Part 54 (1/2)

Something of the old lawless spirit of adventure that had spurred on his reckless forbears urged him to carry the girl back with him. She didn't love him. He would take her in spite of that; overpower her; force her to go. It was a revenge of superb audacity. Shepler had not been sure of her until now. Well, Shepler might be hurled from that certainty by one hour of determined action.

The great wild wish narrowed itself into a definite plan. He recalled the story Uncle Peter had told at the Oldakers' about the woman and her hair. A woman could be coerced if a man knew her weakness. He could coerce her. He knew it instinctively; and the instinctive belief rallied to its support a thousand little looks from her, little intonations of her voice, little turnings of her head when they had been together. In spite of her calculations, in spite of her love of money, he could make her feel her weakness. He was a man with the power.

It was heady wine for the morning. He described himself briefly as a lunatic, and walked on again. But the crazy notion would not be gone.

The day before he had been pa.s.sive. Now he was active, acutely aware of himself and all his wants. He walked a mile trying to dismiss the idea.

He sat down again, and it flooded back upon him with new force.

Her people were gone. She had even intimated a wish to talk with him again. It could be done quickly. He knew. He felt the primitive superiority of man's mere brute force over woman. He gloried in his knotted muscles and the crus.h.i.+ng power of his desires.

Afterward, she would reproach him bitterly. They would both be unhappy.

It was no matter. It was the present, the time when he should be living. He would have her, and Shepler--Shepler might have had the One Girl mine--but this girl, never!

Again he tried faithfully to walk off the obsession. Again were his essays at sober reason unavailing.

His mind was set as it had been when he bought the stocks day after day against the advice of the best judges in the Street. He could not turn himself back. There must be success. There could not be a giving up--and there must not be failure.

Hour after hour he alternately walked and rested, combating and favouring the mad project. It was a foolish little world, and people were always waiting for another time to begin the living of life. The German had quoted Martial: ”To-morrow I will live, the fool says; to-day itself's too late. The wise lived yesterday.”

If he did go away alone he knew he would always regret it. If he carried her triumphantly off, doubtless his regret for that would eventually be as great. The first regret was certain. The latter was equally plausible; but, if it came, would it not be preferable to the other? To have held her once--to have taken her away, to have triumphed over her own calculations, and, best of all, to have triumphed over the money-king resting fatuously confident behind his wealth, dignifying no man as rival who was not rich. The present, so, was more than any possible future, how dire soever it might be.

He was mad to prove to her--and to Shepler--that she was more a woman than either had supposed,--a woman in spite of herself, weak, unreasoning; to prove to them both that a determined man has a vital power to coerce which no money may ever equal.

Not until five o'clock had he by turns urged and fought himself to the ferry. By that time he had given up arguing. He was dwelling entirely upon his plan of action. Strive and grope as he would, the thing had driven him on relentlessly. His reason could not take him beyond the reach of its goad. Far as he went he loved her even farther. She belonged to him. He would have her. He seemed to have been storing, the day before, a vast quant.i.ty of energy that he was now drawing lavishly upon. For the time, he was pure, raw force, needing, to be resistless, only the guidance of a definite purpose.

He crossed the ferry and went to the hotel, where he shaved and freshened himself. He found Grant, the porter, waiting for him when he went downstairs, and gave him written directions to the railroad people to have the car attached to the Chicago Express leaving at eight the next morning; also instructions about his baggage.

”I expect there will be two of us, Grant; see that the car is well stocked; and here, take this; go to a florist's and get about four dozen pink roses--_la France_--can you remember?--pink--don't take any other colour, and be sure they're fresh. Have breakfast ready by the time the train starts.”

”Yes, Mistah Puhs'val!” said Grant, and added to himself, ”Yo' suttiny do ca'y yo'se'f mighty han'some, Mistah Man!”

Going out of the hotel, he met Launton Oldaker, with whom he chatted a few moments, and then bade good-bye.

Oldaker, with a sensitive regard for the decencies, refrained from expressing the hearty sympathy he felt for a man who would henceforth be compelled to live out of the world.

Percival walked out to Broadway, revolving his plan. He saw it was but six o'clock. He could do nothing for at least an hour. When he noted this he became conscious of his hunger. He had eaten nothing since morning. He turned into a restaurant on Madison Square and ordered dinner. When he had eaten, he sat with his coffee for a final smoke of deliberation. He went over once more the day's arguments for and against the novel emprise. He had become insensible, however, to all the dissenting ones. As a last rally, he tried to picture the difficulties he might encounter. He faced all he could imagine.

”By G.o.d, I'll do it!”

”_Oui, monsieur!_” said the waiter, who had been standing dreamily near, startled into attention by the spoken words.

”That's all--give me the check.”

As he went out the door, a young woman pa.s.sed him, looking him straight in the eyes. From her light swis.h.i.+ng skirts came the faint perfume of the violet. It chilled the steel of his resolution.

He entered a carriage. It was a hot, humid night. Already the mist was making grey softness of the air, dulling the street lights to ruddy orange. Northward, over the breast of Murray Hill a few late carriages trickled down toward him. Their wheels, when they pa.s.sed, made swift reflections in the damp glare of the asphalt.

He was pent force waiting to be translated into action.