And so, once again, the woman conquered. Whatever Eve's intentions were,
whatever she wished to evade or ward off, she was successful in gaining
her end. For more than two hours she kept Loder at her side. There may
have been moments in those two hours when the tension was high, when the
efforts she made to interest and hold him were somewhat strained. But if
this was so, it escaped the notice of the one person concerned; for it
was long after tea had been served, long after Eve had offered to do
penance for her monopoly of him by driving him to Chilcote's club, that
Loder realized with any degree of distinctness that it was she and not
he who had taken the lead in their interview; that it was she and not
he who had bridged the difficult silences and given a fresh direction to
dangerous channels of talk. It was long before he recognized this; but
it was still longer before he realized the far more potent fact that,
without any coldness, without any lessening of the subtle consideration
she always showed him, she had given him no further opportunity of
making love.
Talking continuously, elated with the sense of conflict still to come,
he drove with her to the club. Considering that drive in the light
of after events, his own frame of mind invariably filled him with
incredulity.
In the eyes of any sane man his position was not worth an hour's
purchase; yet in the blind self-confidence of the moment he would not
have changed places with Fraide himself. The great song of Self was
sounding in his ears as he drove through the crowded streets, conscious
of the cool, crisp air, of Eve's close presence, of the numberless
infinitesimal things that went to make up the value of life. It was
this acknowledgment of personality that upheld him; the personality, the
power that had carried him unswervingly through eleven colorless years;
that had impelled him towards this new career when the new career had
first been opened to him; that had hewn a way for him in this fresh
existence against colossal odds. The indomitable force that had trampled
out Chilcote's footmarks in public life, in private life--in love. It
was a triumphant paean that clamored in his ears, something persistent
and prophetic with an undernote of menace. The cry of the human soul
that has dared to stand alone.
His glance was keen and bright as he waited for a moment at the carriage
door and took Eve's hand before entering the club.
“You're dining out to-night?” he said. His fingers, always tenacious and
masterful, continued to hold hers. The compunction that had driven him
temporarily towards sacrifice had passed. His pride, his confidence, and
with them his desire, had flowed back in full measure.
Eve, watching him attentively, paled a little. “Yes,” she said, “I'm
dining with the Bramfells.”
“What time will you get home?” He scarcely realized why he put the
question. The song of Self still sounded triumphantly, and he responded
without reflection.
His eyes held hers, his fingers pressed her hand; the intense mastery of
his will passed through her in a sudden sense of fear. Her lips parted
in deprecation, but he--closely attentive of her expression--spoke again
quickly.
“When can I see you?” he asked, very quietly.
Again she was about to speak. She leaned forward, as if some thought
long suppressed trembled on her lips; then her courage or her desire
failed her. She leaned back, letting her lashes droop over her eyes. “I
shall be home at eleven,” she said below her breath.
Loder dined with Lakely at Chilcote's club; and so absorbing were
the political interests of the hour--the resignation of Sir Robert
Sefborough, the King's summoning of Fraide, the probable features of
the new ministry--that it was after nine o'clock when at last he freed
himself and drove to the “Arcadian” Theatre.
The sound of music came to him as he entered the theatre--light,
measured music suggestive of tiny streams, toy lambs, and painted
shepherdesses. It sounded singularly inappropriate to his mood--as
inappropriate as the theatre itself with its gay gilding, its pale tones
of pink and blue. It was the setting of a different world--a world of
laughter, light thoughts, and shallow impulses, in which he had no part.
He halted for an instant outside the box to which the attendant had
shown him; then, as the door was thrown open, he straightened himself
resolutely and stepped forward.
It was the interval between the first and second acts.
The box was in shadow, and Loder's first impression was of voices
and rustling skirts, broken in upon by the murmur of frequent,
amused laughter; later, as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he
distinguished the occupants--two women and a man. The man was speaking
as he entered, and the story he was relating was evidently interesting
from the faint exclamations of question and delight that punctuated it
in the listeners' higher, softer voices. As the new-comer entered they
all three turned and looked at him.
