The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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"There will be a new ceremony?"

"If they wish.... I can't--can't talk of it yet, unless I'm driven to
it--"

He looked quietly around at her. "What drives you, Shiela?"

Her eyes remained resolutely fixed on the road ahead, but her cheeks
were flaming; and he turned his gaze elsewhere, thoughtful, chary of
speech, until at last the lights of the station twinkled in the north.

Then he said, carelessly friendly: "I'll just say this: that, being of
no legitimate use to anybody, if you find any use for me, you merely
need to say so."

"Thank you, Louis."

"No; I thank you! It's a new sensation--to be of legitimate use to
anybody. Really, I'm much obliged."

"Don't speak so bitterly--"

"Not at all. Short of being celestially translated and sinlessly
melodious on my pianola up aloft, I had no hope of ever being useful to
you and Hamil--"

She turned a miserable and colourless face to his and he ceased,
startled at the tragedy in such young eyes.

Then he burst out impulsively: "Oh, why don't you cut and run with him!
Why, you little ninny, if I loved anybody like that I'd not worry over
the morals of it!"

"What!" she gasped.

"Not I! Make a nunnery out of me if you must; clutch at me for
sanctuary, if you want to; I'll stand for it! But if you'll listen to me
you'll give up romantic martyrdom and sackcloth, put on your best frock,
smile on Hamil, and go and ask your mother for a bright, shiny,
brand-new divorce."

Revolted, incensed, eyes brilliant with anger, she sat speechless and
rigid, clutching the steering-wheel as he nimbly descended to the
platform.

"Good-bye, Shiela," he said with a haggard smile. "I meant well--as
usual."

Something about him as he stood there alone in the lamp's white radiance
stilled her anger by degrees.

"Good-bye," she said with an effort.

He nodded, replaced his hat, and turned away.

"Good-bye, Louis," she said more gently.

He retraced his steps, and stood beside the motor, hat off. She bent
forward, generous, as always, and extended her hand.

"What you said to me hurt," she said. "Do you think it would not be easy
for me to persuade myself? I believe in divorce with all my heart and
soul and intelligence. I _know_ it is right and just. But not for me....
Louis--how can I do this thing to them? How can I go to them and
disclose myself as a common creature of common origin and primitive
impulse, showing the crack in the gay gilding and veneer they have
laboured to cover me with?... I cannot.... I could endure the disgrace
myself; I cannot disgrace them. Think of the ridicule they would suffer
if it became known that for two years I had been married, and now wanted
a public divorce? No! No! There is nothing to do, nothing to hope
for.... If it is--advisable--I will tell them, and take your name
openly.... I am so uncertain, so frightened at moments--so perplexed.
There is no one to tell me what to do.... And, believe me, I am sorry
for you--I am deeply, deeply sorry! Good-bye."

"And I for you," he said. "Good-bye."

She sat in her car, waiting, until the train started.

CHAPTER XVII

ECHOES

Some minutes later, on the northward speeding train, he left Portlaw
playing solitaire in their own compartment, and, crossing the swaying
corridor, entered the state-room opposite. Miss Wilming was there,
reading a novel, an enormous bunch of roses, a box of bonbons, and a
tiny kitten on the table before her. The kitten was so young that it was
shaky on its legs, and it wore very wide eyes and a blue bow.

"Hello, Dolly," he said pleasantly. She answered rather faintly.

"What a voice--like the peep of an infant sparrow! Are you worrying?"

"A little."

"You needn't be. Alphonse will make a noise, of course, but you needn't
mind that. The main thing in life is to know what you want to do and do
it. Which I've never yet done in my life. Zut! Zut!!--as our late Count
Alphonse might say. And he'll say other remarks when he finds you've
gone, Dolly." And Malcourt, who was a mimic, shrugged and raised his
arms in Gallic appeal to the gods of wrath, until he mouthed his face
into a startling resemblance to that of the bereft nobleman.

Then he laughed a little--not very heartily; then, in a more familiar
role, he sat down opposite the girl and held up one finger of admonition
and consolation.

"The main thing, Dolly, was to get clear of him--and all that silly
business. Yes? No? Bon!... And now everything is cleared up between us,
and I've told you what I'd do--if you really wanted a chance. I believe
in chances for people."

The girl, who was young, buried her delicate face in the roses and
looked at him. The kitten, balanced on tiny, wavering legs, stared hard
at him, too. He looked from girl to kitten, conscious of the
resemblance, and managed to smother a smile.

