Claire Part 7

"Yes," Lawrence said shortly. "When morning comes, we'll hunt for a location."

They ceased speaking, each occupied with his own thoughts.

Claire was asking herself what the winter would mean to her, spent with this silent man, and he was questioning how long she would continue to regard him as a mere imperfect carrier, devoid of the stuff that men are made of. Sometimes when her body was in his arms, he had wondered if she was capable of love, but always he had remembered her husband, her social life, her a.s.sumption of superior reserve, and had forced himself into a habitual att.i.tude of indifference. The strain was telling on his will, however, and often he longed to make this woman see him as he was.

He thought of the old days in his studio when he had proved himself master of blindness in his power to imagine and carry the sense of form into the carved stone. He recalled the praise of his comrades, and over all else there surged in him the swift, warm blood of the artist.

"Lawrence," said Claire suddenly, "at what do you value human life?"

"That depends," he answered, "on whose life it is."

"Well, at what would you value mine?" she demanded.

"From varying points of view, at varying prices. From your husband's point of view, it is invaluable. From your own, it is worth more than anything else. From my point of view, it is worth as much as my own, since without you mine ceases."

"Then your care of me and all your trouble is merely because you value your own life."

"What else?" He moved uneasily.

She ignored that question. "If you could get through without me, would you do it?"

"That depends on circ.u.mstances. If I could get through without you, and do it quickly, and could not get through with you"--he paused--"I should leave you behind."

"And suppose, when I can walk, I do that myself?"

He smiled. "As you please," he said quietly. "I advise you to make your estimate well, however. My hands and strength are a.s.sets which you might have trouble in doing without."

"And do you estimate the whole of our relationship on a carefully itemized basis of material gain and loss?"

"Claire, isn't that your understanding, stated by yourself, of our partnership?"

"Yes, but--well, it's hard to estimate human companionship."

"I know it." He shifted nearer the fire. "I've tried to estimate yours."

"Indeed?" Her voice was full of interest.

"I've failed. You are worth a great deal, potentially."

"Exactly what do you mean?"

"I mean just this"--he stood up suddenly and faced her, his shadow covering her like an ominous cloud--"that as Mrs. Claire Barkley you are worth nothing to me except eyes, and, therefore, your personality and conversation are of value only as time-fillers."

"Go on," she said steadily.

"But as Claire, the almost starved, ragged human being who is living with me through a prolonged war with death, you are worth everything to me--everything that I value."

"But isn't that what I have been from the beginning?" she flashed.

He answered slowly. "Yes--in a way."

Once more they lapsed into silence. In turn she tried to estimate his worth to her, but failed. She began to recall the men she knew, and concluded that she was without a standard of measurement. One by one she pictured them and cast them aside, as somehow not the scale by which to evaluate this man. At last, she began to think of her husband. It had not occurred to her to think of him in comparison with Lawrence before, and it made her wonder at her doing so now.

She fell to dreaming of the man who had been her lover in girlhood, and her husband and dear companion these past six years. He was surely at home, aching, yearning for the little girl he had lost. She could see him sitting before the fireplace in their big living-room, his head on his hands, his tired face in repose, while he gazed into the flames and longed and longed for her. The picture grew in clearness. She saw the joy that would be his when they met again, and she felt around her those dear arms, crushing her against him in a rapture of reunion. In sudden contrast, she was again conscious of the cold, impersonal arms of the man beside her. As she thought of the difference she hated Lawrence wildly. At least, her husband knew her worth. He knew her golden treasure-house of love; he knew her as she was.

This blind man before her there, unkempt, hard, expressionless, what did he know of her? What could he know, born of poor people, and working his way among inferiors? She almost laughed aloud. Why, at home this man, who had carried her in his arms, would have been one of her wards, an object of her charities. But would he? Lawrence was an artist. She considered that.

"Isn't it light enough to get moving, Claire?" His rich, warm tones broke in upon her thought like a shattering cataract. How musical and vibrant his voice was!

"I think so." She stood up unsteadily.

"Good. We'd better go down nearer the river. We will want a sheltered ravine for our winter camp."

"Very well." She threw her arm over his shoulder. "It isn't far down, and it's clear going. When we start again, I'll be able to walk. And then I'll lead you, Mr. Lawrence." She spoke half in jest.

"And if we are alive, I shall make it possible for you to do so comfortably. I hope for something to make shoes of." He answered with a frank, sincere joy at her being able to walk, and she was ashamed of her anger. He was not to blame for being anxious to have her well, to have felt otherwise would certainly have been to be a fool indeed. She should rejoice with him, for then they could get home that much sooner, home to her husband and her old life. She warmed at the idea, and felt a sense of grat.i.tude toward Lawrence that was good and wholesome. "I have been silly," she thought. "He is really not to be expected to fall and adore me, and certainly I ought not to blame him for being blind. He couldn't help that, either."

"Lawrence," she said aloud, "I am a beastly unjust wretch."

"I don't see it," he protested.

"But you ought to see it. I don't play fair with you."

"You said that once before, I believe. I don't agree any more now that I did then."

"But I think all sorts of beastly things." She could not understand her frankness.

"Oh"--he paused. "So do I. But as I am not a Puritan, I scarcely hold myself responsible to you for my thoughts. One's thoughts are his own, and, as long as he keeps them to himself, he is ent.i.tled to as many as he pleases, of whatever variety he prefers."

"Do you think so?"

"Of course, and so do you."

"Yes, I did--but it seemed to me," she faltered, "that in the present case--oh, well, let it go." She laughed nervously, and said no more.

Lawrence wondered at her silence, and wanted to know very much what she thought, but he told himself that after all it was none of his business.

They had reached the river. The water rushed from the mouth of a gorge in rapids that sent its every drop sparkling and flashing over a great rock into a ma.s.s of white foam below.

"Oh," cried Claire, "it's beautiful, beautiful!"

He put her down and laughed. "It sounds as if it were leaping from points of light into cloud-banked foam."

She stared at him in amazement. "It is," she said in a subdued tone.

"How did you know?"

"One learns," he said carelessly. "And how about a camp?"

Her admiration of him vanished into the commonplace.