Une nuit blanche--and the young seem less able to withstand its
corroding alchemy than the old. It had left its terrible and pallid mark
on Desboro; and on Jacqueline it had set its phantom sign. That
youthfully flushed and bright-eyed loveliness which always characterised
the girl had whitened to ashes over night.
And now, as she entered the sunny breakfast room in her delicate Chinese
morning robes, the change in her was startlingly apparent; for the
dead-gold lustre of her hair accented the pallor of a new and strange
and transparent beauty; the eyes, tinted by the deeper shadows under
them, looked larger and more violet; and she seemed smaller and more
slender; and there was a snowy quality to the skin that made the vivid
lips appear painted.
Desboro came forward from the recess of the window; and whether in his
haggard and altered features she read of his long night's vigil, or
whether in his eyes she learned again how she herself had changed, was
not plain to either of them; but her eyes suddenly filled and she turned
sharply and stood with the back of one slender hand across her eyes.
Neither had spoken; neither spoke for a full minute. Then she walked to
the window and looked out. The mating sparrows were very noisy.
Not a tear fell; she touched her eyes with a bit of lace, drew a long,
deep, steady breath and turned toward him.
"It is all over--forgive me, Jim. I did not mean to greet you this way.
I won't do it again----"
She offered her hand with a faint smile, and he lifted it and touched it
to his lips.
"It's all over, all ended," she repeated. "Such a curious phenomenon
happened to me at sunrise this morning."
"What?"
"I was born," she said, laughing. "Isn't it odd to be born at my age? So
as soon as I realised what had happened, I went and looked out of the
window; and there was the world, Jim--a big, round, wonderful planet,
all over hills and trees and valleys and brooks! I don't know how I
recognised it, having just been born into it, but somehow I did. And I
knew the sun, too, the minute I saw it shining on my window and felt it
on my face and throat. Isn't that a wonderful way to begin life?"
There was not a tremor in her voice, nothing tremulous in the sweet
humour of the lips; and, to his surprise, in her eyes little demons of
gaiety seemed to be dancing all at once till they sparkled almost
mockingly.
"Dear," he said, under his breath, "I wondered whether you would ever
speak to me again."
"_Speak_ to you! You silly boy, I expect to do little else for the rest
of my life! I intend to converse and argue and importune and insist and
nag and nag. Oh, Jim! _Please_ ring for breakfast. I had no luncheon
yesterday and less dinner."
A slight colour glowed under the white skin of her cheeks as Farris
entered with the fruit; she lifted a translucent cluster of grapes from
the dish, snipped it in half with the silver scissors, glanced at her
husband and laughed.
[Illustration: "'_That's_ how hungry I am, Jim. I warned you'"]
"_That's_ how hungry I am, Jim. I warned you. Of what are you
thinking--with that slight and rather fascinating smile crinkling your
eyes?"
She bit into grape after grape, watching him across the table.
"Share with me whatever amuses you, please!" she insisted. "Never with
my consent shall you ever again laugh alone."
"You haven't seen last evening's and this morning's papers," he said,
amused.
"Have they arrived? Oh, Jim! I wish to see them, please!"
He went into his room and brought out a sheaf of clippings.
"Isn't this all of the papers that you cared to see, Jacqueline?"
"Of course! What _do_ they say about us? Are they brief or redundant,
laconic or diffuse? And are they nice to us?"
She was already immersed in a quarter column account of "A Romantic
Wedding" at "old St. George's"; and she read with dilated eyes all about
the "wealthy, fashionable, and well-known clubman," which she understood
must mean her youthful husband, and all about Silverwood and the
celebrated collections, and about his lineage and his social activities.
And by and by she read about herself, and her charm and beauty and
personal accomplishments, and was amazed to learn that she, too, was not
only wealthy and fashionable, but that she was a descendant of an
ancient and noble family in France, entirely extinguished by the
guillotine during the Revolution, except for her immediate progenitors.
Clipping after clipping she read to the end; then the simple notices
under "Weddings." Then she looked at Desboro.
"I--I didn't realise what a very grand young man I had married," she
said, with a shy smile. "But I am very willing to admit it. Why do they
say such foolish and untrue things about _me_?"
