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Destiny, a novel by Charles Neville Buck |
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Part 2. The Book Of Life - It Might Have Been - Chapter 18 |
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_ PART II. THE BOOK OF LIFE - IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN CHAPTER XVIII Paul, who was named for the apostle, and Loraine Haswell had drifted further into midstream than either realized. Less keen observers than Norvil Thayre now spoke of their frequent meetings. Club conversation intimated that not only financial stress was responsible for the silencing of Len Haswell's jovial laughter. Loraine's point of view was shifting dangerously. Paul had at first been a pleasing playmate and a celebrity whose devotion was flattering as a tribute to her charm and beauty. Now a constant comparison asserted itself to her mind between her husband's financial limitations and the pleasing scope of Paul's access to Hamilton's treasury. Discontent had entered her Eden--and it was no longer an Eden. One morning Paul's telephone rang before he was out of bed. "I must see you," announced Loraine, and the familiar voice was excitedly urgent. "Len has been odious and I--I want your advice. There's no one else that I can talk to." Paul Burton hesitated. His timidity balked at facing a moment which might call upon him to take a courageous stand or one fronting possible reprisals. Over his face crept a terror very much like that which had blanched it years ago when the Marquess kid threatened him with grimaces across the school aisle. He divined the subject which she wished to discuss and dreaded the interview. The ethical side of the matter gave him no concern; but the same lack of stamina which caused him to shrink made it impossible for him to refuse. "Where shall I meet you?" he hesitantly inquired, "at Sherry's as usual?" "No," she hastily objected. "That has become rather too usual." She named a place in lower Fifth avenue which Fashion regards as delightfully Bohemian and Bohemia considers alluringly fashionable. She named an hour when the place would be empty enough for an undisturbed rendezvous. Now, as Paul Burton sat opposite Loraine Haswell at one of the small and snowy tables, he sought to cloak his nervousness under a guise of debonair ease and soon the woman was embarked upon the recital of her grievances. "Len has had an utterly intolerable fit of jealousy," she confided; then fell silent while she nibbled at a melon. But her dark eyes were full of beauty's appeal and injured distress. "It's reached a point, Paul--" her voice became very soft, almost tearful--"where I'm afraid I must make a decision: the sort of decision that it's very hard for a woman to make." "Was he unkind to you?" Her companion sought to speak with indignation, but a note sounded through his voice which punctured the assumption with falsity. It was occurring to him that Len Haswell might be particularly unkind to him. She leaned far over the table and spoke guardedly. "He has made me promise that I sha'n't see you again, except where we meet by accident; that all our innocent little parties must end." "And you promised?" Slowly and reluctantly she nodded her head. "It was that or--" she broke off. "Or what?" "Or a separation. He said I must choose definitely between you." Paul Burton studied his plate in the silence of indecision, and she went on rather haltingly. "When marriage reaches the ultimatum stage, it doesn't offer much chance for happiness, does it?" Then after a pause she added thoughtfully, "It's not as though there were children to consider." Her voice trembled with a seeming of repressed emotion of suffering under injustice and of bearing, with fortitude, a life of cumulative injury. Had Paul been bent on persuading her to remedy her alleged mistake, he could hardly have asked a more propitious opportunity. But this man was capable of no swift and positive decisions. It was not his to cut Gordian knots. Never before had the woman across from him seemed so alluring, so desirable. Never had she so fully stirred his susceptible senses to intoxication as she did at this moment, and never had he felt his fondness for her so genuine. Yet, when she seemed almost to offer him herself and her life--if only he would stretch out his arm and lift her across the stream of dilemma--he could not urge, but sat tongue-tied. He could think only of the difficulties; and the thought of them staggered and blinded him. This was not the indecision of a man weighing the responsibilities of a step which might ruin the life of another man; it was merely the futility of "the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin." "If your husband should hear of this meeting, after your promise of this morning," suggested Paul, "it might have serious results--I mean for you." She shuddered a little at the thought. "I believe he would become a maniac," she answered, "but this place is safe enough. He would never think of our coming here. It's too far down-town." "Too far for calling or shopping," Paul reminded her. "So entirely out of your accustomed orbit that if he learned of this, he could construe it