On the morning of the first day of June Neville came into his studio and
found there a letter from Valerie:
"DEAREST: I am not keeping my word to you; I am asking you for more
time; and I know you will grant it.
"José Querida's death has had a curious effect on me. I was inclined to
care very sincerely for him; I comprehended him better than many people,
I think. Yet there was much in him that I never understood. And I doubt
that he ever entirely understood himself.
"I believe that he was really a great painter, Louis--and have sometimes
thought that his character was mediæval at the foundations--with five
centuries of civilisation thinly deposited over the bed-rock.... In him
there seemed to be something primitive; something untamable, and utterly
irreconcilable with, the fundamental characteristics of modern man.
"He was my friend.... Friendship, they say, is a record of
misunderstandings; and it was so with us But may I tell you something?
José Querida loved me--in his own fashion.
"What kind of a love it was--of what value--I can not tell you. I do not
think it was very high in the scale. Only he felt it for me, and for no
other woman, I believe.
"It never was a love that I could entirely understand or respect;
yet,--it is odd but true--I cared something for it--perhaps because, in
spite of its unfamiliar and sometimes repellent disguises--it _was_ love
after all.
"And now, as at heart and in mind you and I are one; and as I keep
nothing of real importance from you--perhaps _can_ not; I must tell you
that José Querida came that day to ask me to marry him.
"I tried to make him understand that I could not think of such a thing;
and he lost his head and became violent. That is how the table fell:--I
had started toward the door when he sprang back to block me, and the low
window-sill caught him under the knees, and he fell outward into the
yard.
"I know of course that no blame could rest on me, but it was a terrible
and dreadful thing that happened there in one brief second; and somehow
it seems to have moved in me depths that have never before been stirred.
"The newspapers, as you know, published it merely as an accident--which
it really was. But they might have made it, by innuendo, a horror for
me. However, they put it so simply and so unsuspiciously that José
Querida might have been any nice man calling on any nice woman.
"Louis, I have never been so lonely in my life as I have been since José
Querida died; alas! not because he has gone out of my life forever, but
because, somehow, the manner of his death has made me realise how
difficult it is for a woman alone to contend with men in a man's own
world.
"Do what she may to maintain her freedom, her integrity, there is
always,--sometimes impalpable, sometimes not--a steady, remorseless
pressure on her, forcing her unwillingly to take frightened cognisance
of men;--take into account their inexorable desire for domination; the
subtle cohesion existent among them which, at moments, becomes like a
wall of adamant barring, limiting, inclosing and forcing women toward
the deep-worn grooves which women have trodden through the sad
centuries;--and which they tread still--and will tread perhaps for years
to come before the real enfranchisement of mankind begins.
"I do not mean to write bitterly, dear; but, somehow, all this seems to
bear significantly, ominously, upon my situation in the world.
"When I first knew you I felt so young, so confident, so free, so
scornful of custom, so wholesomely emancipated from silly and unjust
conventions, that perhaps I overestimated my own vigour and ability to
go my way, unvexed, unfettered in this man's world, and let the world
make its own journey in peace. But it will not.
"Twice, now, within a month,--and not through any conscious fault of
mine--this man's world has shown its teeth at me; I have been menaced by
its innate scorn of woman, and have, by chance, escaped a publicity
which would have damned me so utterly that I would not have cared to
live.
"And dear, for the first time I really begin to understand now what the
shelter of a family means; what it is to have law on my side,--and a man
who understands his man's world well enough to fight it with its own
weapons;--well enough to protect a woman from things she never dreamed
might menace her.
"When that policeman came into my room,--dear, you will think me a
perfect coward--but suddenly I seemed to realise what law meant, and
that it had power to protect me or destroy me.... And I was
frightened,--and the table lay there with the fragments of broken
china--and there was that dreadful window--and I--I who knew how he
died!--Louis! Louis! guiltless as I was,--blameless in thought and
deed--I died a thousand deaths there while the big policeman and the
reporters were questioning me.
"If it had not been for what José was generous enough to say, I could
never have thought out a lie to tell them; I should have told them how
it had really happened.... And what the papers would have printed about
him and about me, God only knows.
