I
HINDWOOD consulted his watch; the hour was nearing midnight. He was
surprised to discover how the time had flown. The tapping outside his
door continued. There was nothing hurried about it, nothing impatient.
On the other hand, there was nothing humble. It was a secret, intimate
kind of tapping, like the signaling of a woman to her lover. It would
cease for a minute, so that he began to hope that he was to be left in
quiet; then it would recommence.
He sat obstinately at bay, almost holding his breath, not daring to
move lest he should betray that he had noticed. He was determined not
to admit this new disturber. He had had enough of danger warnings and
revengeful husbands. The only danger that he greatly dreaded was the
loss of a second night's rest.
The sound was getting on his nerves. It was so irritatingly discreet
and importunate. At first he had tried to believe that his caller was a
hotel employee, but a servant would have taken silence for an answer
a good five minutes ago. If it had been any one who had a right to be
there, the tapping would have been bolder. Whoever it was, it was some
one who had correctly estimated his mood.
_Tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap_. An interval, and then, _tap-a-tap_.
Getting stealthily to his feet, he tiptoed to the threshold and flung
wide the door.
“I beg your pardon.” He caught her arm as she stumbled back. “I guess I
startled you.”
“Shish!” She pressed a finger to her lips. “Let me inside, so that I can
sit down.”
Giving her his arm, he led her to a chair. Having returned and closed
the door, he surveyed her at his leisure.
She had the appearance of a peasant woman dressed in her Sunday best,
yet so great was her dignity, she did not seem out of place in her
surroundings. She was very aged; her figure was shapeless and bowed. Her
gray hair was cropped like a boy's; she wore spread over it, knotted at
the throat, a neatly folded kerchief of white linen. She was clad in a
black gown of the utmost plainness. Nothing distracted attention from
her face, which was as stoical with endurance as a gladiator's. You
could almost trace the riverbeds her tears had worn. The fist of fate
had punched it flat. It was a ruin to which violence had done its worst,
but had failed to destroy its gentleness. And he had expected Santa.
Instead of feminine frailty, spurring weak desires, there had come
this woman, iron of will, broken in body, ravished by years, with her
tremendous impression of moral strength. As she sat before him, her
gnarled hands resting on her cane, pushing back the weight of her
ancient shoulders, she raised to him the dim valiance of her eyes. “What
can I do for you?” he questioned. “Nothing.” She swung her head from
side to side with the brooding fierceness of a decrepit lioness. “It is
you whom I have come to help.”
“I!” he smiled. “I think you are mistaken.”
“I am never mistaken.” She gazed at him intently. “I have come to
help you to act generously. You have it in your power to save a woman,
perhaps at the sacrifice of yourself.”
He laughed quietly. “You mean Santa Gorlof. I wonder when I'm to hear
the last of her. A secret service man has spent the past two hours
instructing me what I can do for her. You must have met him. He had
scarcely left when you began to tap. He tried to convince me that if I
didn't protect myself by giving him information which would lead to her
arrest, my name would be added to her list of victims. A pleasant
sort of threat! I'm afraid he found me, as you will probably find me,
disappointing. I'm not possessed of any incriminating information, and
I don't place any faith in her list of victims. She struck me as being a
very gracious and fascinating woman. Beyond that I have no opinion about
her, either for or against.”
The old head sank further forward; the dim eyes became searching. “Then
you told him nothing?”
“I knew nothing to tell.”
There followed a deep silence, during which they gazed fixedly at each
other. She sighed contentedly, nodding her approval. “So you are in love
with her! That makes things easier. Even to me you lie--to me who am her
friend!”
“I deny that I am in love with her, but what makes you think so?”
“She thinks so.”
“Then you come directly from her?”
He had been unable to keep back the eagerness from his voice. Instantly
he realized his indiscretion. Pulling up a chair, he seated himself
opposite her, that he might lose nothing of her changes of expression.
“You're the second unconventional visitor,” he said, “whom I've received
this evening. The object of both your visits seems to be the same--to
associate my name with that of a lady to whom I am comparatively a
stranger. We may have conversed together a couple of dozen times;
when we parted, I never expected to hear from her. Within the space
of twenty-four hours a man who claims to be her husband comes to me
accusing her of every infamy. No sooner has the door closed behind him
than you enter, asserting that I am in love with her. You must pardon
me if I begin to suspect a plot. For all I know, you may be my first
visitor's accomplice, employing a more disarming method to get me to
commit myself. You tell me you are Santa Gorlof's friend; you might
equally well say you are her grandmother--you offer me no proof. If
she's really in trouble, I'm sorry. But I fail to see any way in which I
can serve her.”
