Chapter IX: Part 9

"We'd better not," she said smilingly. She had seated herself on the sofa and had drawn her pretty, bare feet up under her kimono.

"You won't let me give another party for you?" he inquired.

"I ought not to."

"But _will_ you?"

"I don't know. This kimono party we're having now seems sufficient for the present; and I think you'd better go."

"Anyway," he said, "when a desire for innocent revelling seizes you, you know where to go."

"Yes, thank you."

They laughed at each other.

"Good-bye, pretty stranger," he said.

"Good-bye, you nice boy!"

So he went away upstairs with his ice, and she stole out presently and ventured into the courtyard where the placid white horse stood as calmly as a cow.

And Stephanie, lying on her bed in her own room, twisted her body in anguish and, hands clenched, buried her face in her arms.

Helen, returning an hour later, and glancing into Stephanie's bed-room as she passed, saw the girl lying there.

"I thought you were motoring!" she exclaimed.

"The car is laid up," said Stephanie, in a muffled voice.

"Oh. Don't you feel well, Steve?"

"N-not very."

"Can I do anything? Wait a moment----" She continued on to her bed-room, unpinned her hat, drew on her working smock, and came slowly back, buttoning it.

"What's wrong, Steve?" she inquired.

"Nothing," said the girl, drearily. "I'm just--tired."

"Why--you've been crying!" murmured Helen, bending over her. "What is making you so unhappy, Steve? Don't you wish to tell me?"

"N-no."

"Shall I sit here by you, dear? I can work this afternoon----"

"No.... It's nothing at all--truly it isn't."

"Had you rather be alone?"

"Yes."

Helen went slowly away toward the court where her nag and its rider were ready for her. Stephanie lay motionless, dumb, wretched, her bosom throbbing with emotions too powerful for her--yet too vague, too blind, to enlighten her.

Unawakened to passion, ignorant of it, regardless and disdainful of what she had never coped with, the mental and spiritual suffering was, perhaps, the keener.

Humiliation and grief that she was no longer first and alone in Cleland's heart and mind had grown into a sorrow deeper than she knew, deeper than she admitted to herself. All the childish and pettier emotions attended it, mocking her with her own frailty--ignoble jealousy, hard resentment, the primitive sarcasm born of envy--the white flash of hatred for those to whom this man turned for amusement--this man whom she had adored from boyhood.

Why had he cast her out of the first place in his heart and mind? He had even told her that he was in love with her. Why had he turned to this shameless dancer?

And to what others did he also turn to find amusement when she did not know where he was?

Had it been her fault? No. From the very first night that he had come back to her--in the very face of her happiness to have him again--he had shown her what kind of man he was--there at the Ball of All the Gods--with that dreadful Goddess of Night.

She turned feverishly, tortured by her thoughts, but neither they nor the hot pillow gave her any rest. They stung her like scorpions, setting every nerve on edge with something--anger, perhaps--something unendurable there in the silence of her room.

And at last she got up to make an end of it, once and for all. But the preparations took her some time--some cold water, brush and comb, and a chamois rag.

Cleland, now dressed for luncheon, humming a comic song under his breath and contentedly numbering his latest pencilled pages, heard the tap at his open door, and looked up cheerfully, hoping for Marie Cliff, a pre-prandial dance, and a pretty companion at luncheon. Tragedy entered, wearing the mask of Stephanie Quest.

"Hello!" he cried gaily, jumping up and coming toward her. "This is too delightful. Are you coming out to lunch with me, Steve?"

"Sit down a moment," she said. But he continued to stand; and she came over and stood beside his desk, resting one hand on it.

And, after a moment, lifting her grey eyes to his:

"I have borne a great deal from you. But there is an insult which you have offered me to-day that I shall not endure in silence."

"What insult?" he demanded, turning red.

"Making my studio a rendezvous for you and your--mistress!"

He knew what she meant instantly, and his wrath blazed:

"It was an accident. I don't know how you heard of it, but it was pure accident. Also, that is a rotten thing to say----"

"Is it! You once told me that you prefer to call a spade a spade! Oh, Jim!--you were _clean_ once. What have you done!"

"But it's a lie--and an absurd one!"

"Do you think that of me, too--that I tell lies?"

"No. But you evidently believe one."

"It is too obvious to doubt----" Her throat was dry with the fierceness of her emotions and she choked a moment.

"Who told you?"

"I was there."

"Where?"

"In my bed-room. I had not gone out. I heard the maid tell you I was out motoring. I meant to speak to you--but you have been so--so unfriendly lately.... And then that woman came in!" ... Her grey eyes fairly blazed.

"Why do you do this to me?" she cried, clenching both hands. "It is wicked!--unthinkable! Why do you hold me in such contempt?"

Her fierce anger silenced him, and his silence lashed her until she lost her head.

"Do you think you can offer me such an affront in my own studio because I am really not your sister?--because your name is Cleland and mine is not?--because I was only the wretched, starved, maltreated child of drunken parents when your father picked me out of the gutter! Is that why you feel at liberty to affront me under my own roof--show your contempt for me? _Is_ it?"

"Steve, you are mad!" he said. He had turned very white.

"No," she said, "but I'm at the limit of endurance. I can't stand it any longer. I shall go to-night to the man I married and live with him and find a shelter there--find protection and--f-forgetfulness----" Her voice broke but her eyes were the more brilliant and dangerous for the flashing tears:

"I know what you and my aunt talked over between you," she said. "You discussed the chances of my developing erratic, unscrupulous, morbid, immoral traits! You were anxious for fear I had inherited them. Probably now you think I have. Think as you please----!" she flashed out through her tears; "you have killed every bit of happiness in me. Remember it some day!"

She turned to go, and he sprang forward to detain her, but she twisted herself out of his arms and reeled back against the desk.

Then he had her in his arms again, and she stared at his white, tense face, all distorted by her blinding tears:

"I love you, Steve! That's all the answer I give you. That's my reply to your folly. I never loved anybody else; I never shall; I never can. I am clean. I don't know how it happens, but I _am_! They lie who tell you anything else. I'm like my father; I care for only one woman. I'm incapable of caring for any other.

"I don't know what I've done to you to make you say such things and think them. I consider you as my own kin; I respect and love you like a kinsman. But--God help me--I've gone further; I love you as a lover. I can't tear you out of my heart; I've tried because I saw no hope that you ever could fall in love with me--but I couldn't do it--I couldn't.

"If you go to the man you married I shall never love any other woman. That is the truth, and I know it, now!"

Her body was still rigid in his arms; her tense hands lay flat on his breast as though to repulse him.

But there was no strength in them and they had begun to tremble under the hard beating of his heart.

Her mouth, too, was quivering; her tear-wet eyes looked mutely into his; suddenly her body relaxed, yielded; and at his fierce embrace her hot mouth melted against his.

"Steve," he stammered--"Steve--can you care for me--in my way----?"

Under the deep-fringed lids her grey eyes looked at him vaguely; her lips were burning.

"Steve----" he whispered.

Her slowly lifted eyes alone responded.

"Can you love me?"

Her eyes closed again. And after a long while her lips responded delicately to his.

"Is it love, Steve?" he asked, trembling.

"I don't know.... I'm so tired--confused----"

Her arms fell from his neck to his shoulders and she opened her eyes, listlessly.

"I think it--must be," she said.... "I'm quite sure it is!"

"Love?"

"Yes."

*CHAPTER XXV*

Cleland, tremendously thrilled and excited by the first but faint response to his ardour which he had ever obtained of Stephanie, but uncertain, too, and almost incredulous as to its significance and duration, retained sufficient common sense and self-control to restrain him from pressing matters further. For Stephanie seemed so listless, so confused, so apparently unable to comprehend herself and these new and deep emotions which threatened her, that he forebore to seize what seemed to be an undue advantage.

They parted very quietly at her studio door; she naively admitting physical fatigue, headache, and a natural desire to be down in her darkened room; he to return to his studio, too much upset to work or to eat, later, when the dinner hour drew near.

However, he took his hat and stick and went down stairs. When he rang at her studio, Helen admitted him, saying that Stephanie was asleep in her room and had not desired any dinner. So they chatted for a while, and then Cleland took his departure and walked slowly up the street toward the Rochambeau. And the first person he met on University Place was Marie Cliff.

Perhaps it was the instinct to make amends to her for the unjust inferences drawn to her discredit a few hours before--perhaps it was the sheer excitement and suddenly renewed hope of Stephanie that incited him. Anyway, his gay greeting and unfeigned cordiality stirred the lonely girl to response, and when they had walked as far as the Beaux Arts, they were quite in the mood to dine together.

She was grateful to be with an agreeable man whom she liked and whom she could trust; his buoyant spirits and happy excitement were grateful for somebody on whom they could be vented.

In that perfumed tumult of music, wine, and dancing they seated themselves, greeted cordially by Louis, the courtly and incomparable; and they dined together luxuriously, sometimes rising to dance between courses, sometimes joining laughingly in a gay chorus sustained by the orchestra, sometimes, with elbows on the cloth and heads together, chattering happily of nothing in particular.

Men here and there bowed to her and to him; some women recognized and greeted them; but they were having much too good and too irresponsible a time together to join others or to invite approaches.

It was all quite harmless--a few moments' pleasure without other significance than that the episode had been born of a young man's high spirits and a young girl's natural relief when her solitude was made gay for her without reproach.

It was about eleven o'clock; Marie, wishing to be fresh for her posing in the morning, reminded him with frank regret that she ought to go.

"I wouldn't care," she said, "except that since I've left the Follies I have to depend on what I earn at Miss Davis's studio. So you don't mind, do you, Mr. Cleland?"

"No, of course not. It's been fine, hasn't it?"

"Yes. I've had such a good time!--and you are the nicest of men----"

Her voice halted; Cleland, watching her with smiling eyes, saw a sudden alteration of her pretty features. Then he turned to follow her fixed gaze.

"Hello," he said, "there's Harry Belter. Are you looking at _him_?"

Her face had grown very sober; she withdrew her gaze with a little shrug of indifference, now.

"Yes, I was looking at him," she said quietly.

"I didn't know you knew him."

"Didn't you? ... Yes, I used to know him."

He laughed:

"The recollection doesn't appear to be very pleasant."

"No."

"Too bad. I like Belter. He and I were at school together. He's enormously clever."

She remained silent.

"He really is. And he is an awfully good fellow at heart--a little pronounced, a trifle tumultuous sometimes, but----"

She said, evenly:

"I know him better than you do, Mr. Cleland."

"Really!"

"Yes.... I married him."

Cleland was thunderstruck.

"I was only seventeen," she said calmly. "I was on the stage at the time."

"Good Lord!" he murmured, astounded.

"He never spoke of it to you?"

"Never! I never dreamed----"

"_I_ did. I dreamed." She shrugged her shoulders again, lightly. "But--I awoke very soon. My dream had ended."

"What on earth was the matter?"

"I am afraid you had better ask him," she replied gravely.

"I beg your pardon; I shouldn't have asked that question at all!"

