CHAPTER XX. TWO LIFE PIECES
"It's a fine day."
"Yes, it's beautiful."
Fleda wanted to ask how he knew, but hesitated from feelings ofdelicacy. Ingolby seemed to understand. A faint reflection of the oldwhimsical smile touched his lips, and his hands swept over the coverletas though smoothing out a wrinkled map.
"The blind man gets new senses," he said dreamily. "I feel things whereI used to see them. How did I know it was a fine day? Simple enough.When the door opened there was only the lightest breath of wind, and theair was fresh and crisp, and I could smell the sun. One sense less, moredegree of power to the other senses. The sun warms the air, gives it aflavour, and between it and the light frost, which showed that it wasdry outside, I got the smell of a fine Fall day. Also, I heard the cryof the wild fowl going South, and they wouldn't have made a sound ifit hadn't been a fine day. And also, and likewise, and besides, andhowsomever, I heard Jim singing, and that nigger never sings in badweather. Jim's a fair-weather raven, and this morning he was singinglike a 'lav'rock in the glen.'"
Being blind, he could not see that, suddenly, a storm of emotion sweptover her face.
His cheerfulness, his boylike simplicity, his indomitable spirit, whichhad survived so much, and must still face so much, his almost childlikeways, and the naive description of a blind man's perception, waked inher an almost intolerable yearning. It was not the yearning of a maidfor a man. It was the uncontrollable woman in her, the mother-thing,belonging to the first woman that ever was-protection of the weak,hovering love for the suffering, the ministering spirit.
Since Ingolby had been brought to the house in the pines, Madame Bulteeland herself, with Jim, had nursed him through the Valley of the Shadow.They had nursed him through brain-fever, through agonies which couldnot have been borne with consciousness. The tempest of the mind and thepains of misfortune went on from hour to hour, from day to day, almostwithout ceasing, until at last, a shadow of his former self, but with awonderful light on his face which came from something within, he waitedpatiently for returning strength, propped up with pillows in the bedwhich had been Fleda's own, in the room outside which Jethro Fawe hadsung his heathen serenade.
It was the room of the house which, catching the morning sun, was bestsuited for an invalid. So she had given it to him with an eagernessbehind which was the feeling that somehow it made him more of the innercircle of her own life; for apart from every other feeling she had,there was in her a deep spirit of comradeship belonging to far-off timeswhen her life was that of the open road, the hillside and the vale. Inthose days no man was a stranger; all belonged.
To meet, and greet, and pass was the hourly event, but the meetingand the greeting had in it the familiarity of a common wandering, thesympathy of the homeless. Had Ingolby been less to her than he was,there would still have been the comradeship which made her the greatcreature she was fast becoming. It was odd that, as Ingolby becamethinner and thinner, and ever more wan, she, in spite of her ceaselessnursing, appeared to thrive physically. She had even slightly increasedthe fulness of her figure. The velvet of her cheeks had grown richer,and her eyes deeper with warm fire. It was as though she flourished ongiving: as though a hundred nerves of being and feeling had opened upwithin her and had expanded her life like some fine flower.
Gazing at Ingolby now there was a great hungering desire in her heart.She looked at the sightless eyes, and a passionate protest sprang to herlips which, in spite of herself, broke forth in a sort of moan.
"What is it?" Ingolby asked, with startled face.
"Nothing," she answered, "nothing. I pricked my finger badly, that'sall."
And, indeed, she had done so, but that would not have brought the moanto her lips.
"Well, it didn't sound like a pricked finger complaint," he remarked."It was the kind of groan I'd give if I had a bad pain inside."
"Ah, but you're a man!" she remarked lightly, though two tears fell downher cheeks.
With an effort she recovered herself. "It's time for your tonic," sheadded, and she busied herself with giving it to him. "As soon as youhave taken it, I'm going for a walk, so you must make up your mind tohave some sleep."
"Am I to be left alone?" he asked, with an assumed grievance in hisvoice.
"Madame Bulteel will stay with you," she replied.
"Do you need a walk so very badly?" he asked presently.
"I don't suppose I need it, but I want it," she answered. "My feet andthe earth are very friendly."
"Where do you walk?" he asked.
"Just anywhere," was her reply. "Sometimes up the river, sometimes down,sometimes miles away in the woods."
"Do you never take a gun with you?"
"Of course," she answered, nodding, as though he could see. "I get wildpigeons and sometimes a wild duck or a prairie-hen."
