Part 17

The _Panther_, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint Pierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the passing of time, determined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day, if morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision, for she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched and brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The glass showed her a pallid face, darkly-lined.

The blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it touched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered in that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down through the city to the Landing she found the _Rue Victor Hugo_ almost deserted. The _porteuses_ were gone from the highway; all doors were tightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes were stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little island mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely moved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she imagined the smell of death.

* * * * *

"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years," the captain said, as she boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had fallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre that day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately after dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with the dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the volcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she perceived the lights of a big liner lying near the _Saragossa_. There was no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be the _Panther_ with letters from New York. According to her schedule, the steamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after the _Fruitlands_. Paula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails would be distributed.

"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the Hotel?" the clerk inquired.

"Yes."

"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. The _Panther_ anchored at two this morning."

"Please send any letters for me to my room at once," she told him, and went there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame Nestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon another, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his care to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma Cross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself.

The latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big envelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account of those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work and a hope for her health--the whole, brief, fine and tonic--like her friend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of emotions:

This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten you that I searched, but because I think if you understood entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter. I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I had the heart yet to see _The Thing_. Reifferscheid tells me that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and subtly terrifying--this ordeal for which I have been prepared. I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you to-night--sweet gift of the world to me.

Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy complications--and you will bring back a splendid store of energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity--but I have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning.

I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary--when I decide upon it--at the _Granville_. Some time soon I shall hear from you. All shall be restored--even serenity to your beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to make you wiser, happier,--to keep you _winged_. This, as I know the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you....

My window at the _Granville_ faces the East--the East to which I have come--yet from the old ways, I still look to the East for you. New York has found her Spring--a warm, almost vernal night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths are fluttering at the glass--softly, eagerly to get at the light--as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... but _you_ would not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame....

One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance....

Bless your warm heart that brims with singing--singing which I must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless--as I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the heart of Quentin Charter.

She was unconscious of passing time, until her eye was attracted by the heavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon a _Herriot Theatre_ envelope. This communication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose intrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it seemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to write, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives.

I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the hall _that night_, because I saw your hat as you started to walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I sent a telephone-message to the _Granville_ for him to call. He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man at the _Zoroaster_ had orders from me to show a gentleman inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment.

My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall--to hear at once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that _we_ had arranged--that you were somewhere in the apartment listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words--there is so much, and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat so helplessly against a wall.

But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. Villiers had a spy watching all our movements--and was thus informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter had talked to men--all the things that his spy had learned. He did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that if it is not you--some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic possibility of calling him to the _Zoroaster_ blinded my judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old neighbor--who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the world, but who meant to be square with you.

Paula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment with healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched arms, poured forth an ecstasy of gratitude for his sake; for the restoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her womanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat occurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease of mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for New York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when Madame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first line brought back old fears:

I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,--the desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost unbearable that I should be forced to tell him--when I love you so--if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his powers--that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to be the victory. He is breaking up or he would not _come to you_....

For a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelee, and the gray menace that charged the burnt-out air.

Then came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never locked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising vibration--until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized again.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the key in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling Charter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new mental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the balustrade for the repetition of a voice that an instant before had thrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from the Voice. Peter Stock was now replying:

"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor," he said striding up and down the lower hall in his rage. "A few days ago I called upon him, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy for him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of insufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the flakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall have to call upon him again."

Paula heard the low laugh of the other and the words:

"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the mountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a line about Pelee's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed at once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see the _Saragossa_ lying familiarly in the roadstead----"

Trailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her way back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked.

