Chapter 11

"Where's Mr. Gallatin?" asked Winchie, as he and his mother were finishing breakfast next morning.

"At the Smoke House, I guess," replied she. There was a far-away look in her eyes, and their lids were heavy. Although Lizzie had been unusually unsuccessful in arranging the flowers, she left the bowl untouched in the center of the table�a solid mass of carnations which she could have changed into a miracle of lightness and grace.

"Is he coming to breakfast?" asked Winchie.

"No�at least, I suppose not. How'd you like to go to grandpa's?"

"Will Mr. Gallatin go?"

Courtney's cheeks flushed. "No," she said.

"Then I'd like it�for a while."

"We are going to-morrow," said Courtney. "To-morrow morning."

"Is grandpa sick?"

"No. Nobody is sick."

"Then why?"

Courtney's face wore a queer smile. "We'll help grandma and Aunt Lal and Aunt Ann put up fruit and jam and preserves."

"Will we stay long?" inquired the boy anxiously.

"Until�until your father�gets back."

Winchie looked much downcast. "Why?" he asked.

"Why not?" said Courtney. "And now, you'll help me pack and I'll help you."

It was a busy day, as there were many things to arrange besides the packing. Gallatin did not appear at the house all day, and Courtney did not expect him. Toward ten that night the packing was finished and everything ready for an early departure. Courtney went downstairs and out across the moonlit lawn. Slowly, with gaze straight ahead, she strolled toward the lake, toward the summer house in the copse at the western edge of the grounds. She entered, curled herself up on the broad seat, her elbow upon the rail, her hand supporting her chin. She watched the moonlight in the ripples along the middle of the lake. From time to time, she lifted her head, strained her eyes into the encircling shadows, then resumed her attitude, mental as well as physical, of forlorn abstraction. Something less than half an hour, and when she lifted herself to glance round for the third or fourth time, she did not sink back, but slowly straightened, her breath coming quickly.

"Who's there?" she called softly, addressing the deep shadows over the path by which she had come.

No answer but the chorus of tiny creatures murmuring excitedly in every crevice and beneath every blade and leaf.

"Who is it?" she demanded, but not loudly or nervously. She stood up.

"Only I," came in Basil's voice, and he advanced and stood between the entrance pillars of the open rustic pavilion.

"Oh!" said she. And she resumed gazing over the water, but did not resume her seat.

"I saw you cross the lawn," he explained. "And I was afraid some one might intrude."

"Thank you," said she gratefully.

"You knew it was I�didn't you?" he went on.

A brief silence, then�"Yes," she admitted, and gave a little laugh.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Because I just realized that I was expecting you�that I came here hoping to see you. How one does lie to oneself!"

"Do you wish me to leave you?"

"No.... What a beautiful night it is!"

"The loveliest I ever saw."

"These locust blossoms� The perfume makes me feel languid�but not sleepy."

"I guess it is the locusts," he said. "I feel that way, too."

"I'm taking Winchie to my father's for a visit�in the morning."

"So Jimmie said."

"We'll stay until Richard comes back."

"I supposed so."

A silence. Then she: "I must go in soon," and an instant later, without realizing it, seated herself.

"I wrote to Starky�Estelle�to-day.... To ask her to fix the date for the marriage."

She shivered.

"I decided it was best for me to commit myself."

She buried her face in her hands.

"And," he went on, "you know I shall always love you�always! ... I say that because�in a few minutes now we'll part, and never see each other again."

With her face between her hands, she gazed at the dancing surface of the watery highway of moonlight, and repeated monotonously�"never see each other again." Then, after a moment, "How heavy the perfume of the locusts is."

"Yes," replied he, "but so sweet."

