Front matter (continued 7)

"I know," nodded Grismer, with his odd smile. "But your approval means more than any critic has to offer me.... There's an arm-chair over there, if you care to be seated."

Cleland took his glass of iced orange juice with him. Grismer set his on the floor and dropped onto the ragged couch.

"Anybody can point it up now," he said. "It ought to be cast in silver-grey bronze, not burnished—a trifle over life-size."

"You must have worked like the devil to have finished this in such a brief period."

"Oh, I work that way—when I do work.... I've been anxious—worried over what you might think.... I'm satisfied now."

He filled and lighted his pipe, leaned back clasping his well-made arms behind his head.

"Cleland," he said, "it's a strange sensation to feel power within one's self—be conscious of it, certain of it, and deliberately choose not to use it.... And the very liberty of choice is an added power."

Cleland looked up, perplexed. Grismer smiled, and his smile seemed singularly care-free and tranquil:

"Just think," he said, "what the gods could have done if they had taken the trouble to bestir themselves! What they did do makes volumes of mythology: what they refrained from doing would continue in the telling through all eternity. What they did betrayed their power," he added, with a whimsical gesture toward his fountain; "but what they refrained from doing interests me, Cleland—fascinates me, arouses my curiosity, my respect, my awe, and my gratitude that they were godlike enough to disdain display—that they were decent enough to leave to the world material to feed its imagination."

Cleland smiled sombrely at Grismer's whimsical humour, but his features settled again into grave, care-worn lines, and his absent gaze rested on nothing. And Grismer's golden eyes studied him.

"It must be pleasant out there in the country," he said casually.

"It's cool. You must go there, Grismer. This place is unendurable. Do go up while Phil Grayson is there."

"Is there anybody else?"

"Helen—and Stephanie," he said, using her name with an effort. "The Belters were there for a week. No doubt Stephanie will ask other people during the summer."

"When do you go back?" asked Grismer quietly.

There was a short silence, then Cleland said in a voice of forced frankness:

"I was about to tell you that I'm going over to Paris for a while. You know how it is—a man grows restless—wants to run over and take a look at the place just to satisfy himself that it's still there." His strained smile remained stamped on his face after his gaze shifted from Grismer's penetrating eyes—unsmiling, golden-deep eyes that seemed to have perceived a rent in him, and were looking through the aperture into the secret places of his mind.

"When are you going, Cleland?"

"Oh, I don't know. Some time this week, if I can get accommodations."

"You go alone?"

"Why—of course!"

"I thought perhaps you might feel that Stephanie ought to see Europe."

"I hadn't—considered——"

He reddened, took a swallow of his orange juice, and, holding the glass, turned his eyes on the wax model.

"How long will you be away?" asked Grismer in his still and singularly agreeable voice.

There was another silence. Then Cleland made a painful effort at careless frankness once more:

"That reminds me, Grismer," he exclaimed. "I can't ever repay you for that fountain, but I can do my damndest with a cheque-book and a fountain pen. I should feel most uncomfortable if I went away leaving that obligation unsettled."

He drew out his cheque-book and fountain pen and smiled resolutely at Grismer, whose dark golden eyes rested on him with an intentness that he could scarcely endure.

"Would you let me give it to you, Cleland?"

"I can't, Grismer.... It's splendid of you."

"I shall not need the money," said Grismer, almost absently, and for an instant his gaze grew vague and remote. Then he turned his head again, where it lay cradled on his clasped hands behind his neck: "You won't let me give it to you, I know. And there's no use telling you that I shall not need the money. You won't believe me.... You won't understand how absolutely meaningless is money to me—just now. Well, then—write in what you care to offer."

"I can't do that, Grismer."

The other smiled and, still smiling, named a figure. And Cleland wrote it out, detached the cheque, started to rise, but Grismer told him to lay it on the table beside his glass of orange juice.

"It's a thing no man can pay for," said Cleland, looking at the model.

Grismer said quietly:

"The heart alone can pay for anything.... A gift without it is a cheque unsigned.... Cleland, I've spoken to you twice since you have returned from abroad—but you have not understood. And there is much unsaid between us. It must be said some day.... There are questions you ought to ask me. I'd see any other man in hell before I'd answer. But I'll answer you!"

Cleland turned his eyes, heavy with care, on this man who was speaking.

