CHAPTER XXIII
STARLIGHT
Dusk had begun to fall, but still two figures went on through theforest--slowly, with obvious effort. One turned often to the other, heldback a branch, or proffered such service as he might over rough places,for Betty Dalrymple's movements were no longer those of a lithewood-nymph; she had never felt so weary before. The first shades oftwilight made it harder to distinguish their way amid interveningobjects, and once an elastic bit of underbrush struck her sharply in theface. The blow smarted like the touch of a whip but she only smiledfaintly. The momentary sting spurred her on faster, until her footcaught and she stumbled and would have fallen except that Mr.Heatherbloom had turned at that moment and put out an arm.
"Forgive me." His voice was full of contrition. "It has been brutal tomake you go on like this, but I had to."
"It doesn't matter." The slender form slid from him over-quickly. "You,too, must be very tired," she said with breath coming fast.
He glanced swiftly back; listened. "We'll rest here," he commanded."We've got to. I should have stopped before, but"--the words came in aharsher staccato--"I dared not."
"I'll be all right in a few moments," she answered, resting on a fallenlog, "and then--"
"No, no," he said in a tone of finality. "After all, there is smalllikelihood they'll find us now. Besides, it will soon be too dark to goon. Fortunately, the night is warm, and I've got this cloak for you."
"And for yourself?" Her voice was very low and quiet, or perhaps itseemed so because here, in the little recess in the great wood, the hushwas most pronounced.
"Me?" he laughed. "You seem to forget I'm one of the happy brotherhoodthat just drop down anywhere. Shouldn't know what to do with a silkeiderdown if I had one."
His gaiety sounded rather forced. She was silent and the quietudeseemed oppressive. The girl leaned back to a great tree trunk and lookedup. The sky wore an ocher hue against which the branches quivered inzigzags of blackness. Mr. Heatherbloom moved apart to watch, but stillhe neither saw nor heard sign of any one drawing near. The sad ochermerged into a somber blue; the stars came out, one by one, then inshoals. She could hardly see him now, so fast had the tropical nightdescended, but she heard his step, returning.
"Quite certain there's no danger," he reassured her. "Went back a way."
"Thank you," she said. And added: "For all."
"Betty." The stars twinkled madly. Pulsating waves seemed to vibrate inthe air. A moment he continued to stare into the darkness, then againturned. He had not seen how the girl's hand had suddenly closed, and herslender form had swayed. As restlessly he resumed his sentinel's duty,Sonia Turgeinov's last words once more recurred to him. How often hadhe thought of them that long afternoon, and wondered who was the one theyoung girl would now shortly be free to turn to? There had been many inthe past who had sought her favor. Perhaps the unknown was one of these;or, more likely, one of the newer many that had arisen, no doubt, since,in the gayer larger world of New York, or the continent. BettyDalrymple's manner at the Russian woman's words indicated that thelatter had--how Mr. Heatherbloom could not imagine--hit upon a greatkernel of truth. Again, in fancy, he saw on her cheek that swift flushof warm blood. Lucky, thrice lucky, the man who had caused it! SoftlyMr. Heatherbloom moved nearer.
Was she sleeping? He, himself, felt too fagged to sleep. Like Psyche, inthe glade, she was covered all with starlight. He ventured closer, bentover; the widely opened eyes looked suddenly into his.
"The woman told me you had nothing to do with it--that plot of hers andthe prince," she said slowly. "I know now why you were on the boat,and--all the rest--what it meant for me, your being there."
"You know, then"--embarrassed--"the awful mess I made of it all--"
"You dared a great deal," she said softly.
"And came an awful cropper!"
She did not answer directly. "At first Francois was most reluctant torisk going with me," she went on. "I thought it odd, at the time, heshould change so suddenly, become so brave. Now I understand, at least,a little--in a general way. I have been over-quick to think evil of you,ever since we met again. Perhaps, in the past, too"--slowly--"I havebeen--"
"Betty!" he cried uneasily, and seemed about once more to move away,when--
"Don't go," she said. "I'll not talk if you command me not to. You'vebeen the master to-day, you know," with subtle accent.
"Have I?" His voice showed evidence of distress. "I didn't reallymean--it was necessary," he ended firmly.
