He clinched his fists in vanity's boyish anger. "You can think of that
apartment, and have no feeling?" he exclaimed.
"None," declared she.
"I'll not believe it. You couldn't be so unwomanly."
Her look forecast a sarcasm. But before she spoke it changed to one
that was soft and considerate. She felt that she was responsible. True
he had posed as something far superior to his reality; but it was an
honest fraud, deceiving himself first and most of all. She felt to
blame for having been taken in--felt repentant and apologetic toward
him. "Let's not quarrel," she urged. "Don't be harsh with me. I know
you'll find love and make some woman very, very happy--one that is
sympathetic and comes up to your ideals of womanhood." She put out her
hand again, and friendly and winning was the smile round her wide mouth,
in the eyes under the long, slender brows. "Please, Basil." He
hesitated. "Don't be harsh. You know you don't love me any more than I
love you. What's the use of pretenses? Why not part sincerely? ...
Please, Basil."
His hand just touched hers and his angry eyes avoided her pleading
glance. "If you'll send Jimmie," he said. And with a stiff bow he moved
in great dignity along the path to the apartment entrance. He went even
more slowly than dignity required, for he confidently expected she would
come to her senses when she saw he had indeed reached the limit of
endurance of her trifling. Richard had shown he wouldn't take her
back--cared nothing for her. Where then could she turn but to him? And
all that vaporing about independence was--just vaporing. A woman was a
woman, and he knew women. So, he walked slowly to give her a good
chance. But no call came--not though he lingered over opening the door
and made a long pause elaborately to wipe his clean boots on the mat.
He did not look until he could do so from the security of the
sitting-room windows. She was not in sight. Had she followed him
softly? He went into the hall, glanced down the stairs. Not there!
She had gone! ... She meant what she said; she had cast him off. There
was no room for doubt--she had cast him off.... He heard a step, rushed
to the door. It was Jimmie, come bringing his overcoat and gloves, and
prepared to do the packing. She had really cast him off.
"God!" he muttered. "What a contemptible position that puts me in!"
And, for the moment at least, he hated her. If he could only revenge
himself--in some perfectly gentlemanly way, of course. Once that day
vanity had lured him clean over the line into most ungentlemanly
conduct; his face burned from the sting of her remembered
denunciations--the sting of truth in them. If he could devise a
gentlemanly way--something that would convince her he had made all that
agitation simply because he felt that, as a gentleman, he in the
circumstances must go to any lengths to keep faith with her. Yes, that
would be a handsome revenge--and would save his face, too.
He gave Jimmie the necessary directions and resumed his brooding. He
searched his brain in vain. He could contrive no way of escape; he
would have to leave that place like a whipped dog--yes, a whipped dog.
Spurned by Vaughan--spurned by Courtney----
A step, and the rustle of a skirt. His eyes gleamed. "I thought not!"
he muttered exultantly. "Well, I'll teach her a lesson she'll never
forget."
He turned his back to the door, stood at the window, looking out and
puffing nonchalantly at his cigarette. The step, the rustle were on the
threshold. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Gallatin----"
He wheeled to face Helen. His confusion was equal to hers. "Ah--Miss
Helen--I--I--" he stammered.
"Am I intruding?" she asked. There was a charming blush in her sweet,
beautiful face, and her honest dark eyes showed how perturbed she was.
"No indeed--no indeed," he protested.
"Courtney sent me----"
"Courtney sent you!" he exclaimed in amazement.
"She told me all about it," Helen hastened on. "She asked me to let you
know that she had told me--how you and Richard have had a bitter falling
out over the work--and that you're going away, not to come back."
One look into those eyes was convincing; Helen believed what she was
saying.
"She thought perhaps I might be able to help you about the packing. Can
I?"
"No, but I'd be glad if you'd stop while Jimmie is doing it. I don't
want to leave without saying good-by to you."
All the roses fled from Helen's cheeks. "Yes--certainly," she murmured.
"You'll excuse my being somewhat confused? The truth is I'm very much
upset."
"I can't tell you how dreadfully I feel," said Helen. "Are you sure you
and Richard--" She paused. Her glance stirred him like an angel face
in a drunkard's dream--her face earnest, grieved, sympathetic, unable to
credit anything so dreadful, so wicked as a parting in hate.