Then the thin film of surface over their emotions suddenly burst. "Never again�oh, my Courtney!" he cried between set teeth. Both had thought all day that they were calm and resigned. They knew now how they had been deceiving themselves. He flung away from her. Both knew what was coming, knew it was too late to save themselves, felt the wild reckless thrill of terror and rapture that precedes the breaking down of all barriers, the breaking up of all foundations, the free sweep of unfettered passion. So young�so young�with such a long stretch of empty years�and they never to see each other again!

"How can I live on, without you to help me?" she said.

"It'll be easier for you than for me. You have�your boy. I have�nothing." He sat down, away from her, stared into the blackness of the copse. "Nothing," he repeated. He was holding his breath and waiting for the inevitable storm to break.

"Basil!" she cried, and in impulsive sympathy reached out and touched him. "Won't it be something�to know that you have my heart�my�love?"

She felt him trembling, and there was a sob in his voice as he answered: "But when your arms ache with emptiness, you can put them round Winchie. While I�Courtney, how can I touch another woman, when it's you�you�you�" And his groping hand met hers, clasped it. He bent his head, kissed her hand�the back, the palm, then the fingers one by one. And they softly touched his cheek. "Basil!" she sighed.

The faint wind agitated the clusters of locust blooms; their perfume descended in heavy voluptuous waves. He pressed his hands one against each of her cheeks. "Courtney," he murmured. "My love�my dear love!" Their lips met.

"We must not!" she pleaded, her arms about his neck.

"After to-night," he reminded her, "we, who love, will never see each other again."

"Never again!" she moaned.

It was the signal both were unconsciously, yet deliberately, awaiting. He gave an inarticulate cry, caught her up as a strong wind a flower. "I've had enough of right and wrong," cried he. "You are mine! I will not let you go. I love you�I love you�I love you!" And he showered kisses upon her until she, dizzy and fainting, yet never so alive, was clinging to him, was calling him endearing names, was laughing and sobbing. And in that darkness and mad frenzy of longing and despair they could pretend to themselves that it was all as unreal as a dream�was, in fact, a dream, or at worst, impulse�irresistible, irresponsible.

He felt her heart flutter, halt in its steady, strong beat within her breast close against his. She raised her head from his shoulder, listened. "What is it?" he whispered.

"Listen."

A bird broke from the copse and with a great noise of wings against leaves blundered away to another and higher place. "A bird�that was all," said he.

"Sh�h! No. They never stir so suddenly at night without cause." She was cold, was shivering. They looked at each other, tingling with guilty alarm.

"I'll go see."

"Yes�do."

He disengaged himself lingeringly, with a parting caress of his lips along her cheek. "It's cold," she murmured. "And I'm�I'm afraid." Never before in all her life had she been afraid.

He went softly along the path until the shadows hid him. After a moment he returned to the entrance. "I see nothing," said he.

"And I hear nothing�any more," replied she. "You don't know what a queer, creepy sensation I had. It was�was�as if some one were near us."

He did not seat himself by her again. "Isn't it�very�very late?" he said hesitatingly.

"Perhaps. But come, dear. Let's forget. It was nothing. Oh, I was so happy�and now�Basil, I'm cold."

Instead of sitting and taking her in his arms he drew her to her feet. "I saw your front door open," he said. "I think you'd better go."

She flung herself into his arms. "No�no!" she cried. "Not yet."

He held her closely, but soon released her. "You had better go," urged he, and she felt nervousness and constraint in his tone, in his touch.

She laughed quietly. "What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing!" he retorted stoutly. "Still, the door is open, and some one might��"

"Why, you're quite cold! ... Basil, what is it?"

"Nothing�nothing at all," replied he, his arms round her again, his lips upon hers.

Presently she said: "I thought you were neglecting me rather long. It's a habit men have after�after a woman is entirely theirs."

"Don't say those things, even in joke," he begged, so seriously that it jarred on her overwrought nerves.

"If you take that sort of remarks in earnest," said she, a trace of resentment in her tone, "I'll be likely to believe there's something in it."

"It was so�so frank," apologized he.

