It was true, he could. Vina had noted that. He could sense her atmosphere, and divine her intents. Formerly, he had taken the word of the others that she had power for her work.... Almost every afternoon now he tapped at her door. Entering, he would take a seat by the fire-frame, stare a bit at the city or the tower, or move about behind her, regarding the freshly done work; and presently they would find themselves talking. It was because David Cairns, as a lover, was out of the question from her point of view in the first days, that such a splendid companionship was established. He did not know that a woman could be such a companion; and her unconsciousness of his deeper quest, gave her an ease with him, that was one of the secrets of her great and growing charm.

Heretofore, all feminine aspirants for Cairns' admiration had ranged themselves in his mind against the paragon, Beth Truba (with whom he had long comported himself with a rueful might-have-been manner, both pretty and pleasant). Beth had easily transcended. Whatever was great and desirable in woman was likely to wear a Beth Truba hall-mark for his observation. Now, that was changed, not that Beth suffered eclipse, nor that his admiration abated; indeed, his gratefulness for that word of Beth's at just the proper moment, which had caused him gallantly to take the road of Vina Nettleton, was a rare study; but another had risen, not of Beth, but of more intimate meaning to the man, David Cairns. Beth's great force of feminine energy and aspiration, he had been unable to attract. Beth had demanded more than virtue from him, and at a time when he was not finished enough to answer her many restless dreams.

Cairns and Vina Nettleton had in reality just met, and at one of the memorable crossings of eternity. To each, the other had just been brought forth from a sumptuous shadow of nature. In the brighter light they discerned each other. Cairns was first to see, for he had been told, and he brought to the meeting all the fresh inspirations of his maturity, and they rested upon the solid values earned through a life of hard-held decency.

Among the May days there was one afternoon in which the conception of summer was in the air. It was not the heat alone, but the stirring of the year's tremendous energy everywhere, even under pavements. The warmth of creation was kindly in old bones and old walls, and an imperious quickening in the elastic veins of youth. Vina (half-way up a step-ladder) turned about and sat down on one of the steps. Cairns had asked her what plans she had for the summer.

"Oh, I shan't be a great way from New York. Maybe a trip or two over to my beloved Nantucket."

This started her to thinking and presently to expatiating upon the dearest place on earth to her mind.... She told him how the villagers refused to have mail-service, as it threatened to destroy one of the important social features of the day, that of going to the post office for letters. Also he was informed that automobiles were forbidden in Nantucket, and that a train started daily across the Island, a nine-mile journey, and sometimes arrived. The conductor and engineer, both old seamen, were much more interested in a change of weather, a passing ship, or a school of fish, than in the immediate schedule or right of way.... And Cairns was given another glimpse of the enchantress that had been hidden so long in the workaday vesture of the little artist, as she unfolded:

"To me, there's real peace and silence away out there in the sea. Every thought is a picture.... You know the little gray shingle houses are built very close together, and many are flush with the sidewalk. They don't draw the shades at night, and everyone uses little muslin curtains which conceal nothing. One of my favorite things to do is to walk along Pleasant Street to Lily Lane, or through Vestal Street, just about dusk, and see the darling interiors of the spotless cottages. Not really to stop nor stare, just to go softly and slowly by.... One house has little heads around the tea-table with father and mother; another has company for supper; and the next—just old folks are left—but all so radiant as they shine out through the old-fashioned window-panes.... To have one of those places for one's own! It has seemed the happiest destiny for me, but only for the very fortunate and elect.... I wonder if they ever know of the night-birds that flutter at the window-panes to see the happiness within?"

Cairns might have taken this very lightly; even with a reservation that she knew realities did not fit the ideal; that such realities were not for the elect always;—but he chose to regard it instead, as an expression of Vina's yearning, which she felt safe in disclosing for the sake of the ingenious picture she made.... He looked about this remarkable studio in the heart of New York, where a really great task was being wrought to endure. Sometimes it seemed to him that the spirits of the saints came to rest in this place, where the woman worshipped them through her work.... And he knew she meant much that she said; that to her, work was not enough of the breath of life.... She had not completed her picture; rather life had not completed it for her.

Cairns confided in Bedient the Nantucket story, and an idea, occurred to the latter that delighted him. It was one of the evenings when they dined together at the Club.... Another day, Cairns inquired of Vina what took her to Nantucket in summer, curious as to the material arrangement.

"My own people used to go there summers when I was a little thing," she told him, "and of late—there are many friends who ask me over."

"Say, Vina, when you get over to Nantucket, would you be terribly disconcerted to discover some morning, down among the wharves there, with a copy of Moby Dick, and a distressed look from deciding whether breakfast should be of clam or cod chowder—me?"

"I should be glad of all things," she said with quiet eagerness. "There are so many ways to pass the hours——"

"Besides walking in Lily Lane in the dusk?"

"Yes.... There's the ride over the open moors. It's like Scotland in places, with no division or fences, and the sea away off in all directions. Then, we must go to the lighthouse, one of the most important of America, and the first to welcome the steamers coming in from Europe. And the Haunted House on Moor's End, the Prince Gardens and the wonderful old water-front—where I am to discover you—once so rich and important in the world, now forgotten and sunken and deserted, except for an old seasoned sea captain here and there, smoking about, dreaming as you imagine, of the China trade or the lordly days of the old sperm fishery, and looking wistfully out toward the last port.... Venice or Nantucket—I can hardly say which is more dream-like or alluring, or sad with the goneness of its glory.... I'd love to show you, because I know every stick and stone on the Island, and many of its quaint people."

"And when do you think you will go?" he asked.

"I don't know, David,—not before the last of June. And I won't be able to stay very long this year, because there is no place to work there. I ought to have a little change and rest, but I can't afford to 'run down' entirely—just enough to freshen the eye."

Cairns nodded seriously....

A day or two afterward he brought Bedient. To Vina he was like some tremendous vibration in the room. Her mind was roused as if by some great music.... It was in nothing that Bedient had said or looked, yet only a little while after the two men had gone, Vina realized she had a lover in David Cairns.

She was dismayed, filled with confusion and alarm, but this was the foreground of mind. She had the sense of glad singing in the distances. There was no sleep for hours this night, though of late, she had been sleeping unusually well.... Why had the realization been so slow in coming? An answer was ready enough: Because David was an old acquaintance. But another thought came: For years, except in rare reactionary hours, such as that afternoon in Beth's studio, she had put away the thought of man as a mate.... For years, she had tried to become a block instead of a battery; tried to give the full portion of her life to the thing called work, and hated herself because she couldn't. For years she had dreaded to go where men and women were, because the rare sight of human happiness brought upon her a torrent of dreams. The emptiness of her own life, together with the hatred of self, because she could not be glad for the simple object lesson of a man and woman happy in each other, made her miserable for hours. Late years she had not cared if she looked tacky. "What does it matter," she would ask, with a hateful glance into the glass, "when at best, I look like a water-nymph with hay-fever?"... A long and hard fight, but she had almost broken the habit of thinking what she might do with certain prerogatives of women, which were not granted to her. A bitter fight, and only she knew the hollowness of the honors her good work had brought. It was not the hard work that had left her at the end of many a long day—just a worn bundle of sparking nerve-ends.

And yet, this was the creature whom the new David Cairns had come to, again and again and again. This mighty fact arose from the vortex of confusion and alarm. "Ah, David," she thought, "is it not too late? Am I not too old and weathered a world-campaigner?... I am old, David. Older than my years. Older even than I look! I have warred so long, that I think all peace and happiness from now on would kill me. Oh, you don't want me. Surely you can't want me!"

But there were sad smilings upon the hundred hand-wrought faces in the room. The Marys, the Magdalens, and the Marthas were a strangely smiling Sisterhood.... "Child, you have been faithful in the little things," came to her. "You have thought of us and wept with us and loved us, and we have prevailed to bring you happiness."

And so the other side of the picture—Vina Nettleton's life picture—now turned. The "Stations" were like panels of fairies, after that. All the hidden shames and secrets of the years, the awful sense of being unwanted at the hearth of the human family, were taken from her, like the brittle and dusty packings from a glorious urn. Some marvel of freshness sped through her veins. She was not as yesterday—a little gray shade of an evil dream. Yesterday, and all the yesterdays, she had modelled alone, poor creatures of clay, and now the world suddenly called her to the academy of immortals....

Yes, he had come. He was brave and beloved.... She arose and knelt in the dark before that panel of greatest meaning—the Gethsemane. And long afterward, she stood by the open window. There were no stars, but the tired city was cut in light. And faint sounds reached her from below.... They were not Jews and Romans, but her own people, rushing to and fro for the happiness she had found.



TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER

BETH SIGNS THE PICTURE

Bedient walked up the Avenue, carrying one of his small leather-bound books to Beth. It was the day after the call of the Grey One there. He had learned to give—which may be made an exquisite art—little things that forbade refusal, but which were invested with cumulative values. Thus he brought many of his rare books of the world to the studio. In them she came upon his marginal milestones, and girdled them with her own pencillings. So their inner silences were broken, and they entered the concourse of the elect together.