“Ah, here comes the legislator!” exclaimed Leonard Kaine. For it was he
who formed the male element in the party.
“The Revolutionary, Lennie!” Lillian corrected, softly. “Bramfell
says he has changed the whole face of things--” She laughed softly and
meaningly as she closed her fan. “So good of you to come, Jack!” she
added. “Let me introduce you to Miss Esseltyn; I don't think you two
have met. This is Mr. Chilcote, Mary--the great, new Mr. Chilcote.”
Again she laughed.
Loder bowed and moved to the front of the box, nodding to Kaine as he
passed.
“It's only for an hour,” he explained to Lillian. “I have an appointment
for eleven.” He turned and bowed to the third occupant of the box--a
remarkably young and well-dressed girl with wide-awake eyes and a
retrousse nose.
“Only an hour! Oh, how unkind! How should I punish him, Lennie?” Lillian
looked round at Kaine with a lingering, caressing glance.
He bent towards her in quick response and answered in a whisper.
She laughed and replied in an equally low tone.
Loder, to whom both remarks had been inaudible dropped into the vacant
seat beside Mary Esseltyn. He had the unsettled feeling that things were
not falling out exactly as he had calculated.
“What is the play like?” he hazarded as he looked towards his companion.
At all times social trivialities bored him; to-night they were
intolerable. He had come to fight, but all at once it seemed that
there was no opponent. Lillian's attitude disturbed him; her careless
graciousness, her evident ignoring of him for Kaine, might mean
nothing--but also it might mean much.
So he speculated as he put his question and spurred his attention
towards the girl's answer; but with the speculation came the resolve
to hold his own--to meet his enemy upon whatever ground she chose to
appropriate.
The girl looked at him with interest. She, too, had heard of his
triumph.
“It is a good play,” she responded. “I like it better than the book.
You've read the book, of course?”
“No.” Loder tried hard to fix his thoughts.
“It's amusing--but far-fetched.”
“Indeed?” He picked up the programme lying on the edge of the box. His
ears were strained to catch the tone of Lillian's voice as she laughed
and whispered with Kaine.
“Yes; men exchanging identities, you know.”
He looked up and caught the girl's self-possessed glance. “Oh?” he said.
“Indeed?” Then again he looked away. It was intolerable this feeling
of being caged up! A sense of anger crept through his mind. It almost
seemed that Lillian had brought him there to prove that she had finished
with him--had cast him aside, having used him for the day's excitement
as she had used her poodles, her Persian cats, her crystal-gazing.
All at once the impotency and uncertainty of his position goaded him.
Turning swiftly in his seat, he glanced back to where she sat, slowly
swaying her fan, her pale, golden hair and her pale-colored gown
delicately silhouetted against the background of the box.
“What's your idea of the play, Lillian?” he said, abruptly. To his own
ears there was a note of challenge in his voice.
She looked round languidly. “Oh, it's quite amusing,” she said. “It
makes a delicious farce--absolutely French.”
“French?”
“Quite. Don't you think so, Lennie?”
“Oh, quite,” Kaine agreed.
“They mean that it's so very light--and yet so very subtle, Mr.
Chilcote,” Mary Esseltyn explained.
“Indeed?” he said. “Then my imagination was at fault. I thought the
piece was serious.”
“Serious!” Lillian smiled again. “Why, where's your sense of humor? The
motive of the play debars all seriousness.”
Loder looked down at the programme still between his hands. “What is the
motive?” he asked.
Lillian waved her fan once or twice, then closed it softly. “Love is the
motive,” she said.
Now the balancing--the adjusting of impression and inspirations, of all
processes in life, the most delicately fine. The simple sound of the
word “love” coming at that precise juncture changed the whole current
of Loder's thought. It fell like a seed; and like a seed in
ultra-productive soil, it bore fruit with amazing rapidity.