Grismer said:

"There are three things in the world which I have desired—to stand honourably and well in the eyes of such people as your father and you; to win your personal regard and respect; to win the love of Stephanie Quest."

In the tense silence he struck a match and relighted his pipe. It went out again and grew cold while he was speaking:

"I lost the consideration of such people as you and your father; in fact, I never gained it at all.... And it was like a little death to something inside me.... And as for Stephanie——" He shook his head. "No," he said, "there was no love in her to give me. There is none now. There never will be."

He laid aside his pipe, clasped his hands behind his head once more and dropped one long leg over the other.

"You won't question me. I suppose it's the pride in you, Cleland. But my pride is dead; I cut its throat.... So I'll tell you what you ought to know.

"I always was in love with her, even as a boy—after that single glimpse of her there in the railroad station. It's odd how such things really happen. Your people had no social interest in mine. I shall use a more sinister term: your father held my father in contempt.... So there was no chance for me to know you and Stephanie except as I was thrown with you in school."

He smiled:

"You can never know what a boy suffers who is fiercely proud, who is ready to devote himself soul and body to another boy, and who knows that he is considered inferior.... It drives him to strange perverseness, to illogical excesses—to anything which may conceal the hurt—the raw, quivering heart of a boy.... So we fought with fists. You remember. You remember, too, probably, many things I said and did to intensify your hostility and contempt—like a hurt thing biting at its own wounds——!"

He shrugged:

"Well, you went away. Has Stephanie told you how she and I met?"

"Yes."

"I thought she would tell you," he said tranquilly. "And has she told you about our unwise behaviour—our informal comradeship—reckless escapades?"

"Yes."

Grismer raised his head and looked at him intently.

"And has she related the circumstances of our marriage?" he asked.

"Partly."

Grismer nodded.

"I mean in part. There were many things she refused to speak of, were there not?"

"Yes."

He slowly unclasped his linked fingers and leaned forward on the couch, groping for his pipe. When he found it he slowly knocked the cinders from the bowl, then laid it aside once more.

"Cleland, I'll have to tell where I stood the day that my father—killed himself."

"What!"

"Stephanie knew it. There had been a suit pending, threatening him.... For years the fear of such a thing had preyed on his mind.... I never dreamed there was any reason for him to be afraid.... But there was."

He dropped his head and sat for a few moments thinking and playing with his empty pipe. Then:

"Stephanie's aunt was the Nemesis. She became obsessed with the belief that her nephew and later, Stephanie, had suffered wickedly through my father's—conversion of trust funds." He swallowed hard and passed one hand over his eyes: "My father was a defaulter.... That woman's patience was infernal. She never ceased her investigations. She was implacable. And she—got him.

"She was dying when the case was ready. Nobody knew she was mortally ill.... I suppose my father saw disgrace staring him in the face.... He made a last effort to see her. He did see her. Stephanie was there.... Then he went away.... He had not been well. It was an overdose of morphine."

Grismer leaned forward, clasping his hands on his knees and fixing his eyes on space.

"The money that I inherited was considerable," he said in his soft, agreeable voice. "But after I had begun to amuse myself with it, the papers in the suit were sent to me by that dead woman's attorneys. So," he said pleasantly, "I learned for the first time that the money belonged to Stephanie's estate. And, of course, I transferred it to her attorneys at once.... She never told you anything of this?"

"No."

"No," said Grismer thoughtfully, "she couldn't have told you without laying bare my father's disgrace. But that is how I suddenly found myself on my uppers," he continued lightly. "Stephanie came to me in an agony of protest. She is a splendid girl, Cleland. She rather violently refused to touch a penny of the money. You should have heard what she said to her aunt's attorneys—who now represented her. Really, Cleland, there was the devil to pay.... But that was easy. I paid him. Naturally, I couldn't retain a penny.... So it lies there yet, accumulating interest, payable at any time to Stephanie's order.... But she'll never use it.... Nor shall I, Cleland.... God knows who'll get it—some charity, I hope.... After I step out, I think Stephanie will give it to some charity for the use of little children who have missed their childhood—children like herself, Cleland."

After a silence he idly struck a match, watched it burn out, dropped the cinder to the floor:

"There was no question of you at that time," said Grismer, lifting his eyes to Cleland's drawn face. "And I was very desperately in love.... There seemed to be hope that Stephanie might care for me.... Then came that reckless escapade at Albany, where she was recognized by some old friends of your father and by schoolmates of her own....

