CHAPTER XVI
Peter had engaged to dine with Charlotte that night, but after his talk with Sheila, his first impulse was to excuse himself. It seemed to him impossible to get back, at once, to the safe level of everyday life, of commonplace affairs. It seemed impossible, too, to meet Charlotte without betraying embarrassment. But after an hour's solitude, he had sufficient command of himself to fill the appointment, and he appeared at the Davis house with all his usual placidity of manner. After all, he had to go on as if nothing had happened, and it was as well, he told himself, to begin immediately. That was, perhaps, the worst of secret disasters like his and Sheila's—that one had to go on as if nothing had happened; that one had to wear, from the first, a bright mask of concealment. But it was, in a way, the best, too—this necessity for taking up tangible, practical matters, for continuing duties, obligations, enterprises that, perforce, diverted at least a part of one's mind from the contemplation of an inner tragedy. There was effort in having to talk, to listen intelligently, to laugh, but there was relief, too, and the sense of safety that, when adrift on chaotic seas, one feels at the touch of something solid. So he talked and listened and laughed with conscientious care. And watching Charlotte across the dinner table, he considered Sheila's plea.
As he had said to Sheila, he thought Charlotte clever and handsome and kind. Whole-heartedly he liked and admired her; he enjoyed her; he was stimulated by her. He was even prepared to admit that, if she would marry him, she might actually make something of him, middle-aged though he was. His attainments, his really brilliant qualities of mind, were there to build with—and she was, by nature, a builder. He could see her taking hold of his life and creating out of its hitherto negative stuff a thing worth while. He could see her thus active for him and with him, and feel a certain pleasure in the picture. To think of himself as dear to a woman like Charlotte could not but touch a man pleasantly and warmly. And yet, thus touched, thus drawn, he knew still that his whole-hearted admiration and liking would never be followed by whole-hearted love. His passion for Sheila had gone too deep to be effaced. Unhappily for himself, he was not one of those whose heart can be enlisted sincerely more than once. He looked across the table at Charlotte and noted the strong, rich gold of her hair, the dark, definite blue of her eyes, the gracious lines of her shoulders; he heard her clear, positive, courageous voice, her blithe laughter; he looked and listened and thought of her as his—and his heart clung to its dream of a woman far less compellingly vital and lovely. Against Charlotte's vivid reality, he set a little ghost with a pale face and wistful gray eyes and a plaintive voice, a little ghost too sensitive to be quite strong, too shy to be self-confident and self-sufficient, too tender to be altogether brave; and with this very sensitiveness, this shyness, this uncourageous tenderness, the little ghost held him. She held him because her eyes were wistfully gray instead of triumphantly blue, because her voice was hauntingly plaintive instead of firmly buoyant; she held him because in her soul there was a strain of weakness, of timidity, of childlike helplessness and innocence that to him was at once piteous and exquisite. She held him by all those qualities—and shortcomings—most unlike Charlotte. He saw that Charlotte was, as Sheila had asserted, just the woman for a man of his indolent, dallying temperament; he saw that he needed such a woman. But he saw, too, that Sheila needed him, that she had always needed him, that she would always need him; and from that consciousness of her need he could not wrench himself free.
He would never be free of his little, pale ghost. If he married Charlotte, it would be for Sheila's sake. If he married Charlotte——!
Well, he might marry Charlotte. Sheila had said that he could, and perhaps she had been right. In these later years, since Charlotte had been a woman, a cordial friendship had sprung up between them. Whenever she had been in Shadyville, he had been much with her, and in her absences there had been letters. For several years, whether in Shadyville or away, she had been a presence in his life; they had many tastes and interests in common; she was kind to him—encouragingly kind. It seemed probable that he could marry her; at least there was ground for trying to do so. Yet how could he offer less than his best to a creature so fine, so honest, so loyal as he knew Charlotte to be?
That something weighed on his mind, that he was observing her with unwonted gravity, Charlotte perceived before the dinner was over.
Afterward she took him with her into the garden and they sat down there in the mild spring night, surrounded by flowers, regarded by innumerable stars. The night, the flowers, the stars, all appeared to be conspiring for Charlotte. They created an atmosphere of poetry for her; they threw over her a glamour that, with her obvious type of beauty, her downright and positive nature, she had missed. It was as if the night, with its stars and flowers, were striving to invest her with that subtler allurement which, in Sheila, was so poignant and enchanting to Peter. And instinctively Charlotte took up the night's cue; sat a little in shadow; spoke with unusual softness.
