_ CHAPTER XII. THE LOVE OF THE GODS
Two days later the majority of the people had left Roya-Neh, and the remainder were preparing to make their adieux to the young chatelaine by proxy; for Geraldine had kept her room since the night of the masked fete, and nobody except Kathleen and Dr. Bailey had seen her.
"Fashionable fidgets," said Dr. Bailey, in answer to amiable inquiries; "the girl has been living on her nerves, like the rest of you, only she can't stand as much as you can."
To Duane he said, in reply to persistent questions:
"As a plain and unromantic proposition, young man, it may be her liver. God alone knows with what young women stuff their bodies in those bucolic solitudes."
To Kathleen he said, after questioning her and listening in silence to her guarded replies:
"I don't know what is the matter, Mrs. Severn. The girl is extremely nervous. She acts, to me, as though she had something on her mind, but she insists that she hasn't. If I were to be here, I might come to some conclusion within the next day or two."
Which frightened Kathleen, and she asked whether anything serious might be anticipated.
"Not at all," he said.
So, as he was taking the next train, there was nothing to do. He left a prescription and whizzed away to the railroad station with the last motor-load of guests.
There remained only Duane, Rosalie Dysart, Grandcourt, and Sylvia Quest, a rather subdued and silent group on the terrace, unresponsive to Scott's unfeigned gaiety to find himself comparatively alone and free to follow his own woodland predilections once more.
"A cordial host you are," observed Rosalie; "you're guests are scarcely out of sight before you break into inhuman chuckles."
"Speed the parting," observed Scott, in excellent spirits; "that's the truest hospitality."
"I suppose your unrestrained laughter will be our parting portion in a day or two," she said, amused.
"No; I don't mind a few people. Do you want to come and look for scarabs?"
"Scarabs? Do you imagine you're in Egypt, my poor friend?"
Scott sniffed: "Didn't you know we had a few living species around here? Regular scarabs. Kathleen and I found three the other day--one a regular beauty with two rhinoceros horns on the thorax and iridescent green and copper tinted wing-covers. Do you want to help me hunt for some more? You'll have to put on overshoes, for they're in the cow-yards."
Rosalie, intensely bored, thanked him and declined. Later she opened a shrimp-pink sunshade and, followed by Grandcourt, began to saunter about the lawn in plain sight, as people do preliminary to effacing themselves without exciting comment.
But there was nobody to comment on what they did; Duane was reading a sporting-sheet, souvenir of the departed Bunbury; Sylvia sat pallid and preoccupied, cheek resting against her hand, looking out over the valley. Her brother, her only living relative, was supposed to have come up that morning to take her to the next house party on the string which linked the days of every summer for her. But Stuyvesant had not arrived; and the chances were that he would turn up within a day or two, if not too drunk to remember her.
So Sylvia, who was accustomed to waiting for her brother, sat very colourless and quiet by the terrace parapet, pale blue eyes resting on the remoter hills--not always, for at intervals she ventured a furtive look at Duane, and there was something of stealth and of fright in the stolen glance.
As for Scott, he sat on the parapet, legs swinging, fussing with a pair of binoculars and informing the two people behind him--who were not listening--that he could distinguish a black-billed cuckoo from a thrasher at six hundred yards.
Which edified neither Sylvia nor Duane, but the boy continued to impart information with unimpaired cheerfulness until Kathleen came out from the house.
"How's Sis?" he inquired.
"I think she has a headache," replied Kathleen, looking at Duane.
"Could I see her?" he asked.
Kathleen said gently that Geraldine did not feel like seeing anybody at that time. A moment later, in obedience to Scott's persistent clamouring for scarabs, she went across the lawn with the young master of Roya-Neh, resigned to the inevitable in the shape of two-horned scarabs or black-billed cuckoos.
It had always been so with her; it would always be so. Long ago the Seagrave twins had demanded all she had to give; now, if Geraldine asked less, Scott exacted double. And she gave--how happily, only her Maker and her conscience knew.
Duane was still reading--or he had all the appearance of reading--when Sylvia lifted her head from her hand and turned around with an effort that cost her what colour had remained under the transparent skin of her oval face.
"Duane," she said, "it occurred to me just now that you might have really mistaken what I said and did the other night." She hesitated, nerving herself to encounter his eyes, lifted and levelled across the top of his paper at her.
