A WOMAN SCORNED
As the time drew near for Norton to take the field in the campaign whose
fierce passions would mark a new era in the state's history, his uneasiness
over the attitude of Cleo increased.
She had received the announcement of his approaching long absence with
sullen anger. And as the purpose of the campaign gradually became clear she
had watched him with growing suspicion and hate. He felt it in every glance
she flashed from the depth of her greenish eyes.
Though she had never said it in so many words, he was sure that the last
hope of a resumption of their old relations was fast dying in her heart,
and that the moment she realized that he was lost to her would be the
signal for a desperate attack. What form the attack would take he could
only guess. He was sure it would be as deadly as her ingenuity could
invent. Yet in the wildest flight of his imagination he never dreamed the
daring thing she had really decided to do.
On the night before his departure he was working late in his room at the
house. The office he had placed in Tom's hands before the meeting of the
convention. The boy's eager young face just in front of him when he made
his speech that day had been an inspiration. It had beamed with pride and
admiration, and when his father's name rang from every lip in the great
shout that shook the building Tom's eyes had filled with tears.
Norton was seated at his typewriter, which he had moved to his room,
writing his final instructions. The last lines he put in caps:
"UNDER NO CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES ANNOY ME WITH ANYTHING
THAT HAPPENS AT HOME, UNLESS A MATTER OF IMMEDIATE LIFE AND
DEATH, ANYTHING ELSE CAN WAIT UNTIL MY RETURN."
He had just finished this important sentence when the sound of a footstep
behind his chair caused him to turn suddenly.
Cleo had entered the room and stood glaring at him with a look of sullen
defiance.
By a curious coincidence or by design, she was dressed in a scarlet kimono
of the same shade of filmy Japanese stuff as the one she wore in his young
manhood. His quick eye caught this fact in a flash and his mind took rapid
note of the changes the years had wrought. Their burdens had made slight
impression on her exhaustless vitality. Whatever might be her personality
or her real character, she was alive from the crown of her red head to the
tips of her slippered toes.
Her attitude of tense silence sparkled with this vital power more
eloquently than when she spoke with quick energy in the deep voice that was
her most remarkable possession.
Her figure was heavier by twenty pounds than when she had first entered his
home, but she never produced the impression of stoutness. Her form was too
sinuous, pliant and nervous to take on flesh. She was no longer the
graceful girl of eighteen whose beauty had drugged his senses, but she was
beyond all doubt a woman of an extraordinary type, luxuriant, sensuous,
dominant. There was not a wrinkle on her smooth creamy skin nor a trace of
approaching age about the brilliant greenish eyes that were gazing into his
now with such grim determination.
He wheeled from his machine and faced her, his eyes taking in with a quick
glance the evident care with which she had arranged her hair and the
startling manner in which she was dressed.
He spoke with sharp, incisive emphasis:
"It was a condition of your return that you should never enter my room
while I am in this house."
"I have not forgotten," she answered firmly, her eyes holding his steadily.
"Why have you dared?"
"You are still afraid of me?" she asked with a light laugh that was half a
sneer.
"Have I given you any such evidence during the past twenty years?"
There was no bitterness or taunt in the even, slow drawl with which he
spoke, but the woman knew that he never used the slow tone with which he
uttered those words except he was deeply moved.
She flushed, was silent and then answered with a frown:
"No, you haven't shown any fear for something more than twenty years--until
a few days ago."
The last clause she spoke very quickly as she took a step closer and
paused.
"A few days ago?" he repeated slowly.
"Yes. For the past week you _have_ been afraid of me--not in the sense I
asked you just now perhaps"--her white teeth showed in two even perfect
rows--"but you have been watching me out of the corners of your
eyes--haven't you?"
"Perhaps."
"I wonder why?"
"And you haven't guessed?"
"No, but I'm going to find out."
"You haven't asked."
"I'm going to."
"Be quick about it!"
"I'm going to find out--that's why I came in here to-night in defiance of
your orders."
"All right--the quicker the better!"
"Thank you, I'm not in a hurry."
"What do you want?" he demanded with anger.
She smiled tauntingly:
"It's no use to get mad about it! I'm here now, you see that I'm not afraid
of you and I'm quite sure that you will not put me out until I'm ready to
go----"
He sprang to his feet and advanced on her:
"I'm not so sure of that!"
"Well, I am," she cried, holding his gaze steadily.
He threw up his hands with a gesture of disgust and resumed his seat:
"What is it?"
She crossed the room deliberately, carrying a chair in front of her, sat
down, leaned her elbow on his table and studied him a moment, their eyes
meeting in a gaze of deadly hostility.
"What is the meaning of this long absence you have planned?"
"I have charge of this campaign. I am going to speak in every county in the
state."
"Why?"
"Because I'll win that way, by a direct appeal to the people."
"Why do you want to win?"
"Because I generally do what I undertake."