"Of course it was," said the girl. Her accent conveyed no note ofdispleasure. Profile-wise he saw her face now--the young moon beyond."Don't think I'm blaming you. I'm not quite so hard, perhaps, as I oncewas." Mr. Heatherbloom stood back a little farther in the shadow."Maybe, my poor little standard of judgment--" she stopped. "I have beenheedless, heartless, perhaps--"
"You!" he exclaimed. "You!" There was only unfaltering adoration in histone--faith, unchanged and unchangeable.
She spoke with a little catch in her voice: "Oh, I haven't cared. I_did_ flirt with the prince; he accused me of that. He was right. Whatdid it matter to me, if I made others suffer? I haven't always had sogood a time as I seemed to--" There was a ring of passion in her tonenow. "What happened?" she said, turning on him swiftly. "What hashappened? I want to know all--"
"You mean about the prince?"
"I know all I want to know about him," scornfully. "I mean"--her slenderfigure bent toward Mr. Heatherbloom--"you! What has taken place, andwhy has it? What does it all mean? Don't you understand?"
He drew in his breath slowly.
"Tell me," she said, still tensely poised, her eyes insistent in theshadow of her hair.
"Miss Dalrymple--Betty--" he half stammered.
"I want to know," she repeated. There was an inexorable demand in hergaze. Mr. Heatherbloom straightened. The ordeal?--it must be met--thoughthat box of Pandora were best left unopened. He could not refuse heranything; this she asked of him was not easy to grant, however.
"Where shall I begin?" he said uncertainly. "You know a great deal.There doesn't seem much worth talking about."
"Begin where we left off--"
"Our boy-and-girl engagement? You broke it. Quite right of you!" Shestirred slightly. "It was, at best, but a perfunctory business, halfarranged by our parents to keep the millions together--"
"You never blamed me a little, then?" she asked.
"I--blame you?" wonderingly. "You were as far from me as a star. Whatyou thought of me, you told me; it was all right--true stuff. Though itsank in like a blade. I was nothing--worse than nothing. A rich man'sson!--a commonplace type. A good fellow some called me at Monte Carlo,Paris, elsewhere." He paused. A moment he seemed anotherpersonality--that other one. She saw it anew, caught a glimpse of itlike a flash on a mirror; then he seemed to relapse farther back intothe shadow. "I really don't want to bore you," he said perfunctorily,raising an uncertain hand to the stray; lock on his forehead.
"You aren't--doing that. Go on." Her eyes were full of questions. "AfterI saw you that last time"--he nodded--"you disappeared. No one everheard anything of you; again, or knew what had become of you."
"As no one cared," he said with a short laugh, "what did it matter?"
"You were lost to the world--had vanished completely," she went on."Sometimes I thought--feared you were dead." Her voice changed.
"Feared?" he repeated. "Ah, yes! You did not want me to go out likethat."
"No," she said slowly. "Not like that."
He looked at her comprehendingly; in spite of the bitter passionaterepudiation of him, she had been a little in earnest--had cared, in theleast, how he went down.
"Why," he said, with a forced smile, "I didn't think you'd bother togive the matter a thought."
"You had some purpose?" she persisted, studying him. "I see--seem tofeel it now. It all--you--were incomprehensible. I mean, when I saw youagain that first time, in New York, after so long--"
"It was funny, wasn't it?"
he said with rather strained lightness. "TheChariot of Concord--_What's the Matter with Mother_?--the gaping orjibing crowd--then you, going by--"
Her eyelids drooped; he stood now erect and motionless; in spite of thedetermination to maintain that matter-of-fact pose, visions appearedmomentarily in his eyes. The glamour of the instant he had referred tocaught him. All he had felt then at the unexpected sight ofher--beautiful, far-away--returned to him. She was near now, but stillimmeasurably distant. He pulled himself together; he hadn't explainedvery much yet. He was forced to go on; her eyes once more seemed to drawthe story from him.
