The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 39

But it didn't matter to him. I am pretty sure that he cared only what _she_ thought."

"If he didn't agree with her? And if she had treated him like a criminal? He must have despised her, in that case."

"He never said one word of her--bar quoting some of _her_ words--that wasn't utterly gentle. You could see that he loved her with his whole soul. And--it's my belief--he gave her the benefit of the doubt. In killing himself, he acted on the hypothesis that she had been right. It was the one thing he could do for her."

"But if no one except you thinks it was suicide--and you can't prove it--"

"Oh, he had to take that chance--the chance of her never knowing--or else create a scandal. And that would have been very hard on her and on his family. But there were straws she could easily clutch at--as I have clutched at them. The perfect order in which everything happened to be left--even the last notes he had made. His laboratory was a scientist's paradise, they tell me. And the will, made after she threw him over, leaving everything to her. Not a letter unanswered, all little bills paid, and little debts liquidated. He came as near suggesting it as he could, in decency. But I dare say she will never guess it."

"Then what did it profit him?"

"It didn't profit him, in your sense. He took a very long chance on her guessing. That wasn't what concerned him."

"I hope she will never guess, anyhow. It would ruin her life, to no good end."

"Oh, no." Havelock was firm. "I doubt if she would take it that way. If she grasped it at all, she'd believe he thought her right. And if he thought her right, of course he wouldn't want to live, would he? She would never think he killed himself simply for love of her."

"Why not?"

"Well, she wouldn't? She wouldn't be able to conceive of Ferguson's killing himself merely for that--with _his_ notions about survival."

"As he did."

"As he did--and didn't."

"Ah, she'd scarcely refine on it as you are doing, Havelock. You're amazing."

"Well, he certainly never expected her to know that he did it himself.

If he had been the sort of weakling that dies because he can't have a particular woman, he'd have been also the sort of weakling that leaves a letter explaining."

"What then did he die for? You'll have to explain to me. Not because he couldn't have her; not because he felt guilty. Why, then? You haven't left him a motive."

"Oh, haven't I? The most beautiful motive in the whole world, my dear fellow. A motive that puts all your little simple motives in the shade."

"Well, what?"

"Don't you see? Why, I told you. He simply a.s.sumed, for all practical purposes, that she had been right. He gave himself the fate he knew she considered him to deserve. He preferred--loving her as he did--to do what she would have had him do. He knew she was wrong; but he knew also that she was made that way, that she would never be right. And he took her for what she was, and loved her as she was. His love--don't you see?--was too big. He couldn't revolt from her: she had the whole of him--except, perhaps, his excellent judgment. He couldn't drag about a life which she felt that way about. He destroyed it, as he would have destroyed anything she found loathsome. He was merely justifying himself to his love. He couldn't hope she would know. Nor, I believe, could he have lied to her. That is, he couldn't have admitted in words that she was right, when he felt her so absolutely wrong; but he could make that magnificent silent act of faith."

Chantry still held out. "I don't believe he did it. I hold with the coroner."

"I don't. He came as near telling me as he could without making me an accessory before the fact. There were none of the loose ends that the most orderly man would leave if he died suddenly. Take my word for it, old man."

A long look pa.s.sed between them. Each seemed to be trying to find out with his eyes something that words had not helped him to.

Finally Chantry protested once more. "But Ferguson couldn't love like that."

Havelock the Dane laid one hand on the arm of Chantry's chair and spoke sternly. "He not only could, but did. And there I am a better authority than you. Think what you please, but I will not have that fact challenged. Perhaps you could count up on your fingers the women who are loved like that; but, anyhow, she was. My second cousin once removed, d.a.m.n her!" He ended with a vicious tw.a.n.g.

"And now"--Havelock rose--"I'd like your opinion."

"About what?"

"Well, can't you see the beautiful sanity of Ferguson?"

"No, I can't," snapped Chantry. "I think he was wrong, both in the beginning and in the end. But I will admit he was not a coward. I respect him, but I do not think, at any point, he was right--except perhaps in 'doing' the coroner."

"That settles it, then," said Havelock. And he started towards the door.

"Settles what, in heaven's name?"

"What I came to have settled. I shan't tell her. If I could have got one other decent citizen--and I confess you were my only chance--to agree with me that Ferguson was right,--right about his fellow pa.s.sengers on the _Argentina_, right about tow-head on the track,--I'd have gone to her, I think. I'd rather like to ruin her life, if I could."

A great conviction approached Chantry just then. He felt the rush of it through his brain.

"No," he cried. "Ferguson loved her too much. He wouldn't like that--not as you'd put it to her."

Havelock thought a moment. "No," he said in turn; but his "no" was very humble. "He wouldn't. I shall never do it. But, my G.o.d, how I wanted to!"

"And I'll tell you another thing, too." Chantry's tone was curious. "You may agree with Ferguson all you like; you may admire him as much as you say; but you, Havelock, would never have done what he did. Not even"--he lifted a hand against interruption--"if you knew you had the brain you think Ferguson had. You'd have been at the bottom of the sea, or under the engine wheels, and you know it."

He folded his arms with a hint of truculence.

But Havelock the Dane, to Chantry's surprise, was meek. "Yes," he said, "I know it. Now let me out of here."

"Well, then,"--Chantry's voice rang out triumphant,--"what does that prove?"

"Prove?" Havelock's great fist crashed down on the table. "It proves that Ferguson's a better man than either of us. I can think straight, but he had the sand to act straight. You haven't even the sand to think straight. You and your reactionary rot! The world's moving, Chantry.

Ferguson was ahead of it, beckoning. You're an ant that got caught in the machinery, I shouldn't wonder."

"Oh, stow the rhetoric! We simply don't agree. It's happened before."

Chantry laughed scornfully. "I tell you I respect him; but G.o.d Almighty wouldn't make me agree with him."

"You're too mediaeval by half," Havelock mused. "Now, Ferguson was a knight of the future--a knight of Humanity."

"Don't!" shouted Chantry. His nerves were beginning to feel the strain.

"Leave chivalry out of it. The _Argentina_ business may or may not have been wisdom, but it certainly wasn't cricket."

"No," said Havelock. "Chess, rather. The game where chance hasn't a show--the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular and disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She's an irresponsible beast, your queen."

"Drop it, will you!" Then Chantry pulled himself together, a little ashamed. "It's fearfully late. Better stop and dine."

"No, thanks." The big man opened the door of the room and rested a foot on the threshold. "I feel like dining with some one who appreciates Ferguson."

"I don't know where you'll find him." Chantry smiled and shook hands.

"Oh, I carry him about with me. Good-night," said Havelock the Dane.