It was a relief to Conquest to get up, scratch another match, and light his cigar at last, turning his back so that it should not be seen that his fingers trembled. When he was sure of himself he faced about again, taking his seat.

"It's the most amazing story I ever heard," was his only comment, in response to Ford's look of expectation.

"I hoped it might strike you as something more than--amazing," Ford ventured, after a minute's waiting for a more appreciative word.

"Perhaps it will when I get my breath. You must give me time for that. Do you actually tell me that she kept you in her studio for weeks----?"

"Three weeks and four days, to be exact."

"And that she furnished you with food and clothing----?"

"And money--but I paid that back."

"And got you away in that ingenious fashion----?"

"Just as I've told you."

"Amazing! Simply amazing! And," he added, with some bitterness, "you came back here--and you and she together--took us all in."

Ford drew his cigar from his lips, and, turning in his chair, faced Conquest in an att.i.tude and with a look which could not be misinterpreted.

"I came back here, and took you all in--if you like. Miss Strange had nothing to do with it. She didn't even expect me."

The last sentence gave Conquest the opening he was looking for, but now that he had it, he hesitated to make use of it. In his memory were the very words Miriam Strange had stammered out to him in the sort of confession no woman ever makes willingly: "Things happened ... such as don't generally happen ... and even if he never comes ... I'd rather go on waiting for him ... uselessly." It was all growing clear to him, and yet not so clear but that there was time even now to let the matter drop into the limbo of things it is best not to know too much about. It was against his better judgment, then--his better judgment as a barrister-at-law--that he found himself saying:

"She didn't expect you at that day and date, perhaps: but she probably looked for you some time."

"Possibly; but if so, I know little or nothing about it."

The reply, delivered with a certain dignified force of intention, recalled Conquest to a sense of his own interests. He had too often counselled his clients to let sleeping dogs lie, not to be aware of the advantage of doing it himself; and so, restraining his jealous curiosity, he turned the conversation back to the evidence of Amalia Gramm.

During the next half-hour he manifested that talent--partly native and partly born of practice--which he had often commended in himself, of talking about one thing and thinking of another. His exposition of the line to be adopted in Ford's defence was perfectly lucid, when all the while he was saying to himself that this was the man whom Miriam Strange had waited for through eight romantic years.

The fact leaped at him, but it was part of his profession not to be afraid of facts. If they possessed adverse qualities one recognized them boldly, in the practise of law, chiefly with a view of circ.u.mventing them. The matter presented itself first of all, not as one involving emotional or moral issues, but as an annoying arrangement of circ.u.mstances which might cheat him out of what he had honestly acquired. He had no intention of being cheated by any one whatever; and as he made a rapid summary of the points of the case he saw that the balance of probabilities was in his favor. It was to make that clear to Ford that he led the conversation back again to the subject of his adventures, tempting him to repeat at least a portion of his hymn of praise. By the time he had finished it Conquest was able to resume the friendly, confidential tone with which they had begun the evening.

"It's very satisfactory to me, old man," he said, between quiet puffs at his cigar, "to know that you think so highly of Miss Strange, because--I don't know whether you have heard it--she and I are to be married before long."

He looked to see Ford disconcerted by this announcement and was surprised to see him take it coolly.

"Yes; I knew that. I've meant to congratulate you when the time came. I should say it had come now."

There was a candor about him that Conquest could scarcely discredit, though he was unwilling to trust it too far.

"Thanks, old man. I scarcely expected you to be so well posted. May I ask how--?"

"Oh, I've known it a long time. Miss Strange told me before I went to South America last spring."

This evidence of a confidential relation between the two gave him a second shock, but he postponed its consideration, contenting himself for the moment with making it plain to Ford that "Hands off!" must be the first rule of the game. His next move was meant to carry the play into the opponent's quarters.

"As a matter of fact, I've never congratulated _you_," he said, with apparent tranquillity. "I've known about you and Evie for some time past, but--"

"Oh, that's all off. In the existing circ.u.mstances Evie didn't feel like--keeping the thing up."

