An Unusual Plan of Action Is Matured
He was awakened by the unaccustomed silence. As he lay with his eyes
open, his first thought was that all things had stopped--the world had
come to its end. Then remembrance came, and he stretched in lazy
enjoyment of the stillness and the soft feather bed upon which he had
slept. Finding himself too wide awake for more sleep, he went over to
the little gable window and looked out. The unfermented wine of another
spring day came to his eager nostrils. The little ball had made another
turn. Its cheek was coming once more into the light. Already the east
was flushing with a wondrous vague pink. The little animals in the city
over there, he thought, would soon be tumbling out of their beds to
begin another of their funny, serious days of trial and failure; to
make ready for another night of forgetfulness, when their absurd little
ant-hill should turn again away from the big blazing star. He sat a
long time at the window, looking out to the east, where the light was
showing; meditating on many idle, little matters, but conscious all the
time of great power within himself.
He felt ready now for any conflict. The need for some great immediate
action pressed upon him. He did not identify it. Something he must
do--he must have action--and that at once. He was glad to think how
Uncle Peter would begin to rejoice in him--secretly at first, and then
to praise him. He was equal to any work. He could not begin it quickly
enough. That queer need to do something at once was still pressing,
still unidentified.
By five he was down-stairs. The girl, fresh as a dew-sprayed rose in
the garden outside, brought him breakfast of fruit, bacon and eggs,
coffee and waffles. He ate with relish, delighting meantime in the
girl's florid freshness, and even in the assertive, triumphant whistle
of the youth busy at his tasks outside.
When he set out he meant to reach the car and go back to town at once.
Yet when he came to the road over which he had loitered the day before,
he turned off upon it with slower steps. There was a confusing whirl of
ideas in his brain, a chaos that required all his energy to feed it, so
that the spring went from his step.
Then all at once, a new-born world cohered out of the nebula, and the
sight of its measured, orderly whirling dazed him. He had been seized
with a wish--almost an intention, so stunning in its audacity that he
all but reeled under the shock. It seemed to him that the thing must
have been germinated in his mind without his knowledge; it had lain
there, gathering force while he rested, now to burst forth and dazzle
him with its shine. All that undimmed freshness of longing he had felt
the day before-all the unnamed, unidentified, nameless desires--had
flooded back upon him, but now no longer aimless. They were acutely
definite. He wanted Avice Milbrey,--wanted her with an intensity as
unreasoning as it was resistless. This was the new world he had watched
swimming out of the chaos in his mind, taking its allotted orbit in a
planetary system of possible, rational, matter-of-course proceedings.
And Avice Milbrey was to marry Shepler, the triumphant money-king.
He sat down by the roadside, well-nigh helpless, surrendering all his
forces to the want.
Then there came upon him to reinforce this want a burning sense of
defeat. He remembered Uncle Peter's first warnings in the mine about
"cupboard love;" the gossip of Higbee: "If you were broke, she'd have
about as much use for you--" all the talk he had listened to so long
about marriage for money; and, at the last, Shepler's words to Uncle
Peter: "I was uncertain until copper went to 51." Those were three wise
old men who had talked, men who knew something of women and much of the
world. And they were so irritating in their certainty. What a fine play
to fool them all!
The sense of defeat burned into him more deeply. He had been vanquished,
cheated, scorned, shamefully flouted. The money was gone--all of Uncle
Peter's complaints and biting sarcasms came back to him with renewed
bitterness; but his revenge on Uncle Peter would be in showing him a big
man at work, with no nonsense about him. But Shepler, who was now certain,
and Higbee, who had always been certain,--especially Shepler, with his
easy sense of superiority with a woman over any poor man. That was a
different matter. There was a thing to think about. And he wanted Avice
Milbrey. He could not, he decided, go back without her.
Something of the old lawless spirit of adventure that had spurred on
his reckless forbears urged him to carry the girl back with him. She
didn't love him. He would take her in spite of that; overpower her;
force her to go. It was a revenge of superb audacity. Shepler had not
been sure of her until now. Well, Shepler might be hurled from that
certainty by one hour of determined action.
The great wild wish narrowed itself into a definite plan. He recalled
the story Uncle Peter had told at the Oldakers' about the woman and her
hair. A woman could be coerced if a man knew her weakness. He could
coerce her. He knew it instinctively; and the instinctive belief
rallied to its support a thousand little looks from her, little
intonations of her voice, little turnings of her head when they had
been together. In spite of her calculations, in spite of her love of
money, he could make her feel her weakness. He was a man with the
power.
It was heady wine for the morning. He described himself briefly as a
lunatic, and walked on again. But the crazy notion would not be gone.
The day before he had been passive. Now he was active, acutely aware of
himself and all his wants. He walked a mile trying to dismiss the idea.
He sat down again, and it flooded back upon him with new force.
Her people were gone. She had even intimated a wish to talk with him
again. It could be done quickly. He knew. He felt the primitive
superiority of man's mere brute force over woman. He gloried in his
knotted muscles and the crushing power of his desires.
Afterward, she would reproach him bitterly. They would both be unhappy.
