Dennison Grant Part 34

"Yes. The day of the fire--you remember?"

Grant had started from his chair. "I can't believe it!" he exclaimed.

"There must have been justification!"

"YOU had justification at the Front, but it doesn't make the memory pleasant. I had justification, but it has haunted me night and day. And then, last night you said he was still alive, and my soul seemed to rise up again and say, 'I am free!'"

"Who?"

"Drazk."

"DRAZK!"

"Yes. I thought I had killed him that day of the fire. It is rather an unpleasant story, and you will excuse me repeating the details, I know.

He attacked me--we were both on horseback, in the river--I suppose he was crazed with his wild deed, and less responsible than usual. He dragged me from my horse and I fought with him in the water, but he was much too strong. I had concluded that to drown myself, and perhaps him, was the only way out, when I saw a leather thong floating in the water from the saddle. By a ruse I managed to flip it around his neck, and the next moment he was at my mercy. I had no mercy then. I understand how it might be possible to kill prisoners. I pulled it tight, tight--pulled till I saw his face blacken and his eyes stand out. He went down, but still I pulled. And then after a little I found myself on sh.o.r.e.

"I suppose it was the excitement of the fire that carried me on through the day, but at night--you remember?--there came a reaction, and I couldn't keep awake. I suddenly seemed to feel that I was safe, and I could sleep."

Grant had resumed his seat. He was deeply moved by this strange confidence; he bent his eyes intently upon her face, now shining in the ruddy light from the fire-place. Her frank reference to the event that night seemed to create a new bond between them; he knew now, if ever he had doubted it, that Zen Transley had treasured that incident in her heart even as he had treasured it.

"I was so embarra.s.sed after the--the accident, you know," she continued.

"I knew you must know I had been in the water. For days and weeks I expected every hour to hear of the finding of the body. I expected to hear the remark dropped casually by every new visitor at the ranch, 'Drazk's body was found to-day in the river. The Mounted Police are investigating.' But time went on and nothing was heard of it. It would almost have been a relief to me if it had been discovered. If I had reported the affair at once, as I should have done, all would have been different, but having kept my secret for a while I found it impossible to confess it later. It was the first time I ever felt my self-reliance severely shaken.... But what was his message, and why did you not tell me before?"

"Because I attached no value to it; because I was, perhaps, a little ashamed of it. I learned something of his weaknesses at the Front.

According to Drazk's statement of it he won the war, and could as easily win another, if occasion presented itself, so when he said, 'If ever you see Y.D.'s daughter tell her I'm well; she'll be glad to hear it,' I put it down to his usual boasting and thought no more about it. I thought he was trying to impress me with the idea that you were interested in him, which was a very absurd supposition, as I saw it."

"Well, now you know," she said, with a little laugh. "I'm glad it's off my mind."

"Of course your husband knows?"

"No. That made it harder. I never told Frank."

She arose and walked to the fire-place, pretending to stir the logs.

When she had seated herself again she continued.

"It has not been easy for me to tell all things to Frank. Don't misunderstand me; he has been a model husband, according to my standards."

"According to your standards?"

"According to my standards--when I married him. If standards were permanent I suppose happy matings would be less unusual. A young couple must have something in common in order to respond at all to each other's attractions, but as they grow older they set up different standards, and they drift apart."

She paused, and Grant sat in silence, watching the glow of the firelight upon her cheek.

"Why don't you smoke?" she exclaimed, suddenly springing up. "Let me find you some of Frank's cigars."

Grant protested that he smoked too much. She produced a box of cigars and extended them to him. Then she held a match while he got his light.

"Your standards have changed?" said Grant, taking up the thread when she had sat down again.

"They have. They have changed more than Frank's, which makes me feel rather at fault in the matter. How could he know that I would change my ideal of what a husband should be?"

"Why shouldn't he know? That is the course of development. Without changing ideals there would be stagnation."

"Perhaps," she returned, and he thought he caught a note of weariness in her voice. "But I don't blame Frank--now. I rather blame him then.

He swept me off my feet; stampeded me. My parents helped him, and I was only half disposed to resist. You see, I had this other matter on my mind, and for the first time in my life I felt the need of protection.

Besides, I took a matter-of-fact view of marriage. I thought that sentiment--love, if you like--was a thing of books, an invention of poets and fiction writers. Practical people would be practical in their marriages, as in their other undertakings. To marry Frank seemed a very practical course. My father a.s.sured me that Frank had in him qualities of large success. He would make money; he would be a prominent man in circles of those who do things. These predictions he has fulfilled.

Frank has been all I expected--then."

"But you have changed your opinion of marriage--of the essentials of marriage?"

"Do YOU need to ask that? I was beginning to see the light--beginning to know myself--even before I married him, but I didn't stop to a.n.a.lyze.

I plunged ahead, as I have always done, trusting not to get into any position from which I could not find a way out. But there are some positions from which there is no way out."

Grant reflected that possibly his experience had been somewhat like hers in that respect. He, too, had been following a path, unconcerned about its end.... Possibly for him, too, there would be no way out.

"Frank has been all I expected of him," she repeated, as though anxious to do her husband justice. "He has made money. He spends it generously.

If I live here modestly, with but one maid, it is because of a preference which I have developed for simplicity. I might have a dozen if I asked it, and I think Frank is somewhat surprised, and, it may be, disappointed, that I don't ask it. Although not a man for display himself, he likes to see me make display. It's a strange thing, isn't it, that a husband should wish his wife to be admired by other men?"

"Some are successful in that," Grant remarked.

"Some are more successful than they intend to be."

"Frank, for instance?" he queried, pointedly.

"I have not sought any man's admiration," she went on, with her astonishing frankness. "I am too independent for that. What do I care for their admiration? But every woman wants love."

Grant had changed his position, and sat with his elbows upon his knees, his chin resting upon his hands. "You know, Zen," he said, using her Christian name deliberately, "the picture I drew that day by the river?

That is the picture I have carried in my mind ever since--shall carry to the end. Perhaps it has led me to be imprudent--"

"Imprudent?"

"Has brought me here to-night, for example."

"You had my invitation."

"True. But why develop another situation which, as you say, has no way out?"

"Do you want to go?"

"No, Zen, no! I want to stay--with you--always! But organized society must respect its own conventions."

She arose and stood by his chair, letting her hand fall beside his cheek.

"You silly boy!" she said. "You didn't organize society, nor subscribe to its conventions. Still, I suppose there must be a code of some kind, and we shall respect it. You had your chance, Denny, and you pa.s.sed it up."

"Had my chance?"

"Yes. I refused you in words, I know, but actions speak louder--"