“Do you know what I thought of you, Jim, when you first came in?”
“Not much, I fancy,” he conceded.
“Will it spoil you if I tell you?”
“Have you spoiled me very much, Jacqueline?”
“Of course I have,” she said hastily. “Listen, and I’ll tell you what I thought of you when you first came in. I looked up, and of course I knew at a glance that you were nice; and I was very much impressed — —”
“The deuce you were!” he laughed, unbelievingly.
“I was!”
“You didn’t show it.”
“Only an idiot of a girl would. But I was — very — greatly — impressed,” she continued, with a delightfully pompous emphasis on every word, “very — greatly — impressed by the tall and fashionable and elegant and agreeably symmetrical Mr. Desboro, owner of the celebrated collection of arms and armour — —”
“I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“You never even took the trouble to look at me until you found out that the armour belonged to me — —”
“That is what ought to have been true. But it wasn’t.”
“Did you actually — —”
“Yes, I did. Not the very second I laid eyes on you — —” she added, blushing slightly, “but — when you went away — and afterward — that evening when I was trying to read Grenville on Armour.”
“You thought of me, Jacqueline?”
“‘It was rather odd, wasn’t it, Jim?’”
“Yes — and tried not to. But it was no use; I seemed to see you laughing at me under every helmet in Grenville’s plates. It was rather odd, wasn’t it, Jim? And to think — to think that now — —”
Her smile grew vaguer; she dropped her
head thoughtfully and rested one hand on the library table, where once her catalogue notes had been piled up — where once Elena’s letter to her husband had fallen from Clydesdale’s heavy hand.
Then, gradually into her remote gaze came something else, something Desboro had learned to dread; and she raised her head abruptly and gazed straight at him with steady, questioning eyes in which there was a hint of trouble of some kind — perhaps unbelief.
“I suppose you are going to your office,” she said.
“After I have taken you to yours, dear.”
“You will be at leisure before I am, won’t you?”
“Unless you knock off work at four o’clock. Can you?”
“I can not. What will you do until five, Jim?”
“There will be nothing for me to do except wait for you.”
“Where will you wait?”
He shrugged: “At the club, I suppose.”
The car rolled up past the library windows.
“I suppose,” she said carelessly, “that it would be too stupid for you to wait chez moi.”
“In your office? No, indeed — —”
“I meant in my apartment. You could smoke and read — but perhaps you wouldn’t care to.”
They went out into the hall, where her maid held her ulster for her and Farris put Desboro into his coat.
Then they entered the car which swung around the oval and glided away toward Silverwood station.
“To tell you the truth, dear,” he said, “it would be rather slow for me to sit in an empty room until you were ready to join me.”
“Of course. You’d find it more amusing at your club.”
“I’d rather be with you at your office.”
“Thank you. But some of my clients stipulate that no third person shall be present when their business is discussed.”
“All right,” he said, shortly.
The faint warmth of their morning’s rapprochement seemed somehow to have turned colder, now that they were about to separate for the day. Both felt it; neither understood it. But the constraint which perhaps they thought too indefinite to analyse persisted. She did not fully understand it, except that, in the aftermath of the storm which had nigh devastated her young heart, her physical nearness to him seemed to help the tiny seed of faith which she had replanted in agony and tears the night before.
To see him, hear his voice, somehow aided her; and the charm of his personality for a while had reawakened and encouraged in her the courage to love him. The winning smile in his eyes had, for the time, laid the phantoms of doubt; memory had become less sensitive; the demon of distrust which she had fought off so gallantly lay somewhere inert and almost forgotten in the dim chamber of her mind.
But not dead — no; for somewhere in obscurity she had been conscious for an instant that her enemy was stirring.
Must this always be so? Was faith in this man really dead? Was it only the image of faith which her loyalty and courage had set up once more for an altar amid the ruins of her young heart?
And always, always, even when she seemed unaware, even when she had unconsciously deceived herself, her consciousness of the other woman remained alive, like a spark, whitened at moments by its own ashes, yet burning terribly when touched.
Slowly she began to understand that her supposed new belief in this man would endure only while he was within her sight; that the morning’s warmth had slowly chilled as the hour of their separation approached; that her mind was becoming troubled and confused, and her heart uncertain and apprehensive.
And as she thought of the future — years and years of it — there seemed no rest for her, only endless effort and strife, only the external exercise of mental and spiritual courage to fight back the creeping shadow which must always threaten her — the shadow that Doubt casts, and which men call Fear.
“Shall we go to town in the car?” he said, looking at his watch. “We have time; the train won’t be in for twenty minutes.”
“If you like.”
He picked up the speaking tube and gave his orders, then lay back again to watch the familiar landscape with worried eyes that saw other things than hills and trees and wintry fields and the meaningless abodes of men.
So this was what Fate had done to him — this! And every unconsidered act of his had been slyly, blandly, maliciously leading him into this valley of humiliation.
