Chapter XII
He had completely forgotten, in the press of dramatic events, the disturbing fact of Nan Charters’ return the night of the theft. He remembered it suddenly, as one remembers sorrow after a profound sleep. But the recalling of it affected him differently. The revelation of Mrs. Bloodgood’s hidden life had left him in a dangerous and vulnerable mood—a mood of quickened compassion and outgoing sympathy. He was still determined to force a direct answer from Miss Charters, but already he had formed that answer in his heart, as he for the hour felt no longer the selfish combat of vanity, but the need of charity and gentleness.
In one of the profound moods which color the visible world, he stood at the window of the little sitting-room, awaiting her arrival, looking out on the serried flight of unutterably commonplace roofs, gray and drab with the gray of the turning day. And it seemed to him that this twilight was different from other twilights, heavily weighted down with more of the sadness of inexplicable lives. One tragedy seemed to invoke a thousand tragedies, in the cramped immobility of these inscrutable windows which had not yet begun to warm with the flicker of human cheer. He saw only the brutal struggle to live, and felt only the mystery of suffering, which was still a thing apart from his life. Standing reverently thus, he asked himself two questions which, sooner or later, each man of heart and sensibility puts to himself in the awakening to conscious existence:
“Why do they go on?”
“What is my justification?”
And in his heart, still young and stirred to sympathy, he felt the beginning of a revolt at what he had been, at his inability to find a satisfying answer to that second question. He no longer awaited the interview in the spirit of strife, but with a sudden feeling of impulsive friendliness which, had he been an older man, might have alarmed him with its dangers. The profound melancholy of youth, violent because unconquered and strange, had him still in its grip when, all at once, he felt an emotion of well-being and returning comfort.
She came into the room and without formal greeting gave him her hand with a welcome in her eyes, as though their friendship were of such strong duration that formalities were out of place.
“Draw the curtains,” she said, going to the electric lamp on the table, which woke like a golden sun from the shadows. “It’s cozier. Shall we light the fire? Yes, it’s more cheery.”
“Let me,” he said hastily.
“Quite unnecessary.”
He watched her sudden stooping movement, that brought the loose, intricate tea-gown about her agile body, outlining the limbs, which had the quick animal grace that is peculiar to the unconquered maiden. Her pose, strong and alive with power and self-reliance, recalled to him sharply the sense of opposition. He was annoyed that she should have done so naturally what he should have done, feeling in her too much self-reliance.
She rose, looking down with a childish delight at the sudden burst and roar of the flame. Then she turned, studying his face. The artist in her made her quickly aware of the remnants of the emotion which had stirred him.
“What is it?” she said, with the gentleness that was tantalizing to him. “You have a strange look.”
“Yes,” he answered; “I have been behind the scenes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have been with Mrs. Bloodgood all the afternoon—found her at the station as she was leaving.”
“Mrs. Bloodgood was running away,” she said, puzzled, but with a fear in her eyes that did not escape him.
“What—you did not know!” he exclaimed. “Majendie killed himself this afternoon at two o’clock.”
“Majendie—Mrs. Bloodgood!”
She looked at him a moment with a face struck with horror, and then fell back into a chair, seized with the suddenness of the climax.
“I beg your pardon; I thought you knew,” he blurted out.
“No, no—nothing. Tell me—tell me all,” she said; and he saw that back of her alarm was a significance to her that heightened the effect of the tragedy.
He told her first the bare details of the suicide as he knew them; and then, in response to her hurried questions, began to retell the afternoon. He spoke impulsively, almost as an echo of the drama he had witnessed. Occasionally she stopped him with a more detailed question. Moved out of his self-consciousness, he described, more eloquently than he knew, the conflict between the two women at Mrs. Kildair’s, and the emotions which had suddenly brought him wide-eyed to the spectacle of the black, turbulent river of despair.
“I can’t forget it—it haunts me now,” he said, when he had ended with Mrs. Bloodgood’s return into the home of her husband. “It makes me see something in life I didn’t understand—that I am just beginning to see.”
He looked at her. Her face was wet with tears. All at once, astonished, he recalled what he had told.
“What have I done?” he cried, aghast. “I had no right to repeat it. I didn’t realize what I was saying!”
“Don’t fear,” she said, shuddering, and she extended her hands to the fire, as though the recital had frozen her body. “Poor woman—poor, lonely woman!”
He sat down near her, close to the fire, and, stretching out his hand, touched her arm.
