Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with
disconcerting suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman
got out.
"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. "I
can't do anything in this deluge."
This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left
Flint's.
"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. But
she was far from reassured.
The deluge was _not_ over in a few moments. It kept up with an
ever-increasing violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car
would be compelled to yield to its force. Claire had never seen it rain
harder; the storm had a vindictive fury that reminded her of the
dreadful tempest in "King Lear."
Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while
he chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one
uppermost in Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy
or contempt veiled his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ...
two. Still the rain swept from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a
futile attempt to remedy the trouble with his engine, and twice he
retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire was relieved that
she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the monotonous
hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At first
he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he
acknowledged his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's
discomfort, but he stopped there.
As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating
energy, Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to
wonder whether the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the
discreet thing. Was not her headlong flight in company with Stillman
more open to criticism than the frank acceptance of her employer's
hospitality? But these vagrant questions were the spawn of a colorless
spirit of social expediency which fastens itself on weak natures, and in
Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too well schooled in
loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion.
Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual
arrogance that goes with independence. People could think what they
liked. And it was more a realization of her mother's anxiety than any
thought of self which made her suggest to Stillman that they might get
out and walk into Sausalito.
"I think the last boat leaves there at twelve-thirty," she finished.
"Surely we could make it if we keep going."
Stillman thrust his arm out into the drenching rain, and withdrew it
instantly. "I'm afraid that's out of the question, so long as the rain
keeps up, Miss Robson," he said, in a tone of implied objection.
"Perhaps if it should stop...."
Claire settled back in her seat. Stillman was right. The storm was too
furious to be lightly braved.
It was eleven o'clock before a quick veering of the wind brought a
downpour so violent that what had gone before seemed little better than
a rather weak rehearsal.
"It will clear presently," Stillman assured Claire. "Southeaster always
break up in a flurry like this from the west."
In ten minutes the stars were peeping brilliantly through rents in the
torn clouds. Pungent odors floated up from the rain-trampled stubble of
the hillsides, the air was cleared of its stifling oppressiveness, the
first storm of the season was over.
Both Claire and Stillman clambered out at the first signs of the storm's
exhaustion. Stillman switched on his pocket-light and began to
investigate the trouble with the engine. His decision was swift and
conclusive.
"It's hopeless," he announced, turning to Claire with a slight grimace.
"We're stalled absolutely and no mistake. I guess we'd better strike out
and walk. No doubt we'll get a lift into Sausalito before we've gone
very far, but I dare say it's well to be on the safe side."
They rolled the machine to one side of the roadway and struck out
hopefully. The rain had made a thin chocolate ooze of the highway, and
before they had gone a hundred yards their shoes were slimy with mud. It
appeared that Stillman had been something of an aimless wanderer for
many years, and as he talked on and on, giving detached glimpses of the
remote places he had visited, Claire had a curious sense of futility.
She read between his clipped and vivid sentences the tragedy of a
personality worsted by the soft hands of circumstances. This man might
have done things. As it was he was an idler. He gave her the impression
of a man waiting vaguely for opportunity--like some traveler pacing
restlessly up and down a railway station platform in expectation of the
momentary arrival of a delayed train. She tried to imagine him as she
felt sure he must once have been--youthful, eager, ardent, a man of
charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, who could
bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies.
"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must have pushed
him into this deadly stagnation."
And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer:
"You know about his wife, of course!"
Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune?
Impersonal?... this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must
be, otherwise the man tramping at her side would have wrestled so
passionately against fate as to have come away at least spattered with
the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not defeated, he was merely
arrested, restrained, held for orders.
He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough
to watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness
of the encounter, coming home after the first air raids.
"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden
flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the
process. I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin
game was too much like a rabbit-drive to suit me."
As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of
the spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to
be denied. But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a
bit judicial, always well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did
not appear vitalized by extravagances of feeling. Yet here and there
Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like brief flashes of sunlight
through a somber forest.
"And the draft--what do you think of that?" The question rose to her
lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the
way of convictions.
He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden
refreshment:
"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for
themselves. The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my
case...."
He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim
region of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that
haunting hope, almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get
better. That was what he was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ...
next week ... in a year ... never! But when it did come he felt that he
must be there, ready. She wondered whether he loved his wife very much,
and she found herself hoping that he did.... It would help, somehow ...
yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point. On the other hand....
She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that she had no
right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they were
swinging into Sausalito.
Stillman looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes
late for the boat! She could see that he was disturbed.
"I thought sure we'd get a lift," he railed, tossing aside a mangled
cigar. "This _is_ luck!... I guess we'll have to rout out the Sherwins.
It's something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you
know."
"The Sherwins?"
"Another one of the Edington girls. They have a bungalow at the very
dizziest point in Sausalito."
But Claire objected and held firm. "I couldn't think of it, Mr.
Stillman. No, really!... Please don't insist."
They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise
rather decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip. Its chief
advantage was that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but
respectable, and the suppressed grumbling of the old shrew whom they
routed out confirmed their estimate. She didn't approve of couples who
dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy hours in the
morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the
assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself
that reconciled her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her
convictions.
For a good half-hour Claire sat with folded hands peering out from her
room upon the damp hillside to the west. From across the street came the
bawdy thumping of a mechanical piano and the swish of a sluggish tide.
Her encounter with Sawyer Flint had forced the door of her virginal
seclusion and thrust her at once into the primitive and elemental open.
