The Pagans Part 24

"Did you notice the inscription on the vial?"

"No; is there one?"

"See for yourself," he answered, refilling his gla.s.s.

She rose from the table and brought from a small cabinet the morocco case, unopened since Arthur had given it to her. A certain dread and distaste had prevented her examining it. Now she sat down again in her place, a beautiful woman, with the light falling upon her from above, s.h.i.+ning upon her golden hair, and bringing out the hues of her sea-blue dress. Her husband watched her as she held the case a moment in her delicate, firm fingers before unclasping it. He had learned within these last weeks that his old love for Helen had re-awakened; or more truly that a new affection had been born. The knowledge had come to him through thinking upon the relations between Helen and Arthur and in speculating concerning her feeling for Grant Herman, and it had been in his mind when he described love as the desire for the impossible. He had determined to speak his pa.s.sion, but as he looked at his wife sitting within arm's length yet as remote as if half the world lay between them, he hesitated. Helen unclasped the case and lifted the tiny cut-gla.s.s vial from its velvet bed.

"How extravagant you were in your vial," she said, involuntarily lifting it to her nostrils.

"Don't!" Dr. Ashton exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly.

"Is it so deadly as that!" she asked in some dismay, holding it off.

"It is simply pure prussic acid," he replied. "But it might be loosely stopped."

She examined carefully the minute writing engraved upon the gla.s.s.

"'Death foils the G.o.ds,'" she read. "Is it one of your own wickednesses, Will?" "I don't know. By the way, we might send it to Mrs. Fenton now as a souvenir of the two desirable acquaintances she has lost."

"What a brood of vipers she must think us, Will. I think it is pathetic, probably; but I cannot help being amused. It is rather an odd sensation to find that instead of being the harmless, insignificant body I have always supposed, I am really a hardened and abandoned reprobate."

"Oh, I've always known it, but I did not tell you for fear of destroying your peace of mind."

"I'm afraid," sighed Helen, rather absently, "that--if you don't mind the slang--Arthur has an elephant on his hands."

"Yes," a.s.sented the other, "himself."

She laughed musically, toying with the little cut-gla.s.s vial.

"How familiarity takes away the dread of any thing," she remarked. "We become accustomed to any thing; and, while I dare say it is the shallowest of sophistry, that ought to be an argument in favor of the theory that vice and fearfulness are alike only strangeness."

"That is rather a sophistical bit of logic; so perfectly so that it ought to be theology. Excuse me, but could you let me have a morsel of cheese."

"There does not seem to be any for you to have," she said, glancing over the table.

"Isn't there," returned he, as carelessly as if he had not noted that fact. "It is of no consequence."

"Oh, I can easily get it; I suppose Hannah forgot it."

She restored the vial to its place, laying the closed case by her plate, and left the room. The instant the door closed behind her, Dr.

Ashton reached across the table, possessed himself of the vial, returning the case to its former position. His wife turned just outside the door, and came back with a meaning smile to take up the empty case and lock it again in the cabinet.

"I cannot trust you," she remarked with a smile; "you are too eager to foil the G.o.ds."

He smiled in return, holding his wine-gla.s.s up to the light.

"There is more where that came from," he said. "You forget my profession."

"Of what are you musing so intently?" Helen queried, half an hour later, while, the supper being ended, her husband was enjoying his cigar.

"Of two things which I have to communicate. One is a folly and the other--or perhaps I should say each--is a misfortune."

"The folly," returned she, "I forgive; the misfortune I regret. What are they?" "I am glad you forgive the folly. That gives me boldness to tell it. I have fallen in love."

"You, Will! With whom?"

"That is the madness of it. With my wife."

"Will!"

"It is the truth," he went on, half whimsically, but with a certain ring of earnestness in his tone. "I acknowledge the madness, the poor taste of a man's falling in love with his own wife, but the fact stubbornly remains. I have been in love with you for a long time, but I stood back for Arthur like a good fellow."

"I never was in love with Arthur," she interrupted.

"It is no matter," he continued. "The question is, can't you get up a grain of grace for me, old lady?"

He leaned over the table, his dark eyes s.h.i.+ning as she had never seen them before. She was fascinated by his gaze; she felt as if the ground were slipping from beneath her feet, and as though he were casting upon her an evil spell. A wave of despair swept over her. Must she again submit to his power; were the old days of bitter bondage to return; was she nothing but a puppet to his will?

In this extremity a memory saved her. Unable to withdraw her gaze from her husband's face, there came to her suddenly the look in the eyes of Grant Herman that day when he told her his love. The blood surged to her cheeks, but her calmness returned.

"It is of no use, Will," she said with gentle firmness. "All that is past forever between us. We had better not speak of it," she added wistfully. "I have so few friends that I cannot bear to lose any one of them."

"My folly is then my misfortune," he responded, with no appearance of diminished good humor. "It is the pleasure of the G.o.ds to torment me; I suppose it amuses them. The old Romans were only aping them in their blood-thirsty sports, and I fancy that is the secret of their deification, for nothing seems so much to the liking of the G.o.ds as to torment humanity."

The evident endeavor which the speaker made to appear flippant and at his ease showed her how deeply he was moved. His wife felt this without fully reasoning it out, and the consciousness that this self-controlled man was so stirred awoke in her a strange and powerful excitement. She turned a shade paler, as she looked silently down into her wine-gla.s.s.

Her own life had been too sad for her not to feel some emotion at his words. She strove to repress the thoughts which made her bosom swell and heave, yet it was from them her words came when she broke the silence.

"It is bitterest to find one's self mistaken. To find that our G.o.ds are only clay like the rest of humanity. I could forgive a friend for neglect, abuse or any cruelty; but I could never forgive him for falling below my ideal of him."

"You do not mean me," he returned placidly, "for of me you never had an ideal; but waiving that for a moment, I should like to tell you of my second misfortune--if it isn't to be reckoned a blessing."

She looked at him without speaking. If this disclosure were but a repet.i.tion in varied form of the other, she had no wish to help him put it into words. Yet even as this thought pa.s.sed through her mind, she fancied she had detected in his tone some new gravity.

"I've discovered," continued Dr. Ashton, with the same light manner he had used throughout the interview, "that I have a cancer gayly but with grim persistency developing under my arm."

"Oh, Will," Helen cried, clasping her hands, "you are not in earnest!"

"I a.s.sure you it is a very earnest matter with me, and has been for some time. I might have an operation, I suppose, if it were worth while; though it is so near the heart that it would be uncomfortably risky."

Helen became suddenly calm. The color faded slowly from her cheeks, and her husband, watching her narrowly, saw her beautiful lips a.s.sume a new expression of firmness and determination. She unconsciously lifted her head into a more erect carnage. Her eyes were moist and full of feeling. Slowly in her mind formed a resolve, and with a full knowledge of the renunciation of self which it involved, she called up all the n.o.bility of her soul to aid her in living up to it. Creeds were little to this woman, yet her life was formed upon the principles which give to creeds their stability, and by which the moral is removed from the animal.

"Will," she at length said, slowly and gravely, "could it not be arranged for me to live with you? You did not tell me you were fond of me without having thought out the possibilities."

"I should have hesitated to ask so much," was his reply, "even of your love; I shall certainly not take it of your pity."

"My pity?" she murmured, not raising her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You know. You cannot think me so dull as not to see that your proffer comes not from affection, but from generosity. I thank you, but I will accept no sacrifices."