Part 17

"Edith," he said gently--"Lady Effington," he corrected himself and bowed formally to her husband. It was a delightfully ingenuous thing to do. Hal smiled, but not in derision. In fact, he liked the boy. What a funny little mediaeval gentleman!

"Lady Effington," continued Sir Launcelot (pocket edition), "if you can feel that I am worthy of your confidence, perhaps you will leave your interests in my hands--er--in our hands!"

Again he forgot the unpleasant husband and again he bowed an apology for his breach of etiquette.

"Thank you, Lord Yester," she said with a gravity and dignity equal to his own. To Hal it was like a play--this elaborate formality, this adroit indirectness, this dexterity in handling high explosives in a perfectly safe and genteel way, this modern capacity to bring everything down to a common denominator. He could play the game too, but what a long way it seemed from Red Butte Ranch, Big Bill, John McCloud, McShay, and Wah-na-gi, 'the soul without a body'!

"Lord Effington and I are both men of the world," Hal heard the youngster say. "It ought not to be difficult for us to--to--arrive at an understanding."

Lord Yester had his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, his chest was thrown out, and he was balancing himself on the ball of his foot. It was an acquired mannerism that seemed to add to his height. Like all small men, he was fond of referring to the fact that Napoleon was not a giant.

Edith inclined her beautiful head forward at an angle of supreme deference.

"I leave my happiness in your hands, with the utmost confidence in you both," she said gracefully as she swept out of the room. Lord Yester met her as she moved and gave her the homage of his protection to the door! The movement left the husband in the position of a rank outsider.

What fun Edith must have had, Hal thought, in playing up to these ideals! Edith, who had no ideals of her own.

When Yester returned the two men looked at each other; there was an awkward pause, each man cleared his throat, and each waited for the other to begin.

"Will you smoke?" asked Hal with a motion to the cigars. The youngster made a nervous start toward the table, then it occurred to him that he could not meet on such a friendly basis the man who had treated with inhuman cruelty the woman who had thrown herself upon his protection; so he stopped short and very awkwardly said:

"No! thank you; no, no!"

Again an awkward pause.

"Will you sit down?"

That seemed consistent with dignity and he started to do so, but again recoiled.

"I--eh--I feel more comfortable standing, if you don't mind."

Hal bowed. Yester's awkwardness was catching. He lounged across the room, sat down on the rail before the fire, and lit a cigarette. He could wait. Yester fiddled with his collar, stroked his cheek, and fidgeted.

"This is--this is rather a delicate situation, isn't it?" he said at last with a little deprecatory, nervous smile.

"Nothing seems unusual or impossible these days," said Hal easily.

"Well, you see," said the other, "I was intended for the diplomatic service, but I'm afraid I'm rather direct."

What a kid it was, thought Hal.

"An engaging frankness is sometimes the highest form of diplomacy," he said encouragingly.

"Well, you see," said the other gathering courage, "she has come to rely on me so completely, on my judgment as it were----"

"She? Oh, yes, my wife."

"Yes, yes," eagerly assented the lover, so absorbed in his own romance as to be beautifully oblivious to any other point of view. Hal smoked and kept an inscrutable face, while his heart sang within him, going with the wind and tide, going out of these eddies, these twists and turns, out into the broad ocean and on to a new world.

Yester walked over to the writing-table and began to play nervously with its furnishings.

"I wanted to say certain things to you, and I--I--I find I hardly know how." Then he pulled himself together as his mind went back over their acquaintance. "You see, as she had no other friends, as she was in trouble and in bad health, my sympathies were naturally enlisted, and almost before either of us realized it--well, you see, while I think you have behaved very badly, I--eh--now that we have met, I--will you let me say, I feel very sorry for you?"

The ingenuousness of this was completely disarming. Hal loved the child. But he continued to treat the situation with becoming gravity, bowed formally, and said:

"That's very generous of you."

"At the same time," exclaimed the little man returning to his purpose, "it is her happiness that must concern us both, isn't it? And I can only say that if you can accept the inevitable--well and good! If not," and again he balanced himself on his toes and expanded his chest; "if not, I stand ready to face the alternative."

Alternative sounded ominous. What did it mean?

"Alternative?" said Hal puzzled.

"I'll meet you under any terms and conditions you may name."

"'Meet me?' Oh, yes," and he smiled in spite of himself. "Why, duelling is illegal, isn't it? It's worse than illegal; it's unfashionable." He rose and went over to the boy and looked down at him with a protecting air. "I shouldn't want to take the life of such a gallant little gentleman, and I should care even less to have you take mine. I'm afraid I'm hopelessly commonplace."

Hal's attitude in spite of himself was too obvious.

"I'm afraid that is too evident, Lord Effington," said Yester sharply, resenting the overlordship of the other. "And may I suggest," he added with growing irritation, "that I am not so much younger and smaller than yourself that you need persist in patronizing me?"

"I beg your pardon. I had no intention of doing that." Then he looked at him very seriously and added: "I hope for the sake of my middle-class conscience you know what you are doing."

"I feel quite capable of deciding that," replied the boy easily. "I know something of the world--something, I fancy, of women!"

"And you are almost of age," added Hal.

"I am about to attain my majority," said Yester stiffly. "And when I do----"

"You hope to celebrate it by your marriage to my wife?"

The other bowed with an engaging smile.

"Quite so. Well, I shall not stand in the way of your happiness, Lord Yester."

"That is very noble of you."

"I'm afraid it's rather selfish of me. Your happiness happens to correspond with mine. And I hope in the future you will never have cause to think bitterly of me."

In Hal's eyes lurked an embryo twinkle. What a ripping farce civilization was!

"On the contrary," said Yester, happy beyond words, "I think you have behaved exceedingly well. You conceal your sufferings like a soldier and you join me in protecting the good name of the woman we have both loved. I can only say that you have acted like a gentleman, Lord Effington."

Both men bowed formally.

"Lord Yester," said Hal; "your father once did me a great service. I hope we shall always be friends?"

And they shook hands.

"Oh, Sir George, you know Lord Yester, I think?"

Hal spoke to the physician who had entered from the hall.

Both men bowed slightly. Hal turned to the heir of the Duke of Uxminster.

"Lady Effington will explain to you the only conditions I make. They are very slight and I am sure will meet with your approval."

"Thank you," and the little fellow bowed elaborately to each man and left the room with his arms folded behind him, an attitude very much affected by Napoleon, if we may trust the pictures.

It was with difficulty that Hal refrained from laughter. What a farce, but what a joyous farce! Already he was mentally speculating on the time when he could turn his back on these attitudinizing people with their picture-poster lives, on all this hollow, artificial make-believe, and return to the shirtsleeve crowd. What joy he would bring to one soul! He saw her face as he said to her:

"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi; I'm coming back." He had forgotten Sir George.

"I beg your pardon, Sir George. Delightful little chap, Yester! Eh? I wonder if I was ever as young as that."

It was evident that Yester's attentions to the wife of another man had not been a recommendation to the sedate scientist. He said dryly: "I don't know whether he's a fool or a knave."

"Well, he isn't either," said Hal. "He's been reading 'Ivanhoe'! You wanted to speak to me of father, Sir George."

"No, my boy; it's in regard to your wife."

Sir George had not only been the Earl's medical adviser as far back as Hal could remember but he had also been his intimate friend as well. Hal was thinking of other things, planning his escape, picturing the welcome the West was keeping for her child, or he would have noticed an extra consideration in the doctor's tone, an added solicitude in his manner.

"Edith?" he queried indifferently and with polite surprise.

"Yes; sit down." The doctor motioned to the little sofa which had its back against the writing-table. Hal sat down carelessly and picked up from the seat the society journal Lady Winifred had put into his hands a few moments before and began to turn its leaves and glance at its pictures, but in a cursory way and with an inclination of the head toward the physician to indicate that he was listening. Of course Sir George did not know--how could he?--that he and Edith had passed into different worlds.

