# The Mad Busman, and Other Stories/Pas de Quatre

pp. 115–162.

### IV
#### Pas de Quatre

I
DOCTOR ROSSLYN waited until the consultant physician had climbed into his car. Then he closed the door and went back up the broad shallow staircase. He reflected that though the consultant was an able diagnostician there were some things he hadn't discovered in this particular case. He hadn't guessed, for instance, what lay behind his younger colleague's professional gravity. And yet Rosslyn felt that the truth had been staring out of his eyes—emanating from his whole body.
The old man had merely patted him on the back.
"You look as though you wanted a holiday, my dear fellow."
Doctors always ordered people holidays. Rosslyn had done it himself repeatedly, especially when at a loss. He saw now how absurd it was and how ironically his patients must have smiled to themselves.
He went slowly. It had been a great strain. Now it was over. Of course he had known. At the bottom of their hearts every one had known. She herself had been the least self-deceiving of any of them. He remembered the compassionate, enigmatic smile with which she had met his cheerful protestations and Digby's incessant plan making.
Poor Digby! He spent his life dragging one bankrupt business after another into prosperity, and he simply couldn't believe that circumstances might be too much for him. Such a lovable, pathetic ass!
Throughout, as far as Rosslyn knew, she had never flinched. If she woke at night to stare into the blackness and face the incredible, monstrous event that was drawing down upon her, by the next morning she had recovered her absolute serenity. She was wonderful—so wonderful as to be puzzling. He had seen many people take the final verdict—most of them with courage—but none of them had attained the quality of her peace. It was as though she had some sweet and secret comfort—a source of strength which she kept jealously hidden from them all. Sometimes she seemed deeply happy. Whatever it was, it made it easier to go back to her.
Digby was out. He didn't know about the consultant physician. They had treated him frankly as a child. In the end she would have to comfort him.
The room had been left in broad daylight. It was like a windless garden, the still air heavy with the scent of flowers, the Persian rugs floating their shadowy colors in a silently flowing tide of sunshine. The low, graceful Regency bed might have been a pretty boat moored in a dim backwater.
Doctor Rosslyn went across to the open windows and drew the curtains. It wasn't that he was afraid to meet her eyes. But he wanted the intimacy of quiet and twilight. The room was too full of luxury. He would have liked to strip it bare so that he could be alone with her. Queer to think that in a little time he would not come here any more—that the short hours which made the centre and meaning of his day would be cut out.
"Well?"
The small voice just stirred the silence. He came at once and sat down on the edge of her bed. He knew that she had been watching him, drawing on those silent reserves of hers, and now he looked straight at her, grave but untroubled. He could not and would not insult her courage and their understanding of each other by an evasion. She laid her thin dry hand on his, pressing it gently.
"Well—how long?"
"He doesn't know exactly. A few weeks—perhaps two months."
She was silent a moment, reflecting.
"Thank you, Stephen."
She had never called him by his Christian name before. It astonished him somehow that she realised he had such a thing—that he had a personality outside his job of keeping people alive. It had sounded very sweet, very deliberate. He sat there, his head bent, listening, as though the sound lingered somewhere in the stillness. He guessed that it had meant a great deal to her—that she had waited and waited, and now the signal had been given and a fast-closed door thrown wide.
"How long have we known each other?" she asked in her little far-off voice.
"About two years."
"You've looked after me all that time—fought like a Trojan, haven't you?"
"Well—I'm beaten now."
"It doesn't matter. You've been perfect. I'd like to call you Stephen, if you don't mind. My name's Claire, you know. It seems rather silly for dying people to be so formal, don't you think? That sort of thing doesn't matter any more."
He held her hand close. He felt certain that she knew and that she was saying, "Never mind. It's all right now." He was amazed to find that he was happy—extraordinarily happy, like some one who had been bound hand and foot and was suddenly set free. He sat up straight, involuntarily drawing the first deep breath of release. The color that had flooded up into his thin hard-bitten face made him look young and slightly pathetic, as all strong people look when overwhelmed by a rare feeling. She smiled at him almost light-heartedly, as though she were teasing him a little.
"Aren't you glad?"
"Glad?"
"That it's all over, that we're quite certain."
"I don't know."
"And that nothing matters except the truth?"
He considered her with his usual uncompromising steadfastness. She lay back deep among her pillows. The exhaustion that had followed on the consultation had thrown black hollows into her cheeks and deepened the lines about her mouth. She wasn't beautiful. He had never known her beautiful. By the time she had come to him two years ago disease had already laid her youth and a famous loveliness in ruins. That, it had seemed to him at the time, had been her greatest tragedy. Digby himself had spoken of it, tears in his eyes.
"It's awful—you can't understand—you never saw her."
He was glad he had never seen her—grimly proud of a love illicit and stifled as it was—that had grown up out of such rare clean soil. Other people had loved the beautiful, happy Claire Calvert, but he had loved the disfigured, suffering woman. He remembered the day of their first meeting quite well. She had come into his consulting room and he had scarcely looked at her. Women—people generally—meant nothing to him. A patient was either a sick body or a sick ego. He was, in fact, a hard man, a fighter who had chosen disease as his enemy, and the fight was all that he cared about. He had never loved any one in his life.
He had taken Claire Calvert's hands. They were dry and withered—just symptoms. He had made the examination with the cold carefulness of a detective gathering his clues, and at last had told her the truth, as far as he knew it. Then for the first time he had met her eyes—those curious, shining, hazel eyes of hers. Perhaps unconsciously he had expected horror, consternation, tears. And she had just smiled reassuringly at him.
"Please don't worry about me, doctor."
He hadn't been worrying. She had been nothing to him. But now a shock of sheer admiration had gone over him. He had recognised in her bearing something more than either bravado or self-control—a gallant and generous spirit.
And from that moment he set himself to fight for her as he had never fought for personal victory.
It had been in vain. She had never had a chance. If she had been older—— But she was young and the disease feasted on her youth.
A few weeks—eight at the outside.
She recalled him gently.
"You do love me, don't you, Stephen?"
"Yes," he answered, with his bleak honesty.
"It's quite all right for you to say so now. Medical and domestic etiquette have to give way. I wanted just to hear you say it."
"I love you."
She closed her eyes.
"These have been the most wonderful two years of my life."
He didn't understand. But he knew that she was going to tell him at last about that secret strength of hers. He bent closer, so that he would not lose one of those faintly falling words.
