“Tell you what, old man,” said he, rather apologetically. “I'm all out
of sorts. Guess I need the outside air. You don't mind, do you?”
“Yes,” I replied, with a ring in my voice that was surprising even to
myself. “I do mind. I've got something to say to you.”
“Don't talk about that,” said he, and walked to the open window, with
his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
“But I will talk about it, Crocker. It is what I came here to talk
about. And I propose to make you talk about it, also.”
He offered no reply; just stood there, staring out the window. I went
on. I don't know now where the words were coming from that rushed so
unexpectedly to my lips; but I knew, as I uttered them, that before
either of us should leave that room he would be taking me seriously.
“There is a woman over yonder, in the Hôtel de Chine,” I said “From your
own confession to me, you have followed her here to kill her. There is
nobody but me to talk to you, but you are not going to dispose of me
so easily. This thing is going to be settled. It is going to be settled
to-day--and without any killing, We are not living in that sort of an
age, Crocker. Not quite.”
“What do you mean--settled?” he muttered, without turning.
“Settled. Just that. And there won't be any murder. You and I are going
to arrange terms of separation between Heloise and yourself. Then you
are going home. You will leave this city before night. You may go either
way--Tientsin or Hankow; it is the same to me. But you've got to go....
Will you please sit down here and try to discuss this thing like a
rational man?”
Now he did turn.
“I suppose you think you can talk to me like this,” he said, with
something of a sneer.
“I think just that,” I replied. “Sit down, please. We shall see if I can
drive a little sense into that fuddled mind of yours.”
I stood there waiting. He did not move, except, it seemed to me, to
square his shoulders. And there was the same set to his chin that I had
noted a few moments earlier, when he was drinking.
“I'm standing a good deal from you, Eckhart,” he said. “But after all,
I've got nothing against you. You can't be expected to understand these
things.” This evidently struck him as a happy idea, and he repeated it:
“You can't be expected to understand these things.”
Suddenly he frowned. “How'd you know her name was Heloise?” he asked.
“How did I know?” I repeated. “I will tell you how. I will tell you
much that you yourself do not understand.” My voice was rising. I had
to struggle to control myself. But I knew that I must, for it was not
myself I was fighting for now. “We will not waste words, you and I. We
are past that, Crocker--far past it, if you only knew. I have seen”--the
words “your wife” had come to my tongue, but I could not say them; it
was a profanation even to think of that fine woman as “his”--“I have
seen Heloise. I have come to know her. I have seen how sad she is, and
what a struggle she has been making to begin doing something with her
life. For she has been alone, Crocker--”
“Alone?”
“Yes. She did not stay with that other man. She could not. And she has
been struggling all alone.” I fought back the emotion that was breaking
into my voice. “I know you both now, Crocker--pretty well. And knowing
you both, I can see, oh, so clearly, that she could never, never be
happy with a man like you. She has ability, she has spirit, she has what
they call temperament. She is an artist. And do you not know, man, that
the artist must always be struggling toward expression, that his whole
life is nothing but that struggling? You can not make a domestic drudge
of such a woman. Of some women--yes. But not of the artist. You tried
to do just that. You chose the woman who was beautiful to your eyes, and
whose spirit made her most desirable, and then you tried to crush that
spirit. I have no doubt she tried to submit, that she fought her own
finest qualities, for years, in the hopeless effort to make of herself
what you demanded. And then she broke--all helpless, all dependent on
you as she was--and risked everything to get away from you because it
was worse than death to her to be with you. And now you hound her around
the world like the savage beast that you are.... Good God, man, can't
you see that she was _right_ in leaving you! Can't you see that it was
the finest, bravest thing she could have done!”
I stood, strung up, all blazing with the fire that was in me. I knew I
had broken bounds. I thought that now, surely, he would turn on me and
fight me; and I did not care. I even thought wildly of settling it all
with him then and there, with blows, as men do. For I had the fire
and the will within me; while he, with all his height and strength and
native vigor, was palsied with that poison that eats away a man's will
and leaves but a shell of bluster.
But instead of anger on his face, as I stared into it, I saw only
bewilderment. He seemed to be groping after the ends of a new concept,
with a mind that had lost something of its power to grasp new concepts.
“Good Lord,” he said then, “you're talking as if you were in love with
her yourself.”
I nodded at him, breathless and deeply solemn. “I am,” I said. “I love
Heloise, and I shall love her with all my heart until I die.”
Perhaps I was guilty of a tactical blunder in giving him this
information. He was so evidently not himself that he should have been
handled with tact and not further confused. As it stood, I had laid the
train of a profounder confusion than I could possibly have foreseen. But
I had to say it.
He was still groping to comprehend this amazing thought.
“I don't get you,” he said. He was not looking at me now, and seemed
to be talking more to himself than to me. “You have n't known her--it's
only a few days--”
“It is nearly two weeks.”
“But you don't mean”--he fell to walking about the room, and I followed
him with my eyes--“you don't mean to say--”
He stopped short, and pondered. Then he turned toward me; and it seemed
to me he appeared more like his normal self than at any time since I had
entered the room.
“So you 're talking for yourself,” he observed, coldly.
“No,” I replied, “I am not.”
“But you tell me you love her--”
“That does not stand in the way of my doing precisely what I insist that
you shall do--give her up.”
“That's easy to say, Eckhart.”
“It is not easy to do, Crocker. But Heloise must go to Europe, and take
up her study. Her gifts, her hopes, all lead her straight toward opera.
Neither you nor I has the right to stop her. It is the instinct for
expression, nothing else. You have followed that instinct freely in your
own life and work. I have followed it freely in mine. Now let her do the
same. Work--the sort of work that will give scope to his own peculiar
sort of energy--is what every human being needs. It is, above all, what
Heloise needs. It will be her salvation, if anything will. Can't you get
that into your head? She doesn't need any application of the punitive
frenzy that we men call justice. She does n't need the easy moralizing
of men like you--and me. She needs _work!_... As regards my giving her
up--she goes to Paris; I stay here in China for at least two years. If
you can think of any way in which I can put more miles than that between
us, tell me, and I'll promptly give up my own plans and do it.” And I
snapped my finger.
Some of my phrases were over his head, I suppose. But he came back at me
with a good deal of vigor, ignoring my intense mood:--
“You tell me you love her,” he said; “and you talk about giving her up.
You don't mean to say that you think she is in love with you?”
This sobered me--suddenly. I felt my eyes drop, and the hot color coming
back into my face.
The talk was turning on me in a way I had not precisely foreseen. But
after all--it was only fair. Certainly I had shown no hesitation at
exposing his hurt places. So I raised my eyes and looked squarely at
him, knowing that, though it would be torture, I should tell him the
truth as I had been coming to see it during these morning hours.