Chapter 10

Another thing. John has betrayed his notion that Lucy sees too much of you for her own good, at this time. He doesn't even imagine that she cares for you in any way that she shouldn't or you for her; but he does wish--well, that you'd gone to California when you planned to, etc., etc. Now the season's pretty nearly over, and I know that a few weeks one way or the other never did matter to you and won't now. Of course, it has its ridiculous side, but I really think it would comfort John Fulton quite a little if he heard that you had left Aiken. You see he's half crazy with grief and insomnia, and he's got it in his head that if Lucy had fewer other people to amuse her, she might get bored again and in sheer boredom turn again to him. But just use your influence with Lucy, if you've got any. I tell you on the honor of a cynical and skeptical man, that if things go on the way they are going, I think John Fulton will die of a broken heart. You see, he's had too much--more than you and I can possibly imagine--and that much he has now lost. If he isn't to get back any portion of it, he'll curl up and die.

Hoping you're having a fine time and fine weather,

Always your affectionate friend, H.C.

Well, the days of basking in the sunshine on top of the powder magazine were over.

After some thought, I went to Lucy's brother and gave him Harry's letter to read. He had slept late, and I found him dressing.

Schuyler was, of course, deeply troubled and concerned. That he himself hadn't had "an inkling of this--not an inkling," seemed for some minutes quite important to him, for he made the statement a number of times. Then, for he was energetic, and, like Lucy, oftenest in a hurry, he said:

"The thing to do is for us to take this letter to Lucy, stand over her while she reads it, and then throw hot shot into her. Why it's a damned shame! John's been twice as good a husband as Lucy's been a wife. And now she does this to him." Then something appeared to strike Schuyler's sense of humor, for he burst out laughing. "And he's getting jealous of you!" he said gleefully. "When did you first become a snake in the grass?"

"Perhaps you'll end by calling me that," I said gravely. "Stop laughing, Schuyler. A very sad thing has happened and a very wonderful thing. Lucy and I----"

His face became instantly as grave as mine. "Lucy and you?"

"We hope that you'll be on our side."

"And John doesn't know?"

"You see by Harry's letter that although he doesn't _know_, his intuition is trying to tell him."

"How long's this been goin' on?"

"It just came, Schuyler, happened, was--not many days ago. We didn't see it coming, and----"

He interrupted sharply, his eyes grown suddenly cold. "I want to know if you have still a sort of right to be in this house?"

"Why--yes--I think so."

"_Think_--don't you _know_?"

He gave a harsh short laugh.

"I know what you are driving at, of course. We care about each other. If _that's_ wrong, that's all that is wrong."

"You take a weight off me," he said, and his tone was more friendly.

"You always maintained that love was its own justification, Schuyler?"

"And I've heard you maintain that it wasn't. Now we seem to have swapped beliefs."

He turned to his dressing-table and tied his tie. While so doing he muttered: "Pleasant vacation in sunny South."

And then was silent. I could not think of anything to say. Having finished dressing he thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and began to pace about the disordered room.

"Shall we go out in the sun?" I suggested.

"A dark cave would be more in keepin' with my feelings. Let's stop here a little and talk. What's the idea anyway?"

"Why, the usual idea, I suppose."

"John to give Lucy a divorce, you and Lucy to marry shortly after, and Jock and Hurry to go to hell! I think less than nothing of the usual idea. To begin with, why should John give Lucy a divorce? She's the one that's done all the harm. I _know_ I'm her brother. It only helps me to see her character clearer than other people do. Well, say he isn't the fool I think he is. Say he _won't_ give her a divorce? What then?"

"Hadn't we better cross that bridge when we come to it?"

"In the usual way, I suppose. No. I'm too old-fashioned to like usual ways of doing things. Furthermore, I like you and Lucy too much. I don't want to see her life ruined, and John after all is a manufacturer of ammunition. How about crossin' the bridge and findin' him on the other side with a big bang-stick in his hand?"

I shrugged my shoulders, though at heart I was not indifferent to the picture which Schuyler had conjured up.