"That's right," he remarked; "that's right."
"I don't believe in walking just for the sake of walking," shecontinued. "It doesn't do you any good, but if you go for something andget it, that's what puts the mind and the body right."
Suddenly his face grew grave. "Yes, that's it," he remarked.
"To go for something you want, a long way off. You don't feel the fagwhen you're thinking of the thing at the end; but you've got to have thething at the end, to keep making for it, or there's no good going--noneat all. That's life; that's how it is. It's no good only walking--you'vegot to walk somewhere. It's no good simply going--you've got to gosomewhere. You've got to fight for something. That's why, when they takethe something you fight for away--when they break you and cripple you,and you can't go anywhere for what you want badly, life isn't worthliving."
An anxious look came into her face. This was the first time, sincerecovering consciousness, that he had referred, even indirectly, to allthat had happened. She understood him well--ah, terribly well! It wasthe tragedy of the man stopped in his course because of one mistake,though he had done ten thousand wise things. The power taken from hishands, the interrupted life, the dark future, the beginning again, ifever his sight came back: it was sickening, heartbreaking.
She saw it all in his face, but as if some inward voice had spoken tohim, his face cleared, the swift-moving hands clasped in front of him,and he said quietly: "But because it's life, there it is. You have totake it as it comes."
He stopped a moment, and in the pause she reached out her hand with asudden passionate gesture, to touch his shoulder, but she restrainedherself in time.
He seemed to feel what she was doing, and turned his face towards her,a slight flush coming to his cheeks. He smiled, and then he said: "Howwonderful you are! You look--"
He checked himself, then added with a quizzical smile:
"You are looking very well to-day, Miss Fleda Druse, very well indeed. Ilike that dark-red dress you're wearing."
An almost frightened look came into her eyes. It was as though he couldsee, for she was wearing a dark-red dress--"wine-coloured," her fathercalled it, "maroon," Madame Bulteel called it. Could he then see, afterall?
"How did you know it was dark-red?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"Guessed it! Guessed it!" he answered almost gleefully. "Was I right? Isit dark-red?"
"Yes, dark-red," she answered. "Was it really a guess?"
"Ah, but the guessiest kind of a guess," he replied. "But who can tell?I couldn't see it, but is there any reason why the mind shouldn'tsee when the eyes are no longer working? Come now," he added, "I've afeeling that I can tell things with my mind just as if I saw them. I dosee. I'll guess the time now--with my mind's eye."
Concentration came into his face. "It's three minutes to twelveo'clock," he said decisively.
She took up the watch which lay on the table beside the bed.
"Yes, it's just three minutes to twelve," she declared in an awe-struckvoice. "That's marvellous--how wonderful you are!"
"That's what I said of you a minute ago," he returned. Then, with aswift change of voice and manner, he added, "How
long is it?"
"You mean, since you came here?" she asked, divining what was in hismind.
"Exactly. How long?"
"Six weeks," she answered. "Six weeks and three days."
"Why don't you add the hour, too," he urged half-plaintively, though hesmiled.
"Well, it was three o'clock in the morning to the minute," she answered.
"Old Father Time ought to make you his chief of staff," he remarkedgaily. "Now, I want to know," he added, with a visible effort ofdetermination, "what has happened since three o'clock in the morning,six weeks and three days ago. I want you to tell me what has happened tomy concerns--to the railways, and also to the towns. I don't want youto hide anything, because, if you do, I'll have Jim in, and Jim, underproper control, will tell me the whole truth, and perhaps more than thetruth. That's the way with Jim. When he gets started he can't stop. Tellme exactly everything."
Anxiety drove the colour from her cheeks. She shrank back.
"You must tell me," he urged. "I'd rather hear it from you than from Dr.Rockwell, or Jim, or your father. Your telling wouldn't hurt as much asanybody else's, if there has to be any hurt. Don't you understand--butdon't you understand?" he urged.
She nodded to herself in the mirror on the wall opposite. "I'll tryto understand," she replied presently; "Tell me, then: have they putsomeone in my place?"
"I understand so," she replied.
He remained silent for a moment, his face very pale. "Who is running theshow?" he asked.
She told him.
"Oh, him!" he exclaimed. "He's dead against my policy. He'll make amess."
"They say he's doing that," she remarked.
