Chapter FIFTEEN: I

This one idea remained with her when she got up from her brief sleep--this determination to get away. Except for this, she was drained quite dry of all ideas, all feelings. She was not poetic; she hadn’t the astounding variations of a poetic soul such as Vincent’s. She was not at all easy to move, and when she was thoroughly aroused--to pity, to love, to grief, to whatever it might be--it took a very long time for the tempest to calm. She wanted now simply to get away alone, where she might examine this turmoil in her heart.

She packed her bag, put on her hat and coat, and went to Polly’s room.

Polly was dressing in her very leisurely fashion, going to and fro in the room, and stopping now and then before the table where her coffee and rolls were laid. She was in petticoat and under-bodice, with her thin, sallow arms and neck bare and her black hair hanging about her face. She had a forlorn and jaded look--for which, however, Angelica had no eyes.

"Mrs. Geraldine," she said, "I got to go. I want to go right away--to-day. I don’t feel well."

"I’m very sorry, my dear! What’s the trouble?"

"I’m just tired. I’ve just got to get away. I want to go home."

"But if you’re not very well, wouldn’t you be more comfortable here?"

"No. I want to go home. I--you know how it is, Mrs. Geraldine, when you feel you _just_ got to go home!"

Indeed Polly knew!

"For how long?" she asked. "You don’t think you’re really seriously ill, do you? You think a little rest at home will set you up in a very short time?"

Angelica hesitated a moment.

"I don’t think----” she began. "I don’t guess I’ll come back."

"Never?"

"No."

"But aren’t you happy here? Aren’t you comfortable? Tell me what’s wrong, and perhaps we can arrange it."

"You couldn’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay--not for anything."

There was no mistaking Angelica’s tone. Polly saw that the girl was absolutely determined and not to be turned--not without a long argument, anyway, and that she had no desire to undertake. What is more, she had too much sense to ask questions. She had a suspicion that her husband was somehow concerned in Angelica’s going; there was probably a great deal in this thing of which she decidedly preferred to remain ignorant.

She wasn’t jealous; that had worn off on that first evening of Vincent’s home-coming. It had hurt her dreadfully, then, to see his glance turn always away from her and toward this younger and lovelier face; but now she didn’t care whether he was infatuated with Angelica or any one else. She was pleased simply to be on friendly terms with him, to have him agreeable instead of contemptuous, and she knew that was the best she could expect.

She had not the slightest hope of winning him back; she didn’t even want to very much. She was so tired; she dreaded the necessity which love brings for effort--for keeping up, in appearances, in spirits. She preferred that Vincent should never look at her at all, rather than to have to endure his old critical glance. She was only too conscious of her sad decline.

So there was nothing in her heart but real regret that Angelica was going. She liked her very much, and was used to her.

"I’m very sorry to lose you," she said. "I’d hoped you were quite settled here. I’ll miss you more than I can say."

"You’ve been very nice to me," said Angelica.

"And you must always remember me as a friend. If there is ever anything that I can do for you, come to me. I mean it!"

She held out her hand, and Angelica gripped it.

"Good-by!" said Polly again. "And good luck! I hope you’ll let me know how you get on."

"Yes, I will. But listen, Mrs. Geraldine--can I have my money?"

"Certainly! You’ll have to get it from Mr. Geraldine, though. He’s in the library, writing."

Angelica was dismayed.

"No," she faltered. "I don’t want to bother him. If you’ll just give me my train fare, you could send me the rest."

"My dear, I don’t think I have even enough for your fare. Mr. Geraldine handles all my money for me."

She was a little ashamed of this arrangement, to which she had eagerly agreed when she and Vincent were first married. It humiliated her to be thus, without a penny.

"You needn’t mind disturbing him," she said. "He expects to do such things for me. Come up and say good-by to me the last thing before you go, won’t you?"

Angelica said "Yes," quite absently. She was thinking how this interview with Vincent might be avoided. It was the thing above all others she most desired to avoid. She had meant to go off quickly, to _get home_, where she could think in peace, where she could try a little to remember and to comprehend what had happened. She didn’t attempt to decide whether or not she would ever see Vincent again; she knew only that she did not want to see him _now_. But she was too well-trained in poverty, and had too much common sense, to go off penniless, without even her train fare, when there was honestly earned money due to her.