He waited; she retained enough self-command to continue with an effort at lightness:
"Of course it was all carnival fun--my pretending to mistake you for Mr. Dysart. You understood it, didn't you?"
"Why, of course," he said, smiling.
She went on: "I--don't exactly remember what I said--I was trying to mystify you. But it occurred to me that perhaps it was rather imprudent to pretend to be on--on such impossible terms with Mr. Dysart----"
There was something too painful in her effort for him to endure. He said laughingly, not looking at her:
"Oh, I wasn't ass enough to be deceived, Sylvia. Don't worry, little girl." And he resumed the study of his paper.
Minutes passed--terrible minutes for one of them, who strove to find relief in his careless reassurance, tried desperately to believe him, to deceive that intuition which seldom fails her sex.
He, with the print blurred and meaningless before him, sat miserable, dumb with the sympathy he could not show, hot with the anger he dared not express. He thought of Dysart as he had revealed himself, now gone back to town to face that little crop of financial rumours concerning the Algonquin that persisted so wickedly and would not be quieted. For the first time in his life, probably, Dysart was compelled to endure the discomforts of a New York summer--more discomforts this summer than mere dust and heat and noise. For men who had always been on respectful financial terms with Dysart and his string of banks and his Algonquin enterprise were holding aloof from him; men who had figured for years in the same columns of print where his name was so often seen as director and trustee and secretary--fellow-members who served for the honour of serving on boards of all sorts, charity boards, hospital, museum, civic societies--these men, too, seemed to be politely, pleasantly, even smilingly edging away from him in some indefinable manner.
Which seemed to force him toward certain comparatively newcomers among the wealthy financiers of the metropolis--brilliant, masterful, restless men from the West, whose friendship in the beginning he had sought, deeming himself farsighted.
Now that his vision had become normally adjusted he cared less for this intimacy which it was too late to break--at least this was not the time to break it with money becoming unbelievably scarcer every day and a great railroad man talking angrily, and another great railroad man preaching caution at a time when the caution of the man in the Street might mean something so serious to Dysart that he didn't care to think about it.
Dysart had gone back to New York in company with several pessimistic gentlemen--who were very open about backing their fancy; and their fancy fell on that old, ramshackle jade, Hard Times, by Speculation out of Folly. According to them there was no hope of her being scratched or left at the post.
"She'll run like a scared hearse-horse," said young Grandcourt gloomily. There was reason for his gloom. Unknown to his father he had invested heavily in Dysart's schemes. It was his father's contempt that he feared more than ruin.
So Dysart had gone to town, leaving behind him the utter indifference of a wife, the deep contempt of a man; and a white-faced girl alone with her memories--whatever they might be--and her thoughts, which were painful if one might judge by her silent, rigid abstraction, and the lower lip which, at moments, escaped, quivering, from the close-set teeth.
When Duane rose, folding his paper with a carelessly pleasant word or two, she looked up in a kind of naive terror--like a child startled at prospect of being left alone. It was curious how those adrift seemed always to glide his way. It had always been so; even stray cats followed him in the streets; unhappy dogs trotted persistently at his heels; many a journey had he made to the Bide-a-wee for some lost creature's sake; many a softly purring cat had he caressed on his way through life--many a woman.
As he strolled toward the eastern end of the terrace, Sylvia looked after him; and, suddenly, unable to endure isolation, she rose and followed as instinctively as her lesser sisters-errant.
It was the trotting of little footsteps behind him on the gravel that arrested him. A glance at her face was enough; vexed, shocked, yet every sympathy instantly aroused, he resigned himself to whatever might be required of him; and within him a bitter mirth stirred--acrid, unpleasant; but his smile indicated only charmed surprise.
"I didn't suppose you'd care for a stroll with me," he said; "it is exceedingly nice of you to give me the chance."
"I didn't want to be left alone," she said.
"It is rather quiet here since our gay birds have migrated," he said in a matter-of-fact way. "Which direction shall we take?"
"I--don't care."
"The woods?"
"No," with a shudder so involuntary that he noticed it.
"Well, then, we'll go cross country----"
She looked at her thin, low shoes and then at him.
"Certainly," he said, "that won't do, will it?"
She shook her head.
