It was Alix who discovered Alan as the _Elenic_ steamed slowly down the
Solent. He was already comfortably established in his chair, with a
small pile of fiction beside him.
[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch
“‘IN MY TIME,’ REMARKED THE CAPTAIN, ‘A CLUB WAS FOR PRIVACY. NOW IT’S
A HAVEN FOR BELL-BOYS AND A PLAYGROUND FOR WHIPPER-SNAPPERS’”]
She paused before she approached him. Alan had always interested her.
Perhaps it was because he had kept himself at a distance; but, then,
he had a way of keeping his distance from almost everybody. Alix had
thought of him heretofore as a modern exquisite subject to atavic fits
that, in times past, had led him into more than one barbarous escapade.
It was the flare of daring in these shameful outbursts that had saved
him from a suspicion of effeminacy. Now, in London she had by chance
heard things of him that forced her to a readjustment of her estimate.
In six months Alan had turned himself into a mystery.
“Well,” she said, coming up behind him, “how are you?”
Alan turned his head slowly, and then threw off his rugs and sprang to
his feet.
“The sky is clear,” he said; “where did you drop from?” His eyes
measured her. She was ravishing in a fur toque and coat which had yet
to receive their baptism of import duty.
“Oh,” said Alix, “my presence is humdrum. Just the usual returning from
six weeks abroad. But you! You come from the haunts of wild beasts, and
from all accounts you have been one.”
“Been one! From all accounts!” exclaimed Alan, a puzzled frown on his
face. “Just what do you mean?”
They started walking.
“I mean that even in Africa one can’t hide from Piccadilly. In
Piccadilly you are already known not as Mr. Alan Wayne, a New York
social satellite, but as a whirlwind in shirt-sleeves. Ten Per Cent.
Wayne, in short.” She looked at him with teasing archness. She could
see that he was worried.
“Satellite is rather rough,” remarked Alan. “I never was that.”
“All bachelors are satellites in the nature of things--satellites to
other men’s wives.”
“Have you a vacancy?” said Alan.
The turn of the talk put Alix in her element. She had never been an
ingénue. She had been born with an intuitive defense. Finesse was her
motto, and artificiality was her foil. It had never been struck from
her hands. On the other hand, Alan knew that every woman who accepts
battle can be reached, even if not conquered. It is the approaches to
her heart that a woman must defend. Once those are passed, the citadel
turns traitor.
They both knew they were embarking upon a dangerous game, but Alix had
played it often. No pretty woman takes her European degree without
ample occasion for practice, and Alix had been through the European
mill. She threw out her daintily shod feet as she walked. She was full
of life. She felt like skipping. The light of battle danced merrily in
her eyes. She made no other reply.
“I met lots of people we both know,” she said at last.
“Which one of them passed on the news that I had taken to the ways of a
wild beast?”
“Oh, that was the Honorable Percy. I caught only a few words. He was
telling about a man known as Ten Per Cent. Wayne and the only time he’d
ever seen the shirt-sleeve policy work with natives. When I learned it
was Africa, I linked up with you at once and screamed, and he turned to
me and said, ‘You know Mr. Wayne?’ And I said I had thought I did, but
I found I only knew him _tiré à quatre épingles_, and wouldn’t he draw
his picture over again. But just then Lady Merle signaled the retreat,
and when the men came out, somebody else snaffled Collingeford before I
got a chance.”
“Oh, Collingeford,” said Alan. “I remember.” He frowned and was silent.
“Alan,” said Alix after a moment, “let me warn you. I see a new
tendency in you, but before it goes any further than a tendency, let
me tell you that a thoughtful man is a most awful bore. When I caught
sight of you I thought, ‘What a delightful little party!’ But if you’re
going to be pensive, there are others--”
Alan glanced at her.
“Alix,” he said, mimicking her tone, “I see in you the makings of
an altogether charming woman. I’m not speaking of the painstaking
veneer,--I suppose you need that in your walk of life,--but what’s
under it. There may be others, as you say,--pretty women have taken
to wearing men for bangles,--but don’t you make a mistake. I’m not a
bangle. I’ve just come from the unclothed world of real things. To me a
man is just a man, and, what’s more, a woman is just a woman.”
“How un-American!” said Alix.
“It’s more than that,” said Alan; “it’s pre-American.”
Alix was thoughtful in her turn. Alan caught her by the arm and
turned her toward the west. A yawl was just crossing the disk of the
disappearing sun. Alix felt a thrill at his touch.
“It’s a sweet little picture, isn’t it?” she said. “But you mustn’t
touch me, Alan. It can’t be good for us.”
“So you feel it, too,” said Alan, and took his hand from her arm.