He asked her a series of questions which she tried to answer frankly,and he came to know that the trouble between the two towns, which, afterthe Orange funeral and his own disaster had subsided, was up again; thatthe railways were in difficulties; that there had been several failuresin the town; that one of the banks--the Regent-had closed its doors;that Felix Marchand, having recovered from the injury he had receivedfrom Gabriel Druse on the day of the Orange funeral, had gone East for amonth and had returned; that the old trouble was reviving in the mills,and that Marchand had linked himself with the enemies of the groupcontrolling the railways hitherto directed by himself.
For a moment after she had answered his questions, there was strongemotion in his face, and then it cleared.
He reached out a hand towards her. How eagerly she clasped it! It wascold, and hers was so warm and firm and kind.
"True friend o' mine!" he said with feeling. "How wonderful it isthat somehow it all doesn't seem to matter so much. I wonder why? Iwonder--Tell me about yourself, about your life," he added abruptly, asthough it had been a question he had long wished to ask. In the tone wasa quiet certainty suggesting that she would not hesitate to answer.
"We have both had big breaks in our lives," he went on. "I know that.I've lost everything, in a way, by the break in my life, and I've anidea that you gained everything when the break in yours came. I didn'tbelieve the story Jethro Fawe told me, but still I knew there was sometruth in it; something that he twisted to suit himself. I started lifefeeling I could conquer the world like another Alexander or Napoleon.I don't know that it was all conceit. It was the wish to do, to see howfar this thing on my shoulders"--he touched his head--"and this greatphysical machine"--he touched his breast with a thin hand--"would carryme. I don't believe the main idea was vicious. It was wanting to work ahuman brain to its last volt of capacity, and to see what it could do.I suppose I became selfish as I forged on. I didn't mean to be, butconcentration upon the things I had to do prevented me from being thething I ought to be. I wanted, as they say, to get there. I had a lotof irons in the fire--too many--but they weren't put there deliberately.One thing led to another, and one thing, as it were, hung upon another,until they all got to be part of the scheme. Once they got there, I hadto carry them all on, I couldn't drop any of them; they got to be mylife. It didn't matter that it all grew bigger and bigger, and the risksgot greater and greater. I thought I could weather it through, and soI could have done, if it hadn't been for a mistake and an accident; butthe mistake was mine. That's where the thing nips--the mistake wasmine. I took too big a risk. You see, I'd got so used to being lucky, itseemed as if I couldn't go wrong. Everything had come my way. Ever sinceI began in that Montreal railway office, after leaving college, I hadn'ta single setback. I pulled things off. I made money, and I plumped itall into my railways and the Regent Bank; and as you said a minute ago,the Regent Bank has closed down. That cuts me clean out of the game.What was the matter with the bank? The manager?"
His voice was almost monotonous in its quietness. It was as though hetold the story of something which had passed beyond chance or change.As it unfolded to her understanding, she had seated herself near to hisbed. The door of the room was open, and in view outside on the landingsat Madame Bulteel reading. She was not, however, near enough to hearthe conversation.
Ingolby's voice was low, but it sounded as loud as a waterfall in theears of the girl, who, in a few weeks, had travelled great distances onthe road called Experience, that other name for life.
"It was the manager?" he repeated.
"Yes, they say so," she answered. "He speculated with bank money."
"In what?"
"In your railways," she answered hesitatingly. "Curious--I dreamedthat," Ingolby remarked quietly, and leaned down and stroked the doglying at his feet. It had been with him through all his sickness. "Itmust have been part of my delirium, because, now that I've got my sensesback, it's as though someone had told me about it. Speculated in myrailways, eh? Chickens come home to roost, don't they? I suppose I oughtto be excited over it all," he continued. "I suppose I ought. But thefact is, you only have just the one long, big moment of excitement whengreat trouble and tragedy come, or else it's all excitement, all thetime, and then you go mad. That's the test, I think. When you're struckby Fate, as a hideous war-machine might strike you, and the whole terrorof loss and ruin bears down on you, you're either swept away in anexcitement that hasn't any end, or you brace yourself, and become masterof the shattering thing."
"You are a master," she interposed. "You are the Master Man," sherepeated admiringly.
He waved a hand deprecatingly. "Do you know, when we talked together inthe woods soon after you ran the Rapids--you remember the day--if youhad said that to me then, I'd have cocked my head and thought I was ajim-dandy, as they say. A Master Man was what I wanted to be. But it'sa pretty barren thing to think, or to feel, that you're a Master Man;because, if you are--if you've had a 'scoop' all the way, as Jowettcalls it, you can be as sure as anything that no one cares a rapfarthing what happens to you. There are plenty who pretend they care,but it's only because they're sailing with the wind, and with your evenkeel. It's only the Master Man himself that doesn't know in the leasthe's that who gets anything out of it all."