They were passing the Lodge now where his studio was and where he had intended to pack up his canvases that afternoon.
"I'll brew you a cup of tea if you like," he said; "that is, if it's not too unconventional to frighten you."
She smiled and nodded. Behind the smile her heavy thoughts throbbed on: How much did this man know? How much did he suspect? And if he suspected, how good he was in every word to her--how kind and gentle and high-minded! And the anguish in her smile caused him to turn hastily to the door and summon old Miller to bring the tea paraphernalia.
There was nothing to look at in the studio; all the canvases lay roped in piles ready for the crates; but Sylvia's gaze remained on them as though even the rough backs of the stretchers fascinated her.
"My father was an artist. After he married he did not paint. My mother was very wealthy, you know.... It seems a pity."
"What? Wealth?" he asked, smiling.
"N-no. I mean it seems a little tragic to me that father never continued to paint."
Miller's granddaughter came in with the tea. She was a very little girl with yellow hair and big violet eyes. After she had deposited everything, she went over to Duane and held up her mouth to be kissed. He laughed and saluted her. It was a reward for service which she had suggested when he first came to Roya-Neh; and she trotted away in great content.
Sylvia's indifferent gaze followed her; then she sipped the tea Duane offered.
"Do you remember your father?" he asked pleasantly.
"Why, yes. I was fourteen when he died. I remember mother, too. I was seven."
Duane said, not looking at her: "It's about the toughest thing that can happen to a girl. It's tough enough on a boy."
"It was very hard," she said simply.
"Haven't you any relatives except your brother Stuyvesant--" he began, and checked himself, remembering that a youthful aunt of hers had eloped under scandalous circumstances, and at least one uncle was too notorious even for the stomachs of the society that whelped him.
She let it pass in silence, as though she had not heard. Later she declined more tea and sat deep in her chair, fingers linked under her chin, lids lowered.
After a while, as she did not move or speak, he ventured to busy himself with collecting his brushes, odds and ends of studio equipment. He scraped several palettes, scrubbed up some palette-knives, screwed the tops on a dozen tubes of colour, and fussed and messed about until there seemed to be nothing further to do. So he came back and seated himself, and, looking up, saw the big tears stealing from under her closed lids.
He endured it as long as he could. Nothing was said. He leaned nearer and laid his hand over hers; and at the contact she slipped from the chair, slid to her knees, and laid her head on the couch beside him, both hands covering her face, which had turned dead white.
Minute after minute passed with no sound, no movement except as he passed his hand over her forehead and hair. He knew what to do when those who were adrift floated into Port Mallett. And sometimes he did more than was strictly required, but never less. Toward sundown she began to feel blindly for her handkerchief. He happened to possess a fresh one and put it into her groping hand.
When she was ready to rise she did so, keeping her back toward him and standing for a while busy with her swollen eyes and disordered hair.
"Before we go we must have tea together again," he said with perfectly matter-of-fact cordiality.
"Y-yes." The voice was very, very small.
"And in town, too, Sylvia. I had no idea what a companionable girl you are--how much we have in common. You know silence is the great test of mutual confidence and understanding. You'll let me see you in town, won't you?"
"Yes."
"That will be jolly. I suppose now that you and I ought to be thinking about dressing for dinner."
She assented, moved away a step or two, halted, and, still with her back turned, held out her hand behind her. He took it, bent and kissed it.
"See you at dinner," he said cheerfully.
And she went out very quietly, his handkerchief pressed against her eyes.
He came back into the studio, swung nervously toward the couch, turned and began to pace the floor.
"Oh, Lord," he said; "the rottenness of it all--the utter rottenness."
* * * * *
Dinner that night was not a very gay function; after coffee had been served, the small group seemed to disintegrate as though by some prearrangement, Rosalie and Grandcourt finding a place for themselves in the extreme western shadow of the terrace parapet, Kathleen returning to the living-room, where she had left her embroidery.
Scott, talking to Sylvia and Duane, continued to cast restless glances toward the living-room until he could find the proper moment to get away. And in a few minutes Duane saw him seated, one leg crossed over the other, a huge volume on "Scientific Conservation of Natural Resources" open on his knees, seated as close to Kathleen as he could conveniently edge, perfectly contented, apparently, to be in her vicinity.