“Listen, Nan,” he said, so profoundly that she could not mistake the emotion. “It has made a great difference in me. It may be a mood—it may pass; but I hope it won’t. It makes me dissatisfied. Look here—I don’t want to go on as we have, thrusting and parrying. I don’t want it to be just a game. The real feeling in me toward a woman is different—it’s one of chivalry, I know. Let’s drop all artifices. Let’s be honest with each other—good friends, or something else, as it may come.”
She considered the depths of the fire a moment, and turned, looking at him dreamily, feeling how much older she was in the knowledge of the doubts of the world than the young, impulsive nature that looked out at her from such honest eyes.
“Will you?” he asked, as she looked away again.
She shook her head, in doubt as to an answer; but the good in her stirred by the good in him expressed itself in the quick pressure of thanks which her hand conveyed to him.
“I am not the least in love,” he said quickly. “What I say I say because—oh, I don’t know! I’m dissatisfied with myself. This thing has gotten below my skin. Life’s too rotten. I want you to believe in me—in my strength. You are sympathetic—multa sympatica. I don’t know; I hate to think of your fighting alone such a rotten hard fight.”
She nodded slowly, understanding perhaps better than he his thought, yet half won to his appeal already.
She took his hand in both of hers, pressing it in emphasis from time to time, not looking at him, staring at something that formed before her eyes.
“No one has ever spoken to me just like this,” she said gently. “One thing I would never want to happen, Teddy—I would never want to hurt you! That is why I hesitate—why I am afraid. You are only a great big boy. You won’t understand me. I am very selfish—very worldly.”
“You are nothing of the sort,” he said furiously, withdrawing his hand. “You may think so, but I know you better.”
She turned, amused; but her smile left her as she looked into his eyes. To her surprise, a feeling of unease came to her; she felt a new longing—to be for a moment quite childlike and helpless.
“Don’t blunder into anything, Teddy,” she answered, shaking her head, herself a little disturbed. “With some men I would not care. With you—yes, it would make me feel like a criminal to hurt you.”
He understood that she was warning him of the futility of expecting to find in her a woman. But if she had calculated, which she had not, on any move surer to arouse him, she could have found no better expedient. The impossibility implied, coupled with the impulsive generosity in her voice, made her a thousand times more desirable. He rose brusquely, and, standing with his back to the fire, looked down at the dramatic face, which the flames lighted with the flare of footlights.
“There are certain things that we must understand together,” he said with authority, obeying the instinct which told him that to succeed he must take the upper hand.
Her eyebrows came together in a straight flight.
“I have not hesitated to trust in you—you must in me. Tell me. You have reason to suspect that Mrs. Bloodgood took the ring—at least, the first time?”
She shook her head, but without anger.
“Don’t you understand,” he said quickly, “that I must know why you acted as you did?”
Still her only answer was a deep-taken breath.
“I swear to you, if Mrs. Bloodgood did take it,” he said, “I would not condemn her. On the contrary, I would pity her.”
“Why should Mrs. Bloodgood, who has millions, do such a thing?” she said quietly.
“Because, from what I know, Mrs. Bloodgood, who has millions, as the wife of Enos Bloodgood, has not as much money in her pocket as you or I.” He stopped. “She took it to have some means of escape, didn’t she?”
“No, she did not take it,” she answered, but in a tone that brought no conviction.
“You see, I know that you returned to Mrs. Kildair’s that night,” he said, irritated.
“How did you know?” she said quickly.
“Mrs. Kildair told me—no, that’s not true; some one else did.”
“Mrs. Kildair herself called me on the telephone and asked me to come,” she said slowly.
“And questioned you?”
“Yes.”
“As to what you had seen?” he said, with a great feeling of relief that should have warned him of his true interest.
“Yes.”
“What did you answer?”
She rose and approached him, looking at him with only friendliness.
“If the ring is not restored in two weeks,” she said, “then I will tell you what you wish to know.”
“You think that, if Mrs. Bloodgood took it, she will now have no use for it,” he persisted, seizing the idea.
“I know nothing at all,” she answered, emphasizing the “know.” “This promise must satisfy you. I only have a suspicion, and I don’t want to do an injustice to another—remember that. I have never said it was Mrs. Bloodgood I suspected. Now I want to talk to you about my own affairs.”
He was covered with contrition that he should have forgotten her difficulties.
“Good heavens!” he said hastily. “What have I been thinking of? Please don’t think I don’t care; I’ve been in such a whirl—”
She checked him with a gesture and a smile, motioning him to sit down again.
