She was dressed for a journey, muffled in furs. Her left hand was
gloved; her right extended. His heart turned coward. Surely he had
earned his reward. He commenced to rise, pushing back his chair. The
steady blueness of her eyes held him.
“Good-by,” she said. “I should have left without saying good-by, if I
had not known I could trust you.”
“But you can trust me. It's because you can trust me that you must
stay.”
“I can't stay.”
“Why not?”
“We made a bargain. Do you remember? That until we were free, we would
play the game by him--that we would even guard him against himself.
You told me once, 'I wouldn't be friends with a woman who couldn't be
loyal.' I'm trying to be loyal.” She caught her breath. “He's gone.”
“Varensky?”
She nodded.
“Where?”
“To die for us.”
In the silence that followed, the heat of his temptation vanished. He
felt accused by the quixotic magnanimity of this strange creature, half
prophet, half charlatan, whose wife he had coveted.
“Once I'd have been glad that he should die,” he confessed slowly,
“but not now. Food has done far more than his sacrifice could have
accomplished. Why should he be determined to die now?”
She trusted herself to come closer, standing over him and giving him her
hand.
“Perhaps for our sakes. Perhaps for his own. Perhaps in the hope that
his appearance may put a stop to what's left of the fighting. There was
a wireless last night which he kept to himself. It said that skirmishing
was developing between the Poles and the Russian refugees in the No
Man's Land beyond Kovel. It was after he had read it that he went out.
I waited for him to return--when I guessed. We've all misjudged him.
Perhaps we're still misjudging him. Who can say why he's gone? There's
nothing gained by attributing motives. He wants to give his life. He's
promised he would so often; always he's been thwarted. He owes it to his
honor. Kovel may be the world's last battle--his final chance.”
In the bare room the dawn was spreading. Hind-wood rose from his chair,
stretching his cramped body and gazing at the map with its safe red line
of flags.
“Our work is ended,” he said quietly. “Within the next few hours
stronger men will be here to take control--a commission of the best
brains, picked from all the nations. God chose us to be His stopgap.”
He paused. “After having been His instruments in averting a
world-catastrophe to speak of things personal seems paltry. And yet my
love for you fills all my thoughts. I leave Budapest a bankrupt. I shall
have to start life afresh. Your love is literally my sole possession and
I have no right to it.”
She was backing towards the door, retreating from him. He stepped over
to the window, widening the distance that separated them.
“Do you feel more secure now? You needn't fear me,” he reproached her.
“Was it because I spoke of our love? We have no reason to be ashamed of
it. We've played fair. How could we do less when Varensky has played so
fair by us? It's for our sakes he's gone, that he may free us.” Then,
“You're setting out alone on a journey. Would you mind telling me its
object?”
“You know. To prevent him. To catch up with him. To bring him back.”
“And if he refuses?”
“To die with him.”
He smiled whimsically. “The vanishing point! For you, with your high
standard of honor, if you were to overtake it, your problem would be
solved. But suppose the vanishing point eludes you. Suppose your husband
agrees to live, have you thought of that? It means that you and I will
never----”
With an imploring gesture she cut him short. “It means that you and I
will never learn to despise each other. It means that I shall always
remember you at your greatest, as I've seen you in the last seven days,
self-sacrificing, brave and noble--so self-forgetting that you could
even forget the woman you adored.”
He sank his head. In the gray square of window he looked old and
haggard. “It's true, and yet it's incredible: if we were to allow him to
die, we should despise each other. In the long years----” He glanced up.
“Though you were willing to let him and I won you, do you think I would
want you? Not that way. I'd want you so little that I'm coming with you
to help you to prevent him.”