From moment to moment, as her pretty hands performed miracles in tinted silks, she lifted her eyes and silently inspected the boy who sat absorbed in his book. Perhaps old memories of a child seated in the schoolroom made tender the curve of her lips as she turned again to her embroidery; perhaps a sentiment more recent made grave the beautiful lowered eyes.
Sylvia, seated at the piano, idly improvising, had unconsciously drifted into the "Menuet d'Exaudet," and Duane's heart began to quicken as he stood listening and looking out through the open windows at the stars.
How long he stood there he did not know; but when, at length, missing the sound of the piano, he looked around, Sylvia was already on the stairs, looking back at him as she moved upward.
"Good-night," she called softly; "I am very tired," and paused as he came forward and mounted to the step below where she waited.
"Good-night, Miss Quest," he said, with that nice informality that women always found so engaging. "If you have nothing better on hand in the morning, let's go for a climb. I've discovered a wild-boar's nest under the Golden Dome, and if you'd like to get a glimpse of the little, furry, striped piglings, I think we can manage it."
She thanked him with her eyes, held out her thin, graceful hand of a schoolgirl, then turned slowly and continued her ascent.
As he descended, Kathleen, looking up from her embroidery, made him a sign, and he stood still.
"Where are you going?" asked Scott, as she rose and passed him.
"I'm coming back in a moment."
Scott restlessly resumed his book, raising his head from time to time as though listening for her return, fidgeting about, now examining the embroidery she had left on the lamp-lit table, now listlessly running over the pages that had claimed his close attention while she had been near him.
Across the hall, in the library, Duane stood absently twisting an unlighted cigar, and Kathleen, her hand on his shoulder, eyes lifted in sweet distress, was searching for words that seemed to evade her.
He cut the knot without any emotion:
"I know what you are trying to say, Kathleen. It is true that there has been a wretched misunderstanding, but if I know Geraldine at all I know that a mere misunderstanding will not do any permanent harm. It is something else that--worries me."
"Oh, Duane, I know! I know! She cannot marry you--in honour--until that--that terrible danger is eliminated. She will not, either. But--don't give her up! Be with her--with us in this crisis--during it! See us through it, Duane; she is well worth what she costs us both--and costs herself."
"She must marry me now," he said. "I want to fight this thing with all there is in me and in her, and in my love for her and hers for me. I can't fight it in this blind, aloof way--this thing that is my rival--that stands with its claw embedded in her body warning me back! The horror of it is in the blind, intangible, abstract force that is against me. I can't fight it aloof from her; I can't take her away from it unless I have her in my arms to guard, to inspire, to comfort, to watch. Can't you see, Kathleen, that I must have her every second of the time?"
"She will not let you run the risk," murmured Kathleen. "Duane, she had a dreadful night--she broke down so utterly that it scared me. She is horribly frightened; her nervous demoralisation is complete. For the first time, I think, she is really terrified. She says it is hopeless, that her will and nerve are undermined, her courage contaminated.... Hour after hour I sat with her; she made me tell her about her grandfather--about what I knew of the--the taint in her family."
"Those things are merely predispositions," he said. "Self-command makes them harmless."
"I told her that. She says that they are living sparks that will smoulder while life endures."
"Suppose they are," he said; "they can never flame unless nursed.... Kathleen, I want to see her----"
"She will not."
"Has she spoken at all of me?"
"Yes."
"Bitterly?"
"Y-yes. I don't know what you did. She is very morbid just now, anyway; very desperate. But I know that, unconsciously, she counts on an adjustment of any minor personal difficulty with you.... She loves you dearly, Duane."
He passed an unsteady hand across his eyes.
"She must marry me. I can't stand aloof from this battle any longer."
"Duane, she will not. I--she said some things--she is morbid, I tell you--and curiously innocent--in her thoughts--concerning herself and you. She says she can never marry."
"Exactly what did she say to you?"
Kathleen hesitated; the intimacy of the subject left her undecided; then very seriously her pure, clear gaze met his:
"She will not marry, for your own sake, and for the sake of any--children. She has evidently thought it all out.... I must tell you how it is. There is no use in asking her; she will never consent, Duane, as long as she is afraid of herself. And how to quiet that fear by exterminating the reason for it I don't know--" Her voice broke pitifully. "Only stand by us, Duane. Don't go away just now. You were packing to go; but please don't leave me just yet. Could you arrange to remain for a while?"