"You see—people have always loved me, and it's been very lovely to be loved—but often, often I used to think to myself that it was because I was beautiful and happy—and made people happy. Nobody knew about me—the real me—or cared. I often thought about this happening—and wondered—just how much would be left. I never dreamed that just when I was really bankrupt, with nothing to give but trouble—a great love might be given me. After all, the glory of life doesn't lie in its length, does it? I might have lived to be an old, old woman and never known how wonderful it might be."
He was deeply moved and oddly unashamed of being moved. Yet the hard logic in him wanted to reason the thing out to the end. He couldn't rest, not knowing the whole truth.
"But Digby," he said; "Digby—don't you love him?"
"Of course. No one could help it. He's so generous and anxious and faithful. So pathetic. Every day he lays his flowers at the altar of a memory."
"A memory?"
"Of the woman he loved so passionately. But I'm not that woman any more. I remember her. She was charming. They made the most lovely couple. But she's dead."
"I don't know about all that. He's breaking his heart."
Her lips quivered.
"It won't break—not quite."
"Well—whatever people mean by breaking their hearts."
She moved a little so that her face was toward the curtained windows. Her eyes were wide open and he felt that she was seeing something that was hidden from him.
"Digby's so healthy and strong and eager. He shrinks from the very thought of death."
"That's true. He won't believe that you're not getting better. He won't believe even now."
He caught the enigmatic shadow of her smile.
"Poor Digby. He's puzzled and frightened. He wants the old me to come back dreadfully. But if I don't——"
"Well?"
"He just can't help turning toward hope."
"My dear——"
"Oh, I'm glad—frightfully glad. Stephen—the new me—the dying me, couldn't have borne the burden of such a responsibility. I'm free."
Their silence was like a deep strong tide, sweeping away the last barrier between them. In it they seemed to speak to each other for the first time. Neither knew how long it lasted.
The sound of a car turning into the gates roused them to look at each other.
"Perhaps—two months?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"Our whole lives—our very own."
He held her hand hard between both his. Something was rending him, tearing down the restraints of years. It hurt—and yet it was beautiful, too—a kind of difficult, splendid surrender. He lifted her hand and kissed it.
II
Digby felt as though some one had hit him over the heart—stunned and sick. The red heavy-headed roses which he had brought for her lay on the table, where he had put them in order to give a hand to that doctor fellow. They seemed to make fun of him. He could hear the echo of his own fatuously cheerful "Well, Rosslyn, how goes it? A bit better to-day, don't you think?" And the long glass opposite held the ghost of his laughing face. He stared at himself uncomprehendingly. For his pallor and the expression of bewildered consternation, he made a fine figure of a man—fair skinned and upright, with clear eyes and square shoulders and lean flanks. He looked so strong—the very embodiment of security. He couldn't connect himself with the thought of death—dissolution—simply couldn't. And yet in two months—at the outside—Claire his wife—the romance of his life—would be gone beyond his reach. The place would be empty of her forever.
His first impulse had been to rush upstairs to her, take her in his arms as he had used to do after they had been cruelly separated for a few days, and hold her fast. But then he remembered. She had to be spared all excitement, all strain. He couldn't even cry his heart out on her shoulder. He had to be calm—as brave as she was. For ten minutes he had stood there staring at himself, trying to fix on some attitude that he could take up and carry through to the end. But everything seemed unreal and intolerable. What could one say to some one who had just been sentenced to death—some one whom one loved? How could one go on living with them—eating, sleeping, talking, with the future closing down like a shutter and the pitifully sweet past jogging one's memory? Two months? The two years had been cruel enough. But then he had been able to pretend to himself. He had been cheerful and had made plans of what they would do when she were well again. Pretense, of course, eating at one's heart, but still making life endurable.
Now there was nothing for it but surrender, a grim awful waiting face to face with the truth.
Two months. If it were only now—both of them together.
He began to move about the room. The pain seemed to have become physical. It wouldn't let him rest. Nor could he go up to her—not yet. She would understand. Finally he threw open the long French window and went down into the garden.
It was the loveliest garden of a luxurious and expensive suburb. It had been his gift to her—an integral part of his campaign. In a few weeks, by dint of a white-hot energy and prodigality, he had transformed its previous commonplaceness into a paradise of rare flowers which in the red evening sunlight shone like the jewels of a great necklace. Even now it was difficult to believe that he should have failed.
At the bottom was a private gate that led out into the roadway. It opened and he saw a woman come up the path. He recognised her with a sensation of almost passionate relief. He was like a rudderless ship manned by a panic-stricken crew who had come suddenly in sight of land. Lucy Garfield! Claire's friend and his—some one who loved them both, whose handclasp was a thing of understanding and infinite comfort. He went to meet her, hurrying, as though he could not bear another moment of his forlornness.
He had an idea that she knew already. She was hatless, and walking quickly, too, with that bearing of quiet vigorous purpose which he liked so well. The sunlight shone on the thick ash-blond hair. The early silver scarcely showed. Not young any more—older than Claire. There was a faint hint of matronly breadth about the fine gracious figure. Yet her glowing health, her sunny and gallant temper with its undertone of womanly tenderness and pity made her one of those people whose age is of no significance. They are young forever.
She took his hand. Her own was both warm and cool, gentle and strong. Her eyes met his with a steady gravity.
"I saw the two cars," she said. "I guessed that Doctor Rosslyn had called in another opinion. I tried to wait, but I couldn't. I was too anxious."
"It's all over," he said simply. "It's a question of weeks now."
They turned and walked slowly side by side toward the house. It had been their custom to meet like this on the fine summer evenings and to pick out the finest blooms for Claire before they went up to her together. The few minutes of her companionship had been something to look forward to. They strengthened him for the tragic ordeal of that sick room where he sat hour after hour, facing death and pretending he didn't see. If only Claire had gone on being Claire—— But she had changed. Physically he wouldn't have recognised her. But it was more than that. She had drifted away—almost out of hearing. More and more, for all his tormenting love and pity, he had felt like a stranger. He was embarrassed when Lucy left them.
"I believe I've known all along," he said.
"You've been very brave, Digby."
"No; rather a coward. I didn't dare admit it myself. It seemed incredible. She had been so lovely and full of life. You know—I used to think we were the happiest people in the world."
"I know you made her very happy."
"It's good of you to say so, Lucy. It comforts me. You've been a wonderful friend. You've known and loved Claire all your life and you might so easily have been—well—jealous or disapproving; felt that I wasn't good enough for her. But you've been my friend too."
"I wanted to be when I saw what you were to her—a perfect lover always."
He flushed deeply.
