John Ralston slowly paced the room, following the pattern of the carpet, and glancing at her from time to time, unconscious of pain or fatigue, for he knew as well as she herself that his soul was in the balance of her soul’s justice. But the silence was becoming intolerable to him. As for her, she could not have told whether minutes or hours had passed since he had spoken. The trial was going against him, and she almost wished that she might never hear his voice again.
The questions and the arguments and the evidence chased each other through her brain faster and faster, and ever in the same vicious circle, till she was almost distracted, though she sat there quite motionless and outwardly calm. At last she dropped both hands upon her knees; her head fell forward upon her breast, and a short, quick sound, neither a sigh nor a groan, escaped her lips. It was finished. The last argument had failed; the last hope was gone. Her son had disgraced himself—that was little; he had lied on his word of honour—that was greater and worse than death.
“Mother, you’ve always believed me,” said John, standing still behind her and looking down at her bent head.
“Until now,” she answered, in a low, heart-broken voice.
John turned away sharply, and began to pace the floor again with quickening steps. He knew as well as she what it must mean if he did not convince her then and there. In a few hours it would be too late. All sorts of mad and foolish ideas crossed his mind, but he rejected them one after the other. They were all ridiculous before the magnitude of her conviction. He had never seen her as she was now, not even when his father had died. He grew more and more desperate as the minutes passed. If his voice, his manner, his calm asseveration of the truth could not convince her, he asked himself if anything could. And if not, what could convince Katharine to-morrow? His recollections were all coming back vividly to him now. He remembered everything that had happened since the early morning. Strange to say,—and it is a well-known peculiarity of such cases,—he recalled distinctly the circumstances of his fall in the dark, and the absence of all knowledge of the direction he was taking afterwards. He knew, now, how he had wandered for hours in the great city, and he remembered many things he had seen, all of which were perfectly familiar, and each of which, at any other time, would have told him well enough whither he was going. He reconstructed every detail without effort. He even knew that when he had fallen over the heap of building material he had hurt one of his fingers, a fact which he had not noticed at the time. He looked at his hand now to convince himself. The finger was badly scratched, and the nail was torn to the quick.
“Will nothing make you change your mind?” he asked, stopping in the middle of the room. “Will nothing I can do convince you?”
“It would be hard,” answered Mrs. Ralston, shaking her head.
“I’ve done all I can, then,” said John. “There’s nothing more to be said. You believe that I can lie to you and give you my word for a lie. Is that it?”
“Don’t say it, please—it’s bad enough without any more words.” She rested her chin upon her hand once more and stared at the fire.
“There is one thing more,” answered John, suddenly. “I think I can make you believe me still.”
A bitter smile twisted Mrs. Ralston’s even lips, but she did not move nor speak.
“Will you believe the statement of a good doctor on his oath?” asked John, quietly.
Mrs. Ralston looked up at him suddenly. There was a strange expression in her eyes, something like hope, but with a little distrust.
“Yes,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “I would believe that.”
“Most people would,” answered John, with sudden coldness. “Will you send for a doctor? Or shall I go myself?”
“Are you in earnest?” asked Mrs. Ralston, rising slowly from her seat and looking at him.
“I’m in earnest—yes. You seem to be. It’s rather a serious matter to doubt my word of honour—even for my mother.”
Being quite sure of himself, he spoke very bitterly and coldly. The time for appealing to her kindness, her love, or her belief in him was over, and the sense of approaching triumph was thrilling, after the humiliation he had suffered in silence. Mrs. Ralston, strange to say, hesitated.
“It’s very late to send for any one now,” she said.
“Very well; I’ll go myself,” answered John. “The man should come, if it were within five minutes of the Last Judgment. Will you go to your room for a moment, mother, while I dress? I can’t go as I am.”
“No. I’ll send some one.” She stood still, watching his face. “I’ll ring for a messenger,” she said, and left the room.
By this time her conviction was so deep seated that she had many reasons for not letting him leave the house, nor even change his clothes. He was very strong. It was evident, too, that he had completely regained possession of his faculties, and she believed that he was capable, at short notice, of so restoring his appearance as to deceive the keenest doctor. She remembered what had happened on Monday, and resolved that the physician should see him just as he was. It did not strike her, in her experience, that a doctor does not judge such matters as a woman does.
During her brief absence from the room, John was thinking of very different matters. It did not even strike him that he might smooth his hair or wash his soiled and blood-stained hands, and he continued to pace the room under strong excitement.
“Doctor Routh will come, I think,” said Mrs. Ralston, as she came in.
She sat down where she had been sitting before, in the small easy chair before the fire. She leaned back and folded her hands, in the attitude of a person resigned to await events. John merely nodded as she spoke, and did not stop walking up and down. He was thinking of the future now, for he knew that he had made sure of the present. He was weighing the chances of discretion on the part of the two men who had been witnesses of his struggle with Bright in the hall of the club. As for Bright himself, though he was the injured party, John knew that he could be trusted to be silent. He might never forgive John, but he could not gossip about what had happened. Frank Miner would probably follow Bright’s lead. The dangerous man was Crowdie, who would tell what he had seen, most probably to Katharine herself, and that very night. He might account for his absence from the dinner-party to which he had been engaged, and from the ball, on the ground of an accident. People might say what they pleased about that, but it would be hard to make any one believe that he had been sober when he had so suddenly lost his temper and tripped up the pacific Hamilton Bright in the afternoon.
He knew, of course, that his mother’s testimony would have counted for nothing, even if she had believed him, and bitterly as he resented her unbelief, he recognized that it was bringing about a good result. No one could doubt the evidence of such a man as Doctor Routh, and the latter would of course be ready at any time to repeat his statement, if it were necessary to clear John’s reputation.
