The Whirligig of Time Part 53

"You mustn't, Tommy."

"But what if I jolly well can't help myself? After all, you know, you must give a fellah a chance. Of course, I want you to be happy, and I'd do anything I could to make you so, but--well, there it is! I'm _fond_ of you, Beatrice!"

She could smile quite calmly at him now, and did so. "Very well, Tommy, you're fond of me. Suppose we leave it there for the present.--And now I think I shall go in. It's getting chilly out here."

Evidently it had not quite come to _that_ with her.

Nor did it, for all Tommy could do, before James' arrival a few days later. Aunt Selina came with him; she had elected to spend the summer at her Vermont house, and found it, as she explained to her hostess, "too warm. The interior, you know." With which she closed her lips and gave the impression of charitably refraining from, richly deserved censure of the interior's shortcomings. Aunt Cecilia nodded with the most perfect understanding, and said she supposed it must have been warm in New York also.

James allowed that it had.

Aunt Selina said she had read in the paper that August was likely to be as hot as July there.

Beatrice, just in order to be on the safe side, said that she felt like Rather a Brute.

Tommy, with a vague idea of vindicating her, remarked that some days had been jolly warm in Bar Harbor, too.

Aunt Cecilia, politely reproachful, said that he had no idea what an American summer could be, and that anyway, the nights had been cool.

Tommy said oh yes, rather.

Inwardly he was chafing. He felt his case lamentably weakened by the presence of James. He had not bargained for an abduction from under the husband's very nose. The thought of what he would have to go through now made him feel quite uncomfortable and even a little, just a little, suspicious that the case of decency had not been decisively settled.

Still, there was nothing to do but stay and go through with it.

But James, if he had but known it, was in reality his most powerful ally. Continued residence in sweltering New York had not tended to soften James, either in his att.i.tude to the world in general or in his feeling toward his wife in particular. He now adopted a policy of outward affection. "When others were present he lost no opportunity of elaborately fetching and carrying for Beatrice, of making plans for her benefit, of rejoicing in her returning health. As she evinced a fondness for the evening air he made it a rule to sit with her on the verandah every night after dinner. Tommy could not very well oust him from this pleasant duty, and writhed beneath his calm exterior every time he watched them go out together."

He need not have worried, however. The contrast of James' warmth in public to his wholly genuine coldness in private, together with the change from Tommy's sympathetic chatter to James' deathly silence on these evening sojourns had a much more potent effect on Beatrice than anything Tommy could have accomplished actively. James literally seemed to freeze the blood in Beatrice's veins. She became subject to fits of shivering, she required twice as many wraps as before; she began going to bed much earlier than previously. Ten o'clock now invariably found her in her room.

One evening James was suddenly called upon to go out to dinner with Aunt Cecilia and fill an empty place at a friend's table, and Tommy took his place on the verandah. Tommy knew that this would be his best chance, possibly his last. The stars burned brightly in a clear warm sky, but there was no talk of tiger's eyes now. There was no talk at all for a long time; the pleasure of sheer propinquity was too great. Beatrice fairly luxuriated. She wondered why Tommy's silence affected her so differently from that of James....

"Beatrice," began Tommy, but she switched him off.

"No, please don't try to talk now, Tommy, there's a dear."

They were silent again. The night stretched hugely before and above them; it was very still. A little night-breeze arose and touched their cheeks, but its message was only peace. Land and sea alike slept; not a sound reached them save the occasional clatter of distant wheels. Only the sky was awake, with its hundreds of winking eyes. Oh, these stars!

Beatrice knew them so well. Antares, glowing like a dying coal, sank and fell below the hills, leaving the bright cl.u.s.ters of Sagittarius in dominion over the southern heavens. Fomalhaut rose in the southeast, shining with a dull chaotic l.u.s.ter, now green, now red. Fomalhaut, she remembered, was the southernmost of all the great stars visible in northern lands; its reign was the shortest of them all. And yet who could tell what might happen before that star finally fell from sight in the autumn?...