"I don't know; I've wondered lately. I seem somehow to have lost touch; I've been stupid with wretchedness; I felt as though I were failing her."
"It's not that. My poor Claire! It's been a slow, slow dying; and dying people are all by themselves. We stretch out hands, but can't reach them any more. It's not your fault. Claire understands better than any one."
He was silent. He didn't trust his voice. She comforted him immeasurably. And yet he knew that she herself was in bitter need of comfort. He glanced swiftly at her profile and saw how pale she was—deathly pale. She loved Claire. There had always been something between these two—a rare and exquisite understanding, such as is possible only between women, which had sometimes left him out side. Somehow he hadn't minded. He loved beautiful things and he saw that it was beautiful, their closeness to each other.
Even now, when Claire was drifting away faster and faster, Lucy had somehow managed to keep close. She would follow to the very edge of the grave. At the thought a new inexplicable pang shot through him.
"Lucy, they've been rather wonderful—these two years, haven't they? I mean—life isn't just happiness, is it? I didn't know any one like Claire could be so brave and patient; or that any one could have such a friend as you have been to us."
"Oh, Digby dear, what have I done that any one wouldn't have done?"
"You've been yourself. That's all. Of course you don't see how splendid that is. Lucy, I'm a clumsy, stupid fellow. I don't know what I should have done without you. You won't desert me?"
"Desert you?"
"You'll stand by?"
"You know I will."
He heard the puzzled reproach in her low husky voice.
"I mean—as my friend—not just because I'm Claire's husband—because—you're the only person I shall have left."
"Of course—I am your friend."
"Always?"
"Always."
The path was steep, and they stood still a moment, a little breathless, looking down at a cluster of red roses. Another day they would have picked them for her, but now the thought of flowers tasted of death. He knew that there were tears on his companion's cheeks. But he couldn't care. It was as though somewhere—inside himself—on the horizon of some inner vision a tiny spark had kindled and was brightening and glowing, and was spreading fast and till it filled the whole of him with an indescribable warmth. He had to close his eyes lest he should see what he must not see—not yet.
A maidservant stood in the open window.
"If you please, sir, the mistress asks if you and Miss Garfield would come up."
They had both started, as though for a moment they had forgotten. They turned quickly, guiltily. Twilight covered the garden with a vague enchantment. Lucy Garfield stumbled. He gave her his arm. He knew that she had seen too. Her hand trembled with foreknowledge. A moment later she drew away from him and went on alone.
III
Claire had heard Stephen Rosslyn's car turn out of the drive. But she did not expect Digby to come to her. Not at first. He would be too terribly shaken. He would go out into the garden, and since it was Lucy's visiting time he would meet her, as he often did, and they would comfort each other. She smiled faintly to herself.
Her thoughts were very tender of them both, but they seemed a long way off. She felt toward them as an explorer might feel toward people he was leaving behind him. All that was real to her was the journey and the man who would know how to bring her safely out of harbor. Still, she wanted to do the best she could.
So she had sent for them. She wanted them together. She had an odd physical and emotional shrinking from the idea of being alone with either of them. She felt that they would try to get too near to her, lay hold of her and drag her back into being one of them. And she wasn't one of them any more. She was a person apart, with a new and different life of her own. She was dying.
She wondered if she were heartless. She tried to recapture herself and Digby. She remembered that she had been beautiful and very gay and happy, and Digby a most perfect lover. It wasn't only his prodigal generosity. He had always done things enchantingly and splendidly mad. One night he had waited five a hours in a bitter snowstorm just to see her come home from a dance, and even then he hadn't spoken to her, but had lifted his hat with a grave and gallant salute as though she had been a princess. And after they were married he had been the same. He seemed to know instinctively what other men found out too late, that love, however steadfast, is a curious and exquisite thing, able to withstand tempest and disaster, but not frost. He had been her husband, her friend and her wooer. And because of the very stuff of youth and life that was in them they had wonderful times. She remembered how they had laughed—like children.
And then death, which, had it come suddenly, would have simply broken the survivor's heart, had gently laid its hand on her and drawn her away from him. Neither of them had known quite what was happening. It had been so gradual. It was as though very slowly they had begun to speak a different language. His distress had been pitiful, but he could do nothing. His health and instinctive joy of life had been like a baffling wall between them.
In his place had come a man to whom death was the commonplace of life—a grim ungracious comrade who, for all his indifference to suffering, knew what suffering meant. He cared nothing for the laughter and beauty which she had lost. He rarely laughed and she knew by the way he thrust aside her flowers that their beauty was hidden from him. But he had come to love her. Through the ugliness and humiliation of illness his love reached her and held her fast in its protection. It was like a miracle. It made death a a revelation of life.
The door opened. She shivered a little. They a were so big and strong. It was like a blast of crude rough wind. She knew that they were ashamed. And after that first moment's recoil she was sorry for their tragic embarrassment. She held out her hand and Digby caught it and kissed it. The familiar, cheery "Well, darling, how goes it?" had risen visibly to his lips and had died there. Suddenly like a boy overwhelmed with grief he dropped on his knees beside her, burying his face against her arm.
She looked at Lucy. They were two women understanding each other. They even smiled, though the tears had gathered in Lucy's eyes. Claire knew how Lucy loved her. She held out her free hand over the bowed head between them. And so they remained a moment.
"You mustn't," Claire whispered. "You mustn't be so dreadfully unhappy—either of you. My dears, it comes to every one; it will to you, you know. And I've had such a wonderful life. No one could have had more love." She felt Digby's fierce confirmative pressure, but she was not thinking of him. "I'd be content and happy—if only you were too."
He stood up almost roughly.
"Don't, Claire. You mustn't say things like that—impossible things. It's a sort of outrage. What will my life be if you leave me——"
She thought wearily to herself, suppose she told him the truth; suppose she said, "My dear, my death will be the crisis of a long misery for you. You will suffer frightfully, but then you'll begin to get better. In a few months you will be your old self, the self you haven't been for two years—since we began to lose each other. Besides, I love Steve Rosslyn."
But of course she couldn't. Only the dying can face the truth.
"I want you to be very quiet and listen," she said faintly. "You know, the end might come any time, and there's something I want to say—to both of you. At first—I meant to say it only to Lucy. But we three love one another. We can surely trust one another."
He bent over her.
"Claire—my darling—what is it?"
She felt how difficult it was going to be. He was so simple and sincere, so desperately unhappy. He wouldn't even know that he was lying. She drew Lucy close to her as though for support. She felt that Lucy guessed and was gathering all her strength together. They two would have to manage him between them.
