by Ack London
"And will you-ever-forgive me?" she asked in a faint, small voice.
He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge.
"Yes," he said desperately. "I'll forgive you. Go ahead."
"There was no one to tell me," she began. "We were with each other so much. I did not know anything of the world-then."
She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.
"If I had only known-"
She paused again.
"Yes, go on," he urged.
"We were together almost every evening."
"Billy?" he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.
"Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much… If I had only known… There was no one to tell me… I was so young-"
Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him anxiously.
"The scoundrel!"
With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired Greek, but a violently angry young man.
"Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man," Loretta defended, with a firmness that surprised Bashford.
"I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault," he said sarcastically.
She nodded.
"What?" he shouted.
"It was all my fault," she said steadily. "I should never have let him. I was to blame."
Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his voice was resigned.
"All right," he said. "I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must get married."
"To Billy?" she asked, in a dim, far-away voice.
"Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where does he live? I'll make him."
"But I don't want to marry Billy!" she cried out in alarm. "Oh, Ned, you won't do that?"
"I shall," he answered sternly. "You must. And Billy must. Do you understand?"
Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a passionate storm of sobs.
All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: "But I don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to leave Daisy!"
He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.
"How was I to know?-Boo-hoo," Loretta was crying. "He didn't tell me. Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so terrible… until, boo-hoo… until he wrote to me. I only got the letter this morning."
His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.
"Is that what you're crying about?"
"N-no."
His heart sank.
"Then what are you crying about?" he asked in a hopeless voice.
"Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy. I don't want to leave Daisy. I don't know what I want. I wish I were dead."
He nerved himself for another effort.
"Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You haven't told me everything?"
"I-I don't want to tell you everything."
She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.
"Must I?" she quavered finally.
"You must," he said imperatively. "You must tell me everything."
"Well, then… must I?"
"You must."
"He… I… we…" she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, "I let him, and he kissed me."
"Go on," Bashford commanded desperately.
"That's all," she answered.
"All?" There was a vast incredulity in his voice.
"All?" In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.
"I mean-er-nothing worse?" He was overwhelmingly aware of his own awkwardness.
"Worse?" She was frankly puzzled. "As though there could be! Billy said-"
"When did he say it?" Bashford demanded abruptly.
"In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my… our… our kisses were terrible if we didn't get married."
Bashford's head was swimming.
"What else did Billy say?" he asked.
"He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married him-that it was terrible if she didn't. It was the custom, he said; and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it. I know I'm terrible," she added defiantly, "but I can't help it."
Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, as he struck a match.
Then he came to himself.
"I beg your pardon," he cried, flinging away match and cigarette. "I don't want to smoke. I didn't mean that at all. What I mean is-"
He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of the chair and softly put one arm around her.
"Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And I mean something more. I want you to be my wife."
He waited anxiously in the pause that followed.
"You might answer me," he urged.
"I will… if-"
"Yes, go on. If what?"
"If I don't have to marry Billy."
"You can't marry both of us," he almost shouted.
"And it isn't the custom… what… what Billy said?"
"No, it isn't the custom. Now, Loretta, will you marry me?"
"Don't be angry with me," she pouted demurely.
He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.
"I wish it were the custom," she said in a faint voice, from the midst of the embrace, "because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear… wouldn't I?"
JUST MEAT
He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting street, but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps at the successive crossings. Then he strolled back the way he had come. He was a shadow of a man, sliding noiselessly and without undue movement through the semi-darkness. Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in the jungle, keenly perceptive and receptive. The movement of another in the darkness about him would need to have been more shadowy than he to have escaped him.
In addition to the running advertisement of the state of affairs carried to him by his senses, he had a subtler perception, a FEEL, of the atmosphere around him. He knew that the house in front of which he paused for a moment, contained children. Yet by no willed effort of perception did he have this knowledge. For that matter, he was not even aware that he knew, so occult was the impression. Yet, did a moment arise in which action, in relation to that house, were imperative, he would have acted on the assumption that it contained children. He was not aware of all that he knew about the neighbourhood.
In the same way, he knew not how, he knew that no danger threatened in the footfalls that came up the cross street. Before he saw the walker, he knew him for a belated pedestrian hurrying home. The walker came into view at the crossing and disappeared on up the street. The man that watched, noted a light that flared up in the window of a house on the corner, and as it died down he knew it for an expiring match. This was conscious identification of familiar phenomena, and through his mind flitted the thought, "Wanted to know what time." In another house one room was lighted. The light burned dimly and steadily, and he had the feel that it was a sick-room.
