The Street Called Straight Part 54

XXV

It was late in the afternoon when Davenant reappeared at Tory Hill, having tramped the streets during most of the time since leaving Ashley in the morning. He was nervous. He was even alarmed. He had little clue to Olivia's judgment on his visit to the Marquise, and he found Ashley's hints mysterious.

It was rea.s.suring, therefore, to have her welcome him with gentle cordiality into the little oval sitting-room, where he found her at her desk. She made him take the most comfortable seat, while she herself turned partially round, her arm stretched along the back of her chair.

Though the room was growing dim, there was still a crimson light from the sunset.

He plunged at once into the subject that had brought him, explaining the nature of the work her father would be called upon to do. It would be easy work, though real work, just what would be within his powers. There would be difficulties, some arising from the relationship of the Ma.s.sachusetts bar to that of Michigan, and others on which he touched more lightly; but he thought they could all be overcome. Even if that proved to be impossible, there were other things he knew of that Mr.

Guion could do--things quite in keeping with his dignity.

"I've already talked to papa about it," she said. "He's very grateful--very much touched."

"There's no reason for that. I should like his company. I'm--I'm fond of him."

For a few minutes she seemed to be pondering, absently. "There's something I should like to ask you," she said, at last.

"Yes, Miss Guion? What is it?"

"When people have done so much harm as--as we've done, do you think it's right that they should get off scot-free--without punishment?"

"I don't know anything about that, Miss Guion. It seems to me I'm not called upon to know. Where we see things going crooked we must b.u.t.t in and help to straighten them. Even when we've done that to the best of our powers, I guess there'll still be punishment enough to go round.

Outside the law-courts, that's something we don't have to look after."

Again she sat silent, watching the shifting splendor of the sunset. He could see her profile set against the deep-red glow like an intaglio on sard.

"I wonder," she said, "if you have any idea of the many things you've taught me?"

"I?" He almost jumped from his seat. "You're laughing at me."

"You've taught me," she went on, quietly, "how hard and narrow my character has been. You've taught me how foolish a thing pride can be, and how unlovely we can make even that n.o.ble thing we call a spirit of independence. You've taught me how big human nature is--how vast and deep and--and _good_. I don't think I believed in it before. I know I didn't. I thought it was the right thing, the clever thing, to distrust it, to discredit it. I did that. It was because, until I knew you--that is, until I knew you as you _are_--I had no conception of it--not any more than a peasant who's always starved on barren, inland hills has a conception of the sea."

He was uncomfortable. He was afraid. If she continued to speak like that he might say something difficult to withdraw. He fell back awkwardly on the subject of her father and the job at Stoughton.

"And you won't have to worry about him, Miss Guion, when you're over there in England," he said, earnestly, as he summed up the advantages he had to offer, "because if he's ill, I'll look after him, and if he's _very_ ill, I'll cable. I promise you I will--on my solemn word."

"You won't have to do that," she said, simply, "because I'm going, too."

Again he almost jumped from his chair. "Going, too? Going where?"

"Going to Stoughton with papa."

"But--but--Miss Guion--"

"I'm not going to be married," she continued, in the same even tone. "I thought perhaps Colonel Ashley might have told you. That's all over."

"All over--how?"

"He's been so magnificent--so wonderful. He stood by me during all my trouble, never letting me know that he'd changed in any way--"

"Oh, he's changed, has he?"

Because he sat slightly behind her, she missed the thunderous gloom in his face, while she was too intent on what she was saying to note the significance in his tone.

"Perhaps he hasn't changed so much, after all. As I think it over I'm inclined to believe that he was in love with Drusilla from the first-only my coming to Southsea brought in a disturbing--"

"Then he's a hound! I'd begun to think better of him--I did think better of him--but now, by G.o.d, I'll--"

With a backward gesture of the hand, without looking at him, she made him resume the seat from which he was again about to spring.

"No, no. You don't understand. He's been superb. He's still superb. He would never have told me at all if he hadn't seen--"

She stopped with a little gasp.

"Yes? If he hadn't seen--what?"

"That I--that I--I care--for some one else."

"Oh! Well, of course, that does make a difference."

He fell back into the depths of his chair, his fingers drumming on the table beside which he sat. Minutes pa.s.sed before he spoke again. He got the words out jerkily, huskily, with dry throat.

"Some one--in England?"

"No--here."

During the next few minutes of silence he pulled himself imperceptibly forward, till his elbows rested on his knees, while he peered up into the face of which he could still see nothing but the profile.

"Is he--is he--coming to Stoughton?"

"He's _going_ to Stoughton. He's been there--already."

If there was silence again it was because he dared not frame the words that were on his tongue.

"It isn't--it can't be--?"

Without moving otherwise, she turned her head so that her eyes looked into his obliquely. She nodded. She could utter no more than the briefest syllables. "Yes. It is."

His lips were parched, but he still forced himself to speak. "Is that true?--or are you saying it because--because I put up the money?"

She gathered all her strength together. "If you hadn't put up the money, I might never have known that it was true; but it _is_ true. I think it was true before that--long ago--when you offered me so much--so _much!_--that I didn't know how to take it--and I didn't answer you. I can't tell. I can't tell when it began--but it seems to me very far back--"

Still bending forward, he covered his eyes with his left hand, raising his right in a blind, groping movement in her direction. She took it in both her own, clasping it to her breast, as she went on:

"I see now--yes, I think I see quite clearly--that that's why I struggled against your help, in the first place.... If it had been anybody else I should probably have taken it at once.... You must have thought me very foolish.... I suppose I was.... My only excuse is that it was something like--like revolt--first against the wrong we had been doing, and then against the great, sublime thing that was coming up out of the darkness to conquer me.... That's the way I felt.... I was afraid.... I wanted something smaller--something more conventional--such as I'd been trained for.... It was only by degrees that I came to see that there were big things to live for--as well as little.... It's all so wonderful!--so mysterious! I can't tell!... I only know that now--"

He withdrew his hand, looking troubled.

"Are you--are you--_sure?_"