Chapter 13

Toward eight o'clock came Vaughan, in high spirits. Basil, stiff and sore, was still lying on the bed.

"Sure you don't want breakfast?" said Richard. Then, getting a view of his partner's face: "You are a sight! I beg pardon, old man. I've got a few marks, myself. But� You must have the doctor."

"No, thanks," was Basil's surly answer. "I'm all right."

"But you ought to do something for that eye�and that cheek. I sure did give you some hard punches." As this sounded as if it were�and was�not without a certain pride, he added: "The worst you gave me are hidden by my clothes�except these finger marks. What a stupid thing for me to do! And poor Courtney's quite done up this morning. Really, old man, you'd better let me send for the doctor."

"I'll telephone for him," said Basil. "I want to be left alone."

"Beg pardon. I've done nothing but apologize ever since I got home. Well, I'll go to work. Don't bother to come down to-day. I shan't need you."

Gallatin muttered "Selfish beast," as soon as Dick was clear of the room. And it was undeniable that Dick's pretense of sympathy had been rather more offhand than such pretenses usually are. He had never had to conciliate and cultivate his fellow beings in getting a living, and had been brought up indulgently by Colonel 'Kill and Eudosia. Thus he was candid in his selfishness, often appeared worse than would a man who was in reality more selfish, but was through fear or training, less self-revealing. However, Basil was not one with the right in any circumstances to be censorious of such undiplomatic conduct; for he, too, had been born and bred to wealth and security, and had been "spoiled" by a worshipful family.

Not for a week did he dare show his face. Dick called twice a day�did all the talking�always about the chemistry into which he had plunged with freshened energy and enthusiasm. Usually he apologized for Courtney's not coming�"She still feels weak and upset," he would say, "and wants me to make her excuses. I tell her you'd refuse to see her even if she could come."

When Basil's face and complexion were once more about normal, he waited until Richard was at work downstairs, then adventured the path to the house. He found Courtney in the sitting room, in a n�glig�e, sewing; Winchie was building a lofty house of blocks on the veranda just outside for her to admire. He scowled at Winchie; Winchie scowled at him and, when his back was turned, made a face at him. "Good morning, Mrs. Vaughan," said he coldly. "I've come to pack my traps." In a lower tone that was menacing, he added, "I want to see you."

She laid aside her sewing, a strained expression in the eyes that shone wistfully in her pallid face. The boy dropped the block he was putting into place and stood up. "Go on with the house, Winchie," said she. Then to Basil, "You may come right upstairs."

She preceded him into the study on the left of the upper hall�the study that had been his, and was now Richard's. He, following, closed the door, advanced toward her with lowering brow and angry eyes.

"It's very imprudent to close the door," said she, calmly returning his gaze. "Nanny is at work across the hall."

"Did you break your promise to me that night?" he demanded.

"I'll answer no question�not even from you, Basil�when it's in that tone."

"First you want me to open the door, so that I can't speak out," sneered he. "Now you evade.... You admit your degradation. I knew why you were keeping away from me."

"That was not my reason," she stammered, with lowered head.

"You lie! You are doubly false. You have no shame. Now I understand why you said those bold things�why you acted so free�as no innocent woman could. You�expert!"

Her eyes were milky like a tortured sea; her face became ghastly; she trembled so that she had to steady herself at the back of a chair. "Basil!" she exclaimed. "No, it's not you. What we've suffered since he came has driven you mad. It has almost crazed me."

"Answer me!" he commanded fiercely. "Did you or did you not break your promise to me?"

Suddenly she drew herself up, and with the sad dignity of guilt that has been expiated she said: "I ask you to pity me." And she stood there, pale and haggard, a statue of wretchedness.

His fury could not hold against that spectacle�and she, the proud, asking for pity! "It's I who should be ashamed," he cried. "How I have suffered! What a coward�what a cur I am!"

She rushed to him. "Oh, my love! What we've been suffering has only made you dearer to me, dearer than ever! There's no bond like suffering."