"Cleland, I would gladly have shot myself then, had that been any solution. But there seemed to be only the one solution.... She has told you, I believe?"

"Yes."

"Well, that was what was done.... I think she cried all the way back. The Albany Post Road seemed like a road through hell to me. I knew then that Stephanie cared nothing for me in that way; that my place in her life served other purposes.

"I don't know what she thought I expected of her—what duty she believed she owed me. I know now that the very thought of wifehood was abhorrent to her.... But she was game, Cleland! ... What line of reasoning she followed I don't know. Whether my love for her touched her, or some generous impulse of renunciation—some childish idea of bringing to me again the inheritance which I had forced on her, I don't know.

"But she was game. She came here that night with her suitcase. She was as white as death, could scarcely speak.... I never even touched her hand, Cleland.... She slept there—behind that curtain on the iron bed. I sat here all night long.

"In the morning we talked it over. And with every generous plucky word she uttered I realized that it was hopeless. And do you know—God knows how—but somehow I kept thinking of you, Cleland. And it was like clairvoyance, almost, for I could not drive away the idea that she cared for you, unknowingly, and that when you came back some day she'd find it out."

He rose from the couch and began to pace the studio slowly, his hands in his pockets.

"Cleland," he said, "she meant to play the game. The bed she had made for herself she was ready to lie on.... But I looked into those grey eyes of hers and I knew that it was pity that moved her, square dealing that nerved her, and that already she was suffering agonies to know what you would think of what she had done—done with a man you never liked—the son of a man whom your father held in contempt because—because he considered him—dishonest!"

He halted a pace from where Cleland was sitting:

"I told her to go back to her studio and think it over. She went out.... I did not think of her coming back here.... I was standing in front of that cracked mirror over there.... To get a sure line on my temple.... That's what shattered the glass—when she struck my arm up....

"Well, a man goes to pieces sometimes.... She made me promise to wait two years—said she would try to care for me enough in that time to live with me.... The child was frightened sick. The terror of my ever doing such a—a fool thing remains latent in her brain. I know it. I know it's there. I know, Cleland, that she is in love with you. And that she dare not ask me for her freedom for fear that I shall do some such silly thing."

He began to laugh, quite naturally, without any bitterness at all:

"I tried to make you understand. I told you that I would do anything for you. But you didn't comprehend.... Yet, I meant it. I mean it now. She belongs to you, Cleland. I want you to take her. I wish her to understand that I give her the freedom she's entitled to. That she need not be afraid to take it—need not fear that I might make an ass of myself."

He laughed again, quite gaily:

"No, indeed, I mean to live. I tell you, Cleland, there is no excitement on earth like beating Fate at her own game. There's only one thing——"

After a pause, Cleland looked up into the man's wistful, golden eyes.

"What is it, Grismer?"

"If I could win—your friendship——"

"Good God!" whispered Cleland, rising and offering a hand that shook, "—Do you think I'm worth it, Oswald?"

Their hands met, clasped; a strange light flashed in Grismer's golden eyes.

"Do you mean it, Cleland?"

"With all my heart, old chap.... I don't know what to say to you—except that you're white all through—straighter than I am, Grismer—clean to the soul of you!"

Grismer drew a long, deep breath.

"Thanks," he said. "That's about all I want of life.... Tell Stephanie what you said to me—if you don't mind.... I don't care what others think ... if you and she think me straight."

"Oswald, I tell you you're straighter than I am—stronger. Your thoughts never wavered; you stood steady to punishment, not whimpering. I've had a curb-bit on myself, and I don't know now how long it might have taken me to get it between my teeth and smash things."

Grismer smiled:

"It would have taken two to smash the Cleland traditions. It couldn't have been done—between you and Stephanie.... Are you going back to Runner's Rest to-night?"

"Yes—if you say so," he replied in a low voice.

"I do say so. Call her on the telephone as soon as you leave here. Then take the first train."

"And you? Will you come?"

"Not to-night."

"Will you let us know when you can come, Oswald?"

Grismer picked up a shabby dressing gown from the back of a decrepit chair, and put it on over his undershirt and trousers.

"Sure," he said pleasantly. "I've one or two matters to keep me here. I'll fix them up to-night.... And please make it very plain to Stephanie that I'm taking this affair beautifully and that the last thing I'd do would be to indulge in any foolishness to shock her.... I'm really most interested in living. Tell her so. She will believe it. For I have never lied to her, Cleland."