"I didn't mind.... It is my tragedy--still. But let a man interpret it to men. A woman would not be understood."

"Are you--divorced?"

"No."

Cleland, still deeply astonished, looked across the room at Belter. That young man, very red, sat listening to Badger Spink's interminable chatter--pretending to listen; but his disturbed gaze was turned from time to time on Marie Cliff; and became hideously stony when it shifted to Cleland at moments without a sign of recognition.

"Shall we go?" asked the girl in a low voice.

They rose. A similar impulse seemed to seize Belter, and he got up almost blindly and strode across the floor.

Cleland, suddenly confronted at the door of the cloak-room, from which Marie was just emerging, said:

"Hello, Harry," in a rather embarrassed manner.

"Go to hell," replied the latter in a low voice of concentrated fury, and turned on his wife.

"Marie," he said unsteadily, "may I speak to you?"

"Certainly, but not now," replied the girl, who had turned white as a sheet.

Cleland touched the man's arm which was trembling:

"Better not interfere," he said pleasantly. "The disgrace of a row will be yours, not your wife's."

"What are _you_ doing with my wife!" whispered Belter, his voice shaking with rage.

"I'll tell you, Harry. I'm showing her all the respect and friendship and sympathy that there is in me to to show to a charming, sincere young girl.... You know the sort of man I am. You ought to know your wife but evidently you don't. Therefore, your question is superfluous."

Belter drew him abruptly back to the foot of the stairs:

"If you're lying I'll kill you," he said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes. And if you make any yellow scene here, Harry, after I've taken your wife home, I'll come back and settle you. Do _you_ understand? ... For God's sake," he added coldly, "if you've got any breeding, show it now!"

The tense silence between them lasted a full minute. Then, very slowly, Belter turned toward the cloak-room where, just within the door, his wife stood looking at him.

His sanguine features had lost all their colour in the greyish pallour that suddenly aged him. He went toward her; she made the slightest movement of recoil, but faced him calmly.

"I'm sorry," he said in a voice like a whisper. "I am--the fool that you--think me.... I'll--take myself off."

He bowed to her pleasantly, turned and passed Cleland with his hat still in his hand:

"I'm sorry, Jim; I know you're all right; and I'm--all wrong ... all wrong----"

"Come to the studio to-morrow. Will you, Harry?" whispered Cleland.

But Belter shook his head, continuing on his way to the street.

"I'll expect you," added Cleland. "Come about noon!"

The other made no sign that he had heard.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

Stephanie was awake with the sparrows the next morning, and her face betrayed not a trace of the pallour and fatigue which had made Helen a little anxious when she came into the studio after her interview with Cleland.

"I never had such a sleep in my life!" she announced, sauntering into Helen's room, already bathed and dressed, when at last she heard the latter's bath running. "I feel about sixteen, Helen."

"You look it, dear. What was the matter with you last night? Jim came about nine."

"Did he?" said the girl, turning to conceal a smile. "What did you do to entertain him."

"Talked about you," said Helen, watching her where she stood at the sunny window, absently pleating the sash curtains between idle fingers.

"Was he edified?"

"He seemed to be. When I changed the subject he went away."

Stephanie, at the window, suddenly laughed outright, but her back remained turned.

"Men are funny," she said.

"Women are funnier, Steve."

"What! Are _you_ a traitor to your sex?"

"Sometimes," said Helen, absently. "I feel that my sex betrays me--and a few others of my own mind."

Stephanie turned and looked at her, still laughing:

"Like the Kiltie," she said, "you complain that the rest of the regiment is marching out of step with you."

"There's only a corporal's guard of us in step to the music," smiled Helen.... "You're looking radiant, Steve! I've never seen you as enchanting."

"I feel like enchanting the world--like a sorceress all ready for business.... This is a wonderful day, Helen."

"What are your engagements?"

"Two lessons this morning.... I don't know whether I'll go. Luncheon with Oswald at Tinto's. But it's so stuffy there in June, and the summer garden is so grubby."

"You're not going, then?"

"I don't know. I don't want to hurt his feelings," said the girl, reluctantly.

Helen sat up, flung off the bed clothes, and swung her superb young body out of bed.

"My bath's running over. Sit there and talk, Steve----"

But Stephanie turned to the window, her lips still edged with the same indefinable smile, and gazed at space through the netted squares of sunshine.

Breakfast was served in the studio presently. Helen joined her in bathrobe and slippers, knotting the belt around her waist.

"I'm wonderfully hungry," exclaimed Stephanie.

"It's more than you've been for several weeks, Steve."

Again the girl laughed, not meeting Helen's glance.

"What do you think of marriage?" she inquired presently. "I hope you haven't the very horrid ideas of Harry Belter."

"What are Harry's ideas?"

"He says it's the curse of civilization," said Stephanie, "and the invention of meddlesome and superstitious imbeciles. He says that the impulse toward procreation is mechanical and involuntary, and ought to be considered so without further personal responsibility; and that the State should nourish and educate whatever children were worth saving to replenish the waste, and put the others out of the way."

"Harry," remarked Helen, "talks for talking's sake very often."

"He's quite serious. His ideas are revolting. Never have I known a man who is so savagely an iconoclast as Harry Belter."

Helen smiled.

"Harry is a talker, dear. He doesn't believe a word of it. Harry Belter is, by nature, a fat, happy, witty, clever and very sentimental young man who also is so overwhelmingly selfish that anything which happens to annoy him he considers a cataclysmic catastrophe involving the entire civilized world in ruin!"

"What!"

