Chapter 17

ANGLES OF A TRIANGLE.

It was well into April before Lawrence was able to walk again. His convalescence had been slow, and he was still very weak. They had planned to start out by the end of April, but they were compelled to postpone the journey until the middle of May. Philip was fired with impatience. He wanted to get out to a priest and be married to Claire. She, on her part, was glad of the delay. She dreaded the hour when she should have to tell Philip that she would not marry him. Her joy in her love for Lawrence was too great, however, to allow for much thought about the matter.

She looked back upon her yielding to Philip as upon a terrible nightmare, but she still liked him and could not bring herself to limit the intimate ways which had sprung up between them. He did not imagine, therefore, that there had been any change in her.

Claire had never told Lawrence of what he had said during his illness, but her treatment of him was very different from what it had been before. He had come out of his illness with a calm assurance of his future, and he knew that he loved Claire. He did not know her feeling, but as soon as he should be well he meant to tell her of his love once more.

The days passed in quiet serenity. Outside the cabin the plateau flowed under the pines into green and white and gold with dark patches of blue flowers that filled Claire's heart with song. The lake was open and glistened in the warm sun, while fish leaped in it, sending up sparkling rainbow drops. Claire took to wandering along the shore with Lawrence or Philip, or both, talking gaily all the while. She never mentioned her husband, it was only of their return to civilization that she spoke and of the great time the three of them would have in celebration. They laughed agreement with her words.

As Lawrence grew more and more like himself there came a time, however, when Philip could not but see that Claire was giving the artist a tenderness, a sweetness of companionship, and a carefully guarded joy which he had never known. It was impossible for him to say to himself longer that it was only her nursing manner.

He took to watching her eyes, and again and again he caught them filled with a deep light which they had never held for him. He now realized that he had always feared Claire might love Lawrence, that he had feared it even on the day of her confession. A fierce desire of possession gripped him, and he swore to have this woman as his wife, in spite of Lawrence, in spite of herself, if need be. It was this last frame of mind which gained in constancy until he became a danger to Claire's happiness.

She saw it in his dark expression, and her heart cried out against herself for the time of weakness. Then a great doubt would assail her. Lawrence had never spoken of love since he had regained his consciousness, and she wondered if, after all, his talk had been mere delirium, without basis in his normal mind. She determined to find out, and then tell Philip the frank truth. She was sure that he would receive it as a gentleman should, and let her moment of weakness pass forgiven. She went over all their experience together, and she came to feel that, in any case, she could never live with him. Even though Lawrence did not care, she told herself, she could go out into the world and find her place.

One evening she came into the house and found Philip alone, sitting darkly over his book. She felt sorry for him, and, wanting to leave him friendly memories, if she could, she walked quietly over to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up and smiled faintly, though his face remained clouded.

"Philip," she said, "you look worried!"

"I dare say I do," he returned quietly, but there came into his eyes a fierce light that frightened her.

"Why should you?" she asked.

"Claire!" He stood up and faced her. "I do not know what you think of Lawrence. I do not know what he thinks of you. I do not care. I will tell you one thing. You lay in my arms yonder and said that you would be my wife. If you did not mean it"--he hesitated--"then you are scarcely the type of woman to be allowed to live. Don't lead me to suspect that such is the case."

Claire gasped, realized her situation, and for the moment was carried beyond all power of speech. She sank in a chair and stared at him. Then, suppressing her rising fear, she said calmly: "Philip, would you have me yours against your will?"

His eyes flashed fire at her.

"Would you say you wanted to be mine and not mean it?"

"No," she faltered, "I--I might have meant it then."

"Does your heart change with the passing breeze?"

She was feeling panicky. Her throat was dry and hot.

"I hope not," she said faintly.

"Bah! Does it?" he demanded.

"No," she said, even more faintly.

"Very well. You lay in my arms there and told me you would be my wife. Years ago, before you came into my life, another woman played with me. You shall not. I do not know what has happened to bring about the change in you. It cannot alter my will. You are mine by your own lips. It is best for us both that I hold you to your promise. When we go out of this place to a priest you shall become my wife. You dare not be untrue to yourself!"