Sir George himself was a study as he stood for a second regarding the other. How was it this custodian of other people's secrets and sorrows, forever intimate with sickness and pain, could look so sufficient, so impeccable, so serene? Well groomed, smooth, and polished to his finger tips, there seemed no surface where trouble or anxiety might stick.

Was it an armor or was it his integument?

"It's quite time you came home," the doctor said, glancing absent-mindedly at his polished finger nails. "You must give some thought to Edith. The life she is leading is exhausting, abnormal. She requires a change. You ought to take her away from London and this fast set."

"She has always lived this life, Sir George. It isn't any different, is it?"

"You have a ranch in America. It's just the thing. Why don't you take her there?"

"She wouldn't go. She is joined to her idols and I'm not one of them, Sir George."

The doctor was standing at the corner of the table. He satisfied himself that they were alone before speaking, then he bent toward the young man and said quietly:

"Of course no one knows it as yet but me; but you ought to know it; in fact, you will know it eventually, when perhaps it is too late, so----"

Hal looked up from his periodical.

"You alarm me, Sir George. What is it?"

The physician's eye fell upon the paper in Hal's hands.

"Allow me," he said and held out his hand for it.

Hal watched him deliberately turn the pages. He seemed to take a painfully long time to do it. Meantime the fog seemed to have penetrated the walls and to have taken possession of the place; the lights grew dim and the fire loomed ghostly in the dim distance. The air was thick and Hal seemed to breathe with difficulty. Ah, at last the doctor found what he was looking for. He handed it back and pointed to the article. There must be some mistake. He had already glanced through that article. It concerned an unfortunate woman who was found in Hyde Park under the influence of----

He glanced up. Sir George was still standing there. He must have been waiting a long time. Hal spoke at last, very slowly.

"And that was--Edith?"

The physician nodded his head gravely.

Hal glanced back at the paper but he did not see it. He sat still as if everything was just as it had been before, but he knew that the earth was rocking in a convulsion, that the house of his building was tumbling about him, that he was choking with the circumambient dust, and that he could not move or escape, only sit still until it was all over.

*CHAPTER XX*

The doctor waited patiently while the other readjusted his disordered faculties and groped his way toward the light.

"Good Lord, how terrible!" said Hal, distrait. "Why, Edith is the last woman in the world--strong willed, self-willed, ambitious! Why, I can't grasp it. It doesn't seem possible. I--I can't realize it."

"Oh, it's common enough these days," said the doctor, sitting down beside the boy and putting his hand on his knee in suggested sympathy. "The pace that kills! No rest, no respite! Teas, dinners, receptions, theatres, balls, races, motors, yachts; bridge, morning, noon and night; excitement, fatigue, reaction, depression; then stimulants, small at first, then more stimulants for greater depression, then over-stimulants; then sleeplessness and all the horrors of neurasthenia; then narcotics for rest and quiet, to keep from going mad; then, all of a sudden as it seems, but really by the most logical process, a _habit_ is formed--a fixed, implacable, relentless habit."

"Poor old girl," said Hal, trying to follow the professional exegesis. "How awful. How awful! But of course people are cured of such things, Sir George. You haven't let this go on?"

"Unfortunately it had been going on for some time before I discovered it, and of course I have done all I can, all I know. I'm afraid it's now beyond me. She has one chance in a thousand, and that chance is in your hands: the fresh air, out-door life, simple living, rest, peace, quiet! Then, if she will help you, if she will help herself, why, who knows?"

Again he put his hand on the boy's knee as much as to say: Don't take it too much to heart. We all have some affliction. If it isn't one thing, it's another, and fortunately we have work to do, and that saves us--work. All he said was:

"Well, I must be going."

"I want to see you a moment before you go, Sir George."

It was Edith speaking. She had entered the room as usual--noiselessly.

The doctor gave her a quick look. She was radiant. She had heard nothing, suspected nothing. He gave a sigh of relief.

"At your service, Lady Effington; I'll be in the billiard-room."