"Why do you want to do this thing?"
He looked at her in amazement. Her eyes had narrowed to the tiniest lines
as she asked these questions with a steadily increasing intensity.
"What are you up to?" he asked her abruptly.
"I want to know why you began this campaign at all?"
"I decline to discuss the question with you," he answered abruptly.
"I insist on it!"
"You wouldn't know what I was talking about," he replied with contempt.
"I think I would."
"Bah!"
He turned from her with a wave of angry dismissal, seized his papers and
began to read again his instructions to Tom.
"I'm not such a fool as you think," she began menacingly. "I've read your
platform with some care and I've been thinking it over at odd times since
your speech was reported."
"And you contemplate entering politics?" he interrupted with a smile.
"Who knows?"
She watched him keenly while she slowly uttered these words and saw the
flash of uneasiness cross his face, "But don't worry," she laughed.
"I'll not!"
"You may for all that!" she sneered, "but I'll not enter politics as you
fear. That would be too cheap. I don't care what you do to negroes. I've a
drop of their blood in me----"
"One in eight, to be exact."
"But I'm not one of them, except by your laws, and I hate the sight of a
negro. You can herd them, colonize them, send them back to Africa or to the
devil for all I care. Your program interests me for another reason"--she
paused and watched him intently.
"Yes?" he said carelessly.
"It interests me for one reason only--you wrote that platform, you made
that speech, you carried that convention. Your man Friday is running for
Governor. You are going to take the stump, carry this election and take the
ballot from the Negro!"
"Well?"
"I'm excited about it merely because it shows the inside of your mind."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. It shows either that you are afraid of me or that you're not----"
"It couldn't well show both," he interrupted with a sneer.
"It might," she answered. "If you are afraid of me and my presence is the
cause of this outburst, all right. I'll still play the game with you and
win or lose. I'll take my chances. But if you're not afraid of me, if
you've really not been on your guard for twenty years, it means another
thing. It means that you've learned your lesson, that the book of the past
is closed, and that you have simply been waiting for the time to come to
do this thing and save your people from a danger before which you once
fell."
"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.
"I haven't decided--but I will to-night."
"How interesting!"
"Yes, isn't it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused
you wonder, with a waiting through years as God waits, I have endured your
indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the
last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of
each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf
between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this
campaign means the end one way or the other. I'm going to face life now as
it is, not as I've hoped it might be."
"I told you when you made your bargain to return to this house, that there
could be nothing between us except a hate that is eternal----"
"And I didn't believe it! Now I'm going to face it if I must----"
She paused, breathed deeply and her eyes were like glowing coals as she
slowly went on:
"I'm not the kind to give up without a fight. I've lived and learned the
wisdom of caution and cunning. I'm not old and I've still a fool's
confidence in my powers. I'm not quite thirty-nine, strong and sound in
body and spirit, alive to my finger tips with the full blood of a grown
woman--and so I warn you----"
"You warn me"--he cried with a flush of anger.
"Yes. I warn you not to push me too far. I have negro blood in me, but I'm
at least human, and I'm going to be treated as a human being."
"And may I ask what you mean by that?" he asked sarcastically.
"That I'm going to demand my rights."
"Demand?"
"Exactly."
"Your _rights_?"
"The right to love----"
Norton broke into a bitter, angry laugh:
"Are you demanding that I marry you?"
"I'm not quite that big a fool. No. Your laws forbid it. All right--there
are higher laws than yours. The law that drew you to me in this room twenty
years ago, in spite of all your fears and your prejudices"--she paused and
her eyes glowed in the shadows--"I gave you my soul and body then----"
"Gifts I never sought----"
"Yet you took them and I'm here a part of your life. What are you going to
do with me? I'm not the negro race. I'm just a woman who loves you and asks
that you treat her fairly."
"Treat you fairly! Did I ever want you? Or seek you? You came to me, thrust
yourself into my office, and when I discharged you, pushed your way into my
home. You won my boy's love and made my wife think you were indispensable
to her comfort and happiness. I tried to avoid you. It was useless. You
forced yourself into my presence at all hours of the day and night. What
happened was your desire, not mine. And when I reproached myself with
bitter curses you laughed for joy! And you talk to me to-day of fairness!
You who dragged me from that banquet hall the night of my triumph to hurl
me into despair! You who blighted my career and sent me blinded with grief
and shame groping through life with the shadow of death on my soul! You who
struck your bargain of a pound of flesh next to my heart, and fought your
way back into my house again to hold me a prisoner for life, chained to the
dead body of my shame--you talk to me about fairness--great God!"
He stopped, strangled with passion, his tall figure towering above her, his
face livid, his hands clutched in rage.
She laughed hysterically:
"Why don't you strike! I'm not your equal in strength--I dare you to do
it--I dare you to do it! I _dare_ you--do you hear?"
