CHAPTER XI
It was almost ten o'clock when Claire left the house. She waited to see Radcliffe properly fed, and put to bed, before she went. She covered him up, and tucked him in as, in all his life, he had never been covered up, and tucked in, before. Then, dinnerless and faint, she slipped out into the bleak night.
She was too exhausted to feel triumphant over her conquest. The only sensations she realized were a dead weariness that hung on her spirit and body like a palpable weight, and, far down in her heart, something that smouldered and burned like a live ember, ready to burst forth and blaze at a touch.
She had walked but a block or two when, through her numbness, crept a dim little shadow of dread. At first it was nothing more than an inner suggestion to hasten her steps, but gradually it became a conscious impulse to outstrip something or some one behind her—some one or something whose footfalls, resounding faintly through the deserted street, kept such accurate pace with her own, that they sounded like their echo.
It was not until she had quickened her steps, and found that the other's steps had quickened, too, not until she had slowed down to almost a saunter, only to discover that the one behind was lagging also, that she acknowledged to herself she was being followed.
Then, from out the far reaches of her memory, came the words of Aunt
Amelia's formula: "Sir, you are no gentleman. If you were a gentleman—"
But straightway followed Martha's trenchant criticism.
"Believe me, that's rot! It might go all right on the stage, for a girl to stop, an' let off some elercution while the villain still pursued her, but here in New York City it wouldn't work. Not on your life it wouldn't. Villains ain't pausin' these busy days, in their mad careers, for no recitation-stunts, I don't care how genteel you get 'em off. If they're on the job, you got to step lively, an' not linger 'round for no sweet farewells. Now, you got your little temper with you, all right, all right! If you also got a umbrella, why, just you make a _com_bine o' the two an'—aim for the bull's eye, though his nose will do just as good, specially if it's the bleedin' v'riety. No! P'licemen ain't what I'd reckmend, for bein' called to the resquer. In the first place, they ain't ap' to be there. An', besides, they wouldn't know what to do if they was. P'licemen is funny that way.
"They mean well, but they get upset if anythin' 's doin' on their beat. They like things quiet. An' they don't like to run in their friends, an' so, by the time you think you made 'em understand what you're drivin' at, the villain has got away, an' you're like to be hauled up before the magistrate for disturbin' the peace, which, bein' so shy an' bashful before high officials, p'licemen don't like to blow in at court without somethin' to show for the way they been workin'."
It all flashed across Claire's mind in an instant, like a picture thrown across a screen. Then, without pausing to consider what she meant to do, she halted, turned, and—was face to face with Francis Ronald.
Before he could speak, she flashed upon him two angry eyes.
"What do you mean by following me?"
"It is late—too late for you to be out in the streets alone," he answered quietly.
Claire laughed. "You forget I'm not a society girl. I'm a girl who works for her living. I can't carry a chaperon about with me wherever I go. I must take care of myself, and—I know how to do it. I'm not afraid."
"I believe you."
"Then—good-night!"
"I intend to see you home."
"I don't need you."
"Nevertheless, I intend to see you home."
"I don't—want you."
"Notwithstanding which—"
He hailed a passing motor-taxi, gave the chauffeur Martha's street and number, after he had succeeded in extracting them from Claire, and then, in spite of protests, helped her in.
For a long time she sat beside him in silence, trying to quell in herself a weak inclination to shed tears, because—because he had compelled her to do something against her will.
He did not attempt any conversation, and when, at last, she spoke, it was of her own accord.
"I've decided to resign my position."
"Is it permitted me to know why?"
"I can't stay."
"That is no explanation."
"I don't feel I can manage Radcliffe."
"Pardon me, you know you can. You have proved it. He is your bond-slave, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer."
Claire laughed, a sharp, cutting little laugh that was like a keen knife turned on herself.
"O, it would have to be for poorer—'all right, all right,' as Martha says," she cried scornfully. "But it has been too hard—to-day. I can't endure any more."
"You won't have to. Radcliffe is conquered, so far as you are concerned.
'Twill be plain sailing, after this."
"I'd rather do something else. I'd like something different."
"I did not think you were a quitter."
"I'm not."
"O, yes, you are, if you give up before the game is done. No good sport does that."
"I've no ambition to be a good sport."
"Perhaps not. But you are a good sport. A thorough good sport. And you won't give up till you've seen this thing through."
