"Why you should hold me responsible," Barbara was saying, "I can't
begin to imagine. Surely I've done everything I could to simplify
matters, to straighten them out, and to give you a chance to rectify
your folly. I've effaced myself; I've broken my heart; I've promised
Aunt Marion to go in for a job for which I'm not fitted and don't care
a rap; and yet you come here, accusing me----"
"But, Barbe, I'm _not_ accusing you! If I'm accusing anyone it's
myself. Only I can't speak without your taking me up----"
"There you go! Oh, Rash, dear, if you'd only been able to control
yourself nothing of this would have happened--not from the first."
She was pacing up and down the little reception room, and rubbing her
hands together, while the twisting of the fish-tail of her
hydrangea-colored robe, like an eel in agony, emphasized her
agitation. Rashleigh was seated, his elbows on his knees, his head
bowed between his hands, of which the fingers clutched and tore at the
masses of his hair. Only when he spoke did he lift his woe-begone
black eyes.
"Well, I didn't control myself," he admitted, impatiently; "that's
settled. Why go back to it? The question is----"
"Yes; why go back to it? That's you all over, Rash. You can do what no
one else in his senses would ever think of doing; and when you've
upset the whole apple cart it must never be referred to again. I'm to
accept, and keep silence. Well, I've _kept_ silence. I've gone all
winter like a muzzled dog. I've wheedled that girl, and kow-towed to
her, and made her think I was fond of her--which I am in a way--you
may not believe it, but I am--and what's the result? She gets sick of
the whole business; runs away; and you come here and throw the whole
blame on me."
He tried to speak with special calmness. "Barbe, listen to me. What I
said was this----"
She came to a full stop in front of him, her arms outspread. "Oh,
Rash, dear, I know perfectly well what you said. You don't have to go
all over it again. I'm not deaf. If you would only not be so
excitable----"
He jumped to his feet. "I'm excitable, I know, Barbe. I confess it.
Everybody knows it. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm not
excited _now_."
She laughed, a little mocking laugh, and started once more to pace up
and down. "Oh, very well! You're not excited now. Then that's
understood. You never are excited. You're as calm as a mountain." She
paused again, though at a distance. "_Now?_ What is it you're going to
do? That's what you've come to ask me, isn't it? Are you going to run
after her? Are you going to let her go? Are you going to divorce her,
if she gives you the opportunity? If you divorce her are you going
to----?"
"But, Barbe, I can't decide all these questions now. What I want to do
is to _find_ her."
"Well, I haven't got her here? Why don't you go after her? Why don't
you apply to the police? Why don't you----?"
"Yes, but that's just what I want to discuss with you. I don't _like_
applying to the police. If I do it'll get into the papers, and the
whole thing become so odious and vulgar----"
"And it's such an exquisite idyll now!"
He threw back his head. "_She's_ an exquisite idyll--in her way."
"There! That's what I wanted to hear you say! I've thought you were in
love with her----"
He remembered the penciled lines in Hans Andersen. "If I have been,
it's as you may be in love with an innocent little child----"
She laughed again, wildly, almost hysterically. "Oh, Rash, don't try
to get that sort of thing off on me. I know how men love innocent
little children. You can see the way they do it any night you choose
to hang round the stage-door of a theatre where the exquisite idylls
are playing in musical comedy."
"Don't Barbe! Not when you're talking about her! I know she's an
ignorant little thing; but to me she's like a wild-flower----"
"Wild-flowers can be cultivated, Rash."
"Yes, but the wild-flower she's most like is the one you see in the
late summer all along the dusty highways----"
She put up both palms in a gesture of protestation. "Oh, Rash, please
don't be poetical. It gets on my nerves. I can't stand it. I like you
in every mood but your sentimental one." She came to a halt beside
the mantelpiece, on which she rested an elbow, turning to look at him.
"Now tell me, Rash! Suppose I wasn't in the world at all. Or suppose
you'd never heard of me. And suppose you found yourself married to
this girl, just as you are--nominally--legally--but not really. Would
you--would you make it--really?"
They exchanged a long silent look. His eyes had not left hers when he
said: "I--I might."
"Good! Now suppose she wasn't in the world at all, or that you'd never
heard of her. And suppose that you and I were--were on just the same
terms that we are to-day. Would you--would you want to marry me?
Answer me truly."
"Why, yes; of course."