"Do you wish to know what really is the matter with Harry Belter? Shall I tell you what actually has inspired this noisy iconoclast and moral anarchist with the urge for talking?"

"I'd like to know."

"I'll tell you. Three years ago he married a child of seventeen and started to mould her to suit himself. The only trouble was that she had a mind. She knew what she wanted to do and to be. She could not understand why this was incompatible with being his wife, especially as he had won her by his loudly reiterated advocation of personal liberty and the fundamental necessity for the development of individualism."

"How do you know this?"

"She told me."

"When?"

"Three years ago."

"Who is she, Helen?"

Helen answered pleasantly, looking into the curious grey eyes:

"Her name, on the stage, is Marie Cliff. I have known her a long while and I am very fond of her."

Stephanie, scarlet, winced under her faintly humourous smile.

"They are divorced, then," she managed to say.

"No."

"Why not?"

"She has never given him any cause," said Helen, slowly. "No woman, of her own knowledge, can truly say one word against her character; nor can any man. She merely revolted at the tyranny he attempted, in the guise of affection, of course. She refused to be deprived of the liberty to think and act as she chose. She rejected the worn-out conventions with which he attempted to chain her--this apostle of personal freedom. She cared for her profession--he married her when she was on the stage--and she resolutely insisted on her liberty to continue it.

"The result was a family smash--her return to the stage. And since then she has refused to accept a penny from him and has supported herself by her profession, and, sometimes, by posing for artists.

"And that is the real story of Harry Belter and Marie Cliff. So you can believe as much as you choose of his views on matrimony."

After a flushed and painful silence, Stephanie said:

"Do you believe this to be true?"

"If one woman can judge and understand another, what I have told you is true, Steve. Long ago I won the child's confidence. She told me this quite frankly, and in a manner which makes the truth of it unmistakable.... We have become great friends, this little dancer and I. I don't think I ever knew a simpler nature or a more transparently honest one.... And that is why I was not worried at any little ephemeral romance that might amuse the child with Jim Cleland.... I was too certain of them--_both_," she added, looking calmly into the grey eyes that winced again and fell under her serene gaze.

"I'm a rotten little beast," said Stephanie.

"You're very feminine."

"Oh, Helen, I'm not. I'm a rotter. I didn't know it was in me. I thought I was above such things----"

"Nobody is, Steve, until they make the effort. High thinking requires more than a natural generosity and sympathy--more than innate sentiment. It is an attainment; and there is none without effort. And effort sometimes hurts."

"I want to speak to that girl when she comes in," said Stephanie. "I never have; I've never noticed her at all. I shall ask her to tea."

Helen laughed:

"She'll be here pretty soon. Of course you're not supposed to know about Harry."

"Of course not. But I'll make amends for my incivility. I _was_ a beast! But--it's confusing--and hard for a girl to understand when a girl like that is so unconventional with one's--one's----"

"Brother?" suggested Helen drily.

"Yes.... I'm terribly ashamed.... Does Jim know?"

"About Harry Belter? No. I don't think anybody does."

"What a sham that man is!" exclaimed Stephanie hotly.

"No. He's a typical man, dear. Some women yield, some resist; that's all. And the man never has the slightest idea that he is tyrannizing. If you tell him that he'll be amazed and furious. He'll point out to you all the love and affection and solicitude and money he's lavished on the object of his adoration; he'll portray for you her obstinacy, her coldness, her shocking ingratitude for benefits received. He really believes himself a martyr.

"Steve, man's idea is still that to the victor belong the spoils. We are the spoils of the chase, dear. His conventions were made to contain us in a sort of game-preserve before capture; cage us after we are made prisoner. His laws fetter us; a misstep ruins us; irregularities never impair him. That is the ancient view; that, still, is the secret view of man; that is his inborn conviction regarding us and himself.... And, very slowly, we are beginning his education."

"I didn't know you felt that way," said Stephanie.

"I do.... But if I were in love"--she laughed gaily--"I'd be inclined to take my chances with this monster I have painted for you."

"You _do_ believe in marriage?"

"What else is there, dear? Harry's piffle means nothing except that a plucky girl has begun his education, and it hurts. I don't know what else there is to take the place of marriage. It's the parties to the contract who don't understand its essence."

"What would you suggest?" inquired Stephanie curiously.

"Education. A girl should be brought up to master some trade or profession. She should support herself by it. She should never go to her husband empty-handed and unable to support herself.

"If, then, under the mutual marriage contract, her earning capacity be necessarily checked by child-birth, and by the later and natural demands of progeny, these alone should temporarily but only in part interrupt her in the exercise of her trade or profession. And he should pay for them.

"But she should have a life work to do; and so should he, no matter how ample their means. Domestic drudgery must be done by others hired for the purpose, or else by themselves, sharing alike. In no other way that I see can marriage remain endurable."

After a silence Stephanie said naively:

"I haven't any trade or profession."

"You are a graduate nurse."

"Oh. I forgot. That _is_ comforting!"

"Also you are already married."

The girl looked up in a startled way, as though hearing this information for the first time. Helen gazed gravely into the troubled grey eyes:

"Do you regret it, Steve?"

"I don't know. I haven't had time to think about it."

"It's high time, isn't it?"

"Y-yes.... I've got to do a--a lot of thinking some day, I suppose." She gazed absently into space for a few moments; then again the faintest of smiles curved her lips and she bent her head and remained very still, deep in reflection.

... "Did you wish to speak to Marie Cliff?" asked Helen, breaking the prolonged silence.

The girl looked up, dim-eyed, confused:

"Yes."

"I think she just went into the court-yard."

