Chapter FOURTEEN: I

Angelica saw no one that night; but when she passed by the library, the door was half open and she heard voices in there--an unusual thing for that unsociable family.

Eddie went with her to the door of her room and wished her a good night, but she did not have one. She slept fitfully, and she had heart-breaking dreams. She felt confused and unhappy, awake or asleep. She couldn’t shake off that dull remorse, or a certain sense of great loss which haunted her.

She got up early, hoping that she might find Vincent and talk to him, and arrange with him to put an end to this wretched, intolerable situation. She couldn’t go on like this, in Eddie’s house, meeting him every day. She felt sure that Vincent must feel this as she did, or perhaps still more bitterly. She looked forward to it as an exquisite relief, to pour out her heart to him, sure of his apprehension; sure, too, that he would admire her fine feeling.

She was surprised, when she reached the breakfast-room, to see them all at the table together--Polly and Mrs. Russell up and dressed hours before their usual time; the doctor serious; Vincent in a neat dark suit and a new air of decorum. He glanced up as Angelica entered, and smiled, casually, the meaningless smile of his mother; then his eyes turned away. It wasn’t a ruse; he wasn’t pretending to be indifferent; she could see that he really _was_ so.

Polly made polite inquiries about Angelica’s mother, and then they had finished with her, and returned to their own absorbing preoccupation--the war.

In this one short week they had plunged into the war with fervour, led by Vincent. They cared for nothing else. Mrs. Russell had organized a tennis tournament for Stricken Belgium; her specialty was getting up entertainments and recounting atrocities of a certain sort. Ordinarily there were all sorts of fascinating subjects which one couldn’t discuss, all sorts of the most interesting semi-medical details which were unhappily tabu; but now, provided one told of it as done by a German, one might say anything. Nothing was too degenerate, too shocking.

Polly spent much of her time in the Red Cross workrooms, rolling bandages. She could do this with all her heart, without betraying a secret pity she felt for Germany. She had lived there so long, and had been so happy in her student days. She was convinced that the Germans were very wicked, and that it was necessary to conquer them, but all the same she was sorry for them; and she persisted in her firm hope that her own country would never enter the war.

"Yes," she said, "I do sympathize with the Allies. I hope they’ll win. I’m glad and willing to help them; but I’d rather see them lose than to see any of our own boys killed!"

She kept to herself the horror she felt at the idea of some nice American boy killing one of those magnificent, insolent German officers she had always so admired.

Moreover, she didn’t like the English. She had all the resentment, all the prejudices, of her little Ohio town against that lordly race. It wasn’t Vincent’s fantastic Irish hate; it wasn’t really hate at all, simply a stubborn dislike. She found a compromise, as he did, by a preposterous worship of all things French. They were apparently fighting the war alone against overwhelming numbers of Germans, somewhat hindered by a small and very stupid British army.

Vincent gave a sort of inspired dissertation upon the French, which deeply moved his family but failed to move Angelica. She was too stunned by this change of atmosphere. She was of no significance now; she wasn’t useful, she wasn’t interesting. No one--not even Vincent--gave her another glance; and Eddie, her steadfast friend, wasn’t there.

But the greatest blow of all was Vincent’s attitude toward Polly, his friendly deference, their air of complete harmony. She watched them, saw them exchange smiles and glances, listened to their familiar talk.

He left directly the meal was finished, and Polly went up-stairs to put on her hat.

"I’m going to work all morning," she said. "You can come with me and roll bandages, or, if you’d rather, you can stay at home and trim that hat for me."

"I’ll stay home," said Angelica.

But Polly lingered, inexcusably, to talk about Vincent--how Vincent and she went to this meeting, how Vincent and she said this, how Vincent and she thought that. They both knew that this was nothing more or less than crowing. Polly had vanquished Angelica. She had got him back!