But when he thought of Katharine, his instinct told him that matters could not be so easily settled. It was quite true that he was in no way to blame for having fallen over a heap of stones in a dark street, but he knew how anxiously she must have waited for him at the ball, and what she must have felt if, as he suspected, Crowdie had given her his own version of what had taken place in the afternoon. It was not yet so late but that he might have found her still at the Assembly rooms, and so far as his strength was concerned, he would have gone there even at that hour. Tough as he was, a few hours, more or less, of fatigue and effort would make little difference to him, though he had scarcely touched food that day. He was one of those men who are not dependent for their strength on the last meal they happen to have eaten, as the majority are, and who break down under a fast of twenty-four hours. In spite of all he had been through, moreover, his determined abstinence during the last days was beginning to tell favourably on him, for he was young, and his nerves had a boundless recuperative elasticity. Hungry and tired and bruised as he was, and accustomed as he had always been to swallow a stimulant when the machinery was slackened, he did not now feel that craving at all as he had felt it on the previous night, when he had stood in the corner at the Thirlwalls’ dance. That seemed to have been a turning-point with him. He had thought so at the time, and he was sure of it now. He felt that just as he was he could dress himself, and go to the Assembly if he pleased, and that he should not break down.
But his appearance was against him, as he was obliged to admit when he looked at himself in the mirror. His face was swollen and bruised, his eyes were sunken and haggard, and his skin was almost livid in its sallow whiteness. Others would judge him as his mother had judged, and Katharine might be the first to do so. On the whole, it seemed wisest to write to her early in the morning, and to explain exactly what had happened. In the course of the day he could go and see her.
He had reached this conclusion, when the sound of wheels, grating out of the snow against the curb-stone of the pavement, interrupted his meditations, and he stopped in his walk. At the same moment Mrs. Ralston rose from her seat.
“I’ll let him in,” she said briefly, as John advanced towards the door.
“Let me go,” he said. “Why not?” he asked, as she pushed past him.
“Because—I’d rather not. Stay here!” In a moment she was descending the stairs.
John listened at the open door, and heard the latch turned, and immediately afterwards the sound of a man’s voice, which he recognized as that of Doctor Routh. The doctor had been one of the Admiral’s firmest friends, and was, moreover, a man of very great reputation in New York. It was improbable that, except for some matter of life and death, any one but Mrs. Ralston could have got him to leave his fireside at midnight and in such weather.
“It’s an awful night, Mrs. Ralston,” John heard him say, and the words were accompanied by a stamping of feet, followed by the unmistakable soft noise of india-rubber overshoes kicked off, one after the other, upon the marble floor of the entry.
John retired into his room again, leaving the door open, and waited before the fireplace. Far down below he could hear the voices of his mother and Doctor Routh. They were evidently talking the matter over before coming up. Then their soft tread upon the carpeted stairs told him that they were on their way to his room.
Mrs. Ralston entered first, and stood aside to let the doctor pass her before she closed the door. Doctor Routh was enormously tall. He wore a long white beard, and carried his head very much bent forward. His eyes were of the very dark blue which is sometimes called violet, and when he was looking directly in front of him, the white was visible below the iris. He had delicate hands, but was otherwise rough in appearance, and walked with a heavy tread and a long stride, as a strong man marches with a load on his back.
He stopped before John, looked keenly at him, and smiled. He had known him since he had been a boy.
“Well, young man,” he said, “you look pretty badly used up. What’s the matter with you?”
“Have I been drinking, doctor? That’s the question.” John did not smile as he shook hands.
“I don’t know,” answered the physician. “Let me look at you.”
He was holding the young man’s hand, and pressing it gently, as though to judge of its temperature. He made him sit down under the bright gas-light by the dressing table, and began to examine him carefully.
Mrs. Ralston turned her back to them both, and leaned against the mantelpiece. There was something horrible to her in the idea of such an examination for such a purpose. There was something far more horrible still in the verdict which she knew must fall from the doctor’s lips within the next five minutes—the words which must assure her that John had lied to her on his word of honour. She had no hope now. She had watched the doctor nervously when he had entered the room, and when he had spoken to John she had seen the smile on his face. There had been no doubt in his mind from the first, and he was amused—probably at the bare idea that any one could look as John looked who had not been very drunk indeed within the last few hours. Presently he would look grave and shake his head, and probably give John a bit of good advice about his habits. She turned her face to the wall above the mantelpiece and waited. It could not take long, she thought. Then it came.
“If you’re not careful, my boy—” the doctor began, and stopped.
“What?” asked John, rather anxiously.
Mrs. Ralston felt as though she must stop her ears to keep out the sound of the next words. Yet she knew that she must hear them before it was all over. “You’ll injure yourself,” said Doctor Routh, completing his sentence very slowly and thoughtfully.
“That’s of no consequence,” answered John. “What I want to know is, whether I have been drinking or not. Yes or no?”
“Drinking?” Doctor Routh laughed contemptuously. “You know as well as I do that you haven’t had a drop of anything like drink all day. But you’ve had nothing to eat, either, for some reason or other—and starvation’s a precious deal worse than drinking any day. Drinking be damned! You’re starving—that’s what’s the matter with you. Excuse me, Mrs. Ralston, forgot you were there—”
Mrs. Ralston had heard every word. Her hands dropped together inertly upon the mantelpiece, and she turned her head slowly toward the two men. Her face had a dazed expression, as though she were waking from a dream.
“Never mind the starvation, doctor,” said John, with a hard laugh. “There’s a Bible somewhere in the room. Perhaps you won’t mind swearing on it that I’m sober—before my mother, please.”
“I shouldn’t think any sane person would need any swearing to convince them!” Doctor Routh seemed to be growing suddenly angry. “You’ve been badly knocked about, and you’ve been starving yourself for days—or weeks, very likely. You’ve had a concussion of the brain that would have laid up most people for a week, and would have killed some that I know. You’re as thin as razor edges all over—there’s nothing to you but bone and muscle and nerve. You ought to be fed and put to bed and looked after, and then you ought to be sent out West to drive cattle, or go to sea before the mast for two or three years. Your lungs are your weak point. That’s apt to be the trouble with thoroughbreds in this country. Oh—they’re sound enough—enough for the present, but you can’t go on like this. You’ll give out when you don’t expect it. Drinking? No! I should think a little whiskey and water would do you good!”
