The Danger Mark Part 59

"If he is in love with you," she repeated, "it settles it, I think. What else is there to do but marry him?"

Kathleen shook her head. "I shall do what is best for him--whatever that may be."

"You won't make him unhappy, I suppose?" inquired Geraldine, astonished.

"Dear, a woman may be truer to the man she loves--and kinder--by refusing him. Is not that what _you_ have done--for Duane's sake?"

Geraldine sprang to her feet, face white, mouth distorted with anger:

"I made a G.o.d of Duane!" she broke out breathlessly. "Everything that was in me--everything that was decent and unselfish and pure-minded dominated me when I found I loved him. So I would not listen to my own desire for him, I would not let him risk a terrible unhappiness until I could go to him as clean and well and straight and unafraid as he could wis.h.!.+" She laughed bitterly, and laid her hands on her breast. "Look at me, Kathleen! I am quite as decent as this G.o.d of mine. Why should I worry over the chances he takes when I have chances enough to take in marrying him? I was stupid to be so conscientious--I behaved like a hysterical schoolgirl--or a silly communicant--making him my confessor!

A girl is a perfect fool to make a G.o.d out of a man. I made one out of Duane; and he acted like one. It nearly ended me, but, after all, he is no worse than I. Whoever it was who said that decency is only depravity afraid, is right. I _am_ depraved; I _am_ afraid. I'm afraid that I cannot control myself, for one thing; and I'm afraid of being unhappy for life if I don't marry Duane. And I'm going to, and let him take his chances!"

Kathleen, very pale, said: "That is selfishness--if you do it."

"Are not men selfish? He will not tell me as much of his life as I have told him of mine. I have told him everything. How do I know what risk I run? Yes--I do know; I take the risk of marrying a man notorious for his facility with women. And he lets me take that risk. Why should I not let him risk something?"

The girl seemed strangely excited; her quick breathing and bright, unsteady eyes betrayed the nervous tension of the last few days. She said feverishly:

"There is a lot of nonsense talked about self-sacrifice and love; about the beauties of abnegation and martyrdom, but, Kathleen, if I shall ever need him at all, I need him now. I'm afraid to be alone any longer; I'm frightened at the chances against me. Do you know what these days of horror have been to me, locked in here--all alone--in the depths of degradation for what--what I did that night--in distress and shame unutterable----"

"My darling----"

"Wait! I had more to endure--I had to endure the results of my education in the study of man! I had to realise that I loved one of them who has done enough to annihilate in me anything except love. I had to learn that he couldn't kill that--that I want him in spite of it, that I need him, that my heart is sick with dread; that he can have me when he will--Oh, Kathleen, I have learned to care less for him than when I denied him for his own sake--more for him than I did before he held me in his arms! And that is not a high type of love--I know it--but oh, if I could only have his arms around me--if I could rest there for a while--and not feel so frightened, so utterly alone!--I might win out; I might kill what is menacing me, with G.o.d's help--and his!"

She lay s.h.i.+vering on Kathleen's breast now, dry-eyed, twisting her ringless fingers in dumb anguish.

"Darling, darling," murmured Kathleen, "you cannot do this thing. You cannot let him a.s.sume a burden that is yours alone."

"Why not? What is one's lover for?"

"Not to use; not to hazard; not to be made responsible for a sick mind and a will already demoralised. Is it fair to ask him--to let him begin life with such a burden--such a handicap? Is it not braver, fairer, to fight it out alone, eradicate what threatens you--oh, my own darling! my little Geraldine!--is it not fairer to the man you love? Is he not worth striving for, suffering for? Have you no courage to endure if he is to be the reward? Is a little selfish weakness, a miserable self-indulgence to stand between you and life-long happiness?"

Geraldine looked up; her face was very white:

"Have you ever been tempted?"

"Have I not been to-night?"

"I mean by--something ign.o.ble?"

"No."

"Do you know how it hurts?"

"To--to deny yourself?"

