II
“You are taking Lilah Lindsay in to dinner,” said Mrs. Dane. “I am kind to you, you see! She’s the most exquisite person.”
“Exquisite,” O’Hara agreed politely, but there was something in his voice that caused Mrs. Dane to raise her beautifully pencilled eyebrows. There was no doubt about it, her distinguished guest was in no transport of enthusiasm as to her adored Lilah. Rumour, for once, was correct! She glanced toward the door, bit her lip, and then, with a swift movement of decision, she turned to the high-backed sofa, her draperies fluttering about her as she seated herself.
“I am so very glad that you came early,” she informed him graciously, and O’Hara thought again of her astonishing resemblance to a humming-bird—small and restless and vivid, eternally vibrating over some new flower. “I so rarely get a chance to talk to you—you are most impressively busy, aren’t you? Do you see a great deal of Lilah?”
“Mrs. Lindsay has attended all our conferences for the past few weeks.”
“Oh, of course, but you can hardly get to know her there, can you?”
“Possibly not. However, I have had to content myself with that. She is a very busy woman, of course, and my own time is not at my disposal.”
“I suppose not,” murmured Mrs. Dane mendaciously. She supposed nothing of the sort. “But you are to be pitied, truly. She is a most enchanting person; all the tragedy and cruelty of her life have left her as gay and sweet and friendly as a child. It’s incredible.”
“She has had tragedy and cruelty in her life?”
“Oh, it’s been a nightmare—nothing less. She hadn’t been out of her French convent six months when she married that beast, Heaven knows why—she had every other man in Washington at her feet, but he apparently swept her off them! Of course, he had a brilliant future before him——”
“Of course,” murmured O’Hara.
“What do you mean? Did you know Curran Lindsay?”
“Never heard of him,” O’Hara assured her. “But do go on: what happened to the beast’s future?”
She shrugged her white shoulders distastefully. “Oh, he died in a sanitarium in California several years ago, eaten up with drugs and baffled ambition.”
“And languishing away without his favourite pastime of beating the lovely Mrs. Lindsay black and blue, I suppose?”
Mrs. Dane controlled a tremor of annoyance. She disliked flippancy and she disliked grimness; combined she found them irritating to a really incredible degree. “Curran never subjected Lilah to physical maltreatment,” she said coldly, “he subjected her to something a thousand times more intolerable—his adoration.”
“So the beast adored her?”
“He was mad about her. You find that unlikely?”
“On the contrary,” replied O’Hara amiably, “I find it inevitable. But what happened to his brilliant career?”
“Oh, he was crazily, insanely jealous—and some devil chose to send him an anonymous letter in the middle of a crucial party contest when his presence was absolutely vital, saying that Lilah was carrying on an affair with an artist in California, where he’d left her for the winter. He went raving mad—threw up the whole thing—told his backers that they could go to Hell, he was going to California—and he went, too.”
“Ah, Antony, Antony!” O’Hara said softly.
Mrs. Dane stared at him, wide-eyed. “Why, what do you mean? Have you heard the story before?”
“It sounds, somehow, vaguely familiar,” he told her. “There was a woman in Egypt—no—that was an older story than this. Well, what did the beast find?”
“He found Lilah,” replied Mrs. Dane sharply. “The artist had promptly blown his brains out when she had sent him about his business, as she naturally did. But Curran’s contest was lost, and so was Curran. He might as well have been Benedict Arnold, from his party’s point of view. He went absolutely to pieces; took to drinking more and more—then drugs—oh, the whole thing was a nightmare!”
“And the artist blew his brains out, you say?”
“Yes, it was too tragic. Lilah was almost in despair, poor child. He left some dreadful note saying that exiles from Paradise had no other home than Hell—and that one of them was taking the shortest cut to get there. The newspapers got hold of it and gave it the most ghastly publicity,—you see, everyone had prophesied such wonderful things about his future!”
“Still, he had dwelt in Paradise,” murmured O’Hara.
