THE LOST GIRL
Cold rain fell in leaden streaks. Clouds, black and wind-swollen,
encircled the mountain-top. A ferocious wind shrieked and whistled about
the lodge like an unleashed demon.
Crouched over the fire, Alexis gazed at Anne. Relaxed, slim, on the
chaise-longue by the hearth, she was looking into the flames with an
inscrutable expression.
Alexis stirred uneasily.
What was she thinking of, behind those drooping lids? What inimical
thought stirred beneath those silken coils which shone like burnished
metal in the firelight? He sighed. Was she criticizing him for the way
in which he had parted from Claire the day before yesterday? She
doubtless considered him a blackguard. And was he very far removed from
one, after all? Emphatically no! And yet things like this happened every
day. Other men were being separated from wives whom they had once
professed to cherish. Surely, there was more excuse for him? His own
case was so different, he who had been practically tricked into
matrimony?
Yet, ever since yesterday constraint had fallen between him and this
woman, whose personality obsessed him. Constraint, of which they had
never been conscious in those first feverish days of illness. It must be
that Anne had become suddenly antagonistic towards him. At any rate, it
was plainly to be seen that he had outstayed his welcome, that she no
longer desired his presence. He must go away immediately, to-morrow,
perhaps. But where? Certainly not to the cabin. A refuge at first, it
had soon become a prison of maddened and inarticulate fears. To return
would be unthinkable. Yet to go back to civilization would be almost
equally difficult. He was so tired, so unutterably soul-weary that the
very idea of having to meet people and cope with their curiosity turned
him cold. He shivered and drew his breath with a hissing sound.
"What is the matter, Alexis?" Anne's tones fell upon the silence like
the ringing of a bell.
He started uncontrollably.
"What did you say?"
She looked at him pityingly. His egotistical young misery at once
touched and annoyed her. To-night she was a little weary, a trifle bored
with both him and the situation.
"I merely asked what was the matter," she repeated gently enough. "A
silly question, as it is self-evident. You have been miserable ever
since yesterday. I think you regret the parting from your wife more than
you realize. It has made me very unhappy, too. I hope you were not
harsh, and that you said nothing final. Please forgive me for
interfering!" She smiled apologetically into his glum face and held out
her hand.
Bridging the distance in one stride, he bent over the proffered hand and
kissed it with an intensity that took Anne off her guard.
"As if you could ever interfere!" he exclaimed forcibly. "You are an
angel for bearing with me and my boorish moods! It is a debt I never can
repay," he concluded rather formally.
"Nonsense," Anne laughed with less constraint. "I have done nothing. But
if you insist upon an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you can
repay me by doing nothing rash just at present. You see I worry about
you terribly, don't I?" She smiled up at him with disengaging frankness.
"You are so good, so wise." He sat down upon the floor at her feet. "I
am not worth all your trouble." He tried unsuccessfully to regain
possession of her hand.
"Indeed you are," she interposed, "and even if you were not, your art
is!" she added significantly.
His eyes, which had been fixed worshippingly on her face, hardened.
"My art! And I flattered myself that you took a personal interest in me.
You're just like the others, after all!"
He rose angrily, and began to pace up and down the room.
Both hurt and amused, she watched him with an indulgent smile.
"It is naturally the artist in you which interests me the most," she
replied quietly. "Anything further would be an impertinence," she
finished rather cruelly.
The furious pacing stopped. He glared down upon her.
"Then you are impertinent!" he cried brutally. "For unless you are a
consummate actress, you are beginning to care for me, me personally,
more than for any fiddling I ever have or am ever likely to do!"
A marble goddess looked suddenly forth from Anne's stony face.
"If you were not ill, and only a boy, I would send you away for saying
that!" Her voice was metallic.
The icy tones congealed his blood. In an excess of remorse, he fell down
at her feet and hid his face on the chaise-longue.
"Forgive me," he muttered. "But if you only knew how much it means to
have someone take an interest in me outside of my music! To feel that I
myself mean something to someone! My music has always been first with
everyone. I have been like a rich man's son, who is afraid to believe
that anyone cares for anything except his millions."
Raising his face, he looked pleadingly into her eyes. His misery melted
her heart, but her tone remained cold.
"I think you are forgetting your wife," she said quietly. "Surely you
cannot believe that your music came first with her!"
He evaded her reproachful gaze.
"Poor Claire, yes she did care!" His voice was at once reassured and
remorseful.
Anne smiled down upon him ironically. The colossal egotism of these
geniuses! But her voice was unruffled as she proceeded.
