Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  She slowly grew scarlet under his gaze. “That would be insulting,” she said, in a low voice.

  “Why, when only kindness is meant — as I mean it for Jim?”

  “It is not the same. I am a grown woman capable of caring for myself. Such an offer, however kindly meant, could only hurt me, humiliate me — and — I thought you found me companionable as I am. Friends do not offer to better each other — in such a way.”

  “I have not offered it to you, Miss Herold.”

  She looked up, still flushed and brilliant eyed; then her face changed softly. “I know it. I was foolishly sensitive. I know you couldn’t offer such a thing to me. But I wish I knew whether we could accept for Jim. He is such a darling — so intelligent and perfectly crazy for an education. I’ve saved a little — that’s why I wanted you to hire me for your bayman. You see I don’t spend anything on myself,” she added, with a blush.

  Marche was fighting hard for self-restraint; he was young and romantic, and his heart was very full. “What I’d like to do,” he said, “would be to send Jim to some first-rate school until he is ready for college. Then I’d like to see him through college, and, if he cared for it, start him with me in business.”

  “Oh,” she cried softly, “is it possible! Is there — can any man really do such heavenly things? Have you any idea what you are saying? Do you realize what you are doing to me — with every word you utter?”

  “What am I doing to — to you?” he asked unsteadily.

  “Making me your slave,” she said, in a low voice, thrilling with generous passion. “Even for the thought — even if father will not accept — what you have said to me to-night has put me in your debt forever. Truly — truly, I know what friendship is, now.”

  She clasped her hands tightly and said something else, sweetly incoherent; and, in the starlight, Marche saw the tears sparkling on her lashes.

  With that he sprang nervously to the shore and began to tramp up and down the shingle, his mind in a whirl, every sense, common or the contrary, clamoring for finality — urging him to tell her the truth — tell her that he loved her, that he wanted her — her alone, out of all the world of women — that it was for love and for her, and for love of her, that he offered anything, did anything, thought anything now under the high stars or under the circling sun.

  And now, as he tramped savagely to and fro, he realized that he had begun wrong; that he should have told her he loved her first of all, and then acted, not promised.

  Would she look on his offer scornfully, now? Would she see, in what he asked of her, a bribe desired for the offer he had made in her brother’s behalf? She did not love him. How could she, in a week? Never had there been even a hint of sentiment between them. What would she think — this young girl, so tranquilly confident in her friendship for him — what would she think of him and his love? He knew there was nothing mercenary or material in her character; he knew she was young, sweet tempered, reticent concerning herself, clean hearted, and proud. How could he come blundering through the boundaries of her friendship with such an avowal, at a moment’s notice?

  He returned slowly to the boat and stood looking up at her; and he saw that she was smiling down at him in the starlight.

  “Why did you start off so abruptly and tramp up and down?” she asked.

  He looked up at her. “Shall we walk back, now?” he said.

  She extended her hands to him, and he swung her to the beach. For a moment he retained her hands; she looked at him, smiling, thrilling with all that he had said, meeting his eyes frankly and tenderly.

  “You are like some glorious magic prince to me,” she said, “appearing among us here to win our hearts with a word.”

  “Have I won yours with what I have said?”

  “Mine? Oh, don’t you know it? Do you think — even if it doesn’t come true — that I can ever forget what you have wished to do for Jim?”

  Still holding her hands, he lifted them, joined her fingers, and laid his lips to them. She bent her head and caught her breath in surprise.

  “I am going North to-morrow,” he said.

  For a moment she did not comprehend his words. Then, a trifle dazed, she looked up at him. “To-morrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  “Perhaps — next year.”

  “Next — year!”

  “Do you — find it — a long time?”

  Her straight brows bent inward a little, the startled gray eyes became clear and steady. “Of course I knew that you must go — some time. But I had no idea that it would be so soon. Somehow, I have thought of you as being — here — —”

  “Do you care?”

  Her honest eyes widened. “Care?” she repeated.

  “Yes. How greatly do you care?”

  The straight brows contracted still more as she stood considering him — so close that the fresh and subtle youth of her freshened the night again with its faint perfume.

  Again he touched her hands with his lips, she watching him palely, out of clear, gray eyes; then, as they turned away together, he encircled her slender waist with his arm.

  That she was conscious of it, and not disturbed by it, was part of her new mystery to him. Only once, as they walked, when his circling clasp tightened, did she rest her own hand over his where it held her body imprisoned. But she said nothing; nor had he spoken when the belt of pines loomed against the stars once more.

