Her eyes pleaded with him not to prolong the scene, but he was mad with
the joy of seeing this sensitive woman, who had so long kept him at a
distance, caught in the meshes of his fascination, and he held her in
his arms, confident of his power to sway her at his will.
"I fought against it, Dennis," she said quickly. "But--I had to come.
Oh, why force me to say such a thing. Can you not see how unfair you
are?"
She struggled to her feet, but he stood before her, barring the way to
the door.
His breath came faster. This was a charming surrender! It had
gracefulness, novelty, charm.... Only, something in her eyes warned him
to come no closer.
"I have admitted, Dennis Montague," she said breathlessly, "that I came
here because you fascinated me. It's true; you have always fascinated
me. But I tell you that down in my heart I loathe you, detest you, for
the coward that you are." Montague drew back as though fired upon by a
masked battery. "In all the years I have known you," she went on
furiously, as though fearing that her courage would leave her before
the finish, "you have done nothing that was not selfish, mean, and
cowardly--above everything else, cowardly. Look at the girls you have
known----" Montague interrupted her with an impatient gesture, but she
went on: "More than a dozen I could name have given you the depth and
the sweetness of their first love, inspired by you, called forth by
you. Do you realize what a woman's heart is and what she gives with it?
And you--you are too cowardly to face marriage, too cowardly to love
with your own heart--too selfish to leave women's hearts alone."
Montague took a cigarette-case from his pocket. "May I smoke?" he said
coolly.
"You are a coward about your profession as well," she hurried on,
ignoring his interruption. "Your mother, I know, had great dreams for
you. She planned, worked, sacrificed for you. Yet you are too much of a
coward seriously to face competition with what you choose to call 'the
little legal minds of the city.'"
"And thirdly?" he said, lighting a cigarette.
"Yes, thirdly," she said desperately, although his easy nonchalance was
fast undermining her courage, "you are not in the army. Yet no one
could say that Dennis Montague is not fit. I can only presume, like
every one else, that you are afraid."
"And lastly?" He was still calm, although keener eyes than hers would
have noticed a dark, ominous flush under his eyes.
"And, lastly," she said, unconsciously repeating his formula, "you
scoff at everything that is good and pure, sneering at religion, and
drawing yourself aside from your fellow-creatures as though they were
loathsome. Yet I say to you, Dennis, that there is not a man in the
slums whose soul isn't far, far richer than yours. It is only a coward,
afraid to face the real things, who scoffs at life."
Weak from the effort she had made, her voice subsided into silence and
a cold sweat broke out on her brow and the palms of her hands.
"Will you smoke, Vera?"
"No, thanks," she answered faintly.
"Do. It would soothe you."
"No, I thank you." She repressed a sudden desire to fly from the
conservatory. She had become suddenly afraid of the cool, smiling
figure beside her.
"As far as girls are concerned," he said quietly, replacing the
cigarette-case in his pocket, "just as long as they angle for us with
every artifice of dress and rouge and coquetry, so long will they catch
us and the consequences. As for the law, which my mother planned for
me, I regret that my father left me the instincts of a gentleman, not
of an attorney. I am not boring you?"
She made no reply.
"As for the army, I don't happen to be interested in the war. I
disapprove of the crudeness of our Canadian civilization. I disapprove
of England's lack of the artistic. I disapprove of German militarism,
Scotch bagpipes, Swiss cheese, Chinese laundries, and American
politics. Why should I fight for one when I disapprove of them all? As
for my fellow-man, I shun the ordinary man of the streets because he
does not think, read, or bathe often enough. I am not hostile to him; I
merely ignore him. I am not a coward at all, my dear Vera; I am merely
an artist among artisans."
He bowed gracefully. "Let us return to the dancing," he said.
With a frightened, inquiring glance, she took his arm, and without a
word they left the conservatory. At the door of the ballroom they
paused, and she laid a timid hand on his arm. It will ever be a mystery
to men how women can love and despise the same object.
"Dennis," she said, "will you try to forget what I have said?" Her
courage had gone, fled before his coolness and the fascination he held
for her, though she had striven with all her womanhood to free herself
from it.
"I wish to Heaven I could," he said grimly.
V
The morning sunshine invaded the rooms of Dennis Montague with
pervading cheeriness. It was nearing the end of April, and a hundred
birds sang of the winter wonders of arid Africa, and of the witcheries
of the Nile, where Pygmies are at war with the butterflies, and the
great god Memnon raises his mighty shout to greet the dawn of day.
