Part 6

"Oh," Christopher had been eager, "I want you to hear those temple bells some day, Anne. Why won't you take her, Dunbar? Next winter--drop your work, and we'll all go--"

"I've a fat chance of going."

"Haven't you made money enough?"

"It isn't money. You know that. But my patients would set up a howl--"

"Let 'em howl. You've got a life of your own to live, and so has Anne."

Dunbar had hesitated for a moment--then, "Anne's better off here."

Anne, thinking of these things as she got out of her dinner dress and into a sheer negligee of lace and faint blue, wondered why Ridgeley should think she was better off. She wanted to see the things of which Christopher had told her--to hear the temple bells in the dusk--the beat of the tom-tom on white nights.

She stood at the window looking out at the moon. She decided that she could not sleep. She would go down and get a book that she had left on the table. The men were out-of-doors, on the porch; she heard the murmur of their voices.

The voices were distinct as she stood in the library, and Christopher's words came to her, "What's the matter with Anne?"

Then her husband's technical explanation, the scientific name which meant nothing to her, then the crashing climax, "She can't get well."

She gave a quick cry, and when the men got into the room, she was crumpled up on the floor.

Her husband reached her first. "My dear," he said, "you heard?"

"Yes. Do you mean that I am--going to die, Ridgeley?"

There was, of course, no way out of it. "It means, my dear, that I've got to take awfully good care of you. Your heart is bad."

Christopher interposed. "People live for years with a heart like that."

But her eyes sought her husband's. "How long do they live?"

"Many months--perhaps years--without excitement--"

This then had been the reason for his tenderness. He had known that she was going to die, and was sorry. But for ten years she had wanted what he might have given her--what he couldn't give her now--life as she had dreamed of it.

She drew a quivering breath--"It isn't quite fair--is it?"

It didn't seem fair. The two doctors had faced much unfairness of the kind of which she complained. But it was the first time that, for either of them, it had come so close.

They had little comfort to give her, although they attempted certain platitudes, and presently Ridgeley carried her to her room.

IV

She insisted the next morning on going to the circus with Christopher. She had not slept well, and there were shadows under her eyes. The physician in Christopher warred with the man. "You ought to rest," he said at breakfast. Dunbar had gone to New York in accordance with his usual schedule. There were other lives to think of; and Anne, when he had looked in upon her that morning, had seemed almost shockingly callous.

"No, I don't want to stay in bed, Ridgeley. I am going to the circus. I shall follow your prescription--to eat and drink and be merry--"

"I don't think I have put it quite that way, Anne."

"You have. Quite. 'Death is death and life is life--so make the most of it.'"

Perhaps she was cruel. But he knew, too, that she was afraid. "My dear," he said gently, "if you can get any comfort out of your own ideas, it might be better."

"But you believe they are just my own ideas--you don't believe they are true?"

"I should like to think they were true."

"You ought to rest," said Christopher at the breakfast table.

"I ought not. There are to be no more oughts--ever--"

He nodded as if he understood, leaning elbows on the table.

"I am going to pack the days full"--she went on. "Why not? I shall have only a few months--and then--annihilation--" She flung her question across the table. "You believe that, don't you?"

He evaded. "We sleep--'perchance to dream.'"

"I don't want to dream. They might be horrid dreams--"

And then Jeanette came down, and poured their coffee, and asked about the news in the morning paper.

Dressed for her trip to the circus, Anne looked like a girl in her teens--white skirt and short green coat--stout sports shoes and white hat. She wore her silver beads, and Christopher said, "I'm not sure that I would if I were you."

"Why not?"

"In such a crowd."

But she kept them on.

They motored to the circus grounds, and came in out of the white glare to the cool dimness of the tent as if they had dived from the sun-bright surface of the sea. But there the resemblance ceased. Here was no silence, but blatant noise--roar and chatter and shriek, the beat of the tom-tom, the thin piping of a flute--the crash of a band. But it was the thin piping which Christopher followed, guiding Anne with his hand on her arm.

Following the plaintive note, they came at last to the snake-charmer--an old man in a white turban. The snakes were in a covered basket. He sat with his feet under him and piped.

Christopher spoke to him in a strange tongue. The piping broke off abruptly and the man answered with eagerness. There was a quick interchange of phrases.

"I know his village," Christopher said; "he is going to show you his snakes."

A crowd gathered, but the snake-charmer saw only the big man who had spoken to his homesick heart, and the girl with the silver beads. He knew another girl who had had a string of beads like that--and they had brought her luck--a dark-skinned girl, his daughter. Her husband had bestowed the beads on her marriage night, and her first child had been a son.