While he was speaking, Mrs. Ralston came slowly forward, listening to every word he said, in wide-eyed wonder. At last she laid her hand upon his arm. He felt the slight pressure and looked down into her eyes.
“Doctor Routh—on your word of honour?” she asked in a low voice.
John laughed very bitterly, rose from his chair, and crossed the room. The old man’s eyes flashed suddenly, and he drew himself up.
“My dear Mrs. Ralston, I don’t know what has happened to you, nor what you have got into your head. But if you’re not satisfied that I’m enough of a doctor to tell whether a man is drunk or sober, send for some one in whom you’ve more confidence. I’m not used to going about swearing my professional opinion on Bibles and things, nor to giving my word of honour that I’m in earnest when I’ve said what I think about a patient. But I’ll tell you—if I had fifty words of honour and the whole Bible House to swear on—well, I’ll say more—if it were a case of a trial, I’d give my solemn evidence in court that Master John Ralston has had nothing to drink. Upon my word, Mrs. Ralston! Talk of making mountains of mole-hills! You’re making a dozen Himalayas out of nothing at all, it seems to me. Your boy’s starving, Mrs. Ralston, and I daresay he takes too much champagne and too many cocktails occasionally. But he’s not been doing it to-day, nor yesterday, nor the day before. That is my opinion as a doctor. Want my word of honour and the Bible again? Go to bed! Getting your old friend away from his books and his pipe and his fire at this hour, on such a night as this! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, young lady! Well—if I’ve done you any good, I’m not sorry—but don’t do it again. Good night—and get that young fellow out of this as soon as you can. He’s not fit for this sort of life, anyhow. Don’t take thoroughbreds for cart horses—they stand it for a bit, and then they go crack! Good night—no, I know my way all right—don’t come down.”
John followed him, however, but before he left the room he glanced at his mother’s face. Her eyes were cast down, and her lips seemed to tremble a little. She did not even say good night to Doctor Routh.
It was nearly one o’clock when John Ralston let Doctor Routh out of the house and returned to his own room. He found his mother standing there, opposite the door, as he entered, and her eyes had met his even before he had passed the threshold. She came forward to meet him, and without a word laid her two hands upon his shoulders and hid her face against his torn coat. He put one arm around her and gently stroked her head with the other hand, but he looked straight before him at the bright globe of the gas-light, and said nothing.
There was an unsettled expression on his pale face. He did not wish to seem triumphant, and he did wish that his anger against her might subside immediately and be altogether forgotten. But although he had enough control of his outward self to say nothing and to touch her tenderly, the part of him that had been so deeply wounded was not to be healed in a moment. Her doubt—more, her openly and scornfully outspoken disbelief had been the very last straw that day. It had been hard, just when he had been doing his best to reform, to be accused by every one, from Hamilton Bright, his friend, to the people on the horse-car; but it had been hardest of all to be accused by his mother, and not to be believed even on his pledged word. That was a very different matter.
To a man of a naturally melancholic and brooding temper, as John Ralston was, illusions have a very great value. Such men have few of them, as a rule, and regard them as possessions with which no one has any right to interfere. They ask little or nothing of the world at large, except to be allowed to follow their own inclinations and worship their own idols in their own way. But of their idols they ask much, and often give them little in return except acts of idolatry. And the first thing they ask, whether they express the demand openly or not, is that their idols should believe in them in spite of every one and everything. They are not, as a rule, capricious men. They cannot replace one object of adoration by another, at short notice. Perhaps the foundation of such characters is a sort of honourable selfishness, a desire to keep what they care for to themselves, beyond the reach of every one else, together with an inward conviction that their love is eminently worth having from the mere fact that they do not bestow it lightly. When the idol expresses a human and pardonable doubt in their sincerity, an illusion is injured, if not destroyed—even when that doubt is well founded. But when the doubt is groundless, it makes a bad wound which leaves an ugly scar, if it ever heals at all.
John Ralston was very like his mother, and she knew it and understood instinctively that words could be of no use. There was nothing to be done but to throw herself upon his mercy, as it were, and to trust that he would forgive an injury which nothing could repair. And John understood this, and did his best to meet her half way, for he loved her very much. But he could not help the expression on his face, not being good at masking nor at playing any part. She, womanly, could have done that better than he.
She wished to act no comedy, however. The thing was real and true, and she was distressed beyond measure. She looked up at his face and saw what was in his mind, and she knew that for the present she could do nothing. Then she gently kissed the sleeve of his coat, and withdrew her hands from him.
“You’re wet, Jack,” she said, trying to speak naturally. “Go to bed, and I’ll bring you something to eat and something hot to drink.”
“No, mother—thank you. I don’t want anything. But I think I’ll go to bed. Good night.”
“Let me bring you something—”
“No, thank you. I’d rather not. It’s all right, mother. Don’t worry.”
It was hard to say even that little, just then, but he did as well as he could. Then he kissed her on the forehead and opened the door for her. She bent her head low as she passed him, but she did not look up.
Half an hour later, when John was about to put out his light, he heard the little clinking of glasses and silver on a tray outside his door. Then there was a knock.
“I’ve brought you something to eat, Jack,” said his mother’s voice. “Just what I could find—”
John turned as he was crossing the room—a gaunt figure in his loose, striped flannels—and hesitated a moment before he spoke.
“Oh—thank you, very much,” he answered. “Would you kindly set it down? I’ll take it in presently. It’s very good of you, mother—thank you—good night again.”
He heard her set down the tray, and the things rattled and clinked.
“It’s here, when you want it,” said the voice.
