Part 12 (1/2)
Philip also laughed. ”Well,” he said, ”there might come a time when I, too, would want a thing enough to kill in order to obtain it.”
”What, for example?” asked Lawrence. ”That is the best way to determine your value of life.”
Philip did not answer for a few minutes, then his voice vibrated.
”The things that mean more than life to me. I know that one holds his own life dear, but there are things, love, courage, honor, for example, that he holds even above life.”
”Would you kill me, for instance,” asked Lawrence pleasantly, ”if I stood between you and Claire?”
”That is scarcely answerable,” nervously interposed Claire. ”You see, you don't and the man who does--though it's all absurd, since we none of us here are the least in love--is my husband.”
”I had almost forgotten him,” said Lawrence, his voice lingering softly on the word ”almost.”
Philip laughed. ”Why, yes, in the abstract, I should say that if anything would make me kill you, it would be your standing between me and the woman I loved. Of course, the case is fair, but scarcely probable enough to make any of us worry.”
”True”--Lawrence joined him at the fire--”and by the way, while I think of it, I want a knife and a block of soft wood. I'm going to entertain myself these days.”
Quickly Claire looked up.
”And you shall entertain me, Philip,” she said gaily.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TIGHTENING NET.
Christmas was upon them. They gathered before the big fireplace in silent meditation, while outside the wind whipped sheeted snow against the walls and wailed dismally its endless journeying. They could not help but feel the something melancholy in the air. The little cabin, standing so far away from civilization and all the things they were accustomed to know seemed somehow to set them apart from the rest of the world and leave them stranded as it were, upon a barren stretch of thought.
In keeping with the setting, solemn questions of destiny, death, and the meaning of things took the place of the usual Christmas festival and glitter.
In Lawrence's mind, Claire was growing more and more predominant. He found her constant a.s.sociation weaving itself into his life until, when he looked ahead toward the day when they must part, he discovered himself asking what he could find that would take her place. Her voice, her little habits of speech, the unexpected question that showed her deep interest in him, in his work, and in his att.i.tude toward her, these had gradually stirred in him the desire to establish in his own mind a definite relation toward her which he could maintain.
When Claire went out for a while with Philip, Lawrence spent the interim in trying to reason out his problem. He told himself that he would feel differently in his old environment with friends and work, but the answer was not satisfactory. He knew that even there, he would miss the quick sound of movement, the quick phrase that was Claire.
Did he love her then? He asked himself that, and could not answer. What was love to him, anyway? He sought to think out a scheme of love that would fit into his system of utter selfishness, and failed. The memory of her in his arms came to him now with a warm, emotional coloring that had been absent during the days of their journey.
Had he been so impersonal then at first? He remembered his first wild joy at finding her there in the surf, and he admitted that even then there had been a subtle heightening of his pleasure, because it was a woman. Since his blindness he had been separated from the other s.e.x even more than from his own, and now he was to live with one daily, having her alone to talk to, to watch, to be interested in, and to know--yes, that had been a part of his feeling that morning. He remembered that he had been slightly irritated at her when he had first decided that she was cold and intellectual. He had wanted her to be warm, colorful, vivid, and feminine. He had found later that she was all these things, but not toward him. It was a man whom he had never known, her husband, Howard Barkley, for whom she was wholly woman. Always when she spoke of him her voice had warmed, grown softer, subtly shaded with color.
Claire opened the cabin door.
”h.e.l.lo, Mr. Dreamer! Still in the land of to-morrow?” she called, taking off her heavy wraps.
”Where's Philip?” Lawrence demanded gruffly, without moving.
”Working over a trap in the ravine. I was a little tired, so I didn't wait.”
Lawrence could hear her brus.h.i.+ng her hair. He was glad she had returned without Philip. Now at least they would have a few minutes alone.
”Snow bad?” he asked. If he could only have run his hands through that curly ma.s.s! The memory of her hair brus.h.i.+ng against his face made his temples throb dully.