CHAPTER XLIII

In the panic of her soul there was just honor enough awake to raise that

prayer, and in the fury of his there was just honor enough left to

answer it. It was the one irresistible appeal she could have made--the

cry of "Help!" that never falls in vain on the ears of a man unless he

has become a beast--or a god.

Mysteriously the almost stifled cry released from the dungeon of Forbes'

soul all the powers of decency; they took possession of him anew. His

senses and his muscles obeyed, and he was now so pure-hearted a defender

of Persis' integrity that he resisted even the little moan of almost

regret that escaped her tormented soul when he let her go.

The aftermath of the ordeal was an ague of reaction. The blood seemed to

flow backward into her heart. She was overwhelmed with the terror one

feels for a disaster narrowly escaped, and with shame for the

realization that the credit was none of hers.

Forbes did not take her in his arms, but contented himself with closing

out the breeze that seemed to have turned colder now, and with wrapping

about her quivering shoulders the heavy velvet of the curtain.

Whatever other flaws she had, Persis was not marred by self-conceit.

Even her nobler motives she tended to reinterpret from some cynical

point of view. When she was calmer she spoke with that intelligence of

hers that always chilled Forbes' idealizing heart.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am, Harvey, and how ashamed. I didn't

know I was so--so hopelessly like other people. I didn't know I could

forget myself so completely. But I've learned my lesson. I've had my

scare. And I must keep away from the edge of the cliff. We mustn't meet

alone this way any more, Harvey. I love you too well, and I don't want

to go altogether to the bad, do I? It isn't that I'm good; I'd love to

be good, but I'm afraid I wasn't meant to be. But I must be sensible. I

mustn't be a fool. A woman risks too much, Harvey. It's too hideously

unfair. The consequences would be nothing at all to you--and might be

utter destruction to me. I told you there were a hundred Persises in me.

And now I've seen one of them face to face that I never knew was there.

I've got to starve her to death. We mustn't meet alone any more, must

we?"

He could not say anything without saying too much. So he simply shook

his head and pressed her hand, and, rising, led her from the niche of

peril. With his free hand he found his cigar-lighter and snapped it; but

it would not flame, and they stumbled through an archipelago of

furniture, jostling together, more afraid of contact with each other

than of any other danger.

They walked into the wall, but, groping, found at last the door and

entered the dining-room again. The moonlight was gone, and the first

tide of daybreak was seeping through the windows. There was no

rose-color in this dawn. It promised to be a gray day.

They hurried to the kitchen and came back indeed to life in its most

material surfaces, a chill, drab light beating upon pots and pans.

They bade each other good night and good-by there; but their embrace was

appropriately matter-of-fact, galvanized ware upon cold iron. They

tiptoed wearily up the service stairway and into the main corridor

above.

Here, too, there was daylight like dirty pond water. Persis went

stealthily to the railing of the stairway, and, glancing down, beckoned

to Forbes, who moved to her side and peered where she pointed.

He saw that Willie Enslee, exhausted by his vigil, had fallen asleep on

a sumptuous divan. The divan would have honored a palace, and Willie's

pajamas were of silk, and his bathrobe was of brocaded silk. But after

all it was Willie Enslee that was in them. And he slept with his little

eyes clenched and his mouth ajar. And a cold cigarette was stuck to his

lower lip.

Forbes was impelled to taunt her with a whispered: "There is your

husband. Go to him!"

But when he looked at her she was so wan and pitiful that he could not

be as pitiless as the wan daylight was. She was making an advance

payment on her price; and she was shivering and lonely. So he kissed her

icy hands and whispered to her how beautiful she was and a sorrowful

"God bless you!" and sneaked back into his room, his bachelor room.

Had he paused as once before to throw her another kiss, he would have

found her with her arms stretched out to him pleading for rescue from

the vision she had seen and the unspoken taunt she had understood. But

he did not look back, and she dared not knock at his door. The click of

his lock frightened her, and she fled to her room like a ghost surprised

by the morning.