They walked together to the area gate.

"Stephanie should see her attorneys," said Grismer. "The easiest way, I think, would be for her to leave the state and for me to go abroad. Her attorneys will advise her. But," he added carelessly, "there's time to talk over that with her. The main thing is to know that she will be free. And she will be.... Good night, Cleland!" ... He laughed boyishly. "I've never been as happy in my whole life!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

With the clang of the closing gate, Grismer's handsome face altered terribly, and he turned deathly white for a moment. Two policemen lounged by in the glare of the arc-light; one of them glanced down into the areaway and saw a pallid face behind the iron bars—turned sharply to look again.

"Gee," he said to his mate, "d'yeh get that guy's map?"

"Coke," said the other carelessly. "Looks like a feller I seen in Sing Sing waitin' for the priest—what's his name, now——" The voices receded. But Grismer had heard.

Perhaps his brain registered the scene sketched by the policeman—a bloodless face behind the death-cell grating—the distant steps of the procession already sounding in the corridor.

He opened the gate and went out to the sidewalk where a young girl, unskillfully painted, stood looking about her preliminary to opening the night's campaign.

"Hello," she said tentatively.

"Ah," he said pleasantly, "a goddess of the stars!"

"Got anything on?" she asked, approaching with her mirthless smile.

"Yes, a few casual garments."

She looked him over with the uncanny wisdom of her caste, and, young as she was, she divined in this man only the opportunity to waste her time.

"What's the matter?" she asked, glancing at his shabby dressing gown. "Up against it?"

"What I'm up against," he said, absently, "will look good to you, too, some day."

"What's that?"

"Death, my dear."

"Quit kiddin'!" she retorted, with an uneasy laugh. "You got your looks yet." She stepped nearer, looking at him curiously. "Nothing like that," she said. "You're a looker. Buck up, old scout!"

She was leaning against the railing where he stood resting his back. Presently he turned, leisurely, and surveyed her.

"You are young," he said. "You'll be a tired girl before you're up against what I am."

"What have you done?" she enquired curiously.

"Nothing."

"Sure. That's why we all go up the river."

"I'm going across the river," he remarked, smiling.

"Which?"

"The Styx. You never heard of it, I suppose."

"One of them dirty rivers in Jersey?"

He nodded gravely.

"What's out there?" she enquired.

"I don't know, my dear."

"Then what's the idea?"

She waited for an answer, but his golden eyes were dreamily remote.

The girl lingered. Once or twice professional sense suggested departure, but when her tired eyes of a child rested on him something held her inert.

When she again interrupted his revery he looked around at her as though he had never before seen her, and she repeated what she had said.

"What?" he asked sharply.

"I got a fiver that ain't workin'," she said again. "You can use it in your business if it's any good."

"My dear child," he said pleasantly, "you're very kind, but that's not what the matter is." He turned, dropped his arm on the railing, facing her: "What's your name?"

"Gloria Cameron."

"Come on," he said, good-humouredly, "what's your other name?"

"Anne."

"Anne, what?"

"O'Hara."

"Will you wait a minute?"

She nodded uncertainly.

He went back through the area, entered his studio and dressed in his shabby street clothes.

The cheque was still lying on a small table where Cleland had placed it at his request. And now he picked it up, dipped a rusty pen into an ink-bottle, and indorsed the cheque, making it payable to Anne O'Hara. Then he took his straw hat and went out.

The girl was waiting.

"Anne," he said, "I want you to read what's written on this pretty perforated piece of paper." He held it so that the electric light fell on it.

"Is it good?" she asked in an awed voice.

"Perfectly." He turned the cheque over and showed her the indorsement.

She found her voice presently:

"What are you putting over on me?"

He said:

"I'd give this cheque to you now, but it wouldn't be any good when the banks open to-morrow."

She stared her question, and he laughed:

"It's a law concerning cheques. Never mind. But there's a way to beat it. I had a lot of money once. They'll take my paper at Square Jack Hennesey's. Shall we stroll up that way?"

She did not understand. It was quite evident that she had no faith in the scrap of paper either. But it was still more evident that she was willing to remain with him, even at the loss of professional opportunities—even though she was facing the obloquy of being "kidded."

"Come into my studio first," he said.