"Yes, I'll arrange it.... I'm a little troubled about my father--" He checked himself. "I could run down to town for a day or two and return----"
"Is Colonel Mallett ill?" she asked.
"N-no.... These are rather strenuous times--or threaten to be. Of course the Half-Moon is as solid as a rock. But even the very, very great are beginning to fuss.... And my father is not young, Kathleen. So I thought I'd like to run down and take him out to dinner once or twice--to a roof-garden or something, you know. It's rather pathetic that men of his age, grown gray in service, should feel obliged to remain in the stifling city this summer."
"Of course you must go," she said; "you couldn't even hesitate. Is your mother worried?"
"I don't suppose she has the slightest notion that there is anything to worry over. And there isn't, I think. She and Naida will be in the Berkshires; I'll go up and stay with them later--when Geraldine is all right again," he added cheerfully.
Scott, fidgeting like a neglected pup, came wandering into the hall, book in hand.
"For the love of Mike," he said impatiently, "what have you two got to talk about all night?"
"My son," observed Duane, "there are a few subjects for conversation which do not include the centipede and the polka-dotted dickey-bird. These subjects Kathleen and I furtively indulge in when we can arrange to elude you."
Scott covered a yawn and glanced at Kathleen.
"Is Geraldine all right?" he asked with all the healthy indifference of a young man who had never been ill, and was, therefore, incapable of understanding illness in others.
"Certainly, she's all right," said Duane. And to Kathleen: "I believe I'll venture to knock at her door----"
"Oh, no, Duane. She isn't ready to see anybody----"
"Well, I'll try----"
"Please, don't!"
But he had her at a disadvantage, and he only laughed and mounted the stairs, saying:
"I'll just exchange a word with her or with her maid, anyway."
When he turned into the corridor Geraldine's maid, seated in the window-seat sewing, rose and came forward to take his message. In a few moments she returned, saying:
"Miss Seagrave asks to be excused, as she is ready to retire."
"Ask Miss Seagrave if I can say good-night to her through the door."
The maid disappeared and returned in a moment.
"Miss Seagrave wishes you good-night, sir."
So he thanked the maid pleasantly and walked to his own room, now once more prepared for him after the departure of those who had temporarily required it.
Starlight made the leaded windows brilliant; he opened them wide and leaned out on the sill, arms folded. The pale astral light illuminated a fairy world of meadow and garden and spectral trees, and two figures moving like ghosts down by the fountain among the roses--Rosalie and Grandcourt pacing the gravel paths shoulder to shoulder under the stars.
Below him, on the terrace, he saw Kathleen and Scott--the latter carrying a butterfly net--examining the borders of white pinks with a lantern. In and out of the yellow rays swam multitudes of night moths, glittering like flakes of tinsel as the lantern light flashed on their wings; and Scott was evidently doing satisfactory execution, for every moment or two Kathleen uncorked the cyanide jar and he dumped into it from the folds of the net a fluttering victim.
"That last one is a Pandorus Sphinx!" he said in great excitement to Kathleen, who had lifted the big glass jar into the lantern light and was trying to get a glimpse of the exquisite moth, whose wings of olive green, rose, and bronze velvet were already beating a hazy death tattoo in the lethal fumes.
"A Pandorus! Scott, you've wanted one so much!" she exclaimed, enchanted.
"You bet I have. Pholus pandorus is pretty rare around here. And I say, Kathleen, that wasn't a bad net-stroke, was it? You see I had only a second, and I took a desperate chance."
She praised his skill warmly; then, as he stood admiring his prize in the jar which she held up, she suddenly caught him by the arm and pointed:
"Oh, quick! There is a hawk-moth over the pinks which resembles nothing we have seen yet!"
Scott very cautiously laid his net level, stole forward, shining the lantern light full on the darting, hazy-winged creature, which was now poised, hovering over a white blossom and probing the honeyed depths with a long, slim proboscis.
"I thought it might be only a Lineata, but it isn't," he said excitedly. "Did you ever see such a timid moth? The slightest step scares the creature."
"Can't you try a quick net-stroke sideways?"
Her voice was as anxious and unsteady as his own.
"I'm afraid I'll miss. Lord but it's a lightning flier! Where is it now?"
