_ CHAPTER VII. TOGETHER
The end of June and of the house party at Roya-Neh was now near at hand, and both were to close with a moonlight fete and dance in the forest, invitations having been sent to distant neighbours who had been entertaining similar gatherings at Iron Hill and Cloudy Mountain--the Grays, Beekmans, Ellises, and Grandcourts.
Silks and satins, shoe buckles and powdered hair usually mark the high tide of imaginative originality among this sort of people. So it was to be the inevitable Louis XVI fete--or as near to it as attenuated, artistic intelligence could manage, and they altered Duane's very clever and correct sketches to suit themselves, careless of anachronism, and sent the dainty water-colour drawings to town in order that those who sweat and sew in the perfumed ateliers of Fifth Avenue might use them as models.
"The fun--if there's any in dressing up--ought to lie in making your own costumes," observed Duane. But nobody displayed any inclination to do so. And now, on hurry orders, the sewers in the hot Fifth Avenue ateliers sewed faster. Silken and satin costumes, paste jewelry and property small-swords were arriving by express; maids flew about the house at Roya-Neh, trying on, fussing with lace and ribbon, bodice and flowered pannier, altering, retrimming, adjusting. Their mistresses met in one another's bedrooms for mysterious confabs over head-dress and coiffure, lace scarf, and petticoat.
As for the men, they surreptitiously tried on their embroidered coats and breeches, admired themselves in secrecy, and let it go at that, returning with embarrassed relief to cards, tennis, and the various forms of amiable idleness to which they were accustomed. Only Englishmen can masquerade seriously.
Later, however, the men were compelled to pay some semblance of attention to the general preparations, assemble their foot-gear, head-gear, stars, orders, sashes, swords, and try them on for Duane Mallett--to that young man's unconcealed dissatisfaction.
"You certainly resemble a scratch opera chorus," he observed after passing in review the sheepish line-up in his room. "Delancy, you're the limit as a Black Mousquetier--and, by the way, there weren't any in the reign of Louis XVI, so perhaps that evens up matters. Dysart is the only man who looks the real thing--or would if he'd remove that monocle. As for Bunny and the Pink 'un, they ought to be in vaudeville singing la-la-la."
"That's really a compliment to our legs," observed Reggie Wye to Bunbury Gray, flourishing his property sword and gracefully performing a _pas seul a la Genee_.
Dysart, who had been sullen all day, regarded them morosely.
Scott Seagrave, in his conventional abbe's costume of black and white, excessively bored, stood by the window trying to catch a glimpse of the lake to see whether any decent fish were breaking, while Scott walked around him critically, not much edified by his costume or the way he wore it.
"You're a sad and self-conscious-looking bunch," he concluded. "Scott, I suppose you'll insist on wearing your mustache and eyeglasses."
"You bet," said Scott simply.
"All right. And kindly beat it. I want to try on my own plumage in peace."
So the costumed ones trooped off to their own quarters with the half-ashamed smirk usually worn by the American male who has persuaded himself to frivolity. Delancy Grandcourt tramped away down the hall banging his big sword, jingling his spurs, and flapping his loose boots. The Pink 'un and Bunbury Gray slunk off into obscurity, and Scott wandered back through the long hall until a black-and-red tiger moth attracted his attention, and he forgot his annoying appearance in frantic efforts to capture the brilliant moth.
Dysart, who had been left alone with Duane in the latter's room, contemplated himself sullenly in the mirror while Duane, seated on the window sill, waited for him to go.
"You think I ought to eliminate my eye-glass?" asked Dysart, still inspecting himself.
"Yes, in deference to the conventional prejudice of the times. Nobody wore 'em at that period."
"You seem to be a stickler for convention--of the Louis XVI sort more than for the XIX century variety," remarked Dysart with a sneer.
Duane looked up from his bored contemplation of the rug.
"You think I'm unconventional?" he asked with a smile.
"I believe I suggested something of the sort to my wife the other day."
"Ah," said Duane blandly, "does she agree with you, Dysart?"
"No doubt she does, because your tendencies toward the unconventional have been the subject of unpleasant comment recently."
"By some of your debutante conquests? You mustn't believe all they tell you."
"My own eyes and ears are competent witnesses. Do you understand me now?"
"No. Neither do you. Don't rely on such witnesses, Dysart; they lack character to corroborate them. Ask your wife to confirm me--if you ever find time enough to ask her anything."
"That's a damned impudent thing to say," returned Dysart, staring at him. A dull red stained his face, then faded.
