The Mask Part 2

She protested.

"Not all girls--only some girls. They are foolish virgins who leave their lamps untrimmed. They sow folly to-day only to reap unhappiness to-morrow."

He said nothing and for a few moments they both stood there in the increasing darkness. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, his voice broken by emotion, he turned to her and said:

"I am tired of being alone. I have met the woman with whom I could be happy, the woman who can help me to do big things. Helen, I want you to be my wife."

She made no answer. She felt herself growing pale. A strange tremor pa.s.sed through her entire body.

He came closer and took her unresisting hand.

"Helen," he whispered, "I want you for my wife."

Still no reply, but her small delicate hand remained clasped in his big, strong one, and gradually he drew her toward him until she was so close in his embrace that he could feel her panting breath on his cheek.

A strange thrill pa.s.sed through him as he came in contact with her soft, yielding body. She never wore corsets, preferring the clinging Grecian style of gowns that showed graceful lines and left the figure free, and her form, slender yet firm and delicately chiseled like that of some sculptured G.o.ddess, had none of that voluptuous grossness which mars the symmetry of many women, otherwise beautiful.

As she nestled there, pale and trembling in his strong arms, he did not dare move, for fear that he might unwittingly injure a being so frail and delicate. All his life Kenneth had lived a clean life. He had not led the riotous, licentious kind of existence which some men of his means and opportunities think necessary to their comfort. He had never been a libertine. He had respected women; indeed, had rather avoided them.

But if a man, busily engaged in the battle of life, his mind always engrossed in serious affairs, succeeds in keeping natural instincts under control there comes a day when nature a.s.serts herself, when his manhood demands the satisfaction of legitimate cravings. This bachelor who had lived a secluded, hermit-like kind of existence till he was thirty was suddenly and violently awakened to the fact that he was made of flesh and blood as are other men. This slim girl with her sweet ways, her pretty face, her ready wit, had completely vanquished him, and not alone did she satisfy him mentally, she also attracted him physically.

He realized it now as he held her tight against his breast. Her head had fallen on his shoulder. Her face with its pale, delicate profile was turned toward him, the eyes half closed. The mouth, arched like Cupid's bow and partly open, disclosing the white, moistened teeth, and red and luscious like some rare exotic fruit, was tempting enough to madden a saint. Kenneth was only human. Unable to resist, he lowered his head until his mouth grazed hers and then with a wild, almost savage exclamation of joy, the exultant cry of l.u.s.t awakened and gratified, his lips met hers and lingered.

To Helen it seemed as though she was in a dream of untold ecstasy.

Always a shrinking, modest girl, especially in the company of the opposite s.e.x, in any calmer moment she would have been shocked beyond expression at this momentary abandonment she permitted herself. As she lay in this man's arms and felt his warm kisses on her lips, there came over her a strange sensation she had never known before. She grew dizzy and for a moment thought she would faint. All at once he released her. Almost apologetically, he murmured:

"Forgive me--I lost control over myself--I want you Helen--I want you for my wife. Will you marry me?"

She drew away and turned away her head, so he might not see her burning cheeks.

He persisted.

"Will you marry me?"

She hesitated a moment before replying. Then, very simply, she answered:

"Yes, Kenneth."

That was three years ago.

CHAPTER II

In a certain set Helen Traynor was not popular. Some people thought her old fas.h.i.+oned, strait-laced, prudish. They resented her having no taste for their frivolous, decadent amus.e.m.e.nts. They called her proud and condescending whereas, as a matter of fact, she merely asked to be let alone. Of course, it was only people whose opinions were worthless that criticized her. All who were admitted to her intimacy knew that there was no friend more loyal, no woman more womanly and charming.

In one respect she might be called old fas.h.i.+oned. Her views on life had certainly little in common with those held by most present-day women. She had no taste for bridge, she refused to adopt freak fas.h.i.+ons in dress, she discouraged the looseness of tone in speech and manner so much affected by other women of her acquaintance--in a word she was in society but not of it. Naturally, she had more acquaintances than friends, yet she was not unpopular among her intimates. While secretly they laughed at what they termed her puritanical notions, they were shrewd enough to realize that they could hardly afford to snub a woman whose husband occupied so prominent a position in the world of affairs. Besides, was it not to their interest to cultivate her? Who gave more delightful dinners, who could on occasion be a more charming hostess? An accomplished musician, a clever talker, she easily dominated in whatever salon she happened to be, and the men were always found crowding eagerly around her.

Like most women of her temperament, sure of themselves and in whose mind never enters even a thought of disloyalty to her marriage vows, she made no concealment of her preference for the masculine s.e.x. With those men who were attracted by her unusual mentality,--she was gracious, and affable, discussing with politicians, jurists, financiers, economic and sociological questions with a brilliancy and insight that fairly astonished them. With literary men and musicians, she chatted intelligently of the latest novels and pictures and operas with the facility and expertness of a connoisseur. Other men, drawn by her exceptional beauty, fascinated by the spell of her soulful eyes, her tall graceful figure, and delicate cla.s.sic face, framed in Grecian head dress, made violent love to her, their heated imaginations and jaded senses conceiving a conquest compared with which the criminal pa.s.sion of Paolo for Francesca should pale. These would-be Lotharios might as well have tried to set an iceberg on fire. Quietly, but firmly and in unmistakable terms, she let them understand that they were wasting their time and their ardor thus quenched, one by one they dropped away and left her in peace. Only Signor Keralio had persisted.

