XVIII
"The Woman . . . Whose Hands are as Bands"
If I looked as stricken as I felt--and I doubtless did--Barrett hadample reason for assuming that I had been suddenly taken sick.
"Why, Jimmie, old man!" he exclaimed in instant concern; and then hetook the half-burned cigar from between my fingers and threw it away,at the same time sending the floor boy scurrying after a drink for me.
I couldn't touch the whiskey when it came; and I was still trying topersuade Barrett that I wasn't sick when he walked me to the elevator.Wanting only to be free, I still had to let him go all the way with meto the door of my room. But the moment he was gone I hurried out againand descended to the lobby.
The night clerk knew me; or if he didn't, he knew the Little Clean-Up;and he was quite willing to talk. Miss Geddis was only temporarily aguest of the house, he told me. She was with a party of friends fromthe East, but her Denver home was with Mrs. Altberg, a widow and aprominent society woman. Yes, Miss Geddis was quite well known insocial circles; she was reputed to be wealthy, and the clerk understoodthat she had originally come to Colorado for her health.
Under the stimulus of a particularly good gift cigar the man behind theregister grew more confidential. Miss Geddis had always impressed himas being a woman with a history. It was not generally known, he said,but there was a whisper that she had come perilously near gettingherself dragged into the lime-light as co-respondent in a certainhigh-life divorce case. The clerk did not vouch for this, but he didknow that she had been seen often and openly in public with the man inthe case, since the granting of the divorce.
I didn't sleep very well that night, as may be imagined; and thefollowing day I should certainly have taken the first train for CrippleCreek if business had permitted. But business would not permit. Therewas an accumulated difference of some fifteen thousand dollars in orevalues between us and the smelter people, and I was obliged to stay onwith Barrett and help wrangle for our side in the discrepancy dispute.
At dinner time that evening I managed to elude Barrett, and upon goingto the lobby desk for my mail, found a violet-scented envelopeaddressed to "Mr. James Bertrand" in a handwriting that I rememberedonly too well.
To anyone looking over my shoulder the enclosed note might have read asa casual and friendly greeting from an old acquaintance. But for me itspelled out death and destruction.
"Dear 'Bert," it ran. "I am not going to scold you for not speaking tome last night in the mezzanine parlor; nor for changing your name; norfor growing a beard. But if you should call this evening between eightand nine at Mrs. Altberg's house on the Boulevard, you will find me athome and more than willing to listen to your apologies and explanations.
"AGATHA."
My appetite for dinner had gone glimmering when I sat at the mostsecluded table the cafe afforded and went through the motions ofeating. Not for a single instant did I mistake the purport of AgathaGeddis's note. It was not a friendly invitation; it was a veiledcommand. If it should be disobeyed, I made sure that not all the moneyin the Little Clean-Up's treasury could save me from going back to thehome State as a recaptured felon.
Eight o'clock found me descending from a cab at the door of a ratherdissipated looking mansion in the northern suburb. A servant admittedme, but I had to wait alone for a quarter of an hour or more in thestuffy and rather tawdry luxury of a great drawing-room. After a timeI realized that Agatha was making me wait purposely in a refinement ofcruelty, knowing well what torments I must be enduring.
When the suspense ended and she came into the room I saw at a glancethat she was the same woman as of old; beautiful, alluring, butinfinitely more sophisticated. Her charm now, as in girlhood, waschiefly the charm of physical perfection; but it was not entirelywithout its appeal when she made me sit beside her on the heavilycarved mock-antique sofa.
"I didn't know certainly whether you would come or not," was the wayshe began on me, and if the tone was conventional I knew well enoughwhat lay beneath it. "Old times are old times, but----"
She was merely playing with me as a cat plays with a mouse, but I couldneither fight nor run until she gave me an opening.
"Of course you knew I would come; why shouldn't I?" I asked, strivingfor some outward appearance of self-possession.
"I'm sure I don't think of any reason, if you don't," she countered."Did you know I was in Denver?"
"Not in Denver, no. But I heard, some time ago, that you had come toColorado for your health."
"It seems absolutely ridiculous, doesn't it?--to look at me now. Butreally, I was very ill three years ago; and even now I can't go backhome and stay for any length of time. You haven't been back, have you,since your--since you----"
"No; I haven't been back."