"What have you been thinking of so seriously all evening?" she asked.
"I've been wondering," said Peter, "whether a man whose heart is committed, in spite of himself, to a hopeless love, has any right to marry."
Charlotte did not answer at once; she stirred, moved deeper into protecting shadow. "That depends, I believe, on whether he's sure that the love his heart is committed to is really hopeless—will be hopeless always," she replied finally.
"In the case I was considering—the man is sure of that."
"Then he would get over his unfortunate love in time—wouldn't he? Ill-fated love does not often last forever. Life—life is more merciful than that, isn't it?"
It was his chance with her; he realized that she was giving it to him—giving it to him understandingly and deliberately. He had only to agree that an "ill-fated" love—that his ill-fated love—would die at last. But he could not take his chance like that. He could not be less than honest with her.
"He would never get over it altogether," he said. "The woman he could not marry would always be—dearest to him. And, granting that, would it be fair for him to ask another woman to take what was left of—of his affection? Would it be fair to ask her to take—a spoiled life?"
"She might feel that what was left of his life was well worth having—the woman he could marry. She might feel that—even if he had suffered much, missed what he supremely wanted—his life need not be spoiled after all. She might feel that she could prevent its being spoiled. If he were frank with her, and she felt like that about it, I think it would be fair for him to marry her—perfectly honorable and fair."
"It could not be happiness for her," argued Peter.
"Perhaps not. Perhaps she could do without happiness."
"That would require a great love of her," said Peter gravely, "a great love for a man who could not give a great love in return."
"Yes," she agreed, her voice very low now, but as clear and steady as ever, "yes, it would require a great love from her. But it is not impossible to find a woman who can feel a great love without hope of a full return."
She was still in her sheltering shadow, but upon Peter's end of the garden seat the moonlight, unchecked by the trees, streamed white and strong. She looked into his face, fully revealed to her now, and she realized, before he spoke, that he was going to refuse her sacrifice; she realized it because she saw in his face a deeper emotion for her than he had ever shown before. He loved her not enough—and yet too much!—to marry her. She saw that and was prepared for his next words.
"To such a woman the man I have in mind could not give less than his best," he said. And there was no longer any question, any hesitancy in his tone. "To one so generous no man could be ungenerous—I should have known that! Perhaps," he went on, with a note of distress and apology, "perhaps such things should not be talked about. Perhaps it is—humiliating——"
"To me the truth could never be humiliating," she answered, with quick reassurance.
"Then it is best to speak it?" he pleaded, as if for self-justification. "Then it is best to speak it, after all? For it does make things—plain; it does show one the right, the decent course."
"It's best to speak it," she assented kindly; and she held out her hand to him.
He lifted her hand and kissed it. And when he spoke again, his voice faltered: "When a man knows a woman like you, Charlotte, he sees that happiness—or unhappiness—doesn't matter so much as he's thought. There are other things—better things—to live for. You've found them—and now I'm going to find them, too, my dear."
So, for the second time that day, Peter went from a woman who loved him. The night and the stars and the flowers had done their best to quicken his pulses; to blur his vision of the truth; to blunt his sense of absolute, unswerving honor. But in the end Charlotte herself had defeated what the night was fain to do for her with its witchery; she had defeated the night's intents with her measureless honesty and generosity—to which Peter's own generosity and honesty could but respond. To use a woman like Charlotte as a barrier between himself and another woman was impossible to him. Neither for Sheila's safety, nor for any benefit to himself, could he do a thing so base. He recognized now that marriage with Charlotte—even without that utter love he had given to Sheila—might be a gracious, even a happy destiny for him. But having found her so ready to sacrifice herself, he could not sacrifice her. He could not rob her of the chance of being loved as she could love. Such a love might come to her some day; he could but leave her free for it.
As he walked homeward along the silent, wide street, other gardens than Charlotte's flung their fragrance to him; the night still whispered to him of the sweetness of being loved, of all those compensations from which he had turned away. But he was not allured; he was not vanquished. His course stretched before him—through the befogging, unmanning sweetness—to daylight and self-respect and an uncompromising sincerity of life. It stretched before him farther than he could descry—as far as the great fighting, suffering, achieving world. Mrs. Caldwell had once told him that he had never grown up, and that some day he would have to grow up; that there could be no escape for him. She had been right about it. Until now he had not grown up. Not even in his love for Sheila and the pain of it, had he grown up. He had been like a child playing in a garden, and though the sweetest rose there had torn him with its thorns, he had stayed on in the garden. But now he was a child no longer; there had been no escape from growing up. He had put it off a long time—more than half his lifetime perhaps—but he had not been able to put it off forever. And now, yielding at last, he was willing to leave his garden; he was willing to go out into the world of men.