He was about to take her outstretched hands when suspicion flamed into his eyes again. "How easily you twist me round your finger!" he said roughly. "Now, there's your making me move down to the shop. Why should you want to get me out of the house when, if I were here, we could see each other all the time?"

She showed no resentment, felt none. "It's natural you should suspect me," said she. "I'd suspect you in the same circumstances. I see now how absurd it was to dream of happiness founded on lies. No happiness for us�not even joy now and then. If we didn't love each other, we might be happy. But we do love, and misery is all we can expect. I'll tell you why I wanted you down there." She paused, went on with veiled eyes and bright red in her cheeks. "As I said to you, even dishonor has its honor. I didn't want us meeting here�with my boy�and his�so near."

Basil looked as if he were about to sink down under his shame and self-contempt. "Forgive me. What a hound I am!" he muttered.

"As for my free actions and free speech��"

"Courtney!" he begged, seizing her hands. "Don't speak of that."

"I must explain," she insisted gently, freeing herself. "I'll always explain everything to you. As I told you, I wanted to be free with you, perfectly free. So I said and did the things any woman who loved would think and feel, but most women hold back for fear of spoiling a lover's ideal. I didn't want you to idealize me, but to love me just as I was, just for what I am."

"And I do�I do!" he cried, trying to draw her into his arms.

"Yes, you do, I believe," answered she, insistently drawing back. "I know you truly love, and you know I truly love. I know you are a man any woman would be proud to have love her, and you know I'm not a low or a bad woman. Yet, see how it turns out.... Basil, we must give it up!"

"Give it up!" He was bristling with suspicion at once.

"You must go away."

He laughed scornfully. "That is your kind, considerate way of dismissing me. What vanity! I shall suffer no more than you."

"Not so much," she answered sadly.

"I shall go away and marry."

"You can't make me jealous now, Basil. Not after what you've been to me. I mean just what I say. You must go, and I'll try to be to my husband all a wife should be. If you'd been through what I've been through�that night and since�you'd understand. Basil, do you remember how I lied, how I laughed and cheated�like an 'expert,' as you say. Oh, you must have despised me! If you had done what I did, had done it as fluently, I'd have loathed you."

"And what about me? Didn't I stand there, a contemptible coward, and let him take you away?"

"What else could you have done?"

"Shown myself a man!"

"And ruined me�and my child? Oh, no, dear. You love me too well for that." She startled, listened. "He's coming," she warned, flying to the door. She opened it softly to its full width, advanced composedly into the hall, saying in her usual voice, "Then Jimmie'll take your things down about four o'clock."

Richard, on his way up, had reached the head of the stairs. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Here you are! I asked Winchie where you were, and he said he didn't know. So I've been hunting all over the place for you. I want you to take a walk with me."

"Certainly," said she tranquilly. "I'm talking business with Basil. Go down and help Winchie finish his house, and we'll take him along. I'll come in a few minutes."

"All right!" said Dick cheerfully. He shouted out, "Hey, Gallatin, how's your grouch?" and descended the stairs, laughing as he went.

As she re�ntered the sitting room, she said, with the quietness of the emotions that are too deep and too terrible for tumult, "Am I not 'expert'? How long do you think we could keep this sort of thing up without becoming�I tell you, Basil, looking within myself as I've lain in the dark, I've realized it takes decent people�people with nerves and imaginations and sense of right and wrong�to become frightful, if they once get on the down grade. Did you hear what he said about Winchie?"

"Yes," muttered Basil. He was at the desk, his elbows on it, his hands supporting his head.

"Winchie knew where I was. Why did he lie to his father? Already a liar!"

"I must go. You are right� But, Courtney�you must get a divorce."

"I've thought of that. On what ground? And how can I leave him alone�take Winchie away from him?"

"You must get a divorce."

"I think so, too," assented she. "But I will not lie to do it. I'm done with lies. I'll tell him."

