From the Housetops Part 52

You're talking like a crazy man,-and, hang it all, I don't like the look in your eye. Gosh, if it gives you the creeps-who don't have to be down there of nights,-what must it be for that shrinking, sensitive-Hey! Where are you going?"

"I'm going down there to see her. I'm going to tell her that I was a cur to write what I did to her the day I sailed. I-" He stopped short near the door, and faced his friend. His hands were clenched.

"I shall see her just this once,-never again if I can avoid it," he said.

"Just to tell her that I don't want her to live in that house. She's got to get out. I'll not know a moment's peace until she is out of that house."

Simmy heard the door slam and a few minutes later the opening and closing of the elevator cage. He sat quite still, looking out over the trees. He was a rather pathetic figure.

"I wonder if I'd be so loyal to him if I had a chance myself," he mused.

"Oh, Lordy, Lordy!" He closed his eyes as if in pain.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The storm burst in all its fury when Thorpe was half way down the Avenue in the taxi he had picked up at the Plaza. Pedestrians scurried in all directions, seeking shelter from the wind and rain; the blackness of night had fallen upon the city; the mighty roar of a thousand cannon came out of the clouds; terrifying flashes rent the skies. The man in the taxi neither saw nor heard the savage a.s.sault of the elements. He was accustomed to the roar of battle. He was used to thinking with something worse than thunder in his ears, and something worse than raindrops beating about him.

He knew that Anne was afraid of the thunder and the lightning. More than once she had huddled close to him and trembled in the haven of his arms, her fingers to her ears, while storms raged about them. He was thinking of her now, down there in that grim old house, trembling in some darkened place, her eyes wide with alarm, her heart beating wildly with terror,-ah, he remembered so well how wildly her heart could beat!

He had forgotten his words to Simmy: "I can't trust myself!" There was but one object in his mind and that was to retract the unnecessary challenge with which he had closed his letter to her in January. Why should he have demanded of her a sacrifice for which he could offer no consolation? He now admitted to himself that when he wrote the blighting postscript he was inspired by a mean desire to provoke antic.i.p.ation on her part. "If you also are not a coward, you will return to my grandfather's house, where you belong." What right had he to revive the hope that she accounted dead?

She still had her own life to live, and in her own way. He was not to be a part of it. He was sure of that, and yet he had given her something on which to sustain the belief that a time would come when their lives might find a common channel and run along together to the end. She had taken his words as he had hoped she would, and now he was filled with shame and compunction.

The rain was coming down in sheets when the taxi-cab slid up to the curb in front of the house that had been his home for thirty years. His home!

Not hers, but _his_! She did not belong there, and he did. He would never cease to regard this fine old house as his home.

He was forced to wait for the deluge to cease or to slacken. For many minutes he sat there in the cab, his gaze fixed rigidly on the streaming, almost opaque window, trying to penetrate the veil of water that hung between him and the walls of the house not twenty feet away. At last his impatience got the better of him, and, the downpour having diminished slightly, he made a sudden swift dash from the vehicle and up the stone steps into the shelter of the doorway. Here he found company. Four workmen, evidently through for the day, were flattened against the walls of the vestibule.

They made way for him. Without realising what he did, he hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed his key-ring from his pocket, found the familiar key he had used for so many years, and inserted it in the lock. The door opened at once and he entered the hall. As he closed the door behind him, his eyes met the curious gaze of the four workmen, and for the first time he realised what he had done through force of habit. For a moment or two he stood petrified, trying to grasp the full significance of his act. He had never rung the door-bell of that house,-not in all the years of his life. He had always entered in just this way. His grandfather had given him a key when he was thirteen,-the same key that he now held in his fingers and at which he stared in a sort of stupefaction.

He was suddenly aware of another presence in the hall,-a figure in white that stood near the foot of the staircase, motionless where it had been arrested by the unexpected opening of the door,-a tall, slender figure.

He saw her hand go swiftly to her heart.

"Why-why didn't you-let me know?" she murmured in a voice so low that he could hardly hear the words. "Why do you come in this way to-"

"What must you think of me for-for breaking in upon you-" he began, jerkily. "I don't know what possessed me to-you see, I still have the key I used while I lived-Oh, I'm sorry, Anne! I can't explain. It just seemed natural to-"

"Why did you come without letting me know?" she cried, and now her voice was shrill from the effort she made to suppress her agitation.

"I should have telephoned," he muttered. Suddenly he tore the key from the ring. "Here! It does not belong to me. I should not have the key to your-"

"Keep it," she said, drawing back. "I want you to keep it. I shall be happier if I know that you have the key to the place where I live. No! I will not take it."

To her infinite surprise, he slipped the key into his pocket. She had expected him to throw it upon the floor as she resolutely placed her hands behind her back.

"Very well," he said, rather roughly. "It is quite safe with me. I shall never forget myself again as I have to-day."

For the first time since entering the door, he allowed his gaze to sweep the lofty hallway. But for the fact that he knew he had come into the right house, he would have doubted his own senses. There was nothing here, to remind him of the sombre, gloomy place that he had known from childhood's earliest days. All of the ma.s.sive, ugly trappings were gone, and all of the gloom. The walls were bright, the rugs gay, the woodwork cheerfully white. He glanced quickly down the length of the hall and-yes, the suit of mail was gone! He was conscious of a great relief.

Then his eyes fell upon her again. A strange, wistful little smile had appeared while his gaze went roving.