She went without protest. In the brightly lighted basement he turned and scrutinized her coolly from head to foot.

"How old?" he asked bluntly.

"Seventeen."

"How long are you on the job?"

"Two years."

"Whose are you?"

"I'm for myself——"

"Come on! Don't lie!"

She straightened her thin finger in defiance:

"What are you? A bull?"

"You know I'm not. Who are you working for? Wait! Never mind! You're working for somebody, aren't you?"

"Y-yes."

"Do your folks know it?"

"No."

"What was it—cloaks, feathers, department store?"

She nodded.

"You can go back?"

She remained silent, and he repeated the question. Then the girl turned white under her paint.

"Damn you!" she said, "what are you trying to do to me?"

"Send you home, Anne, with a couple of thousand real money. Will you go?"

"Show it to me!" she said, but her voice had become childish and tremulous and her painted mouth was quivering.

"I'm going to show it to you," he said pleasantly. "I'll get it at Square Jack's for you. If I do will you fly the coop? I mean now, to-night! Will you?"

"W-with you?"

"Dear child, I've got to cross that dirty Jersey river. I told you. You live up state, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Hudson."

"All right. Will you go now, just as you are? You'd stand a fat chance if you went back and tried to pack up. That thing would batter you to a pulp, wouldn't he?"

She nodded.

"All right," he said. "Take off your hat and wash your face, Anne. They'd be on to you at home. I've got to pack a few things for my journey and write a couple of letters. Get all the paint off while I'm busy. There's soap, towels, and a basin behind that screen."

She came slowly to him and stood looking at him out of her disenchanted young eyes.

"Is this on the square?" she asked.

"Won't you take a chance that it is?" he asked, taking her slim hands and looking her in the eyes.

"Yes.... I'll take a chance with you—if you ask me to."

"I do." He patted her hands and smiled, then released them. "Hustle!" he said. "I'll be ready very soon."

He wrote first to Cleland:

DEAR CLELAND:

I think I'll go up tonight, stay at Pittsfield, and either drive across the mountain in the morning of take an early train through the tunnel for North Adams. Either way ought to land me at Runner's Rest station about eight in the morning.

I can't tell you what your kindness has done for me. I think it was about all I really wanted in the world—your friendship. It seems to clean off my slate, square me with life.

I shall start in a few minutes. Until we meet, then, your friend, OSWALD GRISMER.

He directed the envelope to Cleland's studio in town.

The other letter he directed to Stephanie at Runner's Rest and stamped it.

He wrote to her:

I'm happier than I have been in years because I can do this thing for you.

And now I'm going to admit something which will ease your mind immensely: the situation was so impossible that I also began to weary of it a little. You are entitled to the truth.

And now life looks very inviting to me. Liberty is the most wonderful thing in the world. And I am restless for it, restless to begin again.

So if I come to you as a comrade, don't think for a moment that any sympathy is due me. Alas, man belongs to a restless sex, Stephanie, and the four winds are less irresponsible and inconstant!

As a comrade, I should delight in you. You are a very wonderful girl—but you belong to Cleland and not to me. Don't worry. I'm absolutely satisfied. Until we meet, then,

Your grateful friend,

OSWALD.

"I'll get a special for this letter on our way uptown," he said, voicing his thoughts aloud to the girl who was scrubbing her painted lips and cheeks behind the screen.

When she emerged, pinning on her hat, he had packed a suitcase and was ready.

They found a taxi in Washington Square.

On the way uptown he mailed his letter to Stephanie; sent a district messenger with his letter to Cleland's studio; sent a night letter to Runner's Rest saying that he would take accommodations on a train which would be due at Runner's Rest station at eight next morning; stopped at the darkened and barred house of Square Jack Hennesey, and was admitted after being scrutinized through a sliding grill.

When he came out half an hour later he told the driver to go to the Grand Central Station, and got into the cab...

"Anne," he said gaily, "here's the two thousand. Count it."

The sheafs of new bills pinned to their paper bands lay in her lap for a long time before she touched them. Even then she merely lifted one packet and let it drop without even looking at it. So Grismer folded the bills and put them into her reticule. Then he took her slim left hand in both of his and held it while they rode on in silence through the electric glare of the metropolis.

At the station he dismissed the taxicab, bought a ticket and sleeping-car accommodations to Hudson—managed to get a state-room for her all to herself.

