Literature · Romance

What Will People Say? A Novel 58

Chapter 58

HughesEnglish

Persis, forgetting that he was her enemy, leaped to his aid with instinctive womanliness. "You are ill; let me get you something."

Tait straightened himself with an effort, saying: "I'm all right now, thank you. I mustn't let myself get excited, that's all." He was touched by her sudden charity in his behalf. He gazed at her sadly, and, taking her hand, spoke venerably as a father. He was too sad for her sake to be sad for his own. "I'm sorry for you, little woman. You've a big, warm heart; but this is a cold, hard world, and you mustn't try to break its laws. They are based on the scandals and the tragedies of thousands of years, millions on millions of foolish lovers. The world is old, my child, and it is stronger than any of us. And it can punish without mercy. Don't risk it."

An almost unknown earnestness stirred Persis. "You're right, of course. I suppose I must give up all hope of happiness. It's my punishment. I'll take my medicine like a little man."

"That's splendid!" Tait cried. "Live square--in the open. Respect the conventionalities; they're the world's code of morals. If you really love Harvey, let him go his way."

"I'll prove to you that I do love him!" she said, laughing nervously. "I'll give him up. He used to think I was heartless and mercenary. He shall go on thinking so. It's awfully hard, but it is the one way I can help him, isn't it?"

The old man squeezed her slim hand in both of his. "It's the one way. God bless you! And you won't see him again?"

"No," she said, with all the vigor of her soul. Then she caught a glimpse of Forbes. He had returned hurriedly. He was looking for her. She amended her promise: "Except to tell him good-by. I've got to tell him good-by--and make him think I was only--only fooling him, haven't I?"

The old man's triumph collapsed again. But he could not demand everything. He nodded and left her as Forbes appeared at the door. With the mocking laughter of fiends, the band brayed another tango. It was faint in the distance, but it was a satanic comment. Persis made haste to get her business done.

"Well, Harvey, good-by. I'm off to Capri to-morrow."

"But I thought--" he stammered. "You're not going to leave just as we meet again? I thought--"

"You never could take a joke, could you, Harvey?"

"But you said--"

"I'm sorry, Harvey. But I'm married now."

She was turning his own weapons on him. He was befuddled with her whims. He repeated, "You told me you loved me, that you were unhappy."

"You ought to have known I was only fooling you. I'm Mrs. Enslee now. And whom God hath joined--"

He was beside himself with rage. She had wheedled him out of his honor, and now she mocked him where she had left him. He sneered:

"God didn't join you and Enslee. God's voice doesn't speak every time a hired preacher reaches out for a wedding fee! It was the devil that joined you, and God keeps you asunder. God joined you with me. He meant us for each other. But you hadn't the courage to face a little poverty. You wanted prestige and position, and you bought them with the love that belonged to me. You haven't the courage now to deny that you are unhappy, that you love me still."

She trembled before the storm of his wrath. "But I don't--I don't love you any more. I am happy."

"You can't look me in the eyes, Persis, and repeat that lie."

She tried vainly to meet his glare. She mumbled weakly, "Why, I'm happy--enough."

"Do you love me still?" he demanded.

"N-no! Of course not!"

He wanted to strike her, primevally, for a coward, a liar, a female cad. He controlled himself and groaned: "Well, that makes everything simpler. Good-by."

She seized his arm and threw off the disguise. "Harvey, Harvey, I can't stand it. I can't endure the thought of it. I can't live without your love. I don't care what happens. I never did love anybody else but you. I never shall."

His love came back in a wild wave. He seized her blindly, and she hid blindly in his arms, sobbing: "I am so unhappy, so unutterably lonely! You must love me, Harvey, for I love you. I love you."

They were as oblivious of their peril as Tristan and Isolde in the spell of the love philter. Only the old Ambassador, who had hovered near to shield their farewell, saw them. The vision was like a thunderbolt. To hear of a scandal, to be convinced of it is as nothing to seeing it. That comes like an exposure, an indecency, a slap in the face. The Ambassador was furious with disgust. He stormed into the room: "Can I believe my eyes? Are you both lost to common sense? Is this your discretion, Mrs. Enslee? Do you realize where you are?"

Persis toppled out of Forbes' relaxed embrace, and spoke from a daze: "No--I forgot--I must be out of my mind."

Forbes came to her defense: "You mustn't blame her. It was my fault."

"No, it was mine," Persis insisted. "But I couldn't help it."

Tait was filled with contempt. "What if it had been any of the guests that had found you two maniacs as I did. What if I had been Enslee!"

Persis was as amazed as he was. She muttered, "I know--I know--but I can't stand everything."

Tait tried to patch up his broken plan. "Harvey, you've disappointed me bitterly. But I give you one more chance to retrieve yourself. Promise me never to see Mrs. Enslee again."

Forbes shook his head.

Tait could hardly believe his senses. "My God! Must the deep friendship of two men always be at the mercy of the first woman that comes along? Harvey, Harvey, I beg you to give this woman up!"

"I can't."

Tait's voice glittered with anger. "You've got to! I command you to! You can't commit this infamy and remain with me!"

Forbes set his jaw hard. "I resign."

Tait snapped: "I accept."

Persis was frantic at this outcome of her passion. "No, no! Oh, don't! I'd rather die than be the cause of a breach between you two." She clutched Tait's arm. "Don't listen to him!"

Forbes seized her other hand. "I'll not give you up again. You belong to me."

"You are wrecking my trust in humanity," Tait groaned; then his wrath blazed again. "But I'll break up this intrigue at any cost, even if I have to tell Enslee."

