooped, unable to meet the piercing gaze of my eagle eye.
There came a faint scratching at the door, a little whimpering whine.
"It is Partial, my dog, come after you," said I bitterly. "He knows
you are here. He never has done that way for me. He loves you."
"He knows _you_ are here, and he loves you," said she. "That is why
things come and scratch at doors where ruffians live."
I flung open the door. "Partial," said I, "come in; and choose between
us."
As to the first part of my speech, the invitation to enter, Partial
obeyed with a rush; as to the second, the admonition, he apparently
could not obey at all. In his poor dumb brute affliction, lack of
human speech, he stood, after saluting us both, alternately and
equally, hesitant between us, wagging, whining and gazing, knowing
full well somewhat was wrong between us, grieving over us, beseeching
us--but certainly not choosing between us.
"Give him time," said I hoarsely. "He loves you more, and is merely
polite to me."
"Give him time," said she bitterly. "He loves you more, and you don't
deserve it."
But Partial would not choose.
"He wants us _both_, Helena!" said I at last. "He has wiped out logic,
premises, conclusions, cause and effect, horse, cart and all! He wants
us _both_! He wants a quiet home and independence, Helena, and
usefulness, and contentment. Ah, my God!"
She reached down and put a hand on his head, but he only looked from
one to the other of us, unhappy.
"Don't you love me, Helena?" I asked quietly, after a time. "For the
sake of my dog, can you not love me?"
She continued stroking the head of the agonized Partial.... And until,
somewhat inarticulately, I had choked or spoken, and had caught her
dark hair against my cheek and kissed her hair and stammered in her
ear, and turned her face and kissed her eyes and her cheek and her
lips many, many times, Partial held his peace and issued no
decision.... At least, I did not hear him....
She was sobbing now, her head on my shoulder, as we sat on the locker
seat, and Partial's head was on the cushion beside us, and he was
silent and overjoyed, and tranquilly happy--seeing perhaps, that a
quiet home would in the event be his, and that he was going to live
happy ever after. And after I drew Helena's head closer to my face, I
kissed her hair.
"Do you love me, Helena?" I asked. "Only the truth now, in God's
name!"
"You know I do," she said, and I felt her arms about my neck.
"Have you, always?"
"I think so, yes. It seems always."
"We have been cruel to each other."
"Yes, are cruel now."
"How now?"
"You make me say I love you, and yet----"
"You will marry me--right away, soon, Helena--as I am, poor, ragged,
without a cent, only myself?"
"Not here," she smiled.
"At Edouard Manning's, at once, as soon as we get in?"
"It is duress! I am in the power of a ruffian band! Is it fair? Are
you sure I know my mind?"
"I am sure only that I know my own! Tell me, what was in that note I
carried, addressed to yon varlet Davidson?"
"Sealed orders!"
"And how does that affect me, Helena. Tell me--I know you love me, and
you know that all the rest is small, to that; but as to that wedding
part of it, Helena--what do you say?"
She hesitated for an instant. "You want me to--come--to come with
honor, as you do?"
"Yes. I'll take any risk that means with you."
"Will you take sealed orders, too?"
"Yes."
"Turn on the lights."
I reached the switch, and an instant later a dozen high candle-power
bulbs flooded the suite with light. With a little cry of dismay Helena
sprang away, and stood at my shaving-glass, arranging her hair. Now
and then she turned her face just enough to smile at me a little, her
eyes dark, languid, heavy lidded, a faint shadow of blue beneath. And
now and then her breast heaved, as though it were a sea late troubled
by a storm gone by.
"What will auntie say?" she sighed at last.
"What will you say?" I replied.
"Oh, brute, you shall not know! I must have some manner of revenge
against a ruffian who has taken advantage of me while I was in his
power!"
"Ah, heartless jade!"
"--So you shall wait until we are ashore. I will give you sealed
orders----"
"When?"
"Now. And you shall open them at your friend's house--as soon as we
are all settled and straightened after leaving the boat--as soon
as----"
"It looks as though it were as soon as you please, not when I please."
"Harry, it is my revenge for the indignities you have heaped on me. Do
you think a girl will submit to that meekly--to be browbeaten, abused,
endangered as I have been! No, sir--sealed orders or none. I have only
owned I loved you. So many girls have been mistaken about things
when--when the moon, or a desert island or--or something has bewitched
them. But I haven't said I would marry you, have I, ever?"
"No. I don't care about that so much as the other; but I care a very,
very great deal about it, too. You, too, are cruel. You are a
heartless jade."
"And you have been a cruel and ruthless pirate."
"Tell me now!"
"No." And she evaded me, and gained the door. "I must go. Oh, it's all
a ruin now--Auntie'll be furious. And what shall I say?"
"Give her sealed orders, and my love! And when do I get mine?"
"In five minutes."
She was gone.... And after some moments, rapt as I was at her late
presence, which still seemed to fill the room like the fragrance, like
the fragrance of her hair which still lingered in my senses, I looked
about, sighing for that she was gone. Then I noted that our friend
Partial had gone with her. "Fie! Partial, after all, you loved her
more!" I said to myself.
But in a few moments I heard a faint sound at my door. I opened. There
stood Partial in the dusk, gravely wagging his tail, looking at me
without moving his head. And I saw that he held daintily in his mouth
a dainty note, addressed to me in the same handwriting as that on the
note I had sent out from the heartless jade to yon varlet. And it was
sealed, and marked with instructions for its opening.... "When You
Two Varlets Meet." No more.
"Peterson," said I, advancing to the forward deck, where I found him
smoking, "I've been getting up some correspondence, since we'll be
ashore by to-morrow noon----"
"--I don't know as to that, Mr. Harry."
"Well, I know about it. So, tell Williams that, even if he has to work
all night, we must be moving as soon as it's light enough to see. I've
got a very important message----"
"By wireless, Mr. Harry?" chuckled the old man.
"Yes, by wireless," (and I looked at Partial, who wagged his tail and
smiled). "So I must get into Manning Island the first possible moment
to-morrow. And Peterson, as we've had so good a run this trip, with no
accident or misfortune of any kind, I don't know but I may make it a
month or two extra pay--double--for you and Williams, and even John.
And as to Willy, please don't fire him, Peterson, for his deserting
the ship's cook the other night. In fact, I'm very glad, on the whole,
he did. Give him double pay for doing it, Peterson!"
"Ain't this the wonderful age!" remarked Peterson to a star which was
rising over the misty marsh. "Especial, now, that wireless!"
I only patted Partial on the head, and we smiled pleasantly and
understandingly at each other. Of course, Peterson could not know what
we knew.