"Behind you. Do be careful! Turn very slowly."
He pivoted; the slim moth darted past, circled, and hung before a blossom, wings vibrating so fast that the creature was merely a gray blur in the lantern light. The next instant Gray's net swung; a furious fluttering came from the green silk folds; Kathleen whipped off the cover of the jar, and Duane deftly imprisoned the moth.
"Upon my word," he said shakily, "I believe I've got a Tersa Sphinx!--a sub-tropical fellow whose presence here is mere accident!"
"Oh, if you have!" she breathed softly. She didn't know what a Tersa Sphinx might be, but if its capture gave him pleasure, that was all she cared for in the world.
"It _is_ a Tersa!" he almost shouted. "By George! it's a wonder."
Radiant, she bent eagerly above the jar where the strange, slender, gray-and-brown hawk-moth lay dying. Its recoiling proboscis and its slim, fawn-coloured legs quivered. The eyes glowed like tiny jewels.
"If we could only keep these little things alive," she sighed; then, fearful of taking the least iota from his pleasure, added: "but of course we can't, and for scientific purposes it's all right to let the lovely little creatures sink into their death-sleep."
A slight haze had appeared over the lake; a sudden cool streak grew in the air, which very quickly cleared the flower-beds of moths; and the pretty sub-tropical sphinx was the last specimen of the evening.
In the library Scott pulled out a card-table and Kathleen brought forceps, strips of oiled paper, pins, setting-blocks, needles, and oblong glass weights; and together, seated opposite each other, they removed the delicate-winged contents of the collecting jar.
Kathleen's dainty fingers were very swift and deft with the forceps. Scott watched her. She picked up the green-and-rose Pandorus, laid it on its back on a setting-block, affixed and pinned the oiled-paper strips, drew out the four wings with the setting-needle until they were symmetrical and the inner margin of the anterior pair was at right angles with the body.
Then she arranged the legs, uncoiled and set the proboscis, and weighted the wings with heavy glass strips.
They worked rapidly, happily there together, exchanging views and opinions; and after a while the brilliant spoils of the evening were all stretched and ready to dry, ultimately to be placed in plaster-of-Paris mounts and hermetically sealed under glass covers.
Kathleen went away to cleanse her hands of any taint of cyanide; Scott, returning from his own ablutions, met her in the hall, and so miraculously youthful, so fresh and sweet and dainty did she appear that, in some inexplicable manner, his awkward, self-conscious fear of touching her suddenly vanished, and the next instant she was in his arms and he had kissed her.
"Scott!" she faltered, pushing him from her, too limp and dazed to use the strength she possessed.
Surprised at what he had done, amazed that he was not afraid of her, he held her tightly, thrilled dumb at the exquisite trembling contact.
"Oh, what are you doing," she stammered, in dire consternation; "what have you done? We--you cannot--you must let me go, Scott----"
"You're only a girl, after all--you darling!" he said, inspecting her in an ecstacy of curiosity. "I wonder why I've been afraid of you for so long?--just because I love you!"
"You don't--you can't care for me that way----"
"I care for you in every kind of a way that anybody can care about anybody." She turned her shoulder, desperately striving to release herself, but she had not realised how tall and strong he was. "How small you are," he repeated wonderingly; "just a soft, slender girl, Kathleen. I can't see how I ever came to let you make me study when I didn't want to."
"Scott, dear," she pleaded breathlessly, "you must let me go. This--this is utterly impossible----"
"What is?"
"That you and I can--could care--this way----"
"Don't you?"
"I--no!"
"Is that the truth, Kathleen?"
She looked up; the divine distress in her violet eyes sobered him, awed him for a moment.
"Kathleen," he said, "there are only a few years' difference between our ages. I feel older than you; you look younger than I--and you are all in the world I care for--or ever have cared for. Last spring--that night----"
"Hush, Scott," she begged, blushing scarlet.
"I know you remember. That is when I began to love you. You must have known it."
She said nothing; the strain of her resisting arms against his breast had relaxed imperceptibly.
"What can a fellow say?" he went on a little wildly, checked at moments by the dryness of his throat and the rapid heartbeats that almost took his breath away when he looked at her. "I love you so dearly, Kathleen; there's no use in trying to live without loving you, for I couldn't do it!... I'm not really young; it makes me furious to think you consider me in that light. I'm a man, strong enough and old enough to love you--and make you love me! I _will_ make you!" His arms tightened.
