A CORNER OF THE CURTAIN
A note was brought in to me at luncheon time, addressed in a bold yet
delicate feminine hand which was already becoming familiar. It was
from Adelaide Fortress, and it consisted of a single line only--
“Will you come to me this afternoon?--A.F.”
I went to see her without any hesitation. She was sitting alone in her
room, and something in her greeting seemed to denote that she was not
altogether at her ease. Yet she was glad to see me.
“Sit down, child,” she said. “I have been thinking about you all
day. I am glad that you came.”
“Not very cheerful thoughts, then, I am afraid,” I remarked, with a
certain half-unconscious sympathy in my tone. For her face was white
and drawn, as though she had spent a sleepless night and an anxious
morning.
“Not very,” she admitted. “I have been thinking about you ever since
you left me yesterday. I am sorry for you. I am sorry for all of
us. It was an evil chance that brought that South American girl here.”
“Was she born in South America?” I asked, with pointless curiosity.
“I do not know,” she answered. “I should think so. She told me that
she had spent most of her life there. A girl who dresses as she does
here, and wears diamonds in the morning, must have come from some
outlandish place. Her toilette is not for our benefit, however.”
I looked up inquiringly. She continued, with a slight frown upon her
face--
“She follows Bruce Deville about everywhere. I never saw anything so
atrociously barefaced. If he were her husband she could not claim more
from him. They have just gone by together now.”
“What! this afternoon?” I asked.
“Not a quarter of an hour ago,” she declared. “She was holding
his arm, and looking up at him with her great black eyes every
moment. Bah! such a woman gives one a bad taste in one’s mouth.”
“I wonder that Mr. Deville is not rude to her,” I remarked. “He does
not seem to be a man likely to be particularly amiable under the
circumstances. I should not think he would be very easily annexed.”
She smiled faintly.
“From his general behavior one would not put him down as a willing
squire of dames,” she said; “but that girl is like a dog fawning for a
bone. She will not let him alone. She waits about for him. She hates
to have him out of her sight.”
“Perhaps--perhaps it is a good thing. It might take her mind off other
things,” I suggested, softly.
“That is what I too am hoping,” she admitted. “That is why I believe
Bruce endures her. There is one thing only of which I am afraid.”
“That is----” I asked.
“That she may send for a detective on her own account. Anything rather
than that! The girl alone I think we might deal with.”
“Mr. Deville must use all his influence. He must persuade her not to,”
I declared.
She assented.
“He will try. Yet for all her folly, so far as Bruce is concerned, she
is not a perfect idiot. She knows that he is my friend--and yours--and
she is desperately jealous. She will suspect his advice. She will not
accept his bidding blindly. She is cunning. She will agree with him,
and yet she will have her own way.”
“He must be very firm,” I said. “There must be no detective come
here. It would be the last straw. As it is, the anxiety is terrible
enough.”
We were silent, and we exchanged quick and furtive glances. Something
in her sad face moved me almost to tears--it was strangely soft,
so full of subtle and deep sympathy. Involuntarily I leaned across
and held out my hands to her. She caught them in hers with a
little passionate gesture. That moment brought us into a new
connection. Henceforth we were on a different footing.
“My child!” she moaned. “My poor child! You have a terrible burden
upon your young shoulders.”
“The burden I could bear,” I answered, “if only I had some knowledge
of its meaning. You know, you could tell me if you would.”
I crossed to her side and fell upon my knees, taking her hand in
mine. She looked away into the fire and her face was as white as
death.
“I cannot,” she faltered, with trembling lips. “I cannot! Don’t ask
me!”
“Oh! but I must!” I cried, passionately. “It cannot hurt me so much
to know as it does not to know. There is a secret between you and my
father. You knew him as Philip Maltabar. Tell me what manner of man
he was. Tell me why he has changed his name. Tell me what there was
between him and----”
She had risen to her feet at my first words. She sat down again, now
trembling in every limb.
“I cannot tell you any of these things,” she moaned. “I am sorry I
asked you to come. Go away! Please go away!”
But my mind was made up now, and the sight of her weakness only nerved
me on. I stood up before her white and determined--brutally reckless
as to her sufferings. I would know now, though I forced the words from
between her white lips. She was a strong woman, but she had broken
down--she was at my mercy.
“I will not go away,” I said, doggedly. “You sent for me, and I am
here. I will not go away until you have told me everything. I have a
right to know, and I will know! You shall tell me!”