She was afraid to answer him. His dark, threatening face told her that he was beyond reason, and she sank wearily back in her chair. In her heart she was determined never to be his, but her lips played her false. Despite her will they whispered submissively, "Very well, Philip. I understand."

He laughed aloud. "What in Heaven's name made you act like that, Claire?" he asked, once more kindly and agreeable.

"A woman's whim!" she said, and hated herself for saying it.

"I don't understand women," he laughed softly.

"Neither do I." It was Lawrence's voice. He had come in, just in time to hear the last words. "Nor men, either--except in one thing."

"What is the one thing?" asked Claire eagerly.

"That, given a normal, healthy mind, they will sacrifice all their idols for life. Life is the one eternally insistent thing."

Philip chuckled. "You are yourself again, I see."

"Yes, and stronger than ever in my faith," said Lawrence, sitting down. "I know the price I would pay for life. It is the price every human being would pay, if demanded."

"What is that price?" Philip asked.

"The whole of one's faith in God and man!"

"Nonsense!" Philip spoke curtly. "I would die before forfeiting a dozen ideals I hold dear!"

"Would you?" Lawrence looked at him quizzically. "Would you sacrifice your own life before you would the love of your sweetheart, for instance, if you had one?"

The conversation was similar to those which they had had months before, but the fire was nearer the surface now.

"Yes." Philip's answer came swiftly.

"Then you are a sex-maddened mountaineer!"

"And you are talking like the beast you are not. I know you do not believe that."

"I know I do. I would only die for a woman if she were my life."

"But any real love finds her so."

"Folly! I find my work, my future, my dream of a single immortal statue more my life than any woman!" Lawrence exclaimed.

"I wonder if you really do," Claire mused, half to herself.

"Yes," Lawrence insisted, "although she might be necessary to that statue. At least I believe she might--and I would feel sure of it if I wanted her badly enough," he ended amusedly.

"That merely means that you are still utterly selfish!" said Claire.

"Yes, I am." Lawrence was thoughtful. "It is a paradox, I am so selfish that, although I would sacrifice myself to the last degree for a person I loved, yet I would all the time feel that I was a fool, that I was doing an absurd thing when life was so good."

"I see," Claire observed. "And I know I would do the same."

"I would do it," Philip said, "but I would not feel a fool. It would seem to me right."

Claire looked straight into his eyes. "You would not, Philip," she declared softly. "Your own happiness would come first--and you know it."

The Spaniard's gaze shifted, and there was silence in the cabin. When he looked up his eyes had changed their expression.

"Yes," he agreed steadily, "I admit it. Hereafter I mean to have what I want from life at any cost."

"Yet you will go on talking ideals," Lawrence mocked.

"Yes--and thinking them, too."

"While Lawrence will make the sacrifice and go on talking his selfishness," Claire added.

Both men laughed constrainedly.

"And I," Claire continued, "if it is necessary, will lie to preserve my will, and, having it secure, will use it to obtain what I want."

"We are at last three delightfully frank, insufferable, unpleasant, and very natural, likable human beings!" Lawrence laughed.

"And on that basis we will work out our fates," murmured Claire.

"We will do just that," Lawrence answered gaily.

"Be they good or bad, we will meet our futures with perfect self-knowledge," contributed Philip.

"Then most likely they will be bad," Claire added with conviction.

They gave up talking, and each abandoned himself to his own reflections. In the minds of the two men these thoughts assumed widely differing words, though they were the same thoughts.

Philip was garbing his impulses, desires, and determinations in clothes that furnished his habitual mental wardrobe. With their marriage, he thought, Claire would learn the real Philip. He would treat her with such deference, such tender respect, and such devotion that she would see the wisdom of her choice. He would prove to her that sex mattered little, was altogether secondary. It was her great companionship, her dear thoughtfulness, her charming personality that he loved. Respect, first of all: happy married life depended on respect; then, common interest, friendship between two human beings, and, last and least important, that wonderful emotion springing out of the divine God-given reproductive life of both.