"In a way, of course, I don't need to ask. It will happen, sooner or later. But I wanted to make it easy. You are both such darlings—so loyal—I wanted you to know it would make me happy."
"Claire," he began passionately, "if there was anything—my dearest, you know I'd give my life."
"Yes, dear, I do know. It's not that; not a sacrifice. Digby, you and Lucy are young still; young enough to be very happy. I want you—when the time comes—to marry each other."
He stood with his shoulders thrust back. He looked very handsome and very stern.
"Claire, you don't know what you're saying."
"Yes, I do. I've thought it all out. I haven't much strength. You mustn't make me say things over and over again. Digby, dear, you will marry. You couldn't live alone. You might marry some one to whom I should just be a hateful thought. My memory would have to be locked away in your heart and perhaps it would die for lack of freedom. I—I should hate that You and Lucy love me. I should be safe with you."
He began passionately, "Has either of us given you any reason——"
She stopped him with a faint gesture. She was very tired. Their strength, their overflowing vigor, seemed to fill the room with tumult. She wanted to close her eyes and be alone with her dreams—with Stephen Rosslyn, the lover of her soul.
"You have been falling in love with each other for two years. You love each other. Isn't that true??"
"No," he said.
"Lucy, isn't it true?"
The two women looked at each other. Lucy Garfield was very pale, but she held herself proudly.
"Yes," she said, "it is true."
"Thank you. I was sure you would be brave. Bless you. It's all I wished; I'm quite happy."
Quite free. She closed her eyes. Digby would make a scene. He would protest and argue, defend himself. He wouldn't understand. She would just pretend.
"Lucy!"
He had turned to her with a cry of utter reproach. How could she—how dared she! It wasn't true. Worse than that—she was betraying a secret—his secret—their secret. It was a terrible thing. Breaking a dying woman's heart. His wife—the only woman he had ever loved.
"Lucy!" he whispered.
His heart seemed to die within him, and then suddenly to burst into a new, terrible and wonderful life—like a lamp overturned by a great wind that after a moment's darkness blazes up and sets everything on fire. He saw what was in Lucy's eyes. It was superb. He could have denied it only at the cost of his honour. Between these two he had grown insignificant. He had only one chance to be as big as they were.
"I——" he began.
She laid her finger to her lips, silencing him. He turned. He saw that Claire had fallen asleep.
"When she is awake I will tell her the truth, too, Lucy. I have loved you."
"She knows already," Lucy said.
IV
To the neighbors it was at first a mere headline, less thrilling than a murder or a divorce case, and having no personal interest for them.
Then some one said, "Why, there's Mrs. Calvert"—and the thing blazed up and spread like a prairie fire. They saw that their expensive and placid suburb had become the center of a modern drama. They were the onlookers at a race between life and death as titanic as any struggle from classic legend. And though they backed life to the last man, they were secretly pleased that the race was so close, so desperately close. They were very rich and very bored.
Had the discovery, made in far-off Canada, been made in time? Every resource of science had been called into action. Wireless messages flew across the Atlantic. A great Canadian specialist, armed with authority, was already on his way. The neighbours knew the name of his boat and the date and hour of its arrival. They followed its course passionately. The very weather became a factor in their calculations. They talked of the forces of cross currents and unfavourable head winds. A fog in the Channel, reported with the liner's approach to Cherbourg, brought something like consternation. Then it was heard that a special train had been ordered. Doctor Rosslyn, grim and silent, had gone to meet it.
Gallant Digby Calvert! Gallant husband!
His house looked as usual—calm and impregnable with wealth. But the passers-by, glancing up furtively at the windows, had a vision of what lay behind their sleekness—the still young, once beautiful woman, holding out hour by hour, her eyes fixed on the distance for the rescue that might still come; the man who loved her, reassuring and steady, heart sick with dread; the faithful friend who never faltered in her courage, the household, like an ironic commentary, running smoothly on its well-oiled wheels.
No noise, no crying out. And yet the stolid walls masked scenes of unimaginable emotion. The thought of them melted the hardest and most indifferent.
When at last the great limousine swung into the drive and the two men passed through the instantly opened door a sigh of relief went up. The antagonists were locked. And all sorts of unexpected people said, "Please God, please God!"
Lucy Garfield waited with Digby in his library. Claire had wanted her. But she wished she hadn't come. The room's beautiful expensiveness irked her. It made her feel unreal, like an actress in a play. Digby seemed unreal, too, standing there with his set, white face. They hadn't spoken or looked at each other. It occurred to Lucy that they hadn't really spoken for weeks; not since that day when hope had broken on them like an unexpected dazzling light. They had avoided each other's eyes. All their strength—all their purpose—had been set on the one point, saving Claire, and there was no "themselves" and no future.
And yet——
She glanced shyly at him. Just for a moment her tired mind slipped its leash. What was going on behind that front of stern masculinity? Was he thinking of her? No, he wouldn't dare; no more than she dared think of him. They had put their love away—out of sight. But it was there. What was happening to it in the silence and darkness? All sorts of sharp broken questions flashed by her like points of fire. She let down an iron shutter against them. They were too terrible.
It was Digby who spoke first. The loved familiar voice sent a shock along her straining nerves as though a stranger had suddenly used his tones.
"What a time they are! It's unendurable."
"I know. Perhaps it's a good sign."
"Yes. How—how was she?"
"Quite calm. You'd think she was the last person concerned."
"Oh, she's braver than any of us."
One of the forbidden thoughts leaped into her mind. It wasn't courage, not altogether. Claire didn't want to live. Her living was tragic. Because everything that had made life worth while had been taken from her. It was as though they had stripped her body before she were dead, and now, if she were not to die, she would never forget.
"Digby!"
He made a curt gesture. Some one was coming downstairs. In a minute they would know.
They looked at each other. It might well be that it was the last time they would be able to meet each other's eyes with truth. Their love that had seemed so blessed, like a treasure stowed away safely against the distant future, had become a wicked, torturing, fiercely desiring thing. They had been so innocent and loyal. They had become traitors.
Lucy closed her eyes so that she should not see what was in his any more. She saw instead, in one swift picture after another—Claire—Claire the pretty child, the gay schoolgirl, the happy lovable woman, the friend! The wonderful friend! Their friendship had been one of the sweetest things in life. They had been so proud of it. They had often said, "Nothing can ever come between us."
And now upstairs Claire was thinking to herself—oh, terrible things; true things!