"No�let's go to him together." Basil's face lighted up, his manner became enthusiastic. He thought he saw a way to redeem his manhood put in pawn for this sin so dear yet so detestable. "Together!" he exclaimed. "He is generous and broadminded."

She shook her head. "Men are not generous and broadminded where women are concerned�the women they look on as theirs."

He colored and glanced guiltily at her. But it was plain that she had not in mind his own exhibition of the male attitude toward the female. His memory of it helped him to appreciate the folly of his proposal. But he would not give in at once. "I'd not suggest it, if he really loved you. But��"

"If he really loved me, he'd have felt the truth long ago. If he really loved me, he'd wish me to be happy�would give me up. But then�if he had really loved me, none of this would ever have happened. No, Basil, it's because he doesn't love me, because it's only passion that takes and gives nothing, that uses and doesn't think or care about the feelings of its creature��"

Basil, horror-stricken by this bald candor, ashamed for her, stopped her. "Let's not talk about it," he pleaded. "As for the divorce, I leave it to you. You know best how to deal with him."

His manner and its cause had not escaped her, with nerves keyed up to the snapping point. Once again he had raised in her heart the dread lest their love would not mean the perfect frankness, the perfect oneness of which she had dreamed. Did a man always demand and compel concealment and pretense in the woman? But she thrust out the doubt. "I'll do what seems best," she said to him, avoiding his eyes and speaking with constraint. "I don't know Richard very well. You see, we never got acquainted. He's like most men. They don't want the woman, but only the outside.... He's so wrapped up in his work that I think I can free myself."

He took her hands, gazed into her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you do love me. You feel that we belong to each other, just as I do. So when I'm away I'll know you are coming�as soon as you can."

"As soon as I can," she replied. And the expression of her eyes, meeting his steadfastly, and the deep notes in her sweet voice thrilled him with a new sense of her love and of her constancy. This woman had not given in whim; she would not change in whim.

"I will go�to-morrow," he said. "The sooner I go, the sooner I shall have you. Will you come to-night to say good-by?"

"Don't ask it, dear. I mustn't ever again�until I'm free."

"In the summer house, then. For a few minutes. We can't part like this."

"Yes, I'll come."

Along the hall from the foot of the stairs sounded Richard's imperious, impatient voice. "I say, Courtney! Do hurry!"

"I can't go for a walk with him now," she said, half to herself. "I'll make some excuse." She looked at Basil, he at her. In their eyes was a sadness beyond words and tears. And what would it be when he was really gone? "I mustn't linger here�I mustn't!" she cried. "And don't come near me when he's around. I can't control myself."

They clung together for an instant, then she fled.

She made vague household matters her excuse for not taking the walk. She did not see Richard alone until late that afternoon. She was in her and Winchie's big bathroom, which she also used as a dressing room. As she sat at the dressing table there, in petticoat and corset cover, doing her finger nails, he walked in. "May I come?" said he, already in the middle of the room.

She glanced at him, or, rather, in his direction, by way of the mirror and went on with her polishing. But she was not resentful of the scant courtesy of this intrusion. In the beginning of their married life she, through love, had confirmed him in his life-long habit of considering only himself and of expecting himself to be considered first. Now, indifference was making her as compliant as love had made her. And it was just as well. An attempt to assert herself would have seemed to him a revolt which pride and duty made it imperative for him to put down. The man a woman has spoiled through love, or the woman a man has spoiled, must be born again to be got back within bounds.

"You don't ask how I happen to be home so early�nearly an hour before supper," said he.

"It is early," replied she absently.

"I've made up my mind not to kill myself with work and no exercise, and to give more time to my family. I had a chance to look at myself�at my way of life�from the outside while I was in the East. And I'm going to try to live a more human life, though it'll not be easy to work less, when Gallatin's leaving me."