The word itself was small and the manner in which it was spoken trivial,
but Loder's mind was attracted and held by it. The last time it had met
his ears his environment had been vastly different; and this echo of it
in an uncongenial atmosphere stung him to resentment. The vision of Eve,
the thought of Eve, became suddenly dominant.
“Love?” he repeated, coldly. “So love is the motive?”
“Yes.” This time it was Kaine who responded in his methodical, contented
voice. “The motive of the play is love, as Lillian says. And when was
love ever serious in a three-act comedy--on or off the stage?” He
leaned forward in his seat, screwed in his eye-glass, and lazily scanned
the stalls.
The orchestra was playing a Hungarian dance--its erratic harmonies and
wild alternations of expression falling abruptly across the pinks and
blues, the gilding and lights of the pretty, conventional theatre.
Something in the suggestion of unfitness appealed to Loder. It was the
force of the real as opposed to the ideal. With a new expression on his
face, he turned again to Kaine.
“And how does it work?” he said. “This treatment that you find
so--French?”
His voice as well as his expression had changed. He still spoke quietly,
but he spoke with interest. He was no longer conscious of his vague and
uneasiness; a fresh chord had been struck in his mind, and his curiosity
had responded to it. For the first time it occurred to him that
love--the dangerous, mysterious garden whose paths had so suddenly
stretched out before his own feet--was a pleasure-ground that possessed
many doors--and an infinite number of keys. He was stirred by the
desire to peer through another entrance than his own, to see the secret,
alluring byways from another stand-point. He waited with interest for
the answer to his question.
For a second or two Kaine continued to survey the house; then his
eye-glass dropped from his eye and he turned round.
“To understand the thing,” he said, pleasantly, “you must have read the
book. Have you read the book?”
“No, Mr. Kaine,” Mary Esseltyn interrupted, “Mr. Chilcote hasn't read
the book.”
Lillian laughed. “Outline the story for him, Lennie,” she said. “I love
to see other people taking pains.”
Kaine glanced at her admiringly. “Well, to begin with,” he said,
amiably, “two men, an artist and a millionaire, exchange lives. See?”
“You may presume that he does see, Lennie.”
“Right! Well, then, as I say, these beggars change identities. They're
as like as pins; and to all appearances one chap's the other chap--and
the other chap's the first chap. See?”
Loder laughed. The newly quickened interest was enhanced by treading on
dangerous ground.
“Well, they change for a lark, of course, but there's one fact they both
overlook. They're men, you know, and they forget these little things!”
He laughed delightedly. “They overlook the fact that one of 'em has got
a wife!”
There was a crash of music from the orchestra. Loder sat straighter in
his seat; he was conscious that the blood had rushed into his face.
“Oh, indeed?” he said, quickly. “One of them had a wife?”
“Exactly!” Again Kaine chuckled. “And the point of the joke is that the
wife is the least larky person under the sun. See?”
A second hot wave passed over Loder's face; a sense of mental disgust
filled him. This, then, was the wonderful garden seen from another
stand-point! He looked from Lillian, graceful, sceptical, and shallow,
to the young girl beside him, so frankly modern in her appreciation of
life. This, then, was love as seen by the eyes of the world--the world
that accepts, judges, and condemns in a slang phrase or two! Very slowly
the blood receded from his face.
“And the end of the story?” he asked, in a strained voice.
“The end? Oh, usual end, of course. Chap makes a mess of things and the
bubble bursts.”
“And the end of the wife?”
“The end of the wife?” Lillian broke in, with a little laugh. “Why, the
end of all stupid people who, instead of going through life with a lot
of delightfully human stumbles, come just one big cropper. She naturally
ends in the divorce court!”
They all laughed boisterously. Then laughter, story, and denouement were
all drowned in a tumultuous crash of music. The orchestra ceased; there
was a slight hum of applause; and the curtain rose on the second act of
the comedy.