She made sure he had left the room, then she came toward Hal, her head up, her face beaming, her eyes dancing, glorious, transcendent! Magnificent to look upon was this wayward woman in the first glow of triumph, but Hal did not see her. He was gazing dumbly into space.

"It's very splendid of you, Harold," she said as she came over and sat down beside him, just where the doctor had sat a moment ago.

"I have come to thank you. You and I were never meant for each other, but it has been no fault of yours, and though I shall be compelled legally to complain of your cruelty, I shall, as a matter of fact, always remember gratefully your generous and considerate treatment. Fortunately it is not too late to remedy our mistakes. Lord Yester tells me you have definitely agreed not to interfere with our plans."

At the conclusion of her rhapsody she leaned forward and put her hand on his. It was almost a caress, the nearest approach to it she had bestowed on him in years. He withdrew his hand and took hers, giving it a little sympathetic pat, then he rose and walked away, the lines of his face drawn. She looked at him in wonder. Was it possible he cared for her a little bit after all?

"One moment, Edith," he said. "You see I didn't know. I couldn't know. And now--well, for the moment I'm bowled over. We'll have to think this thing over, won't we? Hang it all, it isn't fair, is it? It doesn't seem quite fair."

"Fair?" she echoed with a dubious smile. She saw that he was laboring under great excitement. "Fair?"

"To him--to the boy--to Yester."

"What are you talking about?" she said with patient incredulity. He paid no attention to her. He only half heard her questions and answers. He was reasoning it out, laboring with himself.

"He's a mere boy, and not a bad sort either; in fact, he's really quite all right. I don't see how we can go on with it; you and I."

She was like one who is suddenly and violently awakened from a halcyon dream to gaze into the glare of a dark lantern in the hands of a thief who may at any moment become an assassin. At the first glimmer of what he meant terror gripped her. She rose and came toward him.

"You gave _me_ your word. You gave _Lord Yester_ your word."

"I didn't know the--the situation, did I? You see I thought I could just put my hands in my pockets and stand off and let it go on, but if I see a blind man walking over a precipice and I don't stop him, why, I might just as well push him over. It's murder either way. I can't do it. I don't see how I can do it. I've changed my mind."

He tried to walk away as if it were settled. She followed him softly, like a cat, then confronted him.

"I won't let you change your mind." She spoke slowly and quietly, but it was a brave or a stupid man who could ignore the threat.

"It's no use, Edith. Sir George has told me, told me for your own sake." Again he turned away, as if he were looking for a way of escape from himself, from her, from the situation. She felt a wild impulse to scream, to leap upon him and tear him to pieces, and then it came to her that that would lend color to his veiled accusations. She must go softly, cunningly, and--wait.

He walked away, over to the fireplace. Was there no way out of it? Oh, if Sir George had not spoken! If he had not known! Was there no other way? Was no compromise possible? Why should the burden of all these lives fall upon him? Why should he be handed the cross to bear? The flames, like little red demons, little fire sprites, danced here and there, threw up their hands, squirmed, writhed, trying to get away, trying to leap into the air, trying to seize an unattainable something, falling back like whipped dogs to lick and bite the smoking log! Gazing into the fantastic fire depths--he saw Wah-na-gi, and beside her John McCloud, just as they stood that fateful day he left the Red Butte Ranch. "If you do come back, you must bring this Indian woman clean hands and a pure heart, promise me that." And he _had promised_. And Wah-na-gi, the soul without a body, heard him promise. He had come thousands of miles that he might keep the spirit of that promise. And now all he had to do would be to let things alone, let them go on as they were going. Why should he interfere? Why should he meddle? Would any one thank him? Every one, even Yester himself, would hate him. What possible good would it do? It was too late to interfere. His own happiness was at stake too. What of that? Why should he ruin his own happiness with theirs? He would go home a free man and who would know the difference? There would be no one to blame him except his own conscience. Oh, subterfuge, subterfuge! The lying little devil flames laughed. John McCloud would know. In fact, by some clairvoyant mystery, he already knew! Even now he was saying: "And this boy is the son of your benefactor, the son of your friend."

