Part 12

“I know,” I replied, “but I could n't refuse to give him three hours--less than three hours. You see, dear, there is no pressure I could bring upon him. I have n't even the advantage of physical strength. And, really, you know, when you come right down to it, my whole position was the weakest possible--I had absolutely no right to talk to him like that.”

We fell silent again. Finally she turned squarely around, and leaned against the casement, and gave me her hand. I saw then that there were tears in her eyes, and deep sorrow, but about her mouth there were evidences of a strong determination that explained why the tears did not come.

We looked at each other.

“Tell me,” she said, “what becomes of you in this arrangement?”

“Oh,” I replied, “I stay here and do my work. There is just one thing I am going to ask of you, Heloise--will you help me make the scales again?”

She looked surprised, I thought: and her mouth twisted 'nto the faintest of smiles. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she said, “we will make the scales.”

“Don't you see,” she went on, “that what you are trying to do brings us closer together than years of ordinary, selfish love-making?”

“Yes,” said I, “in a way.”

“In every way,” said she. “Are you blind, Anthony? Can't you see how you are making me love you?”

I tore my hands away from her. I could not stand it. But my brain was still dear, thank God!

“Heloise--dear!” I cried, “this only makes it harder. We must play fair. We must see it through. If he goes back to America, then you must go to Paris, and I must stay here.”

“What if I should refuse to go to Paris?” said she, still looking at me.

“You will not do that,” I answered her. “For it is the condition on which he will set you free.”

“Then what is to prevent my waiting for you there--one year, two years?”

“You will be too busy to wait--you will be working, growing, changing--yes, you will change. You will not need me then. Your life must not stand still because of a man who loved you away out here in Peking,”--I said this as steadily as I could,--“it must go on, and on, and--”

“Oh,” said she, “you think I would do that. You think I would change.”

I nodded. “Life is change. And you are full of life. Sad as you have been, dear, I can see that. I am a narrow man. If you came to me, I would be weak enough to want you by me, in my home. I should want--children. I should want you to be my wife, my helpmate, my--”

“Well...” she breathed, with shining eyes.

“No, Heloise, whatever you may think now, I could never forget what I should be shutting you out from, and it would make me unhappy. Don't you see, dear? You must follow your own genius. That is what I am trying to help you do.” And I added sadly, “It is the only way out for you, anyway, because it is the only course that he will agree to--if he should agree to anything.”

“Oh, Anthony,” she said, “is all that true? Is it just the old conflict between one's own personal life and the career that one is drawn to? Don't you suppose I could give my life to helping you and be happy in it--so happy that it would make you happy too? Thinking of those days that we spent working together, it has seemed that way to me. Just to-day it has seemed so.”

I shook my head. “You have a great gift in your voice, Heloise. It must be used. It must grow greater. You are unsubmissive, a rebel; which is precisely what an artist must be. You have the spirit of a fine artist. You must cultivate and expand that spirit. There is nothing ahead of you, Heloise, but work--hard, hard work. And loneliness. That is the lot of the artist. But it will bring its compensations. And even the work itself is a great opportunity.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I know that.”

“And you must not weaken, dear. You have headed that way--you must go straight on now. And I will live in your success.”

“Does it really come down to that, Anthony?”

“It comes down to that. You've got to do it, anyway--you have no choice. I am only bringing up these reasons now because they may help you to think it out.”

“Perhaps this is my real punishment,” she observed, “losing you just when I have found you.” And then the tears came to her eyes again.

“Perhaps,” said I. “Perhaps not. If so, it is a punishment for being alive, since, one way or another, every human being must face it. Every life has to be lived, you know, dear. It is hard to live a life--straight through to its end. It is still harder if one fails to live it.... And then, this applies to me, as to you. There is no more reason that you should give up the proper direction of your life than there is that I should give up mine and follow you.”

“Oh,” she said, with a little gasp, “I never thought of that!”

“It is so, Heloise. We are both positive natures. We have each a life to live. Let us try to live them honestly and thoroughly. Perhaps, in doing that, each will one day make the other happy and proud.”