"Now suppose that she and I were standing together, and you were led
in to choose between us. And suppose you were absolutely free and
untrammelled in your choice, with no question as to her feelings or
mine to trouble you. Which would you take? Answer me just as truly and
sincerely as you can."
He took time to think, wheeling away from her, and walking up and down
the little room with his hands behind his back. It occurred to neither
that Barbara having broken the "engagement," and returned the ring,
the choice before him was purely hypothetical. Their relations were no
more affected by the note she had written him that morning than by the
ceremony through which he and Letty had walked in the previous year.
To Barbara the suspense was almost unbearable. In a minute or two, and
with a word or two, she would know how life for the future was to be
cast. She would have before her the possibility of some day becoming a
happy wife--or a great career like her aunt's.
Pausing in his walk he confronted her just as he stood, his hands
still clasped behind his back. Her own attitude, with elbow resting on
the mantelpiece, was that of a woman equal to anything.
He spoke slowly. "Just as truly and sincerely as I can answer you--I
don't know."
She stirred slightly, but otherwise gave no sign of her impatience.
"And is there anything that would help you to find out?"
He shook his head. "Nothing that I can think of, unless----"
"Yes? Unless--what?"
"Unless it's something that would unlock what's locked in my
subconsciousness."
"And what would that be?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
She moved from the mantelpiece with a gesture of despair. "Rash,
you're absolutely and hopelessly impossible."
"I know that," he admitted, humbly.
With both fists clenched she stood in front of him. "I could kill
you."
He hung his head. "Not half so easily as I could kill myself."
* * * * *
Letty's judgment on Miss Henrietta Towell was different from yours and
mine. She found her just what she had expected to see from the
warnings long ago issued by Mrs. Judson Flack in putting her daughter
on her guard. In going about the city she, Letty, was always to be
suspicious of elderly ladies, respectably dressed, enticingly
mannered, and with what seemed like maternal intentions. The more any
one of these traits was developed, the more suspicious Letty was to
be. With these instructions carefully at heart she would have been
suspicious of Henrietta Towell in any case; but with Steptoe's
description to fall back upon she couldn't but feel sure.
By the time Miss Towell had arrived at the hospital Letitia Rashleigh
had sufficiently recovered to be dressed and seated in the armchair
placed beside the bed in the small white ward. On one low bedpost the
jacket had been hung, and on the other the battered black hat.
"There's nothing the matter with her," the nurse explained to Miss
Towell, before entering the ward. "She had fainted in the subway, but
I think it was only from fatigue, and perhaps from lack of food. She's
quite well nourished, only she didn't seem to have eaten any supper,
and was evidently tired from a long and frightening walk. She gives us
no explanation of herself, and is disinclined to talk, and if it
hadn't been that she had your address in her pocket----"
"I think I know how she got that. From her name I judge that she's a
relative of the family in which I used to be employed; but as they
were all very wealthy people----"
"Even very wealthy people often have poor relations."
"Yes, of course; but I was with this family for so many years that if
there'd been any such connection I think I must have heard of it.
However, it makes no difference to me, and I shall be glad to be of
use to her, especially as she has in her possession an article--a
thimble it is--which once belonged to me."
At the bedside the nurse made the introduction. "This is the lady
whose address you had in your pocket. She very kindly said she'd come
and see what she could do for you."
Having placed a chair for Miss Towell the nurse withdrew to attend to
other patients in the ward, of whom there were three or four.
Letty regarded the newcomer with eyes that seemed lustreless in spite
of their tiny gold flames. Having a shrewd idea of what she would mean
to her visitor she felt it unnecessary to express gratitude. In a
certain sense she hated her at sight. She hated her bugles and braid
and the shape of her bonnet, as the criminal about to be put to death
might hate the executioner's mask and gaberdine. The more Miss Towell
was sweet-spoken and respectable, the more Letty shrank from these
tokens of hypocrisy in one who was wicked to the core. "She wouldn't
seem so wicked, not at first," Steptoe had predicted, "but time'd
tell." Well, Letty didn't need time to tell, since she could see for
herself already. She could see from the first words addressed to her.
"You needn't tell me anything about yourself, dear, that you don't
want me to know. If you're without a place to go to, I shall be glad
if you'll come home with me."
