Claire Part 39

"You aren't quite fair, Lawrence," she protested. "In so far as the church makes for a stronger socialization, it is a good."

"But does it always promote that very effectively? Most of the socialization could be better carried on where really educated people were educators. The few of them there are in our schools now are hampered as much as they are helped by the church."

"I don't agree," she said. "The church does hamper education in higher branches, undoubtedly, but in the kindergartens and grades it is a good."

"I don't know," he responded; "I never saw it."

"Well," she cried suddenly, and laughed, "whatever we think of the church, I agree that religion isn't always there, and when it is, barring a few liberal exceptions, it is generally misdirected."

"And here you and I sit in the Andes Mountains talking when we might be making love," he laughed.

"And here we are making love under the pretense of being intellectual,"

she rejoined. "What would we do without the dear deceptions that make us such pitiably delightful animals?"

"We'd be a hopelessly unimaginative set of eaters." His answer was quick. "I am convinced that it is our very power to deceive, plan grand follies, though petty in deeds, that makes us artists, dreamers, thinkers, and statesmen."

"Perhaps," she agreed, and then slipped her arms around him suddenly.

"Is that what makes us able lovers, too?"

He laughed. "By Jove, I believe it is!" he exclaimed. "Well, old universal tangle, I do truly thank you for the power to be a foolish, deceived, human being. Hurrah for the instinct that makes me call you my divine necessity, Claire."

She laughed happily and leaned against his shoulder.

"For any instinct or deception that makes you more enjoyable, let us give thanks," he repeated.

"And for all the dear bodily claims that make me your adored one I do give thanks, Lawrence," she whispered.

Their lips met again. She drew back startled, and sprang to her feet with a cry of terror.

Philip stood in the doorway, looking at them with a face from which all human sentiment was gone. He was a raging beast.

"Lawrence," she screamed. "Philip!"

Her lover sprang to his feet. Now he realized his blindness and its true handicap. Philip was there, somewhere before him, thinking what he could not know. He waited, every muscle strained with expectant fear and anger.

Claire was staring at Philip with abject terror in her face. Lawrence could not know that, he only heard her breathing heavily, and instinctively his arm went out to her.

"Don't be afraid, dear," he said tenderly.

The man in the door uttered an exclamation. "So"--and his words were sharp as icicles--"that is your d.a.m.ned wanton way. You are the second harlot I have loved."

Lawrence started forward angrily.

"Fool!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

Claire's warning scream gave him just time to brace his body. Philip had sprung at him like a wild beast, and the impact of his weight sent Lawrence staggering backward. In that moment the Spaniard's hand closed on his throat. The blind man was paying the price of his defect in his long-talked-of primitive battle for life.

Even then he thought of the scene as it must be, and smiled bitterly, while his hand went to his throat and tore at the wrist that was steeling itself to rob him of breath.

Had he been able to see, the fight would still have been unequal. Philip was taller, wirier, and quicker on his feet. Lawrence's one advantage lay in his keen, quick response to touch sensation, and that gave him his sense of direction and ability to move rightly.

With one hand he tore at Philip's wrist, while with the other he reached steadily for Philip's face.

They had knocked over the chairs and were staggering against the table.

From the corner by the fireplace Claire watched them in an agony of dread. It was indeed her time of test.

She saw Lawrence's hand clutching at the flesh of Philip's cheek. They were panting like two beasts. It was the primitive battle of males for the female of their choice.

Philip's hand was torn free from Lawrence's throat. The blind man laughed as his lungs filled with air. She heard him mutter between clenched teeth: "By G.o.d, I'll spoil your advantage."

They were struggling again for throat holds.

Lawrence was protecting his own, but the hand he had wrenched free closed around his arm, bending it back slowly, irresistibly toward the point where it must break. She screamed and covered her eyes for a second at what her lover was doing--she saw him deliberately gouge at Philip's eyes with his thumb held hard.

She heard both men fall, and looked again in spite of herself. They were on the floor writhing, their bodies against each other, clawing, striking, digging, and biting like two wild gorillas.

Now Lawrence was on top, now underneath, but she could not help but see that Philip was slowly gaining. Though badly injured in one eye, he still fought on unhesitatingly, forcing Lawrence nearer and nearer to death. The artist was even now ceasing to resist, his struggle had become spasmodic. Her lover was being choked to death. She sprang to her feet.

"Lawrence!" she screamed. "Lawrence!"

He was being killed in a battle for the possession of her. Could she stand still and see the man she loved murdered? Her hair fell about her shoulders in a ma.s.s. She swept it back from her face, looked frantically around her, then rushed to the wall-cupboard on the other side of the cabin and drew out a long meat-knife.

The touch of the steel in her hand carried her out beyond the last barrier of civilized thought. For a moment she was the savage through and through. With a scream like that of a wounded lioness whose cub is in danger, she sprang toward them, the knife uplifted.

Then she stopped. Something paralyzed her--generations of inherited inhibition, conscience, what you will. "O G.o.d!" she moaned miserably, as the weapon fell from her hand.

It clattered on the wooden floor close beside the two men. Philip looked up, and his white teeth gleamed in a grim smile. Claire realized what she had done--she had placed the means of certain triumph within reach of her lover's enemy. She stooped to regain the knife, but it was too late. Philip released his grip on Lawrence's throat, leaned over, and seized the blade.

It was a mistake. Lawrence was far past consciousness of what he was doing, but his body still instinctively obeyed his will. As the weight from his chest was eased for a moment, he writhed his body into a freer position and his arms struck out wildly.

Philip saw his danger and raised the knife. The scene pa.s.sed in a second, but to Claire it was as if they were petrified for hours in that position--she half-kneeling there, her arm outstretched, and Philip astride Lawrence's body, holding the knife in midair. In that last picture, carved upon Claire's agonized gaze, all the Spaniard's beauty was gone forever--he was a monster, his face distorted, one eye closed, his smile broadening into a hideous dog-like grin.

Philip's arm came down. As it did so, it was struck from above by Lawrence's, swinging aimlessly in a wide sweep. The blade, deflected with double force, entered deep into Philip's breast.

For just one instant an expression of angry and almost ludicrous surprise leaped across the Spaniard's face as his teeth snapped shut.

Then his whole body twisted round violently, rolled over, and lay still beside Lawrence's equally motionless form.

Claire tottered back into a chair, and stared at them stupidly. Silence reigned in the cabin where there had been chaos. Slowly from under Philip's body a red line spread to a blotch on the floor. Lawrence was lying there, his head almost touching it.

Claire gazed and gazed, while she felt as if she must faint from the dreadful illness which seized her. Suddenly Lawrence was sitting up, his blackened face growing less terrible to look upon. He put his hands to his throat, and then, as the pain in his lungs decreased, he rose unsteadily. For a moment he balanced himself carefully, rubbing his throat.

Then he cried hoa.r.s.ely: "Claire!"

She moistened her lips with her tongue, but could not answer.

He stooped and began to feel across the floor. She saw his hands, those sensitive hands, move toward Philip's dead body. They would be in his blood presently.

She started forward. "Lawrence!" she screamed.