The Top of the World Part 49

She went back a step, shaking her head. "I am not so sure," she said. "Why do you say these horrible things to me?"

He held out his hand to her. "I'm awfully sorry, dear," he said.

"But it is for your good. I want you to see life as it is, not as your dear little imagination is pleased to paint it. You are so dreadfully serious always. Life isn't, you know. It really isn't.

It's nothing but a stupid and rather vulgar farce."

She gave him her hand, for she could not deny him; but she gave no sign of yielding with it. "Oh, how I wish you would take it more seriously!" she said.

"Do you?" he said. "But what's the good? Who Is it going to benefit if I do? Not myself. I should hate it. And not you. You are much too virtuous to have any use for me."

"Oh, Guy," she said, "Is it never worth while to play the game?"

His hand tightened upon hers. "Look here!" he said suddenly.

"Suppose I did as you wish--suppose I did pull up--play the game, as you call it? Suppose I clawed and grabbed for success Like the rest of the world--and got it. Would you care?"

"I wasn't talking of success," she said. "That's no answer." He swung her hand to and fro with vehement impatience. "Suppose you were free--yes, you've got to suppose it just for a moment--suppose you were free--and suppose I came to you with both hands full, and offered you myself and all I possessed--would you send me empty away? Would you? Would you?"

He spoke with a fevered insistence. His eyes were alight and eager. Just so had he spoken in the long ago when she had given him her girlish heart in full and happy surrender.

There was no surrender in her att.i.tude now, but yet she could not, she could not, relentlessly send him from her. He appealed so strongly, with so intense an earnestness.

"I can't imagine these things, Guy," she said at last. "I only ask you--implore you--to do your best to keep straight. It is worth while, believe me. You will find that it is worth while."

"It might be--with you to make it so," he said. "Without you----"

She shook her head. "No--no! For other, better reasons. We have our duty to do. We must do it. It is the only way to be happy. I am sure of that."

"Have you found it so?" he said. "Are you happy?"

She hesitated.

He pressed his advantage instantly. "You are not. You know you are not. Do you think you can deceive me even though you may deceive yourself? We have known each other too long for that. You are not happy, Sylvia. You are afraid of life as it is--of life as it might be. You haven't pluck to take your fate into your own hands and hew out a way for yourself. You're the slave of circ.u.mstances and you're afraid to break free." He made as if he would release her, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, caught her hand up to his face. "All the same, you are mine--you are mine!" he told her hotly. "You belonged to me from the beginning, and nothing else counts or ever can count against that. I would have died to get out of your way. I tried to die. But you brought me back. And now, say what you like--say what you like--you are mine!

I saw it in your eyes last night, and I defy every law that man ever made to take you from me. I defy the thing you call duty.

You love me! You have always loved me! Deny it if you can!"

It was swift, it was almost overwhelming. At another moment it might have swept her off her feet. But a greater force was at work within her, and she stood her ground.

She drew her hand away. "Not like that, Guy," she said. "I love you. Yes, I love you. But only as a friend. You--you don't understand me. How should you? I have grown beyond all your knowledge of me. I was a girl in the old days--when we played at love together." A sharp sob rose in her throat, but she stifled it. "All that is over. I am a woman now. My eyes are open,--and--the romance is all gone."

He stiffened as if he had been struck, but only for a second. The next recklessly he laughed. "That is just your way of putting it,"

he said. "Love doesn't change--like that. It either goes out, or it remains--for good. It is you who don't understand yourself.

You may turn your back on the truth, but you can't alter it. Those who have once been lovers--and lovers such as you and I--can never again be only friends. That, if you like, is the impossible.

But--" He paused for a moment, with lifted shoulders, then abruptly turned to go. "Good-bye!" he said.

"You are going?" she questioned.

He swung on his heel as if irresolute. "Yes, I am going. I am going back to my cabin, back to my wallowing in the mire. Why not?

Is there anyone who cares the toss of a halfpenny what I do?"

"Yes." Breathlessly she answered him; the words seemed to leap from her of their own accord, and surely it was hardly of her own volition that she followed and held his arm, detaining him. "Guy!

You know we care. Burke cares. I care. Guy, please, dear, please! It's such a pity. Oh, it's such a pity! Won't you--can't you--fight against it? Won't you even--try? I know you could conquer, if only--if only you would try!" Her eyes were raised to his. She besought him with all the strength of her being. She clung to him as if she would hold him back by sheer physical force from the abyss at his feet. "Oh, Guy, it is worth while!" she pleaded. "Indeed--indeed it is worth while--whatever it costs.

Guy,--I beseech--I implore you----"

She broke off, for with a lightning movement he had taken her face between his hands. "You can make it worth while," he said. "I will do it--for you."

He held her pa.s.sionately close for an instant, but he did not kiss her. She saw the impulse to do so in his eyes, and she saw him beat it fiercely back. That was the only comfort that remained to her when the next moment he sprang away and went so swiftly from her that he was lost to sight almost before she knew that he was gone.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SUMMONS

When Kelly awoke that morning, it was some time later, and Burke was entering his hut with a steaming cup of cocoa. The Irishman stretched his large bulk and laughed up at his friend.

"Faith, it's the good host that ye are! I've slept like a top, my son, and never an evil dream. How's the lad this morning? And how's the land?"

"The land's all right so far," Burke said. "I'm just off to help them bring in the animals. The northern dam has failed."

Kelly leaped from his bed. "I'll come. That's just the job for me and St. Peter. Don't bring the missis along though! It's too much for her."

"I know that," Burke said shortly. "I've told her so. She is to take it easy for a bit. The climate is affecting her."

Kelly looked at him with his kindly, curious eyes. "Can't you get things fixed up here and bring her along to Brennerstadt for the races and the diamond gamble? It would do you both good to have a change."

Burke shook his head, "I doubt if she would care for it. And young Guy would want to come too. If he did, he would soon get up to mischief again. He has gone back to his hut this morning, cleared out early. I hope he is to be trusted to behave himself."

"Oh, leave the boy alone!" said Kelly. "He's got some decent feelings of his own, and it doesn't do to mother him too much.

Give him his head for a bit! He's far less likely to bolt."

Burke shrugged his shoulders. "I can't hold him if he means to go, I quite admit. But I haven't much faith in his keeping on the straight, and that's a fact. I don't like his going back to the hut, and I'd have prevented it if I'd known. But I slept in the sitting-room last night, and I was dead beat. He cleared out early."

"Didn't anyone see him go?" queried Kelly keenly.

"Yes. My wife." Again Burke's tone was curt, repressive. "She couldn't stop him."

"She made him hold hard with the brandy-bottle last night," said Kelly. "I admired her for it. She's got a way with her, Burke.

Sure, the devil himself couldn't have resisted her then."

Burke's faint smile showed for a moment; he said nothing.

"How you must wors.h.i.+p her!" went on Kelly, with amiable effusion.

"Some fellows have all the luck. Sure, you're never going to let that sweet angel languish here like that poor little Mrs. Merston!

You wouldn't now! Come, you wouldn't!"

But Burke pa.s.sed the matter by. He had pressing affairs on hand, and obviously it was not his intention to discuss his conduct towards his wife even with the worthy Kelly whose blundering goodness so often carried him over difficult ground that few others would have ventured to negotiate.

He left Kelly to dress, and went back to the bungalow where Sylvia was busy with a duster trying to get rid of some of the sand that thickly covered everything. He had scarcely spoken to her that morning except for news Of Guy, but now he drew her aside.