From the Housetops Part 43

She was silent. She understood. He went on, more hurriedly:

"I can only say to you, Anne, that my grandfather might have gone on living for a few weeks or even months. Well, there is no reason why Marraville shouldn't go on living for awhile. Do you see what I mean? He shall not die to-day if I can help it. He will hang on for weeks, not permanently relieved but at least comforted in the belief that his case isn't hopeless. I shall do my best." He smiled sardonically. "The operation will be called a success, and he will merely go on dying instead of having it all over with."

She closed her eyes. "Oh, how cruel it is," she murmured. "How cruel it is, after all."

"He will curse me for failing to do my duty," said he grimly. "The world will probably say that I am a benefactor to the human race, after all, and I will be called a great man because I allow him a few more weeks of agony. I may fail, of course. He may not survive the day. But no one will be justified in saying that I did not do my best to tide him over for a few weeks or months. And what a travesty it will be if I do succeed! Every one except James Marraville will praise me to the skies. My job will be done, but he will have it all to do over again,-this business of dying."

She held out her hand. Her eyes had filled with tears.

"G.o.d be with you, Braden." He took her hand in his, and for a moment looked into the swimming eyes.

"You understand _everything_ now, don't you, Anne?" he inquired. His face was very white and serious. He released her hand.

"Yes," she answered; "I understand everything. I am glad that you have told me. It-it makes no difference; I want you to understand that, Braden."

It seemed to her that he would never speak. He was regarding her thoughtfully, evidently weighing his next words with great care.

"Three doctors know," he said at last. "They must never find out that you know."

Her eyes flashed through the tears. "I am not afraid to have the world know," she said quickly.

He shook his head, smiling sadly.

"But I am," he said. It was a long time before she grasped the full significance of this surprising admission. When, hours afterward, she came to realise all that it meant she knew that he was not thinking of himself when he said that he was afraid. He was thinking of her; he had thought of her from the first. Now she could only look puzzled and incredulous. It was not like him to be afraid of consequences.

"If you are afraid," she demanded quickly, "why do you invite peril this afternoon? The chances are against you, Braden. Give it up. Tell them you cannot-"

"This afternoon?" he broke in, rather violently. "Good G.o.d, Anne, I'm not afraid of what is going to happen this afternoon. Marraville isn't going to die to-day, poor wretch. I can't afford to let him die." He almost snarled the words. "I have told these people that if I fail to take him through this business to-day, I'll accept no pay. That is understood. The newspapers will be so informed in case of failure. You are shocked. Well, it isn't as bad as it sounds. I am in deadly earnest in this matter. It is my one great chance. It means more to me to save James Marraville's life than it means to him. I'm sorry for him, but he has to go on living, just the same. Thank you for being interested. Don't worry about it. I-"

"The evening papers will tell me how it turns out," she said dully. "I shall pray for you, Braden."

He turned on her savagely. "Don't do that!" he almost shouted. "I don't want your support. I-" Other words surged to his lips but he held them back. She drew back as if he had struck her a blow in the face. "I-I beg your pardon," he muttered, and then strode across the room to thump violently on the door to Lutie's bed-chamber. "Come out! I'm going. Can't keep the nation waiting, you know."

Two minutes later Anne and Lutie were alone. The former, inwardly shaken despite an outward appearance of composure, declined to remain for luncheon, as she had done the day before. Her interest in Lutie and her affairs was lost in the contemplation of a reviving sense of self- gratification, long dormant but never quite unconscious. She had recovered almost instantly from the shock produced by his violent command, and where dismay had been there was now a warm, grateful rush of exultation. She suspected the meaning of that sudden, fierce lapse into rudeness. Her heart throbbed painfully, but with joyous relief. It was not rudeness on his part; on the contrary he was paying tribute to her. He was dismayed by the feelings he found himself unable to conquer. The outburst was the result of a swift realisation that she still had the power to move him in spite of all his mighty resolves, in spite even of the contempt he had for her.

