The Wayfarers Part 17

Her lips stiffly framed the word: "Out."

"Out! What do you mean?" He spoke roughly, in a terrible anxiety and anger mixed together. "What are you working yourself up to all this foolishness for?"

Again she did not answer.

He went on more sternly, yet with an undercurrent of entreaty:

"Come in here and take off those things and be rational. Why do you look at me like that?"

"You don't care-any more."

Oh, if he would s.n.a.t.c.h her to him now, and press her to his breast, that she might feel his protecting arms around her! If he would kiss her now with the kisses she remembered, and love her, and comfort her, and send this horrible spirit out of her! How could he not know that that was the way to exorcise it, that it was what her spent soul craved? How could he keep from putting his arms around her when she was in agony?

Never in his life had her husband been less likely to do so. The wild defiance in her eyes would have made any woman repulsive to him; he had all a man's horror of a "scene," mingled with a deeper disgust that she should be the actress in it, and his anger was the more that he felt the whole thing to be unnecessary. Underneath this anger, however, was the sense of responsibility for his wife's welfare, such as one would have for a child, no matter how outrageous.

"You don't care!" She whispered the words again.

"No, I don't care for you when you act like this." His voice was even sterner now; it was time that this travesty came to an end.

She stared at him as before. "Then I'll go!" she said wildly, and slipped past him out of the door and into the rain, running with swift yet uncertain footsteps down the black, wet street, listening, listening all the time for him to follow-listening as she ran. She walked more slowly now as she listened; she had gone nearly a block already toward the river. Oh, would he let her go? For one awful moment she feared that this phantasm might become a reality; and yet she knew, as well as she knew that she lived, that he would not let it be so. Yes, yes, there was his quick, sharp tread at last, gaining on her. He walked like the angry man he was, but the sound brought a furtive thrill of bliss to her. How strong he was when he was angry! He had had to notice her at last; he could think of nothing but her now.

She trembled as he came up to her. He only said in a matter-of-fact tone, "It's time to stop this now; you'll get wet." He took her by the arm and turned her around, heading for home; the mere touch of his guiding hand on her arm sent warmth through her icy veins. She trembled as her feet tottered beside his, her strength suddenly spent with the breaking up of her long pa.s.sion.

Neither spoke as they walked home. When they were in the house again, he unfastened her cloak with awkward fingers, and took the dripping scarf from her wet hair, throwing them on a chair.

She leaned her head upon his breast, clinging to him with an inarticulate murmur for forgiveness, and he smoothed her hair for a moment. She raised her face to his to be kissed, and he kissed her. She humbly asked nothing; she would be satisfied with anything now. She went up to her room, as he bade her, and when she was in bed, he came and sat down by her, and held the hand she mutely placed in his, as her imploring eyes asked. But he had to put a force upon himself to do it.

The whole play was distasteful and repugnant beyond words to him; it weakened every bond that bound him to her. He sought for no self-a.n.a.lyzing causes. He had so much care upon him now that more than ever in his life before he needed diversion, sympathy, love, rest-rest above everything else on earth.

CHAPTER TWELVE

To live in the same house, to meet not only at the accepted times, but in all the little pa.s.sing ways-on the stairs, coming in and out of the door; to meet also in all the little unpremeditated ways that are really premeditated-the going to the library for a book, the searching over this, that, and the other, with all its pretended inconsequence and surprise; the abstraction of two people from the same room at the same time on different pretexts; the lingerings while the minutes grew toward the hour, the sudden hurried partings at a foot-step, the reunion for just a moment more when the foot-step did not come that way-all this unnoticed and casual intercourse with its half-secrecy and hint of the forbidden becomes a large factor in its relation to after-events, when the partic.i.p.ants are a man and a woman. There is no influence so little regarded for the young by those in authority as the tremendous influence of propinquity.