"Yes.... It is so--difficult--it makes me wretchedly weak.... I only thought he might help me.... You are right, Kathleen.... I must be terribly demoralised to have wished it. I--I will not marry him, now. I don't think I ever will.... You are right. I have got to be fair to him, no matter what he has been to me.... He has been fearfully unfair. After all, he is only a man.... I couldn't really love a G.o.d."

CHAPTER XIII

AMBITIONS AND LETTERS

Rosalie had departed; Grandcourt followed suit next day; Sylvia's brother, Stuyvesant, had at last found a sober moment at his disposal and had appeared at Roya-Neh and taken his sister away. Duane was all ready to go to New York to find out whether his father was worrying over anything, as the tone of his letters indicated.

The day he left, Kathleen and Geraldine started on a round of August house parties, ranging from Lenox to Long Island, including tiresome week ends and duty visits to some very unpretentious but highly intellectual relatives of Mrs. Severn. So Scott remained in solitary possession of Roya-Neh, with its forests, gardens, pastures, lakes and streams, and a staggering payroll and all the multiplicity of problems that such responsibility entails. Which pleased him immensely, except for the departure of Kathleen.

To play the intellectual country squire had been all he desired on earth except Kathleen. From the beginning White's "Selborne" had remained his model for all books, Kathleen for all women. He was satisfied with these two components of perfect happiness, and with himself, as he was, for the third ingredient in a contented and symmetrical existence.

He had accepted his answer from her with more philosophy than she quite expected or was prepared for, saying that if she made a particular point of it he would go about next winter and give himself a chance to meet as many desirable young girls as she thought best; that it was merely wasting time, but if it made her any happier, he'd wait and endeavour to return to their relations of unsentimental comrades.h.i.+p until she was satisfied he knew his mind.

Kathleen was, at first, a little dismayed at his complacency. It was only certainty of himself. At twenty-two there is time for anything, and the vista of life ahead is endless. And there was one thing more which Kathleen did not know. Under the covering of this Seagrave complacency and self-centred sufficiency, all alone by itself was developing the sprouting germ of consideration for others.

How it started he himself did not know--nor was he even aware that it had started. But long, solitary rambles and the quiet contemplation of other things besides himself had awakened first curiosity, then a dawning suspicion of the rights of others.

In the silence of forests it is difficult to preserve complacency; under the stars modesty is born.

It began to occur to him, by degrees, that his own personal importance among his kind _might_ be due, in part, to his fortune. And from the first invasion of that shocking idea matters progressed rather rapidly with the last of the Seagraves.

He said uneasily to Duane, once: "Are you going in seriously for painting?"

"I _am_ in," observed Duane drily.

"Professionally?"

"Sure thing. G.o.d hates an amateur."

"What are you after?" persisted Scott. "Fame?"

"Yes; I need it in my business."

"Are you contemplating a velvet coat and bow tie, and a bunch of the elect at your heels?--ratty men, and pop-eyed young women whose coiffure needs weeding?"

Duane laughed. "Are they any more deadly than our own sort? Why endure either? Because you are developing into a country squire, you don't have to marry Maud Muller." And he quoted Bret Harte:

"For there be women fair as she, Whose verbs and nouns do more agree."

"You don't have to wallow in a profession, you know."

"But why the mischief do you want to paint professionally?" inquired Scott, with unsatisfied curiosity. "It isn't avarice, is it?"

"I expect to hold out for what my pictures are worth, if that's what you mean by avarice. What I'm trying to do," added Duane, striking his palm with his fist as emphasis, "is not to die the son of a wealthy man. If I can't be anything more, I'm not worth a d.a.m.n. But I'm going to be. I can do it, Scott; I'm lazy, I'm undecided, I've a weak streak. And yet, do you know, with all my blemishes, all my misgivings, all my discouragements, panics, despondent moments, I am, way down inside, serenely and unaccountably certain that I can paint like the devil, and that I am going to do it. That sounds cheeky, doesn't it?"

"It sounds all right to me," said Scott. And he walked away thoughtfully, fists dug deep in his pockets.