"Then, that's probably her chief charm for you," observed Courtney,
placid and reflective and industrious. "When we think we don't think
about things that are worth thinking about, the chances are we really
haven't been thinking about anything else." With a smile and a shake of
the head that might have been for the plumes which refused to please
her, "I'm afraid you're falling in love with Helen."
"No," replied he judicially--and how he would have been startled if he
had seen her veiled eyes!--shiny green and cruel as those of a puma
stretched in graceful ferocity along the leafy limb that overhangs the
path. "No, I'm not the least in love with her. But I do like her. Her
seriousness is very pleasant, now and then. If I did not love you, I
perhaps might have grown to care for her, in a way. But--beside you,
Helen is--tame."
"I shouldn't call her tame--" encouragingly.
"Well--perhaps not. She sometimes suggests a person who could be waked
up."
"That's a temptation, isn't it?" she asked. And she looked straight at
him over the top of the plumes. She wished to see all.
"No," said he, positively. "To be quite frank I'd never give her as a
woman a thought--if I weren't--" He stirred uneasily, burst out in
confession. "You were right a while ago. Men often don't understand
themselves. But we'll not talk about that."
There was such love and tenderness in the gaze meeting hers that all the
squalid thoughts her mind had been fouled with the whole day washed away
like the dust and dirt on the leaves and petals of her flowers in a
sudden rain.
He said with a gentle, manly earnestness that thrilled her: "There's
only the one woman for me. And--I want our love to be what you wish.
And it shall be!"
She lowered her head, the tears welling. The others interrupted, and
Helen sat beside her advising about the hat. When it was finished, she
made Helen try it on. They all admired, and it certainly was becoming.
"Now, you try it on, dear," said Helen.
"No, don't take it off," Courtney answered. "It's for you, of course."
And she kissed her and, laughing away her thanks, went upstairs. She
sat down at her dressing table and, with elbows resting on it and face
supported by her hands, gazed into her own eyes. "If you do not wish to
lose him," she said slowly aloud to her grave face imaged in the glass,
"you must take away from him temptation to wander. A door is either
open or shut. A man--a man worth while--won't stand at the threshold
long. He comes in or he goes away. Basil does not realize it, but that
other side of his nature will compel him to go away--unless--" Compel
him to go away? She was hearing again the monotonous fall of those icy
rains, was feeling again the monotonous misery of those days without
love and without hope. She must choose. Choose? "The woman doesn't
live--doesn't deserve to live--who'd hesitate. There's no choice.
There's simply the one way."
Well--since it must be so--what would be the event? Would she lose him
anyhow? Would she merely be putting off his going? Would her complete
yielding end in disaster of some kind, as she had feared? Or, wasn't it
possible that, while most people were tangled and finally strangled by
the web of their own deceit, a skillful few could use it dextrously to
snare the bright birds of joy? ... She stood up, stretched her arms,
swayed her slim supple figure gently. "He shall have no reason for
letting one single thought wander. He shall be mine--all mine! I'll
take no more risks." She continued to sway gently, her eyes closed. A
look of scorn, of disgust came into her face. She shuddered. "How
hideous it is to be a woman! Always slave to some man! Gold fetters cut
as deep as iron, and they're heavier." She stopped swaying. "I can see
how I might come to hate my master in trying to hold his love.... Love!
To keep our love warm, we have to bury it in the mire."
*XX*
Because of the light the tables in the inner laboratory were so placed
that Courtney and Basil worked at opposite sides of the room with their
backs toward each other. As ten o'clock approached her agitation
increased; but the only outward sign was frequent stolen glances at the
clock on the wall between the windows. When the hands pointed to ten,
her heart fluttered; for, she heard him push back his chair and knew he
was rising from his case. He stood at the window toward her side of the
room. As he was gazing out over the high sill, she was free to look at
him--at his back, at the back of his head. She felt the struggle raging
in his mind. Her hand, blundering among the burettes and bottles on the
glass shelves before her, tilted a test tube from its support. It fell,
broke with a crash on the porcelain surface of the table. She gave a
low scream it would have been loud had she not, swifter than thought,
clenched her teeth and compressed her lips. He startled violently.
