The Younger Set Part 31

"Well, you can nail that lie," he said hotly.

"Then it is not true?"

"True! Do you think I'd take that chance again even if I felt free to do it?"

"Free?" she faltered; "but you _are_ free, Phil!"

"I am not," he said fiercely; "no man is free to marry twice under such conditions. It's a jest at decency and a slap in the face of civilisation! I'm done for--finished; I had my chance and I failed. Do you think I consider myself free to try again with the chance of further bespattering my family?"

"Wait until you really love," she said tremulously.

He laughed incredulously.

"I am glad that it is not true... . I am glad," she said. "Oh, Phil!

Phil!--for a single one of the chances we had again and again and again!--and we did not know--we did not know! And yet--there were moments--"

Dry-lipped he looked at her, and dry of eye and lip she raised her head and stared at him--through him--far beyond at the twin ghosts floating under the tropic stars locked fast in their first embrace.

Then she rose, blindly, covering her face with her hands, and he stumbled to his feet, shrinking back from her--because dead fires were flickering again, and the ashes of dead roses stirred above the scented embers--and the magic of all the East was descending like a veil upon them, and the Phantom of the Past drew nearer, smiling, wide-armed, crowned with living blossoms.

The tide rose, swaying her where she stood; her hands fell from her face. Between them the grave they had dug seemed almost filled with flowers now--was filling fast. And across it they looked at one another as though stunned. Then his face paled and he stepped back, staring at her from stern eyes.

"Phil," she faltered, bewildered by the mirage, "is it only a bad dream, after all?" And as the false magic glowed into blinding splendour to engulf them: "Oh, boy! boy!--is it h.e.l.l or heaven where we've fallen--?"

There came a loud rapping at the door.

CHAPTER V

AFTERGLOW

"Phil," she wrote, "I am a little frightened. Do you suppose Boots suspected who it was? I must have been perfectly mad to go to your rooms that night; and we both were--to leave the door unlocked with the chance of somebody walking in. But, Phil, how could I know it was the fas.h.i.+on for your friends to bang like that and then come in without the excuse of a response from you?

"I have been so worried, so anxious, hoping from day to day that you would write to rea.s.sure me that Boots did not recognise me with my back turned to him and my m.u.f.f across my eyes.

"But scared and humiliated as I am I realise that it was well that he knocked. Even as I write to you here in my own room, behind locked doors, I am burning with the shame of it.

"But I am _not_ that kind of woman, Phil; truly, truly, I am not. When the foolish impulse seized me I had no clear idea of what I wanted except to see you and learn for myself what you thought about Gerald's playing at my house after I had promised not to let him.

"Of course, I understood what I risked in going; I realised what common interpretation might be put upon what I was doing. But ugly as it might appear to anybody except you, my motive, you see, must have been quite innocent--else I should have gone about it in a very different manner.

"I wanted to see you, that is absolutely all; I was lonely for a word--even a harsh one--from the sort of man you are. I wanted you to believe it was in spite of me that Gerald came and played that night.

"He came without my knowledge. I did not know he was invited. And when he appeared I did everything to prevent him from playing; _you_ will never know what took place--what I submitted to--

"I am trying to be truthful, Phil; I want to lay my heart bare for you--but there are things a woman cannot wholly confess. Believe me, I did what I could... . And _that_ is all I can say. Oh, I know what it costs you to be mixed up in such contemptible complications. I, for my part, can scarcely bear to have you know so much about me--and what I am come to. That is my real punishment, Phil--not what you said it was.

"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about me. It is not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold front--or to deceive any man in it. But our own little world is being rapidly undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in it has seen my gay mask stripped off--which is not well for a woman, Phil.

"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms--for the honour of what we once were to each other before the world. But steering a ghost-s.h.i.+p through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind--a little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.

"And now--with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I draw toward me another sheet--the last I have still unstained; to ask at last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages--and for which these pages alone were written:

"_What_ do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I care; dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page.

_What_ do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable about Boots, but that is partly fright--though I know I am safe enough with such a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so that I cannot bear to face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear of what _you_ must think of me in the still, secret places of that heart of yours, which I never, never understood. ALIXE."

It was a week before he sent his reply--although he wrote many answers, each in turn revised, corrected, copied, and recopied, only to be destroyed in the end. But at last he forced himself to meet truth with truth, cutting what crudity he could from his letter:

"You ask me what I think of you; but that question should properly come from me. What do _you_ think of a man who exhorts and warns a woman to stand fast, and then stands dumb at the first impact of temptation?

"A sight for G.o.ds and men--that man! Is there any use for me to stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and it's high time I realised it.

"If words of commendation, of courage, of kindly counsel, are needed by anybody in this world, I am not the man to utter them.

What a hypocrite must I seem to you! I who sat there beside you preaching plat.i.tudes in strong self-complacency, instructing you how morally edifying it is to be good and unhappy.

"Then, what happened? I don't know exactly; but I'm trying to be honest, and I'll tell you what I think happened:

"You are--you; I am--I; and we are still those same two people who understood neither the impulse that once swept us together, nor the forces that tore us apart--ah, more than that! we never understood each other! And we do not now.

"That is what happened. We were too near together again; the same spark leaped, the same blindness struck us, the same impulse swayed us--call it what we will!--and it quickened out of chaos, grew from nothing into unreasoning existence. It was the terrific menace of emotion, stunning us both--simply because you are you and I am I.

And that is what happened.

"We cannot deny it; we may not have believed it possible--or in fact considered it at all. I did not; I am sure you did not. Yet it occurred, and we cannot deny it, and we can no more explain or understand it than we can understand each other.

"But one thing we do know--not through reason but through sheer instinct: We cannot venture to meet again--that way. For I, it seems, am a man like other men except that I lack character; and you are--_you_! still unchanged--with all the mystery of attraction, all the magic force of vitality, all the esoteric subtlety with which you enveloped me the first moment my eyes met yours.

"There was no more reason for it then than there is now; and, as you admit, it was not love--though, as you also admit, there were moments approaching it. But nothing can have real being without a basis of reason; and so, whatever it was, it vanished. This, perhaps, is only the infernal afterglow.

"As for me, I am, as you are, all at sea, self-confidence gone, self-faith lost--a very humble person, without conceit, dazed, perplexed, but still attempting to steer through toward that safe anchorage which I dared lately to recommend to you.

"And it is really there, Alixe, despite the fool who recites his creed so tritely.

"All this in attempt to bring order into my own mental confusion; and the result is that I have formulated nothing.

"So now I end where I began with that question which answers yours without the faintest suspicion of reproach: What can you think of such a man as I am? And in the presence of my _second_ failure your answer must be that you now think what you once thought of him when you first realised that he had failed you, PHILIP SELWYN."

That very night brought him her reply:

"Phil, dear, I do not blame you for one instant. Why do you say you ever failed in anything? It was entirely my fault. But I am so happy that you wrote as you did, taking all the blame, which is like you. I can look into my mirror now--for a moment or two.

"It is brave of you to be so frank about what you think came over us. I can discuss nothing, admit nothing; but you always did reason more clearly than I. Still, whatever spell it was that menaced us I know very well could not have threatened you seriously; I know it because you reason about it so logically. So it could have been nothing serious. Love alone is serious; and it sometimes comes slowly, sometimes goes slowly; but if you desire it to come quickly, close your eves! And if you wish it to vanish, _reason about it_!

"We are on very safe ground again, Phil; you see we are making little epigrams about love.

"Rosamund is impatient--it's a symphony concert, and I must go--the horrid little cynic!--I half believe she suspects that I'm writing to you and tearing off yards of sentiment. It is likely I'd do that, isn't it!--but I don't care what she thinks. Besides, it behooves her to be agreeable, and she knows that I know it does!