The Salamander Part 80

"No, no!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I don't dare--I can't--it's beyond me!

Dodo, at seven o'clock can you be ready?"

"Two hours only!"

"Take only a valise. Let everything be new! Can you do it?"

"Yes!"

"I will go and arrange my affairs, make preparations and be back here at seven precisely. We'll dine, and then--the night express for the West, as you wished!"

"Yes!"

"I will telephone. You will come down. I will be at the corner, waiting, at seven!"

"Yes!"

He caught her again in his arms, lifting her off her feet, half mad with recklessness and impatience, and started toward the door. Suddenly he turned, came back, and catching her shoulders in his two hands, looked at her savagely.

"What is it?" she said faintly. Could this be what she had made of Ma.s.singale?

"I am throwing everything to the winds, Dodo!--giving up my whole life for you!" he said breathlessly. "You will come, Dodo?"

"I will--I must!" she said in wonder.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

Ma.s.singale had come so tempestuously, had gone so like a roaring blast, that she had felt swept up and whirled about in a revolving, benumbing cycle. She followed him in a daze to the hall, leaning over the bal.u.s.ters, watching the slipping white of his hand descend and vanish.

She crossed to the window, peering through the blurred dripping panes for a last sight of his skidding car. Then she returned, perceived the door left open, closed it and came incredulously back.

"So I am going! It's all decided. All!" she whispered.

It was no longer the fabric of dreams, but actuality, that confronted her. This was new, uncomprehended, despite all her dramatizations. This was a fact. She was to leave in two hours, vanish forever from the curious ma.s.sive room, with its belfried clock over the roofs and its blank brick wall at the side, out into the gray restlessness of a March night. Whither? With whom? With a strange man--a Ma.s.singale she had wrought herself, and whom she now scarcely recognized.

"I love him. I said I would go! It's what I've wanted all along!" she repeated, struck by the idea. "Yes, that's true; it's what I've wanted!"

But now there was a difference. For the first time, it was not she who sought to incite him to misty romance, but the man himself who had come and asked. It was no longer a question of how he loved, where he would go at her beckoning, her will over him. All this had been miraculously achieved. It was now only a matter of what she would do, and she had said that she would go--in two short hours! She remained immovable and listening, and already it seemed to her that she felt the shaken iron rush of a flying train, hurrying her onward into the unknown.

"Snyder!"

Terrified, overwhelmed with loneliness, she had cried out, longing for a human soul to listen, ready to pour out her whole story in confidence.

But no answer returned. She went hastily to the door and flung it open.

The room was empty, filled only with the vague shadows in the same barren dusk that pervaded her own. She returned, lighted the feeble gas-jet by her bed, and going to the embrasure of the window, sat down, her hands weakly in her lap, her head thrown back, gazing inertly at the yellow clock-face rising through the rain flurries.

No! This Ma.s.singale was not the man who had held her in fascination by his quiet mastery, whom she had despaired ever to move! Yet she had wished to see him thus, uncontrolled, at her feet, wild and shaken! She had wished it; yet, at the bottom, had she ever really believed it possible? Now, the spectacle of his disorder rather terrified her, and this terror brought a certain liberation. She was satisfied; she could wish for no completer victory over this man who, by a trick of fate, scarce five months ago had caught and tamed her. How the roles were reversed! How abject was now his surrender! For her he was sacrificing everything--career, friends, family, all--to go out with her into dark ways. What had she wrought, a miracle or a crime?

"I must pack; I must make ready!" she said to herself. But she did not rise. No longer framing her thoughts, lost in indefiniteness, prey to a heavy mental stupor, her hands lay weakly in her lap, her head thrown back, staring. Later her fingers stopped upon the sharp facets of the ring which had been pledged as a troth. Garry! What should she say to him? How make him understand? She rose heavily, and going to the writing-desk, brought back pad and pencil. Slowly, seeing dimly the sheet on her lap, she began:

"_Garry dear_: I am going away--"

She stopped. She could not add another word. What could be added? The pencil slipped from her fingers, the pad slid finally to the floor. She returned again into the stupor, incapable of thought or action, waiting, seeing only the jerky advance of a minute-hand around the yellow surface, until an hour had gone by without a single preparation.

All at once a tear gathered in her eye and went slowly down her cheek--a tear of profound fatigue, of listlessness, rather than the touch of an aching thought. This tear, hot and unbidden, seemed to dissipate, all at once, the frigidity of her mind. She sat up hastily, with a frightened glance at the clock. It was already past six.

"What am I doing?" she thought, dismayed. "He's coming! I must hurry!"

She went to the closet and brought out a dress-suit-case, laid it open across a table and gazed helplessly about her. What next?

Ten minutes later, Snyder, coming hastily in, found her camped on the floor, sorting an enormous pile of stockings, which she rolled and unrolled without decision. Nothing had yet been placed in the open suit-case, though every drawer was ajar and every trunk-lid up.

"Dodo!" cried Snyder, with a rapid survey. "In the name of heaven, what are you up to?"

Snyder's arrival was like a ray of hope to Dore. She rose quickly, her strength of mind suddenly restored--at last some one to whom she could talk, to whom she could tell of the great romance that was sweeping her on!

"Snyder, I'm leaving now, at seven o'clock," she said firmly.

"Leaving, honey? For how long?"

"I guess forever, Snyder!" she answered, with a little shortness of breath.

Snyder, with a quick motion flung off her rain-coat, rolling it in a ball and hurling it through the open door into her room. Then she went rapidly to Dodo, grasping her arms, peering into her face, crying:

"Dodo! That Ma.s.singale?"

She nodded, answering aggressively:

"I adore him!"

The woman recoiled, wringing her hands, overcome with grief, crying:

"Oh, petty, petty! I knew it would come! O G.o.d of mercy!"

"But, Snyder, I am happy!" Dore said. Yet the words seemed to her heavy, there in the shadowy room, watching, amazed, the agony of affection and terror that shook the woman.

"Happy!" cried Snyder, with a mocking laugh. "G.o.d! Do you know what you are doing?"

"Yes, yes, I know!" Suddenly a thought struck her, and she added hastily: "Snyder, you are wrong! It isn't Ma.s.singale. It's I who have done it all!"

"That's what you think!"

"No, no; it's so!"

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know!"