"Never, never had I needed you as I needed you at that moment.... Well;
I lied to them, somehow; I said to them what José had said--that he was
seated on the window-ledge, lost his balance, clutched at the table,
overturned it, and fell. And they believed me.... It is the first lie
since I was a little child, that I have ever knowingly told.... And I
know now that I could never contrive to tell another.
"Dear, let me try to think out what is best for us.... And forgive me,
Louis, if I can not help a thought or two of self creeping in. I am so
terribly alone. Somehow I am beginning to believe that it may sometimes
be a weakness to totally ignore one's self.... Not that I consider
myself of importance compared to you, my darling; not that I would fail
to set aside any thought of self where your welfare is concerned. You
know that, don't you?
"But I have been wondering how it would be with you if I passed quietly
and absolutely out of your life. That is what I am trying to determine.
Because it must be either that or the tie unrecognised by civilisation.
And which would be better for you? I do not know yet. I ask more time.
Don't write me. Your silence will accord it.
"You are always in my thoughts.
"VALERIE."
Ogilvy came into the studio that afternoon, loquacious, in excellent
humour, and lighting a pipe, detailed what news he had while Neville
tried to hide his own deep perplexity and anxiety under a cordial
welcome.
"You know," said Ogilvy, "that all the time you've given me and all your
kindness and encouragement has made a corker of that picture of mine."
"You did it yourself," said Neville. "It's good work, Sam."
"Sure it's good work--being mostly yours. And what do you think, Kelly;
it's sold!"
"Good for you!"
"Certainly it's good for me. I need the mazuma. A courteous multi
purchased it for his Long Branch cottage--said cottage costing a
million. What?"
"Oh, you're doing very well," laughed Neville.
"I've _got_ to.... I've--h'm!--undertaken to assume obligations toward
civilisation--h'm!--and certain duties to my--h'm--country--"
"What on earth are you driving at?" asked Neville, eying him.
"Huh! Driving single just at present; practising for tandem--h'm!--and a
spike--h'm--some day--I hope--of course--"
"Sam!"
"Hey?"
"Are you trying to say something?"
"Oh, Lord, no! Why, Kelly, did you suspect that I was really attempting
to convey anything to you which I was really too damned embarrassed to
tell you in the patois of my native city?"
"It sounded that way," observed Neville, smiling.
"Did it?" Ogilvy considered, head on one side. "Did it sound anything
like a--h'm!--a man who was trying to--h'm!--to tell you that he was
going to--h'm!--to try to get somebody to try to let him try to tell her
that he wanted to--marry her?"
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Neville, bewildered, "what do you mean?"
Ogilvy pirouetted, picked up a mahl-stick, and began a lively fencing
bout with an imaginary adversary.
"I'm going to get married," he said amiably.
"What!"
"Sure."
"To whom?"
"To Hélène d'Enver. Only she doesn't know it yet."
"What an infernal idiot you are, Sam!"
"Ya-as, so they say. Some say I'm an ass, others a bally idiot, others
merely refer to me as imbecile. And so it goes, Kelly,--so it goes."
He flourished his mahl-stick, neatly punctured the air, and cried "Hah!"
very fiercely.
Then he said:
"I've concluded to let Hélène know about it this afternoon."
"About what?--you monkey?"
"About our marriage. _Won't_ it surprise her though! Oh, no! But I
think I'll let her into the secret before some suspicious gink gets wind
of it and tells her himself."
Neville looked at the boy, perplexed, undecided, until he caught his
eye. And over Sam's countenance stole a vivid and beauteous blush.
"Sam! I--upon my word I believe you mean it!"
"Sure I do!"
Neville grasped his hand:
"My dear fellow!" he said cordially, "I was slow, not unsympathetic. I'm
frightfully glad--I'm perfectly delighted. She's a charming and sincere
woman. Go in and win and God bless you both!"
Ogilvy wrung his hand, then, to relieve his feelings, ran all over the
floor like a spider and was pretending to spin a huge web in a corner
when Harry Annan and Rita Tevis came in and discovered him.
"Hah!" he exclaimed, "flies! Two nice, silly, appetising flies. Pretend
to fall into my web, Rita, and begin to buzz like mad!"
