Part 24 (1/2)
”He is interested, beyond doubt. But for the present moment I have kept him from adding anything to Miss Dosia's artless gossip. Will you permit me to suggest that it was taking rather a long chance?--your bringing him down here?”
”I know; but I couldn't help it. Dosia would have brought him on your invitation. I did everything I could think of to obstruct; and when they had beaten me, I made a party affair of it. You'll have to forgive me for spoiling an entire working day for you.”
”Since it has given me a chance to be with you, I'm only too happy in losing the day,” he said; and he meant it. But he let her know the worst in the other matter in an added sentence. ”I'm afraid the mischief is done in Wingfield's affair, in spite of everything.”
”How?” she asked, and the keen anxiety in the grey eyes cut him to the heart.
He told her briefly of the chance arousing of Wingfield's curiosity, and of the playwright's expressed determination to fathom the mystery of the table-smas.h.i.+ng stone. Her dismay was pathetic.
”You should never have taken him into your office,” she protested reproachfully. ”He was sure to be reminded of Dosia's story there.”
”I didn't foresee that, and he was beginning to gossip with the workmen.
I knew it wouldn't be long before he would get the story of the happenings out of the men--with all the garnis.h.i.+ngs.”
”You _must_ find a way to stop him,” she insisted. ”If you could only know what terrible consequences are wrapped up in it!”
He waited until a stone block, dangling in the clutch of the derrick-fall above its appointed resting-place on the growing wall of masonry, had been lowered into the cement bed prepared for it before he said, soberly: ”That is the trouble--I _don't_ know. And, short of quarrelling outright with Wingfield, I don't think of any effective way of muzzling him.”
”No; you mustn't do that. There is misery enough and enmity enough, without making any more. I'll try to keep him away.”
”You will fail,” he prophesied, with conviction. ”Mr. Wingfield calls himself a builder of plots; but I can a.s.sure you from this one day's observation of him that he would much rather unravel a plot than build one.”
She was silent while the workmen were swinging another great stone out over the canyon chasm. The shadow of the huge derrick-boom swept around and across them, and she shuddered as if the intangible thing had been an icy finger to touch her.
”You must help me,” she pleaded. ”I cannot see the way a single step ahead.”
”And I am in still deeper darkness,” he reminded her gently. ”You forget that I do not know what threatens you, or how it threatens.”
”I can't tell you; I can't tell any one,” she said; and he made sure there was a sob at the catching of her breath.
As once before, he grew suddenly masterful.
”You are wronging yourself and me, Elsa, dear. You forget that your trouble is mine; that in the end we two shall be one in spite of all the obstacles that a crazy fate can invent.”
She shook her head. ”I told you once that you must not forget yourself again; and you are forgetting. There is one obstacle which can never be overcome this side of the grave. You must always remember that.”
”I remember only that I love you,” he dared; adding: ”And you are afraid to tell me what this obstacle is. You know it would vanish in the telling.”
She did not answer.
”You won't tell me that you are in love with Wingfield?” he persisted.
Still no reply.
”Elsa, dearest, can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you do not love _me_?”
She neither looked nor denied.
”Then that is all I need to know at present,” he went on doggedly. ”I shall absolutely and positively refuse to recognise any other obstacle.”
She broke silence so swiftly that the words seemed to leap to her lips.