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CHAPTER VIII
THE STEP THAT COUNTED

Of course, being a woman, she made believe that he had taken her by storm.

“Derry, dear, how could you?” she gasped, all rosy and breathless, and seemingly much occupied in smoothing her ruffled plumes during the first lull after the hurricane.

“You witch, who could resist you?” he muttered, showing well-marked symptoms of another attack.

“No, you’ll just behave, and sit exactly where I shall point out!” she cried, and her pouting confidence gave eloquent testimony to the passing of an indelible phase in their relations. “And I am not a witch; but if you find it necessary to resist me, as you put it – Well, there! only this once. We must sit down and be serious. I have such a lot to say, and so little time in which to say it.”

The new note struck by the unfettered intimacy of her manner exercised an influence which Power would have regarded as a fantastic impossibility during those moments of delirium when first she clung to him, and both were shaken by irrepressible tumult. It said, far more plainly than impassioned speech, that she had thrown down all barriers, that she had counted the cost, and was giving herself freely and gladly to her mate. The recognition of this supreme surrender by a proud woman, a woman to whom purity of thought was as the breath of life, administered a beneficial shock to his sorely tried nerves. Had a brilliant meteor flashed suddenly through space, and rushed headlong toward that part of the Atlantic which lapped the southern shore of Rhode Island, it could not have illuminated land and sea with more incisive clarity than did Nancy’s attitude light up the dark places of his mind. Some stupendous thing had happened which would account for this miracle, and he must endeavor to understand. No matter what the effort needed, he must attend to her every word. In his inmost heart he knew that he cared not a jot what set of circumstances had brought about a development which he had not dared to dream of. He recked little of the cause now that its effect was graven on tablets more lasting than brass. But it was due to Nancy that he should be able to follow and appreciate her motives. He held fast to that thought in the midst of a vertigo. A waking nightmare had been changed in an instant into a beatitude akin, perilously akin, to that of the man and woman who found each other in the one perfect garden which this gray old world has seen, and no darkling vision of desert wastes and thorn-choked paths tortured the happy lovers now gazing fearlessly into each other’s shining eyes. The heritage of “man’s first disobedience” might oppress them all too soon; but, for that night at least, it lay hidden behind the veil. Exercising no slight command on his self-control, therefore, Power strove to revert to the well-ordered coherency of speech and action which he had schooled himself to adopt when in Nancy’s presence.

“Forgive me if I have seemed rather mad,” he pleaded, seating himself at her feet, and simulating a calmness which resembled the placid center of a cyclone. “During three long years I have hungered for the taste of your lips, Dear. That is my excuse, and it should serve; for I was content to wait as many decades if Fate kept firm in her resolve to deny you to me.”

“You would never have yielded if I had not used a woman’s guile?” she said, half questioning him, half stating a truism beyond reach of argument.

“There is little of guile in your nature, Nancy.”

“Well, I think that is true, too; but it is equally true that a woman often takes what I may call a saner view of life than a man. She is quicker to admit the logic of accepted facts. If you discovered that some girl had won by false pretense, not your love, for love gilds the grossest clay, but your respect, as her husband, you would not spurn her with the loathing I feel now for the man who made me his wife. For that is what it has come to. I refuse to pose as Hugh Marten’s wife in the eyes of the world one moment longer than is needful to obtain my freedom. His wife I have never been in the eyes of Heaven, because my Heaven is a place of love and content, and I have neither loved my husband nor been content with him, not for a single instant. Our marriage began with a lie, and has endured on a basis of lies. Such contracts, I believe, are void in law, and the principle which governs men in business should at least apply to that most solemn of all engagements, the lifelong union of husband and wife. Hugh Marten conspired with my father – hired him, I might rather say – to drive you and me apart, Derry. The stronger and more subtle brain devised the means, and left it to the weaker one to carry out the scheme in sordid reality. As for me, I was helpless as a caged bird. How was I to guess that Marten, whom I knew only as the owner of the Bison mines and mills, had planned my capture? Even my poor, weak father did not suspect it till you were hundreds of miles away in California. And then how skilfully was the trap baited, and how swiftly it worked! You had not reached Sacramento before a lawyer wrote from Denver warning my father that the mortgagees were about to foreclose on the ranch. On several occasions previously he had been in arrears with the interest on the loan; but they had always proved considerate, and their just claims were met, sooner or later. Yet, in a year when scores of well-to-do ranchers were pressed for money, and when clemency became almost a right, these people proved implacable, and swooped down on him like a hawk on a crippled pigeon… Derry, you bought the place – who were they?”

