_ CHAPTER VII
For a few moments Underwood was too much overcome by emotion to speak. Alicia brushed by in haughty silence, not deigning to look at him. All he heard was the soft rustle of her clinging silk gown as it swept along the floor. She was incensed with him, of course, but she had come. That was all he asked. She had come in time to save him. He would talk to her and explain everything and she would understand. She would help him in this crisis as she had in the past. Their long friendship, all these years of intimacy, could not end like this. There was still hope for him. The situation was not as desperate as he feared. He might yet avert the shameful end of the suicide. Advancing toward her, he said in a hoarse whisper:
"Oh, this is good of you, you've come--this is the answer to my letter."
Alicia ignored his extended hand and took a seat. Then, turning on him, she exclaimed indignantly:
"The answer should be a horsewhip. How dare you send me such a message?" Drawing from her bag the letter received from him that evening, she demanded:
"What do you expect to gain by this threat?"
"Don't be angry, Alicia."
Underwood spoke soothingly, trying to conciliate her. Well he knew the seductive power of his voice. Often he had used it and not in vain, but to-night it fell on cold, indifferent ears.
"Don't call me by that name," she snapped.
Underwood made no answer. He turned slightly paler and, folding his arms, just looked at her, in silence. There was an awkward pause.
At last she said:
"I hope you understand that everything's over between us. Our acquaintance is at an end."
"My feelings toward you can never change," replied Underwood earnestly. "I love you--I shall always love you."
Alicia gave a little shrug of her shoulders, expressive of utter indifference.
"Love!" she exclaimed mockingly. "You love no one but yourself."
Underwood advanced nearer to her and there was a tremor in his voice as he said:
"You have no right to say that. You remember what we once were. Whose fault is it that I am where I am to-day? When you broke our engagement and married old Jeffries to gratify your social ambition, you ruined my life. You didn't destroy my love--you couldn't kill that. You may forbid me everything--to see you--to speak to you--even to think of you, but I can never forget that you are the only woman I ever cared for. If you had married me, I might have been a different man. And now, just when I want you most, you deny me even your friendship. What have I done to deserve such treatment? Is it fair? Is it just?"
Alicia had listened with growing impatience. It was only with difficulty that she contained herself. Now she interrupted him hotly:
"I broke my engagement with you because I found that you were deceiving me--just as you deceived others."
"It's a lie!" broke in Underwood. "I may have trifled with others, but I never deceived you."
Alicia rose and, crossing the room, carelessly inspected one of the pictures on the wall, a study of the nude by Bouguereau.
"We need not go into that," she said haughtily. "That is all over now. I came to ask you what this letter--this threat----means. What do you expect to gain by taking your life unless I continue to be your friend? How can I be a friend to a man like you? You know what your friendship for a woman means. It means that you would drag her down to your own level and disgrace her as well as yourself. Thank God, my eyes are now opened to your true character. No self-respecting woman could afford to allow her name to be associated with yours. You are as incapable of disinterested friendship as you are of common honesty." Coldly she added: "I hope you quite understand that henceforth my house is closed to you. If we happen to meet in public, it must be as strangers."
Underwood did not speak. Words seemed to fail him. His face was set and white. A nervous twitching about the mouth showed the terrible mental strain which the man was under. In the excitement he had forgotten about Howard's presence on the divan behind the screen. A listener might have detected the heavy breathing of the sleeper, but even Alicia herself was too preoccupied to notice it. Underwood extended his arms pleadingly:
"Alicia--for the sake of Auld Lang Syne!"
"Auld Lang Syne," she retorted. "I want to forget the past. The old memories are distasteful. My only object in coming here to-night was to make the situation plain to you and to ask you to promise me not to--carry out your threat to kill yourself. Why should you kill yourself? Only cowards do that. Because you are in trouble? That is the coward's way out. Leave New York. Go where you are not known. You are still young. Begin life over again, somewhere else." Advancing toward him, she went on: "If you will do this I will help you. I never want to see you again, but I'll try not to think of you unkindly. But you must promise me solemnly not to make any attempt against your life."
"I promise nothing," muttered Underwood doggedly.
"But you must," she insisted. "It would be a terrible crime, not only against yourself, but against others. You must give me your word."
Underwood shook his head.
"I promise nothing."
"But you must," persisted Alicia. "I won't stir from here until I have your promise."
He looked at her curiously.
"If my life has no interest for you, why should you care?" he asked.
There was a note of scorn in his voice which aroused his visitor's wrath. Crumpling up his letter in her hand, she confronted him angrily.
"Shall I tell you why I care?" she cried. "Because you accuse me in this letter of being the cause of your death--I, who have been your friend in spite of your dishonesty. Oh! it's despicable, contemptible! Above all, it's a lie----"
Underwood shrugged his shoulders. Cynically he replied:
"So it wasn't so much concern for me as for yourself that brought you here."
Alicia's eyes flashed as she answered:
"Yes, I wished to spare myself this indignity--the shame of being associated in any way with a suicide. I was afraid you meant what you said."
"Afraid," interrupted Underwood bitterly, "that some of the scandal might reach as far as the aristocratic Mrs. Howard Jeffries, Sr.!"