"Quite sure. It's--final. Please, let's not talk about it. It's all
so--so revolting."
In presence of those clear, noble eyes of hers, the sordidness of his
"romance" now once more began to stand out. What a mess! No wonder he
had taken to drink. If it had been Helen and the kind of love she
inspired-- "But you and I will always be friends--won't we?" he said to
her.
Her eyelids dropped and he saw her bosom fluttering. "I hope so," she
said so low he scarcely heard. She was pale now, and drooping. "Though
I'm afraid--when you get away off there, you'll forget me very soon."
His heart smote him as he looked at that tall, voluptuous figure, at
that lovely face, so regular, so pure. Here was a woman, a real woman,
and she would have loved him--perhaps did love him. "I know I'm
unworthy of a thought from you who are so good and pure," he said. "But
your kindness to me has helped me. And God knows, I shall need help."
Oh, that it had been his lot to anchor to this strong, white soul! How
much nobler than the finest passion was a love centering about the
sweet, old-fashioned ideals. What a haven those arms, that bosom would
be! He felt dissolute and sin-scarred as only a vain young man can feel
those dread but delightful depravities.
"You must not despair, Basil," came in Helen's soft voice, like oil upon
his wounds. And it touched him to see how, maidenly shy though she was,
she yet could not resist the appeal of this opportunity to try to do
good. She went on, "It's always darkest before dawn, and the more rain
falls the less there is to fall."
These words seemed like heavenly wisdom delivered by a messenger of
light. He sighed.
"You'll come out all right--and will escape from that--that--whatever it
is--" Helen's cheeks modestly colored--"and be happy with some _good_
woman who is worthy of you."
She looked so sad, so beautiful that before he knew it he, ever
sympathetic with women, had said, "Some woman like you, Helen."
She turned away. He saw that her emotions were making her tremble. How
she loved him! What a prize such a love would be--and how chagrined
Courtney would feel--Courtney the vampire woman who had tried to destroy
him, and thought she had succeeded--and was gloating over his misery.
"If we'd had the chance, Helen, how happy we could have made each other!
But I mustn't talk of that."
"Why not?" said she, with bold shyness. "I know that for some reason we
can never be anything more to each other. But it's been a happiness--"
earnestly, with tears in her eyes of the Homeric Juno and in her voice
young and honest and sympathetic--"a real happiness to feel that the
best of you--the part that's really you--found something to like in me."
He thrilled. Here was a woman! And a woman who appreciated him. He
wondered how he could have lingered under a malign spell when such
beauty of soul--and body, too--was his for the asking. "Helen!" he
cried. And all his wounded heart's longing and all his wounded vanity's
suffering gave energy to his cry. He took her hand; he put his arm
round her. Her cheek touched his. How cool yet warm she was! How
lovely and sweet! And the unsullied, untouched down! How fresh!
Except her male relatives, no doubt no man but himself had ever kissed
her-- "Helen--Helen! God forgive me, but I can't refuse this moment of
pure happiness."
She gently drew away. "Oh, Basil," she sobbed. "And I had said no man
should ever kiss me until-- But you--it seems different. You are so
noble--so pure minded." Her eyes gazed into his with a trustful
adoration that thrilled him.
"Helen--do you love me?" he cried.
Her honest eyes opened wider. "Would I have let you touch me if I
didn't?"
"Yes--I know that!" he exclaimed. "How pure you are! It's like heaven
after hell."
She gazed on into his eyes. A faint flush overspread her pale cheeks.
She kissed him. "I love you, Basil," she said, gravely. Then all at
once the color surged wave on wave over her brow, her cheeks, her neck.
She hung her head, slowly drew away from his detaining vibrating arms.
There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to
burn of itself. Helen had by the guidance of feminine instinct hit upon
exactly the right instant for drawing back. She released herself,
avoided his touch just when passion having captured his imagination
swept on to the conquest of the flesh. At the edges of her lowered eyes
appeared two tears to hang glistening in the lashes. From her bosom rose
a sigh, soft, suppressed but heart-breaking.
The bright flame was leaping in his eyes. "You noble, splendid woman!"
he cried, as his glance leaped from charm to charm--from delicate,
regular features to sumptuous yet girlish figure. "What a jewel--in
what a casket! You appeal to the best there is in me--only to the best.
