Chapter VIII: Part III: Miriam (2)

With the data Wayne had given her she worked out the main lines of the story during the night; but it was not until she had done so that its full significance appeared to her. Having grasped that, she could scarcely wait for daylight in order to go to Evie, and yet when morning came she abandoned that course as impolitic. Reflection showed her that her struggle must be less with Evie than with Ford, while she judged that he himself would lose no time in putting the battle in array. He must see as plainly as she did that she stood like an army across his path, and that he must either retreat before her or show fight. She believed he would do the latter and do it soon. She thought it probable that he would appear that very day, and that her wisest plan was to await his opening attack. The necessity, so unexpectedly laid upon her, of defending the right deflected her mind from dwelling too bitterly on her own disillusioning.

The morning having passed without a sign from him, she made her arrangements for having the afternoon undisturbed sending Wayne to drive, and ordering the servants to admit no one but Mr. Strange, should he chance to call. Having intrenched herself behind the fortification of the tea-table, she waited. In spite of her preoccupation, or rather because of it, she purposely read a book, forcing herself to fix her attention on its pages in order to have her mind free from preconceived notions as to how she must act and what she must say. Her single concession to herself was to put on a new and becoming house dress, whose rich tones of brown and amber harmonized with her ivory coloring and emphasized the clear-cut distinction of her features. Before taking up her position she surveyed herself with the mournful approval which the warrior about to fall may give to the perfection of his equipment.

It was half-past four when the servant showed him in. His formal attire seemed to her, as he crossed the room, oddly civilized and correct after her recollections of him. Notwithstanding her dread of the opening minutes, the meeting passed off according to the fixed procedure of the drawing-room. It was a relief to both to find that the acts of shaking hands and sitting down had been accomplished with matter-of-course formality. With the familiar support of afternoon-call conventions difficult topics could be treated at greater ease.

"I'm very glad to find you at home," he began, feeling it to be a safe opening. "I was almost afraid--"

"I stayed in on purpose," she said, frankly. "I thought you might come."

"I wasn't sure whether or not you knew me last night--"

"I didn't at first. I really hadn't noticed you, though I remembered afterward that you were standing with Mrs. Endsleigh Jarrott when Mr. Wayne and I came into the room. I wonder now if you recognized me?"

"Oh, rather! I knew you were going to be there. I've been in New York a month."

"Then you might have come to see me sooner."

"Well, you see--"

He paused and colored, trying to cover up his embarrassment with a smile. She allowed her eyes to express interrogation not knowing that her frank gaze disconcerted him. She herself went back so eagerly to the days when he was the fugitive, Norrie Ford, and she the nameless girl who was helping him, that she could not divine his humiliation at being obliged to drop his mask. Since becoming engaged to Evie Colfax and returning to New York, he perceived more clearly than ever before that his true part in the world was that of the respectable, successful man of business which he played so skilfully. It cost him an effort she could have no reason to suspect to be face to face with the one person in the world who knew him as something else.

"You see," he began again, "I had to consider a good many things--naturally. It wouldn't have done to give any one an idea that we had met before."

"No, of course not. But last night you might have--"

"Last night I had to follow the same tactics. I can't afford to run risks. It's rather painful, it's even a bit humiliating--"

"I can imagine that, especially here in New York. In out-of-the-way places it must be different. There it doesn't matter. But to be among the very people who--"

"You think that there it does matter. I had to consider that. I had to make it plain to myself that there was nothing dishonorable in imposing on people who had forced me into a false position. I don't say it's pleasant--"

"Oh, I know it can't be pleasant. I only wondered a little, as I saw you last night, why you let yourself be placed in a position that made it necessary."

"I should have wondered at that myself a year ago. I certainly never had any intention of doing it. It's almost as much a surprise to me to be here as it is to you to see me. I suppose you thought I would never turn up again."

"No, I didn't think that. On the contrary, I thought you _would_ turn up--only not just here."

It struck him that she was emphasizing that point for a purpose--to bring him to another point still. He took a few seconds to reflect before deciding that he would follow her lead without further hanging back.

"I shouldn't have returned to New York if I hadn't become engaged to Miss Colfax. You know about that, don't you? I think she meant to tell you."

She inclined her head assentingly, without words. He noticed her dark eyes resting on him with a kind of pity. He had cherished a faint hope--the very faintest--that she might welcome what he had just said sympathetically. In the few minutes during which she remained silent that hope died.

"I suppose," she said, gently, "that you became engaged to Evie before knowing who she was?"

"I fell in love with her before knowing who she was. I'm afraid that when I actually asked her to marry me I had heard all there was to learn."

"Then why did you do it?"

He shrugged his shoulders with a movement acquired by long residence among Latins. His smile conveyed the impossibility of explaining himself in a sentence.

"I'll tell you all about it, if you'd like to hear."

"I should like it very much. Remember, I know nothing of what happened after--after--"

He noticed a shade of confusion in her manner, and hastened to begin his narrative.

