PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME!"
Herrick excused himself to Mrs. Hope and followed Joe Patrick out of the box. "But are you sure, Joe?" he asked. "Could you swear to it?"
"Sure I could! Why couldn't I?"
"And you couldn't tell the coroner that that man was as slim as a whip and as dark as an Indian, about middle height and over thirty, and of a very nervous, wiry, high-strung build."
"Well, now I look at him close again I can see all that. But he didn't strike me anyways particular."
Herrick had an exasperated moment of wondering, if Joe considered Denny commonplace, what was his idea of the salient and the vivid. Was the whole of Joe's testimony as valueless as this? He stood now and watched their man with wonder. Had Denny recognized him? Had he seen Joe Patrick rooted upright there, behind his chair, with staring eyes? If so, after that first flicker of blindness, not an eyelash betrayed him. He was triumphantly at his ease; his part became a thing of swiftness and wit, with the grace of flashing rapiers and of ruffling lace, so that from the moment of his entrance the act quickened and began to glow; the man seemed to take the limp, stuffed play up in his hand, to breathe life in it, to set it afire, to give it wings. And all this so quietly, with merely a light, firm motion, an eloquent tone, a live glance! He had, as Herrick only too well remembered, a singularly winning voice, an utterance of extraordinary distinction, with a kind of fastidious edge to his words that seemed to cut them clear from all duller sounds. But Herrick recalled how, after the first pleasure of hearing him speak, he had disliked a mocking lightness which seemed to blend, now, with the something slightly satanic of the wicked marquis whom Denny played. He remembered Shaw's advice, "Look like a nonentity or you will get cast for villains!" Truly, they didn't cast men like that for heroes! And in the light of that sinister flash, Herrick was aware of vengeance rising in him. He rejoiced to be hot on the trail, and when he and Joe parted it was with the understanding that he was to allay suspicion by returning to the box and Joe was to telephone the police. Rather to his surprise the performance continued without interruption and he somehow missed Joe as he came out.
Now at the ungodly hour of one-thirty in the morning, Christina was expected home. She was to take the midnight train from some Connecticut town, and the thought of her approach began gradually to overcome, in Herrick's mind, the thought of justice. As he walked to meet her through the beautiful warm, windless dark, he told himself, indeed, that he had a great piece of news for her and took counsel of her how he should carry it to Kane.
But when, under the night lights of the station, he saw how she was ready to drop with fatigue, he simply changed his mind. He had sufficiently imbibed the tone of her colleagues to feel that nothing was so necessary as that she shouldn't be upset. It was bad enough that to-morrow she must be told of Nancy's message and add her identification of that curly hair; let her sleep to-night.
In the cab she drooped against him with a simplicity of exhaustion that was full, too, of content. "I was afraid I should never get you back!" she said, and again, "I thought, all the evening, how you had been—hurt; and how all that theaterful of women could see that you were safe—and I couldn't! Do you know how I comforted myself?" And she began to murmur into his shoulder a little scrap of song—
"Careless and proud,
That is their part of him—
But the deep heart of him
Hid from the crowd!"
"You know where my heart was!" he said. He had forgotten how large a part of it had been excited by the apparition of Denny.
Still humming, she drew back a little and let her look shine up to his.
"Simple and frank,
Traitors be wise of him!
Are not the eyes of him
Pledge of his rank?"
"Christina!" he said, humbly. "Don't!"
"You don't like it!" she softly jeered. And though when he put her into her mother's arms her little smile was so pitiful that it frightened him, and he would have given anything that to-morrow night were past, yet she turned on the stairway and cast him down, with a teasing fondness, a final verse.
"Vigor and tan!
Look at the strength of him!
Oh, the good length of him!
There is my man!"
"Christina!" cried Mrs. Hope, scandalized. And Christina, with a hysterical and weary laugh, dragged herself upstairs.