The door opened. Rosslyn stood on the threshold. At the sight of him Lucy's heart seemed to leap in her breast—with what emotion she never knew. His wooden face was colorless and there was a gleam of moisture about his lips. She heard his voice, far-off and without expression:
"It's all right. We were just in time."
After what seemed an interminable, insufferable pause Digby said, "Thank God!" And at that Lucy Garfield began to laugh, and from laughter passed to the bitterest weeping.
V
They had given Claire a hand glass, and every now and again she took it up and looked at herself. And she saw that she was growing young and beautiful.
The windows stood wide open. It was a warm and lovely summer, and to-morrow she was to go out into the garden for the first time. And after that the wheels of life would begin to spin again—faster and faster. Presently she would go abroad—the Riviera probably; Monte Carlo. She smiled involuntarily. Oh, the gay days! How they had laughed sometimes. Digby understood laughter.
He was like a boy. The littlest things might hide a big glorious joke for him. An incurable boy.
Digby.
Her smile died. She had forgotten. That was all over. Digby and Lucy. Poor darlings. How unhappy they were. They tried so hard to pretend that nothing had happened, and they couldn't look her in the face. Their pitiable guiltiness hurt her. For, after all, it was her fault. It was she who had driven them into the open—just to save her own soul—to set herself free. Well, now she had to play the game—see the thing through. Besides, she wanted nothing better. It was all quite simple. She had Stephen—Stephen, the friend and comforter, who had gone down with her to the very gates of death.
She wondered if he would go with her to Monte Carlo. She would ask him. The climate suited her. And she liked the place. At least she had been very happy there.
The door opened. There was Digby. He always came at the same time, very punctually and faithfully, with his gift of flowers for which there wasn't a spare vase. Without opening her eyes she could see his white face smiling fixedly at her.
"Well, darling, how goes it?"
He laid his hand on hers and she returned the pressure firmly. She smiled back at him and she knew her smile was as lifeless as his own. It need not have been. Life welled up in her like the waters of a secret spring. It made her impatient, almost resentful.
"Better and better. You know to-morrow I'm to be allowed into the garden."
"Splendid! We'll have a sort of reception."
"Never mind about that now. Sit down a moment. I want to talk to you. I can't bear you to be unhappy."
"Unhappy? But I'm not."
"Aren't you?" She shook her head. She hated to see him flush with shame. He had always been so frank—so proudly honest. "Oh, my dear, aren't we friends enough? Do you really imagine that I've forgotten, and that you two can put your heads in the sand and hide from me—you and Lucy? You know—nothing has really changed—except that I'm alive when I ought to be dead."
"Claire—don't, please—it's too hateful—to talk like that."
"It isn't hateful; only truthful. We three made a contract, and I've broken my share of it. I've put you in a horrible position."
"It's as though you were laughing at us—at everything."
"I'm not. Perhaps if I did——"
She broke off, sighing. It would be nice to laugh again. Only he would be so hurt. He sat there on the edge of her bed with his face hidden in his hands-pathetically young—like a schoolboy, ashamed and humiliated, driven to confession. And it wasn't his fault at all.
"Claire—I'm not a fool. Of course I've realised—I've been trying to make up my mind—I wanted you to understand how it had happened. You know—don't you?—that from the first day I set eyes on you I never looked at any one else; I never wanted to. It wasn't only that you seemed to me the loveliest woman in the world. You were my friend and my companion. Wherever I went you came, too—in spirit, in thought, in action. We two—we were just two parts of one person, weren't we?"
"Yes, dear."
"It would have gone on like that. We weren't just in love. We were real lovers. We'd have grown older—slowly—side by side—adjusting ourselves to the same measure. Then came your illness. It sounds horrible, I know—but just when you needed me most I lost touch. You see—it was as though in our—our going toward death you had run on ahead—away from me. You left me behind. And just because I loved you so I was desperately lonely."
"Digby—please—I do understand."
He almost wrung his hands.
"I know everything you must be thinking; I know how wretchedly I must have seemed to fail you. We both know. Lucy said once, 'She doesn't want to live because she feels she has lost everything.' That nearly smashed me up. To think that I of all people in the world should make you suffer."
"Dear—I haven't suffered."
His eyes were blind with tears.
"You only say that."
"But it's true. I haven't."
"For God's sake, don't be generous; it just breaks my heart."
"You see, I was in love myself."
He frowned, as though he hadn't heard clearly.
"What?"
"I am in love too."
"I don't understand. You mean—with me?"
"With Stephen."
"Stephen? In God's name—Stephen what?"
"Didn't you know that Doctor Rosslyn's name was Stephen?"
He stared at her with wide, incredulous eyes. Then to her complete astonishment he almost shouted "The blackguard!" and strode over to the window, standing there with clenched fists, his face averted so that she could see nothing but his profile. Still, it was a very pleasing profile. Strong and sensitive and laughter-loving. She wondered, in a detached sort of way, why he couldn't laugh now. She could have laughed. But that was because of the life that was beginning to run through her like a happy song. It was getting terribly easy to be happy. And she mustn't; he would be too hurt; it wasn't fair.
"Can't you understand," she said gravely, "that I was lonely too?"
He turned reluctantly. "Lonely?"
"It is lonely—dying."
"And that fellow——"
"He came too. He was my companion. He went with me where you couldn't go. When I knew about you and Lucy I was glad. It set me free."
His voice sounded muffled and unsteady.
"Very fortunate; very convenient."
"Don't be bitter, Digby."
But she was looking at her hands, spread out on the white coverlet, and forgot what she was going to say. Her hands had worried her terribly. There had been no escape from them. She had had to watch them wither. Now they were like flowers in sunshine after a sharp frost. They were growing beautiful. They reminded her of her rings—the great diamond that Digby had given her, her favourite emerald and sapphire. To-morrow she would wear them again. And she had locked them away forever. How strange and wonderful!
Then she remembered.
"It's no good being bitter. And why should we grudge each other happiness? Did you want me to be alone? Don't you realise that now you are free too? That's why I told you. I wanted you to feel that you had a right to each other."
He was staring at her as though she were a puzzling stranger.
"What is to happen now? What do you expect?"
"That we should all behave with dignity and kindliness. There's no need for resentment. Something has happened that can't be changed. We four have just got to go our ways.
"Lucy and I; you—and—and that man?"
"And Stephen Rosslyn," she agreed.
As she spoke they heard Rosslyn's car turn into the drive. Digby made a queer, strangled gesture, like a man desperately seeking expression, and his eyes lighting on the flowers he had brought her, he seized them and threw them out of the window.
