Once a month Marrineal gave a bachelor dinner of Lucullan repute. The
company, though much smaller than the gatherings at The House With Three
Eyes, covered a broader and looser social range. Having declined several
of his employer's invitations in succession on the well-justified plea
of work, Banneker felt it incumbent upon him to attend one of these
events, and accordingly found himself in a private dining-room of the
choicest of restaurants, tabled with a curiously assorted group of
financiers, editors, actors, a small selection of the more raffish
members of The Retreat including Delavan Eyre; Ely Ives; an elderly
Jewish lawyer of unsavory reputation, enormous income, and real and
delicate scholarship; Herbert Cressey, a pair of the season's
racing-kings, an eminent art connoisseur, and a smattering of
men-about-town. Seated between the lawyer and one of the racing-men,
Banneker, as the dinner progressed, found himself watching Delavan Eyre,
opposite, who was drinking with sustained intensity, but without
apparent effect upon his debonair bearing. Banneker thought to read a
haunting fear in his eyes, and was cogitating upon what it might
portend, when his attention was distracted by Ely Ives, who had been
requested (as he announced) to exhibit his small skill at some minor
sleight-of-hand tricks. The skill, far from justifying its possessor's
modest estimate, was so unusual as to provoke expressions of admiration
from Mr. Stecklin, the lawyer on Banneker's right.
"Oh, yes; hypnotism too," said Ely Ives briskly, after twenty minutes of
legerdemain. "Child's play."
"Now, who suggested hypnotism?" murmured Stecklin in his limpid and
confidential undertone, close to Banneker's ear. "You? I? No! No one,
_I_ think."
So Banneker thought, and was the more interested in Ives's procedure.
Though the drinking had been heavy at his end of the table, he seemed
quite unaffected, was now tripping from man to man, peering into the
eyes of each, "to find an appropriate subject," as he said. Delavan Eyre
roused himself out of a semi-torpor as the wiry little prowler stared
down at him.
"What's the special idea?" he demanded.
"Just a bit of mesmerism," explained the other. "I'll try you for a
subject. If you'll stand up, feet apart, eyes closed, I'll hypnotize you
so that you'll fall over at a movement."
"You can't do it," retorted Eyre.
"For a bet," Ives came back.
"A hundred?"
"Double it if you like."
"You're on." Eyre, slowly swallowing the last of a brandy-and-soda,
rose, reaching into his pocket.
"Not necessary, between gentlemen," said Ely Ives with a gesture just a
little too suave.
"Ah, yes," muttered the lawyer at Banneker's side. "Between gentlemen.
Eck-xactly."
Pursuant to instructions, Eyre stood with his feet a few inches apart
and his eyes closed. "At the word, you bring your heels together. Click!
And you keep your balance. If you can. For the two hundred. Any one else
want in?... No?... Ready, Mr. Eyre. Now! _Hep_!"
The heels clicked, but with a stuttering, weak impact. Eyre, bulky and
powerful, staggered, toppled to the left.
"Hold up there!" His neighbor propped him, and was clutched in his
grasp.
"Hands off!" said Eyre thickly. "Sorry, Banks! Let me try that again.
Oh, the bet's yours, Mr. Ives," he added, as that keen gambler began to
enter a protest. "Send you a check in the morning--if that'll be all
right."
Herbert Cressey, hand in pocket, was at his side instantly. "Pay him
now, Del," he said in a tone which did not conceal his contemptuous
estimate of Ives. "Here's money, if you haven't it."
"No; no! A check will be _quite_ all right," protested Ives. "At your
convenience."
Others gathered about, curious and interested. Banneker, puzzled by a
vague suspicion which he sought to formulate, was aware of a low runnel
of commentary at his ear.
"Very curious. Shrewd; yes. A clever fellow.... Sad, too."
"Sad?" He turned sharply on the lawyer of unsavory suits. "What is sad
about it? A fool and his money! Is that tragedy?"
