CHAPTER XXIV
Walter Stewart had made an uncomplicated recovery, helped along byrelief at the turn events had taken. In a few days he was going aboutagain, weak naturally, rather handsomer than before because a littleless florid. But the week's confinement had given him an opportunity tothink over many things. Peter had set him thinking, on the day when hehad packed up the last of Marie's small belongings and sent them down toVienna.
Stewart, lying in bed, had watched him. "Just how much talk do yousuppose this has made, Byrne?" he asked.
"Haven't an idea. Some probably. The people in the Russian villa saw it,you know."
Stewart's brows contracted.
"Damnation! Then the hotel has it, of course!"
"Probably."
Stewart groaned. Peter closed Marie's American trunk of which she hadbeen so proud, and coming over looked down at the injured man.
"Don't you think you'd better tell the girl all about it?"
"No," doggedly.
"I know, of course, it wouldn't be easy, but--you can't get away withit, Stewart. That's one way of looking at it. There's another."
"What's that?"
"Starting with a clean slate. If she's the sort you want to marry, andnot a prude, she'll understand, not at first, but after she gets used toit."
"She wouldn't understand in a thousand years."
"Then you'd better not marry her. You know, Stewart, I have an ideathat women imagine a good many pretty rotten things about us, anyhow.A sensible girl would rather know the truth and be done with it. What aman has done with his life before a girl--the right girl--comes intoit isn't a personal injury to her, since she wasn't a part of his lifethen. You know what I mean. But she has a right to know it before shechooses."
"How many would choose under those circumstances?" he jibed.
Peter smiled. "Quite a few," he said cheerfully. "It's a wrong system,of course; but we can get a little truth out of it."
"You can't get away with it" stuck in Stewart's mind for several days.It was the one thing Peter said that did stick. And before Stewart hadrecovered enough to be up and about he had made up his mind to tellAnita. In his mind he made quite a case for himself; he argued theaffair against his conscience and came out victorious.
Anita's party had broken up. The winter sports did not compare, theycomplained, with St. Moritz. They disliked German cooking. Into thebargain the weather was not good; the night's snows turned soft bymidday; and the crowds that began to throng the hotels were solidcitizens, not the fashionables of the Riviera. Anita's arm forbade hertraveling. In the reassembling of the party she went to the Kurhaus inthe valley below the pension with one of the women who wished to takethe baths.
It was to the Kurhaus, then, that Stewart made his first excursion afterthe accident. He went to dinner. Part of the chaperon's treatment calledfor an early retiring hour, which was highly as he had wished it andrather unnerving after all. A man may decide that a dose of poison isthe remedy for all his troubles, but he does not approach his hour withany hilarity. Stewart was a stupid dinner guest, ate very little, andlooked haggard beyond belief when the hour came for the older woman toleave.
He did not lack courage however. It was his great asset, physical andmental rather than moral, but courage nevertheless. The evening wasquiet, and they elected to sit on the balcony outside Anita's sittingroom, the girl swathed in white furs and leaning back in her steamerchair.
Below lay the terrace of the Kurhaus, edged with evergreen trees. Beyondand far below that was the mountain village, a few scattered housesalong a frozen stream. The townspeople retired early; light after lightwas extinguished, until only one in the priest's house remained. A traincrept out of one tunnel and into another, like a glowing worm crawlingfrom burrow to burrow.
The girl felt a change in Stewart. During the weeks he had known herthere had been a curious restraint in his manner to her. There weretimes when an avowal seemed to tremble on his lips, when his eyes lookedinto hers with the look no women ever mistakes; the next moment he wouldglance away, his face would harden. They were miles apart. And perhapsthe situation had piqued the girl. Certainly it had lost nothing for herby its unusualness.