"You see that I am trying not to be a coward," she said.

"What a beast I was to write that thing to you," he cried. "I came down here to tell you that I am sorry. I don't want you to live here, Anne. It is-"

"Ah, but I am here," she said, "and here I shall stay. We have done wonders with the place. You will not recognise it,-not a single corner of it, Braden. It was all very well as the home of a lonely old man who loved it, but it was not quite the place for a lonely young woman who hated it.

Come! Let me show you the library. It is finished. I think you will say it is a woman's room now and not a man's. Some of the rooms upstairs are still unfinished. My own room is a joy. Everything is new and-"

"Anne," he broke in, almost harshly, "it will come to nothing, you may as well know the truth now. It will save you a great deal of unhappiness, and it will allow you to look elsewhere for-"

"Come into the library," she interrupted. "I already have had a great deal of unhappiness in that room, so I fancy it won't be so hard to hear what you have come to say to me if you say it to me there."

He followed her to the library door, and there stopped in amazement, unwilling to credit his eyes. He was looking into the brightest, gayest room he had ever seen. An incredible transformation had taken place. The vast, stately, sober room had become dainty, exquisite, enchanting. Here, instead of oppressive elegance, was the most delicate beauty; here was exemplified at a glance the sweet, soft touch of woman in contrast to the heavy, uncompromising hand of man. Here was sweetness and freshness, and the sparkle of youth, and gone were the grim things of age. Here was light and happiness, and the fragrance of woman.

"In heaven's name, what _have_ you done to this room?" he cried. "Am I in my right senses? Can this be my grandfather's house?"

She smiled, and did not answer. She was watching his face with eager, wistful eyes.

"Why, it's-it's unbelievable," he went on, an odd tremor in his voice. "It is wonderful. It is-why, it is beautiful, Anne. I could not have dreamed that such a change,-What has become of everything? What have you done with all the big, clumsy, musty things that-"

"They are in a storage warehouse," said she crisply. "There isn't so much as a carpet-tack left of the old regime. Everything is gone. Every single thing that was here with your grandfather is gone. I alone am left. When I came down here two months ago the place was filled with the things that you remember. I had made up my mind to stay here,-but not with the things that I remembered. The first thing I did was to clean out the house from cellar to garret. I am not permitted to sell the contents of this house, but there was nothing to prevent me from storing them. Your grandfather overlooked that little point, I fear. In any event, that was the first thing I did. Everything is gone, mind you,-even to the portrait that used to hang over the mantelpiece there,-and it was the only cheerful object in the house. I wish I could show you my boudoir, my bedroom, and the rooms in which Mr. Thorpe lived. You-you would love them."

He was now standing in the middle of the room, staring about him at the handiwork of Aladdin.

"Why, it isn't-it will not be so dreadful, after all," he said slowly.

"You have made it all so lovely, so homelike, so much like yourself that-you will not find it so hard to live here as I-"

"I wanted you to like it, Braden. I wanted you to see the place,-to see what I have done to make it bright and cheerful and endurable. No, I sha'n't find it so hard to live here. I was sure that some day you would come to see me here and I wanted you to feel that-that it wasn't as hard for me as you thought it would be. I have been a coward, though. I confess that I could not have lived here with all those things about to-to remind me of-You see, I just _had_ to make the place possible. I hope you are not offended with me for what I have done. I have played havoc with sentiment and a.s.sociation, and you may feel that I-"

"Offended? Good heavens, Anne, why should I be offended? You have a right to do what you like here."

"Ah, but I do not forget that it is _your_ home, Braden, not mine. It will always be home to you, and I fear it can never be that to me. This is not much in the way of a library now, I confess. Thirty cases of books are safely stored away,-all of those old first editions and things of that sort. They meant nothing to me. I don't know what a first edition is, and I never could see any sense in those funny things he called missals, nor the incunabula, if that's the way you p.r.o.nounce it. You may have liked them, Braden. If you care for them, if you would like to have them in your own house, you must let me _lend_ them to you. Everybody borrows books, you know. It would be quite an original idea to lend a whole library, wouldn't it? If you-"

"They are better off in the storage warehouse," he interrupted, trying to steel himself against her rather plaintive friendliness.

"Don't you intend to shake hands with me?" she asked suddenly. "I am so glad that you have come home,-come back, I mean,-and-" She advanced with her hand extended.

It was a perilous moment for both of them when she laid her hand in his.

The blood in both of them leaped to the thrill of contact. The impulse to clasp her in his arms, to smother her with kisses, to hold her so close that nothing could ever unlock his arms, was so overpowering that his head swam dizzily and for an instant he was deprived of vision. How he ever pa.s.sed through that crisis in safety was one of the great mysteries of his life. She was his for the taking! She was ready.

Their hands fell apart. A chill swept through the veins of both,-the ice- cold chill of a great reaction. They would go on loving each other, wanting each other, perhaps forever, but a moment like the one just past would never come again. Bliss, joy, complete satisfaction might come, but that instant of longing could never be surpa.s.sed.

He was very white. For a long time he could not trust himself to speak.

The fight was a hard one, and it was not yet over. She was a challenge to all that he tried to master. He wondered why there was a smile in her lovely, soft eyes, while in his own there must have been the hardness of steel. And he wondered long afterward how she could have possessed the calmness to say:

"Simmy must have been insane with joy. He has talked of nothing else for days."