Part 26 (1/2)
He received this with a laugh like the whirring sound in a disabled clock. ”Not yet up? Had she gone to bed? Do you know at what time she came on board? This morning at seven!” he exclaimed.
”At seven?” Lily started. ”What happened--an accident to the train?”
He laughed again. ”They missed the train--all the trains--they had to drive back.”
”Well----?” She hesitated, feeling at once how little even this necessity accounted for the fatal lapse of hours.
”Well, they couldn't get a carriage at once--at that time of night, you know--” the explanatory note made it almost seem as though he were putting the case for his wife--”and when they finally did, it was only a one-horse cab, and the horse was lame!”
”How tiresome! I see,” she affirmed, with the more earnestness because she was so nervously conscious that she did not; and after a pause she added: ”I'm so sorry--but ought we to have waited?”
”Waited for the one-horse cab? It would scarcely have carried the four of us, do you think?”
She took this in what seemed the only possible way, with a laugh intended to sink the question itself in his humorous treatment of it. ”Well, it would have been difficult; we should have had to walk by turns. But it would have been jolly to see the sunrise.”
”Yes: the sunrise WAS jolly,” he agreed.
”Was it? You saw it, then?”
”I saw it, yes; from the deck. I waited up for them.”
”Naturally--I suppose you were worried. Why didn't you call on me to share your vigil?”
He stood still, dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand. ”I don't think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT,” he said with sudden grimness.
Again she was disconcerted by the abrupt change in his tone, and as in one flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the need of keeping her sense of it out of her eyes.
”DENOUEMENT--isn't that too big a word for such a small incident? The worst of it, after all, is the fatigue which Bertha has probably slept off by this time.”
She clung to the note bravely, though its futility was now plain to her in the glare of his miserable eyes.
”Don't--don't----!” he broke out, with the hurt cry of a child; and while she tried to merge her sympathy, and her resolve to ignore any cause for it, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation, he dropped down on the bench near which they had paused, and poured out the wretchedness of his soul.
It was a dreadful hour--an hour from which she emerged shrinking and seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual glare. It was not that she had never had premonitory glimpses of such an outbreak; but rather because, here and there throughout the three months, the surface of life had shown such ominous cracks and vapours that her fears had always been on the alert for an upheaval. There had been moments when the situation had presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid image--that of a shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a b.u.mping road, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted mending, and wondering what would give way first. Well--everything had given way now; and the wonder was that the crazy outfit had held together so long.
Her sense of being involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it from the road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made her feel the need he had of her, the place she had taken in his life. But for her, what ear would have been open to his cries? And what hand but hers could drag him up again to a footing of sanity and self-respect? All through the stress of the struggle with him, she had been conscious of something faintly maternal in her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the present, if he clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to feel some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted her to suffer with him, not to help him to suffer less.
Happily for both, there was little physical strength to sustain his frenzy. It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an apathy so deep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the pa.s.sers-by would think it the result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid. But Monte Carlo is, of all places, the one where the human bond is least close, and odd sights are the least arresting. If a glance or two lingered on the couple, no intrusive sympathy disturbed them; and it was Lily herself who broke the silence by rising from her seat. With the clearing of her vision the sweep of peril had extended, and she saw that the post of danger was no longer at Dorset's side.
”If you won't go back, I must--don't make me leave you!” she urged.
But he remained mutely resistant, and she added: ”What are you going to do? You really can't sit here all night.”
”I can go to an hotel. I can telegraph my lawyers.” He sat up, roused by a new thought. ”By Jove, Selden's at Nice--I'll send for Selden!”
Lily, at this, reseated herself with a cry of alarm. ”No, no, NO!” she protested.
He swung round on her distrustfully. ”Why not Selden? He's a lawyer isn't he? One will do as well as another in a case like this.”
”As badly as another, you mean. I thought you relied on ME to help you.”
”You do--by being so sweet and patient with me. If it hadn't been for you I'd have ended the thing long ago. But now it's got to end.” He rose suddenly, straightening himself with an effort. ”You can't want to see me ridiculous.”
She looked at him kindly. ”That's just it.” Then, after a moment's pondering, almost to her own surprise she broke out with a flash of inspiration: ”Well, go over and see Mr. Selden. You'll have time to do it before dinner.”