Part 24

"I'm afraid I am.... Anyway, I shall not let him go until I am quite certain.... It's abominable that he should have made of me a thing with which I never have had any patience--a girl whose heart has run away with her senses. And _that's_ what he has done to me, I'm afraid."

Stephanie suddenly flushed:

"If he has," she said, "you ought to be glad! You are free to marry him if you love him, and you ought to thank God for the privilege."

"Yes. But what is marriage going to do to my work? I never meant to marry. I've been afraid to. What happens to a girl's creative work if her heart is full of something else--full of her lover--her husband--children, perhaps--new duties, new cares! ... I didn't _want_ to love this man. I loved my work. It took all of me. It's the very devil to have a thing like this happen. It scares me. I can't think of my work now. It bores me to recollect it. My mind and heart are full of this man!--there's no room in it for anything else.... What is this going to do to my career? That's what frightens me to think about.... And I can't give up sculpture, and I _won't_ give up Phil! Oh, Steve, it's the very deuce of a mess--it really is. And you lie there eating chocolates and reading piffle, and you calmly tell me to thank God that I am free to marry!"

Stephanie's clear grey eyes regarded her:

"If you're any good," she said, "your career will begin from the moment you fell in love. Love clears the mind wonderfully. You learn a lot about yourself when you fall in love.... I learned that I had no talent, nothing to express. That's what love has done for me. But you will learn what genius really means."

Helen came slowly back to where the girl was lying.

"You _are_ in love, then," she said gently. "I was afraid."

"I am afraid, too."

They looked at each other in silence.

"Do you ever mean to live with Oswald?" asked Helen.

"Not if I can avoid it."

"Can you not?"

"Yes, I can avoid it--unless the price of immunity is too heavy."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't. Neither does Jim. It's a rather ghastly situation."

"You are not at liberty to explain it, are you?"

"No."

Helen bent and laid her hand on Stephanie's hair:

"I'm sorry. I knew you were falling in love. There seemed to be no help for either of you."

"No, no help. One can't help one's heart's inclinations. The only thing we can control is our behaviour."

"Steve, are you unhappy?"

"I'm beginning to be.... I didn't think I would be--it's so wonderful.... But the seriousness of love reveals itself sooner or later.... A girl begins to understand.... All we want is to give, if we're in love.... It's tragic when we can't." She turned her face abruptly and laid one arm across her eyes.

Helen sank to her knees again and laid her cool face against Stephanie's flushed cheek.

"Darling," she said, "there must be some way for you."

"No honourable way."

"But that marriage is a farce."

"Yes. I made it so.... But Oswald cares for me."

"Still?"

"Yes.... He is a very wonderful, generous, unhappy man; proud, deeply sensitive, tender-hearted, and loyal. I can not sacrifice him. He has done too much for my sake.... And I promised----"

"What?"

"I promised him to give myself as long a time as he wished to learn whether I could ever come to love him."

"Does he know you are in love?"

"No."

"What would he do if he knew?"

Stephanie began to tremble:

"I--don't know," she stammered, "--he must never think that I am in love with Jim..... It would be--dreadful--terrible----"

She sat up, covering her face with both hands:

"Don't ask me! Don't talk about it! There are things I can't tell you--things I can't do, no matter what happens to me--no matter whether I am unhappy--whether Jim is----"

"Don't cry, darling. I didn't mean to hurt you----"

"Oh, Helen! Helen! There's something that happened which I can't ever forget. It terrifies me. There's no way out of this marriage for me--there's no way! No way!" she repeated desolately.... "And I'm so deeply in love--so deeply--deeply----"

She flung herself on her face and buried her head in her arms.

"Just let me alone," she sobbed. "I can't talk about it. I--I'm glad you're happy, dear. But please go out, now!"

Helen rose and stood for a moment looking down at the slender figure in its jewelled kimono and its tumbled splendour of chestnut hair. Then she went out very quietly.

On the porch her audacious young man and Cleland were smoking and consulting time-tables, and she gave the former a swift glance which questioned his intentions. He seemed to comprehend, for he said:

"It's Jim. He's been talking to Oswald on the long distance wire, and he's going down to town to see the model that Oswald has made."

