The Common Law

"I didn't know you were to be here, Louis."

"Nor I. It was an accident."

"Who was the—girl—"

"What girl?"

"She stood behind you with her hands on your shoulders."

"How the devil do I know," he said, savagely—"her name's Mazie—something—or—other."

"Did you bring her?"

"Yes. Did Querida bring you?" he asked, insolently.

She looked at him in a confused, bewildered way—laid her hand on his sleeve with an impulse as though he had been about to strike her.

He no longer knew what he was doing in the sudden surge of unreasoning anger that possessed him; he shook her hand from his sleeve and turned.

And the next moment, on the stairs, she was beside him again, slender, pale, close to his shoulder, descending the great staircase beside him, one white-gloved hand resting lightly within his arm.

Neither spoke. At the cloak-room she turned and looked at him—stood a moment slowly tearing the orchids from her breast and dropping the crushed petals underfoot.

A maid brought her fur coat—his gift; a page brought his own coat and hat.

"Will you call a cab?"

He turned and spoke to the porter. Then they waited, side by side, in silence.

When the taxicab arrived he turned to give the porter her address, but she had forestalled him. And he entered the narrow vehicle; and they sat through the snowy journey in utter silence until the cab drew up at his door.

Then he said: "Are you not going home?"

"Not yet."

They descended, stood in the falling snow while he settled with the driver, then entered the great building, ascended in the elevator, and stepped out at his door.

He found his latch-key; the door swung slowly open on darkness.

CHAPTER VII

An electric lamp was burning in the hallway; he threw open the connecting doors of the studio where a light gleamed high on the ceiling, and stood aside for her to pass him.

She stepped across the threshold into the subdued radiance, stood for a moment undecided, then:

"Are you coming in?" she asked, cheerfully, quite aware of his ill-temper. "Because if you are, you may take off my coat for me."

He crossed the threshold in silence, and divested her of the fur garment which was all sparkling with melting snow.

"Do let's enjoy the firelight," she said, turning out the single ceiling lamp; "and please find some nice, big crackly logs for the fire, Kelly!—there's a treasure!"

His frowning visage said: "Don't pretend that it's all perfectly pleasant between us"; but he turned without speaking, cleared a big arm-chair of its pile of silks, velvets, and antique weapons, and pushed it to the edge of the hearth. Every movement he made, his every attitude was characterised by a sulky dignity which she found rather funny, now that the first inexplicable consternation of meeting him had subsided. And already she was wondering just what it was that had startled her; why she had left the café with him; why he had left; why he seemed to be vexed with her. For her conscience, in regard to him, was perfectly clear and serene.

"Now the logs, Kelly, dear," she said, "the kind that catch fire in a second and make frying-pan music, please."

He laid three or four logs of yellow birch across the bed of coals. The blaze caught swiftly, mounting in a broad sheet of yellow flame, making their faces brilliant in the darkness; and the tall shadows leaped across floor and wall and towered, wavering above them from the ruddy ceiling.

"Kelly!"

"What?"

"I wish you a Happy New Year."

"Thank you. I wish you the same."

"Come over here and curl up on the hearth and drop your head back on my knees, and tell me what is the trouble—you sulky boy!"

He did not appear to hear her.

"Please?—" with a slight rising inflection.

"What is the use of pretending?" he said, shortly.

"Pretending!" she repeated, mimicking him delightedly. Then with a clear, frank laugh: "Oh, you great, big infant! The idea of you being the famous painter Louis Neville! I wish there was a nursery here. I'd place you in it and let you pout!"

"That's more pretence," he said, "and you know it."

"What silly things you do say, Louis! As though people could find life endurable if they did not pretend. Of course I'm pretending. And if a girl pretends hard enough it sometimes comes true."

"What comes true?"

"Ah!—you ask me too much…. Well, for example, if I pretend I don't mind your ill-temper it may come true that you will be amiable to me before I go home."

There was no smile from him, no response. The warmth of the burning logs deepened the colour in her cold cheeks. Snow crystals on her dark hair melted into iris-rayed drops. She stretched her arms to the fire, and her eyes fell on Gladys and her kitten, slumbering, softly embraced.

