The Mayor of Warwick Part 18

His listener suddenly abandoned his semi-rec.u.mbent position for one of alert attention and ceased smoking, not yet fully aware of the reason for his dawning excitement, except that the last words had called up a vision of Bishop Wycliffe to his mind. He was in a state of suspended perception, trembling upon the brink of a discovery he was loath to make, waiting with painful tension for more light.

"So I did n't even meet her halfway," Emmet was saying. "She kept asking me questions about my life, until little by little she knew all about me. But the thing that interested her most was the fact that I belonged to a union, and that I had read a good deal of political economy. Well, at Christmas time I got a box of books without any clew as to the sender, but of course I knew who sent them. They were Plato and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and John Stuart Mill, and books of that kind. After that she began to talk to me, right before her friends or her father, of my studies. I read at the books, at first to please her and to have something to say about them, and then because I became interested. Her friends regarded me as one of her charities and began to patronise me, but all the time I knew she felt differently, though no one suspected it but ourselves.

"Just before I left the car to play ball in the spring, she said she hoped it would be the last time, for I was fit for something better.

Several times she happened to be in Warwick that summer when we played there, and I saw her in the grand stand; and once, when I knocked a home run, I saw her wave her handkerchief to let me know she saw me do it. When I came back in the fall, we began with a new understanding.

I had thought a good deal of her during the summer, and I knew she had of me. There was more between us than before, and it was only a question of time and opportunity before we should come together. We happened to take the same car one evening when I was off duty. All the way up we talked like two old friends, and when she reached her street, I helped her off and then walked over with her to her house on Birdseye Avenue."

A sharp crackling sound startled him into silence. Leigh had unconsciously been clenching the amber stem of his pipe with increasing intensity, and now it was ground to powder between his teeth. The meerschaum bowl fell to the floor, scattering a trail of sparks as it rolled away.

"h.e.l.lo!" Emmet cried. "You 've broken your pipe."

Leigh was groping for the bowl and stamping out the sparks.

"The cold weather," he muttered, "makes the amber brittle. There must have been a flaw somewhere."

Long before Emmet had mentioned Birdseye Avenue, he had known the worst; but only then, when he remembered the two lovers whom he and Cardington had overtaken after the evening at Littleford's, did his emotion culminate in this unexpected expression. She had gone from his side, after he had made love to her and had taken the lilies of the valley he still cherished, to walk with her real lover, to congratulate him upon the triumph she had made her dupe describe. Now every incident connected with her fell into its proper place and appeared with its true meaning. He understood how he had been used from the first; the lurking figure by the fire in the woods was no longer a mystery; the scene on this very spot, when she had bent down to hand Emmet the candle, was explained. The whole story, in which he played the part of a meddler and a fool, was unrolled before him.

Emmet--Emmet--Emmet--that had been her theme, and apparently her chief interest in life. Still, with a pitiful hope, he must needs have the final proof before believing. There was yet some remote possibility of a mistake, some question at least as to the extent of her infatuation for this man. He had spoken of two women. Perhaps Miss Wycliffe's abrupt departure was connected with a discovery of his unfaithfulness to her, and meant that she would cast him off forever. A wild hope that this might be so displaced his first despair. If that were all,--a mere ideal fancy which really did her credit,--perhaps she would return disillusioned, convinced of her mistake, and eager to bury its very memory forever.

He regained his seat, pale as a ghost, but with a wonderful effort he managed to smile.

Emmet reflected a moment. He had gone too far to retreat.

"Perhaps if her name were still Miss Wycliffe," he announced, "instead of Mrs. Emmet, it might be better for all concerned."

Only the semi-darkness of the place prevented him from seeing the effect of this disclosure. During the silence that ensued, the canvas of the windbreak flapped audibly, like the sail of a yacht responding to a rising breeze.

"You did n't expect that?" he demanded, gratified by the sensation he had created.

"No," Leigh heard himself reply, in a voice that sounded far away.

"That makes it all the more--interesting. Then you were married secretly?"