"They meant to honour you by lying about you when the truth about you is
far more noble and more wonderful," he said.
"Do you think so?"
"Do you doubt it?"
She remained silent, turning over the clippings in her hand; then,
glancing up, found him smiling again.
"Please share with me--because I know your thoughts are pleasant."
"It was seeing you in these pretty Chinese robes," he smiled, "which
made me think of that evening in the armoury."
"Oh--when I sat under the dragon, with my lute, and said for your guests
some legends of old Cathay?"
"Yes. Seeing you here--in your Chinese robes--made me think of their
astonishment when you first dawned on their mental and social horizon.
They are worthy people," he added, with a shrug.
"They are as God made them," she said, demurely.
"Only they have always forgotten, as I have, that God merely begins
us--and we are expected to do the rest. For, once made, He merely winds
us up, sets our hearts ticking, and places us on top of the world. Where
we walk to, and how, is our own funeral henceforward. Is that your idea
of divine responsibility?"
"I think He continues to protect us after we start to toddle; and after
that, too, if we ask Him," she answered, in a low voice.
"Do you believe in prayer, dear?"
"Yes--in unselfish prayer. Not in the acquisitive variety. Such
petitions seem ignoble to me."
"I understand."
She said, gravely: "To pray--not for one's self--except that one cause
no sorrow--that seems to me a logical petition. But I don't know. And
after all, what one does, not what one talks about, counts."
She was occupied with her grapes, glancing up at him from moment to
moment with sweet, sincere eyes, sometimes curious, sometimes shy, but
always intent on this tall, boyish young fellow who, she vainly tried to
realise, belonged to her.
In his morning jacket, somehow, he had become entirely another person;
his thick, closely brushed hair, the occult air of freshness from
ablutions that left a faint fragrance about him, accented their new
intimacy, the strangeness of which threatened at moments to silence her.
Nor could she realise that she belonged there at all--there, in her
frail morning draperies, at breakfast with him in a house which belonged
to him.
Yet, one thing she was becoming vaguely aware of; this tall, young
fellow, in his man's intimate attire, was quietly and unvaryingly
considerate of her; had entirely changed from the man she seemed to have
known; had suddenly changed yesterday at midnight. And now she was aware
that he still remained what he had been when he took the white blossom
from her hand the night before, and left in her trembling palm,
untouched, the symbol of authority which now was his forever.
Even in the fatigue of body and the deadlier mental weariness--in the
confused chaos of her very soul, that moment was clearly imprinted on
her mind--must remain forever recorded while life lasted.
She divided another grape; there were no seeds; the skin melted in her
mouth.
"Men," she said absently, "_are_ good." When he laughed, she came to
herself and looked at him with shy, humourous eyes. "They _are_ good,
Jim. Even the Chinese knew it thousands of years ago. Have you never
heard me recite the three-word-classic of San Tzu Ching? Then listen,
white man!
"Jen chih ch'u
Hsing pen shan
Hsing hsiang chin
Hsi hsiang yuan
Kou pu chiao
Hsing nai ch'ien
Chiao chih tao
Kuei i chuan----"
She sat swaying slightly to the rhythm, like a smiling child who recites
a rhyme of the nursery, accenting the termination of every line by
softly striking her palms together; and the silken Chinese sleeves
slipped back, revealing her white arms to the shoulder.
Softly she smote her smooth little palms together, gracefully she
swayed; her silks rustled like the sound of slender reeds in a summer
wind, and her cadenced voice was softer. Never had he seen her so
exquisite.
She stopped capriciously.
"All that is Chinese to me," he said. "You make me feel solitary and
ignorant."
And she laughed and tossed the lustrous hair from her cheeks.
"This is all it means, dear:
"Men at their birth
Are naturally good.
Their natures are much the same;
Their habits become widely different.
If they are not taught,
Their natures will deteriorate.
The right way in teaching
Is to attach the utmost importance to thoroughness----
"And so forth, and so forth," she ended gaily.
"Where on earth did you learn Chinese?" he remonstrated. "You know
enough without that to scare me to death! Slowly but surely you are
overwhelming me, Jacqueline, and some day I shall leave the house, dig a
woodchuck hole out on the hill, and crawl into it permanently."
