CHAPTER VII

It is a curious, but undeniable, fact that there is something in the effect of rapid motion upon the senses that generates love. Possibly it is the poetry of movement which attunes the mind to thoughts of a less practical nature. The dance, the swift motion of an ocean liner, the whirl of a motor car, are they not responsible for a mult.i.tude of sins; else why the ballroom flirtations, the love-affairs on shipboard, the eloping heiress and the chauffeur? Certain it is that there was something in the drive to Garden City at Edith's side that morning, which engendered in West a more pa.s.sive att.i.tude, a more willing yielding to their growing love for each other, than he had felt while walking with her in the park the day before. She, on her part, dismissed all unpleasant thoughts from her mind, and reveled in the joy of the moment. The day was brilliant, though somewhat cold. The heavy fur-lined coat she wore had been purchased a short time before by West, for her especial use; she appreciated the motive which had prompted him to do this--he thought so continually of her comfort, her happiness.

She turned and glanced at him, and noted with pleasure, even with a secret glow of happiness, the strong, handsome lines of his face, ruddy in the sharp wind, the strength of his arms, the poise of his shoulders.

Through the coat which enveloped her she could feel the subtle warmth of his body--she nestled closer to him, and basked in a delightful realization of his strength, his mastery over the on-rushing car, his steady, unfailing nerves, which alone stood between her and death. It seemed so fine to know that her life rested in his hands, that a momentary weakness, a trifling slip on his part might hurl them both to destruction against some tree, or rock, or ever present telegraph pole.

She began to wonder, after all, how she had ever lived these years without love, real, dominating love, such as she believed this to be, to illumine and glorify her life. Everything, indeed, with Donald seemed so sordid. There was the everlasting talk of money, the continual effort to make ends meet, the constant fear lest she spend a little more than his income would justify. All this had pa.s.sed from her, to-day. She moved along in a cloud of wonderful, waking dreams, and life seemed once more a joyous, sentient thing. She even forgot Bobbie, and it almost seemed as though, if she could spend all the rest of her life by West's side, anything else would be of but minor importance.

West interrupted her day-dreams. "Are you warm enough, dear?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh, yes, quite," she gasped against the wind and wondered if he realized how in using that term of endearment he had caused a glow of happiness to flood her until her faced burned. It was something he had never done before, yet it did not seem strange to her. Their personalities seemed vibrant, attuned to each other and to some great harmony of love which was a part of the rushing wind, the brilliant sunshine, the blue sky. She felt that he was going to say something to her--something that she dreaded, yet waited for as a bride for her bridegroom. Somehow all thought of disloyalty to Donald had vanished. It was not that she put it aside, or trampled upon it--in this glorified atmosphere of love it simply no longer existed.

Presently he turned to her, as they were slowly mounting a long stretch of hill. "I wish we could go on and on, and never stop, for all the rest of our lives," he said, looking at her hungrily. She met his gaze with a glad smile and they told each other with their eyes what had been growing in their hearts for all these months. The road stretched before them, gray and lonely. West put his left arm about her with a caressing motion that seemed to embrace within it not only herself, but all her hopes and fears, her troubles and her joys. She did not pa.s.sively yield herself to his embraces, she leaped to him, her brain on fire, her soul in her eyes. When their lips met, she hardly knew it, all the music of the heavenly choirs seemed singing in her ears, and in that moment of supreme happiness neither future nor past for her existed. In an instant he had turned from her and, with his hands on the steering wheel, swept the road ahead with cautious eyes. The whole thing seemed like a dream--a fantasy of the imagination, yet she knew it was the realest thing in her life at the moment, the one great experience that eclipsed all lesser experiences as though they had never been at all.

They did not say much for a long time, for each seemed to feel the irrevocability of the thing that had befallen them. It was not as though West had kissed her, as a man might kiss a flirtatiously inclined woman.

She knew that to him, at least, that kiss had meant a seal of love; what it had meant to her she had not yet in her own mind decided.

After what seemed to her hours, he spoke again. "I am thinking of going away, Edith," he said, and his voice seemed to come to her from a long way off, and wake her from happy dreams.