"Oh, do look, Kelly! How perfectly sweet and cunning! Gladys has her front paws right around the kitten's neck."

Impulsively she knelt down, burying her face in the fluffy heap; the kitten partly opened its bluish eyes; the mother-cat stretched her legs, yawned, glanced up, and began to lick the kitten, purring loudly.

For a moment or two the girl caressed the drowsy cats, then, rising, she resumed her seat, sinking back deeply into the arm-chair and casting a sidelong and uncertain glance at Neville.

The flames burned steadily, noiselessly, now; nothing else stirred in the studio; there was no sound save the ghostly whisper of driving snow blotting the glass roof above.

Her gaze wandered over the silken disorder in the studio, arrested here and there as the firelight gleamed on bits of armour—on polished corselet and helmet and the tall hilts of swords. Then she looked upward where the high canvas loomed a vast expanse of gray, untouched except for the brushed-in outlines of men in shadowy processional.

She watched Neville, who had begun to prowl about in the disorder of the place, stepping over trailing velvets, avoiding manikins armed cap-a-pie, moving restlessly, aimlessly. And her eyes followed his indecision with a smile that gradually became perplexed and then a little troubled.

For even in the uncertain firelight she was aware of the change in his face—of features once boyish and familiar that seemed now to have settled into a sterner, darker mould—a visage that was too lean for his age—a face already haunted of shadows; a mature face—the face of a man who had known unhappiness.

He had paused, now, head lifted, eyes fixed on vast canvas above. And for a long while he stood there leaning sideways against a ladder, apparently oblivious of her.

Time lagged, halted—then sped forward, slyly robbing him of minutes of which his senses possessed no record. But minutes had come and gone while he stood there thinking, unconscious of the trick time played him—for the fire was already burning low again and the tall clock in the shadows pointed with stiff and ancient hands to the death of another hour and the birth of yet another; and the old-time bell chimed impartially for both with a shift and slide of creaking weights and wheels.

He lifted his head abruptly and looked at Valerie, who lay curled up in her chair, eyes closed, dark lashes resting on her cheeks.

As he passed her chair and returned to place more logs on the fire she opened her eyes and looked up at him. The curve of her mouth grew softly humorous.

"I'd much prefer my own bed," she said, "if this is all you have to say to me."

"Had you anything to say to me?" he asked, unsmiling.

"About what, Kelly, dear?"

"God knows; I don't."

"Listen to this very cross and cranky young man!" she exclaimed, sitting up and winking her eyes in the rushing brilliancy of the blaze. "He is neither a very gracious host, nor a very reasonable one; nor yet particularly nice to a girl who left a perfectly good party for an hour with him."

She stole a glance at him, and her gaze softened:

"Perhaps," she said aloud to herself, "he is not really very cross; perhaps he is only tired—or in trouble. Otherwise his voice and manners are scarcely pardonable—even by me."

He stood regarding the flames with narrowing gaze for a few moments, then, hands in his pockets, walked over to his chair once more and dropped into it.

A slight flush stole into her cheeks; but it went as it came. She rose, crossed to where he sat and stood looking down at him.

"What is the matter?"

"With me?" in crude pretence of surprise.

"Of course. I am happy enough. What troubles you?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then—what troubles us?" she persisted. "What has gone wrong between us, Kelly, dear? Because we mustn't let it, you know," she added, slowly, shaking her head.

"Has anything gone wrong with us?" he asked, sullenly.

"Evidently. I don't know what it is. I'm keeping my composure and controlling my temper until I find out. You know what that dreadful temper of mine can be?" She added, smiling: "Well, then, please beware of it unless you are ready to talk sensibly. Are you?"

"What is it you wish me to say?"

"How perfectly horrid you can be!" she exclaimed, "I never knew you could be like this? Do you want a girl to go on her knees to you? I care enough for our friendship to do it—but I won't!"

Her mood was altering:

"You're a brute, Kelly, to make me miserable. I was having such a good time at the Gigolette when I suddenly saw you—your expression—and—I don't even yet know why, but every bit of joy went out of everything for me—"

"I was going out, too," he said, laughing. "Why didn't you remain? Your gay spirits would have returned untroubled after my departure."

