THE MAN'S POINT OF VIEW
That letter to Max was perhaps the hardest task that Olga had ever
undertaken. She spent the greater part of three hours over it, oblivious
of everything else; and then, close upon the dinner-hour, tore up all
previous efforts in despair and scribbled a brief, informal note that
was curiously reminiscent of one she had written once in a moment of
impulsive penitence and pinned inside his hat.
"Dear Max," it ran, "I want to tell you that everything has come back to
me, and I am very, very sorry. Will you forgive me and let us be friends
for the future? Yours, Olga."
This letter she addressed and stamped and took downstairs with her,
laying it upon the hall-table to be posted. Thence she passed on to the
library to find a book she wanted.
The glow of sunset met her on the threshold, staying the hand she raised
to the electric switch. She moved slowly through the dying light to the
window and stood before it motionless, gazing forth into the glory. It
poured around her in a rosy splendour, lighting her pale, tired face.
For several minutes she stood drinking in the beauty of it, with a
feeling at her heart as of unshed tears.
Then at last with a long sigh she slowly turned, and moved across to a
row of bookshelves. Perhaps there was light enough for her purpose
after all. She began to search along the backs of the books with her
face close to them.
"Are you looking for Farrow's _Treatise on Party Government_ by any
chance?" asked a leisurely voice behind her.
She sprang round as if a gun had been discharged in the room. She stared
widely, feeling back against the bookshelves for support.
He was lounging on the edge of the table immediately facing her--a
square strong figure, with hands in his pockets, the red light of the
sunset turning his hair to fire.
"Because if you are," he continued, a note of grim humour in his voice,
"I'm afraid you won't find it--to-night. What's the matter with you,
fair lady? You don't seem quite pleased to see me."
"I am pleased," she whispered. "I am pleased."
But her voice was utterly gone. Her throat worked spasmodically. She put
up both hands to it as if she were choking.
He stood up abruptly and came to her. He took her hands and drew them
gently away. "I shall begin to think I'm bad for you if you do that," he
said. "What's the matter, child? Did I frighten you?"
"No!" she whispered back. "No! It was only--only--"
"Only--" he said. "Look here! You mustn't cry. It's one better than
fainting, I admit; but I'm not going to let you do either if I can help
it. Come over here to the window!"
He led her unresisting, one steady arm upholding her.
"Do you know," he said, "a curious thing happened just now? I'd only
been in the house twenty minutes or so when, coming downstairs to look
for you, I discovered a letter in the hall addressed to me. I took the
liberty of opening and reading it, in spite of the fact that it was
plainly intended for the post." He paused. "I thought that would make
you angry," he observed, looking down at her critically.
She uttered a desperate little laugh and tried to disengage herself from
his arm. "No, I'm glad you've got it," she said rather breathlessly.
"It was a very silly letter," remarked Max, calmly frustrating the
attempt. "It didn't say half it might have said, and what it did say
wasn't to the point."
"Yes, it was," she maintained quickly. "It--it--I meant to say just
that."
"Then all I can say is that you have quite missed the crux of the
situation," said Max. "Why are you very, very sorry? Why do you want me
to forgive you? And why in the name of wonder do you suggest that we
should become friends when you know that we are so constituted as to be
incapable of being anything but the dearest of enemies?"
He looked down again suddenly into her quivering, averted face. "Still I
shall value that letter," he said, "if only as a sample of the sweet
unreasonableness of women. Are you still very sorry, Olga?"
She moved at the utterance of her name, moved and made a more decided
effort to free herself.
"Not a bit of good," said Max. "Don't you know I'm waiting for the kiss
of peace?"
"I can't!" she protested swiftly. "I can't!"
"Can't what?" said Max.
Her lips were trembling, but she shed no tears. He seemed in some magic
fashion to keep her from that.
"I can't kiss you, Max, really--really!" she said.
"Why not?" said Max.
She was silent, but he persisted, still holding her pressed to him.
"Tell me why not! Is it because you don't want to Or you think you
ought not to? Or because you are just--shy?"
She caught the smile in his voice and pictured the cocked-up corner of
his mouth. "I think I ought not to," she murmured, with her head still
turned from him.
"Conscientious objections?" suggested Max.
"Don't laugh!" she whispered.
"My dear child, I'm as serious as a judge. What are the objections?"
"There is--Noel," she said.
"You will have to chuck Noel," said Max coolly.