Persis stared at him in a panic. "You couldn't do that."

Tait had made one step to the door. He hung irresolute before the loathsome office of the tattle-tale. "What in the name of God is a man to do? If I tell your husband I am a contemptible cad. If I don't tell him I am your accomplice." He pondered deeply, and chose between the evils. "Well, I'd rather have you two think me a cad than to be a criminal and a coward." He took another step to the door.

Persis clung to his sleeve. "Oh, I implore you!"

He shook her loose. "I am going to tell your husband what I saw."

And then the man most deeply concerned appeared in the doorway. Willie Enslee stumbled at the sill and spoke with a blur: "Pershish, itsh time we were dresshing for d-dinner."

Tait looked at him in disgust, then at Persis and Forbes, who stood cowering with suspense. The old man shivered in an agony of decision. "Mr. Enslee, I must tell you--"

He clapped his hand to his heart, and strangled at the words: "I must tell you--I must tell you--good night!"

He could not force his tongue to the task. The fierce effort broke him. He wavered. A sudden languor invaded him. His muscles turned to sand. He crumbled in a heap.

Forbes ran to him, and with all difficulty heaved the limp huge frame into a chair that Persis pushed forward. He straightened the arms that flopped like a scarecrow's, and steadied the great leonine head that rolled drunkenly on the immense shoulders. And he spoke to Enslee as if he were a servant.

"Run for a doctor--quick--you fool!"

Willie staggered away, almost sobered with fright. Persis stood wringing her hands. Through her brain ran the music of the tango they were playing:

At the devil's ball, at the devil's ball, Dancing with the devil--oh, the little devil! Dancing at the devil's ball.

She ran to the door like a fury and shrieked: "Stop that music! For God's sake, stop that music!"

The music ended in shreds of discord. The dancers paused in puppet attitudes, then turned like a huddle of curious cattle and drifted toward the door. Persis returned to Forbes' side, and, bending close, heard the old man speaking thickly as his hands fluttered feebly about Forbes' arm.

"Harvey--I'm so--sor-ry for you--and for her. Take care of--my poor--ch-child, won't you?"

"Yes, yes!" Forbes whispered.

"And--and Harvey--I wanted to--to die in A-mer-America. Take me b-back and bury me--at home, won't you?"

"Yes, yes!"

The soft hands glided along Forbes' arm in a fumbling caress.

"Th-thass--a goo' boy. You've been a--a--a--a son to me. Har-har-vey. Goo'-b-b--Good-by!"

Forbes bent down and pressed his lips to the old man's forehead.

Liveried servants with wan faces glided through the crowd, and, lifting the chair, struggled from the room with its great burden, the old head wagging, the lips laboring at the messages they could not accomplish.

Forbes followed the chair as if it were already the coffin of his ideal among men. Persis waited in a trance, shaken now and then with sudden onsets of ague, but otherwise motionless, her whole soul pensive. Willie hung about her, whining:

"I say, old girl, let's be getting home--I feel all creepy. Awfully unfortunate, wasn't it? Let's be getting home. Rotten luck for the Ambassador. Nice old boy, too. Let's be getting home."

Persis did not answer. By and by Willie went in search of his coat and her furs. The other guests dispersed. Outside there was a muffled hubbub of chasseurs calling carriages and cars, of horns squawking, of doors slammed.

Winifred could be heard sobbing in the room where the musicians were putting up their violins and slinking out. Mrs. Mather Edgecumbe was audible in the stillness telephoning the alarm to the Embassy.

Persis stood fixed, still staring where Forbes had gone. Suddenly her face lighted up. Forbes wandered back all bewildered. She forced her hand on him, and he took it idly. It was some time before he could speak that ultimate word "Dead!"

Persis wrung his hand and sighed:

"Poor old fellow! I'm sorry he hated me so bitterly. He said he'd fight against my happiness till he died, and now--"

Forbes did not hear her. He was thinking only of the foster-father he had lost. He mumbled, with dark dejection:

"I'm alone now--alone!"

But Persis' face was overswept with a shaft of light. Glancing over her shoulder, and seeing that no one was near their door, she moved closer to Forbes, laid her other hand on his, and spoke with all meekness and with a questioning appeal.

"Not alone, Harvey? I'm here."

He opened his clenched eyes a little and met her upward gaze. He closed his eyes again against her. She waited. Only a moment, and then with a sudden frenzy he gripped her in a mad embrace and smote her lips with his. She closed her eyes in ecstasy.

Immediately he started back from her in horror, groaning: "What am I thinking? And he's just dead!"

"He's dead, but I live!" She meant only to soothe him, but through her low voice an exultance broke like a bugle of triumph, and she whispered again: "I live! I live!"

So the eyes of Jael must have widened when she had driven the nail through the temples of Sisera.

In her victory she remembered discretion and glided aside from Forbes just before Willie entered the room with a servant carrying Persis' furs.

"Come along, Persis," Willie complained; "we can't stay here all night."

"I'm quite ready," she answered, with bridal gentleness. Then, "Good-by, Captain Forbes; so glad to have seen you again. Good-by."

She offered her hand formally, and he took it formally, dumbly. As it slipped warmly, reluctantly from his grasp it was replaced by the clammy, bony fingers of Willie, who was doing his best in the gentle art of consolation:

"Awfully sorry, old chap. These things have got to happen, though, haven't they? Don't take it too hard, and if you get too blue come round and let us try to cheer you up a bit. We're at the Meurice."

"Thank you," said Forbes. He bowed and did not raise his eyes for fear of what might be smoldering in the eyes of Persis.

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