The Turnstile Part 54

"Hush!" she answered. "It's all right, Harry."

As the curtain descended at the end of the act she said, "Let us go now quickly, do you mind? Before the lights are turned up."

They were, fortunately, near to the end of their row of stalls, and they were able to slip out while the curtain was still ascending and descending upon the lighted stage, and the auditorium still dark.

Rames left Cynthia in the lobby while he went in search of his carriage. When he returned he found her standing with her face carefully turned to the wall in front of a commonplace engraving, which seemed to be demanding from her the most meticulous study.

"Have you found it?" she asked, and she hurried with him across the pavement. "Let us go home, Harry. It was nothing except nerves. I was stupid. We have been doing a good deal lately, haven't we?"

"That's all right, Cynthia. You poor little girl," said Rames as he crossed her cloak over her throat. He knew her too well to make the mistake of plying her with questions, and they drove to their home in silence.

"You had better go to bed, Cynthia," he said. "I'll send your maid to you."

"No. I am all right now," she answered. "I have something to say, Harry."

She went forward to his study--that room with the mahogany panels where both had faced the hardest crises of their lives, had known the worst of their sorrows, the sweetest of their joys. Harry followed her, turned on the lights, and closed the door. Cynthia was already standing by the fireplace with a foot upon the fender; and she shivered as though she were cold.

"Yes, it's chilly," said Rames. "Ill light the fire."

He struck a match and set light to the paper. The wood crackled, the flames spurted up. Cynthia threw off her cloak and, crouching before the fire, warmed herself. Harry Rames drew up an arm-chair for her.

"Won't you sit here, Cynthia, and be comfortable?" he asked, and his voice seemed to rouse her from a gloomy contemplation. She stood up and walked over to his bureau.

Harry's eyes followed her movements closely. With a growing consternation he saw her grasp the handles of a locked drawer and try to open it.

"What do you keep in here, Harry?" she asked.

"Oh, some old forgotten things."

"Your charts?"

"My word, yes. I believe they are there," he said with an air of surprise.

"Will you show them to me?" Cynthia asked. "I should like to see them."

"I don't know where the key is. It's lost."

"Are you sure?"

"For all the chance I have of finding it, dear, it might just as well be at the bottom of the Serpentine."

Harry had not moved away from the fireplace. Cynthia, her back toward him, had been playing with the bra.s.s handles of the locked drawer. Now she swung round suddenly. Often she had wondered what errand had taken him from the house at one o'clock of the morning after she had revealed her heart to him in this very room. Now she guessed the truth. It was on that night that he had begun to build up his d.y.k.es against the encroachments of his longings. She faced him; her eyes burned steadily upon his face, thoughtful, but betraying nothing of her thoughts.

"Yes," she said, "I suppose it might as well be in the Serpentine."

She turned again to the drawer.

"A knife will open it easily, Harry."

Harry Rames moved uncomfortably.

"It had better be left alone, Cynthia," he said. But she insisted and, opening a blade of his knife, he went reluctantly across the room to her side.

"It is your wish, Cynthia. You will remember that?" he said gravely.

"For myself I would much rather that it should never be unlocked until both of us are dead."

Cynthia showed no surprise at the gravity of his voice. But now she too paused. "There is still time," she was saying to herself in feverish trouble of mind, though her face was calm. "There is still time. He is giving me my chance--my last chance." Her eyelids were lowered over her eyes and she glanced at him under the thick lashes.

"You are afraid to open it, Harry?"

"Yes, I am afraid."

It was not merely the outrush of old and overwhelming memories which he dreaded. But that locked drawer had become to him a symbol of his own self-mastery. So long as it remained locked, and no longer, he would dominate his torments and be the captain of his soul. For so long he would keep locked a frail door against his yearnings. Cynthia, in a voice so faltering and low that it was hardly audible, said:

"Still I should like it opened."

"Very well."

She stood with her fingers clenched upon her palms whilst Harry inserted the blade of his knife in the c.h.i.n.k of the drawer, ran it along until it touched the lock, and then forced apart the fastenings.

There was a crack as of splintering wood. Harry Rames replaced his knife in his pocket, pulled out the drawer, and carried it over to his writing-table.

"There it is," he said, moving away from it to the fireplace. Cynthia bent over the drawer and turned on the light of a reading lamp which stood upon the table.

"This is your own chart upon the top, Harry?"

"Yes. It is the last one, you see. Hemming may be bringing back another."

"Will you show me exactly the point you reached?"

It seemed to Harry as if she was bent on trying him to the last point of endurance.

"It is marked there quite plainly, Cynthia," he said.

Cynthia leaned over the drawer--for a long time. Harry Rames was quite surprised at the closeness of her scrutiny. It was so long since she had shown any interest in his journey or indeed in anything except his political career. As a matter of fact, Cynthia saw of that map nothing but a blur: for her eyes were dim with tears, and she bent so low over its configurations simply because in that att.i.tude her face was hidden.

She moved.

"What is this?"

She took up a brown package, tied up with string, which lay in a corner of the drawer.

"I don't know," said Rames with a puzzled face. "I have forgotten."

"May I open it?"

"Of course."

Cynthia cut the string and, one after another, perhaps a score of brown telegraph envelopes slipped out in a cascade and fell upon the table in front of her.

"Telegrams," she said curiously. "Unopened, too! Oh, Harry!" this with a mocking laugh of reproach. Then she looked at the address of one of the telegrams. It ran: