_ CHAPTER XI
The door of the apartment stood ajar and he walked in. Athalie, still in her evening gown, rose from the sofa before the fire, dropping the white Angora, Hafiz, from her lap.
"It's so good of you, Clive," she said, offering her hand.
"It's good of _you_, Athalie, to let me come."
"_Let_ you!" There was a smile on her sensitive lips, scarcely perceptible.
He dropped coat, hat, and walking stick across a chair; she seated herself on the sofa, and he came over and found a place for himself beside her.
"It's been a long time, Athalie. Has it seemed so to you?"
She nodded. Hafiz, marching to and fro, his plumy tail curling around her knees, looked up at his mistress out of sapphire eyes.
"Jump, darling," she said invitingly. Hafiz sprang onto her lap with a quick contented little mew, stretched his superb neck and began to rub against her shoulder, purring ecstatically.
"He'll cover me with long white hairs," she remarked to Clive, "but I don't care. Isn't he a beauty? Hasn't he seraphic eyes and angelic manners?"
Clive nodded, watching the cat with sombre and detached interest.
She said, stroking Hafiz and looking down at the magnificent animal: "Did you have a pleasant evening, Clive?"
"Not very."
"I'm sorry. Your party seemed to be such a very gay one."
"They made a lot of noise."
She laughed: "Is that a very gracious way to put it?"
"Probably not.... Where had you been before you appeared at the Regina?"
"To see some moving pictures taken in the South American jungle. It was really wonderful, Clive: there were parrots and monkeys and crocodiles and wild pigs--peccaries I think they are called--and then a big, spotted, chunky-headed jaguar stalked into view! I was so excited, so interested--"
"Where was it?"
"On the middle fork of the upper Amazon--"
"I mean where were the films exhibited?"
"Oh! At the Berkeley. It was a private view."
"Who invited you?"
"Captain Dane."
He looked up at her, soberly:
"Who is Captain Dane?"
"Why--I don't know exactly. He is a most interesting man. I think he has been almost everything--a naturalist, an explorer, a scout in the Boer War, a soldier of fortune, a newspaper man. He is fascinating to talk to, Clive."
"Where did you meet him?"
"In the office. Mr. Wahlbaum collects orchids, and Captain Dane looked up some for him when he was on the Amazon a short time ago. He came into the office about week before last and Mr. Wahlbaum introduced him to me. They sat there talking for an hour. It was _so_ interesting to me; and I think Captain Dane noticed how attentively I listened, for very often he addressed himself to me.... And he asked Mr. Wahlbaum, very nicely, if he might show me the orchids which are in the Botanical Gardens, and that is how our friendship began."
"You go about with him?"
"Whenever he asks me. I went with him last Sunday to the Museum of Natural History. Just think, Clive, I had never been. And, do you know, he could scarcely drag me away."
"I suppose you dined with him afterward," he said coolly.
"Yes, at a funny little place--I couldn't tell you where it is--but everybody seemed to know everybody else and it was so jolly and informal--and such good food! I met a number of people there some of whom have called on me since--"
"What sort of people?"
"About every interesting sort--men like Captain Dane, writers, travellers, men engaged in unusual professions. And there were a few delightful women present, all in some business or profession. Mlle. Delauny of the Opera was there--so pretty and so unaffected. And there was also that handsome suffragette who looks like Jeanne d' Arc--"
"Nina Grey."
"Yes. And there was a rather strange and fascinating woman--a physician I believe--but I am not sure. Anyway she is associated with the psychical research people, and she asked if she might come to see me--"
He made an impatient movement--quite involuntary--and Hafiz who was timid, sprang from Athalie's lap and retreated, tail waving, and ears flattened for expected blandishments to recall him.
Athalie glanced up at the man beside her with a laugh on her lips, which died there instantly.
"What is the matter, Clive?"
"Nothing," he said.
His sullen face remained in profile, and after a moment she laid her hand lightly, questioningly on his sleeve.
Without turning he said: "I don't know what is the matter with me, so don't ask me. Something seems to be wrong. _I_ am, probably.... And I think I'll go home, now."
But he did not stir.
After a few moments she said very gently: "Are you displeased with me for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine--"
"You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so well known."
"Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?"
"Wrong? No:--if your own sense of--of--" but the right word--if there were such--eluded him.
"I know how you feel," she said in a low voice. "I wrote you that it seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had been together so often and so--so happily.
"Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our intimacy--for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I should have done?"
He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now.
Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, confused.
"Don't mind me. I'm a fool," he said shortly, looking away from her--"and a very--unhappy one--"
"Clive!"
He said savagely: "I tell you I don't know what's the matter with me--" He passed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him.
"Clive, are you ill?"
He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,--a thing of the past.
Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations--of a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And the next moment he caught her in his arms.
"Clive! You _can't_ do this!" she whispered, deathly white.
"What am I to do?" he retorted fiercely.
"Not this, Clive!--For my sake--please--_please_--"
There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist.
"Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?" he stammered.
"Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive--"
"When I'm--in love--with you--"
She caught her breath sharply.
"--What am I to do?" he repeated between his teeth.
"Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is there to do?"
He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still averted.
"Let me go, Clive!" she pleaded.
"Can't you care for me!"
"Let me go!"
