The Forbidden Way

"Oh, yes," with fine scorn, "quilting parties! No bridge, golf or tennis. Imagine a confirmed night owl like you, Billy, tucked safely in bed at nine."

"I'm often in bed by nine."

"Nine in the morning," laughed Perot. "That's safe enough."

"Don't believe 'em, Camilla. I'm an ideal husband, aren't I, Dolly?"

"I hadn't noticed it."

"Oh, what's the use?" sniffed Mrs. Cheyne. "There's only one Ideal Husband."

"Who?" asked a voice, solicitous and feminine.

"Oh, some other woman's, of course."

"How silly of you, Rita," said Gretchen indignantly. "It's gotten to the point where nobody believes the slightest thing you say."

"That's just what she wants," laughed Cortland. "Don't gratify her, Gretchen."

Mrs. Cheyne shrugged her shoulders, and, with a glance at Camilla, "Now the Ideal Wife, Cort – "

"Would be my own," he interrupted quickly, his face flushing. "I wouldn't marry any other kind."

"That's why you haven't married, Cortland dear," said Rita acidulously.

Camilla listened with every outward mark of composure – her gaze in the fire – conscious of the growing animosity in Mrs. Cheyne. They had met only twice since Jeff's departure, and on those occasions each had outdone the other in social amenities, each aware of the other's hypocrisy. In their polite interchange of compliments Wray's name had by mutual consent been avoided, and neither of them could be said to have the slightest tactical advantage. But Camilla felt rather than knew that an understanding of some sort existed between Mrs. Cheyne and Jeff – a more complete understanding than Camilla and her husband had ever had. She could not understand it, for two persons more dissimilar had never been created. Mrs. Cheyne was the last expression of a decadent dynasty – Jeff, the dawning hope of a new one. She had taken him up as the season's novelty, a masculine curiosity which she had added to her cabinet of eligible amusements. Camilla's intuition had long since told her of Jeff's danger, and it had been in her heart the night they separated to warn him against his dainty enemy. Even now it might not have been too late – if he would have listened to her, if he would believe that her motive was a part of their ancient friendship, if he would meet her in a spirit of compromise, if he were not already too deeply enmeshed in Rita Cheyne's silken net. There were too many "ifs," and the last one seemed to suggest that any further effort in the way of a reconciliation would be both futile and demeaning.

Camilla was now aware that Mrs. Cheyne was going out of her way to make her relations with Cort conspicuous – permissible humor, had the two women been friendly. Under present conditions it was merely impertinence.

"Mrs. Cheyne means," said Camilla distinctly, "that the ideal husbands are the ones one can't get." And then, pointedly, "Don't you, Mrs. Cheyne?"

Rita glanced at Camilla swiftly and smiled her acknowledgment of the thrust.

"They wouldn't be ideal," she laughed, "if we ever got them, Mrs. Wray."

"Touchée," whispered Billy Haviland to Larry Berkely, delightedly.

Outside there was a merry jingle of sleighbells, and Mrs. Haviland rose. "Come, children," she said, "that's for us. I wish we had more room at The Cove. You'll come, though, Cort, won't you? We need another man."

"Do you mind if I stay out, Rita?" Cortland appealed.

"Oh, not at all, I'm so used to being deserted for Mrs. Wray that I'm actually uncomfortable without the sensation."

So the party was arranged. A long bobsled hitched to a pair of horses was at the door, and the women got on, while Gretchen pelted snowballs at Perot, and only succeeded in hitting the horses, so that Camilla and the Baroness were spilled out into the snow and the man had a hard time bringing the team to a stop. A pitched battle ensued while the three women scrambled into their places, Cortland and Billy covering the retreat. At last they all got on, and, amid a shower of snowballs which the sledders couldn't return, the horses galloped up the hill and out into the turnpike which led to the Haviland farm.

CHAPTER XVI

OLD DANGERS

Camilla had known for some time that she could not forget. She sought excitements eagerly because they softened the sting of memory, and the childish delights of the afternoon with the Havilands, while they made the grim shadow less tangible, could not drive it away. When the idle chatter of small talk was missing, Jeff loomed large. At The Cove she went at once to her room, but instead of dressing she threw herself on the bed and followed the pretty tracery of the wall paper beside her; her eyes only conjured mental pictures of the days in Mesa City, before Cortland Bent had come, the long rides with Jeff up the mountain trail when she first began to learn what manner of man he was and what manner of things he must one day accomplish. She seemed to realize now that even in those early days Jeff Wray had stood as a type of the kind of manhood that, since the beginning of time, has made history for the world.