"Aren't you getting anything out of it?" she asked softly. "Aren'tyou--Chief?"
At the familiar word--Jowett always called him Chief--a smile slowlystole across his face. "I really believe I am, thanks to you," he saidnodding.
He was going to say, "Thanks to you, Fleda," but he restrained himself.He had no right to be familiar, to give an intimate turn to things. Hisgame was over; his journey of ambition was done. He saw this girl withhis mind's eye--how much he longed to see her with the eyes of thebody--in all her strange beauty; and he knew that even if she cared forhim, such a sacrifice as linking her life with his was impossible. Yether very presence there was like a garden of bloom to him: a garden fullof the odour of life, of vital things, of sweet energy and happy being.Somehow, he and she were strangely alike. He knew it. From the timehe held her in his arms at Carillon, he knew it. The great adventurousspirit which was in him belonged also to her. That was as sure as lightand darkness.
"No, there's no master man in me, but I think I know what one could belike," he remarked at last. He straightened hi
mself against the pillows.The old look of power came to a face hardly strong enough to bear it. Itwas so fine and thin now, and the spirit in him was so prodigious.
"No one cares what happens to the man who always succeeds; no one loveshim," he continued. "Do you know, in my trouble I've had more out ofnigger Jim's affection than I've ever had in my life. Then there'sRockwell, Osterhaut and Jowett, and there's your father. It was worthwhile living to feel the real thing." His hands went out as thoughgrasping something good and comforting. "I don't suppose every man needsto be struck as hard as I've been to learn what's what, but I've learnedit. I give you my word of honour, I've learned it."
Her face flushed and her eyes kindled greatly. "Jim, Rockwell,Osterhaut, Jowett, and my father!" she exclaimed. "Of course troublewouldn't do anything but make them come closer round you. Poor peoplelive so near to misfortune all the time--I mean poor people like Jim,Osterhaut, and Jowett--that changes of fortune are just natural thingsto them. As for my father, he has had to stretch out his hands so oftento those in trouble--"
"That he carried me home on his shoulders from the bridge six weeks andthree days ago, at three o'clock in the morning," interjected Ingolbywith a quizzical smile.
"Why did you omit Madame Bulteel and myself when you mentioned thosewho showed their--friendship?" she asked, hesitating at the last word."Haven't we done our part?"
"I was talking of men," he answered. "One knows what women do. They mayleave you in the bright days, not in the dark days. On the majority ofthem you couldn't rely in prosperity, but in misfortune you couldn't doanything else. They are there with you. They're made that way. Thebest life can give you in misfortune is a woman. It's the greatbeginning-of-the-world thing in them. Men can't stand prosperity, butwomen can stand misfortune. Why, if Jim and Osterhaut and Jowett and allthe men of Lebanon and Manitou had deserted me, I shouldn't have beensurprised; but I'd have had to recast my philosophy if Fleda Druse hadturned her bonny brown head away."
It was evident he was making an effort to conquer emotions which wererising in him; that he was playing on the surface to prevent his deepfeelings from breaking forth. "Instead of which," he added jubilantly,"here I am, in the nicest room in the world, in a fine bed with springslike an antelope's heels."
He laughed, and hunched his back into the mattress. It was the laugh ofthe mocker, but he was mocking himself. She did not misunderstand. Itwas a nice room, as he said. He had never seen it with his eyes, but ifhe had seen it he would have realized how like herself it was--adorablyfresh, happily coloured, sumptuous and fine. It had simple curtains,white sheets, and a warm carpet on the floor; and yet with something,too, that struck the note of a life outside. A pennant of many colourshung where two soft pink curtains joined, and at the window and overthe door was an ancient cross in bronze and gold. It was not the simpleChristian cross of the modern world, but an ancient one which had becomea symbol of the Romanys, a sign to mark the highways, the guide of thewayfarers. The pennant had been on the pole of the Ry's tent in far-offdays in the Roumelian country. In the girl herself there was that whichcorresponded to the gorgeous pennant and the bronze cross. It was not indress or in manner, for there was no sign of garishness, of the unusualanywhere--in manner she was as well controlled as any woman of fashion,in dress singularly reserved--but in the depths of the eyes there wassome restless, unsettled thing, some flicker of strange banners akinto the pennant at the joining of the pink curtains. There had beensomething of the same look in Ingolby's eyes in the past, only with himit was the sense of great adventure, intrepid enterprise, a touch ofvision and the beckoning thing. That look was not in his eyes now.Nothing was there; no life, no soul; only darkness. But did that lookstill inhabit the eyes of the soul?