To-night there was a difference in the man. His eyes met hers squarely,without evasion, but with a new quality, a searching, perhaps, forsomething in her to give him courage. The girl had character, more thanordinary decision. It was what Stewart admired in her most, and thething, of course, that the little Marie had lacked. Moreover, Anita,barely twenty, was a woman, not a young girl. Her knowledge of theworld, not so deep as Marie's, was more comprehensive. Where Marie wouldhave been merciful, Anita would be just, unless she cared for him. Inthat case she might be less than just, or more.
Anita in daylight was a pretty young woman, rather incisive of speech,very intelligent, having a wit without malice, charming to look at,keenly alive. Anita in the dusk of the balcony, waiting to hear she knewnot what, was a judicial white goddess, formidably still, frightfullypotential. Stewart, who had embraced many women, did not dare a fingeron her arm.
He had decided on a way to tell the girl the story--a preamble about hisupbringing, which had been indifferent, his struggle to get to Vienna,his loneliness there, all leading with inevitable steps to Marie. Fromthat, if she did not utterly shrink from him, to his love for her.
It was his big hour, that hour on the balcony. He was reaching, throughlove, heights of honesty he had never scaled before. But as a matter offact he reversed utterly his order of procedure. The situation got him,this first evening absolutely alone with her. That and her nearness, andthe pathos of her bandaged, useless arm. Still he had not touched her.
The thing he was trying to do was more difficult for that. Generalcredulity to the contrary, men do not often make spoken love first. Howmany men propose marriage to their women across the drawing-room or fromchair to chair? Absurd! The eyes speak first, then the arms, the lipslast. The woman is in his arms before he tells his love. It is by herresponse that he gauges his chances and speaks of marriage. Actually thething is already settled; tardy speech only follows on swift instinct.Stewart, wooing as men woo, would have taken the girl's hand, gainedan encouragement from it, ventured to kiss it, perhaps, and finding norebuff would then and there have crushed her to him; What need of words?They would follow in due time, not to make a situation but to clarifyit.
But he could not woo as men woo. The barrier of his own weakness stoodbetween them and must be painfully taken down.
"I'm afraid this is stupid for you," said Anita out of the silence."Would you like to go to the music-room?"
"God forbid. I was thinking."
"Of what?" Encouragement this, surely.
"I was thinking how you had come into my life, and stirred it up."
"Really? I?"
"You know that."
"How did I stir it up?"
"That's hardly the way I meant to put it. You've changed everything forme. I care for you--a very great deal."
He was still carefully in hand, his voice steady. And still he did nottouch her. Other men had made love to her, but never in this fashion, orwas he making love?
"I'm very glad you like me."
"Like you!" Almost out of hand that time. The thrill in his voice wasunmistakable. "It's much more than that, Anita, so much more that I'mgoing to try to do a hideously hard thing. Will you help a little?"
"Yes, if I can." She was stirred, too, and rather frightened.
Stewart drew his chair nearer to her and sat forward, his face set anddogged.
"Have you any idea how you were hurt? Or why?"
"No. There's a certain proportion of accidents that occur at all theseplaces, isn't there?"
"This was not an accident."
"No?"
"The branch of a tree was thrown out in front of the sled to send usover the bank. It was murder, if intention is crime."
After a brief silence--
"Somebody who wished to kill you, or me?"
"Both of us, I believe. It was done by a woman--a girl, Anita. A girl Ihad been living with."
A brutal way to tell her, no doubt, but admirably courageous. For he wasquivering with dread when he said it--the courage of the man who facesa cannon. And here, where a less-poised woman would have broken intospeech, Anita took the refuge of her kind and was silent. Stewartwatched her as best he could in the darkness, trying to gather furthercourage to go on. He could not see her face, but her fingers, touchingthe edge of the chair, quivered.
"May I tell you the rest?"
"I don't think I want to hear it."
"Are you going to condemn me unheard?"
"There isn't anything you can say against the fact?"
But there was much to say, and sitting there in the darkness he madehis plea. He made no attempt to put his case. He told what had happenedsimply; he told of his loneliness and discomfort. And he emphasized thelack of sentiment that prompted the arrangement.
