_ BOOK IV. THE VORTEX
CHAPTER V
It is odd how people who have been parted a weary while, yet who have thought of each other constantly, will often meet with as little show of feeling as if they had but yesterday bid good-bye. I looked at her and she at me, and I don't think either of us betrayed any emotion. Yet must we both have been infinitely moved.
She was changed, desperately, pitifully changed. All the old sweetness was there, that pathetic sweetness which had made the miners call her the Madonna; but alas, forever gone from her was the fragrant flower of girlhood. Her pallor was excessive, and the softness had vanished out of her face, leaving there only lines of suffering. Sorrow had kindled in her grey eyes a spiritual lustre, a shining, tearless brightness. Ah me, sad, sad, indeed, was the change in her!
So she looked at me, a long and level look in which I could see neither love nor hate. The bright, grey eyes were clear and steady, and the pinched and pitiful lips did not quiver. And as I gazed on her I felt that nothing ever would be the same again. Love could no more be the radiant spirit of old, the prompter of impassioned words, the painter of bewitching scenes. Never again could we feel the world recede from us as we poised on bright wings of fancy; never again compare our joy with that of the heaven-born; never again welcome that pure ideal that comes to youth alone, and that pitifully dies in the disenchantment of graver days. We could sacrifice all things for each other; joy and grieve for each other; live and die for each other,--but the Hope, the Dream, the exaltation of love's dawn, the peerless white glory of it--had gone from us forever and forever.
Her lips moved:
"How you have changed!"
"Yes, Berna, I have been ill. But you, you too have changed."
"Yes," she said very slowly. "I have been--dead."
There was no faltering in her voice, never a throb of pathos. It was like the voice of one who has given up all hope, the voice of one who has arisen from the grave. In that cold mask of a face I could see no glimmer of the old-time joy, the joy of the season when wild roses were aglow. We both were silent, two pitifully cold beings, while about us the howling bedlam of pleasure-plotters surged and seethed.
"Come upstairs where we can talk," said she. So we sat down in one of the boxes, while a great freezing shadow seemed to fall and wrap us around. It was so strange, this silence between us. We were like two pale ghosts meeting in the misty gulfs beyond the grave.
"And why did you not come?" she asked.
"Come--I tried to come."
"But you did not." Her tone was measured, her face averted.
"I would have sold my soul to come. I was ill, desperately ill, nigh to death. I was in the hospital. For two weeks I was delirious, raving of you, trying to get to you, making myself a hundred times worse because of you. But what could I do? No man could have been more helpless. I was out of my mind, weak as a child, fighting for my life. That was why I did not come."
When I began to speak she started. As I went on she drew a quick, choking breath. Then she listened ever so intently, and when I had finished a great change came over her. Her eyes stared glassily, her head dropped, her hands clutched at the chair, she seemed nigh to fainting. When she spoke her voice was like a whisper.
"And they lied to me. They told me you were too eager gold-getting to think of me; that you were in love with some other woman out there; that you cared no more for me. They lied to me. Well, it's too late now."
She laughed, and the once tuneful voice was harsh and grating. Still were her eyes blank with misery. Again and again she murmured: "Too late, too late."
Quietly I sat and watched her, yet in my heart was a vast storm of agony. I longed to comfort her, to kiss that face so white and worn and weariful, to bring tears to those hopeless eyes. There seemed to grow in me a greater hunger for the girl than ever before, a longing to bring joy to her again, to make her forget. What did it all matter? She was still my love. I yearned for her. We both had suffered, both been through the furnace. Surely from it would come the love that passeth understanding. We would rear no lily walls, but out of our pain would we build an abiding place that would outlast the tomb.
"Berna," I said, "it is not too late."
There was a desperate bitterness in her face. "Yes, yes, it is. You do not understand. You--it's all right for you, you are blameless; but I----"
"You too are blameless, dear. We have both been miserably duped. Never mind, Berna, we will forget all. I love you, Oh how much I never can tell you, girl! Come, let us forget and go away and be happy."
It seemed as if my every word was like a stab to her. The sweet face was tragically wretched.