She walked to the Ritz. It was a long distance from George's home, but she went about it gladly in preference to the hurried, pent-up journey down by taxi or stage. She wanted to be free and unhampered. She wanted to think, to a.n.a.lyse, to speculate on what would happen next. For the present she was content to glory in the fact that he had unwittingly betrayed himself.

She was near the Plaza before the one great, insurmountable obstacle arose in her mind to confound her joyous calculations. What would it all come to, after all? She could never be more to him than she was at this instant, for between them lay the truth about the death of Templeton Thorpe,-and Templeton Thorpe was her husband. Her exaltation was short- lived. The joy went out of her soul. The future looked to be even more barren than before the kindly hope sprang up to wave its golden prospects before her deluded eyes.

He would never look at the situation from her point of view. Even though he found himself powerless to resist the love that was regaining strength enough to batter down the wall of prejudice her marriage had created in his mind, there would still stand between them his conviction that it would be an act of vileness to claim or even covet the wife of the man whose life he had taken, not in anger or reprisal but in honest devotion.

Anne was not callous or unfeeling in her readiness to disregard what he might be expected to call the ethics of the case. She very sensibly looked at the question as one in which the conscience had no part, for the simple reason that there was no guilty motive to hara.s.s it. If his conscience was clear,-and it most certainly was,-there could be no sound reason for him to deny himself the right to reclaim that which belonged to him by all the laws of nature. On her part there was not the slightest feeling of revulsion. She did not look upon his act as a barrier. Her own act in betraying him was far more of a barrier than this simple thing that he had done. She had believed it to be insurmountable. She had long ago accepted as final the belief that he despised her and would go on doing so to the end. And now, in the last hour, there had been a revelation. He still loved her. His scorn, his contempt, his disgust were not equal to the task of subduing the emotion that lived in spite of all of them. But this other thing! This thing that he would call _decency_!

All through the afternoon his savage, discordant cry: "Don't do that!"

rang in her ears. She thrilled and crumpled in turn. The blood ran hot once more in her veins. As she looked back over the past year it seemed to her that her blood had been cold and sluggish. But now it was warm again and tingling. Even the desolating thought that her discovery would yield no profit failed to check the riotous, grateful warmth that raced through her body from crown to toe. Despair had its innings, but there was always compensation in the return of a joy that would not acknowledge itself beaten. Joy enough to feel that he could not help loving her! Joy to feel that he was hungry too! No matter what happened now she would know that she had not lost all of him.

After a while she found herself actually enjoying the prospect of certain failure on Braden's part in the case of Marraville. Reviled and excoriated beyond endurance, he would take refuge in the haven that she alone could open to him. He would come to her and she would go with him, freely and gladly, into new places where he could start all over again and-But even as she conjured up this sacrificial picture, this false plaisance, her cheeks grew hot with shame. The real good that was in Anne Tresslyn leaped into revolt. She hated herself for the thought; she could have cursed herself. What manner of love was this that could think of self alone? What of him? What of the man she loved?

She denied herself to callers. At half-past five she called up the hospital and inquired how Mr. Marraville was getting along. She had a horrid feeling that the voice at the other end would say that he was dead.

She found a vast relief in the polite but customary "doing very nicely"

reply that came languidly over the wires. Anne was not by way of knowing that the telephone operators in the hospitals would say very cheerfully that "Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton is doing very nicely," if one were to call up to inquire into the condition of the Father of his Country! An "extra" at six o'clock announced that the operation had taken place and that Mr.

Marraville had survived it, although it was too soon to,-and so on and so forth.

Then she called Simmy Dodge up on the telephone. Simmy would know if anybody knew. And with her customary cleverness and foresightedness she called him up at the hospital.

After a long delay Simmy's cheery voice came singing-or rather it was barking-into her ear. This had been the greatest day in the life of Simeon Dodge. From early morn he had gone about in a state of optimistic unrest.

He was more excited than he had ever been in his life before,-and yet he was beatifically serene. His brow was unclouded, his eyes sparkled and his voice rang with all the confidence of extreme felicity. There was no question in Simmy's mind as to the outcome. Braden would pull the old gentleman through, sure as anything. Absolutely sure, that's what Simmy was, and he told other people so.

