Leslie Burton Blades

“ Claire! What sort of a woman are you?" she moaned.
Her heart beat irregularly under the surge of emotion that shook her. She was glad, glad that Lawrence loved her. She had looked into the eyes of Philip Ortez, and her own had dropped, while her mind had leaped into admiration of him, warm, yielding admiration. What was it that had swept her on the discovery of one man's love to a deep, vibrant gladness—that another man's eyes had been filled with tenderness for her? Was she so changed from the Claire of old? Was she utterly degraded? Did she want both men to love her? ”

“ Philip glanced at him quickly. Into his mind flashed the memory of Claire's words in the room that fatal afternoon.
"I shall never marry such a woman," he declared, and added: "But I mean to have one whose devotion is so pure that even her talk to me of such things will be holy."
Lawrence laughed heartily.
"Philip," he said, still chuckling, "you seem to think we human beings are half supernatural and half stinking dirt. Why, in Heaven's name, don't you once see us as plain, healthy, intelligent animals?" ”

“ Lawrence was too hurt to move. His mind repeated again and again the words she had spoken. He kept saying to himself: "Blindness has made me that, an egotist beggar." He did not reproach Claire. She had swept him too far from his habitual moorings for that. There was no rebellion against her, none, indeed, against life. Over him rolled wave after wave of self-contempt, distrust, and anguish that shook him with an agony that only the assured man knows when the one he loves most of all on earth strikes dead his faith in himself. ”

“ Claire gripped the chair arms. Anger, fear, doubt, then the knowledge that he could do as he said, swept over her in rapidly succeeding waves, and gathered at last into a steel hate that she felt must last through eternity.
"You, you would do that, after I guided you here! You would take advantage of what I could not help, and—and—" she choked, and then said swiftly—"so, under your indifferent exterior you used your touch that way these days! Oh, you—you beast!"
Lawrence laughed coolly. "I could no more help it than I can avoid being here."
"Lies!" she exclaimed. "A gentleman could help it!" ”

“ With stern control she forced herself to seem composed and quiet, while within her passions raged like a tornado. Self-contempt, wonder, amazement, pity for her husband, for Lawrence, and hatred for Philip Ortez swept round and round in her brain like a maelstrom.
She stepped through her curtain and said gaily: "You're preempting my privilege, Philip."
He laughed. "I thought perhaps you were tired," he said.
"She ought to be," remarked Lawrence from his chair, and in her present state she imagined in his voice a tenderness, a worry for her, and a distrust of her. ”

“ It was Lawrence's voice. He had come in, just in time to hear the last words. "Nor men, either—except in one thing."
"What is the one thing?" asked Claire eagerly.
"That, given a normal, healthy mind, they will sacrifice all their idols for life. Life is the one eternally insistent thing."
Philip chuckled. "You are yourself again, I see."
"Yes, and stronger than ever in my faith," said Lawrence, sitting down. "I know the price I would pay for life. It is the price every human being would pay, if demanded." ”

“ Lawrence stood up and gathered his scattered senses.
"Philip, I beg your pardon, old man. It isn't that at all. The truth is"—and his voice broke—"I have lied to myself and to the world these many years. Much of it hasn't been my fault, but I must pay the price just the same. I am blind. That has led me to a sort of clamorous egoism which carried me on and on until I came to feel that I was really doing something. At last, I know that I am a narrow human parasite, worthless, utterly worthless. A blind, clinging, grasping, vagrant beast, fed upon the mercy of too kind-hearted humanity. ”

“ Lawrence said at last. "To-morrow we reach civilization. Oh, Claire, Claire, with civilization come you, home, our real life!"
She moved uneasily. There was a sudden overwhelming sense of her need, and she resolved to tell him everything.
"Lawrence," she began, "to-morrow we do reach civilization, and I—I am finding out things about myself."
He knew she was going to tell him what troubled her. For an instant he was filled with terror lest she say she could not love him after all. Perhaps his fight with Philip had sickened her, killed her love. ”

“ I always wish I could. There are times, Claire, when I don't want to be a realist, don't want to face life as it is, when it seems too tawdry to be valuable just as it is; then I reach out into the night and cry, 'Let me be the maddest of dreamers, the wildest of idealists, a knight of fancy seeking the illusive dream!'"
Claire laughed aloud as she said, "And don't you know, dear man, that that is just what you do become at times?"
"I know it. That's the joke of it. All the while I mock myself for being a romancing idiot!" ”

“ Philip rose and went to the fire. "I do not believe you could live by your theory," he asserted.
"I do live by it. There is but one thing I dread worse than death. I would die rather than give up my creative impulse."
"And he would sacrifice your life or mine for art's sake," merrily added Claire. "It's a good thing he doesn't think we are hindrances to art."
Philip also laughed. "Well," he said, "there might come a time when I, too, would want a thing enough to kill in order to obtain it."
"What, for example?" asked Lawrence. "That is the best way to determine your value of life." ”