Rita's dainty nose went up into the air, but Annan succumbed to the
alluring suggestion, and presently he was buzzing frantically in a
corner while Sam spun an imaginary web all over him.
Rita and Neville looked on for a while.
"Sam never will grow up," she said disdainfully.
"He's fortunate," observed Neville.
"_You_ don't think so."
"I wish I knew what I did think, Rita. How is John?"
"I came to tell you. He has gone to Dartford."
"To see Dr. Ogilvy? Good! I'm glad, Rita. Billy Ogilvy usually makes
people do what he tells them to do."
[Illustration: "Ogilvy ... began a lively fencing bout with an imaginary
adversary."]
The girl stood silent, eyes lowered. After a while she looked up at him;
and in her unfaltering but sorrowful gaze he read the tragedy which he
had long since suspected.
Neither spoke for a moment; he held out both hands; she laid hers in
them, and her gaze became remote.
After a while she said in a low voice:
"Let me be with you now and then while he's away; will you, Kelly?"
"Yes. Would you like to pose for me? I haven't anything pressing on
hand. You might begin now if it suits you."
"May I?" she asked gratefully.
"Of course, child.... Let me think--" He looked again into her dark blue
eyes, absently, then suddenly his attention became riveted upon
something which he seemed to be reading in her face.
Long before Sam and Harry had ended their puppy-like scuffling and had
retired to woo their respective deputy-muses, Rita was seated on the
model-stand, and Neville had already begun that strange and sombre
picture afterward so famous, and about which one of the finest of our
modern poets wrote:
"Her gold hair, fallen about her face
Made light within that shadowy place,
But on her garments lay the dust
Of many a vanished race.
"Her deep eyes, gazing straight ahead,
Saw years and days and hours long dead,
While strange gems glittered at her feet,
Yellow, and green, and red.
"And ever from the shadows came
Voices to pierce her heart like flame,
The great bats fanned her with their wings,
The voices called her name.
"But yet her look turned not aside
From the black deep where dreams abide,
Where worlds and pageantries lay dead
Beneath that viewless tide.
"Her elbow on her knee was set,
Her strong hand propt her chin, and yet
No man might name that look she wore,
Nor any man forget."
All day long in the pleasant June weather they worked together over the
picture; and if he really knew what he was about, it is uncertain, for
his thoughts were of Valerie; and he painted as in a dream, and with a
shadowy splendour that seemed even to him unreal.
They scarcely spoke; now and then Rita came silently on sandalled feet
to stand behind him and look at what he had done.
The first time she thought to herself, "Querida!" But the second time
she remained mute; and when the daylight was waning to a golden gloom in
the room she came a third time and stood with one hand on his arm, her
eyes fixed upon the dawning mystery on the canvas--spellbound under the
sombre magnificence already vaguely shadowed forth from infinite depth
of shade.
Gladys came and rubbed and purred around his legs; the most recent
progeny toddled after her, ratty tails erect; sportive, casual little
optimists frisking unsteadily on wavering legs among the fading sunbeams
on the floor.
The sunbeams died out on wall and ceiling; high through the glass roof
above, a shoal of rosy clouds paled to saffron, then to a cinder gray.
And the first night-hawk, like a huge, erratic swallow, sailed into
view, soaring, tumbling aloft, while its short raucous cry sounded
incessantly above the roofs and chimneys.
Neville was still seated before his canvas, palette flat across his left
arm, the sheaf of wet brushes held loosely.
"I suppose you are dining with Valerie," he said.
"No."
He turned and looked at her, inquiringly.
"Valerie has gone away."
"Where?"
"I don't know, Kelly.... I was not to know."
"I see." He picked up a handful of waste and slowly began to clean the
brushes, one by one. Then he drove them deep into a bowl of black soap.
"Shall we dine together here, Rita?"
"If you care to have me."
"Yes, I do."
He laid aside his palette, rang up the kitchen, gave his order, and
slowly returned to where Rita was seated.
Dinner was rather a silent affair. They touched briefly and formally on
Querida and his ripening talent prematurely annihilated; they spoke of
men they knew who were to come after him--a long, long way after him.
"I don't know who is to take his place," mused Neville over his claret.
"You."
"Not his place, Rita. He thought so; but that place must remain his."