She uttered a little cry, which was half a sob; his boyish roughness sent a glow rushing through her. She fought against the peril of it, the bewildering happiness that welled up--fought against her heart that was betraying her senses, against the deep, sweet passion that awoke as his face touched hers.
"Will you love me?" he said fiercely.
"No!"
"Will you?"
"Yes.... Let me go!" she gasped.
"Will you love me in the way I mean? Can you?"
"Yes. I do. I--have, long since.... Let me go!"
"Then--kiss me."
She looked up at him a moment, slowly put both arms around his neck: "Now," she breathed faintly, "release me."
And at the same instant he saw Geraldine descending the stairs.
Kathleen saw her, too; saw her turn abruptly, re-mount and disappear. There was a moment's painful silence, then, without a word, she picked up her lace skirts, ran up the stairway, and continued swiftly on to Geraldine's room.
"May I come in?" She spoke and opened the door of the bedroom at the same time, and Geraldine turned on her, exasperated, hands clenched, dark eyes harbouring lightning:
"Have I gone quite mad, Kathleen, or have you?" she demanded.
"I think I have," whispered Kathleen, turning white and halting. "Geraldine, you will _have_ to listen. Scott has told me that he loves me----"
"Is this the first time?"
"No.... It is the first time I have listened. I can't think clearly; I scarcely know yet what I've said and done. What must you think?... But won't you be a little gentle with me--a little forbearing--in memory of what I have been to you--to him--so long?"
"What do you wish me to think?" asked the girl in a hard voice. "My brother is of age; he will do what he pleases, I suppose. I--I don't know what to think; this has astounded me. I never dreamed such a thing possible----"
"Nor I--until this spring. I know it is all wrong; this is making me more fearfully unhappy every minute I live. There is nothing but peril in it; the discrepancy in our ages makes it hazardous--his youth, his overwhelming fortune, my position and means--the world will surely, surely misinterpret, misunderstand--I think even you, his sister, may be led to credit--what, in your own heart, you must know to be utterly and cruelly untrue."
"I don't know what to say or think," repeated Geraldine in a dull voice. "I can't realise it; I thought that our affection for you was so--so utterly different."
She stared curiously at Kathleen, trying to reconcile what she had always known of her with what she now had to reckon with--strove to find some alteration in the familiar features, something that she had never before noticed, some new, unsuspected splendour of beauty and charm, some undetected and subtle allure. She saw only a wholesome, young, and lovely woman, fresh-skinned, slender, sweet, and graceful--the same companion she had always known and, as she remembered, unchanged in any way since the years of childhood, when Kathleen was twenty and she and her brother were ten.
"I suppose," she said, "that if Scott is in love with you, there is only one thing to do."
"There are several," said Kathleen in a low voice.
"Will you not marry him?"
"I don't know; I think not."
"Are you not in love with him?"
"Does that matter?" asked Kathleen steadily. "Scott's happiness is what is important."
"But his happiness, apparently, depends on you."
Kathleen flushed and looked at her curiously.
"Dear, if I knew that was so, I would give myself to him. Neither you nor he have ever asked anything of me in vain. Even if I did not love him--as I do--and he needed me, I would give myself to him. You and he have been all there was in life for me. But I am afraid that I may not always be all that life holds for him. He is young; he has had no chance yet; he has had little experience with women. I think he ought to have his chance."
She might have said the same thing of herself. A bride at her husband's death-bed, widowed before she had ever been a wife, what experience had she? All her life so far had been devoted to the girl who stood there confronting her, and to the brother. What did she know of men?--of whether she might be capable of loving some man more suitable? She had not given herself the chance. She never would, now.
There was no selfishness in Kathleen Severn. But there was much in the Seagrave twins. The very method of their bringing up inculcated it; they had never had any chance to be otherwise. The "cultiwation of the indiwidool" had driven it into them, taught them the deification of self, forced them to consider their own importance above anything else in the world.
And it was of that importance that Geraldine was now thinking as she sat on the edge of her bed, darkly considering these new problems that chance was laying before her one by one.