He fancied there was a sigh after the words, and two or three seconds passed before the sound of softly departing footsteps followed. He listened, with a weary look in his eyes, then went to the fireplace and leaned against the mantelpiece for a moment. As though making an effort, he turned again and went to the door and opened it and brought in the tray. There were dainty things on it, daintily arranged. There was also a small decanter of whiskey, a pint of claret and a little jug of hot water. John set the tray upon one end of his writing table and looked at it, with an odd, sour smile. He was really so tired that he wanted neither food nor drink, and the sight of both in abundance was almost nauseous to him. He reflected that the servant would take away the things in the morning, and that his mother would never know whether he had taken what she had brought him or not, unless she asked him, which was impossible. He took up the tray again, set it down on the floor, in a corner, and instead of going to bed seated himself at his writing table.
It seemed best to write to Katharine and send his letter early in the morning. It was hard work, and he could scarcely see the words he wrote, for the pain in his head was becoming excruciating. It was necessarily a long letter, too, and a complicated one, and his command of the English language seemed gone from him. Nevertheless, he plodded on diligently, telling as nearly as he could remember what had happened to him since he had left Katharine’s door at three o’clock in the afternoon, up to the moment when Doctor Routh had pronounced his verdict. It was not well written, but on the whole it was a thoroughly clear account of events, so far as he himself could be said to know what had happened to him. He addressed the letter and put a special delivery stamp upon it, thinking that this would be a means of sending it to its destination quickly without attracting so much attention to it as though he should send a messenger himself. Then he put out the gas, drew up the shades, so that the morning light should wake him early, in spite of his exhaustion, and at last went to bed.
It was unfortunate that the messenger who took the specially stamped letter to Clinton Place on the following morning should have rung the bell exactly when he did, that is to say, at the precise moment when Alexander Junior was putting on his overcoat and overshoes in the entry. It was natural enough that Mr. Lauderdale should open the door himself and confront the boy, who held up the letter to him with the little book in which the receipt was to be signed. It was the worse for the boy, because Katharine would have given him five or ten cents for himself, whereas Alexander Junior signed the receipt, handed it back and shut the door in the boy’s face. And it was very much the worse for John Ralston, since Mr. Lauderdale, having looked at the handwriting and recognized it, put the letter into his pocket without a word to any one and went down town for the day.
Now it was his intention to do the thing which was right according to his point of view. He was as honourable a man, in his own unprejudiced opinion, as any living, and he would no more have forfeited his right to congratulate himself upon his uprightness than he would have given ten cents to the messenger boy, or a holiday to a clerk, or a subscription for anything except his pew in church. The latter was really a subscription to his own character, and therefore not an extravagance. It would never have entered into his mind that he could possibly break the seal of Ralston’s specially stamped envelope. The letter was as safe in his pocket as though it had been put away in his own box at the Safe Deposit—where there were so many curious things of which no one but Alexander Junior knew anything. But he did not intend that his daughter should ever read it either. He disapproved of John from the very bottom of his heart, partly because he did, which was an excellent reason, partly because there could be no question as to John’s mode of life, and partly because he had once lost his temper when John had managed to keep his own. So far as he allowed himself to swear, he had sworn that John should never marry Katharine—unless, indeed, John should inherit a much larger share of Robert Lauderdale’s money than was just, in which case justice itself would make it right to enter into a matrimonial alliance with the millions. Meanwhile, however, Robert the Rich was an exceedingly healthy old man.
Under present circumstances, therefore, if accident threw into his hands one of Ralston’s letters to Katharine, it was clearly the duty of such a perfectly upright and well-conducted father as Alexander Junior to hinder it from reaching its destination. Only one question as to his conduct presented itself to his mind, and he occupied the day in solving it. Should he quietly destroy the letter and say nothing about it to any one, or should he tell Katharine that he had it, and burn it in her presence after showing her that it was unopened? His conscience played an important part in his life, though Robert Lauderdale secretly believed that he had none at all; and his conscience bade him be quite frank about what he had done, and destroy the letter under Katharine’s own eyes. He took it from his pocket as he sat in his brilliantly polished chair before his shiny table, under the vivid snow-glare which fell upon him through his magnificent plate-glass windows. He looked at it again, turned it over thoughtfully, and returned it at last to his pocket, where it remained until he came home late in the afternoon. While he sipped his glass of iced water at luncheon time, he prepared a little speech, which he repeated to himself several times in the course of the day.
In the meantime Katharine, not suspecting that John had written to her, and of course utterly ignorant of the truth about his doings on the preceding day, felt that she must find some occupation, no matter how trivial, to take her mind out of the strong current of painful thought which must at last draw her down into the very vortex of despair’s own whirlpool. It seemed to her that she had never before even faintly guessed the meaning of pain nor the unknown extent of possible mental suffering. As for forming any resolution, or even distinguishing the direction of her probable course in the immediate future, she was utterly incapable of any such effort or thought. The longing for total annihilation was perhaps uppermost among her instincts just then, as it often is with men and women who have been at once bitterly disappointed and deeply wounded, and who find themselves in a position from which no escape seems possible. Katharine wished with all her young heart that the world were a lighted candle and that she could blow it out.
It must not be believed, however, that her love for John Ralston had disappeared as suddenly and totally as she should have liked to extinguish the universe. It had not been of sudden growth nor of capricious blooming. Its roots were deep, its stem was strong, its flowers were sweet—and the blight which had fallen upon it was the more cruel. A frostbitten rose-tree is a sadder sight than a withered mushroom or a blade of dried grass. It was real, honest, unsuspecting, strong, maidenly love, and it stood there still in the midst of her heart, hanging its head in the cold, while she gazed at it and wondered, and choked with anguish. But she could not lift her hand to prop it, nor to cover it and warm it again, still less to root it up and burn it.
She could only try to escape from seeing it, and she resolutely set about making the attempt. She left her room and went downstairs, treading more softly as she passed the door of the room in which her mother worked during the morning hours. She did not wish to see her again at present, and as she descended she could not help thinking with wonder of the sudden and unaccountable change in their relations.