There was an ugly sound to his laugh which checked her, left her silent for a moment. Then:

"Did you disapprove of me?" she asked, curiously. "Was that it?"

"No. You can take care of yourself, I fancy."

"I have had to," she said, gravely.

He was silent.

She added with a light laugh not perfectly genuine:

"I suppose I am experiencing with you what all mortals experience when they become entangled with the gods."

"What is that?"

"Unhappiness. All the others experienced it—Proserpine, Helen, poor little Psyche—every nice girl who ever became mixed up with the Olympians had a bad half hour of it sooner or later. And to-night the great god Kelly has veiled his face from me, and I'm on my knees at his altar sacrificing every shred of sweet temper to propitiate him. Now, mighty and sulky oracle! what has happened to displease you?"

He said: "If there seems to be any constraint—if anything has altered our pleasant intimacy, I don't know what it is any more than you do, Valerie."

"Then there is something!"

"I have not said so."

"Well, then, I say so," she said, impatiently. "And I say, also, that whatever threatens our excellent understanding ought to be hunted out and destroyed. Shall we do it together, Louis?"

He said nothing.

"Come to the fire and talk it over like two sensible people. Will you?

And please pull that sofa around to the blaze for me. Thank you. This, Kelly, is our bed of justice."

She drew the cushions under her head and nestled down in the full warmth of the hearth.

"Le lit de justice," she repeated, gaily. "Here I preside, possessing inquisitorial power and prerogative, and exercising here to-night the high justice, the middle, and the low. Now hale before me those skulking knaves, Doubt, Suspicion, and Distrust, and you and I will make short work of them. Pull 'em along by their ears, Louis! This Court means to sit all night if necessary!"

She laughed merrily, raised herself on one arm, and looked him straight in the eyes:

"Louis!"

"What?"

"Do you doubt me?"

"Doubt what?"

"That my friendship for you is as warm as the moment it began?"

He said, unsmiling: "People meet as we met, become friends—very good, very close friends—in that sort of friendship which is governed by chance and environment. The hazard that throws two people into each other's company is the same hazard that separates them. It is not significant either way…. I liked you—missed you…. Our companionship had been pleasant."

"Very," she said, quietly.

He nodded: "Then chance became busy; your duties led you elsewhere—mine set me adrift in channels once familiar—"

"Is that all you see in our estrangement?"

"What?" he asked, abruptly.

"Estrangement," she repeated, tranquilly. "That is the real word for it. Because the old intimacy is gone. And now we both admit it."

"We have had no opportunity to be together this—"

"We once made opportunities."

"We have had no time—"

"We halted time, hastened it, dictated to it, ruled it—once."

"Then explain it otherwise if you can."

"I am trying to—with God's help. Will you aid me, too?"

Her sudden seriousness and emotion startled him.

"Louis, if our estrangement is important enough for us to notice at all, it is important enough to analyse, isn't it?"

"I have analysed the reasons—"

"Truthfully?"

"I think so—as far as I have gone—"

"Let us go farther, then—to the end."

"But there is no particular significance—"

"Isn't there?"

"I don't know. After all, why did you leave that café? Why did I? Why are we together, now—here in your studio, and utterly miserable at one o'clock of the New Year's morning? For you and I are unhappy and ill at ease; and you and I are talking at cross purposes, groping, evading, fencing with words. If there is nothing significant in the friendship we gave each other from the hour we met—it is not worth the self-deception you are content with."

"Self-deception!" he repeated, flushing up.

"Yes. Because you do care more for me than what you have said about our friendship indicates…. And I care more for your regard than you seem willing to recognise—"

"I am very glad to—"

"Listen, Kelly. Can't we be honest with ourselves and with each other? Because—our being here, now—my leaving that place in the way I did—surprises me. I want to find out why there has been confusion, constraint, somewhere—there is something to clear up between us—I have felt that, vaguely, at moments; now I know it. Let us try to find out what it is, what is steadily undermining our friendship."