"Going away?" she asked, with a new timidity. "Where?"

"To Europe, to Cairo, to the East."

"Why?"

"Because I cannot stay here any longer."

"Why not?" she found herself asking. "Why not?"

"Because I love you, dear, and because, if I stay here, I am afraid of what might happen. I want to go away, to get out into the great, wide places of the world, where air, and sunshine, and love are free and G.o.d-given. I hate New York and all it means. I cannot stay in it any longer--as things are."

"Then I shall not see you--any more?" she asked in a voice from which she was unable to keep a quivering sense of loss, of pain.

"Not unless you will go with me," he said suddenly, turning and looking into her face.

"Go with you--go with you?" She repeated the words mechanically, as though the thought suggested by them had not yet found a place in her mind. "How could I?"

"Why not?" His voice became suddenly intense, trembling with feeling. "I love you, and I want you, always, close by my side. I cannot think of going on, all the years of my life, without you. I know how wrong, how disloyal it all must seem to you, but I cannot help it. I love you--I love you--what more is there for me to say? If you wish it, I will go away from you at once--to-day, and never see you again, if it breaks my heart. Shall I?"

She gave a faint cry. The thought hurt her, in its unexpected cruelty.

"How can you ask me that?"

The car was running very slowly now, along a stretch of road bordered by high trees, faintly green in their early spring garb. He let the machine come to a standstill beside the road and took her fiercely into his arms. "Edith, I cannot go without you--my G.o.d--I cannot. Come with me, dearest, come, and forget all the troubles and cares of your life here." He pressed her to him with quivering muscles and kissed her.

"Will you? Will you?" he demanded, and his voice seemed to her a command, rather than a question.

She yielded to his embrace gladly, with a joyous sense of freedom.

"Yes--yes!" she cried, and lay still in his arms.

Presently they heard, far behind them, the sound of another car ascending the hill. West put her from him, started the machine, and they rushed along against the southeast wind, their hearts big with their new-formed plan.

Then a long silence came upon them. Perhaps they were both thinking of the pain which their love must cause to Donald, the inevitable consequences which must flow from it. It was a natural reaction from the exaltation of the moment before. Edith, too, was thinking of Bobbie, and already in her inmost soul had begun to resent the demands of this new emotion, which required her to tear out of her heart all that now lay within it, that there might be room for her love for West alone. Yet so strange are the ways of love, that, while resenting the result, she did not resent the love which caused it--to her Billy West was, for the time being at least, the sum of all earthly existence.

It was after one o'clock when they reached the hotel at Garden City, and in a few moments they had secured a table and were ordering luncheon.

West suggested a c.o.c.ktail, which seemed very grateful after the long ride. Edith did not feel hungry, but ate mechanically, hardly knowing what was set before her. She looked timidly at him, and felt her cheeks redden with a sudden flush. Somehow he seemed so big, so masterful, so different from Donald, and she knew that whenever he desired, from now on, to take her in his strong arms, she would not resist him, but would be glad. She seemed to feel toward him an intense physical attraction, something that she had never felt toward her husband, an unreasoning instinct, that made her long to be near him, to hear his voice, to put her hand in his, and forget everything else in the blessed knowledge that this man of her desire possessed her completely and utterly.

These thoughts came to her as an undercurrent, far below the ripple of conversation with which the meal pa.s.sed. Only once did they look over the precipice upon the edge of which they walked so lightly. She ventured, half-afraid, to ask him when he thought of leaving New York.

His answer showed that he, too, had been thinking deeply of the matter which lay nearest their hearts.

"I must go to Denver first," he said. "All my property is there, you know, and I shall have to arrange about it."

"What are you going to do?"

"I shall sell out my stock in the mine, and resign my position as vice-president. It may take a week or two to do that. After I have converted the stock into money, it will be necessary to put it into some good security, bonds probably, which will require no attention. That will leave me free to go abroad, and stay as long as I please, without having to bother about business affairs. We can go to Egypt, to Persia, to India, to j.a.pan, and when we come back--" He hesitated, halted.

"When we come back! Can we ever come back, dear?" she asked timidly.

"Of course we can. Your husband will know that we love each other; and surely he will make it possible for us to be married. After all, you have never been happy with him. He should be glad to see you happy with someone else."

The matter-of-fact way in which he spoke of their future jarred upon her. It was one thing to dream of running away to some imagined country of palms and eternal summer, in an ecstasy of love, but the details, the sordid necessities of the thing, seemed hard and cruel, even when viewed through the rosy spectacles of love. To think of coming back to New York and the chilly isolation of the social outcast did not appeal to her--it was like awakening from the dream to realities anything but pleasant. He must have seen her distaste, or felt it, for he changed the subject abruptly, merely remarking that he had decided to go to Denver that night.

"To-night?" she asked--"Why to-night? You have only just come from there."

"The sooner I go, the better. Matters are in such shape now that I can sell out my interests quickly. I found that out, while I was there. If I wait, it may be more difficult. The company is thinking of taking over some new properties, and that will require considerable money. I had better go at once."

She trembled at the thought of what it all meant, but said no word to discourage him. Somehow the very success which had crowned her dreams now seemed to make them less beautiful--less to be desired. Why couldn't they just go on loving each other, without all this--this upsetting of things? She suddenly found herself blushing at the realization of just what it was that her thoughts actually meant.

The run back to town was cheerless and cold, and singularly symbolic of her state of mind. The brightness of the morning had faded before the bank of ashen-colored clouds that whirled up from the southeast with a suggestion of winter in their formless ma.s.ses. West drove the car at top speed, as though he, too, felt the approach of something chilling, an aftermath to their dreams. It was nearly five when they reached the ferry in Long Island City, and the lights in the stores and along the streets had already begun to sparkle through the gathering mists of evening.

"We should have come back earlier," said Edith, a bit worried. "Bobbie will wonder what has become of me." She had left the child in Alice's care, the nurse being out, and knew that the latter would be anxious to get back to the boarding-house and dinner. There was her own evening meal to prepare as well. At once all the realities of life arose to reach out to her, and draw her back to her old routine.

"We can easily make it by half-past five," said West, as they turned from Thirty-fourth Street into Madison Avenue. "What time will Donald be home?"

"A little after five, I suppose. We shall probably find him at home when we get there."

They drove up to the house just as Donald was ascending the steps. Edith felt an overpowering sense of guilt as he helped her from the machine; she said good-by to West rather hastily, as she stood beside her husband on the sidewalk. Nothing was said about the proposed trip to Denver; Donald asked them about their day's outing, hoped they had had a pleasant time; further than that there was no conversation. As the motor rolled off, West looked back and nodded, and in a moment Edith found herself ascending the elevator with her husband, wondering if, after all, the experience of the day had not been a strange dream.

It seemed queer, unreal, to come down to the commonplace things of life.

Potatoes had to be peeled, a steak cooked, all the details of the preparation of their simple dinner. Bobbie was cross and hungry, and hung about her skirts as she moved to and fro in the kitchen. Alice had hurried away, with a rather nasty remark concerning her long stay. More than ever she realized that life--her life--was so full of things that meant nothing to her, so barren of those that really counted. She placed the dinner upon the table with a heart full of bitterness, but she showed nothing of it to Donald.

He was full of his new venture in the gla.s.s business. A friend by the name of Forbes had come to him that afternoon with some patents for making gla.s.s tiling; there was a fortune in it, he rattled on, and she listened, only half-comprehending what it was all about. She had always tried to take an interest in her husband's business affairs, but, to-night, her heart was too full of other things--things that alternately lifted her up into realms of hitherto unknown happiness, and then dropped her into the black depths of despair. After all, it would soon be over, she reflected, and then, frightened by her thoughts, put them from her, and choked down her dinner with a strange sense of desolation. Billy was gone--Billy, who had filled her days and nights with a new joy of living. Gone--gone! Suppose something were to happen to him! The thought that she might never see him again frightened her.

CHAPTER VIII