CHAPTER XXII.
Five minutes later he was sitting in his room, with his head bowedwithin the circle of his arms, on the table--final attitude of grief anddespair. His tears were flowing fast, and now and then a sob broke uponthe stillness. Presently he said:
"I knew her when she was a little child and used to climb about myknees; I love her as I love my own, and now--oh, poor thing, poorthing, I cannot bear it!--she's gone and lost her heart to this mangymaterializee! Why didn't we see that that might happen? But how couldwe? Nobody could; nobody could ever have dreamed of such a thing. Youcouldn't expect a person would fall in love with a wax-work. And thisone doesn't even amount to that."
He went on grieving to himself, and now and then giving voice to hislamentations.
"It's done, oh, it's done, and there's no help for it, no undoingthe miserable business. If I had the nerve, I would kill it. Butthat wouldn't do any good. She loves it; she thinks it's genuine andauthentic. If she lost it she would grieve for it just as she wouldfor a real person. And who's to break it to the family! Not I--I'll diefirst. Sellers is the best human being I ever knew and I wouldn't anymore think of--oh, dear, why it'll break his heart when he finds it out.And Polly's too. This comes of meddling with such infernal matters!But for this, the creature would still be roasting in Sheol whereit belongs. How is it that these people don't smell the brimstone?Sometimes I can't come into the same room with him without nearlysuffocating."
After a while he broke out again:
"Well, there's one thing, sure. The materializing has got to stop rightwhere it is. If she's got to marry a spectre, let her marry a decent oneout of the Middle Ages, like this one--not a cowboy and a thief suchas this protoplasmic tadpole's going to turn into if Sellers keeps onfussing at it. It costs five thousand dollars cash and shuts down onthe incorporated company to stop the works at this point, but SallySellers's happiness is worth more than that."
He heard Sellers coming, and got himself to rights. Sellers took a seat,and said:
"Well, I've got to confess I'm a good deal puzzled. It did certainlyeat, there's no getting around it. Not eat, exactly, either, but itnibbled; nibbled in an appetiteless way, but still it nibbled; andthat's just a marvel. Now the question is, what does it do with thosenibblings? That's it--what does it do with them? My idea is that wedon't begin to know all there is to this stupendous discovery yet.But time will show--time and science--give us a chance, and don't getimpatient."
But he couldn't get Hawkins interested; couldn't make him talk to amountto anything; couldn't drag him out of his depression. But at last hetook a turn that arrested Hawkins's attention.
"I'm coming to like him, Hawkins. He is a person of stupendouscharacter--absolutely gigantic. Under that placid exterior is concealedthe most dare-devil spirit that was ever put into a man--he's just aClive over again. Yes, I'm all admiration for him, on account of hischaracter, and liking naturally follows admiration, you know. I'm comingto like him immensely. Do you know, I haven't the heart to degrade sucha character as that down to the burglar estate for money or for anythingelse; and I've come to ask if you are willing to let the reward go, andleave this poor fellow--
"Where he is?"
"Yes--not bring him down to date."
"Oh, there's my hand; and my heart's in it, too!"
"I'll never forget you for this, Hawkins," said the old gentleman ina voice which he found it hard to control. "You are making a greatsacrifice for me, and one which you can ill afford, but I'll neverforget your generosity, and if I live you shall not suffer for it, besure of that."
Sally Sellers immediately and vividly realized that she was become a newbeing; a being of a far higher and worthier sort than she had been sucha little while before; an earnest being, in place of a dreamer; andsupplied with a reason for her presence in the world, where merely awistful and troubled curiosity about it had existed before. So great andso comprehensive was the change which had been wrought, that she seemedto herself to be a real person who had lately been a shadow; a somethingwhich had lately been a nothing; a purpose, which had lately been afancy; a finished temple, with the altar-fires lit and the voice ofworship ascending, where before had been but an architect's confusionof arid working plans, unintelligible to the passing eye and prophesyingnothing.
"Lady" Gwendolen! The pleasantness of that sound was all gone; it was anoffense to her ear now. She said:
"There--that sham belongs to the past; I will not be called by it anymore."
"I may call you simply Gwendolen? You will allow me to drop theformalities straightway and name you by your dear first name withoutadditions?"
She was dethroning the pink and replacing it with a rosebud.
