LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a light. It frightened me."

      "You've forgotten," she answered. "We talked it over a week or so ago, and I thought you had agreed. Ellen's wedding. Naturally they all wanted to go. I had an early dinner and packed them off. But I counted on you. I was growing afraid, all alone in the house. What kept you?"

      "Old Mrs. Hanson – at first. She's very ill. I should really have stayed the night. I went to the club for a bite – "

      He broke off. He walked closer, looking down into her eyes which did not quite meet his.

      "At the club – I knew I must come home to-night. I – I sent your cousin, Tom Redding, to Mrs. Hanson."

      Her eyes wavered even more.

      "Why? That isn't like you to – to turn a critical case over to another man. I could have managed. Anyway, you'd forgotten about my maid's wedding. So it wasn't that. What – what happened at the club?"

      She shivered for a moment uncontrollably.

      "John! What's the matter? Why do you glare at me like that? Why do you look so – so – "

      She tried to laugh.

      "So – murderous?"

      His face worked.

      "Bella," he said, "I've not been altogether blind about you and Treving."

      She exclaimed impatiently, but her shiver was repeated, and the uncertainty of her voice lingered.

      "You're not going to commence on that!"

      He brushed her interruption aside.

      "But Treving's seemed a decent enough sort in spite of the way he spends his money and his Broadway record, and, you see, Bella, I've always trusted you unquestioningly."

      "And now? Tell me what you're driving at, John. I won't put up – "

      She sprang to her feet, facing him, wide-eyed, furious, yet, one would have suspected, not completely free from apprehension.

      Randall touched her arm.

      "Don't work yourself up, Bella. You know. I've told you. It's bad for you."

      "What do you expect, when you insinuate – "

      "What have I insinuated, provided your conscience's clear?"

      He urged her back to the chair.

      "It's just this: we must talk it out. I've a right to know how far this folly's gone – what it portends, so that I can take measures of defence for myself and for my wife."

      She yielded and sat down, but now she bent forward, her hands clasped at her knees to prevent their trembling.

      Randall clearly made an effort to speak normally. His tone had resumed its professional quality. It was, in a sense, soothing, but the power of the words themselves could not be diminished, and, as he went on, her emotions strayed farther and farther from the boundaries she had plainly tried to impose.

      "I overheard," he said. "It was Delafield and Ross. I went to Ross. I felt I knew him well enough. My dear! It's common scandal – much worse, I'll do you the credit of saying, than the facts. You've been seen with Treving in cafés of doubtful reputation, and out here on Long Island, at some of these unspeakable road houses – "

      He turned away.

      "People aren't kind at construing those things. He was a damned scoundrel to take you to such places."

      "I'll judge that," she said. "If it's all you have to charge me with!"

      "Isn't it enough? Good God! How indiscreet!"

      "Then why not tell all this to Freddy Treving?" she asked.

      The lines about his mouth tightened.

      "Treving," he said with an affectation of simplicity, "came into the club while I was talking with Ross. He had been drinking – a great deal. I didn't realize it at first – it's quite necessary you should hear this – so I took him out in the hall and tried to talk to him reasonably. I told him it must stop – any friendship between him and you."

      She glanced up tempestuously.

      "I'll not have my friendships questioned."

      "I'm sorry, Bella. You've placed this one beyond your own control. You made me speak to Treving. It was the only thing to do. And he was impertinent, defiant. As I told you, he had been drinking, but that didn't explain his astounding assurance. I don't want to do you an injustice, but I couldn't help fearing his confidence was based on an understanding with you."

      "John! You're mad!"

      "No. I think it's Treving who's a little mad as well as drunk."

      He studied her face morosely.

      "I told him, if I heard of his coming near you again or communicating with you in any way, I would thrash him within an inch of his life. Bella, he laughed at me."

      His eyes left hers. A look of utter discouragement entered them. He spoke slowly, with unnatural distinctness.

      "Treving offered to lay me any stakes he'd spend this evening with you without my knowing."

      His eyes remained averted. Perhaps he didn't dare risk the vital testimony hers might have yielded.

      Her voice was sharp.

      "Treving said that?"

      He nodded.

      "But I don't think he'll succeed. And I warned him as he deserved. You may as well make up your mind, Bella, that that incident is finished."

      "On the contrary," she answered, "it's only begun."

      He swung around and bent over her, grasping her shoulders, shaking her slightly.

      "Unless, Bella – unless – "

      His hands tightened until she cried out.

      "That's why, when I saw the house dark, I was afraid you'd gone. Did you and he know about old Mrs. Hanson? Have you any arrangement with him for to-night?"

      She pressed her lips together. Blood congested her cheeks.

      He shook her more determinedly.

      "Answer. You have to answer that."

      Her lips parted.

      "Take your hands away."

      "Bella! You can't keep quiet. See how you're racking me! Answer."

      Somewhere in the house a bell commenced to jangle, and continued, irritatingly, insistently.

      She grasped his wrists and pushed his hands aside.

      "You've gone rather too far," she whispered.

      "I've a right. Answer. Was there an arrangement? Did you expect him here to-night while I struggled in town?"

      The discordant jangling appeared to enter his consciousness. He sprang back, listening.

      "That might – By gad, if it were!"

      "It's the telephone," she said, "in the library."

      "Why isn't it answered? Oh, yes. You might have kept Thompson at least. Let it ring. I shan't go down."

      "A doctor!" she said scornfully.

      She arose with an effort. The lace of the mauve dressing-gown exaggerated the difficulty of her breathing. His glance, which took all this in, was not wholly without contrition.

      "Answer it," she said. "I shan't fly from the house to any man's arms while you are in the library."

      He half stretched out his hand to her, but the appealing motion resolved itself into a gesture of despair. He walked out and descended to the library.

      After a moment the discordant bell was silent. The murmur of his voice, moment by moment interrupted, arose through the quiet house to this single lighted chamber.

      She stood for a time by the door, listening. Once or twice she placed her hand above her heart. At last she turned back and gazed through the narrow door to the next room where a yellow ribbon of illumination from the reading light draped itself across her bed. Her face set in the cruel

Скачать книгу