Stephanie's wool-gathering wits returned; she sprang up and walked swiftly out to the court, where the white horse was just being led in and the pretty dancer stood unpinning her hat.

She turned when Stephanie entered, and the girl went up to her, smilingly, and offered her hand.

"Miss Davis will be here in a few moments," she said. "I thought I'd come and tell you."

"Thank you," said Marie Cliff, curiously.

"Also," said Stephanie, "I wanted to tell you how very lovely you are on that horse. I had a glimpse of you last week, and you were too enchanting! No wonder Helen's study is so exquisite."

The little dancer flushed brightly. Her gloved hand still lay lifelessly in Stephanie's, who had retained it; her childish eyes asked for the reason of this kindness from a girl who had never noticed her.

Then, reading the unuttered question, Stephanie blushed too:

"I'm not much older than you are," she said, "and I'm not nearly as sensible. I've been rude enough to ignore you. Could you forgive me and be friends?"

"Yes," said Marie Cliff.

That was all the explanation offered or asked.

"Will you come to tea at five?"

"I should like to."

"I'd love to have you. And if it doesn't bore you, would you tell me something about your very beautiful profession? You see, stage dancing fascinates me, and I'm taking lessons and I've an inclination to become a professional."

"I'd love to talk about it with you!" said Marie Cliff impulsively. "I'll tell you everything I know about it.... And I do know a little, because I have been on the stage since I was a child."

"You're one now," said Stephanie, laughing, "--an adorable one!" And she bent and kissed the little dancer on the lips.

"I'm glad we're friends," she said. "Don't forget five o'clock."

"N-no," said Marie Cliff unsteadily.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

At five o'clock that afternoon Cleland, working fiercely on his manuscript toward a climax he had not planned for but which, suddenly but logically developing, threatened with disaster his leading lady and the young gentleman playing opposite, heard a step on the threshold of his open door.

"Hello, Harry!" he said with a friendly but vague wave of his pencil--for he had not stepped quite clear of the story in which he had been living among people never born--"I'd rather given you up. Come in and close the door."

"I couldn't keep away," said Belter hoarsely. He came in and closed the door. He looked even more grey and haggard than he had the night before.

"I expected you this morning," said Cleland, stepping clear of his story now, and looking very soberly at his old school-friend.

"I didn't intend to come at all." He seated himself in the chair indicated. "But I couldn't keep away."

"You look about all in."

"I didn't sleep."

Cleland got up, walked to the ice-box, knocked off a bit of ice with a tack-hammer, and leisurely constructed a highball.

"Here you are, Harry. I can't; I'm working. There are cigars by your elbow, cigarettes, too."

Belter looked vacantly at the iced bracer, then he dropped both elbows on the edge of the desk and took, his drawn face between his hands.

Cleland began to pace the studio. Presently he halted by Belter's chair.

"Hell," he said pleasantly, "cut out the tragedy! It's good enough for my novel, where the poor devils I write about have to do what I make 'em. But you and I are free to do what we choose."

"Yes.... And I've done it.... I've done what I chose. Where has it landed me, Cleland?"

He looked at the frosty glass, pushed it away from him:

"That was a sorry spectacle I made of myself last night. Can you beat that for degradation--a man who has made a damnable failure of marriage, skulking at his wife's heels to snap and snarl at any decent man who is civil to her?"

"Don't talk so bitterly----"

"I'm indulging in a luxury, Cleland--the luxury of truth, of honesty, of straight thinking.... I've been bragging about it, celebrating it, extolling it for years. But I never did any until last night."

"You're rubbing it in pretty hard, Harry. A man is bound to make mistakes----"

"_I'm_ the mistake! I realize it, now--as Verne realized it. That's why he did what he did. You don't, if you _are_ right.... I never supposed I could behave as rottenly as I did last night. But it's been a long strain.... You heard that rotten outbreak of mine concerning women--the night we heard what Verne had done? Well, the strain was showing.... It broke me last night...."

He lifted his head and looked intently at Cleland:

"It was the shock of seeing her in a public place with another man. I had never seen her with any other man. It's nearly three years, now, since I made a damned ass of myself, and she very quietly went her way leaving me to go mine.... And in all that time, Cleland, there has not been a breath of suspicion against her. She has been in the lighter and more frivolous shows almost continuously; but she has lived as straight a life as any woman ever lived.... And I know it.... And I knew it--cur that I was--when I spoke to her as I did, and turned on you like a rotter----"

He extended his hand and took hold of the iced glass, but let it rest there.

"I've lied and lied and lied," he said, "to myself about myself; to others about my estimate of women.... I'm just a four-flusher, Cleland. The best of 'em are better than our stars. The remainder average as well as we do.... Verne got what was coming to him.... And so have I, Cleland--so have I----"

"Wait a moment----"

"Wait?" Belter laughed mirthlessly. "All right. I know how to wait. Waiting is the best thing I do. I've waited for nearly three years before I've told myself the truth. I've told it now, to myself, and to you.... But it's too late to tell it to her."

"Do you think it is?"

Belter looked up in pallid surprise:

"Of course."

"I wonder," mused Cleland.

