Chapter XXII
Half an hour later Gunther and Beecher, leaving McKenna’s office with a promise to return that evening, went up town. In Beecher’s pocket was a check on McKenna representing the amount of Miss Charters’ account. Garraboy remained in the custody of the detective.
“Well, what do you think of it?” said Gunther.
“I think Garraboy lied,” said Beecher.
“Oh, about the reason he tried to take the ring—yes, naturally. He could make a plausible reason for that—you’d hardly expect him to say in so many words that he was a thief, if he really didn’t get the ring, as he says.”
“I think he cooked up the lie right there,” said Beecher obstinately. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“I don’t know—I sort of think he told the truth.”
“Do you think any woman would have the nerve to go on after she had felt a hand on hers and knew that some one had a clue, not absolutely definite but almost so?”
“But, Ted, if any one denounced her, wouldn’t he have to acknowledge the fact of his own motive? That would be enough to shut any one up.”
“I think Garraboy lied,” persisted Beecher. “I think he had a part in the theft and at least I am sure he knows all about it.”
“Listen to reason,” said Gunther warmly. “If Garraboy signed a confession like McKenna handed him, he wouldn’t stop at returning a ring—particularly when he knows that McKenna will keep hold of him till the affair is closed up. No, no; Garraboy says he’s cleared $200,000—you may be sure he’s got considerably more. He’s satisfied. He wants to get away from here quick. McKenna’s not the only one on his track, you may be sure of that. No, it doesn’t stand to reason he’d balk at a little matter like the ring.”
Beecher was silent, digesting the argument.
“There may be one explanation,” he said at length. “You noticed that the fellow was particularly anxious to know if Mrs. Kildair was behind us?”
“Yes, I noticed all that.”
“Now McKenna thinks, and I do too, that Mrs. Kildair all along has known who took the ring and has only been held up before this from prosecuting on account of a possible scandal.”
“But, that’s over now—nothing can be said—it was an engagement ring, of course.”
“Exactly; and that’s the reason why I’m going to make this guess—that Garraboy, knowing the game was up, returned the ring this morning.”
“By George!”
“And that’s the reason he told the lie he did—knowing that everything will blow over in twenty-four hours.”
“Ted, by the Lord Harry, I believe you’ve hit it!” said Gunther excitedly. “I say—”
“What?”
“Let’s go up to your rooms—there may be a letter from Mrs. Kildair.”
Full of eagerness they went to Beecher’s rooms—only to return empty-handed and disappointed. Then they hurried to the club and searched the letter-boxes without success.
Disappointed and impatient they went in to a late lunch.
“What are you going to do about that check of Miss Charters’?” said Gunther in an aggressive tone.
“Take it round to her,” said Beecher, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Mail it.”
“Why?”
“Gratitude and a pretty woman are a dangerous combination,” said Gunther gruffly; “especially for something soft like you.”
“You damned, impertinent cuss,” said Beecher acridly.
“Fact. Better let me call a messenger boy and send it around.”
But in the pleased state of mind in which he was, Beecher had not the slightest intention of surrendering the delightful opportunity which the visit promised. Likewise, he was indignant at hearing from Gunther the same implications which amused him from the lips of a fascinating woman like Emma Fornez.
“You’ve got a fine idea of me,” he answered hotly.
“I have.”
“According to you, I oughtn’t to be allowed to roam the streets without a keeper.”
“Exactly expressed.”
“Don’t alarm yourself,” said Beecher in a lofty, superior tone, and, believing every word, he added, “I’m quite able to take care of myself. I know how to amuse myself—and I know it is amusing myself, thank you. You think I don’t know anything about women—well, I know better than some people how to keep my head straight.”
“So you’re going around?” said Gunther with a grin.
“I am.”
“I thought you said you had never met any one who could make you so angry?”
“Come and get me at five o’clock,” said Beecher, with a trifling wave of his hand.
“I begin to have my doubts,” said Gunther slowly, with the air of one steeling himself against a great calamity.
Beecher had no such anticipation as he went lightly out of the club and took his way up the Avenue. For the last day he had thought much more of the possible feelings of Nan Charters toward his own receptive person than of analyzing the impregnability of his own position. He had not telephoned, desiring to effect a little surprise. But as he neared his destination he remembered that she might possibly be out.