"You don't want them anyway," he stammered.
She knew that he nearly slammed the door. It was unreasonable, but also rather touching and very young of him to want everything and everybody—the whole world. She rather wanted it herself. But she overcame the impulse to call him back and put her arms round him and kiss him.
After all, one had to choose.
And they had chosen.
VI
The two men met in the hall. Rosslyn half held out his hand and then let it drop, and the movement put him at a disadvantage and he flushed painfully so that for a moment Digby went hot with a vicarious shame.
He had never really thought of Rosslyn as a man. He had seen him as a clever, trustworthy doctor, a confidant, but nevertheless a person apart, outside their circle, not to be judged by ordinary standards. His manners and his appearance hadn't mattered. Now Digby saw that he was both clumsily made and undersized, and that however much he might pay for his clothes they would never fit him. No need to be told that he had begun life as a shoe black. The arrogance of the self-made success and the defiant awkwardness of a man out of his element were written all over him.
And Claire loved him—Claire, who had loved Digby Calvert. Digby felt as though the earth were giving way under his feet.
Still, somebody had to behave with dignity. And he, the injured husband, at least as the——
His thoughts made a hurried jump. What he had to say could be said at once and briefly.
"Mrs. Calvert has told me," he began. "I don't know how the other members of your profession would regard your conduct and I don't propose to ask them. I intend to protect my wife as long as she is my wife, and I shall set her free myself. That is all that I have to say to you."
He went on toward his library. He had behaved well, but he felt oddly miserable and physically almost broken. At the door he couldn't help saying, "I hope to God you'll make her happy!" in a voice that gave the formula a harsh and aching truth.
This time the door actually slammed.
Stephen Rosslyn climbed the stairs heavily. He was still flushed with shame. He wondered why she hadn't warned him. It wasn't quite fair. He had looked like a fool and a blackguard. And, anyway, what was he doing in all this mess? His life, that had seemed so certain, so grimly secure, was in pieces. He had lost control. He felt as though he were being whirled downward—Heaven knew where—on the crest of an avalanche. He couldn't think of his work. Perhaps in a few weeks he wouldn't have any work to think about. There would be a hideous scandal. He would have to begin all over again.
That was what love did to a man.
Well, he did love her. It was the one romance of his life. He had never even had a friend. He had been a lonely, morose fellow whom no one had bothered to understand. But she had understood. She had been lonely too. They had been like castaways on a desolate shore. They had come together in their bitter need.
The memory of her poor wan face, turned to greet him as though he had been the sunlight, melted his brief resentment. It made everything worth while—every sacrifice. They would stand shoulder to shoulder against the world. He would never count the cost.
He entered her room firmly, eagerly.
His picture of her was so vivid that for a moment he stopped short, staring stupidly, as though he had blundered upon a stranger. He had forgotten. Or perhaps something had happened—had been happening a long time and he hadn't realised.
It had happened to her.
It wasn't that she hadn't always been fastidiously careful about her person. At her weakest she had clung bravely to the delicacies and decencies of civilised life. But this he knew, was different. It was something from which he instinctively recoiled—something alien and half frightened. She was like an exquisite, many-hued bird preening itself after the storm, or a butterfly that had broken from its chrysalis. The dying, necessitous human being had gone. She lay there because she chose—luxuriating and beautiful—rising slenderly out of a foam of white, her dark hair crowned with gold, and something shining in the delicate oval face that he had never seen before.
He went toward her because she was watching him and waiting. But he went heavily. She gave him her hand. How often he had kissed its piteousness, its veined and bony piteousness. She had stretched it out as though he had been a rescuer in a stormy sea, and he knew that his touch and his kiss had comforted her. But to-day her gesture was full of a subtle challenge which made him hold back. He stood there, stiff and stupid, looking down at her, and the smile faded from her lips.
"I have just seen—your husband," he said. "He knows."
"Yes—I told him."
"You might have warned me."
"I'm sorry. It's been a reality to me for so long that I felt as though everybody knew—in their hearts. What did he say?"
"Very little. He was generous—according to his lights."
"Digby's lights aren't bad," she interposed. "And he has always been generous—in everything."
"He said he would set you free."
She shook her head.
"We couldn't allow that, could we, Stephen? After all, he'd go on living with me. It's we who are running away. We must pay the price.
She had seemed to ask his agreement. But he knew she had stated her deliberate decision.
To a woman of her class it wouldn't matter much. She would live it down. Wealth and position would buffer her from a temporary discomfort. And she didn't think of him. But he saw himself, torn from his roots, trailed at her heels into a glittering life that was strange and horrible as a nightmare.
"Yes, of course," he said.
"We must go soon, Stephen. Before everything becomes intolerable."
His mind ran to his patients. There was Colonel Anstruther—an extraordinary case—it would have been a feather in his cap. But now——"
"You're not strong enough," he objected.
"Oh, yes, I am; strong enough to get out of this quickly; but not strong enough to stay."
"My work——"
"Get some one to take your place temporarily. Afterward—— Of course we could never come back here."
Something hot welled up in him. How calmly she took it! The thing for which he had starved and sweated tossed aside like a worn-out dress. "I have money enough for us both," she said.
"But I couldn't——" he began violently.
She pressed his hand—a convulsive pressure.
"Stephen, I'm sorry; that was crude and brutal of me. I—I was thinking of—of—ways and means—how to escape. But of course I understand. You couldn't give up your work—not for always."
"I shall have to," he said. "Even if I'm not struck off the register it isn't likely any one will come to a man who—who—did what I am going to do."
"But you can take up research?? You've always wanted to. You shall have the finest laboratory in the world."
There was something feverish and almost panic-stricken about her. It was as though she were afraid and were trying to bribe him. She was clinging to him. When she had been ill and ugly she had clung to him, and he had been proud and happy. But now he had a violent physical impulse to get away, out of reach of that white hand—that delicate, repellent perfume.
"It's awfully good of you," he brought over his stiff lips.
"Stephen—you think it's worth while? You still want me?"
"I am not the sort of man to change my mind," he said with a kindling defiance. Then, half ashamed, he stammered hastily, "I've never loved any one else. I—I couldn't live without you. Surely you know that."
Their eyes met. She closed hers instantly as though overcome by a sudden exhaustion. But he suspected her. She was acting. She wasn't tired at all. She hadn't wanted to meet his eyes. She had been afraid; as afraid as he was himself.
And only a few weeks ago her dying gaze had hung on him. They had sat for minutes together, silent, their souls locked, their sight piercing the outer shell to their very innermost selves.