He had sometimes thought of marrying, never very definitely, except that, if love were to be the motive, he would have ample time, after that happened, to reform before his wedding day. Also, he had expected to remain in a laudable and permanent state of regeneration, marital treachery not happening to suit his fastidious taste.
That was what he had intended in the improbable event of marriage. And now, suddenly, from a clear sky, the bolt had found him; love, courtship, marriage, had followed with a rapidity he could scarcely realise; and had left him stranded on the shores of yesterday, discredited, distrusted, deeply, wretchedly in love; not only unable to meet on equal terms the young girl who had become his wife, but the involuntary executioner of her tender faith in him!
To this condition the laws of compensation consigned him. The man-made laws which made his complaisance possible could not help him now; the unwritten social law which acknowledges a double standard of purity for man and woman he must invoke in vain. Before the tribunal of her clear, sweet eyes, and before the chastity of her heart and mind, the ignoble beliefs, the lying precedents, the false standards must fall.
There had been no shelter there for him, and he had known it. Reticence, repentance, humble vows for the future — these had been left to him, he supposed.
But the long, dim road to yesterday was thronged with ghosts, and his destiny came swiftly upon him. Tortured, humiliated, helpless, he saw the lash that cut him fall also upon her.
Sooner or later, all that is secret of good or of evil shall be made manifest, here or elsewhere; and the suffering may not be abated. And he began to understand that reticence can not forever hide what has been; that no silence can screen it; no secrecy conceal it; that reaction invariably succeeds action; and not a finger is ever lifted that the universe does not experience the effect.
How he or fate might have spared her, he did not know. What she had learned about him he could not surmise. As far as Elena was concerned, he had been no worse than a fastidious fool dangling about a weaker and less fastidious one. If gossip of that nature had brought this grief upon her, it was damnable.
All he could do was to deny it. He had denied it. But denial, alas, was limited to that particular episode. He could not make it more sweeping; he was not on equal ground with her; he was at a disadvantage. Only spiritual equality dare face its peer, fearless, serene, and of its secrets unafraid.
Yet — she had surmised what he had been; she had known. And, insensibly, he began to feel a vague resentment toward her, almost a bitterness. Because she had accepted him without any illusion concerning him. That had been understood between them. She knew he loved her; she loved him. Already better things had been in sight for him, loftier aspirations, the stirring of ambition. And suddenly, almost at the altar itself, this thing had happened — whatever it was! And all her confidence in him, all her acquiescence in what had been, all her brave words and promises — all except the mere naked love in her breast had crashed earthward under its occult impact, leaving their altar on their wedding night shattered, fireless, and desolate.
He set his teeth and the muscles in his cheeks hardened.
“By God!” he thought. “I’ll find out what this thing is, and who has done it. She knew what I was. There is a limit to humiliation. Either she shall again accept me and believe in me, or — or — —”
But there seemed to present itself no alternative which he could tolerate; and the thread of thought snapped short.
They were entering the city limits now, and he began to realise that neither had spoken for nearly an hour.
He ventured to glance sideways at her. The exquisitely sad profile against the window thrilled him painfully, almost to the verge of anger. Unwedded, she had been nearer to him. Even in his arms, shy and utterly unresponsive, she had been closer, a more vital thing, than ever she had been since the law had made her his wife.
For a moment the brutality in him stirred, and he felt the heat of blood in his face, and his heart grew restless and beat faster. All that is latent in man of impatience with pain, of intolerance, of passion, of violence, throbbed in every vein.
Then she turned and looked at him. And it was ended as suddenly as it began. Only his sense of helplessness and his resentment remained — resentment against fate, against the unknown people who had done this thing to him and to her; against himself and his folly; even subtly, yet illogically, against her.
“I was thinking,” she said, “that we might at least lunch together — if you would care to.”
“Would you?” he asked coldly.
“If you would.”
His lip began to tremble and he caught it between his teeth; then his anger flared, and before he meant to he had said:
“A jolly luncheon it would be, wouldn’t it?”
“What?”
“I said it would be a jolly affair — considering the situation.”
“What is the situation, Jim?” she asked, very pale.
“Oh, what I’ve made of it, I suppose — a failure!”
“I — I thought we were trying to remake it into a success.”
“Can we?”
“We must, Jim.”
“How?”
She was silent.
“I’ll tell you how we can not make a success out of it,” he said hotly, “and that’s by doing what we have been doing.”
“We have — have had scarcely time yet to do anything very much.”
“We’ve done enough to widen the breach between us — however we’ve managed to accomplish it. That’s all I know, Jacqueline.”
“I thought the breach was closing.”
“I thought so, too, this morning.”
“Wounds can not heal over night,” she said, in a low voice.
“Wounds can not heal at all if continually irritated.”
“I know it. Give me a little time, Jim. It is all so new to me, and there is no precedent to follow — and I haven’t very much wisdom. I am only trying to find myself so I shall know how best to serve you — —”
“I don’t want to be served, Jacqueline! I want you to love me — —”
“I do.”