"Good God!" he cried and his tone showed that his nerves were in the
same state as hers.
"Beg your pardon," she murmured, mechanically apologetic.
If he heard, he gave no indication of it. He continued to stand
motionless at the window, staring out over the lake. She tried furtively
to get a glimpse of his profile, but could not. At ten minutes past ten
he moved. When she saw him about to turn, she bent over her
work--pouring calcium lactophosphate into a small agate mortar as if any
relaxing of attention would be calamitous. He was standing at the end
of her table, was looking down at her. It took all her self-control to
refrain from looking up to see what was in his eyes. He was bending
over her; his lips touched her hair--the crownlike coil of auburn on top
of her head. She tingled to her finger tips; she knew she had won, knew
he had thought it all out and had seen that his meetings with Helen were
in the direction of disloyalty to the woman he loved. She looked up at
him now. At first his expression was guilty and embarrassed, but the
radiance of love and trust in her eyes soon changed that. He became
very pale as his glance burned into hers; he turned away, and she felt
that it was because he feared lest in the rush of penitent passion he
would confess things it was unnecessary and unwise to put into words.
"Why, it's ten o'clock," said she carelessly. "Aren't you going out to
smoke?"
A pause, then he answered "Not to-day" in a boyishly ill-at-ease way
that brought a secret tender smile to her lips. She liked these
evidences that it was impossible for him to conceal himself from her
because any attempt to do so made him feel dishonorable.
"It's beautiful outdoors. I'll go with you."
"No, not just now, Courtney. I--I--that is, I think I'd best finish.
Vaughan may need all four of the sulphates any moment." And he sat down
before his case and began to fuss with evaporating dishes and crucibles.
"This is the first day you've missed in I don't know when," said she.
It was just as well he should know she had begun to take note of his
habit; that knowledge would strengthen his resolve to avoid in the
future appearance of of evil and temptation thereto. "You've been very
regular for weeks."
"It's a waste of time," he replied, after a pause. "You're right,
uninterrupted effort's the only kind that counts." And both went to
work.
But Courtney did not overestimate her triumph. Often day completely
reverses the night view of things. But now, in the fancy-dispelling day
more clearly than in the fancy-breeding night, she saw she must remove
the temptation. If she had been a small or a stupid woman--or both, for
the two qualities usually go together--she would have laid all the blame
upon Helen and would have sent her away--and in vanity as to her power
over him would have imagined herself once more perfectly secure. But
the impulse to blame Helen and to get rid of her did not survive the
second thought. It was not Helen's fault, or Basil's; it was nature's.
Looking back on those months under the compact she saw how she had let
foolish vanity and still more foolish hope befog and mislead her
intelligence. To remove Helen would avail her nothing. The law of his
nature would continue to press him on; and sooner or later, in spite of
love for her, in spite of loyalty, in spite of constancy, he would be
swept away from her. The compact was a beautiful ideal, but it was not
life--and, so, it must yield. "I must be all to him, or I shall soon be
nothing to him." And that afternoon she fixed her resolution--after
thinking the situation out sanely--as sanely as she could think in those
days. For she, completely possessed by her need of Basil, was like all
the infatuated. That is, she was in a state not unlike those demented
persons who seem to be, and are, quite sane and logical and
self-possessed, once you get beyond the fixed delusion which determines
the posture and outlook of their entire being.
On the way to dress for supper she glanced in at Helen's open door. The
girl was sitting near a window giving upon the small west balcony, her
attitude so disconsolate that Courtney was at once striving with a
rising wave of pity and self-reproach. "Helen will soon get over it,"
she reassured herself; and good sense reminded her that a young girl has
not the experience of love which teaches the experienced woman to value
it and makes her unable to do without it. "The love-sickness of a young
girl, especially prim, unimaginative girls like Helen, isn't really
personal; it's little more than a longing to be flattered and to get
married and settled." But such small progress as head was making
against heart was lost when Helen looked at her with a pathetic attempt
to smile.
"Where have you been all day?" asked Courtney, eyes sinking before
Helen's. She felt a most uncomfortable contempt for herself.
