Hilda passed into the hall. Mathison ran ahead and unslipped the door-chain; and a moment later they stood on the sidewalk, shadowy to each other in the blinding snow.
CHAPTER XVI
Straightway Mathison put his arm under hers and began plowing along through the snow, which was more than ankle-deep. As his stride was long, she slipped and staggered to keep pace with him. There was a comforting strength in that arm of his.
The tension over, the encounter past, her mind was like her feet, heavy and without spring. A thought, entering her head, wandered about emptily, then went away. Her brain was like a vast cathedral, with one or two lonely tourists exploring. This droll imagery caused her to burst out laughing. Mathison merely tightened his grip.
She was soul-weary and body-weary. She would have liked to lie down in the soft inviting snow and never move again. The drab future that lay beyond! What might have been could not possibly be now. So long as Berta lived Hilda must walk in her shadow. It did not matter whether Berta roved free or was locked up in prison. And no doubt this man at her side, clean-cut and honorable above his kind, was already planning how to break the slender thread of their acquaintance. Why not? Seeing her, would he not always be seeing Berta, who in his eyes was a criminal of a dangerous type? From afar she heard his voice.
"There's a drug-store on the next corner. We'll order a taxi from there. Your feet will be wet.... I need not tell you I'm sorry."
"That my feet are wet or that the woman you know as The Yellow Typhoon is my twin sister? Why bother? I ought to hate her. Still, to me flesh and blood is flesh and blood. She is dangerous and should be punished; and yet instinct rebels at the thought. Free, she will be havoc. I know her of old. Her furies when she was little were frightful because they were always calculated. For days I've been dreading the encounter, dreading yet courting it. It was inevitable. Flesh and blood! What was God's idea? My poor mother! She has been through so much; and now this must strike her. She was a circus-rider in the Copenhagen hippodrome, beautiful and admired. My father won and married her because it pleased his vanity. He tired of her within a month. Then he beat her. He was half Prussian. Tortured and discarded her. Is there anything in prenatal influence? They say not. Yet look at Berta! My father's soul. I don't understand! brokenly.
"I am terribly sorry. An impasse; and I don't know which way to turn. She is a dangerous enemy, and this is war. For your sake I want to let her go, back to the East. For my country's sake I cannot. She must pay the grim reckoning. I have some influence. There will be no publicity. I can readily promise you that. You're a brick; and I'd cut my hand off to save you this hurt. But I repeat, this is war. Fortunately the affair is military, out of the reach of civil court, beyond the reporters. Winnowed of all chaff, the grain is that I'm powerless. In certain directions I have tremendous power, but only as an agent. I cannot judge, condemn, or liberate. I am desperately sorry. She is the wife or companion of the man I believe killed my friend. She is the woman who gratuitously spoiled my friend's life. The counts against her are heavy."