“I do not know. I dealt through a lawyer, and the vendor was Mr. Willard. He sold the property free of any encumbrance.”

“Yet local opinion credited you and Mac with being a shrewd pair!” she commented, laughing softly, as if she were reviewing some tragi-comedy in a quizzical humor.

“We certainly wondered why Marten made things so easy for us – in other respects,” he volunteered.

“Ah, then, you did have a glimmering suspicion of the truth? I guessed it; though I could not be absolutely certain till yesterday morning, when Mr. Benson refused to answer my pointblank question. He would not lie, but he dared not tell the truth; so he fell back on the feeble subterfuge that, after the mighty interval of three and a half years, he could not recall the exact facts.”

“Benson? Did you write to him?”

The surprise in Power’s voice was not feigned. He was beginning to see now something of the fixed purpose which had governed her actions during the past twenty-four hours.

“Yes,” she said composedly. “It was hardly necessary, but I wanted to dispose of my last doubt; though in my own mind I was sure of the ground already. My father went straight to Denver on receipt of that letter, and, of course, chanced to travel by the same train as Hugh Marten, the man to whom the whole amount of the mortgage was little more than a day’s income. Marten was gracious, the lawyer-man adamant. Within a week I was told of a new suitor, and of my father’s certain and complete ruin if I refused him… Ah, me! How I wept!.. When did you post your first letter, Derry?”

“Two days after I arrived at the placer mine,” he replied unhesitatingly. The chief revelation in Nancy’s story was her crystal-clear knowledge of facts which, he flattered himself, he had kept from her ken. Then his heart leaped at the thought that she had known of his love from the night they met in the dining-room of the Ocean House. But he choked back the rush of sentiment; for she was demanding his close attention.

“And I wrote on or about that same date,” she went on. “My father – Heaven forgive him! – stole your letters to me; but the scheme for suppressing my letters to you must have been concocted before you went to Sacramento. Such foul actions are unforgivable! I, for one, refuse to be bound by the fetters which they forged. I come to you, my dear, as truly your wife, as unstained in soul and body, as though Hugh Marten had never existed!”

A sudden note of passion vibrated in her voice, and Power realized, by a lightning flash of intuition, with what vehement decision she had severed already the knot which seemed to bind her so tightly. He fancied it was her due that he should endeavor to relax an emotional strain which was becoming unbearable.

“It’s a mighty good thing we are Americans,” he said. “Here divorce is neither hard to obtain nor highly objectionable in its methods. We – at any rate, I – must consult some lawyer of experience. The laws differ in the various states. That which is murder and sudden death in Ohio is a five-dollar proposition in Illinois; but the legal intellect will throw light on our difficulty. Meanwhile – ”

He stopped awkwardly, aware that, although she was apparently listening to his words, they were making no impression on her senses. A sudden silence fell, and the hitherto unheeded noises of the night smote on his ears with uncanny loudness. The leisured plash of waves so tiny that they might not be dignified by the name of breakers swelled into a certain strength and volume as his range of hearing spread, and the faint cries of invisible sea-fowl now jarred loudly on the quietude of nature. A pebble rolled down the cliff, and he could mark its constantly accelerated leaps until it reached the shingle with a crash which, even to a case-hardened pebble, betokened damage.

“Meanwhile – ” prompted Nancy, in a still, small voice.

So she had followed what he was saying. What was it that he meant to say? Something about the rocks and shoals that lay ahead before he could take her to some safe anchorage. Nevertheless, he shied off at a tangent, and chose haphazard the one topic which his sober judgment might have avoided.

“I was about to utter a banal remark; but it may as well be put on record and dismissed,” he said. “It is fortunate that I am a rich man. Mere weight of money can achieve nothing against us; while the possession of ample means will simplify matters in so far as we are concerned personally.”

“Were those really the words on the tip of your tongue, Derry?”

“Well, no,” he admitted.

“Are you afraid of hurting my feelings?”

“You are right, Dear. As between you and me there should be no concealment. We have to face the immediate future. We must consider how to surmount the interval, short though it may be – ”

“Interval! What interval?”

“You cannot secure a divorce without some sort of legal process, and the law refuses to be hurried.”

“Ah, yes. Divorce – law – they are words which have little meaning here and now.”

“But they are all-important. Awhile ago you spoke of your Paris friends, and there are others, like Mrs. Van Ralten, whose sympathies and help will be of real value in years to come. You see, I want you to hold your pretty little head higher as Mrs. John Darien Power than you ever held it as Mrs. Hugh Marten.”

“That will cost no great effort, Derry. If we have to pass through an ordeal of publicity, we can surely use the vile means for our own ends, so that our friends may know the whole truth… Derry, if you were not such a good and honorable man, you would not be so dense.”

In his anxiety to follow each twist and turn of her reasoning he had crept nearer, and was now on his knees, having imprisoned her hands in his, and peering intently into her face. In that dim light her eyes shone like faintly luminous twin stars, and he laughed joyously when, to his thinking, he had solved the doubt that was troubling her.

“If it will help any that all the world should know that I, the aforesaid John Darien Power, have been, and am, and will ever remain frantically in love with a lady heretofore described as Nancy Willard, I shall nail a signed statement to that effect on the Casino notice-board tomorrow morning,” he vowed.

She gently released her hands, placed them lovingly on his cheeks, and drew him close, so that he could not choose but yield to any demand she might make.

“Derry,” she said, kissing him with that soothing air of maternity which is a woman’s highest endowment, “though I am going to say something dreadfully forward and bold, I shall risk all lest I lose you, and, if that happens, my poor heart will break and be at rest forever. Even now you do not see whither I am leading you. You never would see unless I spoke plainly. My love for you may be fierce and terrible; but I am only a weak woman, a woman just emerged from girlhood, and I want to be saved from myself. If, for your dear sake, I am to cut adrift from the past, I cannot be left alone. By your side I can face the storm, but I shudder at the thought of protests, appeals, influences perhaps more potent than I imagine in my present new-found mood of hatred of the wrong which has been done me. Derry, why, do you think, have I asked you to leave Newport early tomorrow?”

Stirred by a common impulse, they both stood upright. All at once she seemed to be unable to bear his burning gaze any longer, and her head sank on his breast. He had thrown a protecting arm around her shoulders, and he felt her supple body quiver under a sob which she tried to restrain.

“Nancy,” he whispered, “am I to take you with me?”

“Yes,” she said brokenly.

“You mean that we are to be a law unto ourselves, and thereby make divorce proceedings inevitable? I must put it that way, my dear one! I must understand!”

“Yes, Derry. You must understand. There is no other way.”

He held her so tightly that he became aware of the mad racing of her heart, and a great pity stirred his inmost core. How she must have suffered! What agony was this forced discarding, one by one, of her maidenly defenses! Though he had been blind and deaf solely because of the depth and intensity of his love and reverence, he could utter now only a halting plea that would explain his slowness of perception.

“Forgive me, Dear!” he murmured. “I can find nothing better to say than that – forgive me! I was so absorbed in my own dream of happiness that I gave no heed to the means. But I shall never again be so thoughtless.”

“Thoughtless!” She raised her sweet face once more, tear-stained and smiling. “You thoughtless, Derry? Women thank God for that sort of thoughtlessness in men like you!”

And with that, before he could forestall or even divine her intention, she had withdrawn from his embrace, and had run lightly up half a dozen of the Forty Steps.

“Come!” she cried, with an alteration of manner and voice that was almost stupefying to her hearer. “We have been here an unconscionable time, and just think how awful it will be if our cabman has taken home his tired horse! Of course, even at the twelfth hour, I have loads of things to pack. And, since I don’t know where I am going, the task of selecting a reasonable stock of clothes is too appalling for words. Oh, don’t gaze at me as if I were a ghost, Derry! I am not about to flit away into space. You will have another half hour of my company; because, let that poor horse do his best, we sha’n’t reach our respective habitations till long after eleven o’clock.”