The wonder of the woman rose and rose in his mind. His joy, apart from her, was to give joy to others, and so he had moved about New York for days and nights, reflecting her in countless ways. When he thought of his money at all, it was to realize with curious amazement that there was quite enough for anything he wished to do. Things to do were so many in New York, that numberless times each day he sent a prayer of thankfulness to Captain Carreras, always with a warm delight in the memory. And he liked to think it was Beth's hand. She had told him of her pilgrimages during holiday time to the infinite centres of sorrow—and it became a kind of dream of his—the time when they would go together, not holidays alone, but always. The great fortune slowly became identified in his mind with the work he had to do; but Equatoria, the base, amusingly enough, sank away into vaster remoteness. There were moments in which Bedient almost believed there was a little garden of his planting in the heart of the lustrous lady; moments, even, when he thought it was extending broader and broader upon an arable surface. Again, some bitterness from the world seemed to blast the young growths—and the delicate fragrance was far-blown. It was these reactions, and his sensitiveness to the beauty of the romance, which put off from day to day the time for words.

Two or three days before, she had returned from a week-end in the country, and more than ever her presence was an inspiration. She must have been keeping holy vigils. There was animation in her hands, a note of singing in her laughter—the dawn of June in her eyes, the fresh loveliness of the country in her whole presence. She showed him that Monday morning, how good it was to see him again—after forty-eight hours. And he had gone about his work with renewed spirit—the silent siege. The strength of youth was in his attentions, but the fineness of maturity, as well. He cultured her heart as only a great lover could; but being the lover, he was slow to see the blooms that answered.

Only of words, he would have none of them yet. Deeply he understood that she had been terribly hurt—long ago or recently, he could not tell. Could the story she had suggested of the Grey One's lover be anything like her own?... Words—he was afraid. Words often break the sensitive new-forming tissues over old wounds of the heart. His was a life-work, to heal and expand her heart to hold the great happiness....

Beth felt herself giving away secrets, when Bedient looked at her early this afternoon. He glanced as usual into her face—but then, a second time. She followed his eyes an instant later to the place on the mantel, where the small picture of the Other had rested for just one day. He started to ask a question, but she took the little book, and thanking him, held the talk to it.

Bedient grappled with an obstacle he could not master. In the silences of that day, something different from anything he had met before, closed in; a new order of atmosphere that altered the very tone and color of things. It seemed not in the studio alone, but in the world. Bedient fell into depths of thinking before it. A sudden turn for the worst in a well-established convalescence, held something of the same startling confrontation. There was no response to his willing it away. It was fateful, encompassing.

Beth moved about the room, not ready at once to touch the picture. She carried the little book in her hand.... Strong but mild winds were blowing. Sudden gusts fell upon the skylight with the sound of spray, and sparrows scurried across the glass, their clawed feet moving swiftly about Mother Nature's business. The East ventilator shook, as if grimly holding on.

"A day like this always touches my nerves," she said. "The wind seems to bring a great loneliness out of the sea."

"It's pure land weather," he answered, "damp, warm, aimless winds. Now, if there was a strong, steady and chill East wind——"

But she wouldn't discuss what that might do. "Loneliness," she repeated. "What a common lot! One scarcely dares stop to think how lonely one is.... How many people do you know, who are happily companioned? I've known only six in my life, and two of those were brother and sister. It's the dull, constant, ache at the human heart. What's the reason, do you suppose?"

"The urge to completion——"

"I suppose it is, and almost never satisfied. I think I should train children first and last for the stern trials of loneliness. It's almost necessary to have resources within one's self——"

"But how wonderful when real companions catch a glimpse of each other across some room of the world!" he said quietly.

"A tragedy more often than not," she finished. "One of them so often has built his house, and must abide. Real companions never build their house upon the ruins of another."

"That has a sound ring."

"What is the reason for this everywhere, this forever loneliness?" she demanded, without lifting her eyes from the work.

"Something must drive," he replied. "You call it loneliness this morning. It's as good as any. Great things come from yearning. People of the crowd choose each other at random, under the pressure of passionate loneliness. Greater human hearts vision their One. Once in a while the One appears and answers the need—and then there is happiness. There is nothing quite so important as the happiness in each other of two great human hearts. Don't you see, it can exist hardly a moment, until it is adjusted to all time—until its relation to eternity is firmly established? When that comes, the world has another beautiful centre of pure energy to look at and admire and aspire to. And the spirit of such a union never dies, but goes on augmenting until it becomes a great river in the world.

"It is very clear to me," he went on, trying to fight the shadows, "that something like this must happen before great world-forces come into being. First, the two happy ones learn that love is giving. Their love goes on and on into a bigger thing than love for each other, and becomes love for the race. That's the greater glory. Avatars have that. The children of real lovers have such a chance for that vaster spirit! Indeed, you can almost always trace a great man's lineage back to some lustrous point of this kind."

Beth regarded him deeply for a moment. She could not adjust him to commonness. She was suffering. Bedient saw only the mystic light of that suffering. He had never loved her as at this moment.

"I always wish I could paint you, as you look when you are thinking about such things!" she said. "Just as you looked when you spoke about two people who have illumined each other, so that they turn their great anguish of loving upon the race.... Yes, I see it: prophets might indeed come from that kind of love."

Beth worked with uncommon energy for many minutes. All-forgetting—time, place, tension and the man near. Her spirit was strangely sustained under his eyes. The work flew, and left little traces of its processes in her mind—her concentration was deeper than memory.

* * * * *

"I'd like to ride with you," he said, rising to leave.

Beth had often spoken of her saddle-horse, which of late had been kept at her mother's country place. Bedient rented a very good mount in New York, but Beth remarked that her own had spoiled her for all others, adding that he would say so, too, if he could see Clarendon, the famous black she rode.

"I can't afford to keep him in the city long at a time," she explained. "Oh, it's not what he costs, but he's a devourer of daylight.... It breaks up half a day to get to the stables and change and all, and I haven't tried to ride after dark. We poor paint creatures are so dependent upon light for our work.... And yet riding adds to good health—just the right sparkle in my case."

"And that's royalty," Bedient declared.

Beth was thinking. He had spoken of riding with her before. He had been singularly appealing this day. Trouble had filled his eyes at the first sight of her, and she had felt his struggle with it.... Her mother had asked to see him, but there wasn't a good mate for Clarendon in or about Dunstan, where her home was.... She was so worn, mind and nerve and spirit, that the thought of a long ride lured strongly. She knew he would be different. Perhaps he might show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was not identified with commonness.... He might bring the talk to the point of—Beth thrilled at this. She was far from ready, and yet with him before her, Wordling and the sea were remote and soundless.

"Could you get the good mare you ride—across to Jersey?"

"Yes," he said eagerly. "I could send a man over with her—a day ahead."

This was Thursday.

"I'll ride with you Saturday," she said finally. "You get your horse over to Dunstan Friday—to-morrow—and we'll start from here early Saturday morning. A day in the hills—and supper at night in my real home!"

She had never seen him so pleased, but Beth was a little startled at herself when she considered yesterday.... He was always so different when he came, from the creation of her mind when alone, and the doubts flew in and out. Then the little sacred book he had brought—so powerfully fathomed and marked—it was like bringing his youth to her, with all its thoughts and wanderings. He was particularly attractive to her in these little things, and she missed not a phase of such impulses. He delighted to see them in her house, he said, and she knew they had been his riches in the years of loneliness and wandering.... Far back in her faculties, however, the battle was furious and constant. Every faltering advance of faith was met and assailed.

"I thank you," he said. "In fact, I can't thank you.... What a day it will be for me to live over.... There's a little thing that needs doing. It will take me away for three or four days next week."

Beth almost laughed. She caught the laugh of mockery in time. The ride just arranged seized and held her attention, like some baleful creature. There was abomination about it, to her thoughts—the ease with which he had managed, her abject softness.... She was trembling within, all her resistance settling, straining, like a tree before the final stroke of the axe. Her hands trembled crazily and were cold.... She had given her word; yes, they would ride together. She could not evade his eyes, his question, if she refused now.... He must not see that she was whipped.... But she would not see him after that. He could not come back to her from the Wordling arms. She would not see him to-morrow. But the picture——

She had turned from the easel to her desk, and was fumbling with papers there, her back turned to him. A half minute had passed since his last word... One word came from her:

"Yes?"

She had meant it to sound as if spoken absently, as if she were preoccupied in search for a certain paper. Instead it was an eldritch note in the room, like the croak of an evil bird... He was standing near the outer door. Something of her tumult must have come to him, she thought, for his voice was strangely altered when he asked:

"Will three or four days make any difference about the picture?"

... She would not see him again. He could not come back here to-morrow nor afterward. He must go away now... She thought of her wail to the Grey One that he would not go to the ocean with Wordling... It meant nothing to him; she could not punish him by keeping him away... But the picture—that final inner lustre. It had come to her this morning—what havoc in the memory—and she had seen it that day in the great gallery before his Race Mother, but had been unable quite to hold it in mind until the working light of the following day... She must not add to her own punishment, after all her care and labor, by failing in the last touch. And yet he must not come again...

"The picture, did you say?"

He repeated his question.

"Why, the picture is practically done," she said. "I'll sign and deliver it to-morrow. I think it will get to you to-morrow. The long, ridiculously long, preliminary work gave me the modelling, as well as I could have it.... This weather makes one think of the ocean or the mountains——"

She had forgotten this gray day of winds. Her sentence, and the design of it, had been founded upon the recent run of superb spring days.

"There's a little thing that needs doing by the ocean—that's why I go." His words seemed to come from a distance.

"It would not do for you to look at the picture here. You'd feel expected to say something pretty—or most would. I want it out of its work-light, then you can judge and send it back if it's bad. I'll try to have it at the Club to-morrow.... You did not know this was the final sitting, did you?"

She was talking feverishly, in fear of his questions. She knew it must sound strange and unreasonable to his mind.

"No," he said gently. "You always surprise me. And the ride—Saturday?"

"Yes, the ride.... We must start——"

"Early?"

"Yes. We'll meet—at the Thirty-fourth Street boat—at seven."