Duane's eyebrows went up--just a shade--yet so insolently that the other stepped forward, the corners of his mouth white and twitching.
"I can speak more plainly," he said. "If you can't appreciate a pleasant hint I can easily accommodate you with the alternative."
There was silence for a moment.
"Dysart," said Duane, "what chance do you think you'd have in landing the--alternative?"
"That concerns me," said Dysart; and the pinched muscles around the mouth grew whiter and the man looked suddenly older. Duane had never before noticed how gray his temples were growing.
He said in a voice under perfect control: "You're right; the chances you care to take with me concern yourself. As for your ill-humour, I suppose I have earned it by being attentive to your wife. What is it you wish; that my hitherto very harmless attentions should cease?"
"Yes," said Dysart, and his square jaw quivered.
"Well, they won't. It takes the sort of man you are to strike classical attitudes. And, absurd as the paradox appears--and even taking into consideration your notorious indifference to your wife and your rather silly reputation as a debutante chaser--I do believe, Dysart, that, deep inside of you somewhere, there is enough latent decency to have inspired this resentment toward me--a resentment perfectly natural in any man who acts squarely toward his wife--but rather far fetched in your case."
Dysart, pallid, menacing, laid his hand on a chair.
The other laughed.
"As bad as that?" he asked contemptuously. "Don't do it, Dysart; it isn't in your line. You're only a good-looking, popular, dancing man; all your deviltry is in your legs, and I'd be obliged if they'd presently waft you out of my room."
"I suppose," said Dysart unsteadily, "that you would make yourself noisily ridiculous if I knocked your blackguard head off."
"It's only in novels that people are knocked down successfully and artistically," admitted the other. "In everyday life they resent it. Yes--if you do anything hysterical there will be some sort of a disgraceful noise, I suppose. It's shoot or suit in these unromantic days, Dysart, otherwise the newspapers laugh at you."
Dysart's well-shaped fists relaxed, the chair dropped, but even when he let it go murder danced in his eyes.
"Yes," he said, "it's shoot or a suit in these days; you're perfectly right, Mallett. And we'll let it go at that for the present."
He stood a moment, straight, handsome, his clearly stencilled eyebrows knitted, watching Duane. Whatever in the man's face and figure was usually colourless, unaccented, irresolute, disappeared as he glared rigidly at the other.
For there is no resentment like the resentment of the neglectful, no jealousy like the jealousy of the faithless.
"To resume, in plain English," he said, "keep away from my wife, Mallett. You comprehend that, don't you?"
"Perfectly. Now get out!"
Dysart hesitated for the fraction of a second longer, as though perhaps expecting further reply, then turned on his heel and walked out.
Later, while Duane was examining his own costume preparatory to trying it on, Scott Seagrave's spectacled and freckled visage protruded into the room. He knocked as an after-thought.
"Rosalie sent me. She's dressed in all her gimcracks and wants your expert opinion. I've got to go----"
"Where is she?"
"In her room. I'm going out to the hatchery with Kathleen----"
"Come and see Rosalie with me, first," said Duane, passing his arm through Scott's and steering him down the sunny corridor.
When they knocked, Mrs. Dysart admitted them, revealing herself in full costume, painted and powdered, the blinds pulled down, and the electric lights burning behind their rosy shades.
"It's my final dress rehearsal," she explained. "Mr. Mallett, _is_ my hair sufficiently a la Lamballe to suit you?"
"Yes, it is. You're a perfect little porcelain figurette! There's not an anachronism in you or your make-up. How did you do it?"
"I merely stuck like grim death to your sketches," she said demurely.
Scott eyed her without particular interest. "Very corking," he said vaguely, "but I've got to go down to the hatchery with Kathleen, so you won't mind if I leave----"
He closed the door behind him before anybody could speak. Duane moved toward the door.
"It's a charming costume," he said, "and most charmingly worn; your hair is exactly right--not too much powder, you know----"
"Where shall I put my patch? Here?"
"Higher."
"Here?"
He came back to the centre of the room where she stood.
"Here," he said, indenting the firm, cool ivory skin with one finger, "and here. Wear two."
"And my rings--do you think that my fingers are overloaded?" She held out her fascinating smooth little hands. He supported them on his upturned palms and examined the gems critically.
They talked for a few moments about the rings, then: "Thank you so much," she said, with a carelessly friendly pressure. "How about my shoes? Are the buckles of the period?"