Belter's sunken gaze had become remote and fixed again. He said, half to himself:

"I couldn't let her alone. I couldn't learn to mind my own business. I'd been bawling aloud my theories for years, Cleland, but I couldn't apply them to her or to myself. I bragged about my mania for personal liberty, for tolerance; I lauded the maxim of 'hands off.' But I couldn't keep my meddling hands off her; I couldn't understand that she had the right to personal liberty--freedom in the pursuit of happiness. No; I tried to head her off, check her, stampede her into the common corral whither all men's wives are supposed to be driven--tried to rope her and throw her and blindfold, hobble and break her to suit myself.... And, Cleland, do you know what happened? I found I had come upon a character, a mind, a personality which would not endure the tyranny we men call domestic affection.... That's what I discovered.... And I did not do the breaking. No; she has accomplished that. And--here I am, to admit it to you.... And I think I'll go, now----"

Cleland walked slowly to the door with him, one arm resting on his shoulder:

"I wish you'd tell her what you've told me, Harry."

"It's too late. She wouldn't care, now."

"Are you very sure?"

"Do you think a man can use a woman the way I have used her, and make her care a straw about what I say to her now?"

Cleland said in a low voice:

"I can't answer you. I don't understand women; I write about them.... I have troubles of my own, too. So I can't advise you, Harry.... Are you still in love with her?"

He said in a dead voice:

"I've always been. It's done things to me. I'll die of it, one day. But that's no argument."

"I don't know. Tell her."

"It's no argument," repeated Belter. "It's purely selfish. That's what I am--purely selfish. I'm thinking of myself. I'm in love with her.... And she's better off without me."

"All the same, I think I'd take a chance. I think I'd tell her. After all, you owe her that much--whatever she may choose to do about it."

"She doesn't care, now."

"Still, you owe it to her. You're not a welcher, you know."

They had reached the foot of the stairs. Helen, coming out of the enclosed court, met them face to face; and they exchanged amiabilities there outside her studio door.

"Come in and have some tea," she said. "Harry, you look ill. Are you? Anyway, a cup of tea won't slay you in your tracks----" fitting her key to the door all the while she was talking--"so come in like two polite young men----"

The door swung open; they entered.

"Oho!" exclaimed Helen; "Steve must be here because the kettle-lamp is lighted. We'll have something to nibble presently, I expect. Find a chair, Harry, and watch that kettle. Jim, show him the cigarettes. I'm going to take off this blouse and I'll be back with Steve in a moment----"

She stopped short: Stephanie and Marie Cliff, coming from the kitchenette, appeared at the further end of the studio, the former bearing a big bowl of strawberries, the latter a tray of little cakes.

Stephanie greeted the newcomers with an airy wave of her hand; Marie Cliff promptly lost her colour; but there was nothing to do except to advance, which she continued doing, moving very close to Stephanie's elbow.

The situation was going to be as awkward as the people involved made it: Cleland, secretly aghast, came forward to relieve Stephanie and Marie of their burdens:

"If there isn't enough food for a party, I'll take Harry and go," he said gaily. "It isn't done--this grasshopper-like invasion of your natural resources."

"Piffle," said Helen, "there's plenty."

Harry Belter, who had been standing in the middle of the floor as though petrified, wrenched himself out of his trance and put his legs in motion. His face was very red: he greeted Stephanie elaborately but mutely; he bowed mutely to his wife.

She had managed to recover her self-control: a deep flush invaded her pallour. Then, under the eyes of them all, very quietly she did a thing which confirmed the admiration and respect of everybody there: she extended her child-like hand to her husband, saying:

"It is nice to see you again, and I'm very sure that there is enough tea for everybody."

Her hand lay in her husband's for an appreciable moment; then he bent over it, lower, to conceal the nervous working of his features--and touched it with trembling lips--something he had never before done in all his life--and passing, by the same token, out of the free and arid desert of his folly, he rested, _sub jugum_, beside the still waters of eternal truth.

Helen went on toward her room to shed her clay-stained smock; Stephanie investigated the kettle which was approaching the boiling point, and Cleland deposited the provender on a neighbouring table.

"Keep away from them," whispered Stephanie, close beside him--so close that the fragrance of her hair and breath caressed his cheek.

"You darling," he motioned with his lips.

"Oh, dear! Are we on _such_ a footing!" she asked, with a little quick-drawn breath of smiling dismay.

"Why not?" he said under his breath. "You're awake, now."

"Am I?"

"Are you not, dearest?"

"I--had a wonderful sleep last night," she said perversely. "I don't know whether I'm awake or not."

"Oh, Steve!----"

"I don't, I tell you!----" keeping her gaze smilingly averted and very busy with kettle and tea-caddy.... "Where have you been all day?"

"I came down, but you had fled to your lesson. Then I had a date with H. Belter, but he didn't appear until nearly five. It was a strenuous interview."

She lifted her eyes to his, full of interested inquiry.

"Yes," he nodded; "he's found out he's an ass, and he's in love with his wife. If she can stand for him now, after these three years, I think he'll make a better husband than the average."

"She's a dear," murmured Stephanie. "What a painful situation!--but wasn't she dignified and sweet? Oh, I do hope she cares enough for Harry to give him another chance.... Are they amiable together over there? I don't want to turn around."

He cautiously surveyed the scene out of a corner of his eye:

"She's seated beside the piano. It's evident she hasn't asked him to be seated. They are horribly serious. He looks ten years older."

"We must let them alone. Tea is ready, but I sha'n't say so until they move.... What was it you asked me, Jim?--whether I am awake? ... Do you know that I believe I'm stirring in my slumbers because--because, now and then--just for an instant--a stab of contrition goes through and through me. Do you know why? I have a glimmering of guilty misgiving concerning this painful throb of conscience----"

She looked about her, searching among the paraphernalia of the tea tray. "Oh, the deuce! I remember, now, that we're out of lemons! You have some, haven't you?"