"I thank you. And good-by."

There was something amazing to her in his capacity not to question. In her weakness she was grateful almost to tears. She would not show him her hurt, but crossed the room hastily, and extended her hand with a brave smile.... Listening, she heard him descend the stairs.... Then from the front window, she saw him reach the street, turn to the Avenue and mingle with men.

It was not like yesterday in the little room. That agony had worn her too much for another such crisis.... The thought fascinated, that there must be some hidden meaning to the queer promise she had been impelled to make—to ride with him Saturday.... The parting, his instant comprehension of some mood of hers, in which words had no place; his sad smile, and the look of gratitude when she came forward; his seeming content with all her decisions; his inability to question or ask favors—all these retained a remarkable hold upon her imagination. And even though, to her eyes, he stood as one fallen, there was poise in his presence.... Something about him brought back her dreams, whether or no, with all their ecstasy and dread. Already she was thinking of him—as one gone; and yet the studio seemed mystic with his comings and goings and gifts.... It came to her how her lips had quivered under his eyes, as she went forward to say good-by.... It was not three or four days, but "good-by," indeed.

* * * * *

Though she would have put the black mark of misery upon it, this was one of the greatest of Beth Truba's days. She had come into the world with a great faith to bestow—and some dreadful punishment, it seemed, made her bear it alone. It had long ached within to be given. It shamed her that she could not. With all her intellect, all her world-habit of mind, she believed that Andrew Bedient had fallen greatly—greatly, because he had shown himself so clean and wise. She granted to herself nothing but a thrilling admiration for him in his higher moments, but still she was associated with this fall, because she had permitted him to come to her, almost at will. And she had not been enough for him—what poison in that thought!

Yet, the unseen Shadowy Sister endeavored to restore her faith again and again, and garland the Wanderer with it....

Every instant of passing daylight harried her with the thought of the work yet to do. It might prove much—and to-morrow—the thought came with heaviness and darkening—the portrait must go to him. And the day after—he would go.... She dreaded to look at the picture now. Many touches of love, she had put upon it. Her highest thinking it had called, as his words had done. It had even stimulated her to an old dream of really great work. Beth Truba had long put that away.

The rapt look in his eyes; the rapt smile upon his lips when he spoke of his great theme; just to paint that, would be greatness. Just to put it once upon the canvas, that would be enough. It would show that she had seen more than man—deeper than flesh. One song, one picture, one book, is enough for any artist. She had always said that....

These thoughts stilled and softened her spirit—held her moveless in the centre of the room; but again the world returned, with all its play upon her finished intelligence.... He had not found her sufficient to restrain him from this ocean episode; and pride uprose—a vindictive burning that scorched full-length.

"He is very brave and evolved," she whispered bitterly, "but the man within him was not to be denied.... Wordling has that.... God, it seems as if there is nothing of that—in red-haired Beth Truba!... No, he must run off to the ocean, quite as if he had been a poor, impatient boy, like the Other!"

Her face crimsoned. The shame and agony of the thought brought her to her knees before the picture she had painted.

"And perhaps it is my fault," she whispered desperately. "Perhaps I have asked too much, and waited too long. Perhaps they see—what I do not—and women lie—and I only think I feel! Perhaps I am weathered and inflexible, and hard and old and cold, and they know, and become afraid!"

But there was stern denial in the face before her—reproach in the eyes she had made of paint.... In her terror before these thoughts, which struck home in the hour of her weakness, the art of the thing suddenly prevailed—good work, the valiant rescuer.... She remembered how her presence had aroused the giant in the Other. Her spell had done that. She had felt the crush of his arms, and queer fires had laughed across her brain. Then she fell again with the thought, that even that had not sufficed. Her pride had sent him away even after that—his laugh, his Greek beauty, his passion and all.... And now it came to her with fierce reality, that should the Other ever return, it would only make these later hours and later memories burn the deeper.... A temptation came to hold Bedient—as a woman could—to keep him from going to another woman, but her eyes fell with swift shame from the picture.

"I have not made you common—how can I be common with you?" she cried. "Oh, why could you not always remember your best, you, who have helped others so?"

The light, though gray, was still strong. Fixed upon the canvas, as she had never seen it before, was a revelation of one of those high moments which had exalted Vina Nettleton, and changed David Cairns in the whole order of his being. She almost listened for him to speak of the natural greatness of women.

"But you are forgetting those higher moments," she whispered. "That's the way with men and boys—to forget—to run away for the little things beside the ocean——"

But the face denied; the face was of purity. It regarded her steadily in her long watching—a fixture of poise, happiness assured.... Then the need of haste and work, left deep in her mind, arose to the surface with a strong and sudden urging—the delivery to-morrow. Her heart, her flesh, her soul, all were at war and weary unto death. It was hideous to attempt to touch it again that day; yet to-morrow an evil light ... and now came the full realization of a remarkable fact.

The final inner lustre was there. The thing she had long been afraid to do, save in the exact perfect moment, was done. That Something of his was before her, its lifting valor not to be denied....

It was just before he had asked her to ride, she recalled now. An elate concentration had held her while she painted. She had not spoken; she had hardly known the world about her. It had been too big to leave a memory.... It was done. It pleaded for him. It was like the Shadowy Sister pleading for him. Swiftly, she signed the work. It was his. That was hard.

...In the veil of dusk she was still kneeling, her face ghastly with waiting.... And not until pride intervened again, and prevailed upon her to see him no more, after the last ride together, did she find some old friendly tears, almost as remote from the days she now lived, as Florentine springtimes of student memory.



TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

Bedient arose at four on Saturday morning and looked out of his high window. June had come. The smell of rain was not in the air. He was grateful and drew up a chair, facing the East. The old mystery of morning unfolded over sea, and there was no blemish.... Bedient had not slept, nor during the two preceding nights. While the abundance of his strength was not abated, deep grooves (that came to abrupt blind endings) were worn in his mind from certain thoughts, and he was conscious of his body, which may be the beginning of weariness; conscious, too, of a tendency of his faculties to mark time over little things.

Yesterday the picture had come. He had hoped hard against this. Its coming had brought to him a sense of separateness from the studio, that he tried not to dwell upon in mind, but which recurred persistently.... He could not judge a portrait of himself; yet he knew this was wonderful. Beth had caught him in an animate moment, and fixed him there. Her fine ideal had put on permanence.... "Hold fast to a soul-ideal of your friend," he remembered telling her once, "and you help him to build himself true to it. If your ideal is rudely broken, you become one of the disintegrating forces at work upon him."

He keenly felt the disorder in his relation to Beth. The thought that held together, against all others, was that Beth loved some one, just now out of her world. He wished she could see into his mind about this; instantly, he would have helped her; his dearest labor, to restore her happiness.

He had never been confident of winning. He loved far too well, and held Beth too high, ever to become familiar in his thoughts of her as a life companion. Power lived in her presence for him; great struggles and conquerings. He loved every year she had lived; every hour of life that had brought her to this supremacy of womanhood before which he bowed, was precious to him. In this instance he was myopic. He did not see Beth Truba as other women, and failed to realize this. His penetration faltered before her, for she lived and moved in the brilliant light of his love, blended with it, so that her figure, and her frailties, lost all sharpness of contour.

He had suffered in the past three days and nights. He was proud and glad to suffer. There was no service nor suffering that he would have hesitated to accept for Beth Truba.... This day amazed him in prospect, one of her beautiful gifts to him. It was almost as if she had come to his house, lovely, unafraid, and sat laughing before his fire. One of the loftiest emotions, this sense of companionship with her. There was something of distinct loveliness in every hour they had passed together. Not one of their fragrances had he lost. These memories often held him, like mysterious gardens.

...Bedient paced the big area in front of the ferry entrance long before seven. He saw her the instant she stepped from the cross-town car. The day was momentarily brightening, yet something of the early morning red was about her. His throat tightened at sight of her radiant swiftness. Her eyes were deeper, her lips more than ever red.... On the deck of the ferry, before the start, she said:

"I feel as if we were escaping from somewhere, and could not tolerate a moment's delay."

...At ten o'clock they were in the saddle, and Dunstan was far behind. The morning, as perfect as ever arose in Northern summer; the azure glorified with golden light, and off to the South, a few shining counterpanes of cloud lay still. The half had not been told about Beth's Clarendon, a huge rounded black, with a head slightly Roman, and every movement a pose. He was skimp of mane and tail; such fine grain does not run to hair. While there was sanity and breeding in his steady black eye, every look and motion suggested "too much horse" for a woman. Yet Beth handled him superbly, and from a side-saddle. Clarendon had in his temper, that gift of show aristocrats—excess of life, not at all to be confused with wickedness—which finds in plain outdoors and decent going, plentiful stimulus for top endeavor and hot excitement.

"I've had him long," Beth said, "and though he has sprung from a walk to a trot countless times without a word from me, he has yet to slow down of his own accord. He can do his twelve miles an hour, and turn around and do it back.... You see how he handles—for me."

She delighted in his show qualities, rarely combined with such excellent substance. She showed his gaits, but rode a trot by preference. Bedient, who had a good mare, laughed joyously when his mount was forced into a run to keep abreast. Clarendon, without the slightest show of strain, had settled to his trot.... All Bedient's thinking and imaging during the years alone, of the woman he should some time find, had never brought him anything so thrilling as this slightly flushed profile of Beth's now. What an anchorage of reality she was, after years of dream-stuff—a crown of discoveries, no less—and what an honor, her gift of companionship! He felt an expansion of power, and strength to count this day great with compensation, should the future know only the interminable dull aching of absence and distance.

