The Road to Understanding Part 36

And so the winter pa.s.sed and spring came; and it was on a beautiful day in early spring that Helen took Betty (now nine years old) to one of London's most famous curio-shops. There was to be an auction shortly of a very valuable collection of books and curios, and the advertising catalogue sent to Mr. Reynolds had fallen into Helen's hands.

It was no new thing for Helen to haunt curio-shops and museum-cabinets given over to Babylonian tablets and Egyptian scarabs. Helen had never forgotten the little brown and yellow "soap-cakes" which were so treasured by Burke and his father, and of which she had been so jealous in the old days at Dalton. At every opportunity now she studied them.

She wanted to know something about them; but especially she wanted Betty to know about them. Betty must know something about everything--that was of interest to Burke Denby.

To-day, standing with Betty before a gla.s.s case of carefully numbered treasures, she was so a.s.siduously studying the catalogue in her hand that she did not notice the approach of the tall man wearing gla.s.ses, until an amused voice reached her ears.

"Going in for archaeology, Mrs. Darling?"

So violent was her start that it looked almost like one of guilt.

"Oh, Mr. Estey! I--I didn't see you."

His eyes twinkled.

"I should say not--or hear me, either. I spoke twice before you deigned to turn. I did not know you were so interested in archaeology, Mrs.

Darling."

She laughed lightly.

"I'm not. I think it's--" Her face changed suddenly. "Oh, yes, I'm interested--very much interested," she corrected hastily. "But I mean I--I don't know anything about it. But I--I'm trying to learn. Perhaps you-- _Can_ you tell me anything about these things?"

Something in her face, the fateful "learn," and her embarra.s.sed manner, sent his thoughts back to the scene between them years before. Stifling an almost uncontrollable impulse to query, "Is it to please _him_, then, that you must learn archaeology?" he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"I'm afraid not," he smiled. "Oh, I know a _little_ something of them, it's true; but I've just been chatting with a man out in the front shop who could talk to you by the hour about those things--and grow fat on it. He's looking at a toby jug now. Shall I bring him in?"

"No, no, Mr. Estey, of course not!"

"But, really, you'd find him interesting, I'm sure. I met him in Egypt last year. His name is Denby--a New Englander like-- Why, Mrs. Darling, what is the matter? Are you faint? You're white as chalk!"

She shook her head.

"No, no, I'm all right. Did you mean"--with white lips she asked the question--"Mr. John Denby?" She threw a quick look at Betty, who was now halfway across the room standing in awed wonder before a huge Buddha.

"No, this is Burke Denby, John Denby's son. I met them both last year.

But you seem to-- Do you know them?"

"Yes." She said the word quietly, yet with an odd restraint that puzzled him. He saw that the color was coming back to her face--what he could not see or know was that underneath that calm exterior the little woman at his side was wildly adjuring herself: "Now, mind, mind, this is an emergency. Mind you meet it right!" He saw that she took one quick step toward Betty, only to stop and look about her a little uncertainly.

"Mr. Estey,"--she was facing him now. Her chin was lifted determinedly, but he noticed that her lips were trembling. "I do not want to see Mr.

Burke Denby, and he _must not_ see me. There is no way out of this place, apparently, except through the front shop, where he is. I want you to go out there and--and talk to him. Then Betty and I can slip by unnoticed."

"But--but--" stammered the dumfounded man.

"Mr. Estey, you _will_ do what I ask you to--and please go--_quickly_!

He's sure to come out to see--these." She just touched the case of Babylonian tablets.

To the man, looking into her anguished eyes, came a swift, overwhelming revelation. He remembered, suddenly, stories he had heard of a tragedy in Burke Denby's domestic affairs. He remembered words--illuminating words--that this woman had said to him. It could not be-- And yet--

He caught his breath.

"Is he--are you--"

"I am Mrs. Burke Denby," she interrupted quietly. "You will not betray me, I know. Now, will you go, please?"

For one appalled instant he gazed straight into her eyes; then without a word he turned and left her.

He knew, a minute later, that he was saying something (he wondered afterward what it was) to Mr. Burke Denby out in the main shop. He knew, too, without looking up, that a woman and a little girl pa.s.sed quietly by at the other side of the room and disappeared through the open doorway. Then, dazedly, Mr. Donald Estey looked about him. He was wondering if, after all, he had not been dreaming.

That evening he learned that it was not a dream. Freely, and with a frank confidence that touched him deeply, the woman he had known as Mrs.

Darling told him the whole story. He heard it with naturally varying emotions. He tried to be just, to be coolly unprejudiced. He tried also, to hide his own heartache. He even tried to be glad that she loved her husband, as she so unmistakably did.

"And you'll tell him now, of course--where you are," he said, when she had finished.

"No, no! I can't do that."

"But do you think that is--right?"

"I am sure it is."

"But if your husband wants you--"

"He doesn't want me."

"Are you sure?"

"Very sure."

A curious look came to the man's eyes, a grim smile to his lips.

"Er"--he hesitated a little--"you don't want to forget that--er--you have long ago qualified for--that _understudy_. You remember that--_I_ wanted you."

The rich color that flamed into her face told that she fully understood what he meant, yet she shook her head vehemently.

"No, no! Ah, please, don't jest about--that. I was very much in earnest--indeed, I was! And I thought then--that I really could--could-- But I understand--lots of things now that I never understood before. It is really all for Betty that I am working now. I want to make _her_--what he would want her to be."

"Nonsense, my dear woman! As if you yourself were not the most--"

She stopped him with a gesture. Her eyes had grown very serious.

"I don't want you to talk that way, please. I would rather think--just of Betty."

"But what about--him?"

"I don't know." Her eyes grew fathomless. She turned them toward the window. "Of course I think and think and think. And of course I wonder--how it's all coming out. I'm sure I'm doing right now, and I think--I was doing right--then."

"Then?"

"When I went away--at the first. I can't see how I could have done anything else, as things were. Some way, all along, I've felt as if I were traveling a--a long road, and that on each side was a tall hedge. I can't look over it, nor through it. I can't even look ahead--very far.

The road turns--so often. But there have never been any crossroads--there's never been any other way I could take, as I looked at it. Don't you see, Mr. Estey?"