He didn't know what to do or say. The old clumsiness which had always paralysed him the moment he had to do with people outside his profession held him blankly silent. In a kind of panic his fingers slid to her pulse.
She answered with a faint start. The movement had been so unexpected, so utterly incongruous. It had been part of his routine when she had been dying, but as a lover there was something tragically funny about it.
She felt laughter—a scornful ironical laughter—rise in her throat.
"Dear Stephen, I'm all right. Don't."
She had to look at him. He had taken out his watch and was staring at it with an absurd fixity. She saw his red bony wrist, which always gave one the unjustifiable impression that he had forgotten his cuffs. His tie had come up over the top of his collar. There was something about his neck, determined, capable and commonplace, which made her think of a back parlor and fumed oak. She could almost smell the atmosphere.
And she was going to live with him all the rest of her days. She was going to ask him to go to Monte Carlo.
Suddenly the laughter was too much for her. It broke from her like a cascade—so gay, so sweet sounding that she lay back, breathless and listening as though to the echo of music. Why, she hadn't laughed like that for two years. A spell had broken. The room threw off its pall of dim melancholy. The world lay outside waiting for her.
Stephen Rosslyn had let her wrist drop. He stood up. He felt that some one had slapped him across the face—slapped him awake. He found himself in a room full of flowers and sunlight and rich and expensive useless things—with a strange woman. The strange woman was frighteningly beautiful.
And she was laughing at him.
VII
It was a celebration. The garden made a fitting background. Digby couldn't help being proud of it. The sunshine and the blue sky, paling to twilight, made the prettily dressed women look like living flowers, and the men their sombre, careful gardeners. Claire sat in the midst of them. She was radiant. Wherever he went Digby seemed to see her. Her voice, low and gentle, transcended the confused murmur by sheer sweetness. In the old days it had been such fun—stealing wicked glances at each other: "Oh, my darling, how lovely when all these stupid people have gone!" But now she never looked at him.
"It's nothing short of a resurrection," some one commented congratulatingly.
But it was Lucy who told the truth.
"She has grown more beautiful than ever," she said.
They stood together on the edge of the group that surrounded Claire like a court. Digby didn't want to be there. It wasn't dignified. He had tried to keep away. But he was drawn back each time as though by a fine strong thread. He made himself talk to Lucy.
"I shall be thankful when it's all over," he said. "It's a wretched farce. It makes me feel utterly unreal."
"Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I am really awake," Lucy said. "After all, Claire and I have been such friends."
Her point of view seemed to him very trivial. What did a mere friendship matter? A friendship between women. Negligible. That weak-kneed hound, Rosslyn!
"Of course I can't interfere," he said. "Everybody makes their own fate. But what she sees in him, God alone knows."
"What do you see in me, my dear?" Lucy asked.
He said "Ah!" gallantly, and looked at her with a smile which in spite of himself grew a little stiff. It was probably the faërie quality of the summer twilight and Claire's fragile loveliness that made Lucy seem unexpectedly set and elderly. He hadn't noticed, before, her undoubted tendency toward stoutness. He had thought of her as a sort of Ceres. He hoped she wouldn't overdo things. But she would make an excellent traveling companion—capable and reasonable. Much better than Claire, who always insisted on at least four hatboxes. He remembered that time on the Italian frontier on their way to Monte Carlo, and laughed out loud. He couldn't have helped himself. It had been so frightfully funny. They had sat in their sleeper afterwards absolutely doubled up with the jolly pain of it.
Claire had heard him laugh. She turned her head involuntarily, and their eyes met. He was horribly ashamed. She must have thought that he was enjoying himself with Lucy.
"I was remembering that customhouse fellow we met," he stammered. "I don't know why. He just came into my mind."
He spoke with unnecessary loudness, and every one turned to listen. They expected him to tell the story. A faint rose had crept into Claire's cheeks. He could have killed himself. It was a ghastly, in excusable thing to have said under the circumstances. And he wasn't really crude and tactless. Only he hadn't wanted her to think——"
"Digby is a big schoolboy," Claire murmured excusingly. "A joke will go on amusing him for years."
She turned the conversation. He knew that she had meant to snub him, but he was resentfully sure that she wasn't as casual as she seemed. She would have been more—or less—than human if she hadn't remembered it, too—that sweet Italian morning.
And there was that Rosslyn fellow. Of course he had to be there. In a way, he was the hero of the afternoon. Oh, very much the hero. He had saved her life. Good Lord, he looked as though he had slept in that coat! He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands or his mouth. And Claire loved him! There were things beyond mortal understanding.
"Look here, Lucy. We can't go on like this. It isn't endurable. I'm ready if you are. The sooner we cut the painter and get off, the better. Tomorrow, if you can manage it."
"Tomorrow," she brooded.
He felt a rush of impatience. She might make a good traveller, but she would be a precious slow one. Everything would have to be done with order and reason. Not like Claire, who was ready at a moment's notice to dash off to the most absurd places—hatboxes and all. That time they had set off for Cairo, for instance; and landed in Honolulu.
He heard Lucy's voice—warm, maternal, a trifle fat sounding perhaps. Oh, he loved her deeply, deeply. A true friend. No man could ask more. Still, a true friend ought not to run off with a friend's husband.
"Are you sure, Digby, that you want to go?"
"Do you think I am the sort of man to change my mind?" he asked sternly.
"I'll let you know," she considered. "I'll write you. You'll get my letter tomorrow morning. Don't plan anything till then."
"Oh, well," he muttered. "Why should we make such a fuss? We can buy things on our way."
Her kindly mouth tightened a little. He was a dear, dear fellow. Just the husband for happy, light-hearted Claire. But a trifle obtuse—insensitive. He couldn't see what she was giving up. Not her reputation, her place in the world; that didn't matter. But Claire—Claire's love. People never believed how dear women could be to one another. Claire had been something wonderful in her life—an exquisite, serene and sunny refuge of understanding that would have been stronger than death or separation. Even if they had never seen each other again it wouldn't have mattered. But now this had happened—this stupid, awful, silly catastrophe and everything would be spoiled. Digby would stand between them like a sword cutting off their very thoughts from each other.
She stole a quick glance at her companion. She had a sudden quite primitive impulse to hit him. He looked so handsome and assured, as though he were convinced that any sacrifice would be worth while. She wanted to tell him, "My dear, as far as I'm concerned you're not worth one of her shoe laces," and then go up to Claire and put her arms over her shoulder and say, "Let's begin all over again. It's been too silly. Let's forget the tiresome fellow."