If I become a man again, it will be through you." And sincerity rang in
his voice; for, the fire of high resolve to be a good man, to be worthy
of this exalted womanhood, was burning in his blood. "Helen--will you
help me? I've sinned--you never will know how dreadfully. But I love
you."
Her answer was a beautiful shaft of the love light from her now
wonderful eyes.
"Helen--will you marry me?"
From head to foot she trembled. All her color fled, leaving her face
whiter than the milk-white skin of her voluptuous neck and shoulders.
"I--love--you," she said simply.
"Then you will? Say you will, Helen. I cannot trust myself to go away
without your strength to help me."
"I will, Basil."
There were tears in his eyes as in hers as he reverently kissed her
hands. He had a sense of peace, of sin forgiven, of joyous return to
the fold of honor and respectability. And her heart was overflowing
with love, with gratitude to him and to God.
*XXX*
Returning to the house after full two hours, she burst excitedly in upon
Courtney, who was at her easel in the upstairs sitting room. Courtney
had by much experimenting found that of her several possible indoor
occupations painting was far the best sedative for mind and nerves. The
girl's face, exultant with pride, exalted with love, gave her a shock;
for, only complete triumph could have so roused those regular, chastely
cool features from their wonted repose. She had on impulse sent Helen
to Basil in vague hope that they, admirably suited because each needed
just what the other had to give, possibly might somehow get a start in
the direction of making a match of it. She had the most convincing of
reasons for believing that the heart in need of balm is the most
susceptible to it. But she did not believe that Basil's heart was, at
least latterly, involved; and, as she had not a glimmer of a suspicion
of his stolen draughts of "moral tonic," she could not credit the story
so clearly written upon those radiant features.
"You don't mean you got him!" she exclaimed, laying her brush on the
rest and leaning back. And in her amazement and excitement over this
sudden freakish prank of fate, out of her mind flew all the wretched
thoughts over which she had been brooding--thoughts centering about her
own ugly part in that scene at the laboratory.
Helen, undisturbed by this frankness of woman to woman friend, when
there are no listeners, flung ecstatic arms about her and kissed her on
either cheek. "I'm so happy!" she cried. "And I owe it all to you."
"Engaged?" inquired Courtney, the utter impossibility of the thing
down-facing the clear evidence of its actuality.
Helen held up her left hand, displaying the old-fashioned diamond ring
Basil had always worn on his little finger. "It was his mother's," she
said, regarding it with an expression in the big brown eyes that would
have thrilled him, had he seen. It thrilled Courtney; and no further
proof of the absolute passing of Basil was needed than the unalloyed
pleasure Helen's happiness gave her. "Engaged," said Helen, softly,
dreamily. "And the day set--the second of June."
"Splendid!" Helen, she felt, was secure; for, Basil had the highest
respect for his given word.
"And if you hadn't sent me down there, I do believe it'd never have
happened. Just think!--though we've loved each other practically from
the first meeting. He says it was his feeling about me that started him
to struggling against that bad woman. Do you remember----"
"Yes, I remember," said Courtney. How dead it all was!--dead with the
death that leaves no scar upon the heart, only a lesson in the memory.
How could it ever have seemed living?--and immortal!
"Oh--of course you remember. You knew about her."
"Not much about her," replied Courtney. Pensively, "Really, nothing at
all."
"I'm sure I don't want to know anything. The less a good woman knows
about evil, the better.... I think recently he must have almost
succeeded in breaking away; for, to-day I'm sure he was hesitating at
the parting of the ways--whether to go back to her or not. And my
coming there decided him. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Like a fairy tale," said Courtney, taking up her brush and eying
critically the little landscape to which she was giving the finishing
touches. "But, my dear, I don't think you ought to tell me these
things."
She felt selfish in saying this; Helen had inexperienced youth's
irresistible craving to confide, and was simply bursting with simple and
innocent vanity over having achieved the double triumph of both
spiritual and worldly advantage. But Helen was not to be suppressed or
even discouraged. "Oh, yes," replied she. "He asked me to tell you we
are engaged. I think he knows you've heard about that woman who was
dragging him down, and thought you could advise me whether he was a fit
man for me to marry. You see he feels he's been very bad."