Anita spoke then for the first time: "And when you tried to terminate itshe attempted to kill you!"
"I was acting the beast. I brought her up here, and then neglected herfor you."
"Then it was hardly only a business arrangement for her."
"It was at first. I never dreamed of any thing else. I swear that,Anita. But lately, in the last month or two, she--I suppose I shouldhave seen that she--"
"That she had fallen in love with you. How old is she?"
"Nineteen."
A sudden memory came to Anita, of a slim young girl, who had watched herwith wide, almost childish eyes.
"Then it was she who was in the compartment with you on the train comingup?"
"Yes."
"Where is she now?"
"In Vienna. I have not heard from her. Byrne, the chap who came upto see me after the--after the accident, sent her away. I think he'slooking after her. I haven't heard from him."
"Why did you tell me all this?"
"Because I love you, Anita. I want you to marry me."
"What! After that?"
"That, or something similar, is in many men's lives. They don't tell it,that's the difference. I 'm not taking any credit for telling you this.I'm ashamed to the bottom of my soul, and when I look at your bandagedarm I'm suicidal. Peter Byrne urged me to tell you. He said I couldn'tget away with it; some time or other it would come out. Then he saidsomething else. He said you'd probably understand, and that if youmarried me it was better to start with a clean slate."
No love, no passion in the interview now. A clear statement of fact, anoffer--his past against hers, his future with hers. Her hand was steadynow. The light in the priest's house had been extinguished. The chill ofthe mountain night penetrated Anita's white furs; and set her--or was itthe chill?--to shivering.
"If I had not told you, would you have married me?"
"I think so. I'll be honest, too. Yes."
"I am the same man you would have married. Only--more honest."
"I cannot argue about it. I am tired and cold."
Stewart glanced across the valley to where the cluster of villas huggedthe mountain-side There was a light in his room; outside was the littlebalcony where Marie had leaned against the railing and looked down,down. Some of the arrogance of his new virtue left the man. He wassuddenly humbled. For the first time he realized a part of what Mariehad endured in that small room where the light burned.
"Poor little Marie!" he said softly.
The involuntary exclamation did more for him than any plea he could havemade. Anita rose and held out her hand.
"Go and see her," she said quietly. "You owe her that. We'll be leavinghere in a day or so and I'll not see you again. But you've been honest,and I will be honest, too. I--I cared a great deal, too."
"And this has killed it?"
"I hardly comprehend it yet. I shall have to have time to think."
"But if you are going away--I'm afraid to leave you. You'll think thisthing over, alone, and all the rules of life you've been taught willcome--"
"Please, I must think. I will write you, I promise."
He caught her hand and crushed it between both of his.
"I suppose you would rather I did not kiss you?" humbly.
"I do not want you to kiss me."
He released her hand and stood looking down at her in the darkness. Ifhe could only have crushed her to him, made her feel the security of hislove, of his sheltering arms! But the barrier of his own building wasbetween them. His voice was husky.
"I want you to try to remember, past what I have told you, to the thingthat concerns us both--I love you. I never loved the other woman. Inever pretended I loved her. And there will be nothing more like that."
"I shall try to remember."
Anita left Semmering the next day, against the protests of the doctorand the pleadings of the chaperon. She did not see Stewart again. Butbefore she left, with the luggage gone and the fiacre at the door, shewent out on the terrace, and looked across to the Villa Waldheim, risingfrom among its clustering trees. Although it was too far to be certain,she thought she saw the figure of a man on the little balcony standingwith folded arms, gazing across the valley to the Kurhaus.
Having promised to see Marie, Stewart proceeded to carry out his promisein his direct fashion. He left Semmering the evening of the followingday, for Vienna. The strain of the confession was over, but he was avictim of sickening dread. To one thing only he dared to pin his hopes.Anita had said she cared, cared a great deal. And, after all, what elsemattered? The story had been a jolt, he told himself. Girls were full ofqueer ideas of right and wrong, bless them! But she cared. She cared!
