CHAPTER XII
Danilo did not come home that night, but Claire was not disturbed. Morning brought the usual sanity. She was convinced now that Danilo's manner of the night before was more a matter of her own mood and interpretation than anything else. But she was determined on one thing: she would ask Mrs. Condor quite frankly to say nothing to Danilo about Stillman. Claire was still undecided about the whole question. She had seen that Stillman was against the fine-spun theories back of her silence, but she had not yet acquired the masculine directness of conduct that made it easy for her to be either ruthless or perfectly just.
Mrs. Condor came in shortly after two o'clock. She was dressed with extraordinary lack of spirit for her, in a black street dress that just escaped being dowdy, and her face was incased in a thick, ugly veil.
"Well, my dear Claire," she said, as she threw back her veil with something of her old spirit, "but this is good of you!"
The warmth of tone repaid Claire's effort to be generous.
"There is no use in us wasting time talking about the program," she went on. "You play everything I'm going to sing. I don't know anything new. I'm getting too old to learn other tricks. You know, of course, what I've come for? To see all your pretty clothes. I'm still soft about such things."
Claire took her into the front room.
"You see," she said, "there isn't anything very grand."
"Oh, but Claire! What does it matter? You are in love.... If I were a woman in love I wouldn't change places with the Empress of India. I was jealous of you, Claire, once ... jealous because I thought you were in love ... because I thought you could be.... Ah! You didn't think that I cared for Ned Stillman?... Oh, I liked his attentions, perhaps—every woman likes attention. And I was envious of your youth, and nasty because my nerves were frayed.... But deep down I was jealous of your ability to fall in love with somebody.... Believe me, Claire, the bitterest moment of any woman's life is when she wakes up and finds that she loves no one. At least that was the bitterest moment of my life.... I've tried to bring that feeling back again! But trying doesn't do any good. It either comes or it stays away, and that's all there is to it.... Oh, I've been loved, Claire, but that isn't the same."
Claire, who had been folding her wedding-dress, stopped and looked up in surprise.
"I don't wonder you look at me that way!" Lily Condor resumed. "I've played a rotten game, but I've never acknowledged it to myself, much less to any one else.... Don't misunderstand me—I'm not crawling around on my hands and knees sniffling like a repentant sinner.... I hate repentant sinners! But I've been cheap and small and nasty. Petty—that's the word! You may not believe it, but pettiness isn't a part of my original make-up. I've acquired it ... like a false complexion.... I started in life with three things—a clear skin, quantities of very red hair, and a decent feeling for others. Well, I lost them all—so I powdered my cheeks and touched up my hair and filled in the chinks in my disposition with a hard glaze. Oh, I'm not excusing myself! Some people are willing to sit back and let time and misfortune do their worst, but I wasn't one of them. I kept on fighting.... I didn't win, but it hardened me. Fighting always does!"
Claire dropped her wedding-gown upon the couch and she said, very gently:
"Yes ... I know.... I've tasted something of that myself."
"I know you have.... I realized it that night at the café when you had the courage of your bitterness and insulted me. I was furious, of course! I wanted to strike back, to kick and scream and claw the air. And as a matter of fact, I did ... after we ... Flint and I ... got home. He let me rave without saying a word. Oh, he's a clever brute in his way, that man! And when I'd had it all out he got up and he said: 'Take a look at yourself in the glass. If that doesn't cure you, nothing will.' And he walked deliberately out.... I went over to the mirror after he had gone, and I took a look, a long, hard look.... Next night he came and pounded on my door—he was drunk. 'I did what you told me last night,' I called to him. 'Go away! I'm cured!' But of course I wasn't!... I've looked in the glass every day since.... I don't know just what possessed me to go and offer my services to Doctor Danilo. A flash of the old distemper, I fancy. I wanted to create a stir. I smiled when he disposed of you with so much confidence. I thought: 'Wait until my lady hears; then there will be some fun!... This will be the first difference, the first quarrel,' I was mean enough to imagine.... Then, your note came.... My dear Claire, for once in my life I was without a weapon.... Why didn't you strike back and give me a chance to fight?"
"Well, to be frank, I wanted to ... at first. But I was afraid."
"Of what ... of me?"
"Oh, not that! But Danilo ... he.... You see, he is a foreigner. He has other ideas about women and their place in the scheme of things. It isn't exactly a feeling that he's superior, but marriage to him is a partnership ... a partnership with a senior member. And senior members—well, they don't relish having their authority questioned. I'm explaining it very clumsily. But you understand I...."
"Afraid, Claire?... So soon? You must be very much in love to ... to...."
Claire drew a deep breath. "And I've a favor to ask of you.... I hope you won't say anything to Danilo about.... The truth of the matter is, I have never mentioned Ned Stillman's name to him."
Well, she had said it and she stood staring, wondering at the look of dismay that seemed to have fastened itself in an arrested flight upon Mrs. Condor's face.