"Men always like to think that," said Courtney. "But as long as they
think so, they're not. No, he isn't bad, as men go. He wants to settle
down. And he will settle down--with you." She was looking at the
landscape but her quizzical eyes were seeing the pair of them a few
years hence, contentedly yawning at each other, leading the conventional
life of the well-to-do that swathes them body and mind in soft, indolent
fat.
Helen had only half listened to Courtney, as she cared as little as the
next woman about her lover's past, and knew for herself that he was
high-minded and of the noblest instincts. She halted her own and
Courtney's musings with an absent, "I feel that way about it, too." She
moved nervously about the room, from time to time casting an appealing
glance at her absorbed friend. Finally she burst out desperately:
"There's something I want your advice about. I don't know whether I've
done right or not."
"Yes?" said Courtney, encouragingly.
"I hadn't told you but--the fact is--while I was on that visit to Saint
X, I--I became engaged to Will Arbuthnot."
Courtney looked laughingly at her over the suspended brush. "Oh,
Helen--Helen!"
"But let me explain, dear," begged Helen, cheeks scarlet and eyes down.
"When I went up there--and until just a few minutes ago--I thought--"
Her faltering voice died away altogether.
"Thought there was no hope of getting Basil," said Courtney, with no
censure, with only sympathy. She resumed touching up the picture to
ease Helen's embarrassment. "Go on."
"I thought he was hopelessly in the power of that bad woman. So, I put
my feeling for him out of my heart.... I know you're laughing at me.
You're so cynical, Courtney. But a girl has got to do the best she can.
And it's getting harder and harder for a poor girl to marry--that is, to
marry a man with anything. And brought up as I've been I have to have
nice surroundings. I want a good home--and--and--children--and they must
be educated properly--and able to keep their place in our station of
life."
"Certainly," reassured Courtney. "You did the practical, sensible
thing."
"I know, what I did _seems_ to bear out your ideas. You're always
teasing me about my ideals being mostly pretense. Well, perhaps they
are. It does look like it--doesn't it?"
"Everybody's are," said Courtney, squinting at the picture. "Ideals are
paste pearls. One can wear much bigger and finer ones than of the
real--and nobody knows they're paste--or need ever know if one's careful
to avoid their being tested. I'm glad, dear, you weren't so foolish as
you always insisted you'd be."
Helen looked as if her soul were freed of a huge weight. "I will say,
Courtney, that I'd never think of confiding in any person who believes
like me, while I always feel safe in confiding in you."
"Thank you," said Courtney with genuine gratitude. "You don't know what
a flattering compliment that is.... So, you're engaged to Will
Arbuthnot?"
"Yes--that is, up at Saint X Will asked me to marry him. He's a nice,
clean, thoroughly good fellow. And when Basil went away I supposed he'd
gone to that bad----"
"I understand," interrupted Courtney. "Never mind about her."
"I felt I could grow to like Will, and I put Basil out of my heart."
There she fluttered a guiltily uneasy glance at Courtney.
"And now," teased Courtney, "you give the naughty man the preference
over the nice one."
"That's just it!" exclaimed Helen in triumph. "Basil needs me. I did
hesitate--at least, I tried to--until he begged me to strengthen him by
saying yes. Then I felt it was clearly my duty." Helen took Courtney's
amused nod at her landscape as approval. "And while I hated to do a
thing that in a way might seem deceitful--still, Basil has such an
exalted opinion of me--and it helps him, to feel that way--and if he had
found out that I hadn't loved him all along--or if I'd asked him to
wait--I might have lost all chance to help him to be the noble, good
man-- _Don't_ smile that way. Courtney."
And Courtney instantly changed her smile to one of tenderness. "I know
you're good and sweet, dear--and beautifully sincere," said she, with
perfect honesty; for, experience had left in her little of the familiar
self-complacence that condemns human beings for human traits. "Much too
good for Basil."
"Of course," said Helen, beaming, "a woman who has kept herself pure is
superior to a man who has not been clean and nice."
"Always make Basil feel that," advised Courtney. "He's the kind of man
that can behave only when he's on his knees--and you're the kind of
woman that prefers worship to love.... I suppose you'll live in the
East."
"In New York, I think," replied Helen, reflectively. "He talks of the
country. But I've had enough of that. I'm sure he'd be better contented
in a city."
Courtney laughed gayly. "What a dear you are!" she exclaimed, looking
at her friend tenderly. "And so absolutely unconscious of it."