"Yes, I'll run up and----"

"I know where they are in your ice box. I'll find them----"

"What nonsense! Wait!----"

She had started already; but swiftly as her light feet sped he overtook her on the stairs; gathered her into his arms, all pink and breathing rapidly:

"Steve--my darling!----"

"I thought you might do this.... I wanted to see----"

"What?"

"Whether it could happen to me again--what I experienced with you----"

There was a silence: her young lips melted against his; lingered; her arms tightened around his neck. And the next instant she had freed herself, hot-cheeked, disconcerted.

"Oh, it, was--quite true----" she stammered, resting against the banisters with one hand pressed tightly over her heart. "My curiosity is satisfied.... _Please!_--Jim, dear--we ought to behave rationally--oughtn't we?"

But she did not resist when he framed her face between his hands; and she suffered his lips again, and again her slight response and the grey eyes vaguely regarding him shook his self-control.

"Will you try to love me, Steve?"

"I seem to be doing it."

"Is it really love, Steve? Do you truly care for me?"

"Oh, dear, yes!" she said, with a quick-drawn breath which ended in a quiet sigh, scarcely audible. Then a faintly humorous smile dawned in her eyes: "You're changing, Jim. You always were very wonderful to me, but you also _were_ mortal. Now, you're changing; you are putting on a glorious, iridescent immortality before my eyes. I'm quite bewildered--quite dazzled--and my mind isn't very clear--especially when you kiss me----"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No, I'm not. That's the way with the gods when they start a love affair with a mortal girl. Sometimes she runs, but they always catch her or turn her into a tree or a waterfall or something they can acquire and fence in, and visit like a plot in a cemetery. And if she doesn't run away, then she just falls into a silly trance with her Olympian lover, and somebody comes along and raises the dickens with them both.... And now I'd like to know what's going to happen to me?"

"You're going to try to fall in love with me first."

"Oh. And then?"

"Marry me."

"Oh. And what will old lady Civilization say? I told you somebody would raise the dickens!"

"Who cares?"

"I suppose I wouldn't care if I loved you enough."

"Will you try?"

"Oh, dear." ... She freed herself gracefully, stepped back a stair lower, and leaned on the rail, considering.

"Oh, dear," she repeated under her breath. "What a tangle! ... I don't know why I've let myself--care for you--in your way. I ought to stop it. Could you stand it?" she added naively. And the reply in his eyes scared her.

"Oh, this is serious!" she murmured. "We've gotten on much further than I realized.... I remember, when you began to make love to me, I thought it very sweet and boyish of you--to fall in love with your own sister. But I've begun to make love to you, now.... And I ought not to."

"Because you are married?" he asked under his breath.

"Oh, yes. It won't do for me to make advances to you."

"When have you made any advances?"

"I came out here. I wanted you to--kiss me. Oh, this isn't going to do at all. I can see that, now!----" She framed her face in her hands and shook her head. "Jim--dearest, dearest of men--it won't do. I didn't realize that I was caring for you in this way. Why," she added, her grey eyes widening, "it is almost dangerous!"

"The thing to do," he said, reddening, "is to tell Oswald."

"I can't tell him!"

"You've got to, if you fall in love with me."

"Oh, Jim, it would be too heartless! You don't know----"

"No, I don't!" he exclaimed impatiently, "and I think it's time I did! You can't be in love with two men at the same time."

She blushed furiously:

"I--he never even touched my fingers with his lips! And you--you take me into your arms with no more hesitation than if I were a child.... I believe I've behaved like one with you. I'm old enough to be ashamed, and I'm beginning to be."

"Is it because you're married?"

"Yes, it is! I can't let myself go. I can't let myself care for--for what you do--to me. I came out here to give you the chance--ready to learn something--desiring to. I mustn't take any more lessons--from you."

He said:

"I am going to tell Oswald that I care for you, Steve."

To his astonishment, tears flashed in the grey eyes:

"If you do," she said, "it will be like killing something that makes no resistance. It--it's too cruel--like murder. I--I couldn't bring myself----"

"Why? Did you marry him out of pity?"

She bit her lip and stood staring into vacancy, one hand tightening on the stair-rail, the other worrying her lips.

"I tell you," she said slowly, her gaze still remote, "the only thing to do is to do nothing.... Because I'm afraid.... I couldn't bear it. I'd have to think of it all my life and I--I simply couldn't endure it.... You mustn't ask me any more."

"Very well," he said coldly. "And I think we'd better go back to the studio----"

As he passed her he paused, waiting for her to precede him. She turned; her hand fell from the banisters and hung beside her; but the slender fingers groped for his, slipped among them, tightened, drawing him partly toward her; and her left foot moved forward a trifle, blocking his way and bringing them closely confronted.

"I--love you," she faltered. "And I don't know what to do about it."

Crushed into his embrace she did not seem to know any the more what she was going to do about it. Her flushed cheek lay hot against his; her hands moved restlessly on his shoulders; she tried to think--strove to consider, to see what it was that lay before her--what she had to do about this matter of falling in love. But her fast beating heart told her nothing; a listless happiness invaded her; mind and body yielded to the lethargy; thought was an effort, and the burden lay with this wonderful being who held her in his arms--who, once mortal--had assumed the magic of immortality--this youthful god who was once a man--her lover.

"It's got to come right somehow, my darling," he whispered.

"Yes--somehow."

"You'll explain it some day--so that I shall understand how to make it come right."

She did not answer, but her cheek pressed closer against his.