“Dwelt? Nonsense—he said that he was an exile!” Mrs. Dane’s voice was distinctly sharp, but O’Hara smiled down at her imperturbably.
“Oh, come. It’s a little difficult to be exiled from a spot where you’ve never set foot, isn’t it? No, I rather fancy that Mrs. Lindsay found consolation in the dark hours by remembering that she had not always been unkind to the poor exile—that in Paradise for a time there had been moonlight and starlight and sunlight—and that other light that never was, on sea or land. It must have helped her to remember that.”
Mrs. Dane dropped her flaming eyes to the fan that shook a little in her jewelled hands. Perhaps it was best to hold the thunder and lightning that she ached to release; after all, it was clearly impossible that he should actually mean the sinister things that he was implying about her incomparable Lilah! It would be an insult to that radiantly serene creature to admit that insult could so much as touch her. She raised defiant eyes to his mocking ones.
“Yes, that’s possible; Lilah is divinely kind to any beggar that crosses her path—it isn’t in her to hurt a fly, and she must have been gracious to that wretched boy until he made it impossible. But here is Monsieur De Nemours and the lady herself! Let’s go into the next room, shall we? Lilah, you lovely wonder, you look sixteen—and young for your age, at that. Let’s see, the Havilands aren’t here yet, and Bob Hyde telephoned that he and Sylvia would be late——”
O’Hara followed the swift, bird-like voice into the next room. By and by it would stop and he and Lilah would have to find words to fill the silence. What words should he choose? He was too tired to be careful—too tired to think; what devilish Fate was thrusting him into a position where he must do both?
She was talking to De Nemours, the shining head tilted back a little, the hushed music of her voice drifting across the room to him like a little breeze. She had on a black frock, slim and straight—not a jewel, not a flower, but all of spring laughed and danced and sang and sparkled in that upturned face. O’Hara’s hand closed sharply on the back of the chair. What if he were wrong—if this were all some ugly trick that his worn-out nerves were playing? After all, Lucia Dane had known her for years, and women’s friendships were notoriously exacting. What did he know of her save that she was lovely? Ah, lovely, lovely to heartbreak, as she stood there laughing up at De Nemours—at once still and sparkling, in that magical way of hers, like sunshine dancing on a quiet pool. Was it some devil in him that made him suspect the angel in her? Sometimes he thought that he must be going mad.
He had been so sure of himself; no woman was to touch his life until he had moulded it into its appointed shape—and then he would find a clear-eyed comrade who would be proud and humble in his glory—some girl, wise and tender and simple, who would always be waiting, quiet-eyed and quiet-hearted when he turned his tired steps to home—someone in whose kind arms he would find peace and rest and quiet. For he would be Man, the conqueror, and he would have deep need of these. So he had decreed, during the hard years that brought him to this place where, if he stretched only a little higher, he could touch the shining dreams—and behold, a door had opened and closed, and a yellow-haired girl had come in—and his ordered world was chaos and madness. He knew, with a sense of profoundly rebellious despair, that he was out of hand; his nerves had him, and they were riding him unmercifully, revenging themselves richly for all the days and nights that he had crushed them down and scorned them and ignored them. They had him now, this arrogant young dreamer, out to save a world—they had him now, for all his dreams!
“Mr. O’Hara, aren’t you taking me in to dinner?”
He started as violently as though she had touched his bare heart with those soft fingers of hers.
“You were a thousand miles away,” said the fairy voice, and the hand rested lightly on his arm. “I hate to bring you back, but they’re all going in, you see. Was it a pleasant country that you were playing in?”
“Pleasant enough,” he told her hardly. “But it’s poor sport looking down on a lost inheritance from the edge of a precipice. Did I seem to be enjoying it?”
“You looked as most of us feel on the edge of a precipice, I suppose—a little terrified, and a good deal thrilled. Was the lost heritage a pretty place?”
“As pretty as most lost places,” said O’Hara.