That vitalized her very effectually; she turned on him with burning
cheeks. "Max, how dare you--how dare you suggest such a thing!"
His eyes met hers, green and dominant. She saw again that old mocking
gleam of conscious mastery with which he had been wont to exasperate
her. He answered her with a directness almost brutal.
"Because you don't love him."
"I do love him!" she declared fiercely. "I do love him!"
"Better than me?" said Max.
She shrank visibly from the question. "I love him too well to throw him
over," she said.
His lips twisted cynically. "That is curious," he said.
She winced again from that which he left unsaid. "Oh, Max, don't hurt
me!" she pleaded. "Try--try to understand!"
It was an appeal for mercy. But Max would not hear. He took her by the
shoulders, compelling her to face him. "So you really mean to marry
Noel," he said. "Do you think you will be happy with him?"
"I could never be happy if I didn't," she answered rather incoherently.
Max frowned. "Look here!" he said. "It's no good expecting me to
understand if you won't even answer my questions."
She quivered in his hold. "You ask such--impossible things," she said.
"They are only impossible," Max said relentlessly, "because you are
afraid to tell me the truth. You are afraid to tell me that you are
sacrificing yourself. You are afraid to be honest--even with yourself."
"I am not!" she protested fierily. "Max, you have no right----"
"I have a right." He broke in upon her sternly. "I have the first and
foremost right. Remember, you were mine before you were his. You gave
yourself to me because you loved me. You only threw me over because of a
fancied unworthiness. Now I am cleared of that, do you think you owe me
nothing more than an apology?"
"Oh, but, Max," she pleaded, "think of Noel! Think of Noel!"
"Well?" said Max, "then think of him! Don't you think he can make a
better bargain for himself than marriage with a woman who doesn't love
him best? Why, nearly every woman he meets falls in love with him, and
could offer him more than you do. You women who are so keen on
sacrificing yourselves never look at the man's point of view, and so the
only thing he really wants, you make it impossible for him to get."
"Max! Max!" she cried in distress.
"Well, isn't it so?" said Max. "Just admit that, and p'raps I won't
bully you any more. You know he doesn't come first with you--and never
would."
"But I could make him happy," she said.
"Oh, could you? And suppose his happiness depended upon yours? Suppose
he were man enough to want you to be happy too? Could you do that for
him?"
She hesitated.
He pressed on without mercy. "Could you drive me utterly out of your
thoughts, your dreams? Could you stifle every regret, every secret
longing? Could you empty your heart of me and put him in my place? Tell
me! Could you?"
But she could not tell him. She only turned her face from him and wept.
He set her free then, just as he had set her free on that day long ago
when her will had first bruised itself against the iron of his. He went
away from her, went to the door as if he would leave her; then stood
still, and after a space came back.
She trembled at his coming. She had a feeling that he had armed himself
with another, stronger weapon to overcome her resistance.
He stopped in front of her. "Olga," he said, "have you thought about me
at all?"
She made a sharp gesture--the involuntary wincing of the victim from the
knife.
He went on, very quietly, as if he had not seen. "Do you think I'm going
to be happy without you? I've got my career, haven't I, and all my
brilliant successes? How much do you think they are worth to me? How far
do you think they are going to satisfy me--make up for that which you
have taken away?"
He paused, but she could not answer him, could not so much as lift her
eyes to his.
He went on. "A little while ago you appealed to my love, and--I don't
claim to be more than human--it stood the strain. I appealed to yours,
and you sent me about my business. You had some excuse. I had deceived
you. But this time--this time--are you going to do the same this time,
Olga?"
"I can't help it!" she whispered through her tears.
He came nearer to her, but he did not touch her. "Is that the truth?"
he said. "Don't you love me well enough? Is that it? Is my love so
little to you that you can afford to throw it away? You know I love you,
don't you? You believe in my love?" His voice suddenly vibrated; his
hands clenched. "It's stood a good deal," he said. "But, by Heaven! I
don't think it will stand this!"
She lifted her face suddenly. "Max, stop! I can't bear it!"
"Neither can I!" He flung back fiercely. "It's too much to ask--too much
to give! Olga, you shall come to me! You shall! You shall!"
He caught her to him with the words, holding her mercilessly in a grip
that was savage. She felt the hard, passionate beat of his heart against
her own. And she gasped and gasped again, as one suddenly immersed in
deep waters.