"There--that is better. I hate pinks--some pinks. Indeed yes, you are tocall me by my first name without additions--that is,--well, I don't meanwithout additions entirely, but--"
It was as far as she could get. There was a pause; his intellect wasstruggling to comprehend; presently it did manage to catch the idea intime to save embarrassment all around, and he said gratefully--
"Dear Gwendolen! I may say that?"
"Yes--part of it. But--don't kiss me when I am talking, it makes meforget what I was going to say. You can call me by part of that form,but not the last part. Gwendolen is not my name."
"Not your name?" This in a tone of wonder and surprise.
The girl's soul was suddenly invaded by a creepy apprehension, a quitedefinite sense of suspicion and alarm. She put his arms away from her,looked him searchingly in the eye, and said:
"Answer me truly, on your honor. You are not seeking to marry me onaccount of my rank?"
The shot almost knocked him through the wall, he was so little preparedfor it. There was something so finely grotesque about the question andits parent suspicion, that he stopped to wonder and admire, and thuswas he saved from laughing. Then, without wasting precious time, heset about the task of convincing her that he had been lured by herselfalone, and had fallen in love with her only, not her title and position;that he loved her with all his heart, and could not love her more if shewere a duchess, or less if she were without home, name or family. Shewatched his face wistfully, eagerly, hopefully, translating his wordsby its expression; and when he had finished there was gladness in herheart--a tumultuous gladness, indeed, though outwardly she was calm,tranquil, even judicially austere. She prepared a surprise for him, now,calculated to put a heavy strain upon those disinterested protestationsof his; and thus she delivered it, burning it away word by word asthe fuse burns down to a bombshell, and watching to see how far theexplosion would lift him:
"Listen--and do not doubt me, for I shall speak the exact truth. HowardTracy, I am no more an earl's child than you are!"
To her joy--and secret surprise, also--it never phased him. He wasready, this time, and saw his chance. He cried out with enthusiasm,"Thank heaven for that!" and gathered her to his arms.
To express her happiness was almost beyond her gift of speech.
"You make me the proudest girl in all the earth," she said, with herhead pillowed on his shoulder. "I thought it only natural that youshould be dazzled by the title--maybe even unconsciously, you beingEnglish--and that you might be deceiving yourself in thinking you lovedonly me, and find you didn't love me when the deception was swept away;so it makes me proud that the revelation stands for nothing and that youdo love just me, only me--oh, prouder than any words can tell!"
"It is only you, sweetheart, I never gave one envying glance toward yourfather's earldom. That is utterly true, dear Gwendolen."
"There--you mustn't call me that. I hate that false name. I told you itwasn't mine. My name is Sally Sellers--or Sarah, if you like. From thistime I banish dreams, visions, imaginings, and will no more of them. Iam going to be myself--my genuine self, my honest self, my natural self,clear and clean of sham and folly and fraud, and worthy of you. There isno grain of social inequality between us; I, like you, am poor; I, likeyou, am without position or distinction;
you are a struggling artist, Iam that, too, in my humbler way. Our bread is honest bread, we work forour living. Hand in hand we will walk hence to the grave, helping eachother in all ways, living for each other, being and remaining one inheart and purpose, one in hope and aspiration, inseparable to the end.And though our place is low, judged by the world's eye, we will make itas high as the highest in the great essentials of honest work for whatwe eat and wear, and conduct above reproach. We live in a land, let usbe thankful, where this is all-sufficient, and no man is better than hisneighbor by the grace of God, but only by his own merit."
Tracy tried to break in, but she stopped him and kept the floor herself.
"I am not through yet. I am going to purge myself of the last vestigesof artificiality and pretence, and then start fair on your own honestlevel and be worthy mate to you thenceforth. My father honestly thinkshe is an earl. Well, leave him his dream, it pleases him and does noone any harm: It was the dream of his ancestors before him. It has madefools of the house of Sellers for generations, and it made somethingof a fool of me, but took no deep root. I am done with it now, and forgood. Forty-eight hours ago I was privately proud of being the daughterof a pinchbeck earl, and thought the proper mate for me must be a man oflike degree; but to-day--oh, how grateful I am for your love which hashealed my sick brain and restored my sanity!--I could make oath that noearl's son in all the world--"
"Oh,--well, but--but--"
"Why, you look like a person in a panic. What is it? What is thematter?"