Herrick went forth into the street bathed in the sense of her love and with a soul that trembled at her sweetness. He was himself very restless, and, sniffing the fresh dark, he dismissed the cab. He had begun to be really in dread lest Christina should break down; after he had crossed the street he turned, with anxious lingering, to look up at her window, and he saw the light spring forth behind it as he looked. It was so hard to leave the sense of her nearness that Herrick, like a boy, stood still and there rose in his breast a tenderness that seemed to turn his heart to water. He had no desire, ever again, on any blind, to see a woman's shadow. Yet he hoped that she might come to the window to pull this blind down; in case some one else did so for her, he stepped backward into a little area-way in the shadow of a tall stoop. But she did not come. The hall light went out, and then hers. He gave up, and just then the front door opened and Christina, not having so much as removed her hat, appeared upon the threshold. He remained quite still with astonishment; and the girl, after glancing cautiously up and down the street, descended the steps and set off eastward at a brisk pace.
When she turned the corner into Central Park West, the explanation was clear to him. In some way or another, she had got into communication with the blackmailers and made a rendezvous which she was determined this time to keep alone. For the first time, Herrick felt angry with her. He had a sense of having been trifled with and he was really frightened; now, indeed, he cursed himself for continuing to go unarmed. He knew that it would be worse than useless to reason with her, and the instant she was out of sight, he merely followed. Gaining the avenue, he looked up the long line of the Park without seeing her. Ah! This time she was going south. He went as far as he dared on the other side of the street but he knew her ears were quick and, reaching the Park side he vaulted the wall, and gained the shelter of the trees.
He had scarcely done so when Christina turned sharply round; and she continued to take this precaution every little while, but he could see that it was a mere formality. She no longer thought herself followed and never glanced among the trees; his steps were inaudible on the soft turf. At the Seventy-sixth Street entrance she turned into the park; pausing, wearily, she took off her hat and pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands. She looked as if she were likely to drop; but then she set off rapidly again, and Herrick prayed they would meet a policeman. But no member of the law put in an appearance, and presently Herrick smelled water, and knew that they were near the border of the big lake. Under the white electric light Christina stopped and looked at her watch; she frowned as if her heart would break; and then, in a few steps, she paused on the threshold of a little summer-house that stood with the lake lapping its outer edge. The doorway was faintly lighted from an electric light outside, and Christina glanced expectantly within. But there was no one there. She uttered a little moan of disappointment and entering dropped onto the bench beside the lake; she rested her elbow on the latticework and Herrick could see her dear, outrageous, uncovered head mistily outlined against the water.
Never in his life had he so little known what to do. A wrong step now might precipitate untold disaster. His instinct was merely to remain there, like a watchdog, and never take his eyes off her till the time came for him to spring. But reason insisted that on the drive, less than a block away, there must be policemen, and that the quicker he sought one the better. He had not even yesterday's stick, his right arm was now useless, and in a struggle by the water the odds against him were doubled. Moreover, he had no reason to think that the blackmailers intended Christina any violence. They had come to her yesterday in order to deliver a message. This failing, they had allowed her to depart unmolested and, on her side, her only thought was to do as they asked. He perceived that the meeting would at least open with a parley; if he could return with reinforcements in time to prevent foul play or to effect a capture! But he simply could not bear to try it! And then the nearness of the roadlights and the sense of his own extreme helplessness overbore his instinct, and kicking off his shoes, he sped noiselessly over grassy slopes. It seemed to him his feet were leaden; his heart tugged at him to be back; his senses strained backward for a sound and when he burst out on the drive he could have cursed the officer he saw for being fifty feet away. It did not occur to him until afterwards that if his likeness had not been in every paper in New York he might himself have been immediately arrested. But the policeman listened with interest to his story and then ambled out with the circumstance that the summer-house was not on his beat, but that Herrick would find another officer near such and such a place! With the blackness of death in his heart, Herrick sped back as he had come, and then, hearing nothing, slackened speed. There, still, thank God, was that dim outline of an uncovered head against the lake! But so motionless that Herrick was stabbed by one of those quick, insensate pangs of nightmare. Suppose they had killed her and set her there, like that! He controlled himself; but he was determined, now, at all hazards to get her away and stepping into the path before the door, "Christina!" he said.
The figure rose, and as it did so, he saw that it was not Christina at all, but a man. A slight man, not over tall, who, as he stepped forward toward the light, turned upon Herrick the pale, dark, restless face of the actor, Will Denny.