He arrived in Vienna at nine o'clock that night. The imminence ofhis interview with Marie hung over him like a cloud. He ate a hurriedsupper, and calling up the Doctors' Club by telephone found Peter'saddress in the Siebensternstrasse. He had no idea, of course, that Mariewas there. He wanted to see Peter to learn where Marie had taken refuge,and incidentally to get from Peter a fresh supply of moral courage forthe interview. For he needed courage. In vain on the journey down had heclothed himself in armor of wrath against the girl; the very compartmentin the train provoked softened memories of her. Here they had bought aluncheon, there Marie had first seen the Rax. Again at this station shehad curled up and put her head on his shoulder for a nap. Ah, but again,at this part of the journey he had first seen Anita!
He took a car to the Siebensternstrasse. His idea of Peter's mannerof living those days was exceedingly vague. He had respected Peter'sreticence, after the manner of men with each other. Peter had oncementioned a boy he was looking after, in excuse for leaving so soonafter the accident. That was all.
The house on the Siebensternstrasse loomed large and unlighted. Thestreet was dark, and it was only after a search that Stewart found thegate. Even then he lost the path, and found himself among a group oftrees, to touch the lowest branches of any of which resulted in a showerof raindrops. To add to his discomfort some one was walking in thegarden, coming toward him with light, almost stealthy steps.
Stewart by his tree stood still, waiting. The steps approached, werevery close, were beside him. So intense was the darkness that even thenall he saw was a blacker shadow, and that was visible only because itmoved. Then a hand touched his arm, stopped as if paralyzed, drew backslowly, fearfully.
"Good Heavens!" said poor Harmony faintly.
"Please don't be alarmed. I have lost the path." Stewart's voice wasalmost equally nervous. "Is it to the right or the left?"
It was a moment before Harmony had breath to speak. Then:--
"To the right a dozen paces or so."
"Thank you. Perhaps I can help you to find it."
"I know it quite well. Please don't bother."
The whole situation was so unexpected that only then did it dawn onStewart that this blacker shadow was a countrywoman speaking God's ownlanguage. Together, Harmony a foot or so in advance, they made the path.
"The house is there.
Ring hard, the bell is out of order."
"Are you not coming in?"
"No. I--I do not live here."
She must have gone just after that. Stewart, glancing at the dark facadeof the house, turned round to find her gone, and a moment later heardthe closing of the gate. He was bewildered. What sort of curious placewas this, a great looming house that concealed in its garden a fugitiveAmerican girl who came and went like a shadow, leaving only the memoryof a sweet voice strained with fright?
Stewart was full of his encounter as he took the candle the Portiergave him and followed the gentleman's gruff directions up the staircase.Peter admitted him, looking a trifle uneasy, as well he might with Mariein the salon.
Stewart was too preoccupied to notice Peter's expression. He shook therain off his hat, smiling.
"How are you?" asked Peter dutifully.
"Pretty good, except for a headache when I'm tired. What sort of a placehave you got here anyhow, Byrne?"
"Old hunting-lodge of Maria Theresa," replied Peter, still preoccupiedwith Marie and what was coming. "Rather interesting old place."
"Rather," commented Stewart, "with goddesses in the garden and all theusual stunts."
"Goddesses?"
"Ran into one just now among the trees. 'A woman I forswore, but thoubeing a goddess I forswore not thee.' English-speaking goddess, byGeorge!"
Peter was staring at him incredulously; now he bent forward and graspedhis arm in fingers of steel.
"For Heaven's sake, Stewart, tell me what you mean! Who was in thegarden?"
Stewart was amused and interested. It was not for him to belittle asituation of his own making, an incident of his own telling.
