The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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"Louis!" she exclaimed; "what are you doing?"

He turned dreamily toward her, rose as in a trance.

"Oh, is it you?... Come in here."

"I cannot; I am tired."

"So am I, Shiela--tired to death. What time is it?"

"After ten, I think--if that clock is right."

She entered, reluctant, uncertain, peering up at the clock; then:

"I thought the front door had been left open and came down to lock it.
What are you doing here at this hour? I--I thought I heard you talking."

"I was talking to my father."

"What!" she said, startled.

"Pretending to," he added wearily; "sit down."

"Do you wish me--"

"Yes; sit down."

"I--" she looked fearfully at him, hesitated, and slowly seated herself
on the arm of a lounge. "W-what is it you--want, Louis?" she faltered,
every nerve on edge.

"Nothing much; a kindly word or two."

"What do you mean? Have I ever been unkind? I--I am too unhappy to be
unkind to anybody." Suddenly her eyes filled.

"Don't do that," he said; "you are always civil to me--never unkind. By
the way, my relatives leave to-morrow. That will comfort you, won't it?"

She said nothing.

He leaned heavily on the table, dark face framed in both hands:

"Shiela, when a man is really tired, don't you think it reasonable for
him to take a rest--and give others one?"

"I don't understand."

"A rather protracted rest is good for tired people, isn't it?"

"Yes, if--"

"In fact," with a whimsical smile, "a sort of endlessly eternal rest
ought to cure anybody. Don't you think so?"

She stared at him.

"Do you happen to remember that my father, needing a good long rest,
took a sudden vacation to enjoy it?"

"I--I--don't know what you mean!"--tremulously.

"You remember how he started on that restful vacation which he is still
enjoying?"

A shudder ran over her. She strove to speak, but her voice died in her
throat.

"My father," he said dreamily, "seems to want me to join him during his
vacation--"

"Louis!"

"What are you frightened about? It's as good a vacation as any
other--only one takes no luggage and pays no hotel bills.... Haven't you
any sense of humour left in you, Shiela? I'm not serious."

She said, trembling, and very white: "I thought you meant it." Then she
rose with a shiver, turned, and mounted the stairs to her room again.
But in the stillness of the place something was already at work on
her--fear--a slow dawning alarm at the silence, the loneliness, the
forests, the rain--a growing horror of the place, of the people in it,
of this man the world called her husband, of his listening silences, his
solitary laughter, his words spoken to something unseen in empty rooms,
his awful humour.

Her very knees were shaking under her now; she stared around her like a
trapped thing, desperate, feeling that self-control was going in sudden,
ungovernable panic.

Scarcely knowing what she was about she crept to the telephone and,
leaning heavily against the wall, placed the receiver to her ear.

For a long while she waited, dreading lest the operator had gone. Then a
far voice hailed her; she gave the name; waited interminable minutes
until a servant's sleepy voice requested her to hold the wire. And, at
last:

"Is it you?"

* * * * *

"Garry, could you come here to-night?"

* * * * *

"Danger? No, I am in no danger; I am just frightened."

* * * * *

"I don't know what is frightening me."

* * * * *

"No, not ill. It's only that I am so horribly alone here in the rain.
I--I cannot seem to endure it." She was speaking almost incoherently,
now, scarcely conscious of what she was saying. "There's a man
downstairs who talks in empty rooms and listens to things I cannot
hear--listens every day, I tell you; I've seen him often, often--I mean
Louis Malcourt! And I cannot endure it--the table that moves, and the--O
Garry! Take me away with you. I cannot stand it any longer!"

* * * * *

"Will you come?"

* * * * *

"To-night, Garry?"

* * * * *

"How long will you be? I simply cannot stay alone in this house until
you come. I'll go down and saddle my mare--"

* * * * *

"What?"

* * * * *

"Oh, yes--yes! I know what I'm doing--"

* * * * *

"Yes, I do remember, but--why won't you take me away from--"

* * * * *

"I know it--Oh, I know it! I am half-crazed, I think--"

* * * * *

"Yes--"

* * * * *

"I do care for them still! But--"

* * * * *

"O Garry! Garry! I will be true to them! I will do anything you wish,
only come! Come! Come!"

* * * * *

"You promise?"

* * * * *

"At once?"

* * * * *

She hung up the receiver, turned, and flung open the window.

Over the wet woods a rain-washed moon glittered; the long storm had
passed.