Somewhat to her surprise, he sketched his facts in lightly, but dwelt strongly on the mental and moral necessities his situation forced on him. He related with some detail the formation of his creed of conduct in the dawn on Lake Champlain, and showed her that according to its tenets he was permitted a kind of action that in other men might be reprehensible. He came to the story of Evie last of all, and allowed her to see how dominating a part Fate, or Predestination had played in evolving it.

"So you see," he ended, "it was too late then to do anything--but to yield."

"Or withdraw," she added, softly.

He stared at her a moment, his body bent slightly forward his elbows resting on the arms of his chair. As a matter of fact, he was thinking less of her words than of her beauty--so much nobler in type than he remembered it.

"Yes," he returned, quietly, "I can see that it would strike you in that way. So it did me--at first. But I had to look at the subject all round--"

"I don't need to do that."

He stared at her again. There was a decision in her words which he found hard to reconcile with the pity in her eyes and the gentle softness of her smile.

"You mean that you don't want to take my--necessities--into consideration."

"I mean that when I see the one thing right to do, I don't have to look any further."

"The one thing right to do--for you?--or for me?"

"There's no reason why I should intervene at all. I look to you to save me from the necessity."

He hesitated a minute before deciding whether to hedge or to meet her squarely.

"By giving up Evie and--clearing out," he said, with a perceptible hint of defiance.

"I shouldn't lay stress on your--clearing out."

"But you would on my giving up Evie?"

"Don't you see," she began, in an explanatory tone, "I, in my own person, have nothing to do with it? It isn't for me to say this should be done or that. You can't imagine how hard it is for me to say anything at all; and if I speak, it isn't as myself--it's as the voice of a situation. You must understand as well as I do what that situation imposes."

"But I don't intend that a situation shall impose anything--on me. I mean to act as master--"

"But I'm neither so independent nor so strong--nor is Evie. You don't consider her."

"I don't have to consider any one. When I make Evie happy I do all that can be asked of me."

"No, you would be called on to _keep_ her happy. And she couldn't remain happy if she were married to you. It isn't possible. She couldn't live with you any more than--than a humming-bird could live with a hawk."

They both smiled, rather nervously.

"But I'm not a hawk," he insisted. "I'm much more a humming-bird than you imagine. You think me some sort of creature of prey because you believe--that I did--what I was accused of--"

The circumstances seemed so far off from him now, so incongruous with what he had become, that he reverted to them with difficulty.

"I don't attach any importance to that," she said, with a tranquillity that startled him. "I suppose I ought to, but I never have. If you killed your uncle, it seems to me--very natural. He provoked you. He deserved it. My father would have done it certainly."

"But I didn't, you see. That puts another color on the case."

"It doesn't for me. And it doesn't, as it affects Evie. Whether you're innocent or guilty--and I don't say I think you to be guilty--I've never thought much about it--but whether you're guilty or not, your life is the kind of tragedy Evie couldn't share. It would kill her."

"It wouldn't kill her, if she didn't know anything about it."

"But she would know. You can't keep that sort of thing from a wife. She wouldn't be married to you a year before she had discovered that you were--a--"

"An escaped convict. Why not say it?"

"I wasn't going to say it. But at least she would know that you were a man who was pretending to be--something that he wasn't."

"You mean an impostor. Well, I've already explained to you that I'm an impostor only because Society itself has made me one, I'm not to blame--"

"I quite see the force of that. But Evie wouldn't. Don't you understand? That's my point. She would only see the horror of it, and she would be overwhelmed. It wouldn't matter to her that you could bring forward arguments in your own defence. She wouldn't be capable of understanding them. You must see for yourself that mentally--and spiritually--just as bodily--she's as fragile as a butterfly. She couldn't withstand a storm. She'd be crushed by it."

"I don't think you do her justice. If she were to discover--I mean, if the worst were to come to the worst--well, you can see how it's been with yourself. You've known from the beginning all there is to know--and yet--"

"I'm different."

She meant the brief statement to divert his attention from himself, but she perceived that it aroused a flash of self-consciousness in both. While she could hear herself saying inwardly, "I'd rather go on waiting for him--uselessly," he was listening to a silvery voice, as it lisped the words, "Dear mamma used to think she was in love with some one; we didn't know anything about it." Each reverted to the memory of the lakeside scene in which he had said, "My life will belong to you ... a thing for you to dispose of ..." and each was afraid that the other was doing so.

All at once she saw herself as she fancied he must see her--a woman claiming the fulfilment of an old promise, the payment of a long-standing debt. He must think she was making Evie a pretext in her fight for her own hand. His vow--if it was a vow--had been the germ of so much romance in her mind that she ascribed it to a place in the foreground of his. In all she was saying he would understand a demand on her part that he should make it good. Very well, then; if he could do her such injustice, he must do it. She could not permit the fear of it to inspire her with moral cowardice or deter her from doing what was right.

Nevertheless, it helped her to control her agitation to rise and ring for tea. She felt the need of some commonplace action to assure herself and him that now, at last, she was outside the realm of the romantic. He rose as she did, to forestall her at the bell; and as the servant entered with the tray, they moved together into the embrasure of the wide bay-window. Down below the autumn colors were fading, while leaves, golden-yellow or blood-red, were being swirled along the ground.

