"For heaven's sake!" he said. "What on earth----"

The suitcase fell from her nerveless hand; she swayed a little where she stood.

The next moment he had pa.s.sed his arm around her, and was half leading, half carrying her through a short hallway into a big, brilliantly lighted studio.

CHAPTER XII

A LIFE LINE

She had told him her story from beginning to end, as far as she herself comprehended it. She was lying sideways now, in the depths of a large armchair, her cheek cushioned on the upholstered wings.

Her hat, with its cheap blue enamel pins sticking in the crown, lay on his desk; her hair, partly loosened, shadowed a young face grown pinched with weariness; and the reaction from shock was already making her grey eyes heavy and edging the under lids with bluish shadows.

She had not come there with the intention of telling him anything. All she had wanted was a place in which to rest, a gla.s.s of water, and somebody to help her find the train to Gayfield. She told him this; remained reticent under his questioning; finally turned her haggard face to the chairback and refused to answer.

For an hour or more she remained obstinately dumb, motionless except for the uncontrollable trembling of her body; he brought her a gla.s.s of water, sat watching her at intervals; rose once or twice to pace the studio, his well-shaped head bent, his hands clasped behind his back, always returning to the corner-chair before the desk to sit there, eyeing her askance, waiting for some decision.

But it was not the recurrent waves of terror, the ever latent fear of Brandes, or even her appalling loneliness that broke her down; it was sheer fatigue--nature's merciless third degree--under which mental and physical resolution disintegrated--went all to pieces.

And when at length she finally succeeded in reconquering self-possession, she had already stammered out answers to his gently persuasive questions--had told him enough to start the fuller confession to which he listened in utter silence.

And now she had told him everything, as far as she understood the situation. She lay sideways, deep in the armchair, tired, yet vaguely conscious that she was resting mind and body, and that calm was gradually possessing the one, and the nerves of the other were growing quiet.

Listlessly her grey eyes wandered around the big studio where shadowy and strangely beautiful but incomprehensible things met her gaze, like iridescent, indefinite objects seen in dreams.

These radiantly unreal splendours were only Neeland's rejected Academy pictures and studies; a few cheap j.a.panese hangings, cheaper Nippon porcelains, and several shaky, broken-down antiques picked up for a song here and there. All the trash and truck and dust and junk characteristic of the conventional artist's habitation were there.

But to Ruhannah this studio embodied all the wonders and beauties of that magic temple to which, from her earliest memory, her very soul had aspired--the temple of the unknown G.o.d of Art.

Vaguely she endeavoured to realise that she was now inside one of its myriad sanctuaries; that here under her very tired and youthful eyes stood one of its countless altars; that here, also, near by, sat one of those blessed acolytes who aided in the mysteries of its wondrous service.

"Ruhannah," he said, "are you calm enough to let me tell you what I think about this matter?"

"Yes. I am feeling better."

"Good work! There's no occasion for panic. What you need is a cool head and a clear mind."

She said, without stirring from where she lay resting her cheek on the chairback:

"My mind has become quite clear again."

"That's fine! Well, then, I think the thing for you to do is----" He took out his watch, examined it, replaced it--"Good Lord!" he said.

"It is three o'clock!"

She watched him but offered no comment. He went to the telephone, called the New York Central Station, got General Information, inquired concerning trains, hung up, and came back to the desk where he had been sitting.

"The first train out leaves at six three," he said. "I think you'd better go into my bedroom and lie down. I'm not tired; I'll call you in time, and I'll get a taxi and take you to your train. Does that suit you, Ruhannah?"

She shook her head slightly.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I've been thinking. I can't go back."

"Can't go back! Why not?"

"I can't."

"You mean you'd feel too deeply humiliated?"

"I wasn't thinking of my own disgrace. I was thinking of mother and father." There was no trace of emotion in her voice; she stated the fact calmly.

"I can't go back to Brookhollow. It's ended. I couldn't bear to let them know what has happened to me."

"What did you think of doing?" he asked uneasily.

"I must think of mother--I must keep my disgrace from touching them--spare them the sorrow--humiliation----" Her voice became tremulous, but she turned around and sat up in her chair, meeting his gaze squarely. "That's as far as I have thought," she said.

Both remained silent for a long while. Then Ruhannah looked up from her pale preoccupation:

"I told you I had three thousand dollars. Why can't I educate myself in art with that? Why can't I learn how to support myself by art?"

"Where?"

"Here."

"Yes. But what are you going to say to your parents when you write?

They suppose you are on your way to Paris."

She nodded, looking at him thoughtfully.

"By the way," he added, "is your trunk on board the _Lusitania_?"

"Yes."

"That won't do! Have you the check for it?"

"Yes, in my purse."

"We've got to get that trunk off the ship," he said. "There's only one sure way. I'd better go down now, to the pier. Where's your steamer ticket?"

"I--I have _both_ tickets and both checks in my bag. He--let me have the p-pleasure of carrying them----" Again her voice broke childishly, but the threatened emotion was strangled and resolutely choked back.

"Give me the tickets and checks," he said. "I'll go down to the dock now."