"Oh no," she answered, "it can never be. You think it can, but it can't. You could not forget. I could not forget. We would both be thinking; always, always torturing each other. To you the thought would be like a knife thrust, and the more you loved me the deeper would pierce its blade. And I, too, can you not realise how fearfully I would look at you, always knowing you were thinking of THAT, and what an agony it would be to me to watch your agony? Our home would be a haunted one, a place of ghosts. Never again can there be joy between you and me. It's too late, too late!"
She was choking back the sobs now, but still the tears did not come.
"Berna," I said gently, "I think I could forget. Please give me a chance to prove it. Other men have forgotten. I know it was not your fault. I know that spiritually you are the same pure girl you were before. You are an angel, dear; my angel."
"No, I was not to blame. When you failed to come I grew desperate. When I wrote you and still you failed to come I was almost distracted. Night and day he was persecuting me. The others gave me no peace. If ever a poor girl was hounded to dishonour I was. Yet I had made up my mind to die rather than yield. Oh, it's too horrible."
She shuddered.
"Never mind, dear, don't tell me about it."
"When I awoke to life sick, sick for many days, I wanted to die, but I could not. There seemed to be nothing for it but to stay on there. I was so weak, so ill, so indifferent to everything that it did not seem to matter. That was where I made my mistake. I should have killed myself. Oh, there's something in us all that makes us cling to life in spite of shame! But I would never let him come near me again. You believe me, don't you?"
"I believe you."
"And though, when he went away, I've gone into this life, there's never been any one else. I've danced with them, laughed with them, but that's all. You believe me?"
"Yes, dear."
"Thank God for that! And now we must say good-bye."
"
Good-bye? "
"I said--good-bye. I would not spoil your life. You know how proud I am, how sensitive. I would not give you such as I. Once I would have given myself to you gladly, but now--please go away."
"Impossible."
"No, the other is impossible. You don't know what these things mean to a woman. Leave me, please."
"Leave you--to what?"
"To death, ruin--I don't know what. If I'm strong enough I will die. If I am weak I will sink in the mire. Oh, and I am only a girl too, a young girl!"
"Berna, will you marry me?"
"No! No! No!"
"Berna, I will never leave you. Here I tell you frankly, plainly, I don't know whether or not you still love me--you haven't said a word to show it--but I know I love you, and I will love you as long as life lasts. I will never leave you. Listen to me, dear: let us go away, far, far away. You will forget, I will forget. It will never be the same, but perhaps it will be better, greater than before. Come with me, O my love! Have pity on me, Berna, have pity. Marry me. Be my wife."
She merely shook her head, sitting there cold as a stone.
"Then," I said, "if you call yourself dishonoured, I too will become dishonoured. If you choose to sink in the mire, I too will sink. We will go down together, you and I. Oh, I would rather sink with you, dear, than rise with the angels. You have chosen--well, I too have chosen. We stand on the edge of the vortex, now will we plunge down. You will see me steep myself in shame, then when I am a hundred shades blacker than you can ever hope to be, my angel, you will stoop and pity me. Oh, I don't care any more. I've played the fool too long; now I'll play the devil, and you'll stand by and watch me. Sometimes it's nice to make those we love suffer, isn't it? I would break my arm to make you feel sorry for me. But now you'll see me in the vortex. We'll go down together, dear. Hand in hand hell-ward we'll go down, we'll go down."
She was looking at me in a frightened way. A madness seemed to have gotten into me.
"Berna, you're on the dance-halls. You're at the mercy of the vilest wretch that's got an ounce of gold in his filthy poke. They can buy you as they buy white flesh everywhere on earth. You must dance with them, drink with them, go away with them. Berna, I can buy you. Come, dance with me, drink with me. We'll live, live. We'll eat, drink and be merry. On with the dance! Oh, for the joy of life! Since you'll not be my love you'll be my light-of-love. Come, Berna, come!"
I paused. With her head lying on the cushioned edge of the box she was crying. The plush was streaky with her tears.
"Will you come?" I asked again.
She did not move.
"Then," said I, "there are others, and I have money, lots of it. I can buy them. I am going down into the vortex. Look on and watch me."
I left her crying. _