As he neared the hotel where he lived, he met Ted Kent, quitting his office—going home to Sheila.
At once Ted stopped and put out his hand. For in his mind no hostility against Peter had lingered. Indeed, on the occasion when he had upbraided Sheila about Peter, he had felt very little animosity toward Peter himself, and several months having passed in a strict compliance to his wishes on Sheila's part, the whole matter had almost vanished from his memory. His was not a nature to cherish resentment, to brood over fancied wrongs; he liked to be at peace with all his fellow-men and upon genial terms with them. He was animated by a distinct cordiality toward Peter now, as he extended his hand to him.
"Been calling on the girls, Burnett?" he inquired jovially.
"On one of them," admitted Peter.
"Well, it's been a long while since I did anything like that—a long while. And I'm not sorry either. There's nothing like your slippers and your pipe and your paper at home! When I have to work late, as I did to-night, it's a real hardship. Have a drink with me before I go on?"
"Thanks," said Peter pleasantly, "but I'm in a bit of a hurry. I've got to pack up. I'm leaving town in the morning."
"Leaving town? For a vacation?"
"No, for work. I've had a job offered me in New York. Brentwood, of the Brentwood Publishing Company, has been asking me to come to them for years, and I've finally decided to go."
"High-brows, aren't they—the Brentwood Company?" Ted questioned, somewhat impressed.
"Perhaps you'd call them so. They publish real literature—a good many translations; that's what they want me for."
"Well, well," pursued Ted, still detaining him, "and so you're going to leave little old Shadyville for good! And after spending all your days here, too—after making so many friends. I believe you'll miss us, Burnett!"
"I'm sure I shall," agreed Peter, with patient courtesy.
"Then why go? It may be a good change for you in ways, but I'm convinced there's more to be said against it than for it. For the life of me, I can't see why you're doing it."
"No," said Peter, a little drily, "you wouldn't see, Kent. But I'm sure it's the only thing to do. Tell Sheila I think so, please, and that I send her my good-byes."
"You aren't going to tell her good-bye yourself?"
"I'm afraid I can't." And as Peter spoke, he was acutely conscious of all that Ted did not see, of all that he would never understand. "I'm afraid I can't—I start early in the morning."
"All right! You know what's best for yourself, no doubt. Sorry you can't say good-bye to Sheila, though—she cares a lot for you, as much as if you were one of the family. I'll give her your message, but she'll be disappointed that you didn't deliver it yourself. Good luck to you, old man, and don't forget us!" And shaking hands again, Ted went cheerfully on his homeward way, serenely unaware of the sorrow—and of the irony!—that had confronted him from Peter's quiet eyes.
Up in his little room, Peter began to carry out his sudden plan for leaving Shadyville. It was true that he had had an offer, more than once, from Brentwood. Brentwood had been a chum of his at college, a friend who had never ceased to remember and appreciate him. The offer was still open, and it solved Peter's problem. He had told Sheila that he would marry Charlotte or do something else that would answer as well. He found that something else in going away.
He had not many possessions; shabby clothes—with an air to them; shabby books—that shone with their inner grace. The books took longest, and when he had finished packing them, it was dawn. He went to his window and watched the slow coming of the light, and in that silent, gray hour, he felt himself more alone than he had ever been. Everything seemed to have been stripped from him; this town where he had been born, and where generations of his family had been born before him; his friends; the little room, so dismantled now, that for years had been his home-place; all these—and his hope of happy love. He remembered how, in his early, romantic boyhood, he had hoped for that—for happy love; and now that hope was gone and everything was gone with it. Everything was gone because of Sheila; he had given up everything that she might be safe, that she might have peace—the peace, at least, of being unafraid. He thought of her now with a calm tenderness—as if, having given so much for her peace, he had somehow gained peace for himself, too. And then he thought of Charlotte, and it was for Charlotte, not for Sheila, that tears—a man's slow, difficult tears—forced themselves into his eyes.
But Charlotte was strong. It was her strength that had roused strength in him; strength to leave the garden, to escape the insinuating, ensnaring sweetness of the night and go forth into the daylight world of men.
And just then the first ray of sunlight touched his window sill, touched it and stole within the room. The day had come; and though he was forty-six years old and not born for fighting, a sudden elation seized upon Peter's sad heart—as if the finger of the sunlight had touched it, too.