It was easy to slip away alone. Ruth knew that Gloria, who had gone to
her own room, expected to be followed, but she did not want to talk
alone with Gloria until she had seen Professor Pendragon. She found the
enclosed veranda, a sleeping porch above the sun room. She threw a heavy
cloak about her shoulders and passed unobserved down the hall and
through the narrow doorway leading outside. He was there, waiting for
her in his wheel chair. There was another chair beside him, perhaps for
the nurse. She could look out over a wide circle of white hills with
masses of dark green where fir trees clustered in the hollows. The outer
edge of the circle was stained a deep rose, so that hill and cloud lay
heaped against the sunset bathed in cold flame.
She moved toward him slowly, wondering how she would begin now that she
had kept her rendezvous. He laid down the pipe he had been smoking and
held out a hand to her, a hand through which the light seemed to shine,
it was so pale and thin.
She sat down beside him without speaking at once and looked for a moment
at the sunset hills. They seemed so quiet and cold and peaceful. What
she was going to say would sound strange and unreal here—more strange
even than it sounded in New York.
“I want to talk to you about Gloria,” she began, but he did not speak
when she paused, so she went on:
“When you sent me that card to the water colour show—it was at breakfast
I got it—Gloria told me that she’d been married to you. She’s my aunt—my
father’s sister, but I’d never seen her until after father and mother
both died and I came here to study art. Mother sent me to her because
she is my only living relative. She didn’t know you were in New York
until I got that card, and she asked me not to tell you about her, so I
lied when you asked me about myself, or at least didn’t tell the truth.
Then just before we came here I saw Nels Zord and he told me you were
here too. At first I thought of telling Gloria, but I didn’t because I
want you to help me. I want you to save Gloria.”
“I’m afraid I can’t save Gloria, my child, any more than Gloria can save
me—she perhaps has lost her soul—tomorrow I lose my life. It is all set
and we have as little to do with it as with that thin thread of waning
moon up there, which tomorrow night will be utterly dark.”
“But don’t you see, Gloria doesn’t understand and that’s why she is
helpless; but you do understand and can prevent things. You said
yourself to me once, ‘The stars incline but do not compel.’ If you won’t
help me I must do everything alone, but you must tell me the truth,
isn’t George the cause of your illness?”
He leaned suddenly toward her.
“Why do you think that?”
“You talked about the evil eye and the dark of the moon; the others,
Nels and Dorothy, thought you were joking or talking in riddles, but I
didn’t. The night of the show, when you were first stricken, I saw
George performing incantations before a horrible snake—a black cobra, I
think; a month later he worshipped the snake again and your illness
increased. He has come here because Angela wants him to entertain us
with his music hall magic. I am afraid that he will use the snake. You
say you are to lose your life tomorrow; if George is the cause of your
illness, then that is true.”
He was still leaning toward her, searching her face in the waning light.
He spoke slowly as if his words were but a surface ripple over a deep
lake of thought.
“It is true that my illness is mind-born—I have known that from the
beginning—and that it is not of myself, and I have tried to discover who
could have thought it on me. It may be, as you suggest, that George has
done it. It is an answer, but why?”
“Because of Gloria,” she said. With another man it would have been
difficult to tell her beliefs, but for the moment it seemed as if they
two were hanging suspended in the dusk-blue bowl of mountain and sky,
and the soul, eager yet indifferent of life, that looked out of his
eyes, commanded absolute truth.
“George loves her—he is a Hindoo, and for no other reason would he have
been her servant all these years. At first he understood the prejudices
of a Western woman and realized that he couldn’t marry her, but I think
if you will look back perhaps now you can see how he separated you and
Gloria. I have never seen the two men who followed, but I think he must
have hypnotized her into marrying them, and then himself broken the
marriages, and now she is going to marry this horrible Prince Aglipogue.
George is forcing her to do that. He boasted that it was so to me. It
will ruin her career and make her poor, and break her heart with shame
when she wakes to what she has done. Then George will claim his reward.
