When she got up from the piano he rose.

"I wonder why I can find so few evenings like this," he sighed.

"It's so fearfully old-fashioned, Victorian, to be simple nowadays,"

she laughed.

"That's it," he cried. "The terror of your modern hostess, simplicity.

You can't go out to dine unless some madwoman drags you away from your coffee to the auction table, where other madmen and madwomen scowl at you all the evening over their cards. Or else they dance. Dance!

Dance! Hop! Skip! Not like joyous gamboling lambs but with set faces, as though there was nothing else in the world but the martyrdom of their feet. Mad! All mad! Please don't tell me that you dance, Miss Habberton."

"I do," she laughed, "and I love it."

"Youth!" Jack sighed and relapsed into silence.

The evening pa.s.sed in general conversation, interesting conversation which the world, it seems, has come to think is almost a lost art, not the least interesting part of which was Una's contribution on some of the lighter aspects of Blank Street. And I couldn't help comparing again the philosophy of this girl, the philosophy of helpfulness, with the b.e.s.t.i.a.l selfishness of the point of view of the so-called Freudians who, as I have been credibly informed, only live to glut themselves with the filth of their own baser instincts.

Self-elimination as against self-expression, or since we are brute-born, merely self-animalization! Una Habberton's philosophy and Marcia Van Wyck's! Any but a blind man could run and read, or if need be, read and run.

Mrs. Habberton was tired and went up early, her daughter accompanying her. I saw Jerry eyeing the girl rather wistfully at the foot of the stair. I think he was pleading with her to come down again but she only smiled at him brightly and I heard her say, "Tomorrow, Jerry."

"Shall we fish?"

"That will be fine."

"Just you and I?"

"If you think," and she laughed with careless gayety, "if you think Marcia won't object."

"Oh, I say--" But his jaw fell and he frowned a little.

"Good-night, Jerry, dear," she flung at him from the curve of the landing.

"Good-night, Una," he called.

The telephone bell rang the next morning before the breakfast hour and Jerry was called to it. I was in my study and the door was open. I couldn't help hearing. Marcia Van Wyck was on the wire. I couldn't hear her voice but Jerry's replies were illuminating.

"I couldn't," I heard him say, "I had guests to dinner."

Fortunately neither Una nor her mother was down.

"I didn't tell you," he replied to her question. "It was--er--rather sudden. Miss Habberton and her mother. They're staying here for a few days. How are you--? Oh, I don't see why you--What difference does that make--? Won't you come over this afternoon? Please. Why not--?

I'm awfully anxious to see you. Why, I couldn't, Marcia, not just now and besides--What--?"

Apparently she had rung off. He tried to get her number and when he got it came away from the instrument suddenly, for the girl had evidently refused to talk to him.

At the breakfast table, to which the ladies but not Jack Ballard descended, he was very quiet. I pitied him, but led the conversation into easy paths in which after a while he joined us. I saw Una glancing at him curiously, but no personal comment pa.s.sed and when we went out on the shaded terrace to look down toward the lake, over the shimmering summer landscape, Una took a deep breath and then gave a long sigh of delight.

"Isn't it wonderful just to live on a day like this?" And then with a laugh, "Jerry, you simply _must_ give us Horsham Manor as a fresh air farm."

He smiled slowly.

"It would do nicely, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yes, splendidly. Five thousand acres! That would be an acre apiece for every man, woman and child in the whole district. We would build mills by the lake, factories along the road and tenements in groups on the hills over there. It _might_ spoil the landscape, but it would be so--er--so satisfying."

"And you'd want _me_ to pay the bills," he laughed.

"Oh, yes. Of course. What are bills _for_ unless to be paid?"

"Help yourself," he smiled. "Will you have the deeds made out today or wait until next week?"

"I suppose I _might_ wait until tomorrow."

"Oh, thanks. And, for the present, we'll go fishing."

"I'll be ready in a moment." And she went upstairs for her hat and gloves.

Already he yielded again to the spell of her comradeship and humor.

And a moment later I saw them set off toward the Sweet.w.a.ter, Una glowing with quiet delight, Jerry slowly showing the infection of her happiness.

The nature of Una's conversation with Jerry during that morning of fishing and in the days that followed must always remain a secret to me. I know that when they returned Jerry was in a cheerful mood and put through an afternoon of tennis with Jack, while Una and her mother knitted in the shade. She was wholesome, that girl, and no one could be with her long without feeling the impress of her personality. But I was not happy. Marcia hung like a millstone around my neck. I knew that it was at the risk of a considerable sacrifice of pride that Una had decided to come with her mother and make this visit. The world and her own frequent contact with women of the baser sort had sharpened her wits and instincts amazingly. I am sure that she was just as well aware of the nature of Jerry's infatuation as though Jerry had told it himself. If Una cared for him as deeply as I had had the temerity to suppose, then her position was difficult--painful and thankless. But whatever her own wish to help him, I am sure that the nature of the desire was unselfish. After events prove that. All that Una saw in the situation of Jerry and Marcia was a friend who needed helping, who was worth helping from the snare of an utterly worldly and heartless woman. I am sure that her knowledge of the world must have made her task seem hopeless and it must have taken some courage to pit her own charm in the lists against one of Marcia's known quality. But if she was unhappy, no sign of it reached my eyes. Only her mother, who sometimes raised her eyes and calmly regarded her daughter, had an inkling of what was in Una's heart.

Jerry went no more to the telephone. I kept an eye on it and I know.

And when his car went out, Una or Jack went with him. Three days pa.s.sed with no telephone calls from Briar Hills. When Jerry's guests were with him, the duties of hospitality seemed sacred to him and he left nothing undone for their comfort or entertainment. At night Una sang to us, and Jerry was himself, but during most of the day he moved mechanically, only speaking to Jack or me when directly addressed.

"Acts like a sleepwalker," said Jack to me. "It's hypnotic, sheer moon-madness!"

Only Una had the power to draw him out of himself. He always had a smile for her and a friendly word, but I knew that _she_ knew that she had failed. Jerry was possessed of a devil, a she-devil, that none of the familiar friendly G.o.ds could cast out.

The end came soon and with a startling suddenness. We were out driving in Jack's motor one morning before lunch, Jack at the wheel, with Una beside him, Jerry and I in the rear seat, when in pa.s.sing along a quiet road not far from Briar Hills, we saw at some distance ahead of us and going our way, a red runabout, containing a man and a girl.

Jack was running the car very slowly, as the road was none too good, and we ran close up behind the pair before they were aware of us. I saw Jerry lean forward in his seat, peering with the strange set look I had recently seen so often in his eyes. I followed his gaze and, as I looked, the man in the red car put his arm around the girl's neck and she raised her chin and they kissed. All of us saw it. Jack chuckled and blew his horn violently. The pair drew apart suddenly and the man tried quickly to get away, but Jack with a laugh had already put on the power and we pa.s.sed them before they could get up speed.

The girl hid her face but the man was Channing Lloyd.

Jerry had recognized them. I saw him start up in his seat, turning around, but I caught at his wrist and held him. He was deathly pale, ugly, dangerous. But he made no further move. During the ride home he sat as though frozen fast into his seat with no word for me or for our companions, who had not turned or spoken to us. I think that Jack suspected and Una knew and feared to look at Jerry's face. By the time we reached the house Jerry had managed to control himself. The dangerous look upon his face was succeeded by a glacial calm, which lasted through luncheon, of which he ate nothing. Jack did his best to bring an atmosphere of unconcern but failed and we got up from the table aware of impending trouble. Then Jerry disappeared.

CHAPTER XXIV

FEET OF CLAY

It is with some reluctance that I begin these chapters dealing with the most terrible event in Jerry's life, and for that matter the most terrible experience in my own, for as the reader of this history must now be aware, Jerry's life was mine. I had made him, molded him for good or ill according to my own definite plan, by the results of which I had professed myself willing to stand whatever came. Had I known what these results were to be, it would have been better if I had cast myself into the sea than have come to Horsham Manor as Jerry's preceptor, the sponsor for old Benham's theory. But human wisdom is fallible, true virtue a dream. Dust we are and to dust return, groveling meanwhile as best we may, amid the wreck of our illusions.

It costs me something to admit the failure of the Great Experiment, its horrible and tragic failure! To lose a hand, an eye, a limb, to be withered by disease, one can replace, repair, renew; but an ideal, a system of philosophy, ingrained into one's very life! It is this that scars and withers the soul.

I must go on, for, after all, it is not my soul that matters, but Jerry's. It was quite an hour after Jerry disappeared before I began to suspect that he had gone to Briar Hills. The last I had seen of him was when he was on his way up the stair to his own room. But when I sought him there a short while afterward, I could not find him, nor was he anywhere in the house. I questioned the servants, telephoned the garage. All the machines, including Jerry's own roadster, were in the building. I went out to question the gardeners and found a man who had seen Jerry awhile before, entering the path into the woods behind the house. Mr. Benham was hatless, the fellow said, and walked rapidly, his head bent. Even then I did not suspect where he was going. I thought that he had merely gone to "walk it off," a phrase we had for our own cure for the doldrums. But as the moments pa.s.sed and he did not return, I took Jack into confidence, and expressed the fear that he had gone to Briar Hills for a reckoning with Marcia and Lloyd.

A worried look came into Jack's face, but he shrugged his shoulders.