CHAPTER XXVII
Lily had an unexpected visitor that afternoon, in the person of PinkDenslow. She had assumed some of Elinor's cares for the day, for Elinorherself had not been visible since breakfast. It soothed the girl toattend to small duties, and she was washing and wiping Elinor's smallstock of fine china when the bell rang.
"Mr. Denslow is calling," said Jennie. "I didn't know if you'd see him,so I said I didn't know if you were in."
Lily's surprise at Pink's visit was increased when she saw him. He wascovered with plaster dust, even to the brim of his hat, and his handswere scratched and rough.
"Pink!" she said. "Why, what is the matter?"
For the first time he was conscious of his appearance, and for the firsttime in his life perhaps, entirely indifferent to it.
"I've been digging in the ruins," he said. "Is that man Doyle in thehouse?"
Her color faded. Suddenly she noticed a certain wildness about Pink'seyes, and the hard strained look of his mouth.
"What ruins, Pink?" she managed to ask.
"All the ruins," he said. "You know, don't you? The bank, our bank, andthe club?"
It seemed to her afterwards that she knew before he told her, saw itall, a dreadful picture which had somehow superimposed upon it a visionof Jim Doyle with the morning paper, and the thing that this was not thetime for.
"That's all," he finished. "Eleven at the club, two of them my ownfellows. In France, you know. I found one of them myself, this morning."He stared past her, over her head. "Killed for nothing, the way theGermans terrorized Belgium. Haven't you seen the papers?"
"No, they wouldn't let you see them, of course. Lily, I want you toleave here. If you don't, if you stay now, you're one of them, whetheryou believe what they preach or not. Don't you see that?"
She was not listening. Her faith was dying hard, and the mental shockhad brought her dizziness and a faint nausea. He stood watching her, andwhen she glanced up at him it seemed to her that Pink was hard. Hard andsuspicious, and the suspicion was for her. It was incredible.
"Do you believe what they preach?" he demanded. "I've got to know, Lily.I've suffered the tortures of the damned all night."
"I didn't know it meant this."
"Do you?" he repeated.
"No. You ought to know me better than that. But I don't believe that itstarted here, Pink. He was very angry this morning, and he wouldn't letme see the paper."
"He's behind it all right," Pink said grimly. "Maybe he didn't plant thebombs, but his infernal influence did it, just the same. Do you meanto say you've lived here all this time and don't know he is plotting arevolution? What if he didn't authorize these things last night? He isonly waiting, to place a hundred bombs instead of three. A thousand,perhaps."
"Oh, no!"
"We've got their own statements. Department of Justice found them. Thefools, to think they can overthrow the government! Can you imagine menplanning to capture this city and hold it?"
"It wouldn't be possible, Pink?"
"It isn't possible now, but they'll make a try at it."
There was a short pause, with Lily struggling to understand. Pink'sset face relaxed somewhat. All that night he had been fighting for hisbelief in her.
"I never dreamed of it, Pink. I suppose all the talk I've heard meantthat, but I never--are you sure? About Jim Doyle, I mean."
"We know he is behind it. We haven't got the goods on him yet, but weknow. Cameron knows. You ask him and he'll tell you."
"Willy Cameron?"
"Yes. He's had some vision, while the rest of us--! He's got a lot of usworking now, Lily. We are on the right trail, too, although we lost somerecords last night that put us back a couple of months. We'll get them,all right. We'll smash their little revolution into a cocked hat."It occurred to him, then, that this house was a poor place for such aconfidence. "I'll tell you about it later. Get your things now, and letme take you home."
But Lily's problem was too complex for Pink's simple remedy. She wasstricken with sudden conviction; the very mention of Willy Cameron gavePink's statements authority. But to go like that, to leave Elinor inthat house, with all that it implied, was impossible. And there was herown private problem to dispose of.
"I'll go this afternoon, Pink. I'll promise you that. But I can't gowith you now. I can't. You'll have to take my word, that's all. And youmust believe I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't know," he said, sturdily. "But I hate like thunderto go and leave you here." He picked up his hat, reluctantly. "If I cando anything--"
Lily's mind was working more clearly now. This was the thing Louis Akershad been concerned with, then, a revolution against his country. Butit was the thing, too, that he had promised to abandon. He was not akiller. She knew him well, and he was not a killer. He had got to acertain point, and then the thing had sickened him. Even without her hewould never have gone through with it. But it would be necessary now toget his information quickly. Very quickly.
"Suppose," she said, hesitatingly, "suppose I tell you that I think I amgoing to be able to help you before long?"
