"A woman"s whim!" she said, and hated herself for saying it.
"I don"t understand women," he laughed softly.
"Neither do I." It was Lawrence"s voice. He had come in, just in time to hear the last words. "Nor men, either--except in one thing."
"What is the one thing?" asked Claire eagerly.
"That, given a normal, healthy mind, they will sacrifice all their idols for life. Life is the one eternally insistent thing."
Philip chuckled. "You are yourself again, I see."
"Yes, and stronger than ever in my faith," said Lawrence, sitting down.
"I know the price I would pay for life. It is the price every human being would pay, if demanded."
"What is that price?" Philip asked.
"The whole of one"s faith in G.o.d and man!"
"Nonsense!" Philip spoke curtly. "I would die before forfeiting a dozen ideals I hold dear!"
"Would you?" Lawrence looked at him quizzically. "Would you sacrifice your own life before you would the love of your sweetheart, for instance, if you had one?"
The conversation was similar to those which they had had months before, but the fire was nearer the surface now.
"Yes." Philip"s answer came swiftly.
"Then you are a s.e.x-maddened mountaineer!"
"And you are talking like the beast you are not. I know you do not believe that."
"I know I do. I would only die for a woman if she were my life."
"But any real love finds her so."
"Folly! I find my work, my future, my dream of a single immortal statue more my life than any woman!" Lawrence exclaimed.
"I wonder if you really do," Claire mused, half to herself.
"Yes," Lawrence insisted, "although she might be necessary to that statue. At least I believe she might--and I would feel sure of it if I wanted her badly enough," he ended amusedly.
"That merely means that you are still utterly selfish!" said Claire.
"Yes, I am." Lawrence was thoughtful. "It is a paradox, I am so selfish that, although I would sacrifice myself to the last degree for a person I loved, yet I would all the time feel that I was a fool, that I was doing an absurd thing when life was so good."
"I see," Claire observed. "And I know I would do the same."
"I would do it," Philip said, "but I would not feel a fool. It would seem to me right."
Claire looked straight into his eyes. "You would not, Philip," she declared softly. "Your own happiness would come first--and you know it."
The Spaniard"s gaze shifted, and there was silence in the cabin. When he looked up his eyes had changed their expression.
"Yes," he agreed steadily, "I admit it. Hereafter I mean to have what I want from life at any cost."
"Yet you will go on talking ideals," Lawrence mocked.
"Yes--and thinking them, too."
"While Lawrence will make the sacrifice and go on talking his selfishness," Claire added.
Both men laughed constrainedly.
"And I," Claire continued, "if it is necessary, will lie to preserve my will, and, having it secure, will use it to obtain what I want."
"We are at last three delightfully frank, insufferable, unpleasant, and very natural, likable human beings!" Lawrence laughed.
"And on that basis we will work out our fates," murmured Claire.
"We will do just that," Lawrence answered gaily.
"Be they good or bad, we will meet our futures with perfect self-knowledge," contributed Philip.
"Then most likely they will be bad," Claire added with conviction.
They gave up talking, and each abandoned himself to his own reflections.
In the minds of the two men these thoughts a.s.sumed widely differing words, though they were the same thoughts.
Philip was garbing his impulses, desires, and determinations in clothes that furnished his habitual mental wardrobe. With their marriage, he thought, Claire would learn the real Philip. He would treat her with such deference, such tender respect, and such devotion that she would see the wisdom of her choice. He would prove to her that s.e.x mattered little, was altogether secondary. It was her great companionship, her dear thoughtfulness, her charming personality that he loved. Respect, first of all: happy married life depended on respect; then, common interest, friendship between two human beings, and, last and least important, that wonderful emotion springing out of the divine G.o.d-given reproductive life of both.
Lawrence was thinking very different words to the same end. He thought of her as his mate, his comrade, and his equal. He admired her brain, smiled at the thought of their hours of intellectual pleasure, dreamed of her as the stimulus to creation which her mind should help shape into master work.
He loved her beauty and her measureless well of bubbling energy. What a help she could be to him! She was the greatest of all women; he wanted her, needed her. Could he realize his dream? That was the point. Well, no matter, or, at least, no use in speculating. He would try. If she were willing, what a life of joy and accomplishment lay before them! If not, he had lived alone until this time, and he could continue to live alone. Meantime, was Philip the barrier that would keep him from her? He hoped not. He did not believe that she loved Philip. If she did, he would be a good loser and wish her joy. His heart ached at the thought.
But, after all, one doesn"t die over such things, and he would recover.
"I"m going to get the supper," said Claire somewhat abruptly. She rose and set to work.
Here the thoughts of the two men flowed into an identical channel. It was certainly good to sit and listen to her. That sound would be very agreeable, indeed, at the end of a day, in one"s own home. As for her husband, he was out of the question. If Claire went back to him, she might find him married or in love again, unwilling to receive her after her long months with two men in the wilderness, suspicious of such a thing being possible without more intimacies than he would care to overlook. No, her husband did not matter. She would be justified and safe in remarrying. Of course, not safe if she returned to America, but that she would not do.
At this point their thoughts diverged. Philip was seeing Claire as the continued inmate of his cabin. Lawrence was painting a delightful mental picture of Claire as the ever-present fairy of his studio in some South American town, or perhaps in Paris. He preferred France; it was a land of more brilliance, more freedom, and certainly much more appreciation of the things in which they were interested. Besides, his work would carry more prestige in the world if it came from Europe.
He thanked the memory of old Roger Burton, of Cripple Creek, and he rejoiced that he would be able to give Claire the home to which she was ent.i.tled. He smiled as his thoughts went back to the mines and the dirty little newsboy an old man had befriended. Burton"s quarter to Red had kept Lawrence, the boy, from becoming a coward, and Burton"s slender provision for the college graduate would now insure happiness for Lawrence the man. Many times before he had laughed scornfully at the untouched interest from the miner"s bonds. He could make his own living.
But now there would be Claire. The old man would have been glad to see his protege happy in the love of such a woman.
Meanwhile Claire was doing her work automatically. In her mind there was pleasure at the thought that Lawrence was listening to her movements.
But she was filled with a dead weight that seemed likely to break her down with its dreadful pressure. Vaguely she wished that she had never seen Philip, even that she had never seen Lawrence, or that she had perished with him in the mountains.
How had she ever placed herself in the position she was now in? She had come by the way of a terrible road and, looking ahead, she could see nothing but sadness, anguish, and a life of dull discontent with Philip--that or death!
Lawrence had had time and opportunity since his recovery to declare himself, and he had not done so. She had had time and opportunity to tell him frankly of her own feeling, but she had not done so. She did not know why. Now she could not. Philip had given her to understand his desperate determination to marry her, and, after all she had said and done, she had no right to refuse him. If she told him the truth he might kill Lawrence or her, or both of them. These tragic idealists, she exclaimed to herself, what a tangle they can make out of life!