She did not resist him, for she could not. He had her a helpless captive
before she could even begin. Perhaps she might not have done so in any
case. It was a point she never was able to decide. But from the moment
his lips met hers the battle was over. With or without her will her lips
clung to his; the flame of his passion kindled an answering flame in
her; and the love which she had striven so desperately to restrain
leaped forth to him in wild, exultant freedom, so that she forgot all
the world beside.
* * * * *
"So that's settled!" said Max a little later into the flushed face that
lay against his shoulder. "It's taken a mighty long time to make you see
reason."
"It isn't reason," said Olga faintly. "And oh, Max, what--what am I to
say to Noel?"
Max's one-sided smile appeared. "I should just say, 'Thank you kindly,
sir,' if it were me. There's nothing else left to say."
"Oh, but there is!" she protested.
"There isn't," said Max. "He is coming over to congratulate us
to-morrow."
"Max!" She opened her eyes wide and lifted her head. "Max, you don't
mean----"
"Yes, I do," said Max imperturbably. "Why do you suppose I came tearing
down here to-night, leaving Kersley to kill all my patients as well as
his own?"
"Not--surely--to see me?" said Olga, wonderingly.
He laughed grimly. "No. It was to see Noel. Odd how we both put him
first, isn't it? The young cub sent me a message that brought me down
post-haste, expecting to find him in a state of collapse. Instead of
which I found him gaily awaiting me at the station to tell me he had run
himself out--or some bosh of the kind--and it was now my innings, and I
was to go in and win. On my soul, Olga, he was enjoying himself up to
the hilt."
"But why didn't you tell me this before?" said Olga quickly.
Max's mouth went up a little higher. "Various reasons, fair lady."
"Don't be horrid!" she protested, giving him a shake. "And how did it
happen? How did he come to know anything? I haven't seen him to-day. It
must have been Nick!"
"Yes. I'm going to throttle Nick presently. I've often wanted to. After
which I shall turn him into a mummy and send him to India to be
worshipped as the little god of intrigue. I daresay he'll get on all
right in that capacity. It ought to suit him down to the ground. He's a
born meddler."
"How absurd you are!" Olga laughed in spite of herself. "Where is Nick?
Don't you think we had better go and find him?"
It was at this point that the handle of the door was turned
ostentatiously the wrong way, struggled with, sworn at, and finally put
right.
"May I come in?" said Nick, briskly opening the door. "Muriel and I
have finished dinner. We knew you wouldn't be wanting any."
"Nick!" Olga exclaimed. "I'm sure you haven't!"
"All right, we haven't," said Nick. "That is to say, we have saved you a
little in case you were prosaic enough to want it. Max, my son, your
presence here is an honour for which I have scarcely made fit
preparation, but I am none the less proud to entertain you, and as your
uncle-in-law elect I bid you welcome."
He held out his hand which Max took with a dry, "Thanks! One can't scrag
a man under his own roof, I suppose, though it's a sore temptation."
"You will have ample opportunity in the future," Nick assured him
genially, "though, as I think I told you long ago, I'm the most
well-meaning little cuss that ever walked the earth. I threatened once
to put a spoke in your wheel, didn't I? Well, I never did it. I've been
pushing and straining to get it out of the bog ever since. And now I've
done it, you want to scrag me. Olga, the man's a blood-thirsty
scoundrel. If you have the smallest regard for my feelings, you will
kick him out of the house at once."
But Olga was holding the two clasped hands in hers, and she would not
let them part. "Nick, you're a darling--a darling! And Max knows it,
don't you, Max? It was dear of you to make the wheels go round. They
would never have done it without you, and we shall never, never forget
it as long as we two shall live."
"Amen!" said Max.
"Bless your hearts!" said Nick benevolently. "Well, come and have
something to eat!"
He turned towards the door, but Olga hung back. "Is--is Noel here?" she
asked.
"Heavens, no!" said Nick. "He eloped with Peggy long ago."
"Oh!" A note of relief sounded in her voice. "I shall see him
to-morrow," she said.
"Yes, he'll be over to-morrow." Nick shot her a swift look in the
twilight. "Meantime, I have a message to give you from him," he said.
"So have I," cut in Max.
"I know what it is!" said Olga quickly.
"His love," said Max.
"His best love," said Nick.
There was an instant's silence in the room; then Olga bent her head and
murmured softly, "God bless him!"