We paused. And then Heloise, being a woman, turned swiftly back to the practical aspect of the problem.

“But, Anthony,” she broke out, “you don't for a minute suppose that I would let you undertake all that expense for me? You don't really think I would accept it?”

Now it had to come; the money business, that I had shrunk from mentioning when I told her of my talk with Crocker.

I hesitated, then blurted it out--

“He must pay you a reasonable sum to cover that expense.”

“Oh--Anthony!” Her eyes flashed fire. “I won't touch a cent of his money!”

“But--but--”

“Not one cent!”

Somehow I felt very sordidly masculine as I stood there trying to explain. I gave her the reasons, as I had thought them out--that it was mere justice to recompense her for the time he had forced her to lose.

But my voice began to falter, as I ran on with the jargon; for I saw that she was not listening. She had become very white. She leaned against the casement, all limp and sad, gazing out over the roofs. Her breath was coming more quickly. And I saw her draw her under lip in a little way between her teeth.

My voice trailed off into silence. For I suddenly knew that she was thinking of her own utter helplessness. And as the fact tortured her nne, free spirit, so also it tortured mine. I reached my hand toward hers; then, since she did not see, withdrew it. There could be no help for either of us in that contact--nothing but a deeper confusion. Then I turned and walked away across the room, and sat gloomily on the edge of the bed.

We must have remained silent for several minutes. It seemed an hour to me, as I sat there, brooding, and struggling against the tendency to brood.

Then I heard her step, and her voice; and looked up to find her standing over me. She was actually smiling--a resolute smile.

“Forgive me, Anthony,” she said. And then, before I could exclaim at this, she added, enthusiastically, like the girl she often seems--

“Let's make the new scales now!”

For a moment I could only look at her, wondering at her astonishing buoyancy of spirit. Then, as she was herself carrying my phonograph to the table and adjusting the horn, I got up--still heavy and a thought bewildered--and brought a box of cylinders.

While I was at this, she walked a few times to the window and back, swinging her arms freely, like a boy, and inhaling deep breaths. Her collar evidently confined her throat, for she tore it open with an unconscious vigor that displaced a hook and sent it flying against the window. She seemed not to notice this. She swung up on the balls of her feet and ran through a number of vocal exercises. It thrilled me to hear again that wonderful voice, with the firm resonance and the fine quality that always, to me, makes her seem something more than woman.

“It's a wonder I can bring the tones out at all,” she observed, half to herself. “I have n't sung a note for days.”

Next she began running scales; very carefully and precisely, her eyebrows puckered into an intent frown. And I watched her white throat, and round chin, and delicately curving mouth.

She caught me looking at her, and flashed a smile at me. Then, with her eyes on mine, took in a quick deep breath that filled her chest out solidly, and, full voice, broke into the old familiar waltz song from “Romeo and Juliet.”

I knew then that I had never really heard her sing before. She saw the surprise on my face, I know, for her eyes suddenly sparkled anti sprung away from mine and she flushed with pleasure; but she went right on with the song--sang it clear through, managing the lace-like coloratura work with perfect ease and precision, unconsciously throwing her whole body into the glorious, swaying rhythm of the waltz, and letting out a volume of tone--of sheer, luscious tone, without a particle of “wood” in it--that filled the room, that would have filled the greatest opera house in the world, that throbbed about my ears and set my emotions vibrating in harmony with it and with the mood of the singer that animated it.

When she had done, I stood motionless there. It seemed to me that echoes of that wonderful voice were still floating to my sense-consciousness from every quarter of the shabby little room. I know that I hail to look out for a moment at the sunlight on the roofs beyond the window, and myself take in a deep breath that, I fear, was half a sigh.

She was standing by me.

“We must get to work,” she said.

I put a cylinder on the machine. First I looked at her and tried to speak, but could not. I don't know what it could have been that I thought I wanted to say. Probably it was nothing more than the inarticulate emotions her singing had stirred, groping for some outward expression in words.