only one way--as a clandestine conference." "But, Paul," she declared, with deep self-pity and a strong appeal to his instincts of knight-errantry, "I had to talk with you--at any risk. If--if--it does come to a separation, I shall have absolutely nothing." Her voice was pathetic. "I suppose I should have to go to work." She looked sadly at him and shook her dark head until he hated himself for not assuring her that she would not have to "go to work," yet he could say nothing. Then as they sat there in an embarrassed silence, the tall figure of Len Haswell appeared in the door and the many mirrors of the wall panels multiplied him into a seeming army of giants. With him was Norvil Thayre. For such a development Paul Burton found himself totally unprepared. No ready phrases came to his lips and his sudden pallor was a seeming confession of guilt. The husband stood for a moment in the door and his face, too, paled, but that was only momentary. At once it became fixed in a resolute determination to remain expressionless. The alert mind of Thayre, grasping the situation, addressed itself to averting its awkwardness with artless and inconsequential small talk. He came over to the table and shook hands, while Len Haswell stood at his elbow, saying nothing. Paul instinctively offered his hand, but Len ignored it. He heard Loraine declaring with a charmingly assumed innocence, "Chance brings us into quite a little party. First I happen on Mr. Burton, then on you two." Suddenly an idea of escape struck Paul, as it had struck him at the school. He, too, laughed, turning to Loraine. "And since you are in better hands, I'll run along. I have an appointment at a studio on the square." Len Haswell favored him with a satirical glance. "You seem," he suggested coolly, "to be only beginning your meal. We are here on business, and won't interrupt." The big man turned on his heel, and, followed by his companion, went into the adjoining dining-room. Loraine Haswell laughed nervously, but Paul's face clouded with deep anxiety. After he had put Loraine into a taxi' the cloud deepened. The same self-accusations that had tortured his childhood with the suffering of self-contempt after each act of cowardice had him again by the throat. Never had it been his plan to urge this woman toward divorce. He had simply drifted with pleasant tides and now he found himself washed seaward with a dragging anchor. It was small compensation to reflect that his fault was less vicious than craven. The square was bathed in a radiance of frosty sunlight, and the buildings at the south stood diamond-clear under a flawless sky. The monument to the man whose courage and decision had cradled a nation's birth gleamed in its granite whiteness. But Paul Burton felt small, afraid and besmirched of soul. He hurried to his own house and shut himself in with a thousand weak misgivings, until finally an idea formulated itself. He would go to Hamilton for counsel and strength. * * * * * As far as the clean sweep of mountain winds differ from the suffocation of a miasma, so far did the thoughts of Mary Burton differ from those of Paul that afternoon. She and Jefferson Edwardes had been riding in the park, and though their horses had only cantered their hearts had ridden madly and on winged steeds. Now, with twilight stealing in and softly blotting out the angles of the room, they sat together, still in saddle-togs, before the great, carven mantel which Hamilton had brought back from a European castle where once Napoleon passed a night. A brave glare from roaring logs of driftwood cheerily flooded with light the hearth and the huge polar bear skin stretched before it. Mary Burton sat in a big chair, also castle-ravished, which swallowed her like a cavern, and as Jefferson Edwardes knelt on the rug beside her, and watched the flames caress into gorgeous vividness the color of her eyes and lips and cheeks and hair, it pleased him to think of her as seated on a throne, and of himself as at her feet. They had no light but the firelight and needed none, for they had captured the brightness and joyousness and warmth of June and meant to carry it with them wheresoever they went and through all the meaner months. Mary's right hand was still gloved, but the left was bare and she kept turning it this way and that, watching with engrossed fascination a diamond on one finger that caught and splintered the firelight. It was the jewel which proclaimed that Mary Burton was to be Mary Edwardes. When her companion spoke, his voice was softened by a very tender triumph. "Who am I," he asked wonderingly and humbly, "that life should be so lavish and generous with me? Mary, Mary, I told you once that you were as beautiful as starlight on water, but you are more than that. That is only a beauty to the eye, and you are a miracle to the heart and soul as well." "Once," she said while her voice trembled happily, "I was satisfied with what beauty I had." She bent forward with a sudden gesture of possession and tenderness, as she caught his head between her two hands. "That was when it was my own. Now that it's yours I wish it were a hundred times greater." "And you are the girl," he smiled, "who once pretended to think