"Oh," said he, "what a damned mess! Come, we'll talk to Lucy."

I went with him most unwillingly. And I thought it good fortune that we did not find her alone, but with Evelyn, Dawson and the children.

Schuyler kissed his sister good morning with warm, brotherly affection and gave her a playful pat or two on the back.

"All we need," he said cheerfully, "is old John, and a girl apiece for Archie and me, to be a happy family party."

He made goat's eyes at Evelyn and Dawson. The latter blushed. But the former returned his glance with a fine and mischievous indifference.

"Now, people," Schuyler continued, "I'm on my vacation. I've plenty of energy, and I'm open to suggestion. You, Evelyn, do you want to ride with me or with Dawson?"

"I want to ride with you, but I'm going to play golf with Dawson."

"When?"

"We were just lingering to say good morning."

She rose a little languidly, and I perceived with misgivings that she and Dawson were really about to depart.

"Well," said Schuyler, "any time you feel like shakin' Dawson, just put me wise, there's a good fellow!"

When Dawson and Evelyn had gone, Schuyler proceeded to get rid of the children. He gave them fifty cents apiece, and said that if he didn't see them or hear them for half an hour they could keep the money.

"Are you trying to get this room all to yourself?" asked Lucy. "Do you want Archie and me to vanish, too?"

"No," said Schuyler; "much as you and Archie may wish to, I want nothing of the kind. Lucy, I think you'd better telegraph John to come home, don't you?"

"I've told Schuyler, Lucy," I said.

"And that's a good thing," said Schuyler; "because I don't have to take sides. I like you all. You and Archie _have_ to take your side, and John has to take his, naturally."

Lucy, her hands folded in her lap, looked bored and annoyed.

"A lot of talk isn't going to help any," she said.

"For certain reasons, Lucy," said Schuyler, "you and Archie are just now as blind as two bats. You don't see what you are doing, and you don't see what you are up against."

"I've only one life," said Lucy, "and it's my own."

"But it isn't," said Schuyler; "you gave it to John. I'd be mightily hurt and shocked to find out that you were an Indian giver."

"John will give my life back to me when he knows."

"Well, find out if he will or not. Send for him. Tell him what's happened."

"I think that would be best, Lucy," I said.

"Then, of course, I'll send," she said. "But----"

"John, you know," said Schuyler, "may not take you two very seriously. He may think that Lucy's feelings for you, Archie, are just a passing whim. Upon the grounds of his own experience with Lucy, he would be within his rights to feel that way. Why not," his face brightened into a sort of cheerfulness, "why not test yourselves a little? You go north, Archie, and wait around, and then, after a while, if you and Lucy feel the same, it will be time enough to tell John. It's all been too sudden for you to feel sure of yourselves. It isn't as if neither of you had ever been in love before and gotten over it. As a matter of cold fact, you've both been tried before now and found wanting. So I think you ought to go slow--for John's sake. He's the fellow that's been tried and that hasn't been found wanting."

It was obvious that Lucy did not like her brother's suggestion at all, for she rose suddenly, her hands clenched, and exclaimed:

"Oh, you don't understand at all. How can I go on living with a man I don't love? How can you ask me to be so false to myself and to Archie----"

"And to Jock and Hurry?" asked Schuyler gently.

She showed no emotion at the mention of these names.

"Don't they count for anything?" persisted Schuyler.

"Of course they count for something, so does poor John. Do you think it's any pleasure to have hurt him so? But is it my fault if they don't count _enough_?"

Here she came swiftly to my side, and slid her hand under my arm and clung to it. "They count," she said, "but they don't count enough." And she turned to me. "You are all that counts. I'd give up my life for you, and I'd give up my children and everything. You know that."

There was a long silence. Then Schuyler, speaking very slowly, said: "You'd go away with him, and never see Jock and Hurry again, not be able to go to them when they were sick, not to be at little Hurry's wedding when she grows up and gets married. . . . For God's sake!"

"_Now_ do you realize that I'm in earnest?" she cried.

