Part 53 (1/2)
Out in the roadway Claude made a last effort to react against his humiliation, doing it almost tearfully. ”But, look here, Jim, I've got to marry Rosie--I've _got_ to.”
The Irishman in the young man was still in the ascendant as he wagged his head sympathetically. ”Sure you've got to--if she wants it.”
”Well, she does want it, doesn't she? She must have told you so, or you wouldn't know so much about it.”
”She's told me all about it from seeding to sale, and it's G.o.d's truth I'm handing out to you--no bluff at all. This Rosie's another proposition.”
”I'll marry her, whatever she is,” Claude declared, bravely; ”and I've got to see her, too.”
Jim looked thoughtful. ”It isn't so easy to see her because--Well, now, I'll tell you straight, Claude--because it makes her kind o' sick to think of you. Oh, that's nothing!” he hastened to add, on seeing a second convulsion pa.s.s across Claude's face. ”Sure she'd feel the same about any one who'd done the like o' that to her, now wouldn't she? It isn't you at all--not any more than it 'd be me or anybody else.”
”If I could see her,” Claude said, weakly, ”I'd--I'd explain.”
”Ah, but you couldn't explain quick enough. That's where the trouble about that'd be. She'd be down on the floor in a faint before you'd be able to say knife. You couldn't get near her at all at all--not this Rosie--not if it was to explain away the ground beneath her feet.”
”She'd get over that--” Claude began to plead.
”She'd get over it if it didn't kill her first; but it's my belief it would. If you could have seen her the night she told me about you! It was like cutting out her own heart and picking it to pieces. She's never mentioned you before nor since--and I don't think ever will again. No, Claude,” he continued, in a reasoning tone, ”there's no two ways about it, but you've got to get out--for a spell, at any rate. If you don't, old man Fay'll be after you with a gun, and what Matt Fay'll do may be worse. I can handle them if you'll keep from hanging yourself out like a red rag to a bull, like; but if you don't--then the Lord only knows what'll happen.”
”What'll happen,” Claude cried, with a final up-leaping of resistance, ”is that you'll marry Rosie.”
”I'll marry her if she'll have me. Don't you fret about that. But I won't _try_ to marry her--not if I see that she's got the least little bit of a wish to marry you, Claude. I'll play fair. If she changes her mind from the way she is now, and gets so as to be able to think of you again, and wants you--wants you of her own free will--then I'll put up the banns for you myself--and that's honest to G.o.d.”
He offered his hand on the compact, but Claude didn't take it. He didn't take it because he didn't see it, and he didn't see it because he looked over it and beyond it, as over and beyond the young Irishman himself. It was not that he had any doubt as to Jim's word being honest to G.o.d, or that he questioned Rosie's state of mind as Jim had sketched it. It was rather that he was seeing the Claude who was a gentleman and a hero and a devil-of-a-fellow recede into the ether, while he was left eternally with the Claude who remained behind.
Jim felt no resentment for the neglect of his proffered hand, but the long stare of those sick, unseeing eyes made him uneasy. ”Well, I guess I must beat it back to my job,” he said, beginning to move away. ”So long, Claude, and good luck to you!” He added, in order to return to a colloquial tone, ”If you ever want a fern-tree, don't forget that we've got some daisies.”
But Claude was still staring at the great blue blank which the fading of his ideal had left behind it.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
Twenty-four hours after Claude turned to take the way of humiliation down the hill, undeceived by Jim Breen's friendly tone and the hope of future possibilities held out to him, Thor Masterman found himself almost within sight of home. On arriving in the city late in the afternoon he went to a hotel, where he took a room and dined. When he had devised the means of letting Lois know that he was camping outside her gates she might be sufficiently touched to throw them open. She might never love him again; she might never have really loved him at all; but he would content himself with a benevolent toleration. Like her, he was afraid of love. The word meant too much or too little, he was not sure which. It was too explosive. Its dynamic force was at too high a pressure for the calm routine of married life. If Lois could find a subst.i.tute for love, he was willing to accept it, giving her his own subst.i.tute in return. All he asked was the privilege of seeing her, of being with her, of proving his devotion, of having her once more to share his life.
It was not to force this issue, but to play lovingly with the hope in it, that when dusk had deepened into evening he took the open electric car that would carry him to the village. He had no intention beyond that of enjoying the cool night air and loitering for a few minutes in sight of the house that sheltered her. She might be on the balcony outside her room, or beneath the portico of the garden door, so that he should catch the flutter of her dress. That would be enough for him--to-night. He might make it enough for the next night and the next. After absence and distance, it seemed much.
County Street was as he had known it on every warm summer night since he was a boy, and yet conveyed that impression which every summer night conveys, of being the first and only one of its kind. The sky was majestically high and clear and spangled, with the Scorpion and the red light of Antares well above the city's amber glow. Along the streets and lanes dim trees rustled faintly, casting gigantic trembling shadows in the circles of the electric lights. The breeze being from the east and south, the tang of sea-salt mingled with the strong, dry scent of new-mown hay and the blended perfumes of a countryside of gardens. All doors were open as he pa.s.sed along, and so were all windows. On all verandas and porches and steps faint figures could be discerned, low-voiced for the most part, but sending out an occasional laugh or s.n.a.t.c.h of song. Thor knew who the people were; many of them were friends; to some of them he was related; there were few with whom he hadn't ties antedating birth. It was soothing to him, as he slipped along in the heavy shadow of the elms, to know that they were near.
On approaching his father's house, which he expected to find dark, he was astonished to see a light. It was a light like a blurred star, on one of the upper floors. From what window it shone he found it difficult to say, the ma.s.s of the house being lost in the general obscurity. The strange thing was that it should be there.
He pa.s.sed slowly within the gate and along the few yards of the driveway, pausing from time to time in order to place the quiet beacon in this room or in that, according to the angle from which it seemed to burn. He was not alarmed; he was only curious. It was no furtive light.
Though the curtains were closed, it displayed itself boldly in the eyes of the neighbors and of the two or three ornamental constables who made their infrequent rounds in County Street. He could only attribute it to old Maggs, who lived in the coachman's cottage at the far end of the property, though as to what old Maggs could be doing in the house at this hour in the evening, at a time when the parents were abroad and Claude away on a holiday, he was obliged to be frankly inquisitive. An investigating spirit was further aroused by the fact that in one of his pauses, as he alternately advanced and halted, he was sure he heard a footstep. If it was not a footstep, it was a stirring in the shrubbery, as if something had either moved away or settled into hiding.
He was still unalarmed. Night-crimes were rare in the village, and relatively harmless even when they were committed. The sound he had heard might have been made by some roving dog, or by a cat or a startled bird. Had it not been for the light he would scarcely have noticed it.
Taken in conjunction with the light, it suggested some one who had been watching and had slunk away; but even that thought was slightly melodramatic in so well-ordered a community. He went on till he was at the foot of the steps, at a point where he could no longer descry the glow in the upper window, but could perceive through the fanlight over the inner door that, though the lower hall was dark, the electrics were burning somewhere in the interior of the house.
He verified this on mounting the steps and peering into the vestibule through the strip of window at the sides of the outer door. Turning the k.n.o.b tentatively, he was surprised to find it yield. On entering, he stood in the porch and listened, but no sound reached him from within.
Taking his bunch of keys from his pocket, he detached his latch-key softly, and as softly inserted it in the lock. The door opened noiselessly, showing a light down the stairway from the hall above. He could now hear some one moving, probably on the topmost floor, with an opening and shutting of doors that might have been those of closets, followed by a swis.h.i.+ng sound like that of the folding or packing of clothes. He entered and closed the door with a distinctly audible bang.