“I just couldn’t take it,” he said.
“Because it was a tip?”
“Oh, no. If it had been a fiver—well, I suppose I’d been attentive and
I’ve no false pride.”
“Then why,” said Eve, “why did you turn it down?”
Jeremy laughed.
“I’m damned if I know,” he said. “But it couldn’t be done.”
Eve lay back in her chair and crossed her legs.
“Shall I tell you?” she said. “Because you’re a gentleman. You thought
she’d lost her head—she probably had: and you weren’t going to take
advantage of a runaway heart. . . . That hundred pounds was Cæsar’s: you
rendered it whence it came.”
Broke got upon his feet and turned to the mantelpiece.
Presently he took out a pipe and a well-worn pouch.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said slowly.
After a long look Eve lowered her eyes to the floor.
“You got off once before, Jeremy—nearly three years ago now.”
“Yes,” said Jeremy, pressing tobacco home.
“Did you think I’d lost my head?”
“No.”
“Or that to take my money would be taking advantage of my heart?”
“No.”
“Yet you rendered it to Cæsar—every cent.” She leapt to her feet and
caught the lapels of his coat. “Every rotten cent that the good God had
given us to make us happy you rendered unto Cæsar, as though it were
Cæsar’s. _And it wasn’t Cæsar’s_, Jeremy. It was ours—yours and
mine. . . .” Her voice broke, and the tears came into her eyes. “I was
so happy, dear, to think I was rich, because I felt I’d got something
worth sharing—which you would share. I was so proud and happy. . . .
And then—you—wouldn’t—share—it. . . . Well, at first I was dismayed,
as children are. You married a child, you know. . . . I tell you, I was
ready to cry for disappointment. And then, suddenly, I saw something
very magnificent—unearthly handsome, Jeremy, in your refusal. It was
something so bright and shining that I couldn’t think of anything else.
I found you were paying me a compliment for all the world to see such as
no woman with money had ever been paid before. . . . Well, I’m vain. And
the childish impulse to burst into tears was swallowed up in pride to
think that I had for my husband so fine a gentleman. I found it so
flattering, Jeremy: I was just drunk with vanity. And so I became a
princess—you made me one, dear: and the child that you married
disappeared. . . . And with the child disappeared the idea of sharing—a
princess doesn’t share. That it was _our_ money never occurred to me
again. I had no eyes for such an idea. Every hour of every day you
showed me that it was _mine_. And I came to prize its possession because
it had brought me this superb allegiance. I sank to be a queen, Jeremy:
and dragged you down to be the keeper of my purse . . . you . . . And
then a day came when the queen became imperious—high with her faithful
servant . . . thought him presumptuous . . . rose in the dignity he’d
given her and asked who paid him to keep the privy purse.” There was a
long silence. Presently Eve went on. “And then a strange thing happened.
You went, of course. But so did the queen, Jeremy. So did the pride and
vanity and all the false position you had built up. And if you could
have seen what was left, you’d ’ve seen a child crying—because it had
no playmate to share its pretty toys. . . . I say the false position
_you_ had built up. Jeremy lad, it’s true. I let you build it, of
course. I gave you the bricks. If I hadn’t been so vain—so hellishly
vain, I’d ’ve caught your arm at the beginning and stopped the rot. You
built so faithfully, Jeremy—with the cleanest, honestest heart. And I
watched you and let you build and thought how wonderful it was. And all
the time you were rendering our happiness to Cæsar. He’s had four months
of it already, four long, matchless months out of our little treasure.
Oh, Jeremy, Jeremy, you’re not going to give him any more?”
Jeremy caught her to him and held her close.
“My eloquent darling,” he said, with his cheek against hers. “But you’ve
forgotten my sex. A man——”
“You’d ’ve married me if I’d been poor?”
“You know I would.”
“It was because I was rich that you wouldn’t speak?”
“Yes.”
“It was the child you wanted to play with—not her toys?”
“Yes.”
“Why, then your honour is clean. And it’ll always be clean—so long as
you’d play with the child if she had no toys. . . . You wouldn’t want me
to throw my toys away—I’ve always had them to play with. Yet how d’you
think I feel when the child I’ve picked to be my playfellow won’t share
my pretty toys?”
“I wonder,” said Jeremy slowly, “I wonder whether you’re right. ‘Unto
Cæsar.’ You mean I’ve been paying conscience-money—which I never owed?”
Eve nodded.
The man put her gently aside and began to pace the room.
Slight fingers to mouth, Eve watched him, as one watches the flow of a
crisis which one is powerless to treat. Her face was calm, and she stood
like statuary: only the rise and fall of her breast betrayed her
hammering heart. Her brain was straining frantically to perceive the
line she would have to take. She had moved him—shaken him plainly.
Everything in the world was depending on how she handled the next thing
Jeremy said. . . .
Suddenly he swung round.
“Eve, if I come back, my livelihood’s gone. And I mayn’t be quite so
lucky . . . another time.”
His wife stood up.
“You go too fast, Jeremy. I’ve suffered, you know—most terribly. And I
can’t go through it again.” She hesitated. “Before you come back, you
must promise . . . to play with my toys.”
For a long minute Jeremy stood regarding his wife.
Then suddenly he smiled—the smile of a man who has suddenly come upon
the truth.
He stepped to Eve and put his arms about her.
“What a fool I’ve been,” he said. “What a blinking, blear-eyed fool. Of
course, it’s partly your fault. You gave me my choice when you had no
choice to give.”
“What do you mean, Jeremy?”
“You asked me which I would marry—the child or the witch or the
princess. Well, I couldn’t pick and choose. I had to marry the three—or
none at all.”
“But——”
“Listen. When you’re a child, I’ll play with your pretty toys: when
you’re a witch, I’ll—I’ll play with your beautiful hair: and when
you’re a princess. . . .”
“Yes, yes,”—eagerly.
“Why, then,” said Jeremy proudly, “I’ll play the prince.”
A glorious smile swept into his darling’s face.
“And they lived happily,” she breathed.
Jeremy nodded.
“Ever after,” he whispered.