"Perhaps. But you are carving out your own niche in a higher tier. You
are already beginning to do it; and yesterday his niche was the
higher.... Yet, after all--after all--"
[Illustration: "Then Rita came silently on sandalled feet to stand
behind him and look at what he had done."]
He nodded. "Yes," he said, "what does it matter to him, now? A man
carves out his resting place as you say, but he carves it out in vain.
Those who come after him will either place him in his proper sepulchre
... or utterly neglect him.... And neglect or transfer will cause him
neither happiness nor pain.... Both are ended for Querida;--let men
exalt him above all, or bury him and his work out of sight--what does he
care about it now? He has had all that life held for him, and what
another life may promise him no man can know. All reward for labour is
here, Rita; and the reward lasts only while the pleasure in labour
lasts. Creative work--even if well done--loses its savour when it is
finished. Happiness in it ends with the final touch. It is like a dead
thing to him who created it; men's praise or blame makes little
impression; and the aftertaste of both is either bitter or flat and
lasts but a moment."
"Are you a little morbid, Kelly?"
"Am I?"
"It seems to me so."
"And you, Rita?"
She shook her pretty head in silence.
After a while Gladys jumped up into her lap, and she lay back in her
arm-chair smoothing the creature's fur, and gazing absently into space.
"Kelly," she said, "how many, many years ago it seems when you came up
to Delaware County to see us."
"It seems very long ago to me, too."
She lifted her blue eyes:
"May I speak plainly? I have known you a long while. There is only one
man I like better. But there is no woman in the world whom I love as I
love Valerie West.... May I speak plainly?"
"Yes."
"Then--be fair to her, Kelly. Will you?"
"I will try."
"Try very hard. For after all it _is_ a man's world, and she doesn't
understand it. Try to be fair to her, Kelly. For--whether or not the
laws that govern the world are man-made and unjust--they are,
nevertheless, the only laws. Few men can successfully fight them; no
woman can--yet.... I am not angering you, am I?"
"No. Go on."
"I have so little to say--I who feel so deeply--deeply.... And the laws
are always there, Kelly, always there--fair or unfair, just or
unjust--they are always there to govern the world that framed them. And
a woman disobeys them at her peril."
She moved slightly in her chair and sat supporting her head on one
pretty ringless hand.
"Yet," she said, "although a woman disobeys any law at her peril--laws
which a man may often ignore with impunity--there is one law to which no
woman should dare subscribe. And it is sometimes known as 'The Common
Law of Marriage.'"
She sat silent for a while, her gaze never leaving his shadowy face.
"That is the only law--if it is truly a law--that a woman must ignore.
All others it is best for her to observe. And if the laws of marriage
are merely man-made or divine, I do not know. There is a din in the
world to-day which drowns the voices preaching old beliefs.... And a
girl is deafened by the clamour.... And I don't know.
"But, it seems to me, that back of the laws men have made--if there be
nothing divine in their inspiration--there is another foundation solid
enough to carry them. Because it seems to me that the world's laws--even
when unjust--are built on natural laws. And how can a girl say that
these natural laws are unjust because they have fashioned her to bear
children and feed them from her own body?
"And another thing, Kelly; if a man breaks a man-made law--founded, we
believe, on a divine commandment--he suffers only in a spiritual and
moral sense.... And with us it may be more than that. For women, at
least, hell is on earth."
He stirred in his chair, and his sombre gaze rested on the floor at her
feet.
"What are we to do?" he said dully.
Rita shook her head:
"I don't know. I am not instructing you, Kelly, only recalling to your
mind what you already know; what all men know, and find so convenient to
forget. Love is not excuse enough; the peril is unequally divided. The
chances are uneven; the odds are unfair. If a man really loves a woman,
how can he hazard her in a game of chance that is not square? How can he
let her offer more than he has at stake--even if she is willing? How can
he permit her to risk more than he is even able to risk? How can he
accept a magnanimity which leaves him her hopeless debtor? But men have
done it, men will continue to do it; God alone knows how they reconcile
it with their manhood or find it in their hearts to deal so unfairly by
us. But they do.... And still we stake all; and proudly overlook the
chances against us; and face the contemptible odds with a smile,
dauntless and--damned!"
