The Danger Mark Part 60

And one still, sunny afternoon, standing alone on the dry granite crags of the Golden Dome, he looked up and saw, a quarter of a million miles above him, the moon's ghost swimming in azure splendour. Then he looked down and saw the map of the earth below him, where his forests spread out like moss, and his lakes mirrored the clouds, and a river belonging to him traced its course across the valley in a single silver thread.

And a slight blush stung his face at the thought that, without any merit or endeavour of his own, his money had bought it all--his money, that had always acted as his deputy, fought for him, conquered for him, spoken for him, vouched for him--perhaps pleaded for him!--he s.h.i.+vered, and suddenly he realised that this golden voice was, in fact, all there was to him.

What had he to identify him on earth among mankind? Only his money.

Wherein did he differ from other men? He had more money. What had he to offer as excuse for living at all? Money. What had he done? Lived on it, by it. Why, then, it was the money that was ent.i.tled to distinction, and he figured only as its parasite! Then he was nothing--even a little less. In the world there was man and there was money. It seemed that he was a little lower in the scale than either; a parasite--scarcely a thing of distinction to offer Kathleen Severn.

Very seriously he looked up at the moon.

It was the day following his somewhat disordered and impa.s.sioned declaration. He expected to receive his answer that evening; and he descended the mountain in a curiously uncertain and perplexed state of mind which at times bordered on a modesty painfully akin to humbleness.

Meanwhile, Duane was preparing to depart on the morrow. And that evening he also was to have his definite answer to the letter which Kathleen had taken to Geraldine Seagrave that morning.

"Dear," he had written, "I once told you that my weakness needed the aid of all that is best in you; that yours required the best of courage and devotion that lies in me. It is surely so. Together we conquer the world--which is ourselves.

"For the little things that seem to threaten our separation do not really alarm me. Even if I actually committed the inconsequential and casual thing that so abruptly and so deeply offended you, there remains enough soundness in me at the core to warrant your charity and repay, in a measure, your forgiveness and a renewal of your interest in my behalf.

"Search your heart, Geraldine; question your intelligence; both will tell you that I am enough of a man to dare love you. And it takes something of a man to dare do it.

"There is a thing that I might say which would convince you, even against the testimony of your own eyes, that never in deed or in thought have I been really disloyal to you since you gave me your heart.... Yet I must not say it.... Can you summon sufficient faith in me to accept that statement--against the evidence of those two divine witnesses which condemn me--your eyes? Circ.u.mstantial evidence is no good in this case, dear. I can say no more than that.

"Dearest, what can compare to the disaster of losing each other?

"I ask you to let me have the right to stand by you in your present distress and despondency. What am I for if not for such moments?

"That night you were closer to the danger mark than you have ever been. I know that my conduct--at least your interpretation of it--threw you, for the moment off your guarded balance; but that your att.i.tude toward such a crisis--your solution of such a situation--should be a leap forward toward self-destruction--a reckless surrender to anger and blind impulse, only makes me the more certain that we need each other now if ever.

"The silent, lonely, forlorn battle that has been going on behind the door of your room and the doors of your heart during these last few days, is more than I can well endure. Open both doors to me; leagued we can win through!

"Give me the right to be with you by night as well as by daylight, and we two shall stand together and see 'the day break and the shadows flee away.'"

That same evening his reply came:

"My darling, Kathleen will give you this. I don't care what my eyes saw if you tell me it isn't true. I have loved you, anyway, all the while--even with my throat full of tears and my mouth bitter with anger, and my heart torn into several thousand tatters--oh, it is not very difficult to love you, Duane; the only trouble is to love you in the right way; which is hard, dear, because I want you so much; and it's so new to me to be unselfish. I began to learn by loving you.

"Which means, that I will not let you take the risk you ask for.

Give me time; I've fought it off since that miserable night. Heaven alone knows why I surrendered--turning to my deadly enemy for countenance and comfort to support my childish and contemptible anger against you.

"Duane, there is an evil streak in me, and we both must reckon with it. Long, long before I knew I loved you, things you said and did often wounded me; and within me a perfectly unreasoning desire to hurt you--to make you suffer--always flamed up and raged.