“If there were no way, I should not have troubled you, especially at
this late hour. As for her being in danger, she has always been in
danger. She was born into the world like that. I am old--very old. I
have no traces of it left, but I, too, was once beautiful.”
The trembling hands fumbled at the white linen kerchief, loosening the
knot against her neck. “Ah, yes, I was beautiful. But I did not come to
you to speak of that. My friend, you are good; I saw that the moment I
entered. I said to myself, 'There is the man who could understand our
Santa and make her honorable like himself.' The world has given her no
chance--no, never. The husband who should have cared for her tossed her
aside like an old shoe when, like all animals robbed of their young, she
struck out in self-defense. I see you have heard that--how her child
was murdered and she was sent into exile for taking justice into her own
hands. Doubtless you have heard much else. She is a woman who would have
done no harm to any one if she had been allowed to remain a mother. But
because they scoffed at her motherhood, all her goodness has turned to
wickedness. Using her body as a decoy, she has slain men of the race
that persecuted her. Because she could not get her child back, she has
become an outlaw, making society pay for her loneliness.”
She paused, watching her effect.
Hindwood had not removed his eyes from hers. His face was troubled.
“I don't think you know what has been told me. The man who introduced
himself to me as her husband said that she was a half-caste, a temple
dancing-girl, who to revenge herself had poisoned white men's happiness
and during the war had become an international spy, working against the
Allies. He made the assertion that she was responsible for the vanishing
of Prince Rogovich. If these things are so, how can I, a decent,
self-respecting man--”
Bending forward, the old lady clutched his hand. “It was decent,
self-respecting men who made her what she is to-day.”
He released his hand quietly. “You have not denied any of the
accusations which are brought against her. And yet, remembering her
face, I can not believe that she is bad. You want me to save her. If
by that you mean that you want me to pledge myself not to give evidence
against her, you may tell her from me that I have no evidence.”
“I don't mean that.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to declare to me that you love her. No, listen. There is
still something in her that is pure. You have made her conscious of it.
You can undo the wrong that has been done her and make her the woman she
should be, if you choose.”
Hindwood rose from his seat and paced the room. Suddenly he halted and
swung round. “How did you know that I desired her? Until you came, I
scarcely realized it myself. Why should you have appointed yourself to
tempt me--you, who are so old? Between sane people, what would be the
use of my telling you that I loved her? Though I refused to believe any
of the libels against her which even you seem to credit, there are two
facts which it does not seem possible to escape: that she is married and
that the police are on her track. I have been warned that when she
traps men, she commences by appealing to their chivalry. That's what's
happening now. Do you see where you place me? If she is falsely accused,
I brand myself a coward by running away from her. If she is guilty,
I endanger my good name by having any more to do with her. What I
am waiting to hear you say is that this is a case of mistaken
identity--that she is willing and able to prove it.”
“Will you help me out of my chair?”
When she was on her feet, she let go his arm and commenced to move
across the room.
“Where are you going?”
“To give her your message.”
“I've told you nothing.”
“You've told me that you love her.”
She was on the point of leaving. With quiet decision he put his back
against the door, preventing her from opening it.
“Madam,” he said, “old as you are, you owe me some consideration. Before
you go, I at least have a right to ask your name.”
She smiled wistfully. The harshness in her face was replaced by a
glow of tenderness. “Yes, you have the right. I am called 'the Little
Grandmother.' I am a readjuster of destinies--the champion of the
down-trodden. I fight for those for whom the world has ceased to care.”
“But what have you to do with Santa?”
“She has been oppressed.”
“And because she has been oppressed, you overlook any crimes she may
have committed?”
“I am not God, that I should judge. If people's hearts are empty, I
reckon them my children.”
“Let me ask you one more question. Did Santa tell you that she loved
me?”
The old head shook sorrowfully. “To act nobly it is not necessary to be
loved in return. Let me go. Do not try to follow me.”
Standing aside, he opened the door. “And we meet again?”
As she hobbled out, she glanced across her shoulder. In her gesture
there was the ghostly grace of the proud coquette who was vanishing and
forgotten. “Will you want to,” she whispered, “to-morrow?”