Lilah Lindsay leaned toward him, pushing the flowers between them a little aside.
“But why not turn your back on it?” she asked, her eyes laughing into his, friendly and adventurous. “You might climb higher up the mountain, and find some spot so strange and beautiful that it will make the little garden in the valley seem a dull spot well lost.”
“I have already turned my back,” he said.
“I think that I am glad,” said Lilah Lindsay. “You see, you do not belong in the valley. Will you tell me something, Mr. O’Hara?”
“What is there that I can tell you?”
“Oh, many things. I’m not wisdom incarnate, I know, but I have enough wits to realize that stupidity has you fast in his clutch if he can once get you to stop asking questions. I shall go down to my grave with ‘Why?’ still on my lips, I promise you!”
“Aren’t you afraid of exhausting our wretched little hoard of information?”
He felt as though some gigantic hand had released its grasp about his heart. If she would only keep the laughter dancing through her lashes he was safe.
“No, no; it’s inexhaustible, if properly handled.” Her voice was dancing, too. “I came across an old formula once; it’s served me well many and many a time, when I’ve seen a resentful and suspicious look in some man’s eyes that says, ‘Young woman, you are leading me to believe that you know more than I do. Young woman, you are boring me.’ I can drive that look from any man’s eyes in the world!”
“With what alchemy, little magician?”
She leaned closer again, and suddenly he smelt the violets—the room was full of them—the world itself was full of them!
“Why, I ask him to spell a word; any nice, simple word like ‘cat’ or ‘dog,’ so that he will be sure to be able to spell it, poor dear! And in thirty seconds the sky is blue, and the birds are singing, and God’s in his heaven and woman in her proper place. It’s white magic, truly!”
“Truly,” O’Hara laughed back at her, “and truly, and truly, I’m believing you.” He felt light-headed with happiness—oh, surely, this was clear candour that she was giving him; all this lovely nonsense was cool water to his fever. Lucia Dane was right—the rest was ugly madness. “But what was the nice simple word that you were going to ask me to spell?”
“It’s rather a long and difficult word, I’m afraid,” she said gravely. “I was going to ask how you, an Irishman, came to be the British Representative in our Council?”
For a minute all the old, sick suspicion clouded the gray laughter of his eyes—his face grew hard and still—then the unswerving candour of the eyes lifted to his smote him to the heart, and he smiled down reassuringly.
“I suppose that it does seem damned queer. But you see, I happen to be British first and Irish second. Does that seem impossible?”
“No,” she replied slowly, “but it’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so. It’s infernally lonely work, I can tell you. You see, I was born and bred in Dublin; all my family think I’m a black traitor. They’re hot against England, and hot against me. They won’t believe that Ireland is my heart’s heart. But England—oh, she’s the power and the glory—she can lift the Irish high and safe out of their despair, though it’s blind from weeping the poor souls are—they’ll never be seeing it.”
The Irish in him was burning in his eyes and on his tongue—she stirred and nodded.
“Yes,” she said quietly, “I suppose that our Southern men who fought for the Union met with just such hatred and misunderstanding. And yet they were the ones who loved her best, the proud and lovely South—they who were willing to bear her hatred that they might save her soul.”
“Oh, it’s the wonder you are for understanding!” His heart was shaking his voice, but the callous and greatly bored gentleman on the other side of Mrs. Lindsay suddenly raised an energetic protest.
“See here, Lovely Lady, are you going to leave me to commune with my soul for the rest of the evening? For the last ten minutes I’ve been trying——”
O’Hara turned to the impatient young woman on his left, the ardour still lingering in his face. It lingered so convincingly that he proceeded to thrill her clear through to her small bones; she spent the next few days in a state of dreamy preoccupation that fairly distracted her adoring husband, and continued to cherish indefinitely the conviction that she had inspired a devastating if hopeless passion. It was lucky for her that she never knew that all that pulled O’Hara through the next ten minutes was a strong effort of the imagination, by which he substituted a head of palest gold for the curly brown one and a voice of silver magic for some rather shrill chatter. And then, suddenly, it was in blessed truth the silver voice.