"Shall I wait for Eddie to come home?" she reflected.

No, that wouldn’t do at all. She wouldn’t know what to say to Eddie, how to explain her leaving. She felt absolutely afraid to see him.

"I’ll just have to go to Vincent," she decided. "But _I’m going_! He can’t stop me--I don’t care what he says!"

It took all her courage. She went down-stairs and into the library. There he sat, writing, as Polly had said. He didn’t look up. She stood in the doorway, waiting, for a few minutes; then she said:

"Mr. Geraldine!"

"Yes?" he asked, not looking up from his writing.

"Mrs. Geraldine told me to come to you and get my money."

"I can’t be bothered now!" he said irritably. "I’m busy. Can’t you see?"

"I’m sorry, but I’ve got to have it. I’m going."

"Going, Angelica?" he said, looking up at last.

"Yes. I want to catch the ten-forty. So if you’ll just give me my money, I’ll go right away."

He resumed his writing.

"Too bad!" he said. "I really haven’t got it."

"Please don’t be so mean!" she cried. "For Gawd’s sake, give it to me, and let me go!" Her fatigue and her distress at his callousness were unnerving her. She felt ready to burst into tears. "Just give it to me and let me go!" she said again.

"I haven’t it," said Vincent.

"You haven’t got any money?"

"Not a sou."

"But you can get it for me?"

He shook his head.

"No, my dear, dear girl. You’ll have to wait."

"How long--an hour?"

"I can’t say."

"But what do you mean?"

"I mean that I haven’t any money. I said so before."

"But Mrs. Geraldine said you had all her money."

"Then Mrs. Geraldine will have to be informed, very kindly, that her income is mortgaged for the next two years. I had to do it. You see, she has a little annuity, which she lets me collect. Well, I was embarrassed. I had to borrow money against it. So, you see, that’s _that_! She hasn’t anything; and I--I’m penniless as a gipsy. Now you comprehend, I hope."

And to her amazement he began to write again.

"Say!" she cried. "This won’t do!"

"Don’t bother me, my dear girl. I’m at work," he said, frowning. "On a poem."

"But you can’t put me off like this!"

"I’m writing!" he cried, in a sudden rage. "I don’t care about you and your money. Let me alone!"

"You’ve got to stop writing, then. _I_ don’t care about you and your writing. You’ve got to pay me!"

He sprang to his feet.

"Get out!" he shouted. "How dare you trouble me about your dirty money? Good God! Lines such as I had, ready to put down, and to have them ruined by a greedy, good-for-nothing little servant girl! I _have_ no money. If I had, I wouldn’t give it to you. You don’t deserve it. Idling away your time, aping your betters, draggling about in their cast-off finery! If they weren’t both of them lazy and worthless themselves, they’d have turned you out long ago. Get out!"

And he caught her by the arm and thrust her into the hall, slamming the door behind her.

Angelica rushed up-stairs like a whirlwind and into Polly’s room, panting, quite beside herself with fury.

"Him!" she cried. "He turned me out! Took me by the arm and shoved me out into the hall! He----”

Polly had been putting on her hat before the mirror, but she threw it down in haste, to give all her attention to this frantic young thing.

"What were you saying to him?" she asked, mildly.

"Nothing! Not a blame thing! Only just asking him for my money, like you told me. Ah, he’s a fine feller, he is! The names he called me--and just last night crying and saying he couldn’t live away from me!"

And she told all the story to Polly--even showed her Vincent’s letter.

"Now!" she said. "Give me my carfare, and I’ll go."

"I have nothing. Perhaps Mrs. Russell----”

But Mrs. Russell was out. Polly was in misery. There was this terrible girl, demanding her money, implacably waiting for it, this girl whom her husband had treated so shockingly. Her only wish in life was to be rid of her.

"Take my ring," she said. "It’s worth ten times what you want."

"I can’t buy a ticket with it. I don’t believe you have any money, the lot of you!"

Paradise was lost, her hopes destroyed, her pride mortally wounded; so, having nothing to lose, she let herself go. She threw off all restraint; she was as coarse, as fierce, as she wished to be.

Polly was wonderfully patient with the girl.

"You shall be paid," she said. "I’ll go down with you to Mr. Geraldine. If he hasn’t any ready money, he’ll write you a cheque."

He still sat there writing. He paid no attention to them as they opened the door and went in.

"Vincent!" said Polly. "Will you please write a cheque for Angelica at once?"

Then he laid down his pen and looked at them for a long time in contemptuous silence.

"I told her," he said, "just what I shall tell you. I have no money."

"But, Vincent, a cheque----”

He smiled, pulled a cheque-book out of his pocket, and wrote. Tearing out a leaf, he handed it to Angelica. She stared at it.

"What do you mean?" she cried.

Polly looked over her shoulder.

"Please don’t joke, Vincent," she said. "Please give her what is due her."

For he had drawn a cheque for ten thousand dollars.

"My dear Polly, any cheque I wrote would be equally ridiculous. There’s nothing in the bank."

"Then where is it, Vincent?"

"I’ve told you. My investments----”

"But my income? Surely that----”

He began to show irritability.

"I tell you," he said, "that it’s all gone. Now, for God’s sake, my dear soul, go away! Can’t you see I’m trying to write?"

"But my income----”

"Oh, you and your damned income!" he shouted. "You women and your beastly greed! Haven’t you any soul? Can’t you think of anything but money?"

"No, I can’t, Vincent, just now. It’s a very serious matter," said Polly, gravely.

He jumped up with an oath.

"It’s disposed of for the next two years," he cried. "You left it to my judgment. I’ve used my judgment. And now you come whining and sniveling about your handful of pennies. By God, I’m entitled to it! The whole thing doesn’t amount to what you cost me in a month--your clothes and your----”

"Never mind that, please. Do you mean that we can’t pay Angelica?"

"Good God! Is your head made of wood? Or are you getting senile?"

Polly went on, as unheeding of his gross rudeness as a rock is of the spray that dashes over it. Quiet and resolute, she pursued her investigations. Her money was her life, her peace, her freedom, her dignity; she knew that she could not earn any more, and that there was no other man to give it to her. She must have it!

Angelica observed her with profound admiration. Even to further her own best interests, even, she fancied, to save her own life, she couldn’t have remained so calm, so self-controlled.

"Do you mean," she went on, "that we have nothing?"

"I do not! We have all sorts of things--paintings, books, your jewelry. Simply we have no _money_. Now let me alone!"

"But what do you propose doing?" she asked. "We can’t go on, like this, without a penny. How do you propose to pay Angelica?"

He raised his upper lip in a brutal sort of sneer.

"Oh, you don’t know, do you? Of course not! You’re perfectly innocent, aren’t you? You never suspected, did you, who it was paid for the clothes on your back? It’ll be such a shock to you, dear soul! In our need we shall have to turn to Eddie! He’ll pay Angelica, he’ll pay me, and he’ll pay you. God bless Eddie!"

That blow told. Polly winced under it. She turned away slowly and went out of the room. Angelica followed her, and, looking back from the doorway, she saw Vincent writing again.

II

Angelica had started an avalanche. She was deeply impressed and interested. She had no desire to go now; she wished to see the tremendous end.

Events moved with satisfactory speed. Polly went at once to Mrs. Russell’s room, to find her just arrived at home from a Stricken Belgium card-party. They closed the door; they were shut in there a long time together. They must, of course, have summoned by telephone the two unhappy and disturbed gentlemen who came in a motor-car later in the afternoon.

When these came, they all went into the library, where Vincent still sat. There was a dreadful scene. The newcomers were Polly’s lawyer and the trustee of her first husband’s estate, and they at once attacked Vincent. The trustee was non-legal and devoid of wise caution; he shouted threats at Vincent, and Vincent cursed him in the voice of a bull. He was beside himself with fury. The lawyer tried to frighten them both into silence, but he was himself so appalled and outraged by their ignorance of what was and what wasn’t libelous that his arguments were weak.

Polly was distressed, but resolute.

"No!" she implored the raging trustee. "No, Frank, _don’t_, please! Only find out just what has happened and see what you can save for me. Don’t trouble to quarrel with him."

Vincent turned on her.

"Yes!" he screamed in a high, hysterical voice. "Yes! You’ll fight to defend your _money_, at least! You don’t care about anything else. It never pierced your damned self-satisfaction when I was off with other women----”

"Vincent!" said his mother in a low, shocked voice.

"Very well! Very well!" he cried. "I don’t mind them knowing. I did take her miserable little income and spend it on other women. For God’s sake, who wouldn’t? Look at her! Do you think _she_----”

"Just tell him, please," said Polly to the lawyer, "that I intend to leave him immediately and to obtain a divorce, and that he must give up any authority he ever got from me."

"That will be arranged, Mrs. Geraldine," said the lawyer.

Suddenly Mrs. Russell began to cry.

"Oh, Polly!" she said. "Don’t give the poor boy up! Give him another chance! Oh, do, do, do!"

She stopped suddenly. Vincent, too, stopped his violence and his curses. Eddie had come in.

Eddie’s peculiar power had never before been so unmistakably demonstrated. He had never before had such an opportunity for showing how much of a man he was. He was master of the situation, master of every one. He brushed aside the clamour, the furious arguments; he wished only for information, and he knew how to get it.

He addressed himself chiefly to the lawyer, with now and then a question to Polly. He listened carefully, and one could almost read in his face the functioning of his just and clear mind.

Angelica watched him through the keyhole. This wasn’t _her_ Eddie, who stammered in her presence, who could be roused by a single look from her black eyes. Here was a man quite beyond her influence, immeasurably superior to her, a man undeniably fine.

She listened to him speaking. He addressed Vincent with a quiet, dispassionate sort of contempt; he told him that he would return to Polly what Vincent had stolen from her.

"And I will apologize to you, too," he said to Angelica, when he came out of the library, "for all this that you’ve had to go through here in my house. I think you’re quite right to leave. If you’ll go up-stairs now, I’ll talk the matter over with these gentlemen. You and I can discuss it later."

III

So it was over. The house was quiet again, and they were all shut in their several rooms. Angelica went to Polly’s door and knocked.

"It’s Angelica," she said. "Anything I can do for you?"

Polly’s voice came, after a long interval, faint and mournful:

"No, thank you!"

So then where should she turn but, naturally, to Eddie? She was very unhappy. She felt ashamed of herself now, terribly lonely, banished, and disgraced. Of course Polly would tell Eddie--perhaps already had told him--all that Angelica had told her, all about that disgraceful affair with Vincent, and she would lose, or perhaps already had lost, Eddie’s regard. Just when she needed it so, when she had been so cruelly repudiated by Vincent!

"Well, anyway, I want to see him," she said to herself. "Anyway, he won’t fly out at me, even if he thinks I’ve been awful!"

She couldn’t find him for a long time. She wandered about the house like a lost soul; and then at last she came across him on the veranda, sitting there smoking, in the chilly October evening.

"Mr. Eddie!" she said softly, from the doorway.

"Oh! Yes?" he answered pleasantly. "Is it you, Angelica? Do you want anything?"

"I just wanted to speak to you----”

"Shall I come in?"

"I’ll come out," she suggested, glad of the chance to talk in the dark, and groped her way to the corner where she saw the light of his cigar.

"It’s a dark night," he said.

"It’s--sad out here," said Angelica. "So--damp, and all."

"There’s a big storm coming. I wanted to speak to you, Angelica. I’m very glad you came. I wanted--I’ve some money that’s due you. You see, I’m going away to-morrow."

"Going where?"

"To a training-camp--before I go to France, you know."

"Oh, dear!" she cried, with quite genuine dismay. "Oh, Mr. Eddie, I _am_ sorry! I hate to have you gone!"

"I don’t like to go," he admitted, simply. "And especially I don’t like to leave you like this. I wish that it could have been different."

She waited a moment.

"I suppose I better be going to-morrow, too," she said.

"I suppose so. There’s nothing more for you here, Angelica. Polly’s going away, you know, and----”

"Mr. Eddie!" she cried. "Tell me! Tell me, honestly, do you think I--it was my fault? If you’d only please tell me everything they told you--Mrs. Geraldine, and all! What did she say about me--and--that?"