Her face flushed with anger, Alicia paced up and down the room. The man's taunts stung her to the quick. In a way, she felt that he was right. She ought to have guessed his character long ago and had nothing to do with him. He seemed desperate enough to do anything, yet she doubted if he had the courage to kill himself. She thought she would try more conciliatory methods, so, stopping short, she said more gently:
"You know how my husband has suffered through the wretched marriage of his only son. You know how deeply we both feel this disgrace, and yet you would add----"
Underwood laughed mockingly.
"Why should I consider your husband's feelings?" he cried. "He didn't consider mine when he married you." Suddenly bending forward, every nerve tense, he continued hoarsely: "Alicia, I tell you I'm desperate. I'm hemmed in on all sides by creditors. You know what your friendship--your patronage means? If you drop me now, your friends will follow--they're a lot of sheep led by you--and when my creditors hear of me they'll be down on me like a flock of wolves. I'm not able to make a settlement. Prison stares me in the face."
Glancing around at the handsome furnishings, Alicia replied carelessly:
"I'm not responsible for your wrongdoing. I want to protect my friends. If they are a lot of sheep as you say, that is precisely why I should warn them. They have implicit confidence in me. You have borrowed their money, cheated them at cards, stolen from them. Your acquaintance with me has given them the opportunity. But now I've found you out. I refuse any longer to sacrifice my friends, my self-respect, my sense of decency." Angrily she continued: "You thought you could bluff me. You've adopted this coward's way of forcing me to receive you against my will. Well, you've failed. I will not sanction your robbing my friends. I will not allow you to sell them any more of your high-priced rubbish, or permit you to cheat them at cards."
Underwood listened in silence. He stood motionless, watching her flushed face as she heaped reproaches on him. She was practically pronouncing his death sentence, yet he could not help thinking how pretty she looked. When she had finished he said nothing, but, going to his desk, he opened a small drawer and took out a revolver.
Alicia recoiled, frightened.
"What are you going to do?" she cried.
Underwood smiled bitterly.
"Oh, don't be afraid. I wouldn't do it while you are here. In spite of all you've said to me, I still think too much of you for that." Replacing the pistol in the drawer, he added: "Alicia, if you desert me now, you'll be sorry to the day of your death."
His visitor looked at him in silence. Then, contemptuously, she said:
"I don't believe you intend to carry out your threat. I should have known from the first that your object was to frighten me. The pistol display was highly theatrical, but it was only a bluff. You've no more idea of taking your life than I have of taking mine. I was foolish to come here. I might have spared myself the humiliation of this clandestine interview. Good night!"
She went toward the door. Underwood made no attempt to follow her. In a hard, strange voice, which he scarcely recognized as his own, he merely said:
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Yes," replied Alicia, as she turned at the door. "Let it be thoroughly understood that your presence at my house is not desired. If you force yourself upon me in any way, you must take the consequences."
Underwood bowed, and was silent. She did not see the deathly pallor of his face. Opening the door of the apartment which led to the hall, she again turned.
"Tell me, before I go--you didn't mean what you said in your letter, did you?"
"I'll tell you nothing," replied Underwood doggedly.
She tossed her head scornfully.
"I don't believe that a man who is coward enough to write a letter like this has the courage to carry out his threat." Stuffing the letter back into her bag, she added: "I should have thrown it in the waste-paper basket, but on second thoughts, I think I'll keep it. Good night."
"Good night," echoed Underwood mechanically.
He watched her go down the long hallway and disappear in the elevator. Then, shutting the door, he came slowly back into the room and sat down at his desk. For ten minutes he sat there motionless, his head bent forward, every limb relaxed. There was deep silence, broken only by Howard's regular breathing and the loud ticking of the clock.
"It's all up," he muttered to himself. "It's no use battling against the tide. The strongest swimmer must go under some time. I've played my last card and I've lost. Death is better than going to jail. What good is life anyway without money? Just a moment's nerve and it will all be over."
Opening the drawer in the desk, he took out the revolver again. He turned it over in his hand and regarded fearfully the polished surface of the instrument that bridged life and death. He had completely forgotten Howard's presence in the room. On the threshold of a terrible deed, his thoughts were leagues away. Like a man who is drowning, and close to death, he saw with surprising distinctness a kaleidoscopic view of his past life. He saw himself an innocent, impulsive school boy, the pride of a devoted mother, the happy home where he spent his childhood. Then came the association with bad companions, the first step in wrongdoing, stealing out of a comrade's pocket in school, the death of his mother, leaving home--with downward progress until he gradually drifted into his present dishonest way of living. What was the good of regrets? He could not recall his mother to life. He could never rehabilitate himself among decent men and women. The world had suddenly become too small for him. He must go, and quickly.
Fingering the pistol nervously, he sat before the mirror and placed it against his temple. The cold steel gave him a sudden shock. He wondered if it would hurt, and if there would be instant oblivion. The glare of the electric light in the room disconcerted him. It occurred to him that it would be easier in the dark. Reaching out his arm, he turned the electric button, and the room was immediately plunged into darkness, except for the moonlight which entered through the windows, imparting a ghostly aspect to the scene. On the other side of the room, behind the screen, a red glow from the open fire fell on the sleeping form of Howard Jeffries.
Slowly, deliberately, Underwood raised the pistol to his temple and fired. _