she had no soul, and very little heart." "If I have either, dearest," she declared, "I owe it to you. You found a poor little spark of soul and fanned it into life--but a heart I have, and it's ablaze and it's yours to keep!" Her voice thrilled as she added: "If I had the world to give, it should all be yours, too--all of it." "I feel," he assured her, "as though you have given me the universe." For a while they sat silent; then the girl's eyes danced into sudden mischief as she reminded him, "We have still an ordeal ahead, you know. We have to tell Hamilton." "A love that feared ordeals," he laughed easily, "would hardly be worth offering you. Does he still dislike me?" The girl nodded. "He isn't exactly as mad about you as I am," she confessed. "But," her head came up and the regnant pride that seemed inherent there shone from her eyes, "my life is mine to use as I wish, and I have no use for it, dear heart, save to give it to you--for always!" They heard the door open and close, then Hamilton's clear voice came from the hallway. "You are a fool, Paul," it announced in a tone which blended irritation and indulgence. "This is the maddest sort of whim; nevertheless, if it appeals to you--all right." The two did not at once come into the library, but talked in the hall. Paul answered nervously. "How can you help me, Hamilton? She's married--it would be impossible." "Impossibilities are my specialties. You say you want this adorable lady?" "Yes." The response was faint. "Very well," came the laconic announcement. "You shall have her, though you are, as I said, a fool. Loraine Haswell is a pretty and an empty-headed doll--" "Don't!" Paul protested quickly, yet even in defending his lady's name, his voice carried more of weak appeal than command. "You mustn't say that!" "I repeat, she is an empty-headed doll--but since she's not going to be my doll I shall dismiss that feature from consideration." The colloquy had been so rapid that, as Hamilton and Paul showed themselves in the door, the two unwilling eaves-droppers came to their feet, startled. Jefferson Edwardes turned toward the fire and stood silent, but his momentary expression of disgust had not escaped the financier and instantly all Hamilton's cumulative dislike burst into passion. From the threshold he demanded, "So you listened, did you?" The visitor replied slowly and with a level voice: "We had not meant to overhear a private conversation--but we did hear." "I suppose you realize that what you heard in no way concerns you?" The voice was surcharged with challenge, and under its sting Edwardes found self-composure a difficult matter. He had no habit of turning aside from quarrels which were seemingly thrust upon him, yet he realized that at this juncture he must govern his temper. For the moment he ignored the question and, with a gaze that met that of the other man in undeviating directness, he responded: "I was waiting here to see you, Burton, on a mission which in every way concerns me." He raised the girl's hand to his lips and let his gesture explain his purpose. But the pent-up animosity of Hamilton Burton could remember only the contemptuous curl he had recognized on the other man's lips. He came forward until he stood confronting Edwardes and as he was about to speak Mary interrupted him. Her voice was vibrant with anger and scorn. "If any one should feel called upon to make explanations and apologies, Hamilton, it is yourself ... after what we have just heard. It was monstrous." She shuddered. Hamilton refused to be turned aside. In a tense voice he demanded of the girl's fiance: "Do you add your self-righteous approval to that sentiment?" A sense of being intolerably bullied seized Edwardes and made red spots of anger dance before his eyes. His fists clenched and he took a forward step, then with tensed muscles he halted and stood there so close to the other that their eyes locked at a range of inches. Very deliberately he inquired: "Are you determined to force me into a quarrel, Burton? I'm seeking to avoid it." "I am asking you a question and I demand an answer." Edwardes' voice rang out passionately. "I am no prig who supplies unasked codes of conduct to others--even when they need it as badly as you do. But since you ask--yes, I agree fully, and I add this to boot. You are the most appallingly irresponsible man whose hands have ever grasped power. You are maddened with egotism until you are a more malignant pestilence than famine or flame. Now you have asked my opinion and in part you have it." For an instant Mary Burton thought her brother would spring upon her lover in a tigerish abandon of fury, and she knew from the fighting flame in the other's eyes that he would be met half-way. Paul had dropped into a chair, where he sat as one stunned. Burton returned the gaze which had never dropped from its inflexible directness; and his own voice was changed to a key of satirical quiet. "If I am all the things you charge," he suggested, "it's a pretty full indictment and may warrant some discussion in passing. Paul," he added with a curt gesture of dismissal, "I hardly think this conversation will amuse you." The younger Burton rose and left the room, and as he went Mary took