"Fine as silk!" he shouted back in answer to Anne's low, suppressed inquiry. "Never anything like it, Anne, old girl. One of the young doctors told me-"

"Has he come out of the ether, Simmy?"

"What say?"

"Is he conscious? Has the ether-"

"I can't say as to that," said Simmy cheerfully. "He's been back in his room since five o'clock. That's-let's see what time is it now? Six- fourteen. Nearly an hour and a quarter. They all say-"

"Have you see Braden?"

"Sure. He's f.a.gged out, poor chap. Strain something awful. Good Lord, I wonder what it must have been to him when it came so precious near to putting me out of business. I thought I was dying at half-past four. I never expected to live to see Mr. Marraville out of the operating-room.

Had to take something for medicinal purposes. I knew all along that Braden could do the job like a-"

"Where is he now?"

"Last I heard of him he was back in his room with the house doctor and-"

"I mean Braden."

"What are you sore about, Anne?" complained Simmy. Her voice had sounded rather querulous to him. "I thought you meant the patient. Brady is up there, too, I guess. s.h.!.+ I can't say anything more. A lot of reporters, are coming this way."

The morning papers announced that James Marraville had pa.s.sed a comfortable night and that not only Dr. Thorpe but other physicians who were attending him expressed the confident opinion that if he continued to gain throughout the day and if nothing unforeseen occurred there was no reason why he should not recover. He had rallied from the anaesthetic, his heart was good, and there was no temperature. Members of the family were extremely hopeful. His two sons-in-law-who were spokesmen for the other members of the family-were united in the opinion that Dr. Thorpe had performed a miracle. Dr. Thorpe, himself, declined to be interviewed. He referred the newspaper men to the other surgeons and physicians who were interested in the case.

There was an underlying note of dismay, rather deftly obscured, in all of the newspaper accounts, however. Not one of them appeared to have recovered from the surprise that had thrown all of their plans out of order. They had counted on James Marraville's death and had prepared themselves accordingly. There were leading editorials in every office, and columns of obituary matter; and there were far from vague allusions to the young doctor who performed the operation. And here was the man alive! It was really more shocking than if he had died, as he was expected to do. It is no wonder, therefore, that the first accounts were almost entirely without mention of the doctor who had upset all of their calculations. He hadn't lived up to the requirements. The worst of it all was that Mr.

Marraville's failure to expire on the operating table forever deprived them of the privilege of saying, invidiously, that young Doctor Thorpe had been called in as the last resort. It would take them a day or two, no doubt, to adjust themselves to the new situation, and then, if the millionaire was still showing signs of surviving, they would burst forth into praise of the marvellous young surgeon who had startled the entire world by his performance!

In the meantime, there was still a chance that Mr. Marraville might die, so it was better to hesitate and be on the safe side.

CHAPTER XXIV

James Marraville called Thorpe a coward and a poltroon. This was a week after the operation. They were alone in the room. For days his wondering, questioning eyes had sought those of the man on whom he had depended for everlasting peace, and always there had been a look of reproach in them.

Not in words, but still plainly, he was asking why he still lived, why this man had not done the thing that was expected of him. Every one about him was talking of the marvellous, incredible result of the operation; every one was looking cheerful and saying that he would "soon be as good as new." And all the while he was lying there, weak and beaten, wondering why they lied to him, and why Man as well as G.o.d had been so cruel to him.

He was not deceived. He knew that he had it all to live over again. He knew what they meant when they said that it had been very successful! And so, one day, in all the bitterness of his soul, he cursed the man who had given him a few more months to live.

But there were other men and women who did not want to die. They wanted very dearly to live, and they had been afraid to risk an operation. Now that the world was tumbling over itself to proclaim the greatness of the surgeon who had saved James Marraville's life, the faint-hearted of all degrees flowed in a stream up to his doors and implored him to name his own price.... So goes the world....