She felt like one who was coming out of voluntary exile to the pathos of
a deferred heritage. Before her stretched the eagle's horizon, but she
had only the fledgling's strength of wing. She longed for the faith and
courage and daring to take life at its word, longed with all the
dangerous fierceness of one who had fed too long upon the husks of
existence. And, longing, she fell asleep, sitting in a chair before the
open window, without thought or preparation....
* * * * *
The morning broke cloudless. All traces of the night's fury were
obliterated as completely as sorrow from the face of a smiling child.
The sun touched the open spaces with a tender, caressing warmth, but the
shadows held a keen-edged chill.
Claire decided upon an early boat to town.
"I'll be less likely to meet any of the California Street crowd," she
said to herself, as she picked her brief way toward the ferry.
The boat was crowded, especially the lower cabin. It was the artisans'
boat and the air was heavy with the smoke of pipe-tobacco. Claire passed
rapidly to the dining-room. Perched upon the high revolving chairs
surrounding a horseshoe counter, a score or more of soft-shirted men sat
devouring huge greasy doughnuts and gulping coffee. The steward, taking
note of Claire's hesitation, came forward and led her to a seat at one
of the side tables. She was about to take advantage of the chair which
he had drawn out for her when she heard her name called. She turned.
Miss Munch's cousin, Mrs. Richards, was sitting alone at the table just
behind. Claire's first feeling was one of relief--she was glad to
discover an acquaintance. She thanked the steward for his trouble and
abandoned the proffered seat for the one opposite Mrs. Richards. Almost
at once she regretted her impulsive decision.
"I didn't know you intended staying at Flint's all night," Mrs. Richards
began, fixing Claire with a challenging gaze.
"I didn't intend to," returned Claire, her voice sharpened slightly.
Mrs. Richards took the lid off the sugar-bowl and powdered her
grapefruit sparingly. "Have they a nice home?" she questioned.
"Yes, very nice."
"They gave you an early start, didn't they?... It's almost impossible to
get servants these days to consider such a thing as serving breakfast
much before eight o'clock."
Claire glanced at the bill of fare. Mrs. Richards's tone was a trifle
too eager. "I suppose it is," Claire assented, placing the menu-card
back in its place between the vinegar and oil cruets.
Mrs. Richards remained unabashed at her vis-à-vis's palpable
indirectness. "I guess I'm old-fashioned, but, servants or no servants,
I don't believe I could let a guest of mine leave the house without
breakfast. It seems to me that if I'd been Mrs. Flint I'd have gotten up
and made you a cup of coffee myself."
Claire's growing annoyance was swallowed up in a feeling of faint
amusement. "Perhaps Mrs. Flint wasn't home," she said, beckoning the
waiter.
"Oh!" Mrs. Richards exclaimed with shocked brevity.
It was not until the arrival of Claire's order of toast and coffee that
Mrs. Richards found her voice again.
"This business of wives staying from home all night gets me," Mrs.
Richards hazarded, boldly. "Why, I never remember the time when my
mother remained away overnight ... not under _any_ circumstances. My
father expected her to be there, and she always _was_."
Claire distributed bits of butter over the surface of her toast. She
felt that in justice to the Flint family it was not right for her to
give Mrs. Richards's dangerous tongue any further scope, however
tempting was the prospect of leaving such venomous inquisitiveness
ungratified.
"I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Richards. I didn't say that Mrs.
Flint remained away from home last night. As a matter of fact I didn't
stay at Yolanda, so I don't know anything about it."
"Oh!" faintly escaped Mrs. Richards for the second time that morning,
but Claire was conscious that there was more incredulity than surprise
registered in the lady's tone.
"As a matter of fact," Claire continued, stung to incautious
exasperation, "I spent the night in Sausalito."
Mrs. Richards met this information with a disarmingly bland smile. "I
didn't know you had friends in Sausalito," she said, letting a spoonful
of coffee trickle back into her cup.
"I haven't. I spent the night in a lodging-house ... on the
water-front...."
"My dear Miss Robson, really I.... Why, I hope you don't think I was
inquisitive!"
It was the simplicity of the challenge that made it impossible to be
ignored. Claire knew that she was trapped, but she was angry enough to
decide on some reservation.
"The storm put the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of
commission," Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her
tormentor. "We tried to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled
and missed it. We had to walk a good half of the way."
"I shouldn't think that would have done Mr. Flint's cold any good," Mrs.
Richards said, drawlingly.
"Mr. Flint's cold?... I don't quite see what that has to do with it."
"Oh, you said 'we' I somehow got the impression...."
"No, Mrs. Richards, you've misunderstood me again." Claire threw a
cool, even glance at her antagonist. "I made the trip from Yolanda to
Sausalito in Mr. Stillman's car."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Richards for a third time, and in this instance her
voice was warm with gratification.
Claire directed her attention to her plate of buttered toast and her cup
of coffee. She was chagrined to think that she had fallen so easily into
Mrs. Richards's very obvious traps. Not that it mattered. She was quite
sure that the truth could not harm Stillman, and she was equally sure
that her position in life was too obscure to stand out conspicuously
against the darts of Mrs. Richards's vindictive tongue. But she had the
pride of her reticences and she did not like to surrender these
privileges at the point of insolent curiosity. The two continued to eat
in silence.
It was Mrs. Richards who finished first, and she dipped her fingers
hurriedly into the battered metal finger-bowl which the Japanese bus-boy
thrust before her.
"Do you mind if I go along?" she inquired of Claire, with an air of
polite triumph. "I think I'll go forward where I can get a quick start
... before the crowd gets too thick. I've got a million errands to do
before nine o'clock. And I _do_ want to run into the office before
Gertie settles down to work. I haven't seen her for a week and I've got
_more_ things to tell her!"