"That's too bad. You've been pretty hard hit--what? When a fellow is as game as you a girl should stand by him, come now! But I know Evie. I've known her from her cradle. She'll back round, you'll see. When we've pulled you through, as we're going to, she'll take another view of things.

I know for a fact that she's been head over heels in love with you ever since her trip to Buenos Aires."

As Ford made no remark, Conquest felt it well to drive the point home.

"We can all help in that, old boy; and you can count on us--both on Miss Strange and me. No one has such influence over Evie as Miriam, and I know she's very keen on seeing you and her--you and Evie, I mean--hit it off. I don't mind telling you that, as a matter of fact, it's been Miriam's anxiety on Evie's account that has mixed me up in your case at all. I don't say that I haven't got interested in you for your own sake; but it was she who stirred me up in the first place. It's going to mean a lot to her to see you get through--and marry Evie."

Ford smiled--his odd, twisted smile--but as he said nothing, Conquest decided to let the subject drop. He had, in fact, gone as far as his present judgment would carry him, and anything farther might lead to a false step. In a situation alive with claims and counter-claims, with yearnings of the heart and promptings of the higher law, he could preserve his rights only by a walk as wary as the treading of a tight-rope.

This became clearer to him later in the night, when Ford had gone away, and he was left free to review the circ.u.mstances with that clarity of co-ordination he had so often brought to bear on other men's affairs. Out of the ma.s.s of data he selected two conditions as being the only ones of importance.

If Miriam Strange was marrying him because she loved him, nothing else needed to be considered. This fact would subordinate everything to itself; and there were many arguments to support the a.s.sumption that she was doing so. One by one he marshalled them before him, from the first faint possibility up to the crowning proof that there was no earthly reason for her marrying him at all, unless she wanted to. He had pointed that out to her clearly, on the day when she came to him to make her terms. He had been guilty on that occasion of a foolish generosity, for that it went with a common-sense honesty to take advantage of another's ignorance, or impulsiveness, was part of his business creed. Nevertheless, having shown her this uncalled-for favor, he did not regret it now, since it put the spontaneous, voluntary nature of her act beyond dispute.

To a late hour of the night he wandered about the great silent rooms of the house which he had made the expression of himself. Stored with costly, patiently selected comforts, it lacked only the last requisite which was to impart the living touch. Having chosen this essential with so much care, and begun to feel for her something far more vital than the pride of possession which had been his governing emotion hitherto, it was an agony with many aspects to think he might have to let her go.

That there was this possibility was undeniable. It was the second of the two paramount considerations. Though Ford's enthusiasm tried to make itself enthusiasm and no more, there had been little difficulty in seeing what it was. All the same, it would be a pa.s.sion to pity and ignore, if on Miriam's side there was nothing to respond to it. But it was here that, in spite of all his arguments, Conquest's doubts began. With much curious ignorance of women, there was a point of view from which he knew them well. It was out of many a poignant bit of domestic history, of which his profession had made him the confidant, that he had distilled the observation made to Ford earlier in the evening: "It isn't often that a woman's heroism works in a straight line, like a soldier's or a fireman's." Notwithstanding her directness, he could see Miriam Strange as just the type of woman to whom these words might be applicable. If by marrying a man whom she did not love she thought she could help another whom she did love, a culpable sacrifice was just the thing of which she would be capable. He called it culpable sacrifice with some emphasis for in his eyes all sacrifice was culpable. It was more than culpable, in that it verged on the absurd. There were few teachings of an illogical religion, few promptings of a misdirected energy, for which he had a greater scorn than the precept that the strong should suffer for the weak, or one man for another. Every man for himself and the survival of the fittest was the doctrine by which he lived; and his abhorrence of anything else was the more intense for the moment because he found himself in a situation where he might be expected to repudiate his faith.

But there it was, that something in public opinion which, in certain circ.u.mstances, might challenge him--might ask him for magnanimity, might appeal to him for mercy, might demand that he make two other human beings happy while he denied himself. It was preposterous, it was grotesque, but it was there. He could hear its voice already, explaining that since Miriam Strange had given him her word in an excess of self-devotion, it was his duty to let her off. He could see the line of argument; he could hear the applause following on his n.o.ble act. He had heard it before--especially in the theatre--and his soul had shaken with laughter.