"You won't sleep much," he remarked, smiling, "so we'll have to provide you with amusement, Anne."

Carrying his suitcase, the girl walking beside him, he walked across the great rotunda to the newsstand. There, and at the confectionery counter opposite, he purchased food for mind and body—light food suitable for a young and badly bruised mind, and for a soul in embryo, still in the making.

Then he went over to another window and bought a ticket for himself to Pittsfield, and sleeping accommodations.

"We travel by different lines, Anne," he said, opening his portfolio and placing his own tickets in it, where several letters lay addressed to him at his basement studio. Then he replaced the portfolio in his breast pocket.

"I'll go with you to your train," he said, declining with a shake of his head the offices of a red-capped porter. "Your train leaves at 12.10 and we have only a few minutes."

They walked together through the gates, the officials permitting him to accompany her.

The train stood on the right—a very long train, and they had a long distance to walk along the concrete platform before they found her car.

A porter showed them to her stateroom. Grismer tipped him generously:

"Be very attentive to this young lady," he said, "and see that she has every service required, and that she is notified in plenty of time to get off at Hudson. Now you may leave us until we ring."

He turned from the corridor and entered the stateroom, closing the door behind him. The girl sat on the sofa, very pale, with a dazed expression in her eyes.

He seated himself beside her and drew her hands into his own.

"Let me tell you something," he said cheerfully. "Everybody makes mistakes. You've made some; so have I; so has everybody I ever heard of.

"Everybody gets in wrong at one time or another. The idea is to get out again and make a fresh start.... Will you try?"

She nodded, so close to tears that she could not speak.

"Promise me you'll make a hard fight to travel straight?"

"Y-yes."

"It won't be easy. But try to win out, Anne. Back there—in those streets and alleys—there's nothing to hope for except death. You'll find it if you ever go back—in some hospital, in some saloon-brawl, in some rooming-house—it will surely, surely find you by bullet, by knife, by disease—sooner or later it will find you unless you start to search for it yourself."

He patted her hand, patted her pale cheek:

"It's a losing game, Anne. There's nothing in it. I guess you know that already. So go back to your people and tell them the last lies you ever tell. And stick. Stay put, little girl. You really are all right, you know, but you got in wrong. Now, you're out!"

He laughed and stood up. She lifted her head. All her colour had fled.

"Don't forget me," she whispered.

"Not as long as I live, Anne."

"May I—I write to you?"

He thought a minute, then with a smile:

"Why not?" He found a card and pencil, wrote his name and address, and laid it on the sofa. "If it would do any good to think of me when you're likely to get in wrong," he said, "then try to remember that I was square with you. And be so to me. Will you?"

"I—will."

That was all. She was crying and her eyes were too blind with tears to see the expression of his face as he kissed her.

He went away lightly, swinging his suitcase, and stood on the very end of the cement platform looking out across a wilderness of tracks branching out into darkness, set with red, green, and blue lamps.

He waited, lighting a cigarette. On his left a heavy electric engine rolled into the station, drawing a Western express train. The lighted windows of the cars threw a running yellow illumination over his motionless figure for a few moments, then the train passed into the depths of the station.

And now her train began to move very slowly out through the wilderness of yard tracks. Car after car passed him, gaining momentum all the while.

When the last car sped by and the tail-lights dwindled into perspective, Grismer had finished his cigarette.

Behind him lay the dusky, lamp-lit tunnel of the station. Before him, through ruddy darkness, countless jewelled lamps twinkled, countless receding rails glimmered, leading away into the night.

It was in him to travel that way—the way of the glimmering, jewelled lamps, the road of the shining rails.

But first he shoved his suitcase, with his foot, over the platform's edge, as though it had fallen there by accident.... And, as though he had followed to recover it, he climbed down among the tracks.

There was a third rail running parallel to the twin rails. It was roofed with wood. Lying flat, there in the shimmering dusk, he could look up under the wooden guard rail and see it.

Then, resting both legs across the steel car-tracks, he reached out and took the guarded third rail in both hands.

CHAPTER XXXV

The train that Cleland took, after calling Runner's Rest on the telephone, landed him at the home station at an impossible hour. Stars filled the heavens with a magnificent lustre; the July darkness was superb and still untouched by the coming dawn.

As he stepped from the car the tumbling roar of the river filled his ears—that and the high pines' sighing under the stars, and the sweet-scented night wind in his face greeted and met him as he set foot on the platform at Runner's Rest station and looked around for the conveyance that he had asked Stephanie to send.

