Part 35 (1/2)
”What do you mean?” asked Cherry.
Her surprise left him unimpressed.
”Let's be frank,” he said. ”It is best to have such things out and be done with them. I traded my friends.h.i.+p for money and I am ruined. You are staking your honor against Hilliard's bank-notes.” Her look commanded him, pleaded with him, to stop; but her silence only made him the more fiercely determined to force an explanation. ”Oh, I'm in no mood to speak gently,”
he said; then added, with a sting of contempt in his tone: ”I didn't think you would pay quite that price for your copper-mine.”
Cherry Malotte paled to her lips, and when she spoke her voice was oddly harsh. ”Kindly be more explicit; I don't know what you are talking about.”
”Then, for your own good, you'd better understand. According to accepted standards, there is one thing no woman should trade upon.”
”Go on!”
”You have set yourself to trap Hilliard, and, from what I hear, you are succeeding. He is a married man. He is twice your age. He is notorious-- all of which you must know, and yet you have deliberately yielded yourself to him for a price.”
Suddenly he found the girl standing over him with burning eyes and quivering body.
”What right have you to say such things to me?” she cried. ”A moment ago you acknowledged yourself a murderer--at least in thought; you said you would sacrifice anything or everything to gain your ends. Do you think I'm like that, too? Are my methods to be called shameful because your own are criminal? And suppose they were! Do you think that you and your love for that unfeeling woman, who sent you out to toil and suffer and sweat your soul dry in the solitude of that horrible country, are the only issues in the world?”
”We won't speak of her,” he broke in, sharply.
”Oh yes, we will You say I have set a price on myself. Well, she set a price on herself, but you can't see it. Her price was your honor, that has crumbled; your conscience, that has rotted. You have paid it, and you would pay double if she exacted it. But one thing you shall not do: you shall not judge of my bargains, nor decide what I have paid to any man.”
Never before had Boyd seen a woman so transformed by the pa.s.sion of anger.
Her lids had drooped, half hiding her eyes. Her whole expression had hardened; she was the picture of defiant fury. The mask had slipped, and he caught a glimpse of the naked, pa.s.sionate soul, upheaved to its depths.
Oddly enough, he felt it thrill him.
”I beg your pardon,” he said. ”You are your own mistress, and you have the right to make any bargain you choose.”
She turned away, and, going to the window, stared down upon the busy street, striving to calm herself. For a time the room was silent, save for the m.u.f.fled sounds from below; then she faced him again, and he saw that her eyes were misty with tears. ”I want you to know,” she said, ”that I understand your position perfectly. If you don't succeed, you not only lose the girl but ruin yourself, for you can never repay the men who trusted you. That is a very big thing to a man, I know, yet there must be a way out--there always is. Perhaps it will present itself when you least expect it.” She gave him a tired little smile before lowering her veil.
He rose, and laid his hand on her arm. ”Forgive my brutal bluntness. I'm not clever at such things, but I would have said as much to my sister if I had one.”
It was an honest attempt to comfort her, but it failed. ”Good-bye,” she said; ”you mustn't give up.”
All the way back to her hotel her mind dwelt bitterly upon his parting words. ”His sister! his sister!” she kept repeating. ”G.o.d! Can't he see?”
If he had shown even a momentary jealousy of Hilliard it would not have been so hard, but this impersonal att.i.tude was maddening! The man had but one idea in the world, one dream, one vision--another woman. Alone in her room, she still felt the flesh of her arm burn, where he had laid his hand, and then came the thrill of that forgotten kiss. How many times had she felt the pressure of his lips upon hers! How many hopes had she built upon that memory! But the thought of Boyd's indifference rose in sharp conflict with the tenderness that prompted her to help him at any cost.
After all, why not take what was offered her and let this man s.h.i.+ft for himself? Why not live her life as she had planned it before he came? The reward was at hand--she had only to take it and let him go down as a sacrifice to that ice-woman he coveted.
Dusk was falling when she ceased pacing the floor, and with set, defiant face went to the telephone, to call up Hilliard at the Rainier Club.
”I have thought over your proposition and I have changed my mind,” she said. ”Yes, you may send the car for me at seven.” Then, in reply to some request, she laughed back, through white lips: ”Very well, if you wish it --the blue dress. Yes! The blue decollete dress.” She hung up the receiver, then stood with hands clinched while a s.h.i.+ver ran through her slender body. She stepped to a closet, and flung open the door to stare at the array of gowns.
”So this is the end of my good resolutions,” she laughed, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a garment recklessly from its hook. ”Now for all the miserable tricks of the trade!”