Schuyler turned quietly on his heel and left the room. After a while we heard his voice in the distance, mingling joyfully with the voices of Jock and Hurry.

Lucy's face, all tears now, was pressed to my breast.

"You are giving up too much for me, my darling," I said; "I'm not worth it."

"But if you went out of my life I'd die!"

"I won't go out of your life, Lucy. But there are lives and lives. We could meet and be together to gather strength for the times we had to be apart."

At that she had a renewal of crying, and cried for a long time.

"It isn't right for Jock and Hurry to run any risk of losing you," I said, "and love--Lucy--love with renunciation is a wonderful thing, and a strong thing."

"I'm not strong. I don't want to be strong. I just want to give and give and give."

"We could have our own life apart from everybody else--but not a hidden guilty life--a life to be proud of--a life in which you would strengthen me for my other life and I would strengthen you for yours."

She stopped crying all at once and freed herself from my arms. "Then you don't want me?"

"I want you."

She lifted her hands to my shoulders. "Suppose we find that we can't stand a life of love--with renunciation?"

"At least we would have tried to do what seemed to make for the happiness of the most people."

"And you think I ought to live on with John, as--as his wife?"

"No, I couldn't bear that--but as his friend, Lucy, as the mother of Jock and Hurry. Oh, no," I said; "I couldn't bear it, if--if you weren't faithful to me."

"And you would be faithful to me?"

"In thought and deed."

"And we'd just be wonderful friends?"

"Lovers, too, Lucy. We couldn't help that."

And I kissed her on the forehead. And at that moment I felt very noble, and that the way of life which I had proposed was a very fine way of life, and possible of being lived.

"Then," she said, "John mustn't know. He must never know. It will always be our secret. But then Schuyler knows."

"When I tell him what we mean to do, he won't tell."

And the first chance I had I told Schuyler. And finished with, "So don't tell John, will you?"

"I'll see how happy Lucy manages to make him, first," said Schuyler. "But if you think he won't find out all by himself, you're mistaken. It's a rotten business all around."

And he looked at me with a kind of comical amazement. "Think of Lucy carin' more for you than for Jock and Hurry!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you regale her from time to time with episodes from your past life? . . . Well, if I didn't think you'd both get tired of each other before long, I'd feel worse. One thing, though, if I promise you that I won't give you away to John, will you promise me for yourself and for Lucy that you won't take any serious step, without telling me first, and giving me a chance to try to dissuade you?"

"As there is to be no question of a serious step," I said, "I promise."

XXIII

Ours was to be one of the most beautiful and beneficial loves of history. Almost we fell in love with our new way of loving. It had, we felt, a dignity and a purpose lacking in other loves. To look each other in the eyes, and feel that in a moment of strength, spurred by pity for those who had no such love as ours to sustain them, we had renounced each other, was a state of serenity and peace.

It added to the beauty of our renunciation that it claimed no luster of publicity, but had been made in quiet privacy. No one, we thought, will ever know; yet it will have been strong and pure, so that the world cannot but be the better for it.

We delighted for a while in our supreme renunciation as children delight in a new toy. And even now I can look back upon that time and wish that there could have been a little more substance to the shadow. It was a time of wonderful and sweet intimacy. We were to tell each other everything. There was delight in that. There was the delight of looking ahead and planning the meetings that should be ours in other places, until at last John himself came to realize that in our loving friendship was nothing unbeautiful, or unbeneficent, and meetings would happen when or where we pleased, the world silenced by the husband's approval.

So I did not take Harry Colemain's well-meant advice, and leave Aiken.

For a while it would suffice John to know that Lucy intended to stand by him and be the keeper of his house; to put his interests first, and to make up to him in dutifulness and economy for the love which she could not but reserve. Yes, indeed! Riding slowly through the spring woods, I made bold to preach a gospel of new life to her, and she listened very meekly, like a blessed angel, and she felt sure that from me she would derive the will and the strength. Mostly it was a gospel of economy that I preached and how best she might help her husband back upon his feet. And before his return from Palm Beach she had made a beginning. She bought a book to keep accounts in, and she got together all the bills she could lay hands on, and added them up to an appalling total (several, for it came different each time) and she stacked the bills in order of their pressingness, with the requests for payment from lawyers and collectors on top, and she felt an unparalleled glow of virtue and helpfulness.