He leaned forward in the dusk; she could see his bloodless features now
only as a pale blot in the twilight.
"All this I knew, Rita. But it is just as well, perhaps, that you remind
me."
"I thought it might be as well. The world has grown very clever; but
after all there is no steadier anchor for a soul than a platitude."
Ogilvy and Annan came mincing in about nine o'clock, disposed for
flippancy and gossip; but neither Neville nor Rita encouraged them; so
after a while they took their unimpaired cheerfulness and horse-play
elsewhere, leaving the two occupants of the studio to their own silent
devices.
It was nearly midnight when he walked back with Rita to her rooms.
And now day followed day in a sequence of limpid dawns and cloudless
sunsets. Summer began with a clear, hot week in June, followed by three
days' steady downpour which freshened and cooled the city and unfolded,
in square and park, everything green into magnificent maturity.
Every day Neville and Rita worked together in the studio; and every
evening they walked together in the park or sat in the cool, dusky
studio, companionably conversational or permitting silence to act as
their interpreter.
Then John Burleson came back from Dartford after remaining there ten
days under Dr. Ogilvy's observation; and Rita arrived at the studio next
day almost smiling.
"We're' going to Arizona," she said. "_What_ do you think of that,
Kelly?"
"You poor child!" exclaimed Neville, taking her hands into his and
holding them closely.
"Why, Kelly," she said gently, "I knew he had to go. This has not taken
me unawares."
"I hoped there might be some doubt," he said.
"There was none in my mind. I foresaw it. Listen to me: twice in a
woman's life a woman becomes a prophetess. That fatal clairvoyance is
permitted to a woman twice in her life--and the second time it is
neither for herself that she foresees the future, nor for him whom she
loves...."
"I wish--I wish--" he hesitated; and she flushed brightly.
"I know what you wish, Kelly dear. I don't think it will ever happen.
But it is so much for me to be permitted to remain near him--so
much!--Ah, you don't know, Kelly! You don't know!"
"Would you marry him?"
Her honest blue eyes met his:
"If he asked me; and if he still wished it--after he knew."
"Could you ever be less to him--and perhaps more, Rita?"
"Do you mean--"
He nodded deliberately.
She hung her head.
"Yes," she said, "if I could be no more I would be what I could."
"And you tell _me_ that, after all that you have said?"
"I did not pretend to speak for men, Kelly. I told you that women had,
and women still would overlook the chances menacing them and face the
odds dauntlessly.... Because, whatever a man is--if a woman loves him
enough--he is worth to her what she gives."
"Rita! Rita! Is it _you_ who content yourself with such sorry
philosophy?"
"Yes, it is I. You asked me and I answer you. Whatever I said--I know
only one thing now. And you know what that is."
"And where am I to look for sympathy and support in my own decision?
What can I think now about all that you have said to me?"
"You will never forget it, Kelly--whatever becomes of the girl who said
it. Because it's the truth, no matter whose lips uttered it."
He released her hands and she went away to dress herself for the pose.
When she returned and seated herself he picked up his palette and
brushes and began in silence.
* * * * *
That evening he went to see John Buries on and found him smoking
tranquilly in the midst of disorder. Packing cases, trunks, bundles,
boxes were scattered and piled up in every direction, and the master of
the establishment, apparently in excellent health, reclined on a lounge
in the centre of chaos, the long clay stem of a church-warden pipe
between his lips, puffing rings at the ceiling.
"Hello, Kelly!" he exclaimed, sitting up; "I've got to move out of this
place. Rita told you all about it, didn't she? Isn't it rotten hard
luck?"
"Not a bit of it. What did Billy Ogilvy say?"
"Oh, I've got _it_ all right. Not seriously yet. What's Arizona like,
anyway?"
"Half hell, half paradise, they say."
"Then me for the celestial section. Ogilvy gave me the name of a
place"--he fumbled about--"Rita has it, I believe.... Isn't she a corker
to go? My conscience, Kelly, what a Godsend it will be to have a
Massachusetts girl out there to talk to!"
"Isn't she going as your model?"
"My Lord, man! Don't you talk to a model? Is a nice girl who poses for
a fellow anything extra-human or superhuman or--or unhuman or
inhuman--so that intelligent conversation becomes impossible?"