Bedient had started to speak of the picture, but she bade him wait.... As they rode along a country road, they came to an old ruin of a farm-house, surrounded by huge barns, some new, and all in good repair. A little beyond was a calf tied to a post. It was lying down, its legs still being largely experimental—a pitifully new calf, shapeless and forlorn.

The mother was nowhere around. Sick in some far meadow, perhaps, sick of making milk for men.

"That's a veal calf," Beth said.

The note in her voice called his eyes. Something which the sight suggested was hateful to her. Bedient dismounted and led his chestnut mare up to the little thing, which stared, tranced in hope and fear. The mare dropped her muzzle benignantly. She understood and became self-conscious and uncomfortable. One of a group of children near the farmhouse behind them called:

"Show off! Show off!"

"They sell its rightful food," Beth said, "and feed the poor little thing on cheaper stuff until it hardens for the butcher. Men are so big with their business."

"There are veal calves tied to so many posts on the world's highway," Bedient said slowly.

"When I was younger," Beth went on, "and used to read about the men who had done great creative things, I often found that they had to keep away from men and crowds, lest they perish from much pitying, dissipate their forces in wide, aimless outpourings of pity, which men and the systems of men called from them. Then—this was long ago—I used to think this a silly affectation, but I have come to understand."

"Of course, you would come to understand," Bedient said.

"Men who do great things are much alone," she continued. "They become sensitive to sights and sounds and odors—they are so alive, even physically. The downtown man puts on an armor. He must, or could not stay. The world seethes with agony—for him who can see."

"That is what made the sacrifice of the Christ," Bedient declared. "Every day—he died from the sights on the world's highway——"

They looked back.

"It was not the Cross and the Spear, but the haggard agony of His Face that night on Gethsemane that brings to me the realization of the greatness of His suffering," he added.

"And the disciples were too sleepy to watch and pray with him——"

"How gladly would the women have answered His need for human companionship that night!" he exclaimed. "But it was not so ordained. It was His hour alone, the most pregnant hour in the world's history."

They reached the crest of a fine hill at noon, and dismounted in the shade of three big elms. They could see small towns in the valley distances, and the profile of hilltop groves against the sky. The slopes of the hill wore the fresh green of June pasture lands; and three colts trotted up to the fence, nickering as they came.... Beth was staring away Westward through the glorious light. Bedient came close to her; she felt his eyes upon her face, turned and looked steadily into them. She was the first to look down. Beth had never seen his eyes in such strong light, nor such power of control, such serenity, such a look of inflexible integrity.... She did not like that control. It was not designed in the least to take away the hate and burning which for three days had warred against the best resistance of her mind.

That cool lofty gaze was her portion. Another—on the shore—ignited the fires. A devil within—for days and nights—had goaded her: "Yes, Beth Truba, red haired and all that, but old and cold, just the same, and strange to men."

"I've wanted this day," he said. "It was some need deeper than impulse. I wanted it just this way: A hill like this, shade of great trees that whispered, distant towns and woods, horses neighing to ours. Something more ancient and authoritative than the thing we call Memory, demanded it this way. Why, I believe we have stood together before."

Beth smiled, for the goading devil had just whispered to her, "You were a vestal virgin doubtless—oh, severely chaste!"... She said, "You believe then we have come up through 'a cycle of Cathay'?"

"If I had heard your name, just your name, over there in India," he replied thoughtfully, "it would have had some deep meaning for me."

"The 'cycle of Cathay' wasn't enough to cure you?"

He turned quickly, but didn't smile. "I think there was always some distance between us, that we were never equal, a difference like that between Clarendon and the chestnut. Only you were always above me, and it was the better, the right way. Beth——"

She looked up.

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't tell you how great you are to me—just that—asking nothing?"

"We are both grown-ups," she answered readily. "You won't mind if I find it rather hard to believe—I mean, my greatness. You like my riding and the portrait——"

"I can judge your riding. As for the picture, it is an inspiration, though I cannot judge that so well. But it is not those——"

"And what then, pray?"

"Beth Truba."

"A tired old artist whom nobody knows—really."

"I wish you wouldn't say that," he declared earnestly. "There is nothing alive this moment, nothing in the great sun's light, that has put on such a glory of maturity. Why, you are concentrated sunlight—to me!"

"That's very pretty," she said, and turned a glance into his eyes.... The same cool deeps were there, though his face held a singular happiness. She wondered if it were because she had not forbade him to speak. Did he think she was ready, and that her heart was free?

There was no one on the sloping hill-road, either to the right or left, and only the colts in the meadows. A good free thing—this elimination of human beings—though at this height, they stood in the very eye of the country-side. The chestnut mare was cropping the young grass by the edge of the highway, but there were matters for Clarendon to understand—far distances and movements not for human eyes. The colts racing up and down the hill-fence were beneath his notice. The great arched neck was lifted for far gazing and listening, and that which came to his foreign senses, caused him to snort softly from time to time....

Beth rode without hat. Her arms were bare to the elbows; her gray silk waist open at the throat. She stretched out her arms, and the sunlight, cut by the high elm boughs, fell upon her like a robe, woven of shimmerings. She seemed to want her full portion of vitality from the great upbuilding day.

"It's strong medicine—this high noon of June," she said. "One feels like unfolding as flowers do."

And then came over him—over all his senses—something flower-like in scent, yet having to do with no particular flower. It dilated his nostrils, but more than that, all his senses awoke to the strange charm of it.... The distance between them was gone that instant. Though it may have endured for ages and ages, it was gone. He had overtaken her.... A haunting influence; and yet of magic authority! Was it the perfume of the lotos and the bees? It was more than that. It was the sublimate of all his bewitchings—chaste mountains, dawns, the morning glow upon great heights, the flock of flying swans red with daybreak; more still, all the petals of the Adelaide passion restored in one drop of fragrance, and lifted, a different fragrance, the essence of a miracle! This was the perfume that came from her life, from her arms and throat and red mouth....

It was new out of the years. All his strangely guarded strength arose suddenly animate. A forgotten self had come back to him, all fresh and princely out of long enchantment.... And there she stood with face averted awaiting this Return!... This was the mysterious prince who had wrought in darkness so long, the source of his dreams of woman's greatness, the energy that had driven and held him true to his ideals, the structure into which his spiritual life had been builded (was this the world's mighty illusion possessing him?), and now the prince had come, asking for his own.... And she was there, stretching out her arms.

Mighty forces awoke from sleep. They were not of his mind, but deep resolutions of all his life, forces of her own inspiring which she must gladly, gloriously obey. Was it not her love token, this electric power, as truly as his mind's ardor and his spiritual reverence?... The miracle of her life's fragrance held him.... Even desire was beautiful in a love like this. All nature trembles for the issue, when love such as his perceives the ripe red fruit of a woman's lips.... But better far not to know it at all, than to know the half.

* * * * *

And Beth was thinking of the cool depths in his eyes a moment before, and of his words, "asking nothing."... "Why asks he nothing of me?... Because I am old and cold."... Some terrific magnetism filled her suddenly, as if she had drawn vitality from great spaces of sunlight, and some flaming thing from the huge hot strength of Clarendon.... And now the goading devil whispered:

"With another he would not ask, he would take! Only you—you do not attract great passions. The source of such attraction is gone from you. Mental interests and spiritual ideals are your sphere!... Second-rate women whistle and the giants come! They know the lovers in men. You know the sedate mental gardeners and the tepid priests. How you worship that still, cool gazing in the eyes of men! Books and pictures are quite enough—for your adventures in passion. In them, you meet your great lovers—of other women. You are Beth Truba of street and studio. You can send lovers away. You can make them afraid of your tongue, strip them of all ardor with your nineteenth century bigotry.... You have so many years to waste. Empty arms are so light and cool, their veins are never scorched; they never dry with age!... Oh, red-haired Beth Truba, all the spaces of sky are laughing at you! To-morrow or next day, by the ocean, another woman will start the flames in those cool eyes of his, and feel them singing around her!... Why do you let him go? Only a nineteenth century mind with the ideas of a slave woman would let him go!... Keep him with you. Show your power. Create the giant. By no means is that the least of woman's work!"

She shuddered at such a descent.

"Would you go back and be the waiting spider forever in the yellow-brown studio, breaking your heart in the little room when some woman chooses to bring you news of men and the world? You would not descend to woman's purest prerogative?... Greater women than you shall come, and they shall avail themselves of that, and their children shall be great in the land...."

"Oh, what a world, and what a fool!" Beth said aloud.

"Why?"

She turned at his quick, imperious tone.

"I don't—I don't know. It just came!"

Beth bit her lip, and shut her eyes. There was a booming in her brain, as from cataracts and rapids. His face had made her suddenly weak, but there was something glorious in being carried along in this wild current. She had battled so long. She was no longer herself, but part of him. The face she had seen was white; the eyes dark and piercing, terrible in their concentration of power, but not terrible to her. All the magic from the sunlight had come to them. They were the eyes which command brute matter.... The Other had become a giant; this man a god.

"What a day!" she whispered.

"Let's ride on!" he said swiftly.

The horses whirled about at his word. As his hand touched hers, she felt the thrill of it, in her limbs and scalp. He lifted her to the saddle. There was something invincible in his arms. The strength he used was nothing compared to that which was reserved....