Of course she had no actual information as to his philandering with her companion, but she had observed, she had put two and two together. She had never suspected actual wrongdoing; she didn’t imagine, somehow, that there was anything in Angelica’s conduct to blame. She simply thought that Vincent had too much admired this lovely young thing, and that Angelica had had her head turned by the flattery of his attention. She felt justified in pressing her advantage.

Angelica endured it stoically. She wouldn’t show even any interest. She listened to this talk of Vincent with rude inattention, and even went so far as to yawn.

"He is wonderful," said Polly. "He’s organized a sort of club--the Friends of France--men that can’t go themselves, but pledge themselves to get recruits. He says the war has stirred his faith. I’m very glad. He’s doing wonderful work!"

"Why don’t he enlist, like Mr. Eddie?"

"My dear, he’d never serve under the British flag. Eddie’s in the Canadian service. Vincent’s Irish, you see."

"Well, isn’t Mr. Eddie the same as he?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so; but he’s a different sort of Irishman."

"Well, why don’t he serve under the French flag, then, if he’s so fond of it?"

"He can do more good as he is. There are plenty of men who can fight, but there are very few who have Vincent’s wonderful eloquence."

"He said he was crazy to go," said Angelica; "but I notice he doesn’t."

"He’s married, too, you must remember," said Polly. "That makes a difference. Married men aren’t supposed to go till the very last."

Their eyes met.

"Take him!" said Angelica’s glance. "_I_ don’t care!" But after Polly had gone, she took out Vincent’s letter and read it again. She couldn’t understand it! She felt bruised, and weary, and sick at heart, and baffled. A letter like that, entreating her to come back to him, and, when she came, to find him on the best of terms with his wife and quite indifferent to her!

"But perhaps later, when we’re alone," she thought, "he’ll say something."

But all that day, and that evening, not a word, and the next day, too, until it grew plain to her that he didn’t intend to see her alone, that he was avoiding her.

So the next morning she wrote a note and slipped it under his door:

I want to see you.

He made no sort of answer; he went on all day as if she didn’t exist; he wouldn’t even meet her eye. When he wasn’t going out in the motor to make speeches for the Friends of France, he was sitting in Polly’s room, telling her what he had said at the last meeting and what he was going to say at the next one.

But Angelica was not to be disposed of so simply. She made up her mind that he would have to speak, he would have to tell her outright that he didn’t love her.

"He won’t find it hard to get rid of me!" she thought, bitterly. "But he’s got to _say_. I want to understand. What does he write me a letter like that for, and then be this way?"

She had a feeble little hope that perhaps it was only his feeling of duty that kept him from her, that he loved her and didn’t dare to see her. She felt that if he would just say that he loved her, but that they must give up all thought of each other, she would be satisfied. She could go on living, if she had that knowledge. _Something_, however, he must say.

On the third evening she lay in wait for him. Polly and Mrs. Russell had gone to bed, and he hadn’t returned yet from a lecture he was giving in the village; so she turned out the light in her room and sat in the dark, with the door open, waiting.

It was a melancholy October night. The leaves from the linden rustled against her window as they were blown from the branches, and a constant, monotonous, low wind blew, with a sound like rain. She sat as still as a spider in a web, grim, unhappy, filled with apprehension.

In the course of time he came in. She saw him hurry down the hall in his wet ulster and cap, and go into his own room. She was after him before he had time to close the door.

"I want to speak to you!" she said. "Why didn’t you let me? Don’t you want to see me?"

"No," he said. "No, Angelica, I don’t." He hadn’t even removed his cap. He put his hand on the knob of the door. "You shouldn’t have come here," he said. "Some one might see you."

"I don’t care! I want to know. What’s the matter? What’s happened?"

"I hoped," he said quietly, "that you’d let it drop without an explanation which is bound to be painful for both of us."

"I want to know where I stand. I want you to _say_."

"Sit down," he said. "I suppose we’ll have to have it out."