He did not mention your name when he talked to me, but he said, ‘There
is only one other fit to walk beside her, and he is slowly dying of an
unknown disease.’ You see there is only one link gone from my story and
that is how you let Gloria go at first. Why did you, why did you?”
In the retelling of the story that had occupied her mind all these
weeks, putting all her fears into words, it seemed that the danger she
told had grown fourfold. When she had tried to tell Terry his very
attitude of uncomprehension had made her story sound unreal, but when
she told it now, she saw belief and understanding in Pendragon’s eyes,
and something else—a resignation that maddened her. It was as if he
watched Gloria being murdered and made no movement to protect her.
“Why, why?” she demanded again, grasping his arm with tense fingers. She
could almost have shaken him.
He seemed quite unmoved by her excitement.
“Gloria had met George before we were married,” he said in his quiet
voice. “She found him ill, you know, and paid his debts and got him a
doctor, and when he was well he wanted to serve her. I didn’t like him
and advised her not to take him; it would have been much better for him
to go back to his profession, but he begged to come and she liked him;
perhaps his devotion flattered her. Everything went well until the night
when Gloria was to open in a new play. I never went much to the theatre.
I thought it better to leave her alone in her professional life, and on
this night the planet Eros—a small planet discovered quite recently in
our new solar system—was to be very near—much nearer than it had ever
been but once before, much nearer than it would be again for many years.
The first time the astronomers of the world had missed a wonderful
opportunity; this time they were all watching. We were to take
photographs if the weather permitted; by means of Eros and comparative
calculations we would discover something exact about the distance and
weight of many other planets. It was the opportunity of a century.
“We had a small flat in London and George was acting as a sort of butler
and sometimes valeting me as well. I hated having him around, but Gloria
said he was happier when he was busy. I remember now everything that
happened and how he looked at me. ‘You are going to the theatre tonight,
Sir?’ he said, and I had the impression that he often gave me, that he
was being impertinent, almost insulting, though there was neither
impertinence nor insult in his words or manner.
“‘No; I’m due at the observatory,’ I answered. There had been no idea of
my going to the opening in my mind, or in Gloria’s, I think, until that
moment, but when George had left us she turned on me with reproaches.
She said that I took no interest in her work; that I was jealous of her
career and that I must choose between her and the stars that night. I
dare say I was very stupid, but she seemed quite strange and
unreasonable as I had never seen her before, and I said some rather
nasty things. She said if I did not go to the theatre she would never
return to the flat. Of course I said that was unnecessary—that I would
go. I did; expecting a message from her every day. The only message I
got was from her lawyers in Paris, where she had gone for a divorce.
That’s the story.”
He stopped talking now, but Ruth waited. Over the hills the rose flush
had faded, the thin, keen blade of the almost disappearing moon hung
like a scimitar in a field of dark purple and resting above it a star
hung, trembling, as if waiting for the cold arms of a laggard lover.
“I suppose half confidences won’t do,” he said at last. “I still love
Gloria; what man once having loved her could forget? ‘Time cannot change
nor custom stale her infinite variety’; but of what use to fight one’s
destiny—in another incarnation, perhaps. I cannot believe all that you
say of George. That he is a Mahatma is doubtless true, that he loves
Gloria is gruesomely natural, that he hates me and has put upon me this
mind-born malady is reasonable, but that he should possess, or even
aspire to possess, Gloria is incredible.”
There was a sadness on his face, another worldness in his eyes, but
there was no light of battle there, and Ruth, whose youth and energy
cried out for action, felt as if she were beating with futile hands
against a stone wall.
“But he does want her, and he’s going to succeed if you don’t do
something. If he has the power to kill you, he has the power to do these
other things too. Even if you don’t believe this, you must do something
to save your own life.”
“I’m afraid I’m not very keen about living; if I die now it is an easy
way out—”
She wanted to protest that if he had courage he might yet win Gloria
again, but she did not dare raise hopes that might never be fulfilled.
Even if Gloria were saved from the Prince who could tell that she might
not marry Terry?