"Are _you_ going, too?" she asked.

"Not until you do," he said boldly.

Helen blushed furiously and glanced at Cleland, but he had not paid them any attention, apparently, for he rose with an absent air and went into the house.

"Steve!" he called from the foot of the stairs. "I'm going to town to-night, if you don't mind."

There was no answer. He ran lightly up the stairs and glanced through her door, which was partly open. Then he went in.

She did not hear him, nor was she aware of his presence until she felt his questioning hand on her tumbled hair. Then she turned over, looked up into his anxious face, stretched out her arms to him in a sudden passion of loneliness and longing, and drew him convulsively to her breast with a little sob of surrender. And the next instant she had slipped through his arms to the floor, sprung to her feet, and now stood breathing fast and unevenly as he rose, half dazed, to confront her.

"Jim," she said unsteadily, "I had better go back. I'm losing my head here with you--here under dad's roof. Do you hear what I say? I can't trust myself. I can't remain here and tear dad's honour to shreds just because I've gone mad about you.... I'm going back."

"Where?"

"To Oswald."

"What!"

"It's the only safety for us. There's no use. No hope, either. And it's too dangerous--with no outlook, no possible chance that waiting may help us. There's not a ghost of a chance that we ever can marry. That is the real peril for us.... So--I'll play the game.... I'll go to him now--before it's too late,--before you and I have made each other wretched for life--and before I have something still worse on my conscience!"

"What?"

"My husband's death! He'll kill himself if I let you take me away somewhere."

After a silence he said in a low voice:

"Is _that_ what you have been afraid of?"

"Yes."

"You believe he will kill himself if you divorce him?"

"I--I am certain of it."

"Why are you certain?"

"I can't tell you why."

He said coolly:

"Men don't do that sort of thing as a rule. Weak intellects seek that refuge from trouble; but his is not a weak character."

"I won't talk about it," she said. "I've told you more than I ever meant to. Now you know where I stand, what I fear--his death!--if I dishonour dad's memory and go away with you. And if I ask divorce, he will give it to me--and then kill himself. Do you think I could accept even you on such terms as these?"

"No," he said.

He looked at her intently. She stood there very white, now, her grey eyes and the masses of chestnut hair accentuating her pallour.

"All right," he said, "I'll take you to town."

"You need not."

"Won't you let me?"

"Yes, if you wish.... When you go downstairs, tell them to send up my trunks. Tell one of the maids to come."

"You can't go off this way, to-night. You've two guests here," he said in a dull voice.

"You will be here."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Oswald called me on the long distance wire an hour ago. He has asked me to go to town and look at the sketch he has made for the fountain. I said I'd go."

She dropped to the couch and sat there with grey eyes remote, her shoulders, in their jewelled kimono, huddled under her heavy mass of hair.

"Stay here for a while, anyway," he said. "There's no use taking such action until you have thought it over. And such action is not necessary, Steve."

"It is."

"No. There is a much simpler solution for us both. I shall go abroad."

"What!" she exclaimed sharply, lifting her head.

"Of course. Why should you be driven into the arms of a husband you do not love just because you are afraid of what you and I might do? That would be a senseless proceeding, Steve. The thing to do is to rid yourself of me and live your life as you choose."

She laid her head on her hands, pressing her forehead against her clenched fingers.

"That's the only thing to do, I guess," he said in his curiously colourless voice. "I came too late. I'm paying for it. I'll go back to Paris and stay for a while. Time does things to people."

She nodded her bowed head.

"Time," he said, "forges an armour on us all.... I'll wait until mine is well riveted before I return. You're quite right, Steve.... You and I can't go on this way. There would come a time when the intense strain would break us both--break down our resolution and our sense of honour--and we'd go away together--or make each other wretched here.... Because there's no real happiness for you and me without honour, Steve. Some people can do without it. We can't.