"Does care, you mean! Alexis, look at me." She sat up and took his
reluctant face into her hands. "I want you to go back to Claire. I want
you to make up to her for all your past unkindness. Will you do it to
please me?"
He jerked his head away violently and rose to his feet.
"No, ten thousand times no," he cried. "Does a prisoner ever return to
his dungeon? How can you ask such a thing? It is only because you are
tired of me. Want to get rid of me. Well, I am going any time you say.
This minute, if you wish!"
She shook her head with a low laugh.
"What, in all this rain?" she asked, as a sudden gust of wind tore at
the windows. "You are so excitable, my poor Alexis! Come, you know I
don't want you to go. I shall miss you sadly. But I can't help thinking
how much happier you might be if you only would." She looked wistfully
into the angry face.
He returned her glance with scorn.
"Happier? There's no such thing as happiness. At least for me; I'm not
so exacting as to demand it! But at least I can be free, and I shall!"
"There is nothing to prevent you, poor Alexis," she replied gently.
He hung his head and the light suddenly went out of his face.
"You are offended with me? I don't blame you----" his voice was low and
broken. "I suppose this is good-bye?"
A new pain bit into Anne's heart.
"Oh no, Alexis, no! How can you say so?" she broke in contritely. "If
you don't feel you can go back to the others"--she hesitated uncertainly
for a moment, "you may remain here with me. I have taken the lodge until
the first of November. There still remain almost ten days. Do you think
you could bear it?"
She looked at him less frankly. Her flush and the new uncertainty of her
voice enraptured Alexis.
"Anne, Anne," he cried impetuously, calling her by her name for the
first time. "Why, being with you is the only happiness I have ever had!
It was the terrible fear of losing it that has upset me so tonight."
His face was radiant. In another moment, Anne feared he might become
demonstrative. With a slight flutter of regret and excitement, she rose
and ran to the piano.
"I insist upon playing!" She ran her fingers over the keys lightly,
avoiding his tortured expression. "I've restrained myself for ten days
on your account, and now that it is decided you are remaining, I refuse
to go without my piano any longer! Besides, I simply must drown out this
wind if I can. It is getting on my nerves!"
Too astonished to remonstrate, slightly sick at his stomach, Alexis fell
into the nearest chair and steeled himself to listen. From the corner of
her eye, Anne admired his unexpected control. Nothing in his polite
attitude betrayed the nervous torture she knew he was undergoing. But
she chose to ignore it.
She broke into one of Chopin's preludes and continued to watch him
furtively. His pallor turned a sickly gray. Small beads of moisture
stood out upon his forehead. The clenched hands, the twisted lips, made
Anne feel like an executioner. But still she continued playing. And as
she had hoped, the ruse proved successful.
After a few minutes, the nervous hands relaxed. A smile loosened the
tension of his lips. For a while he listened in seeming content. Then
evidently he could contain himself no longer. Still pale, but no longer
in agony, he was obviously in the throes of a new and more vital
emotion.
With an awakened, exultant expression, he sprang out of the chair and
striding over behind her, swept her off the piano stool and into the
armchair.
"Very good indeed!" he cried with unconscious condescension. "But let me
show you how it ought to be done."
He gave the stool a professional twist or two, and sat down and
commenced to play. Slightly crestfallen, Anne composed herself to
listen.
He took up the prelude where she had left off.
She had not known that he had it in him. Acknowledged master of the
violin, he was a pianist of undoubted technique and power as well. A
month ago, such a performance from a mere boy would have racked and
humiliated, but now it was sheer, unadulterated, pleasure.
"Why didn't you tell me you could play the piano like that?" she
exclaimed almost peevishly.
He wheeled about on the piano-stool and smiled at her rather sheepishly.
"I can't," he said simply. "It is merely a side issue, a relaxation."
Anne came and stood beside him.
"I could slap you!" she retorted with mock anger. "The idea of calling a
talent like that a side issue! Why you could make a career for yourself
as a pianist if you wished."
He laughed almost light-heartedly.
"Oh no, you are making too much allowance for the country piano. I'm
afraid the small career I've had already will have to last me the rest
of my life!"
Anne sighed.
"And you want me to believe that you've forgotten how to play the violin
after this exhibition?" she asked crossly.
He gave her a startled look.
"You think I've been trying to deceive you? You believe that of me? Oh
Anne!" he cried in anguished tones.
She leaned over him remorsefully and patted the weary-looking shoulder.
"Poor Alexis," she murmured. "I didn't mean to hurt you! Of course I
know you wouldn't deceive me intentionally."
He glanced up at her through grateful tears.
"Poor useless Alexis," he replied under his breath, "who cumbers the
earth with his wasteful presence. What are you going to do with him?"
