Part 60 (1/2)

But she won't let me in, won't even answer me. Listen,” and she pointed upward. ”She's been doing that for hours. I've taken her food.

She won't eat or reply. Nothing except, 'Go,' or 'Go away.' I'm at my wit's ends. I seem to be sure, Mr. Canby, that Jerry--”

”Yes,” I put in. ”You're right, Jerry--was here. Something has happened.”

”But what?” she asked.

”He saw them together in the red motor.”

”Kissing,” put in Jack rather brutally.

”Ah,” she said composedly. And then, ”Ah, yes, I see, but why Lloyd's curious behavior and Jerry's flight?”

”It's very mysterious.”

”Yes, very.” Here she rose as with a sudden sense of responsibility and brought the interview to an end. I think she read farther than I did. ”At all events we know that they are all alive,” she said with a smile. ”Perhaps no great damage is done after all.”

It seemed as though she were trying to deceive herself or us, but we made no comment, presently taking our departure.

It was not until many months later that I learned what had happened on that dreadful day. Jack Ballard and the Habbertons left Horsham Manor the following afternoon and it was many weeks before I saw Una in New York, for some instinct had restrained me; not until some time after I had Jerry's first letter, just a few lines written from somewhere in Manitoba, merely telling me that he was in good health and asking me not to worry. But brief as it was, this message cheered me inexpressibly.

I could not bring myself to go to Briar Hills again, but managed a meeting with Miss Gore, who told me that Marcia was in a more than usually fiendish temper most of the time--quite unbearable, in fact.

She was going away to Bar Harbor, she thought, and the certainty of Miss Gore's tenure of office depended much upon Marcia's treatment of her. They had quarreled. To be a poor relation was one thing, to be a martyr another.

She couldn't understand Marcia's humor, moody and irascible by turns, and once when Miss Gore had mentioned Jerry's name she flew into a towering rage and threw a hair brush through a mirror--a handsome mirror she particularly liked.

Jerry's affair with Marcia was ended. There could be no possible doubt about that. Further than this Miss Gore knew nothing. It was enough. I was content, so content that in my commiseration I held her hand unduly long and she asked me what I was going to do with it, and not knowing I dropped it suddenly and made my exit I fear rather awkwardly. What could I have done with it? A fine woman that, but cryptic.

It was June when Jerry left, not until midwinter that he returned to Horsham Manor. He was very much changed, older-looking, less a.s.sertive, quieter, deeper-toned, more thoughtful. It was as though the physical Jerry that I knew had been subjected to some searching test which had eliminated all superfluities, refined the good metal in him, solidified, unified him. And the physical was symbolic of the spiritual change. I knew that since that night in July the world had tried him in its alembic with its severest tests and that he had emerged safely. He was not joyous but he seemed content. Life was no longer a game. It was a study. Bitter as experience had been, it had made him. Perfect he might not be but sound, sane, wholesome. Jerry had grown to be a man!

But Jerry and I were to have new moments of _rapprochement_. As the days of his stay at the Manor went on, our personal relations grew closer. He spoke of his letters to Una and of hers to him, but his remarks about her were almost impersonal. It seemed as though some delicacy restrained him, some newly discovered embarra.s.sment which made the thought of seeing her impossible and so he did not go to pay his respects to her. Indeed, he was content just to stay at the Manor with me. It seemed that the bond between us, the old brotherly bond that had existed before Jerry had gone forth into the world, had been renewed. I would have given my life for him and I think he understood.

He was still much worried and talked of doing penance. Poor lad! As though he were not doing penance every moment of his days! I know that he wanted to talk, to tell me what had happened, to ask my advice, to have my judgment of him and of her. But something restrained him, perhaps the memory of the girl he had thought Marcia to be, that sublimated being, in whose veins flowed only the ichor of the G.o.ds, the G.o.ddess with the feet of clay. I told him that she had been at Bar Harbor with Channing Lloyd and that Miss Gore had told me that the two were much together in town.

”Oh, yes,” he said slowly, ”I know. They're even reported engaged.

Perhaps they are.”

There was a long silence. We were sitting in the library late one night, a month at least after he had returned, reading and talking by turns.

”She wasn't worthy of you. Jerry,” I remarked.

”No, that's not true,” he said, a hand shading his eyes from the lamplight. ”It would be a poor creature that wouldn't be worthy of such a beast as I. But she tried me, Roger, terribly.”

”She tempted you purposely. It was a game. I saw it. But you, poor blind Jerry--”

”Yes, blind and worse than blind, deaf to the appeals of my friends--you and--and Una, who saw where I did not. Marcia had promised to marry me, Roger, to be my wife. Do you understand what such a promise meant to me then? All ideals and clean thoughts. I wors.h.i.+ped her, did not even dare to touch her--until--Oh, I kissed her, Roger. She taught me--many things, little things, innocent they seemed in themselves at the time, but dangerous to my body and to my soul. I knew nothing. I was like a new-born babe. My G.o.d! Roger--if only you had told me! If you had told me--”

”I couldn't then, Jerry,” I said softly. ”It would have been too late.

You wouldn't have believed--”