CHAPTER XV

_Opportunity_

Cleavedge was a place of comfortable averages; it did not offer brilliant opportunities in any direction. It was a pretty city, but not strikingly so; it gave many men an excellent living, but it did not afford them chances to amass great fortunes; its society, its library, its schools, its shops were all up to the average, but not beyond it.

It was understood to be the height of impropriety for Cleavedgians to doubt that their city excelled all others of its size and rank. It was an article of their faith that Cleavedge had advantages of situation and climate unequalled by any other town of some seventy thousand population in the United States.

Kit realized that he must decide upon his course in life. Temptation assailed him to let it all go. He was his aunt’s heir, provided that she did not disinherit him, and at the worst, he had the small income which his mother had left him.

He did not rate himself high; there was no particular thing that he wanted to be, or to do. He knew that he could do well anything that demanded clear perception, accurate judgment, industry, fidelity; but these are characteristics universally applicable, and Kit did not recognize in himself any marked qualifications.

The loss of Anne Dallas pushed him farther into quiescence. He was surprised to find himself deeply wounded. Effort seemed less than ever worth while in a world wherein he was to be denied what fell easily to other men’s share.

Still there was in Kit Carrington that essential manhood that inspires human beings to strive, though the motive for striving has not been made clear to them. He was impelled onward in the spirit that he had shown when he was a young athlete in college; the spirit that has made Kipling popular; the shibboleth of “being a man,” of “standing by,” “not being a quitter,” though what the man is to stand by, what it is that he is not to quit, in what especial way and why he is to be a man are not formulated.

If Kit had been asked to explain, he would have answered that you must play the game and be decent; so, decent he was, and therefore he knew that he must play the game, although he did not know its rules and he had lost his first heavy stake.

He turned over in his mind the facts of his situation and made his decision. Until September he should not be able to act upon his decision; in the meantime, he lived his accustomed life, surprised to find it unfamiliar. Hitherto he had passed his days as a careless boy; he went heavily now where he had run lightly; it struck him as a curious way to find jolly Kit Carrington going about.

Helen was a comfort as the time went from May into late June. She never made demands upon him, never bothered him, but she was always ready for whatever was his mood, and he gratefully admitted that she was an all-round pal when she put her mind to it. And Helen kept in abeyance all her attraction except that clever mind. Kit had shrunk from her former emphasis of her physical charm, but mentally she was all that he could ask; he let her make him cheerful, tide him over a hard place. He rarely saw Anne Dallas. Miss Carrington had given a dinner for her and Richard Latham which was a Cleavedge event, and a hard one for Kit to bear his part in.

The dinner acted upon him as a tonic, as his aunt had foreseen that it would. The coffee that evening had much the same effect upon Kit’s grief that the final sods of a grave have on another kind of sorrow. He had buried Anne and must turn with his best ability to living.

Occasionally Helen revealed another side to Kit, a side that stirred him, dazzled him, yet repelled him. But this happened rarely, only at intervals; as if to remind him that having a pal was all very well, as far as it went, but that in the case of a beautiful girl it went but a short distance. Helen did not purpose to let him settle down to incompleteness, but for his completion she bided her time. When the time came she intended to sway him to her will.

With consummate skill she played her part. She was determined to win; she herself was surprised to see how desperately intent she was upon winning.

“Christopher Carrington,” she told herself, “is just an everyday boy,” yet she knew that this was not true. Kit’s qualities, his simple, genuine personality, were uncommon. He was handsome, and Helen knew that his vigorous beauty was the main factor in his charm for her, yet, she told herself, there were many young men handsomer than he. As to that, as Helen knew well, there was no reasoning; Kit attracted her; it was Kit, Kit and not another, whom she wanted to marry.

It took all of her prudence, her self-control, not to defeat her own ends by forcing them too soon. She was not accustomed to dally on her road to getting whatever she wanted. She began to find her impatience mastering her, to try to set the stage for the part that she meant to play. She had no doubt whatever that she would succeed. Kit could not be blind; she had never found her beauty ineffective. He was one of those queer people who have to be aroused from slumber, but Helen believed that, once awakened, she would find Kit wide awake.

“What about walking, Nell?” Kit asked one afternoon when July was ten days old. “It’s too hot to walk, but it’s also too hot not to! It makes me worse to sit around and think how uncomfortable I am! I wondered if it might not be bearable down by the river; I know a fine spot there, near where I fished out little Anne that day.”

Helen outwardly hesitated; her mind instantly leaped to the suggestion.

“I’m not shod for walking,” she said, extending her foot in its silly, pretty covering. “I suppose I can change. Yes, I’ll go. I’ll not be long Kit. I’ll put on stout shoes and come right back.”