She caught Claire's eyes. She thought that there was something half wistful, half pleading in their momentary steadiness. Perhaps she was thinking, too, "How silly!"
"I think I'll go now," Lucy said.
"I'll walk with you to the gate," Digby returned courteously.
They strode over the thick deep lawn in bleak silence. They shook hands.
"To-morrow, I suppose, I shall have to kiss him," Lucy thought.
They had never kissed each other.
"I wonder if she always wears such unbecoming hats," Digby reflected. Aloud he said in a harsh undertone, "Don't keep me waiting, Lucy."
"I shall write to-night."
"I can't stick it much longer. And it isn't fair to Claire."
She walked on a few steps, and then stopped, leaning reflectively on her parasol.
"She doesn't love him," she said.
"Doesn't—what?"
"Not now. It just happens that there are some people who are nice to die with. You don't necessarily want to live with them."
"Lucy——"
She nodded over her shoulder.
"You're a dear child, Digby, but very stupid. I'll write."
He stared after her till she turned the corner of the lane. He didn't know what she meant. His brain reeled. But he felt that under given circumstances he might conceivably stop hating her.
Claire had watched the two go off side by side through the dusk. She knew that Digby was frightfully unhappy by the droop of his shoulders, which had never drooped. She wondered why that customhouse official had come into his mind from nowhere, as it seemed. Unless, of course, he had been planning things with Lucy. Nothing was more likely. And yet—— He could hardly have forgotten something else; something that had happened afterward, when the laughter had passed over them like a happy wind—how they had sat, hand in hand, watching the dawn break, thanking God secretly in a light-hearted awe-struck gratitude—for being so happy with each other.
He wouldn't laugh much with Lucy. Lucy was serious minded at bottom. Her sense of humour was quiet and elderly. She had been born elderly. Claire felt that Digby and she had been born hopelessly and incurably young. That was why Lucy had been so precious to them both.
His wonderful, jolly laughter—the gay, wonderful days! Supposing she had never been ill—— It would have been then as he said—they would have grown old side by side, kept step. They would have learned whatever life had to teach them of pain and death together.
Well, what had happened had happened. You couldn't go back. You had to go on.
She made Stephen Rosslyn stand quite close to her; she seemed to be talking lightly to him.
"You see, I am strong enough. Meet me at the station to-morrow. The seven o'clock express. We can't wait. It isn't decent."
He nodded, but did not answer. His face was without color or expression. He felt like a wild beast that had been caught and made into an exhibition for a crowd of fools. He hated them all. He wanted to kill them. But also he was afraid. He wanted frantically to escape. And he knew that there was no escape possible.
Digby drifted back into the group, and Claire stood up. She gave her hand to those nearest her. Her voice was a little breathless.
"You mustn't mind my going. It's been wonderful. A real coming back to life. But now I'm tired."
"When you have been away——" some one began.
"Ah, that will be a second honeymoon," another voice broke in teasingly. "You will have begun all over again."
Through the dusk their eyes met. And suddenly Claire heard herself laugh—just as she had done before—only not bitterly, nor ironically, but with an irrepressible sense of all the joy of life.
"That will be worth dying for," she said.
VIII
Digby waited at the gate long after the last guest had gone. Then he walked slowly back. It was dark now, with the velvet, unreal darkness of a summer's night. The chairs and tables had been left just as they were, and he picked out Claire's place and stood still, staring at it as though he expected to see her ghost. He came closer. He found himself touching the wicker arm, timidly at first and then in an agony of tenderness. He said her name aloud. He didn't care. The world might know. He loved her. He loved her as he had never loved her. And it was too late. They were being torn from each other.
Her lighted window sent a square of shining green on to the black grass. Its brightness hurt him like a knife in the heart. It made him feel utterly outcast. How often before their marriage he had paced, a gallant, reckless lover, beneath her window and looked up, thinking, "One day!" And now she was going. Another man—that drear, mannerless, little upstart, Rosslyn—would take his place, would wait, as he had once waited in a tropic garden, for her signal; would hear her beloved voice, her beloved laughter.
He walked up and down, up and down. Why, she had laughed to-night—suddenly, at her own thoughts. She had looked at him. It had been too dark to read her eyes. And yet——
The air was thick with the scent of flowers. He felt crazed with its sweetness. His heart pounded in his breast with pain, with a gathering fury. He would kill Rosslyn—Lucy—himself—everyone; there should be an awful holocaust.
There was no escape. None. As a man of honour, he had to go. Even now Lucy might be writing.
Lucy! He stopped short. What had she meant? Why had she told him? There had been something peculiar in Lucy's manner. Was it possible? It couldn't be! Lucy was desperately in love. At least—she had said so. Once. Not desperately perhaps. It couldn't be that she too——
He put his hands to his head.
The light had gone out. He stared up, breathless, expectant. He could almost feel her behind the darkness. His hands dropped, clenched, to his side.
Lucy had said, "She doesn't love him." Lucy was wise. Lucy was their friend. If it was true, then Claire, too, was going because she, too, was a person of honour. Even Rosslyn himself, ill-bred beggar that he was, might be a victim.
And if Claire didn't love Rosslyn, then whom did she love? She loved some one. Love had been in that laugh—in that low-spoken sentence.
"Worth dying for."
Why had it been so dark that he had not read her eyes? Then he would have known. And to-morrow it would be too late.
He made up his mind. He would see her—now. He would tell her the truth. He did not love Lucy. He was not going with her. He couldn't. There was no code existent that forced a man to be unfaithful to his wife. He would go away—alone—forever—to the ends of the earth.
He turned to the door. Then a thought seized him—daring, reckless, neck or nothing. Her window overlooked a porch. He was young enough still—more than enough in love—and a lover by instinct.
The moon came up over the trees and watched him, There was no sound in the whole world, listening and agape, but the tearing of the ivy under his groping hands. At any moment he might be made ridiculous forever—a man burgling his own house with the front door wide open, laying infatuated siege to his own wife. He didn't care. No lover had ever cared.
He reached her window. He sat on her sill, balancing himself, hushing his broken breath. He could just see her, faint as a wraith. The moon threw his own shadow, black and strong, on the silver floor.
"Claire."
He knew suddenly that he would not go alone.
She had been waiting for him.
A little laugh gathered in his throat. He leaned toward her, whispering, like a conspirator.
"There's a train—to-morrow—early—for Timbuktu. They'll never catch us. Sweetheart, won't you run away with me?"