"Then I'll have to crawl in, too, won't I? But, alas, Jim! The
three-word-classic is my limit. When father took me to Shanghai, I
learned it--three hundred and fifty-six lines of it! But it's all the
Chinese I know--except a stray phrase or two. Cheer up, dear; we won't
have to look for our shadows on that hill."
Breakfast was soon accomplished; she looked shyly across at him; he
nodded, and they rose.
"The question is," she said, "when am I going to find time to read the
remainder of the morning paper, and keep myself properly informed from
day to day, if you make breakfast so agreeable for me?"
"Have I done that?"
"You know you have," she said lightly. "Suppose you read the paper aloud
to me, while I stroll about for the sake of my figure."
They laughed; he picked up the paper and began to read the headlines,
and she walked about the room, her hands bracketed on her hips,
listening sometimes, sometimes absorbed in her own reflections, now and
then glancing out of the window or pausing to rearrange a bowl of
flowers.
Little by little, however, her leisurely progress from one point of
interest to another became more haphazard, and she moved restlessly,
with a tendency to drift in his direction.
Perhaps she realised that, for she halted suddenly.
"Jim, I have enough of politics, thank you. And it's almost time to put
on more conventional apparel, isn't it? I have a long and hard day
before me at the office."
"As hard as yesterday?" he asked, unthinkingly; then reddened.
She had moved to the window as she spoke; but he had seen the quick,
unconscious gesture of pain as her hand flew to her breast; and her
smiling courage when she turned toward him did not deceive him.
"That _was_ a hard day, Jim. But I think the worst is over. And you may
read your paper if you wish until I am ready. You have only to put on
your business coat, haven't you?"
So he tried to fix his mind on the paper, and, failing, laid it aside
and went to his room to make ready.
When he was prepared, he returned to their sitting room. She was not
there, and the door of her bedroom was open and the window-curtains
fluttering.
So he descended to the library, where he found her playing with his
assortment of animals, a cat tucked under either arm and a yellow pup on
her knees.
"They all came to say good-morning," she explained, "and how could I
think of my clothing? Would you ask Farris to fetch a whisk-broom?"
Desboro rang: "A whisk-broom for--for Mrs. Desboro," he said.
_Mrs. Desboro!_
She had looked up startled; it was the first time she had heard it from
his lips, and even the reiteration of her maid had not accustomed her to
hear herself so named.
Both had blushed before Farris, both had thrilled as the words had
fallen from Desboro's unaccustomed lips; but both attempted to appear
perfectly tranquil and undisturbed by what had shocked them as no bomb
explosion possibly could. And the old man came back with the
whisk-broom, and Desboro dusted the cat fur and puppy hairs from
Jacqueline's brand-new gown.
They were going to town by train, not having time to spare.
"It will be full of commuters," he said, teasingly. "You don't know what
a godsend a bride is to commuters. I pity _you_."
"I shall point my nose particularly high, monsieur. Do you suppose I'll
know anybody aboard?"
"What if you don't! They'll know who _you_ are! And they'll all read
their papers and stare at you from time to time, comparing you with what
the papers say about you----"
"Jim! Stop tormenting me. Do I look sallow and horrid? I believe I'll
run up to my room and do a little friction on my cheeks----"
"With nail polish?"
"How do _you_ know? Please, Jim, it isn't nice to know so much about the
makeshifts indulged in by my sex."
She stood pinching her cheeks and the tiny lobes of her close-set ears,
regarding him with beautiful but hostile eyes.
"You know too much, young man. You don't wish to make me afraid of you,
do you? Anyway, you are no expert! Once you thought my hair was painted,
and my lips, too. If I'd known what you were thinking I'd have made
short work of you that rainy afternoon----"
"You _did_."
She laughed: "You _can_ say nice things, too. Did you really begin
to--to care for me that actual afternoon?"
"That actual afternoon."
"A--about what time--if you happen to remember," she asked carelessly.
"About the same second that I first set eyes on you."
"Oh, Jim, you _couldn't_!"
"Couldn't what?"
"Care for me the actual second you first set eyes on me. Could you?"
"I _did_."
"Was it _that_ very second?"