An hour later, as she kneeled by the open window, her chin on her arms,
watching for him, out of the shadow and into the full moonlight galloped
a rider who drew bridle on the distant lawn, waving her a gay gesture of
reassurance.

It was too far for her to call; she dared not descend fearing the dogs
might wake the house.

And in answer to his confident salute, she lighted a candle, and,
against the darkness, drew the fiery outline of a heart; then
extinguishing the light, she sank back in her big chair, watching him as
he settled in his stirrups for the night-long vigil that she meant to
share with him till dawn.

The whole night long once more together! She thrilled at the thought of
it--at the memory of that other night and dawn under the Southern
planets where a ghostly ocean thundered at their feet--where her
awakened heart quickened with the fear of him--and all her body trembled
with the blessed fear of him, and every breath was delicious with terror
of the man who had come this night to guard her.

Partly undressed, head cradled in her tumbled hair, she lay there in the
darkness watching him--her paladin on guard beneath the argent splendour
of the moon. Under the loosened silken vest her heart was racing; under
the unbound hair her cheeks were burning. The soft lake breeze rippled
the woodbine leaves along the sill, stirring the lace and ribbon on her
breast.

Hour after hour she lay there, watching him through the dreamy lustre of
the moon, all the mystery of her love for him tremulous within her.
Once, on the edge of sleep, yet still awake, she stretched her arms
toward him in the darkness, unconsciously as she did in dreams.

Slowly the unreality of it all was enveloping her, possessed her as her
lids grew heavy. In the dim silvery light she could scarcely see him
now: a frail mist belted horse and rider, stretching fairy barriers
across the lawn. Suddenly, within her, clear, distinct, a voice began
calling to him imperiously; but her lips never moved. Yet she knew he
would hear; surely he heard! Surely, surely!--for was he not already
drifting toward her through the moonlight, nearer, here under the palms
and orange-trees--here at her feet, holding her close, safe, strong,
till, faint with the happiness of dreams come true, she slept, circled
by his splendid arms.

And, while she lay there, lips scarce parted, sleeping quietly as a
tired child, he sat his mud-splashed saddle, motionless under the moon,
eyes never leaving her window for an instant, till at last the far dawn
broke and the ghostly shadows fled away.

Then, in the pallid light, he slowly gathered bridle and rode back into
the Southern forest, head heavy on his breast.

CHAPTER XXVII

MALCOURT LISTENS

Malcourt was up and ready before seven when his sister came to his door,
dressed in her pretty blue travelling gown, hatted, veiled, gloved to
perfection; but there was a bloom on cheek and mouth which mocked at the
wearied eyes--a lassitude in every step as she slowly entered and seated
herself.

For a moment neither spoke; her brother was looking at her narrowly; and
after a while she raised her veil, turning her face to the merciless
morning light.

"Paint," she said; "and I'm little older than you."

"You will be younger than I am, soon."

She paled a trifle under the red.

"Are you losing your reason, Louis?"

"No, but I've contrived to lose everything else. It was a losing game
from the beginning--for both of us."

"Are you going to be coward enough to drop your cards and quit the
game?"

"Call it that. But the cards are marked and the game crooked--as crooked
as Herby's." He began to laugh. "The world's dice are loaded; I've got
enough."

"Yet you beat Bertie in spite of--"

"For Portlaw's sake. I wouldn't fight with marked cards for my own sake.
Faugh! the world plays a game too rotten to suit me. I'll drop my hand
and--take a stroll for a little fresh air--out yonder--" He waved his
arm toward the rising sun. "Just a step into the fresh air, Helen."

"Are you not afraid?" She managed to form the words with stiffened lips.

"Afraid?" He stared at her. "No; neither are you. You'll do it, too,
some day. If you don't want to now, you will later; if you have any
doubts left they won't last. We have no choice; it's in us. We don't
belong here, Helen; we're different. We didn't know until we'd tried
to live like other people, and everything went wrong." A glint
of humour came into his eyes. "I've made up my mind that we're
extra-terrestrial--something external and foreign to this particular
star. I think it's time to ask for a transfer and take the star ahead."

Not a muscle moved in her expressionless face; he shrugged and drew out
his watch.

"I'm sorry, Helen--"

"Is it time to go?"

"Yes.... Why do you stick to that little cockney pup?"

"I don't know."

"You ruined a decent man to pick him out of the gutter. Why don't you
drop him back?"

"I don't know."

"Do you--ah--care for him?"

"No."

"Then why--"

She shook her head.