“In that case I’ll leave a little note—just a line with the check—as though it were a casual affair,” he said to himself.
But Miss Charters was in. An automobile was at the curb which he thought he recognized.
Miss Charters herself answered the door, detaining him a moment in the anteroom.
“I am so glad you came,” she said in a low voice, but one in which it was impossible to mistake the pleasure. “I wanted you to know that. A friend of yours is here—but he won’t stay long,” she added softly, with that gentle appeal in her voice against which he knew no defense. “You’ll stay—I want you to.”
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Mr. Lorraine.” And as she saw the instant stiffening that went through him, she said quickly, with that subtle, merciless flattery of which only women have the command, “Shall I send him away—if you wish?”
“No.”
The two men greeted each other boisterously, but underneath their heartiness was a sudden sense of invaded territory.
“Is he interested?” thought Lorraine, with an uneasy glance. “And why did she go out into the hall?”
“What’s his right here? Was he here to lunch, I wonder?” thought Beecher, and for the first time he felt something hot surging inside of himself.
Each with an extra show of cordiality began to talk, addressing their remarks to the other. Only Lorraine, whose tenancy was thus threatened, continued to prolong his stay, anxiously watching the effect on the woman. At the end of half an hour, he no longer doubted, she was only waiting for him to go, uneasy and resentful at his delay.
He rose, heavy of heart, and shook hands with Beecher, whom he would have liked to throttle, and nodding to Miss Charters, went toward the hall, hoping that she would follow him. But women in love match the wordless surrender and tenderness they show to the man to whom they yield with an equal cruelty toward those whose misfortune is to have loved them. She did not move, waiting impatiently until she heard the tardy click of the door. Then she went to him directly, standing quite close, looking up at him like a penitent schoolgirl.
“I thought he’d never go,” she said impatiently, and then with an uneasy, searching look in her eyes, she said contritely: “Do you think I am very terrible?”
He smiled and shook his head, but without profiting by the opportunity her attitude invited.
“You were engaged to Charlie once, weren’t you?” he said, trying to give the question an accent of natural curiosity.
“No, never.”
“Almost?”
She shook her head impatiently at the introduction of this topic.
“People said so.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“But he is in love with you,” he said positively.
What she did not like was the quiet, inconsequential way he spoke, for in her own mood she did not detect the jealousy underneath.
“Please don’t let us talk of Mr. Lorraine,” she said quickly. “I have never been engaged to Mr. Lorraine and never could; first, because I don’t intend to marry, and, second, because if I did, Mr. Lorraine could never appeal to me.”
She broke off and going to the telephone said to him over her shoulder:
“You’re not in a hurry?”
“No.”
“Good—then we need not be interrupted.”
She called the office and left word that she would not be at home. Then, rising, she came slowly back, very subdued, still alarmed at the undisturbed friendship in his look.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come to see such a little virago,” she said softly.
“I came to see you on a matter of business,” he said, without thinking of his words.
Her face fell.
“Oh, indeed.”
He drew out his pocketbook and took out the check.
“Mr. Garraboy is leaving very suddenly for Europe,” he said, turning over the bit of paper. “He has decided to wind up his affairs. He wished me to give you this check in settlement of your account,” with him.
She stood quite still, her arms behind her back, but her eyes dangerously brilliant.
“If it’s only on business you came,” she said, breathing deep, “you can keep your check.”
“But—”
“Is it only on business you go to see other women?”
He extended the check, and the jealousy Lorraine’s presence had brought him made him seek to hurt her a little more.
“Don’t be unreasonable,” he said.
“If you don’t answer,” she said, stamping her foot, “I will tear it into pieces!”
A quick, impulsive joy went through him at this revealing anger.
“I came because I wanted to see you,” he said with a provoking delight in his eyes. “This is of no importance.”
She took the check, still looking at him, became calmer, smiled, and then with a determined bob of her head, went to place it on her writing-desk. All at once she turned quickly:
“But this is signed McKenna!”
“That’s a detail.”
