DECISION
The light on the porch was dim, and as Elice Gleason, answering the ring,
opened the outer door she stared as one who sees unbelievable things. For
a moment she did not utter a sound, merely stood there gazing at the
visitor with a look that was only partially credulous; in sudden
weakness, oddly unlike her normal composure, she covered her face with
her hands.
"Elice!" Unbidden, the man came wholly within. "A thousand pardons for
startling you. I should have let you know--'phoned at least. I--pardon
me, please."
With an effort the girl removed her hands, but Darley Roberts saw she was
still trembling.
"No need to apologize." She closed the door mechanically. "You did
surprise me, it's true; but that wasn't the trouble really. I've been
expecting something to happen all day, something that hasn't happened
yet, and when you rang I fancied--" She laughed, as though the
inadequate explanation were complete and withal a thing of trivial
moment. "You remember once I told you I believed, after all, you had
nerves. I'm making the tardy discovery that I've got them myself."
In his turn Roberts smiled and ignored the obvious. He seldom
anticipated, this man.
"Yes, we all have them, I guess," he dismissed, "along with an appendix
and a few other superfluous items." He was still standing just within the
doorway. "First of all, though, I don't intrude? Harry Randall told me
about your father."
"He's been much better to-day, and he's asleep this evening already." In
swift reaction the girl was herself again, more than her recent self,
positively gay. "Intrude!" she laughed softly. "You're actually becoming
humorous; and as you would say, your dearest enemies have never accused
you of that before. Come."
Between genteel poverty and absolute poverty there are distinguishing
signs and Darley Roberts observed all things; but not once from his point
of vantage in the den he recalled so well did he seem to take
observations--any more than he seemed to see the alteration, likewise
unmistakable, in the girl herself.
"It seems as though it were only yesterday instead of--I don't like to
think how many ages ago, I was here last," he commented as he relaxed in
familiar comfort. "If you just had one of those linen things you used to
work on, and--"
The ball of white, like a crumpled handkerchief, which had been lying
idle in the girl's lap was unrolled and, before the speaker's eyes, there
appeared against the colorless background a clover with four leaves.
"Elice!" It was unfeigned surprise. "Is this another regiment or are you
still working on that last one yet?"
The girl sorted her silks in demure impassivity.
"Another regiment entirely--or is it an army? I've forgotten how many
comprise a regiment." She went to work with steady fingers. "These lunch
cloths of mine are becoming as staple as soap or quinine."
Roberts watched as the needle went through and through, but he did not
smile. He could not.
"Another regiment! Then I haven't really been sleeping," he said. "For a
moment when that four-leafed clover showed--By the way, do you happen to
recall what day of the month this is?"
"Yes." The girl's eyes did not leave her work. "I remembered it the first
thing when I got up this morning."
"You remembered? And still you were surprised when I came. Didn't you
think I'd remember too?"
"I didn't doubt it."
"And come to commemorate the date, December the sixth?"
"Commemorate, yes. Come? I didn't know. I hoped--until it grew dark;
then--one loses certainty alone after dark."
"It wasn't that which you had expected all day to happen, though," said
Roberts, evenly.
The girl did not dissimulate.
"No," she said simply.
One step nearer had they approached the mystery, one step only, but the
man came no further--then.
"And weren't you going to commemorate it yourself, since you remembered?"
he digressed.
"Yes, I have done so. I've been celebrating all day. I haven't washed a
dish; they're all stacked out in the kitchen. And this--" she stood up
deliberately and turned about that the other might see--"is my party
gown, worn in honor of the occasion." She returned to her place and
again the needle passed methodically in and out of the linen. "Are you
satisfied?"
"Satisfied!" It was the rebellious cry of a dominant thing trapped and
suffering. "Satisfied!" By pure force of will he held back the flood.
"Elice, won't you please put up that work--for to-night? It's--ghastly."
As though paralyzed, the white hands paused, for half a minute lay idle.
Without comment she obeyed.
