The Brass Bowl

by Louis Joseph Vance

For, of course, she had known that Maitland was Maitland and none other, from the instant when he told her to make good her escape and leave him to brazen it out: a task to daunt even as bold and resourceful a criminal as Anisty, and more especially if he were called upon to don the mask at a minute's notice, as Maitland had pretended to. Or, if she had not actually known, she had been led to suspect: and it had hardly needed what she had heard him say to the servants, when he thought her flying hotfoot over the lawn to safety, to harden suspicion into certainty.

And now that he should find her here, a second time a trespasser, doubly an ingrate,—that he should have caught her red-handed in this abominably ungrateful treachery!… She could pretend, of course, that she had returned merely to restore the jewels and the cigarette case; and he would believe her, for he was generous…. She could, but—she could not. Not now. Yesterday, the excitement had buoyed her; she had gained a piquant enjoyment from befooling him, playing her part of the amateur crackswoman in this little comedy of the stolen jewels. But therein lay the difference: yesterday it had been comedy, but to-day—ah! to-day she could no longer laugh. For now she cared.

A little lie would clear her—yes. But it was not to be cleared that she now so passionately desired; it was to have him believe in her, even against the evidence of his senses, even in the face of the world's condemnation; and so prove that he, too, cared—cared for her as his attitude toward her had taught her to care….

Ever since leaving him in the dawn she had fed her starved heart with the hope, faint hope though it were, that he would come to care a little, that he would not utterly despise her, that he would understand and forgive, when he learned why she had played out her part, nor believe that she was the embodiment of all that was ignoble, coarse, and crude; that he would show a little faith in her, a little faith that like a flickering taper might light the way for … Love.

But that hope was now dead within her, and cold. She had but to look at him to see how groundless it had been, how utterly unmoved he was by her distress. He waited patiently—that was all—seeming so very tall, a pillar of righteous strength, distinguished and at ease in his evening clothes: waiting, patient but cold, dispassionate and disdainful.

"I am waiting, you see. Might I suggest that we have not all week for our—our mutual differences?"

His tone was altogether changed; she would hardly have known it for his voice. Its incisive, clipped accents were like a knife to her sensitiveness…. She summoned the reserve of her strength, stood erect, unsupported, and moved forward without a word. He stood aside, holding the lamp high, and followed her, lighting the way down the hall to the study.

Once there, she sank quivering into a chair, while he proceeded gravely to the desk, put down the lamp,—superfluous now, the gas having been lighted,—and after a moment's thought faced her, with a contemptuous smile and lift of his shoulders, thrusting hands deep into his pockets.

"Well?" he demanded cuttingly.

She made a little motion of her hands, begging for time; and, assenting with a short nod, he took a turn up and down the room, then abstractedly reached up and turned out the gas.