A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 17

Camilla Maurice found an answer very difficult. Had he been angry, or abusive, it would have been easy; but as it was--

"You overlook the fact of change. A lifetime isn't required for that."

"I overlook nothing." The man went back to his chair. "You remember, as well as I, that we considered the problem of change--and laughed at it. I repeat, we're no longer in swaddling clothes."

"Be that as it may, I tell you the whole world looks different to me now." The speaker struggled bravely, but the ghastliness of such a discussion wore on her nerves, and her face twitched. "No power on earth could make me keep that contract since I've changed."

The suggestion of a smile played about the man's mouth.

"You've succeeded, perhaps, in finding that for which we searched so long in vain, an aesthetic, non-corporeal love?"

"I refuse to answer a question which was intended as an insult."

The words out of her mouth, the woman regretted them.

"Though quick yourself to take offence, you seem at no great pains to avoid giving affront to another." The man voiced the reprimand without the twitch of an eyelid, and finished with another question: "Have you any reason for doing as you've done, other than the one you gave?"

"Reason! Reason!" Camilla Maurice stared again. "Isn't it reason enough that I love him, and don't love you? Isn't it sufficient reason to one who has lived until middle life in darkness that a ray of light is in sight? Of all people in the world, you're the one who should understand the reason best!"

"Would any of those arguments be sufficient to break another contract?"

"No, but one I didn't mention would. Even when I lived with you, I was of no more importance than a half-dozen other women."

"You didn't protest at time of the agreement. You knew then my belief and," Arnold paused meaningly, "your own."

A memory of the past came to the woman; the dark, lonely past, which, even yet, after so many years, came to her like a nightmare; the time when she was a stranger in a strange town, without joy of past or hope of future; most lonely being on G.o.d's earth, a woman with an ambition--and without friends.

"I was mad--I see it now--lonely mad. I met you. Our work was alike, and we were very useful to each other." One white hand made motion of repugnance at the thought. "I was mad, I say."

"Is that your excuse for ignoring a solemn obligation?" Arnold looked her through. "Is that your excuse for leaving me for another, without a word of explanation, or even the conventional form of a divorce?"

"It was just that explanation--this--I wished to avoid. It's hard for us both, and useless."

"Useless!" The man quickly picked up the word. "Useless! I don't like the suggestion of that word. It hints of death, and old age, and hateful things. It has no place with the living."

He drew a paper from his pocket, slowly, and spread it on his knee.

"Pardon me for again recalling past history, Eleanor; but to use a word that is dead!... You must have forgotten--" The writing, a dainty, feminine hand, was turned toward her, tauntingly, compellingly.

The man waited for some response; but Camilla Maurice was silent. That bit of paper, the shadow of a seemingly impossible past, made her, for the time, question her ident.i.ty, almost doubt it.

Five years ago, almost to the day, high up in a city building, in a dainty little room, half office, half _atelier_, a man and a woman had copied an agreement, each for the other, and had sworn an oath ever to remain true to that solemn bond.... She had brought nothing to him, but herself; not even affection. He, on the other hand, had saved her from a life of drudgery by elevating her to a position where, free of the necessity of struggling for a bare existence, she might hope to consummate the fruition of at least a part of her dreams. On her part....

"_Witnesseth: The said Eleanor Owen is at liberty to follow her own inclinations as she may see fit; she is to remain free of any and all responsibilities and restrictions such as customarily attach to the supervision of a household, excepting as she may elect to exercise her wifely prerogatives; being absolutely free to pursue whatsoever occupation or devices she may desire or choose, the same as if she were yet a spinster...._

"_In Consideration of Which: The said Eleanor Owen agrees never so to comport herself that by word or conduct will she bring ridicule....

dishonor upon the name...._"

Recollection of it all came to her with a rush; but the words ran together and swam in a maddening blur--the roar from the street below, dull with distance; the hum of the big building, with its faint concussions of closing doors; the air from the open window, not like the sweet prairie air of to-day, but heavy, smoky, typical breath of the town, yet pregnant with the indescribable throb of spring, impossible to efface or to disguise! The compelling intimacy and irrevocability of that memory overwhelmed her, now; a dark, evil flood that blotted out the sunshine of the present.

The paper rustled, as the man smoothed it flat with his hand.

"Shall I read?" he asked.

The woman's face stood clear--cruelly clear--in the sunlight; about her mouth and eyes there was an expression which, from repet.i.tion, we have learned to a.s.sociate with the circle surrounding a new-made grave: an expression hopelessly desperate, desperately hopeless.

Of a sudden her chin trembled and her face dropped into her hands.

"Read, if you wish"; and the smooth brown head, with its thread of gray, trembled uncontrollably.

"Eleanor!" with a sudden vibration of tenderness in his voice.

"Eleanor," he repeated.

But the woman made no response.

The man had taken a step forward; now he sat down again, looking through the open doorway at the stretch of green prairie, with the road, a narrow ribbon of brown, dividing it fair in the middle. In the distance a farmer's wagon was rumbling toward town, a trail of fine dust, like smoke, suspended in the air behind. It rattled past, and the big collie on the step woke to give furious chase in its wake, then returned slowly, a little conscious under the stranger's eye, to sleep as before. Asa Arnold sat through it all, still as one devitalized; an expression on his face no man had ever seen before; one hopeless, lonely, akin to that of the woman.

"Read, if you wish," repeated Camilla, bitterly.

For a long minute her companion made no motion.

"It's unnecessary," he intoned at last. "You know as well as I that neither of us will ever forget one word it contains." He hesitated and his voice grew gentle. "Eleanor, you know I didn't come here to insult you, or to hurt you needlessly;--but I'm human. You seem to forget this. You brand me less than a man, and then ask of me the unselfishness of a G.o.d!"

Camilla's white face lifted from her hands.

"I ask nothing except that you leave me alone."

For the first time the little man showed his teeth.

"At last you mention the point I came here to arrange. Were you alone, rest a.s.sured I shouldn't trouble you."

"You mean--"

"I mean just this. I wouldn't be human if I did what you ask--if I condoned what you've done and are still doing." He was fairly started now, and words came crowding each other; reproachful, tempestuous.

"Didn't you ever stop to think of the past--think what you've done, Eleanor?" He paused without giving her an opportunity to answer. "Let me tell you, then. You've broken every manner of faith between man and woman. If you believe in G.o.d, you've broken faith with Him as well.

Don't think for a moment I ever had respect for marriage as a divine inst.i.tution, but I did have respect for you, and at your wish we conformed. You're my wife now, by your own choosing. Don't interrupt me, please. I repeat, G.o.d has no more to do with ceremonial marriage now than he had at the time of the Old Testament and polygamy. It's a man-made bond, but an obligation nevertheless, and as such, at the foundation of all good faith between man and woman. It's this good faith you've broken." A look of bitterness flashed over his face.

"Still, I could excuse this and release you at the asking, remaining your friend, your best friend as before; but to be thrown aside without even a 'by your leave,' and that for another man--" He hesitated and finished slowly:

"You know me well enough, Eleanor, to realize that I'm in earnest when I say that while I live the man has yet to be born who can take something of mine away from me."

Camilla gestured pa.s.sionately.

"In other words: while growling hard at the dog who approached your bone, you have no hesitation in stealing from another!" The acc.u.mulated bitterness of years of repression spoke in the taunt.

Across the little man's face there fell an impenetrable mask, like the armor which dropped about an ancient ship of war before the shock of battle.

"I'm not on trial. I've not changed my name--" he nodded significantly toward the view beyond the open door,--"and sought seclusion."