With all his faults, his vulgar self-appreciation, and his distorted ethics, there was nothing petty or mean about him. He was generous, had always been generous to a fault, and there was many a poor devil of a gambler or a drunkard even in those days who had called his name blessed. He hadn't had much to give, but when he made a stake there were many who shared it with him. Since he had been married his benefactions had been numberless. He never forgot his old friends and, remembering old deeds of kindness to himself, had sought them out – a broken sheep-herder back on the range, a barber in Pueblo who was paralyzed, a cowboy in Arizona with heart disease, a freight brakeman of the D. & W. who had lost a leg – and given them money when he couldn't find work that they could do. She remembered what people in the West still said – that Jeff had never had a friend who wasn't still his friend.

She had often reviled herself because her judgment of all men was governed by the external marks of gentility which had been so dear to her heart – the kind of gentility which Cortland Bent had brought into Mesa City. Gentility was still dear to her heart, but there was a growing appreciation in her mind of something bigger in life than mere forms of polite intercourse. Jack Perot, who was painting her portrait; Billy Haviland, who sent her roses; Douglas Warrington, who rode with her in the park; Cortland Bent – all these men had good manners as their birthright. What was it they lacked? Culture had carved them all with finer implements on the same formula, but what they had gained in delicacy they had lost in force. Jeff might have been done by Rodin, the others by Carrière – Beleuze.

It made her furious that in spite of herself she still thought of Jeff. She got up and went to the mirror. There were little telltale wrinkles about her eyes, soft shadows under her cheek-bones which had not been there when she came to New York. It was worry that was telling on her. She had never yet been able to bring herself to the point of believing that all was over between Jeff and herself. Had she really believed that he was willing to live his future without her, she could not have consented even for so long as this to play the empty part he had assigned her. It was his money she was spending, not her own; his money which provided all the luxuries about her – the rich apartment in New York, the motor car, carte blanche at Sherry's, extravagances, she was obliged to acknowledge, which for the present he did not share. True, she was following implicitly his directions in keeping his memory green in the social set to which he aspired, and she had done her part well. But the burden of her indebtedness to him was not decreased by this obedience, and she felt that she could not for long accept the conditions he had imposed. Such a life must soon be intolerable – intolerable to them both.

It was intolerable now. She could not bear the thought of his brutality, the cruelty of his silence, the pitiless money which he threw at her every week as one would throw a bone to a dog. He was carrying matters with a high hand, counting on her love of luxury and the delights of gratified social ambition to hold her in obedience. He had planned well, but the end of it all was near. It was her pride that revolted – that Jeff could have thought her capable of the unutterable things he thought of her – the pitiful tatters of her pride which were slowly being dragged from her by the tongue of gossip. Mrs. Rumsen had warned her, and Mrs. Cheyne made free use of her name with Cort's. The world was conspiring to throw her into Cortland's arms. She would not admit that the fault was her own – it was Jeff's. It had always been Jeff's. She had given him every chance to redeem her, but he had tossed her aside – for another. Now she had reached a point when she didn't care whether he redeemed her or not. She felt herself drifting – drifting – she didn't know where and didn't seem to care where.

It was affection she craved, love that she loved, and Cortland was an expression of it. He had always been patient – even when she had treated him unkindly. A whispered word to Cortland —

Her musing stopped abruptly. What did Cortland mean by avoiding her? And why was he leaving New York? There was a tiny pucker at her brows while she gave the finishing touches to her toilet; but when she went down to dinner her cheeks glowed with ripe color and her eyes were shot with tiny sparkling fires.

"Auction" bridge followed dinner. In the cutting Cort and the Baroness were out of it, and when Cort and the Baroness cut in, Camilla and Perot cut out. Fate conspired, and it was not until late in the evening that Cortland and Camilla found themselves alone in the deserted library at the far end of the wing. Camilla sank back into the silk cushions of the big davenport wearily.

"I played well to-night," she said; "I believe even Billy is pleased with me. I did have luck, though – shameful luck – "

She stretched her arms above her head, sighing luxuriously. "Oh, life is sweet – after all."

Cortland watched her.

"Is it?" he asked quietly.

"Don't you think so, Cort?"

"There's not much sweetness left, for me in anything. I've got to go away from you, Camilla."

"So you said." And then airily, "Good-by."

He closed his eyes a moment.

"I want you to know what it means to me."

"Then why do it?"

"I – I've thought it all out. It's the best thing I can do – for you – for myself – "

"I ought to be a judge of that."

His dark eyes sought her face for a meaning.

"It's curious you didn't consult me," she went on. "I hope I know what's best for myself – "

"You mean that you don't care – my presence is unimportant. My absence will be even less important."

"I do care," she insisted. "What's the use of my telling you. I'll be very unhappy without you."

He shook his head and smiled. "Oh, I know – you'll miss me as you would your afternoon tea if it was denied you – but you'll do without it."

"I'm quite fond of afternoon tea, Cort." And then, more seriously, "Are you really resolved?"

"Yes," he muttered, "resolved – desperately resolved."

She threw herself away from him against the opposite end of the couch, facing him, and folded her arms, her lips closed in a hard line.

"Very well, then," she said cruelly, "go!" It seemed as if he hadn't heard her, for he leaned forward, his head in his hands, and went on in a voice without expression.

"I've felt for some time that I've been doing you a wrong. People are talking about us – coupling your name with mine – unpleasantly. Heaven knows what lies they're telling. Of course you don't hear – and I don't – but I know they're talking."

"How do you know?"

"My father – "

"Oh!"

"We quarreled – but the poison left its sting."

Camilla laughed nervously, the laughter of a woman of the world. It grated on him strangely.

"Don't you suppose I know?" she said. "I'm not a baby. And now that you've ruined my reputation you're going to leave me. That's unkind of you. Oh, don't worry," she laughed again. "I'll get along. There are others, I suppose."

He straightened and turned toward her sternly.

"You mustn't talk like that," he said. "You're lying. I know your heart. It's clean as snow."

"Because you haven't soiled it?" She clasped her hands over her knees and leaned toward him with wicked coquetry. "Really, Cort, you're a sweet boy – but you lack imagination. You know you're not the only man in the world. A woman in my position has much to gain – little to lose. I'm a derelict, a ship without a captain – "

He interrupted her by taking her in his arms and putting his fingers over her lips. "Stop!" he whispered, "I'll not listen to you."

"I mean it. I've learned something in your world. I thought life was a sacrament. I find it's only a game." She struggled away from him and went to the fireplace, but he rose and stood beside her.

"You're lying, Camilla," he repeated, "lying to me. Oh, I know – I've been a fool – a vicious – a selfish fool. I've let them talk because I couldn't bear to be without you – because I thought that some day you'd learn what a love like mine meant. And I wanted you – wanted you – "

"Don't you want me still, Cort?" she asked archly.

He put his elbows on the mantel and gazed into the flames, but would not reply, and the smile faded from her lips before the dignity of his silence.

"I've thought it all out, Camilla. I'm going away on business for my father, and I don't expect to come back. I thought I could go without seeing you again – just send you a note to say good-by. It was easier for me that way. I thought I had won out until I saw you to-day – but now it's harder than ever."

He looked up as he thought she might misconstrue his meaning. "Oh, I'm not afraid to leave on your account. Our set may make you a little careless, a little cynical, but you've got too much pride to lose your grip – and you'll never be anything else but what you are." He gazed into the fire again and went on in the same impersonal tone as if he had forgotten her existence. "I'll always love you, Camilla… I love you more now than I ever did – only it's different somehow… It used to be a madness – an obsession… Your lips, your eyes, your soft fingers, the warm elusive tints of your skin – the petals of the bud – I would have taken them because of their beauty, crushed out, if I could, the soul that lived inside, as one crushes a shrub to make its sweetness sweeter." He sighed deeply and went on: "I told you I loved you then – back there in Mesa City – but I lied to you, Camilla. It wasn't love. Love is calmer, deeper, almost judicial, more mental than physical even… I'm going away from you because I love you more than I love myself."

"Oh! you never loved me," she stammered. "You couldn't speak coldly like this if you did."

He raised his eyes calmly, but made no reply.

"Love – judicial!" she went on scornfully. "What do you know of love? Love is a storm in the heart; a battle – a torrent – it has no mind for anything but itself. Love is ruthless – self-seeking – "

"You make it hard for me," he said with an effort at calmness.

"You know I – I need you – and yet you'd leave me at a word."

"I'm going – because it's best to go," he said hoarsely.

"You're going because you don't care what happens to me."