"Beatrice!" at length began Tommy again, and this time she could not stop him. "Beatrice, we can't go on like this. We can't do it, I say, we can't! Don't you feel it?... That husband of yours.... Oh, Beatrice, I _can't_ stand by and watch it any longer!"

He caught hold of her hand and clasped it between his. It remained limp there, press it as he would.... Then he saw that she was crying.

He flung himself on his knees beside her, covering her hand with kisses.

There was no conflict in him now, only a raging thirst for consummation.

Harrow and Christchurch were thrown to the winds.

"Beatrice," he whispered, "come away with me out of this d.a.m.ned place--away from the whole d.a.m.ned lot of them--frozen, church-going rotters! Let _me_ take care of you! I understand, Beatrice, I know how it is! Only come with me! Leave it all to me--no trouble, no worry, everything all right! _He'll_ be glad enough to free you--trust him! Oh, dear Beatrice...."

He bent close over her, uttering all sort of impa.s.sioned foolishnesses.

He kissed her, too, not once, but again and again, and with things he scarcely knew for kisses, so unlike were they to the lightly given and taken pledges of other days.

And Beatrice was limp in his arms, as little able to stop him as to stop her tears.

"Beatrice, we must go on _always_ like this! We _can't_ go back now, we can't let things go on as they were! Come away with me, Beatrice, to-night, now...."

Beatrice thought how, only a year ago, not far from this very place, some one had used almost those very words to her, and the thought made her weep afresh. But her tears were not all tears of misery.

At last she dried her eyes and pushed him gently away.

"No, no more, Tommy--dear Tommy, you must stop. Really, Tommy! I don't know how I could let you go on this way--I seem to be so weak and silly these days.... I must take hold of myself...."

"But, Beatrice--"

"No, Tommy--not any more now. I know, I know, dear, but it can't go on any more. Now," she added with a momentary relapse of weakness. Then she pulled herself together again. "You must be perfectly quiet and good, now, Tommy, if you stay here. I've got to have a chance to get over this before we go in. It's very important--there's a lot at stake. Just sit there and don't speak a word. You can help me that way."

They sat quietly together for some time. At last Beatrice rose.

"I think I'll go," she said. "I shall be all right now."

"But we can't leave it like this!" protested Tommy. "Beatrice, you can't go up there now...."

"Can't I? I'm going, though."

"No, you've got to give me an answer, Beatrice!"

She turned to him for a moment before walking off. "I can't tell you anything now, Tommy. I don't know. Do you see? I honestly don't know.

You'll have to wait."

The hall seemed rather dark as they came into it; the others must have gone to bed. They locked doors and turned out lights and walked upstairs in the dark. They parted at the top with a whispered good-night, almost conspiratorial in effect, Beatrice found James still dressed and sitting under a droplight, reading. He put down his book as she entered and looked at his watch, which lay on the table by him.

"After half-past twelve," he said. "Quite a pleasant evening."

Beatrice made no observation.

"The air has done you good," he went on. "We shall soon see the roses in your cheeks again."

"If you have anything to say, James, perhaps you'd better go ahead and say it."

"I? Oh, dear no! Any words of mine would be quite superfluous. The situation is complete as it is."

Beatrice merely waited. She knew she would not wait in vain, nor did she.

"Only, after this perhaps you'll save yourself the trouble of making up elaborate denials. You and your Tommy!..."

He got up and started walking up and down the room with slow, measured steps. To Beatrice, still sitting quietly on the edge of her bed, the fall of his feet on the carpeted floor sounded like the inexorable tick of fate for once made audible to human ears. The greatest things hung in the balance at this moment; his next words would decide both their destinies for the rest of their mortal life. She thought she knew what they would be, but if there were to sound in them the faintest echo of a regret for older and better times she was ready, even at this last moment, to throw her whole being into an effort to help restore them.

Tommy's pa.s.sionate whisper still echoed in her ears, Tommy's kisses were scarcely cold upon her cheeks, but Tommy was not in her heart.

At last James spoke. At the first sound of his voice Beatrice knew.