"I had to do things out there"--his nod was meant to indicate the direction of South America--"in a somewhat high-handed manner, and I've acquired the habit of it. If I'd stuck at difficulties I shouldn't have got anywhere."

She looked at him inquiringly, as though to ask the purport of the observation.

"You must see that I'm obliged to put this thing through--on Evie's account as much as mine. After getting her to care for me, I can't desert her now, whatever happens."

"She wouldn't suffer--after a while. She'd get over it. You might not, but she--"

"She shall not get over it, if I can help it. How can you ask me to let her?"

"Only on the ground that you love her well enough."

"Would you call that love?"

"In view of all the circumstances, it would be my idea of it."

"Then it wouldn't be mine. The only love I understand is the love that fights for its object, in the face of all opposition."

She looked at him a minute with what she tried to make a smile, but which became no more than a quivering of the lip and lashes.

"I hope you won't fight," she said, in a tone of appeal, "because it would have to be with me. If anything could break my heart, that would."

She knew how near to self-betrayal she had gone, but in her eagerness she was reckless of the danger.

"How do you know it wouldn't break mine too?" he asked, with a scrutiny that searched her eyes. "But there are times in life when men have just to fight--and let their hearts be broken. In becoming responsible for Evie's happiness I've given a pledge from which I can't withdraw--"

"But that's where you don't understand her--"

"Possibly; but it's where I understand myself."

"Tea is served, miss," the maid said, coming forward to where they talked in undertones. At the same minute there was a shuffling at the door and Wayne entered from his drive. Ford would have gone forward to help him, but she put out her hand and stopped him.

"He likes to find his way himself," she whispered.

"They tell me there's tea in here," Wayne said, cheerily, from the doorway.

"There's more than tea," Miriam replied in as bright a tone as she could assume. "There's Mr. Strange, whom you met last night."

"Ah, that's good." Wayne groped his way toward the voices. "How do you do! Glad to see you. It's windy out-of-doors. One feels the winter beginning to nip."

Ford took the extended hand, and, without seeming to do so, adroitly piloted the blind man to a seat as they moved, all three, to the tea-table.

For the next ten minutes their talk turned on the common topics of the day. As during her conversation with Conquest a few weeks before, Miriam found again that the routine of duties of acting as hostess steadied her nerves. With Ford aiding her in the little ways to which he had become accustomed since his engagement to Evie, hostility was absent from their mutual relation, even though opposition remained. That at least was a comfort to her; and now and then, as she handed him the bread and butter or a plate of cakes to pass to Wayne, their eyes could meet in a glance of comprehension.

Wayne was still enjoying his tea when Ford turned to him with an abrupt change of tone.

"I'm glad you came in, sir, while I was still here, because there's something I particularly want to tell you."

He did not look at Miriam, but he could feel the way in which she sat upright and aghast. Wayne turned his sightless eyes, hidden by large colored glasses, toward the speaker, and nodded.

"Yes?" he said, interrogatively.

"I would have told you before, only that Miss Jarrott and Miss Colfax thought I had better wait till every one got settled. In any case, Mr. Jarrott made it a condition before I left Buenos Aires that it shouldn't go outside the family till Miss Colfax had had her social winter in New York."

Wayne's face grew grave, but not unsympathetic.

"I suppose I know what's coming," he said, quietly.

"It's the sort of thing that was bound to come sooner or later with Miss Colfax," Ford smiled, speaking with an air of assurance. "What makes me uneasy is that I should be the man to come and tell the news. If it was any one you knew better--"

"You've probably heard that I'm not Evie's guardian," Wayne interposed. "I've no control at all over what she does."

"I understand that; but to me there's an authority above the legal one--or at least on a level with it--and I should be unhappy--we should both be unhappy--if we didn't have your consent."

Wayne looked pleased. He was so rarely consulted in the affairs of the family, especially since his affliction had forced him aside, that this deference was a clew to the young man's character. Nevertheless, he allowed some seconds to pass in silence, while Ford threw at Miriam a glance of defiance, in which there was also an expression of audacious friendliness. She sat rigid and pale, her hands clinching the arms of her chair.

"It's a serious matter--of course," Wayne said, after becoming hesitation; "but I've great confidence in Henry Jarrott. Next to Evie herself, he's the person most concerned--in a certain way. I'm told he thinks well of you--"

"He ought to know," Ford broke in, confidently. "I've nothing to show in the way of passports, except myself and my work. I've been with him ever since I went to South America, and he's been extremely kind to me. The only certificate of character I can offer is one from him."

"That's sufficient. We should be sorry to let Evie go, shouldn't we, Miriam? She's a sweet child, and very much like her dear mother. But, as you say, it was bound to happen one day or another; and we can only be glad that--I'm happy to congratulate you, Mr. Strange. Your name, at any rate, is a familiar one. It's that of an old boyhood's friend of mine, who showed me the honor of placing this young lady in my charge. We called him Harry. His full name was Herbert Harrington, but he dropped the first. You seem to have taken it up--it's odd, isn't it, Miriam?--and I take it as a happy omen."

"Thank you." Ford rose, and made the blind man understand that he was holding out his hand, "I shall be more satisfied now for having told you."