He had read of it in novels, only to toss such books aside. "The beauty of renunciation," he had often said, "appeals to the morbid, the sickly, and the sentimental. It has no function among the healthy and the sane." He had not only said that, but he had believed it. He believed it still, and lived by it. By doing so he had ama.s.sed his modest fortune and won a respected position in the world. He had not got on into middle life without meeting the occasion more than once when he could have saved others--a brother, or a sister, or a friend--and forborne to save himself.

He had felt the temptation and resisted it, with the result that he was up in the world when he might have been down in it, and envied by those who would have despised him without hesitation when they had got out of him all he could give. He could look back now and see the folly it would have been had he yielded to impulses that every sentimentalist would have praised. He was fully conscious that the moment of danger might be on the point of returning again, and that he must be prepared for it.

He was able to strengthen himself with the greater conviction because of his belief in the sanct.i.ty of rights. The securing of rights, the defining of rights, the protection of rights, had been his trade ever since he was twenty-five. The invasion of rights was among the darkest crimes in his calendar. In the present case his own rights could not be called into question; they were inviolable. Miriam Strange had come to him deliberately, and for due consideration had signed herself away. He had spared nothing, in time, pains, or money, to fulfil his part of the compact. It would be monstrous, therefore, if he were to be cheated of his reward. That either Ford or Miriam would attempt this he did not believe, even if between them the worst, from his point of view, was at the worst; but that an absurd, elusive principle which called itself chivalry, but really was effeminacy of will, might try to disarm him by an appeal to scruples he contemned, was the possibility he feared. He feared it because he estimated at its worth the force of restraint a sentimental civilization and a nave people can bring to bear, in silent pressure, upon the individual. While he knew himself to be strong in his power of resistance, he knew too that the mightiest swimmer can go down at last in a smiling, unrippled sea.

His exasperation was as much with his doubt about himself as with the impalpable forces threatening him, as he strode fiercely from room to room, turning out the flaring lights before going to bed. After all, his final resolutions were pitifully insufficient, in view of the tragic element--for he took it tragically--that had suddenly crept into his life.

While his gleam of happiness was in danger of going out, the sole means he could find of keeping it aglow was in deciding on a prudent ignoring of whatever did not meet the eye, on a discreet a.s.sumption that what he had been dreaming for the past few months was true. As a matter of fact, there was nothing to show him that it wasn't true; and it was only common sense to let the first move toward clearing his vision come from the other side rather than from his.

And yet it was precisely this pa.s.sive att.i.tude which he found himself next day least able to maintain. If he needed anything further to teach him that love was love, it was this restless, prying jealousy, making it impossible to let well enough alone. After a trying day at the office, during which he irritated his partners and worried his clerks, he presented himself late in the afternoon at Miriam's apartment at the hour when he generally went to his club, and he knew she would not expect him.

Thinking to surprise Ford with her--like the suspicious husband in a French play, he owned to himself, grimly--he experienced something akin to disappointment to find her drinking tea with two old ladies, whom he outstayed. During the ceremonies of their leave-taking he watched Miriam closely, seeking for some impossible proof that she either loved Ford or did not love him, and getting nothing but a renewed and maddening conviction of her grace and quiet charm.

"What about Evie's happiness?"

Miriam raised her eyebrows inquiringly at the question before stooping to put out the spirit-lamp.

"Well, what about it?" she asked, without looking up.

"Oh, nothing--except that we don't seem to be securing it."

She gazed at him now, with an expression frankly puzzled. He had refused tea, but she kept her accustomed place behind the tea-table, while he stretched himself comfortably in the low arm-chair by the hearth, which she often occupied herself.

"Don't you remember?" he went on. "Evie's happiness was the motive of our little--agreement."

He endeavored to make his tone playful, but there was a something sharp and aggressive in his manner, at which she colored slightly, no less than at his words.

"I suppose," she said, as if after meditation, "Evie's happiness isn't in our hands."