Helen returned her gaze in unaffected surprise. "I don't know what you
mean. Why do you laugh?"
"Nothing." Courtney was painting again. "What are you going to do
about Will Arbuthnot?"
"Why, be perfectly honest with him," cried Helen, injured and
reproachful. "I simply couldn't be deceitful."
"Tell him you've found you can make a better match? Oh, you mustn't do
that."
"I should think not!" exclaimed Helen, horrified. "That wouldn't be the
truth. No, I'll tell him I find I don't love him as a woman should love
the man she's to give herself to. You know I've got the old-fashioned
ideals--that is, ideas--of the sacredness of womanhood. He'll
understand."
"Yes," said Courtney gravely, though her eyes were dancing, "he'll have
a deeper reverence for true womanhood.... Well, the men deserve it.
They're responsible for our not daring to be our natural human selves."
"But I _am_ natural, dear," remonstrated Helen warmly.
Courtney was busily trying for a shade of brown on her palette. "You're
sure Basil won't hear of your other engagement? Remember, he knows
several Saint X people."
"I made an agreement with Will that we'd keep it a secret until we got
ready to marry." Courtney laughed again; it was so obvious what
lingering longing and hope had prompted this precaution. "What _are_
you laughing at _now_?" asked Helen.
"I wouldn't spoil your innocence by telling you," replied Courtney. And
she rose and, palette in one hand, brush in the other, kissed her
affectionately. "I'm glad you're happy--and I'm sure you'll always be
happy."
"Indeed I shall. And he'll be happy too. As he said, he's lived in an
atmosphere of deceit and falsehood, and he needs to be lifted up into
purity and love and--and--all that makes a good home and life on a high
plane."
Courtney was smiling strangely into her color box. "You'll be married in
Saint X at Mrs. Torrey's, I suppose?"
Helen began her answer in a place so remote that Courtney, used as she
was to the complexities of feminine thought, was completely baffled.
Said Helen: "Will Cousin Richard think me disloyal, marrying a man he's
at outs with?"
Courtney reflected. "I don't know what he'll think." she said. "But
you've got to consider yourself first--and Basil."
"Yes, certainly--" Again Helen was only half listening. "About the
wedding," she presently said. "I was thinking it out, while Basil and I
were talking----"
"Helen--Helen!" And the small head with its auburn crown shook in mock
disapproval. "Not while he was making his first love to you?"
Helen reddened. "I had to think about things. You know, a woman can't
afford to let herself loose like a man. And I decided it'd be best for
us not to announce the engagement, but just to marry. And not at Saint
X. I'll go up to Aunt Lida's in Laporte. What is it, dear? Why do you
look so queer?"
"Nothing--nothing." Courtney had no desire--indeed, what would have
been the use?--to tell her thoughts as she viewed the swamp of deceit
and double dealing into which Helen and Basil were dragging each other
in pursuit of those will-o'-the-wisp ideals. Ideals! But Courtney's
lip did not curl in scorn as it would have curled a few months before.
She had learned that supreme lesson of tolerance--even when you are sure
you are right, not to fancy that what is right for you is right for
anyone else.
"No," Helen was saying, "I'll not tell Richard. It would annoy him and
do no good. Oh, I ought to be ashamed of myself, to be so happy when
you are unhappy."
"I--unhappy?"
"I know you conceal it, dear. You're brave and self-reliant. But--
Isn't there _anything_ I could do to bring you and Dick together again?
You're a woman, dear. You simply have to be taken care of, and----"
"Don't shadow your romance with worry about me," said Courtney
nervously. She was all confusion and restlessness.
"But I can't help it," pleaded Helen. "I know Richard was neglectful.
