CHAPTER XIII

RED FLAME

"James, is it true--what she just told me?" Her voice was full of anxiety and horror, but in some curious way she still managed to be the self-possessed Aunt Selina of old. Even in that moment James found time to admire her.

"Yes, Aunt Selina, I'm afraid it's true."

"Is there no hope, no chance--"

"None, that I can see."

"Then ... oh!" She gave way at that, seeming to crumple where she stood.

James helped her to a sofa and silently went into the dining room and mixed some whisky and water. Aunt Selina stared when he offered it to her, and then took it without a word. How like Aunt Selina again! A fool would have raised objections. James almost smiled.

"How do you happen to be here, Aunt Selina?" he asked after a few moments, less in the desire of knowing than in the hope of diverting her. "You didn't come from Bar Harbor to-day?"

"From Boston."

"Boston?"

"I took the boat to Boston last night. I learned of the accident there.

I supposed she was safe--the papers said nothing."

"Yes, I know. But--but how did you happen to leave Bar Harbor at all?"

"I was going to meet her here."

"Her?"

"Beatrice."

"I don't understand."

"No, and oh, my poor boy, I've got to make you!" She said this quietly, almost prayerfully, with the air of a person laboring under a weighty mission. James had no reply to offer and walked off feeling curiously uncomfortable. There was a long silence.

"Come over here and sit down, James; I want to talk to you," said Aunt Selina at last. She spoke in her natural tone of voice; there was no more of the priestess about her. There was that about her, however, that made him obey.

"James, I've got to tell you a few things about Beatrice. Some things I don't believe you know. Do you mind?"

"No," said James slowly, "I don't know that I do."

"Well, in the first place, I suppose you thought she was in love with that Englishman?"

James nodded.

"Well, she wasn't--not one particle. Whatever else may or may not be true, that is. She despised him."

James froze, paused as though deciding whether or not to discuss the matter and then said gently: "I have my own ideas about that, Aunt Selina."

She nodded briefly, almost briskly. It was the most effective reply she could have made. The more businesslike the words the greater the impression on James, always, in any matter. Aunt Selina understood perfectly. She let her effect sink in and waited calmly for him to demand proof. This he did at last, going to the very heart of the subject.

"Then perhaps, Aunt Selina, you can account for certain things...."

"No, I shall only tell you what I know. You must do your own accounting." She paused a moment and then went on: "You've heard nothing since you left Bar Harbor, I suppose?"

"Nothing."

"Beatrice was quite ill for a time after you left. For days she lay in bed unable to move, but there seemed to be nothing specific the matter with her. We called in the doctor and he said the same old thing--rest and fresh air. He knew considerably less what was the matter with her than any one else in the house, which is saying a good deal.

"Lord Clairloch left the day after you did. Beatrice saw him once, that evening, and sent him away. The next day he went, saying vaguely that he had to go back to New York.

"James, of course I knew. I couldn't live in the house with the two people I cared most for in the world and not see things, not _feel_ things. The only wonder is that n.o.body else guessed. It seemed incredible to me, who was so keenly alive to the whole business. Time and time again when Cecilia opened her mouth to speak to me I thought she was going to talk about that, and then she would speak about some unimportant subject, and I blessed her for her denseness. And how I thanked Heaven that that sharp-nosed little minx Ruth wasn't there!

She'd have smelt the whole thing out in no time.

"Gradually Beatrice mended. Her color came back and she seemed stronger.

At last one evening--only Tuesday it was; think of it!--she came down to dinner with a peculiar sort of glitter in her eyes. She told us that she felt able to travel and was going to New York the next day. She had engaged her accommodations and everything. Of course I knew what that meant....

"Knowledge can be a terrible thing, James. For days it had preyed on me, and now when the moment for action came I was almost too weak to respond. Oh, how I was tempted to sit back and say nothing and let things take their course!... But I simply couldn't fall back in the end, I simply couldn't. After bedtime that evening I went to the door of her room and knocked.

"I found her in the midst of packing. I told her I had something to say to her and would wait till she was ready. She said she was listening.

"'Beatrice,' said I, 'I've always tried to mind my own business above all things, but I'm going to break my rule now. I'm fond of you, Beatrice; if I offend you remember that. I simply can't watch you throw your life away without raising a finger to stop you.'

"She didn't flare up, she didn't even ask me how I knew; she only gave a sort of groan and said: 'Oh, but Aunt Selina, I haven't any life to throw away! It's all been burned and frozen out of me; there's nothing left but a sh.e.l.l, and that won't last long! Can't you let me pa.s.s the little that remains in peace? That's all I ask for--I gave up happiness long ago. It won't last long! It can hurt no one!'

"'You have an immortal soul,' said I; 'you can hurt that.'

"She sat looking at the floor for a while and then said imploringly: 'Don't ask me to go back to James, Aunt Selina, for that's the one thing I can't do.' 'I shan't ask you to do anything,' I told her, but I knew perfectly well that I was prepared to go down on my knees before her, when the time came....

"But it hadn't come yet--there was a great deal to be done first. What I did was to tell her something about my own life, in the hope that it might throw a new light on her situation. I told her things that I've never told to a human being and never expected to tell another....

"James, I think I ought to tell you the whole thing, as I told it to her. It may help you to understand ... certain things you must understand. Do you mind?"

She paused, less for the purpose of obtaining his consent than in order to gain a perfect control over her voice and manner. Taking James'

silence as acquiescence she folded her hands in her lap and went on in a low quiet voice:

"I haven't had much of a life, according to most ways of thinking. All I ever knew of life, as I suppose you know it, was concentrated into a few months. Not that I didn't have a good time during my girlhood and youth.

My mother died when I was a baby, but my stepmother took as good care of me as if I had been her own child, and I loved her almost like my own mother. I've often thought, though, that if my mother had lived things might have turned out differently. Stepmothers are never quite the same thing.

"Well, I grew up and flew about with the college boys in the usual way.

I never cared a rap for any of them, beyond the bedtime raptures that girls go through. I was able to manage them all pretty easily; I see now that I was too attractive to them. I had a great deal of what in those days was referred to as 'animation,' which is another way of saying that I was an active, strong-willed, selfish little savage. I was willing to play with the college men, but I always said that when I fell in love it would be with a _real_ man. I laughed when I said it, but I meant it.

"Presently there came a change. Father died, and when I came out of mourning the college men I knew best had graduated and the others seemed too young and silly for me even to play with. It was at about this time, when I was adjusting myself to new conditions and casting about for something to occupy my mind that I came to know Milton Leffert."

James stirred slightly. Aunt Selina smiled.

"Yes, you've heard of him, of course. It gives one a curious feeling, doesn't it, to learn that dead people, or people who are as good as dead, have had their lives? I know, I know ... I think you'd have liked Milton Leffert. He was very quiet and not at all striking in appearance, but he was strong and there was no nonsense about him. He was more than ten years older than I. I had known him only slightly before that time.

Then after Father's death he began coming to see me a good deal and we fell into the habit of walking and driving together. I always liked him.