She did sit down, and waited while he took off his wet things, brushed his hair, and put on a smoking-jacket. She was interested by his room; for a few moments it distracted her unhappy heart. It was a curious room splendidly furnished in black and gold enamel. There was a sort of Chinese idea about it, shockingly adulterated by European luxury; long mirrors, armchairs upholstered in purple, great bookcases, a black and gray velvet rug on the polished floor, a marvelous lacquer screen concealing the bed, a little stand on which was a tea-set of pale gray porcelain with an odd black design. There were pictures on the wall--shocking, startling things, obscene subjects in brilliant colours; and in the corner a great ebony crucifix.

This exotic and voluptuous setting dismayed her. It proclaimed a Vincent of whom she knew nothing, and whom she could never comprehend. How in Heaven’s name was she to understand the poetic side of the man, she so unpoetic, so crude? A man with tea-sets and crucifixes and such pictures!

He sat down opposite to her in a low, cushioned chair, his head bent, his hands clasped between his knees. Her foolish eyes could see, with tears, that rough, bright hair, those fine, strong hands.

"Angelica," he began, not looking at her, "I’ve been a coward with you. I’ve shirked this, because it is so intolerably hard to do."

She waited in anguish, with no idea of what she was to hear.

"You see, Angelica, the war has opened my eyes. I was--just going on, lost in your beauty and loveliness, not thinking--drifting, drifting to hell, and taking you with me. And then came this thing, this deafening, colossal call to self-sacrifice, this monstrous revealment of the glory and holiness of duty. I’m not callous. I couldn’t help but heed it. I couldn’t go on in my old gross self-indulgence. Angelica!" he said, looking up and meeting her eyes. "This war has brought me back to God!"

"But," she faltered, "what does----”

"It means that I must give you up. My love for you is a sin. For me, a poet, slave and servant of beauty, you are temptation incarnate. You can’t understand that. You are as cold, as pure, as an angel. You don’t realize what love like mine is."

"I’m not!" she cried, pitifully. "I do understand! I’m not cold!"

"Compared to me you are. My love for you was madness. I couldn’t think of anything else. It wasn’t the gentle affection you felt."

"I didn’t feel a gentle affection!" she cried, in tears. "You _couldn’t_ love me more than I love you!"

"Do you?" he asked, in a sort of stealthy triumph.

She didn’t see that. She was utterly sincere; and her beautiful sincerity, her tears, suddenly moved him to one of those tempests of remorse to which he was so prone.

"Oh, God!" he cried. "What a brute I am! I talk about giving you up, and all the time I’m watching your face for signs of love. How can I find the strength to let you go?"

"Don’t!" said Angelica, with streaming eyes. "Don’t let me go, Vincent darling! Oh, if only we have each other!"

"We can’t have each other. It’s a sin!" he said. "Don’t you _see_? Oh, Angelica! Beautiful Angelica! Why don’t you help me? Why do you try to draw me down, and ruin me, and destroy me?" He sprang up, his fine face distorted with grief and passion. "You don’t know!" he cried. "Oh, my God! I have sinned! I have sinned! You don’t know after what sufferings, what weary wanderings, I have come back to God! You cannot imagine! There is nothing I have not done; no infamy I have not committed!"

And then he began his awful catalogue. He told her of his sins, his vices--vile enough in reality, but exaggerated by his hysteria. He had no medium between ingenious self-excuse and the wildest self-accusation. He took a monstrous sort of joy in his horrible recital. He remembered incidents from his boyhood, of cruelty, bestiality, lust, drunkenness, theft, every sort of dishonour.

"I’ve been in prison," he said. "No one knows. They thought I was in Canada that year. I’ve stolen from my own wife and spent the money on vile women. I’ve been kicked out of disreputable hotels."

It went on and on, a nightmare, things that Angelica had never imagined, all told in his coarse and vivid language which impressed his images upon her mind forever.

"Good God!" he cried. "I’m appalled! How can even the God of mercy forgive such things? Angelica! I am _lost_!"