If Scott was going to be unhappy without Kathleen, it followed, as a matter of course, that he must have Kathleen. The chances Kathleen might take, what she might have to endure of the world's malice and gossip and criticism, never entered Geraldine's mind at all.
"If he is in love with you," she repeated, "it settles it, I think. What else is there to do but marry him?"
Kathleen shook her head. "I shall do what is best for him--whatever that may be."
"You won't make him unhappy, I suppose?" inquired Geraldine, astonished.
"Dear, a woman may be truer to the man she loves--and kinder--by refusing him. Is not that what _you_ have done--for Duane's sake?"
Geraldine sprang to her feet, face white, mouth distorted with anger:
"I made a god of Duane!" she broke out breathlessly. "Everything that was in me--everything that was decent and unselfish and pure-minded dominated me when I found I loved him. So I would not listen to my own desire for him, I would not let him risk a terrible unhappiness until I could go to him as clean and well and straight and unafraid as he could wish!" She laughed bitterly, and laid her hands on her breast. "Look at me, Kathleen! I am quite as decent as this god of mine. Why should I worry over the chances he takes when I have chances enough to take in marrying him? I was stupid to be so conscientious--I behaved like a hysterical schoolgirl--or a silly communicant--making him my confessor! A girl is a perfect fool to make a god out of a man. I made one out of Duane; and he acted like one. It nearly ended me, but, after all, he is no worse than I. Whoever it was who said that decency is only depravity afraid, is right. I _am_ depraved; I _am_ afraid. I'm afraid that I cannot control myself, for one thing; and I'm afraid of being unhappy for life if I don't marry Duane. And I'm going to, and let him take his chances!"
Kathleen, very pale, said: "That is selfishness--if you do it."
"Are not men selfish? He will not tell me as much of his life as I have told him of mine. I have told him everything. How do I know what risk I run? Yes--I do know; I take the risk of marrying a man notorious for his facility with women. And he lets me take that risk. Why should I not let him risk something?"
The girl seemed strangely excited; her quick breathing and bright, unsteady eyes betrayed the nervous tension of the last few days. She said feverishly:
"There is a lot of nonsense talked about self-sacrifice and love; about the beauties of abnegation and martyrdom, but, Kathleen, if I shall ever need him at all, I need him now. I'm afraid to be alone any longer; I'm frightened at the chances against me. Do you know what these days of horror have been to me, locked in here--all alone--in the depths of degradation for what--what I did that night--in distress and shame unutterable----"
"My darling----"
"Wait! I had more to endure--I had to endure the results of my education in the study of man! I had to realise that I loved one of them who has done enough to annihilate in me anything except love. I had to learn that he couldn't kill that--that I want him in spite of it, that I need him, that my heart is sick with dread; that he can have me when he will--Oh, Kathleen, I have learned to care less for him than when I denied him for his own sake--more for him than I did before he held me in his arms! And that is not a high type of love--I know it--but oh, if I could only have his arms around me--if I could rest there for a while--and not feel so frightened, so utterly alone!--I might win out; I might kill what is menacing me, with God's help--and his!"
She lay shivering on Kathleen's breast now, dry-eyed, twisting her ringless fingers in dumb anguish.
"Darling, darling," murmured Kathleen, "you cannot do this thing. You cannot let him assume a burden that is yours alone."
"Why not? What is one's lover for?"
"Not to use; not to hazard; not to be made responsible for a sick mind and a will already demoralised. Is it fair to ask him--to let him begin life with such a burden--such a handicap? Is it not braver, fairer, to fight it out alone, eradicate what threatens you--oh, my own darling! my little Geraldine!--is it not fairer to the man you love? Is he not worth striving for, suffering for? Have you no courage to endure if he is to be the reward? Is a little selfish weakness, a miserable self-indulgence to stand between you and life-long happiness?"
Geraldine looked up; her face was very white:
"Have you ever been tempted?"
"Have I not been to-night?"
"I mean by--something ignoble?"
"No."
"Do you know how it hurts?"
"To--to deny yourself?"
"Yes.... It is so--difficult--it makes me wretchedly weak.... I only thought he might help me.... You are right, Kathleen.... I must be terribly demoralised to have wished it. I--I will not marry him, now. I don't think I ever will.... You are right. I have got to be fair to him, no matter what he has been to me.... He has been fearfully unfair. After all, he is only a man.... I couldn't really love a god." _