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Side of the Angels

<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> On re-entering the house, Thor waited for his father in the hall. Finding the drawing-room empty, and inferring that his mother had gone up-stairs, he decided to say nothing of the scene between her and Mrs. Willoughby. For the time being his own needs demanded right of way. Nothing else could be attended to till they had received consideration. With that reflection something surged in him—surged and exulted. He was to be allowed to speak of his love at last! He was to be forced to confess it! If he was never to name it again, he would do so this once, getting some outlet for his passion! He both glowed and trembled. He both strained forward and recoiled. Already he felt drunk with a wine that roused the holier emotions as ardently as it fired the senses. He could scarcely take in the purport of his father's words as the latter stamped the snow from his boots in the entry and said: "Has that poor woman been here? Sorry for her, Thor; sorry for her from the bottom of my heart." The young man had no response to make. He was in a realm in which the reference had no meaning. Archie continued, while hanging his overcoat and hat in the closet at the foot of the stairs: "Impossible to make her understand. Women like that can never see why they shouldn't eat their cake and have it, too. Books open for her inspection. But what's one to do?" When he emerged from the closet Thor saw that his face was gray. He looked mortally tired and sad. He had been sad for some weeks past—sad and detached—ever since the night when he had made his ineffectual bid for the care of Thor's prospective money. He had betrayed no hint of resentment toward his son—nothing but this dignified lassitude, this reserved, high-bred, speechless expression of failure that smote Thor to the heart. But this evening he looked worn as well, worn and old, though brave and patient and able to command a weary, flickering smile. "But I'm glad it's come. It will be a relief to have it over. Seen it coming so long that it's been like a nightmare. Rather have come to grief myself—assure you I would." "Father, could I speak to you for a few minutes?" "About this?" "No, not about this; about something else—something rather important." There was a sudden gleam in the father's eyes which gave Thor a second pang. He had seen it once or twice already during these weeks of partial estrangement. It was the gleam of hope—of hope that Thor might have grown repentant. It had the sparkle of fire in it when, seated in a business attitude at the desk which held the center of the library, he looked up expectantly at his son. "Well, my boy?" Thor remained standing. "It's about that property of Fay's, father." "Oh, again?" The light in the eyes went out with the suddenness of an electric lamp. "I only want to say this, father," Thor hurried on, so as to get the interview over, "that if you want to sell the place, I'll take it. I'll take it on your own terms. You can make them what you like." Archie leaned on the desk, passing his hand over his brow. "I'm sorry, Thor. I can't." Thor had the curious reminiscent sensation of being once more a little boy, with some pleasure forbidden him. "Oh, father, why? I want it awfully." "So I see. I don't see why you should, but—" "Well, I'll tell you. I want to protect Fay, because—" Masterman interrupted without looking up. "And that's just what I don't want to do. I want to get rid of the lot." Rid of the lot! The expression was alarming. In his father's mind the issue, then, was personal. It was not only personal, but it was inclusive. It included Rosie. She was rated in—the lot. Clearly the minute had come at which to speak plainly. "If you want to get rid of them on my account, father, I may as well tell you—" "No; it's got nothing to do with you." He was still resting his forehead on his hand, looking downward at the blotting-paper on his desk. "It's Claude." Thor started back. "Claude? What's he got to do with it?" "I hadn't made up my mind whether to tell you or not; but—" "He doesn't even know them. Of course he knows who they are. Fay was Grandpa Thorley's—" Masterman continued to speak wearily. "He may not know them all. It's motive enough for my action that he knows—the girl." "Oh no, he doesn't." "You'd better ask him." "I have asked him." "Then you'd better ask him again." "But, father, she couldn't know him without my seeing it. I'm at the house nearly every day. The mother, you know." "Apparently your eyes aren't sharp enough. You should take a lesson from your uncle Sim." "But, father, I don't understand—" "Then I'll tell you. It seems that Claude has known this girl for the past four or five months—" "Oh no, no! That's all wrong. It isn't three months since I talked to Claude about her. Claude didn't even remember they had a girl. He'd forgotten it." "I know what I'm talking about, Thor. Don't contradict. Seems your uncle Sim has had his eye on them all along." Thor smote his side with his clenched fist. "There's some mistake, father. It can't be." "I wish there was a mistake, Thor. But there isn't. If I could afford it I should send Claude abroad. Send him round the world. But I can't just now, with this mix-up in the business. There's no