He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle of the block. To this house he paid most attention. No matter what way he looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always returned to it. Except for an open window above the porch, there was nothing unusual about the house. Nothing came in nor out. Nothing happened. There were no lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and disappeared in any of the windows. Yet it was the central point of his consideration. He rallied to it each time after a divination of the state of the neighbourhood.
Despite his feel of things, he was not confident. He was supremely conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He wa
s aware of the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness-intelligences similar to his own in movement, perception, and divination.
Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved. And he knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger. He whistled twice to the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the corner and around the corner. Here he paused and looked about him carefully. Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the object that moved and that was coming nearer. He had divined aright. It was a policeman.
The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter of which he watched the corner he had just left. He saw the policeman pass by, going straight on up the street. He paralleled the policeman's course, and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he returned the way he had come. He whistled once to the house across the street, and after a time whistled once again. There was reassurance in the whistle, just as there had been warning in the previous double whistle.
He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly descend a pillar. Then it came down the steps, passed through the small iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man. He that watched kept on his own side of the street and moved on abreast to the corner, where he crossed over and joined the other. He was quite small alongside the man he accosted.
"How'd you make out, Matt?" he asked.
The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps.
"I reckon I landed the goods," he said.
Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information. The blocks passed by under their feet, and he grew impatient.
"Well, how about them goods?" he asked. "What kind of a haul did you make, anyway?"
"I was too busy to figger it out, but it's fat. I can tell you that much, Jim, it's fat. I don't dast to think how fat it is. Wait till we get to the room."
Jim looked at him keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing, and saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he carried his left arm peculiarly.
"What's the matter with your arm?" he demanded.
"The little cuss bit me. Hope I don't get hydrophoby. Folks gets hydrophoby from manbite sometimes, don't they?"
"Gave you fight, eh?" Jim asked encouragingly.
The other grunted.
"You're harder'n hell to get information from," Jim burst out irritably. "Tell us about it. You ain't goin' to lose money just a-tellin' a guy."
"I guess I choked him some," came the answer. Then, by way of explanation, "He woke up on me."
"You did it neat. I never heard a sound."
"Jim," the other said with seriousness, "it's a hangin' matter. I fixed 'm. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some layin' low for a spell."
Jim gave a low whistle of comprehension.
"Did you hear me whistle?" he asked suddenly.
"Sure. I was all done. I was just comin' out."
"It was a bull. But he wasn't on a little bit. Went right by an' kept a-paddin' the hoof out a sight. Then I come back an' gave you the whistle. What made you take so long after that?"
"I was waitin' to make sure," Matt explained. "I was mighty glad when I heard you whistle again. It's hard work waitin'. I just sat there an' thought an' thought… oh, all kinds' of things. It's remarkable what a fellow'll think about. And then there was a darn cat that kept movin' around the house all' botherin' me with its noises."
"An' it's fat!" Jim exclaimed irrelevantly and with joy.
"I'm sure tellin' you, Jim, it's fat. I'm plum' anxious for another look at 'em."
Unconsciously the two men quickened their pace. Yet they did not relax from their caution. Twice they changed their course in order to avoid policemen, and they made very sure that they were not observed when they dived into the dark hallway of a cheap rooming house down town.
Not until they had gained their own room on the top floor, did they scratch a match. While Jim lighted a lamp, Matt locked the door and threw the bolts into place. As he turned, he noticed that his partner was waiting expectantly. Matt smiled to himself at the other's eagerness.
"Them search-lights is all right," he said, drawing forth a small pocket electric lamp and examining it. "But we got to get a new battery. It's runnin' pretty weak. I thought once or twice it'd leave me in the dark. Funny arrangements in that house. I near got lost. His room was on the left, an' that fooled me some."
"I told you it was on the left," Jim interrupted.
"You told me it was on the right," Matt went on. "I guess I know what you told me, an' there's the map you drew."
Fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a folded slip of paper. As he unfolded it, Jim bent over and looked.
"I did make a mistake," he confessed.
"You sure did. It got me guessin' some for a while."
"But it don't matter now," Jim cried. "Let's see what you got."