"In Wenona--lunching and shopping with Bertha Watrous."
Courtney entered, seated herself on the bed. Despite her lovelorn
condition, Helen winced. "You old maid, you," laughed Courtney, rising.
"I never saw any woman anywhere, not even old Nanny, not even my sister
Ann, so opposed to sitting on the bed."
"I've been brought up to think it was--wasn't right," apologized Helen.
"Wasn't ladylike, you mean," said Courtney. She disposed herself in the
window seat. "What are you blue about, dear?" She knew she was not
intruding; Helen liked to confide her troubles--and people of that
fortunate temperament were cured by confiding.
"I'm not blue," declared Helen. "I've simply been thinking of what you
said, and if anything I'm angry."
"Oh--Basil? Did you see him to-day?"
"I did not." Helen tossed her head. "I went about my work as
usual--went to the apartment. If he'd been lying in wait I was ready
for him. But he wasn't."
Courtney understood what this really meant, though Helen didn't.
Probably Helen would not have believed she had in fact lain in wait for
Basil, even had Courtney pointed out to her the obvious meaning of her
action. She was of the large majority--who do not know their own minds,
who cannot explore them with a guide however competent, who when shown
their own motives hotly and honestly deny. "Basil was busy to-day,"
Courtney explained. "Some sulphates Richard was in a hurry for."
Helen looked relieved. But, still not in the least aware of her own
state of mind, she went on, with a toss of the head: "Well--whenever I
do see him alone, I'll make him realize I'm not the sort he thinks. The
more I look at it, Courtney, the more convinced I am that he was simply
leading me on."
"Now, Helen!" laughed Courtney.
Helen colored. "I admit," she said, shamefacedly, "I got what I
deserved for being so--so forward."
"That's the truth--you were forward." Courtney's tone made this
necessary thrusting home of the painful truth gentle but not the less
insistent. "We must never fool ourselves, dear. We women can't afford
to."
Studying Helen, so clearly fascinated still by the idea of winning the
young eligible from the East and redeeming him, Courtney realized that
if the girl was to stay on there in peace she must be made to see the
absolute uselessness of angling. So long as she thought of Basil as a
possibility, however remote, so long would she be in danger of falling
utterly and miserably in love with him. Yes, Helen must be cured--but
how? There was no way. Not until Basil was married would Helen cease
to hope. "For her own sake, I ought to send her away," Courtney was
thinking as the two sat there in silence. But Helen had no other place
to go. True, she could go out and make her own living as a
teacher--Courtney envied her the training and the certificate that were
practically a guaranty of independence. But Helen abhorred independence,
looked on a woman's working, away from the shelter of domesticity, as
the Hindu looks on loss of caste. No, Helen must stay on, might as well
stay on.... An impossible situation. And from this unanticipated
quarter came one more imperative reason for making Basil wholly her own.
He must be in such a state of mind that he would do nothing to encourage
Helen's hope to put forth even the feeblest of its ready sprouts.
Courtney rose and moved toward the door. "I must dress." She leaned
against the jamb, her cheek upon her crossed hands. "Well, my dear,
remember the rhyme about the lady who went for a ride on a tiger, and
how, when they came back, he had the lady inside."
"You're laughing at me," reproached Helen.
Courtney's eyes were fixed dreamily upon vacancy, a strange sad smile
about her lips. "I am not laughing," she said slowly. "Or, if I am, it
is not at you.... Not at you, but at--" She could not tell Helen that
she was drearily mocking her own entrapped and helpless self. "Take my
advice, child. Don't _ever_ lead a tiger out for an airing."
Yes, Helen should stay on, as long as she wished to stay. "And hasn't
she as much right here as I--just the same right?"
At two o'clock that night, as Basil was leaving, he said--"You've hardly
spoken since I came. Is it the darkness?"
"Yes--the darkness," she replied in the same undertone--the doors were
very thick, but instinct made them careful about speech.
"I never knew you to be so silent--or so strange, now that I think of
it." He held her by the shoulders. "Courtney, did you want me to come
to-night?"