As ten o’clock came and then eleven, Wilmer found it more and more
difficult not to respond to her father’s fears.
“We shouldn’t have allowed him to go,” declared Howe.
“And yet,” answered the girl, “he’s the sort of man you feel to be
capable of going anywhere.”
“I don’t doubt his courage,” responded Howe. “But against a man of the
type of Childers he needs something more.”
“What do you mean, dad?”
“He needs to know his man. Childers has no code. If he couldn’t shoot
a man in front, he’d shoot him in the back. Such a chap has one idea
and only one--to get his man; by fair means, if convenient, by foul, if
necessary.”
“You don’t think Childers means to--to get him?”
“I don’t know anything about it. Apparently the fellow is infatuated
with Roxie. If that is so, he’ll resent any interference--particularly
on the part of a stranger. I ought to have known better than to let
him start.”
“I doubt if you could have prevented it, dad,” answered the girl.
“It was my duty--as host.”
Wilmer turned back to her book--a Galsworthy novel. That seemed to be
about as far as she could get in it to-night--just to turn back to it
again and again. The pages in which ordinarily she was able to lose
herself were just so many white pieces of paper covered with print.
They were very white and symmetrical and the print very black and
even, making so many parallel lines from side to side. But there was a
certain monotony to literature in this form. It seemed scarcely worth
while to turn the leaves.
In the two weeks Wilmer had been living in daily contact with
Allston--a more sustained contact than she had ever experienced with
any man of her own age--she had developed a very real interest in him.
Her life for the last five years, since the death of her mother, had
been largely devoted to her father. By nature quiet and reflective,
she had found this sphere adequate enough on the whole to satisfy
her, and where it did not she was able to piece it out with her
books. She read a great deal and intelligently without, however, any
especial objective. She preferred, generally speaking, books with an
analytical turn and modern rather than classic--James and Meredith,
and the younger school of British novelists with their intense if
somewhat vague passion for the super-critical and radical approach to
present-day problems. And yet the net result of their influence was
to leave her rather more conservative than before. She was willing
enough to believe these young observers, but the effect of this was to
cultivate in her a rather cynical distaste for actual contact with the
life they described--particularly on its emotional side. And so, though
her home in New Orleans still remained, through her social connections,
a gathering-place for a group of young men and women, they came and
went marking only so many pleasant inconsequential incidents of a
season. There were several young fellows who, it is true, pressed their
attentions upon her a little more eagerly than others, but her retreat
at the beginning of each summer to this mountain fastness always
discouraged them. They preferred to follow the pretty faces which led
to the gayer resorts.
And yet Wilmer Howe was not without her attractions. As far as physical
beauty goes she possessed a piquant charm of her own. She had as
pretty a face as any of those who had pretty faces and not much else.
Her brown eyes were like placid pools reflecting autumn foliage--the
deep pools one finds in shaded places. Her mouth and nose and chin
were modeled as a careful and sensitive artist might model them. If
they were not as quickly responsive as the features of some of her
friends, they perhaps inspired more confidence when they did respond.
It meant something to rouse Wilmer Howe either to laughter or tears.
Few had accomplished either, though many had made her smile and a few
claimed to have seen her eyes dimmed. A handsome good-for-nothing from
Georgia--later killed at Château-Thierry--had done more than that, but
he never spoke of it. He kept it, to the end, a grave secret.
Allston was the first man ever presented to her without a
well-filled-in background. He had done his best, since, to supply the
deficiency by casual mention of his mother and father and sister, even
a few aunts and cousins for good measure, and an incidental reference
to the ancestor who settled on the James. She never questioned
any of his statements--except her father she had never met a more
straightforward man or one whose ordinary speech she was so ready to
accept at its full face value--but these people to whom he referred
remained nothing more than shadows. They lacked all the sidelights that
mutual friends throw upon such a group.
Not that she minded particularly. In a way it was rather refreshing. It
left her free--utterly free--to discover the man for herself. Here he
was, undeniably prepossessing, straight and tall, clear of eye, thin
of face, bearing a faint resemblance physically and superficially to
the lean mountain folk hereabouts. But he and they had chosen different
roads a hundred years ago--perhaps a thousand years ago. A passing
glance told her all she needed to know of a man like Bud Childers. A
decade might never fully reveal a man like Allston.
And yet, at times, she felt as though she had made wonderful progress
in even this brief period of two weeks. She had come to like him. She
had come to trust him. She had come to wait for him. And now to-night
she had come to worry about him.
That, on the whole, was a bit absurd. She recognized as much herself.
It rather vexed her. Of course her anxiety could be justified on
general humanitarian grounds. She was not so cold-blooded but that
any man in danger roused her sympathies. And this man was her guest.
Moreover, she was indirectly responsible for having placed him in his
present hazardous position. Clearly, then, there was nothing unnatural
in the fact of her being more or less disturbed when he was two hours
late.