"I think that was partly what made me do what you know I did that night. It would hurt you; that was my ign.o.ble instinct. G.o.d knows whether it was also a hideous sort of excuse for my weakness--for I was blazing hot after the last dance--and the gaiety and uproar and laughter all overexcited me--and then what I had seen you do, and your not coming to me, and that ominous uneasy impulse stirring!

"That is the truth as I a.n.a.lyse it. The dreadful thing is that I could have been capable of dealing our chance of happiness such a cowardly blow.

"Well, it is over. The thing has fled for a while. I fought it down, stamped on it with utter horror and loathing. It--the encounter--tired me. I am weary yet--from honourable wounds. But I won out. If it comes back again--Oh, Duane! and it surely will--I shall face it undaunted once more; and every hydra-head that stirs I shall kill until the thing lies dead between us for all time.

"Then, dear, will you take the girl who has done this thing?

"GERALDINE SEAGRAVE."

This was his answer on the eve of his departure.

And on the morning of it Geraldine came down to say good-bye; a fresh, sweet, and bewildering Geraldine, somewhat slimmer than when he had last seen her, a little finer in feature, more delicate of body; and there was about her even a hint of the spirituel as a fascinating trace of what she had been through, locked in alone behind the doors of her room and heart.

She bade him good-morning somewhat shyly, offering her slim hand and looking at him with the slight uncertainty and bent brows of a person coming suddenly into a strong light.

He said under his breath: "You poor darling, how thin you are."

"Athletics," she said; "Jacob wrestled with an angel, but you know what I've been facing in the squared circle. Don't speak of it any more, will you? ... How sunburned you are! What have you been about since I've kept to my room?"

"I've painted Miller's kids in the open; I suppose the terrific influence of Sorolla has me in bondage for the moment." He laughed easily: "But don't worry; it will leave nothing except clean inspiration behind it. I'll think out my own way--grope it out through Pantheon and living maze. All I've really got to say in paint can be said only in my own way. I know that, even when realising that I've been sunstruck by Sorolla."

She listened demurely, watching him, her lips sensitive with understanding; and she laughed when he laughed away his fealty to the superb Spaniard, knowing himself and the untried strength within him.

"But when are you coming back to us, Duane?"

"I don't know. Father's letters perplex me. I'll write you every day, of course."

A quick colour tinted her skin:

"And I will write you every day. I will begin to-day. Kathleen and I expect to be here in September. But you will come back before that and keep Scott company; won't you?"

"I want to get into harness again," he said slowly. "I want to settle down to work."

"Can't you work here?"

"Not very well."

"Why?"

"To tell the truth," he admitted, smiling, "I require something more like a working studio than Miller's garret."

"That's what I thought," she said shyly, "and Scott and I have the plans for a studio all ready; and the men are to begin Monday, and Miller is to take the new gate cottage. Oh, the plans are really very wonderful!"

she added hastily, as Duane looked grateful but dubious. "Rollins and Calvert drew them. I wrote to Billy Calvert and sent him the original plans for Hurryon Lodge. Duane, I thought it would please you----"

"It does, you dear, generous girl! I'm a trifle overwhelmed, that's all my silence meant. You ought not to do this for me----"

"Why? Aren't we to be as near each other as we can be until--I am ready--for something--closer?"

"Yes.... Certainly.... I'll arrange to work out certain things up here.

As for models, if there is nothing suitable at Westgate village, you won't mind my importing some, will you?"

"No," she said, becoming very serious and gravely interested, as befitted the fiancee of a painter of consequence. "You will do what is necessary, of course; because I--few girls--are accustomed in the beginning to the details of such a profession as yours; and I'm very ignorant, Duane, and I must learn how to second you--intelligently"--she blushed--"that is, if I'm to amount to anything as an artist's wife."

"You dear!" he whispered.

"No; I tell you I am totally ignorant. A studio is an awesome place to me. I merely know enough to keep out of it when you are using models.

That is safest, isn't it?"

He said, intensely amused: "It might be safer not to give pink teas while I am working from the nude."