Yet she was neither excited nor hysterical. A great load had been lifted off her heart, and her naturally gay temperament was asserting itself with vital insistence. There was no possibility of drawing back now. Nothing but death could separate her from her lover. Nothing but death! Well, that separation must come in the common order of things; but a bright road stretched before her mind’s eye through a long vista of years, and her spirit sang within her and rejoiced exceedingly. No shred of doubt or hesitation remained. She had passed already through the storm, and though its clouds might roll in sullen thunder among distant hills yet awhile, the particular hilltop on which she stood was bathed in sunlight.

Above all else, despite her complete trust in Power, she thrilled with the consciousness that her love contained a delicious spice of fear, and that is why she climbed the Forty Steps in a sort of panic; so that he marveled at her change of mood, and discovered in it only one more of the enchantments with which his fancy clothed her.

The driver regarded them as a moonstruck couple, since that sort of moon shines ever on fine evenings by the sea. He was obviously surprised when the lady’s address was given, because he expected a return journey to one of Newport’s many boarding-houses; but any suspicions he may have entertained were dispelled when he witnessed a polite farewell in the presence of a pompous butler, and heard Nancy say:

“I am going straight to my room now to write that letter to my father. Then I shall finish packing. What time is the train – nine o’clock. Goodnight, Derry! Sleep well!”

If he thought at all about the matter, the cabman might well have imagined that no young lady in Newport that night had used words less charged with explosive properties; yet no giant cannon on the warships swinging to their moorings in the bay could have rivaled the uproar those few simple sentences might create. Moreover, he heard the gentleman address the butler by name, and witnessed the transference of a tip, accompanied by the plain statement that the giver was leaving Newport early next day. Indeed, once he had deposited his fare at the Ocean House, the man probably gave no further heed to one or other of the pair who had some foolish liking for a prolonged stroll on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, nor, to his knowledge, did he ever again see them, or even hear their names spoken of.

Power was crossing the veranda with his alert, uneven strides when a voice came out of the gloom:

“Hullo, Power, that you? Come and join me in a parting drink.”

It was Dacre, the one person in the hotel from whom such an invitation was not an insufferable nuisance at the moment.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” said Power, “as I am off tomorrow morning; but I’m glad to find you here. You’ve received my note?”

“Yes. Sit down. I’m just going to light a cigar, and the match will help you to mix your own poison. Had a pleasant evening?”

It was a natural though curiously pertinent question; but Power was at no loss for an answer.

“I have really been arranging certain details as a preliminary to my departure,” he said.

“Where are you bound for, New York?”

“After some days, or weeks, perhaps. I hardly know yet.”

“You’ve changed your plans, it seems?”

Power remembered then that he had invited the Englishman to visit Colorado. It was practically settled that Dacre should come West within three weeks or a month.

“By Jove!” he cried, “you must accept my apologies. Of course, I would have recalled our fixture in good time, and have written postponing your trip to Bison. Circumstances beyond my control will prevent my return home for an indefinite period. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Same here,” said the other, with John Bull directness.

“But neither of us is likely to shuffle off the map yet awhile,” continued Power. “You have my address, both in Colorado and at my New York bank, and I have yours. Keep me posted as to your movements, and we shall come together again later in the year.”

He was eager to dissipate a certain starchiness, not wholly unjustifiable, which he thought he could detect in his companion’s manner; but the discovery of its true cause disconcerted him more than he cared to acknowledge, even to himself. Enlightenment was not long delayed. Dacre’s evident lack of ease arose from circumstances vastly more important than the disruption of his own plans; he hesitated only because he was searching for the right way to express himself.

“You and I have cultivated quite a friendship since we forgathered here nearly three weeks ago,” he began, after a pause which Power again interpreted mistakenly.

“Yes, indeed. Won’t you let me explain – ”

“Not just yet. You are on the wrong tack, Power. You believe I’m rather cut up about the postponement of your invitation. Not a bit of it. This little globe cannot hold two men like you and me, and keep us apart during the remainder of our naturals. No, mine is a different sort of grouch. Now, I’m a good deal older than you. You won’t take amiss anything I tell you, providing I make it clear that I mean well?”

“I can guarantee that, at any rate.”