"We might come to think we could. We might take the chance. We might repeat the stale old phrase and try to 'count the world well lost.' But there would be no happiness for you and me, Steve. For, to people of our race, happiness is composite. Honesty is part of it; loyalty to ideals is another; the world's respect, the approval of our own hearts, the recognition of our responsibility to the civilization that depends on such as we--all these are part of the only kind of happiness that you and I can understand and experience.... So we must give it up.... And the best way is the way I offer.... Let me go out of your life for a while.... Live your own life as you care to live it.... Time must do whatever else is to be done."

The girl lifted her dishevelled head and looked at him.

"Are you going to-night?"

"Yes."

"You are not coming back?"

"No, dear."

She dropped her head again.

There was a train at four that afternoon. He took a gay and casual leave of Helen and Grayson, where he found them reading together in the library.

"Will you be back to-morrow?" inquired the latter.

"I'm not sure. I may be detained for some time," said Cleland carelessly. And went upstairs.

Stephanie, frightfully pale, came to her door. Her hair was dressed and she was gowned for the afternoon. She tried to speak but no sound came from her colourless lips; and she laid her hands on his shoulders in silence. Their lips scarcely touched before they parted; but their eyes clung desperately.

"Good-bye, dear."

"Good-bye," she whispered.

"You know I love you. You know I shall never love another woman?"

"Try to--forget me, Jim."

"I can't."

"I can't forget you, either.... I'm sorry, dear. I wish you had me.... I'd give you anything, Jim--anything. Don't you know it?"

"Yes."

She laid her head on his breast, rested a moment, then lifted it, not looking at him, and turned slowly back into her room.

It was dark when he arrived in New York. The flaring streets of the city seemed horrible to him.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

Washington Square seemed to him a little cooler than the streets to the northward; the white arch, the trees, the splash of water made a difference. But beyond, southward, narrow streets and lanes were heavy with the close, hot odours of the slums--a sickening smell of over-ripe fruit piled on push-carts, the reek of raw fish, of sour malt from saloons--a subtler taint of opium from blind alleys where Chinese signs hung from rusting iron balconies.

Through cracks between drawn curtains behind the window of Grismer's basement studio, light glimmered; and when Cleland pulled the bell-wire in the area he could hear the crazy, cracked bell jangling inside.

Grismer came.

For a second he hesitated behind the iron area gate, then recognizing her visitor opened for him.

They shook hands with a pleasant, commonplace word or two of civility, and walked together through the dark, hot passageway into the lighted basement.

"It's devilish hot," said Grismer. "There's probably a storm brewing over Staten Island."

He looked colourless and worn. There was a dew of perspiration on his forehead, which dampened the thick amber-gold hair. He wore only a gauze undershirt, trousers and slippers, under which his supple, graceful figure was apparent.

"Grismer," said Cleland uneasily, "this cellar is hell in July. Why won't you come up to Runner's Rest for the hot period? You can't do anything here. You can't stand it."

Grismer fished a siphon out of his ice-box and looked around with a questioning smile. "I've some orange juice. Would you like some?"

Cleland nodded and walked over to a revolving table on which the wax model of his fountain stood. Grismer presently came up beside him with both glasses, and he took his with an absent nod, but continued to examine the model in silence.

"Probably you don't care for it," suggested Grismer.

Cleland said slowly:

"You gave me a different idea. I didn't know you were going to do anything like this."

"I'm afraid you are disappointed."

"No.... It's beautiful, Grismer. I hadn't thought that a figure would be possible, considering the character of the place and the very simple and primitive surroundings. But this is in perfect taste and amazingly in accord with everything."

He looked at the slim, naked, sinuous figure--an Indian girl of fifteen drinking out of cupped hands. Wild strawberry vines in full fruit bound her hair, which fell in two clubbed braids to her shoulders. A narrow breadth of faun-skin fell from a wampum girdle to her knees. And, from the thin metal forehead-fillet, the head of a snake reared, displaying every fang.

"It's the Lake-Serpent, isn't it?--the young Oneida girl of the Iroquois legend?" inquired Cleland.

Grismer nodded.