She was rolling her filmy little lace handkerchief into a shapelessball, and if I hadn't known her so well I might have fancied she wasembarrassed.
"I can't endure to think of that dreadful time four years ago--it isfour years, isn't it?" she sighed; then with a swift glance of theman-melting eyes: "You hate me savagely, don't you, Bert?--you've beenhating me all these years."
"No," I said, and it was the truth, up to that time. I knew that thefeeling I had been entertaining for her had nothing in it so robust ashatred. There was no especial need for palliating her offense--farless, indeed, than I knew at that moment; yet I did it, saying, "Youdid what you thought you had to do; possibly it was what your fathermade you do--I don't know."
She was silent for a moment before she began again by asking me whatmade me change my name.
"My name isn't Herbert," I explained; "it never was. I think you mustknow that I was christened 'James Bertrand,' after my father."
"I didn't know it," she denied, adding: "but you have dropped theWeyburn?"
"Naturally."
Again there was a little interval of silence, and as before, she wasthe first to break it.
"So you are one of the owners of the famous Little Clean-Up? Are youvery rich, Bertie?--you see, I can't give up the old name, all at once."
"No; I am not rich--as riches are counted nowadays."
"But you are going to be in just a little while," she put in, followingthe confident assertion with a query that came as suddenly as astiletto stab: "Who is the girl, Bertie?"
"What girl?"'
"The girl you are going to marry. I saw her with you at the Broadwayone night three weeks ago; I sat right behind you. She doesn't'pretty' very much, to my way of thinking."
Once again I felt the murder nerve twittering. This woman with amocking voice and a heart of stone knew everything; I was as certain ofit as if I could have seen into the plotting brain behind thelong-lashed eyes. I knew now why she hadn't glanced aside at me as shepassed on the way to the elevators in the Brown Palace the previousevening. She had discovered me long before. At whatever cost, I mustknow how long before.
"You saw me last night, and three weeks ago at the theater," I said."How long have you known that I was in Colorado?"
"Ever since you came, I think," she returned quietly. "I was a memberof a private-car party up at Cripple Creek about that time--with someof the Midland officials and their friends, you know. Our car wastaken out over a new branch line they were building at that time, and Isaw you standing beside the track. Perhaps I shouldn't have recognizedyou if I hadn't been thinking so pointedly of you. The home newspapershad told of your es--of your leaving the State; and I wasnaturally--er--well, I was thinking about you, as I say."
I saw that I was completely in her power. She knew, better than anyoneelse on earth, save and excepting only her father, that I was aninnocent man. But she also knew that I had broken my parole.
"What do you want of me, Agatha?" I asked; and I had to wet my lipsbefore I could say it.
"Supposing we say that I am asking only a little, common, ordinaryfriendliness, Bertie--just for the sake of the old days, and to showthat you don't bear malice. I'm like other women; I get horrib
ly boredand lonesome sometimes for somebody to talk to--somebody who knows, andfor whom I don't have to wear a mask. The other girl doesn't livehere, does she?"
"No."
"That's better. When you come to Denver, you must let me see you nowand then; just for old sake's sake. You come up quite often, don'tyou? But I know you do; I see your name in the arrivals quitefrequently."
I formed a swift resolve not to come as often in the future as I had inthe past, but I did not tell her so.
"You'll come to see me when you're in town," she went on. "I'll try tolearn to call you 'Jimmie,' and when we meet people, I'll promise tointroduce you as the Mr. Bertrand, of Cripple Creek and the LittleClean-Up. Does that make you feel better?"
It made me feel as if I should like to lock my fingers around her fairpillar-like throat. I have said that I did not hate her. But one maykill without hatred in self-defense. Short of cold-blooded murder,however, there was nothing I could do--nothing anyone could do. Beyondthis, she went on chatting easily and lightly of the old times inGlendale and the people we had both known, rallying me now and thenupon my unresponsiveness. At my leave-taking, which was a full hourlater, she went with me to the hall, helped me into my overcoat, andgave me another of the breath-taking shocks.
"There was a time, once, when you really thought you were in love withme, wasn't there, Bertie?" she asked sweetly.
Again I told her the simple truth. "There was a time; yes. It waswhen I was still young enough to carry your books back and forth on theway to and from the old school."