It was the invitation Letty had expected, and to which she meant to
respond. Knowing, however, what was behind it she replied more
ungraciously than she would otherwise have done. "Oh, I don't mind
talking about myself. I'm a picture-actress, only I've been out of a
job. I haven't worked for over six months. I've been--I've been
visiting."
Miss Towell lowered her eyes, and spoke with modesty. "I suppose you
were visiting people who knew--who knew the person who--who gave you
my address and the thimble?"
This question being more direct than she cared for Letty was careful
to answer no more than, "Yes."
Miss Towell continued to sit with eyes downcast, and as if musing. Two
or three minutes went by before she said, softly: "How is he?"
Letty replied that he was very well, and in the same place where he
had been so long. Another interval of musing was followed by the
simple statement: "We differed about religion."
This remark had no modifying effect on Letty's estimate of Miss
Towell's character, since religion was little more to her than a word.
Neither was she interested in dead romance between Steptoe and Miss
Towell, all romance being summed up in her prince. That flame burned
with a pure and single purpose to wed him to the princess with whom he
was in love, while the little mermaid became first foam, and then a
spirit of the air. It took little from the poetry of this dissolution
that it could be achieved only by trundling over Brooklyn Bridge, and
through a nexus of dreary streets. In Letty's outlook on her mission
the end glorified the means, however shady or degraded.
It was precisely this spirit--mistaken, if you choose to call it
so--which animated Judith of Bethulia, Monna Vanna, and Boule de Suif.
Letty didn't class herself with these heroines; she only felt as they
did, that there was something to be done. On that something a man's
happiness depended; on it another woman's happiness depended too; on
it her own happiness depended, since if it wasn't done she would feel
herself a clog to be cursed. To be cursed by the prince would mean
anguish far more terrible than any punishment society could mete out
to her.
"If you feel equal to it we might go now, dear," Miss Towell
suggested, on waking from her dreams of what might have been. "I wish
I could take you in a taxi; but I daresay you won't mind the tram."
Letty rose briskly. "No, I shan't mind it at all." She looked Miss
Towell significantly in the eyes, hoping that her words would carry
all the meaning she was putting into them. "I shan't mind--anything
you want me to do, no matter what."
Miss Towell smiled, sweetly. "Thank you, dear. That'll be very nice. I
shan't ask you to do much, because it's your problem, you know, and
you must work it out. I'll stand by; but standing by is about all we
can do for each other, when problems have to be faced. Don't you think
it is?"
As this language meant nothing to Letty, she thanked the nurse, smiled
at the other patients, and, trudging at Miss Towell's side with her
quaintly sturdy grace, went forth to her great sacrifice.
* * * * *
Allerton had drawn from his conversation with Barbara this one
practical suggestion. As he had months before consulted his lawyer,
Mr. Nailes, as to ways of losing Letty after she had been found, he
might consult him as to ways of finding her now that she had been
lost. Mr. Nailes would not go to the police. He would apply to some
discreet house of detectives who would do the work discreetly.
"Then, I presume, you've changed your mind about this marriage," was
Mr. Nailes' not unnatural inference, "and mean to go on with it."
"N-not exactly." Allerton was still unable to define his intentions.
"I only don't want her to disappear--like this."
Mr. Nailes pondered. He was a tall, raw-boned man, of raw-boned
countenance, to whom the law represented no system of divine justice,
but a means by which Eugene Nailes could make money, as his father had
made it before him. Having inherited his father's practice he had
inherited Rashleigh Allerton, the two fathers having had a
long-standing business connection. Mr. Nailes had no high opinion of
Rashleigh Allerton--in which he was not peculiar--but a client with so
much money was entitled to his way. At the same time he couldn't have
been human without urging a point of common sense.
"If you _don't_ want to--to continue your--your relation with
this--this lady, doesn't it strike you that now might be a happy
opportunity----?"
Allerton did what he did rarely; he struck the table with his fist. "I
want to find her."
The words were spoken with so much force that to Mr. Nailes they were
conclusive. It was far from his intention to compel anyone to common
sense, and least of all a man whose folly might bring increased fees
to the firm of Nailes, Nailes, and Nailes.
It was agreed that steps should be taken at once, and that Mr. Nailes
would report in the evening. Gravely was the name Allerton was sure
she would use, and the only one that needed to be mentioned. It needed
only to be mentioned too that Mr. Nailes was acting for a client who
preferred to remain anonymous.