doubt but that the girl is bad—" "Father!" If Masterman had been looking up he would have seen the convulsion of pain on his son's face, and got some inkling of his state of mind. "As bad as they make 'em—" he went on, tranquilly. "No, no, father. You mustn't say that." "I can't help saying it, Thor. I know how you feel about Claude. You feel as I do myself. But you and I must take hold of him and save him. We must get rid of this girl—" "But she's not bad, father—" Masterman raised himself and leaned back in his chair. He saw that Thor was white, with curious black streaks and shadows in his long, gaunt face. "Oh, I know how you feel," he said, again. "It does seem monstrous that the thing should have happened to Claude; but, after all, he's young, and with a little tact we can pull him out. I've said nothing to your mother, and don't mean to. No use alarming her needlessly. I've not said anything to Claude, either. Only known the thing for four or five days. Don't want to make him restive, or drive him to take the bit between his teeth. High-spirited young fellow, Claude is. Needs to be dealt with tactfully. Thing will be, to cut away the ground beneath his feet without his knowing it—by getting rid of the girl." "But I know Rosie Fay, father, and she's not—" "Now, my dear Thor, what is a girl but bad when she's willing to meet a man clandestinely night after night—?" "Oh, but she hasn't done it." "And I tell you she has done it. Ever since last summer. Night after night." "Where?" Thor demanded, hoarsely. "In the woods above Duck Rock. Look here," the father suggested, struck with a good idea, "the next time Claude says he has an engagement to go out with Billy Cheever, why don't you follow him—?" There was both outrage and authority in Thor's abrupt cry, "Father!" "Oh, I know how you feel. You'd rather trust him. Well, I would myself. It's the plan I'm going on. We mustn't be too hard on him, must we? Sympathetic steering is what he wants. Fortunately we're both men of the world and can accept the situation with no Puritanical hypocrisies. He's not the first young fellow who's got into the clutches of a hussy—" It was to keep himself from striking his father down that Thor got out of the room. For an instant he had seen red; and across the red the word parricide flashed in letters of fire. It might have been a vision. It was frightening. Outside it was a night of dim, spirit-like radiance. The white of the earth and the violet of the sky were both spangled with lights. Low on the horizon the full moon was a glorious golden disk. The air was sweet and cold. As he struck down the avenue, of which the snow was broken only by his own and his father's footsteps and the wheels of Bessie's car, he bared his head to cool his forehead and the hot masses of his hair. He breathed hard; he was aching; his distress was like that of being roused from a weird, appalling dream. He had not yet got control of his faculties. He scarcely knew why he had come out, except that he couldn't stay within. On nearing the street the buzzing of an electric car reminded him that Claude was probably coming home. Instinctively he turned his steps away from meeting him, tramping up the long, white, empty stretch of County Street. At Willoughby's Lane he turned up the hill, not for any particular purpose, but because the tramping there would be a little harder. He needed exertion. It eased the dull ache of confused inward pain. In the Willoughby house there was no light except in the hall and in Bessie's bedroom. Mother and daughter had doubtless taken refuge in the latter spot to discuss the disastrous turn of their fortunes. Ah, well! There would probably be nothing to keep him from going to their rescue now. Probably! He clung to the faint chance offered by the word. He didn't know the real circumstances—yet. Probably his father had been accurate in his statements, even though wrong in what he had inferred. Probably Claude and Rosie had met—night after night—secretly—in the woods—in the dark. Probably! He stopped dead in his walk; he threw back his head and groaned to the violet sky; he pulled with both hands at his collar as though choking. Secretly—in the woods—in the dark! It was awful—and yet it was entrancing. If Rosie had only come to meet him like that!—in that mystery!—in that seclusion!—with that trust!—with that surrender of herself! "How can I blame Claude?" It was his first formulated thought. He tramped on again. How could he blame Claude? Poor Claude! He had his difficulties. No one knew that better than Thor. And if Rosie loved the boy ... <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Below the ridge of the long, wooded hill there was a road running parallel to County Street. He turned into that. But he began to perceive to what goal he was tending. He had taken this direction aimlessly; and yet it was as if his feet had acted of their own accord, without the guiding impulse of the mind. From a long, straight stem a banner of smoke floated heavy and luminous against the softer luminosity of the sky. He knew now where he was going and what he had to do. But he paused at the gate, when he got there, uncertain as to where at this hour he should find her. There was a faint light in the mother's room, but none elsewhere in the house. The moon was by this time