"But you got bravely over it, after awhile?"
"Yes; I got over it after I grew up."
She laughed softly.
"Don't you know that is a frightfully dangerous thing to say to awoman--to any woman, Bertie?"
"It is the honest thing to say to you."
"I suppose it is. Yet there are some things a woman likes better thanhonesty. Perhaps you haven't been making love to the Cripple Creekgirl long enough to find that out. But it is so, and it always will beso."
It was at the outer door opening that she gave me the final stab.
"I am taking your business excuse at its face value to-night andletting you go. But the next time you come you mustn't have anybusiness; at least, nothing more important than entertaining me--andthat is important. Just jot that down in your little vest-pocketmemorandum, and don't allow yourself to forget it for a single moment;not even while you are making love to Little Brown-Eyes. Good-night."
The old-fashioned preachers used to describe a terrifying hell in whichfire and brimstone and all manner of physical torments awaited theimpenitent. I was brought up to believe implicitly in such a hell, butthe puerility of it as compared with the refined tortures which Iendured that winter can never be set forth in any words of mine.
With a desire keener than the hunger of the famishing forrespectability and the privilege of living open-eyed and honestlybefore all men, I was forced, from the night of that first visit toAgatha Geddis, to lead a wretched, fear-frozen, double existence. Onmy return to Cripple Creek after the interview which I have justdetailed, I swore roundly that I would stop going to the Everton's;that, come what might, Polly should never be dragged into the horriblemorass of degradation which I saw clearly, even at that bare beginning,was waiting to engulf me.
But at best, a man is only a man, human in his desires, human in hispowers of resistance; and a man in love can rarely be a complete masterof circumstances. Though I had been holding back, both for Barrett'ssake and because of my own wretched handicap, it soon became apparentthat I had gone too far to be able to retreat with honor; that PollyEverton's name had already been coupled with mine in the gossip of thegreat gold camp; and that--if what Barrett had said were true--Pollyherself had to be considered.
So the double life began and continued. In Cripple Creek I was MaryEverton's lover; in Denver I was Agatha Geddis's bondman and slave.Oftener and oftener, as the winter progressed, the business of the minetook me to the capital; and Agatha never let me escape. One time itwould be a theater party, at which I would be obliged to meet herfriends; people who, as I soon learned, were of the ultra fast set. Atanother it would be a driving party to some out-of-town resort with thesame, or a worse, crowd; midnight banquetings, with champagne in thefinger-bowls, cocktails to go before and after, and quite likely somedaring young woman to show us a new dance, with the cleareddinner-table for a stage. Many times I tried to dodge; to slip intoDenver on the necessary business errand and out again before thenewspapers could publish my arrival. It was no use. That woman'singenuity, prescience, intuition--whatever it may be called, was simplydevilish. Before I could turn around, my summons would find me, and Ihad to obey or take the consequences.
Now and again I rebelled, even as the poorest worm will turn if it besufficiently trodden upon; but that, too, was useless. My tormentorheld me in a grip of steel. Worse than all, the dog's life she wasleading me caused me to lose all sense of proportion. As a choicebetween two evils, a return to prison would have been far moreendurable than this indefinite sentence of degradation Agatha Geddiswas making me serve. But I could not see this: all I could see wasthat this woman had the power to make a total wreck of all that I hadbuilded. The larger fact that I was myself the principal contributorto the wreck, helping it on by the time-serving course I was pursuing,did not lay hold of me.
One night, or rather early one morning, when I had taken her home froma road-house revel so shameful that the keeper of the place hadpractically turned us out, I asked her where all this was to end.
"Perhaps it will end when I have taught you how to make love to meagain," she returned flippantly.
"And if I refuse to learn?"
Her smile was no longer alluring; it was mockingly triumphant.
"You can't keep it up indefinitely--with the Cripple Creek girl, Imean, Bertie"--she still called me "Bertie" or "Herbert" when we werealone together. "Sooner or later, she is going to find out what youare doing to her; and after that, the fireworks."
I shook my head. "It is hard to decide, sometimes, Agatha, whether youare a woman or merely a she-devil in woman's shape."
"Oh, I'm a woman--all woman."
"But the motive," I gritted. "If I had done you the greatest injury awoman could suffer--if you had a lifelong grudge to satisfy--you couldhardly be more vindictively merciless."
