"That you will be generous! ... There are some things that Isabelle can"t see straight just now. She doesn"t know herself, altogether."
"I should think that her husband--"
"Can"t you feel his position? His lips are closed by his pride, by his love!"
"I should say, Vickers," Cairy remarked with a sneer, "that you had better follow Lane"s sensible course. This is a matter for the two most concerned and for them alone to discuss.... With your experience you must understand that ours is the situation which a mature man and a mature woman must settle for themselves. Nothing that an outsider says can count."
And turning around to face Vickers, he added slowly, "Isabelle and I will do what seems best to us, just as under similar circ.u.mstances you did what you thought was best for you without consulting anybody, as I remember."
Vickers quivered as his eye met Cairy"s glance, but he accepted the sneer quietly.
"The circ.u.mstances were not the same. And I may have learned that it is a serious matter to do what you wish to do,--to take another man"s wife, no matter what the circ.u.mstances are."
"Oh, that"s a mere phrase. There"s usually not much taking! When a woman is unhappy in her marriage, when she can be happy with another man, when no one can be really hurt--"
"Somebody always is hurt."
"The only thing I am greatly interested in is Isabelle"s happiness, her life. She has been stifled all these years of marriage, intellectually, emotionally stifled. She has begun to live lately--we have both begun to live. Do you think we shall give that up? Do you think any of your little preachments can alter the life currents of two strong people who love and find their fulfilment in each other? You know men and women very little if you think so! We are living to-day at the threshold of a new social epoch,--an honester one than the world has seen yet, thank G.o.d! Men and women are daring to throw off the bonds of convention, to think for themselves, and determine what is best for them, for their highest good, undisturbed by the bogies so long held up. I will take my life, I will live, I will not be suffocated by a false respect for my neighbor"s opinion."
Cairy paused in the full career of his phrases. He was gesticulating with his hands, almost forgetful of Vickers, launched as it were on a dramatic monologue. He was accustomed thus to dramatize an emotional state, as those of his temperament are wont to do, living in a world of their own feelings imaginatively projected. While Vickers listened to Cairy"s torrent of words, he had but one thought: "It"s no use. He can"t be reached that way--any way!"
A stone wall stopped their progress. As Cairy slowly dragged himself over the wall, Vickers saw the outline of the pistol in the revolver pocket, and remembered the afternoon when Cairy had shown them the weapon and displayed his excellent marksmanship. And now, as then, the feeling of contempt that the peaceable Anglo-Saxon has for the man who always goes armed in a peaceable land came over him.
Cairy resumed his monologue on the other side of the wall.
"It is the silliest piece of barbaric tradition for a civilized man to think that because a woman has once seen fit to give herself to him, she is his possession for all time. Because she has gone through some form, some ceremony, repeated a horrible oath that she doesn"t understand, to say that she belongs to that man, is _his_, like his horse or his house,--phew!
That"s mere animalism. Human souls belong to themselves! Most of all the soul of a delicately sensitive woman like Isabelle! She gives, and she can take away. It"s her duty to take herself back when she realizes that it no longer means anything to her, that her life is degraded by--"
"Rot!" Vickers exclaimed impatiently. He had scarcely heard what Cairy had been saying. His sickening sense of failure, of impotency, when he wished most for strength, had been succeeded by rage against the man, not because of his fluent argument, but because of himself; not against his theory of license, but against him. He saw Isabelle"s life broken on the point of this glib egotism. "We needn"t discuss your theories. The one fact is that my sister"s life shall not be ruined by you!"
Cairy, dropping back at once to his tone of worldly convention, replied calmly:--
"That I think we shall have to let the lady decide for herself,--whether I shall ruin her life or not. And I beg to point out that this topic is of your own choosing. I regard it as an impertinence. Let us drop it. And if you will point out the direction, I think I will hurry on by myself and get my train."
"My G.o.d, no! We won"t drop it--not yet. Not until you have heard a little more what I have in mind.... I think I know you, Cairy, better than my sister knows you. Would you make love to a _poor_ woman, who had a lot of children, and take _her_? Would you take her and her children, like a man, and work for them? ... In this case you will be given what you want--"
"I did not look for vulgarity from you! But with the _bourgeoisie_, I suppose, it all comes down to dollars and cents. I have not considered Mrs.
Lane"s circ.u.mstances."
"It"s not mere dollars and cents! Though that is a test,--what a man will do for a woman, not what a woman will do for a man she loves and--pities."
