Between the hour of writing her note to Alan and the moment when she
stepped on the train Alix had had no time to think. She was still
driven by the impulse of anger that Gerry’s words had aroused. She did
not reflect that the wound was only to her pride.
Alan held open the door of the drawing-room. She passed in, and he
closed it. She did not feel as though she were in a train. On the
little table stood a vase. It held a single perfect rose. Under the
vase was a curious doily, strayed from Alan’s collection of exotic
things. A cushion lay tossed on the green sofa, not a new cushion,
but one that had been broken in to comforting. Alix took in every
detail of the arrangement of the tiny room with her first breath. What
forethought, what a note of rest with which to meet a troubled and
hurried heart! But how insidious to frame an ignoble flight in such a
homelike setting! She felt a slight revolt at the travesty.
Alan was standing with blazing eyes and working face, like an eager
hound in leash. Alix threw back her veil and looked at him. With a
quick stride forward he caught her to him, and kissed her mouth until
she gasped for breath. With a flash she remembered his own words,
“If ever I kiss you, I shall bring your soul out between your lips.”
To Alix’s amazement, she did not feel an answering fire. Her body
was being lashed with a living flame, and her body was cold. In that
instant this seemed a terrible thing. She had sold her birthright for
a price, and the price was turning to dead leaves. She made an effort
to kiss Alan in return, but with the effort shame came over her. There
was so much in Alan’s kiss! The kiss had brought her soul out between
her lips. Her soul stood naked before her, and one’s naked soul is an
ugly thing. The kiss disrobed her, too, and from that last bourn of
shame Alix suddenly revolted.
Gasping, she pushed Alan from her. Their eyes met. His were burning,
hers were frightened. She moved slowly backward to the door, and with
her hand behind her opened the latch. Alan did not move. He knew
that if he could not hold her with his eyes, he could not hold her
at all. The train started. Alix passed through the door and rushed
to the platform. The porter was about to drop the trap on the steps.
Alix slipped by him. With all her force she pushed open the door and
jumped. The train was moving very slowly, but Alix reeled, and would
have fallen had it not been for a passing baggageman. He caught her,
and still in his arms, Alix looked back. Alan’s white face was at the
window. He looked steadily at her.
“Ye almost wint with him, miss,” said the baggageman, with a full
brogue and a twinkling eye.
Alix was tired and hungry when she got back home, but excitement kept
her up. She felt that she stood on the threshold of new effort and a
new life. After all, she thought, it was she who had made her dear old
Gerry into a time-server. She could have made him into anything else if
she had tried. She longed to tell him so. Perhaps he would catch her
and crush her in his arms as Alan had done. She laughed at herself for
wanting him to. She rang for the butler.
“Where’s your master, John?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. Mr. Gerry hasn’t come back since he went out this
morning.” To John, Mr. Lansing was a person who had been dead for some
time. His present overlords were Mr. and Mrs. Gerry and Mrs. Lansing
when she was in town.
“Telephone to the club, and if he is there, tell him I want to see
him,” said Alix, and turned to her welcome tea. The sandwiches seemed
unusually small to her ravenous appetite.
Gerry was not at the club. Alix dressed resplendently for dinner.
Never had she dressed for any other man with the care that she dressed
for Gerry that night. But Gerry did not come. At half-past nine Alix
ordered the table cleared.
“I’ll not dine to-night,” she said to John. “When your master comes,
show him in here.” She sat on in the library, listening for Gerry’s
step in the hall.
From time to time John came into the room to replenish the fire. On one
of these occasions Alix told him he might go to bed; but an hour later
he returned and stood in the door. Alix looked very small, curled up in
a great leathern chair by the fire.
“It’s after one o’clock, ma’am,” said John. “Mr. Gerry won’t be coming
in to-night.” Alix made no answer. John held his ground. “It’s time for
you to go to bed, ma’am. Shall I call the maid?”
It was a long time since John had taken any apparent interest in his
mistress. Alix had avoided him. She had felt that the old servant
disapproved of her. More than once she had thought of discharging him,
but he had never given her grounds that would justify her before Gerry.
Now he was ordering her to bed, and instead of being angry, she was
soothed. She wondered how she could ever have thought of discharging
him. He seemed strong and restful, more like part of the old house than
a servant. Alix got up.
“No, don’t call the maid. I won’t need her,” she said. Then she added,
“Good night, John,” as she passed out.
John held wide the door, and bowed with a deference that was a touch
more sincere than usual. “Good night,” he answered, as though he meant
it.
Alix was exhausted, but it was long before she fell asleep. She cried
softly. She wanted to be comforted. She had dressed so beautifully, she
had been so beautiful, and Gerry had not come home. As she cried, her
disappointment grew into a great trouble.
She awoke early from a feverish sleep. Immediately a sense of weight
assailed her. She rang, and learned that Gerry had not yet come home.