There was nobody in sight except the baggage agent. He walked toward the rear of the station, turned the corner, and saw Stephanie standing there bareheaded in the starlight, wrapped in a red cloak, her hair in two heavy braids.

"Steve!" he exclaimed. "Why on earth did you come—you darling!"

"Did you imagine I wouldn't?" she asked unsteadily.

"I told you over the wire to send Williams with a buckboard."

"Everybody was in bed when the telephone rang. So I concluded to sit up for you, and when the time came I went out to the stable, harnessed up, and drove over here."

Her hand was trembling in his while she spoke, but her voice was under control.

They turned together and went over to the buckboard. She stepped in; he strapped his suitcase on behind, then followed her and took the reins from her gloved hands.

They were very quiet, but he could feel her tremble a little at times, when their shoulders were in contact. The tension betrayed itself in his voice at moments, too.

"I have a night letter from Oswald," she said. "They telephoned it up from the station. He is coming to-morrow morning."

"That's fine. He's a splendid fellow, Steve."

"I have always known it."

"I know you have. I'm terribly sorry that I did not know him better."

The buckboard turned from the station road into a fragrant wood-road. In the scented dusk little night-moths with glistening wings drifted through the rays of the wagon-lamp like snowflakes. A bird, aroused from slumber in the thicket, sang a few sweet, sleepy notes.

"Tell me," said Stephanie, in a low, tremulous voice.

He understood:

"It was entirely Oswald's doing. I never dreamed of mentioning it to him. I was absolutely square to him and to you, Steve. I went there with no idea that he knew I was in love with you—or that you cared for me.... He met me with simple cordiality. We looked at his beautiful model for the fountain. I don't think I betrayed in voice or look or manner that anything was wrong with me.... Then, with a very winning simplicity, he spoke of you, of himself.... There seemed to be nothing for me to say; he knew that I was in love with you, and that you had come to care for me.... And I heard a man speak to another man as only a gentleman could speak—a real man, rare and thoroughbred.... It cost him something to say to me what he said. His nerve was heart-breaking to me when he found the courage to tell me what his father had done.

"He told me with a smile that his pride was dead—that he had cut its throat. But it was still alive, Steve—a living, quivering thing. And I saw him slay it before my eyes—kill it there between his, with his steady, pleasant smile.... Well, he meant me to understand him and what he had done.... And I understand.... And I understand your loyalty, now. And the dreadful fear which kept you silent.... But there is no need to be afraid any more."

"Did he say so?"

"Yes. He told me to tell you. He said you'd believe him because he had never lied to you."

"I do believe him," she said. "I have never known him to lie to anybody."

The light over the porch at Runner's Rest glimmered through the trees. In a few moments they were at the door.

"I'll stable the horse," he said briefly.

She was in the library when he returned from the barn.

"The dawn is just breaking," she said. "It is wonderful out of doors. Do you hear the birds?"

"Do you want to go to bed, Steve?"

"No. Do you?"

"Wait for me, then."

She waited while he went to his room. The windows were open and the fresh, clean air of dawn carried the perfume of wet roses into the house.

The wooded eastern hills were very dark against the dawn; silvery mist marked the river's rushing course; thickets rang with bird songs.

She walked to the porch. Under its silver-sheeted dew the lawn looked like a lake.

Very far away across the valley a train was rushing northward. She could hear the faint vibration, the distant whistle. Then, from close by, the clear, sweet call of a meadow-lark mocked the unseen locomotive's warning in exquisite parody.

Cleland came down presently, freshened, dressed in flannels.

"Steve," he said, "you've only a nightgown on under that cloak!"

"It's all right. I'm going to get soaked anyway, if we walk on the lawn."

She laughed, drew off her slippers, flung them into the room behind her, then, with her lovely little naked feet she stepped ankle deep into the drenched grass, turned, tossed one corner of her red cloak over her shoulder, and looked back at him.

Over the soaking lawn they wandered, his arm encircling her slender body, her hand covering his, holding it closer at her waist.

The sky over the eastern hills was tinted with palest saffron now; birds sang everywhere. Down by the river cat-birds alternately mewed like sick kittens or warbled like thrushes; rose grosbeaks filled the dawn with heavenly arias, golden orioles fluted from every elm, song-sparrows twittered and piped their cheery amateur efforts, and there came the creak and chirr of purple grackles from the balsams and an incessant, never-ending rush of jolly melody from the robins.