One of her hands encountered his at hazard, lingered, dropped, the fingers still linked lightly in his. She bent over, knees straight, and lifted the hem of her petticoat, displaying her Louis XVI footwear.
"Shoes and buckles are all right," he said; "faultless, true to the period--very fascinating.... I've got to go--one or two things to do----"
They examined the shoes for some time in silence; still bending over she turned her dainty head and looked around and up at him. There was a moment's pause, then he kissed her.
"I was afraid you'd do that--some day," she said, straightening up and stepping back one pace, so that their linked hands now hung pendant between them.
"I was sure of it, too," he said. "Now I think I'd better go--as all things are en regle, even the kiss, which was classical--pure--Louis XVI.... Besides, Scott was idiot enough to shut the door. That's Louis XVI, too, but too much realism is never artistic."
"We could open the door again--if that's why you're running away from me."
"What's the use?"
She glanced at the door and then calmly seated herself.
"Do you think that we are together too much?" she asked.
"Hasn't your husband made similar observations?" he replied, laughing.
"It isn't for him to make them."
"Hasn't he objected?"
"He has suddenly and unaccountably become disagreeable enough to make me wish he had some real grounds for his excitement!" she said coolly, and closed her teeth with a little click. She added, between them: "I'm inclined to give him something real to howl about."
He said: "You're adrift. Do you know it?"
"Certainly I know it. Are you prepared to offer salvage? I'm past the need of a pilot."
He smiled. "You haven't drifted very far yet--only as far as Mallett Harbour. That's usually the first port--for derelicts. Anchors are dropped rather frequently there--but, Rosalie, there's no safe mooring except in the home port."
Her pretty, flushed face grew very serious as she looked up questioningly.
"Isn't there an anchorage near you, Duane? Are you quite sure?"
"Why, no, dear, I'm not sure. But let me tell you something: it isn't in me to love again. And that isn't square to you."
After a silence she repeated: "Again? Have you been in love?"
"Yes."
"Are you embittered? I thought only callow fledglings moped."
"If I were embittered I'd offer free anchorage to all comers. That's the fledgling idea--when blighted--be a 'deevil among the weemin,'" he said, laughing.
"You have that hospitable reputation now," she persisted, unsmiling.
"Have I? Judge for yourself then--because no woman I ever knew cares anything for me now."
"You mean that if any of them had anything intimate to remember they'd never remain indifferent?"
"Well--yes."
"They'd either hate you or remember you with a certain tenderness."
"Is that what happens?" he asked, amused.
"I think so," she said thoughtfully.... "As for what you said, you are right, Duane; I am adrift.... You--or a man like you could easily board me--take me in tow. I'm quite sure that something about me signals a pilot; and that keen eyes and bitter tongues have noted it. And I don't care. Nor do I know yet what my capabilities for evil are.... Do you care to--find out?"
"It wouldn't be a square deal to you, Rosalie."
"And--if I don't care whether it's a square deal or not?"
"Why, dear," he said, covering her nervous, pretty hand with both of his, "I'd break your heart in a week."
He laughed, dropped her fingers, stepped back to the door, and, laying his hand on the knob, said evenly:
"That husband of yours is not the sort of man I particularly take to, but I believe he's about the average if you'd care to make him so."
She coloured with surprise. Then something in her scornful eyes inspired him with sudden intuition.
"As a matter of fact," he said lightly, "you care for him still."
"I can very easily prove the contrary," she said, walking slowly up to him, close, closer, until the slight tremor of contact halted her and her soft, irregular breath touched his face.
"What a girl like you needs," he laughed, taking her into his arms, "is a man to hold her this way--every now and then, and"--he kissed her--"tell her she is incomparable--which I cannot truthfully tell you, dear." He released her at arms' length.
"I don't know whose fault it is," he went on: "I don't know whether he still really cares for you in spite of his weak peregrinations to other shrines; but you still care for him. And it's up to you to make him what he can be--the average husband. There are only two kinds, Rosalie, the average and the bad."
She looked straight into his eyes, but the deep, mantling colour belied her audacity.
"Do you know," she said, "that we haven't--lived together for two years?"
"I don't want to know such things," he said gently.
"Well, you do know now. I--am--very much alone. You see I have already become capable of saying anything--and of doing it, too."
There came a reckless glimmer into her eyes; she set her teeth--a trick of hers; the fresh lips parted slightly under her rapid breathing.