"Absolutely."
"You didn't show it."
"Well, you know I couldn't very well kneel down and make you a
declaration before I knew your name, could I, dear?"
"You did it altogether too soon as it was. Jim, what _did_ you think of
me?"
"You ought to know by this time."
"I don't. I suppose you took one look at me and decided that I was all
ready to fall into your arms. Didn't you?"
"You haven't done it yet," he said lightly.
There was a pause; the colour came into her face, and his own reddened.
But she pretended to be pleasantly unconscious of the significance, and
only interested in reminiscence.
"Do you know what I thought of you, Jim, when you first came in?"
"Not much, I fancy," he conceded.
"Will it spoil you if I tell you?"
"Have you spoiled me very much, Jacqueline?"
"Of course I have," she said hastily. "Listen, and I'll tell you what I
thought of you when you first came in. I looked up, and of course I knew
at a glance that you were nice; and I was very much impressed----"
"The deuce you were!" he laughed, unbelievingly.
"I was!"
"You didn't show it."
"Only an idiot of a girl would. But I was--very--greatly--impressed,"
she continued, with a delightfully pompous emphasis on every word,
"very--greatly--impressed by the tall and fashionable and elegant and
agreeably symmetrical Mr. Desboro, owner of the celebrated collection of
arms and armour----"
"I knew it!"
"Knew what?"
"You never even took the trouble to look at me until you found out that
the armour belonged to me----"
"That is what _ought_ to have been true. But it wasn't."
"Did you actually----"
"Yes, I did. Not the very second I laid eyes on you----" she added,
blushing slightly, "but--when you went away--and afterward--that evening
when I was trying to read Grenville on Armour."
"You thought of me, Jacqueline?"
[Illustration: "'It was rather odd, wasn't it, Jim?'"]
"Yes--and tried not to. But it was no use; I seemed to see you laughing
at me under every helmet in Grenville's plates. It was rather odd,
wasn't it, Jim? And to think--to think that now----"
Her smile grew vaguer; she dropped her head thoughtfully and rested one
hand on the library table, where once her catalogue notes had been piled
up--where once Elena's letter to her husband had fallen from
Clydesdale's heavy hand.
Then, gradually into her remote gaze came something else, something
Desboro had learned to dread; and she raised her head abruptly and gazed
straight at him with steady, questioning eyes in which there was a hint
of trouble of some kind--perhaps unbelief.
"I suppose you are going to your office," she said.
"After I have taken you to yours, dear."
"You will be at leisure before I am, won't you?"
"Unless you knock off work at four o'clock. Can you?"
"I can not. What will you do until five, Jim?"
"There will be nothing for me to do except wait for you."
"Where will you wait?"
He shrugged: "At the club, I suppose."
The car rolled up past the library windows.
"I suppose," she said carelessly, "that it would be too stupid for you
to wait _chez moi_."
"In your office? No, indeed----"
"I meant in my apartment. You could smoke and read--but perhaps you
wouldn't care to."
They went out into the hall, where her maid held her ulster for her and
Farris put Desboro into his coat.
Then they entered the car which swung around the oval and glided away
toward Silverwood station.
"To tell you the truth, dear," he said, "it _would_ be rather slow for
me to sit in an empty room until you were ready to join me."
"Of course. You'd find it more amusing at your club."
"I'd rather be with you at your office."
"Thank you. But some of my clients stipulate that no third person shall
be present when their business is discussed."
"All right," he said, shortly.
The faint warmth of their morning's _rapprochement_ seemed somehow to
have turned colder, now that they were about to separate for the day.
Both felt it; neither understood it. But the constraint which perhaps
they thought too indefinite to analyse persisted. She did not fully
understand it, except that, in the aftermath of the storm which had nigh
devastated her young heart, her physical nearness to him seemed to help
the tiny seed of faith which she had replanted in agony and tears the
night before.
To see him, hear his voice, somehow aided her; and the charm of his
personality for a while had reawakened and encouraged in her the courage
to love him. The winning smile in his eyes had, for the time, laid the
phantoms of doubt; memory had become less sensitive; the demon of
distrust which she had fought off so gallantly lay somewhere inert and
almost forgotten in the dim chamber of her mind.