NINETEENTH CHAPTER

QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF _PELEE_, AND ENCOUNTERS A QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER

Charter did not find Paula Linster in the week of New York that followed his call at the _Zoroaster_, but he found Quentin Charter. The first three or four days were rather intense in a psychological way. The old vibrations of New York invariably contained for him a destructive principle, as Paris held for Dr. Duprez. The furious consumption of nerve-tissue during the first evening after his arrival; a renewal of desires operating subconsciously, and in no small part through the passion of Selma Cross; his last struggle, both subtle and furious, with his own stimulus-craving temperament, and the desolation of the true romance--combined, among other things, worthily to test the growth of his spirit.... The thought that Skylark had fallen into the hands of Selma Cross, and had been given that ugly estimate of him which the actress held before his call, as he expressed it in his letter, "drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity." Over this, was a ghastly, whimpering thing that would not be immured--the effect of which, of all assailants to rising hope, was most scarifying: That Paula Linster had suffered herself to listen to those old horrors, and had permitted him to be called to the bar before Selma Cross. No matter how he handled this, it held a fundamental lesion in the Skylark-fineness.

Charter whipped his wastrel tendencies one by one until on the fifth day his resistance hardened, and the brute within him was crippled from beating against it. His letter to Paula Linster was a triumph of repression. Probably one out of six of the thoughts that came to him were given expression. He felt that he had made of Selma Cross an implacable enemy, and was pursued by the haunting dread (if, indeed, the conversation had not been overheard), that she might think better about "squaring" him. It was on this fifth day that for a moment the mystic attraction returned to his consciousness, and he heard the old singing. This was the first reward for a chastened spirit. Again and again--though never consciously to be lured or forced--the vision, unhurt, undiminished, returned for just an instant with a veiled, but exquisite refinement.

The newspaper account of Pelee's overflowing wrath immediately materialized all his vague thought of voyaging. His quest had vanished from New York. Had Selma Cross been true to her word; at least, had any part of their interview been empowered to restore something of the faith of Paula Linster--there had been ample time for him to hear it. He was afraid that, in itself, his old intimacy with the actress had been enough to startle the Skylark into uttermost flight. Reifferscheid's frigidity had required only one test to become a deep trouble. His hint that Miss Linster would be away two or three months rendered New York and a return to his own home equally impossible. Father Fontanel held a bright, substantial warmth for his isolated spirit--and the _Panther_ was among the imminent sailings.

He bought his berth and passage on the morning of the sailing date, and there was a matinee of _The Thing_ in the meantime. Charter did not notify Selma Cross of his coming, but he liked the play unreservedly, and was amazed by the perfection of her work. He wrote her a line to this effect; and also a note of congratulation and greeting to Stephen Cabot.... It was not without a pang that he looked back at Manhattan from The Narrows that night.

For several mornings he had studied the gaunt, striding figure of a fellow-passenger, who appeared to be religious in the matter of his constitutional; or, as a sailor softly remarked as he glanced up at Charter from his holy-stoning, "He seems to feel the need av walkin' off sivin or eight divils before answerin' the breakfast-gong...." In behalf of this stranger also, Charter happened to overhear the chief-steward encouraging one of the waiters to extra-diligence in service, Queerly, in the steward's mind, the interest seemed of a deeper sort than even an unusual fee could exact--as if he recognized in the stranger a man exalted in some mysterious masonry. And Charter noticed that the haggard giant enforced a sort of willing slavery throughout the ship--from the hands, but through the heads. This strange potentiality was decidedly interesting; as was the figure in itself, which seemed possessed of the strength of vikings, in spite of an impression, inevitable to Charter when he drew near--of one enduring a sort of Promethean dissolution. Charter reflected upon the man's eyes, which had the startling look of having penetrated beyond the formality of Death--into shadows where inquisition-hells were limned. It was not until he heard the steward address the other as "Doctor Bellingham," that the fanciful attraction weakened. His recollection crowded instantly with newspaper paragraphs regarding the Bellingham activities. Charter was rather normal in his masculine hatred for hypnotic artists and itinerary confessionals for women.

The _Panther_ ran into a gale in that storm-crucible off Hatteras. Charter smiled at the thought, as the striding Bellingham passed, doing his mileage on the rocking deck, that the roar of the wind in the funnels aloft was fierce energy in the draughts of this human furnace. While his own interest waned, the other, curiously enough, began to respond to his unspoken overtures of a few days before. The _Panther_ was a day out from San Juan, steaming past the far-flung coral shoals off Santo Domingo, when Charter was beckoned forward where Bellingham sat.