"Quite right," said Malcourt, rising; "you're in the wrong planet, too.
And the sooner you realise it the sooner we'll meet again. Good-bye."

She turned horribly pale, stammering something about his coming with
her, resisting a little as he drew her out, down the stairs, and aided
her to enter the depot-wagon. There he kissed her; and she caught him
around the neck, holding him convulsively.

"Nonsense," he whispered. "I've talked it all over with father; he and
I'll talk it over some day with you. Then you'll understand." And
backing away he called to the coachman: "Drive on!" ignoring his
brother-in-law, who sat huddled in a corner, glassy eyes focused on him.

* * * * *

Portlaw almost capered with surprise and relief when at breakfast he
learned that the Tressilvains had departed.

"Oh, everything is coming everybody's way," said Malcourt gaily--"like
the last chapter of a bally novel--the old-fashioned kind, Billy, where
Nemesis gets busy with a gun and kind Providence hitches 'em up in
ever-after blocks of two. It takes a rotten novelist to use a gun on his
villains! It's never done in decent literature--never done anywhere
except in real life."

He swallowed his coffee and, lighting a cigarette, tipped back his
chair, balancing himself with one hand on the table.

"The use of the gun," he said lazily, "is obsolete in the modern novel;
the theme now is, how to be passionate though pure. Personally, being
neither one nor the other, I remain uninterested in the modern novel."

"Real life," said Portlaw, spearing a fish-ball, "is damn monotonous.
The only gun-play is in the morning papers."

"Sure," nodded Malcourt, "and there's too many shooting items in 'em
every day to make gun-play available for a novel.... Once, when I
thought I could write--just after I left college--they took me aboard a
morning newspaper on the strength of a chance I had to discover a
missing woman.

"She was in hiding; her name had been horribly spattered in a divorce,
and the poor thing was in hiding--had changed her name, crept off to a
little town in Delaware.

"Our enlightened press was hunting for her; to find her was termed a
'scoop,' I believe.... Well--boys pull legs off grasshoppers and do
other damnable things without thinking.... I found _her_.... So as I
knocked at her door--in the mean little farmhouse down there in
Delaware--she opened it, smiling--she was quite pretty--and blew her
brains out in my very face."

"Wh-what!" bawled Portlaw, dropping knife and fork.

"I--I want to see that girl again--some time," said Malcourt
thoughtfully. "I would like to tell her that I didn't mean it--case of
boy and grasshopper, you know.... Well, as you say, gun-play has no
place in real novels. There wouldn't be room, anyway, with all the
literature and illustrations and purpose and purple preciousness; as
anachronismatically superfluous as sleigh-bells in hell."

Portlaw resumed his egg; Malcourt considered him ironically.

"Sporty Porty, are you going to wed the Pretty Lady of Pride's Hall at
Pride's Fall some blooming day in June?"

"None of your infernal business!"

"Quite so. I only wanted to see how the novel was coming out before
somebody takes the book away from me."

"You talk like a pint of shoe-strings," growled Portlaw; "you'd better
find out whose horse has been denting the lawn all over and tearing off
several yards of sod."

"I know already," said Malcourt.

"Well, who had the nerve to--"

"None of your bally business, dear friend. Are you riding over to
Pride's to-day?"

"Yes, I am."

"I think I'll go, too."

"You're not expected."

"That's the charm of it, old fellow. I didn't expect to go; they don't
expect me; they don't want me; I want to go! All the elements of a
delightful surprise, do you notice?"

Portlaw said, irritably: "They asked Mrs. Malcourt and me. Nothing was
said about you."

"Something will be said if I go," observed Malcourt cheerfully.

Portlaw was exasperated. "There's a girl there you behaved badly to.
You'd better stay away."

Malcourt looked innocently surprised.

"Now, who could that be! I have, it is true, at times, misbehaved, but I
can't ever remember behaving badly--"

Portlaw, too mad to speak, strode wrathfully away toward the stables.

Malcourt was interested to see that he could stride now without
waddling.

"Marvellous, marvellous!--the power of love!" he mused sentimentally;
"Porty is no longer rotund--only majestically portly. See where he
hastens lightly to his Alida!

"Shepherd fair and maidens all--
Too-ri-looral!
Too-ri-looral!"

And, very gracefully, he sketched a step or two in contra-dance to his
own shadow on the grass.

"Shepherd fair and maidens all--
Truly rural,
Too-ri-looral,
Man prefers his maidens plural;
One is none, he wants them all!
Too-ri-looral!
Too-ri-looral--"

And he sauntered off humming gaily, making playful passes at the trees
with his riding-crop as he passed.