It was further agreed that Mr. Nailes should report at Allerton's
office at ten that evening, in person if there was anything to
discuss, by telephone if there was nothing. This was convenient for
Mr. Nailes, who lived in the neighborhood of Washington Square, while
it protected Rash from household curiosity. At ten that night he was,
therefore, in the unusual position of pacing the rooms he had hardly
ever seen except by daylight.
Not Letty's disappearance was uppermost in his mind, for the moment,
but his own inhibitions.
"My God, what's the matter with me?" he was muttering to himself. "Am
I going insane? Have I been insane all along? Why _can't_ I say which
of these two women I want, when I can have either?"
He placed over against each other the special set of spells which each
threw upon his heart.
Barbara was of his own world; she knew the people he knew; she had the
same interests, and the same way of showing them. Moreover, she had in
a measure grown into his life. Their friendship was not only intimate
it was one of long standing. Though she worried, hectored, and
exasperated him, she had fits of generous repentance, in which she
mothered him adorably. This double-harness of comradeship had worked
for so many years that he couldn't imagine wearing it with another.
And yet Letty pulled so piteously at his heart that he fairly melted
in tenderness toward her. Everything he knew as appeal was summed up
in her soft voice, her gentle manner, her humility, her unquestioning
faith in himself. No one had ever had faith in him before. To Barbe he
was a booby when he was not a baby. To Letty he was a hero, strong,
wise, commanding. It wasn't merely his vanity that she touched; it was
his manliness. Barbe suppressed his manliness, because she herself was
so imperious. Letty depended on it, and therefore drew it out. Because
she believed him a man, he could be a man; whereas with Barbe, as with
everyone else, he was a creature to be liked, humored, laughed at, and
good-naturedly despised. He was sick of being liked, humored, and
laughed at; he rebelled with every atom in him that was masculine at
being good-naturedly despised. To find anyone who thought him big and
vigorous was to his starved spirit, as the psalmist says, sweeter also
than honey and the honeycomb. In having her weakness to hold up he
could for the first time in his life feel himself of use.
If there was no Barbe in the world he could have taken Letty as the
mate his soul was longing for. Yet how could he deal such a blow at
Barbe's loyalty? She had protected him during all his life, from
boyhood upwards. Between him and derision she had stood like a young
lioness. How could he deny her now?--no matter what frail, gentle
hands were clinging around his heart?
"How can I? How can I? How can I?"
He was torturing himself with this question when the telephone rang,
and he knew that Letty had not been found.
"No; nothing," were the words of Mr. Nailes. "No one of the name has
been reported at any of the hospitals, or police stations, or any
other public institution. They've applied at all the motion-picture
studios round New York; but still with no result. This, of course, is
only the preliminary search, as much as they've been able to
accomplish in one afternoon and evening. You mustn't be disappointed.
To-morrow is likely to be more successful."
Rash was, therefore, thrown back on another phase of his situation.
Letty was lost. She was not only lost, but she had run away from him.
She had not only run away from him, but she had done it so that he
might be rid of her. She had not only done it so that he might be rid
of her, but....
His spirit balked. His imagination could work no further. Horror
staggered him. A mother who knows that her child is in the hands of
kidnappers who will have no mercy might feel something like the
despair and helplessness which sent him chafing and champing up and
down the suite of rooms, cursing himself uselessly.
Suddenly he paused. He was in front of the cabinet which had come via
Bordentown from Queen Caroline Murat. Behind its closed door there was
still the bottle on the label of which a kilted Highlander was
dancing. He must have a refuge from his thoughts, or else he would go
mad. He was already as near madness as a man could come and still be
reckoned sane.
He opened the door of the cabinet. The bottle and the glass stood
exactly where he had placed them on that morning when he had tried to
begin going to the devil, and had failed. Now there was no longer that
same mysterious restraint. He was not thinking of the devil; he was
thinking only of himself. He must still the working of his mind.
Anything would do that would drug his faculties, and so....
It was after midnight when he dragged himself out of a stupor which
had not been sleep. Being stupor, however, it was that much to the
good. He had stopped thinking. He couldn't think. His head didn't
ache; it was merely sore. He might have been dashing it against the
wall, as figuratively he had done. His body was sore too--stiff from
long sitting in the same posture, and bruised as if from beating. All
that was nothing, however, since misery only stunned him. To be
stunned was what he had been working for.