She entered the library, but though it was warm, it had that chilly look about it which rooms principally used in the evening generally have when there is no fire in them. The snow-glare was on everything, too, and made it worse. She stood a moment in hesitation before the writing table, and laid her hand uncertainly upon a sheet of writing paper. But she realized that she could not write to John, and she turned away almost immediately.
What could she have written? It was easy to talk to herself of a letter; it was quite another matter to find words, or even to discover the meaning of her own thoughts. She did not wish to see him. If she wished anything, it was that she might never see him again. Nothing could have been much worse than to meet him just then, and talking on paper was next to talking in fact. It all rushed back upon her as she moved away, and she paused a moment and steadied herself against her favourite chair by the empty fireplace. Then she raised her head again, proudly, and left the room, looking straight before her.
There was nothing to be done but to go out. The loneliness of the house was absolutely intolerable, and she could not wander about in such an aimless fashion all day long. Again she went upstairs to her room to put on her hat and things. Mechanically she took the hat she had worn on the previous day, but as she stood before the mirror and caught sight of it, she suddenly took it from her head again and threw it behind her with a passionate gesture, stared at herself a moment and then buried her face in her hands. She had unconsciously put on the same frock as yesterday—the frock in which she had been married—it was the rough grey woollen one she had been wearing every day. And there were the same simple little ornaments, the small silver pin at her throat, the tiny gold bar of her thin watch chain at the third button from the top—the hat had made it complete—just as she had been married. She could not bear that.
A few moments later she rose, and without looking at herself in the glass, began to change her clothes. She dressed herself entirely in black, put on a black hat and a gold pin, and took a new pair of brown gloves from a drawer. There was a relief, now, in her altered appearance, as she fastened her veil. She felt that she could behave differently if she could get rid of the outward things which reminded her of yesterday. It is not wise to reflect contemptuously upon the smallness of things which influence passionate people at great moments in their lives. It needs less to send a fast express off the track, if the obstacle be just so placed as to cause an accident, than it does to upset a freight train going at twelve miles an hour.
Katharine descended the stairs again with a firm step, holding her head higher than before, and with quite a different look in her eyes. She had put on a sort of shell with her black clothes. It seemed to conceal her real self from the outer world, the self that had worn rough grey woollen and a silver pin and had been married to John Ralston yesterday morning. She did not even take the trouble to tread softly as she passed her mother’s studio, for she felt able to face any one, all at once. If John himself had been standing in the entry below, and if she had come upon him suddenly, she should have known how to meet him, and what to say. She would have hurt him, and she would have been glad of it, with all of her. What right had John Ralston to ruin her life?
But John was not there, nor was there any possibility of her meeting him that morning. He had shut himself up in his room and was waiting for her answer to the letter which Alexander Lauderdale had taken down town in his pocket, and which he meant to burn before her eyes that evening after delivering his little speech. It was not probable that John would go out of the house until he was convinced that no answer was to be expected.
Katharine went out into the street and paused on the last step. The snow was deep everywhere, and wet and clinging. No attempt had as yet been made to clear it away, though the horse-cars had ploughed their black channel through, and it had been shovelled off the pavements before some of the houses. There was a slushy muddiness about it where it was not still white, which promised ill for a walk. Katharine knew exactly what Washington Square would be like on such a morning. The little birds would all be draggled and cold, the leafless twigs would be dripping, the paths would be impracticable, and all the American boys would be snowballing the Italian and French boys from South Fifth Avenue. The University Building would look more than usual like a sepulchre to let, and Waverley Place would be more savagely respectable than ever, as its quiet red brick houses fronted the snow. Overhead the sky was of a uniform grey. It was impossible to tell from any increase of light where the sun ought to be. The air was damp and cold, and all the noises of the street were muffled. Far away and out of sight, a hand-organ was playing ‘Ah quell’ amore ond’ardo’—an air which Katharine most especially and heartily detested. There was something ghostly in the sound, as though the wretched instrument were grinding itself to death out of sheer weariness. Katharine thought that if the world were making music in its orbit that morning, the noise must be as melancholy and as jarring as that of the miserable hurdy-gurdy. She thought vaguely, too, of the poor old man who has stood every day for years with his back to the railings on the south side of West Fourteenth Street, before you come to Sixth Avenue, feebly turning the handle of a little box which seems to be full of broken strings, which something stirs up into a scarcely audible jangle at every sixth or seventh revolution. He has yellowish grey hair, long and thick, and is generally bareheaded. She felt inclined to go and see whether he were there now, in the wet snow, with his torn shoes and his blind eyes, that could not feel the glare. She found herself thinking of all the many familiar figures of distress, just below the surface of the golden stream as it were, looking up out of it with pitiful appealing faces, and without which New York could not be itself. Her father said they made a good living out of their starving appearance, and firmly refused to encourage what he called pauperism by what other people called charity. Even if they were really poor, he said, they probably deserved to be, and were only reaping the fruit of their own improvidence, a deduction which did not appeal to Katharine.
She turned eastwards and would have walked up to Fourteenth Street in order to give the hurdy-gurdy beggar something, had she not remembered almost immediately that she had no money with her. She never had any except what her mother gave her for her small expenses, and during the last few days she had not cared to ask for any. In very economically conducted families the reluctance to ask for small sums is generally either the sign of a quarrel or the highest expression of sympathetic consideration. Every family has its private barometer in which money takes the place of mercury.
Katharine suddenly remembered that she had promised Crowdie another sitting at eleven o’clock on Friday. It was the day and it was the hour, and though by no means sure that she would enter the house when she reached Lafayette Place, she turned in that direction and walked on, picking her way across the streets as well as she could. The last time she had gone to Crowdie’s she had gone with John, who had left her at the door in order to go in search of a clergyman. She remembered that, as she went along, and she chose the side of the street opposite to the one on which she had gone with Ralston.
