Part 25 (1/2)

”Nevertheless,” Hollister said, ”it is as well for you not to come here alone while I am here alone.”

”Don't you like me to come, Robin?” she asked.

”No,” he said slowly. ”That wasn't why I spoke--but I don't think I do.”

”Why?” she persisted.

Hollister stirred uneasily.

”Call a spade a spade, Robin,” she advised. ”Say what you think--what you mean.”

”That's difficult,” he muttered. ”How can any one say what he means when he is not quite sure what he does mean? I'm in trouble. You're sorry for me, in a way. And maybe you feel--because of old times, because of the contrast between what your life was then and what it is now--you feel as if you would like to comfort me. And I don't want you to feel that way. I look at you--and I think about what you said. I wonder if you meant it? Do you remember what you said?”

”Quite clearly. I meant it, Robin. I still mean it. I'm yours--if you need me. Perhaps you won't. Perhaps you will. Does it trouble you to have me a self-appointed anchor to windward?”

She clasped her hands over her knees, bending forward a little, looking at him with a curious serenity. Her eyes did not waver from his.

Hollister made no answer.

”I brought a lot of this on you, Robin,” she went on in the musical, rippling voice so like Doris in certain tones and inflections as to make him wonder idly if he had unconsciously fallen in love with Doris Cleveland's voice because it was like Myra's. ”If I had stuck it out in London till you came back, maimed or otherwise, things would have been different. But we were started off, flung off, one might say, into different orbits by the forces of the war itself. That's neither here nor there, now. You may think I'm offering myself as a sort of vicarious atonement--if your Doris fails you--but I'm not, really. I'm too selfish. I have never sacrificed myself for any man. I never will.

It isn't in me. I'm just as eager to get all I can out of life as I ever was. I liked you long ago. I like you still. That's all there is to it, Robin.”

She s.h.i.+fted herself nearer him. She put one hand on his shoulder, the other on his knee, and bent forward, peering into his face. Hollister matched that questioning gaze for a second. It was unreadable. It conveyed no message, hinted nothing, held no covert suggestion. It was earnest and troubled. He had never before seen that sort of look on Myra's face. He could make nothing of it, and so there was nothing in it to disturb him. But the warm pressure of her hands, the nearness of her body, did trouble him. He put her hands gently away.

”You shouldn't come here,” he said quietly. ”I will call a spade a spade. I love Doris--and I have a queer, hungry sort of feeling about the boy. If it happens that in spite of our life together Doris can't bear me and can't get used to me, if it becomes impossible for us to go on together--well, I can't make clear to you the way I feel about this. But I'm afraid. And if it turns out that I'm afraid with good cause--why, I don't know what I'll do, what way I'll turn. But wait until that happens--Well, it seems that a man and a woman who have loved and lived together can't become completely indifferent--they must either hate and despise each other--or else--You understand? We have made some precious blunders, you and I. We have involved other people in our blundering, and we mustn't forget about these other people. I _can't_. Doris and the kid come first--myself last. I'm selfish too. I can only sit here in suspense and wait for things to happen as they will. You,” he hesitated a second, ”you can't help me, Myra. You could hurt me a lot if you tried--and yourself too.”

”I see,” she said. ”I understand.”

She sat for a time with her hands resting in her lap, looking down at the ground. Then she rose.

”I don't want to hurt you, Robin,” she said soberly. ”I can't help looking for a way out, that's all. For myself, I must find a way out.

The life I lead now is stifling me--and I can't see where it will ever be any different, any better. I've become cursed with the twin devils of a.n.a.lysis and introspection. I don't love Jim; I tolerate him. One can't go through life merely tolerating one's husband, and the sort of friends and the sort of existence that appeals to one's husband, unless one is utterly ox-like--and I'm not. Women have lived with men they cared nothing for since the beginning of time, I suppose, because of various reasons--but I see no reason why I should. I'm a rebel--in full revolt against shams and stupidity and ignorance, because those three have brought me where I am and you where you are. I'm a disarmed and helpless _revolte_ by myself. One doesn't want to go from bad to worse. One wants instinctively to progress from good to better. One makes mistakes and seeks to rectify them--if it is possible. One sees suffering arise as the result of one's involuntary acts, and one wishes wistfully to relieve it. That's the simple truth, Robin. Only a simple truth is often a very complex thing. It seems so with us.”

”It is,” Hollister muttered, ”and it might easily become more so.”

”Ah, well,” she said, ”that is scarcely likely. You were always pretty dependable, Robin. And I'm no longer an ignorant little fool to rush thoughtlessly in where either angels or devils might fear to tread. We shall see.”

She swung around on her heel. Hollister watched her walk away along the river path. He scarcely knew what he thought, what he felt, except that what he felt and thought disturbed him to the point of sadness, of regret. He sat musing on the curious, contradictory forces at work in his life. It was folly to be wise, to be sensitive, to respond too quickly, to see too clearly; and ignorance, dumbness of soul, was also fatal. Either way there was no escape. A man did his best and it was futile,--or seemed so to him, just then.

His gaze followed Myra while his thought ran upon Doris, upon his boy, wondering if the next steamer would bring him sentence of banishment from all that he valued, or if there would be a respite, a stay of execution, a miracle of affection that would survive and override the terrible reality--or what seemed to him the terrible reality--of his disfigured face. He had abundant faith in Doris--of the soft voice and the keen, quick mind, the indomitable spirit and infinite patience--but he had not much faith in himself, in his own power. He was afraid of her restored sight, which would leave nothing to the subtle play of her imagination.

And following Myra with that mechanical noting of her progress, his eyes, which were very keen, caught some movement in a fringe of willows that lined the opposite sh.o.r.e of the river some three hundred yards below. He looked more sharply. He had developed a hunter's faculty for interpreting movement in the forest, and although he had nothing more positive than instinct and a brief flash upon which to base conclusions, he did not think that movement of the leaves was occasioned by any creature native to the woods.

On impulse he rose, went inside, and taking his binoculars from their case, focused the eight-power lenses on the screen of brush, keeping himself well within the doorway where he could see without being seen.

It took a minute or so of covering the willows before he located the cause of that movement of shrubbery. But presently he made out the head and shoulders of a man. And the man was Bland, doing precisely what Hollister was doing, looking through a pair of field gla.s.ses.

Hollister stood well back in the room. He was certain Bland could not see that he himself was being watched. In any case, Bland was not looking at Hollister's house. It was altogether likely that he had been doing so, that he had seen Myra sitting beside Hollister with her hand on his shoulder, bending forward to peer into Hollister's face.

And Hollister could easily imagine what Bland might feel and think.