As Cairy shot an ugly glance at him, Vickers saw that he was fast angering the man past all hope of influence. But he was careless now, having utterly failed to avert evil from the one he loved most in the world, and he poured out recklessly his bitter feeling:--
"The only success you have to offer a woman is success with other women!
That little nurse in the hospital, you remember? The one who took care of you--"
"If you merely wish to insult me--" the Southerner stammered.
They were in the midst of a thicket of alders near the river, and the sinking sun, falling through the young green leaves, mottled the path with light and shade. The river, flushed with spring water, gurgled pleasantly over pebbly shallows. It was very still and drowsy; the birds had not begun their evening song.
The two men faced each other, their hands clenched in their coat pockets, and each read the hate in the other"s face.
"Insult you!" Vickers muttered. "Cairy, you are sc.u.m to me--sc.u.m!"
Through the darkness of his rage a purpose was struggling--a blind purpose--that urged him on.
... "I don"t know how many other women after the nurse have served to fatten your ego. But you will never feed on my sister"s blood while I live!"
He stepped closer unconsciously, and as he advanced Cairy retreated, taking his clenched hand from his pocket.
"Why don"t you strike?" Vickers cried.
Suddenly he knew that purpose; it had emerged with still clearness in his hot brain. His heart whispered, "She will never do it over my body!" And the thought calmed him at once. He saw Cairy"s trembling arm and angry face. "He"ll shoot," he said to himself coldly. "It"s in his blood, and he"s a coward. He"ll shoot!" Standing very still, his hands in his pockets, he looked quietly at the enraged man. He was master now!
"Why don"t you strike?" he repeated.
And as the Southerner still hesitated, he added slowly:--
"Do you want to hear more?"
The memory of old gossip came back to him. "He is not the real Virginia Cairy," some one had said once; "he has the taint,--that mountain branch of the family,--the mother, you know, they say!" Very slowly Vickers spoke:--
"No decent man would want his sister living with a fellow whose mother--"
As the words fell he could see it coming,--the sudden s.n.a.t.c.h backwards of the arm, the little pistol not even raised elbow high. And in the drowsy June day, with the flash of the shot, the thought leapt upwards in his clear mind, "At last I am not impotent--I have saved her!"....
And when he sank back into the meadow gra.s.s without a groan, seeing Cairy"s face mistily through the smoke, and behind him the blur of the sky, he thought happily, "She will never go to him, now--never!"--and then his eyes closed.
It was after sunset when some men fishing along the river heard a groan and hunting through the alders and swamp gra.s.s found Vickers, lying face down in the thicket. One of the men knew who he was, and as they lifted him from the pool of blood where he lay and felt the stiff fold of his coat, one said:--
"He must have been here some time. He"s lost an awful lot of blood! The wound is low down."
They looked about for the weapon in the dusk, and not finding it, took the unconscious man into their boat and started up stream.
"Suicide?" one queried.
"Looks that way,--I"ll go back after the pistol, later."
Isabelle had had tea with Marian and the governess out in the garden, and afterwards strolled about through the beds, plucking a flower here and there. To the agitation of the morning the calm of settled resolve had succeeded. She looked at the house and the gardens thoughtfully, as one looks who is about to depart on a long journey. In her heart was the stillness after the storm, not joy,--that would come later when the step was taken; when all was irrevocably settled. She thought quite methodically of how it would all be,--what must be done to cut the cords of the old life, to establish the new. John would see the necessity,--he would not make difficulties. He might even be glad to have it all over! Of course her mother would wail, but she would learn to accept. She would leave Molly at first, and John naturally must have his share in her always. That could be worked out later. As for the Farm, they might come back to it afterwards.
John had better stay on here for the present,--it was good for Molly. They would probably live in the South, if they decided to live in America. She would prefer London, however.... She was surprised at the sure way in which she could think it all out. That must be because it was right and there was no wavering in her purpose.... Poor Vick! he would care most. But he would come to realize how much better it was thus, how much more right really than to go dragging through a loveless, empty life. And when he saw her happy with Tom--but she wished he liked Tom better.
The failure of Vickers to return in time for tea had not troubled her. He had a desultory, irregular habit of life. He might have stopped at Alice"s or even decided to go on to the city with Tom, or merely wandered off across the country by himself....
In the last twilight three men came up the meadow path, carrying something among them, walking slowly. Isabelle caught sight of them as they reached the lower terrace and with her eyes fastened on them, trying to make out the burden they were carrying so carefully, stood waiting before the house.