Helen was as good as her word. She came cautiously down the stairs with her shoes unlaced; she knew the value of asking favours.

“You don’t mind lacing them for me, Kit-the-kind, do you? It’s too warm to stoop!” Helen said, and thrust out a foot as she spoke, its ribbon dragging. She had the most shapely little foot in the world; there was no reason why Kit should not like to hold it and pull the ribbons over the high-arched instep.

“Delighted, Miss Coquette!” said Kit, dropping on one knee, and Helen laughed, enjoying the thrust. “But didn’t you say _stout_ shoes?”

Helen surveyed the delicate kid oxford as if it were a new acquaintance.

“Of course they are stout, Kit; stout enough, at any rate,” she said, and sank back apparently relieved that her shoes had not deceived her. They went down the shaded street: Miss Carrington lived on the best street in Cleavedge. But as soon as possible Kit led the way into by-paths and across fields. Cleavedge had not grown large enough to push fields far from its best section. They had been driven a long distance away from its business streets and poorer homes--where they were more needed--but it did not take long to reach them from Miss Carrington’s house.

“Let’s be babes-in-the-woods, Kitsy!” cried Helen, and put her hand into Kit’s.

He took it cordially and they went on, swinging hands in imitation of childish ways, Helen singing softly. Her highly trained, light voice was a pleasure for its accuracy of tone and method.

Helen’s pulses beat rapidly; through her quick brain rushed words that strove against her lips. She felt certain that her time had come, and for once did not stop to analyze whether it was the hour, or she herself, that was ready. Her will, her desires, were slipping their leash, and she was no longer equal to whipping them down. Yet, though they had got away from her, she was still able to follow them in silence. She ceased singing and went on, her hand clinging to Kit’s, still swinging her arm with his and smiling, her lips tight, her eyes straight ahead, avoiding his because she knew what was in them.

He glanced at her two or three times, wondering what was wrong. The day was uncomfortable enough to account for anything; he remembered how small and light Helen’s shoes were and charitably refrained from asking whether she was tired.

Since the day of little Anne’s rescue the leafy banks of the river had grown dense with green, spreading luxuriantly from the watered roots of trees and shrubs. Midsummer blossoms, insects, and birds filled the moist, hot air with fragrance and murmurs and songs.

“It’s great, isn’t it, Helen?” sighed Kit, throwing himself down in the shade with a deep breath of enjoyment.

“Worth the tramp,” she agreed.

She rested lightly against a tree, her hands raised and clasped behind her head, her fair hair fluttering like golden petals in the slight breeze. Suddenly she turned, threw herself on her elbow, and crept a little nearer as if drawn by the earnestness of a thought.

“Kit, it isn’t too hot to talk! It’s tropical enough to cast off the conventionality that ordinarily clothes our thoughts. I’ve wanted for weeks--forever--to get you to talk to me with the honesty no adult ever uses,” she said in a low voice.

“Go ahead, Nell,” said Kit, uncomfortably.

“Look here, Kit, what are you going to do? Do you realize that you are wasting opportunities? Well, then,” she went on, rapidly, as Kit nodded hard; she was not ready to let him speak, “when are you going to put yourself in my father’s hands? He can make you, put you right on top, Kit! Kit, dear, handsome, splendid Kit, let him do it!”

“Oh, hold on, Nell!” he protested.

He was crimson and he edged away from her.

“I don’t mind telling you, but it is in confidence; Aunt Anne is not to know yet; I’m going to New York in September. A college man I knew--he was soph. in my fresh. year--took a liking to me and told me that when I wanted to seek my fortune he was ready to push it. He’s inherited a big business. I am going to get a job with him in September.”

“Nonsense!” cried Helen. “You’ll do nothing of the sort! Aunt Anne has heaps; it’s all yours, unless you displease her. Father will put you into a berth in the English, or some other first-rate embassy, and you’ll go on to be minister, or something like that! And, in the meantime, travel, art, luxury, and _love_! Kit, are you a fool, or a man without eyes and blood?”

“It’s good of you, Helen, to take this interest----” began Kit with difficulty.

“Kit, stop!” she whispered. “Look at me!”

He looked at her--slowly, reluctantly, and quickly again averted his eyes. She half lay upon one hip, supported by her elbow, her face turned toward him pillowed in her curved hand. She was handsomer than Kit had ever before seen her, but he did not want to look at her.

“You idiot!” Helen said, fiercely. “Are you a girl of twelve? Though I don’t know one who is such an idiot! Kit, see me! I know what I am, what I can give you. Will you marry me?”

“Oh, my good Lord above us! Helen, for mercy’s sake,” he gasped. “Don’t! It--it--it isn’t funny! It’s a poor joke!”