"Do you think," she said unevenly, "that I'm going on all my life like this--without anything more than the passing friendship of men to balance the example he sets me?"
"No, I think something is bound to happen, Rosalie. May I suggest what ought to happen?"
She nodded thoughtfully; only the quiver of her lower lip betrayed the tension of self-control.
"Take him back," he said.
"I no longer care for him."
"You are mistaken."
After a moment she said: "I don't think so; truly I don't. All consideration for him has died in me. His conduct doesn't matter--doesn't hurt me any more----"
"Yes, it does. He's just a plain ass--an average ass--ownerless, and, like all asses, convinced that he can take care of himself. Go and put the halter on him again."
"Go--and--what do you mean?"
"Tether him. You did once. It's up to you; it's usually up to a woman when a man wanders untethered. What one woman, or a dozen, can do with a man his wife can do in the same fashion! What won him in the beginning always holds good until he thinks he has won you. Then the average man flourishes his heels. He is doing it. What won him was not you alone, or love, alone; it was his uncertainty of both that fascinated him. That's what charms him in others; uncertainty. Many men are that way. It's a sporting streak in us. If you care for him now--if you could ever care for him, take him as you took him first.... Do you want him again?"
She stood leaning against the door, looking down. Much of her colour had died out.
"I don't know," she said.
"I do."
"Well--_do_ I?"
"Yes."
"You think so? Why?"
"Because he's adrift, too. And he's rather weak, rather handsome, easily influenced--unjust, selfish, vain, wayward--just the average husband. And every wife ought to be able to manage these lords of creation, and keep them out of harm.... And keep them in love, Rosalie. And the way to do it is the way you did it first.... Try it." He kissed her gaily, thinking he owed that much to himself.
And through the door which had swung gently ajar, Geraldine Seagrave saw them, and Rosalie saw her.
For a moment the girl halted, pale and rigid, and her heart seemed to cease its beating; then, as she passed with averted head, Rosalie caught Duane's wrists in her jewelled grasp and released herself with a wrench.
"You've given me enough to think over," she said. "If you want me to love you, stay--and close that door--and we'll see what happens. If you don't--you had better go at once, Duane. And leave my door open--to see what else fate will send me." She clasped her hands behind her back, laughing nervously.
"It's like the old child's game--'open your mouth and close your eyes and see what God will send you?'--usually something not at all resembling the awaited bonbon.... Good-bye, my altruistic friend--and thank you for your XXth Century advice, and your Louis XVI assistance."
"Good-bye," he returned smilingly, and sauntered back toward his room where his own untried finery awaited him.
Ahead, far down the corridor, he caught sight of Geraldine, and called to her, but perhaps she did not hear him for he had to put on considerable speed to overtake her.
"In these last few days," he said laughingly, "I seldom catch a glimpse of you except when you are vanishing into doorways or down corridors."
She said nothing, did not even turn her head or halt; and, keeping pace with her, he chatted on amiably about nothing in particular until she stopped abruptly and looked at him.
"I am in a hurry. What is it you want, Duane?"
"Why--nothing," he said in surprise.
"That is less than you ask of--others." And she turned to continue her way.
"Is there anything wrong, Geraldine?" he asked, detaining her.
"Is there?" she replied, shaking off his hand from her arm.
"Not as far as I'm concerned."
"Can't you even tell the truth?" she asked with a desperate attempt to laugh.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Evidently something has gone all wrong----"
"Several things, my solicitous friend; I for one, you for another. Count the rest for yourself."
"What has happened to you, Geraldine?"
"What has always threatened."
"Will you tell me?"
"No, I will not. So don't try to look concerned and interested in a matter that regards me alone."
"But what is it that has always threatened you?" he insisted gently, coming nearer--too near to suit her, for she backed away toward the high latticed window through which the sun poured over the geraniums on the sill. There was a seat under it. Suddenly her knees threatened to give way under her; she swayed slightly as she seated herself; a wave of angry pain swept through her setting lids and lips trembling.
"Now I want you to tell me what it is that you believe has always threatened you."
"Do you think I'd tell you?" she managed to say. Then her self-possession returned in a flash of exasperation, but she controlled that, too, and laughed defiantly, confronting him with pretty, insolent face uptilted.
"What do you want to know about me? That I'm in the way of being ultimately damned like all the rest of you?" she said. "Well, I am. I'm taking chances. Some people take their chances in one way--like you and Rosalie; some take them in another--as I do.... Once I was afraid to take any; now I'm not. Who was it said that self-control is only immorality afraid?"