He answered the question himself. "I'd start again in a different way ifI could," he said musingly, his face towards the girl. "It's easy to saythat, but I would. It isn't only the things you get, it's how you usethem. It isn't only the things you do, it's why you do them. But I'llnever have a chance now; I'll never have a chance to try the new way.I'm done."
Something almost savage leaped into her eyes--a wild, bitter protest,for it was her tragedy, too, if he was not to regain his sight. Thegreat impulse of a nature which had been disciplined into reserve brokeforth.
"It isn't so," she said with a tremor in her voice. All that he--andshe--was in danger of losing came home to her. "It isn't so. You shallget well again. Your sight will come back. To-morrow; perhaps to-day,Hindlip, the great oculist comes from New York. Mr. Warbeck, theMontreal man, holds out hopes. If the New York man says the same, whydespair? Perhaps in another month you will be on your feet again, out inthe world, fighting, working, mastering, just as you used to do."
A sudden stillness seemed to take possession of him. His lips parted;his head was thrust forwards slightly as though he saw something in thedistance. He spoke scarcely above a whisper.
"I didn't know the New York man was coming. I didn't know there was anyhope at all," he said with awe in his tones.
"We told you there was," she answered.
"Yes, I know. But I thought you were all only trying to make it easierfor me, and I heard Warbeck say to Rockwell, when they thought I wasasleep, 'It's ten to one against him.'"
"Did you hear that?" she said sorrowfully. "I'm so sorry; but Mr.Warbeck said afterwards--only a week ago--that the chances were even.That's the truth. On my soul and honour it's the truth. He said thechances were even. It was he suggested Mr. Hindlip, and Hindlip iscoming now. He's on the way. He may be here to-day. Oh, be sure, besure, be sure, it isn't all over. You said your life was broken. Itisn't. You said my life had been broken. It wasn't. It was only thewrench of a great change. Well, it's only the wrench of a great changein your life. You said I gained everything in the great change of mylife. I did; and the great change in your life won't be lost, it will begain, too. I know it; in my heart I know it."
With sudden impulse she caught his hand in both of hers, and then withanother impulse, which she could not control, she caught his head toher bosom. For one instant her arms wrapped him round, and she murmuredsomething in a language he did not understand--the language of theRoumelian country. It was only one swift instant, and then with shockedexclamation she broke away from him, dropped into a chair, and buriedher face in her hands.
He blindly reached out his hand towards her as if to touch her."Mother-girl, dear mother-girl--that's what you are," he said huskily."What a great, kind heart you've got!"
She did not reply, but sat with face hidden in her hands, rockingbackwards and forwards. He understood; he tried to help her. There was agreat joy in his heart, but he dared not give it utterance.
"Please tell me about your life--about that great change in it," he saidat last in a low voice. "Perhaps it would help me. Anyhow, I'd like toknow, if you feel you can tell me."
For a moment she was silent. Then she said to him with an anxious notein her voice: "What do you know about my life-about the 'great change,'as you call it?"
He reached out over the coverlet, felt for a sock which he had beenlearning to knit and, slowly plying the needles, replied: "I only knowwhat Jethro Fawe told me, and he was a promiscuous liar."
"I don't think he lied about me," she answered quietly. "He told you Iwas a Gipsy; he told you that I was married to him. That was true. I wasa Gipsy. I was married to him in the Romany way, when I was a childof three, and I never saw him again until here, the other day, on theSagalac."
"You were married to him as much as I am," he interjected scornfully."That was a farce. It was only a promise to pay on the part of yourfather. There was nothing in that. Jethro Fawe could not claim on that."
"He has tried to do so," she answered, "and if I were still a Gipsy hewould have the right to do so from his standpoint."