He threw himself on his knees before her and buried his head in her lap.

"I have been in hell!" he cried. "What am I to do? God, who sees my heart, knows that I repent; but is it enough?"

A feeling new to Angelica came over her, a divine kindliness and pity. She stroked his ruffled hair, and tried, in her blindness, her bewilderment, to find words to comfort him.

"Of course!" she said. "If you’re sorry, it’ll be all right. You can start all over again."

With his head still buried, he flung his arms about her waist and began to sob, hoarse, terrible sobs. She couldn’t bear it.

"Oh, don’t! Don’t, darling!" she cried.

He raised his head.

"I must be mad!" he said. "I’m so tortured. I long so, I yearn so, after God. I want to be alone with Him, to contemplate Him forever, in solitude--in a desert--to pray to Him--to make my songs to Him. Almost all my verses are of God, Angelica. And then I see a lovely face--I drink another glass of wine--I read a line of voluptuous beauty--and I am lost again. How will it end? Oh, my merciful God, how will it end?"

She spent almost all the night trying to quiet and console Vincent. She drew his head against her breast and kissed his forehead while she talked to him. She found, almost miraculously, words and ideas which gave him comfort, but with an effort which was torment for her. She had a sensation of fishing in the depths of her mind, and painfully hauling out some thought which she had not been conscious of having there. Her love lent her insight; she discerned the grain of terror that lay beneath the chaff of his theatrical eloquence. She was able to talk to him with piety--she who had no religion, and had never given a thought to such matters. She assured him that his repentance would wipe out his sins.

"Why, Vincent!" she said. "_I_ could forgive anything you did; and you know God must be more forgiving than me."

Steadfast, gentle, patient as an angel, she sat with him, listened to his confessions, his self-accusations, and absolved him in her love. Who could hold the man to blame for those faults which were his essence? Not God--not she!

II

The clock had struck four. They were sitting side by side on the sofa, both exhausted, pale, quite calm now. Vincent began to talk again, more in his usual voice.

"Angelica," he said, "Eddie told me that he asked you to marry him, and that you refused him."

"Of course I did, Vincent."

"It was a mistake, my dear. It’s the very best thing you could do--both for yourself and for me."

"Oh, Vincent!" she cried. "I couldn’t! You know I couldn’t!"

"Angelica," he said, solemnly, "do it for my sake. Be my sister. I swear to you that all base and sensual feelings have left my heart. I am purged of all my lust."

Well, so he was, for the moment; but by weariness, not by religion. He had talked himself into exhaustion.

"You couldn’t do better," he went on. "I’m not selfish, not jealous. My wish is to see you happy, and you would be happy with Eddie. He’s a good man."

He was, in fact, so worn out after his outburst that he felt compelled to get rid of Angelica, not only for the present, but forever. He didn’t recognize the feeling. He was conscious only of a great desire to dispose of her, which he fancied was concern for her welfare.

"I want to see your life happy and blessed," he said. "I want to see you with your children about you, you with your beautiful Madonna face. I want always to be near you, but only to worship you. I will be your brother, your friend. I long to see this, Angelica!"

"No," she said, "I don’t want to. It wouldn’t suit me. I’m not so crazy about getting married, anyway."

"For me, Angelica! I beg you!"

"No, not even for you. I don’t want to, and that’s enough. I’m young, Vincent. I have all my life before me. You needn’t worry about me." A mortal weariness assailed her. "I guess I’ll go now," she said. "I’m pretty tired. Good night, Vincent!"

He kissed her solemnly on the brow and opened the door for her. She shut herself into her own room.

"Oh, Gawd!" she sighed. "_Now_ what? This is getting too much for me. Can’t even think any more. I don’t know----”

She undressed and got into bed, though the sky had grown gray in the east. She felt obliged to sleep, even if it were only for an hour; but before she closed her eyes----

"One thing’s certain," she said. "I’m going away from here, right away. I can’t stand any more of this!"