AN EXPLANATION
The following week Monte devoted himself wholly to the entertainment of
Marjory and her friends. He placed his car at their disposal, and
planned for them daily trips with the thoroughness of a courier, though
he generally found some excuse for not going himself. His object was
simple: to keep Marjory's days so filled that she would have no time
left in which to worry. He wanted to help her, as far as possible, to
forget the preceding week, which had so disturbed her. To this end
nothing could be better for her than Peter and Beatrice Noyes, who were
so simply and honestly plain, everyday Americans. They were just the
wholesome, good-natured companions she needed to offset the morbid
frame of mind into which he had driven her. Especially Peter. He was
good for her and she was good for him.
The more he talked with Peter Noyes the better he liked him. At the
end of the day--after seeing them started in the morning, Monte used to
go out and walk his legs off till dinner-time--he enjoyed dropping into
a chair by the side of Peter. It was wonderful how already Peter had
picked up. He had gained not only in weight and color, but a marked
mental change was noticeable. He always came back from his ride in
high spirits. So completely did he ignore his blindness that Monte,
talking with him in the dark, found himself forgetting it--awakening to
the fact each time with a shock when it was necessary to offer an
assisting arm.
It was the man's enthusiasm Monte admired. He seemed to be always
alert--always keen. Yet, as near as he could find out, his life had
been anything but adventuresome or varied. After leaving the law
school he had settled down in a New York office and just plugged along.
He confessed that this was the first vacation he had taken since he
began practice.
"You can hardly call this a vacation!" exclaimed Monte.
"Man dear," answered Peter earnestly, "you don't know what these days
mean to me."
"You sure are entitled to all the fun you can get out of them,"
returned Monte. "But I hate to think how I'd feel under the same
circumstances."
"I don't believe there is much difference between men," answered Peter.
"I imagine that about certain things we all feel a good deal alike."
"I wonder," mused Monte. "I can't imagine myself, for instance, living
twelve months in the year in New York and being enthusiastic about it."
"What do you do when you're there?" inquired Peter.
"Not much of anything," admitted Monte.
"Then you're no more in New York when you're there than in Jericho,"
answered Peter. "You 've got to get into the game really to live in
New York. You 've got to work and be one of the million others before
you can get the feel of the city. Best of all, a man ought to marry
there. You're married, are n't you, Covington?"
"Eh?"
"Did n't Beatrice tell me you registered here with your wife?"
[Illustration: "Did n't Beatrice tell me you registered here with your
wife?"]
Monte moistened his lips.
"Yes--she was here for a day. She--she was called away."
"That's too bad. I hope we'll have an opportunity to meet her before
we leave."
"Thanks."
"She ought to help you understand New York."
"Perhaps she would. We've never been there together."
"Been married long?"
"No."
"So you have n't any children."
"Hardly."
"Then," said Peter, "you have your whole life ahead of you. You have
n't begun to live anywhere yet."
"And you?"
"It's the same with me," confessed Peter, with a quick breath.
"Only--well, I haven't been able to make even the beginning you 've
made."
Monte leaned forward with quickened interest.
"That's the thing you wanted so hard?" he asked.
"Yes."
"To marry and have children?"
Monte was silent a moment, and then he added:--
"I know a man who did that."
"A man who does n't is n't a man, is he?"
"I--I don't know," confessed Monte. "I 've visited this friend once or
twice. Did you ever see a kiddy with the croup?"
"No," admitted Peter.
"You're darned lucky. It's just as though--as though some one had the
little devil by the throat, trying to strangle him."
"There are things you can do."
"Things you can try to do. But mostly you stand around with your hands
tied, waiting to see what's going to happen."
"Well?" queried Peter, evidently puzzled.
"That's only one of a thousand things that can happen to 'em. There
are worse things. They are happening every day."
"Well?"
"When I think of Chic and his children I think of him pacing the hall
with his forehead all sweaty with the ache inside of him. Nothing
pleasant about that, is there?"
Peter did not answer for a moment, and then what he said seemed rather
pointless.
"What of it?" he asked.
"Only this," answered Monte uneasily. "When you speak of a wife and
children you have to remember those facts. You have to consider that
you 're going to be torn all to shoe-strings every so often. Maybe you
open the gates of heaven, but you throw open the gates of hell too.
There's no more jogging along in between on the good old earth."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Peter. "You consider such things?"
"I've always tried to stay normal," answered Monte uneasily.
"Yet you said you're married?"
"Even so, is n't it possible for a man to keep his head?" demanded
Monte.
"I don't understand," replied Peter.
"Look here--I don't want to intrude in your affairs, but I don't
suppose you are talking merely abstractedly. You have some one
definite in mind?"
"Yes."
"Then you ought to understand; you've kept steady."
"I wouldn't be like this if I had," answered Peter.
"You mean your eyes."
"I tried to forget her because she wasn't ready to listen. I turned to
my work, and put in twenty hours a day. It was a fool thing to do.
And yet--"
Monte held his breath.
"From the depths I saw the heights, I saw the wonderful beauty of the
peaks."
"And still see them?"
"Clearer than ever now."
"Then you aren't sorry she came into your life?"
"Sorry, man?" exclaimed Peter. "Even at this price--even if there were
no hope ahead, I'd still have my visions."
"But there is hope?"
"I have one chance in a thousand. It's more than anything I 've had up
to now."
"One in a thousand is a fighting chance," Monte returned.
"You speak as if that were more than you had."