Miriam accompanied him into the hall, on pretext of ringing for the lift.

"Oh, why did you do that?" she protested. "Don't you see that it only makes things more complicated than they were already?"

"It's my first move," he laughed, with friendly bravado. "Now you can make yours."

She gazed at him in puzzled distress as the lift rose.

"I'm coming again," he said, with renewed confidence. "I've a lot more things to say."

"And I have only one," she answered, turning back toward the drawing-room.

"He's a nice young fellow," Wayne said, as he heard her enter. He had risen and felt his way into the bay-window, where he stood looking outward as if he could see. "I suppose it must be all right, since the Jarrotts are so enthusiastic Poor little Evie! I hope she'll be happy. It's extraordinary how his voice reminds me of--"

She stood still in the middle of the room, waiting for him to continue. Nothing he could add would have surprised her now. But he said no more.

XVI

Thinking that Ford might come again next afternoon, Miriam went out. On her return she found his card--_Mr. Herbert Strange._ The same thing occurred the next day, and the next, and so on through the week. She was not afraid of seeing him. Now that the worst was known to her, she was sure of her mastery of herself, and of her capacity to meet anything. What she feared most was her sympathy for him, and the possibility that in some unguarded moment of pity he might wring concessions from her which she had no right to make. She hoped, too, that time, even a few days' time, would help him to work out the honorable course for himself.

Her meetings with Evie were more inevitable, and required greater self-repression. She was so used to the part of elder sister, with whom all confidences are discussed, that she found it difficult not to speak her heart out frankly.

"I heard he had been to see you and Popsey Wayne, and told you," Evie said, with her pretty nose just peeping above the bedclothes, at midday, on a morning later in the week. It was the day after Evie's first large dance, and she had been sleeping late. Miriam sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing stray golden tendrils off the flushed, happy little face.

"He did come," Miriam admitted. "Mr. Wayne made no objections. I can't say he was glad. You wouldn't expect us to be that, dear, would you?"

"I expect you to like him. It isn't committing you to much to say that. But you seem so--so every which way about him."

"I'm not every which way about him. I can't say that I'm any way at all. Yes, I do like him--after a fashion. If I make reserves, it's because I'm not sure that I think him good enough for my little Evie."

"He's a great deal too good!" Evie exclaimed, rapturously. "Oh, Miriam, if you only knew how fond I am of him! I'd die for him--I truly believe I would--almost! Oh, it was so stupid last night without him! All these boys seem such pigeons beside him. I'm sorry now we're not going to announce the engagement at once. I certainly sha'n't change my mind--and it would be such fun to be able to say I was engaged before coming out."

"Twice before coming out."

"Oh, well, I only count it once, do you see? Billy's such a goose. You should have seen him last night when I forgot two of my dances with him--on purpose. He's really getting to dislike me; so that I shall soon be able to--to show him."

"I wouldn't be in a hurry about that, dear. There's lots of time. As you said the other day, it's no use hurting his feelings--"

Evie sat up suddenly in bed, and looked suspicious.

"So you're taking that stand. Now I know you don't like him. You've got something against him, though I can't for the life of me imagine what it can be, when you never laid eyes on him till a few days ago. Well, I'm not going to change, do you see? You may as well make up your mind to that at once. And it will be Billy or no Billy."

Nearer than that Miriam could not approach the subject through fear of doing more harm than good. At the end of a week Ford found her at home, chiefly because she felt it time he should. She secured again the afternoon-call atmosphere; but she noticed that he carried a small packet--a large, brownish-yellow envelope, strapped with rubber bands--which he kept in his hand. She was struck by the greater ease of his entry, and by the renewal of that sense of comradeship which had marked his bearing toward her in the old days in the cabin. The small comedy of introductory commonplace went off smoothly.

"Well?" he said then, with a little challenging laugh.

"Well--what?"

"I've been waiting for your move. You haven't made it."

She shook her head. "I've no move to make."

"Oh yes, you have--a great big move. You can easily say, Check. I doubt if you can make it, Checkmate."

"I'm afraid that's a game I don't know how to play."

He stared at her inquiringly--noting the disdain with which her chin tilted and her lip curled, though he could see it was a disdain suffused with sweetness.

"Do you mean that you wouldn't--wouldn't give me away?"

"I mean that you're either broaching a topic I don't understand or speaking a language I've never learned. If you don't mind, we won't discuss the subject, and we'll speak our mother-tongue--the mother-tongue of people like you and me."

He stared again. It took him some few seconds to understand her phraseology. In proportion as her meaning broke upon him, his face glowed. When he spoke it was with enthusiasm for her generosity in taking this stand rather than in gratitude for anything he was to gain by it.

"By Jove, you're a brick! You always were. I might have expected that this is exactly what you'd say."

"I hope so. I didn't expect that you'd talk of my giving you away, as you call it--to any one."

"But you're wrong," he said, with a return to the laughing bravado which concealed his inward repugnance to his position. "You're wrong. I'll give you that tip now. I'll fight fair. I sha'n't be grateful. I'll profit by your magnanimity. Remember it's my part in the world to be unscrupulous. It has to be. I've told you so. With me the end justifies the means--always; and when the end is to keep my word to Evie, it will make no difference to me that you were too high-minded to put the big obstacle in my way."

"You'll not expect me to be otherwise than sorry for that--for your sake."

"No, I dare say. But I can't stop to think of what any one feels for my sake when I know what I feel for my own."

"Which is only an additional reason for my being--sorry. You don't find fault with me for that?"

"I do. I don't want you to be sorry. I want to convince you. I want you to see things from my point of view--how I've been placed. Good Lord! it's hard enough, without the sense that you're sitting in judgment on me."

"I'm not sitting in judgment on you--except in so far as concerns Evie Colfax. If it was anybody else--"

"But it couldn't be anybody else It's Evie or no one. She's everything on earth to me. She's to me what electricity is to the wire--that which makes it a thing alive."

"To be a thing alive isn't necessarily the highest thing."

"Ah, but that doesn't apply to me. It's all very well for other men to say, 'All is lost to save honor.' They have compensations. I haven't. You might as well ask a man to think of the highest thing when he's drowning."

"But I should. There have been men who haven't--and they've saved their lives by it. But you know what we've called them."

"In my case there'd be only you to call me that--if you wanted to."

"Oh no; there'd be--you."

"I can stand that. I've stood it for eight years already. If you think I haven't had times when it's been hell, you're quite mistaken. I wonder if you can guess what it means to me--in here"--he tapped his breast--"to go round among all these good, kind, honorable people, passing myself off as Herbert Strange when all the time I'm Norrie Ford--and a convict? But I'm forced to. There's no way out of it."

"Because there's no way out of it isn't a reason for going further in."

"What does that matter? When you're in up to the eyes, what does it matter if you go over your head?"

"In this case it would matter to Evie. That's my point. I have to protect her--to save her. There's no one but me to do it--and you."

"Don't count on me," he said, savagely. "I've the right, in this wild beast's life, to seize anything I can snatch."

He renewed his arguments, going over all the ground again. She listened to him as she had once listened to his plea in his defence--her pose pensive, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes pitiful. As far as she was aware of her own feelings it was merely to take note that a kind of yearning over him, an immense sorrow for him and with him, had extinguished the fires that a few days ago were burning for herself. It was hard to sit there heedless of his exposition and deaf to his persuasion. Seeing her inflexible, he became halting in his speech, till finally he stopped, still looking at her with an unresenting, dog-like gaze of entreaty.

She made no comment when he ceased, and for a time they sat in silence.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked, holding the packet toward her.

She shook her head wonderingly.

"It's what I owe you." She made a gesture of deprecation. "It's the money you lent me," he went on. "It's a tremendous satisfaction--that at least--to be able to bring it back to you."

"But I don't want it," she stammered, in some agitation.

"Perhaps not. But I want you to have it." He explained to her briefly what he had done in the matter.

"Couldn't you give it to something?" she begged, "to some church or institution?"

"You can, if you like. I mean to give it to you. You see, I'm not returning it with expressions of gratitude, because anything I could say would be so inadequate as to be absurd."

He left his chair and came to her, with the packet in his outstretched hand. She shrank from it, rising, and retreating into the space of the bay-window.

"But I don't want it," she insisted. "I never thought of your returning it. I scarcely thought of the incident at all. It had almost passed from my memory."

"That's natural enough; but it's equally natural that it shouldn't have passed from mine." He came close to her and offered it again. "Do take it."

"Put it on the table. Please."

"That isn't the same thing. I want you to take it. I want to put it into your own hand, as you put it into mine."

She remembered that she had put it into his hand by closing his fingers forcibly upon it, and hastened to prevent anything of that kind now. She took it unwillingly, holding it in both hands as if it were a casket.

"That's done," he said, with satisfaction. "You can't imagine what a relief it is to have it off my mind."

"I'm sorry you should have felt about it like that."

"You would have felt like that yourself, if you were a man owing money to a woman--and especially a woman who was your--enemy."

"Oh!" She cowered, as if he had threatened her.

"I repeat the word," he laughed, uneasily. "Any one is my enemy who comes between me and Evie. You'll forgive me if I seem brutal--"

"Yes, I'll forgive you. I'll even accept the word." She was pale and nervous, with the kind of nervousness that kept her smiling and still, but sent the queer, lambent flashes into her eyes. "Let us say it. I'm your enemy, and you pay me the money so as to feel free to strike me as hard as you can."

He kept to his laugh, but there was a forced ring in it.

"I don't call that a fair way of putting it, but--"

"I don't see that the way of putting it matters, so long as it's the fact."

"It's the fact twisted in a very ingenious fashion. I should say that--since I'm going to marry Evie--I want--naturally enough--to feel that--that"--he stammered and reddened, seeking a word that would not convey an insult--"to feel--that I--met other claims--as well as I could."

He looked her in the eyes with significant directness. His steady gaze, in which she saw--or thought she saw--glints of challenge toned down by gleams of regret, seemed to say, "Whatever I owe you other than money is out of my power to pay." She fully understood that he did not repudiate the debt; he was only telling her that since he had given all to Evie, his heart was bankrupt. What angered her and kept her silent, fearing she would say something she would afterward repent, was the implication that she was putting forth her claim for fulfilment.

