Out of the Ashes Part 23

"I expect that," he laughed. "Who am I to escape the common lot?"

She frowned. "As I was saying before you interrupted me so rudely, I have found a way to overcome the arguments and refusals of 'Old Marcus'--by the way, if he heard you call him that, he'd beat you up, and perfectly right. He isn't old, and I wish you had half his sense."

"Dolly, we are _not_ married yet, and I object to unfavorable comparisons. Kindly get down to business."

"Well," she said, "I was thinking just this. We can give it to him as a wedding present--we've got him there, don't you see?"

"No, I _don't_ see," he replied. "Will you kindly show me how you work that out. He'll probably want to give you a Murillo and a town house and a Cellini service, and a motor car upholstered in cloth of gold, a Florentine bust and an order on Raphael to paint your portrait. If you ask me if I see him accepting the Vand.y.k.e as a wedding present from us--I don't."

"Goose!" she said with withering scorn.

He laughed. "Oh, very well, I'm back in the barnyard, so I don't mind.

Just a minute ago and you had me a duck. I've lost caste--I was a mandarin then."

"I didn't say a wedding present for _our_ wedding, did I?" she inquired loftily. "Why don't you stop and think a minute. They don't teach observation in college, evidently."

Teddy was nonplussed. "You've got me," he said, his brows drawn together in a puzzled frown.

She tapped her foot impatiently. "Well, how else could we be giving him a wedding present?" she inquired.

"That's just what I don't see," he replied emphatically.

"When _he_ gets married, of course--heavens! you are dense!"

Teddy was stunned. "When he--why--what nonsense!--he's a confirmed old bachelor. There! I knew you couldn't think out problems when I was kissing you. I'm glad you didn't answer my second question, if that's the way you work things out. Who in the world would he marry!"

"How would you like him for a step-father-in-law?" She looked at him with an amused smile.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "Why, I never thought of that! Your mother!--Oh, by golly! that's great, that's great! Of course, of course.

Here, I'll kiss you again--you can answer my second question." He embraced her with hysterical enthusiasm. "Oh, when did it happen?" he begged. "How did you know? Since when have they been engaged? My! I have been a bat! Where were my eyes? Of all the jolly luck!" he leaped from the bench and executed a triumphal war dance.

"You act just like the kids--I mean, the baby goats, up in the Bronx,"

she laughed. "Teddy, stop, somebody might see you, and they'd send us both to an asylum. Stop it! And besides, my step-father hasn't proposed yet."

Teddy ceased his gambols abruptly. "What in the world have you been telling me, then?" he demanded, crestfallen. "Here I've been celebrating an event that hasn't happened."

"Well, it's going to," she affirmed with an impressive nod of her head.

"_I_ know. Why, even Mother hasn't the slightest idea of it yet. Poor, dear Mother, she's so really humble minded, she wouldn't let herself realize how he loves her. But she leans on him, on the very thought of him. When we were away recuperating, she used to watch for his letters--like--like--I watched for yours, Teddy; and when I'd hand her one, she had such a look of calm, of rest. I've found her asleep with one crushed up in her hand. I'm sure she used to put them under her pillow at night, just as--well--just as I used to put yours, Teddy, under mine. Don't you know, that when two women are in love, they know it one from another, without a word. Of course, Mother knew all about how _I_ felt, I used to catch her looking at me, oh, so wistfully--but she never dreamed that wise little daughter had guessed her secret--oh, no--mothers never realize that their little chick-children have grown to be big geese. But, _I_ know, and, well, Teddy, as you know, if he doesn't ask her pretty soon, I'll go and ask him myself--and he never refuses me anything. I shall say, 'Dear old Marcus, Teddy and I wish you'd hurry up and ask Mother to marry you. We have set our hearts on picking out our own "steps." We think of being married in June, and we want it all settled.' There," she said with a radiant blush, "I've answered all your questions--have you another problem?"

XIX

Left alone before the empty s.p.a.ce reserved for the masterpiece the expression on Gard's face changed. Grave and purposeful, he continued to regard the blank wall, then, turning, he caught up the desk telephone, gave Mrs. Marteen's private number and waited.

A moment later the sweet familiar voice thrilled him.

"It's I--Marcus," he said. "I am coming for you this morning. Yes, I'm taking a holiday, and I'm going to bring you back to the library to see a new acquisition of mine--that will interest you. Then you and Dorothy will lunch with Polly. Dorothy can join us at one o'clock. This is a private view--for you alone.... You will? That's good! Good-by."

Noises in the resonant hall and the opening of the great doors announced the arrival of the moving van and its precious contents, before Saunders, his eyes bulging with excitement, rushed in with the tidings of the coming of the world famous Heim Vand.y.k.e. With respectful care the great canvas was brought in, unwrapped and lifted to its chosen hanging place.

Seated in his armchair, Gard with mixed emotions watched it elevated and straightened. The pictured face smiled down at him--impersonal yet human, glowing, vivid with color, alive with that suggestion of eternal life that art alone in its highest expression can give. Card's smile was enigmatical; his eyes were sad. His imagination pictured to him Mrs.

Marteen as she had sat before him in her self-contained stateliness and announced with indifferent calm that the Vand.y.k.e had been but a ruse to gain his private ear.

Gard rose, approached the picture, and for an instant laid his fingers upon its darkened frame. The movement was that of a worshiper who makes his vow at the touch of some relic infinitely holy.