Later he aided his wife to mount and stood looking after her as she rode
away, Portlaw pounding along heavily beside her.

"All alone with the daisies," he said, looking around him when they had
disappeared.

Toward noon he ordered a horse, ate his luncheon in leisurely solitude,
read yesterday's papers while he smoked, then went out, mounted, and
took the road to Pride's Fall, letting his horse choose his own pace.

Moving along through the pretty forest road, he glanced casually right
and left as he advanced, tapping his riding-boots in rhythm to the air
he was humming in a careless undertone--something about a shepherd and
the plural tastes of man.

His mood was inspired by that odd merriment which came from sheer
perversity. When the depths and shallows of his contradictory character
were disturbed a ripple of what passed for mirth covered all the
surface; if there was any profundity to the man the ripple obscured it.
No eye had ever penetrated the secrecy of what lay below; none ever
would. Perhaps there was nothing there.

He journeyed on, his horse ambling or walking as it suited him, or
sometimes veering to stretch a long glossy neck and nip at a bunch of
leaves.

The cock-partridge stood on his drumming-log and defied the forest
rider, all unseen; rabbit and squirrel sat bolt upright with palpitating
flanks and moist bright eyes at gaze; overhead the slow hawks sailed,
looking down at him as he rode.

Sometimes Malcourt whistled to himself, sometimes he sang in a variably
agreeable voice, and now and then he quoted the poets, taking pleasure
in the precision of his own diction.

"C'est le jour des morts,
Mirliton, Mirlitaine!
Requiescant in pace!"

he chanted; and quoted more of the same bard with a grimace, adding, as
he spurred his horse:

"_Poeta nascitur, non fit_!--the poet's nasty and not fit. Zut!
Boum-boum! Get along, old fellow, or we'll never see the pretty ladies
of Pride's this blooming day!"

There was a shorter cut by a spotted trail, and when he saw the first
blaze glimmering through the leaves he steered his horse toward it. The
sound of voices came distantly from the wooded heights above--far
laughter, the faint aroma of a wood fire; no doubt some
picnickers--trespassing as usual, but that was Mrs. Ascott's affair.

A little later, far below him, he caught a glimpse of a white gown among
the trees. There was a spring down there somewhere in that thicket of
silver birches; probably one of the trespassers was drinking. So, idly
curious, he rode that way, his horse making no sound on the thick moss.

"If she's ornamental," he said to himself, "I'll linger to point out the
sin of trespassing; that is if she is sufficiently ornamental--"

His horse stepped on a dead branch which cracked; the girl in white, who
had been looking out through the birch-trees across the valley, turned
her head.

They recognised each other even at that distance; he uttered a low
exclamation of satisfaction, sprang from his saddle, and led his horse
down among the mossy rocks of the water-course to the shelf of rock
overhanging the ravine where she stood as motionless as one of the
silver saplings.

"Virginia," he said, humorously abashed, "shall I say I am glad to see
you, and how d'you do, and offer you my hand?--or had I better not?"

He thought she meant to answer; perhaps she meant to, but found no voice
at her disposal.

He dropped his bridle over a branch and, drawing off his gloves, walked
up to where she was standing.

"I knew you were at Pride's Hall," he said; "I'm aware, also, that
nobody there either expected or wished to see me. But I wanted to see
you; and little things of that sort couldn't keep me away. Where are the
others?"

She strove twice to answer him, then turned abruptly, steadying herself
against a birch-tree with one arm.

"Where are the others, Virginia?" he asked gently.

"On the rocks beyond."

"Picnicking?"

"Yes."

"How charming!" he said; "as though one couldn't see enough country out
of one's windows every minute in the year. But you can't tell where
sentiment will crop up; some people don't object to chasing ants off the
dishes and fishing sticks out of the milk. I do.... It's rather
fortunate I found you alone: saves a frigid reception and cruel comments
after I'm gone.... After I'm gone, Virginia."

He seated himself where the sunlight fell agreeably and looked off over
the valley. A shrunken river ran below--a mere thread of life through
its own stony skeleton--a mockery of what it once had been before the
white-hided things on two legs had cut the forests from the hills and
killed its cool mossy sources in their channels. The crushers of pulp
and the sawyers of logs had done their dirty work thoroughly; their
acids and their sawdust poisoned and choked; their devastation turned
the tree-clothed hill flanks to arid lumps of sand and rock.