His eyes held the plaintive appeal of a lost child.
Anne moved away hastily.
"Spank him and send him to bed," she laughed, uneasy at his tone.
A sudden and more angry blast shook the house. Anne went to the window
and drew up the shade. She looked out into the uproarious night. The
rain beat against the panes like waves washing over a porthole. Anne
shivered.
"I had almost forgotten the storm while you were playing, hadn't you?
Come, see how weirdly the trees are behaving!"
He strolled up behind her and they stood, looking out into the
blackness. Beaten beneath leaden shafts of rain, torn by a diabolic
wind, the placid forest had become an inferno of twisting branches.
Tossing limbs writhed in seeming agony under each shrieking gust.
"They look like a company of maddened demons," Anne shuddered and pulled
down the shade. "I could almost believe it is they and not the wind,
which whistle and scream. It reminds one of a witch's Sabbath!"
She went to the table, gathered up a book or two, and prepared to go
upstairs, when the brusque whirr of the telephone stopped her.
"What can that be?" she cried completely startled. She ran across the
room and took down the receiver.
"Yes, this is Mrs. Schuyler. Who is this? Oh--a telegram?"
As she waited for the message, she encountered Alexis' eyes with a
startled inquiry in her own.
"It is for you, Alexis," she whispered. She held out the receiver and
moved aside. He backed away with nervous horror.
"Please take the message for me, Anne!"
She nodded curtly and resumed her listening. A moment passed before she
spoke.
"Oh, yes, I'm responsible," she said shortly, evidently in answer to
some remonstrance from the other end. "You may give me the message quite
safely. I'll write it down word for word."
She held out an imperious hand. Alexis rushed across the room to the
desk, secured pencil and paper and prepared to write at her dictation.
When she spoke her voice seemed strangely flat and monotonous.
"Claire missing since yesterday morning. Traced to St. Patrick's
by Ito. Then clue lost. Fear worst. Return immediately.
Your Mother"
Anne replaced the receiver in silence and she and Alexis looked into
each other's faces.
"You must go back at once," she whispered finally.
"And leave you?" he exclaimed huskily. "Never! Besides I don't believe a
word. It is merely a hoax, a clever trick of my mother's to get me back
into her clutches. She's quite capable of it! But she can't fool me so
easily. I'll not go!"
Anne met his wild young eyes with something akin to horror.
"Oh no, Alexis, you are deceiving yourself! This message rings only too
true, and I should never forgive myself if I didn't urge you to go,
especially after what happened yesterday."
He shook his head stubbornly.
"You don't know my mother!"
She placed her hand upon his arm with an urgent gesture.
"Alexis, you are behaving like a spoiled child! You would never forgive
yourself if something happened to Claire because of you. The least you
can do is to return immediately. If it should turn out to be a hoax,
which is unbelievable, why you can come back again. Nobody can force you
to stay, you know!"
At her appeal, a sudden sense of shame flooded him. He nodded his head
in bitter acquiescence.
"Yes, I suppose I must go," he said slowly. "But how can I leave you,
how can I live without you?" His eyes devoured her. She turned away to
hide sudden tears.
"Hush, Alexis, you must not think of yourself now. Remember poor Claire.
Come, you must be brave." Her voice was gentle.
"You make me ashamed!" he cried. "But I love you so. I don't know what
would become of me if I should have to lose you, Anne!"
He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them over and over.
"Promise that you will not forsake me, that you will let me remain your
friend."
Tears trembling on her lids, she looked down upon his bent head.
"I promise," she murmured.
With a smothered cry he released her. He turned his back abruptly and
strode across the room.
"What time does the early train leave?" he inquired huskily from the
doorway.
"At six, I believe," responded Anne faintly. "Regina will pack for you
and of course Howard will drive you down to the village," she continued
more firmly.
"Thank you."
His despairing eyes caught the regret in hers.
"You will let me hear from you?" his voice was full of suppressed
suffering.
"Of course," she replied. "Please telegraph if there is any news. I'll
be going down myself in a few days probably. It is becoming rather
cheerless here now." She cast a nervous glance towards the windows
against which the rain continued to pound relentlessly.
Her unconcealed trouble kindled a light in Alexis' eyes. "She is
beginning to love me," he thought. A sense of fear and joy permeated
him, but he continued speaking calmly.
"I shall say good-bye to-night, then, so as not to disturb you so early
in the morning. Good-bye, Anne--thank you." His voice broke. He turned
and escaped up the stairs.
Pale, a little wistful, Anne watched the boyish figure disappear around
the landing.