"I lost my way in your garden, wandered among the trees, broke through ahedgerow or two, struck a match and consulted the compass--"
Peter's fingers closed.
"Quick," he said.
Stewart's manner lost its jauntiness.
"There was a girl there," he said shortly. "Couldn't see her. She spokeEnglish. Said she didn't live here, and broke for the gate the minute Igot to the path."
"You didn't see her?"
"No. Nice voice, though. Young."
The next moment he was alone. Peter in his dressing-gown was runningdown the staircase to the lower floor, was shouting to the Portier tounlock the door, was a madman in everything but purpose. The Portier lethim out and returned to the bedroom.
"The boy above is worse," he said briefly. "A strange doctor has justcome, and but now the Herr Doktor Byrne runs to the drug store."
The Portier's wife shrugged her shoulders even while tears filled hereyes.
"What can one expect?" she demanded. "The good Herr Gott has forbiddentheft and Rosa says the boy was stolen. Also the druggist has gone tovisit his wife's mother."
"Perhaps I may be of service; I shall go up."
"And see for a moment that hussy of the streets! Remain here. I shallgo."
Slowly and ponderously she climbed the stairs.
Stewart, left alone, wandered along the dim corridor. He found Peter'sexcitement rather amusing. So this was where Peter lived, an old house,isolated in a garden where rambled young women with soft voices. Hello,a youngster asleep! The boy, no doubt.
He wandered on toward the lighted door of the salon and Marie. The placewas warm and comfortable, but over it all hung the indescribable odor ofdrugs that meant illness. He remembered that the boy was frail.
Marie turned as he stopped in the salon doorway, and then rose,white-faced. Across the wide spaces of the room they eyed each other.Marie's crisis had come. Like all crises it was bigger than speech. Itwas after a distinct pause that she spoke.
"Hast thou brought the police?"
Curiously human, curiously masculine at least was Stewart's mentalcondition at that moment. He had never loved the girl; it was withtremendous relief he had put her out of his life. And yet--
"So it's old Peter now, is it?"
"No, no, not that, Walter. He has given me shelter, that is all. I swearit. I look after the boy."
"Who else is here?"
"No one else; but--"
"Tell that rot to some one who does not know you."
"It is true. He never even looks at me. I am wicked, but I do not lie."There was a catch of hope in her voice. Marie knew men somewhat, but shestill cherished the feminine belief that jealousy is love, whereas it isonly injured pride. She took a step toward him. "Walter, I am sorry. Doyou hate me?" She had dropped the familiar "thou."
Stewart crossed the room until only Peter's table and lamp stood betweenthem.
"I didn't mean to be brutal," he said, rather largely, entirelyconscious of his own magnanimity. "It was pretty bad up there and Iknow it. I don't hate you, of course. That's hardly possibleafter--everything."
"You--would take me back?"
"No. It's over, Marie. I wanted to know where you were, that's all; tosee that you were comfortable and not frightened. You're a silly childto think of the police."
Marie put a hand to her throat.
"It is the American, of course."
"Yes."
She staggered a trifle, recovered, threw up her head. "Then I wish I hadkilled her!"
No man ever violently resents the passionate hate of one woman for herrival in his affections. Stewart, finding the situation in hand andMarie only feebly formidable, was rather amused and flattered by thehonest fury in her voice. The mouse was under his paw; he would play abit. "You'll get over feeling that way, kid. You don't really love me."
"You were my God, that is all."
"Will you let me help you--money, I mean?"
"Keep it for her."
"Peter will be here in a minute." He bent over the table and eyed herwith his old, half-bullying, half-playful manner. "Come round here andkiss me for old times."
"No!"
"Come."
She stood stubbornly still, and Stewart, still smiling, took a step ortwo toward her. Then he stopped, ceased smiling, drew himself up.
"You are quite right and I'm a rotter." Marie's English did notcomprehend "rotter," but she knew the tone. "Listen, Marie, I've toldthe other girl, and there's a chance for me, anyhow. Some day she maymarry me. She asked me to see you."