And he's not an attractive man to a woman, as Basil is--isn't livable
and lovable like Basil----"
Helen went on and on contrasting the two men, to Richard's disadvantage
at every point. In former days she had been too much "afraid Richard'll
find out how foolish I am and how little I know" to get in the least
acquainted with him; since the divorce they had talked only constrained
commonplaces, when she took Winchie to him. Thus, the comparison was
grotesque distortion of Richard. But Courtney was not tempted to try to
set her right. Helen, of small mentality and in love with Basil, would
not appreciate, would not be convinced, would simply be irritated--would
probably misunderstand and be encouraged to pursue her absurd scheme for
bringing them together. But parallel with Helen's talk there was in
Courtney's mind a juster contrasting of the two men--the one strong, the
other weak; the one real, the other idealist; the one simple, the other
a _poseur_; the one intelligent, the other merely conceited; the one
master of his emotions, the other their slave; the one an original, the
other a pattern, an identical sample of thousands turned out by the
"best families" and the "best colleges" and the "best society." And
then it came to her why she had estimated Basil quickly and accurately,
once she began it--that it was because in Richard she for the first time
had a measure to do her measuring with. The mists of his abstraction
had completely hid his personality from her, as from everybody. Those
mists had blown away in the cyclone of the disruption of their marriage,
and he had stood revealed--and Basil also--Basil, the dwarf beside the
giant. She could see how the lesser man had made what was, in the
circumstances, irresistible appeal to the imperious craving that must be
satisfied before the need of heart for sympathy and of mind for
comradeship could gain a hearing, the craving that in gaining its ends
will compel the imagination to play any necessary sorry trick upon the
intelligence. She could see this; and she could also see how sorry the
trick upon intelligence had been--how absurd was her dream of founding a
life-long content and happiness upon what Basil could give her and she
Basil.
"I'm sure," Helen was saying, "with a little management you could get
Richard back."
These words fell upon Courtney's ears just as into her mind again came
that scene between her and Richard at the laboratory--the childish, the
coarse taunts she had hurled at him, and how he had met them. She was
hot with the shame of it when Helen spoke. The suggestion that Richard
could be got back overwhelmed her with a crushing, stinging sense of how
in contempt he must hold her now. The red of her skin flamed up into
scarlet. "Don't speak of those things," she commanded harshly. Then,
instantly ashamed of this misdirected outburst of temper, she put on her
most careless, frivolous air--put it on well enough to deceive Helen.
"Let's talk trousseau," said she. "You haven't much time, you know.
June's very near."
But Helen was too curious about the trouble that had so abruptly changed
a friendship into hatred. "It must have been exciting--that quarrel
between them," she hinted encouragingly. "You were there, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"Tell me, Courtney."
"It cured my cold," said Courtney. "I'd been feeling queer in the nose
and eyes----"
"How _can_ you be so light!" exclaimed Helen. "Well--let's talk
trousseau." She felt that she had done her duty, that it was a waste of
time to try to induce Courtney to be serious-- "She _never_ will have
any sense of responsibility--or of the graver side of life." And with a
clear conscience she took up trousseau and thought and talked dress
steadily the rest of the afternoon, straight through until the supper
gong sounded. And she asked so many questions, so much minute advice
about every little detail that Courtney's attention could not wander.
At supper Courtney got a real pleasure from Helen's rapt, tenderly
smiling countenance--they could not talk before Lizzie as the engagement
was to be kept secret. Also, she got pleasure mingled with amusement out
of Helen's delightful swift assumption of the ways of a married woman,
and out of her immense satisfaction--as shown in a certain sweet and
loving condescension to Courtney--over Basil's superiority as a catch.
Helen was in fancy already married and installed in grandeur. But after
supper, when Helen went up to write her first love letter--(those to
Will Arbuthnot didn't count)--Courtney made no attempt to save herself
from the attack of the blues that had been threatening ever since she
calmed sufficiently to recall what she had said to Dick at the
laboratory. She sat at the piano playing softly. Helen's face was
haunting her--that expression telling of dreams she understood so
well--so well! Would Helen's dream fade too? Probably--yes,
certainly--for, the Helen sort of woman soon discouraged love in a man,
and the Basil sort of man looked askance at love as tainted of that
devil whom no one believed in any more yet everyone feared.
Fade--wither--die. And she herself--would she seek on and on, deceived
always by hopes and longings--as she had been twice already--the second
time worse deceived than the first----
Into her thoughts came an image of Richard. The image grew stronger.
Very gradually she realized that he was actually before her, was the
tall figure in the doorway of the sitting room----
"I didn't dare interrupt," he said. "It would have been like disturbing
a funeral."
"Not quite so bad as that," replied she with an attempt to smile.
Though her rose-bronze coloring enabled her to blush deeply without
detection, had the corner where she was sitting been less dim he must
have seen into what shamefaced confusion his coming threw her.