She threw her arms out towards me with a gesture half pathetic,
half imploring. But I made no movement--my face was hard, and I had
set my teeth together. Her hands fell into her lap. I did not touch
them. She looked moodily into the fire. She sat there with fixed
eyes, like a woman who sees a little drama in the red coals. My heart
beat fast with excitement. I knew that in the war of our wills I had
conquered. She was at my mercy. I was going to hear.
“Child,” she said, slowly, and her voice seemed to belong to another
woman, and to come from a great distance, “I will tell you a
story. Listen!”
I leaned over towards her holding my breath. Now at last, then, I was
to know. Yet even in those moments of intense excitement the outline
of her face, with its curious white torpor, oppressed me. A chill fear
crept into my blood.
She began.
“There was a girl, well educated, well bred, and clever. She was an
orphan, and early in life it became necessary for her to earn her own
living. There were several things which she could do a little, but
only one well. She could write. So she became a journalist.
“It was an odd life for her, but for a time she was happy. She herself
was possessed of original ideas. She was brought into touch and
sympathy with the modern schools of thought and manners. She was
admitted into a brilliant little coterie of artists and literary
men and women whose views were daringly advanced, and who prided
themselves in living up to all they professed. She herself developed
opinions. I will not dwell upon them; I will only tell you in what
they ended. She set herself against the marriage laws. At first she
was very strong and very bitter. The majority of men she hated for
their cruelty to her sex. The thought of marriage disgusted her. Any
ceremony in connection with it she looked upon as a farce. She had no
religion in the ordinary sense of the word. She was brave and daring
and confident. This was all before she knew what love was.”
There was a silence, but I did not move my eyes from her face. Was
she waiting for a word of encouragement from me, I wondered? If so,
the silence must last forever, for I was tongue-tied. She had created
an atmosphere around her, and I could scarcely breathe. Presently she
went on.
“The man came in time, of course. He was young, ardent, an enthusiast,
fresh from college, with his feet on the threshold of life and eager
for the struggle. He had a little money, and he was hesitating as to
a profession. The girl was utterly free--she was her own mistress in
every sense of the word. There was no constraint upon her movements,
no conventionalities to observe, no one who could exercise over her
even the slightest authority. The young man proposed marriage. The
girl hesitated for a long while. Old ideas do not easily die, and
she saw clearly, although not clearly enough, that if she sacrificed
them to these new opinions of hers she must suffer, as the pioneer of
all great social changes must always suffer. Imperial dynasties and
whole empires have been overthrown in a single day, but generations
go to the changing of a single social law. Yet she told herself that
if she were false to these tenets, which she had openly embraced
and so often avowed, she must lose forever her own self-esteem. The
eyes of that little band of fellow-thinkers were upon her. It was a
glorious opportunity. It was only for her to lead and many others
would follow. She felt herself in a sense the apostle of those new
doctrines in whose truth and purity she was a professed believer. That
was how it all seemed to her.
“She told the man what her decision was. To do him justice, he
combated her resolve fiercely. They parted, but it was only for a
while. In such a struggle victory must rest with the woman. This was
no exception to the general rule. The woman triumphed.
“Their after history is not pleasant telling. The woman and the man
were utterly unsuited for each other. The man was an enthusiast,
almost a fanatic; the woman was cold, calculating, and matter of
fact. The man suddenly determined to enter the Church. The woman was
something between a pantheist and an agnostic with a fixed contempt of
all creeds. The inevitable came to pass. She followed out the logical
sequence of her new principles, and left the man for another.”
I suppose my face expressed a certain horror. How could I help it? I
shrank a little back, and my eyes sought her, doubtfully. She turned
upon me with a shade of fierceness on her white face.
“Oh, you are a swift judge!” she cried. “It is the young always who
are cruel! It is the young always who have no mercy!”
I was shocked at the agony which seemed to have laid hold of her. That
slight instinct of repulsion of which she had been so quick to notice
the external signs in my face, seemed to have cut her like a knife. I
moved swiftly to her side and dropped on my knees by her. I was
ashamed of myself.
“Forgive me!” I pleaded, softly. “I am very ignorant. I believe that
the woman did what seemed right to her. I was wrong to judge.”
She bent her head. I took her fingers softly into mine. “You were that
woman,” I whispered.
She looked at me and half rose from her chair, pushing me away from
her.
“I was that woman,” she moaned. “Your father was the man! You----”
I cried out, but she would not be interrupted.
“You,” she added, wildly, “are my child--and his!”