But not dead--no; for somewhere in obscurity she had been conscious for
an instant that her enemy was stirring.
Must this always be so? Was faith in this man really dead? Was it only
the image of faith which her loyalty and courage had set up once more
for an altar amid the ruins of her young heart?
And always, always, even when she seemed unaware, even when she had
unconsciously deceived herself, her consciousness of the _other woman_
remained alive, like a spark, whitened at moments by its own ashes, yet
burning terribly when touched.
Slowly she began to understand that her supposed new belief in this man
would endure only while he was within her sight; that the morning's
warmth had slowly chilled as the hour of their separation approached;
that her mind was becoming troubled and confused, and her heart
uncertain and apprehensive.
And as she thought of the future--years and years of it--there seemed no
rest for her, only endless effort and strife, only the external exercise
of mental and spiritual courage to fight back the creeping shadow which
must always threaten her--the shadow that Doubt casts, and which men
call Fear.
"Shall we go to town in the car?" he said, looking at his watch. "We
have time; the train won't be in for twenty minutes."
"If you like."
He picked up the speaking tube and gave his orders, then lay back again
to watch the familiar landscape with worried eyes that saw other things
than hills and trees and wintry fields and the meaningless abodes of
men.
So this was what Fate had done to him--_this_! And every unconsidered
act of his had been slyly, blandly, maliciously leading him into this
valley of humiliation.
He had sometimes thought of marrying, never very definitely, except
that, if love were to be the motive, he would have ample time, after
that happened, to reform before his wedding day. Also, he had expected
to remain in a laudable and permanent state of regeneration, marital
treachery not happening to suit his fastidious taste.
That was what he had intended in the improbable event of marriage. And
now, suddenly, from a clear sky, the bolt had found him; love,
courtship, marriage, had followed with a rapidity he could scarcely
realise; and had left him stranded on the shores of yesterday,
discredited, distrusted, deeply, wretchedly in love; not only unable to
meet on equal terms the young girl who had become his wife, but the
involuntary executioner of her tender faith in him!
To this condition the laws of compensation consigned him. The man-made
laws which made his complaisance possible could not help him now; the
unwritten social law which acknowledges a double standard of purity for
man and woman he must invoke in vain. Before the tribunal of her clear,
sweet eyes, and before the chastity of her heart and mind, the ignoble
beliefs, the lying precedents, the false standards must fall.
There had been no shelter there for him, and he had known it. Reticence,
repentance, humble vows for the future--these had been left to him, he
supposed.
But the long, dim road to yesterday was thronged with ghosts, and his
destiny came swiftly upon him. Tortured, humiliated, helpless, he saw
the lash that cut him fall also upon her.
Sooner or later, all that is secret of good or of evil shall be made
manifest, here or elsewhere; and the suffering may not be abated. And he
began to understand that reticence can not forever hide what has been;
that no silence can screen it; no secrecy conceal it; that reaction
invariably succeeds action; and not a finger is ever lifted that the
universe does not experience the effect.
How he or fate might have spared her, he did not know. What she had
learned about him he could not surmise. As far as Elena was concerned,
he had been no worse than a fastidious fool dangling about a weaker and
less fastidious one. If gossip of that nature had brought this grief
upon her, it was damnable.
All he could do was to deny it. He _had_ denied it. But denial, alas,
was limited to that particular episode. He could not make it more
sweeping; he _was not on equal ground with her_; he was at a
disadvantage. Only spiritual equality dare face its peer, fearless,
serene, and of its secrets unafraid.
Yet--she had surmised what he had been; she had known. And, insensibly,
he began to feel a vague resentment toward her, almost a bitterness.
Because she had accepted him without any illusion concerning him. That
had been understood between them. She knew he loved her; she loved him.
Already better things had been in sight for him, loftier aspirations,
the stirring of ambition. And suddenly, almost at the altar itself, this
thing had happened--whatever it was! And all her confidence in him, all
her acquiescence in what had been, all her brave words and promises--all
except the mere naked love in her breast had crashed earthward under its
occult impact, leaving their altar on their wedding night shattered,
fireless, and desolate.
He set his teeth and the muscles in his cheeks hardened.