Her eyes were very bright. I motioned her to go ahead.

“You have n't wound it up,” she said, and chuckled softly. I can not account for her moods. But, for that matter, I think I chuckled with her.

We made twelve records. I believe they will prove to be even better, on the whole, than the ten I destroyed. So, whatever happens, I have again my close-interval scale; again I have the selfish gratification of knowing that I have been enabled to establish a basis of scientific interval comparison for the use of all students of primitive music. It is Heloise's last gift to me, done in a strange sort of joy that, even to-night, breaks triumphantly through the shadow that lies on her life and mine.

She watched me while I removed the last of the twelve cylinders, and carefully sealed it in its separate box, and wrote the label. Then she said:

“Oh, Anthony, it is so--worth while!”

All I could say in reply--so full was my heart--was:

“Yes, dear. Work is the answer.”

And so close were we now, that I knew she did not think my reply inept.

She looked at her watch, then soberly reflected. “It is half past one, Anthony,” she said. Conscious that I still found some difficulty in talking, she added: “Would it do any good for me to go--with you, or alone?”

“No,” said I, shaking my head. “Not now. It would only excite him. And that would help nobody.”

“I know,” said she. “I hate to be passive, this way. I feel as if I were shirking--”

“You are n't. It will take some courage to do what you must do.”

“I know,” she said again. “Be patient, keep steady; help you that way I know, Anthony.”

It had occurred to me, when I left Crocker in the morning, that, in the event of any actual physical encounter, there would be a quite unnecessary danger to me in wearing my glasses. I thought of this again, now; and going to the bureau I got my spectacle case and slipped it into my coat pocket.

Heloise watched me, but asked no questions. I put on my hat, and took my stick from the corner by the door.

“Good-by, Heloise,” I said. I knew that unless we parted swiftly my will would weaken and I should take her in my arms. So I only said good-by, and opened the door.

But she came right forward, and took my hand. Our eyes met. What I saw in hers reassured me. She seemed very steady and strong.

“Anthony,” she said, “I have been selfish, and weak. I have made it hard for you. But you can count on me now.”

I tried to murmur a protest to this, but she swept on: “I am going to do whatever you decide for me. I shan't make any more difficulties. Now go. God bless you, Anthony.”

She dropped my hand, and stepped back.

I stood there and fumbled the door knob. I felt that I was almost certainly going to draw her to me and kiss those wonderful eyes that are the light of my soul.

But she still looked strong.

“I wonder,” she said, musingly, “if there was ever, anywhere in the world, a man exactly like you.”

Then she turned away. “You'd better go,” she said, with a little gesture.

I went then.

Crocker was not in his room, at the Wagon-lits. I knocked several times; then, turning the knob and finding that the door was unlocked, walked in and looked around.

I was about to leave when the thought of that sheath knife came to me. It was an unpleasant thought; but once it had got into my mind I could not, it: seemed, get it out. I stood there in the middle of the room, thinking about it. The suitcase was still on the chair by the wall, closed.

I took a step toward it. Then another. Then, suddenly conscious of my weakness, I went over to it and threw back the cover.

The knife was not there. I rummaged through the garments and the odds and ends that filled the suit-case. But the knife was gone.

I rushed out of the room and ran the length of the corridor. I hurried down the stairs; looked about the office and lounge; went to the bar. There was no sign of him.

I was turning away from the barroom door, when I realized that a fat man was beckoning to me from a table by the opposite wall. He was sitting alone, an empty liqueur glass before him. Across the table was another empty glass.

He was beckoning violently, with his whole arm. I had seen that round face somewhere. Then I remembered. He was on the ship with us, crossing the Pacific--the vaudeville manager from Cincinnati--played fan-tan all the lime. I never did know his name. He wore a genial grin now. Perhaps he would have some information for me. At least, I could ask him. So I crossed over.

He wrung my hand. “How's little Mr. Music Master,” he cried. “Sit down. Oh, sure you can--sit right down there!”

