The Ragged Edge Part 34

All the fine ecstasy, without the numbing terror.

Spurlock sat limply, his arms hanging. McClintock, striking a match to relight his cigar, broke the spell. Ruth sighed; Spurlock stood up and drew his hand across his forehead as if awakening from a dream.

"I didn't know the machine had such stuff in it," said McClintock.

"I imagine I must have a hundred rolls--all the old fellows. It's a sorry world," he went on. "n.o.body composes any more, n.o.body paints, n.o.body writes--I mean, on a par with what we've just heard."

The clock tinkled ten. Shortly Ruth and Spurlock took the way home.

They walked in silence. With a finger crooked in his side-pocket, she measured her step with his, her senses still dizzy from the echo of the magic sounds. At the threshold of the study he bade her good-night; but he did not touch her forehead with his lips.

"I feel like work," he lied. What he wanted desperately was to be alone.

"But you are tired!"

"I want to go over the story again."

"Mr. McClintock liked it."

"He couldn't help it, Ruth. It's big, thanks to you."

"You.... need me a little?"

"Not a little, but a great deal."

That satisfied something of her undefined hunger. She went to her bedroom, but she did not go to bed. She drew a chair to the window and stared at the splendour of the tropical night. By and by she heard the screen door. Hollo rumbled in his throat.

"Hus.h.!.+" she said.

Presently she saw Spurlock on the way to the lagoon. He walked with bent head. After quarter of an hour, she followed.

The unexpected twist--his disclosure to McClintock--had given Spurlock but temporary relief. The problem had returned, made gigantic by the possibility of Ruth's love. The thought allured him, and therein lay the danger. If it were but the question of his reason for marrying her, the solution would have been simple. But he was a thief, a fugitive from justice. On that basis alone, he had no right to give or accept love.

Had he been sick in the mind when he had done this d.a.m.nable thing?

It did not seem possible, for he could recall clearly all he had said and done; there were no blank s.p.a.ces to give him one straw of excuse.

Ruth loved him. It was perfectly logical. And he could not return this love. He must fight the thought continually, day in and day out. The Dawn Pearl! To be with her constantly, with no diversions to serve as barricades! d.a.m.n McClintock for putting this thought in his head--that Ruth loved him!

He flung himself upon the beach, face downward, his outflung hands digging into the sand: which was oddly like his problem--he could not grip it. Torment!

And so Ruth discovered him. She was about to rush to his side, when she saw his clenched hands rise and fall upon the sand repeatedly.

Her heart swelled to suffocation. To go to him, to console him! But she stirred not from her hiding place. Instinctively she knew--some human recollection she had inherited--that she must not disturb him in this man-agony. She could not go to him when it was apparent that he needed her beyond all other instances! What had caused this agony did not matter--then. It was enough that she witnessed it and could not go to him.

By and by--as the paroxysm subsided and he became motionless--she stole back to the bungalow to wait. Through her door curtain she could see the light from the study lamp. If, when he returned, he blew out the light, she would go to bed; but if the light burned on for any length of time, she would go silently to the study curtain to learn if his agony was still upon him. She heard him come in; the light burned on.

She discovered him sitting upon the floor beside his open trunk. He had something across his knees. At first she could not tell what it was; but as her eyes became accustomed to the light, she recognized the old coat.

CHAPTER XXIII

Next morning Ruth did not refer to the episode on the sands of the lagoon. Here again instinct guided her. If he had nothing to tell her, she had nothing to ask. She did not want particularly to know what had caused his agony, what had driven him back to the old coat. He was in trouble and she could not help him; that was the ache in her heart.

At breakfast both of them played their parts skillfully. There was nothing in his manner to suggest the misery of the preceding night.

There was nothing on her face to hint of the misery that brimmed her heart this morning. So they fenced with smiles.

He noted that she was fully dressed, that her hair was carefully done, that there was a knotted ribbon around her throat. It now occurred to him that she had always been fully dressed. He did not know--and probably never would unless she told him--that it was very easy (and comfortable for a woman) to fall into slatternly ways in this lat.i.tude. So long as she could remember, her father had never permitted her to sit at the table unless she came fully dressed. Later, she understood his reasons; and it had now become habit.

Fascination. It would be difficult to find another human being subjected to so many angles of attack as Spurlock. Ruth loved him.

This did not tickle his vanity; on the contrary, it enlivened his terror, which is a phase of fascination. She loved him. That held his thought as the magnet holds the needle, inescapably. The mortal youth in him, then, was fascinated, the thinker, the poet; from all sides Ruth attacked him, innocently. The novel danger of the situation enthralled him. He saw himself retreating from barricade to barricade, Ruth always advancing, perfectly oblivious of the terror she inspired.