He put the thin reed to his lips, and blew upon it. The snakes lifted their heads. He drew them up and out of the basket, and put them through their fantastic paces. Then he laid aside his pipe, shut them in their basket, and spoke to Christopher.

"He says that no evil can teach you while you wear the beads," Christopher told Anne.

The old man, with his eyes on her intent face, spoke again. "What you think is evil--cannot be evil," Christopher interpreted. "The gods know best."

They moved toward the inner tent.

"Are you tired?" Christopher asked. "We don't have to stay."

"I want to stay," and so they went in, and presently with a blare of trumpets the great parade began. They looked down on men and women in Roman chariots, men on horseback, women on horseback, on elephants, on camels--painted ladies in howdahs, painted ladies in sedan chairs--Cleopatra, Pompadour--history reduced to pantomime, color imposed upon color, glitter upon glitter, the beat of the tom-tom, the crash of the band, the thin piping, as the white-turbaned snake-charmer showed in the press of the crowd.

Christopher's eyes went to Anne. She was leaning forward, one hand clasping the silver beads. He would have given much to know what was in her mind. How little she was and how young. And how he wanted to get her away from the thing which hung suspended over her like a keen-edged sword.

But to get her away--how? He could never get her away from her thoughts. Unless....

Suddenly he heard her laughing. Two clowns were performing with a lot of little dogs. One of the dogs was a poodle who played the fool. "What a darling," Anne was saying.

There was more than they could look at--each ring seemed a separate circus--one had to have more than a single pair of eyes. Christopher was blind to it all--except when Anne insisted, "Look--look!"

Six acrobats were in the ring--four men and two women. Their tights were of a clear shimmering blue, with silver trunks. One could not tell the women from the men, except by their curled heads, and their smaller stature. They were strong, wholesome, healthy. Christopher knew the quality of that health--hearts that pumped like machines--obedient muscles under satin skins. One of the women whirled in a series of handsprings, like a blue balloon--her body as fluid as quicksilver. If he could only borrow one-tenth of that endurance for Anne--he might keep her for years.

Then came Pantaloon, and Harlequin and Columbine. The old man was funny, but the youth and the girl were exquisite--he, diamond-spangled and lean as a lizard, she in tulle skirts and wreath of flowers. They did all the old tricks of masks and slapping sticks, of pursuit and retreat, but they did them so beautifully that Anne and Christopher sat spellbound--what they were seeing was not two clever actors on a sawdust stage, but love in its springtime--girl and boy--dreams, rapture, radiance.

Then, in a moment, Columbine was dead, and Harlequin wept over her--frost had killed the flower--love and life were at an end.

Christopher was drawing deep breaths. Anne was tense. But now--Columbine was on her feet, and Harlequin was blowing kisses to the audience!

"Let's get out of this," Christopher said, almost roughly, and led Anne down the steps and into the almost deserted outer tent. They looked for the snake-charmer, but he was gone. "Eating rice somewhere or saying his prayers," Christopher surmised.

"How could he know about the gods?" Anne asked, as they drove home.

"They know a great deal--these old men of the East," Christopher told her, and talked for the rest of the way about the strange people among whom he had spent so many years.

V

Ridgeley did not come home to dinner. He telephoned that he would be late. It was close and warm. Christopher, sitting with Anne and Jeanette on the porch, decided that a storm was brewing.

Anne was restless. She went down into the garden, and Christopher followed her. She wore white, and he was aware of the rose scent. He picked a rose for her as he passed through the garden. "Bend your head, and I'll put it in your hair."

"I can't wear pink."

"It is white in the dusk--" He put his hands on her shoulders, stopped her, and stuck the rose behind her ear. Then he let her go.

They came to the grove of birches, and sat down on the stone seat. It had grown dark, and the lightning flashing up from the horizon gave to the birches a spectral whiteness--Anne was a silver statue.

"It was queer," she said, "about the old man at the circus."

"About the beads?"

"Yes. I wonder what he meant, Christopher? _'What you think is evil--cannot be evil'?_ Do you think he meant--Death?"

He did not answer at once, then he said, abruptly, "Anne, how did it happen that you and Ridgeley drifted apart?"

"Oh, it's hard to tell."

"But tell me."

"Well, when we were first married, I expected so much ... things that girls dream about--that he would always have me in his thoughts, and that our lives would be knit together. I think we both tried hard to have it that way. I used to ride with him on his rounds, and he would tell me about his patients. And at night I'd wait up for him, and have something to eat, and it was--heavenly. Ridgeley was so ... fine. But his practice got so big, and sometimes he wouldn't say a word when I rode with him.... And he would be so late coming in at night, and he'd telephone that I'd better go to bed.... And, well, that was the beginning. I don't think it is really his fault or mine ... it's just ... life."