"No," began Neville, laughing, but Burleson interrupted excitedly:
"A girl can be anything she chooses if she's all right, can't she? And
Rita comes from Massachusetts, doesn't she?"
"Certainly."
"Not only from Massachusetts, but from Hitherford!" added Burleson
triumphantly. "I came from Hitherford. My grandfather knew hers. Why,
man alive, Rita Tevis is entitled to do anything she chooses to do."
"That's one way of looking at it, anyway," admitted Neville gravely.
"I look at it that way. _You_ can't; you're not from Massachusetts; but
you have a sort of a New England name, too. It's Yankee, isn't it?"
"Southern."
"Oh," said Burleson, honestly depressed; "I _am_ sorry. There were
Nevilles in Hitherford Lower Falls two hundred years ago. I've always
liked to think of you as originating, somehow or other, in Massachusetts
Bay."
"No, John: unlike McGinty, I am unfamiliar with the cod-thronged ocean
deeps.... When are you going?"
"Day after to-morrow. Rita says you don't need her any longer on that
picture--"
"Lord, man! If I did I wouldn't hold you up. But don't worry, John; she
wouldn't let me.... She's a fine specimen of girl," he added casually.
[Illustration: "'You'd better understand, Kelly, that Rita Tevis is as
well born as I am.'"]
"Do you suppose that is news to me?"
"Oh, no; I'm sure you find her amusing--"
"What!"
"Amusing," repeated Neville innocently. "Don't you?"
"That is scarcely the word I would have chosen, Kelly. I have a very
warm admiration and a very sincere respect for Rita Tevis--"
"John! You sound like a Puritan making love!"
Burleson was intensely annoyed:
"You'd better understand, Kelly, that Rita Tevis is as well born as I
am, and that there would be nothing at all incongruous in any
declaration that any decent man might make her!"
"Why, I know that."
"I'm glad you do. And I'm gratified that what you said has given me the
opportunity to make myself very plain on the subject of Rita Tevis. It
may amaze you to know that her great grandsire carried a flintlock with
the Hitherford Minute Men, and fell most respectably at Boston Neck."
"Certainly, John. I knew she was all right. But I wasn't sure you knew
it--"
"Confound it! Of course I did. I've always known it. Do you think I'd
care for her so much if she wasn't all right?"
Neville smiled at him gravely, then held out his hand:
"Give my love to her, John. I'll see you both again before you go."
For nearly two weeks he had not heard a word from Valerie West. Rita and
John Burleson had departed, cheerful, sure of early convalescence and a
complete and radical cure.
Neville went with them to the train, but his mind was full of his own
troubles and he could scarcely keep his attention on the ponderous
conversation of Burleson, who was admonishing him and Ogilvy impartially
concerning the true interpretation of creative art.
He turned aside to Rita when opportunity offered and said in a low
voice:
"Before you go, tell me where Valerie is."
"I can't, Kelly."
"Did you promise her not to?"
"Yes."
He said, slowly: "I haven't had one word from her in nearly two weeks.
Is she well?"
"Yes. She came into town this morning to say good-bye to me."
"I didn't know she was out of town," he said, troubled.
"She has been, and is now. That's all I can tell you, Kelly dear."
"She _is_ coming back, isn't she?"
"I hope so."
"Don't you know?"
She looked into his anxious and miserable face and gently shook her
head:
"I _don't_ know, Kelly."
"Didn't she say--intimate anything--"
"No.... I don't think she knows--yet."
He said, very quietly: "If she ever comes to any conclusion that it is
better for us both never to meet again--I might be as dead as Querida
for any work I should ever again set hand to.
"If she will not marry me, but will let things remain as they are, at
least I can go on caring for her and working out this miserable problem
of life. But if she goes out of my life, life will go out of me. I know
that now."
Rita looked at him pitifully:
"Valerie's mind is her own, Kelly. It is the most honest mind I have
ever known; and nothing on earth--no pain that her decision might
inflict upon her--would swerve it a hair's breath from what she
concludes is the right thing to do."
"I know it," he said, swallowing a sudden throb of fear.
"Then what can I say to you?"