"Help? I want you safe. This is not work for women."
"But suppose I can bring you a very valuable ally?" she persisted. "Someone who knows all about certain plans, and has changed his views aboutthem?"
"One of them?"
"He has been."
"Is he selling his information?"
"In a way, yes," said Lily, slowly.
"Ware the fellow who sells information," Pink said. "But we'll be gladto have it. We need it, God knows. And--you'll leave?"
"I couldn't stay, could I?"
He kissed her hand when he went away, doing it awkwardly andself-consciously, but withal reverently. She wondered, rather dully, whyshe could not love Pink. A woman would be so safe with him, so sure.
She had not even then gathered the full force of what he had told her.But little by little things came back to her; the man on guard in thegarden; the incident of the locked kitchen door; Jim Doyle once talkingangrily over a telephone in his study, although no telephone, so far asshe knew, was installed in the room; his recent mysterious absences, andthe increasing visits of the hateful Woslosky.
She went back to Louis. This was what he had meant. He had known allalong, and plotted with them; even if his stomach had turned now, hehad been a party to this infamy. Even then she did not hate him; she sawhim, misled as she had been by Doyle's high-sounding phrases, lured onby one of those wild dreams of empire to which men were sometimes given.She did not love him any more; she was sorry for him.
She saw her position with the utmost clearness. To go home was toabandon him, to lose him for those who needed what he could give, tosend him back to the enemy. She had told Pink she could secure an allyfor a price, and she was the price. There was not an ounce of melodramain her, as she stood facing the situation. She considered, quite simply,that she had assumed an obligation which she must carry out. Perhaps herpride was dictating to her also. To go crawling home, bowed to the dust,to admit that life had beaten her, to face old Anthony's sneers and hermother's pity--that was hard for any Cardew.
She remembered Elinor's home-comings of years ago, the strained air ofthe household, the whispering servants, and Elinor herself shut away,or making her rare, almost furtive visits downstairs when her father wasout of the house.
No, she could not face that.
Her own willfulness had brought her to this pass; she faced thatuncompromisingly. She would marry Louis, and hold him to his promise,and so perhaps out of all this misery some good would come. But at thethought of marriage she found herself trembling violently. With no loveand no real respect to build on, with an intuitive knowledge of theman's primitive violences, the reluctance toward marriage with him whichshe had always felt crystallized into something very close to dread.
But a few minutes later she went upstairs, quite steady again, and fullydetermined. At Elinor's door she tapped lightly, and she heard movementswithin. Then Elinor
opened the door wide. She had been lying on her bed,and automatically after closing the door she began to smooth it. Lilyfelt a wave of intense pity for her.
"I wish you would go away from here, Aunt Elinor," she said.
Elinor glanced up, without surprise.
"Where could I go?"
"If you left him definitely, you could go home."
Elinor shook her head, dumbly, and her passivity drove Lily suddenly todesperation.
"You know what is going on," she said, her voice strained. "You don'tbelieve it is right; you know it is wicked. Clothe it in all the finelanguage in the world, Aunt Elinor, and it is still wicked. If you stayhere you condone it. I won't. I am going away."
"I wish you had never come, Lily."
"It's too late for that," Lily said, stonily. "But it is not too latefor you to get away."
"I shall stay," Elinor said, with an air of finality. But Lily made onemore effort.
"He is killing you."
"No, he is killing himself." Suddenly Elinor flared into a passionateoutburst. "Don't you think I know where all this is leading? Do youbelieve for a moment that I think all this can lead to anything butdeath? It is a madness, Lily; they are all mad, these men. Don't youknow that I have talked and argued and prayed, against it?"
"Then come away. You have done all you could, and you have failed,haven't you?"
"It is not time for me to go," Elinor said. And Lily, puzzled andbaffled, found herself again looking into Elinor's quiet, inscrutableeyes.
Elinor had taken it for granted that the girl was going home, andtogether they packed almost in silence. Once Elinor looked up fromfolding a garment, and said:
"You said you had not understood before, but that now you do. What didyou mean?"
"Pink Denslow was here."
"What does he know?"
"Do you think I ought to tell you, Aunt Elinor? It isn't that I don'ttrust you. You must believe that, but don't you see that so long as youstay here--he said that to me--you are one of them."
Elinor resumed her folding.
"Yes, I suppose I am one of them," she said quietly. "And you are right.You must not tell me anything. Pink is Henry Denslow's son, I suppose."
"Yes."
"Do they--still live in the old house?"
"Yes."
Elinor continued her methodical work.
A Poor Wise Man Page 26