“That’s weak, and cowardly,” she said, “and if you believe in the wisdom
of the East you know that in the next life you will not enjoy the fruit
of any joy for which you have not struggled in this. You are selfish,
too. Even if you no longer care for your own life, you must do what you
can to help Gloria.”
“She no longer wants anything from me; she would only resent my
interference.”
“You are thinking only of yourself—what difference can her attitude make
now? Promise me that you will do something—promise—”
“Perhaps the voice of youth is the voice to follow—I am afraid I have
grown old and age does not love knighthood, but I promise that if I see
any way in which to change her destiny and mine, I will make what effort
I can. I will think about it.”
It was almost dark now, and Gloria was standing beside them before they
saw her.
“Angela’s been looking for you; she wants you to play billiards, Ruth.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“That doesn’t make any difference; neither do I and neither does Miss
Gilchrist; you just stand around and make the men wish that you’d go
away and let them have a good game—but don’t go just yet,” as Ruth
started away. “I want to say something to Professor Pendragon and I
don’t want to be alone with him.”
Ruth could not see his face very clearly, but she saw his long white
hands clenching over the arms of his chair.
“I thought, of course, when we met this morning, that you would find
some excuse for going away on the next train, Percy.”
“Why should I do that, Gloria? I did not know you were coming; you did
not know I was here. We have been thrown together for a brief time.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Peyton-Russell knows that we have met before. I
have promised to stay over the New Year. John knows I haven’t any
particular business interest to call me away. I thought the least
conspicuous thing would be to stay. My illness makes it easy for me to
stay much in my own rooms. We need not meet often, but if you wish, of
course, I can go tomorrow.”
There was no trace of bitterness or anger in his voice. He spoke in a
cold, casual way as if he were discussing some rather boring detail of
business.
“I do wish it very much—Prince Aglipogue has asked Angela to announce
our engagement tomorrow night. Of course no one but Ruth and Mr. Riordan
knows that we have ever met before, but it will be awkward for me, even
though you seem to have forgotten everything.”
Her voice, as cold as his at the beginning, deepened and trembled on the
last words, whether with tears or anger Ruth could not tell. She only
knew that both of these people were suffering as only proud people can
suffer and she did not want to watch. She tried to slip away, but
Gloria’s hand on her arm restrained her.
“Really, Gloria, I don’t see why you should announce a thing like that;
you might as well make an announcement every time you buy a new frock.”
The words could not have cut Gloria more than they did Ruth. Surely this
was not the man who not fifteen minutes earlier had told her that he
still loved Gloria? If he had hated her he could have said nothing more
rude. She felt Gloria’s hand tighten on her arm as if for support.
“I will go, then; you need not trouble,” she said in a low voice.
“No; forgive me—I will go on the early train.”
But already Gloria had turned and was walking away, and Ruth, not
knowing what to say, followed, her heart aching for both the woman and
the lonely man outside. Gloria did not pause nor look back and Ruth
suspected that she dared not turn her face for fear of disclosing tears.
The warm air inside made Ruth realize for the first time that, though
sheltered, it was very cold outside. She hesitated, wondering whether to
follow Gloria or to go back and beg Professor Pendragon not to remain
longer out of doors. Gloria decided her by walking steadily forward and
turning into her own room, closing the door behind her.
He was still sitting where they had left him, staring out into the
blue-black sky. Even his hands still clung tightly to the arms of his
chair as they had when she had left him.
“I’ve just discovered that it’s terrifically cold out here and you ought
to come in,” she said, trying to speak as if nothing had happened.
“The nurse was to have come out for me a long time ago; I dare say she
saw us talking and went back. If you think you could push the chair for
me—I haven’t any crutches here—I will go in,” he answered in the same
tone.
Without speaking she moved to the back of the chair and began wheeling
him toward the door. It really moved very easily. She stopped at the
door, opened it and pushed him through.
“Which door?” she asked.
“That one,” he pointed.
It was next to Gloria’s room and across the hall from her own. The
obvious thought came to her of how these two, apparently so near, were
separated by a bridgeless ocean of misunderstanding.