“You know as well as I do that I mean what I say,” Helen said. “In these hands I hold influence, wealth, fame, every prize you can name. In this brain and beauty of mine I have all the treasures a man could desire. Humble? No. Why should I be? Vain? No! Not that, either. Sure of myself and honest; saying what you can see is true. How many in your place would turn from me? Let’s talk it out, Kit. Why won’t you marry me?”

“I--I---- Oh, Helen! For heaven’s sake! I can’t!” cried Kit, tugging at his collar.

“You _can’t_!” Helen mocked him. “Ah, but you can, my dearest! Listen to reason. Your aunt wants it above all earthly things. She will be happy herself and endow you richly if you do what will pay for itself without her help. Father is a winning card; you’ll hold him. You’ll be playing in luck every day, with him up your sleeve. And I? Haven’t I proved what I can be on the chummy tack? Haven’t you had a good time with me lately, though I kept down and out of sight everything really worth while? How could you have a better travelling pal, or a hostess to back up your game in the embassy, or at Washington? And the other side of me, the lover, the wife? Oh, Kit, I’ll play that part till you’ll be drunk with happiness! Am I not a princess? Haven’t you said so? Just look at what is here for your taking!” Kit was compelled to meet her eyes. He stared at her and stood transfixed.

“Ah, Kit!” Helen purred. “Why can’t you marry me?--_can’t_, forsooth! I haven’t told you that I love you, but I do! I want you, Kit, and no one else, though I can have any one else on call. Are you imagining yourself in love with the girl Latham has chosen? Nonsense, Kit! That was the stirring of fancy, not love! What could make you forget that surface scratch like real love, love for me, _me_, your wife? When you learn what love is, as I will teach you, Kit, how absurd all trifles will seem! Keep your eyes on mine, Kit, you young sun god, and then tell me, if you can, why you will not marry me? Are you afraid of love, Kit, as a girl is afraid? But not I, oh, not I! I’m not afraid to take what I want, what wants me! Tell me, now as you stand looking at me, why you who are strong, and young, and free, and able to love, would throw away this Helen who will not let you go! Who will _not_!” Kit had retreated farther, but he could not take his eyes from Helen.

There was left in him no power to think; only to feel.

Helen had thrown herself against a tree; she was looking up at him, her eyes like glowing coals, feline, compelling. Her face was white, her lips parted by her quick breathing. She was irresistible, yet as Kit’s will swayed to her, he blindly struggled against her.

There was in him no sense of attraction nor of repulsion; all the ages which had preceded him fought on Helen’s side, drew the youth to the woman. Yet in Kit’s veins some beautiful inheritance from sweet, patient, chastened women, as well as the ideal which he had formed, and to which he could not then consciously revert, stood him in good stead. He bent toward Helen and she lifted her arms to him. Then he stepped backward, and muttered hoarsely:

“Helen, help me! You are mad!”

“I’ll help you, Kit! Oh, Kit, it’s for your dear sake, as well as for my own that I want you! I swear this is true. But how I do want you, want you, want you, _want_ you!”

She went over to him and knelt, laying her glorious head at his feet.

“Say you’ll marry me, Kit. You’ll be happier than you can dream. It is for your sake, too. See, I’m at your feet, Kit; take me! Helen is at your feet! And she will make you endlessly happy, dearest!”

Kit’s will, his judgment, his hold on his own identity seemed to crumble and fall into nothingness. He stood for an instant with closed eyes, suffering, he did not know what. He knew that he would raise Helen in his arms in spite of himself. He knew that he must not raise her, for, if he touched her, that identity for which he groped would be forever lost. She waited at his feet, knowing that in a moment he would lift her from her self-abasement and then, in his arms, she would kiss him, and that Kit would marry her. It was but an instant of time, but it measured an eternity.

A piping voice came singing behind the trees, a child’s voice, slight and not as lovely as a guardian angel’s, but it broke the spell as effectually as St. Michael the archangel’s could have done:

“_Astre propice au marin, Conduis ma barque au rivage; Préserve-moi du naufrage, Blanche Étoile du Matin. Lorsque les flots en courroux Viendront menacer ma tête, Calme, calme la tempête, Rends pour moi le ciel plus doux._”

it sang, not inappropriately, Kit thought, listening intently. He felt weak and dizzy from the sudden relaxation of the strain which he had borne. Little Anne appeared from among the trees. In her hand she held jewel weed, wilted from her hot little palm, but valiantly bright-coloured as it drooped.

“Why, Kit, dear Kit!” cried little Anne in the glow of surprised delight. “I had no idea you’d be here when I came! And Miss Abercrombie, my kind Angora Kitca friend! What you doing down in the grass, Miss Abercrombie?”

