Part 69 (1/2)
”You've got to, haven't you?” asked Duane.
”Oh! Is that it? A sort of moral formality?”
”It's conventional; yes. It's expected.”
”By whom?”
”All the mess that goes to make up this compost heap we call society....
I think she also would expect it.”
Dysart nodded.
”If you could make her happy it would square a great many things, Dysart.”
The other looked up: ”You?”
”I--don't know. Yes, in many ways; in that way at all events--if you made her happy.”
Dysart stepped forward: ”Would you be nice to her if I did? No other soul in the world knows except you. Other people would be nice to her.
Would _you_? And would you have the woman you marry receive her?”
”Yes.”
”That is square of you, Mallett.... I meant to do it, anyway.... Thank you.... Good-night.”
”Good-night,” said Duane in a low voice.
He returned to the house late that night, and found a letter from Geraldine awaiting him; the first in three days. Seated at the library table he opened the letter and saw at once that the red-pencilled cross at the top was missing.
Minutes pa.s.sed; the first line blurred under his vacant gaze, for his eyes travelled no farther. Then the letter fell to the table; he dropped his head in his arms.
It was a curiously calm letter when he found courage to read it:
”I've lost a battle after many victories. It went against me after a hard fight here alone at Roya-Neh. I think you had better come up.
The fight was on again the next night--that is, night before last, but I've held fast so far and expect to. Only I wish you'd come.
”It is no reproach to you if I say that, had you been here, I might have made a better fight. You couldn't be here; the shame of defeat is all my own.
”Duane, it was not a disastrous defeat in one way. I held out for four days, and thought I had won out. I was stupefied by loss of sleep, I think; this is not in excuse, only the facts which I lay bare for your consideration.
”The defeat was in a way a concession--a half-dazed compromise--merely a parody on a real victory for the enemy; because it roused in me a horror that left the enemy almost no consolation, no comfort, even no physical relief. The enemy is I myself, you understand--that other self we know about.
”She was perfectly furious, Duane; she wrestled with me, fought to make me yield more than I had--which was almost nothing--begged me, brutalised me, pleaded, tormented, cajoled. I was nearly dead when the sun rose; but I had gone through it.
”I wish you could come. She is still watching me. It's an armed truce, but I know she'll break it if the chance comes. There is no honour in her, Duane, no faith, no reason, no mercy. I know her.
”Can you not come? I won't ask it if your father needs you. Only if he does not, I think you had better come very soon.