I kept silent until I had control of myself. Then, as if talking--of a matter that had been finally and amicably settled, I began: "The apartment isn"t exactly ready for us, but Joe"s just about now telephoning my man that we are coming, and telephoning your people to send your maid down there."
"I wish to go to my uncle"s," she repeated.
"My wife will go with me," said I quietly and gently. "I am considerate of _her_, not of her unwise impulses."
A long pause, then from her, in icy calmness: "I am in your power just now.
But I warn you that, if you do not take me to my uncle"s, you will wish you had never seen me."
"I"ve wished that many times already," said I sadly. "I"ve wished it from the bottom of my heart this whole evening, when step by step fate has been forcing me on to do things that are even more hateful to me than to you.
For they not only make me hate myself, but make you hate me, too." I laid my hand on her arm and held it there, though she tried to draw away.
"Anita," I said, "I would do anything for you--live for you, die for you.
But there"s that something inside me--you"ve felt it; and when it says "must," I can"t disobey--you know I can"t. And, though you might break my heart, you could not break that will. It"s as much my master as it is yours."
"We shall see--to-morrow," she said.
"Do not put me to the test," I pleaded. Then I added what I knew to be true: "But you will not. You know it would take some one stronger than your uncle, stronger than your parents, to swerve me from what I believe right for you and for me." I had no fear for "to-morrow." The hour when she could defy me had pa.s.sed.
A long, long silence, the electric speeding southward under the arching trees of the West Drive. I remember it was as we skirted the lower end of the Mall that she said evenly: "You have made me hate you so that it terrifies me. I am afraid of the consequences that must come to you and to me."
"And well you may be," I answered gently. "For you"ve seen enough of me to get at least a hint of what I would do, if goaded to it. Hate is terrible, Anita, but love can be more terrible."
At the Willoughby she let me help her descend from the electric, waited until I sent it away, walked beside me into the building. My man, Sanders, had evidently been listening for the elevator; the door opened without my ringing, and there he was, bowing low. She acknowledged his welcome with that regard for "appearances" that training had made instinctive. In the center of my--our--drawing-room table was a ma.s.s of fresh white roses.
"Where did you get "em?" I asked him, in an aside.
"The elevator boy"s brother, sir," he replied, "works in the florist"s shop just across the street, next to the church. He happened to be down stairs when I got your message, sir. So I was able to get a few flowers. I"m sorry, sir, I hadn"t a little more time."
"You"ve done n.o.ble," said I, and I shook hands with him warmly.
Anita was greeting those flowers as if they were a friend suddenly appearing in a time of need. She turned now and beamed on Sanders. "Thank you," she said; "thank you." And Sanders was hers.
"Anything I can do--ma"am--sir?" asked Sanders.
"Nothing--except send my maid as soon as she comes," she replied.
"I shan"t need you," said I.
"Mr. Monson is still here," he said, lingering. "Shall I send him away, sir, or do you wish to see him?"
"I"ll speak to him myself in a moment," I answered.
When Sanders was gone, she seated herself and absently played with the b.u.t.tons of her glove.
"Shall I bring Monson?" I asked. "You know, he"s my--factotum."
"_I_ do not wish to see him," she answered.
"You do not like him?"
After a brief hesitation she answered, "No." Not for worlds would she just then have admitted, even to herself, that the cause of her dislike was her knowledge of his habit of tattling, with suitable embroideries, his lessons to me.
I restrained a strong impulse to ask her why, for instinct told me she had some especial reason that somehow concerned me. I said merely: "Then I shall get rid of him."
"Not on my account," she replied indifferently. "I care nothing about him one way or the other."
"He goes at the end of his month," said I.
She was now taking off her gloves. "Before your maid comes," I went on, "let me explain about the apartment. This room and the two leading out of it are yours. My own suite is on the other side of our private hall there."
She colored high, paled. I saw that she did not intend to speak.
I stood awkwardly, waiting for something further to come into my own head.
"Good night," said I finally, as if I were taking leave of a formal acquaintance at the end of a formal call.
She did not answer. I left the room, closing the door behind me. I paused an instant, heard the key click in the lock. And I burned in a hot flush of shame that she should be thinking thus basely of me--and with good cause.
How could she know, how appreciate even if she had known? "You"ve had to cut deep," said I to myself. "But the wounds"ll heal, though it may take long--very long." And I went on my way, not wholly downcast.
I joined Monson in my little smoking-room. "Congratulate you," he began, with his nasty, supercilious grin, which of late had been getting on my nerves severely.
"Thanks," I replied curtly, paying no attention to his outstretched hand.
"I want you to put a notice of the marriage in to-morrow morning"s _Herald_."
"Give me the facts--clergyman"s name--place, and so on," said he.
"Unnecessary," I answered. "Just our names and the date--that"s all. You"d better step lively. It"s late, and it"ll be too late if you delay."
With an irritating show of deliberation he lit a fresh cigarette before setting out. I heard her maid come. After about an hour I went into the hall--no light through the transoms of her suite. I returned to my own part of the flat and went to bed in the spare room to which Sanders had moved my personal belongings. That day which began in disaster--in what a blaze of triumph it had ended! Anita--my wife, and under my roof! I slept with good conscience. I had earned sleep.
XXIII. "SHE HAS CHOSEN!"
Joe got to the office rather later than usual the next morning. They told him I was already there, but he wouldn"t believe it until he had come into my private den and with his own eyes had seen me. "Well, I"m jiggered!"
said he. "It seems to have made less impression on you than it did on us.
My missus and the little un wouldn"t let me go to bed till after two. They sat on and on, questioning and discussing."
I laughed--partly because I knew that Joe, like most men, was as full of gossip and as eager for it as a convalescent old maid, and that, whoever might have been the first at his house to make the break for bed, he was the last to leave off talking. But the chief reason for my laugh was that, just before he came in on me, I was almost pinching myself to see whether I was dreaming it all, and he had made me feel how vividly true it was.
"Why don"t you ease down, Blacklock?" he went on. "Everything"s smooth. The business--at least, my end of it, and I suppose your end, too--was never better, never growing so fast. You could go off for a week or two, just as well as not. I don"t know of a thing that can prevent you."
And he honestly thought it, so little did I let him know about the larger enterprises of Blacklock and Company. I could have spoken a dozen words, and he would have been floundering like a caught fish in a basket. There are men--a very few--who work more swiftly and more surely when they know they"re on the brink of ruin; but not Joe. One glimpse of our real National Coal account, and all my power over him couldn"t have kept him from showing the whole Street that Blacklock and Company was shaky. And whenever the Street begins to think a man is shaky, he must be strong indeed to escape the fate of the wolf that stumbles as it runs with the pack.
"No holiday at present, Joe," was my reply to his suggestion. "Perhaps the second week in July; but our marriage was so sudden that we haven"t had the time to get ready for a trip."
"Yes--it _was_ sudden, wasn"t it?" said Joe, curiosity twitching his nose like a dog"s at scent of a rabbit. "How _did_ it happen?"
"Oh, I"ll tell you sometime," replied I. "I must work now."