And one day she took Jock and Hurry in the runabout (Cornelius Twombly behind) and drove to the station to welcome John home. How sweet the sight of those three faces must have seemed to him after absence! Indeed they had seemed very sweet to me as I looked into them just before they drove stationward. I was not to show up for two or three days. That was one compromise on Harry Colemain's advice. It would show John that Lucy and I were not entirely engrossed in each other's society. It would give him time to turn around and see how he liked the fact that Lucy was going to stick to him, and in many ways be a better wife to him. It would give me an opportunity to see, and be seen by many people. It would, in short, be a beginning of knocking on the head and silencing most of the talk that there had been about Lucy and me.

When you have a secret you might as well do your best to keep it.

So I did not see John Fulton for three days after his return from Palm Beach, and then by accident.

He had stopped at my father's house to leave the rod and tackle-box which I had loaned him, and I, happening to be in the hall, opened the door myself, and went out to speak with him.

"Have a good time?" I asked.

The man looked so sick that I pitied him.

"Mechanically, yes. I went through the motions," he said. "That's a beautiful rod. It was the most useful thing I had along. Going to the club? I'll drive you."

"Will you? Thanks. I'll just put these things in the hall."

We drove slowly toward the club.

"Glad to be back?"

"Very. I couldn't have stayed away from Lucy and the kids much longer, even if I'd been held."

He laughed gently.

"Lucy," he said, "must have thought that I wasn't ever coming back. She's been trying to put the house in order."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, finding out how much money's owed, and making a beginning of tying up loose ends."

"Kids all right? I haven't set eyes on 'em for three or four days."

"Yes, the kids are fine," and he added, after a pause, "and Lucy's fine too."

There were several men in the club and they made John heartily welcome, and told him how much better he looked than when he went away. As a matter of fact he looked much worse.

We all had tea together and asked questions about Palm Beach, and if he had seen so and so, and if he'd brought any money away from the gambling place, and what was new, and amusing, etc.

"Do you know," he said all of a sudden, "there was one very interesting thing that happened. Anybody mind if I talk shop?"

Nobody did; so he went on: "I had a telegram from a Baron Schroeder asking if it would be convenient for me to see him. He came all the way down to Palm Beach, talked to me all the time between trains, and flew away north again. He wanted to know how many rifle cartridges I could make in a year, at a price, a very round price, how many in five years. He wanted to know if I could convert any of my plant into a manufactory for shrapnel, and so on. What interested me is that he should take all that trouble over a small concern like mine. It looks as if someone saw a time when there would be a great dearth of ammunition. Two days ago Schroeder had gone away. I was braced, while in swimming, by a Russian gentleman. He apologized and plied me with the same sort of questions; I gave him the same sort of offhand answers that I had given Schroeder, and then I asked him what it was all about, and I told him about Schroeder without mentioning names. He said he could only guess, but that if I would sign a contract he would keep my plant running full for five years. It looks, doesn't it, as if somebody had decided to change the map of Europe, and as if others suspected the design?"

"Well, what came of it? Did you land a contract? Tell more."

"Nothing has come of it yet. But I think something will. I'm to meet the Russian in New York shortly."

"Why the Russian? The Baron saw you first."

"The Russian had better manners," said Fulton simply. "I think he liked me, and I know I liked him!"

Fulton asked me to dinner, but I refused, and so it was nearly four days before I saw Lucy again. In the meanwhile Harry Colemain told me more about the Palm Beach trip. The ammunition inquiries had, it seemed, strengthened Fulton's nerves; there had been no repetition of the hysterics.

"A man," Harry said, "must be even more down and out than Fulton not to be braced by a prospect of good business. From what he told me, if the contract goes through, he stands to make a fortune."