Then his words of yesterday suddenly came to her, “If I dropped out
of the world to-day--” Alix stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. Why had
she remembered those words? She lay for a long time, thinking. Her
breakfast was brought to her, but she did not touch it. It was almost
noon in the cloudy Sunday morning when she roused herself from apathy.
She sprang from the bed. She summoned Judge Healey with a note and Mrs.
Lansing with a telegram. The telegram was carefully worded:
Please come and stay for a while. Gerry is away.
The judge found Alix radiating the freshness of a beautiful woman
careful of her person; but it was the freshness of a pale flower. Alix
was grave, and her gravity had a sweetness that made the judge’s heart
bound. He felt an awakening in her that he had long watched for. She
told him all the story of the day before in a steady monotone that
omitted nothing and gave the facts only their own weight.
When she had finished, the judge patted her hand. “You would make a
splendid witness, my dear,” he said. “Now, what you want is for me to
find Gerry and bring him back, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Alix, “if you can.”
“Nonsense! Of course I can. Men don’t drop out of the world so easily
nowadays. But I still want to know a thing or two. Are you sure Gerry
knew nothing of your--er--excursion to the station?”
Alix shook her head.
“From the time he left my room and the house he has not been back.”
“Has he been to the club?”
Alix colored faintly. “I see,” said the judge, quickly. “I’ll ask
there. I’ll go now.” He went off, and all that day he sought in vain
for a trace of Gerry. He went to all his haunts in the city; he had
telephoned to those outside. At night he returned to Alix, but it was
Mrs. Lansing who received him in the library.
The judge was tired, and his buoyancy had deserted him. He told her of
his failure. Mrs. Lansing was thoughtful, but not greatly troubled.
“Gerry,” she said, “has a level head. He may have gone away, but that
is all. He can take care of himself.” She went to tell Alix that there
was no news. When she came back, the judge turned to her.
“Well,” he asked, “What did she say?”
“Nothing, except that she wanted to know if you had tried the bank.”
The judge struck his fist into his left hand. “Never thought of it,”
he said. “That child has a head!” He went to the telephone. From the
president of the bank he traced the manager, from the manager, the
cashier. Yes, Gerry had been at the bank on Saturday. The cashier
remembered it because Mr. Lansing had drawn a certain account in full.
He would not say how much.
“There,” said the judge, with a sigh of relief, “that’s something. It
takes a steady nerve to draw a bank-account in full. You must take the
news up-stairs. I’m off. I’ll follow up the clue to-morrow.”
There was a new look of content mingled with the worry in Mrs.
Lansing’s face that made the judge say, as he held out his hand in
farewell, “Things better?”
Mrs. Lansing understood him.
“Yes,” she answered, and added, “we have been crying together.”
There had been strength in Mrs. Lansing’s calm. She had been waiting,
and now the waiting was over. Alix had given herself, tearful and
almost wordless, into arms that were more than ready, and had then
poured out her heart in a broken tale that would have confounded any
court of justice, but which between women was clearer than logic.
At the end Mrs. Lansing said nothing. Instead, she petted Alix, carried
her off to bed, and kept her there for three days. In her waking hours
Alix added spasmodic bits to her confession--sage reflections after
the event, dreamy “I wonders” that speculated in the past and in the
measure of her emotions.
On the fourth day Alix got up, but on the fifth she stayed in bed. Mrs.
Lansing found her pale and frightened. She had been crying.
“Alix,” she whispered, kneeling beside the bed, “what is it?”
Alix told her amid sobs.
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Lansing, throwing her arms about her, “don’t
cry. Don’t worry. The strength will come with the need. In the end
you’ll be glad. So will Gerry. So will all of us.”
“It isn’t that,” said Alix, faintly. “Oh, it isn’t that! I’m just
thinking and thinking how terrible it would have been if I had run
away--really run away! I keep imagining how awful it would have been.
It is a nightmare.”
“Call it a nightmare if you like, sweetheart, but just remember that
you are awake.”
[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch
“’I USED TO THINK I COULD GO HOME, THAT IT WAS JUST A QUESTION OF
BUYING A TICKET. BUT--’”]
“Yes,” said Alix, softly, “I am awake now. Mother, I want to go to Red
Hill. I know it’s early, but I want to go now. I want to watch the Hill
come to life and dress up for the summer. It will amuse me. It’s long
since I have watched for the first buds and the first swallows. I won’t
mind the melting snow and the mud. It’s so long since I’ve seen clean
country mud. I want to smell it.”
“You don’t know how bleak the Hill can be before spring,” objected Mrs.
Lansing.
“Will it be any bleaker with me there than when you were alone?” asked
Alix.
Mrs. Lansing came over to her and kissed her.
“No, dear,” she said.