Part 18 (2/2)
”Central--h.e.l.lo--h.e.l.lo! Central, why don't you answer? Central, give me--give me--hold up, wait a second!” He had forgotten the number of his own club. In communication at last, he heard the well-modulated accents of Rudolph--Rudolph who recognized his voice after six years. It gave him a little thrill, this reminder of the life he was entering once more. He ordered one of the dinners he used to order, and hung up the receiver, with a smile and a little tightening about his heart at the entry he, the prodigal, would make that night at the Club.
Then, seizing a map of Morocco in one hand and a schedule of sailings in the other, he sat down to plan, chanting over and over, ”Paris, Vienna, Morocco, India, Paris, Vienna--”
At this moment, unnoticed by him, the doors moved noiselessly and Mrs.
Lightbody entered; a woman full of appealing movements in her lithe body, and of quick, decisive perceptions in the straight, gray glance of her eyes. She held with one hand a cloak fastened loosely about her throat. On her head was the hat with the three white feathers.
A minute pa.s.sed while she stood, rapidly seizing every indication that might later a.s.sist her. Then she moved slightly and said in a voice of quiet sadness:
”Jackie.”
”Great G.o.d!”
Lightbody, overturning chair and table, sprang up--recoiling as one recoils before an avenging specter. In his convulsive fingers were the time-tables, clinging like damp lily pads.
”Jackie, I couldn't do it. I couldn't abandon you. I've come back.”
Gently, seeming to move rather than to walk, advancing with none of the uncertainty that was in her voice, she cried, with a little break: ”Forgive me!”
”No, no, never!”
He retreated behind a chair, fury in his voice, weak at the thought of the floating, entangling scarf, and the perfume he knew so well. Then, recovering himself, he cried brutally:
”Never! You have given me my freedom. I'll keep it! Thanks!”
With a gradual motion, she loosened her filmy cloak and let it slip from the suddenly revealed shoulders and slender body.
”No, no, I forbid you!” he cried. Anger--animal, instinctive anger--began to possess him. He became brutal as he felt himself growing weak.
”Either you go out or I do!”
”You will listen.”
”What? To lies?”
”When you have heard me, you will understand, Jack.”
”There is nothing to be said. I have not the slightest intention of taking back--”
”Jack!”
Her voice rang out with sudden impressiveness: ”I swear to you I have not met him, I swear to you I came back of my own free will, because I could not meet him, because I found that it was you--you only--whom I wanted!”
”That is a lie!”
She recoiled before the wound in his glance. She put her long white hand over her heart, throwing all of herself into the glance that sought to conquer him.
”I swear it,” she said simply.
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