"You said," he repeated severely, "that you wanted a chance. I told you
what I could and would do; see that you live and dress decently, stand
for your musical, dramatic, athletic, and terpsichorean education and
drilling--but not for one atom of nonsense. Is that clear?"

She nodded.

"Not one break; not one escapade, Dolly. It's up to you."

"I know it."

"All right, then. What's passed doesn't count. You start in and see what
you can do. They say they drag one about by the hair at those dramatic
schools. If they do, you've got to let 'em. Anyway, things ought to come
easier to you than to some, for you've got a corking education, and you
don't drink sloe-gin, and you don't smoke."

"And I _can_ cook," added the girl gravely, looking at her childish
ringless hands. The rings and a number of other details had been left
behind addressed to the count.

"The trouble will be," said Malcourt, "that you will miss the
brightness and frivolity of things. That kitten won't compensate."

"Do you think so? I haven't had very much of anything--even kittens,"
she said, picking up the soft ball of fur and holding it under her chin.

"You missed the frivolous in life even before you had it. You'll miss it
again, too."

"But I've had it now."

"That doesn't count. The capacity for frivolity is always there. You are
reconciled just now to other things; that man is a beast all right. Oh,
yes; this is reaction, Dolly. The idea is to hang on to this
conservatism when it becomes stupid and irksome; when you're tired and
discouraged, and when you want to be amused and be in bright, attractive
places; and when you're lonesome--"

"Lonesome?"

"Certainly you'll be lonesome if you're good."

"Am I not to see you?"

"I'll be in the backwoods working for a living--"

"Yes, but when you come to New York?"

"Sure thing."

"Often?"

"As often as it's advisable," he said pleasantly. "I want you to make
friends at school; I want you to have lots of them. A bachelor girl has
got to have 'em.... It's on your account and theirs that I don't intend
to have anybody make any mistake about me.... Therefore, I'll come to
see you when you've a friend or two present. It's fairer to you. _Now_
do you understand me, Dolly?"

"Yes."

"Is it agreeable?"

"Y-es." And, flushing: "But I did not mistake you, Louis; and there is
no reason not to come, even if I am alone."

He laughed, lighted a cigarette, and stroked the kitten.

"It's an amusing experiment, anyway," he said.

"Have you never tried it before?"

"Oh, yes, several times."

"Were the several times successes?"

"Not one!" he said, laughing. "It's up to you, Dolly, to prove me a
bigger ass than I have been yet--or the reverse."

"It lies with me?" she asked.

"Certainly. Have I ever made love to you?"

"No."

"Ever even kissed you?"

"No."

"Ever been a brute?"

"No.... You are not very careful in speaking to me sometimes. Once--at
the Club--when Mr. Hamil--"

"I _was_ brutal. I know it. Do you want my respect?"

"Y-es."

"Earn it," he said drily.

The girl leaned back in her corner, flushed, silent, thoughtful; and
sometimes her eyes were fixed on vacancy, sometimes on him where he sat
in the opposite seat staring out into the blurred darkness at the red
eye of the beacon on Jupiter Light which turned flaring, turned again,
dwindling to a spark, and went out.

"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, noticing his frown.

He did not reply; he was thinking of Shiela Cardross. And, frowning, he
picked up the kitten, very gently, and flattered it until it purred.

"It's about as big as a minute," said the girl, softly touching the tiny
head.

"There _are_ minutes as big as elephants, too," he said, amused. "Nice
pussy!" The kitten, concurring in these sentiments, purred with
pleasure.

A little later he sauntered back to his own compartment, and, taking out
a memorandum, made some figures.

"Is that girl aboard?" asked Portlaw, looking up from the table, his fat
hands full of cards.

"Yes, I believe so."

"Well, that's a deuce of a thing to do."

"What?"--absently.

"What! Why, to travel about the country with the nucleus of a theatrical
troupe on your hands--"

"She wanted another chance. Few get it."

"Very well, son, if you think you can afford to endow a home for the
frivolously erring!--And the chances are she'll turn on you and
scratch."

"Yes--the chances favour that."

"She won't understand it; that sort never understands decency in a man."

"Do you think it might damage my reputation to be misunderstood?"
sneered Malcourt. "I've taken a notion to give her a chance and I'm
going to do it."

Portlaw spread out his first row of cards. "You know what everybody will
think, I suppose."

Malcourt yawned.

Presently Portlaw began in a babyish-irritated voice: "I've buried the
deuce and trey of diamonds, and blocked myself--"

"Oh, _shut_ up!" said Malcourt, who was hastily scribbling a letter to
Virginia Suydam.

He did not post it, however, until he reached New York, being very
forgetful and busy in taking money away from the exasperated Portlaw
through the medium of double dummy. Also he had a girl, a kitten, and
other details to look after, and several matters to think over. So
Virginia's letter waited.

* * * * *

Virginia waited, too. She had several headaches to keep inquiring
friends at a distance, for her eyes were inclined to redness in those
days, and she developed a pronounced taste for the solitude of the
chapel and churchly things.

So when at length the letter arrived, Miss Suydam evaded Constance and
made for the beach; for it was her natural instinct to be alone with
Malcourt, and the instinct unconsciously included even his memory.

Her maid was packing; Constance Palliser's maid was also up to her chin
in lingerie, and Constance hovered in the vicinity. So there was no
privacy there, and that was the reason Virginia evaded them,
side-stepped Gussie Vetchen at the desk, eluded old Classon in the palm
room, and fled like a ghost through the empty corridors as though the
deuce were at her heels instead of in her heart.

The heart of Virginia was cutting up. Alone in the corridors she
furtively glanced at the letter, kissed the edge of the envelope, rolled
and tucked it away in her glove, and continued her flight in search of
solitude.

The vast hotel seemed lonely enough, but it evidently was too populous
to suit Miss Suydam. Yet few guests remained, and the larger caravansary
was scheduled to close in another day or two, the residue population to
be transferred to "The Breakers."

The day was piping hot but magnificent; corridor, piazza, colonnade, and
garden were empty of life, except for a listless negro servant dawdling
here and there. Virginia managed to find a wheel-chair under the
colonnade and a fat black boy at the control to propel it; and with her
letter hidden in her glove, and her heart racing, she seated herself,
parasol tilted, chin in the air, and the chair rolled noiselessly away
through the dazzling sunshine of the gardens.

On the beach some barelegged children were wading in the surf's bubbling
ebb, hunting for king-crabs; an old black mammy, wearing apron and
scarlet turban, sat luxuriously in the burning sand watching her
thin-legged charges, and cooking the "misery" out of her aged bones.
Virginia could see nobody else, except a distant swimmer beyond the
raft, capped with a scarlet kerchief. This was not solitude, but it must
do.

So she dismissed her chair-boy and strolled out under the pier. And, as
nobody was there to interrupt her she sat down in the sand and opened
her letter with fingers that seemed absurdly helpless and unsteady.

"On the train near Jupiter Light," it was headed; and presently
continued:

"I am trying to be unselfishly honest with you to see how it
feels. First--about my loving anybody. I never have; I have on
several occasions been prepared to bestow heart and hand--been
capable of doing it--and something happened every time. On one of
these receptive occasions the thing that happened put me
permanently out of business. I'll tell you about that later.

"What I want to say is that the reason I don't love you is not
because I can't, but because I won't! You don't understand that.
Let me try to explain. I've always had the capacity for really
loving some woman. I was more or less lonely and shy as a child
and had few playmates--very few girls of my age. I adored those I
knew--but--well, I was not considered to be a very desirable
playmate by those parents who knew the Malcourt history.

"One family was nice to me--some of them. I usually cared a great
deal for anybody who was nice to me.

"The point of all this biography is that I'm usually somewhat
absurdly touched by the friendship of an attractive woman of my
own sort--or, rather, of the sort I might have been. That is my
attitude toward you; you are amiable to me; I like you.

"Now, why am I not in love with you? I've told you that it's
because I will not let myself be in love with you. Why?

"Dear--it's just because you _have_ been nice to me. Do you
understand? No, you don't. Then--to go back to what I spoke of--I
am not free to marry. I am married. Now you know. And there's no
way out of it that I can see.

"If I were in love with you I'd simply take you. I am only your
friend--and I can't do you that injury. Curious, isn't it, how
such a blackguard as I am can be so fastidious!

"But that's the truth. And that, too, may explain a number of
other matters.

"So you see how it is, dear. The world _is_ full of a number of
things. One of them signs himself your friend,

"LOUIS MALCOURT."

Virginia's eyes remained on the written page long after she had finished
reading. They closed once or twice, opened again, blue-green,
expressionless. Looking aloft after a while she tried to comprehend that
the sky was still overhead; but it seemed to be a tricky, unsteady,
unfamiliar sky, wavering, crawling across space like the wrinkled sea
beneath it. Confused, she turned, peering about; the beach, too, was
becoming unstable; and, through the sudden rushing darkness that
obscured things, she tried to rise, then dropped full length along the
sand.