He flashed around, unable to endure more, and caught her in his arms. "Do I look like a man who doesn't care? Do I?" he whispered. "If you only hadn't said that – if you only hadn't said that – "

Now that she had won she was ready to end the battle, and drew timidly away. But with Cort the battle had just begun. And though she struggled to prevent it, he kissed her as he had never done before. Her resistance and the lips she denied him, the suppleness of her strong young body, the perfume of her hair brought back the spell of mid-summer madness which had first enchained him.

"You've got to listen to me now, Camilla. I don't care what happens to my promises – to you – or to any one else. I'm mad with love for you. I'll take the soul of you. It was mine by every right before it was his. I'll go away from here – but you'll go with me – somewhere, where we can start again – "

In that brief moment in his arms there came a startling revelation to Camilla. Cort's touch – his kisses – transformed him into a man she did not know.

"Oh, Cort! Let me go!" she whispered.

"Away from all this where the idle prattle of the world won't matter," he went on wildly. "You have no right to stay on here, using the money he sends you – my money – money he stole from me. He has thrown you over, dropped you like a faded leaf. You're clinging to a rotten tree, Camilla. He'll fall. He's going to fall soon. You'll be buried with him – and nothing between you and death but his neglect and brutality."

In his arms Camilla was sobbing hysterically. The excitement with which she had fed her heart for the last few months had suddenly stretched her nerves to too great a tension. She had been mad – cruel to tantalize him – and she had not realized what her intolerance meant for them both until it was too late.

He misunderstood the meaning of those tears and petted her as if she had been a child.

"Don't, Camilla – there's nothing to fear. I'll be so tender to you – so kind that you'll wonder you could ever have thought of being happy before. Look up at me, dear. Kiss me. You never have, Camilla. Kiss me and tell me you'll go with me – anywhere."

But as he tried to lift her head she put up her hands and with an effort repulsed – broke away from – him and fell on the couch in a passion of tears. She had not meant this – not this. It wasn't in her to love any one.

In the process of mental readjustment following her husband's desertion of her she had learned to think of Cort in a different way. It seemed as though the tragedy of her married life had dwarfed every other relation, minimized every emotion that remained to her. Cortland Bent was the lesser shadow within the greater shadow, a dimmer figure blurred in the bulk, a part of the tragedy, but not the tragedy itself. For a time he had seemed to understand, and of late had played the part of guide, philosopher, and friend, if not ungrudgingly, at least patiently, without those boyish outbursts of petulance and temper in which he had been so difficult to manage. She cared for him deeply, and lately he had been so considerate and so gentle that she had almost been ready to believe that the kind of devotion he gave her was the only thing in life worth while. He had learned to pass over the many opportunities she offered him to take advantage of her isolation, and she was thankful that at last their relation had found a happy path of communion free from danger or misunderstanding. While other people amused and distracted her, Cort had been her real refuge, his devotion the rock to which she tied. But this! She realized that what had gone before was only the calm before the storm – and she had brought it all on herself!

He watched her anxiously, waiting for the storm to pass, and at last came near and put his arms around her again.

"No – not that!" she said brokenly. "It wasn't that I wanted, Cort. You don't understand. I needed you – but not that way." He straightened slowly as her meaning came to him.

"You were only – fooling – only playing with me? I might have known – "

"No, I wasn't playing with you. I – couldn't bear to lose you – but," she stammered resolutely, "now – I must– You've got to go. I don't know what has happened to me – I haven't any heart – I think – no heart – or soul – "

He had turned away from her, his gaze on the dying log.

"Why couldn't you have let me go – without this?" he groaned. "It would have been easier for both of us."

She sat up slowly, still struggling to suppress the nervous paroxysms which shook her shoulders.

"Forgive me, Cort. You – you'll get along best without me. I've only brought you suffering. I'm a bird of ill-omen – which turns on the hand that feeds it. I was – was thinking only of myself. I wish I could make you happy – you deserve it, Cort. But I can't," she finished miserably, "I can't."

He did not move. It almost seemed as though he had not heard her. His voice came to her at last as though from a distance.

"I know," he groaned. "God help you, you love him." She started up as though in dismay, and then, leaning forward, buried her face in her hands in silent acquiescence. When she looked up a moment later he was gone.