"Comedy, my friend. Always comedy. This also, perhaps. But grim.... Our
friend there who is so clever of hand and eye; he is not perhaps a
medical man?"
"Yes; he is. What connection--Good God!" he cried, as a flood of memory
suddenly poured light upon a dark spot in some of his forgotten reading.
"Ah? You know? Yes; I have had such a case in my legal practice. Died of
an--an error. He made a mistake--in a bottle, which he purchased for
that purpose. But this one--he elects to live and face it--"
"Does he know it?"
"Obviously. One can see the dread in his eyes. Some of his friends know
it--and his family, I am told. But he does not know this interesting
little experiment of our friend. Profitable, too, eh? One wonders how he
came to suspect. A medical man, though; a keen eye. Of course."
"Damn him," said Banneker quietly. "General paralysis?"
"Eck-xactly. Twelve, maybe fifteen years ago, a little recklessness. A
little overheating of the blood. Perhaps after a dinner like this. The
poison lies dormant; a snake asleep. Harms no one. Not himself; not
another. Until--something here"--he tapped the thick black curls over
the base of his brain. "All that ruddy strength, that lusty good-humor
passing on courageously--for he is a brave man, Eyre--to slow torture
and--and the end. Grim, eh?"
Banneker reached for a drink. "How long?" he asked.
"As for that, he is very strong. It might be slow. One prays not."
"At any rate, that little reptile, Ives, shan't have his profit of it."
Banneker rose and, disdaining even the diplomacy of an excuse, drew Ely
Ives aside.
"That bet of yours was a joke, Ives," he prescribed.
Ives studied him in silence, wishing that he had watched, through the
dinner, how much drink he took.
"A joke?" he asked coolly. "I don't understand you."
"Try," advised Banneker with earnestness. "I happen to have read that
luetic diagnosis, myself. A joke, Ives, so far as the two hundred goes."
"What do you expect me to do?" asked the other.
"Tear up the check, when it comes. Make what explanation your ingenuity
can devise. That's your affair. But don't cash that check, Ives. For if
you do--I dislike to threaten--"
"You don't need to threaten me, Mr. Banneker," interrupted Ives eagerly.
"If you think it wasn't a fair bet, your word is enough for me. That
goes. It's off. I think just that of you. I'm a friend of yours, as I
hope to prove to you some day. I don't lay this up against you; not for
a minute."
Not trusting himself to make answer to this proffer, Banneker turned
away to find his host and make his adieus. As he left, he saw Delavan
Eyre, flushed but composed, sipping a liqueur and listening with
courteous appearance of appreciation to a vapid and slobbering story of
one of the racing magnates. A debauchee, a cumberer of the earth,
useless, selfish, scandalous of life--and Banneker, looking at him with
pitiful eyes, paid his unstinted tribute to the calm and high courage of
the man.
Walking slowly home in the cool air, Banneker gave thanks for a
drink-proof head. He had need of it; he wanted to think and think
clearly. How did this shocking revelation about Eyre affect his own
hopes of Io? That she would stand by her husband through his ordeal
Banneker never doubted for an instant. Her pride of fair play would
compel her to that. It came to his mind that this was her other and
secret reason for not divorcing Eyre; for maintaining still the outward
form of a marriage which had ceased to exist long before. For a lesser
woman, he realized with a thrill, it would have been a reason for
divorcing him.... Well, here was a barrier, indeed, against which he was
helpless. Opposed by a loyalty such as Io's he could only be silent and
wait.
In the next few weeks she was very good to him. Not only did she lunch
with him several times, but she came to the Saturday nights of The House
With Three Eyes, sometimes with Archie Densmore alone, more often with a
group of her own set, after a dinner or a theater party. Always she made
opportunity for a little talk apart with her host; talks which any one
might have heard, for they were concerned almost exclusively with the
affairs of The Patriot, especially in its relation to the mayoralty
campaign now coming to a close. Yet, impersonal though the discussions
might be, Banneker took from them a sense of ever-increasing intimacy
and communion, if it were only from a sudden, betraying quiver in her
voice, an involuntary, unconscious look from the shadowed eyes. Whatever
of resentment he had cherished for her earlier desertion was now
dissipated; he was wholly hers, content, despite all his passionate
longing for her, with what she chose to give. In her own time she would
be generous, as she was brave and honorable....