“Have you had any word?”
She shook her head.
“Of course, it’s a terrible day on the Street,” he hastened to reply. “Everything’s up in the air—they’re like a lot of lunatics. Garraboy hasn’t had time to think. That oughtn’t to alarm you.”
“But I left word at his office for him to telephone me, and it is now,” she said, glancing at the clock, “an hour and a half since the close.”
“There are probably a hundred inquiries of the same sort awaiting him,” he said to reassure her. “What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know—and yet I am a little anxious. Suppose he has used my stocks? Such things happen every day.”
“The best thing is to find out at once how Garraboy stands—if he’s been caught in the drop or not. Then we can take our measures.”
“How’ll you do that?”
“Call up Bruce Gunther and get him on the trail. May I telephone?”
“Do so.”
“He’s probably at the club now,” he said, taking up the receiver and giving a number. “Yes, he’s in. That’s lucky. I’ll get him in a moment.” Then he added irritably: “How the deuce did you ever come to deal with Garraboy?”
“Why, I’ve known him ever since I came to New York. I wanted to invest some money—I didn’t know any one else; and then, he was very—friendly; wanted to make some money for me. That’s how it was.”
“Hello,” said Beecher. “Is that you, Bruce? It’s I—Ted.”
“Where the deuce have you been?” said the voice at the other end. “I’ve been trying to get you all over town.”
“You have?”
“You bet I have; McKenna’s turned up a real clue—wants to see you at once. Pick me up here at the club, will you?”
“All right. But say, Bruce, I want you to do something for me. Find out all you can about Garraboy—you know, the fellow we spoke about. Has he been on the wrong side of the market or not? Understand? It’s important.”
“I’ll do it. Anything else?”
“Yes. A friend of mine has some stocks with him, about twenty thousand worth—you see the situation—and she’s a little bit worried. Can’t get any satisfaction.”
“Wants ’em back?”
“Yes. What’s the best way to do?”
“Um! Get a transfer to you and call for them tomorrow.”
“Of course; see you later.”
He put down the telephone and turned gaily to his companion, who was waiting with anxiety.
“That’s all right. Bruce will get the information and I’ll telephone you this evening. Now, the best way to operate is this.” He took out his check-book and wrote a check for twenty thousand dollars to her name. “I’ll buy those stocks. Here’s my check; give me an acknowledgment for the shares, with an order on Garraboy to deliver.”
She looked at him doubtfully, holding the check gingerly in her fingers.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “If there’s any little difference one way or the other, we can arrange that later.”
“Supposing Garraboy has failed and sold my stocks?”
“He hasn’t.”
“But if he has?”
“That’s my risk,” he started to say, but checked himself. “Why, of course, then it’s off. This is just to give me the power to get them away at once. A man can do what a woman can’t.”
She was grateful to him for his perception of delicacy.
“On that basis, yes,” she said. Then she stopped and looked at him with a whimsical but favoring smile. “As it is, Teddy, what do you know of me to take even this chance?”
The opening was too direct. She saw it at once, and, to forestall his answer, said more lightly:
“It is a great service. Tell me what to write.”
As she was drawing up the paper under his directions, a placid, emotionless woman of forty entered from the rear.
“That Mr. Hargrave is here, Nan dear,” she said. “You gave him an appointment, you know.”
“Mrs. Tilbury, my companion,” said Miss Charters. “Very well; in a moment.”
Mrs. Tilbury passed patiently out to deliver the message. Beecher was delighted with the correctness and cold respectability of such a chaperon.
“Mr. Hargrave is a young dramatist,” said Miss Charters, finishing the document. “He’s coming to read some masterpiece to me. He wrote a one-act piece three years ago that was very clever, and now, of course, I can’t risk refusing to hear him—he might have a work of genius at last. This is my fourth trial.” She put the paper from her impatiently. “I’m sorry.”
He was displeased also at this sudden recall of the other life in her, the world of the theater, which crowded the walls with its signed photographs.
“I’ll telephone as soon as I know,” he said, dissembling his irritation.
She went to the door with him, annoyed also at the interruption.
“I’m coming tomorrow,” he said, and he held out his hand with a little defiance.
She did not resent the assumption of right, still introspectively puzzled at the new moods into which she had fallen. And, still pensive, she said:
“Come.”
Below, in the anteroom, he sent a look of antagonism and scorn at a young man, a little extravagantly dressed, who carried a portfolio under his arm with a sense, too, of irritation and pride.