She seemed the plaything of some furious, reckless happiness.... "Asking nothing! Asking nothing!" repeated again and again in her brain. And what should he ask—and why?... Her thoughts flew by and upward—intent, but swift to vanish, like bees in high noon. Atoms of concentrated sunlight, sun-gold upon their wings.... The good hot sun, all the earth stretched out for it, and giving forth green tributes. The newest leaf and the oldest tree alike expanded with praise.... What a splendor to be out of the city and the paint and the tragedy; to have in her veins the warm brown earth and the good hot sun—and this mighty dynamo beneath! She was mad with it all, and glad it was so.

Beth raised her eyes to the dazzling vault. One cannot sit a horse so—well. She lost the rhythm of her posting, but loved the roughness of it. The heights thralled her. Up, up, into the blue and gold, she trembled with the ecstasy of the thought, like the bee princess in nuptial flight—a June day like this—up, up, until the followers had fallen back—all but two—all but one—which one?... There was a slight pull at her skirt. She turned.

He was laughing. His hand held a fold of her dress against the cantle of the saddle. She could not have fallen on the far side, and he was on this.... A sudden plunge of a mount would unseat any rider, staring straight up.... Yes, he was there!... How different the world looked—with him there. She had ridden alone so long. She dared to look at him again.

His eyes were fastened ahead. Could it be illusion—their fiery intentness? She followed his glance.... The big woods—she knew them, had ridden by them many times—how deep and green they looked!... But what was the meaning of that set, inexorable line of his profile? What was he battling? That was her word, her portion. For hours, days, years she had been battling, but not now! No longer would she be one of the veal calves tied to a post on the world's highway, to consume the pity of poor avatars!... Avatars—the word changed the whole order of her thoughts; and those which came were not like hers, but reckless ventures on forbidden ground; and, too, there was zest in the very foreignness of the thoughts: Avatars—did they not spring into being from such instants as this—high noon, vitality rising to the sun, all earth in the stillness of creation; and above, blue and gold, millions and millions of leagues of sheer happiness; and behind—put far behind for the hour—all crawling and contending creatures....

And now the yellow-brown studio would not remain behind, but swept clearly into her thinking. Something was queer about it. Yes, the havoc of loneliness and suffering was gone.... And there seemed a rustling in the far shadows of the little room. Could it be the Shadowy Sister returning? And that instant, with a realism that haunted her for years, there came—to her human or psychic sense, she could never tell—a tiny cry!... Beth almost swooned. His hand sustained ... and then she saw again his laughing face; all the intensity gone. It was carved of sunlight. Everything was sunlight.

Beth spoke to Clarendon. She would ride—show him, she needed no hand in riding. The great beast settled down to his famous trot, pulling the chestnut mare to a run. Clarendon was steady as a car; the faster his trot, the easier to ride.... She turned and watched this magician beside her; his bridle-arm lifted, the leather held lightly as a pencil; laughing, asking nothing, needing not to ask. And she was unafraid, rejoicing in his power. All fear and slavishness and rebellion, all that was bleak and nineteenth century, far behind. This was the Rousing Modern Hour—her high day.

Nearer and nearer—the big woods.... She was thinking of a wonderful little path ahead. She had never ventured in alone, a deep, leafy footpath, soft with moss and fern-embroidered.... There was no one on the road ahead, nor behind; only young corn in the sloping field on the left, and now the big woods closed in on the right, and Beth reined a little.

There was no shade upon the highway, even with the wood at hand. The horses were trampling their own shadows in this zenith hour.... She watched his eye quicken as he noted the little path.

"Ah—let's go in!" he called, pulling up.

It was her thought. "I've always wanted to, but never dared, alone," she panted, bringing Clarendon down.

Bedient dismounted, pulled the reins over the mare's head and through his arm; then held up both hands to her.... Something made her hesitate a second. He did not seem to consider her faltering.

"Oh, Beth, why should we rush in there, as if we were afraid of the light?... Come!"

She knew by his eyes what would happen; and yet she leaned forward, until his hands fitted under her arms, and her eyelids dropped against the blinding light....

"It had to be in the great sunlight—that!.... How glorious you are!"

"Please ... put me down!"

But again, he kissed her mouth, and the shut eyelids. And when her feet at last touched the earth, he caught her up again, because her figure swayed a little,—and laughed and kissed her—until the fainting passed....

* * * * *

"... And—these—were—the—great—things—you asked permission to tell me?" she said slowly, without raising her eyes.

The strange smile on her scarlet lips, and the lustrous pallor of her face, so wonderfully prevailed, that he caught her in his arms again. And they were quite alone in that mighty light, as if they had penetrated dragons-deep in an enchanted forest.

"I cannot help it. You are stronger!" she said in the same trailing, faery tone.... "And that distance—between us—that you always felt—in 'the cycle of Cathay'—you seem to have overcome that——"

"It was another century——"

"Oh——"

"And now to explore the wood!"

"But the horses, sir—"

"They will stand."

... She would not let him help, but loosened Clarendon's bridle, and slipping out the bit, put the head-straps back. Bedient shook his head.

"It may slide askew that way, and worry him more than if the bit were in," he said.

"If you command, I shall put it back."

"Let me."

"No."

Smiling, he watched her. The frail left hand parted the huge foamy jaws, and held them apart—thumb and little finger—while the other hand, behind Clarendon's ears, drew the bit home. The big fellow decently bowed his head to take the steel from her. Then she patted the mouse-colored muzzle, and gave the reins to the man, who, much marvelling, tethered the two horses together.

Then they set forth into the wood.



TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER

A PARABLE OF TWO HORSES

They were nearing Dunstan on the way back. The light had flattened out, and the little town was stretching its shadows. They were silent.... Beth was trying to fit this day to days that had gone, but it was hard. This had a brightness apart from them, but it seemed to her now that the brightness was gone with the sun. She was tired—and alone. The thoughts in her mind had brought the sense of separateness.

She must soon know from him, if the day had served her end. She thought of her temptation in the studio—to hold him from the ocean, as a woman might, as a Wordling might. She had not needed quite to do that, merely to let herself go. The glorious lover in him had done more than she dreamed, in making her Beth of the bestowals, this day.

In the sunlight, she had been one with him. Rather startlingly it came to her now, that she could have asked anything then. But in those incomparable moments of the high day, there had been nothing to ask. How strange this was to her! How utterly had they put all commonness behind.

She trembled at the thought of another woman rousing that lover in him, looking upon the miracle she had evoked. She could not bear it, nor could she suffer him to know this thought of hers.

They were riding down into the town. Brightenings from the West were still upon the upper foliage of the trees, but vague dusk had fallen between their faces. His features were white and haggard.... She was afraid to ask him now. She would wait for the darkness. Had he heard a tremble in her voice, Bedient would have caught her bridle-rein and searched her face.

She clucked. Clarendon, with stables just ahead, was only too eager.... Bedient rejoined her after turning over his horse, and making the change of clothes. Beth met him at the gate of her mother's house and there was a smile in the evening light.

They did not sit opposite at supper. Bedient studied the little mother at the head of the table, but with a fear in his heart. A sense of disaster had come to him at the end of the ride. He knew nothing of what had formed about the short sea journey in Beth's mind; he could not have believed from her own lips that she had been tempted to hold him with passion. He would have expected faith from her, had some destroying tale come to her ears. He did not realize the effect upon others, of his aptness to ignore all explanation. Especially in this seagoing affair, he had nothing to say. It was not his way to discuss his adventures into the happiness of others.... Beth felt his reserve instinctively, a reason why it had been impossible for her to show him the document of disorder.

The talk at the supper table had to do with the portrait she had painted. Beth never forgot some of Bedient's sentences.... Then she told him about the new life of the Grey One; of the latter's call on Wednesday, with the great news about Torvin, and of the telephone message yesterday.

"More buyers have been to her studio," Beth said. "You see, Torvin can do anything. A whisper from him and they buy. The Grey One has disposed of several of her little things at her vogue prices——"

"I'm glad," said Bedient.

"It came in the nick of time. It means more than money or pictures. Margie Grey has won her race."

"I understand," he added.

After supper, they walked together outside. With her whole heart Beth prayed that the day had changed him from going. She had put off until the last moment any talk that would bring his answer. And now walking with him in the darkness, she thought strangely of her parting with the Other. All was forgotten save that moment of parting; all the old intimacies had dropped from mind, banished by the sunlit god she had met this day.... Bedient's defect would be quite as intrinsic as the Other's—if he went to Wordling now. She could have forgiven a boyish carelessness in either, but Beth could not forgive in any man that unfinished humanity which has a love-token for the obviously common and sensuous.... She was ill with terror and tension. And how pitifully human she was! A greater faith or a lesser strength would have saved her. Beth failed in the first. It was her madness; her mortal enemy—this pride.

"I doubt if there could be such another day of June," she observed at last, wondering if he caught the hard note in her voice.... This would bring his word. She would cry aloud with happiness—if the day had changed him.

"To-morrow——" he answered. "Beth, is there anything to prevent to-morrow——?"

"Riding together?"

"Yes."

"Not to-morrow. The horses had better rest a day. We must have done twenty-five miles to-day.... But early next week——"

She had turned away, as one averts the face from disaster. Even had she not turned from him, it was too dark to see his queer troubled smile, as he said:

"Monday, I go away. It's that ocean matter. Three days will finish it, I'm sure."

So this was her answer. Beth of the bestowals had not prevailed. This was the inner uprooting. Love-lady she had been—love-lady of thrilling arts this day—and yet his determination to go to the other was not altered.... She would not show him tears of rage and jealousy. She would not see him again. She meant to show him that the day had not stormed her heart of hearts. Her spirit was torn, and she was not above hurting him.... "Three days will finish it, I'm sure." To her the sentence had the clang of a prison door.... It was through the Other that she proceeded now.... How he had struck her through another!....