At last he said, as if to the fire:

"I couldn't do this and then go back and face Wah-na-gi and John McCloud. I promised if I came back to come with clean hands."

"You are talking like a wild man," Edith said. "But you see I am not excited. You're not going to betray me into a scene and then accuse me of being as crazy as you are. I sit down and I am calm."

She sat down deliberately in the high-backed chair and clutched its arms, and clung to it desperately like a drowning sailor. "I have perfect self-possession, complete control of myself, and I listen, listen to a madman. Go on."

She was sincere. He was irresponsible. Nothing else would explain it.

Indeed, to most of us, those who act from altruistic motives are quite as incomprehensible as those whose acts suggest diabolical and abnormal instigation. The boy was mad. He had always been "queer." He was the son of his father.

By a supreme effort of the will she brought all her faculties to bear. She would first understand this and then she would know how to meet it. She was a resourceful woman and used to bending others to her will. He was the son of his father. Swiftly her mind climbed the stairs and bent over the invalid. Relentlessly she seized his life and dragged it out of the sick bed, and submitted it to a searching examination. All his life the Earl had been a sentimentalist. All his life he had made mistakes. The woman who loved him had once called them "glorious mistakes." Everybody else called them just mistakes. Out of quixotic love for the Countess Diana he had left England under a cloud, bearing the inevitable implication of another's guilt. Another man would have stayed in London and have been her lover. That was his first mistake. An exile, branded as a thief, he had tried to hide himself away from civilization, became a cattle-man, in a country where white women were a curiosity, was thrown by circumstances into relations with a pretty little Indian woman, had a child by her, and married the woman that he might not be the father of an illegitimate child. That was his second mistake. Any other man would have married her by tribal rites and, when he got ready, made her a present or made it worth while for some one else to marry her. When the death of Diana's husband, the real embezzler, called him back to a title and to the life and the land and the woman he loved, he chose to stay with the little savage who was the mother of his child. Another mistake! And so he continued. Sentimental again with regard to his duty to the child, he had driven the Indian mother to suicide. Free at last to marry the woman for whom he had made such fantastic sacrifices, they were both middle-aged people, the bloom to life, the blush of love was gone. Then, in the first glow of their new-found happiness, Diana died, and he was alone. What had the idealist to show for all his glorious "mistakes"? for his unselfish adhesion to a self-conscious conception of duty? It was ridiculous. We live in a practical world. That world has two standards--a theoretical one, that no one uses, and the practical one, the actual one. To try to live outside the actual is to try to reverse the law of gravitation. We have invented the theoretical standard to fool others into a course we would not take ourselves. It's a trap for the simple-minded. It was madness. Yes, this boy was the mad son of a mad sentimentalist. And these sentimentalists drag other people to ruin with them. But why should she, a practical woman, a woman of the world, the real world, be made the victim of these madmen? Her will, seldom thwarted and never tamed, rose up for battle and said, no, NO!

"I won't be a party to this, Edith," he said, looking into the fire, and the moment he had said it he began to realize what such a decision would involve.

One step forward or backward wasn't enough. One couldn't stand still. One couldn't stop. My God, where would it end? He couldn't take everything away from her and then leave her to herself. Lord Yester would gladly assume the burden and accept the consequences. If he thwarted her, if he stood between her and her desires--what? He became the nurse of an irresponsible sick woman. The love that might have made that possible was gone, never really existed. She had stolen this boy's love and was stealing his life. To make her drop it, he would have to resort to force--then what? Where would it end? Who made him a policeman or a jailer? He wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it. No one would do it. He was a fool to think of it. He wasn't doing this willingly. He was hypnotized, led, driven by some force outside himself.

"But I won't leave you to fight it out alone," he said. His voice sounded strange to himself. What was that he was saying? He would rebel, deny it, take it all back in the next breath.

"I'll give up all my own plans and I'll stand by you."