“You see, I was specially interested in your feeling for Ireland because of the situation touched on in your record. That’s serious, isn’t it?”
“Serious to desperation.”
“But a great deal of it’s just surmise on your part, I suppose?”
“Surmise?” His voice was suddenly weary. “No, no, it’s the rotten truth. All the facts are there, even the names of the leaders in the plot.”
“But how can you be so sure?”
“I can be sure.” There was a grim certainty in his tone that left little room for doubt.
“You use spies?”
“Spies? You might call them that. There are three ring-leaders in the conspiracy; the youngest was my room-mate in college.”
“I see.” After a moment in which she sat quite still, clear-eyed and pensive, she asked, “Now that you have all the details of the plot, why don’t you crush it?”
“To do anything now would precipitate the bloodiest kind of civil war again. We must move with the greatest care; God help Ireland if wind of it reaches the other party. They’re straining at the leash like mad dogs already.”
“England must have great faith in your discretion,” said Lilah Lindsay, and O’Hara’s face suddenly flamed like the Crusader’s of old.
“God grant it’s not misplaced,” he said simply. “It’s sleepless I’ve gone these many nights looking for a way out—and now I think we’ve found one that’s neither too hard nor too weak. It’s been weary work hunting it. You see it’s not only Ireland we must help; it’s all the little, unhappy countries lost in the dark, and like to kill themselves before they find the light. Sometimes it breaks the heart in your body to watch them.” His eyes were sombre with all the useless pain in the world.
“Then don’t let’s watch them for a little while,” she said gently. “I should think shame on myself for making you talk shop this way; I do, I do! But it’s hard to shake it off, isn’t it?”
“Not when you smile like that.”
Lilah Lindsay smiled like that again.
“Now and then,” she murmured, “you are just about six years old.”
“Why did you cut off your hair?” demanded O’Hara, and his voice was a trifle unsteady.
“Why?” She brushed it back with light fingers, gay as a child once more. “Oh, it used to take me hours to wind it about my head and coil it over my ears; it was way below my waist, you know, and I found it very distracting, to me and—other people. Don’t you like it this way?”
“Below your waist,” he said. “Oh, then you must be a real Fairy Princess, all shining white and gold.”
“But don’t you like it this way?” asked Delilah.
“It’s beautiful,” said O’Hara. “But in every foolish heart of us there’s a lady in a tower to whom we call ‘Rappunzel, Rappunzel, let down your hair’—waiting to go climbing up the shining locks to her heart—and Paradise.”
Delilah rested her chin on linked fingers, her eyes at once dancing and demure. “How lamentably old-fashioned you are for all your radicalism. Shall I let my hair grow?”
“It’s the wonder it must be,” he whispered. “Breaking and foaming below your waist.”
“I’ve always thought of it, somehow, as a—a symbol,” she said, her eyes fixed on the coffee that she was slowly stirring. “When I cut it off, I said to each shining length, ‘There you go, Folly—and you, Frailty—and you, Weakness——’”
“And did you never think that your namesake must have cried of old to other shining locks ‘There you go, Strength?’”
The new Delilah looked suddenly enchantingly mischievous. “Well, but that was not her own hair! It belonged to a mere man who chose a very vulnerable spot to keep his strength. You have learned wisdom since Samson.”
“I wonder!” said O’Hara.
“I’ll remember what you have told me,” she laughed up at him. “You seem to hold that woman’s strength, too, is in her hair. Perhaps—perhaps you are right, after all. Will you come to see me one of these days, and try to convert me?”
They were all standing; he rose, too, his eyes holding her.
“When may I come—to-morrow?”
She smiled back at his swift urgency—then bent the primrose head in assent. O’Hara held back the curtains for her to pass through.
“To-morrow,” he told her, his eyes still lit with that incredulous wonder. “To-morrow is a great way off!”