"Is there anything peculiarly good about the Fulton cartridges, or is Europe just out to gather up all the ammunition she can?"

"It looks rather like a sudden general demand. But of course nobody _knows_ anything except the insiders. Fulton says if the contract goes through he can die any time and be sure that his family will be well provided for. That feeling will stiffen his backbone. But you haven't told me if you said anything to Lucy?"

I had been dreading that question as one which could not be answered with complete frankness. I don't enjoy lying. Not that my moral sense revolts, but because I am lazy. Lying calls for deliberate efforts of invention.

"In a general way, yes," I evaded. "But her own good sense has come to the rescue. John's absence gave her a chance to see how she really felt about things. She won't leave him. Indeed, she'll try to make up to him in every way she can for her failure of affection."

"If she does _that_," said Harry, "I daresay the affection will come back. The more you benefit a person the more you like that person. The more you fail in your duty to a person, the less you like that person. I'm delighted with what you say. With all her charm and beauty she can make him happy if she tries."

"I think it's not a question of charm and beauty," I said. "It's a question of keeping house for him, and being a good mother to the children, and being loyal to him and them."

"There are reservations?"

"She doesn't love him."

"Oh," said Harry scornfully, "_that_ sort of thing won't work."

"We know a good many cases where that sort of thing seems to work."

"It only works when the husband acts like a natural man. Fulton won't. For him only Lucy is possible. There can be no substitute. No. In this case it won't work. He's too young and she's too good-looking."

"Then it won't work," I said shortly.

"She makes me sick," said Harry. "She gets her board and lodging and her clothes and spending money from him, and love and protection, and--Oh, it isn't as if there'd never been anything between them. After all, as far as he's concerned, she's no novice."

"The moment she stopped loving him she became spiritually separated from him."

"Spiritually be damned!" exclaimed Harry. "Don't talk to me. There are women in New York who to keep from starvation, will make love to any man that comes along, for a pittance. They do the very best they can to earn the money. I can't help admiring 'em. But your fashionable married woman, she's too refined, too delicately souled, too spiritual to do anything but eat herself sick on her man's money and spend him into a hole. It's bad enough to be a prostitute who plays the game, but it's a damned sight worse to be a prostitute who doesn't."

"I'm not going to get angry with you, Harry. We've been through too much together. But I think you have said enough. Lucy is one of the finest, purest-minded women in the world."

"Then she ought to be her husband's wife, or get out. If she's not his wife, she's no business grafting on him for board and lodging and pocket money. How long does a pure-minded, good-looking woman keep off the streets if she can't raise the wind any other way? Not long. And how many men can she graft on? Plenty of 'em--once. But not twice. The word goes round about her. 'She's a beauty to look at,' says the word, 'but she doesn't earn her money.'"

"Many marriages," I said, "_have_ to be re-arranged and compromised."

"Don't say _have_ to be, say _are_."

"Harry," I said with great firmness, "the country needs rain like the devil."

After a moment, good humor returned to his face. He said; "You've just won an argument. I also am dry as a bone."

XXIV

"This isn't the last ride together," said Lucy, "but almost. This time we are really going."

We had turned into Lovers' Lane, outward-bound, the ponies walking.

"John will have to be in New York for many days about this Russian contract, and he doesn't want to take the long trip back. So we're all going together."

"I shan't stay here very long after you've gone."

"No, you mustn't."

"We'll have lots of nice parties in New York."

"John says he's going to sell our house here, or rent it, or get rid of it somehow."

"Why?"

"Because he's been so unhappy in it. He says unless his whole mind is made over we'll never come to Aiken again."

She drew a long breath, and her eyes roved among the great pine trees on either side of the road as if she wished to impress them forever upon her memory.

"I love it all so much," she said simply.

"I'm so sorry," I said; "and it means that I won't ever be coming back for more than a minute. And I love it, too."

"We're to spend the summer in Stamford to be near the works. _Stamford_!"

"You'll find lots of people to like, and bully sailing and swimming."

"And bully spells of white-hot, damp weather, and bully big mosquitoes."