"You know what I mean," said the man. "It makes me irresponsible. I want
to throttle the something somewhere to blame."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. If I had expected for an
instant--"
"Don't, please!" It was supplication from one accustomed to command.
"Talk about human beings being pawns in the game or straws before the
whirlwind!" Again the curt repression by pure force of will, and the
inevitable pause with the digression complete following. "I haven't heard
your report of yourself yet, Elice. It's due me, overdue. I promised you
not to write, and kept my word, you know."
The girl looked at him with eyes that tried to smile.
"Ask me anything else and I'll answer," she said. "This I can't answer,
because there's nothing to be said. I've merely been waiting."
"As you were to-night, when I startled you?"
The girl's lips tightened, but they relaxed. She was in command now.
"Yes," she said.
It was the second step; and for the second time the man approached no
nearer--then.
"Won't you let me ask you questions instead," countered the girl, "as a
favor?"
"Certainly, if you prefer."
"'If I prefer.'" She mouthed the words deliberately. "Very well, then.
What have you been doing since I saw you last?"
Roberts gave her an odd look.
"Getting older mostly," he said.
"I might have chronicled that fact myself," echoed the girl.
"Very fast," added the man, evenly. "Did you notice my hair?"
"It is grayer--a bit," reluctantly.
"Grayer!" Roberts laughed. "I made a microscopical examination recently
for one hair of the original color to preserve as a relic. It was too
late. Do you care to volunteer in the search?"
The girl ignored the invitation.
"What else did you do?" she asked.
"Worked some." Roberts held up his great hands, calloused heavily over
the palms. "I've learned several things by actual experience: drilling,
dynamiting, sharpening steel, mucking ore, assaying--everything."
"And what else?" relentlessly.
"Prospected a little. Ran out of provisions and went two days without a
bite to eat. Returned to find a strike on at the mine--and the strikers
in possession." He halted reminiscently. "I knocked a man down that day:
the leader. He dared me and there were a dozen others backing him up. It
was him or me and it couldn't be avoided. In the affair I hurt my hand;
while it was healing I went to 'Frisco and took in the theatres." He held
up the member indicated, reversed this time for inspection. A white
jagged scar ran diagonally over the knuckles. "It's entirely well now."
The girl caught her breath. No query this time.
The hand returned idly to the man's lap. He looked away.
"It's a rough life out there," he resumed evenly, "wild and primitive;
but it's fascinating in a way. Besides, it's one of the things I wanted
to know. I think I do know it. I don't believe any one could fool me on a
mine now."
Elice Gleason looked at him steadily, until perforce he returned her
gaze.
"Granted," she admitted steadily; "but is it worth while?"
"Worth while? How do I know--or any one. It's necessary for some one to
know. It's part of the big game. Farther than that--My hair is all gray
now--and I don't know."
His companion looked away, with a little gesture of impatience.
"Last of all, the mine itself?" she suggested.
Roberts hesitated, his face inscrutable as a book closed.
"If I knew what you wanted to know," he said at last, "I'd tell you; but
I don't. It's fabulous, if that answers your question. It's like
Aladdin's lamp: there's nothing material on the face of the earth it
won't give for the asking. It's producing enough now daily to keep a sane
man a year. It's power infinite for good or evil, and creating more power
day by day." He halted, then unconsciously repeated himself. "Yes, power
infinite, neither more nor less."
There was a long silence before his companion spoke.
"And power, you said once, was the thing you wanted most. You have it at
last."
"Yes, I have it at last, that's true. I can command the services of a
thousand men, to work for me or amuse me; or for another if I direct. I
can pass current anywhere at any time, and make any one I care to name
pass current with me. The master key is in my possession tight. I can
choose my tools for whatever I wish done from a multitude. The material
is limitless, for I can pay. Besides, as I said before, this power is
increasing inevitably, whether I'm asleep or awake, growing by its own
momentum. I have it at last, yes; but it neither is nor ever was what I
wanted most, Elice. I said I wanted it, you're right; but I never said I
wanted it most. You know what I want most in the world, Elice."