Her smile at this was not pleasant to look upon.
"Somebody has said that the keenest pleasure in life is the pleasure ofabsolute possession. I own you, Bertie Weyburn, body and soul, and youknow it. If you were a big enough man, you'd kill me: if you were bigenough in another way, you'd defy me and take what is coming to you."
"And since I am not yet ready to become either a murderer or a martyr?"
"You will probably do the other remaining thing--marry me some day andgive me a chance to teach you how to spend the money which, thus far,you don't seem to know what to do with."
"You have money enough of your own--or your father's," I retorted.
"I'd rather spend yours," she said coolly.
It was the old _impasse_ at which we had arrived a dozen times before,only the wretched involvement seemed to be adding coil upon coil withthe passing of time. I have often wondered if she really meant themarriage threat. At this distance in time it appears extremelydoubtful. She may have had moments in which the steadily augmentingoutput of the Little Clean-Up tempted her, but this is only a surmise.And a little later I was to learn that during this very winter when shewas dragging me bound and helpless at the end of her trail-rope, shewas--but I need not anticipate.
"You have me bluffed to a standstill, but sometimes I wonder if itisn't only a bluff," I said, in reply to her remark that she'd ratherspend my money than her father's. "What if I should tell you here andnow that this is the end of It?--that you can't make a plaything of meany longer? What would you do?"
"There are a number of things I might do--to one
who is so temptinglyvulnerable as you are, Bertie. For one, I might send a wire to thesheriff of the home county, or to the warden of the penitentiary.Really, when I come to think of it, I'm not sure that I oughtn't to doit, anyway, on the score of public morals. Nobody would blame me; andsome few would applaud."
"Morals!" I exploded. "You don't know the meaning of the word!"
"Maybe not," she rejoined lightly. "Not many women do. But sendingthe wire would be a rather crude way of bringing you to terms;especially since I know of at least one better way. I'm going tohazard a guess. You haven't told the Cripple Creek girl anything aboutyour past?"
I was silent.
"I thought not," she went on smoothly. "With some women, perhaps withmost women, it wouldn't make any great difference, one way or theother. So far as anybody out here knows to the contrary, you are afree man--and a rich one; and so long as you haven't committed bigamyor something of that sort, the average girl wouldn't care the snap ofher finger. Up to a few days ago I thought the brown-eyed little thingyou brought up here one night last fall to the theater was the averagegirl. But now I know better."
It had always seemed a sheer sacrilege to even mention Mary Everton inAgatha Geddis's presence. But this time I broke over.
"You know who she is?" I queried.
"I do now. And I know her _metier_ even better than you do, Bertie,dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but shewould never have an ex-convict for the father of her children--not ifshe knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew PhineasEverton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactlywhat to expect of his daughter."
I sat up quickly, and the lights in the high-swung drawing-roomchandelier began to turn red for me.
"You devil! Do you mean to say that you would tell Polly Everton?" Iburst out savagely.
"I'm not going to tell her because you are not going to drive me toit,"--this with a half-stifled yawn behind a faultless white hand thatwas just beginning to show the blue veining of bad hours anddissipation. Then: "Go back to your hotel and go to bed, Bertie.You'll wake up in a better frame of mind a few hours later, perhaps.Kiss me, and say good-night."
As I have confessed, I carried a gun in those days; had carried oneever since that memorable afternoon when I had dropped from thetrolley-car in Cripple Creek to preface the opening of our businessoffice by going first to a hardware shop for the purchase of a weapon.After leaving the Altberg house I dismissed the night-owl cab on thenorth bank of the river and crossed the Platte on the viaduct afoot.
Half-way over I stopped to look down into the winter-dry bed of thestream. There was one way out of the wretched labyrinth of shame anddouble-dealing into which my weakness and cowardice had led me. Theweapon sagged heavily in my pocket as if it were a sentient thingtrying in some dumb fashion to make its presence felt.
It was but a gripping of the pistol and a quick pull at the trigger,and I should be out of the labyrinth for good and all. I don't knowwhy I didn't do it; why I hadn't done it long before--or rather, I doknow. It was because, when the deciding moment came, I was alwaysconfronted by a vivid and soul-harrowing flash-light picture of PollyEverton's face as it would look when they should tell her.
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