"By God!" he thought. "I'll find out what this thing is, and who has
done it. She knew what I was. There is a limit to humiliation. Either
she shall again accept me and believe in me, or--or----"
But there seemed to present itself no alternative which he could
tolerate; and the thread of thought snapped short.
They were entering the city limits now, and he began to realise that
neither had spoken for nearly an hour.
He ventured to glance sideways at her. The exquisitely sad profile
against the window thrilled him painfully, almost to the verge of anger.
Unwedded, she had been nearer to him. Even in his arms, shy and utterly
unresponsive, she had been closer, a more vital thing, than ever she had
been since the law had made her his wife.
For a moment the brutality in him stirred, and he felt the heat of blood
in his face, and his heart grew restless and beat faster. All that is
latent in man of impatience with pain, of intolerance, of passion, of
violence, throbbed in every vein.
Then she turned and looked at him. And it was ended as suddenly as it
began. Only his sense of helplessness and his resentment
remained--resentment against fate, against the unknown people who had
done this thing to him and to her; against himself and his folly; even
subtly, yet illogically, against her.
"I was thinking," she said, "that we might at least lunch together--if
you would care to."
"Would _you_?" he asked coldly.
"If you would."
His lip began to tremble and he caught it between his teeth; then his
anger flared, and before he meant to he had said:
"A jolly luncheon it would be, wouldn't it?"
"What?"
"I said it would be a jolly affair--considering the situation."
"What is the situation, Jim?" she asked, very pale.
"Oh, what I've made of it, I suppose--a failure!"
"I--I thought we were trying to remake it into a success."
"Can we?"
"We must, Jim."
"How?"
She was silent.
"I'll tell you how we can _not_ make a success out of it," he said
hotly, "and that's by doing what we have been doing."
"We have--have had scarcely time yet to do anything very much."
"We've done enough to widen the breach between us--however we've managed
to accomplish it. That's all I know, Jacqueline."
"I thought the breach was closing."
"I thought so, too, this morning."
"Wounds can not heal over night," she said, in a low voice.
"Wounds can not heal at all if continually irritated."
"I know it. Give me a little time, Jim. It is all so new to me, and
there is no precedent to follow--and I haven't very much wisdom. I am
only trying to find myself so I shall know how best to serve you----"
"I don't want to be served, Jacqueline! I want you to love me----"
"I do."
"You do in a hurt, reproachful, frightened, don't-touch-me sort of
way----"
"Jim!"
"I'm sorry; I don't know what I'm saying. There isn't anything for me to
say, I suppose. But I don't seem to have the spirit of endurance in
me--humble submission isn't my line; delay makes me impatient. I want
things to be settled, no matter what the cost. When I repent, I repent
like the devil--just as hard and as fast as I can. Then it's over and
done with. But nobody else seems to notice my regeneration."
For a moment her face was a study in mixed emotions, then a troubled
smile curved her lips, but her eyes were unconvinced.
"You are only a boy, aren't you?" she said gently. "I know it, somehow,
but there is still a little awe of you left in me, and I can't quite
understand. Won't you be patient with me, Jim?"
He bent over and caught her hand.
"Only love me, Jacqueline----"
"Oh, I do! I do! And I don't know what to do about it! All my thoughts
are concentrated on it, how best to make it strong, enduring, noble! How
best to shelter it, bind up its wounds, guard it, defend it. I--I know
in my heart that I've got to defend it----"
"What do you mean, my darling?"
"I don't know--I don't know, Jim. Only--if I knew--if I could always
know----"
She turned her head swiftly and stared out of the window. On the glass,
vaguely, Elena's shadowy features seemed to smile at her.
Was _that_ what tortured her? Was that what she wished to know when she
and this man separated for the day--_where the woman was_? Had her
confidence in him been so utterly, so shamefully destroyed that it had
lowered her to an ignoble level--hurled down her dignity and
self-respect to grovel amid unworthy and contemptible emotions? Was it
the vulgar vice of jealousy that was beginning to fasten itself upon
her?
Sickened, she closed her eyes a moment; but on the lids was still
imprinted the face of the woman; and her words began to ring in her
brain. And thought began to gallop again, uncurbed, frantic, stampeding.