"It does matter," Matt retorted. "It matters a lot… to me. I've got to run all the risk. I put my head in the trap while you stay on the street. You got to get on to yourself an' be more careful. All right, I'll show you."
He dipped loosely into his trousers pocket and brought out a handful of small diamonds. He spilled them out in a blazing stream on the greasy table. Jim let out a great oath.
"That's nothing," Matt said with triumphant complacence. "I ain't begun yet."
From one pocket after another he continued bringing forth the spoil. There were many diamonds wrapped in chamois skin that were larger than those in the first handful. From one pocket he brought out a handful of very small cut gems.
"Sun dust," he remarked, as he spilled them on the table in a space by themselves.
Jim examined them.
"Just the same, they retail for a couple of dollars each," he said. "Is that all?"
"Ain't it enough?" the other demanded in an aggrieved tone.
"Sure it is," Jim answered with unqualified approval. "Better'n I expected. I wouldn't take a cent less than ten thousan' for the bunch."
"Ten thousan'," Matt sneered. "They're worth twic't that, an' I don't know anything about joolery, either. Look at that big boy!"
He picked it out from the sparkling heap and held it near to the lamp with the air of an expert, weighing and judging.
"Worth a thousan' all by its lonely," was Jim's quicker judgment.
"A thousan' your grandmother," was Matt's scornful rejoinder. "You couldn't buy it for three."
"Wake me up! I'm dreamin'!" The sparkle of the gems was in Jim's eyes, and he began sorting out the larger diamonds and examining them. "We're rich men, Matt-we'll be regular swells."
"It'll take years to get rid of 'em," was Matt's more practical thought.
"But think how we'll live! Nothin' to do but spend the money an' go on gettin' rid of em."
Matt's eyes were beginning to sparkle, though sombrely, as his phlegmatic nature woke up.
"I told you I didn't dast think how fat it was," he murmured in a low voice.
"What a killin'! What a killin'!" was the other's more ecstatic utterance.
"I almost forgot," Matt said, thrusting his hand into his inside coat pocket.
A string of large pearls emerged from wrappings of tissue paper and chamois skin. Jim scarcely glanced at them.
"They're worth money," he said, and returned to the diamonds.
A silence fell on the two men. Jim played with the gems, running them through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out flat and wide. He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung, and anaemic-a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted features, small-eyed, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to the core with degeneracy.
Matt did not finger the diamonds. He sat with chin on hands and elbows on table, blinking heavily at the blazing array. He was in every way a contrast to the other. No city had bred him. He was heavy-muscl
ed and hairy, gorilla-like in strength and aspect. For him there was no unseen world. His eyes were full and wide apart, and there seemed in them a certain bold brotherliness. They inspired confidence. But a closer inspection would have shown that his eyes were just a trifle too full, just a shade too wide apart. He exceeded, spilled over the limits of normality, and his features told lies about the man beneath.
"The bunch is worth fifty thousan'," Jim remarked suddenly.
"A hundred thousan'," Matt said.
The silence returned and endured a long time, to be broken again by Jim.
"What in hell was he doin' with 'em all at the house?-that's what I want to know. I'd a-thought he'd kept 'em in the safe down at the store."
Matt had just been considering the vision of the throttled man as he had last looked upon him in the dim light of the electric lantern; but he did not start at the mention of him.
"There's no tellin'," he answered. "He might a-ben gettin' ready to chuck his pardner. He might a-pulled out in the mornin' for parts unknown, if we hadn't happened along. I guess there's just as many thieves among honest men as there is among thieves. You read about such things in the papers, Jim. Pardners is always knifin' each other."
A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes. Matt did not betray that he noted it, though he said-
"What was you thinkin' about, Jim?"
Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment.
"Nothin'," he answered. "Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was-all them jools at his house. What made you ask?"
"Nothin'. I was just wonderin', that was all."
The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle on the part of Jim. He was overcome by the spread of gems. It was not that he felt their beauty. He was unaware that they were beautiful in themselves. But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind and sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended. He builded wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was appalled at what he builded. Then it was that he giggled. It was all too impossible to be real. And yet there they blazed on the table before him, fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again.
"I guess we might as well count 'em," Matt said suddenly, tearing himself away from his own visions. "You watch me an' see that it's square, because you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim. Understand?"