Listening, Elice Gleason folded her hands tight, until the blood left the
fingers.
"Yes, I know," she said steadily. "We understand each other; it's useless
to pretend otherwise. I've tried, and you've seen through the disguise
and smiled. It's simply useless." The clasped hands opened in a gesture
of dismissal. "But don't let's speak of it now. I want to hear your plans
for the future. What are you going to do now that you have--power?"
"Do?" Roberts looked at her steadily. "That depends upon one condition
absolutely. It's superfluous for me to name that one."
The girl flashed him a look from eyes unnaturally bright.
"Please," she pleaded, "leave it alone for a time. You have two courses
outlined, an option. It would be unlike you otherwise. What are those
two?"
"I didn't mean to be insistent, Elice," said Roberts, gently. "Take my
word for it, I shan't be again, whatever you decide. Yes; I see two ways
ahead. In one, work will be secondary, another's happiness first, always
first. In the other, I shall work--to forget. The incentive of the game
itself is gone. I've won the game. But there is no other way to forget
and retain self-respect; so I shall work--to the end."
"And you must decide soon?"
"Yes, at once. I can't remain longer in uncertainty. Nothing is so bad as
that. It's like a bungling execution: infinitely better for all concerned
to be complete. To-morrow I take up the trail one way or the other."
Opposite, the girl caught her breath for an instant; but though the other
saw he said nothing. He had promised he would not.
"You'll leave then to-morrow, if--" That was all.
"Yes."
"And never come back, never?"
"Not unless I am sent for. Life is short and holds enough pain at best. I
have several projects in mind, and I shall be free to follow them where
they lead. I'll go to Mexico first. They've barely scratched the
resources down there. Later I go to South America. Afterward--I haven't
planned. I'll simply follow the lead. There's work enough to do."
The girl looked at him--through eyes that held their old marvel, almost
their old fear.
"You can cut yourself off so, from all the old life, really?" she
voiced.
"Yes, Elice."
It was finality absolute, the last word, the ultimatum.
"And still you love me?" breathed the girl low.
"More than I love life. You don't doubt it."
From her seat the girl arose abruptly and passed the length of the room
with long, unconscious strides, like a man. She made no effort at
dissimulation or concealment now. The time for that was past. She merely
fought--openly, but in silence. Once she sat down for a moment; but for a
moment only. Again she was on her feet. A bit later she asked the time,
and very quietly Roberts told her. She went to the window in the front of
the house commanding the street and scrutinized its length. She returned
and resumed her seat.
"Can I help you in any way, Elice?" asked Roberts, gently.
The girl shook her head.
"No," she said steadily. "No one can help me. I can't even help myself.
That's the curse of it. There's nothing to do but wait." The folded hands
changed position one above the other, and after a moment returned as
before. "Do you understand?" she queried without preface.
An instant Roberts hesitated, but an instant only.
"Yes, I think so. You intimated you were expecting some one to come."
"Something to happen," substituted the girl.
"It's all the same," evenly.
Silence followed for a space while they sat there so; breaking it, the
girl looked at the other directly.
"I have refused him definitely," she said, without consciousness of the
seeming ambiguity of the remark. "I did so last night."
"Yes," very low; and that was all.
The girl drew a long breath, like one preparing for the unknown.
"I could see no other way of finding out for sure. Like yourself, nothing
seemed to me so bad as uncertainty."
"Yes," once more; just "yes."
"He sat just where you are sitting now; and when I told him he laughed."
A second the brown eyes dropped, then in infinite pathos they returned to
the listener's face. "You know how he laughs when he's irresponsible. It
was horrible."
"I know," echoed Roberts. "I've heard it."
"And then he went away. I sent him away. I couldn't stand any more then.
It seemed to me I'd go mad if I tried."
Although the room was warm, the girl was shivering; rising, Roberts lit
the gas in the grate. But he said nothing, absolutely nothing.
Through wide-open eyes the girl watched him as he returned to his seat.
Involuntarily she threw out both arms in a gesture of impotency
absolute.
"That's all," she completed, "except that I told him to return--if he
felt he must. I've been expecting him every minute all day; anticipating
horrors. But I haven't heard a word."
It was the mystery at last, impersonate. Like a live presence it stood
there between these two human beings in the room, holding them apart, and
each in his separate place.
Not for a moment but for minutes this time they sat in silence. Neither
thought of speaking commonplaces now, nor again of things intimate. The
period for these was past; the present too compellingly vital. What the
man was thinking he did not say nor reveal by so much as an expression.
He had given his word not to do so; and with Darley Roberts a promise was
sacred. A question he did ask, though, at last.
"Wouldn't you like me to go and find out for certain, Elice?" he
suggested. "I'll do so if you wish."
"No." It was almost a plea. "We'll find out soon, very soon, I'm
positive. I'll know whatever he does. He's certain to tell me; and I
wish you here if he comes. Besides, neither of us could do anything
whatever to alter the inevitable, even if we tried. We must simply wait;
it can't be much longer now."
Once more there was a long silence, ghastly in its dragging moments, and
again broken by the man.
"I shan't trouble you to go through the argument again, Elice," he said,
"or attempt to alter your decision, whatever it may be. I can't presume
to judge another's soul. But, merely to know for certain: you've decided
positively to marry him, if--" The sentence ended in silence and a
gesture.
His companion did not answer, appeared almost not to hear.
"Tell me, please," repeated the man gently. "You may as well. It won't
hurt either of us any more for you to say it--if you've so decided."
"Yes," answered the girl this time. "I've tried and tried to find an
escape; but there is none." She passed her hand over her throat as though
the words choked her, but her voice was now steady. "His blood would be
upon my head, always, if I could prevent and still let him go--down. God
help you and me both, but I can't do otherwise!"
A moment longer Roberts sat still--fixedly still; he stood up, his great
hands clenched until they were as white as the scar itself.
"I think I'd better go now," he said, "before Armstrong comes." The great
shoulders of him were swelling and receding visibly with each breath. "I
don't know, of course; but I fear to go passive and unresisting to the
stake myself, and to remain passive and unresisting when I saw the same
fire that was to be my fate touching you, scorching you slowly to
death--and for a fault that was neither of your making nor mine, for
which we are in no respect responsible--I'm afraid that is beyond me,
Elice. I'd better go at once, before he comes."
"No." The girl, too, was on her feet facing him. "Please don't. You don't
really mean what you just said."
"Don't I? You believe in miracles. I'm human and I'd throttle him if he
came while I was here--and came as he came once before!"
"Stop! in pity. If it does happen he'll not be to blame; it will be
because he can't help it. You're big and strong and he'll need you as
well as me. Wait."
The man drew back a step, but his great jaw was set immovably.
"You can't realize what you're asking," he said. "Remember my conviction
is not your conviction. I still believe that two predominate over one and
that nature's law comes first. I'll go because it is your decision and
final; but I can't change elemental things at command. Don't ask it or
expect it, because it is impossible."
"It's not impossible, though," desperately. "Nothing is impossible with
you."
Roberts' great head shook a negative.
"This is. I can't discuss it longer. Good-bye, Elice."
The girl's brown eyes followed him as, decisively now, he prepared to
leave, and in hopeless, abject misery. She spoke one word.
"Darley," she said.
The listener halted, motionless as a figure in clay.
"Darley," repeated the girl; and again that was all.
"'Darley!'" It was the man's voice this time, but it sounded as though
coming from a distance. "'Darley!' At last!--and now!"
"Darley," yet once again, "as I love you and you love me don't--desert me
now!"
On the room fell a silence like death,--to those two actors worse than
death; for it held thought infinite and complete realization at last of
what might have been and was not; of what as well, unless a miracle
intervened, could never be. In it they stood, each where he was, two
figures in clay instead of one. Interrupting, awakening, torturing,
sounded the thing they had so long expected; the impact of a step upon
the floor of the porch without; a moment later another, uncertain, and
another; a pause, and then, startlingly loud, the trill of an electric
bell.
For an instant neither stirred. It was the expected; and still there is a
limit to human endurance. The girl was trembling, in a nervous tension
too great to bear longer. An effort indeed she made at control; but it
was a pitiful effort and futile. In surrender absolute, abandon absolute,
she dropped back into her seat, her arms crossed pathetically on the
surface of the library table, her face buried from sight therein.
"Answer it, please," she pleaded. "I can't. I'm ashamed, unutterably; but
I can't!"
Again the alarm of the bell sounded; curtly short this time and
insistent.
Without a word or even a pause Darley Roberts obeyed. As he passed out he
closed the door carefully behind him.
Five minutes that seemed to the girl a lifetime dragged by. Listening,
she heard the opening of the front door, the murmur of low, speaking
voices,--a murmur ceasing as abruptly as it began; then, wonder of
wonders, the door closed again with a snap and a retreating step sounded
once, twice, as when it had come, on the floor of the porch. Following,
she marked the even footfall of Roberts returning. The electric switch
that he had turned on snapped back as he had found it, the intervening
door opened, and he entered. But, strange to say, he did not pause or say
a word. As one awakening from a dream and not yet wholly conscious, he
returned silently to his former place. On his face was a look she had
never seen before, which she could not fathom.
"Darley." Unbelieving the girl leaned toward him appealingly. "Tell me.
Wasn't it--he?"
The man looked at her then, and there was that in his gray eyes that
tinged her face crimson.
"No. It was Harry Randall," he said. "It's all right, Elice. The miracle
came."
"The miracle!" The voice was uncertain again, but from a far different
cause this time. "Don't keep me waiting. Tell me. Is he--well?"
This time Roberts actually smiled,--smiled as he had not done before in
months.
"Yes; and writing like mad! That's the miracle. He's been at it steady
now for twenty hours, and won't even pause to eat. He sent for Harry to
deliver the message. It's inspiration he's working under and he couldn't
stop to come himself, wouldn't. He said to tell you, and me, that it was
all right. He'd found himself at last. Those were his words,--he'd found
himself at last." As suddenly as it had come the smile passed, and
Roberts stood up, his big hands locked behind his back.
"We've thought we understood him all these years," he said steadily, "but
at last I realize that we haven't at all. It would be humorous if it
hadn't been so near to tragedy, so very near. Anyway, it's clear now.
Harry Randall sees it too. That's why he wouldn't stay. Steve Armstrong
never cared for you really at all, Elice. He thought he did--but he
didn't. It was himself he cared for; and a fancy. Neither you nor I nor
any one can change him or help him more than temporarily. We're free.
He'll stand or go under as it was written in the beginning." The voice
lowered until it throbbed with the conviction that was in the speaker's
soul. "No man alive who really cared could find inspiration where he
found it. The world is before us and we're free, Elice, free!"
Unconsciously, in answer to an instinct she obeyed without reason, the
girl too arose, an exaltation in her face no artist could reproduce nor
words describe.
"Yes," she said. "I see it all too at last. We've all been blind." She
caught her breath at the thought that would intrude, force it back as she
would. "And still we came so near, so very, very near--"
"Yes; but it's past." The man opposite was advancing. Not the impassive,
cold Darley Roberts the world knew, but the other Darley Roberts revealed
to one alone; the isolate human alone and lonely. "But it's past, past,
do you hear? And to-day is December the sixth, our anniversary--ours." He
halted, waiting. He smiled, with a tenderness infinite. "Is it 'Darley'
still, Elice? Won't you come and say it again?"
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not
in the middle of a paragraph.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as
printed, along with the author's punctuation style, except as
noted below [the correction is enclosed in brackets]. Minor
punctuation errors have been corrected without note.
Pg. 169: the old man re-repeated [repeated]
The following words have been found in both hyphenated and
unhyphenated form in the original text: top-coat (topcoat),
up-stairs (upstairs), near-by (nearby), house-warming (housewarming).
Their original hyphenation has been preserved.