"Polly?" he asked. "She didn’t say anything about you at all, except that she liked you very much, and that she thought Vincent had behaved very badly toward you."

"My Gawd!" said Angelica under her breath. "She never told him! He don’t know a thing!"

"I don’t blame you at all," he said. "Not in any way. You lost your temper--perhaps you lost your head a little--but you had great provocation. You see, Angelica, Vincent came to me and explained the whole thing. I must say he was very candid--and fine about it. He told me frankly that he had tried to--mislead you, and that you refused to listen to him; and that that was the reason he behaved so badly to you. Of course, he _has_ behaved badly, all around,--shamefully; but still--he has good points. I thought it was a--a plucky sort of thing to do, you know, especially when we were on such bad terms. He said he couldn’t bear to think of your being blamed in any sort of way."

Angelica was amazed and delighted that she had been made into a persecuted heroine. She was filled with admiration for Vincent’s nobility; and yet she could dimly perceive that there was something behind it, that he gained something he wanted by this false confession. It seemed a miracle that Eddie had been spared, both by him and by Polly, those very facts which Angelica was so anxious for him not to know.

"He said he was sorry for the whole thing," Eddie went on. "He begged me to try to influence Polly to give him another chance. I couldn’t do that. I simply said I’d tell her exactly what he had said, and what he’d done. I did. I had a long talk with her; but she’s finished with him. She didn’t say a word against him, but--she’s finished with him."

"But is it that--about me? Is that the reason she’s leaving him?" Angelica asked, with anxiety.

"No! As far as that goes, there are plenty of things far worse--in that _line_, you know. No! I think it’s chiefly about the money. She says she couldn’t trust him again. She says it’s impossible to live with him under such conditions. I suppose it is. Anyway, she’s absolutely determined to leave him."

Angelica sat in silence, more utterly wretched than ever. Had Vincent just sacrificed himself for her? Did he really love her? And for his love was he to be utterly cast out?

"No!" she said suddenly, aloud.

"No what?" asked Eddie.

"Nothing. I was just thinking. There comes the rain!" she cried. "Gosh, what a storm!"

They both got up, to push back their chairs against the wall of the house, but even there it reached them--the spray from the rain falling in straight, heavy lines, dashing against the earth with a fierce drumming noise that filled the air and confused the senses. The smell of the soil, the dead leaves, the grass, came to them with its own invigorating freshness; and in spite of the chilly sprinkle in their faces they lingered; fascinated by the noise, the wet odours, the great black, uproarious void before them. They stood close together, their shoulders touching, their backs against the wall.

"Angelica!" said Eddie’s voice in her ear, curiously flat and faint in the surrounding din. "Angelica, _can’t_ you? Just think--if I could only know--while I’m away--that you--that you were waiting for me!"

"Eddie," she replied, "I couldn’t. Not now, anyway. Perhaps--later. _I_ don’t know."

"You mean--you think some day--it’s not _impossible_? You _could_, then? I mean--I’m not repulsive to you?"

"Deary boy!" she protested. "Of course you’re not."

"Do you think you could--kiss me?" he asked. "I’m going away to-morrow."

She turned, put a hand upon his shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek.

"There!" she said. "Now you see!"

He didn’t move; stood there like a statue.

"I guess we’d better go in," she said. "We’re getting wet; and I’ve got to pack up my things."

To go home! She began for the first time to imagine her home-coming, to think of her future. This was all over; she would never get another such job, never again be in a house like this, never again have a chance like this!

She began to think of the kitchen, of the factory, of their suppers of tea and bread and margarine, of her mother, listless and hopeless--all of it hopeless--even Vincent. What could he ever do for her, even if he had the inclination? Who was there on earth who cared to do anything for her, who could give her in any way the things she craved? Panic overwhelmed her.

"Eddie!" she cried. "I--could!"

He was suddenly galvanized into life.

"Could?" he cried. "Could what?"

"If you want--I’ll marry you!"

His arms went around her, pressing her tightly against his coat. A smell of damp tweed and cigar-smoke filled her nostrils; she couldn’t see or move at all, her head was so buried in his clumsy embrace.

"Oh, my darling!" he cried. "Oh, Angelica, to think that I have to go _now_!"

"But I’ll be waiting for you," she said.