"It was."
"Yet you won out."
"How?" demanded Monte.
"She married you."
"Yes," answered Monte, "that's true. I say, old man--it's getting a
bit cool here. Perhaps we'd better go in."
Monte had planned for them a drive to Cannes the day Beatrice sent word
to Marjory that she would be unable to go.
"But you two will go, won't you?" she concluded her note. "Peter will
be terribly disappointed if you don't."
So they went, leaving at ten o'clock. At ten-fifteen Beatrice came
downstairs, and ran into Monte just as he was about to start his walk.
"You're feeling better?" he asked politely.
She shook her head.
"I--I'm afraid I told a fib."
"You mean you stayed because you did n't want to go."
"Yes. But I did n't say I had a headache."
"I know how you feel about that," he returned. "Leaving people to
guess wrong lets you out in one way, and in another it does n't."
She appeared surprised at his directness. She had expected him to pass
the incident over lightly.
"It was for Peter's sake, anyhow," she tried to justify her position.
"But don't let me delay you, please. I know you 're off for your
morning walk."
That was true. But he was interested in that statement she had just
made that it was for Peter's sake she had remained behind. It revealed
an amazingly dense ignorance of both her brother's position and
Marjory's. On no other theory could he make it seem consistent for her
to encourage a tête-à-tête between a married woman and a man as deeply
in love with some one else as Peter was.
"Won't you come along a little way?" he asked. "We can turn back at
any time."
She hesitated a moment--but only a moment.
"Thanks."
She fell into step at his side as he sought the quay.
"You've been very good to Peter," she said. "I've wanted a chance to
tell you so."
"You did n't remain behind for that, I hope," he smiled.
"No," she admitted; "but I do appreciate your kindness. Peter has had
such a terrible time of it."
"And yet," mused Monte aloud, "he does n't seem to feel that way
himself."
"He has confided in you?"
"A little. He told me he regretted nothing."
"He has such fine courage!" she exclaimed.
"Not that alone. He has had some beautiful dreams."
"That's because of his courage."
"It takes courage, then, to dream?" Monte asked.
"Don't you think it does--with your eyes gone?"
"With or without eyes," he admitted.
"You don't know what he's been through," she frowned. "Even he does
n't know. When I came to him, there was so little of him left. I 'll
never forget the first sight I had of him in the hospital. Thin and
white and blind, he lay there as though dead."
He looked at the frail young woman by his side. She must have had fine
courage too. There was something of Peter in her.
"And you nursed him back."
She blushed at the praise.
"Perhaps I helped a little; but, after all, it was the dreams he had
that counted most. All I did was to listen and try to make them real
to him. I tried to make him hope."
"That was fine."
"He loved so hard, with all there was in him, as he does everything,"
she explained.
"I suppose that was the trouble," he nodded.
She turned quickly. It was as if he said that was the mistake.
"After all, that's just love, is n't it? There can't be any halfway
about it, can there?"
"I wonder."
"You--you wonder, Mr. Covington?"
He was stupid at first. He did not get the connection. Then, as she
turned her dark eyes full upon him, the blood leaped to his cheeks. He
was married--that was what she was trying to tell him. He had a wife,
and so presumably knew what love was. For her to assume anything else,
for him to admit anything else, was impossible.
"Perhaps we'd better turn back," she said uneasily.
He felt like a cad. He turned instantly.
"I 'm afraid I did n't make myself very clear," he faltered. "We are
n't all of us like Peter."
"There is no one in the world quite as good as Peter," the girl
declared.
"Then you should n't blame me too much," he suggested.
"It is not for me to criticize you at all," she returned somewhat
stiffly.
"But you did."
"How?"
"When you suggested turning back. It was as if you had determined I
was not quite a proper person to walk with."
"Mr. Covington!" she protested.
"We may as well be frank. It seems to be a misfortune of mine lately
to get things mixed up. Peter is helping me to see straight. That's
why I like to talk with him."
"He sees so straight himself."
"That's it."
"If only now he recovers his eyes."
"He says there's hope."
"It all depends upon her," she said.
"Upon this woman?"
"Upon this one woman."
"If she realized it--"
"She does," broke in Beatrice. "I made her realize it. I went to her
and told her."
"You did that?"
She raised her head in swift challenge.
"Even though Peter commanded me not to--even though I knew he would
never forgive me if he learned."
"You women are so wonderful," breathed Monte.
"With Peter's future--with his life at stake--what else could I do?"
"And she, knowing that, refused to come to him?"
"Fate brought us to her."
"Then," exclaimed Monte, "what are you doing here?"
She stopped and faced him. It was evident that he was sincere.
"You men--all men are so stupid at times!" she cried, with a little
laugh.
He shook his head slowly.
"I 'll have to admit it."
"Why, he's with her now," she laughed. "That's why I stayed at home
to-day."
Monte held his breath for a second, and then he said:--
"You mean, the woman Peter loves is--is Marjory Stockton?"
"No other. I thought he must have told you. If not, I thought you
must have guessed it from her."
"Why, no," he admitted; "I did n't."
"Then you've had your eyes closed."
"That's it," he nodded; "I've had my eyes closed. Why, that explains a
lot of things."
Impulsively the girl placed her hand on Monte's arm.
"As an old friend of hers, you'll use your influence to help Peter?"
"I 'll do what I can."
"Then I'm so glad I told you."
"Yes," agreed Monte. "I suppose it is just as well for me to know."