The Sailor Part 66

For the present, therefore, he had better remain silent. In the meantime, the Sailor had descended once more into the pit. He had been cast again, by that grim destiny which had never failed to dog him from the outset of his life, into the vortex of overmastering forces. He felt the time was near when without the help of Mary Pridmore he could not keep on.

One day, worn out with anxiety, he called at Spring Gardens and had an interview with Mr. Daniel Mortimer. That gentleman could give little solace. The woman drew her allowance every week. There was reason to believe that she had bad bouts of drinking, but Mr. Mortimer was still unable to advise a pet.i.tion for divorce. The whole matter was full of difficulty, there was the question of expense, also it would be wise not to ignore the consequences to a rising reputation.

Henry Harper felt the force of this reasoning. It was no use attempting to gainsay the view of an expert in the law. Moreover, he had a clear knowledge of Mary's opinion on the subject of divorce. In any event she would never consent to marry him.

The young man took leave of the kindly and wise Mr. Mortimer, and with despair in his heart walked slowly back to Brinkworth Street. Every yard of the way he wondered what he should do now. He felt like an animal caught in a trap. For more than a week he had not been able to think of his work.

He had not seen Mary for some days. He was trying to keep her out of his thoughts. But the more he denied himself the sight of her, the less power he had to fight the demon in whose grip he was now held. He was unable to work, he slept little, he had no appet.i.te for food; for the most part, he could only walk up and down this wonderful and terrible city of London which had now begun to appall him.

He had outgrown his present strength. And, as only a woman can, she realized where and how she might help him. This deep-sea mariner should not call to her in vain. Athena, in her high maternal sanity, was ready to yield all.

Three days ago, when he had seen her last, and had sat with her in the shade of the park, her eyes, her voice had told him that. They had told him that, even when it had not been his to ask. It was this implicit declaration which had so gravely frightened him. The truth struck home that he was not treading the path of honor.

By the time he had returned to Brinkworth Street, he knew the necessity of a definite course of action. It was madness to go on in their present way. They had come to mean too much to each other; besides, a perception keenly sensitive had told him that her friends were beginning to regard him with a tacit hostility. It had not found expression in word or deed; he was always received with kindness; but except on the part of Klond.y.k.e, there was no real warmth of sympathy.

Circ.u.mstances had placed him in a terribly false position, and he must be man enough to break his fetters. He knew that there was still one way of doing that. The course was extreme, but honor demanded it.

He had been invited to tea the next day at the house of a friend they had in common. It was to be a large party, and he knew that if he carried out his original intention of going, he would see Mary and no doubt have a chance of talking to her. Much painful reflection that evening finally decided him. He would go prepared to tell everything.

It must be their last meeting, for she would surely see how hopeless was the intimacy into which they had drifted.

Having quite definitely made up his mind, he was able to s.n.a.t.c.h a little more sleep that night than for some weeks past. Moreover, he got up the next day with his resolution strong upon him. Let the cost be what it might, he must accept a bitter and humiliating situation.

At half past four that afternoon he was one of many more or less distinguished persons filling the s.p.a.cious rooms of a house in a fashionable square. The hostess, a quick-witted adroit woman, was very much a friend of both. She had a real regard for Mary, also a genuine weakness for a man of genius.

Athena was there already when the Sailor arrived. And as she sat on a distant sofa, nursing her teacup, with several members of her court around her, the young man was struck yet again, as he always was, by her look of vital power. She had in a very high degree that curious air of distinction which comes of an old race and seems to strike from a distance. The features were neither decisive nor regular, but the modeling of the whole face and the poise of the head no artist could see without desiring to render on canvas.

The Sailor had to steel his will. The thought was almost intolerable that at one blow he was about to sever his friendship with her. She was so strong and fine, she was a sacred part of his life, she was the key of those central forces that now seemed bent on his destruction.

Presently, amid the slow eddy of an ever changing crowd they came together. Her greeting was of a peculiarly simple friendliness. She seemed grave, with something almost beyond gravity. There was a shadow upon a face that hardly seemed to have known one in all its years of shelter and security.

"Is there anywhere we can talk?" he managed to say after a little while.

She rose from her sofa with the decision he had always lacked.

"Let us try the library," she said.

And with the a.s.sured skill of an experienced navigator of social waters, she led him there and found it empty.

XVII

Henry Harper's decision had been taken finally. But as soon as he entered this large and dull room, he felt the chill of its emptiness in an almost symbolical way. It was what his whole life was going to be, and the thought nearly wrung a groan out of him.

She was puzzled by a certain oddness in his manner, a feeling which of late had been growing upon her. It was hard to understand. She knew his need of help, his craving for it, yet now the time had come when he had only to ask in order to receive it he seemed at the mercy of a painful indecision which had the power to wound.

Here and now a subtle withdrawal of the highest part of himself seemed more than ever apparent. It was even in his face this afternoon, in the wonderful face of Ulysses that had all the oceans of the world in it. What did it portend? Was it that he was afraid?

What had he to fear? How could such a person as herself repel him?

She had all to give if only he would demand it of her.

Of that he must be aware. The haunted eyes of the sailorman too clearly proclaimed his knowledge.

"How is 'A Master Mariner'?" she asked, in order to end the silence which had intervened as soon as they entered the room.

"It doesn't get on," he said, in a voice that did not seem to be his own.

"I'm very sorry." The deep note was sincerity itself.

"I don't know why," said the Sailor, "but it's too much for me now."

"Of course, it is all immensely difficult. The latter part particularly. Somehow, one always felt it would be."

"It's not that," said the Sailor. "Not the difficulty, I mean. That was always there, and I was never afraid of it. But I think I am losing grip."

She looked at him, a little disquieted. There was a note in his voice she heard then for the first time.

"That must not be," she said. "There's no reason for it."

"Ah, you don't know. I begin to feel now that I'll never be able to put it through."

"Why should you feel that? What reason can you have, a man of your wonderful powers, a man with all his life before him?"

"I just haven't the strength," he said in his quaint speech, "and that's all there is to it."

To her surprise, to her horror almost, he suddenly covered his face with his hands. Somehow, the sight of a weakness so palpable in a thing so strong and fine was unnerving.

"I'll never be able to put it through by myself."

As she stood facing him, she felt the truth of that.

"Is it necessary?" The words seemed to shape themselves in despite of her.

"Yes." Involuntarily, he drew away from her. A sure feminine instinct waited for the words that should follow. She read in those strange eyes that he must now speak. She could almost feel, as she stood so near him, a slow and grim gathering of the will. She could almost hear the surge of speech to his lips. But no words came, and the moment pa.s.sed.

Now that he had to strike the knife into his heart, it could not be done. It was not cowardice, it was not a failure of the will, it was not even a momentary weakness of the soul. He was in the grip of ineluctable forces, of a power beyond himself. As he stood not three yards from her with the table supporting him, his whole nature seemed wrenched and shaken to the roots of being.

She couldn't help pitying him profoundly. There was something that had crept into his eyes which harrowed her. Poor mariner! For the first time in her life, she felt a curious sudden tightening of the throat.

She could have shrieked, almost, at the sight of this tragic pain it was not to be hers to ease.

A moment later, she had regained control.

"You must keep on," said Athena. "You must keep on."

But he knew that he was down, and that the ineluctable forces were killing him.

She may have known it, too. No longer able to bear the look upon his face, she drew back, an intense pity striking her.