The Salamander Part 86

"And you brought me here for that?" he said slowly.

"Yes."

"Good heavens," he cried, revolted and shocked, "you--you could do--such a thing, such an indefensible, outrageous thing as this. That is too much, I can not understand--"

"I did it," she said quietly, "because I want to be a good wife."

"Then it was not because you wished to get me back?" he cried, too amazed not to be indiscreet.

"Why, no--of course not!"

"It is incredible!" he said stupidly aghast at her candor.

"Then I wanted you to understand," she said swiftly. "Wait. You will understand," she added quickly, her hand on his arm as he started an angry gesture. "Yes, yes, you will, because I know you or would I have let you come here?" she said illogically. "You are too big--you understand everything--you will me."

There was a moment's silent struggle as their eyes met each other. Then without waiting his answer, confidently she said:

"You know, after all, it's very simple. You were right. You remember that first time here--you said I was to end like all the rest,--just an ordinary little house-frau. Wasn't I furious though! Well, you were right! That's just what I have come to be!"

The incredible side of it all, the boldness of the situation, yet the naturalness of the incomprehensible Dodo doing just this, caught him with the old fascination. He yielded.

"You, Dodo, are saying this," he said, interested despite himself, "you who adored precipices?"

"Did I?" She shook her head, with a little catch after breath, in the suddenness of her victory which his surrender had brought her. "I think all my daring was just ignorance. Now, when I look back I am frightened to death. You thought I was such a wild breathless creature--no! I never really was brave. You see, I imagined a world as every girl must. It wasn't real, nothing was real. It was all just groping after something--just waiting, longing. And that's why I was as I was with you. I was impatient, tired of waiting. And I imagined the answer. Often I try to understand why I did what I did. Then I used to be so thrilled by every reckless, lawless thing I did. It gave me the feeling of a cork bobbing over hungry waves. What a pitiful little creature that Dodo was!

She thought she could conquer life. She didn't know. She thought she was different from the rest. She was only restless, a helpless little rebel, with every man's hand against her. And because she didn't want to be like all the rest--what a terrible disaster it came near being!" She stopped, lost in the obscurity of the past and then turning to him, gaining confidence by what she saw in his eyes, went on in soft pleading: "Don't judge me. The game wasn't square. It never is between a man and a girl. You would have had your man's world to go back to--and I? Oh, won't you understand why I did what I did? Can't you understand how hard it is for a girl, all by herself, to really know what she wants of life? Your Honor, can't you forgive?"

He had been profoundly moved by her words and by the deep tones of her voice, beyond any power of simulation. He knew he would grant her request and yet with a last personal feeling against the unreasonableness of asking it of him, he said:

"What difference can it make to you whether I forgive or not?"

"Oh, but it does--it does," she cried, joining her hands in a pa.s.sionate entreaty.

"Dodo," he said solemnly, not daring to look at her, "I suppose you are my destiny. I shall always go on loving you. If you need this from me to be happy as I want you--you have it."

"Thanks," she said in a whisper.

He felt suddenly the finality of their words as though the shadowy hand of destiny had moved between them, parting them irrevocably.

"You have never been like any one else," he said solemnly. "I never thought I could forgive--well, I do understand. There is nothing more to be said. Write finis and close the book." He went to the rack and took up his hat and stick. "I suppose I shan't see you again or if I do it will be in the midst of a herd of human beings--to pretend correctly we never once dreamed an impossible dream. Good-by."

Her lips murmured inarticulately.

He took a step toward the irrevocable parting, and then stopped seeking anything to delay the inevitable.

"One question--just one. You could not have loved him--your husband--that night. And now?"

"I did then though I wasn't sure," she said as though this were the most natural question in the world. "Now? Yes, and yet it is nothing to the way I am going to love him, the way I must love him."

"How can you say such things?" he said in a final stupefaction.

The battle she had fought, the incredible triumph she had won, had left her exalted, lifted out of the personal self. She spoke now, as though unaware of his presence, as though trying to comprehend things beyond her ken.

"What is a woman's life? Do you know? Just an exchange of illusions. I have put aside all the queer fantastic dreams of a girl--I haven't yet quite put on the new--not quite. I suppose for just this one moment--this one moment of absolute truth, I can see myself as I really am, just for a moment--perhaps I shall never want to look at myself so steadily again. To-day I can look ahead and know everything that is coming. I know that I shall make myself just what he, my husband, wishes me to be. I shall really become what he now thinks I am. I shall have children--many children I hope. My home, my husband, my children--there will never be room for any other thought in my life. Mine--all that is mine, I shall cling to and keep!"

She heard the door close, as the man before the sanct.i.ty of the revelation, had gone in reverence. Then suddenly a horror of the past, of the room, of the Dodo that had been, seized her. She wished now only to finish, to escape and never to return. She ran to the trunk, seized the bundle of letters and keepsakes and flung them in the fireplace.

Then seizing a box, she struck several matches and applied them feverishly.

All at once the door opened and the voice of her husband cried gaily:

"Caught!"

She gave a scream, reeling against the mantelpiece. He sprang hurriedly to her side, gathering her into his arms, apologizing for the fright he had given her while she lay trembling and s.h.i.+vering, quite hysterical.

The horror of what might have been, the last gaping pit of fate to which she had subjected herself, left her sick unto weakness. He knew nothing.

He suspected nothing, and yet he must have pa.s.sed Ma.s.singale on the stairs themselves.

"Good heavens, what a fool I am! I didn't mean to scare you. I'm a brute--you poor child!" he cried.

"When did you come?" she said aghast--holding herself from him and gazing in his face fearfully.

"Why, just now."

"You promised--"

"I know, but I couldn't keep away," he said, smiling penitently. "Wanted to surprise the Missis! Steady."

She reeled, catching his arm, fighting down a wild impulse to shriek out against what might have been, dangerously inclined toward a fatal confession. Then she saw a dark smirch across his sleeve and brus.h.i.+ng it away, asked breathlessly:

"Where did you get that?"

"Coming up. Infernally black stairs--couple of fellows trod all over me.

Bless your heart, Dodo, I say I didn't know you frightened as easily as that. What a brute I am. Come here!"

He sat down, holding out his arms.

"You mustn't frighten me, Garry--you must be careful just now," she said weakly, sinking against his shoulder.

He surveyed the room curiously, running his hand over her hair. "Odd old room. Seems like old times, doesn't it?"

"I hate it," she said pa.s.sionately.

"It was pretty rough going," he said sobered immediately. "A pretty tight squeeze. But you pulled me out of it,--you curious, fragile little child. How did you ever dare?"

"Not such a child as you think," she said rebelliously.

"The idea," he said, laughing gloriously. Then he became serious again.

"Dodo, that's what's marvelous about you women. You can go up against the ugliness of life and never--not for an instant--even realize what you touch. Bless your innocence!"