The Hillman by E. Phillips Oppenheim
XXXVI
Toward nine o'clock on the following morning John rose from a fitfulsleep and looked around him. Even before he could recall the events ofthe preceding night he felt that there was a weight pressing upon hisbrain, a miserable sense of emptiness in life, a dull feeling ofbewilderment. Although he had no clear recollection of getting there, herealized that he was in his own sitting room, and that he had beenasleep upon the couch. He saw, too, that it was morning, for a ray ofsunlight lay across the carpet.
As he struggled to his feet, he saw with a little shock that he was notalone. Sophy Gerard was curled up in his easy chair, still in eveningclothes, her cloak drawn closely around her, as if she were cold. Herhead had fallen back. She, too, was asleep. At the sound of hismovement, however, she opened her eyes and looked at him for a momentwith a puzzled stare. Then she jumped to her feet.
"Why, we have both been asleep!" she murmured, a little weakly.
At the sound of her voice it all came back to him, a tangled, hideousnightmare. He sat down again upon the couch and held his head betweenhis hands.
"How did I come here?" he asked. "I can't remember!"
She hesitated. He answered the unspoken question in her eyes.
"I remember everything that happened at the club," he went on slowly."Is the prince dead?"
She shook her head.
"Of course not! He was hurt, though, and there was a terrible scene ofconfusion in the room. The people crowded around him, and I managed,somehow, to drag you away. The manager helped us. To tell the truth, hewas only too anxious for you to get away before the police arrived. Hewas so afraid of anything getting into the papers. I drove you backhere, and, as you still seemed stunned, I brought you up-stairs. Ididn't mean to stay, but I couldn't get you to say a single coherentword. I was afraid to leave you alone!"
"I suppose I was drunk," he said, in a dull tone. "I remember filling myglass over and over again. There is one thing, though," he added, hisvoice gaining a sudden strength; "I was not drunk when I struck theprince! I remember those few seconds very distinctly. I saw everything,knew everything, felt everything. If no one had interfered, I think Ishould have killed him!"
"You were not drunk at all," she declared, with a little shiver, "butyou were in a state of terrible excitement. It was a long time before Icould get you to lie down, and then you wouldn't close your eyes until Icame and sat by your side. I watched you go to sleep. I hope you are notangry with me! I didn't like to go and leave you."
"How could I be angry?" he protested. "You are far kinder to me than Ideserve. I expect I should have been in a police cell but for you!"
"And now," she begged, coming over to him and speaking in a morematter-of-fact tone, "do let us be practical. I must run away, and youmust go and have a bath and change your clothes. Don't be afraid ofyour reputation. I can get out by the other entrance."
He made no movement. She laid her hand on his arm. In the sunlight, witha little patch of rouge still left on her cheek, with her disorderedhair and tired eyes, she looked almost ghastly.
"Remember," she whispered, "you have to go to see Louise!"
He covered his face with his hands.
"What's the use of it?" he groaned. "It's only another turn of thescrew!"
"Don't be foolish, John," she admonished briskly. "You don't actuallyknow anything yet--nothing at all; at least, you are not sure ofanything. And besides, you strange, impossible person," she went on,patting his hand, "don't you see that you must judge her, not by thestandards of your world, in which she has never lived, but by thestandards of her world, in which she was born and bred? That is onlyfair, isn't it?"
He made no answer. She watched him anxiously, but there was no sign inhis face.
"Pull yourself together, John," she continued. "Ring for some tea, getyour bath, and then have it out with Louise. Remember, life is a verybig thing. You are dealing this morning with all it may mean to you."
He rose listlessly to his feet. There was a strange, dull look in hisface.
"You are a dear girl, Sophy!" he said. "Don't go just yet. I have neverfelt like it before in my life, but just now I don't want to be leftalone. Send a boy for some clothes, and I will order some tea."
She hesitated.
"My own reputation," she murmured, "is absolutely of no consequence, butremember that you live here, and--"
"Don't be silly!" he interrupted. "What does that matter? And besides,according to you and all the rest of you here, these things don't affecta man's reputation--they are expected of him. See, I have rung the bellfor breakfast. Now I am going to telephone down for a messenger-boy togo for your clothes."
They breakfasted together, a little later, and she made him smoke. Hestood before the window, looking down upon the river, with his pipe inhis mouth and an unfamiliar look upon his face.
"Do you suppose that Louise knows anything?" he asked at length.
"I should think not," she replied. "It is for you to tell her. I rang upthe prince's house while you were in your bathroom. They say that he hasa broken rib and some bad cuts, sustained in a motor accident lastnight, but that he is in no danger. There was nothing about the affairin the newspapers, and the prince's servants have evidently beeninstructed to give this account to inquirers."
A gleam of interest shone in John's face.
"By the bye," he remarked, "the prince is a Frenchman. He will verylikely expect me to fight with him."
"No hope of that, my belligerent friend," Sophy declared, with anattempt at a smile. "The prince knows that he is in England. He wouldnot be guilty of such an anachronism. Besides, he is a person ofwonderfully well-balanced mind. When he is himself again, he willrealize that what happened to him is exactly what he asked for."
John took up his hat and gloves. He glanced at the clock--it was alittle past eleven.
"I am ready," he announced. "Let me drive you home first."
His motor was waiting at the door, and he left Sophy at her rooms.Before she got out, she held his arm for a moment.
"John," she said, "remember that Louise is very high-strung and verysensitive. Be careful!"