How could he have done it? How could he have carried on this terrible
affair after he had met her, after he had known her, loved her, won her?
How could he have received that woman as a guest under the same roof
that sheltered her? How could he have made a secret rendezvous with the
woman scarcely an hour after he had asked her to marry him?
Even if anybody had come to her and told her of these things she could
have found it in her heart to find excuses, to forgive him; she could
have believed that he had received Elena and arranged a secret meeting
with her merely to tell her that their intrigue was at an end.
She could have accustomed herself to endure the knowledge of this
concrete instance. And, whatever else he might have done in the past she
could endure; because, to her, it was something too abstract, too vague
and foreign to her to seem real.
But the attitude and words of Elena Clydesdale--the unmistakable
impression she coolly conveyed that this thing was not yet ended, had
poisoned the very spring of her faith in him. And the welling waters
were still as bitter as death to her.
What did faith matter to her in the world if she could not trust this
man? Of what use was it other than to believe in him? And now she could
not. She had tried, and she could not. Only when he was near her--only
when she might see him, hear him, could she ever again feel sure of him.
And now they were to separate for the day. And--where was he going? And
where was the other woman?
And her heart almost stopped in her breast as she thought of the days
and days and years and years to come in which she must continue to ask
herself these questions.
Yet, in the same quick, agonised breath, she knew she was going to fight
for him--do battle in behalf of that broken and fireless altar where
love lay wounded.
There were many ways of doing battle, but only one right way. And she
had thought of many--confused, frightened, unknowing, praying for
unselfishness and for light to guide her.
But there were so many ways; and the easiest had been to forgive him,
surrender utterly, cling to him, love him with every tenderness and
grace and accomplishment and art and instinct that was hers--with all of
her ardent youth, all of her dawning emotion, all of her undeveloped
passion.
That had been the easier way in the crisis which stunned and terrified
her--to seek shelter, not give it; to surrender, not to withhold.
But whether through wisdom or instinct, she seemed to see farther than
the moment--to divine, somehow, that his salvation and hers lay not only
in forgiveness and love, but in her power to give or withhold; her
freedom to exact what justly was her due; in the preservation of her
individuality with all its prerogative, its liberty of choice, its
self-respect unshaken, its authority unweakened and undiminished.
To yield when he was not qualified to receive such supreme surrender
boded ill for her, and ultimately for him; for it made of her merely an
instrument.
Somehow she seemed to know that sometime, for her, would come a moment
of final victory; and in that moment only her utter surrender could make
the victory eternal and complete.
And until that moment came she would not surrender prematurely. She had
a fight on her hands; she knew it; she must do her best, though her own
heart were a sword that pierced her with every throb. For his sake she
would deny; for his sake remain aloof from the lesser love, inviolate,
powerful, mistress of herself and of her destiny.
And yet--she _was_ his wife. And, after all was said and done, she
understood that no dual sovereignty ever is possible; that one or the
other must have the final decision; and that if, when it came to that,
his ultimate authority failed him, then their spiritual union was a
failure, though the material one might endure for a while.
And so, believing this, honest with herself and with him, she had
offered him her fealty--a white blossom and her key lying beside it in
the palm of her hand--in acknowledgment that the supreme decision lay
with him.
He had not failed her; the final authority still lay with him. Only that
knowledge had sustained her during the long night.
The car stopped at her establishment; she came out of her painful
abstraction with a slight start, flushed, and looked at him.
"Will you lunch with me, Jim?"
"I think I'll lunch at the club," he said, coolly.
"Very well. Will you bring the car around at five?"
"The car will be here for you."
"And--you?" She tried to smile.
"Probably."
"Oh! If you have any engagements----"
"I might make one between now and five," he said carelessly. "If I do,
I'll come up on the train."
She had not been prepared for this attitude. But there was nothing to
say. He got out and aided her to descend, and took her to the door. His
manners were always faultless.
"I hope you will come for me," she said, almost timidly.
"I hope so," he said.
And that was all; she offered her hand; he took it, smiled, and replaced
his hat after the shop door closed behind her.
Then he went back to the car.
"Drive me to Mrs. Hammerton's," he said curtly; got in, and slammed the
door.