"That's your country," he said. "The Iroquois war-trail passed through your valley and down the river to Charlemont and Old Deerfield. I read up on it. The story of the Lake-Serpent and the Eight Thunders fascinated me. I thought the thing might be done."

"You've done it. It's stunning."

"The water," explained Grismer, "flows out of her hollowed hands, out of the serpent's throat and down each braid of hair, dripping on her shoulders. Her entire body will appear to be all glimmering with a thin skin of running water. I shall use the 'serpent spot' on her forehead like a caste-mark, I think. And what I want to get is an effect from a fine cloud of spray which will steam up from the basin at her feet like the 'cloud on the water' which the legend speaks of. I can get it by an arrangement of very minute orifices through which spray will rush and hang over the water in a sort of rainbow mist. Do you think that would be all right?"

"Of course. It's a masterpiece, Grismer," said the other quietly.

Into Grismer's pale face a slow colour came and spread.

"That's worth living for," he said.

"What?"

"I said that I'm glad I have lived to hear you speak that way of anything I have done," said Grismer with a smile.

"I don't understand why you should care about my opinion," returned Cleland, turning an amused and questioning gaze on the sculptor. "I'm no critic, you know."

"I know," nodded Grismer, with his odd smile. "But your approval means more than any critic has to offer me.... There's an arm-chair over there, if you care to be seated."

Cleland took his glass of iced orange juice with him. Grismer set his on the floor and dropped onto the ragged couch.

"Anybody can point it up now," he said. "It ought to be cast in silver-grey bronze, not burnished--a trifle over life-size."

"You must have worked like the devil to have finished this in such a brief period."

"Oh, I work that way--when I do work.... I've been anxious--worried over what you might think.... I'm satisfied now."

He filled and lighted his pipe, leaned back clasping his well-made arms behind his head.

"Cleland," he said, "it's a strange sensation to feel power within one's self--be conscious of it, certain of it, and deliberately choose not to use it.... And the very liberty of choice is an added power."

Cleland looked up, perplexed. Grismer smiled, and his smile seemed singularly care-free and tranquil:

"Just think," he said, "what the gods _could_ have done if they had taken the trouble to bestir themselves! What they did do makes volumes of mythology: what they refrained from doing would continue in the telling through all eternity. What they did betrayed their power," he added, with a whimsical gesture toward his fountain; "but what they refrained from doing interests me, Cleland--fascinates me, arouses my curiosity, my respect, my awe, and my gratitude that they were godlike enough to disdain display--that they were decent enough to leave to the world material to feed its imagination."

Cleland smiled sombrely at Grismer's whimsical humour, but his features settled again into grave, care-worn lines, and his absent gaze rested on nothing. And Grismer's golden eyes studied him.

"It must be pleasant out there in the country," he said casually.

"It's cool. You must go there, Grismer. This place is unendurable. Do go up while Phil Grayson is there."

"Is there anybody else?"

"Helen--and Stephanie," he said, using her name with an effort. "The Belters were there for a week. No doubt Stephanie will ask other people during the summer."

"When do you go back?" asked Grismer quietly.

There was a short silence, then Cleland said in a voice of forced frankness:

"I was about to tell you that I'm going over to Paris for a while. You know how it is--a man grows restless--wants to run over and take a look at the place just to satisfy himself that it's still there." His strained smile remained stamped on his face after his gaze shifted from Grismer's penetrating eyes--unsmiling, golden-deep eyes that seemed to have perceived a rent in him, and were looking through the aperture into the secret places of his mind.

"When are you going, Cleland?"

"Oh, I don't know. Some time this week, if I can get accommodations."

"You go alone?"

"Why--of course!"

"I thought perhaps you might feel that Stephanie ought to see Europe."

"I hadn't--considered----"

He reddened, took a swallow of his orange juice, and, holding the glass, turned his eyes on the wax model.

"How long will you be away?" asked Grismer in his still and singularly agreeable voice.

There was another silence. Then Cleland made a painful effort at careless frankness once more:

"That reminds me, Grismer," he exclaimed. "I can't ever repay you for that fountain, but I can do my damndest with a cheque-book and a fountain pen. I should feel most uncomfortable if I went away leaving that obligation unsettled."

