Part 44 (1/2)

And then, as if every atom of his great, strong body had suddenly succ.u.mbed to some long-growing exhaustion, Corey dropped down into a chair and threw out his arm across the table as if he would put away from him as far as possible that offending decoration.

”But when?”-Mr. Ewing found himself reiterating-”when-when-you haven't been away-”

”Oh, yes,” said Corey. ”You remember, in August.”

And here Mr. Ewing confessed that he thought for a moment that Corey must be hopelessly mad. There was the question of time, and a dozen other questions besides. It seemed out of the realm of possibility, out of the realm of reason.

”How did you keep her from knowing?”

Mr. Ewing had not wanted to ask-had hoped the point would explain itself-and Corey looked for a moment as if he might be planning an evasion-then braced himself and looked Mr. Ewing straight in the eyes. A faint expression of scorn came round his mouth, as if he spoke of another-a scoundrel who hardly deserved his scorn.

”I left letters-dated ahead-with the scrubwoman at the laboratory to mail.” He said it, took his eyes from Mr. Ewing's, and then he appeared to wait.

Mr. Ewing sat there filled with a kind of amazement, touched with fear for what should come next, and suddenly he became conscious that Corey was watching him with what seemed a tremendous anxiety, waiting for him to speak. And a moment later, apparently no longer able to bear that silence, Corey leaned nervously toward Mr. Ewing, and asked in the tone of one seeking an answer of utmost importance: ”You don't see it? You don't see what she saw?”

”See what?” said Mr. Ewing-”what _who_ saw?” Yet he knew that Corey had meant his wife. It was she who had found the _Croix_ ... but what did he mean she had seen?

”Don't keep it back-just to be decent! She said it was plain, plain enough for anybody to see. What I want to _know_ is if everybody knew it but me!”

”Knew what?” cried poor Mr. Ewing, lost more completely now than before.

”Knew why I've done all the things I've done-run all the risks. Why I went over there this time, in August, without letting her know-G.o.d knows _I_ didn't know why!-why I've _always_ gone!”

”Why have you?” The question asked itself.

”Because I wanted the decorations! The d.a.m.ned orders and medals and things! Because I couldn't resist getting a new one-wherever I saw a chance. Do you believe a man could be as-as _rotten_ as that, all his life, and not know it himself?”

Slowly, then, Mr. Ewing began to see. And remotely it began to dawn upon him-the thing ”she” in her anger had done. For there was no doubt that the thing was done. The man's faith and belief in himself, in the cleanness and simplicity of his own motives, were gone-and gone in a single devastating blow from which he had not, and could never, recover.

And, searching for the right thing to say, Mr. Ewing stumbled, as one always will, upon the one thing he should never have said:

”But you know better than that. You know it's not so.”

Corey's answer was not argumentative; it only stated, wearily, the fact which from the first had seemed to possess his mind:

”No, I don't know it's not so. I've never been able to give any reasons for doing the things myself. _You've_ asked me why.... I couldn't tell.”

”Why, it was youth,” said Mr. Ewing, and one can imagine him saying it, gently, as an old-fas.h.i.+oned physician might offer his homely remedy to a patient whose knowledge exceeded his own. ”Men do those things when they're young.”

And Corey, rejecting the simple, old-fas.h.i.+oned cure, made an attempt at a smile for the kindness in which it was offered. ”All men are young, some time,” he said; ”all men don't do them.”

”But you happened to be the kind who would.” And at this Corey made no attempt to smile.

”That's it!” he said. ”I _wasn't_ the kind. I was the kind to stay at home.... _I_ know that. I was always happier here in Dubuque. And now-this last- You'd hardly say that was on account of my youth!”

”No-but it had got into your blood.”

Corey at this gave a start and looked up suddenly at Mr. Ewing. ”Into my blood- It's the very word she used! When she admitted I might not have known it myself, she said she supposed it was just 'in my blood'!”

He made a gesture which began violently and ended in futility, and sat silent, looking off steadily into s.p.a.ce, as if hearing again all those dreadful revelations of hers. And once or twice Mr. Ewing, who sat helplessly by, waiting, perhaps praying, for some inspiration, made a valiant but utterly vain effort to put out his hand, to show by some mere physical act, if no other, his unshaken belief in his friend.

And so, when the need for speech had become imperative, Mr. Ewing found himself saying something to the effect that these things pa.s.s; that she had only been angry, and had said the first thing that had come into her mind. And Corey, realizing the extremity into which he had led his friend, rose and, either ignoring or not hearing, from the depth of the chasm into which he had fallen, Mr. Ewing's last remark, made some hurried attempt at apology, and awkwardly moved toward the door.