While he was stirring his tea, she ran and fetched the comb. She attacked his hair resolutely. He laughed to hide his uneasiness.

The touch of her hands was pleasurable.

"The part was crooked," she explained.

"I don't believe McClintock would have gone into convulsions at the sight of it. Anyhow, ten minutes after I get to work I'll be rumpling it."

"That isn't the point, Hoddy. You don't notice the heat; but it is always there, pressing down. You must always shave and part your hair straight. It doesn't matter that you deal with black people.

It isn't for their sakes, it's for your own. Mr. McClintock does it; and he knows why. In the morning and at night he is dressed as he would dress in the big hotels. In the afternoon he probably loafs in his pajamas. You can, too, if you wish.."

"All right, teacher; I'll shave and comb my hair." He rose for fear she might touch him again.

But such is the perversity of the human that frequently thereafter he purposely crooked the part in his hair, to give her the excuse to fetch the comb. Not that he deliberately courted danger; it was rather the searcher, seeking a.n.a.lysis, the why and wherefore of this or that invading emotion.

He was always tenderly courteous; he answered her ordinary questions readily and her extraordinary ones patiently; he always rose when she entered or left the room. This formality irked her: she wanted to play a little, romp. The moment she entered the room and he rose, she felt that she was immediately consigned to the circle of strangers; and it emptied her heart of its joy and filled it with diffidence. There was a wall; she was always encountering it; the one time she was able to break through this wall was when the part in his hair was crooked.

She began to exercise those lures which were bred in her bone--the bones of all women. She required no instructions from books; her wit and beauty were her own. What lends a tragic mockery to all these tender traps of hers was that she was within lawful bounds.

This man was her husband in the eyes of both G.o.d and man.

But Spurlock was ever on guard, even when she fussed over his hair.

His a.n.a.lytical bent saved him many times, though he was not sensitive to this. The fire--if there was any in him--never made headway against this insistant demand to know the significance of these manifold inward agitations.

Thus, more and more Ruth turned to the mongrel dog who bore the name of Rollo unflinchingly--the dog that adored her openly, shamelessly, who now without a whimper took his diurnal tubbing.

Upon this grateful animal she lavished that affection which was subtly repelled by its lawful object.

Spurlock was by nature orderly, despite his literary activities.

Before the first month was gone, McClintock admitted that the boy was a find. Accounts were now always where he could put his hand on them. The cheating of the boys in the stores ceased. If there were any pearls, none came into the light. Gradually McClintock s.h.i.+fted the burden to Spurlock's shoulders and retired among his books and music rolls.

Twice Spurlock went to Copeley's--twenty miles to the northwest--for ice and mail. It was a port of call, since fortnightly a British mail-boat dropped her mudhook in the bay. All sorts of battered tramps, junks and riff-raff of the seas trailed in and out. Spurlock was tremendously interested in these derelicts, and got a good deal of information regarding them, which he stored away for future use.

There were electric and ice plants, and a great store in which one could buy anything from jewsharps to gas-engines. White men and natives dealt conveniently at Copeley's. It saved long voyages and long waits; and the buyers rarely grumbled because the prices were stiff. There were white men with families, a fine mission-house, and a club-house for cards and billiards.

He was made welcome as McClintock's agent; but he politely declined all the proffered courtesies. Getting back the ice was rather a serious affair. He loaded the launch with a thousand pounds--all she could carry--and started home immediately after sundown; but even then he lost from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds before he had the stuff cached in McClintock's bamboo-covered sawdust pit. This ice was used for refrigerator purposes and for McClintock's evening peg.

Ruth with Rollo as her guide explored the island. In the heart of the jungle the dog had his private muck baths. Into one of these he waded and rolled and rolled, despite her commands. At first she thought he was endeavouring to rid himself of the fleas, but after a time she came to understand that the muck had healing qualities and soothed the burning scratches made by his claws. In the presence of the husband of his mistress Rollo was always dignifiedly cheerful, but he never leaped or cavorted as he did when alone with Ruth.

Spurlock was fond of dogs; he was fond of this offspring of many mesalliances; but he never made any attempt to win Rollo, to share him. The dog was, in a sense, a gift of the G.o.ds. He filled the role of comrade which Spurlock dared not enact, at least not utterly as he would have liked. Yes--as he would have liked.

For Ruth grew lovelier as the days went on. She was as lovely in the spirit as in the flesh. Her moods were many and always striking. She was never violent when angry: she became as calm and baffling as the sea in doldrums. She never grew angry for anything her husband did: such anger as came to her was directed against the lazy, incompetent servant who was always snooping about in the inner temple--Spurlock's study.