More or less--upon the nice balance of those two words hung the fine
distinction of whether her present agitation was normal or abnormal.
A little more in one scale, a little less in the other, makes all the
difference in the world. The trouble was that with her it was one
moment a little more and the next a little less. The scales refused to
remain stationary.
And her friend Galsworthy did not help her in the slightest. Rightfully
he should have bade her shrug her shoulders and go on with him. He
should have said, in effect:
“Be sensible. This man is not anything in particular to you, and even
if he is your guest there is nothing you can do to relieve his plight.
He is only a figure in real life and you know you are not greatly
concerned about such. They are merely shadows. Come with me and I will
show you the substance--men who are men. I will reveal to you the raw,
crude inwardness of men. You will be wiser--and safer.”
But he failed her. To be sure, she refused to listen, but the fault
still remained his. The function of the artist is to command attention.
At quarter past eleven she put down her book and moved restlessly about
the room. Covertly her father watched her. There was an expression
on her face he had never seen since she was a little girl--frank,
unrestrained fear.
“There’s a full moon and the chances are he is enjoying it,” the father
suggested.
She brushed aside the curtains and looked out. The grass was a stagy
green; the trees like the trees of Maeterlinck. The driveway leading to
the road was as clear as by daylight.
“The moon is full,” she nodded. “That makes it easy to see.”
But if it made it easy for Allston to see, it made it easy for
Childers. One had the choice of getting comfort or added fear from that.
“Of course he may have strayed from the road,” said Howe.
“It is possible, but not probable,” decided Wilmer.
“Why do you say that?”
“He has told me about his night patrols in France.”
“He had his maps and his instructions to help him there.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “That’s true.”
“Then--”
But at that moment Wilmer caught sight of a figure in the roadway. Only
the slightest quickening of the movement of her nostrils revealed the
jump her heart gave. She drew back a little so as not to be seen. Then
she waited perhaps two breaths before saying:
“Here he comes now.”
She recrossed the room to the table, resumed her seat, and picked
up her book. It was here Allston saw her when he came in. Howe had
hurried to the door.
“Welcome back,” the latter greeted the younger man heartily. “You gave
us all a scare.”
“I’m sorry. The night was so wonderful I took my time.”
Wilmer looked up from her book with a smile. His presence was enough to
throw her back into her usual calm. Her fears of a moment ago honestly
now appeared ludicrous.
“You didn’t meet with any adventures, then?”
“But I did,” Allston smiled back. “I was the hero of a real bit of
melodrama.”
He sat down crossing his long legs comfortably.
Howe appeared concerned.
“You didn’t meet Childers?”
“In full force,” admitted Allston.
Then lightly and entertainingly he told the whole story. And yet not
the whole story. As he talked, somehow Roxie did not stand out as
prominently in his narrative as actually she did in the picture the
episode had left in his own mind. Rather deliberately he was slightly
reticent about some details--insignificant enough in themselves--which
had registered with unusual vividness in his own mind. He did this
partly as a matter of personal taste and partly out of respectful
deference to Roxie herself. He considered certain moments in the nature
of private and confidential communications: for example, those few
seconds after Bud’s departure when Roxie, in gratitude, had stood there
so silently in the moonlight, her face uplifted to his. He was sure she
had been moved by nothing but girlish gratitude and had no conception
of the astonishingly dramatic picture she made. Yet he never mentioned
the incident. His conclusion from this point on was matter-of-fact
enough.
“So I took her to the house and then came home--striking into the woods
instead of keeping to the road.”
“You were wise in that,” said Howe.
“The trouble was I discovered my gun was empty,” laughed Allston. “The
last time I used it I popped away at some squirrels on the road. I’d
already wasted the one shell I had on Bud and I was afraid a second
bluff might not work.”
“Good Lord!” gasped Howe. “Bluff _is_ a dangerous game to play against
that kind of man. You don’t realize how recklessly they kill. They
never reckon consequences.”
“Well,” said Allston, willing enough to forget the whole affair, “here
I am back again, at any rate. I’m sorry if I’ve kept you up.”
Wilmer rose.
“You must be tired after your long tramp. You’ll let me make you a cup
of coffee?”
“Please don’t trouble,” he pleaded.
No one had noticed the slight, tired-looking figure who had suddenly
appeared at the door leading from the kitchen. Her cheeks were flushed
after the stumbling journey she had taken at a run as long as her
breath held out. Her hair was awry and her face stained where she had
wiped away the perspiration with an earth-soiled hand. Below her eyes
were other streaks--channels made by tears forced from her, not by
maudlin grief, but sheer elemental anger because her feet would not
carry her faster; the helpless rage of one baffled in an overwhelming
effort.
“Roxie!” exclaimed Wilmer as she caught sight of the girl.
“Please, I’ll git him his coffee,” she panted.