“Looking for four-leaf clovers for luck,” said Helen so savagely that little Anne fell back a step and looked up inquiringly at Kit.

Kit managed a smile that sufficed for little Anne, though it added to her bewilderment, it was so unlike his usual bright friendliness.

Little Anne was a lady with innate social instincts; here was something oppressive, not understandable, hence she must, obviously, arise to the occasion.

“I was singing French, Kit,” she said. “I haven’t known how so very long. Could you understand what it was? Is my pronunciation pretty fair? That’s what Sister said it was. That’s a hymn to the Blessed Virgin. Mr. Latham taught me it. He heard it over in France; fishermen sing it, so do their children when they are at sea, sing it for their fathers, you know. Mr. Latham just said the words at first; I didn’t know what they meant. But afterward he took it to pieces and showed me every sybable, so I’d know exactly what I sang, and I do. Don’t you think it’s very remarkably nice?”

Little Anne had talked on, her bright eyes roving from one to the other of her perturbed adult hearers. She felt that there was a gap for her to fill, a strange disturbance for her to cover, though it eluded her curiosity. But no one, be she ever so tactful, could be expected to talk on forever, and at last little Anne paused for a reply.

“I think, little Anne, that it is indeed remarkably nice,” agreed Kit. “It was also remarkably nice of Mr. Latham to dissect it and to teach you the meaning of each separate sybable! Are you alone, little Anne? Will you go home with--” Kit hesitated--“Miss Abercrombie and me?”

“I am alone,” said little Anne with dignity. “My mother knew I was going walking and she knew it was safe. But I’d love to go back with you. Why did you come, Kit? Looking for me doing penance again?”

“No. Mr. Carrington came here to do penance himself, à la St. Antony, and he has done it,” Helen said, and laughed; the laugh frightened little Anne. “Mr. Carrington has done penance, but he has also inflicted it upon another, which must be a joy to him. You don’t read the Bible in your Church, I’m told. If you did you would read with profit the story of Joseph. He was a righteous youth, also. I’ve no doubt he enjoyed Mrs. Potiphar’s discomfort, as a righteous person would. She deserved what she got. Wait till I screw up my hair, Kit. It’s hard on hair to practise the virtue of humility.”

Helen let down the masses of pure gold which crowned her. They fell around her like a veil, and till she twisted them into her hand and began to wind her hair around her head, it hid her from sight.

Little Anne cried out ecstatically:

“Oh, oh-ee! It’s like Jenny Wren, the dolls’ dressmaker! Mother read me that out of a grown-up book that Dickens wrote. But we read the Bible a lot, Miss Abercrombie; that’s not--I mean that’s a mistake. It’s a golden bower, like Jenny Wren’s. Aren’t you the beautifullest, Miss Abercrombie! I think Kitca takes after you; she’s the most beautifullest of all the kittens that ever could be ’magined, and all my life I shall bless you for her.”

Helen threw back her head, her hair in place. Tears of rage and defeat were on her lashes. Her lips were grim and her pallor had given way to crimson in her cheeks. She was intelligent enough to know that she was defeated. Never again would she have Kit in her power. Since he had escaped her when she would have sealed him beyond the possibility of honourable escape, he was lost to her. Calm reflections upon this afternoon’s scene would put him beyond her grasp.

She looked malignantly at little Anne.

“What do they put on pincushions for innocents yet-to-be, or rather used to do it in the good old days? ‛Bless the Babe?’ David Copperfield had that on his prenatal pincushion. I shall work one for Anne Berkley, but there will be the difference of a word in the sentiment,” Helen said.

“Oh, thank you, Miss Abercrombie, but Kitca is enough and too much for you to do for me!” cried little Anne, fervently. “May I put in one of your hairpins? It is rather out.”

“Miss Abercrombie would rather put it in herself, Anne,” said Kit, hastily. He took the child on his back. “Let me ride you home, or part of the way.”

“And avoid contamination,” smiled Helen, interpreting Kit’s unconsidered impulse.

At Miss Carrington’s, Helen went into the house, but Kit went all the way to the Berkley house, seeing little Anne home.

Helen turned back from the foot of Miss Carrington’s steps.

“Kit,” she called after the pair of friends, “I’ve had a lovely time; I’m fond of the drama. And I think you are right, and I was wrong. I wouldn’t change it; I wanted to see, and I saw! Good-bye. Little Anne likes a snowy-white kit, but not I! You’re a nice boy, Kit, but you’re not much of a man.”

She ran laughing up the rest of the way and rushed into the house.

“She seems mad,” observed sharp little Anne.