She was warmly interested in the election of Robert Laird to the
mayoralty, partly because she knew him personally, partly because the
younger element of society had rather "gone in for politics" that year,
on the reform side. Banneker had to admit to her, as the day drew close,
that the issue was doubtful. Though The Patriot's fervid support had
been a great asset to the cause, it was now, for the moment, a liability
to the extent that it was being fiercely denounced in the Socialist
organ, The Summons, as treasonable to the interests of the
working-classes. The Summons charged hypocrisy, citing the case of the
Veridian strike.
"That is McClintick?" asked Io.
"He's back of it, naturally. But The Summons has been waiting its
chance. Jealous of our influence in the field it's trying to cultivate."
"McClintick is right," remarked Io thoughtfully.
Banneker laughed. "Oh, Io! It's such a relief to get a clear view and an
honest one from some one else. There's no one in the office except
Russell Edmonds, and he's away now.... You think McClintick is right? So
do I."
"But so are you. You had to do as you did about the story. If any one is
to blame, it is Mr. Marrineal. Yet how can one blame him? He had to
protect his mother. It's a fearfully complicated phenomenon, a
newspaper, isn't it, Ban?"
"Io, the soul of man is simple and clear compared with the soul of a
newspaper."
"If it has a soul."
"Of course it has. It's got to have. Otherwise what is it but a
machine?"
"Which is The Patriot's; yours or Mr. Marrineal's? I can't," said Io
quaintly, "quite see them coalescing."
"I wonder if Marrineal has a soul," mused Banneker.
"If he hasn't one of his own, let him keep his hands off yours!" said Io
in a flash of feminine jealousy. "He's done enough already with his
wretched mills. What shall you do about the attack in The Summons?"
"Ignore it. It would be difficult to answer. Besides, people easily
forget."
"A dangerous creed, Ban. And a cynical one. I don't want you to be
cynical."
"I never shall be again, unless--"
"Unless?" she prompted.
"It rests with you, Io," he said quietly.
At once she took flight. "Am I to be keeper of your spirit?" she
protested. "It's bad enough to be your professional adviser. Why don't
you invite a crowd of us down to get the election returns?" she
suggested.
"Make up your party," assented Banneker. "Keep it small; say a dozen,
and we can use my office."
On the fateful evening there duly appeared Io with a group of a dozen
friends. From the first, it was a time of triumph. Laird took the lead
and kept it. By midnight, the result was a certainty. In a balcony
speech from his headquarters the victor had given generous recognition
for his success to The Patriot, mentioning Banneker by name. When the
report reached them Esther Forbes solemnly crowned the host with a
wreath composed of the "flimsy" on which the rescript of the speech had
come in.
"Skoal to Ban!" she cried. "Maker of kings and mayors and things. Skoal!
As you're a viking or something of the sort, the Norse salutation is
appropriate."
"It ought to be Danish to be accurate," he smiled.
"Well, that's a hardy, seafaring race," she chattered. "And that reminds
me. Come on out to the South Seas with us."
"Charmed," he returned. "When do we start? To-morrow?"
"Oh, I'm not joking. You've certainly earned a vacation. And of course
you needn't enlist for the whole six months if that is too long. Dad has
let me have the yacht. There'll only be a dozen. Io's going along."
Banneker shot one startled, incredulous look at Io Eyre, and instantly
commanded himself, to the point of controlling his voice to gayety as he
replied:
"And who would tell the new mayor how he should run the city, if I
deserted him? No, Esther, I'm afraid I'm chained to this desk. Ask me
sometime when you're cruising as far as Coney Island."