"Why not speak frankly?" said she. "One of the joys of loving you is that we'll be entirely frank with each other. I'll never be afraid to show you how much I love you, or to say whatever thought comes into my mind. And you must feel that you can be your natural self always, can speak out any thought you may have, no matter what it is. All that doesn't mean much to you. But to me�" She drew a long, deep breath. "You�a man�couldn't possibly know how delicious it is to a woman to be able to be her�her naked self! ... You're not listening. You don't hold me tightly. Are you shocked?"

"No," answered he with constraint. "I keep thinking of�of�that door."

She was silent, offended.

"I wasn't quite frank with you a moment ago."

"Already!" she sighed. Then, repentantly: "I know I'm silly. But it means so much to me to feel that we�you and I�can stand before each other, just as we are. Oh, I've hidden myself so long, Basil. Your love�the great temptation of it was that it meant freedom. If I were your wife, you'd expect all sorts of conventional things of me. If you were my husband, I'd feel and you'd feel we had to live up to standards and do customary things. As it is, our love's free�free!"

He was silent.

"Basil, don't you feel that way?"

"Yes, dear," he answered absently. "But�I must tell you. When I went out�a while ago to look, I saw Nanny on the porch."

Even in that dimness he saw the terror in her face. "On the porch!" she gasped. She sprang up. "Why didn't you tell me before?" she cried angrily.

"I�I thought it might alarm you foolishly."

"I'm not a hysterical fool. Please don't forget that�again."

"Courtney!"

"Oh, forgive me�my love." When they had embraced: "Yes�I must go�at once.... Why can't you come with me? Start as soon as you see I'm at the door. But you mustn't cross the lawn. You must go round by the shadows. It would be quite safe. You needn't go back to the shop."

"Impossible!"

She was silent, waiting for him to feel how hurt she was and to reassure her. But he stood aloof, and presently asked in a constrained voice, "How long will you be at your father's?"

"At my father's!" she exclaimed. "Why, I shall not go!"

"You must," he insisted. "You've made all the arrangements."

"You can send me away�now?"

"Please�dear. Don't be unreasonable. If you changed your plan everybody'd think it strange."

"Everybody�who?"

"Nanny, for instance."

"Nanny? Why should I care what Nanny thinks? My first scare was only�guilty conscience. Basil, why are you so queer�so absent and�distant? Tell me�just what it is in your mind?"

She rested her hands pleadingly on his shoulders and looked up at him. In her eyes, as in his, shone the fever of their delirium. He took her hands, kissed her. "Don't be foolish," he said, trying to laugh. "I guess I am a little bit unnerved."

But she was not satisfied. "Basil�do you regret?"

"Courtney! Courtney!" he pleaded. "That's the way to tear our happiness down, stone by stone, till nothing's left but ruins. You must not be suspicious." He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder with an air of possession. "Of course I love you, more than ever."

"You say it in a tone that�that sounds like superior to inferior." She sighed. "Is nothing in the world up to its promise? Here, I thought we'd be perfectly happy�two pariahs together�two lost souls�but accepting our punishment of secret shame and hypocrisy�accepting it gladly, as it was the price we had to pay for freedom and each other. And already, in the first hour, we're almost quarreling. It must not be, Basil."

"No, dearest," he cried. "And it will not be. We will be happy. Trust me. I'm unstrung�and maybe you, too. But you know I love you�more than I ever thought. And really you ought to go in the morning�really, dearest! You need stay only two days. You can come home the second day. Don't you see we must�must�must be careful? Now that there's something to conceal, we can't act any longer as we did."

She laid her clasped hand on her breast, looked wistfully up at him. "We can't ever be free and unafraid again, can we?" said she. "It isn't just one act of�of concealment�is it?�and freedom and openness afterwards. I see lies�and lies�and yet more lies�stretching away�away�until�" She shuddered, hid her face in his shoulder. "Oh, my love!"