high enough to throw a band of radiance across Thorley's Pond and strike pale gleams from the glass of the hothouse roofs. It required some gazing to detect in Rosie's greenhouse the blurred glow of a lamp. He remembered that there was a desk near this spot at which she sometimes wrote. She was writing there now—perhaps to Claude. But she was not writing to Claude; she was making out bills. As bookkeeper to the establishment, as well as utility woman in general, it was the one hour in the day when she had leisure for the task. She raised her head to peer down the long, dim aisle of flowers on hearing him open the door. "It's I, Rosie," he called to her, as he passed between banks of carnations. "Don't be afraid." She was not afraid, but she was excited. As a matter of fact, she was saying to herself, "He's found out." It was what she had been expecting. She had long ago begun to see that his almost daily visits were not on her mother's account. He had been coming less as a doctor than as a detective. Very well! If his detecting had been successful, so much the better. Since the battle had to be fought some time, it couldn't begin too soon. She remained seated, her right hand holding the pen, her left lying on the open pages of the ledger. He spoke before he had fully emerged into the glow of the lamp. "Oh, Rosie! What's this about you and Claude?" Her little face grew hard and defiant. She was not to be deceived by this wounded, unhappy tone. "Well—what?" she asked, guardedly, looking up at him. He stooped. His face was curiously convulsed. It frightened her. "Do you love him?" Instinctively she took an attitude of defense, rising and pushing back her chair, to shield herself behind it. "And what if I do?" "Then, Rosie, you should have told me." Again the heart=broken cry seemed to her a bit of trickery to get her confidence. "Told you? How could I tell you? What should I tell you for?" "How long have you loved him?" Her face was set. The shifting opal lights in her eyes were the fires of her will. She would speak. She would hide nothing. Let the responsibility be on Claude. Her avowal was like that of a calamity or a crime. "I've loved him ever since I knew him." "And how long is that?" "It will be five months the day after to-morrow." "Tell me, Rosie. How did it come about?" She was still defiant. She put it briefly. "I was in the wood above Duck Rock. He came by. He spoke to me." "And you loved him from the first?" She nodded, with the desperate little air he had long ago learned to recognize. "Oh, Rosie, tell me this. Do you love him—much?" She was quite ready with her answer. It was as well the Mastermans should know. "I'd die for him." "Would you, Rosie? And what about him?" Her lip quivered. "Oh, men are not so ready to die for love as women are." He leaned toward her, supporting himself with his hands on the desk. "And you are ready, Rosie! You really—would?" She thought he looked wild. He terrified her. She shrank back into the dimness of a mass of foliage. "Oh, what do you mean? What are you asking me for? Why do you come here? Go away." "I'll go presently, Rosie. You won't be sorry I've come. I only want you to tell me all about it. There are reasons why I want to know." "Then why don't you ask him?" she demanded, passionately. "He's your brother." "Because I want you to tell me the story first." There was such tenderness in his voice that she grew reassured in spite of her alarm. "What do you want me to say?" "I want you to say first of all that you know I'm your friend." "You can't be my friend," she said, suspiciously, "unless you're Claude's friend, too; and Claude wouldn't own to a friend who tried to part us." "I don't want to part you, Rosie. I want to bring you together." The assertion was too much for credence. She was thrown back on the hypothesis of trickery. "You?" "Yes, Rosie. Has Claude never told you that he's more to me than any one in the world, except—" He paused; he panted; he tried to keep it back, but it forced itself out in spite of his efforts—"except you." Once having said it, he repeated it: "Except you, Rosie; except—you." Though he was still leaning toward her across the desk, his head sank. There was silence between them. It was long before Rosie, the light in her eyes concentrated to two brilliant, penetrating points, crept forward from the sheltering mass of foliage. She could hardly speak above a whisper. "Except—who?" He lifted his head. She noticed subconsciously that his face was no longer wild, but haggard. He spoke gently: "Except you, Rosie. You're most to me in the world." As she bent toward him her mouth and eyes betrayed her horror at the irony of this discovery. She would rather never have known it than know it now. It was all she could do to gasp the one word, "Me?" "I shouldn't have told you," he hurried on, apologetically, "but I couldn't help it. Besides, I want you to understand how utterly I'm your friend. I ask nothing more than to be allowed to help you and Claude in every way—" She cried out. The thing was preposterous. "You're going to do that—now?" "I'm your big brother, Rosie—the big brother to both of you. That's what I shall be in future. And what I've said will be a dead secret between us, won't it? I shouldn't have told you, but I couldn't help it. It was stronger than me, Rosie. Those