“ Claire said, renewing the conversation.
"Quite," answered Lawrence. "I am as free from family hindrances as a young wolf that runs his first season's hunt alone."
She thought how apt a comparison he had made. "So you regard the family as a hindrance?"
"Oh—no and yes. One can never do quite as he pleases while a family and its wishes, aims, and loves are concerned. They always hold him down to some extent. He is an equal hindrance to them. They love each other, and as a result they have to sacrifice their individual wishes. ”

“ Lawrence was dreaming of his work, his future with Claire, and the home that was to be. Claire was pondering Lawrence's words, "Human beings think many things they don't and can't do." To her these words had been both a great comfort and a startling awakening. Almost instantly had returned an idea which she had thought forever gone, and all day it kept growing.
That night they camped beside a stream under great trees where tiny blue flowers winked up at them from the deep grass. After supper they sat beside their fire dreaming. ”

“ Philip stared at her. He noticed the pale face and the dark rings under her eyes.
"Why, certainly," he said, and rose. "You aren't looking well, Claire. Is anything seriously wrong?" He looked at her again with the same unconsciously tender warmth in his eyes.
She saw it, flushed angrily, wanted to scream at him, and said simply, "No, I just want to think, and want it quiet. You two talk too much about yourselves and about things that you don't understand."
"Very true"—Lawrence also had risen—"if I did understand them, I'd show humanity how to stop being animals and be men." ”

“ With silent turmoil in her brain she entered the cabin beside Philip. When she saw Lawrence, a sharp pain went through her. He was white as death save for the red spots that marked his fever. She took off her coat and snow-cap hurriedly.
"Lawrence," she said softly, going toward him.
He lifted his head slightly.
"What is it, Claire?"
"I want to do something for you. You're ill."
His face clouded. "No, thanks," he said. "You've done too much for me already."
"Won't you do anything for yourself?" she begged. ”

“ Her eyes strayed to the figure before the fireplace. Idly she noted the lustrous, wavy black hair and deep brown eyes protected by unusually heavy lashes. It was clearly the face of a thinker, a dreamer, yet there was something sensual about the mouth, potentially voluptuous, abandoned, and suggestive of tremendous passion that slumbered close beneath the brain that was so actively awake. Claire ached, and her body tingled with the unaccustomed warmth. She lay quiet, looking at the fire, her mind still uncertain in its action, weaving sharp, dynamic images about this new personality. ”

“ Reaching the cabin, the blind man, whose acute soul and senses had long told him of Philip's passion, held out the finished carving he had been at work on all these weeks—a winged cherub.
In his eyes it was the symbol of his love for her. But her words of acceptance made him think in her eyes it was rather a symbol of her love for the mountaineer. ”

“ Philip did not answer for a few minutes, then his voice vibrated.
"The things that mean more than life to me. I know that one holds his own life dear, but there are things, love, courage, honor, for example, that he holds even above life."
"Would you kill me, for instance," asked Lawrence pleasantly, "if I stood between you and Claire?"
"That is scarcely answerable," nervously interposed Claire. "You see, you don't and the man who does—though it's all absurd, since we none of us here are the least in love—is my husband." ”

“ His talk was light, pleasantly humorous, and very genial. He was, in short, the lover. Claire, too, shone with a new radiance.
Doubt rearose in Philip's heart, and grew rapidly into suspicion. He became less responsive to their chatter. His dark eyes grew somber with misgiving, and love swelled into longing that made him feel sure that Claire was necessary to his life. Without her there could be no living for him. He wondered if she and Lawrence had found love. "If they have," he argued, "there can be but one explanation. Claire is unreliable, vicious, and dangerous." ”

“ You, too, worn out by struggling to live more fully, but not until your lust for life has sent children out to carry on the struggle.
"Oh, Claire, it is you the woman, demanding at any cost that your child live, who gives us our great knowledge, our beauty, our selfishness, and our strident sex, our pain."
Claire caught her breath and sobbed: "Lawrence, Lawrence!"
"Yes," he went on, "that is the end of it all. I see it now. You, unknown to yourself, demanding your child, stung to fear of death without it here in the wilderness, you love me—I know it, you love me. And I—I love you. ”

“ Lawrence was thoughtful. "It is a paradox, I am so selfish that, although I would sacrifice myself to the last degree for a person I loved, yet I would all the time feel that I was a fool, that I was doing an absurd thing when life was so good."
"I see," Claire observed. "And I know I would do the same."
"I would do it," Philip said, "but I would not feel a fool. It would seem to me right."
Claire looked straight into his eyes. "You would not, Philip," she declared softly. "Your own happiness would come first—and you know it."
The Spaniard's gaze shifted, and there was silence in the cabin. ”