"Is that a prediction, or a—command? It sounds like a command."
"It is whatever will hold you to the business you've undertaken. I want you to conquer the rest, as you've conquered Radcliffe."
"The rest?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean by the rest?"
"I mean circumstances. I mean obstacles. I mean, my mother—my sister."
"I don't—understand."
"Perhaps not."
"And suppose (forgive me if I seem rude), suppose I don't consider the rest worth conquering? Why should I? What one has to strive so for—"
"Is worth the most. One has to strive for everything in this world, everything that is really worth while. One has to strive to get it, one has to strive to keep it."
"Well, I don't think I care very much to-night, if I never get anything ever again in all my life to come."
"Poor little tired girl!"
Claire's chin went up with a jerk. "I don't need your pity, I won't have it. I am a stranger to you and to your friends. I am—" The defiant chin began to quiver.
"If you were not so tired," Francis Ronald said gravely, "I'd have this thing out with you, here and now. I'd make you tell me why you so wilfully misunderstand. Why you seem to take pleasure in saying things that are meant to hurt me, and must hurt you. As it is—"
Claire turned on him impetuously. "I don't ask you to make allowances for me. If I do what displeases you, I give you perfect liberty to find fault. I'm not too tired to listen. But as to your making me do or say anything I don't choose, why—"
He shook his head. "I'm afraid you are a hopeless proposition, at least for the present. Perhaps, some time I may be able to make you understand—Forgive me! I should say, perhaps, some time you may be willing to understand."
Their chauffeur drew up beside the curbstone in front of Martha's door, then sprang down from his seat to prove to his lordly-looking "fare" that he knew his business, and was deserving of as large a tip as a correct estimate of his merit might suggest.
Francis Ronald took Claire's key from her, fitted it into the lock of the outer door, and opened it for her.
"And you will stand by Radcliffe? You won't desert him?" he asked, as she was about to pass into the house.
"I'll show you that, at least, I'm not a quitter, even if I am a hopeless proposition, as you say."
A faint shadow of a smile flitted across his face as, with head held proudly erect, she turned and left him.
"No, you're not a quitter," he muttered to himself, "but—neither am I!"
The determined set of his jaw would have rekindled that inner rebellious fire in Claire, if she had seen it. But she was seeing nothing just at that moment, save Martha, who, to her amazement, stood ready to receive her in the inner hall.
"Ain't it just grand?" inquired Mrs. Slawson. "They told me yesterday, 'all things bein' equal,' they'd maybe leave us back soon, but I didn't put no stock in it, knowin' they never is equal. So I just held me tongue an' waited, an' this mornin', like a bolster outer a blue sky, come the word that at noon we could go. Believe me, I didn't wait for no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails you? You look sorter—sorter like a—strained relation or somethin'. What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? What kep' you so late?"
"I had a tussle with Radcliffe."
"Who won out?"
"I did, but it took me all day."
"Never mind. It'd been cheap at the price, if it had 'a' took you all week. How come the madam to give you a free hand?"
"She was away."
"Anybody else know what was goin' on? Any of the fam'ly?"
"Yes, Mr. Ronald. He brought me home. I didn't want him to, but he did.
He just made me let him, and—O, Martha—I can't bear—I can't bear—"
"You mean you can't bear him?"
Claire nodded, choking back her tears.
"Now, what do you think o' that!" ejaculated Mrs. Slawson pensively. "An' he so pop'lar with the ladies! Why, you'd oughter hear them stylish lady-friends o' Mrs. Sherman praisin' 'm to her face. It'd make you blush for their modesty, which they don't seem to have none, an' that's a fac'. You can take it from me, you're the only one he ever come in contract with, has such a hate on'm. I wouldn't 'a' believed it, unless I'd 'a' had it from off of your own lips. But there's no use tryin' to argue such things. Taste is different. What pleases one, pizens another. In the mean time—an' it is a mean time for you, you poor, wore-out child—I've some things here, hot an' tasty, that'll encourage your stummick, no matter how it's turned on some other things. As I says to Sammy, it's a poor stummick won't warm its own bit, but all the same, there's times when somethin' steamin' does your heart as much good as it does your stummick, which, the two o' them bein' such near neighbors, no wonder we get 'em mixed up sometimes, an' think the one is starved when it's only the other."