Io sat silent, and with a set smile, listening to Herbert Cressey's
account of an election row in the district where he was volunteer
watcher. When the party broke up, she went home with Densmore without
giving Banneker the chance of a word with her. It seemed to him that
there was a mute plea for pardon in her face as she bade him good-night.
At noon next day she called him on the 'phone.
"Just to tell you that I'm coming as usual Saturday evening," she said.
"When do you leave on your cruise?" he asked.
"Not until next week. I'll tell you when I see you. Good-bye."
Never had Banneker seen Io in such difficult mood as she exhibited on
the Saturday. She had come early to The House With Three Eyes,
accompanied by Densmore who looked in just for one drink before going to
a much-touted boxing-match in Jersey. Through the evening she
deliberately avoided seeing Banneker alone for so much as the space of a
query put and answered, dividing her attention between an enraptured
master of the violin who had come after his concert, and an aged and
bewildered inventor who, in a long career of secluded toil, had never
beheld anything like this brilliant creature with her intelligent and
quickening interest in what he had to tell her. Rivalry between the two
geniuses inspired the musician to make an offer which he would hardly
have granted to royalty itself.
"After a time, when zese chatterers are gon-away, I shall play for you.
Is zere some one here who can accompany properly?"
Necessarily Io sent for Banneker to find out. Yes; young Mackey was
coming a little later; he was a brilliant amateur and would be flattered
at the opportunity. With a direct insistence difficult to deny, Banneker
drew Io aside for a moment. Her eyes glinted dangerously as she faced
him, alone for the moment, with the question that was the salute before
the crossing of blades.
"Well?"
"Are you really going, Io?"
"Certainly. Why shouldn't I?"
"Say that, for one reason"--he smiled faintly, but resolutely--"The
Patriot needs your guiding inspiration."
"All The Patriot's troubles are over. It's plain sailing now."
"What of The Patriot's editor?"
"Quite able to take care of himself."
Into his voice there suffused the first ring of anger that she had ever
heard from him; cold and formidable. "That won't do, Io. Why?"
"Because I choose."
"A child's answer. Why?"
"Do you want to be flattered?" She raised to his, eyes that danced with
an impish and perverse light. "Call it escape, if you wish."
"From me?"
"Or from myself. Wouldn't you like to think that I'm afraid of you?"
"I shouldn't like to think that you're afraid of anything."
"I'm not." But her tone was that of the defiance which seeks to
encourage itself.
"I'd call it a desertion," he said steadily.
"Oh, no! You're secure. You need nothing but what you've got. Power,
reputation, position, success. What more can heart desire?" she taunted.
"You."
She quivered under the blunt word, but rallied to say lightly: "Six
months isn't long. Though I may stretch it to a year."
"It's too long for endurance."
"Oh, you'll do very well without me, Ban."
"Shall I? When am I to see you again before you go?"
Her raised eyebrows were like an affront. "Are we to see each other
again? Of course, it would be polite of you to come to the train."
There was a controlled and dangerous gravity in his next question. "Io,
have we quarreled?"
"How absurd! Of course not."
"Then--"
"If you knew how I dislike fruitless explanations!"
He rose at once. Io's strong and beautiful hands, which had been lying
in her lap, suddenly interlocked, clenching close together. But her face
disclosed nothing. The virtuoso, who had been hopefully hovering in the
offing, bore down to take the vacated chair. He would have found the
lovely young Mrs. Eyre distrait and irresponsive had he not been too
happy babbling of his own triumphs to notice.
"Soon zey haf growed thin, zis crowd," said the violinist, who took
pride in his mastery of idiom. "Zen, when zere remains but a small few,
I play for you. You sit _zere_, in ze leetle garden of flowers." He
indicated the secluded seat near the stairway, where she had sat with
Ban on the occasion of her first visit to The House With Three Eyes.