"Not for two years or more; but we met from time to time. I can't help wondering now why n.o.body suspected the truth. Of course the boys chaffed me a good deal, and asked to be invited to the wedding, but they were miles short of guessing the real state of affairs. Sometimes I noticed her friends putting their heads together and knew they were discussing me, for they stopped whispering when I came up for their fares. But even so I heard casual remarks. Some said it was sweet of her--the way women talk, you know--and democratic, and others said it was no use trying to do anything for that kind of people."

"Mrs. Parr, for example?"

"Yes," Emmet burst out, his eyes flashing redly, "but I 'll show that singed cat yet what kind of people I am! I 'll show her and her whole d.a.m.ned set!" His anger almost choked him, and his face grew crimson.

"She's part of the story, too," he went on, "but she does n't come in yet. However, if there were two people in Warwick that suspected anything serious, it was that woman and Professor Cardington."

"Not the bishop?" Leigh asked.

"I don't think so, though he did freeze me in that way of his that you can't put your finger on. He's as proud as Lucifer, and would as soon have thought of his daughter falling in love with some little Dago on the street as with me. But all the same, he did n't approve of her interest in me, and he managed to make it evident."

Leigh had a vision of the blow that awaited the bishop's pride. He even wondered whether the disclosure would kill him, but he made no comment. In his own heart a sense of anger deadened for the time being his sense of loss. Since his discovery of the fact that she was a married woman, her treatment of him appeared so much more heartless that he felt he could never forgive her.

"We were married in New York," Emmet explained. "It was in September.

The bishop was off on a visitation; Mrs. Parr was in Europe. We met"--

"Never mind," Leigh interrupted, shrinking. "Tell me where the other woman comes in."

"That's just what I 'm coming to now. When we got back to Warwick,--we didn't come together, you understand,--I found out for the first time what I was in for. That was when my troubles began."

"You don't speak as if you loved her," the other said harshly. Was it for this she had thrown herself away? Fortunately Emmet was too much absorbed in himself to note the suppressed scorn and fury of his voice.

"I did n't get much chance for love, or much love from her, either," he said bitterly. "She kept me just where I was before. What did I get?

A stolen interview and a kiss now and then, but plenty of advice and books and plans. She put me up to running for mayor; I 'm bound to say that. But she was n't to acknowledge me as her husband until I was elected. That was the plan, and I was fool enough to agree to it. You would n't believe it, but I did n't see her sometimes for weeks together. Last winter she even sailed off to Europe as cool as a cuc.u.mber, and left me alone to work out my salvation, as she called it.

I worked it out, too. I worked the union for all it was worth. I got to be president and formed a secret league with the other unions, and we captured the Democratic nomination before the opposition knew what we were up to. All that took time and work, and gave me something to think about besides my married life. But when I saw Felicity after that, it was mostly to report progress and to get advice. G.o.d! It was more like going to my teacher than to my wife, and the thing became intolerable. She grew more mysterious to me all the time. She did n't seem like a natural woman, and I could n't understand her at all. Then I met the other woman at a lodge dance. I took her home and kissed her at the gate, partly because she was a pretty girl, and partly because I thought she expected it. I thought that would be the end of it, but it was n't. You know how those things grow into something you did n't expect. You can understand how I got in deeper and deeper, intending to break away all the time. If you 're the man I take you to be, you can't help understanding. You can't help seeing both sides of the question, and how I gradually got mixed with this girl without meaning any harm, until I discovered that we loved each other, and that my wife had kept me waiting till she had killed the love I once had for her, and the grat.i.tude, too.

"The situation came to a head all at once. Just before the election, this girl goes to work for Felicity, and while there she wears a ring I let her have, which my wife had given me as a sort of kismet, or talisman, as she called it. Felicity sees it on her hand, follows her to her room, and gets it back, after having found out all she wanted to know, but without telling anything herself. Then, instead of coming to me after the election, she sent me a note to let me know that she had found me out, and off she went to Bermuda with her father."

"I see," said Leigh coldly, "but I don't see yet where I come in."