Until he spoke Gallatin's name she had not heard a word. We are all surrounded at all times in our customary haunts by a multitude of unchanging objects, animate and inanimate. We become practically unconscious of them so long as they maintain the same relative position toward us. We notice only changes, only those changes that are radical. Richard had long been to Courtney a mere familiar part of her environment�as she of his. She could look at him without seeing him, could answer him without having really heard. She could submit to his caresses without any sense of them. This unconsciousness was not deliberate; it was far deeper, it was habitual. At Gallatin's name, however, she began to listen.

"Yes, he's going," said Richard.

She inspected the nail of her right little finger. "Is he?" she asked, head on one side critically and emery slip poised.

"For good. And I'm not sorry. He's of less and less use to me at the laboratory. His mind isn't on it." There Richard laughed.

"I thought you felt you couldn't get on without him," said she, searching in a box for an orange-wood stick.

"That was some time ago. I suppose you're glad he's going."

"Why?"

"I know you don't like him. You've been very good about it, and I appreciate your being polite to him. But I can see that you dislike him."

She glanced in the mirror, arranged a stray of hair. "You are mistaken."

"No, I'm not. You've got the good woman's instinct to please her husband, and you think you've conquered your dislike. But you haven't."

"How you understand women," said she placidly. "But then there isn't much to understand about a woman�a good woman."

"Oh, you underestimate yourself," said he generously. "You're a very clever little lady�in your own charming feminine way. I often admire it."

A ghost of a smile flitted about her lips; but she seemed more intent upon her nails than upon his half-absent compliment.

"To confess the honest truth," he went on, "I've never liked Gallatin myself. I know he's a good sort� But� Well, he has no depth. He has a stock of education and a stock of manners, just as he has a stock of clothes. But it's all of some one else's make; nothing of his own, except a pleasant, amiable disposition. And he lacks purpose. However, all these things�especially lack of purpose�would only recommend him to a woman. Women are so frivolously constituted that purpose is a bore to them."

"Any more of a bore than it is to most men?" inquired Courtney.

Vaughan laughed acknowledgment. "Anyhow, I couldn't warm up to him. He's going, but he keeps his partnership�at least, for the present."

"Has he gone?"

"Of course not! He'd hardly be so rude as not to say good-by to you. Do you know why I think he's going?"

"Didn't he tell you?"

"He says a business letter came at noon to-day. And no doubt it had something to do with it. But mere business would hardly take him off in such a rush. At first I thought it was a hurry call from some idle female for him to come and amuse her. All bachelors get them, and Gallatin's just the sort of gander to respond. But on second thought I suspected he's flying because he's in love with you."

Courtney, conscious that his eyes were on her face, smiled.

"It's natural that you, being a good woman, shouldn't notice it."

"Women sometimes think a man's in love with them when he isn't," said she. "But the woman never lived�good, bad, or both�who didn't know when a man was in love with her."

"Well, I may be mistaken. But he had a queer way of acting. Why, only this morning he was lowering at me like a demon." Vaughan laughed. "Poor Gallatin. But he'll pull through all right."

"No doubt," said Courtney.

"Sometimes�now and then�a man or woman in love, and staying in some dull place, where there's nothing to do but brood, does go under, with love one among the contributing causes," pursued Richard. "But not a city person. And Gallatin's going to New York." Something in her expression made him hasten to say: "Now, please don't get angry. I apologize. I admit my joking was somewhat coarse. Naturally it grated on your modesty. Really, I was only joking. I know he's going for business reasons. Then, too, he has a grouch for me because of the fearful punch I gave him. No, he�any man who has led a free life as long as he has�could no more appreciate a good woman�a woman like you than�than�a drunkard could appreciate a glass of pure, clear, sparkling spring water."

Courtney gathered her manicure set together, swept it noisily into the drawer. "Go out, and let me finish dressing," said she in a low voice between her set teeth.

And he departed, saying: "What a relief it'll be to have Gallatin off the place�to have it to ourselves again."