They had walked for some time through the evergreens. His listening had become like a furious draught, her brain burning intensely beneath it. It had been hard for her to begin, but that was over.... "It was not until to-day that there was any need to tell you," she was saying. "You were inspiring in other ways. I would have been stupid, indeed, not to have seen that, but somehow you seemed remote from everyday habiliments and workday New York—somehow inseparable from silences—until to-day—when you came singing Invictus. You did not let me tell you—out there—in the sunlight. You didn't let me think of telling you.... You mustn't judge me always so susceptible——"

She halted, lost for an instant in the emptiness.

"Please tell me about him," Bedient said.

"Why, he was only a working boy when he first came to our house—here," she went on. "I was just back from Paris—after years. I remember with what a shock of surprise I noted the perfection of his face. The angle was absolutely correct as the old Hellenic marbles, and to every curve was that final warmth which stone can only distantly suggest. Then he was tall, but so light and lithe——"

She knew he would not fail to see the flaw here—the artistic taint. She had heard him deplore the worship of empty line, saying that nature almost invariably travesties it.

"I was hasty, then, in my conclusion to-day," he said, questioning, "when I asked if there was any reason why I should not tell you how great you are to me?"

"It did not seem the time to tell you," she answered quickly. "I was wrong, but—it was not wrong to him! Please don't think that! I sent him away."

"Oh, I see better—thank you. And now go on, Beth, please——"

"You see, he was my work——"

Beth's mother now called from the front door. She was going upstairs and would say good-night to Mr. Bedient.

"Go to her," Beth whispered. "I shall see her later."

... And now she stood alone by the gate, her mind seething. Forces within falteringly implored her to go no further. She found in his few brief questions that old fidelity to truth that had been one of his first charms. This helped to unsteady her. Was she not wrong to judge this man by the standards the world had made her accept for others?... The day came back. Why had Wordling been so far from her mind out there in the sunlight? Radiant with health, thrilling with mysteries, in the summit of her womanhood, she had been above fear, and he above evil. The Shadowy Sister, too, had gone forth to meet him, majestic and unashamed. What spell was that which had come over her, a perfect vein-dilation in the brilliant light? Why, it had seemed to her that she could feel the pulse of flower-stems, and paint the nervous systems of the bees. Painting—what a pitiful transaction was art (in the divine stimulus at that hour) compared to the supernal happiness of evolved motherhood! And what exquisite homage had he shown her! And the long talk, his mind crowded with pictures like memories of a world-voyage! Again and again, there had come over her, some inner uplift, as if she were rising upon a wave.... She heard his tones now, as he spoke to her mother on the porch, and his gentleness throughout recurred.

The Other had gone from her world, and now he was going. Her mind shrank from the new and utter desolation.... The night seemed closing about her, as she stood beside the gate. Like some great foreign elemental, it was, until she was near to screaming, and perceived herself captive to madness—a broken-nerved creature in a strange place, stifling among aliens, undone in the torment of strange stars.... And, another, the ancient terror to strong women, now fell upon her, to show Beth Truba how mighty she was to suffer. The sense of her own fruitlessness drove home to her breast, of living without solution, realizing that all her fluent emotions, lovely ideals, all her sympathies, dreams and labors, should end with her own tired hands; that she must know the emptiness of every aspiration, while half-finished women everywhere were girdled with children.... He was coming toward her.

That instant, a merciful blankness fell upon her mind. Out of the fury and maiming, her consciousness seemed lifted to some cool blackness. There was just one vague, almost primal, instinct, such as a babe must feel—the need to be taken in his arms. The wall between them would have fallen had Bedient done that, but nothing was further from his thoughts. He, too, was groping in terrible darkness. Her spirit was lost to him.... There was no moonlight, so he could not discern the anguish of her face, and the sense of her suffering blended with his own.... A very wise woman has said that it isn't a woman's mysteries which dismay and mislead a man, but her contradictions.

"And now tell me the rest, Beth," he said quickly, looking down into the pale blur which was her face. "I must know."

She shivered slightly. She was dazed. Hatred for the moment, hatred for self and the world, for him, imperiously pinning her to the old sorrow; his failure to make a child of her, as a lover of less integrity might have done—it was all a sickening botch, about Wordling's pretty taunting face. She had not the strength of faculty to tear down and build again the better way.

"You were telling me that he was your work—of his face and all," Bedient whispered.

"Oh, yes.... Oh, yes, and you went away——"

"Yes," he said strangely.

"I must have been dreaming.... It hurt me so—he hurt me so. I remember——"

And now a cold gray light dawned in her brain, and the old story cleared—the old worn grooves were easily followed.

"Yes."

"But I—perhaps—I was inexorable." There was something eerie in that touch which held her for an instant.

"But you started to tell me more about him, I'm sure, at first," Bedient said. The idea in his brain needed this.

"I helped him in his studies," she answered angrily. There was something morbid to her in Bedient's intensity. "I helped him in the world, or friends of mine did. Yes, I made his way among men until he could stand alone. And he did, quickly. He was bright. Even his refinements of dress and manner and English—I undertook at the beginning."

Half-dead she had fallen into the old current, not comprehending a tithe of his suffering.

"Oh, I put love into it!" she said dully. "I thought it the most glorious work I ever did."

"You tell me wonderfully about yourself, Beth, with these few sentences.... There is nothing finer in my comprehension than the mother-spirit in the maid which makes her love the boy or the man whom she lifts and inspires."

The cool idealist had returned. Beth did not welcome him.

"I believe that every achievement which lifts a man above his fellows is energized by some woman's outpouring heart. She bestows brave and beautiful things of her own, working in the dark, until the hour of his test, as those fine straws of the Tropics are woven under water——"

"And what mockery to find," she finished coldly, "after you have woven and woven, that the fabric finally brought to light is streaky and imperfect."

Bedient's business of the moment was to learn if she were right in being as she said, "inexorable"; if she did not sometimes think that a finely-human heart might have come since to that flashing exterior, which had filled the girlish eyes. He could only draw from the whole savage darkness that the Other still lived in her heart.

"But he will not stay forgotten—is that it, Beth?"

Into the cold gray light of her mind, came a curious parable that had occurred to her, as they started out to ride this morning, before the great moments of high noon. And thus she related it to Bedient in the hatred which filled her, last of all from his imperturbable coolness:

"I saddled a great deal, even as a girl. In New York, years ago, the desire came to possess a horse of my own. I bought a beautiful bay colt, pure saddle-bred, rare to look upon; but something always went wrong with him. He galled, threw a shoe and went lame, stumbled, invariably did the unexpected, and often the dangerous, thing. Truly he was brand new every morning. I worried as if he were a child, but I wasn't the handler for him; he spoiled in my care; yet how I loved that colt—the first. He might have killed me, had I kept him.... It was over a year before I had the heart to buy again—Clarendon—big, courageous, swifter than the other, splendid in strength, yet absolutely reliable in temper. Day after day, in all roads and weathers, he never failed nor fell—until——"

Beth halted. The parable faltered here. She foresaw a dangerous question, and finished it true to Clarendon.

"Until——" Bedient repeated.

"Until now—and you have seen him to-day," she said hastily. "Always he seems to be aiming at improvement with eager, unabated energy. In many ways, it was hard for me to realize that a horse could be so noble.... And yet I gave to the first something that I didn't have for the second. Something that belonged to the second, was gone from me——"

A moment passed. Beth glanced into Bedient's face, but the darkness was too deep for her to see. When he spoke, it was as steadily as ever:

"I understand clearly, Beth. I should say, don't do the first an injustice. It was those very uncertainties of his, those coltish frights and tempers, that made you so perfect a mistress of the second, for you invariably bring forth the best from the second."

Something big came to her from the utterance. But nothing of the truth—that his heart had just received a death-thrust to its love-giving.... He had left his gloves in the house. He asked for a cup of water.... It was strange—his asking for anything. She could remember only, besides this, his wish expressed that she might ride with him. He had asked nothing this day. And it was a cup of water now.... They were in the lamplight, and he had drunk.... She was standing by the table, and he at the door waiting for her to lift her eyes.... Suddenly she felt, through the silence, his great strength pouring over her.

She looked up at last. There was a dazzling light in his eyes, as if some wonderful good to do had formed in his mind.

"Beth, was he the Other Man—who rested for one day on the mantel in the studio?"

"Yes."... The question shocked her. She could not have believed that it was harder for him to ask, than for her to answer....

He came nearer. Like a spirit he came.... He seemed very tall and tired and white.... Her hand was lifted to his lips, but when she turned, he was gone.

Beth did not shut the door.... The sound of a shut door must not be the last so strange a guest should hear. Beth was cold. She could hardly realize....

Bedient turned and saw the light streaming out upon the porch. She was not visible, but her shadow stood forth upon the boards, arms strangely uplifted. The mortal within him was outraged, because he did not turn back—into that open door.



III

EQUATORIA

Allegro Scherzo



TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER

BEDIENT FOR THE PLEIAD

Bedient dreamed:

He was sitting in the dark, in a high, still place; and at last (through a rift in the far mountains), a faint ghost appeared, waveringly white. Just a shimmering mist, at first, but it steadied and brightened, until the snowy breast of old God-Mother was configured in the midst of her lowly brethren on the borders of Kashmir.... And just as he was about to enter into the great peace, his consciousness beginning to wing with cosmic sweep, the rock upon which he sat started to creak and stir, and presently he was rolled about like a haversack in a heaving palanquin.

Thus he awoke, tossed in his berth aboard the Hatteras—and a gale was on. The ship, Southward bound, was far off the cape for which she was named, asking only wide sea-room, to take the big rollers with easy grace.