I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes of two. I had said that I would be at Crocker's room at two. It was pretty important that I should keep my word. Why could n't I think more clearly? He might be somewhere about the hotel, of course. If only the knife hadn't disappeared! Suddenly I wanted to rush back upstairs and look through that suit-case again. The knife might have slipped down one side. Yes, he might have done that in getting something else cut of the suit-case.... Come to think of it, I had n't looked in the dining-room!

Then I heard what the fat vaudeville manager was saying:

“Remember the Port Watch? Big fellow--walked the deck so much--and kept a sort o' slow bun sizzling all the time? Well--”

“Have you seen him?” I asked quickly.

“Sure, right here. Not five minutes back. Had a couple of drinks with me. But say, I don't think he knew me. He acted funny--walked and sat very erect--looked solemn and did n't say much.”

“Which way did he go?” said I, trying to appear composed. But I felt him looking quizzically at me, as if saying to himself, “Well, here's another of 'em.”

“Did he have his hat?” said I, on the heels of my other question.

“No. I think he went up to get it. Funny thing. I did n't make out what was the matter until he pulled out a big knife--in a lacquered sheath, it was--and said--what was it he said?--Oh, yes--'They pretty near put it over on me, but I'm too smart for them.' That was it. He whispered it, real mysterious--'They pretty near put it over on me, but I'm too smart for them.' Do you know, he made me feel damn uncomfortable. I think the man ain't safe.”

I listened to all this, in a way. At least, I seem to recall it now, word for word. But I was trying to decide whether to go upstairs on the chance of heading him off there, or to hurry directly back to the _Hôtel de Chine_.

I decided on the latter course. I think the vaudeville man had just about uttered the last sentence recorded above when I turned and ran out of the room. He must have been puzzled.

Yes, I ran. One or two of the drinking crowd shouted after me, I think. I ran down the corridor, through the lounge, and out to the street. T remember that two Chinese hall boys stood gaping as I passed. And parties of tourists looked up from their after-tiffin coffee and their drinks--always the drinks.

I leaped into a rickshaw, and called--

“Two plecee coolie! Two piecee coolie!” And then, when one brown-legged ragamuffin had picked up the shafts and another had fallen in behind the seat, added, still in a shrill voice, “_Hôtel de Chine_--chop, chop!”

It was incongruous, that absurd pidgin-English at such a time.

But it was effective. I have never traveled so rapidly through the streets of Peking. I found two Mexican dollars in my pocket, and held them up, one in each hand.

“Chop, chop! Chop, chop!” I cried again. And the coolies put their heads down and ran with all the strength that was in them.

They pulled up in my shabby little street, with a jerk that nearly threw me out. I sprang down, threw the two dollars on the seat, and ran into the hotel.

Then I stopped short.

For standing by the clerk's desk, looking over the board that hung there with our names--Hel-oise's and mine--in plain view, stood Crocker. He was peering closely from line to line down the first column of names, guiding his eye with an unsteady forefinger. He stood up very straight, with feet placed a little way apart. From the side pocket of his coat projected the silver tip of the knife handle, beneath which I could see a half-inch of black lacquer.

I drew my spectacle case from my pocket, took off my glasses, and carefully put them away.

He was intent on the list of names and room numbers. Behind the counter stood the little French manager, leaning forward and watching him rather coldly. But Crocker was oblivious to all but the one idea; his finger wobbled slowly downward from name to name.

My first impulse was to go directly up to him. But what then? What could I say or do? He was past reason, surely; but not past the use of his physical strength. He had been every bit as drunk as this when he knocked the waiter down in the hotel at Yokohama. What if he were to knock me down in the same way--with that sudden, short swing of his fist to the chin? I would of course drop as the waiter had dropped, and, like him, would lie inert, leaving Crocker free to rove at will.

My eyes turned to the stairway, up and down which I have walked or run so many times during this eventful week.

That was the place. I would at least be above him there... if I could pass him and reach it safely.

I stepped forward, cautiously

The manager was watching me as well, now, with knit brows. But this was no time to consider him.

