His throat filled with tenderness and his head bowed in humility as he read these good, sweet, womanly lines, and for the moment he was ready to go to her and receive pardon kneeling. But as he thought of the wrong he had done her, the misfortune he had brought upon her, a stubborn, unaccountable resolution hardened his heart. "No, I will not go back till I can go as her equal. I am broken and in disgrace now. I will not burden her generosity further."
The thought of making his peace with Hugh, of meeting Westervelt's hard stare, aided this resolution, and, sitting at his desk, he wrote a long and passionate letter, wherein he delineated with unsparing hand his miserable failure. He took a pride and a sort of morbid pleasure in punishing himself, in denying himself any further joy in her company.
"It is better for you and better for me that we do not meet again—at least till I have won the tolerance of your brother and manager and my own self-respect. The work I have done is honest work; I will not admit that it is wholly bad, but I cannot meet Hugh again till I can demand consideration. It was not so much the words he used as the tone. I was helpless in resenting it. That I am a beggar, a dangerous influence, I admit. I am appalled at the thought of what I have done to injure you. Cast me overboard. Not even your beauty, your great fame, can make my work vital to the public. I am too perverse, too individual. There is good in me, but it is evil to you. I no longer care what they say of me, but I feel every word derogatory of you as if it were a red-hot point of steel. I did not sleep last night; I spent the time in reconstructing myself. I confessed my grievous sins, and I long to do penance. This play is also a failure. I grew cold with hate of myself last night as I thought of the irreparable injury I had done to you. I here relinquish all claim to both pieces; they are yours to do with as you like. Take them, rewrite them, play them, or burn them, as you will.
"You see, I am very, very humble. I have put my foolish pride underfoot. I am not broken. I am still very proud and, I fear, self-conceited, in spite of my severe lesson. Enid is beautiful, and I know it, and it helps me write this letter, but I have no right to ask even friendship from you. My proved failure as a playwright robs me of every chance of meeting you on equal terms. I want to repay you, I must repay you, for what you have done. If I could write now, it would be not to please myself, but to please you, to help you regain your dominion. I want to see you the radiant one again, speaking to throngs of happy people. If I could by any sacrifice of myself call back the homage of the critics and place you where I found you, the acknowledged queen of American actresses, I would do it. But I am helpless. I shall not speak or write to you again till I can come with some gift in my hand—some recompense for your losses through me. I have been a malign influence in your life. I am in mad despair when I think of you playing to cold and empty houses. I am going back to the West to do sash factories and wheat elevators; these are my métier. You are the one to grant pardon; I am the malefactor. I am taking myself out of your world. Forgive me and—forget me. Hugh was right. My very presence is a curse to you. Good-bye."
XVII
HIS letter came to Helen with her coffee, and the reading of it blotted out the glory of the morning, filling her eyes with smarting tears. It put a sudden ache into her heart, a fierce resentment. At the moment his assumed humbleness, his self-derision, his confession of failure irritated her.
"I don't want you to bend and bow," she thought, as if speaking to him. "I'd rather you were fierce and hard, as you were last night." She read on to the end, so deeply moved that she could scarcely see the lines. Her resentment melted away and a pity, profound and almost maternal, filled her heart. "Poor boy! What could Hugh have said to him! I will know. It has been a bitter experience for him. And is this the end of our good days?"
With this internal question a sense of vital loss took hold upon her. For the first time in her life the future seemed desolate and her past futile. Back upon her a throng of memories came rushing—memories of the high and splendid moments they had spent together. First of all she remembered him as the cold, stern, handsome stranger of that first night—that night when she learned that his coldness was assumed, his sternness a mask. She realized once again that at this first meeting he had won her by his voice, by his hand-clasp, by the swiftness and fervor of his speech; he had dominated her, swept her from her feet.