A few seconds later--or perhaps minutes, or perhaps hours--she found
herself seated perfectly conscious, mechanically drying the sea-water
from her wet face; while beside her knelt a red-capped figure in wet
bathing-dress, both hands brimming with sea-water which ran slowly
between the delicate fingers and fell, sparkling.

"Do you feel better?" asked Shiela gently.

"Yes," she said, perfectly conscious and vaguely surprised. Presently
she looked down at her skirts, groped about, turned, searching with
outstretched fingers. Then her eyes fell on the letter. It lay on the
sand beside her sunshade, carefully weighted with a shell.

Neither she nor the girl beside her spoke. Virginia adjusted her hat and
veil, sat motionless for a few moments, then picked up the water-stained
letter and, rolling it, placed it in her wet glove. A slow flame burned
in her pallid cheeks; her eyes remained downcast.

Shiela said with quick sympathy: "I never fainted in my life. Is it
painful?"

"No--it's only rather horrid.... I had been walking in the sun. It is
very hot on the beach, I think; don't you?"

"Very," said the girl gravely.

Virginia, head still bent, was touching her wet lace waist with her
wetter gloves.

"It was very good of you," she said, in a low voice--"and quite stupid
of me."

Shiela straightened to her full height and stood gravely watching the
sea-water trickle from her joined palms. When the last shining drop had
fallen she looked questioningly at Miss Suydam.

"I'm a little tired, that is all," said Virginia. She rose rather
unsteadily and took advantage of Shiela's firm young arm, which, as they
progressed, finally slipped around Miss Suydam's waist.

Very slowly they crossed the burning sands together, scarcely exchanging
a word until they reached the Cardross pavilion.

"If you'll wait until I have my shower I'll take you back in my chair,"
said Shiela. "Come into my own dressing-room; there's a lounge."

Virginia, white and haggard, seated herself, leaning back languidly
against the wall and closing her heavy eyes. They opened again when
Shiela came back from the shower, knotting in the girdle of her snowy
bath-robe, and seated herself while her maid unloosed the thick hair and
rubbed it till the brown-gold lustre came out like little gleams of
sunlight, and the ends of the burnished tresses crisped and curled up on
the smooth shoulders of snow and rose.

Virginia's lips began to quiver; she was fairly flinching now under the
pitiless contrast, fascinated yet shrinking from the splendid young
creature before her, resting there aglow in all the vigourous beauty of
untainted health.

And from the mirror reflected, the clear eyes smiled back at her,
seeming to sear her very soul with their untarnished loveliness.

"Suppose you come and lunch with me?" said Shiela. "I happen to be quite
alone. My maid is very glad to do anything for you. Will you come?"

"Yes," said Virginia faintly.

An hour later they had luncheon together in the jasmine arbour; and
after that Virginia lay in the hammock under the orange-trees, very
still, very tired, glad of the silence, and of the soft cool hand which
covered hers so lightly, and, at rare intervals, pressed hers more
lightly still.

Shiela, elbow on knee, one arm across the hammock's edge, chin cupped in
her other palm, sat staring at vacancy beside the hammock where Virginia
lay. And sometimes her partly doubled fingers indented her red lower
lip, sometimes they half framed the oval face, as she sat lost in
thought beside the hammock where Virginia lay so pale and still.

Musing there in the dappled light, already linked together by that
subtle sympathy which lies in silence and in a common need of it, they
scarcely stirred save when Shiela's fingers closed almost imperceptibly
on Virginia's hand, and Virginia's eyelids quivered in vague response.

In youth, sadness and silence are near akin. That was the only kinship
they could claim--this slim, pale scion of a worn-out line, and the
nameless, parentless girl beside her. This kinship was their only
bond--unadmitted, uncomprehended by themselves; kinship in love, and the
sadness of it; in love, and the loneliness of it; love--and the long
hours of waiting; night, and the tears of it.

The sun hung low behind the scented orange grove before Virginia moved,
laying her thin cheek on Shiela's hand.

"Did you see--that letter--in the sand?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"The writing--you knew it?... Answer me, Shiela."

"Yes, I knew it."

Virginia lay very still for a while, then covered her face with both
hands.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" breathed Shiela, bending close beside her.

Virginia lay motionless for a moment, then uncovered her face.

"It is strange," she said, in a colourless, almost inaudible voice. "You
see I am simply helpless--dependent on your mercy.... Because a woman
does not faint over--nothing."