He drew out his cheque-book and fountain pen and smiled resolutely at Grismer, whose dark golden eyes rested on him with an intentness that he could scarcely endure.

"Would you let me give it to you, Cleland?"

"I can't, Grismer.... It's splendid of you."

"I shall not need the money," said Grismer, almost absently, and for an instant his gaze grew vague and remote. Then he turned his head again, where it lay cradled on his clasped hands behind his neck: "You won't let me give it to you, I know. And there's no use telling you that I shall not need the money. You won't believe me.... You won't understand how absolutely meaningless is money to me--just now. Well, then--write in what you care to offer."

"I can't do that, Grismer."

The other smiled and, still smiling, named a figure. And Cleland wrote it out, detached the cheque, started to rise, but Grismer told him to lay it on the table beside his glass of orange juice.

"It's a thing no man can pay for," said Cleland, looking at the model.

Grismer said quietly:

"The heart alone can pay for anything.... A gift without it is a cheque unsigned.... Cleland, I've spoken to you twice since you have returned from abroad--but you have not understood. And there is much unsaid between us. It must be said some day.... There are questions you ought to ask me. I'd see any other man in hell before I'd answer. But I'll answer _you_!"

Cleland turned his eyes, heavy with care, on this man who was speaking.

Grismer said:

"There are three things in the world which I have desired--to stand honourably and well in the eyes of such people as your father and you; to win your personal regard and respect; to win the love of Stephanie Quest."

In the tense silence he struck a match and relighted his pipe. It went out again and grew cold while he was speaking:

"I lost the consideration of such people as you and your father; in fact, I never gained it at all.... And it was like a little death to something inside me.... And as for Stephanie----" He shook his head. "No," he said, "there was no love in her to give me. There is none now. There never will be."

He laid aside his pipe, clasped his hands behind his head once more and dropped one long leg over the other.

"You won't question me. I suppose it's the pride in you, Cleland. But my pride is dead; I cut its throat.... So I'll tell you what you ought to know.

"I always was in love with her, even as a boy--after that single glimpse of her there in the railroad station. It's odd how such things really happen. Your people had no social interest in mine. I shall use a more sinister term: your father held my father in contempt.... So there was no chance for me to know you and Stephanie except as I was thrown with you in school."

He smiled:

"You can never know what a boy suffers who is fiercely proud, who is ready to devote himself soul and body to another boy, and who knows that he is considered inferior.... It drives him to strange perverseness, to illogical excesses--to anything which may conceal the hurt--the raw, quivering heart of a boy.... So we fought with fists. You remember. You remember, too, probably, many things I said and did to intensify your hostility and contempt--like a hurt thing biting at its own wounds----!"

He shrugged:

"Well, you went away. Has Stephanie told you how she and I met?"

"Yes."

"I thought she would tell you," he said tranquilly. "And has she told you about our unwise behaviour--our informal comradeship--reckless escapades?"

"Yes."

Grismer raised his head and looked at him intently.

"And has she related the circumstances of our marriage?" he asked.

"Partly."

Grismer nodded.

"I mean in part. There were many things she refused to speak of, were there not?"

"Yes."

He slowly unclasped his linked fingers and leaned forward on the couch, groping for his pipe. When he found it he slowly knocked the cinders from the bowl, then laid it aside once more.

"Cleland, I'll have to tell where I stood the day that my father--killed himself."

"_What!_"

"Stephanie knew it. There had been a suit pending, threatening him.... For years the fear of such a thing had preyed on his mind.... I never dreamed there was any reason for him to be afraid.... But there was."

He dropped his head and sat for a few moments thinking and playing with his empty pipe. Then:

"Stephanie's aunt was the Nemesis. She became obsessed with the belief that her nephew and later, Stephanie, had suffered wickedly through my father's--conversion of trust funds." He swallowed hard and passed one hand over his eyes: "My father was a defaulter.... That woman's patience was infernal. She never ceased her investigations. She was implacable. And she--got him.