CHAPTER XXII

It was half-past nine when Wilmer left Allston alone in front of the open fire and went upstairs. And though it was after midnight before she fell asleep, she had not then heard his footsteps along the hall. She had listened, too, rather closely. The man had been in her thoughts every minute since she bade him good-night and retreated to her room. Her abrupt and somewhat inhospitable departure was a retreat--nothing less. She had been neither weary, sleepy, nor bored. In fact, she had retired at a moment when she had felt herself more than usually alert and alive both mentally and physically--more alive than she felt it either discreet or safe to be. When a carefully nurtured and intelligent young woman finds herself prompted to such intimate acts of tenderness as smoothing back the hair from the forehead of a man she has lately chided for being too boldly impulsive, it would seem to be high time for her to remove herself out of danger even though that involves a humiliating confession. It was no argument either that because his hair was light and all awry, it appeared like the hair of a boy; or that because his face was troubled, her tenderness was justified on purely humanitarian grounds. Besides, she had considered nothing of the sort. She had wished to do it because some newly roused instinct craved satisfaction in just that way.

There was no use in lying. That was both cowardly and useless. If there were mortal sin here this was no way of ridding one’s self of it. One should probe for causes. That is what the intellect is for. The ability to do this or not is what distinguishes between the intelligent and the unintelligent.

Well, then, the reason she had wished to smooth back the hair from Allston’s forehead was because--she had wished to do it. He was worried and she held herself partly responsible. She could not help this. She had tried to be honest both with him and herself--to speak the truth as she saw it. But having done this she was sorry because it had not helped to dissipate his perplexity. It had only more deeply involved them both. Words had been unavailing. It was then that this strangely primitive impulse had asserted itself. Her warm hand urged her to express what her tongue could not.

She had conquered the temptation. That is a woman’s lot; to conquer and conquer and conquer. Given emotions more acute than those of men, she is asked to control them more completely. If she does not, she is never forgiven. She has betrayed her trust.

She had conquered the physical impulse, but that was all. Alone here in her room she knew that. The old tenderness returned--the tenderness that sought expression in action. And after all perhaps it was not so strange. Men have always sought and women always given this tangible proof of their feelings. Down through the years a woman has spoken her heart through the touch of her hand and lips. Speech has been left for men.

In her room with the dark all around her, Wilmer allowed herself to relax somewhat. But vigilance is the eternal price of liberty in more senses than one. The moment she permitted her thoughts to wander where they would, they went where she would not. Only once before had she felt herself the victim of this unseen power, and the man who was responsible now lay dead at Château-Thierry.

She had been younger then. Over twenty, every year counts double in a woman’s life until she reaches full maturity. Her youth had been an excuse where now it no longer was. And yet she doubted if at twenty she would have had to fight so hard for control. Her emotions were feebler then.

To add to her confusion she was not at all sure what it was she was trying to repulse. There is so much vagueness in a young woman’s life; so much hinted at, but never made clear; so much guessed, but not known. It is probably true that they are more of a mystery to themselves than to the young men who look upon them with such awe. It was certainly true of Wilmer in spite of all her reading.

No two authorities seemed to her able to agree on this thing called love; whether it was something to welcome or something to be guarded against. Before Allston came along she had been inclining to the latter view, for it appeared to lead more often to unhappiness than to happiness. Most tragedies were born of love; the great tragedies as well as the sordid little ones. In most cases woman was the victim, and when not, most certainly deserved to be. The good women suffered to themselves; the bad women caused others to suffer.

If this were true, then love was something to be fought off like an evil spirit. But the trouble was that instead of gaining strength as she struggled, as in other contests of her life, she felt her resistance to be constantly weakening. The more she argued, the feebler became her arguments; the more bitterly she condemned herself, the more ardently she desired. Hour by hour her intellect had been giving way to her emotions. She was becoming, looking at it in one way, less and less intelligent in her attitude to this burning problem.