"Will you tell me what is worrying you?" he persisted.
"No, but I'll tell you what annoys me if you like."
"What?"
"Fear of notoriety."
"Notoriety?"
"Certainly--not for myself--for my house."
"Is anybody likely to make it notorious?" he demanded, colouring up.
"Ask yourself.... I haven't the slightest interest in your personal conduct"--there was a catch in her voice--"except when it threatens to besmirch my own home."
The painful colour gathered and settled under his cheek-bones.
"Do you wish me to leave?"
"Yes, I do. But you can't without others knowing how and why."
"Oh, yes, I can----"
"You are mistaken. I tell you _others_ will know. Some do know already. And I don't propose to figure with a flaming sword. Kindly remain in your Eden until it's time to leave--with Eve."
"Just as you wish," he said, smiling; and that infuriated her.
"It ought to be as I wish! That much is due me, I think. Have you anything further to ask, or is your curiosity satisfied?"
"Not yet. You say that you think something threatens you? What is it?"
"Not what threatens _you_," she said in contempt.
"That is no answer."
"It is enough for you to know."
He looked her hard in the eyes. "Perhaps," he said in a low voice, "I know more about you than you imagine I do, Geraldine--_since last April_."
She felt the blood leave her face, the tension crisping her muscles; she sat up very straight and slender among the cushions and defied him.
"What do you--think you know?" she tried to sneer, but her voice shook and failed.
He said: "I'll tell you. For one thing, you're playing fast and loose with Dysart. He's a safe enough proposition--but what is that sort of thing going to arouse in you?"
"What do you mean?" Her voice cleared with an immense relief. He noted it.
"It's making you tolerant," he said quietly, "familiar with subtleties, contemptuous of standards. It's rubbing the bloom off you. You let a man who is married come too close to you--you betray enough curiosity concerning him to do it. A drifting woman does that sort of thing, but why do you cut your cables? Good Lord, Geraldine, it's a fool business--permitting a man an intimacy----"
"More harmless than his wife permits you!" she retorted.
"That is not true."
"You are supposed to lie about such things, aren't you?" she said, reddening to the temples. "Oh, I am learning your rotten code, you see--the code of all these amiable people about me. You've done your part to instruct me that promiscuous caresses are men's distraction from ennui; Rosalie evidently is in sympathy with that form of amusement--many men and women among whom I live in town seem to be quite as casual as you are.... I did have standards once, scarcely knowing what they meant; I clung to them out of instinct. And when I went out into the world I found nobody paying any attention to them."
"You are wrong."
"No, I'm not. I go among people and see every standard I set up, ignored. I go to the theatre and see plays that embody everything I supposed was unthinkable, let alone unutterable. But the actors utter everything, and the audience thinks everything--and sometimes laughs. I can't do that--yet. But I'm progressing."
"Geraldine----"
"Wait!... My friends have taught me a great deal during this last year--by word, precept, and example. Things I held in horror nobody notices enough to condone. Take treachery, for example. The marital variety is all around me. Who cares, or is even curious after an hour's gossip has made it stale news? A divorce here, a divorce there--some slight curiosity to see who the victims may marry next time--that curiosity satisfied--and so is everybody. And they go back to their business of money-getting and money-spending--and that's what my friends have taught me. Can you wonder that my familiarity with it all breeds contempt enough to seek almost any amusement in sheer desperation--as you do?"
"I have only one amusement," he said.
"What?"
"Painting."
"And your model," she nodded with a short laugh. "Don't forget her. Your pretences are becoming tiresome, Duane. Your pretty model, Mrs. Dysart, poses less than you do."
Another wave of heart-sickness and anger swept over her; she felt the tears burning close to her lids and turned sharply on him:
"It's all rotten, I tell you--the whole personnel and routine--these people, and their petty vices and their idleness and their money! I--I do want to keep myself above it--clean of it--but what am I to do? One can't live without friends. If I don't gamble I'm left alone; if I don't flirt I'm isolated. If one stands aloof from everything one's friends go elsewhere. What can I do?"
"Make decent friends. I'm going to."
He bent forward and struck his knee with his closed fist.
"I'm going to," he repeated. "I've waited as long as I can for you to stand by me. I could have even remained among these harmless simians if you had cared for me. You're all the friend I need. But you've become one of them. It isn't in you to take an intelligent interest in me, or in what I care for. I've stood this sort of existence long enough. Now I'm all through with it."