"I do not wish her pity."
"You are wasting your life here. You cannot marry, you say, without adot. There is a chance in America for a clever girl. You are clever,little Marie. The first money I can spare I'll send you--if you'll takeit. It's all I can do."
This was a new Stewart, a man she had never known. Marie recoiled fromhim, eyed him nervously, sought in her childish mind for an explanation.When at last she understood that he was sincere, she broke down.Stewart, playing a new part and raw in it, found the situationirritating. But Marie's tears were not entirely bitter. Back of them herbusy young mind was weaving a new warp of life, with all of America forits loom. Hope that had died lived again. Before her already lay thatgreat country where women might labor and live by the fruit of theirlabor, where her tawdry past would be buried in the center of distantEurope. New life beckoned to the little Marie that night in the oldsalon of Maria Theresa, beckoned to her as it called to Stewart,opportunity to one, love and work to the other. To America!
"I will go," she said at last simply. "And I will not trouble youthere."
"Good!" Stewart held out his hand and Marie took it. With a quickgesture she held it to her cheek, dropped it.
Peter came back half an hour later, downcast but not hopeless. He hadnot found Harmony, but life was not all gray. She was well, still inVienna, and--she had come back! She had cared then enough to come back.To-morrow he would commence again, would comb the city fine, and whenhe had found her he would bring her back, the wanderer, to a marvelouswelcome.
He found Stewart gone, and Marie feverishly overhauling her fewbelongings by the salon lamp. She turned to him a face still stainedwith tears but radiant with hope.
"Peter," she said gravely, "I must prepare my outfit.
I go to America."
"With Stewart?"
"Alone, Peter, to work, to be very good, to be something. I am veryhappy, although--Peter, may I kiss you?"
"Certainly," said Peter, and took her caress gravely, patting her thinshoulder. His thoughts were in the garden with Harmony, who had caredenough to come back.
"Life," said Peter soberly, "life is just one damned thing afteranother, isn't it?"
But Marie was anxiously examining the hem of a skirt.
The letter from Anita reached Stewart the following morning. She said:--
"I have been thinking things over, Walter, and I am going to hurt youvery much--but not, believe me, without hurting myself. Perhaps myuppermost thought just now is that I am disappointing you, that I am notso big as you thought I would be. For now, in this final letter, I cantell you how much I cared. Oh, my dear, I did care!
"But I will not marry you. And when this reaches you I shall have gonevery quietly out of your life. I find that such philosophy as I havedoes not support me to-night, that all my little rules of life areinadequate. Individual liberty was one--but there is no liberty of theindividual. Life--other lives--press too closely. You, living your lifeas seemed best and easiest, and carrying down with you into shipwreckthe little Marie and--myself!
"For, face to face with the fact, I cannot accept it, Walter. It is notonly a question of my past against yours. It is of steady revoltand loathing of the whole thing; not the flash of protest before onesuccumbs to the inevitable, but a deep-seated hatred that is a part ofme and that would never forget.
"You say that you are the same man I would have married, only morehonest for concealing nothing. But--and forgive me this, it insists oncoming up in my mind--were you honest, really? You told me, and it tookcourage, but wasn't it partly fear? What motive is unmixed? Honesty--andfear, Walter. You were preparing against a contingency, although you maynot admit this to yourself.
"I am not passing judgment on you. God forbid that I should! I am onlytrying to show you what is in my mind, and that this break is final. Therevolt is in myself, against something sordid and horrible which I willnot take into my life. And for that reason time will make no difference.
"I am not a child, and I am not unreasonable. But I ask a great deal ofthis life of mine that stretches ahead, Walter--home and children, thelove of a good man, the fulfillment of my ideals. And you ask me tostart with a handicap. I cannot do it. I know you are resentful, but--Iknow that you understand.
"ANITA."