At the door of Crowdie’s house, she hesitated again. Crowdie was one of the gossips. It was he who had told the story of John’s quarrel with Bright. It seemed as though he must be more repulsive to her than ever. On the other hand, she realized that if she failed to appear as she had promised, he would naturally connect her absence with what had happened to Ralston. He could hardly be blamed for that, she thought, but she would not have such a story repeated if she could help it. She felt very brave, and very unlike the Katharine Lauderdale of two hours earlier, and after a moment’s thought, she rang the bell and was admitted immediately.
Hester Crowdie was just coming down the stairs, and greeted Katharine before reaching her. She seemed annoyed about something, Katharine thought. There was a little bright colour in her pale cheeks, and her dark eyes gleamed angrily.
“I’m so glad you’ve come!” she exclaimed, helping her friend to take off her heavy coat. “Come in with me for a minute, won’t you?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Katharine, going with her into the little front room. “You look angry.”
“Oh—it’s nothing! I’m so foolish, you know. It’s silly of me. Sit down.”
“What is it, dear?” asked Katharine, affectionately, as she sat down beside Hester upon a little sofa. “Have you and he been quarrelling?”
“Quarrelling!” Hester laughed gaily. “No, indeed. That’s impossible! No—we were all by ourselves—Walter was singing over his work, and I was just lying amongst the cushions and listening and thinking how heavenly it was—and that stupid Mr. Griggs came in and spoiled it all. So I came away in disgust. I was so angry, just for a minute—I could have killed him!”
“Poor dear!” Katharine could not help smiling at the story.
“Oh, of course, you laugh at me. Everybody does. But what do I care? I love him—and I love his voice, and I love to be all alone with him up there under the sky—and at night, too, when there’s a full moon—you have no idea how beautiful it is. And then I always think that the snowy days, when I can’t go out on foot, belong especially to me. You’re different—I knew you were coming at eleven—but that horrid Mr. Griggs!”
“Poor Mr. Griggs! If he could only hear you!”
“Walter pretends to like him. That’s one of the few points on which we shall never agree. There’s nothing against him, I know, and he’s rather modest, considering how he has been talked about—and all that. But one doesn’t like one’s husband’s old friends to come—bothering—you know, and getting in the way when one wants to be alone with him. Oh, no! I’ve nothing against the poor man—only that I hate him! How are you, dearest, after the ball, last night? You seemed awfully tired when I brought you home. As for me, I’m worn out. I never closed my eyes till Walter came home—he danced the cotillion with your mother. Didn’t you think he was looking ill? I did. There was one moment when I was just a little afraid that—you know—that something might happen to him—as it did the other day—did you notice anything?”
“No,” answered Katharine, thoughtfully. “He’s naturally pale. Don’t you think that just happened once, and isn’t likely to occur again? He’s been perfectly well ever since Monday, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, yes—perfectly. But you know it’s always on my mind, now. I want to be with him more than ever. I suppose that accounts for my being so angry with poor Mr. Griggs. I think I’d ask him to stay to luncheon if I were sure he’d go away the minute it’s over. Shouldn’t you like to stay, dear? Shall I ask him? That will just make four. Do! I shall feel that I’ve atoned for being so horrid about him. I wish you would!”
Katharine did not answer at once. The vision of her luncheon at home rose disagreeably before her—there would be her mother and her grandfather, and probably Charlotte. The latter was quite sure to have heard something about John, and would, of course, seize the occasion to make unpleasant remarks. This consideration was a decisive argument.
“Dear,” she said at last, “if you really want me, I think I will stay. Only—I don’t want to be in the way, like Mr. Griggs. You must send me away when you’ve had enough of me.”
“Katharine! What an idea! I only wish you would stay forever.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” answered Katharine, with a smile.
Hester rang the bell, and the immaculate and magnificent Fletcher appeared to receive her orders about the luncheon. Katharine meanwhile began to wonder at herself. She was so unlike what she had been a few hours earlier, in the early morning, alone in her room. She wondered whether, after all, she were not heartless, or whether the memory of all that had lately happened to her might not be softened, like that of a bad dream, which is horrible while it lasts, and at which one laughs at breakfast, knowing that it has had no reality. Had her marriage any reality? Last night, before the ball, the question would have seemed blasphemous. It presented itself quite naturally just now. What value had that contract? What power had the words of any man, priest or layman, to tie her forever to one who had not the common decency to behave like a gentleman, and to keep his appointment with her on the same evening—on the evening of their wedding day? Was there a mysterious magic in the mere words, which made them like a witch’s spell in a fairy story? She had not seen him since. What was he doing? Had he not even enough respect for her to send her a line of apology? Merely what any man would have sent who had missed an appointment? Had she sold her soul into bondage for the term of her natural life by uttering two words—‘I will’? It was only her soul, after all. She had not seen his face save for a moment at her own door in the afternoon. Did he think that since they had been married he need not have even the most common consideration for her? It seemed so. What had she dreamed, what had she imagined during all those weeks and months before last Monday, while she had been making up her mind that she would sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of making him happy? She could not be mistaken, now, for she was thinking it all over quite coldly during these two minutes, while Hester was speaking to the butler. She was more than cold. She was indifferent. She could have gone back to her room and put on her grey frock, and the little silver pin again, and could have looked at herself in the mirror for an hour without any sensation but that of wonder—amazement at her own folly.
Talk of love! There was love between Walter Crowdie and his wife. Hester could not be with any one for five minutes without speaking of him, and as for Crowdie himself, he was infatuated. Everybody said so. Katharine pardoned him his pale face, his red lips, and the incomprehensible repulsion she felt for him, because he loved his wife.
Katharine and Hester went up to the studio together, and Hester opened the door.
“I’ve brought your sitter, Walter,” she said, announcing Katharine. “I’ve come back with a reinforcement.”
“Oh, Miss Lauderdale, how do you do?” Crowdie came forward. “Do you know Mr. Griggs?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes, he was introduced to me last night,” explained Katharine in an undertone, and bending her head graciously as the elderly man bowed from a distance.