He said under his breath: "All right." And released her. For a moment she did not move but her hands covered her burning face and sealed her lids. She stood there, breathing fast and irregularly until she heard him move. Then, lowering her hands she cast a heart-broken glance at him. And his ashen, haggard visage terrified her.
"Clive!" she faltered: he swung on his heel and caught her to him again.
She offered no resistance.
She was crying, now,--weeping perhaps for all that had been said--or remained unsaid--or maybe for all that could never be said between herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy wish expressed that things might have been different.
He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose.
He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall have to go--or offer--"
"There is no damage done--yet--"
"I have made you love me."
"I--don't know. Wait."
Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked out into space seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's unhappiness.
Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of passionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as blameless as it was deep.
Sorrow for him, for his passion recognised but only vaguely understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now--regret for the days that now could come no more--but no thought of self as yet, nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride.
If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept it was because she saw his boyhood passing out of her life like a ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of their friendship.
As for marriage she knew it would never be--that neither he nor she dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments; that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as his was logical and instinctive.
There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it from the first;--no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her--had she thought about herself,--she could have entertained none.
She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of pitiful, curious eyes.
"Clive, must this be?"
"I love you, Athalie."
Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend him,--sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied her.
"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I didn't know it."
"Is it love, Athalie?"
"I--think so, Clive. What else could it be--when a girl is always thinking about a man, always happy with her memories of him.... It _is_ love, I suppose ... only I never thought of it that way."
"Can you think of it that way now?"
"I haven't changed, Clive. If it was love in the beginning, it is now."
"In the beginning it was only a boy and girl affair."
"It was all my heart had room for."
"And now?"
"You fill my heart and mind as always. But you know that."
"I thought--perhaps--not seeing you--"
"Clive!"
"--Other men--other interests--" he muttered obstinately, and so like a stubborn boy that, for a moment, a pale flash from the past seemed to light them both, and she found herself smiling:
"A girl must go on living until she is dead, Clive. Even if you went away I'd continue to exist until something ended me. Other men are merely other men. You are you."
"You darling!"
But she turned shy instantly, conscious now of his embrace, confused by it and the whispered endearment.
"Please let me go, Clive."
"But I love you, dear--"
"Yes--but please--"
Again he released her and she stepped back, retreating before him, until the lounge offered itself as refuge. But it was no refuge; she found herself, presently, drawn close to his shoulder; her flushed cheek rested there once more, and her lowered eyes were fixed on his strong, firm hand which had imprisoned both of hers.
"If you can stand it I can," he said in a low voice.
"What?"
"Marrying me."
"Oh, Clive! They'd tear us to pieces! You couldn't stand it. Neither could I."
"But if we--"
"Oh, no, no, no!" she protested, "it would utterly ruin you! There was one woman there to-night--very handsome--I knew she was your mother. And I saw the way she looked at me.... It's no use, Clive. Those people _are_ different. They'd never forgive you, and it would ruin you or you'd have to go back to them."
"But if we were once married, there _are_ friends of mine who--"
"How many? One in a thousand! Oh, Clive, Clive, I know you so well--your family and your pride in them, your position and your security in it, your wide circle of friends, without which circle you would wander like a lost soul--yes, Clive, lost, forlorn, unhappy, even with me!"
She lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up, gazing intently straight ahead of her. In her eyes was a lovely azure light; her lips were scarcely parted; and so intent and fixed was her gaze that for a moment he thought she had caught sight of some concrete thing which held her fascinated.
But it was only that she "saw clearly" at that moment--something that had come into her field of vision--a passing shape, perhaps, which looked at her with curious, friendly, inquiring eyes,--and went its way between the fire and the young girl who watched it pass with fearless and clairvoyant gaze.
"Athalie?"
"Yes," she answered as in a dream.
"Athalie! What is the matter?"
She turned, looked at him almost blindly as her remoter vision cleared.
"Clive," she said under her breath, "go home."
"What?"
"Go home. You are wanted."
"_What!!!_"
She rose and he stood up, his fascinated eyes never leaving hers.
"What were you staring at a moment ago?" he demanded. "What did you--think--you saw?"
Her eyes looked straight into his. She went to him and put both arms around his neck.
"Dearest," she said "--dearest." And kissed him on the mouth. But he dared not lay one finger on her.
The next moment she had his coat, was holding it for him. He took his hat and stick from her, turned and walked to the door, wheeled in his tracks, shivering.
And saw her crouched on the sofa, her head buried in her arms. And dared not speak.
* * * * *
There was an automobile standing in the street before his own house as he turned out of Fifth Avenue; lighted windows everywhere in the house, and the iron grille ajar.
He could scarcely fit the latch-key his hands were so unsteady.
There were people in the hall, partly clad. He heard his own name in frightened exclamation.
"What is it?" he managed to ask.
A servant stammered: "Mr. Clive--it's all over, sir. Mrs. Bailey is asking for you, sir."
"Is my father--" but he could not go on.
"Yes, sir. His man heard him call--once--like he was dreamin' bad. But when he got to him Mr. Bailey was gone.... The doctor has just arrived, sir."
For one instant hope gleamed athwart the stunning crash of his senses: he steadied himself on the newel post. Then, in his ear a faint voice echoed: "Dearest--dearest!" And, knowing that hope also lay dead, he lifted his young head, straightened up, and set his foot heavily on the first step upward into a new and terrible world of grief. _