CHAPTER XVII

OLD ROSE LEAVES

Camilla wrote nothing to Jeff about her illness. It was nothing very serious, the doctor said – only a fashionable case of nerves. The type was common, the medicine rest and quiet. He commended his own sanitarium, where he could assure her luxury and the very best society, but Camilla refused. She wanted to be alone, and so she denied herself to callers, canceled all her engagements, and took the rest cure in her own way. She slept late in the mornings, took her medicine conscientiously, put herself on a diet, and in the afternoon, with her maid only for company, took long motor rides in the country to out-of-the-way places on roads where she would not be likely to meet her acquaintances.

She knew what it was that she needed. It wasn't the strychnia tonic the doctor had prescribed, or even the rest cure. The more she was alone, the more time she had to think. It was in moments like the present, in the morning hours in her own rooms, that she felt that she could not forget. There was no longer the hum of well-bred voices about her, no music, the glamor of lowered lights, or the odor of embowered roses to distract her mind or soothe her senses. In the morning hours Jeff was present with her in the flesh. Everything about her reminded her of him; the desk at which he had worked, with its pigeon-holes full of papers in the reckless disorder which was characteristic of him; the corncob pipe which he had refused to discard; the Durham tobacco in its cotton bag beside a government report on mining; the specimens of ore from the "Lone Tree," which he had always used as paper weights; the brass bowl into which he had knocked his ashes; and the photograph, in its jeweled frame, of herself in sombrero and kerchief, taken at Myers's Photograph Gallery in Mesa City at the time when she had taught school, before Jeff's dreams had come true.

She took the picture up and examined it closely. It was the picture of a girl sitting on a table, a lariat in one hand and a quirt in the other, and the background presented Mesa City's idea of an Italian villa, with fluted columns, backed by some palms and a vista of lake. How well she remembered that gray painted screen and the ornate wicker chair and table which were its inevitable accompaniment. They had served as a background for Pete Mulrennan in a Prince Albert coat, when he was elected mayor; for Jack Williams, the foreman of the "Lazy L" ranch, and his bride from Kinney; for Mrs. Brennan in her new black silk dress; for the Harbison twins and their cherubic mother. She put the photograph down, and her head sank forward on her arms in mute rebellion. In her sleep she had murmured Cort's name, and Jeff had heard her. But she knew that in itself this was not enough to have caused the breach. What else had he heard? Jeff had tired of her – that was all – had tired of being married to a graven image, to a mere semblance of the woman he had thought she was. She could not blame him for that. It was his right to be tired of her if he chose.

It was the sudden revelation of the actual state of her mind with regard to Cortland which had given her the first suggestion of her true bearings – that and the careless chatter of the people of their set in which Mrs. Cheyne was leading. Cortland had guessed the truth which she had been so resolutely hiding from herself. She loved Jeff – had always loved him – and would until the end of time. Like the chemist who for months has been seeking the solution of a problem, she had found the acid which had magically liberated the desired element; the acid was Jealousy, and, after all dangerous vapors had passed, Love remained in the retort, elemental and undefiled. The simplicity of the revelation was as beautiful as it was mystifying. Had she by some fortuitous accident succeeded in transmuting some baser metal into gold, she could not have been more bewildered. Of course, Jeff could not know. To him she was still the Graven Image, the pretty Idol, the symbol of what might have been. How could he guess that his Idol had been made flesh and blood – that now she waited for him, no longer a symbol of lost illusions, but just a woman – his wife. She raised her head at last, sighed deeply, and put the photograph in the drawer of the desk. As she did so, the end of a small battered tin box protruded. She remembered it at once – for in it Jeff had always kept the letters and papers which referred to his birth and babyhood. She had looked them over before with Jeff, but it was almost with a feeling of timidity at an intrusion that she took the box out and opened it now. The papers were ragged, soiled, and stained with dampness and age, and the torn edges had been joined with strips of court-plaster. There were two small portraits taken by a photographer in Denver. Camilla took the photographs in her fingers and looked at them with a new interest. One of the pictures was of a young woman of about Camilla's age, in a black beaded Jersey waist and a full overskirt. Her front hair was done in what was known as a "bang," and the coils were twisted high on top of her head. But even these disfigurements – according to the lights of a later generation – could not diminish the attractiveness of her personality. There was no denying the beauty of the face, the wistful eyes, the straight, rather short nose, the sensitive lips, and the deeply indented, well-made chin – none of the features in the least like Jeff's except the last, which, though narrower than his, had the same firm lines at the angle of the jaw. It was not a weak face, nor a strong one, for whatever it gained at brows and chin it lost at the eyes and mouth.