"That sounds silly to me," Ingolby remarked, his fingers moving nowmore quickly with the needles. "No, it isn't silly," she said, her voicealmost as softly monotonous as his had been when he told her of his l
ifea little while before. It was as though she was looking into her ownmind and heart and speaking to herself. "It isn't silly," she repeated."I don't think you understand. Just because a race like the Gipsies haveno country and no home, so they must have things that bind them whichother people don't need in the same way. Being the vagrants of theearth, so they must have things that hold them tighter than any writtenlaws made by King or Parliament. Unless the Gipsies kept their lawssacred they couldn't hold together at all. They're iron and steel, theGipsy laws. They can't be stretched, and they can't be twisted. Theycan only be broken, and then there's no argument about it. When they arebroken, there's the penalty, and it has to be met."
Ingolby stopped knitting for a moment. "You don't mean that a penaltycould touch you?" he asked incredulously.
"Not for breaking a law," she answered. "I'm not a Gipsy any more. Igave my word about that, and so did my father; and I'll keep it."
"Please tell me about it," he urged. "Tell me, so that I can understandeverything."
There was a long pause in which Ingolby inspected carefully with hisfingers the work which he was doing, but at last Fleda's voice came tohim, as it seemed out of a great distance, while she began to tell ofher first memories: of her life by the Danube and the Black Sea, anddrew for him a picture, so far as she could recall it, of her marriagewith Jethro, and of the years that followed. Now and again as shetold of some sordid things, of the challenge of the law in differentcountries, of the coarse vagabondage of the Gipsy people in this placeor in that, and some indignity put upon her father, or some humiliatingincident, her voice became low and pained. It seemed as if she meantthat he should see all she had been in that past, which still must bepart of the present and have its place in the future, however far awayall that belonged to it would be. She appeared to search her mind tofind that which would prejudice him against her. While speaking withslow scorn of the life which she had lived as a Gipsy, yet she tried tomake him understand, too, that, in the days when she belonged to it, itall seemed natural to her, and that its sordidness, its vagabondage didnot produce repugnance in her mind when she was part of it. Unwittinglyshe over-coloured the picture, and he knew she did.
In spite of herself, however, some aspects of the old life called forthpictures of happy Nature, of busy animal life of wood and glen andstream and footpath which was exquisite in its way. She was in spirit atone with the multitudinous world of nature among which so many men andwomen lived, without seeing or knowing. It was all undesignedly a partof herself, and she was one of a population in a universal nation whosedevout citizen she was. Sometimes, in response to an interjection fromIngolby, deftly made, she told of some incident which revealed as greata poetic as dramatic instinct. As she talked, Ingolby in his imaginationpictured her as a girl of ten or twelve, in a dark-red dress, browncurls falling in profusion on her shoulders, with a clear, honest,beautiful eye, and a face that only spoke of a joy of living, in whichthe small things were the small things and the great things were thegreat: the perfect proportion of sane life in a sane world.
Now and again, carried away by the history of things remembered, shevisualized scenes for him with the ardour of an artist and a lover ofcreated things. He realized how powerful a hold the old life still hadupon her. She understood it, too, for when at last she told of the greatevent in England which changed her life, and made her a deserter fromGipsy life; when she came to the giving of the pledge to a dying woman,and how she had kept that pledge, and how her father had kept it,sternly, faithfully, in spite of all it involved, she said to him:
"It may seem strange to you, living as I live now in one spot, witheverything to make life easy, that I should long sometimes for that oldlife. I hate it in my heart of hearts, yet there's something about itthat belongs to me, that's behind me, if that tells you anything. It'sas though there was some other self in me which reached far, far backinto centuries, that wills me to do this and wills me to do that. Itsounds mad to you of course, but there have been times when I have had awild longing to go back to it all, to what some Gorgio writers call thepariah world--the Ishmaelites."
More than once Ingolby's heart throbbed heavily against his breast as hefelt the passion of her nature, its extraordinary truthfulness, makingit clear to him by indirect phrases that even Jethro Fawe, whom shedespised, still had a hateful fascination for her. It was all atvariance to her present self, but it summoned her through the longavenues of ancestry, predisposition; through the secret communion ofthose who, being dead, yet speak.
"It's a great story told in a great way," he said, when she hadfinished. "It's the most honest thing I ever heard, but it's not themost truthful thing I ever heard. I don't think we can tell the exacttruth about ourselves. We try to be honest; we are savagely in earnestabout it, and so we exaggerate the bad things we do, and we often showdistrust of the good things we do. That's not a fair picture. I believeyou've told me the truth as you see it and feel it, but I don't thinkit's the real truth. In my mind I sometimes see an oriel window in thecollege where I spent three years. I used to work and think for hours inthat oriel window, and in the fights I've been having lately I've lookedback and thought I wanted it again; wanted to be there in the peace ofit all, with the books, and the lectures, and the drone of history, andthe drudgery of examinations; but if I did go back to it, three days'dsicken me, and if you went back to the Gipsy life three days'd sickenyou."