She sat motionless with her eyes down. Presently she lifted them, saw her reflection in the mirror. She gazed in horror. She had relaxed the instant he left her alone, and now all her anguish was in her features. "A little more of this," said she, "and I'd be an old woman." She passed her hands over her face, looked into her eyes. "Spring water" flashed to her mind. Her eyes wavered and sank; her skin burned. But her hungry heart clamored defiantly.

When she reached the dining room her husband and Basil and Winchie were already at the supper table. As they rose, Basil did not lift his eyes; her husband gave her a glance of greeting. But Richard, the married man of five years, did not really see her face as it then was, but the face that had long been fixed in his mind as hers. To have seen her as she was, he would have had to be startled out of matrimonial myopia by some shock. There was no arresting change flaunted in Courtney's features; youth has no wrinkles and hollows in which the shadows of emotion can gather thick and linger. She simply looked tired and not well. Her eyes were veiled; but in her skin there was a lack of the ruddy tinge beneath the bronze, and in her hair, which was with her an unfailing index to health or to spirits, there was a suggestion of the lifelessness that is in the last wan autumn leaves the dreary winds of November spurn. In tones that seemed to them more unnatural than they were, she and Basil exchanged the commonplaces necessary on such an occasion. Winchie watched her sympathetically. Presently he dropped down from his chair, came round to her. He put his arm about her neck, drew her head toward him, kissed her tenderly, and whispered, "Mamma is sick."

She kissed him, whispered: "Yes, dear, but you mustn't say anything."

Winchie went back to his place. The conversation was wholly between the two men, the subject being, of course, chemistry. After supper Courtney pleaded a headache and, having uttered the formulas prescribed for the parting and having heard from him the formulas embodying his part in such an exchange, withdrew. Instead of being agitated, she was in truth as calm as she seemed outwardly�and numb. She saw Winchie to bed, occupied herself mechanically for an hour, then sat at one of the windows of her front room looking out toward the lake. When she thought at all, it was of trifles; most of the time, during those two hours of waiting, she did not think, but listened to the beating of her blood as it made the ringing in the ears that climaxes the oppression of an intense silence.

At length Richard came up. He glanced in at her. "How's the headache?" he inquired, laying a caressing hand on her shoulder.

She moved; his hand fell away. "No better," replied she. "Good night."

"You'll feel all right in the morning," he said. He kissed her crown of hair and departed toward his own rooms�those that had been Basil's.

She heard him stirring about, first in his study just across the hall, then in his bedroom. Half an hour, and she went on the balcony, to the corner of the house, to see if his lights still showed. All his windows were dark. She returned, listened at his door. No sound. She stole down the stairs, unlatched the lake-front door, went out. She strolled across the lawn, in full view�for the moon was rising. At the edge of the shadows made by the bushes round the summer house, she halted.

"Basil!" she called softly.

He came from the summer house and stood before her. "It's safer to stay here," she said. "We can watch the house."

He made no protest. He took her hands, drew her to his breast. Never before had he touched her without feeling the glow and surge of passion; now he had no sense of her physical beauty, of her physical charm, only sense of the being he loved.

"Forgive me the horrible things I said, Courtney," he murmured. "It wasn't I that was speaking. It was the beginnings of what I was fast becoming."

"I know, I know," she answered. "Kiss me, dear."

Their lips met in a caress of tenderness. When she spoke again she said: "Dear love, I never felt before how much you care."

"I never realized before. I'm beginning to realize. You won't be long about arranging the divorce?"

"You must not get impatient�or misunderstand�if I'm longer than you expect."

"I'll not misunderstand."

"There's Winchie, you know. I must have Winchie."

"Yes, indeed. You'll accomplish it," he said confidently. "Be careful not to tell him too much. Even if he doesn't really love you, there's his vanity. And that's often stronger in a man than anything else."

"I'll not forget what's at stake.... He suspects that you love me."

"I was afraid so, and this evening I told him I was engaged. He looked astounded."

"I can tell him that I love you, and he will think� No�no�what am I saying? Lies, always lies! ... I'll do the best I can, Basil."

"I know you will."