And yet if her slow retreat did not bring her back into safer territory, it left her on more familiar ground. Forced to her base, she found that base to be her heart. And her heart was more peculiarly herself than her mind.

There are, in every woman, two women; the one coolly, calmly, deliberately, intelligently formed, and within her another, often enough imprisoned for life, the creation of God. Shyly the latter sits in silence peeping as she finds her opportunity through the eyes--safe hidden in the eyes--or makes her presence felt through a touch of the hand or, in full power, through the lips. And this woman grows and grows if given half a chance. If not she sickens and dies--pathetically, tragically. And what is left after that may be admirable, but does not win admiration.

It was face to face with this other self that Wilmer now found herself--an elfish, wholly irresponsible self, although governed by something bigger even than thought. And when the word love reached this other, it was as though she sprang into radiantly full being. Flushed and palpitating, eyes brimming with daring and eagerness, she asserted herself. She was Youth with all the hardy qualities of youth; she was Life with all the adventurous enthusiasm of life; she was Womanhood with all the steady courage of womanhood. She asked no questions, but she whispered secrets.

She whispered secrets to Wilmer lying there in the dark--big secrets, holy secrets, quickening secrets. She spoke of love quite fearlessly--at times almost fiercely. With eyes that were like the blazing sun, with nostrils that quivered, with a mouth opened for frank laughter, she challenged the world to deny her.

And Wilmer, her pretty white arm thrown over her forehead, stared and marveled until finally her eyes grew heavy and she slipped away into a dream world.

She awoke at dawn. She started to her elbow to listen once again for the footsteps of Allston. The house was silent--the utter silence of early morning. She realized then that she must have slept and that he had passed her door during that interval. She fell back to her pillow, but her eyes remained wide open. She had a feeling that something had happened in the last few hours--something big. It is so one awakes after joyous news, unable for a second to recall it. The emotion remains, but unrelated. Then suddenly she remembered, and her face became as radiant as the face of that other woman. She _was_ that other woman--that heart woman. In her dreams, love had taken possession.

She sprang from bed, and crossing to the open window looked out at the dawn. The quickening sky greeted her like a sister. The east was still a silver gray, but it looked so fresh and clean and cool that impulsively she threw out her arms towards it. So she did towards all the trees and grasses, though they were still half hidden in the dark. There were shadows there, too, but they were friendly shadows. She did not fear them in the least. They called to her to come out under the sky and be refreshed like them.

She felt cramped here in her room. She wished to be part of the dawn. And so dressing quickly she stole downstairs to the sitting-room. The fire was out, but the chair in which Allston had sat was still in its place before the cold hearth. Her hand fell upon it caressingly. It had become individualized to her. There were other chairs in the room of similar design, but these were merely so many indifferent pieces of wicker furniture. This was his chair. This would always be his chair.

She moved across the room to find a wrap, and when opposite the door leading into the kitchen was stopped by a draft as from an open window. That was unusual because her father was rather finicky about having the house tight-locked at night, and Roxie knew this. For a moment she hesitated. It was not yet full day, but she could see well enough to distinguish objects within. Perhaps Roxie was up. She often rose early.

Wilmer ventured to the threshold and called the girl’s name. She received no response, but she saw then it was not a window but the outside door that was open. It affected her as something dramatic. Nothing can be more significant than a door open when it should be closed or closed when it should be open. It involves a human element that may mean much.

On the whole, Wilmer was now sorry she had come down here. She was no more than ordinarily timid, but there is something unnatural about a house before it has awakened. The silence, for one thing, is intensive. One feels like an intruder, and like an intruder is never sure of what one may stumble upon. The night things do not vanish except before direct rays of either sun or lamp.

Finally, with considerable effort, she crossed the kitchen and hurriedly closed the door--with an odd feeling, before it latched, that something from without might resist her efforts. She was left a little out of breath. Which was absurd, of course. She realized this as soon as she had turned the lock.

