XXXII
Late in the winter the cable brought the news that Amos Hunter had died at Capri. Though the conventionalities were observed, it was doubtful if the event caused even a passing regret in the city where Hunter had been one of the wealthiest citizens. The extinction of this cold and selfish personality was noted, of course, by the closing of his bank for a day; the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade, and the Stock Exchange adopted the usual resolutions, and the newspapers printed editorials in which the old canting, hypocritical phrases were paraded. To his widow, beyond the shock that came with the breaking of the habit of years, there was a mild regret, and the daughter, who was with him when he died, after the American consul had come to her assistance and arranged to send the body home, experienced a stealthy pleasure in her homeward journey she had not known on the outward voyage.
But to the Wards the news came as a distinct relief, for now the danger, if it ever was a danger, that had hung over them for months was definitely removed. They had grown so accustomed to its presence, however, the suspense and uncertainty had become so much a part of their lives that they did not recognize its reality until they found it removed altogether. Ward and Elizabeth had now and then talked about it and speculated on its possibilities of trouble in a world where there was so much trouble; and Mrs. Ward had been haunted by the fear of what her world might say. Now that this danger was passed, she could look on it as a thing that was as if it never had been, and she fondled and caressed her full-grown son more than ever. Ward was glad, but he was not happy. He saw that Dick’s character had been marked definitely. The boy had escaped the artificial law that man had made, but he had not evaded the natural law, and Ward realized, though perhaps not so clearly as Elizabeth realized, that Dick must go on paying the penalty in his character year after year—perhaps to the end of his days.
If it made any real difference to Dick, he did not show it. Very early in the experience he seemed to be fully reassured, and Ward and Elizabeth and Marriott saw plainly that he was not wise enough to find the good that always is concealed somewhere in the bad. Dick took up his old life, and, so far as his restricted opportunities now permitted, sought his old sensations. Elizabeth sadly observed the continued disintegration of his character, expressed to her by such coarse physical manifestations as his excessive eating and drinking and smoking. And she saw that there was nothing she or any one could now do; that no one could help him but himself, and that, like the story of the prodigal of old, which suddenly revealed its hidden meaning to her in this personal contact with a similar experience, he must continue to feed on husks until he came to himself. How few, she thought, had come to themselves! Elizabeth had been near to boasting that her own eyes had been opened, and they had, indeed, been washed by tears, but now she humbly wondered if she had come to herself as yet. She had long ago given up the fictions of society which her mother yet revered; she had abandoned her formal charities, finding them absurd and inadequate. Meanwhile, she waited patiently, hoping that some day she might find the way to life.
She saw nothing of Eades, though she was constantly hearing of his success. His conviction of Archie had given him prestige. He considered the case against Curly Jackson, but finding it impossible to convict him, feeling a lack of public sentiment, he was forced to nolle the indictment against him and reluctantly let him go. In fact, Eades was having his trouble in common with the rest of humanity. Though he had been applauded and praised, all at once, for some mysterious reason he could not understand but could only feel in its effect, he discovered an eccentricity in the institution he revered. For a while it was difficult to convict any one; verdict after verdict of not guilty was rendered in the criminal court; there seemed to be a reaction against punishment.
When Amos Hunter died, Eades began to think again of Elizabeth Ward. He assured himself that after this lapse of time, now that the danger was removed, Elizabeth would respect him for his high-minded impartiality and devotion to duty, and, indeed, understand what a sacrifice it had been to him to decide as he had. And he resolved that at the first opportunity he would speak to her again. He did not have to wait long for the opportunity. A new musician had come to town, and, with his interest in all artistic endeavors, Braxton Parrish had taken up this frail youth who could play the violin, and had arranged a recital at his home.
Elizabeth went because Parrish had asked her especially and because her mother had urged it on her, “out of respect to me,” as Mrs. Ward put it. When she got there, she told herself she was glad she had come because she could now realize how foreign all this artificial life had become to her; she was glad to have the opportunity to correct her reckoning, to see how far she had progressed. She found, however, no profit in it, though the boy, whose playing she liked, interested her. He stood in the music-room under the mellow light, and his slender figure bending gracefully to his violin, and his sensitive, fragile, poetic face, had their various impressions for her; but she sat apart and after a while, when the supper was served, she found a little nook on a low divan behind some palms. But Eades discovered her in her retreat.
“I have been wondering whether my fate was settled—after that last time we met,” he said, after the awkward moment in which they exchanged banalities.
The wonder was in his words alone; she could not detect the uncertainty she felt would have become him.
“Is it settled?”
“Yes, it is settled.”
He was taken aback, but he was determined, always determined. He could not suppose that, in the end, she would actually refuse him.
“Of course,” he began again, “I could realize that for a time you would naturally feel resentful—though that isn’t the word—but now—that the necessity is passed—that I am in a sense free—I had let myself begin to hope again.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, almost sick at heart. “You didn’t understand that day.”
“Why, I thought I did. You wanted me—to let him go.”
“Yes.”
“And because I loved you, to prove that I loved you—”
“Exactly.”
“Well, then, didn’t I understand you?”
“No.”
“Well, I confess,” he leaned back helplessly, “you baffle me.”
“Oh, but it wasn’t a bargain,” she said. Her gray eyes looked calmly into his as she told him what she knew was not accurately the truth, and she was glad of the moment because it gave her the opportunity to declare false what had so long been true to her, and, just as she had feared, true to him. She felt restored, rehabilitated in her old self-esteem, and she relished his perplexity.
“It seems inconsistent,” he said.
“Does it? How strange!” She said it coldly, and slowly she took her eyes from him. They were silent for a while.
“Then my fate is settled—irrevocably?” he asked at length.
“Yes, irrevocably.”
“I wish,” he complained, “that I understood.”
“I wish you did,” she replied.
“Can’t you tell me?”
“Don’t force me to.”
“Very well,” he said, drawing himself up. “I beg your pardon.” These words, however, meant that the apology should have been hers.
As they drove home, her mother said to her:
“What were you and John Eades talking about back there in that corner?”
“An old subject.”
“Was he—” Mrs. Ward was burning with a curiosity she did not, however, like to put into words.
Elizabeth laughed.
“Yes,” she said, “he was. But I settled him.”
“I hope you were not—”
“Brutal?”
“Well, perhaps not that—you, of course, could not be that.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
They discussed Eades as the carriage rolled along, but their points of view could never be the same.
“And yet, after all, dear,” Mrs. Ward was saying, “we must be just. I don’t see—”
“No,” Elizabeth interrupted her mother. “You don’t see. None of you can see. It wasn’t because he wouldn’t let Dick go. It was because that one act of his revealed his true nature, his real self; showed me that he isn’t a man, but a machine; not a human being, but a prosecutor; he’s an institution, and one can’t marry an institution, you know,” she concluded oddly.
“Elizabeth!” said Mrs. Ward. “That doesn’t sound quite ladylike or nice!”
Elizabeth laughed lightly now, in the content that came with the new happiness that was glowing within her.