CHAPTER XI

It was Sunday afternoon, and Marcreta was expecting a caller. "How long do you think he'll stay?" Clinton demanded as they rose from their two o'clock dinner.

"As long as I'll let him, I suppose."

"Well, call a time-limit, Crete." And then recalled suddenly to the realization that he must begin making the best of a situation that gave every evidence of forcing itself upon him for life, he added hastily, "What's the use of trying that new cure if you're going to pull against it all the time?"

"Do you call this 'pulling against it'?"

"I do, decidedly. Every time that man comes here you're strung about an octave higher than normal."

She looked at him, astonished. "Why, Clinton, I don't feel it myself.

I'm not conscious that he affects me that way."

"He does, though. We all know people who affect us that way. And it is not a question of attraction or aversion. Liking or disliking them doesn't alter the fact that they have the power to screw us up.

Sometimes, of course, it's a beneficial stimulant, but you shouldn't be taking anything like that just now. Give Dr. Reynolds a chance."

"I will give him a chance. But to-day----Well, I promised Mr. Glover that I'd listen to something that he has written."

"Help! Then he'll probably be here to supper. I didn't know he'd broken into the writing game."

"I didn't either until the other day. But I think it is some advertising for the new springs. He is very versatile. He does a number of things and does them well."

Her brother glanced at her sharply without replying. That note of championship in her voice put an edge on his nerves.

But she was mistaken in her guess concerning advertising matter for the American Carlsbad. For when she and Richard Glover were alone in the living-room he produced a copy of one of the popular magazines. "You remember you said I might read you something to-day?" he began, drawing his chair into a better light.

"Yes. I have been looking forward to it with pleasure. But I thought it would be in ma.n.u.script. It is something you have had published?"

"My first attempt at anything in this line. It's a serial story and this is the initial instalment. You see, I had a good deal of leisure time on my hands when I was down at Mont-Mer and I've always wanted to try my luck with a pen. I call this 'A Brother of Bluebeard.'"

"That's a gruesome t.i.tle, but excellently chosen if it's a mystery-story. I'm shivering already."

He settled himself with his back to the light and his profile toward her. "I may as well tell you at first that I am not bringing this out under my own name."

"Why not?"

"Because I wouldn't have felt quite free about writing it if I were standing out in the open."

"Oh, it's a true story?"

"No, I can hardly claim that for it. It's rather a fantastic plot as you will see. But every writer knows this, that when you first break into print whatever you write is supposed to be transcribed almost verbatim from actual experience, preferably your own experience. No matter how at variance with your own life-plot the story may be, the people who know you will leap to the conclusion that it is rooted in autobiography.

Imagination is the very last thing that our friends are willing to allow us."

"What nom-de-plume do you use?"

"Ralph Regan. It's short and snappy and sounds as if it might be genuine, don't you think?"

He found the place and began to read in a resonant, well-modulated voice. The opening paragraph was a little stilted, a bit amateurish, but after that the story swung into bold and breathless action. It gripped its hearer with a compelling force that held her tense and motionless in her chair. Only the sound of the reader's voice and the crisp crackle of paper when he turned a page broke the quiet of the room. Outside, a gray January mist engulfed the city, and electric bulbs from the houses across the street cut bleary patches in the mantle of fog. For almost an hour Richard Glover read in his clear, unhurried voice, and Marcreta listened, her wide eyes fastened upon his face.

When he had finished, with the irritating promise, "To Be Continued," he laid the periodical face-down upon the library-table and turned toward her. In his amber eyes was a new light. A railroad switchman who faces the company's president after saving a train from destruction might wear just that expression.

Marcreta seemed bereft of speech. She was staring at one of the lights in the house across the street as though it had hypnotized her. One of the delicate white hands was clasped tight upon the arm of her chair.

Richard Glover told himself that he had never seen her look so beautiful. And for the first time since he had known her, there was not a suggestion of invalidism in her tall, regal figure. She was wearing a filmy gray dress with a touch of pink that seemed to give a heightened flush to her cheeks. He allowed several seconds to pa.s.s. Was it possible, he was wondering, that this "first story" had won that tribute most coveted by all authors--the tribute of breathless silence?

"Well?" he ventured at last. "What do you think of it?"

She brought her eyes back to the room, to the magazine lying face-down upon the table, but not to him. "I think," she said with a long sigh, "that you are a wonderfully clever man."

The light flickered out of his eyes. He leaned toward her with a pleading gesture. "Is that all you are going to say to me?"

"Isn't that enough? Wouldn't you rather have me say that than anything else?"

"You know I wouldn't. You know that there are many other things that I would far rather have you say." He came over and stood beside her chair.

"Marcreta," he begged, "say just one of them. Say this--that you are glad to have me come here. I wrote that story for you; because I know that you value creative power more than anything else in the world. Are you glad that I did it? Are you glad that I brought it to you?"

She was looking at him now, all her ardent soul in her eyes. "I _am_ glad," she breathed. "I can't tell you how glad."

"Then I think you ought to give me some reward. I ought to have at least----"

She put out her hand with the imperious little gesture that he had come to know well. "Not just now. Please, not just now. You see, you have rather--swept me off my feet. Isn't that enough for one day?"

"It is enough," he a.s.sured her exultantly. And when, a few moments later, he climbed into the roadster that was waiting at the curb, he was repeating the three words over and over to himself like a hilarious refrain.

Just at dusk Clinton came home and found his sister still sitting in front of the gas logs where Richard Glover had left her. His step startled her out of a reverie. "Oh, it's you, Clint! I'm so glad you've come. The house has been full of ghosts."

"I suppose so. Glover come?"

"Yes. He has come and gone."

He reached down swiftly and felt one of her hands. It was icy.

"Something has happened, Crete." The words were not a question, but they demanded a reply. And she gave it without hesitation.

"Yes, something has happened. I've got to take some action about it too, but I haven't decided yet what it shall be."

He stood on the hearth-rug looking down at her with a curious mixture of annoyance and admiration in his eyes. It had always been so, he reflected. About the trivial things of life she was willing to abide by his judgment, but in every vital issue she took the initiative and pushed her own convictions through. In the moment of large emergency she had always stood superbly alone. As he looked at her a half-audible sigh escaped him. After all, this semblance of vitality was but the ephemeral stimulation of excitement. And he dreaded the bleak reaction from it; that sudden ebbing away of hope, known to all of those who have kept long vigils beside sick beds.

"Let me manage it, whatever it is," he commanded. "I've told you before that you're not strong enough for these emotional scenes. It isn't as if you were a well woman."

She lapsed into silence, and he felt a sharp twinge of self-reproach. It was that double-edged remorse that chivalrous strength always feels when it reminds frailty of its weakness.

"Whatever it is, Crete," he hurried on, "can't you defer the action until a more propitious time? Can't it wait until you are stronger?"

A little choking sound came from her. He stopped short in swift alarm.

Never before in all the long years of her semi-invalidism had she let him see her give way to tears. He went to her, moving uncertainly as though through unfamiliar territory. She had covered her face with her hands as though she could shut out with them the sounds of pa.s.sionate sobbing.

"I'll never be any stronger, Clint. _You_ know it; _I_ know it. Why do we drag on with this miserable pretense? Oh, it is killing me, but it takes so long. Why can't I die?"