"Nothing. I must wait."
"Kelly, if you loved her enough you would not even wait."
"What!"
"Because her return to you will mean only one thing. Are you going to
accept it of her?"
"What can I do? I can't live without her!"
"_Her_ problem is nobler, Kelly. She is asking herself not whether she
can live life through without _you_--but whether you can live life well,
and to the full, without _her_?"
Neville flushed painfully.
"Yes," he said, "_that is_ Valerie. I'm not worth the anxiety, the
sorrow that I have brought her. I'm not worth marrying; and I'm not
worth a heavier sacrifice.... I'm trying to think less of myself, Rita,
and more of her.... Perhaps, if I knew she were happy, I could
stand--losing her.... If she could be--without me--" He checked himself,
for the struggle was unnerving him; then he set his face firmly and
looked straight at Rita.
"Do you believe she could forget me and be contented and tranquil--if I
gave her the chance?"
"Are _you_ talking of self-sacrifice for _her_ sake?"
He drew a deep, uneven breath:
"I--suppose it's--that."
"You mean that you're willing to eliminate yourself and give her an
opportunity to see a little of the world--a little of its order and
tranquillity and quieter happiness?--a chance to meet interesting women
and attractive men of her own age--as she is certain to do through her
intimacy with the Countess d'Enver?"
"Yes," he said, "that is what must be done.... I've been blind--and
rottenly selfish. I did not mean to be.... I've tried to force her--I
have done nothing else since I fell in love with her, but force her
toward people whom she has a perfect right not to care for--even if they
happen to be my own people. She has felt nothing but a steady and stupid
pressure from me;--heard from me nothing except importunities--the
merciless, obstinate urging of my own views--which, God forgive me, I
thought were the only views because they were respectable!"
He stood, head lowered, nervously clenching and unclenching his hands.
"It was not for her own sake--that's the worst of it! It was for my
sake--because I've had respectability inculcated until I can't conceive
of my doing anything not respectable.... Once, something else got away
with me--and I gave it rein for a moment--until checked.... I'm really
no different from other men."
"I think you are beginning to be, Kelly."
"Am I? I don't know. But the worst of it was my selfishness--my fixed
idea that her marrying me was the _only_ salvation for her.... I never
thought of giving her a chance of seeing other people--other men--better
men--of seeing a tranquil, well-ordered world--of being in it and of it.
I behaved as though my world--the fragment inhabited by my friends and
family--was the only alternative to this one. I've been a fool, Rita;
and a cruel one."
"No, only an average man, Kelly.... If I give you Valerie's address,
would you write and give her her freedom--for her own sake?--the freedom
to try life in that well-ordered world we speak of?... Because she is
very young. Life is all before her. Who can foretell what friends she
may be destined to make; what opportunities she may have. I care a great
deal for you, Kelly; but I love Valerie.... And, there _are_ other men
in the world after all;--but there is only one Valerie.... And--_how
truly do you love her_?"
"Enough," he said under his breath.
"Enough to--leave her alone?"
"Yes."
"Then write and tell her so. Here is the address."
She slipped a small bit of folded paper into Neville's land.
"We must join the others, now," she said calmly.
Annan had come up, and he and Ogilvy were noisily baiting Burleson amid
shouts of laughter and a protesting roar from John.
"Stop it, you wretches," said Rita amiably, entering the little group.
"John, are you never going to earn not to pay any attention to this pair
of infants?"
"Are you going to kiss me good-bye, Rita, when the train departs?"
inquired Sam, anxiously.
"Certainly; I kissed Gladys good-bye--"
"Before all this waiting room full of people?" persisted Sam. "_Are_
you?"
"Why I'll do it now if you like, Sammy dear."
"They'll take you for my sister," said Sam, disgusted.
"Or your nurse; John, what _is_ that man bellowing through the
megaphone?"
"Our train," said Burleson, picking up the satchels. He dropped them
again to shake the hands that were offered:
"Good-bye, John, dear old fellow! You'll get all over this thing in a
jiffy out there You'll be back in no time at all! Don't worry, and get
well!"
He smiled confidently and shook all their hands Rita's pretty face was
pale; she let Ogilvy kiss her cheek, shook hands with Annan, and then,
turning to Neville, put both hands on his shoulders and kissed him on
the mouth.