"Not too far; not too near. From zere you shall not see; but you shall
think you hear ze stars make for you harmonies of ze high places."
Young Mackey, having arrived, commended himself to the condescending
master by a meekly worshipful attitude. Barely a score of people
remained in the great room. The word went about that they were in for
one of those occasional treats which made The House With Three Eyes
unique. The fortunate lingerers disposed themselves about the room. Io
slipped into the nook designated for her. Banneker was somewhere in the
background; her veiled glance could not discover where. The music began.
They played Tschaikowsky first, the tender and passionate "Melodie";
then a lilting measure from Debussy's "Faun," followed by a solemnly
lovely Brahms arrangement devised by the virtuoso himself. At the
dying-out of the applause, the violinist addressed himself to the nook
where Io was no more than a vague, faërie figure to his eyes, misty
through interlaced bloom and leafage.
"Now, Madame, I play you somezing of a American. Ver' beautiful, it is.
Not for violin. For voice, contralto. I sing it to you--on ze G-string,
which weep when it sing; weep for lost dreams. It is called 'Illusion,'
ze song."
He raised his bow, and at the first bar Io's heart gave a quick, thick
sob within her breast. It was the music which Camilla Van Arsdale had
played that night when winds and forest leaves murmured the overtones;
when earth and heaven were hushed to hear.
"Oh, Ban!" cried Io's spirit.
Noiseless and swift, Banneker, answering the call, bent over her. She
whispered, softly, passionately, her lips hardly stirring the
melody-thrilled air.
"How could I hurt you so! I'm going because I must; because I daren't
stay. You can understand, Ban!"
The music died. "Yes," said Banneker. Then, "Don't go, Io!"
"I must. I'll--I'll see you before. When we're ourselves. We can't talk
now. Not with this terrible music in our blood."
She rose and went forward to thank the player with such a light in her
eyes and such a fervor in her words that he mentally added another to
his list of conquests.
The party broke up. After that magic music, people wanted to be out of
the light and the stir; to carry its pure passion forth into the dark
places, to cherish and dream it over again.... Banneker sat before the
broad fireplace in the laxity of a still grief. Io was going away from
him. For a six-month. For a year. For an eternity. Going away from him,
bearing his whole heart with her, as she had left him after the night on
the river, left him to the searing memory of that mad, sweet cleavage of
her lips to his, the passionate offer of her awakened womanhood in
uttermost surrender of life at the roaring gates of death....
Footsteps, light, firm, unhesitant, approached across the broad floor
from the hallway. Banneker sat rigid, incredulous, afraid to stir, as
the sleeper fears to break the spell of a tenuous and lovely dream,
until Io's voice spoke his name. He would have jumped to his feet, but
the strong pressure of her hands on his shoulders restrained him.
"No. Stay as you are."
"I thought you had gone," he said thickly.
A great log toppled in the fireplace, showering its sparks in prodigal
display.
"Do you remember our fire, on the river-bank?" said the voice of the
girl, Io, across the years.
"While I live."
"Just you and I. Man and woman. Alone in the world. Sometimes I think it
has always been so with us."
"We have no world of our own, Io," he said sadly.
"Heresy, Ban; heresy! Of course we have. An inner world. If we could
forget--everything outside."
"I am not good at forgetting."
He felt her fingers, languid and tremulous, at his throat, her heart's
strong throb against his shoulder as she bent, the sweet breath of her
whisper stirring the hair at his temple:
"Try, Ban."
Her mouth closed down upon his, flower-sweet, petal-light, and was
withdrawn. She leaned back, gazing at him from half-closed, inscrutable
eyes.
"That's for good-bye, Io?" With all his self-control, he could not keep
his voice steady.
"There have been too many good-byes between us," she murmured.
He lifted his head, attentive to a stir at the door, which immediately
passed.
"I thought that was Archie, come after you."
"Archie isn't coming."
"Then I'll send for the car and take you home."
"Won't you understand, Ban? I'm not going home."