He said aloud, "to think of these trees being turned into newspapers!"

He looked up at her whimsically.

"The least I can do is to help grow them again. As a phosphate I might
amount to something--if I'm carefully spaded in." And in a lower voice
just escaping mockery: "How are you, Virginia?"

"I am perfectly well."

"Are you well enough to sit down and talk to me for half an hour?"

She made no reply.

"Don't be dignified; there is nothing more inartistic, except a woman
who is trying to be brave on an inadequate income."

She did not move or look at him.

"Virginia--dear?"

"What?"

"Do you remember that day we met in the surf; and you said something
insolent to me, and bent over, laying your palms flat on the water,
looking at me over your shoulder?"

"Yes."

"You knew what you were doing?"

"Yes."

"This is part of the consequences. That's what life is, nothing but a
game of consequences. I knew what I was doing; you admit you were
responsible for yourself; and nothing but consequences have resulted
ever since. Sit down and be reasonable and friendly; won't you?"

"I cannot stay here."

"Try," he said, smiling, and made room for her on the sun-crisped moss.
A little later she seated herself with an absent-minded air and gazed
out across the valley. A leaf or two, prematurely yellow, drifted from
the birches.

"It reminds me," he said thoughtfully, "of that exquisite poem on
Autumn:

"'The autumn leaves are falling,
They're falling everywhere;
They're falling in the atmosphere,
They're falling in the air--'

--and I don't remember any more, dear."

"Did you wish to say anything to me besides nonsense?" she asked,
flushing.

"Did you expect anything else from me?"

"I had no reason to."

"Oh; I thought you might have been prepared for a little wickedness."

She turned her eyes, more green than blue, on him.

"I was not unprepared."

"Nor I," he said gaily; "don't let's disappoint each other. You know our
theory is that the old families are decadent; and I think we ought to
try to prove any theory we advance--in the interests of psychology.
Don't you?"

"I think we have proved it."

He laughed, and passing his arm around her drew her head so that it
rested against his face.

"That is particularly dishonourable," she said in an odd voice.

"Because I'm married?"

"Yes; and because I know it."

"That's true; you didn't know it when we were at Palm Beach. That was
tamer than this. I think now we can very easily prove our theory." And
he kissed her, still laughing. But when he did it again, she turned her
face against his shoulder.

"Courage," he said; "we ought to be able to prove this theory of
ours--you and I together--"

She was crying.

"If you're feeling guilty on Shiela's account, you needn't," he said.
"Didn't you know she can scarcely endure me?"

"Y-yes."

"Well, then--"

"No--no--no! Louis--I care too much--"

"For yourself?"

"N-no."

"For me? For Shiela? For public opinion?"

"No."

"For what?"

"I--I think it must be for--for--just for being--decent."

He inspected her with lively interest.

"Hello," he said coolly, "you're disproving our theory!"

She turned her face away from him, touching her eyes with her
handkerchief.

"Or," he added ironically, "is there another man?"

"No," she said without resentment; and there was a certain quality in
her voice new to him--a curious sweetness that he had never before
perceived.

"Tell me," he said quietly, "have you really suffered?"

"Suffered? Yes."

"You really cared for me?"

"I do still."

A flicker of the old malice lighted his face.

"But you won't let me kiss you? Why?"

She looked up into his eyes. "I feel as powerless with you as I was
before. You could always have had your will. Once I would not have
blamed you. Now it would be cowardly--because--I have forgiven myself--"

"I won't disturb your vows," he said seriously.

"Then--I think you had better go."

"I am going.... I only wanted to see you again.... May I ask you
something, dear?"

"Ask it," she said.

"Then--you are going to get over this, aren't you?"

"Not as long as you live, Louis."

"Oh!... And suppose I were not living?"

"I don't know."

"You'd recover, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well, you'd never have any other temptation--"

She turned scarlet.

"That is wicked!"

"It certainly is," he said with great gravity; "and I must come to the
scarcely flattering conclusion that there is in me a source of hideous
depravity, the unseen emanations of which, like those of the classic
upas-tree, are purest poison to a woman morally constituted as you are."

She looked up as he laughed; but there was no mirth in her bewildered
eyes.

"There _is_ something in you, Louis, which is fatal to the better side
of me."

"The _other_ Virginia couldn't endure me, I know."

"My other self learned to love your better self."

"I have none--"

"I have seen it revealed in--"

"Oh, yes," he laughed, "revealed in what you used to call one of my
infernal flashes of chivalry."

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