She stared. Anger, astonishment, exasperation moved her in turn. Bitterness unlocked her lips.
"Are you expecting to take Mrs. Dysart with you to your intellectual solitude?"
"I would if I--if we cared for each other," he said, calmly seating himself.
She said, revolted: "Can't you even admit that you are in love with her? Must I confess that I could not avoid seeing you with her in her own room--half an hour since? Will _that_ wring the truth out of you?"
"Oh, is that what you mean?" he said wearily. "I believe the door was open.... Well, Geraldine, whatever you saw won't harm anybody. So come to your own conclusions.... But I wish you were out of all this--with your fine insight and your clear intelligence, and your sweetness--oh, the chances for happiness you and I might have had!"
"A slim chance with you!" she said.
"Every chance; perhaps the only chance we'll ever have. And we've missed it."
"We've missed nothing"--a sudden and curious tremor set her heart and pulses beating heavily--"I tell you, Duane, it doesn't matter whom people of our sort marry because we'll always sicken of our bargain. What chance for happiness would I run with such a man as you? Or you with a girl like me?"
She lay back among the cushions, with a tired little laugh. "We are like the others of our rotten sort, only less aged, less experienced. But we have, each of us, our own heritage, our own secret depravity." She hesitated, reddening, caught his eye, stammered her sentence to a finish and flinched, crimsoning to the roots of her hair.
He stood up, paced the room for a few moments, came and stood beside her.
"Once," he said very low, "you admitted that you dare go anywhere with me. Do you remember?"
"Yes."
"Those are your rooms, I believe," pointing to a closed door far down the south corridor.
"Yes."
"Take me there now."
"I--cannot do that----"
"Yes, you can. You must."
"Now?--Duane."
"Yes, now--_now_! I tell you our time is now if it ever is to be at all. Don't waste words."
"What do you want to say to me that cannot be said here?" she asked in consternation.
He made no answer, but she found herself on her feet and moving slowly along beside him, his hand just touching her arm as guide.
"What is it, Duane?" she asked fearfully, as she laid her hand on the knob and turned to look at his altered face.
He made no answer. She hesitated, shivered, opened the door, hesitated again, slowly crossed the threshold, turned and admitted him.
The western sun flooded the silent chamber of rose and gray; a breeze moved the curtains, noiselessly; the scent of flowers freshened the silence.
There was a divan piled with silken cushions; he placed several for her; she stood irresolute for a moment, then, with a swift, unquiet side glance at him, seated herself.
"What is it?" she asked, looking up, her face beginning to reflect the grave concern in his.
"I want you to marry me, Geraldine."
"Is--is _that_ what----"
"Partly. I want you to love me, too. But I'll attend to that if you'll marry me--I'll guarantee that. I--I will guarantee--more than that."
She was still looking up, searching his sombre face. She saw the muscles tighten along the jaw; saw the grave lines deepening. A sort of bewildered fear possessed her.
"I--am not in love with you, Duane." She added hastily, "I don't trust you either. How could I----"
"Yes, you do trust me."
"After what you have done to Rosalie----"
"You know that all is square there. Say so!"
She gazed at the floor, convinced, but not answering.
"Do you believe I love you?"
She shook her head, eyes still on the floor.
"Tell me the truth! Look at me!"
She said with an effort: "You think you care for me.... You believe you do, I suppose----"
"And _you_ believe it, too! Give me my chance--take your own!"
"_My_ chance?"--with a flash of anger.
"Yes; take it, and give me mine. I tell you, Geraldine, we are going to need each other desperately some day. I need you now--to-morrow you'll need me more; and the day after, and after that in perilous days to follow our need will be the greater for these hours wasted--can't you understand by this time that we've nothing to hold us steady through the sort of life we're born to except--each other----"
His voice suddenly broke; he dropped down on the couch beside her, imprisoning her clasped hands on her knees. His emotion, the break in his voice, excited them both.
"Are you trying to frighten me and take me by storm?" she demanded, forcing a smile. "What is the matter, Duane? What do you mean by peril?... You are scaring me----"
"Little Geraldine--my little comrade! Can't you understand? It isn't only my selfish desire for you--it isn't all for myself!--I care more for you than that. I love you more deeply than a mere lover! Must I say more to you? Must I even hurt you? Must I tell you what I know--of you?"
"W-what?" she asked, startled.
He looked at her miserably. In his eyes she read a meaning that terrified her.
"Duane--I don't--understand," she faltered.