"It isn't life, and you know it," passionately. "Anne, if you had married me ... do you think...?" He reached out in the dark and took her hand. "Oh, my dear, we might as well talk it out."

She withdrew her hand. "Talk what out?"

"You know. I've learned to care for you an awful lot. I had planned to go away. But I can't go now ... not and leave you to face things alone."

He heard her quick breath. "But I've got to face them."

"But not alone. Anne, do you remember what you said ... this morning? That you were going to pack the days full? And you can't do that without some one to help you. And Ridgeley won't help. Anne, let me do it. Let me take you away from here ... away from Ridgeley. We will go where we can hear the temple bells. We'll ride through the desert ... we'll set our sails for strange harbors. We'll love until we forget everything, but the day, the hour,--the moment! And when the time comes for endless dreams...."

"Christopher...."

"Anne, listen."

"You mustn't say things like that to me ... you must not...!"

"I must. I want you to have happiness. We'll crowd more in to a few short months than some people have in a lifetime. And you have a right to it."

"Would it be happiness?"

"Why not? In a way we are all pushing death ahead of us. Who knows that he will be alive to-morrow? There's this arm of mine ... there's every chance that I'll have trouble with it. And an automobile accident may wreck a honeymoon. You've as much time as thousands who are counting on more."

The lightning flashed and showed the birches writhing.

"But afterward, Christopher, _afterward_...?"

"Well, if it is Heaven, we'll have each other. And if it is Hell ... there were Paolo and Francesca ... and if it is sleep, I'll dream eternally of you! Anne ... Anne, do you love me enough to do it?"

"Christopher, please!"

But the storm was upon them--rain and wind, and the thunder a cannonade. Christopher, brought at last to the knowledge of its menace, picked Anne up in his arms, and ran for shelter. When they reached the house, they found Ridgeley there. He was stern. "It was a bad business to keep her out. She's afraid of storms."

"Were you afraid?" Christopher asked her, as Ridgeley went to look after the awnings.

"I forgot the storm," she said, and did not meet his eyes.

VI

Lying awake in her wide bed, Anne thought it over. She was still shaken by Christopher's vehemence. She had believed him her friend, and had found him her lover--and oh, he had brought back youth to her. If he left her now, how could she stand it--the days with no one but Jeanette Ware, and the soul-shaking knowledge of what was ahead?

And Ridgeley would not care--much. In a week be swallowed up by his work....

She tried to read, but found it difficult. Across each page flamed Christopher's sentences.... "We'll ride through the desert.... We'll set our sails for strange harbors...."

Was that what the old man had meant at the circus.... "What you think is evil--cannot be evil"? Would Christopher give her all that she had hoped of Ridgeley? If she lived to be eighty, she and Ridgeley would--jog. Was Christopher right--"You'll have more happiness in a few months than some people in a lifetime?"

She heard her husband moving about in the next room, the water booming in his bath. A thin line of light showed under his door.

She shut her book and turned out her lamp. The storm had died down and the moon was up. Through the open window she could see beyond the garden to the grove of birches.

Hitherto, the thought of the little grove had been as of a sanctuary. She was aware, suddenly, that it had become a place of contending forces. Were the guardian angels driven out...?

_But there weren't any guardian angels_! Ridgeley had said that they were silly. And Christopher didn't believe in them. She wished that her mother might have lived to talk it over. Her mother had had no doubts.

The door of her husband's room opened, and he was silhouetted against the light. Coming up to the side of her bed, he found her wide-eyed.

"Can't you sleep, my dear?"

"No."

"I don't want to give you anything."

"I don't want anything."

He sat down by the side of the bed. He had on his blue bathrobe, and the open neck showed his strong white throat. "My dear," he said, "I've been thinking of what you said this morning--about my lack of belief and the effect it has had on yours. And--I'm sorry."

"Being sorry doesn't help any, does it, Ridgeley?"

"I should like to think that you had your old faiths to--comfort you."

She had no answer for that, and presently he said, "Are you warm enough?" and brought an extra blanket, because the air was cool after the storm, and then he bent and kissed her forehead. "Shut your eyes and sleep if you can."

But of course she couldn't sleep. She lay there for hours, weighing what he had said to her against what Christopher had said. Each man was offering her something--Christopher, life at the expense of all her scruples. Ridgeley, the resurrection of burnt-out beliefs.

She shivered a bit under the blanket. It would be heavenly to hear the temple bells--with youth beside her. To drink the wine of life from a brimming cup. But all the time she would be afraid, nothing could take away that fear.--Nothing, nothing, _nothing_.

She was glad that her husband was awake. The thin line of light still showed beneath his door. It would be dreadful to be alone--in the dark. At last she could stand it no longer. She got out of bed, wrapped herself in a robe that lay at the foot of it, and opened the door.