The deep distress in Shiela's eyes held her silent for a space. She
looked back at her, then her brooding gaze shifted to the laden branches
overhead, to the leafy vistas beyond, to the ground where the golden
fruit lay burning in the red, level rays of the western sun.

"I did not know he was married," she said vacantly.

Swift anger burned in Shiela's cheeks.

"He was a coward not to tell you--"

"He was honourable about it," said Virginia, in the same monotonous
voice. "Do you think I am shameless to admit it? Perhaps I am, but it is
fairer to him. As you know this much, you should know the truth. And the
truth is that he has never said he loved me."

Her face had become pinched and ghastly, but her mouth never quivered
under this final humiliation.

"Did you ever look upon a more brazen and defenceless woman--" she
began--and then very quietly and tearlessly broke down in Shiela's
tender arms, face hidden on the young girl's breast.

And Shiela's heart responded passionately; but all she could find to say
was: "Dear--I know--indeed, indeed I know--believe me I know and
understand!" And all she could do was to gather the humbled woman into
her arms until, her grief dry-spent, Virginia raised her head and looked
at Shiela with strange, quenched, tearless eyes.

"We women are very helpless, very ignorant," she said, "even the worst
of us. And I doubt if in all our lives we are capable of the harm that
one man refrains from doing for an hour.... And that, I think, is our
only compensation.... What theirs may be I do not know.... Dear, I am
perfectly able to go, now.... I think I see your mother coming."

They walked together to the terrace where Mrs. Cardross had just arrived
in the motor; and Shiela, herself shaken, wondered at the serene poise
with which Virginia sustained ten minutes of commonplaces and then made
her final adieux, saying that she was leaving on the morning train.

"May we not see each other in town?" she added amiably; and, to Shiela:
"You will let me know when you come North? I shall miss you until you
come."

Mrs. Cardross sent her back in the motor, a trifle surprised at any
intimacy between Shiela and Virginia. She asked a frank question or two
and then retired to write to Mrs. Carrick, who, uneasy, had at last gone
North to find out what financial troubles were keeping both her husband
and her father so long away from this southland that they loved so well.

Hamil, who was to leave for the North with his aunt and Virginia early
next morning, returned from the forest about sundown, reeking as usual
of the saddle, and rested a moment against the terrace balustrade
watching Mrs. Cardross and Shiela over their tea.

"That boy is actually ill," said the sympathetic matron. "Why don't you
give him some tea, Shiela? Or would you rather have a little wine and a
biscuit, Garret--?"

"And a few pills," added Shiela gravely. "I found a box of odds and
ends--powders, pills, tablets, which he might as well finish--"

"Shiela! Garret is _ill!_"

Hamil, busy with his Madeira and biscuit, laughed. He could not realise
he was on the eve of leaving, nor could Shiela.

"Never," said he to the anxious lady, "have I felt better in my life;
and I'm sure it is due to your medicines. It's all very well for Shiela
to laugh at quinine; mosquitoes don't sting her. But I'd probably be an
item in one of those phosphate beds by this time if you hadn't taken
care of me."

Shiela laughed; Hamil in excellent humour went off to dress. Everybody
seemed to be in particularly good spirits that evening, but later, after
dinner, Gray spoke complainingly of the continued absence of his father.

"As for Acton Carrick, he's the limit," added Gray disgustedly. "He
hasn't been here this winter except for a day or two, and then he took
the train from Miami straight through to New York. I say, Hamil, you'll
look him up and write us about him, won't you?"

Shiela looked at Hamil.

"Do you understand anything about financial troubles?" she asked in a
bantering voice.

"I've had some experience with my own," he said.

"Well, then, what is the matter with the market?"

"Shall I whisper it?"

"If you are prepared to rhyme it. I dare you!"

It was the rule of the house that anybody was privileged to whisper at
table provided they put what they had to communicate into rhyme.

So he thought busily a moment, then leaned over very gravely and
whispered close to her ear:

"Tis money makes the market go;
When money's high the market's low;
When money's low the market's right,
And speculators sleep at night.
But, dear, there is another mart,
Where ticks the ticker called my heart;
And there exhaustless funds await,
To back my bankrupt trust in Fate;
For you will find, as I have found,
The old, old logic yet is sound,
And love still makes the world go round."

"I always knew it," said Shiela contemptuously.

"Knew what, dear?" asked her mother, amused.

"That Mr. Hamil writes those sickening mottoes for Christmas crackers."

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