“Oh! that’s very nice,” observed Crowdie. “I didn’t know whether you had met. I hate introducing people. They’re apt to remember it against one. Griggs is an old friend, Miss Lauderdale.”
Katharine looked at the painter and thought he was less repulsive than usual.
“I know,” she answered. “Do you really want me to sit this morning, Mr. Crowdie? You know, we said Friday—”
“Of course I do! There’s your chair, all ready for you—just where it was last time. And the thing—it isn’t a picture yet—is in the corner here. Hester, dear, just help Miss Lauderdale to take off her hat, won’t you?”
He crossed the room as he spoke, and began to wheel up the easel on which Katharine’s portrait stood. Griggs said nothing, but watched the two women as they stood together, trying to understand the very opposite impressions they made upon him, and wondering with an excess of cynicism which Crowdie thought the more beautiful. For his own part, he fancied that he should prefer Hester’s face and Katharine’s character, as he judged it from her appearance.
Presently Katharine seated herself, trying to assume the pose she had taken at the first sitting. Crowdie disappeared behind the curtain in search of paint and brushes, and Hester sat down on the edge of a huge divan. As there was no chair except Katharine’s, Griggs seated himself on the divan beside Mrs. Crowdie.
“There’s never more than one chair here,” she explained. “It’s for the sitter, or the buyer, or the lion-hunter, according to the time of day. Other people must sit on the divan or on the floor.”
“Yes,” answered Griggs. “I see.”
Katharine did not think the answer a very brilliant one for a man of such reputation. Hitherto she had not had much experience of lions. Crowdie came back with his palette and paints.
“That’s almost it,” he said, looking at Katharine. “A little more to the left, I think—just the shade of a shadow!”
“So?” asked Katharine, turning her head a very little.
“Yes—only for a moment—while I look at you. Afterwards you needn’t keep so very still.”
“Yes—I know. The same as last time.”
Meanwhile, Hester remembered that she had not yet asked Griggs to stay to luncheon, though she had taken it for granted that he would.
“Won’t you stay and lunch with us?” she asked. “Miss Lauderdale says she will, and I’ve told them to set a place for you. We shall be four. Do, if you can!”
“You’re awfully kind, Mrs. Crowdie,” answered Griggs. “I wish I could. I believe I have an engagement.”
“Oh, of course you have. But that’s no reason.” Hester spoke with great conviction. “I daresay you made that particular engagement very much against your will. At all events, you mean to stay, because you only say you ‘believe’ you’re engaged. If you didn’t mean to stay, you would say at once that you ‘had’ an engagement which you couldn’t break. Wouldn’t you? Therefore you will.”
“That’s a remarkable piece of logic,” observed Griggs, smiling.
“Besides, you’re a lion just now, because you’ve been away so long. So you can break as many engagements as you please—it won’t make any difference.”
“There’s a plain and unadorned contempt for social rules in that, which appeals to me. Thanks; if you’ll let me, I’ll stay.”
“Of course!” Hester laughed. “You see I’m married to a lion, so I know just what lions do. Walter, Katharine and Mr. Griggs are going to stay to luncheon.”
“I’m delighted,” answered Crowdie, from behind his easel. He was putting in background with an enormous brush. “I say, Griggs—” he began again.
“Well?”
“Do you like Rockaways or Blue Points? I’m sure Hester has forgotten.”
“ ‘When love was the pearl of’ my ‘oyster,’ I used to prefer Blue Points,” answered Griggs, meditatively.
“So does Walter,” said Mrs. Crowdie.
“Was that a quotation—or what?” asked Katharine, speaking to Crowdie in an undertone.
“Swinburne,” answered the painter, indistinctly, for he had one of his brushes between his teeth.
“Not that it makes any difference what a man eats,” observed Griggs in the same thoughtful tone. “I once lived for five weeks on ship biscuit and raw apples.”
“Good heavens!” laughed Hester. “Where was that? In a shipwreck?”
“No; in New York. It wasn’t bad. I used to eat a pound a day—there were twelve to a pound of the white pilot-bread, and four apples.”
“Do you mean to say that you were deliberately starving yourself? What for?”
“Oh, no! I had no money, and I wanted to write a book, so that I couldn’t get anything for my work till it was done. It wasn’t like little jobs that one’s paid for at once.”
“How funny!” exclaimed Hester. “Did you hear that, Walter?” she asked.
“Yes; but he’s done all sorts of things.”
“Were you ever as hard up as that, Walter?”
“Not for so long; but I’ve had my days. Haven’t I, Griggs? Do you remember—in Paris—when we tried to make an omelet without eggs, by the recipe out of the ‘Noble Booke of Cookerie,’ and I wanted to colour it with yellow ochre, and you said it was poisonous? I’ve often thought that if we’d had some saffron, it would have turned out better.”
“You cooked it too much,” answered Griggs, gravely. “It tasted like an old binding of a book—all parchment and leathery. There’s nothing in that recipe anyhow. You can’t make an omelet without eggs. I got hold of the book again, and copied it out and persuaded the great man at Voisin’s to try it. But he couldn’t do anything with it. It wasn’t much better than ours.”
“I’m glad to know that,” said Crowdie. “I’ve often thought of it and wondered whether we hadn’t made some mistake.”
Katharine was amused by what the two men said. She had supposed that a famous painter and a well-known writer, who probably did not spend a morning together more than two or three times a year, would talk profoundly of literature and art. But it was interesting, nevertheless, to hear them speak of little incidents which threw a side-light on their former lives.
“Do people who succeed always have such a dreadfully hard time of it?” she asked, addressing the question to both men.
“Oh, I suppose most of them do,” answered Crowdie, indifferently.
“ ‘Jordan’s a hard road to travel,’ ” observed Griggs, mechanically.
“Sing it, Walter—it is so funny!” suggested Hester.
“What?” asked the painter.
“ ‘Jordan’s a hard road’—”
“Oh, I can’t sing and paint. Besides, we’re driving Miss Lauderdale distracted. Aren’t we, Miss Lauderdale?”