He still confronted her, with an air of flying humiliation as a flag of defiance, while she stood holding the packet in both hands, when the door was pushed open, and Evie, radiant from her walk in the cold air and fine in autumn furs and plumage, fluttered in. Her blue eyes opened wide on the two in the bay-window, but she did not advance from the threshold.

"Dear me, dear me!" she twittered, in her dry little fashion, before they had time to realize the fact that she was there. "I hope I'm not interrupting you."

"Evie dear, come in." Miriam threw the packet on a table, and went forward. Ford followed, trying to regain the appearance of "just making a call."

"No, no," Evie cried, waving Miriam back. "I only came--for nothing. That is--But I'll go away and come back again. Do you think you'll be long? But I suppose if you have secrets--"

Her hand was on the knob again, but Miriam caught her.

"No, darling, you must stay. You're absurd. Mr. Strange and I were just--talking."

"Yes, so I saw. That's why I thought I might be _de trap_. How do you do!" She put out her left hand carelessly to Ford, her right hand still holding the knob, and twisted her little person impatiently. Ford held her hand, but she snatched it away. "There's not the least reason why I should stay, do you see?" she hurried on. "I only came with a message from Aunt Queenie."

"I'm sure it's confidential," Ford laughed, "so I'll make myself scarce."

"You can do just as you like," Evie returned, indifferently. "Cousin Colfax Yorke," she added, looking at Miriam, "has telephoned that he can't come to dine; and, as it's too late to get anybody else, Aunt Queenie thought you might come and make a fourth. It's only ourselves and--- him," she nodded toward Strange.

"Certainly, I'll come, dear--with pleasure."

"And I'll go," Ford said; "but I won't add with pleasure, because that would be rude."

When he had gone Evie sniffed about the room, looking at the pictures and curios as if she had never seen them before. It was evident that she had spied the packet, and was making her way, by a seemingly accidental route, toward it. Miriam drifted back to her place in the bay-window, where, while apparently watching the traffic in the street below, she kept an eye on Evie's manœuvres.

"What on earth can you two have to talk about?" Evie demanded, while she seemed intent on examining a cabinet of old porcelain.

"If you're very good, dear," Miriam replied, trying to take an amused, offhand tone, "I'll tell you. It was business."

"Business? Why, I thought you hardly knew him."

"You don't have to know people very well to transact business with them. He came on a question of--money."

"No, but you don't start up doing business with a person that's just dropped down from the clouds--like that." She snapped her fingers to indicate precipitous haste.

"Sometimes you do."

"Well, _you_ don't. I know that for a fact." She was inspecting a vase on a pedestal in a corner now. It was nearer to the packet. She wheeled round suddenly, so that it should take her by surprise. "What's that?"

"You see. It's an envelope with papers in it."

"What sort of papers?"

"I haven't looked at them yet. They have to do with money, or investments, or something. I'm never very clear about those things."

"I thought you did all that through Cousin Endsleigh Jarrott and Mr. Conquest?"

"This was a little thing I couldn't trouble them with."

"And you went straight off to _him_, when you'd only known him--let me see!--how many days?--one, two, three, four--"

"I've gone to people I didn't know at all--sometimes. You have to. If you only knew more about investing money--"

"I don't know anything about investing money; but I know this is very queer. And you didn't like him--or you said you didn't."

"I said I did, dear--after a fashion--and so I do."

"In that case I should think a good deal would depend upon the fashion. Look here. It's addressed--_Miss Strange._ That's his writing. That's how he scribbles his name. And there's something written in tiny, tiny letters in the corner. What is it?" Without touching the envelope she bent down to see. "It's _The Wild Olive_. Now, what in this world can that mean? That's not business, anyhow. That means something."

"No, that's not business, but I haven't an idea what it means." Miriam was glad to be able to disclaim something. "It was probably on the envelope by accident. Some clerk wrote it, and Mr. Strange didn't notice it."

Evie let the explanation pass, while continuing to stare at the object of her suspicions.

"That's not papers," she said, at last, pointing as she spoke to something protruding between the rubber bands. "There's something in there. It looks like a"--she hesitated to find the right article--"it looks like a card-case."

"Perhaps it is," Miriam agreed. "But I'm sure I don't know why he should bring me a card-case."

"Why don't you look?"

"I wasn't in a hurry; but you can look yourself if you want to."

Evie took offence. "I'm sure I don't want to. That's the last thing."

"I wish you would. Then you'd see."

"I only do it under protest," she declared--"because you force me to." She took up the envelope, and began to unloose the rubber bands. "_The Wild Olive_" she quoted, half to herself. "Ridiculous! I should think clerks might have something better to do than write such things as that--on envelopes--on people's business." But her indignation turned to surprise when a small flat thing, not unlike a card-case, certainly, tumbled out. "What in the name of goodness--?"