"Yes you do. Let's face it now!"
"F-face what?" Her voice was only a whisper.
"I can tell you if you'll love me. Will you?"
"I don't understand," she repeated in white-lipped distress. "Why do you look at me so strangely? And you tell me that I--know.... What is it that I know? Couldn't you tell me? I am--" Her voice failed.
"Dear--do you remember--once--last April that you were--ill?... And awoke to find yourself on your own bed?"
"Duane!" It was a cry of terror.
"Dearest! Dearest! Do you think I have not known--since then--what has troubled you--here----"
She stared at him in crimsoned horror for an instant, then with a dry sob, bowed her head and covered her face with desperate hands. For a moment her whole body quivered, then she collapsed. On his knees beside her he bent and touched with trembling lips her arms, her knees, the slim ankles desperately interlocked, the tips of her white shoes.
"Dearest," he whispered brokenly, "I know--I know--believe me. I have fought through worse, and won out. You said once that something had died out in me--while I was abroad. It did not die of itself, dear. But it left its mark.... You say self-control is only depravity afraid.... That is true; but I have made my depravity fear me. I can do what I please with it now; I can tempt it, laugh at it, silence it. But it cost me something to make a slave of it--what you saw in my face is the claw-mark it left fighting me to the death."
Very straight on his knees beside her he bent again, pressing her rigid knees with his lips.
"I need you, Geraldine--I need all that is best in you; you must love me--take me as an ally, dear, against all that is worst in you. I'll love you so confidently that we'll kill it--you and I together--my strength and yours, my bitter and deep understanding and your own sweet contempt for weakness wherever it may be, even in yourself."
He touched her; and she shuddered under the light caress, still bent almost double, and covering her face with both hands. He bent over her, one knee on the divan.
"Let's pull ourselves together and talk sense, Geraldine," he said with an effort at lightness.
"Don't you remember that bully little girl who swung her fists in single combat and uppercut her brother and me whenever her sense of fairness was outraged? The time has come when you, who were so fair to others, are going to be fair to yourself by marrying me----"
She dropped both hands and stared at him out of wide, tear-wet eyes.
"Fair to myself--at your expense, Duane?"
"What do you mean? I love you."
"Am I to let you--you marry me--knowing--what you know? Is that what you call my sense of fairness?" And, as he attempted to speak:
"Oh, I have thought about it already!--I must have been conscious that this would happen some day--that--that I was capable of caring for you--and it alarmed me----"
"Are you capable of loving me?"
"Duane, you must not ask me that!"
"Tell me!"
But she pushed him back, and they faced each other, her hands remaining on his shoulders. She strove piteously to endure his gaze, flinched, strove to push him from her again--but the slender hands lay limply against him. So they remained, her hands at intervals nervously tightening and relaxing on his shoulders, her tearful breath coming faster, the dark eyes closing, opening, turning from him, toward him, searching, now in his soul, now in her own, her self-command slipping from her.
"It is cowardly in me--if I do it," she said in the ghost of a voice.
"Do what?"
"Let you risk--what I m-might become."
"You little saint!"
"Some saints _were_ depraved at first--weren't they?" she said without a smile. "Oh, Duane, Duane, to think I could ever be here speaking to you about--about the horror that has happened to me--looking into your face and giving up my dreadful secret to you--laying my very soul naked before you! How can I look at you----"
"Because I love you. Now give me the right to your lips and heart!"
There was a long silence. Then she tried to smile.
"My--my lips? I--thought you took such things--lightly----"
She hesitated, glanced up at him, then began to tremble.
"Duane--if you are in earnest about our--about an engagement--promise me that I may be released if I--think best----"
"Why?"
"I--I might fail----"
"The more need of me. But you can't fail----"
"Yes, but if I should, dear. Will you release me? I cannot--I will not engage myself to you--unless you promise to let me go if I think it best. You know what my word means. Give it back to me if matters go wrong with me. Will you?"
"But I am going to marry you now!" he said with a short, excited laugh.
"Now!" she repeated, appalled.
"Certainly, to make sure of you. We don't need a license in this State. There's a parson at West Gate Village.... I intend to make sure of you now. You can keep it a secret if you like. When you return to town we can have everything en regle--engagement announced, cards, church wedding, and all that. Meanwhile I'm going to be sure of you."
"W-when?"
"This afternoon."
His excitement thrilled her; a vivid colour surged over neck and brow.