Bedient had not slept long. He had not slept for two consecutive hours during the past ten days. From the open door of her mother's house in Dunstan his whole life had felt the urge to India. But that could not be. It had the look of running away.

The little ocean matter had been happily ended.... The exact impulse to tell David Cairns of his intention to return to Equatoria, and the moment for it, had not offered, so Bedient had parted from his friend, as one going to a different room for the night. Nor had he seen Mrs. Wordling, the Grey One, Kate Wilkes or Vina Nettleton since the last ride; though for the latter, he left a page of writing she had asked.

Beth he had tried to see, four days after their parting in Dunstan, but she was not at her studio, nor with her mother. He did not seek further.

Bedient felt that he was needed in Equatoria, but there was another reason for his sudden return, than attention to the large financial interests. Though his home was there, Equatoria had no imperious call for him that his inner nature answered.... Only India had that. The very name was like water to a fevered throat. They would know in India. Old Gobind had always known:

"You will learn to look within for the woman. You would not find favor in finding her without. It is not for you—the red desire of love."

How he had rebelled against the authority of those sentences, but his respect for the deep vision of Gobind was complete. Moreover, the old Sannyasin had said he was not to return to India until he was ready to give up the body. No sense of the physical end had come to him, even in his darkest hour. There was much for him to do, and in New York, but the pith was gone from him. His desolation made the idea of returning to New York one of the hardest things he had ever faced. He had thought of Beth Truba in his every conception of service. She inspired a love which held him true to every ideal of woman, and kept the ideals flaming higher. And what form she had brought to his concepts! In expressing himself to her, direct world-values had attached to his thoughts. Through her he had seen the ways of work. Every hour, he blessed her in his heart—again and again; and every hour, the anguish deepened.

But work had a different look. Darkness covered his dreams of service. He was torn down; some great vitality was disintegrating. His projects would be carried out; he would continue to give, and continue to produce the things to give—but the heart, the love of giving, the spirit of outpouring to men—these were gone from him. There was a certain emptiness in following the old laws of his fuller nature. To give and serve now, was like obeying the commands of the dead. He had never turned to the past before. He would have been the first to tell another—that one who looks to his past for the sanction of some act of the present, has reached the end of growth.

Bedient could not lie to himself. He wanted to run away. He wanted to sit at the knees of some old Gobind. Never since the night his mother had taken him in her arms, had he so needed to lean.... Yes. he had failed to find favor—in finding the woman.

And now came to him the inevitable thought, and not without savagery to one of his nature: Was his high theme of uplift for women stimulated from the beginning by his need of a human mate? Was it a mere man-passion, which had charmed all his thoughts of women, from a boy? Was this the glow which had illuminated his work in the world, during the maturing silences of the Punjab? Was it physical, and not spiritual—this love of all women, until he had come into his love of one? And must he lose the broader love—in missing the love of one?

The answer lay dark in his consciousness. Ways to bring happiness to women had come to him, but to carry them out now was mere obedience to the old galvanism. He faced this realization with deadly shame....

"You will learn to look within for the woman." And what was left within? In a kind of desperation, Bedient turned to this inventory. The old faith of the soul in God, in the Son, and in the Blessed Mother-Spirit still stood, apart and above the wreckage, unassailed. This was Light.

In these furious days of disintegration Bedient's soul-faith was not brought to test. A woman's might have fallen with her love.... But the mighty passionate being, that was roused to commanding actions in that high sunlit hour, died slowly and with agonies untellable.

The Hatteras steamed out of the gale, as she had done out of many another, in the same riotous stretch of sea-water. Bedient had become known aboard from his association with Captain Carreras. It was during the first dinner of the voyage that certain interesting information transpired from the conversation of Captain Bloom.

"Insurrection was smoking down there when we left ten days ago. We expected to hear in New York that the shooting had begun. Celestino Rey very nearly got a body-blow over, while we were hung up in port before the last trip up. Jaffier, the old Dictator, had just stepped out of his dingy little capitol, when a rifle-ball tore through his sleeve, between his arm and ribs. His sentries clubbed the rifle-man to death in the street——"

"It's rather a peculiar situation as I understand it," Bedient said. "The death of either leader——"

"Would mean an end to his party. That's it exactly," said Captain Bloom.

A lively listener to this talk at the Captain's table was a dark-haired young woman with dancing brown eyes—Miss Adith Mallory. She was slender, and not tall, but spirited in manner; exhibited a fine freedom with her new acquaintances at the table, mostly gentlemen, but with an elegance which repelled familiarity. Miss Mallory seemed to find great fun in these revolutionary affairs, and a deep interest in Andrew Bedient, and his vast holdings on the Island. Her eyes quickly recalled to Bedient's mind a line of Tennyson's—"Sunset and evening star, and after that the dark."

He saw very little of her until the Hatteras emerged into the warm, blue Caribbean, and he no longer had the excuse of rough weather to keep away from the dining-saloon. Miss Mallory favored every chance for a talk with Bedient, and once or twice he caught her regarding him with a strange, half-humorous depth of glance. One evening, as the ship was passing the northern coast of Porto Rico, they met on the promenade. The Island was a heavy shadow, off in the moon-bright South.

"... They say, Mr. Bedient, that if the revolution succeeds, it will make a great difference to you."

"Perhaps it may," he replied.

Miss Mallory had heard from the ship's officers, something of his relations with Captain Carreras. He laughingly deprecated his adequacy as a money-master.

"That's quite extraordinary," she said thoughtfully. "New York has not taught me to expect such from a man. Then the American dollar is not the sign of the Holy of Holies—to you?"

... Her talk was blithe. Presently she chaffed him for absences from the saloon during the rough weather.

"And you are such an old sailor, too," she finished.

"But my sailing was largely—sailing," he said. "It's different under steam."

"But we have been nearly three days in a turquoise calm, and I have watched you. A goldfinch would pine away on the nourishment you have taken! How do you manage to live?"

"You see how well I am," he said.

"You're not nearly——" Miss Mallory checked herself, and swallowed several times, before venturing again: "Do you know what I thought?"

"No."

"That you were in the clutch of mortal fear, lest you lose your fortune in the fighting."

"That was a bit wide, Miss Mallory——"

"In reparation for that injustice, I am going to tell you—what takes me to Coral City. I haven't told anyone else.... It's the prospect of a war. I've always wanted a revolution. You can never know how much.... You see, I'm an every-day working woman, a newspaper woman, but out of routine work. Some big things have fallen to me, but never war. Equatoria, the name and everything about it, has enchanted me for years——"

Bedient liked her enthusiasm. He explained much about the Island, Jaffier, Celestino Rey, The Pleiad, and the manner of men who frequented this remarkable palace. He advised Miss Mallory not to be known as a newspaper woman, if she expected a welcome at The Pleiad.

The Hatteras finally made the coral passage, and was steaming into the inner harbor. Miss Mallory left Captain Bloom, who was pointing out the line of reefs, to join Bedient on the promenade-deck.

"I'm surprised and disappointed," she said. "I expected to hear shooting long before this."

"It may not be started," he suggested. "And now, Miss Mallory, we'd better not go ashore together. I'm known as a follower of Jaffier; and since you go to The Pleiad, the only really suitable place to live, you'd only complicate your standing in the community by being seen with me. If The Pleiad should happen to be invested in a siege, I'll see you comfortably quartered elsewhere. In any case, I am at your service."

Bedient was entirely unexpected at the hacienda, but a small caravan had come down to meet the steamer and carry back supplies. Coral City was feverish with excitement, although the revolutionists had not yet taken to gunning. Bedient dispatched a letter to Jaffier with greeting, a congratulation on his escape from death (regarded in the letter as a good omen), and among other matters, an inquiry in regard to the American Jim Framtree, whom he had met in Coral City, just before he embarked for New York. This done, Bedient procured a saddle-pony, and started alone up the trails to the hacienda.

He reached the great house in the early dusk. Such was the welcome Bedient met, that for a moment, he was unable to speak. It was spontaneous, too, for he was an hour ahead of the caravan. All was as he had left. Dozens of natives trooped in with flowers and fruits, and when he was alone upstairs, their singing came to him from the cabins.... Bedient did not realize how worn and near to breaking he was, until the outer door of his apartment was shut; and standing in the centre of the room, with a laugh on his lips, he had to wait two or three minutes, for the upheaval to subside in his breast.... A little later, he crossed to the Captain's quarters, opened the door, and stood in the dark for several moments, his head bowed. And a breath of that faint sweet perfume, which never wearied nor obtruded, came to his nostrils, as if one of the old silk handkerchiefs were softly waved in the darkness.

* * * * *

A convoy, in the charge of Dictator Jaffier's oldest and most trusted servant, reached the hacienda at noon the next day. Thus the reply to his letter was borne to Bedient. The cumbersome efficiency clothed an imperative need for money first of all. Bedient expected this and was prepared to assist.... A revolution was inevitable, the communication further divulged. The point in Dictator Jaffier's mind was just the hour to strike. He recognized the importance of striking first; but, he observed sententiously, there was an exact moment between preparedness and precipitation. Jaffier believed that Celestino Rey was looking for a shipload of rifles and ammunition; but the entire coast was guarded by the Defenders, especially The Pleiad inlet, where the Spaniard's rare yacht lay. A seizure of the contraband, it was naively stated, would be a most desirable stroke by the government.... The letter closed with the information Bedient had especially requested. The young American Jim Framtree, whose movements in part had been followed by Jaffier's agents, was at The Pleiad with his chief, Celestino Rey, and was doubtless an important member of the rebel staff....