Only strong self-control kept Miriam from darting forward to snatch it from the floor. She remembered it at once. It was a worn red leather pocket-book, which she had last seen when it was fresh and new--sitting in the sunset, on the heights above Champlain, and looking at the jewelled sea. A card fell from it, on which there was something written. Evie dropped on one knee to pick it up. Miriam was sorry to risk anything, but she felt constrained to say, as quietly as possible:

"You'd better not read that, dear. It might be private."

Evie slipped the card back into the pocket-book, which she threw on the table, where Miriam let it lie. "I won't look at anything else," Evie said, with dignity, turning away.

"I want you to," Miriam said, authoritatively. "I beg you to."

Thus commanded, Evie drew forth a flat document, on which she read, in ornamental letters, the inscription, _New York, Toronto, and Great Lakes Railroad Company_. She unfolded it slowly, looking puzzled.

"It's nothing but a lot of little square things," she said, with some disdain.

"The little square things are called coupons, if you know what they are."

"I know they're things people cut--when they have a lot of money. I don't know why they cut them; and still less do I know why he should be bringing them to you."

Miriam had a sudden inspiration that made her face beam with relief.

"I'll tell you why he brought them to me, dear--though I do it under protest, as you say yourself. Your curiosity forces my hand, and makes me show it ahead of time. He brought them to me because it's a wedding-present for you. When you get married--or begin to get married--you can have all that money for your trousseau."

"Aunt Helen is going to give me my trousseau. She said so."

"Then you can have it for anything you like--for house-furnishings or a pearl necklace. You know you wanted a pearl necklace--and there's plenty for a nice one. Each of those papers is worth a thousand dollars, or nearly. And there are--how many?"

"Three. You seem very keen on getting rid of them."

"So I am--to you, darling."

Evie prepared to depart, looking unconvinced.

"It's awfully nice of you--of course. But still--if that's what you had meant at first--from the beginning--you would have--Well, I'll tell Aunt Queenie you'll come."

Left alone, Miriam made haste to read the card in the pocket-book.

/#
_As deep calls to deep, so Spirit speaks to Spirit. It is the only true
communion between mutually comprehending souls. But it is
unerring--pardoning all, because understanding all, and making the
crooked straight._
#/

She read it more than once. She was not sure that it was meant for her. She was not sure that it was in Ford's own handwriting. But in their situation it had a meaning; she took it as a message to herself; and as she read, and read again, she felt on her face the trickling of one or two slow, hard tears.

XVII

The result of the dinner that evening was that Evie grew more fretful. After the departure of her guests, she evolved a brief formula which she used frequently during the next few weeks: "There's something!" With her quick eyes and quicker intuitions, it was impossible for her not to see that Ford and Miriam possessed common memories of the kind that distinguish old acquaintances from new ones. When it did not transpire in chance words she caught it in their glances or divined it in the mental atmosphere. As autumn passed into early winter she became nervous, peevish, and exacting; she lost much from her pretty ways and something from her looks. In the family the change was ascribed to the fatigue incidental to the sudden round of lunches, dinners, dances, suppers, theatre-parties, opera-goings, and "teas" with which American boys and girls of a certain age are surfeited pitilessly with pleasure, as Strasburg geese are stuffed for paté de foie gras. Ford, however, suspected the true reason, and Miriam knew it. They met as seldom as might be; and yet, with the many things requiring explanation between them, frank conversation became imperative.

"You see how it is already," Miriam said to him. "It's making her unhappy from the start. You can't conceal the truth from her very long."

"She isn't fretting about the truth; she's fretting about what she imagines."

"She's fretting because she doesn't understand, and she'll go on fretting till she does. I'm not sorry. It must show you--"

"It shows me the necessity of our being married as soon as possible, so that I may take care of her, and put a stop to it."

"I agree with you that you'd put a stop to it. You'd put a stop to everything. She wouldn't live a year--or you wouldn't. Either she'd die--or she'd abhor you. And if she didn't die, you'd want to."

"I wish to the Lord I had died--eight years ago. The great mistake I made was when the lumber-jacks loosed my hand-cuffs and started me through the woods. They called it giving me a chance, and for a few minutes I thought it was one. A chance! Good God! I remember feeling, as I ran, that I was deserting something. I didn't know what it was just then, but I've understood it since. It would have been a pluckier thing to have been in my coffin as Norrie Ford--or even doing time--than to be here as Herbert Strange."

She said nothing for the moment, but as they walked along side by side he shot a glance at her, and saw her coloring. They had met in the park. He was going toward the house in Seventy-second Street when she was coming away from it. Seizing the opportunity of a few words in private, he had turned to stroll back with her.

"I didn't expect you to be here as Herbert Strange," she said, as though in self-excuse. "I had to give you a name that was like my own, when I was writing letters about your ticket, and sending checks. I had to do everything to avoid suspicion at a time when Greenport was watched. I thought you might be able to take your own name or something like it--"

He explained to her how that had never been possible.

"Evie fidgets about it," he continued. "She puts together the two facts that you and I seem to have known each other, and that my name is identical with your father's. She doesn't know what to make of it; she only thinks 'there's something.' She hasn't said more than that in words, but I see her little mind at work."