Power’s reply was straightforward enough; but his tone was cold and guarded. The chill of premonition had fallen on him. A man whom he liked and respected was about to fire the first shot on behalf of unctuous rectitude and the conventions.

“I may as well open with a broadside,” said Dacre, unwittingly adopting the simile of social warfare which had occurred to his hearer. “I was out with a yachting party this afternoon, and we were becalmed. Three of us came away from the New York Yacht Club’s boathouse about half-past eight, and took a street-car in preference to one of those rickety old cabs. Luckily, by the accident of position, I was the only one of the three who saw a lady and gentleman come out of an Italian restaurant. The presence of two such people in that locality was unusual, to say the least; but, as the man was a friend of mine, and the lady one whom I admire and respect, I said nothing to the other fellows.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” broke in Power, half in sarcasm; for he was vastly irritated that he had not contrived affairs more discreetly, and half in genuine recognition of Dacre’s tact.

“The thinking came later,” said the Englishman slowly. “When all is said and done, a little dinner à l’Italienne might pass by way of a joke – a harmless escapade at the best, or worst. But, when I reach my hotel and find a note announcing that the man is leaving Newport unexpectedly, and when I hear at the Casino that the woman also is arranging to meet her father in New York, with equal unexpectedness, I am inclined to ask the man, he being something more than a mere acquaintance, if there is not a very reasonable probability that he is making a damned fool of himself. Now, are we going to discuss this thing rationally, or do you want to hit me with a heavy siphon? If the latter, kindly change your mind, and let’s talk about the next race for the America’s Cup.”

Here no solemn diapason of wave and shingle relieved an unnerving silence. Not even the distant rumble of a vehicle broke the tension. The hour was late for ordinary traffic, early for diners and dancers. A deep hush lay on the hotel and its garden. It was so dark that the street lamps, twinkling few and far between the trees, appeared to diffuse no larger area of light than so many fireflies.

“Are we alone here?” said Power, speaking only when an uneasy movement on Dacre’s part bestirred him.

“Yes. I saw to that when I heard your cab. I timed you to a nicety.”

“You must be experienced in these matters.”

“I have been most sorts of an idiot in my time.”

“You are quite sure we are not overheard?”

“As sure as a man can be of anything.”

“Then I recognize your right to question me. Tonight you, tomorrow all Newport, will know what has happened – ”

“Pardon an interruption. Women are invariably careful of the hour, howsoever heedless they may be of next week. Newport knows nothing, will know nothing, except that a popular lady is meeting her father in New York, the said father having written to say he is coming East. His letter is Exhibit A, yours to me Exhibit B, or it would be if it weren’t burnt.”

“A legal jargon is not out of place. When the lady in question has secured a divorce she will become my wife. Now you have the true explanation of my seeming discourtesy. When I am married, I shall entertain you at Bison if I have to escort you from Tokio, or even from Sing Sing.”

“But – ”

“There are no ‘buts.’ She was stolen from me, decoyed away by the tricks of the pickpocket and the forger. I am merely regaining possession of my own. It was not I who cleared up the theft. That was her doing. There can be no shirking the consequences. If my mother, whom I love and venerate, implored me on her bended knees to draw back now from the course I have mapped out, I would stop my ears to her pleading, because I could not yield to it.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

“Just like that.”

Dacre struck another match, and relighted the cigar which he had allowed to go out after the first whiff or two. Power noticed that the flare of the match was not used as an excuse for scrutinizing him, because his friend’s eyes were studiously averted. Then came the quiet, cultured voice from the darkness:

“If that’s the position, old man, I wish you every sort of good luck, and a speedy end to your worries, and I’ll come at your call to that ranch of yours, from the other end of the earth, if need be.”

Again a little pause. Then Power spoke:

“You ring like true metal all the time, Dacre. May I ask you one thing – are you married?”

“No, nor ever likely to be. I – I lost her, not by fraud, but by my own folly. But she understood – before she died. That is my only consolation. It must suffice. It has sufficed.”

“I’m sorry. I touched that chord unthinkingly. I merely wanted to have your full comprehension – and sympathy.”

“You had both already. I would not have dared to intrude if I did not realize that a man talking to another man can raise points which are lost sight of when a woman —the woman – is the other party to the debate.”

“Would you care to hear a brief record of my life during the last few years?”

“Go right ahead! I’m not a gossip. If I know something of the truth, I may be able to stop a rill of scandal one of these days. There’s bound to be chatter, even though old Mr. Willard comes East.”

“You know the name, then?”

“Certainly. Mrs. Van Ralten was speaking about him tonight – not very favorably, either. Said she couldn’t understand how such a man could have such a daughter.”

“Mrs. Van Ralten is a remarkably intelligent woman,” said Power dryly. “I never saw Nancy’s mother; but I imagine that this is a case of exclusive heredity, because there never were two more diverse natures than Nancy’s and her father’s. She is the soul of honor, and would give her life for a principle; while he bartered his own daughter for a few thousand dollars. If I were not convinced of that, do you believe I would besmirch her good name and my own by so much as tonight’s mild adventure in an Italian café?”

“I can give you easy assurance on that head. I have seldom been so surprised as when I saw the pair of you leaving the place and entering a cab.”

“That was a mere episode, a first meek onslaught on the proprieties, so to speak. You will understand fully when I have told you the whole story.”

They talked, or rather Power talked and Dacre listened, till a clock struck twelve somewhere. Carriages began to roll along the neighboring avenues, and lamps occasionally flitted past the hotel. Two or three vivacious groups crossed the veranda, and a porter turned on a lamp. Then Power found that his English friend had placed their chairs in a sort of alcove formed by a disused doorway flanked on each hand by a huge palm growing in a wooden tub which held a ton of earth, or more; so they were well screened.

“You meant to force me to confess,” he said, smiling.

“Yes. It might have been merely folly on your part.”

“But now?”

“Now it is Fate’s own contriving. You don’t want to escape; but you couldn’t if you did. Or, that is awkwardly put. What I mean is – ”

Dacre’s meaning was clear enough; but he never completed the sentence. A cab, laden with luggage, drove up, and a slightly built, elderly man alighted.

“This the Ocean House?” he inquired, when a porter hurried forward.

“Yes, sir,” and the man took a portmanteau from the driver.

“Hold on, there! I’m not sure I shall want a room. How far is ‘The Breakers’ from here, Mrs. Marten’s house?”

“Quite a ways,” said the cabman. “Two miles an’ a bit.”

The new arrival seemed to consider the distance and the lateness of the hour.

“Is Mrs. Marten in Newport, do you know?” he asked.

“Yep. I tuk her downtown this evenin’.”

“Alone?”

“Guess that’s so.”

“Where was she going?”

“Wall, ye see, I was on the box, an’ de lady was inside; so we didn’t git anyways sociable.”

The stranger evidently bethought himself, and turned to the porter again. He could not know that a Harvard man was merely speaking in the vernacular. “Have you a Mr. Power staying here?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he here now?”

“If he isn’t in the hotel, he’ll be at the Casino. Shall I ring up his room, sir?”

“No, no. I’ll see him in the morning. It’s too late to go any farther tonight, and I’m rather tired and shaken up. My train was derailed, and we are hours behind time. Give me a decent room. I suppose I can have breakfast at eight o’clock?”

“Any time you like, sir.”

The cab went off, and the inquisitive visitor entered the building. The two men seated behind the palms had not uttered a syllable while the foregoing conclave was in progress.

“Mr. Francis Willard, I presume?” murmured Dacre, when the retreating footsteps had died away.

“Yes,” said Power.

“Three days ahead of the time stated in his letter, I presume further.”

“That must be so.”

“Foxy. He fits your description. What are you going to do now?”

“Finish my yarn, if I am not wearying you, and leave Newport at seven A.M. instead of nine-ten. The fox broke cover just a little too soon.”

“By gad, yes! I think I’ll recognize that cabman again. If I come across him, I’ll tip him for you. He deserves it… The swine! To start pumping the townsfolk before he was ten seconds in the place, and about his own daughter, too! Dash his eyes – wait till someone refers him to me for news of you! I’ll head him into the open country quick enough – trust me!”

Dacre’s comments might sound rather incoherent; but it was painfully evident that Nancy’s father had created a bad first impression, and he was one of those unhappy mortals who could not afford to do that, because he never survived it.