"Nothing, Valerie," he said, smiling. "I am as fond of you as ever. Only you have found time for other friendships. Your life has become more interesting, fuller, happier—"

"Not happier. I realise that, now, as you say it." She glanced around her; swiftly her dark eyes passed over things familiar. "I was happier here than I have ever been in all my life," she said. "I love this room—and everything in it. You know I do, Louis. But I couldn't very well come here when you were using all those models. If you think that I have neglected you, it is a silly and unfair thing to think. If I did neglect you I couldn't help it. And you didn't seem to care."

He shrugged and looked up at the outlined men's figures partly covering the canvas above them. Her gaze followed his, then again she raised herself on one elbow and looked around her, searching with quick eyes among the shadows.

"Where is my portrait?"

"Behind the tapestry."

"Have you abandoned it?"

"I don't know."

Her smile became tremulous: "Are you going to abandon the original, too?"

"I never possessed very much of you, did I?" he said, sulkily; and looked up at her quick exclamation of anger and surprise.

"What do you mean? You had all of me worth having—" there came a quick catch, in her throat—"you had all there is to me—confidence in you, gratitude for your friendship, deep, happy response to your every mood—my unquestioning love and esteem—"

"Your love?" he repeated, with an unpleasant laugh.

"What else do you call it?" she demanded, fiercely. "Is there a name less hackneyed for it? If there is, teach it to me. Yet—if ever a girl truly loved a man, I have loved you. And I do love you, dearly, honestly, cleanly, without other excuse than that, until to-night, you have been sweet to me and made me happier and better than I have ever been."

He sprang to his feet confused, deeply moved, suddenly ashamed of his own inexplicable attitude that seemed to be driving him into a bitterness that had no reason.

"Valerie," he began, but she interrupted him:

"I ask you, Kelly, to look back with me over our brief and happy companionship—over the hours together, over all you have done for me—"

"Have you done less for me?"

"I? What have I done?"

"You say you have given me—love."

"I have—with all my heart and soul. And, now that I think of it, I have given you more—I have given you all that goes with love—an unselfish admiration; a quick sympathy in your perplexities; quiet solicitude in your silences, in your aloof and troubled moments." She leaned nearer, a brighter flush on either cheek:

"Louis, I have given you more than that; I gave you my bodily self for your work—gave it to you first of all—came first of all to you—came as a novice, ignorant, frightened—and what you did for me then—what you were to me at that time—I can never, never forget. And that is why I overlook your injustice to me now!"

She sat up on the sofa's edge balanced forward between her arms, fingers nervously working at the silken edges of the upholstery.

"You ought never to have doubted my interest and affection," she said. "In my heart I have not doubted yours—never—except to-night. And it makes me perfectly wretched."

"I did not mean—"

"Yes, you did! There was something about you—your expression—when you saw me throwing roses at everybody—that hurt me—and you meant to."

"With Querida's arm around you, did you expect me to smile?" he asked, savagely.

"Was it that?" she demanded, astonished.

"What?"

"Querida's arm—" She hesitated, gazing straight into his eyes in utter amazement.

"It wasn't that?" she repeated. "Was it?… You never cared about such petty things, did you? Did you? Do you care? Because I never dreamed that you cared…. What has a little imprudence—a little silly mischief—to do with our friendship? Has it anything to do with it? You've never said anything—and … I've flirted—I've been spoons on men—you knew it. Besides, I've nearly always told you. I've told you without thinking it could possibly matter to you—to you of all men! What do you care what I do?—as long as I am to you what I have always been?"

"I—don't—care."

"Of course not. How can you?" She leaned nearer, dark and curious gaze searching his. Then, with a nervous laugh voicing the impossible—"You are not in love with me—that way. Are you?" she asked, scarcely realising what she was saying.

"No," he said, forcing a smile. "Are you with me?"

She flushed scarlet:

"Kelly, I never thought—dreamed—hoped—" Her voice caught in her throat a moment; "I—such a matter has not occurred to me." She looked at him partly dismayed, partly confused, unable now to understand him—or even herself.

"You know—that kind of love—" she began—"real love, never has happened to me. You didn't think that, did you?—because—just because I did flirt a little with you? It didn't mean anything serious—anything of that kind. Kelly, dear, have you mistaken me? Is that what annoys you? Were you afraid I was silly enough, mad enough to—to really think of you—in that way?"