"Yes; I had some purpose in going away like that. The idea came to me atthe sanatorium, when I was about 'all in'. They'd managed to keep thedrugs and the drink from me, and one day I seemed to wake up and realizeI hadn't ever really lived. Just been a tail-ender who had 'gone thepace'. Hadn't even had a beginning. Was it too late to start over again?Probably." His voice came in crisp accents. "But it was a last chance--afeeble one--a straw to the drowning," he laughed. "That sounds absurdto you but I don't know how to explain it better."
"No; it doesn't sound absurd," she said.
"The idea of mine?--how to carry it out? Ways and means were not hard tofind. I went to"--he mentioned a name--"an old friend of my father's. Hethought I was a fool," bruskly, "but in the end he approved, or seemedto. Anyhow, I persuaded him to take all my bonds, securities and therest of (for me) cursed stuff. At the end of a certain time, if I wantedback the few millions I hadn't yet run through, he was to give them tome, minus commissions, wage, etc."
"You mean," said the girl, "that was the way you took to go back to thebeginning, as you call it?" Her eyes were like stars. "You practicallygave away all your money so as to start by yourself."
"How could I start with it?" he asked, with a faint smile. "Don't yousee, Betty"--in a momentary eagerness he forgot himself--"there couldn'tbe any compromising? Besides, it came to me--you will laugh"--she didnot laugh--"that some day, somewhere else, if not here, I'd have to makethat beginning, to be something myself. Remember that old Hindu fellowwith a red turban who sat on your front lawn, beneath the palms, and hadthe women gathered around him in a kind of hypnotic state? He saidsomething like that--I thought him an old fakir at the time. He used alot of flowery language, but I guess, boiled down, it meant start at thebottom of the ladder. Build yourself up, the way my father did," with acertain wistful pride. "You remember him?"
Her head moved. "Fine looking, wasn't he?" ruminatively. "He got therewith his hands and brains, and honestly. While I hadn't ever usedeither. I hope," he broke off, "all this doesn't sound like preaching."
"No," she said.
An instant his gaze lingered on her. "You're sleepy now," he spokesuddenly.
"No, I am not. You found it a little hard, at first?"
"A little. When a man is relaxed and the reaction is on him--" Hestopped.
"Tell me--tell me all," she breathed. "Every bit of it, Harry."
His lips twitched. To hear his almost forgotten name spoken again byher! A moment he seemed to waver. Temptation of violet eyes; wonder ofthe rapt face! Oh, that he might catch her in his arms, claim her anew;this time for all time! But again he mastered himself and went onsuccinctly, as quickly as possible. Between the lines, however, the girlmight read the record of struggles which was very real to her. He hadreverted "to the beginning" with poor tools and most scanty experience.And there was that other fight that made it a double fight, the fiercerconflict with self. Hunger, privation, want, which she might divine,though he did not speak of them, became as lesser details. She listenedenrapt.
"I guess that's about all," he said at last.
She continued to look at him, his features, clear-cut in the whitelight. "And you didn't ever really go back--to undo it all?"
"Once I did go back to 'Frisco"--he told her of the relapse with coldcandor--"out at heels, and ready to give up. I wanted the millions. Theywere gone."
"You mean, lost?"
"Yes; he had speculated; was dead. Poor fellow!"
"You say that? And you have never tried to get any of the money back?"
"Fortunately, he died bankrupt," said Mr. Heatherbloom calmly.
"And you failed to show the world he was a--thief?" Something in theword seared her.
"What was the use? He left a wife and children. Besides, he reallyserved me by what the world would call robbing me. I _had_ to continueat the beginning. It was the foot of the ladder, all right," he added.
Her face showed no answering gaiety. "You are going to amount to a greatdeal some day," she said. "I think very few of us in this world findourselves," she added slowly.
"Perhaps some don't have to hunt so hard as others," observed Mr.Heatherbloom.
"Don't they?" Her lips wore an odd little smile.
He threw back his shoulders. "Good night, now. You are very tired, Iknow."
She put out her hand. He took it--how soft and small and cold! Theseconds were throbbing hours; he couldn't release it, at once. Thelittle fingers grew warmer--warmer in his palm--their very pulsationsseemed throbbing with his. Suddenly he dropped her hand.
"Good night," he said quickly.
He remembered he was nothing to her--that they would soon part for ever.
"Good night," she answered softly.
Then, silence.