"Evie isn't the only one," she informed him. "There's Mr. Wayne. He has to be reckoned with. He recognized your voice from the first minute of hearing it, though he hasn't said yet that he knows whose it is. He may do so at any time. He's very surprising at that sort of thing. I can see him listening when you're there, not only to your words, but to your very movements, trying to recapture--"

"The upshot of everything," he said, abruptly, "is that I must marry her, take her back to the Argentine, where I found her, and where we shall both be out of harm's way."

"You wouldn't be out of harm's way. You can't turn your back on it like that. You alone might be able to slip through, but not if you have Evie."

"That will be my affair; I'll see to it. I take the full responsibility on myself."

"I couldn't let you. Remember that. You can't marry her. Let me say it plainly--"

"Oh, you've said it plainly enough."

"If I've said it too plainly, it's because you force me. You're so wilful."

"You mean, I'm so determined. What it amounts to is the clash of your will against mine; and you refuse to see that I can't give way."

"I see that you must give way. It's in the nature of things. It's inevitable. If I didn't know that, do you think I should interfere? Do you think I should dare to run the risk of wrecking your happiness if I could do anything else? If you knew how I hate doing anything at all--"

"But you needn't. You can just let things be."

"I can't let things be--with all I know; and yet it's impossible for me to appeal to any one, except yourself. You put me in a position in which I must either betray you or betray those who trust me. Because I can't do either--"

"I profit by your noble-mindedness. I told you I would. I'm sorry to have to do it--I'll even admit that I'm ashamed of it--and yet there's no other course for me. I'm not taking you at an unfair advantage, because I've concealed nothing from you from the first. You talk about the difficulty of your position, but you don't begin to imagine mine. As if everything else wasn't gall to me, I've got your disapproval to add wormwood."

"It isn't my disapproval; it's simply--the situation. My opinion counts for nothing--"

"It counts for everything with me--and yet I have to ignore it. But, after all," he flung out, bitterly, "it's the old story. I claim the right to squeeze out of life such drops of happiness--if you can call it happiness--as men have left to me, and you deny it. There it is in a nutshell. Because other people have inflicted a great wrong on me, you insist that I shall inflict a greater one on myself. And this time it wouldn't be only on myself; it would be on poor little Evie. There's where it cuts. No, no; I shall go on. I've the right to do it. You must stop me if you can. If you don't, or won't--why, then--"

"I can stop you ... if you drive me to extremes ... but it wouldn't be by doing ... any of the things you expect."

It was because of the catch in her voice that he stopped in his walk, and confronted her. In spite of the little tremor he could see in her no sign of yielding, and behind her veil he caught a gleam like that of anger. It was at that minute, perhaps, that he became distinctly conscious for the first time of a doubt as to the superiority of "his type of girl." Notwithstanding the awakening of certain faint perceptions, he had hitherto denied within himself that there was anything higher or more lovely. But in this girl's unflinching loyalty, and in her tenacious clinging to what she considered right, he was getting a new glimpse of womanhood, which, however, in no way weakened his determination to resist her.

"As far as I see," he said, after long hesitation, "you and I have two irreconcilable duties. My duty is to marry Evie; yours is to prevent me. In that case there's nothing for either of us but to forge ahead, and see who wins. If you win, I shall bear no malice; and I hope you'll be equally generous if I do."

"But I don't want to win independently of you. If I did, nothing could be easier."

"Then why not do it?"

He tossed up his hand with one of his fatalistic Latin gestures, drawing the attention of the passers-by to the man and woman talking so earnestly. For this reason, and because she was losing her self-command, she hastened to take leave of him.

Arrived at home, it gave her no comfort to find Charles Conquest--the most spick and span of middle-aged New-Yorkers--waiting in the drawing-room.

"I thought you might come in," he explained, "so I stayed. I have to get your signature to the papers about that property in Montreal. I've fixed the thing up and we'll sell."

"You said you'd send the papers--"

"That sounds as if you weren't glad to see me," he laughed, "but I'll ignore the discourtesy. Here," he added, unfolding the documents, "you put your name there--and there--near the L.S."

She carried the papers to her desk, and sat down to write. Conquest took the liberty of old friendship to stroll about the room, with his hands behind him, humming a little tune.

"Well," he said suddenly, "has he come back?"

He had not approached the subject, beyond alluding to it covertly, since the day she had confided to him the confused story of her hopes. She blotted her signature carefully thinking out her reply.

"I've given up expecting him," she said at last.

"Ho! ho! So that's out of the way."

She pretended to be scanning the documents before her so as to be able to sit with her back to him.

"It isn't, for the reason that there's--no _way_," she said, after some hesitation.

"Oh yes, there is," he laughed, "where there's a will."

"But I've no will."

"I have; I've enough for two."

"I'll tell you what you have got," she said, half turning and speaking to him over the back of her chair. He drew near her. "You've got a great deal of common sense, and I want to ask your advice."

"I can give that, as radium emits light--without ever diminishing the original store."

"Then tell me. Has one ever the right to interfere where a man and a woman--"

"No, never. You needn't give me any more details, because it's one of the questions an oracle finds easiest to answer. No one ever thanks you--"

"I shouldn't be doing it for thanks."

"And you get your own fingers burnt."