But now the dead stove and the dumb kettle and the silent pots and pans hanging all around oppressed her. A kitchen is a living thing expressed in terms of noise and movement. When it is quiet and still, it is out of character. Moreover, it emphasized the absence of Roxie. She was always here, or at least some evidence of her.

Wilmer listened for her footsteps overhead. She ought by now to be dressing. The first feeble chirps of the early birds could be heard outside and she always rose with them. It was not necessary for her to get up at this hour, but she always did.

A peculiar sense of loneliness swept over Wilmer. She felt suddenly conscious of being the only live thing about in the house. She wished to see Roxie--to hear another human voice. It was this which impelled her up the stairs to the girl’s door. It was closed and she heard no movement within. She rapped gently and received no response. Then she turned the knob and gently pressed the door open. Her eyes sought the bed. It was empty.

And in the center of the room there stood one shoe and beside it a bit of paper. She picked up the note and hurrying to the window read it. Her heart stopped beating for a moment. Roxie had gone. Reading between the lines as clearly as Allston had done, she knew with whom. But there were some other things between the lines, clear enough to Allston, which she did not understand.

Clutching the crumpled bit of paper, Wilmer came back to the sitting-room. When the note had been written, she had no way of knowing, but the undisturbed bed indicated that it was the evening before. Roxie was generally asleep by ten. She had been gone, then, some seven hours. But why had she left at such an hour if with Bud? She had heard the girl in the kitchen until after nine, and that was too late for the completion of even a runaway match. There was an element of the inexplicable here which urged her to seek Allston at once. And, besides, she wanted him for herself.

Here was an emergency demanding action, and she turned to this man as naturally as, a day ago, she would have turned to her father. As soon as this, he had slipped into place by her side. He was there to help whenever she needed help. And he was there in a more vital sense than ever her father had been. If the latter was a wise counselor, he also stood in need of counsel; if a protector, he also was often in need of protection. If he was her right hand, she was his left hand.

But Allston stood out full-bodied, by himself. He needed no assistance. He could relieve her wholly of such a responsibility as this.

And yet, as she made her way up the stairs and down the hallway to his room, she began to question. To give him this note was to rouse him. To place this situation before him was to lead him into danger. For he would follow Roxie. There was no doubt about that. He would follow until he learned whether the girl had entered upon this mad venture of her own volition or not. That involved a terrible risk.

Wilmer, a few feet from his door, paused, leaning against the wall for support. If she waited a few hours, then he might seek help on his mission. A dozen men from the village would be willing to accompany him on such an errand. With the house surrounded, Bud would be forced to explain or to surrender.

But if Roxie were in actual danger, then a few hours might mark the difference between life and death, between honor and dishonor.

It was a cruel dilemma in which to place a woman in so brief a time after she had awakened to the full realization of love. It made little difference that her love had not yet been confessed--even that she had no assurance that it would be reciprocated. Once she had made the admission to herself, it existed--even if she lived the rest of her years with lips tight sealed. To her it was a reality at this moment--a stupendous reality. She loved as only a woman can love who has fought against love. It burned within her now like a white-hot flame.

In the end her decision was based, not upon Roxie, but upon herself and the man she loved. To be true to that love, she must send him; to be true to that love, he must go. If this new-found passion meant anything, it meant being true to the highest; it meant willingness to sacrifice to the highest. If she quailed before such a clean-cut issue as this, she could never again respect that love; if she saved him at such a cost, she could never respect that which she had saved.

With head up, if with knees weak, she knocked at his door. And as she did so it was as though not her hand but her naked heart were beating against the wooden panels. The ache of it made her tremble. To add to the agony she was forced to do it again--and yet again. The silence following hurt, too. It raised new fears. These accumulated so rapidly that she was soon in a panic. Scarcely conscious of what she was about, she turned the knob and pushed open his door--standing back as she did so. Light is indifferent. It cares not what it reveals. It showed now with grim starkness Allston’s empty, untouched bed.

And a vacant room.