"I want your advice, as a friend," Emmet returned. He was still unsuspicious of anything amiss in his auditor, and went on to tell of the adventure that followed his good resolutions: of his race on the avenue; of his unexpected meeting with Lena and his sudden fall; of the encounter at the inn. Something of the eloquence which Leigh had heard from him on the platform glowed in the apologetic pa.s.sages of his narrative. If the astronomer had never known and loved Felicity himself, he could not have failed to be impressed by the man's evident struggle; he would have appreciated his repentance; he would have blamed his wife for her conduct, and would have realised that her need of sympathy was less than Lena's in proportion as her love was less, in proportion as her resources and her pride were greater. As it was, he would have been more than human had he taken such a comprehensive view of the tragedy, and his judgment went bitterly against the man who had dared to esteem lightly the gift which he felt he would have given his all to possess.

"Now," Emmet said, in conclusion, "you 're a friend of mine and a friend of my wife's, and I thought--perhaps"--

"You want me to be a go-between?" Leigh demanded. "You want me to help you win her back?"

"That's what I was thinking of," the mayor replied. "Tell her I mean to do the right thing, that I meant to all along. Somehow I think she 'll understand better if you tell her. You stand halfway between us, and can see both points of view. Now that I 'm mayor and established in life, the bishop need n't feel that he 'd be disgraced by the marriage. I can hold my own with the old gentleman now. She 's my wife, and I want her to acknowledge it. The account is pretty even as things stand, I take it."

Leigh smiled scornfully at Emmet's claim of social equality with the bishop, based upon his position as mayor. Not that office, but only the fact that he was Felicity's husband, would give him an entrance into the bishop's house, and the claim seemed to him boastful and vulgar. He rose abruptly to his feet, every muscle tense.

"No, I can't see both points of view," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I can see only her point of view, what she is, what she meant to do for you, what she gave you"--

"What she gave me!" Emmet echoed, springing to his feet in turn. "Hold on, professor. Be fair to a man. She gave me nothing that a wife should give, I tell you, nothing! She left me at the very door of the church and went off alone"--

"What!" Leigh cried. His revulsion of feeling was so great that he tottered and leaned against the wall for support. Only one thought possessed him, that she was not in reality this man's wife, after all.

In the face of her desertion, the mere words of the marriage ceremony were as nothing.

"Why, man," he said, taking Emmet suddenly by the shoulder, as if he would shake a comprehension of his words into him, "you're not married, before G.o.d you're not married. What priestcraft notion has gotten hold of you? I tell you it's all a mistake. You've both made a mistake--and you've both found it out. Do you suppose, if she really loved you, she would have gone away like that, without giving you a chance to explain? If you really loved her, would you have kissed the first pretty girl that came in your way? I help you to win her back!

Get her back yourself, if you can. I hope you can't do it. I don't wish you the luck you don't deserve. Don't come to me with your troubles!"

Emmet wrenched himself violently away and stood aghast.

"You love her yourself," he said, in a voice of wonder.

"And if I do," Leigh retorted defiantly, "what is that to you?"

"Nothing," Emmet answered, "nothing." And turning like one stupefied, he walked slowly away without another word.

CHAPTER XIII

FURNITURE AND FAMILY

It was not without a painful self-consciousness that Leigh and Emmet met again after their strange interview on the tower. In a city of between fifty and one hundred thousand people, with comparatively few large arteries of trade, a chance encounter sooner or later was inevitable. It occurred one afternoon in a large crowd of Christmas shoppers. Either would have been glad of a forewarning and a chance to look casually in another direction, but neither was prepared, when they came face to face, to give the cut direct. Their greeting was scarcely more than a nod, and showed their mutual constraint. Leigh read in Emmet's bold eyes a warning such as an injured husband might convey to the man that had wronged him, and a defiant rea.s.sertion of himself after his humiliating confession. He suspected also, what indeed was the truth, that the discovery of his own feeling for the bishop's daughter had opened Emmet's eyes anew to her value, and had cleared them of the mists of pa.s.sion for the unfortunate Lena Harpster. From now on the mayor would do his best to win his wife back. He had the bearing of one who had recovered his poise and meant to yield no inch of ground.