"This soft air would call a Saint Francis down from his spiritual meditations," the Doctor observed.

The voice put Charter on edge, and the manner affected him with inward humor. It was as if the other thought, "Why, there's that pleasant-faced young man again. Perhaps it would be just as well to speak with him." As he drew up his chair, however, Charter was conscious of an abrupt change in his mental attitude--an inclination to combat, verbally to rush in, seize and destroy every false utterance. His initial idea was to compel this man who spoke so glibly of meditations to explain what the word meant to him. This tense, nervous impatience to disqualify all the other might say became dominant enough to be reckoned with, but when Charter began to repress his irritation, a surprising inner resistance was encountered. His sensation was that of one being demagnetized. Thoughts and words came quickly with the outgoing energy of the current. Altogether he was extraordinarily affected.

"These Islands are not particularly adapted for one who pursues the austerities," he replied.

"Yet where can you find such temperamental happiness?" Bellingham inquired, plainly testing the other. His manner of speech was flippant, as if it were quite the same to him if his acquaintance preferred another subject.

"Anywhere among the less-evolved nations, when the people are warm and fed."

The Doctor smiled. "You will soon see the long, lithe coppery bodies of the Islanders, as they plunge into the sea from the Antillean cliffs. You will hear the soft laughter of the women, and then you will forget to deny their perfection." Sensuality exhaled from the utterance.

"You speak of the few brief zenith years which lie at the end of youth," Charter said. "This sort of perfection exists anywhere. In the Antilles it certainly is not because the natives have learned how to preserve life."

"That's just the point," said Bellingham, "Add to their natural gifts of beautiful young bodies--the knowledge of preservation."

"Take a poor, unread Island boy and inform him how to live forever," Charter observed. "Of course, he'll grasp the process instantly. But wouldn't it be rather severe on the other boys and girls, if the usual formula of perpetuating self is used? I mean, would he not have to restore his vitality from the others?"

Bellingham stared at him. Charter faced it out, but not without cost, for the livid countenance before him grew more and more ghastly and tenuous, until it had the effect of becoming altogether unsubstantial; and out of this wraith shone the eyes of the serpent. The clash of wills was quickly passed.

"You have encountered a different fountain of youth from mine," the Doctor said gently.

"Rather I have encountered a disgust for any serious consideration of immortality in the body."

"Interesting, but our good Saint Paul says that those who are in the body when the last call sounds, will be caught up--without disturbing the sleep of the dead."

"It would be rather hard on such bodies--if the chariots were of fire," Charter suggested.

He was inwardly groping for his poise. He could think well enough, but it disturbed him to feel the need to avoid the other's eyes. He liked the shaping of the conversation and knew that Bellingham felt himself unknown. Charter realized, too, that he would strike fire if he hammered long enough, but there was malevolence in the swift expenditure of energy demanded.

Bellingham smiled again. "Then you think it is inevitable that the end of man is--the clouds?"

"The aspiration of the spirit, I should say, is to be relieved of feet of clay.... Immortality in the body--that's an unbreakable paradox to me. I'm laminated, Harveyized against anything except making a fine tentative instrument of the body."

"You think, then, that the spirit grows as the body wastes?"

"Orientals have encountered starvation with astonishing results to philosophy," Charter remarked. "But I was thinking only of a body firmly helmed by a clean mind. The best I have within me declares that the fleshly wrapping becomes at the end but a cumbering cerement; that through life, it is a spirit-vault. When I pamper the body, following its fitful and imperious appetites, I surely stiffen the seals of the vault. In my hours in which the senses are dominant the spirit shrinks in abhorrence; just as it thrills, warms and expands in rarer moments of nobility."

"Then the old martyrs and saints who macerated themselves wove great folds of spirit?"

The inconsequential manner of the question urged Charter to greater effort to detach, if possible, for a moment at least, the other's Ego. "In ideal," he went on, "I should be as careless of food as Thoreau, as careless of physical pain as Suso. As for the reproductive devil incarnated in man--it, and all its ramifications, since the most delicate and delightful of these so often betray--I should encase in the coldest steel of repression----"