Among all the social comings and goings at the Leverichs', the excitement of Lawson's presence held its place with Dosia. The sudden sight of his olive profile and his lithe figure, his cool, appraising gaze, his "Well, young lady?" with its ironic tone that yet conveyed a subtle kindness, his lazy, caressing expostulation, "Why not, when we are friends?"-these things made heart-beats that Dosia took pains to a.s.sure herself were of a purely Platonic nature, when she stopped at rare occasions to take tally of her emotions, though there was a continual unacknowledged inner protest, in spite of her yielding, which made her resolve each day to withdraw a little on the next. But they never talked of love; they talked only of goodness, or art, or music, or about the way you felt about different subjects, or little teasing things, like why she drew her mouth down at the corners when he looked at her, or why she had seemed to disapprove the night before. They were bound together by the hope of higher things. She met him always in the morning with the bright uplifting smile that said, "I know you will repay my confidence-for _I_ believe in you!"

"I really wish Lawson would go away," said Mrs. Leverich, one day, as the two sat over their afternoon tea together.

"Why?" asked Dosia, with the suddenly concentrated composure his name always brought her outwardly. "I thought you said last week that he had improved so much."

"Oh, yes, he's had one of his good streaks lately; and he _is_ a sweet fellow when he's nice-he was the dearest _little_ boy! Lawson can twist me around his little finger when he wants to; he knows that he can get money out of me every time, even when he oughtn't to have it. But he can't keep up this sort of thing long, you know, he is so restless; there's bound to be a breakdown afterwards. I dread it; the breakdowns get worse, now, every time."

"Perhaps there will be no breakdown, after all," said Dosia, in an even voice, but with that sudden deep sensation of disenchantment which his sister's words always brought to her, and which lay upon her spirit like a living thing, dragging her fancy in chains. It was not alone Mrs.

Leverich's words, either, that had this power; when anyone spoke of Lawson it brought the same displeasing uneasiness, followed by the wonted eager remorsefulness later, when she saw him. But through each phase one foundational sense held good-he was not at all the kind of man she would ever want to marry; the whole attraction of the situation was in the fact that one could be so n.o.bly intimate, and still keep off the danger-ground. Once or twice he had seemed to be infringing on it, and then she had turned him aside with sweet solemnity and additional inner excitement.

These were days indeed! It was Lent, but there were all the minor pleasures of luncheons and card-parties, and little evening entertainments held at Mrs. Leverich's hospitable mansion. It mattered not whether there was anything going on in the town or not; society focused at her house, with Dosia for the central point. When she thought of going back again to Lois it was with a blank shiver.

Lois, indeed, had not been well lately; the children were out of quarantine, but she had a sore throat, and kept her room under the care of a trained nurse. Dosia had not seen her, but only Justin, who looked tired and older. Dosia was not to return now until after Easter and after the ball-Mrs. Leverich was going to give a ball for Dosia; it was to be, in a sense, her "coming out."

She had by this time become quite used to her position as daughter of the house, accepted luxuries as a matter of course, and even suggested improvements, when she found that it pleased Mrs. Leverich to have her do so. She received that lady's embraces gracefully, brought newspapers unasked for Mr. Leverich, and gave orders to the maids for her hostess.

She had grown accustomed to being waited on, petted, made much of, and given presents, and blossomed like the rose under this vernal shower of kindness; her dress, her manner, her very expression, betrayed the ease of elegance. She did not like to own, even to herself, that long conversations with Mrs. Leverich were somewhat tiresome when the subject was neither Lawson nor herself, and she learned to get out of the way of too many tete-a-tetes. This did not keep her from having a fervent grat.i.tude for all the blessings of the situation, and a real love for the dispenser of them. Now, when the time of her stay was narrowing to a close, she clung to each day as if it neared the end of life; every pleasure was doubly dear in that it was the last of its kind. To be sure, the fairy prince had not arrived as yet-Bailey Girard, who had come to the house while she was still a stranger to it, had been half across the Continent since. It is one of the shabby jests that life is always playing us, that two who have met once as wayfarers on the same road, with the memory of that one meeting so curiously vivid and intimate that it seems as if the fate of the next turning must bring them within touch again, are yet kept out of sight or sound of each other for miles by the slight accidents of travel. Fate, when we count upon her, is apt to be extraordinarily slow in working out her fulfillments.