"May I leave it open?"

As her husband turned in his chair, she saw his hand go quickly, as if to cover the paper on which he was writing. "Of course, my dear. Are you afraid?"

"I am always afraid, Ridgeley. Always--"

She put her hands up to her face and began to cry. He came swiftly toward her and took her in his arms. "Hush," he said, "nothing can hurt you, Anne."

VII

When she waked in the morning, it was with, the remembrance of his tenderness. Well, of course he was sorry for her. Anybody would be. But Christopher was sorry, too. And Christopher had something to offer her--more than Ridgeley--yes, it was more--

She was half afraid to go down-stairs. Christopher would be at breakfast on the porch. Jeanette would be there, pouring coffee, and perhaps Ridgeley if he had no calls. And Christopher would talk in his gay young voice--and Ridgeley would read the newspaper, and she and Christopher would make their plans for the day--

She rose and began to dress, but found herself suddenly panic-stricken at the thought of the plans that Christopher might make. If they motored off together, he would talk to her as he had talked in the grove of birches--of the temple bells, and of the desert, and the strange harbors--and how could she be sure that she would be strong enough to resist--and what if she listened, and let him have his way?

She decided to eat her breakfast in bed, and rang for it. A note came up from Christopher. "Don't stay up-stairs. Ridgeley left hours ago, and I shan't enjoy my toast and bacon if you aren't opposite me. I have picked a white rose to put by your plate. And I have a thousand things to say to you--"

His words had a tonic effect. Oh, why not--? What earthly difference would it make? And hadn't Browning said something like that--"_Who knows but the world may end to-night_?"

She was not sure that was quite the way that Browning had put it, and she thought she would like to be sure--she could almost see herself saying it to Christopher.

So she went into her husband's room to get the book.

Ridgeley's books were on the shelf above his desk. They had nothing to do with his medical library--that was down-stairs in his office, and now and then he would bring up a great volume. But he had a literary side, and he had revealed some of it to Anne in the days before he had been too busy. His Browning was marked, and it was not hard to find "The Last Ride." She opened at the right page, and stood reading--an incongruous figure amid Ridgeley's masculine belongings in her sheer negligee of faint blue.

She closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and was moving away, when her eyes were caught by two words--"For Anne," at the top of a sheet of paper which lay on Ridgeley's desk. The entire page was filled with Ridgeley's neat professional script, and in a flash the gesture which he had made the night before returned to her, as if he were trying to hide something from her gaze.

She bent and read....

Oh, was this the way he had spent the hours of the night? Searching for words which might comfort her, might clear away her doubts, might bring hope to her heart?

And he had found things like this: "_My little sister, Death_," said good St. Francis; ... "_The darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as day; the darkness and light to thee are both alike_..." "_Yea, though I Walk through the Valley of the Shadow_ ..." These and many others, truths which had once been a part of her.

She read, avidly. Oh, she had been thirsty--for this! Hungry for this! And _Ridgeley_--! The tears dripped so that she could hardly see the lines. She laid her cheek against the paper, and her tears blistered it.

She carried it into her room. Christopher's note still lay on her pillow. She read it again, but she had no ears now for its call. She rang for her maid. "I shall stay in bed and write some letters."

She wrote to Christopher, after many attempts. "We have been such good, _good_ friends. And we mustn't spoil it. Perhaps if you could go away for a time, it would be best for both of us. I am going to believe that some day you will find great happiness. And you would never have found happiness with me, you would have found only--fear. And I know now what the old man meant about the beads--'What you think is evil--cannot be evil.' Christopher, death isn't evil, if it isn't the end of things. And I am going to believe that it is not the end ..."

Christopher went into town before lunch, and later Anne sat alone on the stone bench in her grove of birches. They were serene and still in the gold of the afternoon. Yet last night they had writhed in the storm. She, too, had been swept by a storm.... She missed her playmate--but she had a sense of relief in the absence of her tempestuous lover.

Ridgeley came home that night with news of Christopher's sudden departure. "He found telegrams. He told me to say 'good-bye' to you."

"I am sorry," Anne said, and meant it. Sorry that it had to be--but being sorry could not change it.

After dinner Ridgeley had a call to make, and Anne went up to bed. But she was awake when her husband came in, and the thin line of light showed. She waited until she heard the boom of water in his bath, and then she slipped out of bed and opened the door between. She was propped up in her pillows when he reappeared in his blue bathrobe.

"Hello," he called, "did you want me?"

"Yes, Ridgeley."

He came in. "Anything the matter?"

"No. I'm not sick. But I want to talk."

"About what?"