She had snubbed him, insulted him, time after time, yet wherever she turned she found him at her elbow. Society soon resigned itself to considering her as one apart--a beautiful, chaste Juno whose ideals all must respect. Indeed, the only thing with which she could be reproached was that she was in love with her husband--the unpardonable sin in society's eyes--but seeing who it was and despairing of ever changing her point of view, society forgave her.

It never occurred to Helen that she was different in any way from other women. She did not see how it was possible for a woman to be untrue to the man whose name she bore and still retain her self-respect. The day she ceased to love her husband she would leave him forever. To her way of thinking, it was shocking to go on living with a man merely because it suited one's convenience and comfort. She knew married women who did not care for their husbands, some actually detested the men they had married, and had always held in horror the intimate relation which marriage sanctioned. She felt sorry for such women, but secretly she despised them. They alone were to blame. Had they not married knowing well that there was no real affection in their hearts for the men to whom they gave themselves? The cynicism and effrontery of young girls regarding marriage particularly revolted her. Eager for wealth and social position, they offered themselves with brazen effrontery in the matrimonial market, immodestly displaying their charms to the lecherous, covetous eyes of blase, degenerate men. Any question of attachment, love, affection was never for a moment considered. The idea that a man could be even considered unless he were able to provide a fine establishment was laughed to scorn. The girls were all men hunters but they hunted only rich men. They called the feeling they experienced for the man they caught in their toils "love." They meant something quite different. To a girl of Helen's ideas, such manoeuvers were shocking. To her the marriage tie was something sacred, a relation not to be entered into lightly. Kenneth was rich, it was true, but she would have loved him none the less had he been one of his own fifteen dollar a week clerks. When they were married and the romance was over, he stopped playing the lover to devote himself to the more serious business of making money, but with her, time, instead of dimming the flame, only caused it to burn the brighter. This man whom she had married was her only thought. In him centered every interest of her life.

A m.u.f.fled outburst of profanity from Kenneth aroused her from her reveries.

"That's always the way when one's in a hurry," he exclaimed petulantly.

"Ring for Francois. Why the devil isn't he here?"

Quickly, Helen sprang up from the trunk and touched an electric b.u.t.ton.

"What's the matter, dear?" she asked.

She approached her husband who, at the far end of the room, was red in the face from the unusual exertion of trying to coax the buckle of a strap into a hole obviously out of reach. He pulled and strained till the muscles stood out on his neck and brawny arms like whipcord, and still the obstinate buckle declined to be coerced. The more it resisted, the more determined he was to make it obey. Go in it must, if sheer strength would do it. The vice-president of the Americo-African Mining Company was no weakling. A six-foot athlete and captain of the Varsity football team in his college days, his muscles had been toughened in a thousand lively scrimmages and in later life plenty of golf, rowing and other out-of-door sports had kept him in condition. When he pulled hard something had to give way. It did in this instance. There was a tearing, rending sound and the strap broke off short. With a gesture of despair he turned to his wife as men are wont to do when in trouble.

"Wouldn't that jar you?" he cried, as he threw the broken strap away.

"What the deuce am I going to do now?"

"Why don't you let Francois attend to such things?" answered his wife calmly. "He understands packing so much better than you. You're so strong, you break everything."

She looked fondly at her husband's tall, athletic figure. He turned to her with a smile.

"I guess you're right," he said. "But where the devil is Francois?"

"I don't know. I sent him downstairs to tell the cook to have some nice sandwiches ready when you come home after the director's meeting tonight, but that's an hour ago----"

His ill humor gone, Kenneth looked up and smiled at her. Putting his arm about her, fondly he said:

"Dear little wife. You're always thinking of the comfort of others.

You're the most unselfish, the most adorable, the most----"

"Stop, Kenneth, don't be foolish or I shall believe you----"

His face red from his recent exertions, he sat down on the arm of a chair to rest a little. Full of the coming journey, he had already forgotten his wife's anxiety. The great business schemes he had in mind dwarfed for the time being every other consideration. He could think and talk of nothing but diamonds. Huge crystals, worth untold millions as big as a fist, flashed at him from every corner of the room. Fabulous fortunes had been made in the diamond mines of South Africa. Why should he not be as successful as others? The romance of the Cullinan might be repeated, even surpa.s.sed. Well he recalled how he had been thrilled by the sensational story of the discovery of that colossal gem, more than three times the size of the Excelsior, the wonder of the modern world. In imagination, he saw it now. An old-fas.h.i.+oned Boer farm, transformed into a modern mining camp. A moonlight night. A man strolling idly along the rugged, desolate veldt, chances to look down. His eye suddenly catches a gleam in the rough face of the jagged slope. He stoops and picks up what looks like a piece of ice. Quickly he returns to his office and hands it to his chief. The men look at each other in silence. To all parts of the world goes the message that a diamond has been found four times bigger than the largest gem in the world. A stone weighing over 3,000 carats and worth four million dollars. He could already imagine himself far from civilization among the barren mountains of South Africa, prospecting in wide stretches of stone and gravel, picking up the brilliant dazzling stones by the handful.

"Have you any idea," he said, "what the mines have produced?"

She shook her head indifferently.

"No, and I don't want to know. I don't want you to go--that's all."

"Their output in the last ten years is estimated at no less than $400,000,000. Just think of it. Four hundred millions! Well, dear, I and a few others want some of it, and we're going to get it."

"But aren't we rich enough already?" she demanded petulantly. "Why this fever to get richer and richer? We are happy with what we have.

Why run the risks to gain what after all will only be a surplus? We can't possibly spend it."

Her husband's eyes flashed. The lines about his mouth tightened as he retorted: