E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ It came to Beatrice's turn very soon after their arrival, and Tavernake, squeezing his way a few steps into the dining-room, stood with the waiters against the wall. He looked with curious eyes upon a scene with which he had no manner of sympathy.
A hundred or so of men had dined together in the cause of some charity. The odor of their dinner, mingled with the more aromatic perfume of the tobacco smoke which was already ascending in little blue clouds from the various tables, hung about the over-heated room, seeming, indeed, the fitting atmosphere for the long rows of guests. ”

“ They were very beautiful arms and Tavernake, although he had had no experience, was dimly aware of the fact. Her eyes, too, seemed always to be trying to reach some part of him which was dead, or as yet unborn. He could feel her striving to get there, beating against the walls of his indifference. Why should a woman wear blue stockings because she had a blue gown, he wondered idly. She was not like Beatrice, this alluring, beautiful woman, who lay there talking to him in a manner whose meaning came to him only in strange, bewildering flashes. ”

“ If Elizabeth knew that I could tell her at any moment your exact whereabouts, I think that she would be more angry with me than ever she has been in her life, and, my dear,” he added, “you know, when Elizabeth is angry, things are apt to be unpleasant. But I have been dumb. I have not spoken, nor shall I. Yet,” the professor went on, “you must not think, Beatrice, that because I yield to your whim in this matter I recognize any sufficient cause why you should voluntarily estrange yourself from those whose right and privilege it is to look after you. ”

“ There was something almost spiritual about her pallor, the delicate outline of her figure, so imperfectly concealed by the thin silk dressing-gown, the faint, tired smile with which she welcomed him.
“You will forgive my receiving you like this, Mr. Tavernake?” she begged. “To-day I have a headache. I have been anxious for your coming. You must sit by my side, please, and tell me at once whether you have seen Beatrice.”
Tavernake did exactly as he was bidden. The chair toward which she had pointed was quite close to the sofa, but there was no other unoccupied in the room. ”

“ Pritchard smiled.
“Professor,” he said, “and you, Walter Crease, and you, Jimmy Post, if you're able to listen, listen to me. You have played the part of children to-night. So surely as men and women exist who live as you do, so surely must the law wait upon their heels. You cannot cheat justice. It is as inexorable as Time itself. When you try these little tricks, you simply give another turn to the wheel, add another danger to life. ”

“ Tavernake filled her glass and his own.
“Luck to you in your new profession!” he said.
“And here is one after your own heart, you most curious of men!” she exclaimed, a few seconds later. “To the undiscovered in life!”
He drained his glass and set it down empty.
“The undiscovered,” he muttered, looking around. “It is a very good toast, Beatrice. There are many things of which one might remain ignorant all one's life if one relied wholly upon one's own perceptions.” ”

“ He could not bring himself to realize it, to believe that it was Pritchard who had been with him only a few seconds ago, who in danger of his life had performed that marvelous trick of jiu-jutsu, had followed his unknown assailant into that dark, mysterious house, from no single window of which was a single gleam of light visible. Tavernake had led an uneventful life. Of the passions which breed murder and the desire to kill he knew nothing. ”

“ Tavernake awoke some hours later with a puzzled sense of having lost his own identity, of having taken up another man's life, stepped into another man's shoes. From the day of his first arrival in London, a raw country youth, till the night when he had spoken to Beatrice on the roof of Blenheim House, nothing that could properly be called an adventure had ever happened to him. ”

“ Elizabeth is my sister, but listen! What I say to you now I say in deadly earnest. Elizabeth has no heart, she has no thought for other people, she makes use of them and they count for no more to her than the figures that pass through one's dreams. She has some sort of hateful gift,” Beatrice continued, and her voice shook and her eyes flashed, “some hateful gift of attracting people to her and making them do her bidding, of spoiling their lives and throwing them away when they have ceased to be useful. Leonard, you must not let her do this with you.” ”

“ Pritchard smiled in a relieved fashion.
“My young friend,” he said, “I have lived in the world so long and seen so many strange things, especially between men and women, that I am never surprised at anything. I thought you'd shed your follies as your grip upon life had tightened, but one is never sure.”
Tavernake sighed.
“Oh, I have shed the worst of my follies!” he answered. “I only wish—”
He never finished his sentence. Elizabeth had suddenly seen him. For a moment she leaned forward as though to assure herself that she was not mistaken. ”

“ Save for that handful of cottages, the two farmhouses a few hundred yards inland, and the deserted Hall half-hidden in its grove of pine trees, there was no dwelling-place nor any sign of human habitation for many miles. For eight hours a day Tavernake worked, mostly out of doors, in the little yard which hung over the beach. Sometimes he rested from his labors and looked seaward, looked around him as though rejoicing in that unbroken solitude, the emptiness of the gray ocean, the loneliness of the land behind. ”

“ If you want the truth, I think that the reason I do not adore you any longer is because I saw your sister last night.”
“Saw Beatrice!” she exclaimed. “Where?”
“She was singing at a miserable east-end music-hall so that her father might find some sort of employment,” Tavernake said. “The people only forbore to hiss her father's turn for her sake. She goes about the country with him. Heaven knows what they earn, but it must be little enough! Beatrice is shabby and thin and pale. She is devoting the best years of her life to what she imagines to be her duty.” ”

“ Once again it seemed to Beatrice that history was repeating itself. The dingy, oblong dining-room, with its mosquito netting, stained tablecloth, and hard cane chairs, expanded until she fancied herself in the drawing-room of Blenheim House. Between the landladies there was little enough to choose. Mrs. Raithby Lawrence, notwithstanding her caustic tongue and suspicious nature, had at least made some pretense at gentility. The woman who faced her now—hard-featured, with narrow, suspicious eyes and a mass of florid hair—was unmistakably and brutally vulgar. ”

“ Her long, rather narrow face was gripped between her hands; her elbows rested upon the brick parapet. She gazed at that world of blood-red mists, of unshapely, grotesque buildings, of strange, tawdry colors; she listened to the medley of sounds—crude, shrill, insistent, something like the groaning of a world stripped naked—and she had all the time the air of one who hates the thing she looks upon.
Tavernake, whose curiosity concerning his companion remained unappeased, decided that the moment for speech had arrived. He took a step forward upon the soft, pulpy leads. ”

“ They conversed together in whispers. Tavernake took no notice. His jaw was set. Himself unseen, he was gazing steadfastly at that table below. The head waiter shrugged his shoulders and departed; his other clients must be mollified. There was a finality which was unanswerable about Tavernake's methods.
Tavernake ate and drank what they brought to him, ate and drank and suffered. Everything was as it had been that other night—the popping of corks, the soft music, the laughter of women, the pleasant, luxurious sense of warmth and gayety pervading the whole place. ”

“ Phrenologist, hypnotist, conjurer—all these things the great Professor Franklin had called himself. Often, from the rude stage where he had given his performance, he had terrified to death the women and children of his audience. It flashed upon him at that moment that never, even in the days of her childhood, had he seen fear in Elizabeth's face.
“You should have been a man, Elizabeth,” he muttered.
She shook her head, smiling as though not ill-pleased at the compliment.
“The power of a man is so limited,” she declared. “A woman has more weapons.” ”

“ Tavernake answered. “I was thinking of those days in London; I was thinking of Beatrice's horror when she discovered that I was wearing ready-made clothes, and the amazement of Elizabeth when she found that I hadn't a dress suit. It's odd how cramped life gets back there.”
Pritchard nodded, pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with his forefinger.
“You're right, Tavernake,” he agreed. “One loses one's sense of proportion. Men in the cities are all alike. They go about in disguise.”
“I should like,” Tavernake said, inconsequently, “to have Mr. Dowling out here.” ”

“ Tavernake paid his bill and they turned into the street. She took his arm and they turned westward. Even out here, the atmosphere of the restaurant appeared to have found its way. The soberness of life, its harder and more practical side, was for the moment obscured. It was not the daytime crowd, this, whose footsteps pressed the pavements. The careworn faces of the money-seekers had vanished. The men and women to whom life was something of a struggle had sought their homes—resting, perhaps, before they took up their labors again. ”

“ Elizabeth, if he should get away sometime! If some one should come over from America and discover where he was! If he should find us out! Oh, my God, if he should find us out!”
Elizabeth had risen to her feet. She was standing now before the fire, her left elbow resting upon the mantelpiece, a trifle of silver gleaming in her right hand.
“Father,” she said, “there is no danger in life for those who know no fear. Look at me.” ”

“ What did one do with a woman who was kind one moment and insolent the next, who raised her eyebrows and passed on when he wanted her, when he was there longing for her? Those old solid dreams of his—wealth, power, his name on great prospectuses, a position in the world—these things now appeared like the day fancies of a child. He had seen his way towards them. Already he had felt his feet upon the rungs of the ladder which leads to material success. ”

“ Tavernake smoked stolidly at his pipe. His eyes were out seaward, but his heart was beating to a new and splendid music. To start life again, a man's life, out in the solitudes, out in the great open spaces! It was gorgeous, this! He turned round and grasped Pritchard by the shoulder.
“I say,” he exclaimed, “why are you doing all this for me, Pritchard?”
Pritchard laughed.
“You did me a good turn,” he said, “and you're a man. You've the pluck—that's what I like. You knew nothing, you were as green and ignorant as a young man from behind the counter of a country shop, but, my God! ”

“ The woman on the couch winced as though some one had struck her. A more susceptible man than Tavernake must have felt a little remorseful at the tears which dimmed for a moment her beautiful eyes. Tavernake, however, although he felt a moment's uneasiness, although he felt himself assailed all the time by a curious new emotion which he utterly failed to understand, was nevertheless still immune. ”

“ Tavernake answered. “It's something in my blood, I suppose. I am going on. Think! You'll strike that railway and in a month you will be back in New York. Don't you imagine, when you're there, when you hear the clatter and turmoil of it, when you see the pale crowds chivvying one another about to pick the dollars from each other's pockets,—don't you believe you'll long for these solitudes, the big empty places, great possibilities, the silence? Think of it, man. What is there beyond those mountains, I wonder?”
McCleod sighed.
“You're right,” he said. “One may never get so far out again. ”

“ Outside, the throng of pedestrians had grown less, but from the great restaurant opposite a constant stream of motor-cars and carriages was slowly bringing away the supper guests. Tavernake stood at the door, watching them idly. The traffic was momentarily blocked and almost opposite to him a motor-car, the simple magnificence of which filled him with wonder, had come to a standstill. The chauffeur and footman both wore livery which was almost white. Inside a swinging vase of flowers was suspended from the roof. A man and a woman leaned back in luxurious easy-chairs. ”

“ She began to laugh, very softly at first, but soon she threw herself back among the cushions and laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder.
“Oh, you are just the same!” she cried. “Just the same dear, truthful bundle of honesty and awkwardness and ignorance. So you are going to be victim of Beatrice's bow and spear, after all.”
“I have asked your sister to marry me,” Tavernake admitted. “She will not.”
“She was very wise,” Elizabeth declared, wiping the tears from her eyes. “As an experience you are delightful. As a husband you would be terribly impossible. ”

“ He simply thrust her away from him.
“No,” he said, “we cannot be friends! You are a woman without a heart, you are a murderess!”
He tore her cheque calmly in pieces and flung them scornfully away. She stood looking at him, breathing quickly, white to the lips though the murder had gone from his eyes.
“Beatrice warned me,” he went on; “Pritchard warned me. Some things I saw for myself, but I suppose I was mad. Now I know!”
He turned away. Her eyes followed him wonderingly.
“Leonard,” she cried out, “you are not going like this? You don't mean it!” ”