Bedient read the letter carefully and glanced through it again. Jaffier's reliable held out his hand for it.

"If the Senor has carefully digested the contents——" he began.

"Yes, I have it all——"

The other took the letter and touched a match to it, stepping upon the crisp, blackened shell of fibre that fell to the floor. He carried back a New York draft for a large amount.

Bedient slept; that is, his body lay moveless from mid-evening to broad daylight, that first night at the hacienda. His consciousness had taken long journeys to Beth, remarkable pilgrimages to India (and found Beth there in the tonic altitudes). Always she regarded him with some strange terror that would not let her speak. Home from these far flights, he would see his body lying still in the splendid, silent room, fanned by soft night-winds, and quickly depart again.... It must have been the beautiful welcome from Falk and the natives. He had broken down quite absurdly, all his furious sustaining force had relaxed. Perhaps it had been necessary for him to break down before he could sleep.... Many times before, he had seen his body lying asleep.

He was more than ever tired and torn this day. Every vista of the hills held poignant hurt, because Beth Truba could not see this beauty. He dared not touch the orchestrelle. Falk brought coffee and fruit after Jaffier's servant had departed. Coffee at the hacienda was a perfect achievement. Eight years of training under Captain Carreras, who had an ideal in the making, and who claimed the finest coffee in the world as the product of his own hills, had brought the beverage to a high point. Bedient drank with a relish almost forgotten, but instantly followed that crippling pang—that it was not for Beth; that she could not breathe the warm fragrant winds.... Bedient sprang up. Some hard, brain-filling, body-straining task was the cry of his mind. This was its first defensive activity against the tearing down of bitter loneliness. Until this moment, he had endured passively.

Bedient determined to go to The Pleiad. He had thought of various ways to get in contact with Jim Framtree, but there were obstacles in every path, from the point of view of one conceded by the whole Island to be Dictator Jaffier's right hand, as Captain Carreras had been. The idea appealed more every second. It would startle all concerned, Jaffier and Celestino Rey especially. But the former had just received a large financial assurance of his loyalty, and there was value in giving the ex-pirate something formidable to cope with. Moreover, to meet Jim Framtree again was Bedient's first reason for sudden return to Equatoria.... He called for a pony, and followed by a servant with a case of fresh clothing, rode down the trail to Coral City.



TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER

HOW STARTLING IS TRUTH

Bedient entered The Pleiad, and with relief breathed the coolness of the vast shadowed halls. One does not ride for pleasure on a June afternoon in Equatoria, and Bedient was far from fit.... There were no guests about. A pale, slender, sad-eyed gentleman appeared in a sort of throne of marble and mahogany, and perceiving the arrival, his look became fixed and glassy.

"Just give me your name, please, if you wish," the pale one said, clearing as dry a throat as ever gave passage to words. Indeed, Bedient could only think of some one stepping upon nut-shells to compare with that voice. The sentence was spoken in answer to his glance about for a register or something of the sort.... No questions were asked regarding price, baggage, nor the nature of the quarters desired. A Chinese servant appeared, and took the case from Bedient's man, who was sent down to quarter in the city. The guest followed the Oriental. The stillness and vast proportions of the structure; the endless darkened halls robed in tapestries and animate with oils; the heavy fragrance from the gardens, crushed out of blossoms by the fierce heat; rugs of all the world's weaving, from the golden fleeces of Persia to fire-lit Navajos; a glimpse to the left, of a room walled with books, and sunk into an Egypt of silence; an acreage of covered billiard-tables through a vast door to the right—a composite of such impressions made the moment memorable. Bedient could only think of a king's winter palace—in summer.... He left the servant to return a moment to the desk.

"Have you a list of the men-guests?" he asked.

The pale one looked disturbed; or possibly it was disappointment that his colorless features expressed, as if such affairs were for the lesser servants of the establishment, and not in the province of gentlemanly dealings.

"No, we have no such list," he said. "Later in the day, when it is cooler, however, most of our guests are abroad, and you will doubtless have little difficulty in finding him whom you seek. You will become familiar in a few hours with our little peculiarities of management. There is little to complain of in the way of service, I believe——"

Rejoining the Chinese, Bedient was led to an apartment, the elegance of detail and effect of which was imperial, no less. With relief he stepped out of his riding clothes, bathed in a deliciously tempered shower, and sat down to think. The chair folded about him like a cool soft arm. The whole atmosphere was to him embarrassingly sensuous. The city was below, shadowed in the swift-falling night; the harbor lay in purple silence, the sun had sunk in a blood-orange sky.

A smile came to his lips at the heavy seriousness of life all about him; vice clinging tenaciously to world-forms, and leaning upon the purchasable beauty of marble and figured walls, its hollowness sustained with the perfections of service. Then he looked across the dark harbor to the sweep of deep red which alone remained of the sunset, thinking of Beth and the dividing sea and the dividing world, and why it had happened so. He was ashamed because he could not think of the great work he had dreamed of doing for women, because Beth meant Women to him now, and he was not for her.... Would the visions of service ever come back?

This brought his mind to the thing he had come to The Pleiad to do, and the revolution all around it, in the very air. What a queer post—in the very fortress of insurrection. It was all boyish stuff. Many adventures might accrue. Would they be enough to keep his mind from realities?... He feared not. For an hour he sat there, regarding the lights of the city and harbor, until his thoughts grew too heavy, and the manacled lover within him was spent and blood-drawn from straining against his chains—the captive that would not die.... He arose wearily to find that a letter had been thrust beneath his door, and so silently that he had not been aroused from his thoughts. The paper was of palest blue and heavy-laid. His name was written with a blunt pen in an angular, eccentric hand, and the contents proved unique:

MR. ANDREW BEDIENT,

SIR: Many of my guests have caught the spirit of The Pleiad more readily and pleasurably, after making the acquaintance of one elsewhere designated, I believe, the proprietor. We do not use the word here, as we are friends together. The fact that my manager showed you apartments is enough to make me glad to welcome you. He makes few mistakes. Will you not dine with me at eight this evening in the Shield Room. If you have a previous engagement, pray do not permit me to disturb it, as I shall be ready at your good time.

With unwonted regard,

CELESTINO REY.

Bedient sat down again. The systems of the house moved him to amusement and marvelling. To think that the pale creature at the desk had weighed him from all angles of desirability; and like some more or less infallible Peter had allowed him to enter into the abiding peace of The Pleiad. It was rather a morsel, that he had not been turned away. Then to be invited to dine the first evening with the establishment's presiding individuality, who did not approve of the term, "proprietor." There was a tropic, an orient, delight about the affair.

"To think a stranger must lose or win caste in Equatoria, on the glance of that Tired-eyed," he mused. "I really must master this atmosphere."

Bedient thought of Treasure Island Inn, in the lower city, where a stranger would probably go, if denied entrance at The Pleiad. "Infested" was the word Captain Carreras had once used to depict its denizens.... A few minutes before eight Bedient left the room and descended. From the staircase, he perceived that the guests had, indeed, gathered at this hour. The company was not large, but rather distinguished at first glance. So various were the nationalities represented that Bedient thought the picture not unlike a court-ball with attaches present. The hum of voices was quickened with half the tongues of Europe, and now and then an intonation of Asia. There were more men than women, but this only accentuated the attractions of the latter, of which there were two or three sense-stirring blooms.

For just an instant on the staircase, Bedient stood among the punkah-blown palms to scan the faces below. Framtree was not there, but Miss Mallory appeared in a discussion with an elderly gentleman, and her usual animation was apparent. Bedient was struck with the fact that he had been singularly remiss. In the thirty hours which had passed since their parting, her likeness had not once entered his mind, and he had offered to see that she was comfortably ensconced. Her eyes turned to him now, but as quickly turned away. He had tried to bow.... And at this moment, Bedient perceived the languid eye of the man at the desk, cooling itself upon him. Crossing the tiles from the stairs toward this gentleman, moreover, he was covered with glances from the guests, eyes of swift, searching intensity. "How interested they are in a stranger," he thought. There was a sharpness of needles and acid in the air.

Low chimes from an indefinite source now struck the hour of eight. A Chinese stepped up to the desk beside Bedient.

"You are dining with Senor Rey?" the manager inquired lazily.

Bedient nodded, and turned to greet Miss Mallory. She caught his eye and intent, and promptly turned her back. For the first time, Bedient felt himself a little inadequate to cope with the psychological activities of this establishment. Reverting to the desk, the manager appeared dazed and absent-minded as usual.

"The boy," he said, indicating the Chinese, "will show you to the Shield Room."

Bedient trailed the soft-footed oriental through the bewildering hall, until he saw Senor Rey standing in a doorway—and behind him a low-lit arcanum of leather and metal.... The face of the Spaniard was startling, like the discovery of a crime. It was lean and livid as a cadaver. The pallor of the entire left cheek, including the corner of the lips, had the shine of an old burn, the pores run together in a sort of changeless glaze. In the haggard, bloodless face, eyes shone with black brilliance. The teeth were whole and prominent, as was the entire bony structure of the face and skull. Senor Rey had a tall, attenuated figure, with military shoulders. He moved with great difficulty, as if lacking control of his lower limbs, but in his hands was the contrast—long, white, swift and perfectly preserved. The scarred face and ruffled throat united to form in Bedient's mind the hideous suggestion that the Spaniard had once been tortured full-length—his flesh once thrawned in machinery of the devil.... Bedient's hand was grasped in a cold bony grip, and his eyes held for an instant in the bright unquiet gaze of the Spaniard.