"I'd tell all the lies in the world to have you." He embraced her almost roughly. "All�all! And care not a rap. You�you are my god and my morality. To love you, to have you, to keep you�that's all. The rest is trash."

"Yes�yes," echoed she feverishly. "The rest is trash. We've got the best. Love!"

"And we'll hold on to it�always!"

"Must I go in the morning, when life has just begun? How can I? No�no�don't answer. I know you're right. I'll go�and ... Good by!"

She flung her arms about him. He caught up her small, warm body with its soft curves and its radiations of vivid, perfumed life. Their lips clung together. They separated, laughed dizzily. She waved her arm and darted up the path. From the shadows he watched her cross the lawn, like some creation of the summer and the moonlight. In the doorway she paused, waved to him once more; the door closed. Then he, like a thief, sneaked along the retaining walls at the lake shore�now stooping to keep in the deep shadow, out of sight of anyone who might be watching from the house�now advancing erect with stealthy swiftness�until he was able to strike into the darkness of the path to the Smoke House.

Midway in undressing his eyes chanced upon her picture, framed and hanging opposite the foot of the bed�a large photograph, with Winchie, a tiny baby, against her shoulder, his fat check pressing upon hers. Basil stood before the picture, his expression a very human and moving mingling of awe and adoration and passion. Suddenly he remembered to whom that picture belonged. "But not she!" he said aloud defiantly. Nevertheless, he flushed, hung his head, switched off the light, and sought his bed. "How can I ever face him?" he muttered. Then: "She is mine! She never was really his. I take nothing that belongs to him. I take nothing she could give, or ever did give, to him."

He fell immediately into a sound sleep�the exhaustion of nerves so long on fierce tension. But about two in the morning he started up, listened. Yes, some one was moving beneath the window. He went to it, looked down. There was Courtney, swathed in a long, dark cloak. He thrust his feet into slippers, drew on a big dressing gown, descended, and opened the door. He stretched out his arms.

She flung herself against his breast. "I couldn't go without seeing you again," she panted. "After I left you, and got into bed, I began to think all sorts of dreadful things about you. You acted so strangely. And then I felt ashamed of myself, felt I must come and beg your pardon. And�and�here I am. Are you glad?"

His laugh was answer enough. He took her in his arms, carried her up to the sitting room, set her down on the sofa. "How light you are!" he cried. "But how strong�I've seen you swing Winchie to your shoulder as if he were nothing at all. Now�please�won't you let your hair down? There never was such hair as yours."

She sat up, let the cloak fall away. The moon was flooding the room. As she sat there, with eyes sparkling and small, sensitive face shy-bold, she looked as if she had sprung to mortal life from an old folk song about loreleis and nymphs and enchanted princesses. "You floated in on the moonbeams," he declared. "I'm afraid, if I don't shut the window, you'll flit away."

"That'd not stop me," laughed she. And she began to take her hair down. Just as it was about to unroll, she paused. "Wouldn't you like to take it down yourself?"

He went round behind her, drew out the hairpins one by one, fumbling softly, lingeringly for them, keeping them carefully. Her hair loosened, uncoiled, fell about her in a shimmering veil. "Oh, my love!" he cried. "My beautiful Courtney!" And he took the soft, perfumed veil in his hands, kissed it again and again, buried his face in it, wrapped her head and his together in it.

She laughed delightedly, then drew away, looking at him with mock severity. "And where, sir, did you learn how to make a woman so happy?"

"What things you do say!" he laughed, just a little bit scandalized. "I might ask the same question of you."

"And I can answer it�" with a mocking smile�"without evasion. Imagination. I've so often thought�and thought�and thought�what I would be to a man I freely loved�one I wasn't afraid of scandalizing. Oh, I know I shock you�for there's a great deal you've yet to learn about women�that they're human, just like men. But you'll learn�and then I think you'll see I'm good�for I am. I couldn't be bad�hate anyone�play mean tricks, say or do mean things. Don't you wish I were tall�wish there were more of me?"