"Yes, I know. Three hours would sicken me. But what might not happen inthose three hours! Can't you understand?"
Suddenly she got to her feet with a passionate exclamation, herclenched hands went to her temples in an agony of emotion. "Can't youunderstand?" she repeated. "It's the going back at all for threedays, for three hours, for three minutes that counts. It might spoileverything; it might kill my life."
His face flushed, crimsoned, then became pale; his hands ceased moving;the knitting lay still on his knee. "Maybe, but you aren't going backfor three minutes, any more than I'm going back to the oriel window forthree seconds," he said. "We dreamers have a lot of agony in thinkingabout the things we're never going to do--just as much agony as inthinking about the things we've done. Every one of us dreamers ought tobe insulated. We ought to wear emotional lightning-rods to carry off thebrain-waves into the ground.
"I've never heard such a wonderful story," he added, after an instant,with an intense longing to hold out his arms to her, and a still moreintense will to do no such wrong. A blind man had no right or title tobe a slave-owner, for that was what marriage to him would be. Awife would be a victim. He saw himself, felt himself being graduallydevitalized, with only the placid brain left, considering only theproblem of hourly comfort, and trying to neutralize the penalties ofblindness. She must not be sacrificed to that, for apart from all elseshe had greatness of a kind in her. He knew far better than he had saidof the storm of emotion in her, and he knew that she had not exaggeratedthe temptation which sang in her ears. Jethro Fawe--the thought ofthe man revolted him; and yet there was something about the fellow,a temperamental power, the glamour and garishness of Nature's gifts,prostituted though they were, finding expression in a strikingpersonality, in a body of athletic grace--a man-beauty.
"Have you seen Jethro Fawe lately?" he asked. "Not since"--she was goingto say not since the morning her father had passed the sentence of thepatrin upon him; but she paused in time. "Not since everything happenedto you," she added presently.
"He knows the game is up," Ingolby remarked with forced cheerfulness."He won't be asking for any more."
"It's time for your milk and brandy," she said suddenly, emotionsubsiding and a look of purpose coming into her face. She poured out theliquid, and gave the glass into his hand. His fingers touched hers.
"Your hands are cold," she said to him. "Cold hands, warm heart," hechattered.
A curious, wilful, rebellious look came into her eyes. "I shouldn'thave thought it in your case," she said, and with sudden resolve turnedtowards the door. "I'll send Madame Bulteel," she ad
ded. "I'm going fora walk."
She had betrayed herself so much, had shown so recklessly what she felt,and yet, yet why did he not--she did not know what she wanted him to do.It was all a great confusion. Vaguely she realized what had been workingin him, but yet the knowledge was dim indeed. She was a woman. In herheart of hearts she knew that he did care for her, and yet in her heartof hearts she denied that he cared.
She was suddenly angry with herself, angry with him, the poor blindman, back from the Valley of the Shadow. She had not reached the door,however, when Madame Bulteel entered the room.
"The doctor from New York has come," she said, holding out a note fromDr. Rockwell. "He will be here in a couple of hours."
Fleda turned back towards the bed.
"Good luck!" she said. "You'll see, it will be all right."
"Certainly I'll see if it's all right," he said cheerfully. "Am I tidy?Have I used Pears' soap?" He would have his joke at his own funeral ifpossible.
"There are two hours to get you fit to be seen," she rejoined withraillery, infected by his cheerfulness in spite of herself. "MadameBulteel is very brave. Nothing is too hard for her!"
An instant later she was gone, with her heart telling her to go back tohim, not to leave him, but yet with a longing stronger still drivingher to the open world, to which she could breathe her trouble in greatgasps, as she sped onward through the woods and by the river. To love ablind man was sheer madness, but in her was a superstitious belief thathe would see again. It prevailed against the doubts and terrors. It madeher resent his own sense of fatality, his own belief that he would be indarkness all his days.
In the room where he awaited the verdict of the expert, he kept sayingto himself:
"She would have made everything else look cheap--if it could have been."
The World for Sale, Complete Page 22