Lawrence was thinking very different words to the same end. He thought of her as his mate, his comrade, and his equal. He admired her brain, smiled at the thought of their hours of intellectual pleasure, dreamed of her as the stimulus to creation which her mind should help shape into master work.

He loved her beauty and her measureless well of bubbling energy. What a help she could be to him! She was the greatest of all women; he wanted her, needed her. Could he realize his dream? That was the point. Well, no matter, or, at least, no use in speculating. He would try. If she were willing, what a life of joy and accomplishment lay before them! If not, he had lived alone until this time, and he could continue to live alone. Meantime, was Philip the barrier that would keep him from her? He hoped not. He did not believe that she loved Philip. If she did, he would be a good loser and wish her joy. His heart ached at the thought. But, after all, one doesn't die over such things, and he would recover.

"I'm going to get the supper," said Claire somewhat abruptly. She rose and set to work.

Here the thoughts of the two men flowed into an identical channel. It was certainly good to sit and listen to her. That sound would be very agreeable, indeed, at the end of a day, in one's own home. As for her husband, he was out of the question. If Claire went back to him, she might find him married or in love again, unwilling to receive her after her long months with two men in the wilderness, suspicious of such a thing being possible without more intimacies than he would care to overlook. No, her husband did not matter. She would be justified and safe in remarrying. Of course, not safe if she returned to America, but that she would not do.

At this point their thoughts diverged. Philip was seeing Claire as the continued inmate of his cabin. Lawrence was painting a delightful mental picture of Claire as the ever-present fairy of his studio in some South American town, or perhaps in Paris. He preferred France; it was a land of more brilliance, more freedom, and certainly much more appreciation of the things in which they were interested. Besides, his work would carry more prestige in the world if it came from Europe.

He thanked the memory of old Roger Burton, of Cripple Creek, and he rejoiced that he would be able to give Claire the home to which she was entitled. He smiled as his thoughts went back to the mines and the dirty little newsboy an old man had befriended. Burton's quarter to Red had kept Lawrence, the boy, from becoming a coward, and Burton's slender provision for the college graduate would now insure happiness for Lawrence the man. Many times before he had laughed scornfully at the untouched interest from the miner's bonds. He could make his own living. But now there would be Claire. The old man would have been glad to see his protégé happy in the love of such a woman.

Meanwhile Claire was doing her work automatically. In her mind there was pleasure at the thought that Lawrence was listening to her movements. But she was filled with a dead weight that seemed likely to break her down with its dreadful pressure. Vaguely she wished that she had never seen Philip, even that she had never seen Lawrence, or that she had perished with him in the mountains.

How had she ever placed herself in the position she was now in? She had come by the way of a terrible road and, looking ahead, she could see nothing but sadness, anguish, and a life of dull discontent with Philip--that or death!

Lawrence had had time and opportunity since his recovery to declare himself, and he had not done so. She had had time and opportunity to tell him frankly of her own feeling, but she had not done so. She did not know why. Now she could not. Philip had given her to understand his desperate determination to marry her, and, after all she had said and done, she had no right to refuse him. If she told him the truth he might kill Lawrence or her, or both of them. These tragic idealists, she exclaimed to herself, what a tangle they can make out of life!

Oh, what a noose she had managed to fasten around her own neck! Would the problem never be settled, one way or the other?

What would she do if Philip tried to force her to marry him? Kill him? Was she, then, so primitive, so savage, so much the slave of her own desires that she would slay to gain her end? She remembered Lawrence's talk when he was ill, "We killed those days, Claire, killed because we wanted fuller life, fuller knowledge, fuller expansion of our own vital existence; we were gropers after more light!"

"Supper!" she said dully, and then sat down.

They ate in silence save for the occasional necessary word, and afterward went immediately to bed.

Claire soon fell asleep, with the last thought in her mind--to live as she wanted to live she would pay any price!