A log snapped and fell with a soft thud to the ashes beneath. Burnaby was silent for a moment, staring at the fire.
When he spoke again, it was with a slow precision as if he were trying with extreme care to find the right words.
"You see," he said, "he had as an added foundation for his faith—perhaps as the main foundation for it—his knowledge of the other man's character; the character of the man the girl married. It was"—he spoke more hastily and, suddenly raising his head, looked at Mary Rochefort, who, sunk back in her chair, was gazing straight ahead of her—"an especial kind of character. I must dwell on it for a moment, and you must mark well what I say, for on it my parable largely depends. It was a character of the sort that to any but an odalisk means eventual shame; to any woman of pride, you understand, eventually of necessity a broken heart. It was a queer character, but not uncommon. Outwardly very attractive. Mackintosh described it succinctly, shortly, as we sat there by the fire. He spoke between his teeth—the faint wind stirring the desert sand sounded rather like his voice." Burnaby paused again and reached over for a cigarette and lit it deliberately.
"He was a man," he continued, "who apparently had the faculty of making most women love him and, in the end, the faculty of making all women hate him. I imagine to have known him very well would have been to leave one with a mental shudder such as follows the touching of anguilliform material; snake-like texture. It would leave one ashamed and broken, for fundamentally he was contemptuous of the dignity of personality, particularly of the personalities of women. He was a collector, you understand, a collector of beauty, and women, and incidents—amorous incidents. He carried into his personal relationships the cold objectiveness of the artist. But he wasn't a very great artist, or he wouldn't have done so; he would have had the discrimination to control the artist's greatest peril. It's a flame, this cold objectiveness, but a flame so powerful that it must be properly shaded for intimate use. Otherwise it kills like violet rays. Women wore out their hearts on him, not like waves breaking on a crystal rock, but like rain breaking into a gutter."
"Good Lord!" murmured Mrs. Ennis involuntarily.
Burnaby caught her exclamation. "Bad, wasn't it?" he smiled. "But remember I am only repeating what Mackintosh told me. Well, there he was then—Mackintosh—hard at work all day trying to build himself up a ranch, and he was succeeding, too, and, at night, sitting on his porch, smoking and listening to the river, and apparently expecting every moment the girl to appear. It was rather eerie. He had such a convincing way; he was himself so convinced. You half expected yourself to see her come around the corner of the log house in the moonlight. There was about it all the impression that here was something that had a touch of the inevitability of the Greek idea of fate; something more arranged than the usual course of human events. Meanwhile, back in the East, was the girl, learning something about life."
He interrupted himself. "Want a cigarette?" he said to Pollen. "Here they are." He handed over the box. "What is it? A match? Wait a moment; I'll strike it for you. Keep the end of the thing steady, will you? All right." He resumed the thread of his narrative.
"In four years she had learned a lot," he said; "she had become apparently almost a woman. On a certain hot evening in July—about seven o'clock, I imagine—she became one entirely; at least, for the moment, and, at least, her sort of woman. I am not defending what she did, remember; I am simply saying that she did it.
"It was very hot; even now when dusk was approaching. The girl had been feeling rather ill all day; feverish. She had not been able to get away to her country place as yet. Into the semidarkness of the room where she was came her husband. That night she had determined, as women will, upon a final test. She knew where he expected to dine; she asked him if he would dine with her.
"'I can't,' he said. 'I'm sorry—'