Oblivious to the sunshine and everything but his thoughts, Montague lay
in bed, and sought to wrestle with the truth he had heard the night
before. It was impossible to dismiss the thing from his mind. His brain
throbbed with resentment, questioning, searching her words--striving to
convince himself that her charge of cowardice was the vituperation of
an unrequited love. But it was useless. He could explain her actions,
dissect her motives, applaud his own pose, but he could not eliminate
the feeling of personal nausea which clung to him, as though he had
suddenly sickened of his whole nature.
A knock at the door interrupted the thread of his thoughts, and his
valet entered with a tray of breakfast-things.
"Good morning, sir." Sylvester carefully rearranged the tray on a
little table beside the bed. "It's a beautiful morning, sir. There's
great news too."
"What is it?"
"Canadians 'ave saved Calais, sir--leastways they've stopped them for
the time."
"They're in action, eh?"
"'Orrible, too, sir; the paper says the Germans used poison gas."
"Good God!"
"Yes, sir--the French Colonials gave way, yelling that 'ell was let
loose, and the Canadians went up and 'eld the line."
Montague put down the cup of coffee untasted. "What does it say--about
casualties?"
"Why, sir it looks as if some battalions was pretty well wiped out.
'Ere's the paper, sir----"
"No--no. I don't want to see it. Tell me--it says ... the Canadians
held against ... gas?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are our Toronto chaps in it?"
"Very 'eavy, sir. It seems as if the 'Ighland Brigade got it the
worst."
Montague sank back on the pillow, his face grim and pallid.
"Come along, sir; 'ere's your breakfast."
His master gazed at the ceiling. "Sylvester," he said listlessly, "for
a long time you have ministered to my body. What can you do for a soul
that is starving?"
The valet beamed reassuringly. A large and varied experience as a
servant to young gentlemen had inured him to morning-after repentances.
"That's all right, sir," he said, rubbing his hands genially. "A
bromo-seltzer will fix you up. 'Ello, sir!" The sound of a military
band drew him to the window. "It's one of the new battalions--blooming
near a thousand of them. Seems like 'ome, it does, when the Guards used
to do London in all their swankin' regimentals."
A battalion swung past in steady rhythmical tread to the stirring
strains of the Welsh hymn of freedom, "Men of Harlech"--and there was a
youthful vigorousness about the men, a suggestion of unconquerable
manhood.... And on every man's face there was written pride and
determination. For their comrades had been tried at Ypres.... They had
held the line.... And, by the living God, the Hun would pay for that
foul gas given to the wind to carry against defenseless men.
The last ranks of the battalion passed, and the music ceased as
suddenly as it had come. The birds resumed their chorus, and William
Sylvester his imperturbable mask of deference. Languidly Montague rose
from his bed and lit a cigarette.
"Our civilization," he said quietly, "need not pride itself on raising
those men. Men have always been brave since the beginning of time. The
terrible failure of our age is that it has produced men like me--a
coward."
Mr. Sylvester scratched his head. "Lord bless me, sir!" he ventured,
"you're not a coward. Why, look at the jump you took at last year's
horse show."
Montague turned on him with a vehemence that the valet had never before
seen in his master. "I tell you I am a coward," he said fiercely.
"Don't I know that my place is with these men? In that battalion that
passed there are married men with families, there are only sons of
widows, there are brothers, sweethearts. Who is there to care if I go?
My death would not cause a single tear; and yet I stay--not that I am
afraid of bullets or death, but because I know that I should have to
sleep beside men who are filthy, unclean, and that I should grow filthy
too. I abhor it. I detest it. Yet I stand aside and let others go."
"You--you are a gentleman, sir."
"A gentleman!" Montague laughed raspingly. "My own definition last
night was 'a man with a valet and three addresses.' What a fool I was!
No, I am not a gentleman. I have never been one. The greatest gentleman
of all time was a carpenter. That is the truth I have to burn into my
soul."
He sank into a chair, and shadows of fatigue marred his face. "Last
night, Sylvester," he said slowly, "I lay awake for hours, and
sometimes in the awful darkness that surrounds one when sleep refuses
to come, things seem clearer and more cruel than in daylight. Last
night I saw myself for the first time.... I do not say I shall
change.... It is too late, I think...."
An hour later he left his flat, fully dressed, and strolled into the
sun-lit streets. A newsboy dashed past, screaming in strident tones,
"All night fighting--Canadian Line still holding;" and then, apparently
feeling the announcement needed identification, he shrieked, "All about
that great big European War."
Montague heard his name spoken. It was the ex-bank clerk, the young
subaltern with the uninspired face.
"Good-bye," he said rather shyly.
"Where are you going?"
"Marching orders," said the other. "We leave here to-morrow. By jove,
we've got something to fight for now!"
Montague murmured his best wishes and moved on, but the words that kept
running through his brain were those of the boy's manager who had
written "A decent enough fellow, but lacking in initiative."