her place at the side of the man she had promised to marry and stood there as straight and unflinching as himself. "Mr. Edwardes," Hamilton began, "years ago I was a country boy, not yet fully able to translate the voices that spoke to me from within: voices that told me I was a son of Destiny. In a fashion, I owe you something as an interpreter of those voices. You have just spoken more bitterly than it is easy for me to forgive. Yet, I am anxious to talk temperately--and God knows it will require an effort. Will you meet me half-way?" Jefferson Edwardes had not moved. He was still white with anger, but the tempest that had brought his eruption of denunciation had passed, and he gravely bowed his head in assent. "Very well. We seem to hold standards of conduct irreconcilably divergent. To my thinking you are a self-righteous and tedious dreamer and an impertinent preacher." Edwardes nodded and his answer was composed. "We are all dreamers of varied sorts. You are yourself the mightiest of dreamers: because you make your visions realities. Paul is a lesser dreamer--almost a sleep-walker through life. As for Mary--" his voice grew suddenly tender--"why, I first saw her in the sun and dust of a mountain roadside, dreaming of fairy princes. I come last, but I'm a dreamer, too. All my visions are simple, but I've tried to keep them compatible with honest ideals." "At least, you have hardly succeeded in keeping them to yourself." Hamilton Burton's voice was still controlled, but it was witheringly bitter. "Let me make myself clear. In an unhappy marriage I see a fact where you see a gauzy sacrament. I have become what I am, because to me the broad canvas alone is interesting, and picayunish prejudices are contemptible. You bring into my house a visage of disapproval, and when you overhear private talk permit yourself to sneer. It is intolerable." There was such a ring of sincerity in the voicing of this distorted reasoning that Edwardes almost smiled. "And yet," he answered, "until questioned I said nothing when I heard you offering to buy, as your brother's plaything, the wife of another man--a man who has served you with loyalty." "You sneered. You allowed your sanctimonious lips to curl. Had you dared, you would have rebuked me out of your cramped virtue." "Dared!" Once more Edwardes found his words leaping in fierce and uncontrolled anger. His hand had been almost drawn back to strike the man who stood there treating him as an emperor might have treated a corporal, but as the curb slipped from his cruelly reined temper, he felt the girl's hand on his arm, and stepped back, with every muscle in his body cramped under the tensity of his effort. Yet his words were hardly less an assault than blows. "Had I dared!" he laughed ironically. "I dare to tell you now to your face what all men say of you in your absence. They believe you to be--and rightly--a conscienceless pirate. You are a scathe and a blight; a pestilential ogre, drunk with self-worship. When first I saw you, you were gloating over having bought lambs that you had never seen for seven dollars which you sold, still unseen, for ten. Since then you have simply amplified, on the scale of a Colossus, that single cheap ideal. You have exalted vandalism and rechristened it Conquest." Hamilton Burton's face worked in a paroxysm of wrath and his words hurled out fury to meet fury. "By Almighty God! I have listened to your damned insolence. Now you shall listen to me! I had meant to retire soon from the world of active business. I was almost satisfied. You have altered my plans. Just once again I shall return to the arena and I shall never leave it again, until I have accomplished my single purpose." He halted with eyes burning like those of a maniac, and the fever of passion shaking him. Words poured torrent-wise. "I will go back into the Street. If need be I will tumble the entire structure of finance into ruins, but under it I will bury you! I will bury you deep beyond salvation! As there is a God in heaven, I will do that. I will neither rest nor abate my warfare until I have utterly ruined you! You and your self-righteous virtue shall become a jest to the world. From now on until you walk the streets, disgraced and penniless, I wholly dedicate myself to your destruction!" He paused, panting, and wild of glance, with his fists clenched and his temples pulsing, and when he fell silent, Edwardes spoke slowly, almost as in soliloquy: "I was not mistaken in you. You are the pirate and no more. I will not call your boast empty. I have seen your power. You are willing to bury in general ruin all those innocent persons whom you must overthrow before you can reach me. Very well, you will find me fighting when you come after me." "I am after you now," shouted the other. "I would wreck all New York to smash you. To me it will be worth the price, and, by God, I'll do it!" Edwardes turned and held out his hand to Mary Burton. "Good-night, dear," he said. His voice was weary and, as he looked at her, a deep shadow of longing crossed his face. "Wait!" she commanded--in a tone which neither of them had ever heard before, "I am going with you." _ |
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