Then he returned to his seat and for some time remained wrapped in thought. These moments of introspection, of deep self-questioning, had become more and more frequent. He had made in the past few months a new and most interesting acquaintance--himself. All the years of his over-hurried, over-cultivated, ambitious life he had delved into the psychology of others. It had been his pride to divine motives, to dissect personalities, to cla.s.sify and sort the brains and natures of men. Now for the first time he had turned the scalpel upon himself. He was amazed, he was shocked, almost frightened. He could not hide from himself, he was no longer blind, the searchlight of his own a.n.a.lysis was inexorably focused on his own sins and shortcomings--his powers misused, his strength misdirected, his weaknesses indulged, because his strength protected them. In these hours of what he had grown to grimly call his "stock taking," he had become aware of a new and all-important group of men. Where before he had reckoned values solely by capacities of brain and hand, he found now a new factor--the capacity of heart. Ideals that heretofore had borne to his mind the stamp of weakness, now showed themselves as real bulwarks of character. The men who had fallen by the wayside in the advance of his pitiless march to power, were no longer, to his eyes, types of the unfit, to be thrust aside. Some were men, indeed, who knew their own souls, and would not barter them.

In his mind a vast readjustment had taken place. Words had become bodied, the unseen was becoming the visible--Responsibility, Honesty, Fairness, Truth! they had all been words to conjure with--for use in political speeches, in interviews--because they seemed to exercise an occult influence upon the gullible public. "Law," "Peace," "Order," "The Greatest Good to the Greatest Number," he had used them all as an Indian medicine-man shakes bone rattles, and waves a cow's tail before the tribe, laughing behind his gaping mask at the servile acceptance of his prophecies. One and all these Cunjar G.o.ds he had believed to be only bits of sh.e.l.l and plaited rope, had come to life--they _were_ G.o.ds, real presences, real powers. He had invoked them only to deceive others--and, behold! he it was who knew not the truth.

The high tower of his heaven-grasping ambitions seemed suddenly insecure and founded upon shifting sands. The incense the sycophant world burned before him became a stench in his nostrils. The fetishes he had tossed to the crowd now faced him as real G.o.ds; and they were not to be blinded with dust, nor bought with gold. The specious and tortured verbiage of twisted law never for one moment deceived the open ears of Justice, even though it tied her hands, and her voice was the voice of condemnation.

Honor--he had sold it. Faith--he had not kept it. Truth--he had distorted to fit whatever garb he had chosen for her to wear. And, withal, he had hailed himself conqueror; had placed his laurels himself upon his head, ranking all others beneath him. The clamor of the mob he had interpreted as acclaim. Now he heard above the applause the hoa.r.s.e chorus of disdain and fear. It had been his pride to see men fall back and make way at the very mention of his name. Now he felt that they shrank from him--not before his greatness, but from his very contact. He had driven his fellow creatures from him, and in return, they withdrew themselves.

If they came to him fawning, they but showed their lower natures. He had not called forth the power for good, from these the necromancy of his personality had touched. He had conjured evil, he had pandered to base forces.

The realization had not come easily. His habits of thought would return and blind him as of old. He had laughed at himself; he had derided the new G.o.ds, he had disobeyed them and their strange commands--only to return crestfallen, contrite, feeling himself unworthy. He became aware that he had run a long and victorious race for a prize he had craved--only to find that the goal to which it brought him was not that of his old desires. That was but withered leaves, spattered with the blood of those who lost. He had turned from it, and now his steps sought another conquest and another reward. He must strive for a goal unseen, but more real and more worthy than the little crowns of little victories.

His somber thoughts left him refreshed, as if from a bath of deep, clear waters. His spirit felt clean and elated as it rose from the depths. It was with a smile that he pushed back his chair and rose from the table where, for a full hour, he had sat in silent self-communing. He still smiled as he entered the motor and was driven to Mrs. Marteen's.

He found her awaiting him, with outstretched hands, and the look in her eyes that he always longed for--the look he had divined rather than seen on that day of days, when the Past had been renounced and consumed.

There was no embarra.s.sment in their meeting. True, there had been daily exchange of letters during the months of her enforced exile; but they had been only friendly, surface tokens, giving no real hint of the realities beneath. But they had grown toward one another, not apart. It was as if they had never been sundered; as if all the experiences of all the intervening days had been experiences in common.

He gazed at her happily now, rejoicing in the firmness of her step, the brightness of her eyes, the healthy color of her skin. She came with him gladly at his suggestion and they drove in silence through the crowded streets and the silence was in truth, golden. At the door of the great house he descended, gave her his hand and conducted her quickly through the vast, soft-lighted hall to his own sanctum. He closed the door quietly and pressed the electric switch. Instantly the mellow lights glowed above the portrait, which throbbed in response, a glittering gem of warmth and beauty.

Mrs. Marteen's body stiffened; the color receded from her face, leaving it ashen. Her great eyes dilated.

"Do you know why it is there?" he asked at length in a whisper.

"Yes," she murmured. "We have traveled the same road--you and I. I understand."

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "You don't know all that this picture recalls to me--and I hope you will never know; but you and I," he said slowly, weighing his words, "are not of the breed of those who cry out with remorse. We are of those who live differently. That is the constant reminder of what _was_. I do not want to forget. I want to remember. Every time the iron enters my soul I shall know the more keenly that I have at last a soul."

Again they fell silent.

"According to the accepted code I suppose I should make a clean breast of it, even to Dorothy, and go into retirement," she said at length. "I have thought of that, too; but I cannot _feel_ it. I want to be active; to be able to use myself for betterment; make of myself an example of good and not of evil. What I did was because of what I was. I am that no longer, and my expression must be of the new thing that has become me--a soul!" she said reverently.

"A soul," he repeated. "It has come to me, too. And what is left to me of life has no place for regrets. I have that which I must live up to--I _shall_ live up to it."

"We have, indeed, traveled the same road; but you--have led me." She looked at him with complete comprehension.

"We will travel the new road together," he said finally, "hand in hand."

THE END