"Give her her chance, Kelly," she whispered ... "And it shall be
rendered unto you seven-fold."
"No, Rita; it never will be now."
"Who knows?"
"Rita! Rita!" he said under his breath, "when I am ending, she must
begin.... You are right: this world needs her. Try as I might, I never
could be worth what she is worth without effort. It is my life which
does not matter, not hers. I will do what ought to be done. Don't be
afraid. I will do it. And thank God that it is not too late."
That night, seated at his desk in the studio, he looked at the
calendar. It was the thirteenth day since he had heard from her; the
last day but two of the fifteen days she had asked for. The day after
to-morrow she would have come, or would have written him that she was
renouncing him forever for his own sake. Which might it have been? He
would never know now.
He wrote her:
"Dearest of women, Rita has been loyal to you. It was only when I
explained to her for what purpose I wished your address that she wisely
gave it to me.
"Dearest, from the beginning of our acquaintance and afterward when it
ripened into friendship and finally became love, upon you has rested the
burden of decision; and I have permitted it.
"Even now, as I am writing here in the studio, the burden lies heavily
upon your girl's shoulders and is weighting your girl's heart. And it
must not be so any longer.
"I have never, perhaps, really meant to be selfish; a man in love really
doesn't know what he means. But now I know what I have done; and what
must be undone.
"You were perfectly right. It was for you to say whether you would marry
me or not. It was for you to decide whether it was possible or
impossible for you to appear as my wife in a world in which you had had
no experience. It was for you to generously decide whether a rupture
between that world and myself--between my family and myself--would
render me--and yourself--eternally unhappy.
"You were free to decide; you used your own intellect, and you so
decided. And I had no right to question you--I have no right now. I
shall never question you again.
"Then, because you loved me, and because it was the kind of love that
ignored self, you offered me a supreme sacrifice. And I did not refuse;
I merely continued to fight for what I thought ought to be--distressing,
confusing, paining you with the stupid, obstinate reiterations of my
importunities. And you stood fast by your colours.
"Dear, I _was_ wrong. And so were you. Those were not the only
alternatives. I allowed them to appear so because of selfishness....
Alas, Valerie, in spite of all I have protested and professed of love
and passion for you, to-day, for the first time, have I really loved you
enough to consider you, alone. And with God's help I will do so always.
"You have offered me two alternatives: to give yourself and your life to
me without marriage; or to quietly slip out of my life forever.
"And it never occurred to you--and I say, with shame, that it never
occurred to me--that I might quietly efface myself and my demands from
_your_ life: leave you free and at peace to rest and develop in that new
and quieter world which your beauty and goodness has opened to you.
"Desirable people have met you more than half-way, and they like you.
Your little friend, Hélène d'Enver is a genuine and charming woman.
Your friendship for her will mean all that you have so far missed in
life all that a girl is entitled to.
"Through her you will widen the circle of your acquaintances and form
newer and better friendships You will meet men and women of your own
age and your own tastes which is what ought to happen.
"And it is right and just and fair that you enter into the beginning of
your future with a mind unvexed and a heart untroubled by conflicts
which can never solve for you and me any future life together.
"I do not believe you will ever forget me, or wish to, wholly. Time
heals--otherwise the world had gone mad some centuries ago.
"But whatever destiny is reserved for you, I know you will meet it with
the tranquillity and the sweet courage which you have always shown.
"What kind of future I wish for you, I need not write here. You know.
And it is for the sake of that future--for the sake of the girl whose
unselfish life has at last taught me and shamed me, that I give you up
forever.
"Dear, perhaps you had better not answer this for a long, long time.
Then, when that clever surgeon, Time, has effaced all scars--and when
not only tranquillity is yours but, perhaps, a deeper happiness is in
sight, write and tell me so. And the great god Kelly, nodding before his
easel, will rouse up from his Olympian revery and totter away to find a
sheaf of blessings to bestow upon the finest, truest, and loveliest girl
in all the world.
"_Halcyonii dies! Fortem posce animum! Forsan et haec olim meminisse
juvabit. Vale!_
"LOUIS NEVILLE."