But a spasm of pain shot through his eyes and deceived the woman a
little longer.
"And what have you been doing?" she pursued, meaning to distract him. "I
mean, your work?"
He shrugged. "Oh, I've had an average luckless year. To begin with,
Rideout fell down on his production of 'The Jade God'--the only time it
ever had a chance to get over--and a man named Algerson bought his
contract and put it on at his stock theatre in Los Angeles. That's why I
went out there--to see it butchered."
"It failed?"
"Extravagantly!"
"But didn't you once have a great deal of confidence in it?"
"Every play is a valuable property until it's produced," he answered,
smiling. "This one was killed by its production. Nothing was right: it
needed scenery, and what they gave it had served a decade in stock; it
needed actors, and what actors were accidentally permitted to get into
the cast got the wrong rôles; finally, it needed intelligent stage
direction, and that was supplied by the star, whose idea of a good play
is one in which he speaks everybody's lines _and_ his own. Then they
rewrote most of the best scenes and botched them horribly."
"You couldn't stop them?"
"When I attempted to interfere, I was told civilly to go to the devil.
Under my contract, I could have stopped them: but that meant suing out
an injunction, which in turn meant putting up a bond, and--I didn't have
the money."
"I'm so sorry, Jack!"
"Oh, it's all in the game. I learned something, at least. But the
greatest harm it did me was to sap the faith of managers here. One
man--Wylie--who was under contract to produce my 'Tomorrow's People,'
paid me on January first a forfeit of five hundred dollars rather than
run the risk after 'The Jade God.'"
"And so you lost both plays?"
"Oh, no; I still have 'Tomorrow's People,' and only a short time ago
signed up with a manager who isn't afraid of his shadow. We'll put it on
next Autumn."
"And you believe in that, too?"
"I know it will go," Matthias asserted with level confidence. "It's only
a question of intelligence at the producing end--and I've arranged to
get that."
"And meanwhile--you've been working?"
"Oh"--he spread out his hands--"one doesn't stop, you know. It's too
interesting!"
And then he laughed again. "But, you see, you flatter a fellow into
talking his head off about himself! Forgive me, and let me do a little
cross-examining. How are you? And what have you been doing? You--you
know, Venetia--you're looking more exquisitely pretty than ever!"
And so she was--more strangely lovely than ever in all the long span of
their friendship: with a deeper radiance in her face, a clearer, more
translucent pallor, in her eyes a splendour that lent new dignity to
their violet-shadowed mystery.
"I'm glad of that," she said quietly. She folded listless hands in her
lap, her eyes seeking distances. "I'm going to be very happy ... I
think...."
He looked up sharply.
That she wasn't happy now, he could well understand: that Marbridge was
behaving badly was something rather too broadly published by the very
publicity of his methods. Marriage had not been permitted to
interfere--at least, not after his return from Europe--with the ordinary
tenor of his bachelor ways. Matthias himself had seen him not
infrequently in theatres and restaurants, but only once in company with
Venetia--most often he had been dancing attendance upon a Mrs. Cardrow:
she who had given her lips to Matthias, thinking him Marbridge, that
long-ago night at Tanglewood. She was said to be stage-struck; and
Marbridge was rumoured to be deeply, though quietly, involved in the
financing of certain theatrical enterprises.
Surely, then, Venetia must know what everybody knew, and be unhappy in
that knowledge.
But now she was so calmly confident that she was "going to be happy"!
He wondered if she were contemplating divorce....
And then in a flash he understood. That woman who had stopped him was
not of Venetia's caste; if he guessed not wildly, she was a nurse. And
Venetia afoot instead of in her limousine....
She turned her eyes to his, smiling with a certain diffident, sweet
sedateness. "You didn't know, Jack?"
He shook his head, looking quickly away.
"But you've guessed?"
"Yes," he replied in a low voice.
Her hand fell lightly over his for a single instant. "Then be glad for
me, Jack," she begged gently. "It's--it's compensation."
"I understand," he said, "and I'm truly very glad. It's kind of you
to--to tell me, Venetia."
"It changes everything," she said pensively: "all my world is changed,
and I am a new strange woman, seeing it with new eyes. I have learned so
much--and in so short a time--I can hardly believe it. To think, it's
not a year since that time at Tanglewood--!"
"Please!" he begged.
"Oh, I didn't mean to hurt you, Jack. But it's that I wanted to talk to
you about. You won't mind, when you understand, as I have learned to
understand.... I tell you, I'm altogether another woman. Marriage is
like learning to live in a foreign land, but motherhood is another
world. I find it difficult to realize Venetia of a year ago: she's like
some strange creature I once knew but never quite understood. And yet,
little as I understood her, I can make excuses for her: I know her
impulses were not bad. I know, better than she knew ... she loved you,
Jack."
"You must not say that, Venetia!"
"But it's true, my dear, most true," she insisted in her voice of gentle
magic. "The rest ... was just madness, the sort of madness that some men
have the power to--to kindle in women. It's a deadly power, very
terrible, and they--who have it--use it as carelessly as children
playing with matches and gunpowder--"
"Oh, I understand, Venetia, I understand! Don't--"
"No--let me tell you. I've got to, Jack. I've had this so long in my
heart to tell you!... You must be patient with me, this once, and
listen.... You must know that I loved you then when I--ran to you--threw
myself into your arms--made you ask me to marry you and promised I would
and--and thought that I was safe from _him_ because of my promise. But I
didn't know myself--nor him. He seemed able to make his will my law so
easily--so strangely!... Even when I ran away with him, I knew that
happiness could never come of it.... It was just the madness ... I
couldn't help myself ... I just could not _help_ myself.... And
then--ah, but I have paid for my madness--many times over!..."
For the moment he couldn't trust himself to speak. The woman bent
forward to gain a glimpse of his half-averted face, and searched it
anxiously with her haunted eyes.
"You do understand, Jack?... You forgive?..."
"There isn't any question of forgiveness," he said. "And I always
understood--half-way. You know that--you must have known it, or you
couldn't have said--what you have--to me."
The woman laughed a little, tender, broken laugh.
"I am so glad!" she said softly. "Perhaps it's wrong.... But you've made
me a little happier. I have needed so desperately someone to confess
to--someone on whose sympathy I could count. And--Jack--the only one in
the world was you.... You--you've helped."
She rose, holding out both hands to him, and as he took them and held
them tight he saw that her lovely eyes were wide and dim with tears.
"You've proved my faith in you," she said--"my gentle man--my knight
sans peur et sans reproche!"
He bent his head to her hands, but before his lips could touch them,
very gently she drew them away, and turned and left him.
Bareheaded and wondering, for a long time he stood staring at the spot
where, in company with the nurse, she had disappeared.