With a sudden grip she tore the frail silk from its fastenings at her
throat, pressed close and thrust her angry face into his in a desperate
challenge to physical violence.
His eyes held hers a moment and his hands relaxed:
"I'd like to kill you. I could do it with joy!"
"Why don't you?"
"You're not worth the price of such a crime!"
"You'd just as well do it, as to wish it. Don't be a coward!" Her eyes
burned with suppressed fire.
He looked at her with cold anger and his lip twitched with a smile of
contempt.
The strain was more than her nerves could bear. With a sob she threw her
arms around his neck. He seized them angrily, her form collapsed and she
clung to him with blind hysterical strength.
He waited a moment and spoke in quiet determined tones:
[Illustration: "'I _dare_ you--do you hear?'"]
"Enough of this now."
She raised her eyes to his, pleading with desperation:
"Please be kind to me just this last hour before you go, and I'll be
content if you give no more. I'll never intrude again."
She relaxed her hold, dropped to a seat and covered her face with her
hands:
"Oh, my God! Are you made of stone--have you no pity? Through all these
years I've gone in and out of this house looking into your face for a sign
that you thought me human, and you've given none. I've lived on the
memories of the few hours when you were mine. I've sometimes told myself it
was just a dream, that it never happened--until I've almost believed it.
You've pretended that it wasn't true. You've strangled these memories and
told yourself over and over again that it never happened. I've seen you
doing this--seen it in your cold, deep eyes. Well, it's a lie! You were
mine! You shall not forget it--you can't forget it--I won't let you, I tell
you!"
The voice broke again into sobs.
He stood with arms folded, watching her in silence. Her desperate appeal to
his memories and his physical passion had only stirred anger and contempt.
He was seeing now as he had never noticed before the growing marks of her
negroid character. The anger was for her, the contempt for himself. He
noticed the growth of her lips with age, the heavy sensual thickness of the
negroid type!
It was inconceivable that in this room the sight of her had once stirred
the Beast in him to incontrollable madness. There was at least some
consolation in the fact that he had made progress. He couldn't see this if
he hadn't moved to a higher plane.
He spoke at length in quiet tones:
"I am waiting for you to go. I have work to do to-night."
She rose with a quick, angry movement:
"It's all over, then. There's not a chance that you'll change your mind?"
"Not if you were the last woman on earth and I the last man."
He spoke without bitterness but with a firmness that was final.
"All right. I know what to expect now and I'll plan my own life."
"What do you mean?"
"That there's going to be a change in my relations to your servants for one
thing."
"Your relations to my servants?" he repeated incredulously.
"Yes."
"In what respect?"
"I'm not going to take any more insolence from Minerva----"
"Keep out of the kitchen and let her alone. She's the best cook I ever
had."
"If I keep this house for you, I demand the full authority of my position.
I'll hire the servants and discharge them when I choose."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," he answered firmly.
"Then I demand that you discharge Minerva and Andy at once."
"What's the matter with Andy?"
"I loathe him."
"Well, I like him, and he's going to stay. Anything else?"
"You'll pay no attention to my wishes?"
"I'm master of this house."
"And in your absence?"
"My son will be here."
"All right, I understand now."
"If I haven't made it plain, I'll do so."
"Quite clear, thank you," she answered slowly.
Norton walked to the mantel, leaned his elbow on the shelf for a moment,
returned and confronted her with his hands thrust into his pockets, his
feet wide apart, his whole attitude one of cool defiance.
"Now I want to know what you're up to? These absurd demands are a blind.
They haven't fooled me. There's something else in the back of your devilish
mind. What is it? I want to know exactly what you mean?"
Cleo laughed a vicious little ripple of amusement:
"Yes, I know you do--but you won't!"
"All right, as you please. A word from you and Helen's life is blasted. A
word from you and I withdraw from this campaign, and another will lead it.
Speak that word if you dare, and I'll throw you out of this house and your
last hold on my life is broken."
"I've thought of that, too," she said with a smile.
"It will be worth the agony I'll endure," he cried, "to know that I'm free
of you and breathe God's clean air at last!"
He spoke the words with an earnestness, a deep and bitter sincerity, that
was not lost on her keen ears.
She started to reply, hesitated and was silent.
He saw his advantage and pressed it:
"I want you to understand fully that I know now and I have always known
that I am at your mercy when you see fit to break the word you pledged. Yet
there has never been a moment during the past twenty years that I've been
really afraid of you. When the hour comes for my supreme humiliation, I'll
meet it. Speak as soon as you like."
She had walked calmly to the door, paused and looked back:
"You needn't worry, major," she said smoothly, "I'm not quite such a fool
as all that. I've been silent too many years. It's a habit I'll not easily
break." Her white teeth gleamed in a cold smile as she added:
"Good night."
A hundred times he told himself that she wouldn't dare, but he left home
next lay with a sickening fear slowly stealing into his heart.