  Then, though neither had spoken, they stopped. He turned to face her, drew her into his arms, and the beating of his heart almost suffocated him as he looked into her eyes, clear, unshrinking eyes of gray, with a child’s question in their starry depths.

  And he answered the question as in a dream: “I love you. I want you for my wife. I want you to love me. You are the first woman I have cared for. All that you are I want — no more than you are. You, as you are now, are all that I care for in the world. Life is young for us both, yet. Let us grow up together — if you can love me. Can you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you not care for me a little, Molly?”

  “I do. I know — nothing about — love — real love.”

  “Can you not imagine it, dear?”

  “I — it is what I have imagined — a man — like you — coming this way into my loneliness. I recognize it. I have dreamed that it was like this. What is it that I should do — if this is really to come true?”

  “Love me.”

  “I would — if I knew how. I don’t know how,” she said wistfully. “My heart is so full — already — of your goodness — I — and then this dream I have dreamed — that a man like you should come here and say this to me — —”

  “Is it in you to love me?”

  “I’ll try — if you’ll tell me what to do — how to show it — to understand — —”

  He drew her closer, unresisting, and looked deep into her young eyes, and kissed them, and then her lips, till they grew warmer and her breath came fragrant and uneven.

  “Can you love me?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Y-yes.”

  For a moment’s exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight, arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud little head and laid both her hands in his.

  “Of those things,” she said, “that a woman should be to the man she loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant. Even how to speak to you — now — I do not know. It is all a dream to me — except that, in my heart, I know that I do love you. But I think that was so from the beginning, and after you have gone away I should have realized it some day.”

  “You darling!” he whispered. Again she surrendered to him, exquisite in her ignorance, passive at first, then tremulously responsive. And at last her head drooped and fell on his sh
oulder, and he held her for a little longer, then released her.

  Trembling, she crept up the stairway to her room, treading lightly along the dark entry, dazed, fatigued, with the wonder of it all. Then, as she laid her hand on the knob of her bedroom door, the door of her father’s room opened abruptly.

  “Molly?”

  “Yes, dear,” she answered vaguely.

  He stood staring at her on the threshold, fully dressed, and she looked back at him, her eyes slightly confused by the light.

  “Where have you been?” he said.

  “With Mr. Marche.”

  “Where?”

  “To the dory — and back.”

  “What did he say to you, child?”

  She came silently across the threshold and put her arms around his neck; and the man lost every atom of his color.

  “What did he say?” he repeated harshly.

  “‘He tells you that he — he is in love with you?’”

  “That he loves me.”

  “What!”

  “It is true, father.”

  The man held her at arm’s length roughly. “Good God!” he groaned, “how long has this been going on?”

  “Only to-night. What do you mean, father?”

  “He tells you that he — he is in love with you? With you?” repeated Herold unsteadily.

  “Yes. It is true, too.”

  “You mean he asked you to marry him!”

  “Yes. And I said I would.”

  “You love him!”

  The man’s pallor frightened her silent. Then he dropped her arms, which he had been clutching, and stood staring at nothing, gnawing at his colorless lips.

  The girl watched him with dawning terror and finally ventured to speak. “Dear, what is the matter? Are you displeased with me? Do you think that he is not a man I should care for? You don’t know him, dear. You have only to see him, to speak with him, hear his voice, look into his eyes — —”

  “Good God!” groaned Herold, closing his sunken eyes. Then, almost feeling his way out and along the dark passageway, he descended the stairs, heavily.

  Marche, cleaning his gun in the sitting-room, looked up in surprise, then rose, laying aside stock, fore-end, and barrel, as Herold came into the room. The next instant, stepping nearer, he stared into Herold’s face in silence. And so they met and confronted each other after many years.

  “Are you Herold?” said the young man, in a low voice.

  “That is my name — now.”

  “You have been in my employment — for five years?”

  “Yes. Judge Gilkins gave me the chance. I could not suppose that the club would ever become your property.”

  The younger man’s face hardened. “But when it did become my property, why had you the indecency to stay?”

  “Where else could I go?”

  “You had the whole world to — operate in.”

  Herold’s thin face flushed. “It was fitter that I should work for you,” he said. “I have served you faithfully for five years.”

  “And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn’t it enough that Vyse and I let you go without prosecuting you? Wasn’t it enough that we pocketed our loss for your wife’s sake?”

  He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former associate’s handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years.

  And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim’s father — and the father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. Ghastly, staring, he stood confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against the wall, stared back at him.

  “I could have gone on working for you,” he said, “trying to save enough to make restitution — some day. I have already saved part of it. Look at me — look at my children — at the way we live, and you’ll understand how I have saved. But I have saved part of what I took. I’ll give you that much before you go — before I go, too.”

  His breath came heavily, unevenly; he cleared his eyes with a work-stained hand, fashioned for pens and ledgers.

  “You were abroad when I — did what I did. Vyse was merciless. I told him I could put it back if he’d give me the chance. But a thief was a thief to him — particularly when his own pocket was involved. He meant to send me to prison. The judge held him — he was his father-in-law — and he was an old man with a wife and children of his own.”

  Herold was silent for a moment, and his gaze became vague and remote, then he lifted his head sharply:

  “A man makes one slip like that and the world damns him forever. And I tell you, Marche, that I am not dishonest by nature or in my character. God alone knows why I took those securities, meaning, of course, to return them, as all the poor, damned fools do mean when they do what I did. But Vyse made it a condition that I was to leave the country, and there was no chance of restitution unless I could remain in New York and do what I knew how to do — no chance, Marche — and so fortune ebbed, and my wife died, and the old judge saw me working on the water-front in Norfolk one day, and gave me this place. That is all.”

  “Why did you feign illness?” asked Marche, in an altered voice.

  “You know why.”

  “You thought I’d discharge you?”

  “Of course.”

  Marche stepped nearer. “Why did you come to me here to-night?”

  Herold flushed deeply. “It was your right to know — and my daughter’s right — before she broke her heart.”

  “I see. You naturally suppose that I would scarcely care to marry the daughter of a — —” He stopped short, and Herold set his teeth.

  “Say it,” he said, “and let this end matters for all of us. Except that I have saved seven thousand dollars toward — what I took. I will draw you a check for it now.”

  He walked steadily to the table, laid out a thin checkbook, and with his fountain-pen wrote out a check for seven thousand dollars on a Norfolk bank.

  “There you are, Marche,” he said wearily. “I made most of it buying and selling pine timber in this district. It seemed a little like expiation, too, working here for you, unknown to you. I won’t stay, now, of course. I’ll try to pay back the rest — little by little — somehow.”

  “The way to pay it back,” said Marche, “is to do the work you are fitted for.”

  Herold looked up. “How can I?”

  “Why not?”

  “I could not go back to New York. I have no money to go with, even if I could find a place for myself again.”

  “Your place is open to you.”

  Herold stared at him.

  Marche repeated the assertion profanely. “Damnation,” he said, “if you’d talked this way to me five years ago, I’d never have stood in your way. All I heard of the matter was what Vyse told me. I’m not associated with him any more; I’ll stand for his minding his own affairs. The thing for you to do, Courtney, is to get into the game again and clean up what you owe Vyse. Here’s seven thousand; you can borrow the rest from me. And then we’ll go into things again and hustle. It was a good combination, Courtney — we’d have been rich men — except for the slip you made. Come on in with me again. Or would you rather continue to inhabit your own private hell?”

  “Do you know what you are saying, Marche?” said the other hoarsely.

  “Sure, I do. I guess you’ve done full time for a first offense. Clean off the slate, Courtney. You and Vyse and I know it — nobody else — Gilkins is dead. Come on, man! That boy of yours is a corker! I love him — that little brother, Jim, of mine; and as for — Molly — —” His voice broke and he turned sharply aside, saying: “It’s certainly blue-bird weather, Courtney, and we all might as well go North. Come out under the stars, and we’ll talk it over.”

  It was almost dawn when they returned. Marche’s hand lay lightly on Courtney’s shoulder for a moment, as they parted.

  Above, as Courtney stood feeling bl
indly for his door, Molly’s door swung softly ajar, and the girl came out in her night-dress.

  “Father,” she whispered, “is it all right?”

  “All right, thank God, little daughter.”

  “And — I may care for him?”

  “Surely — surely, darling, because he is the finest specimen of manhood that walks this merciless earth.”

  “I knew it,” she whispered gaily. “If you’ll lend me your wrapper a moment, I’ll go to his door and say good-night to him again.”

  Her father looked at her, picked up his tattered dressing-gown from his bed, and wrapped her in it to the chin, then kissed her forehead.

  So she trotted away to Marche’s door and tapped softly; and when he came and opened the door, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “Good night,” she whispered. “I do love you, and I shall pray all night that I may be everything that you would wish to have me. Good night, once more — dearest of men — good night.”

  THE STREETS OF ASCALON

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  TO

  EULALIE ASHMORE

  “Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon.”

  CHAPTER I

  It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the “Irish Legation,” with the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle popularly known as “Downtown.” As for Westguard, he had been in his apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided.

  A little before five o’clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the bank — not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in his youthful brain, but because he had to have one somewhere. God being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account.