“Your friend McKenna, the detective? Then you forced this out of him?”
“It wasn’t very hard.”
She let the check flutter from her fingers to the desk, thoughtfully considering it, divining slowly what it meant.
“I am unreasonable,” she said quietly, returning and holding out her hand. “Thank you. Why did you bother—after the way I acted?”
“Well, just because,” he answered, looking down into her eyes.
“So, Garraboy is a defaulter,” she said slowly.
“I cannot tell you any more.”
All at once a thought came to her and an anxious frown passed over her forehead.
“None of this is your money?” she said quickly.
“No.”
“On your honor?”
“Yes.”
“It is a great thing you have done for me,” she said solemnly. “I am very grateful.”
“Nonsense,” he said lightly. “It was no trouble. I would have done it for any one.”
They were near the great dormer-windows, high above the threaded smoke and gray roofs of the city, now blending into fuzzy masses with the closing of the day.
“Well, now that your business is over,” she said, but with a new lightness, “I suppose you must be going?”
“What do you want me to say?” he said, smiling with a growing feeling of well-being.
“Why did you come?” she repeated maliciously, and, half-laughing, half-determined, she took the lapel of his coat in a gesture which, in her fingers, was almost a caress. She stood looking up at him, so happy, so brimming with the satisfaction of having him back, of regaining what she had feared to lose, that he could not resist the desire in her eyes.
“Because I like you,” he said.
“Despite my tantrums and my moods?”
“On account of them.”
“And would you have done what you did—for any one?”
“Come to think of it—no.”
She was not content. She would rather that he had answered more sentimentally. She felt that he was stronger than she was, more controlled.
“Are you interested in Emma Fornez?” she said, looking away from him.
“Oh,—interested.”
“You like her?”
“Yes, very much.”
“I shouldn’t like to have you talked about.”
He did not answer.
“What have I done that displeases you, Teddy?” she said all at once.
But before he could answer, the room behind them dropped suddenly back into darkness.
“The light’s gone out,” she said, startled, her hand on his arm.
“The current’s cut—that’s all,” he answered.
“I’ll light a lamp.”
“No. It’s good here. Wait. It’ll only be a moment.”
They remained in the dark, turning their glances out of the window, suddenly conscious of the panorama of the evening, the stir of departing multitudes, the end of labor and the evening of rest.
“How plainly you can see,” he said. “That’s Brooklyn Bridge, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
At the east three giant spans stood out across the unreal gray view that had neither banks nor green approaches, that cut its way like an invading flood through the cities. Innumerable, cottony puffs of steam, busy, hurrying, restless, rose from unseen hulls across the fading silhouettes of tangled spans. High to the south from a cyclopean tower a single ball of fire was shining. Below, in the long, straight avenues, the city was putting on its necklaces of brilliants; and from the black dotted masses that must be there somewhere in the growing obscurity, rushing home over the backs of the waters, high above housetops or deep through the bowels of the city, a great sigh seemed to rise with the sudden freshening of the twilight breeze, and the two human beings who looked down, as God looks down on this spectacle of a moving world, found nothing to express the sudden melancholy that troubled them, awakening vague desires, stirring them with the feeling of their own littleness.
“Come,” she said, turning away the first, and, lingering, looking back, placed a hand on his arm, repeating, “Come.”
He did not reply, looking beyond, deeply penetrated by all this humanity that each moment receded farther from them, isolating them, lifting them above the world into the loneliness of the skies. Her hand remained on his arm unconsciously, but this weight so soft but yet so imperious recalled him to himself. He thought no longer of what lay without. He looked at her. She was trembling. He too felt the subtle, disturbing restlessness of this dark that closed in about them, shutting out the peopled world—this mood of the day that exerts over human beings such a compelling desire.
She turned and looked at him. He could not see her face distinctly, only the eyes—that seemed incapable of seeing all but this. Then abruptly, brusquely, by the same mutual impulse, they were in each other’s arms, straining to each other, their lips irresistibly closed over each other, feeling themselves more and more wrapped around by this soft darkness that had cast them up, enfolding their loneliness in the great protective instinct of human love.
The room flared up brilliantly. She recovered herself the first, drawing herself out of his arms, covering her face with fingers that still throbbed with the agony of their embrace.