It was no matter. It was the present, the time when he should be
living. He would have her, and Shepler--Shepler might have had the One
Girl mine--but this girl, never!
Again he tried faithfully to walk off the obsession. Again were his
essays at sober reason unavailing.
His mind was set as it had been when he bought the stocks day after day
against the advice of the best judges in the Street. He could not turn
himself back. There must be success. There could not be a giving
up--and there must not be failure.
Hour after hour he alternately walked and rested, combating and
favouring the mad project. It was a foolish little world, and people
were always waiting for another time to begin the living of life. The
German had quoted Martial: "To-morrow I will live, the fool says;
to-day itself's too late. The wise lived yesterday."
If he did go away alone he knew he would always regret it. If he
carried her triumphantly off, doubtless his regret for that would
eventually be as great. The first regret was certain. The latter was
equally plausible; but, if it came, would it not be preferable to the
other? To have held her once--to have taken her away, to have triumphed
over her own calculations, and, best of all, to have triumphed over the
money-king resting fatuously confident behind his wealth, dignifying no
man as rival who was not rich. The present, so, was more than any
possible future, how dire soever it might be.
He was mad to prove to her--and to Shepler--that she was more a woman
than either had supposed,--a woman in spite of herself, weak,
unreasoning; to prove to them both that a determined man has a vital
power to coerce which no money may ever equal.
Not until five o'clock had he by turns urged and fought himself to the
ferry. By that time he had given up arguing. He was dwelling entirely
upon his plan of action. Strive and grope as he would, the thing had
driven him on relentlessly. His reason could not take him beyond the
reach of its goad. Far as he went he loved her even farther. She
belonged to him. He would have her. He seemed to have been storing, the
day before, a vast quantity of energy that he was now drawing lavishly
upon. For the time, he was pure, raw force, needing, to be resistless,
only the guidance of a definite purpose.
He crossed the ferry and went to the hotel, where he shaved and
freshened himself. He found Grant, the porter, waiting for him when he
went downstairs, and gave him written directions to the railroad people
to have the car attached to the Chicago Express leaving at eight the
next morning; also instructions about his baggage.
"I expect there will be two of us, Grant; see that the car is well
stocked; and here, take this; go to a florist's and get about four
dozen pink roses--_la France_--can you remember?--pink--don't take any
other colour, and be sure they're fresh. Have breakfast ready by the
time the train starts."
"Yes, Mistah Puhs'val!" said Grant, and added to himself, "Yo' suttiny
do ca'y yo'se'f mighty han'some, Mistah Man!"
Going out of the hotel, he met Launton Oldaker, with whom he chatted a
few moments, and then bade good-bye.
Oldaker, with a sensitive regard for the decencies, refrained from
expressing the hearty sympathy he felt for a man who would henceforth
be compelled to live out of the world.
Percival walked out to Broadway, revolving his plan. He saw it was but
six o'clock. He could do nothing for at least an hour. When he noted
this he became conscious of his hunger. He had eaten nothing since
morning. He turned into a restaurant on Madison Square and ordered
dinner. When he had eaten, he sat with his coffee for a final smoke of
deliberation. He went over once more the day's arguments for and
against the novel emprise. He had become insensible, however, to all
the dissenting ones. As a last rally, he tried to picture the
difficulties he might encounter. He faced all he could imagine.
"By God, I'll do it!"
"_Oui, monsieur!_" said the waiter, who had been standing dreamily
near, startled into attention by the spoken words.
"That's all--give me the check."
As he went out the door, a young woman passed him, looking him straight
in the eyes. From her light swishing skirts came the faint perfume of
the violet. It chilled the steel of his resolution.
He entered a carriage. It was a hot, humid night. Already the mist was
making grey softness of the air, dulling the street lights to ruddy
orange. Northward, over the breast of Murray Hill a few late carriages
trickled down toward him. Their wheels, when they passed, made swift
reflections in the damp glare of the asphalt.
He was pent force waiting to be translated into action.
He drove first to the Milbrey house, on the chance that she might be at
home. Jarvis answered his ring.
"Miss Milbrey is with Mrs. Van Geist, sir."
Jarvis spoke regretfully. Pie had reasons of his own for believing that
the severance of the Milbrey relationship with Mr. Bines had been
nothing short of calamitous.
He rang Mrs. Van Geist's bell, five minutes later.
"The ladies haven't come back, sir. I don't know where they might be.
Perhaps at the Valners', in Fifty-second Street, sir."
He rang the Valners' bell.
"Mrs. Van Geist and Miss Milbrey? They left at least half an hour ago,
sir."
"Go down the avenue slowly, driver!"
At Fortieth Street he looked down to the middle of the block.
Mrs. Van Geist, alone, was just alighting from her coupe.
He signalled the driver.
"Go to the other address again, in Thirty-seventh Street."
Jarvis opened the door.
"Yes, sir--thank you, sir--Miss Milbrey is in, sir. I'll see, sir."
He crossed the Rubicon of a door-mat and stood in the unlighted hall.
At the far end he saw light coming from a door that he knew opened into
the library.
Jarvis came into the light. Behind him appeared Miss Milbrey in the
doorway.
"Miss Milbrey says will you enter the library, Mr. Bines?"