"Duane, I did not dream that you cared so much, so truly--Oh, I--I do love you then!--I love you, Duane! I love you!"
He drew her suddenly into his arms, close, closer; she lifted her face; he kissed her; and she gave him her heart with a sob.
"You will wait for m-me, won't you?" she stammered, striving to keep her reason through the delicious tumult that swept her senses. "Before I m-marry you I must be quite certain that you take no risk----"
She looked up into his steady eyes; a passion of tenderness overwhelmed her, and her locked arms tightened around his neck.
"Oh," she whispered, "you _are_ the boy I loved so long, so long ago--my comrade Duane--my own little boy! How was I to know I loved you this way, too? How could I understand!"
Already the glamour of the past was transfiguring the man for her, changing him back into the lad she had ruled so long ago, glorifying him--drawing them together into that golden age where her ears already caught the far cries and laughter of the past.
Now, her arms around him, she looked at him and looked at him as though she had not set eyes on him since then.
"Of course, I love you," she said impatiently, as though surprised and hurt that he or she had ever doubted it. "You always were mine; you are _mine_! Nobody else could ever have had you--no matter what you did--or what I did.... And nobody except you could ever, ever have had me. That is perfectly plain now.... Oh, you--you darling"--she murmured, drawing his face against hers. Tears sprang to her brown eyes; her mouth quivered.
"You _will_ love me, won't you? Because I'm going quite mad about you, Duane.... I don't think I know just what I'm saying--or what I'm doing."
She drew him closer; he caught her, crushing her in his arms, and she yielded, clung to him for a moment, drew back in flushed resistance, still bewildered by her own passion. Then, into her eyes came that divine beauty which comes but once on earth--innocence awakened; and the white lids drooped a little, and the mouth quivered, surrendering with a sigh.
* * * * *
"You never have, never could love any other man? Say it. I know it, but--say it, sweetheart!"
"Only you, Duane."
"Are you happy?"
"I am in heaven."
She closed her eyes--opening them almost immediately and passing one hand across his face as though afraid he might have vanished.
"You are there yet," she murmured with a faint smile.
"So are you," he whispered, laughing--"my little dream girl--my little brown-eyed, brown-haired, long-legged, swift-running, hard-hitting----"
"Oh, _do_ you remember that dreadful blow I gave you when we were sparring in the library? _Did_ it hurt you, my darling--I was sure it did, but you never would admit it. Tell me now," she coaxed, adorable in her penitence.
"Well--yes, it did." He laughed under his breath--"I don't mind telling you now that it fractured the bridge of my nose."
"What!"--in horror. "That perfectly delicious straight nose of yours!"
"Oh, I had it fixed," he said, laughing. "If you deal me no more vital blows than that I'll never mind----"
"I--deal you a--a blow, Duane! _I_!"
"For instance, by not marrying me right away----"
"Dear--I can't."
The smile had died out in her eyes and on her lips.
"You know I can't, don't you?" she said tenderly. "You know I've got to be fair to you." Her face grew graver. "Dear--when I stop and try to think--it dismays me to understand how much in love with you I am.... Because it is too soon.... It would be safer to wait before I start to love you--this way. There is a cowardly streak in me--a weak streak----"
"What blessed nonsense you do talk, don't you?"
"No, dear."
She moved slightly toward him, settling close, as though within the circle of his arms lay some occult protection.
For a while she lay very close to him, her pale face pressed against his shoulder, brown eyes remote. Neither spoke. After a long time she laid her hands on his arms, gently disengaging them, and, freeing herself, sprang to her feet. A new, lithe and lovely dignity seemed to possess her--an exquisite, graceful, indefinable something which lent a hint of splendour to her as she turned and looked down at him.
Then, mischievously tender, she stooped and touched her childish mouth to his--her cheek, her throat, her hair, her lids, her hands, in turn all brushed his lips with fragrance--the very ghost of contact, the exquisite mockery of caress.
"If you don't go at once," she murmured, "I'll never let you go at all. Wait--let me see if anybody is in the corridor----"
She opened the door and looked out.
"Not a soul," she whispered, "our reputations are still intact. Good-bye--I'll put on a fresh gown and meet you in ten minutes!... Where? Oh, anywhere--_anywhere_, Duane. The Lake. Oh, that is too far away! Wait here on the stairs for me--that isn't so far away--just sit on the stairs until I come. Do you promise? _Truly_? Oh, you angel boy!... Yes--but only one more, then--to be quite sure that you won't forget to wait on the stairs for me...." _