"No."

"Oh, I was sure you couldn't believe it of me. See how perfectly frank and honest I have been with you. Why, you never were sentimental—and a girl isn't unless a man begins it! You never kissed me—except last summer when you were going away—and both of our hearts were pretty full—"

"Wait," he said, suddenly exasperated, "are you trying to make me understand that you haven't the slightest real emotion concerning me—concerning me as a man—like other men?"

She looked at him, still confused and distressed, still determined he should not misunderstand her:

"I don't know what you mean; truly I don't. I'm only trying to make you believe that I am not guilty of thinking—wishing—of pretending that in our frank companionship there lay concealed anything of—of deeper significance—"

"Suppose—it were true?" he said.

"But it is not true!" she retorted angrily—and looked up, caught his gaze, and her breath failed her.

"Suppose it were true—for example," he repeated. "Suppose you did find that you or I were capable of—deeper—"

"Louis! Louis! Do you realise what you are saying to me? Do you understand what you are doing to the old order of things between us—to the old confidences, the old content, the happiness, the—the innocence of our life together? Do you? Do you even care?"

"Care? Yes—I care."

"Because," she said, excitedly, "if it is to be—that way with you—I—I can not help you—be of use to you here in the studio as I have been…. Am I taking you too seriously? You do not mean that you really could ever love me, or I you, do you? You mean that—that you just want me back again—as I was—as we were—perfectly content to be together. That is what you mean, isn't it, Kelly, dear?" she asked, piteously.

He looked into her flushed and distressed face:

"Yes," he said, "that is exactly what I mean, Valerie—you dear, generous, clear-seeing girl! I just wanted you back again; I miss you; I am perfectly wretched without you, and that is all the trouble. Will you come?"

"I—don't—know. Why did you say such a thing?"

"Forgive me, dear!"

She slowly shook her head:

"You've made me think of—things," she said. "You shouldn't ever have done it."

"Done what, Valerie?"

"What you did—what you said—which makes it impossible for me to—to ever again be what I have been to you—even pose for you—as I did—"

"You mean that you won't pose for me any more?" he asked, aghast.

"Only—in costume." She sat on the edge of the sofa, head averted, looking steadily down at the hearth below. There was a pink spot on either cheek.

He thought a moment. "Valerie," he said, "I believe we had better finish what we have only begun to say."

"Is there—anything more?" she asked, unsmiling.

"Ask yourself. Do you suppose things can be left this way between us—all the happiness and the confidence—and the innocence, as you say, destroyed?"

"What more is there to say," she demanded, coldly.

"Shall—I—say it?" he stammered.

She looked up, startled, scarcely recognising the voice as his—scarcely now recognising his altered features.

"What is the matter with you?" she exclaimed nervously.

"Good God," he said, hoarsely, "can't you see I've gone quite mad about you!"

"About—me!" she repeated, blankly.

"About you—Valerie West. Can't you see it? Didn't you know it? Hasn't it been plain enough to you—even if it hasn't been to me?"

"Louis! Louis!" she cried in hurt astonishment, "what have you said to me?"

"That I'm mad about you, and I am. And it's been so—for months—always—ever since the very first! I must have been crazy not to realise it. I've been fool enough not to understand what has been the matter. Now you know the truth, Valerie!" He sprang to his feet, took a short turn or two before the hearth, then, catching sight of her face in its colourless dismay and consternation:

"I suppose you don't care a damn for me—that way!" he said, with a mirthless laugh.

"What!" she whispered, bewildered by his violence. Then: "Do you mean that you are in love with me!"

"Utterly, hopelessly—" his voice broke and he stood with hands clenched, unable to utter a word.

She sat up very straight and pale, the firelight gleaming on her neck and shoulders. After a moment his voice came back to his choked throat:

"I love you better than anything in the world." he said in unsteady tones. "And that is what has come between us. Do you think it is something we had better hunt down and destroy—this love that has come between us?"

"Is—is that true?" she asked in the awed voice of a child.

"It seems to be," he managed to say. She slid stiffly to the floor and stood leaning against the sofa's edge, looking at him wide-eyed as a schoolgirl.