They could not look at each other, bewildered by the suddenness of what had happened. She went past him hurriedly to the fireplace, sitting down. He followed irresolutely, feeling his feet unsteady beneath him, all the intellectual forces within him submerged, drunk, overthrown by the sudden, delirious awakening of his senses, suddenly aroused by this revelation of woman.
“What have we done? What was it?” she said breathlessly, without facing him. “We are crazy, Teddy,—crazy!”
He came heavily to the other end of the fireplace, leaning on the mantel, looking down at the woman who was no longer an indefinite mystery of silks and colors, but a moving, living body that had stirred in his arms.
“Teddy, we are crazy,” she repeated. “What possessed us?”
“It is you who are crazy now,” he said abruptly. “What is the use of arguing? Those things are beyond us. It is over—it is settled. We had nothing to do with it.”
“No, no,” she cried vigorously, jumping up. “It is not right. It isn’t fair to you. We were swept off our feet.”
“Thank Heaven, yes.”
“But it’s impossible, it’s crazy—it’s senseless. I don’t want to marry, I don’t want to fall in love. I want to be free—I must be free—I know that—you know that. So what then?”
“What’s the use of arguing? It’s been settled for us.”
“But it isn’t settled. I lost my head—you lost your head. We didn’t know what we were doing. Marriage is impossible, absurd. I’m not a woman to marry—you would be unhappy—don’t you see how ridiculous it is? I think only of myself—my career—”
“What’s all that amount to—you love me and I love you. It’s always been so—we’ve been fools and I didn’t know it.”
“But I don’t know it,” she cried; but at the same breath she knew that it was so. But this knowledge only roused in her the spirit to combat, to remit, to put away from her the threatening obstacle.
“Nonsense. Why didn’t you let me go? You wouldn’t; you brought me back; you couldn’t help it—and I came. I would have come if you had called me. I’ve said all that you say myself—what good did it do me? Here I am!”
“Well, then—yes, we may love each other,” she said desperately. “I don’t know. I cannot reason it out—it may be so, perhaps—but even then? Teddy, it can’t go on. Don’t you see how wicked it would be—how wrong? Your wife can’t be on the stage, and I can’t give it up. It’s everything—it’s been my whole life. We must be strong—we must stop it. It’s absurd—it’s wrong.”
She came to him, seized with the two contrary impulses: an instinctive revolt, a desire to force him from her life, and something just as instinctive and irresistible that drew her back to him; and at the moment she said the most firmly, “No, no, it’s absurd, it’s wrong,” she put out her hand and caught her fingers in his coat collar, just behind his ear, under the masses of his hair.
He caught her to him, wrapping his arms around her; she continued to protest but, without resisting, her head dropped on his shoulder, her eyes closed, her lips breathlessly open.
All at once from the hall came the sound of a key in the latch. They disengaged themselves hurriedly, arranging their disordered hair, standing ridiculously apart.
From the antechamber came the voice of Miss Tilbury, the chaperon, discreetly remaining without:
“Nan, dear, Mr. Hargrave is below. He has come for his manuscript.”
“But I’m not at home,” she said in a muffled voice.
“You ought to send it down to him, really.”
“Mr. Beecher is here—aren’t you coming in?”
“In a moment.”
The steps died out going to the back. Beecher, who had looked at the clock, uttered an exclamation. She came to him quickly, with the motions of the alert feline, and seizing his wrist said quickly:
“Listen, Teddy, I will not hold you to what has happened. We are out of our senses, you and I. We are crazy—crazy. You must not see me for a while—two days at least—until we know what we are doing. Go, now, please—”
Then, suddenly remembering that the same Hargrave had been the innocent cause of a little pain to him, she went quickly to the table and took up the offending play, and with that fine instinct of a woman to give even the smallest revenge to the man she loves, said:
“Take this. Give it to Hargrave yourself. Say I cannot see him.”
“I shall see you tomorrow.”
“No, no; but telephone tonight.”
She listened a moment, her ear toward the hall like a child, and then sprang into his arms, and this time it seemed to him that it was she, not he, who dominated the embrace.