"You see now I was right in feeling you must go?"

"I felt it, Courtney, the moment we three stood together there in my room�though I wouldn't admit it to myself. If I stayed, there'd be a crime, or a scandal that'd spatter you with mud and brand you with shame. It simply could not be otherwise."

"I haven't told you the real deep-down reason why I felt you must go."

"No," he said. "Your real reason was the same as mine."

"Because it was all so vulgar and�and cheap?"

"Cheap�that's it!" he exclaimed. "Cheap!"

"I could stand it," she went on, "to commit and to have you commit, big, bold sins, scarlet and black. I might even glory in it. I wasn't a bit ashamed that first night. I think I even got a sort of joy out of defying all I'd been brought up to believe was moral and right and lady-like. But� Not when we stood there, like two caught sneak thieves."

"That was it, Courtney," eagerly assented he. And he went on, in a tone in which a less love-blinded woman might have detected an accent of repentance for masculine thoughts of disrespect: "No wonder I love you! How happy we shall be, when you're free. How good and pure you are�and innocent. It needn't be long�in this State�need it?"

"I think not," she laughed. "Being a judge's daughter, I ought to know. But I don't."

"Look there!" he exclaimed, gazing toward the house.

She turned, saw a figure at the east corner of the house, apparently looking toward where they were standing. The figure moved. "Nanny," she said under her breath. "I must go."

He caught her to his breast; for an instant they clung together, then with a last lingering handclasp, she left him, to emerge from the deep shadow of the trees and stroll back across the lawn. Presently she pretended to catch sight of Nanny, halted, changed her course, went toward her. "What is it, Nanny?" she asked.

Nanny turned without a word, started to go back toward her kitchen.

"Nanny!" said she sharply.

The old woman stopped, turned.

"What do you mean by not answering me when I speak to you?"

"I didn't know as you expected an answer," replied Nanny, sullen and cowed, but insolent underneath.

"I asked you what you were doing here?"

The two women looked straight into each other's eyes. "I just came out to get a breath of air�like you," said Nanny. "I don't see as there's any harm in that."

"Certainly not," said Courtney. And she resumed her stroll, back and forth across the lawn for three quarters of an hour.

She did not come down to breakfast. About nine o'clock Richard, at the Smoke House, called her on the telephone.

"Gallatin cleared out on the midnight express," said he. "Now, what do you think of that?"

"Why?"

"He left a note saying good-by and explaining that he found he could make better time."

"Well?"

"Don't you think it a little queer?"

"No."

"Anyhow, he's gone. I feel better already. Don't you?"

"I can't say I do."

"Well�I'll see you at dinner."

"Yes�good-by."

She returned to her sitting room, all in a glow. Basil had gone because he, sensitive and honorable, wished to spare himself the hypocrisy of a farewell handshake with Richard�"and to end the suspense," she added. "The suspense!" And she struck her hands against her throbbing temples.

A few days and there came from New York a crate of orchids, with only his card. "That's what I call decent and very handsome," declared Vaughan, roused to enthusiasm by this attention. "I must say I rather miss Basil, now that he's really gone. Don't you?"

"Yes," said Courtney.

"Which means no. Don't even these orchids soften your heart? Think how he used to let you work him. Oh, women! women! Orchids cost a lot of money, don't they?"

"Some kinds."

"When you write thanking him, do put cordiality and friendliness into the note."

"Very well."

She sent eighteen closely written pages�a line about the orchids, the rest an outpouring of love and longing�a sad letter, yet hopeful�and ending with the injunction that it be left unanswered. "You must not write until you hear from me," she said. "And that will be soon�soon, my love, my Basil!"

Next day Dick asked, "Have you thanked Basil for those flowers?"

"Certainly."

"I wish you had let me see the letter. I'll bet you made it all frost. You don't know how cold you are, Courtney. Sometimes you chill even me, well as I know you.... I guess I'll write Basil a note, too�and let him see that we did appreciate his thoughtfulness."

"As you please."