“Not at all. I like to hear you two talk—as you wouldn’t to a reporter, for instance. Tell me something more about what you did in Paris. Did you live together?”
“Oh, dear, no! Griggs was a sort of little great man already in those days, and he used to stay at Meurice’s—except when he had no money, and then he used to sleep in the Calais train—he got nearly ten hours in that way—and he had a free pass—coming back to Paris in time for breakfast. He got smashed once, and then he gave it up.”
“That’s pure invention, Crowdie,” said Griggs.
“Oh, I know it is. But it sounds well, and we always used to say it was true because you were perpetually rushing backwards and forwards. Oh, no, Miss Lauderdale—Griggs had begun to ‘arrive’ then, but I was only a student. You don’t suppose we’re the same age, do you?”
“Oh, Walter!” exclaimed Hester, as though the suggestion were an insult.
“Yes, Griggs is—how old are you, Griggs? I’ve forgotten. About fifty, aren’t you?”
“About fifty thousand, or thereabouts,” answered the literary man, with a good-humoured smile.
Katharine looked at him, turning completely round, for he and Mrs. Crowdie were sitting on the divan behind her. She thought his face was old, especially the eyes and the upper part, but his figure had the sinewy elasticity of youth even as he sat there, bending forward, with his hands folded on his knees. She wished she might be with him alone for a while, for she longed to make him talk about himself.
“You always seemed the same age, to me, even then,” said Crowdie.
“Does Mr. Crowdie mean that you were never young, Mr. Griggs?” asked Katharine, who had resumed her pose and was facing the artist.
“We neither of us mean anything,” said Crowdie, with a soft laugh.
“That’s reassuring!” exclaimed Katharine, a little annoyed, for Crowdie laughed as though he knew more about Griggs than he could or would tell.
“I believe it’s the truth,” said Griggs himself. “We don’t mean anything especial, except a little chaff. It’s so nice to be idiotic and not to have to make speeches.”
“I hate speeches,” said Katharine. “But what I began by asking was this. Must people necessarily have a very hard time in order to succeed at anything? You’re both successful men—you ought to know.”
“They say that the wives of great men have the hardest time,” said Griggs. “What do you think, Mrs. Crowdie?”
“Be reasonable!” exclaimed Hester. “Answer Miss Lauderdale’s question—if any one can, you can.”
“It depends—” answered Griggs, thoughtfully. “Christopher Columbus—”
“Oh, I don’t mean Christopher Columbus, nor any one like him!” Katharine laughed, but a little impatiently. “I mean modern people, like you two.”
“Oh—modern people. I see.” Mr. Griggs spoke in a very absent tone.
“Don’t be so hopelessly dull, Griggs!” protested Crowdie. “You’re here to amuse Miss Lauderdale.”
“Yes—I know I am. I was thinking just then. Please don’t think me rude, Miss Lauderdale. You asked rather a big question.”
“Oh—I didn’t mean to put you to the trouble of thinking—”
“By the bye, Miss Lauderdale,” interrupted Crowdie, “you’re all in black to-day, and on Wednesday you were in grey. It makes a good deal of difference, you know, if we are to go on. Which is to be in the picture? We must decide now, if you don’t mind.”
“What a fellow you are, Crowdie!” exclaimed Griggs.
“I’ll have it black, if it’s the same to you,” said Katharine, answering the painter’s question.
“What are you abusing me for, Griggs?” asked Crowdie, looking round his easel.
“For interrupting. You always do. Miss Lauderdale asked me a question, and you sprang at me like a fiery and untamed wild-cat because I didn’t answer it—and then you interrupt and begin to talk about dress.”
“I didn’t suppose you had finished thinking already,” answered Crowdie, calmly. “It generally takes you longer. All right. Go ahead. The curtain’s up! The anchor’s weighed—all sorts of things! I’m listening. Miss Lauderdale, if you could look at me for one moment—”
“There you go again!” exclaimed Griggs.
“Bless your old heart, man—I’m working, and you’re doing nothing. I have the right of way. Haven’t I, Miss Lauderdale?”
“Of course,” answered Katharine. “But I want to hear Mr. Griggs—”
“ ‘Griggs on Struggles’—it sounds like the title of a law book,” observed Crowdie.
“You seem playful this morning,” said Griggs. “What makes you so terribly pleasant?”
“The sight of you, my dear fellow, writhing under Miss Lauderdale’s questions.”
“Doesn’t Mr. Griggs like to be asked general questions?” enquired Katharine, innocently.
“It’s not that, Miss Lauderdale,” said Griggs, answering her question. “It’s not that. I’m a fidgety old person, I suppose, and I don’t like to answer at random, and your question is a very big one. Not as a matter of fact. It’s perfectly easy to say yes, or no, just as one feels about it, or according to one’s own experience. In that way, I should be inclined to say that it’s a matter of accident and circumstances—whether men who succeed have to go through many material difficulties or not. You don’t hear much of all those who struggle and never succeed, or who are heard of for a moment and then sink. They’re by far the most numerous. Lots of successful men have never been poor, if that’s what you mean by hard times—even in art and literature. Michael Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Chaucer, Montaigne, Goethe, Byron—you can name any number who never went through anything like what nine students out of ten in Paris, for instance, suffer cheerfully. It certainly does not follow that because a man is great he must have starved at one time or another. The very greatest seem, as a rule, to have had fairly comfortable homes with everything they could need, unless they had extravagant tastes. That’s the material view of the question. The answer is reasonable enough. It’s a disadvantage to begin very poor, because energy is used up in fighting poverty which might be used in attacking intellectual difficulties. No doubt the average man, whose faculties are not extraordinary to begin with, may develop them wonderfully, and even be very successful—from sheer necessity, sheer hunger; when, if he were comfortably off, he would do nothing in the world but lie on his back in the sunshine, and smoke a pipe, and criticise other people. But to a man who