Part 15 (1/2)
He laughed. ”I thought perhaps you were tired,” he said.
”She ought to be,” remarked Lawrence from his chair, and in her present state she imagined in his voice a tenderness, a worry for her, and a distrust of her.
She took up the kettle, and hung it on its hook in the fireplace. ”I never in my life imagined myself cooking over an open fire in this way,”
she said as she turned toward the little storeroom adjoining.
”You like it?” Philip asked carelessly.
She felt sure that his eyes had read her heart and that he was looking toward the future, his future with the wanton mistress he had found.
She could have screamed, ”I hate you! I hate you!” but she said only, ”It's great fun for a while; I wouldn't fancy it as a permanent thing.”
”It surely must be different from the conveniences of your home.”
”Rather,” she laughed as she began cutting from the smoked meat that hung in the storeroom.
Now it was Lawrence who was speaking. ”I guess she'd surprise us if we could supply her with a chafing-dish. I'd like to see her at work over one in my studio with the bunch around waiting hungrily for results.”
Would these men never stop saying things that made her want to scream?
What was the matter, that all at once the beauty of her day should be smashed into a discolored memory of self-hatred? Was there nothing in all the world but sordid thoughts of oneself and of men who, causing them, said things to make them worse?
After they had eaten she went to bed as soon as possible, leaving the men to smoke before the fire. She had pleaded weariness, and they had laughingly told her to get to sleep. They were out there now, talking in subdued tones so as not to disturb her--as if their voices did not ring through her suffering mind like clarions of evil! What should they say if she should suddenly spring before them and shout out her mad fancies?
For a moment she had the wildest of impulses to laugh aloud, then suddenly she turned on her face as she recalled the emotion that had swept her when she saw Philip looking at her over Lawrence's head. Sleep finally stopped her tears.
The two men went to bed, and there was silence in the cabin. Lawrence was smiling, as he felt Philip's body there beside him in the darkness.
”I could kill you now,” he was thinking ironically, ”and end all question of your loving Claire.”
Philip, too, was awake. He had seen the hot flush that came into Claire's face that evening, and he knew that she had been troubled during the supper. He wondered if she were ill. Then suddenly he asked himself, ”Is she in love with one of us?” He immediately tried to dismiss the thought as unworthy of her. She was not the kind of woman to forget her marriage vows. But what a home she could make for the man she loved! If he had only known her in time!
But there was still friends.h.i.+p--yes, surely she could give that.
Complete understanding and perfect sympathy would be the basis of a lasting attachment. ”Who knows?” he pondered. ”It may be that fate has sent her to me to teach me what a great self-denying love can be. In Claire I may find my dream-star again.”
CHAPTER X.
HOW SIMPLE THE SOLUTION!
When Claire awoke the next morning her whole being seemed gathered into a tense strain that made her feel as though the least thing might snap the taut nerves in her body and leave her broken and stranded on some far, emotional shoal. Her heart beat unevenly, while her lips and hands felt dry and hot, as if she had spent hours in a desert wind. She did not experience the bitter anguish of the night before; such storms are too wild to last, but it had left her deadly heavy within, and she was unable to recover her usual calm.
One great determination dominated her, to prevent these men, at any cost, from knowing her real feelings. It was a determination born out of the sheer force that was carrying her on, a struggle that came from the very strength of the tide she sought to resist.
She had been awakened by a sudden and clear image, the result of her unsettled mind. Her husband was beside her, leaning over the bed and looking down at her with a great love and a greater pity s.h.i.+ning in his eyes. She thought that she had thrown up her arms to close about him with the frantic joy of a rescued person, only to have them meet in empty air and fall listless at her sides again.
Beyond the curtain she heard Philip saying cheerfully: ”It is a great day outside, one of Claire's days for play.”
”Good!” Lawrence answered. ”We'll go out, then, and play.”
A rush of self-pity, anger against her situation, fear of she knew not what, and a gnawing desire to escape blended in her thoughts, while her heart warmed at the sound of Lawrence's words.