Dosia hailed with delight a proposition made by Mrs. Leverich to get up a party and drive over one evening to a neighboring town to hear a lecture given there by a friend. The lecture was nothing, the friend not a very great attraction, but the expedition in itself gave an excuse for a drive, and a supper on the return to the Leverich mansion. It was early April, but the weather was unseasonably warm, and there was a golden moon. They were to go in a "barge"-the local name for a long, low, uncovered wagon, with two lateral seats, holding about thirty people. Mrs. Leverich had insisted on plenty of lap-robes and extra wrappings and even umbrellas, in spite of remonstrances. She herself could not go, but there were plenty of chaperons, little Mrs. Snow having been pressed into service as a subst.i.tute at the last moment, with every promise of mild evening weather especially beneficial to rheumatism.

Some one had a bugle that woke the echoes as the caravan drew up at each door to gather the different segments of the party. Dosia felt wild with glee as she bundled into the barge, amid merry shrieks and laughter, and found herself seated by Mr. William Snow, while Lawson took the place on the other side of her. Ada and Mr. Sutton were farther down, with Mrs.

Snow near them. Opposite Dosia was a chaperon of the chaperons.

Dosia hardly knew what she was saying as she laughed and talked with the crowd, while Lawson conversed across with Mrs. Malcolmson, but the sense of his nearness never left her. Billy at last got a chance to say to her in a low, intense voice:

"Why are you always listening for what _he_ says?"

Her glance followed his, and her color rose.

"Dear little Billy is rude; Billy must learn manners," she retorted gayly, but with a sharpness below the gayety.

"I don't care whether it's rude or not. Here I'm sitting by you for the first time this week, and you don't seem to hear a word I say. I've been trying to talk to you, and you don't pay the slightest attention."

"Oh, you poor child!" said Dosia. "Would it like some candy?"

"It's no use talking to me like that," returned William stubbornly. "I know you're a year older than I am--"

"Two," interpolated Dosia.

"It's seventeen months and three days-but that's nothing to do with it.

It's no use your trying the grandmother act-I could marry you, just the same, if I _am_ younger. Mrs. Stanford is two years older than her husband, and Mrs. Taylor is five years older than hers. Lots of people do it-but that's not the point now. I'm miles older than you in everything but years. I've had experience of the world, and you haven't." His belligerent tone softened, and he looked at her tenderly as he towered above her, his blue eyes alight. "You need somebody to take care of you. I don't care whether you believe it or not, I know what I'm talking about. I wish you'd drop that fellow."

"Why?" asked Dosia, with dangerous calm.

"Why? Because-you ought to know. He isn't a gentleman; he's no good. He isn't _fit_. If he was, don't you think he'd look out for you, and not take advantage the way he does? If he had a decent spark in him, he'd never let you be seen with him; he knows it, if you don't. Why, there have been times I've seen him when you wouldn't pick him up off the road with a pair of tongs."

"Mr. Barr, will you fasten this cloak around me?" said Dosia, in a clear voice.

She turned with her back to William and leaned a little closer to Lawson, after he had helped her arrange the garment. Lawson had made every resolution to take no advantage of his position, but he was not proof against this alluring moment; his warm hand with its long, tapering fingers sought hers under cover of the lap-robe, and held it while he still talked with apparent unconcern to his matronly vis-a-vis.

Once he looked around at Dosia with those teasing eyes full of laughter, and yet of something more. She could not drag her hand away without betraying the struggle, as his closed more tightly over it, though her riotous heart beat so that she feared it must get into her voice, and there was an odd feeling as if she were doing some one a wrong. Her fluttering was intoxication to Lawson.

They drove for five miles with the early spring moonlight shining silverly through the last rosy haze of the sunset, the air sweet with the scent of green gra.s.s and dewy blossomings.

Lawson did not look at Dosia as he helped her out of the wagon, nor did he come in to listen to the lecture, through which she sat pulsating at the thought of the drive home, desiring yet fearing it. Would he be near her then? Her question was answered. He helped to put everyone else in the wagon, and they two came last. This time their opposite neighbors were a young couple engrossed in each other. Dosia's quick eye took in the situation at once. She was determined not to speak first, and they rode for a while in silence; then he moved nearer, and asked in a low tone:

"Why don't you look at me?"

"Why did you-hold my hand?" She spoke in a whisper that he had to bend his head to hear.

"I might tell you a good many reasons-but one will do. I am going away for good."

"What?" She turned breathlessly, with a quick pang. The night had grown very dark, but she could see the gleam of his eyes and the outline of his olive face as it leaned over her. "Why?"