Part 46

Scarcely knowing what she did she mounted on tiptoe to the second floor, listening. The silence troubled her; she went from room to room, opening doors and clothespresses. Then she mounted to the third floor, searching more quickly. On the fourth floor she called to him in a voice not quite steady. There was no reply.

Alarmed now, she hurriedly flung open doors everywhere, then, picking up her rose-silk skirts, she ran to the top floor and called tremulously.

A faint sound answered; bewildered, she turned to the first closet at hand, and her cheeks suddenly blanched as she sprang to the door of the cedar press and tore it wide open.

He was lying on his face amid a heap of rolled rugs, clothes hangers and furs, quite motionless.

She knew enough to run into the servants' rooms, fling open the windows and, with all the strength in her young body, drag the inanimate youth across the floor and into the fresh air.

"O-h!" she said, and said it only once. Then, ashy of lip and cheek, she took hold of Brown and, lashing her memory to help her in the emergency, performed for that inanimate gentleman the rudiments of an exercise which, if done properly, is supposed to induce artificial respiration.

It certainly induced something resembling it in Brown. After a while he made unlovely and inarticulate sounds; after a while the sounds became articulate. He said: "Betty!" several times, more or less distinctly. He opened one eye, then the other; then his hands closed on the hands that were holding his wrists; he looked up at her from where he lay on the floor. She, crouched beside him, eyes still dilated with the awful fear of death, looked back, breathless, trembling.

"That is a devil of a place, that closet," he said faintly.

She tried to smile, tried wearily to free her hands, watched them, dazed, being drawn toward him, drawn tight against his lips--felt his lips on them.

Then, without warning, an incredible thrill shot through her to the heart, stilling it--silencing pulse and breath--nay, thought itself. She heard him speaking; his words came to her like distant sounds in a dream:

"I cared for you. You give me life--and I adore you.... Let me. It will not harm you. The problem of life is solved for me; I have solved it; but unless some day you will prove it for me--Betty--the problem of life is but a sorry sum--a total of ciphers without end.... No other two people in all the world could be what we are and what we have been to each other. No other two people could dare to face what we dare face." He paused: "Dare we, Betty?"

Her eyes turned from his. He rose unsteadily, supported on one arm; she sprang to her feet, looked at him, and, as he made an awkward effort to rise, suddenly bent forward and gave him both hands in aid.

"Wait--wait!" she said; "let me try to think, if I can. Don't speak to me again--not yet--not now."

But, at intervals, as they descended the flights of stairs, she turned instinctively to watch his progress, for he still moved with difficulty.

In the drawing-room they halted, he leaning heavily on the back of a chair, she, distrait, restless, pacing the polished parquet, treading her roses under foot, turning from time to time to look at him--a strange, direct, pure-lidded gaze that seemed to freshen his very soul.

Once he stooped and picked up one of the trodden roses bruised by her slim foot; once, as she passed him, pacing absently the space between the door and him, he spoke her name.

But: "Wait!" she breathed. "You have said everything. It is for me to reply--if I speak at all. C-can't you wait for--me?"

"Have I angered you?"

She halted, head high, superb in her slim, young beauty.

"Do I look it?"

"I don't know."

"Nor I. Let me find out."

The room had become dimmer; the light on her hair and face and hands glimmered dully as she passed and re-passed him in her restless progress-- restless, dismayed, frightened progress toward a goal she already saw ahead--close ahead of her--every time she turned to look at him. She already knew the end.

That man! And she knew that already he must be, for her, something that she could never again forget--something she must reckon with forever and ever while life endured.

She paused and inspected him almost insolently. Suddenly the rush of the last revolt overwhelmed her; her eyes blazed, her white hands tightened into two small clenched fists--and then tumult died in her ringing ears, the brightness of the eyes was quenched, her hands relaxed, her head sank low, lower, never again to look on this man undismayed, heart free, unafraid--never again to look into this man's eyes with the unthinking, unbelieving tranquillity born of the most harmless skepticism in the world.

She stood there in silence, heard his step beside her, raised her head with an effort.

"Betty!"

Her hands quivered, refusing surrender. He bent and lifted them, pressing them to his eyes, his forehead. Then lowered them to the level of his lips, holding them suspended, eyes looking into hers, waiting.