During the voyage they were much together, not in dark corners, but
waging their battle in the open--two swimmers that fought each other,
forgetting to fight the tide that was bearing them out to sea. Alan
was not a philanderer to snatch an unrequited kiss. To him a kiss was
the seal on surrender. But to Alix the game was its own goal. As she
had always played it, nobody had ever really won anything. However, it
did not take her long to appreciate that in Alan she had an opponent
who was constantly getting under her guard and making her feel
things--things that were alarming in themselves, like the jump of one’s
heart into the throat or the intoxication that goes with hot, racing
blood.
Alan’s power over women was in voice and words. If he had been hideous,
it would have been the same. With his tongue he carried Alix away, and
gave her that sense of isolation which lulls a woman into laxity. One
night as they sat side by side, a single great rug across their knees,
Alan laid his hand under cover on hers. A quiver went through Alix’s
body. Her closed hand stirred nervously, but she did not really draw it
away.
“Alan,” she said, “I’ve told you not to. Please don’t! It’s
common--this sort of thing.”
Alan tightened his grip.
“You say it’s common,” he said, “because you’ve never thought it out.
Lightning was common till somebody thought it out. I sit beside you
without touching you, and we are in two worlds. I grip your hand like
this, and the abyss between us is closed. While I hold you, nothing can
come between.”
Alix’s hand opened and settled into his. Alan went on:
“Words talk to the mind, but through my hand my body talks to yours in
a language that was old before words were born. If I am full of dreams
of you and a desert island, I don’t have to tell you about it, because
you are with me. The things I want, you want. There are no other things
in life; for while I hold you, our world is one and it is all ours.
Nothing else can reach us.”
For a while they sat silent, then Alix recovered herself.
“After all,” she said, “we’re not on a desert island, but on a ship,
with eyes in every corner.”
Alan leaned toward her.
“But if we were, Alix! If we were on a desert island, you and I--”
For a moment Alix looked into his burning eyes. She felt that there was
fire in her own eyes too--a fire she could not altogether control. She
disengaged herself and sprang up. Alan rose slowly and stood beside
her. He did not look at her parted lips and hot cheeks; he had suddenly
become languid.
“That’s it,” he drawled--“eyes in every corner. I wonder how many
morals would stand without other people’s eyes to prop them up?”
Alix left him. She felt baffled, as though she had tried desperately
to get a grip on Alan, and her hand had slipped. She felt that it was
essential to get a grip on him. She had never played the losing side
before, and she was troubled.
Premonition does not come to a woman without cause. Toward the end of
the voyage Alix faced, wide-eyed, the revelation that the stakes of the
game she and Alan had played were body and soul.
“Alan,” she said one night, with drooping head, “I’ve had enough. I
don’t want to play any more. I want to quit.” She lifted tear-filled
eyes to him. The foil of artificiality had been knocked from her hand.
She was all woman, and defenseless.
Alan felt a trembling in all his limbs.
“I want to quit, too, Alix,” he said in his low, vibrating voice, “but
I’m afraid we can’t. You see, I’m beaten, too. While I was just in love
with your body, we were safe enough; but now I’m in love with you. It’s
the kind of love a man can pray for in vain. No head in it; nothing but
heart. Honor and dishonor become mere names. Nothing matters to me but
you.”
[Illustration: Drawn By Reginald Birch
“’HE’D SAIL FOR AFRICA TO-MORROW AND THINK FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE OF
HIS ESCAPE FROM YOU AS A CLOSE SHAVE’”]
Tears crawled slowly down Alix’s cheeks. She stood with her elbows
on the rail and faced the ocean, so no one might see. Her hands were
locked. In her mind her own thoughts were running. Somehow she could
understand Alan without listening. If only Gerry had done this thing to
her, she was thinking, the pitiless, wracking misery would have been
joy at white heat. She was unmasked at last; but Gerry had not unmasked
her. Not once since the day of the wreck and their engagement had Gerry
unmasked himself.
Alan was standing with his side to the rail, his eyes leaving her face
only to keep track of the promenaders, so that no officious friend
could take her by surprise. He went on talking.
“Our judgment is calling to us to quit, but it is calling from days
ago,” he said. “We wouldn’t listen then, and it’s only the echo we
hear now. We can try to quit if you like; but when I am alone, I shall
call for you, and when you are alone, you will call for me. We shall
always be alone except when we are near each other. We can’t break the
tension, Alix. It will break us in the end.”
The slow tears were still crawling down Alix’s cheeks. In all her life
she had never suffered so before. She felt that each tear paid the
price of all her levity.
“Alan,” she said with a quick glance at him, “did you know when we
began that it was going to be like this?”
“No,” he answered. “I have trifled with many women, and I was ready to
trifle with you. No one had ever driven you, and I wanted to drive you.
I thought I had divorced passion and love. I thought perhaps you had,
too. But love is here. I am not driving you. We are being driven.”