A Poor Wise Man Part 75

Howard Cardew was about to withdraw from the contest. "I'm late in coming to this decision," he said. "Perhaps too late. But after a careful canvas of the situation, I find you are right, Cameron. Unless I withdraw, Akers"--he found a difficulty in speaking the name--"will be elected. At least it looks that way."

"And if he is," old Anthony put in, "he'll turn all the devils of h.e.l.l loose on us."

It was late; very late. The Cardews stood ready to flood the papers with announcements of Howard's withdrawal, and urging his supporters to vote for Hendricks, but the time was short. Howard had asked his campaign managers to meet there that night, and also Hendricks and one or two of his men, but personally he felt doubtful.

And, as it happened, the meeting developed more enthusiasm than optimism. Cardew's withdrawal would be made the most of by the opposition. They would play it up as the end of the old regime, the beginning of new and better things.

Before midnight the conference broke up, to catch the morning editions.

w.i.l.l.y Cameron, detained behind the others, saw Lily in the drawing-room alone as he pa.s.sed the door, and hesitated.

"I have been waiting for you, w.i.l.l.y," she said.

But when he went in she seemed to have nothing to say. She sat in a low chair, in a soft dark dress which emphasized her paleness. To w.i.l.l.y Cameron she had never seemed more beautiful, or more remote.

"Do you remember how you used to whistle 'The Long, Long Trail,' w.i.l.l.y?"

she said at last. "All evening I have been sitting here thinking what a long trail we have both traveled since then."

"A long, hard trail," he a.s.sented.

"Only you have gone up, w.i.l.l.y. And I have gone down, into the valley.

I wish"--she smiled faintly--"I wish you would look down from your peak now and then. You never come to see me."

"I didn't know you wanted me," he said bluntly.

"Why shouldn't I want to see you?"

"I couldn't help reminding you of things."

"But I never forget them, anyhow. Sometimes I almost go mad, remembering. It isn't quite as selfish as it sounds. I've hurt them all so. w.i.l.l.y, do you mind telling me about the girl who opened that letter and sent you help?"

"About Edith Boyd? I'd like to tell you, Lily. Her mother is dead, and she lost her child. She is in the Memorial Hospital."

"Then she has no one but you?"

"She has a brother."

"Tell me about her sending help that night. She really saved your life, didn't she?"

While he was telling her she sat staring straight ahead, her fingers interlaced in her lap. She was telling herself that all this could not possibly matter to her, that she had cut herself off, finally and forever, from the man before her; that she did not even deserve his friendship.

Quite suddenly she knew that she did not want his friendship. She wanted to see again in his face the look that had been there the night he had told her, very simply, that he loved her. And it would never be there; it was not there now. She had killed his love. All the light in his face was for some one else, another girl, a girl more unfortunate but less wicked than herself.

When he stopped she was silent. Then:

"I wonder if you know how much you have told me that you did not intend to tell?"

"That I didn't intend to tell? I have made no reservations, Lily."

"Are you sure? Or don't you realize it yourself?"

"Realize what?" He was greatly puzzled.

"I think, w.i.l.l.y," she said, quietly, "that you care a great deal more for Edith Boyd than you think you do."

He looked at her in stupefaction. How could she say that? How could she fail to know better than that? And he did not see the hurt behind her careful smile.

"You are wrong about that. I--" He made a little gesture of despair. He could not tell her now that he loved her. That was all over.

"She is in love with you."

He felt absurd and helpless. He could not deny that, yet how could she sit there, cool and faintly smiling, and not know that as she sat there so she sat enshrined in his heart. She was his saint, to kneel and pray to; and she was his woman, the one woman of his life. More woman than saint, he knew, and even for that he loved her. But he did not know the barbarous cruelty of the loving woman.

"I don't know what to say to you, Lily," he said, at last. "She--it is possible that she thinks she cares, but under the circ.u.mstances--"

"Ellen told Mademoiselle you were going to marry her. That's true, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You always said that marriage without love was wicked, w.i.l.l.y."

"Her child had a right to a name. And there were other things. I can't very well explain them to you. Her mother was ill. Can't you understand, Lily? I don't want to throw any heroics." In his excitement he had lapsed into boyish vernacular. "Here was a plain problem, and a simple way to solve it. But it is off now, anyhow; things cleared up without that."

She got up and held out her hand.

"It was like you to try to save her," she said.

"Does this mean I am to go?"

"I am very tired, w.i.l.l.y."

He had a mad impulse to take her in his arms, and holding her close to rest her there. She looked so tired. For fear he might do it he held his arms rigidly at his sides.

"You haven't asked me about him," she said unexpectedly.

"I thought you would not care to talk about him. That's over and done, Lily. I want to forget about it, myself."

She looked up at him, and had he had Louis Akers' intuitive knowledge of women he would have understood then.

"I am never going back to him, w.i.l.l.y. You know that, don't you?"

"I hoped it, of course."

"I know now that I never loved him."

But the hurt of her marriage was still too fresh in him for speech. He could not discuss Louis Akers with her.

"No," he said, after a moment, "I don't think you ever did. I'll come in some evening, if I may, Lily. I must not keep you up now."

How old he looked, for him! How far removed from those busy, cheerful days at the camp! And there were new lines of repression in his face; from the nostrils to the corners of his mouth. Above his ears his hair showed a faint cast of gray.