things sometimes are. But it's a secret now, dead and buried. It's as if it hadn't been said, isn't it? And if I should marry some one else—" This was too much. It was like the world slipping from her at the minute she had it within her grasp. The horror was not only in her eyes and mouth, but in her voice. "Are you going to marry some one else?" "I might have to, Rosie—for a lot of reasons. It might be my duty. And now that I can't marry you—" She uttered a sort of wail. "Oh!" "Don't be sorry for me, Rosie dear. I can't stand it. I can stand it better if you're not sorry—" "But I am," she cried, desperately. "Then I must thank you—only don't be. It will make me grieve the more for saying what I never should have said. But that's a secret between us, as I said before, isn't it? And if I do marry—she'll never find it out, will she? That wouldn't do, would it, Rosie?" His words struck her as passing all the bounds of practical common sense. They were so mad that she felt herself compelled to ask for more assurance. "Are you—in love—with—with me?" If the last syllable had been louder it would have been a scream. "Oh, Rosie, forgive me! I shouldn't have told you. It was weak. It was wrong. I only did it to show you how you could trust me. But I should have showed you that some other way. You'd already told me how it was between you and Claude, and so it was treachery to him. But I never dreamed of trying to come between you. Believe me, I didn't. I swear to you I only want—" She broke in, panting. She wouldn't have spoken crudely or abruptly if there had been any other way. But the chance was there. In another minute it might be too late. "Yes; but when I said that about Claude—" She didn't know how to go on. He encouraged her. "Yes, Rosie?" She wrung her hands. "Oh, don't you see? When I said that about Claude—I didn't—I didn't know—" He hastened to relieve her distress. "You didn't know I cared for you?" "No!" The word came out with another long wail. He looked at her curiously. "But what's that got to do with it?" Her eyes implored him piteously, while she beat the palm of one hand against the back of the other. It was terrible that he couldn't see what she meant—and the moments slipping away! "It wouldn't have made you love Claude any the less, would it?" She had to say something. If she didn't he would never understand. "Not love, perhaps; but—" The sudden coldness in his voice terrified her again—but differently. "But what, Rosie?" She cried out, as if the words rent her. "But Claude has no—money." "And I have. Is that it?" It was no use to deny it. She nodded dumbly. Besides, she counted on his possession of common sense, though his use of it was slow. He raised himself from his attitude of leaning on the desk. It was his turn to take shelter amid the dark foliage behind him. He couldn't bear to let the lamplight fall too fully on his face. "Is it this, Rosie," he asked, with an air of bewilderment, "that you'd marry me because I have—the money?" It seemed to Rosie that the question gave her reasonable cause for exasperation. She was almost sobbing as she said: "Well, I can't marry Claude without money. He can't marry me." A ray was thrown into her little soul when she gasped in addition, "And there's father and mother and Matt!" Thor's expression lost some of its bewilderment because it deepened to sternness. "But Claude means to marry you, doesn't he?" She cried out again, with that strange effect of the words rending her. "I don't—know." He had a moment of wild fear lest his father had been right, after all. "You don't know? Then—what's your relation to each other?" "I don't know that, either. Claude won't tell me." She crossed her hands on her bosom as she said, desperately, "I sometimes think he doesn't mean anything at all." The terror of the instant passed. "Oh yes, he does, Rosie. I'll see to that." "Do you mean that you'll make him marry me?" He smiled pitifully. "There'll be no making, Rosie. You leave it to me." He turned from her not merely because the last word had been spoken, but through fear lest something might be breaking within himself. On regaining the white roadway he thought he saw Jasper Fay in the shadow of the house, but he was too deeply stricken to speak to him. He went up the hill and farther from the village. It was not yet eight o'clock, but time had ceased to have measurement. He went up the hill to be alone in that solitude which was all that for the moment he could endure. He climbed higher than the houses and the snow-covered gardens; his back was toward the moon and the glow above the city. The prospect of reaching the summit gave something for his strong body to strain forward to. The ridge, when he got to it, was treeless, wind-swept, and moon-swept. It was a great white altar, victimless and bare. He felt devastated, weak. It was a relief, bodily and mental, to sink to his knees—to fall—to lie at his length. He pressed his hot face into the cool, consoling whiteness, as a man might let himself weep on a pillow. His arms were outstretched beyond his head. His fingers pierced beneath the snow till they touched the tender, nestling mosses. All round him there was silveriness and silence, and overhead the moon. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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