"You mean that ... that Danilo knows nothing—absolutely nothing? I thought he was a friend of Ned's? Why, it isn't possible that...."
"He knows nothing," Claire repeated, desperately. "I mean to tell him, of course, but just now...."
Lily Condor tapped her lips with an uneasy finger. "You should have warned me sooner, Claire.... I said something yesterday. It was a trifle, but I remember now how he stared."
"Yes, yes. What was it?"
"I said: 'You're a lucky man, Doctor Danilo. If Ned Stillman hadn't been married you wouldn't have carried off your prize so easily.' It was stupid of me, one of those indelicate things we say for want of sense enough to hold our tongues. I felt for a moment that I had displeased him, but I had no idea.... But, really, it's just possible that he didn't get my meaning, that...."
Claire shook her head. "I must tell him now—everything."
She did not see Danilo for two days. He came in finally at five o'clock one afternoon to look up some surgical instruments that he was in need of. She was busy in the kitchen when she heard him come up the stairs. She went quickly to his door and tapped upon it.
"Mother has not been so well," she began, without waiting for his greeting. "I have been longing to see you."
He followed her into Mrs. Robson's room. The patient hardly stirred. Her usual interest in Danilo seemed to be eclipsed. Danilo looked grave.... When Claire and he were in the hall again he turned to her and said:
"I suppose you are prepared?... Everything will soon be over."
His tone was dry, professional. He seemed to be making a deliberate effort to wound. Had he been sympathetic Claire would have been overcome, but there was something about the scene which chilled her emotions. She felt that the time to speak had come.
"You have guessed, also," she began, "that I have wanted to see you about other things, too. There are some things which I should like to explain ... to...."
He shrugged contemptuously. "Explanations are dull affairs. At least I find them so. And they usually never explain."
She was stunned. She had thought always of Danilo in terms of warmth, even of passion. She had never imagined him capable of such steely malevolence.
"I have made a mistake," she went on, desperately. "I am willing to admit that, but...."
"No, not a mistake, Claire. Mistakes are never deliberate."
She could almost feel herself grow pale. "Have you come to any decision?" she asked.
"Decision?"
"Well, I suppose that you will wish to be released ... that our ... that everything between us is finished."
His eyes flashed. "Finished! It isn't as simple as all that. Oh no! A bargain with me is a bargain. When I make a deal it either goes through or else there is a reckoning.... But I don't act as hastily as one might imagine. I believe in sifting things. When I play a game I know every card I hold." He looked at her steadily. "I am still looking over my hand!"
She leaned against the wall, overcome by a sudden faintness. He passed her deliberately and went into his room. When he came out she had recovered herself.
"About mother?" she said, with a display of calmness. "What am I to expect?"
"There is no immediate danger. But in two weeks' time at the most.... However, I shall look in again this afternoon. And every morning. You may count on that."
"Then you have decided to lodge somewhere else?"
"Yes ... for the present."
She let him go without further questions.
The week passed in an atmosphere of arrested events. It seemed to Claire as if the currents of life had become ominously frozen, that they were storing up a sinister flood in the icy chains of apprehension. Danilo came twice a day to see Mrs. Robson. He was excessively polite, unbending, professional. Claire was powerless before such premeditated cruelty. The night of the concert drew near. Danilo never so much as mentioned it. Finally Claire gathered the courage to telephone Mrs. Condor.
"I suppose," she said, "that everything is going according to schedule. Really, I haven't had a chance to talk to Danilo about it. He has been so busy."
The upshot of this telephone message was that Mrs. Condor called in the afternoon.
"Confess!" she said to Claire. "Things have gone wrong."
"He won't allow me to explain.... It is horrible! I don't know what to do! And my mother is dying!... How much do you fancy he knows?"
"Everything or nothing! It is hard to say. But you must keep a stiff upper lip now. No faltering!... Be as dignified as you can. Men like that are dangerous! It may be that he is merely suffering, that he can't speak out yet! When he does...." She gave a significant shrug.
Claire folded and unfolded her handkerchief, crumpled it into a ball, tore at it with her firm finger-nails.
"Words ... insults ... anything would be better than this silence. I have never been so frightened."
Mrs. Condor's visit relieved the strain somewhat, but Claire was still strung with a tense emotion that found expression in a restless physical activity. She even helped Miss Proll with the sewing, although there were moments when the absurdity of all this preparation struck her with a force which almost brought the laughter to her lips. But this wedding-trousseau had become a passion with Miss Proll. Claire could not conceive of halting its preparation.
Once it struck her that there was a decided impropriety about appearing in a concert, with her mother so near the gate of life's solution. Impropriety? She pondered the word. And at once a revulsion swayed her. She was sick of all these pallid phrases of expediency. One could act indifferently or harshly or irreverently at such a crisis, but it was too dreadful and austere a circumstance for so smug an indiscretion as impropriety. She knew what her mother would have advised on a like occasion.
