Claire Part 12

Philip also laughed. "Well," he said, "there might come a time when I, too, would want a thing enough to kill in order to obtain it."

"What, for example?" asked Lawrence. "That is the best way to determine your value of life."

Philip did not answer for a few minutes, then his voice vibrated.

"The things that mean more than life to me. I know that one holds his own life dear, but there are things, love, courage, honor, for example, that he holds even above life."

"Would you kill me, for instance," asked Lawrence pleasantly, "if I stood between you and Claire?"

"That is scarcely answerable," nervously interposed Claire. "You see, you don't and the man who does--though it's all absurd, since we none of us here are the least in love--is my husband."

"I had almost forgotten him," said Lawrence, his voice lingering softly on the word "almost."

Philip laughed. "Why, yes, in the abstract, I should say that if anything would make me kill you, it would be your standing between me and the woman I loved. Of course, the case is fair, but scarcely probable enough to make any of us worry."

"True"--Lawrence joined him at the fire--"and by the way, while I think of it, I want a knife and a block of soft wood. I'm going to entertain myself these days."

Quickly Claire looked up.

"And you shall entertain me, Philip," she said gaily.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TIGHTENING NET.

Christmas was upon them. They gathered before the big fireplace in silent meditation, while outside the wind whipped sheeted snow against the walls and wailed dismally its endless journeying. They could not help but feel the something melancholy in the air. The little cabin, standing so far away from civilization and all the things they were accustomed to know seemed somehow to set them apart from the rest of the world and leave them stranded as it were, upon a barren stretch of thought.

In keeping with the setting, solemn questions of destiny, death, and the meaning of things took the place of the usual Christmas festival and glitter.

In Lawrence's mind, Claire was growing more and more predominant. He found her constant a.s.sociation weaving itself into his life until, when he looked ahead toward the day when they must part, he discovered himself asking what he could find that would take her place. Her voice, her little habits of speech, the unexpected question that showed her deep interest in him, in his work, and in his att.i.tude toward her, these had gradually stirred in him the desire to establish in his own mind a definite relation toward her which he could maintain.

When Claire went out for a while with Philip, Lawrence spent the interim in trying to reason out his problem. He told himself that he would feel differently in his old environment with friends and work, but the answer was not satisfactory. He knew that even there, he would miss the quick sound of movement, the quick phrase that was Claire.

Did he love her then? He asked himself that, and could not answer. What was love to him, anyway? He sought to think out a scheme of love that would fit into his system of utter selfishness, and failed. The memory of her in his arms came to him now with a warm, emotional coloring that had been absent during the days of their journey.

Had he been so impersonal then at first? He remembered his first wild joy at finding her there in the surf, and he admitted that even then there had been a subtle heightening of his pleasure, because it was a woman. Since his blindness he had been separated from the other s.e.x even more than from his own, and now he was to live with one daily, having her alone to talk to, to watch, to be interested in, and to know--yes, that had been a part of his feeling that morning. He remembered that he had been slightly irritated at her when he had first decided that she was cold and intellectual. He had wanted her to be warm, colorful, vivid, and feminine. He had found later that she was all these things, but not toward him. It was a man whom he had never known, her husband, Howard Barkley, for whom she was wholly woman. Always when she spoke of him her voice had warmed, grown softer, subtly shaded with color.

Claire opened the cabin door.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Dreamer! Still in the land of to-morrow?" she called, taking off her heavy wraps.

"Where's Philip?" Lawrence demanded gruffly, without moving.

"Working over a trap in the ravine. I was a little tired, so I didn't wait."

Lawrence could hear her brushing her hair. He was glad she had returned without Philip. Now at least they would have a few minutes alone.

"Snow bad?" he asked. If he could only have run his hands through that curly ma.s.s! The memory of her hair brushing against his face made his temples throb dully.

"Yes, my hair is filled with it. I caught my cap on a branch, and the whole load of snow came down on top of me."

"How old are you, Claire?" he demanded suddenly.

She laughed. "Guess! Don't you know it isn't good form to ask a lady her age?"

"Sometimes you are quite thirty, and other times--"

"Well, go on." Claire was standing at the opposite side of the fireplace with her back to the flame.

"Other times, you are two," Lawrence continued calmly.

"I thought that was coming. Well, just to prove what a really nice person I am, I'll tell you. I'm twenty-six."

"When were you married, Claire?" Her breath tightened at his question.

"Curiosity is a wonderful thing, and the impudence of man pa.s.seth all understanding. I have been married exactly six years, three months, and twenty-four days." The last sentence brought the catch into her voice that Lawrence had expected.

"I know you miss your husband," he forced himself to say formally.

"Yes, you see"--Claire hesitated--"ours wasn't like some marriages one hears about. Howard and I were both very much in love." She realized too late the past tense. Had Lawrence noticed it? "I miss him dreadfully,"

she added desperately.

Lawrence said nothing. He had noticed Claire's slip, and the verb had sent him into a thousand realized dreams. The next instant he was cursing himself for a fool. "Fools, all of us," he thought. "Philip, too, warming himself with dreams of Claire." Before the nearness of the Spaniard's personality, Howard Barkley faded into the background.

Lawrence reviewed his own position moodily.

Blind, unable to do the work that Philip did, certainly unable to use the million little ways of courtesy-building as Philip did, his chances were unequal.

Did he want Claire for Claire, or was it only the fighting instinct, the desire to overcome men not handicapped as he was? Would he still want Claire after he had won her? After the intimacies of home life had made her familiar as nothing else could, and had dispelled all romance, all the alluring appeal that sprang from the deepest s.e.x-prompted desire yet unattained, would he still want her? That was the question, and he could not say. The experience alone could tell him--and would that experience ever come?

Claire watched Lawrence's face, the while her own thoughts raced on. It had been love she felt for her husband. She was sure of that. Of course, in the years of their life together, the old, wild pa.s.sion had gradually retired into its normal proportion, leaving them free to go about calmly and untroubled. But it was there, as she well knew in the hours when they became lovers again. Certainly those hours had been joyous, happy ones, unclouded by any suspicion of mere gratification of impulse or desire. Yes, they had been hours of love claiming its rightful expression over the more constant hours of daily living.

Then she recalled her experience of the night before. She had been dreaming of her husband, but he possessed Lawrence's features, illumined with the glow of Philip's eyes, and she had started into full wakefulness with a sudden sense of her position. Now she sat before the fire, and resolved grimly that no matter what happened she would be faithful to Howard. Of course, she would go with Philip to look after his traps, the exercise was the best antidote to such morbid thoughts, and he would never make advances to her, of that she was sure. As for the days that she might spend alone with Lawrence, he was too self-centered, too much wrapped up in his wood-carving, to think of a woman--and she disregarded the little pang of discontent that accompanied her thought.

Philip was hanging the skins over the door. Claire realized that she had been too engrossed to notice his entrance.

"I break a six weeks' fast to-day"--and he turned toward Lawrence. "Do you smoke?"

"Man!" said Lawrence, springing up, "if I'd known you had tobacco in store I'd have murdered you long ago to get it. I would be a more agreeable companion if I could taste tobacco now and then."

"Pardon me for not thinking to ask you. I was declaring a six months'

course in self-discipline for the good of my soul."

"Bring forth the smoke," said Lawrence joyously.