“You do in a hurt, reproachful, frightened, don’t-touch-me sort of way — —”
“Jim!”
“I’m sorry; I don’t know what I’m saying. There isn’t anything for me to say, I suppose. But I don’t seem to have the spirit of endurance in me — humble submission isn’t my line; delay makes me impatient. I want things to be settled, no matter what the cost. When I repent, I repent like the devil — just as hard and as fast as I can. Then it’s over and done with. But nobody else seems to notice my regeneration.”
For a moment her face was a study in mixed emotions, then a troubled smile curved her lips, but her eyes were unconvinced.
“You are only a boy, aren’t you?” she said gently. “I know it, somehow, but there is still a little awe of you left in me, and I can’t quite understand. Won’t you be patient with me, Jim?”
He bent over and caught her hand.
“Only love me, Jacqueline — —”
“Oh, I do! I do! And I don’t know what to do about it! All my thoughts are concentrated on it, how best to make it strong, enduring, noble! How best to shelter it, bind up its wounds, guard it, defend it. I — I know in my heart that I’ve got to defend it — —”
“What do you mean, my darling?”
“I don’t know — I don’t know, Jim. Only — if I knew — if I could always know — —”
She turned her head swiftly and stared out of the window. On the glass, vaguely, Elena’s shadowy features seemed to smile at her.
Was that what tortured her? Was that what she wished to know when she and this man separated for the day — where the woman was? Had her confidence in him been so utterly, so shamefully destroyed that it had lowered her to an ignoble level — hurled down her dignity and self-respect to grovel amid unworthy and contemptible emotions? Was it the vulgar vice of jealousy that was beginning to fasten itself upon her?
Sickened, she closed her eyes a moment; but on the lids was still imprinted the face of the woman; and her words began to ring in her brain. And thought began to gallop again, uncurbed, frantic, stampeding. How could he have done it? How could he have carried on this terrible affair after he had met her, after he had known her, loved her, won her? How could he have received that woman as a guest under the same roof that sheltered her? How could he have made a secret rendezvous with the woman scarcely an hour after he had asked her to marry him?
Even if anybody had come to her and told her of these things she could have found it in her heart to find excuses, to forgive him; she could have believed that he had received Elena and arranged a secret meeting with her merely to tell her that their intrigue was at an end.
She could have accustomed herself to endure the knowledge of this concrete instance. And, whatever else he might have done in the past she could endure; because, to her, it was something too abstract, too vague and foreign to her to seem real.
But the attitude and words of Elena Clydesdale — the unmistakable impression she coolly conveyed that this thing was not yet ended, had poisoned the very spring of her faith in him. And the welling waters were still as bitter as death to her.
What did faith matter to her in the world if she could not trust this man? Of what use was it other than to believe in him? And now she could not. She had tried, and she could not. Only when he was near her — only when she might see him, hear him, could she ever again feel sure of him. And now they were to separate for the day. And — where was he going? And where was the other woman?
And her heart almost stopped in her breast as she thought of the days and days and years and years to come in which she must continue to ask herself these questions.
Yet, in the same
quick, agonised breath, she knew she was going to fight for him — do battle in behalf of that broken and fireless altar where love lay wounded.
There were many ways of doing battle, but only one right way. And she had thought of many — confused, frightened, unknowing, praying for unselfishness and for light to guide her.
But there were so many ways; and the easiest had been to forgive him, surrender utterly, cling to him, love him with every tenderness and grace and accomplishment and art and instinct that was hers — with all of her ardent youth, all of her dawning emotion, all of her undeveloped passion.
That had been the easier way in the crisis which stunned and terrified her — to seek shelter, not give it; to surrender, not to withhold.
But whether through wisdom or instinct, she seemed to see farther than the moment — to divine, somehow, that his salvation and hers lay not only in forgiveness and love, but in her power to give or withhold; her freedom to exact what justly was her due; in the preservation of her individuality with all its prerogative, its liberty of choice, its self-respect unshaken, its authority unweakened and undiminished.
To yield when he was not qualified to receive such supreme surrender boded ill for her, and ultimately for him; for it made of her merely an instrument.
Somehow she seemed to know that sometime, for her, would come a moment of final victory; and in that moment only her utter surrender could make the victory eternal and complete.
And until that moment came she would not surrender prematurely. She had a fight on her hands; she knew it; she must do her best, though her own heart were a sword that pierced her with every throb. For his sake she would deny; for his sake remain aloof from the lesser love, inviolate, powerful, mistress of herself and of her destiny.
And yet — she was his wife. And, after all was said and done, she understood that no dual sovereignty ever is possible; that one or the other must have the final decision; and that if, when it came to that, his ultimate authority failed him, then their spiritual union was a failure, though the material one might endure for a while.
And so, believing this, honest with herself and with him, she had offered him her fealty — a white blossom and her key lying beside it in the palm of her hand — in acknowledgment that the supreme decision lay with him.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 662