When they entered the studio Helen, seated by the tea table, rose with a gesture of warning:

"That child is in my room and Harry is with her. They were standing together over there by the piano when I came out of my room. I saw at once that she was on the verge of something--she tried to look at me--tried to speak; and Harry didn't even make the effort. So I said, quite casually, 'It _is_ frightfully close in the studio, Marie. But you'll find it cool in my room. Better lie down in there for a moment.' ... They're in there. I don't know what I hope, exactly. She is such a dear.... Where on earth have you two been?"

"On the stairs," said Stephanie. "We started to get something--what was it, Jim? Oh, yes; there's no lemon here----"

"Did you get any?"

"No; we just conversed." She picked up a cake, nibbled it, selected a strawberry and nibbled that, too.

The tea wasn't fresh, but she sipped it, sitting there very silent and preoccupied with now and then a slow side-glance at her lover, who was attempting to make the conversation general.

Helen responded lightly, gaily, maintaining her part in a new and ominous situation which had now become perfectly recognizable to her.

For these two people on either side of her had perfectly betrayed themselves--this silent, flushed girl, still deep under the spell of the master magic of the world--this too talkative, too plausible, too absent-minded young man who ate whatever was handed to him, evidently unaware that he was eating anything, and whose eyes continually reverted to the girl.

The smile on Helen's lips was a little fixed, perhaps, but it was generous and sweet and untroubled. A man sat at her elbow whom she could care for, if she let herself go. A girl sat on the other side who was another man's wife, and who was already in love with this man. But the deep anxiety in Helen's heart was not visible in her smile.

"What about that very tragic pair in my room?" she asked at last. "Shall we clear out and give them the whole place to settle it in? It's getting worse than a problem play----"

She looked up; Oswald Grismer stood on the threshold of the open door.

"Come in!" she said gaily. "I'll give you tea in a few minutes."

Grismer came forward, saluted her with easy grace, greeted Stephanie with that amiable ceremony which discloses closer intimacy, turned to Cleland with that wistful cordiality which never seemed entirely confident.

"Oswald," said Helen, "there's a problem play being staged in my bed-room."

"Marie Cliff and Harry Belter," explained Stephanie in a low voice.

Grismer was visibly astonished.

"That's amusing," he said pleasantly.

"Isn't it?" said Helen. "I don't know whether I'm pleased. She's such a little brick! And Harry has lived as he pleased.... Oh, Lord! Men _are_ queer. People sneer at a problem play, but everybody ever born is cast for some typical problem-play part. And sooner or later, well or badly, they play it."

"Critics talk rot; why expect more of the public?" inquired Grismer. "And isn't it funny what a row they make about sex? After all, that's what the world is composed of, two sexes, with a landscape or marine background. What else is there to write about, Cleland?"

The latter laughed:

"It merely remains a matter of good taste. You sculptors have more latitude than painters; painters more than we writers. Pathology should be used sparingly in fiction--all sciences, in fact. Like a clove of garlic applied to a salad bowl, a touch of science is sufficient to flavour art; more than that makes it reek. Better cut out the art altogether if the science fascinates you, and be the author of 'works' instead of mere books."

Stephanie, watching Cleland while he was speaking, nodded:

"Yes," she said, "one could write fiction about a hospital nurse, but not about nursing. It wouldn't have any value."

Grismer said:

"We're really very limited in the world. We have land and water, sun and moon and stars, two sexes, love and hate to deal with. Everything else is merely a modification of these elemental fixtures.... It becomes tiresome, sometimes."

"Oswald! Don't talk like a silly pessimist," said Stephanie sharply.

He laughed in his easy, attractive way and sat gently swinging one long leg, which was crossed over the other.

He said:

"There is in every living and articulated thing a nerve which, if destroyed, destroys for its possessor a certain area of interest in life. People become pessimists to that extent.

"But, where all the nerves converge to form the vital ganglion, a stroke there means extermination."

"Apropos of what is this dissertation wished upon us?" asked Stephanie with an uneasy smile.

"Did you ever see a paralyzed spider, Stephanie?--alive, breathing, destined to live for weeks, perhaps, and anyway until the wasp's egg under it hatches and becomes a larva to devour it?

"Well, the old wasp required fresh meat for its young, so, with her sting, she annihilated the nerve controlling motion, laid her egg, certain that her progeny would find perfectly fresh food when born. But if she had thrust that sting of hers a little higher--at the juncture of skull and thorax--death would have taken that spider like a stroke of lightning."

He laughed:

"So I say it's better to get the stroke of Fate in the neck than to get it in any particular area and live for a while a paralyzed victim for some creature ultimately to eat alive."

There was a silence. Helen broke it with pleasant decision:

"This is _not_ an appetizing conversation. If anybody wishes any the tea is ready."

There was enough daylight left in the studio so the lamps remained unlighted.

"Do you suppose we ought to go out somewhere?" asked Stephanie, "and leave the place to those two poor things in there? You know they may be too unhappy or too embarrassed to come out and run the gauntlet."

But Stephanie was wrong; for, as she ended, Belter appeared at the end of the studio in the fading light. His young wife came slowly forward beside him. The strain, the tension, the effort, all were visible, but the girl held herself erect and the man fairly so.

There was tea for them--no easier way to mitigate their ordeal. Conversation became carelessly general; strawberries and little cakes were tasted; a cigarette or two lighted.

Then, after a while there chanced to fall a silence; and the young wife knew that the moment belonged to her.

"I think," she said in a distinct but still little voice, "that we ought to go home. If you are ready, Harry----"

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

By the end of the first week in June Cleland was in a highly excited state of mind in regard to his infant novel, in which all the principals were now on the edge of catastrophe.

"I don't know how they got there," he said nervously to Badger Spink, who had dropped in to suggest himself as illustrator in case any magazine took the story for serial publication.