Claire Part 25

"I don't want you to give me anything."

"But I cannot help it, neither can you."

"I have killed a man's love before this," she answered bitterly.

"But you cannot kill mine. I love you, whether you love me or not. I am proud to acknowledge my unreturned love."

"As you please." Claire stopped suddenly. "Are we apt to get anywhere with this subject?" she asked ironically.

"I don't know. I earnestly hope so."

She looked at Philip thoughtfully. Perhaps the truth about her own weakness might cure him.

"Suppose I allowed you to love me, and you found that you had won a woman whose pa.s.sions were her whole life. Suppose she should prove to be a mere bundle of s.e.x, all polished over with other people's ideas, a social manner, and a set of morals which she did not really feel, which were deceiving ornaments hiding her soul. What would you think of your prize?"

"I should not love such a woman. I could not."

"But suppose you were deceived and thought her other than she was."

"I hardly expect such a thing to happen. Why suppose?"

"Because if I were your wife you might find it to be true."

Philip laughed aloud. "Claire, how preposterous! Are you trying to kill my love for you with such terrifying pictures of depravity?"

"I wasn't trying to do anything. I just wanted to know."

"Have you been answered?"

"Yes, you are like all of your type; you are in love with what your own desire chooses as an ideal, and then you shout, 'Behold, I am not a sensual lover!'"

He stared at her in amazement. "What sort of a thing do you think I am?"

She laughed carelessly. "A man. And what do you think I am?"

"A very strange woman, but a dear one," he said earnestly.

"Why strange, Philip?"

"Because you talk of love as Lawrence might."

She winced. "He would know," she said. "He does know, perhaps." She was talking to herself, and her voice was pathetic.

Philip's eyes grew fierce with anger. "What do you mean?"

"Not what your very ideal mind thinks," she said coldly.

He flamed scarlet, and looked away. "Claire," he said softly, "will you never have done stirring up suspicions no man could avoid, and then condemning them?"

"I didn't stir them up," she mocked.

"Who did, then?"

Claire was undergoing a developing reconstruction, but that she did not know. She thought she was degenerating, and the immediate result was to make her careless and ironical.

"Oh, the devil, perhaps," she hazarded.

"What are you, Claire?" Philip demanded hoa.r.s.ely.

Suddenly her suffering broke into tears. To his utter amazement, she began to cry unrestrainedly.

Over and over she sobbed: "I don't know, I don't know."

For a moment Philip stood motionless, bewildered, then his love and natural tenderness swept over him, and he said tenderly, "Don't, Claire, please."

She only cried harder, weakened the more by his pity. He took her in his arms as he would a child, and comforted her. She was tempted to struggle, but her need for sympathy prevailed, and she did not resist him. He held her in his arms, pouring out his love, his anxiety, his tenderness, and in her momentary condition she listened and made no protest. In her aching mind she kept repeating, "I have killed Lawrence's love with my b.e.s.t.i.a.l talk"--and she wanted love. She did not think of her husband. He was too far away. In her present att.i.tude she exalted Lawrence to the unattainable, and, without formulating the thought, she was willing to lie in Philip's arms and take what he could give. They were two of a kind, she thought scornfully. In her bitterness, the bleak, snow-covered land, with its drooping pines, seemed in its cold monotony a fitting background for two such worthless derelicts.

In the Spaniard's mind was but one thought--to comfort Claire and restore her to her usual self. Vaguely he knew that love was already promised by the unresisting body in his arms, but there was no thought of immediately pressing his suit. He petted and talked until she stopped crying, then he stood her on her feet, and said, with a tender laughter in his words: "There, you are all right again. We would better go in.

You are cold."

Silently she walked beside him back to the cabin. She was indifferent, she thought, as to whether he did or did not continue his appeals for love. She was under her own deep, unexplained, emotional control which led her forward. She was finding herself, but before she would be safe she would have to throw off a ma.s.s of traditional views, beliefs, and teachings. If Philip chose to press his suit while her knowledge of herself still seemed vile and abnormal, she would be surely his. Claire thought herself lost. She had revealed her terrible state to Lawrence, killed his love, filled him with abhorrence, and struck at his life's source.

With silent turmoil in her brain she entered the cabin beside Philip.

When she saw Lawrence, a sharp pain went through her. He was white as death save for the red spots that marked his fever. She took off her coat and snow-cap hurriedly.

"Lawrence," she said softly, going toward him.

He lifted his head slightly.

"What is it, Claire?"

"I want to do something for you. You're ill."

His face clouded. "No, thanks," he said. "You've done too much for me already."

"Won't you do anything for yourself?" she begged.

"I'll be all right. It's just a cold, I guess."

Philip came and stood looking down at Lawrence scrutinizingly, while Claire went to the fire and heated water.

"I am going to fill you up with quinin," he announced. "It is never missing from my medicine-chest."

"All right," Lawrence laughed. "It isn't bitter compared to what I'm filling myself with."

"Are you not making a fool of yourself?" Philip asked plainly.

"Yes. I know it. That doesn't keep me from doing it, though."