"I couldn't live through it."

"And you really�really�love me?"

He held her tightly by the shoulders, gazed into her eyes. "So much that, if you were untrue to me, I'd kill you."

"Now, what made you think of that?"

"I don't know."

Thoughtfully: "I guess it is because I'm giving myself to you when I am�am� Now, there you go, shocked again."

He laughed recklessly. "Give me time," said he, "and I'll get used to it. You say you'd rather I showed just how I felt than locked it away and pretended."

"Yes�yes�a thousand times! I don't mind your being shocked�not really." With a queer little laugh, "I'm shocked myself. Somehow I seem to delight in shocking myself�and you. Loving you is�all sorts of pleasures and pains. I want them all!"

"All!" he echoed. "Yes�all!"

Midway in her embrace she stopped him, pushed him laughingly away with, "But you weren't quite frank a while ago."

"When?"

"There at the lake."

"Why do you think so?"

"Did you ever see one of those little toy spaniels�how they quiver and shiver all the time? I'm just as sensitive as that. You mustn't try to deceive me�ever! You mustn't say or act any of those hypocrisies of what some people call good taste, either. They're not necessary with me. They'd make me feel deceived. I might not confess I knew�and then�'The little rift within the lute.'"

"I guess I'll tell you," he said for the moment deeply impressed. "Yes, I will."

"Tell me everything�everything. There mustn't be any concealment�anything to lie hid away in the depths of some dark closet to rot and rot and infect the whole house." She suddenly lowered her head; and, as the full meaning of her words, the meaning she had not foreseen, reached him, he, too, became ill at ease.

Presently he said: "I didn't want to frighten you needlessly. When I saw Nanny�she was�just going up the steps of the porch."

Courtney's eyes widened and her face blanched. "You think�" she began when she could find voice.

"I couldn't tell which direction she had come from," he replied. "But it's no matter. She couldn't know."

Courtney remembered the darkness�how grateful she had been for its friendly aid. "No," said she resolutely. "She couldn't know."

"Certainly not," echoed he, as if the idea that she could were absurd. "But it made me realize how careful we must be."

"Yes," replied she thoughtfully. "Yes." And she was clinging to him, was sobbing. "Oh, my love�my love�I don't care what comes, if only it does not separate us.... Look! Look!" she cried, pointing out into the sky. "Dawn! I must fly. Where are my slippers!"

He found them for her, put them on, bundled her into her cloak, picked her up, and hurried downstairs with her. "I'm not so little," said she. "It's because you're so big and strong. One kiss�quick!"

He kissed her�on the lips and, as she turned to go, again on the nape of the neck. "Day after to-morrow!" he cried.

"Yes, I'll come here at nine, rain or shine."

And she ran along the path. The moon had set; it was intensely dark. Arriving within sight of the house she stopped short. There were lights, upstairs and down, shadows of moving figures on the curtains. "God!" she ejaculated. "What shall I do!" And for the first time the great fear�the fear a woman has when she thinks she has lost her reputation�buried its talons in her throat and its beak in her heart. Do? Face it! She lifted her head high, gathered herself together, advanced boldly. As she entered the front door she ran into Nanny.

"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded. In the same instant her courage fled and she leaned faint against the wall. "Winchie!" she gasped. "Has something happened to him?"

Nanny was standing stiffly with eyes down�a sullen figure, accusing, contemptuous. But she answered respectfully enough if surlily: "Winchie missed you and came up and waked me and Mazie just now."

Down the stairs came the boy, sobbing, shouting, "Mamma! Mamma! I lost you."

Courtney caught him up, hugged him, kissed him. "You silly baby!" she cried, laughing. "What a fuss about nothing. Put out the lights, Nannie." Halfway up the stairs she hesitated. Would it be more natural to make an explanation or to say nothing? She decided it was best, more like her usual self, to say nothing. "Put out the lights and go to bed," she repeated.