Over the tumbling river, through the hanging curtains of mist, a great blue heron, looming enormously in the vague light, flapped by in stately flight and alighted upon a bar of golden sand.

More swiftly now came the transfiguration of the world, shell-pink and gold stained the sky; then a blaze of dazzling light cut the wooded crests opposite as the thin knife-rim of the sun glittered above the trees.

All the world rang out with song now; the river mists lifted and curled and floated upward in silvery shreds disclosing golden shoals and pebbled rapids all criss-crossed with the rosy lattice of the sun.

The girl at his side leaned her cheek against his shoulder.

"What would all this have meant without you?" she sighed. "The world turned very dark for me yesterday. And it was the blackest night I ever knew."

"And for me," he said; "—I had no further interest in living."

"Nor I.... I wanted to die last night.... I prayed I might.... I nearly did die—with happiness—when I heard your voice over the wire. That was all that mattered in the world—your voice calling me—out of the depths—dearest—dearest——"

With her waist closely enlaced, he turned and looked deep into her grey eyes—clear, sweet eyes tinged with the lilac-grey of iris bloom.

"The world is just beginning for us," he said. "This is the dawn of our first morning on earth."

The slender girl in his arms lifted her face toward his. Both her hands crept up around his neck. The air around them rang with the storm of bird music bursting from every thicket, confusing, almost stunning their ears with its heavenly tumult.

But within the house there was another clamour which they did not hear—the reiterated ringing of the telephone. They did not hear it, standing there in the golden glory of the sunrise, with the young world awaking all around them and the birds' ecstacy overwhelming every sound save the reckless laughter of the river.

But, in the dim house, Helen awoke in her bed, listening. And after she had listened a while she sprang up, slipped out into the dark hall, and unhooked the receiver from the hinge.

And after she had heard what the distant voice had to say she wrote it down on the pad of paper hanging by the receiver—wrote it, shivering there in the darkened hall:

Oswald Grismer, on his way last night to visit you at Runner's Rest, was killed by the third rail in the Grand Central Station. He was identified by letters. Harry Belter was notified, and has taken charge of the body. There is no doubt that it was entirely accidental. Mr. Grismer's suit-case evidently fell to the track, and, attempting to recover it, he came into contact with the charged rail and was killed instantly.

MARIE CLIFF BELTER.

When she had written it down, she went to Stephanie's room and found it empty.

But through the open window sunshine streamed, and presently she saw the red-cloaked figure down by the river's edge; heard the girl's sweet laughter float out among the willows—enchanting, gay, care-free laughter, where she had waded out into the shallow rapids and now stood knee-deep, challenging her lover to follow her if he dared.

Then Helen saw his white-flannelled figure wading boldly out through the water in pursuit; saw the slim, red-cloaked girl turn to flee; went closer to the window and stood with the written message in her hand, watching the distant scene through eyes dimmed with those illogical tears which women shed when there is nothing else in the world to do.

It was plain that they thought themselves all alone in the world, with the sunrise and the blue mountains as an agreeable setting, created as a background for them alone.

Twice the girl narrowly escaped capture; above the rush of the river their gales of laughter came back on the summer wind. Suddenly she slipped, fell with a cry into a deeper pool, and was caught up by him and carried shoreward, with her white arms around his neck and her lips resting on his.

And as the tall young lover, dripping from head to foot, came striding across the lawn with all he loved on earth laughing up at him in his arms, the girl at the window turned away and went into her own room with the written message in her hand.

And there, seated on the edge of her bed, she read it over and over, crying, uncertain, wondering whether she might not withhold it for a few hours more.

Because life is very wonderful, and youth more wonderful still. And there is always time to talk of life and death when daylight dies and the last laugh is spent—when shadows fall, and blossoms close, and birds grow silent among the branches.

She did not know why she was crying. She had not cared for the dead man.

She looked out through drawn blinds at the sunshine, not knowing why she wept, not knowing what to do.

Then, from the hall came Stephanie's ecstatic voice:

"Helen! Wake up, darling, and come down! Because Jim and I have the most wonderful thing in the world to tell you!"

But on the paper in her lap was written something more wonderful still. For there is nothing more wonderful than that beginning of everything which is called the end.