Out in the air the wind of the May night was comforting. It soothed
his nerves without waking the dormant brain. Instead of looking for a
taxi he began walking up the Avenue. Walking too was a relief. It
allowed him to remain as stupefied as at first, and yet stirred the
circulation in his limbs. He meant to walk till he grew tired, after
which he would jump on an electric bus.
But he did not grow tired. He passed the great milestones, Fourteenth
Street, Twenty-third Street, Forty-second Street, Fifty-ninth Street,
and not till crossing the last did he begin to feel fagged. He was
then so near home that the impulse of doggedness kept him on foot. He
was a strong walker, and physically in good condition, without being
wholly robust. Had it not been for the kilted Highlander he would
hardly have felt fatigue; but as it was, the corner of East
Sixty-seventh Street found him as spent as he cared to be.
Advancing toward his door he saw a man coming in the other direction.
There was nothing in that, and he would scarcely have noticed him,
only for the fact that at this hour of the night pedestrians in the
quarter were rare. In addition to that the man, having reached the
foot of Allerton's own steps, stood there waiting, as if with
intention.
Through the obscurity Rash could see only that the man was well built,
flashily dressed, and that he wore a sweeping mustache. In his manner
of standing and waiting there was something significant and menacing.
Arrived at the foot of the steps Allerton could do no less than pause
to ask if the stranger was looking for anyone.
"Is your name Allerton?"
"Yes; it is."
"Then I want my girl."
It was some seconds before Rash could get his dulled mind into play.
Moreover, the encounter was of a kind which made him feel sick and
disgusted.
"Whom do you mean?" he managed to ask, at last.
"You know very well who I mean. I mean Letty Gravely. I'm her father;
and by God, if you don't give her up--with big damages----"
"I can't give her up, because she's not here."
"Not here? She was damn well here the day before yesterday."
"Yes; she was here the day before yesterday; but she disappeared last
night."
"Ah, cut that kind o' talk. I'm wise, I am. You can't put that bunk
over on me. She's in there, and I'm goin' to get her."
"I wish she was in there; but she's not."
"How do I know she's not?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it."
"Like hell I'll take your word for it. I'm goin' to see for myself."
"I don't see how you're going to do that."
"I'm goin' in with you."
"That wouldn't do you any good. Besides, I can't let you."
The man became more bullying. "See here, son. This game is my game.
Did j'ever see a thing like this?"
Watching the movement of his hand Rash saw the handle of a revolver
displayed in a side pocket.
"Yes, I've seen a thing like that; but even if it was loaded--which I
don't believe it is--you've too much sense to use it. You might shoot
me, of course; but you wouldn't find the girl in the house, because
she isn't there."
"Well, I'm goin' to see. You march. Up you go, and open that door, and
I'll follow you."
"Oh, no, you won't." Allerton looked round for the policeman who
occasionally passed that way; but though a lighted car crashed down
Madison Avenue there was no one in sight. He might have called in the
hope of waking the men upstairs, but that seemed cowardly. Though in a
physical encounter with a ruffian like this he could hardly help
getting the worst of it--especially in his state of half
intoxication--it was the encounter itself that he loathed, even more
than the defeat. "Oh, no, you won't," he repeated, taking one step
upward, and turning to defend his premises. "I don't mean that you
shall come into this house, or ever see the girl again, if I can
prevent it."
"Oh, you don't, don't you?"
"No, I don't."
"Then take that."
The words were so quickly spoken, and the blow in his face so
unexpected, that Rash staggered backwards. Being on a step he had
little or no footing, and having been drinking his balance was the
more quickly lost.
"And that!"
A second blow in the face sent him down like a stone, without a
struggle or a cry.
He fell limply on his back, his feet slipping to the sidewalk, his
body sagging on the steps like a bit of string, accidentally dropped
there. The hat, which fell off, remained on the step beside the head
it had been covering.
The man leaped backward, as if surprised at his own deed. He looked
this way and that, to see if he had been observed. A lighted car
crashed up Madison Avenue, but otherwise the street remained empty.
Creeping nearer the steps he bent over his victim, whose left hand lay
helpless and outstretched. Timidly, gingerly, he put his fingers to
the pulse, starting back from it with a shock. He spoke but two words,
but he spoke them half aloud.
"Dead! God!"
Then he walked swiftly away into Madison Avenue, where he soon found a
car going southward.