Crocker was having some difficulty in reading the list of names. His finger went back to the top of the board, and again began wobbling slowly down from line to line.

I tiptoed past him. He did not turn.

I went on up the stairs, but not quite to the top. T hank God, Heloise did not know--not yet.

From this point I could not see him. I waited.

Finally--it seemed a long time, but I suppose it was not more than two or three minutes, really--he appeared at the foot of the stairs. He was swaying a very little. On his face was the crafty expression I had seen there once or twice during our talk in the morning; his eyes had narrowed down to slits. Curiously enough, he was still pale, not red, as I should naturally expect in the case of a man as drunk as he. If he saw me at all, waiting there a little way from the top of the stairway, the sight of me meant nothing to his disordered mind.

He placed one foot on the bottom step, stopped and put his hand to his mouth (standing motionless, as if trying to think), then brought out his knife. He drew it from the sheath. It had a wicked blade--designed for desperate, primitive uses, I should say. The sheath he returned to his pocket.

Then, with a curiously set, almost businesslike expression on his face, he came running up the stairs.

I blocked the way, holding out both arms.

He brushed me aside. But I clung to his arm.

He made an effort to jerk away from me. I said something to him; I don't know now what it was, but I remember that I was very careful not to raise my voice. I think he didn't reply at all; just kept on pulling away from me.

But I clung. I did n't know what on earth I could do. There could be no agreement, no arrangement, with this wild man. Everything had gone to pieces. All my hopes for Heloise had been snuffed out in a moment. And the thought that my grip on his arm was the only thing intervening between her and a fate that I can not even bring myself to think about, almost stops my heart, right now. Then, of course, there was no time to consider even that; I just clung to him.

I think he must have caught hold of the rail at first with his right hand, to steady himself as he silently tugged and jerked; for it was a moment later that he struck me. I had swung around partly behind him, fortunately, and the blow glanced off my head. It made me feel giddy for a moment, but it was not effective. We tottered, and I think he caught again at the rail to keep from falling.

I hung desperately to his thrashing arm, pillowing my head behind it to keep out of his reach.

Then, looking down, I saw his feet, the left a step below the right. I hooked my right foot around his left ankle, and, with all my strength, pulled it toward me. I felt his leg give. I pulled harder; made one great convulsive effort.

He tottered, and fell slowly backward, carrying me a little way with him. Then I found myself sitting jammed against the wall, with a dazed, aching head, while he slid clear to the ground floor and lay there, on his back, his left leg doubled under him in a curiously unnatural way. The manager, I remember, stood over him, very white, pulling with rapid little jabs at his mustache, and saying nothing at all.

It was an oddly silent affair, from beginning to end. I remember looking anxiously upward in the fear that Heloise had heard and run out. I dreaded the look of anguish that would surely be on her face. But she was not there.

I drew myself to my feet. A few steps below me lay the knife. I picked it up, then went on down.

Some China boys were bringing a cot. They lifted Crocker, very carefully, and laid him on it, then carried him into the office. He must have been suffering intense pain; but he only set his teeth hard, and once or twice drew in a quick, hissing breath.

I followed them in, and stood over him. After a moment he rolled his head around and looked at me. I could see that he was puzzled.

“Where am I, Eckhart?” he asked.

“At the _Hôtel de Chine_.”

“The _Hôtel de_--That's where--”

“It is where I am stopping,” said I.

He whitened, and winced; whether in physical or mental pain I am unable to say.

“My leg is broken,” he observed, a little later.

I nodded.

“Who did it?”

“I did.”

He knit his brows. Then he saw the knife in my hand, and bit his lip. It did not occur to me, then, to put the knife away.

We were silent again. Then--“Take me to the Wagon-lits,” he said.

“Oh, no,” I cried, “we will take care of you here,”

He shook his head, and again bit his lip. “I want to go to the Wagon-lits,” he repeated.

“In one moment, sir.” It was the manager, talking over my shoulder. I stared; for I had not heard him approach. “In a moment, sir. The automobile, it will be here.”

After all, it was better so, if he could stand it. And doubtless he could.