"Matter? Oh, nothing--nothing. I was only going to say"--but in hisflurry nothing occurred to him to say, for a moment; then by a luckyinspiration he thought of something entirely sufficient for theoccasion, and brought it out with eloquent force: "Oh, how beautiful youare! You take my breath away when you look like that."
It was well conceived, well timed, and cordially delivered--and it gotits reward.
"Let me see. Where was I? Yes, my father's earldom is pure moonshine.Look at those dreadful things on the wall. You have of course supposedthem to be portraits of his ancestors, earls of Rossmore. Well, they arenot. They are chromos of distinguished Americans--all moderns; buthe has carried them back a thousand years by re-labeling them. AndrewJackson there, is doing what he can to be the late American earl;and the newest treasure in the collection is supposed to be the youngEnglish heir--I mean the idiot with the crape; but in truth it's ashoemaker, and not Lord Berkeley at all."
"Are you sure?"
"Why of course I am. He wouldn't look like that."
"Why?"
"Because his conduct in his last moments, when the fire was sweepingaround him shows that he was a man. It shows that he was a fine,high-souled young creature."
Tracy was strongly moved by these compliments, and it seemed to himthat the girl's lovely lips took on a new loveliness when they weredelivering them. He said, softly:
"It is a pity he could not know what a gracious impression his behaviorwas going to leave with the dearest and sweetest stranger in the landof--"
"Oh, I almost loved him! Why, I think of him every day. He is alwaysfloating about in my mind."
Tracy felt that this was a little more than was necessary. He wasconscious of the sting of jealousy. He said:
"It is quite right to think of him--at least now and then--that is, atintervals--in perhaps an admiring way--but it seems to me that--"
"Howard Tracy, are you jealous of that dead man?"
He was ashamed--and at the same time not ashamed. He was jealous--and atthe same time he was not jealous. In a sense the dead man was himself;in that case compliments and affection lavished upon that corpse wentinto his own till and were clear profit. But in another sense the deadman was not himself; and in that case all compliments and affectionlavished there were wasted, and a sufficient basis for jealousy. A tiffwas the result of the dispute between the two. Then they made it up,and were more loving than ever. As an affectionate clincher of thereconciliation, Sally declared that she had now banished Lord Berkeleyfrom her mind; and added, "And in order to make sure that he shall nevermake trouble between us again, I will teach myself to detest that nameand all that have ever borne it or ever shall bear it."
This inflicted another pang, and Tracy was minded to ask her to modifythat a little just on general principles, and as practice in notoverdoing a good thing--perhaps he might better leave things as theywere and not risk bringing on another tiff. He got away from thatparticular, and sought less tender ground for conversation.
"I suppose you disapprove wholly of aristocracies and nobilities, nowthat you have renounced your title and your father's earldom."
"Real ones? Oh, dear no--but I've thrown aside our sham one for good."
This answer fell just at the right time and just in the right place, tosave the poor unstable young man from changing his political complexiononce more. He had been on the point of beginning to totter again,but this prop shored him up and kept him from floundering back intodemocracy and re-renouncing aristocracy. So he went home glad that hehad asked the fortunate question. The girl would accept a little thinglike a genuine earldom, she was merely prejudiced against the brummagemarticle. Yes, he could have his girl and have his earldom, too: thatquestion was a fortunate stroke.
Sally went to bed happy, too; and remained happy, deliriously happy, fornearly two hours; but at last, just as she was sinking into a contentedand luxurious unconsciousness, the shady devil who lives and lurks andhides and watches inside of human beings and is always waiting for achance to do the proprietor a malicious damage, whispered to her souland said, "That question had a harmless look, but what was back ofit?--what was the secret motive of it?--what suggested it?"
The shady devil had knifed her, and could retire, now, and take a rest;the wound would attend to business for him. And it did.
Why should Howard Tracy ask that question? If he was not trying to marryher for the sake of her rank, what should suggest that question tohim? Didn't he plainly look gratified when she said her objections toaristocracy had their limitations? Ah, he is after that earldom, thatgilded sham--it isn't poor me he wants.
So she argued, in anguish and tears. Then she argued the oppositetheory, but made a weak, poor business of it, and lost the case. Shekept the arguing up, one side and then the other, the rest of the night,and at last fell asleep at dawn; fell in the fire at dawn, one may say;for that kind of sleep resembles fire, and one comes out of it with hisbrain baked and his physical forces fried out of him.