"I wouldn't, if I were you, Claire. People might think it strange."
This formula, then, was all that was left of the pomp and circumstance of death—of even the glowing pageantry of life; love and hate and desire reduced to colorless shadows blown monotonously about the lantern of existence by the steady heat waves of public opinion!
It would have been so easy to excuse herself, to say to Danilo:
"You see it is impossible for me to play next Friday night. Please make other arrangements."
In reality, she was waiting for him to release her, and, since he seemed determined to make her cry for quarter, all her pride rose to meet the issue courageously. It was pride that lifted her head above the choking dust of misfortune—arrogant, blind, magnificent human pride.
" ...keep a stiff upper lip."
Claire Robson did not need this admonition from Mrs. Condor.
There were also moments of hectic retrospection. Incidents old but vital came surging over Claire in a flood-tide. Looking back, it seemed as if no circumstance was too trivial but that it yielded up some fragment which fitted into the intricate pattern of her life. She had thought of this life of hers always in terms of uneventfulness, mistaking mere incident for emotional experience. But she was surprised to discover what depths she had sounded, what heights she had scaled in the solitary excursions that her spirit had chanced.
People came and went like noonday ghosts—Mrs. Finnegan, Nellie Holmes, Mrs. Towne, Doctor Stoddard. Claire felt their personalities moving about her, but the wings of Death cast too heavy a shadow for her to do more than sense their presence.
Only Danilo's passionately sneering face had the faculty of bringing Claire up with a round turn to a sudden realization that she had escaped only temporarily into a world of unrealities. It was as if the payment on a note had been suspended with refined cruelty—the day of reckoning futilely postponed.
When she thought of him it was with a quickening of the heart, a swooning fear, a feeling of dreadful nausea. Afraid! She knew the meaning of this word now.
Lily Condor ran in again the day before the concert.
"I called at Danilo's office to-day," she said, "just out of sheer curiosity.... I don't know ... perhaps it would be just as well if we didn't go through with this farce of doing a turn to-morrow night.... What do you think? I could pretend that I was ill?"
"Why?... What is it? Do you think...."
"I don't like his look. He was most polite.... I think he could have killed me."
"Nonsense!" Claire returned, boldly. "You're drawing on your imagination. I want to do it.... I have a reason."
She realized the absurdity of such a statement as soon as Mrs. Condor had departed. A reason! And her mother was dying—dying! What would people think? Unconsciously the old question framed itself.
Danilo came in as usual, close upon the heels of Mrs. Condor.
"Your mother is slightly better," he said to Claire. "She may last another month."
Claire tried to ignore the insolence of his brevity.
"I wish you would do me a favor," she ventured, boldly. "I've been trying to get Nellie Holmes on the telephone all day.... Would you mind asking her if she could come and stay with mother to-morrow night from eight o'clock to about ten? I hate to leave Miss Proll all the responsibility."
He merely bowed his acquiescence. She felt her cheeks burning. He had done none of the things she had expected him to do—asked none of the questions. At least she had expected him to say:
"Oh, then you have decided to appear to-morrow?"
No, he had insulted her with his silence, pretending to be neither surprised nor shocked. But his attitude confirmed her in the determination to carry out her part of the program.
On Friday morning the society columns of the newspapers were twittering with the fact of Claire Robson's appearance upon the concert stage in aid of her fiancé's native land. This was the last time the public would have a chance to view her as Miss Robson. In fact, it might be the last time that San Francisco would have a chance to view her publicly at all! These statements carried an air of civic calamity that must have appalled every shop-girl who thrilled to their romantic suggestion. Previously Claire had been able to smile over the transparent fiction of the daily press concerning her obscure self, but now she caught a suggestion of irony, of bitter cruelty, of withering scorn running through all this silly chatter. She felt that it had been inspired by Danilo; between the lines she could almost shape his sneering lips, thin and pallid where they had once been full and scarlet.
That morning when he came to see his patient his eyes were burning like livid coals, his cheeks were sunken, his hand shook as he drew back the covers to look at Mrs. Robson's gray face. And as Claire watched him she saw a tear roll down the full length of his cheek and drop unashamed upon the rumpled linen. She felt a great longing then, a yearning to go up and put her hands upon his cheeks and draw his face to hers and to sit while he knelt beside her and poured out his full grief in a cleansing flood. But, instead, she stood proudly aloof and the golden moment of opportunity was swallowed up.
"I will not come this afternoon," he said, at parting. "You may expect a taxi at eight-thirty."
She felt an impulse to put out her hand to him. But again she could not rise to such humility.
She watched him go slowly down the steps with the weak tread of one consumed by a fever. He had changed completely overnight. He gave one look back before he closed the door—the look of a wounded beast staggering through a welter of heart's blood.
Claire Robson brought her hands quickly up to her eyes.