Vera, the Medium Part 18

Winthrop again sharply interrupted her. His voice was filled with reproach. "Vera!" he protested.

"Well," said the girl more gently, "I'm glad to think you do, but this is the last, and before I go, I--".

"Go!" demanded Winthrop roughly. "Where?"

"Before I go," continued the girl, "I want to tell you how much you have helped me--I want to thank you--".

"You haven't let me thank you," broke in Winthrop, "and, now, you pretend this is our last meeting. It's absurd!".

"It is our last meeting," replied the girl. Of the two, for the moment, she was the older, the more contained. "On the contrary," contradicted the man. He spoke sharply, in a tone he tried to make as determined as her own. "Our next meeting will be in ten minutes--at my sister's. I have told her about this afternoon, and about you; and she wants very much to meet you. She has sent her car for you. It's waiting in front of the house. Now," he commanded masterfully, "you come with me, and get in it, and leave all this"--he gave an angry, contemptuous wave of the hand toward the cabinet--"behind you, as," he added earnestly, "you promised me you would."

As though closing from sight the possibility he suggested, the girl shut her eyes quickly, and then opened them again to meet his.

"I can't leave these things behind me," she said quietly.

"I told you so this afternoon. For a moment, you made me think I could, and I did promise. I didn't need to promise. It's what I've prayed for.

Then, you saw what happened, you saw I was right. Within five minutes that woman came--"

"That woman had a motive," protested Winthrop.

"That woman," continued the girl patiently, "or some other woman. What does it matter? In five minutes, or five days, some one would have told." She leaned toward him anxiously. "I'm not complaining," she said; "it's my own fault. It's the life I've chosen." She hesitated and then as though determined to carry out a programme she had already laid down for herself, continued rapidly: "And what I want to tell you, is, that what's best in that life I owe to you."

"Vera!" cried the man sharply.

"Listen!" said the girl. Her eyes were alight, eager. She spoke frankly, proudly, without embarra.s.sment, without fear of being misconstrued, as a man might speak to a man.

"I'd be ungrateful, I'd be a coward," said the girl, "if I went away and didn't tell you. For ten years I've been counting on you. I made you a sort of standard. I said, as long as he keeps to his ideals, I'm going to keep to mine. Maybe you think my ideals have not been very high, but anyway you've made it easy for me. Because I'm in this business, because I'm good-looking enough, certain men"--the voice of the girl grew hard and cool--"have done me the honor to insult me, and it was knowing you, and that there are others like you, that helped me not to care." The girl paused. She raised her eyes to his frankly. The look in them was one of pride in him, of loyalty, of affection. "And now, since I've met you," she went on, "I find you're just as I imagined you'd be, just as I'd hoped you'd be." She reached out her hand warningly, appealingly.

"And I don't want you to change, to let down, to grow discouraged. You can't tell how many more people are counting on you." She hesitated and, as though at last conscious of her own boldness, flushed deprecatingly, like one asking pardon. "You men in high places," she stammered, "you're like light houses showing the way. You don't know how many people you are helping. You can't see them. You can't tell how many boats are following your light, but if your light goes out, they are wrecked."

She gave a sigh of relief. "That's what I wanted to tell you," she said, "and, so thank you." She held out her hand. "And, goodby."

Winthrop's answer was to clasp her hand quickly in both of his, and draw her toward him.

"Vera," he begged, "come with me now!"

The girl withdrew her hand and moved away from him, frowning. "No," she said, "no, you do not want to understand. I have my work to do tonight."

Winthrop gave an exclamation of anger.

"You don't mean to tell me," he cried, "that you're going on with this?"

"Yes," she said, And then in sudden alarm cried: "But not if you're here! I'll fail if you're here. Promise me, you will not be here."

"Indeed," cried the man indignantly, "I will not! But I'll be downstairs when you need me. And," he added warningly, "you'll need me." "No," said the girl. "No matter what happens, I tell you, between us, this is the end."

"Then," begged the man, "if this is the end, for G.o.d's sake, Vera, as my last request, do not do it!"

The girl shook her head. "No," she repeated firmly. "I've tried to get away from it, and each time they've forced me back. Now, I'll go on with it. I've promised Paul, and the others. And you heard me promise that woman."

"But you didn't mean that!" protested the man. "She insulted you; you were angry. You're angry now, piqued--"

"Mr. Winthrop," interrupted the girl, "today you told me I was not playing the game. You told the truth. When you said this was a mean business, you were right. But"--for the first time since she had spoken her tones were shaken, uncertain--"I've been driven out of every other business." She waited until her voice was again under control, and then said slowly, definitely, "and, tonight, I am going to show Mr. Hallowell the spirit of his sister."

In the eyes of Winthrop the look of pain, of disappointment, of reproach, was so keen, that the girl turned her own away.

"No," said the man gently, "you will not do that."

"You can stop my doing it tonight," returned the girl, "but at some other time, at some other place, I will do it."

"You yourself will stop it," said Winthrop. "You are too honest, too fine, to act such a lie. Why not be yourself?" he begged. "Why not disappoint these other people who do not know you? Why disappoint the man who knows you best, who trusts you, who believes in you--".

"You are the very one," interrupted the girl, "who doesn't know me. I am not fine; I am not honest. I am a charlatan and a cheat; I am all that woman called me. And that is why you can't know me. That's why. I told you, if you did, you would be sorry."

"I am not sorry," said Winthrop.

"You will be," returned the girl, "before the night is over."

"On the contrary," answered the man quietly, "I shall wait here to congratulate you--on your failure."

"I shall not fail," said the girl. Avoiding his eyes, she turned from him and, for a moment, stood gazing before her miserably. Her lips were trembling, her eyes moist with rising tears. Then she faced him, her head raised defiantly.

"I have been hounded out of every decent way of living," she protested hysterically. "I can make thousands of dollars tonight," she cried, "out of this one."

Winthrop looked straight into her eyes. His own were pleading, full of tenderness and pity; so eloquent with meaning that those of the girl fell before them.

"That is no answer," said the man. "You know it's not. I tell you--you will fail."

From the hall Judge Gaylor entered noisily. Instinctively the man and girl moved nearer together, and upon the intruder Winthrop turned angrily.

"Well?" he demanded sharply. "I thought you had finished your talk,"

protested the Judge. "Mr. Hallowell is anxious to begin."

Winthrop turned and looked at Vera steadily. For an instant the eyes of the girl faltered, and then she returned his glance with one as resolute as his own. As though accepting her verdict as final, Winthrop walked quickly to the door. "I shall be downstairs," he said, "when this is over, let me know."

Gaylor struggled to conceal his surprise and satisfaction. "You won't be here for the seance?" he exclaimed.

"Certainly not," cried Winthrop. "I--" He broke off suddenly. Without again looking toward Vera, or trying to hide his displeasure, he left the room.

Gaylor turned to the girl. He was smiling with relief.

"Excellent!" he muttered. "Excellent! What was he saying to you," he asked eagerly, "as I came in--that you would fail?"

The girl moved past him to the door. "Yes," she answered dully.

"But you will not!" cried the man. "We're all counting on you, you know.

Destroy the old will. Sign the new will," he quoted. He came close to her and whispered. "That means thousands of dollars to you and Vance,"

he urged.

The girl turned and regarded him with unhappy, angry eyes.