The Mystery of Murray Davenport Part 30

"They're usin' it in the back room," was the reply.

"Got a pack o' cards?" then asked Bagley.

The barkeeper handed over a pack which had been reposing in a cigar-box.

"I'll make it as sudden as you like," said Bagley to Turl. "One cut apiece, and highest wins. Or would you like something not so quick?"

"One cut, and the higher wins," said Turl.

"Shuffle the cards," said Bagley to Larcher, who obeyed. "Help yourself,"

said Bagley to Turl. The latter cut, and turned up a ten-spot. Bagley cut, and showed a six.

"The money's yours," said Bagley. "And now, gentlemen, what'll you have to drink?"

The drinks were ordered, and taken in silence. "There's only one thing I'd like to ask," said Bagley thereupon. "That keyhole business--it needn't go any further, I s'pose?"

"I give you my word," said Turl. Larcher added his, whereupon Bagley bade the barkeeper telephone for a four-wheeler, and would have taken them to their homes in it. But they preferred a walk, and left him waiting for his cab.

"Well!" exclaimed Larcher, as soon as he was out of the saloon. "I congratulate you! I feared Bagley would give trouble. But how easily he came around!"

"You forget how fortunate I am," said Turl, smiling. "Poor Davenport could never have brought him around."

"There's no doubting your luck," said Larcher; "even with cards."

"Lucky with cards," began Turl, lightly; but broke off all at once, and looked suddenly dubious as Larcher glanced at him in the electric light.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FLORENCE

The morning brought suns.h.i.+ne and the sound of sleigh-bells. In the wonderfully clear air of New York, the snow-covered streets dazzled the eyes. Never did a town look more brilliant, or people feel more blithe, than on this fine day after the long snow-storm.

"Isn't it glorious?" Edna Hill was looking out on the s.h.i.+ning white gardens from Florence's parlor window. "Certainly, on a day like this, it doesn't seem natural for one to cling to the past. It's a day for beginning over again, if ever there are such days." Her words had allusion to the subject on which the two girls had talked late into the night. Edna had waited for Florence to resume the theme in the morning, but the latter had not done so yet, although breakfast was now over.

Perhaps it was her father's presence that had deterred her. The incident of the meal had been the arrival of a note from Mr. Bagley to Mr. Kenby, expressing the former's regret that he should be unavoidably prevented from keeping the engagement to go sleighing. As Florence had forgotten to give her father Mr. Bagley's verbal message, this note had brought her in for a quant.i.ty of paternal complaint sufficient for the venting of the ill-humor due to his having stayed up too late, and taken too much champagne the night before. But now Mr. Kenby had gone out, wrapped up and overshod, to try the effect of fresh air on his headache, and of shop-windows and pretty women on his spirits. Florence, however, had still held off from the all-important topic, until Edna was driven to introduce it herself.

"It's never a day for abandoning what has been dear to one,"

replied Florence.

"But you wouldn't be abandoning him. After all, he really is the same man."

"But I can't make myself regard him as the same. And he doesn't regard himself so."

"But in that case the other man has vanished. It's precisely as if he were dead. No, it's even worse, for there isn't as much trace of him as there would be of a man that had died. What's the use of being faithful to such an utterly non-existent person? Why, there isn't even a grave, to put flowers on;--or an unknown mound in a distant country, for the imagination to cling to. There's just nothing to be constant to."

"There are memories."

"Well, they'll remain. Does a widow lose her memories of number one when she becomes Mrs. Number Two?"

"She changes the character of them; buries them out of sight; kills them with neglect. Yes, she is false to them."

"But your case isn't even like that. In these peculiar circ.u.mstances the old memories will blend with the new.--And, dear me! he is such a nice man! I don't see how the other could have been nicer. You couldn't find anybody more congenial in tastes and manners, I'm sure."

"I can't make you understand, dear. Suppose Tom Larcher went away for a time, and came back so completely different that you couldn't see the old Tom Larcher in him at all. And suppose he didn't even consider himself the same person you had loved. Would you love him then as you do now?"

Edna was silenced for a moment; but for a moment only. "Well, if he came back such a charming fellow as Turl, and if he loved me as much as Turl loves you, I could soon manage to drop the old Tom out of my mind. But of course, you know, in my heart of hearts, I wouldn't forget for a moment that he really was the old Tom."

The talk was interrupted by a knock at the door. The servant gave the name of Mr. Turl. Florence turned crimson, and stood at a loss.

"You can't truly say you're out, dear," counselled Edna, in an undertone.

"Show him in," said Florence.

Turl entered.

Florence looked and spoke coldly. "I told you I'd send a message when I wished you to call."

He was wistful, but resolute. "I know it," he said. "But love doesn't stand on ceremony; lovers are importunate; they come without bidding.--Good morning, Miss Hill; you mustn't let me drive you away."

For Edna had swished across the room, and was making for the hall.

"I'm going to the drawing-room," she said, airily, "to see the sleighs go by."

In another second, the door slammed, and Turl was alone with Florence. He took a hesitating step toward her.

"It's useless," she said, raising her hand as a barrier between them. "I can't think of you as the same. I can't see _him_ in you. I should have to do that before I could offer you his place. All that I can love now is the memory of him."

"Listen," said Turl, without moving. "I have thought it over. For your sake, I will be the man I was. It's true, I can't restore the old face; but the old outlook on life, the old habits, the old pensiveness, will bring back the old expression. I will resume the old name, the old set of memories, the old sense of personality. I said last night that a resumption of the old self could be only mental, and incomplete even so.

But when I said that, I had not surrendered. The mental return can be complete, and must reveal itself more or less on the surface. And the old love,--surely where the feeling is the same, its outer showing can't be utterly new and strange."

He spoke with a more pleading and reverent note than he had yet used since the revelation. A moist s.h.i.+ne came into her eyes.

"Murray--it _is_ you!" she whispered.

"Ah!--sweetheart!" His smile of the utmost tenderness seemed more of a kind with sadness than with pleasure. It was the smile of a man deeply sensible of sorrow--of Murray Davenport,--not that of one versed in good fortune alone--not that which a potent imagination had made habitual to Francis Turl.

She gave herself to his arms, and for a time neither spoke. It was she who broke the silence, looking up with tearful but smiling eyes:

"You shall not abandon your design. It's too marvellous, too successful; it has been too dear to you for that."

"It was dear to me when I thought I had lost you. And since then, the pride of conceiving and accomplis.h.i.+ng it, the labor and pain, kept it dear to me. But now that I am sure of you, I can resign it without a murmur. From the moment when I decided to sacrifice it, it has been nothing to me, provided I could only regain you."

"But the old failure, the old ill luck, the old unrewarded drudgery,--no, you sha'n't go back to them. You shall be true to the illusion--we shall be true to it--I will help you in it, strengthen you in it! I needed only to see the old Murray Davenport appear in you one moment. Hereafter you shall be Francis Turl, the happy and fortunate! But you and I will have our secret--before the world you shall be Francis Turl--but to me you shall be Murray Davenport, too--Murray Davenport hidden away in Francis Turl. To me alone, for the sake of the old memories. It will be another tie between us, this secret, something that is solely ours, deep in our hearts, as the knowledge of your old self would always have been deep in yours if you hadn't told me. Think how much better it is that I share this knowledge with you; now nothing of your mind is concealed from me, and we together shall have our smile at the world's expense."

"For being so kind to Francis Turl, the fortunate, after its cold treatment of Murray Davenport, the unlucky," said Turl, smiling. "It shall be as you say, sweetheart. There can be no doubt about my good fortune. It puts even the old proverb out. With me it is lucky in love as well as at cards."