She went on playing; he seated himself at some distance from her to gaze
into the fire and smoke. She was on the grill of humiliating thoughts
about herself--what she had said and done that afternoon. She did not
lift her eyes until she had made sure by several furtive glances that
she could look at him in safety. She watched him--the cigarette
gracefully between the long first and second fingers of his hand of the
aristocrat and the artist--the poise of his curiously long head so well
proportioned--the long, sensitive, mobile features--that indescribable
look which proclaims at a glance the man of high intelligence--the man
of the finely organized nervous system. Then she observed that he was
in evening half dress--one more reason for his looking unusually
handsome and distinguished. But all the time she was seeing those two
expressions which had transformed him that afternoon--had transformed
him and had made her feel mean and poor beside him. A man who could be
such a wild hot blast of primeval passion; the man who could be stronger
than passion, even such passion--there was indeed a man! And what must
he think of her! "But no worse than I deserve."
To break the current of her own thoughts, she interrupted his with a
trivial "You are dressed this evening."
"Because I've come to call," he replied, rousing himself from his
reverie.
"I'll tell Helen."
"I want to talk to you--if you'll listen." She stopped the soft
wandering of her fingers over the keys. "No, go on playing, please."
She resumed. Now her eyes were on the keyboard, and she was having no
easy task of it finding the right keys and striking the right chords,
all the time conscious of his steady penetrating gaze. "It's nearing
the time you fixed for going East," he began.
She nodded slowly in time to the music. He was so seated that the piano
prevented his seeing any of her but her bare shoulders and graceful head
with its masses of auburn hair, against a background of palms and ferns.
"I'm glad the spring is so backward this year," she said; for, she had
learned not to fear his misunderstanding, if she spoke out her thoughts.
"If it were really spring with the grounds all in bloom and the windows
wide-- It makes me sad to think of that."
She had thought she might perhaps soften his contempt by reminding him
that there was another and a less repellant side to her character. But
as soon as the words were out, she wished she had not spoken; it was
useless to try to make him think well of her. He was probably
regretting that he had let her have Winchie. She looked appealingly
toward him, hoping he would speak--say anything--no matter what, so long
as it broke that silence of painful suspense. When she could endure it
no longer, she suddenly burst out: "You've come to ask me to leave at
once. You are right, I'll go as soon as I can pack."
"On the contrary," said he, eyes still intent upon the tall shafts of
flame leaping toward the cavernous blackness of the chimney. "I've come
to ask you not to go at all."
His tone was calm and self-controlled. It contained no suggestion of
ominous meaning; nor did his face.
"I--I don't understand," she ventured, nervously.
"I want to propose," explained he, in the same deliberate way, "that we
give each other another trial."
There was no mistaking his meaning. In the sudden reversal from all she
had been expecting and fearing, her thoughts became mere chaos. Hands
resting upon the keys, she sat silent, rigid--waiting.
He turned his chair, leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees. "Is
the idea--is it--distasteful to you?" he asked.
Carefully, with her tapering fingers she measured chords without
striking them. "Not _distasteful_," said she.
"You do not dislike me--now?"
"I never have, except for a few minutes now and then--when you said or
did tyrannical things." Painfully embarrassed, she was trying to regain
control of herself under cover of arranging the chiffon round the edge
of the bosom of her dress.
"Courtney, I'm a different man from what I was."
"Yes," she assented, without reserve. "Very different. But----"
"Don't, please," he said, before she could begin to explain. "When
you've heard my reasons for asking you to stay, you may think well of
them. If not, why you at least can refuse more intelligently. This
afternoon, when Gallatin was down at the laboratory making an ass of
himself, you whirled upon me with some very vivid reminders of what you
had been to him."
"I was insane with rage--not that it wasn't all true--only--I--it was--"
She hung her head--"Oh, I'm so ashamed!--so ashamed!" she cried.
"I'm glad you did," interrupted he, heartily. "You thought to infuriate
me. And you did, for a moment. Then--I was astonished to find myself
quite calm. Do you know why?"
"Yes. Because you care nothing about me."
"Because I care nothing about him. Because I know you've ceased to
think you care about him--care, you never did. Since I've come to my
senses, I've been getting acquainted with you. And I know you do not
and never did and never could love Basil Gallatin. That is, the woman
you are now--the only one that interests either of us--never did and
never could."