"There is only one thing to do or to say," he answered. "There is onlyone way in which I can do it."
He drove the car down Piccadilly like a man in a dream, steering ascarefully as usual through the traffic, and glancing every now and thenwith unseeing eyes at the streams of people upon the pavements. Finallyhe came to a standstill before Louise's house and stopped the enginewith deliberate care. Then he rang the bell, and was shown into herlittle drawing-room, which seemed to have become a perfect bower of pinkand white lilac.
He sat waiting as if in a dream, unable to decide upon his words, unableeven to sift his thoughts. The one purpose with which he had come, theone question he designed to ask, was burning in his brain. The minutesof her absence seemed tragically long. He walked up and down, oppressedby the perfume of the flowers. The room seemed too small for him. Helonged to throw open all the windows, to escape from the atmosphere, inwhich for the first time he seemed to find some faint, enervatingpoison.
Then at last the door opened and Louise entered. She came toward himwith a little welcoming smile upon her lips. Her manner was gay, almostaffectionate.
"Have you come to take me for a ride before lunch?" she asked. "Do youknow, I think that I should really like it! We might lunch at Ranelaghon our way home."
The words stuck in his throat. From where she was, she saw now thewriting on his face. She stopped short.
"What is it?" she exclaimed.
"Ever since I knew you," he said slowly, "there have been odd momentswhen I have lived in torture. During the last fortnight, those momentshave become hours. Last night the end came."
"Are you mad, John?" she demanded.
"Perhaps," he replied. "Listen. When I left you last night, I went tothe club in Adelphi Terrace. There was a well-known critic there,comparing you and Latrobe. On the whole he favored yo
She winced. The glad freshness seemed suddenly to fade from her face.Her eyes became strained.
"Well?"
"I found Graillot. I cornered him. I asked him for the truth about you.He put me off with an evasion. I came down here and looked at yourwindow. It was three o'clock in the morning. I dared not come in. A verydemon of unrest was in my blood. I stopped at a night-club on my wayback. Sophy was there. I asked her plainly to put me out of my agony.She was like Graillot. She fenced with me. And then--the prince came!"
"The prince was there?" she faltered.
"He came up to the table where Sophy and I were sitting. I think I washalf mad. I poured him a glass of wine and asked him to drink with me. Itold him that you had promised to become my wife. He raised his glass--Ican see him now. He told me, with a smile, that it was the anniversaryof the day on which you had promised to become his mistress!"
Louise shrank back.
"He told you that?"
John was on his feet. The fever was blazing once more.
"He told me that, face to face--told me that it was the anniversary ofthe day on which you had consented to become his mistress!"
"And you?"
"If we had been alone," John answered simply, "I should have killed him.I drove the words down his throat. I threw him back to the place he hadleft, and hurt him rather badly, I'm afraid. Sophy took me home somehow,and now I am here."
She leaned a little forward on the couch. She looked into his facesearchingly, anxiously, as if seeking for something she could not find.His lips were set in hard, cold lines. The likeness to Stephen had neverbeen more apparent.
"Listen!" she said. "You are a Puritan. While I admire the splendidself-restraint evolved from your creed, it is partly temperamental,isn't it? I was brought up to see things differently, and I do see themdifferently. Tell me, do you love me?"
The veins swelled for a moment upon his forehead, stood out likewhip-cord along the back of his hands, but of softening there was nosign in his face.
"Love you?" he repeated. "You know it! Could I suffer the tortures ofthe damned if I didn't? Could I come to you with a man's blood upon myhands if I didn't? If the prince lives, it is simply the accident offate. I tell you that if we had been alone I should have driven thebreath out of his body. Love you!"
She rose slowly to her feet. She leaned with her elbow upon themantelpiece, and her face was hidden for a moment.
"Let me think!" she said. "I don't know what to say to you. I don't knowyou, John. There isn't anything left of the John I loved. Let me lookagain!"
She swung around.
"You speak of love," she went on suddenly. "Do you know what it is? Doyou know that loves reaches to the heavens, and can also touch thenethermost depths of hell? If I throw myself on my knees before you now,if I link my fingers around your neck, if I whisper to you that in thedays that were past before you came I had done things I would fainforget, if I told you that from henceforth every second of my life wasyours, that my heart beat with yours by day and by night, that I had noother thought, no other dream, than to stay by your side, to see youhappy, to give all there was of myself into your keeping, to keep itholy and sacred for you--John, what then?"
Never a line in his face softened. He looked at her a moment as he hadlooked at the woman in Piccadilly, into whose hand he had dropped gold.
"Are you going to tell me that it is the truth?" he asked hoarsely.
She stood quite still, her bosom rising and falling. Even then she madeone last effort. She held out her hands with a little trembling gesture,her eyes filled with tears.
"Think for a single moment of that feeling which you call love, John!"she pleaded. "Listen! I love you. It has come to me at last, after allthese years. It lives in my heart, a greater thing than my ambition, agreater thing than my success, a greater thing than life itself. I loveyou, John. Can't you feel, don't you know, that nothing else in life canmatter?"
Not a line in his face softened. His teeth had come together. He waslike a man upon the rack.
"It is true? It is true, then?" he demanded.
She looked at him without any reply. The seconds seemed drawn out to aninterminable period. He heard the rolling of the motor-buses in thestreet. Once more the perfume of the lilacs seemed to choke him. Thenshe leaned back and touched the bell.
"The prince spoke the truth," she said. "I think you had better go!"