SIXTEENTH CHAPTER
PAULA FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULTINTO THE NIGHT
It was after eight that Sunday night, when Paula emerged from theelevator in the upper-hall of the _Zoroaster_, and noted that the doorof the Selma Cross apartment was ajar.... The interval since she hadparted from the actress the evening before had been abundant withmisery. Almost, she had crossed the bay to visit the Reifferscheids;would have done so, indeed, had she been able to 'phone her coming. Herrooms had become a dismal oppression; Bellingham haunted herconsciousness; there were moments when she was actually afraid therealone.
All Saturday night she had sleeplessly tossed, knowing that QuentinCharter was speeding eastward, and dreading the moment when he shouldarrive in the city and find no welcoming note from her. She dared not bein her rooms after he was due to reach the _Granville_, lest he call herby telephone or messenger--and her purpose of not seeing him bedestroyed by some swift and salient appeal. She had waited until afterthe hour in which he had asked to call, to be sure that this time hewould have given up all hope of seeing her. The prospect now of enteringher apartment and remaining there throughout the night, challenged everyounce of will-force she possessed....
Battling with loneliness and bereavement, as she had been for hours,Paula was grateful to note, by the open door, that the actress was athome, even though she had left her the evening before, hurt anddisappointed by the other's swift change of manner upon learning thatQuentin Charter was to be in New York to-day.... It was with a startlingbut indefinable emotion that she heard the man's voice now through theopen door. Stephen Cabot was there, she thought, as she softly letherself in to the place of ordeals, which her own flat had become.
In the dark and silence of the inner hall, the old enemy swept into herconsciousness--again the awful localizations of the preying force! Theusual powers of mind scattered, as in war the pith of a capital'sgarrisons rush forth to distant borders. By habit, her hand was upon thebutton, but she did not turn on light. Instead, she drew back, steelingher will to remember her name, her place in the world, her friends.Harshly driven, yet Paula repressed a cry, and fought her way out intothe main hall--as from the coiling suction of a maelstrom. Even in herterror, she could not but repress a swift sense of victory, in that shehad escaped from the vortex of attraction--her own rooms.
The man's voice reached her again, filled her mind with amazingresistance--so that the point of the occultist's will was broken.Suddenly, she remembered that she had once heard Stephen Cabot,protesting that he was quite well--at the end of the first New Yorkperformance of _The Thing_, and that his tones were inseparablyidentified with his misfortune. The voice she heard now thrilled herlike an ancient, but instantly familiar, harmony. It was not StephenCabot's. She stood at the open door, when the vehemence of Selma Cross,who was now speaking, caused her to refrain from making her presenceknown. The unspeakable possibility, suddenly upreared in her mind,banished every formality. The full energies of her life formed in aprayer that she might be wrong, as Paula peered through the inner hall,and for the first time in the flesh glimpsed Quentin Charter.
She was standing before the elevator-shaft and had signaled for the careternities ago. Selma Cross was moving up and down the room within, buther words though faintly audible, had no meaning to the woman without.Paula's mind seemed so filled with sayings from the actress that therewas no room for the interpretation of a syllable further. One sentenceof Charter's startled her with deadly pain.... She could wait no longer,and started to walk down. Half-way to the main-floor, the elevator spedupward to answer her bell.... She was very weak, and temptation wasfiercely operative to return to her rooms, when she heard a slow, firmstep ascending the flight below. She turned from the stairs on thesecond floor, just as the huge, lean shoulders of Bellingham appeared onthe opposite side of the elevator-shaft.
The two faced without words. His countenance was livid, wasted, but hiseyes were of fire. Paula lost herself in their power. She knew only thatshe must return with him. There was no place to go; indeed, to returnwith him now seemed normal, rational--until the brightly-lit car rusheddown and stopped before them.
"Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Miss Linster," the elevator-mansaid, "but I had to carry a message to the rear."
In the instantaneous break of Bellingham's concentration, Paularecovered herself sufficiently to dart into the car.
"Down, if you please," she said hoarsely. "The gentleman is going up."
Bellingham, who had started to follow, was stopped by the sliding-door.The conductor called that he would be back directly, as his car sliddown.... In the untellable disorganization of mind, Paula knew for themoment only this: she must reach the outer darkness instantly or expire.In that swift drop to the main floor, and in the brief interval requiredto stop the car and slide the door, she endured all the agony oftightened fingers upon her throat. There was an ease in racing limbs, asshe sped across the tiles to the entrance, as a frightened child rushesfrom a dark room. She would die if the great door resisted--pictured itall before her hand touched the knob. She would turn, scream, and fallfrom suffocation. Her scream would call about her the horror that shefeared.
The big door answered, as it seemed, with a sort of leisurely dignity toher spasm of strength--and out under the rain-blurred lamps, she ran,ready to faint if any one called, and continually horrified lestsomething pluck at her skirts--thus to Central Park West. An EighthAvenue car was approaching, half a square above. To stand and wait, inthe fear lest Bellingham reach the corner in time for the car, assailedthe last of her vitality. It was not until she had boarded it, and wasbeyond reach of a pedestrian on Cathedral Way, that she breathed as onewho has touched shore after the Rapids. Still, every south-bound cabrenewed her panic. She could have made time to South Ferry by changingto the Elevated, but fear of encountering the Destroyer prevented this.Fully three-quarters of an hour was used in reaching the waiting-room,where she was fortunate in catching a Staten Island boat without delay.Every figure that crossed the bridge after her, until the big ferry putoff, Paula scrutinized; then sank nearly fainting into a seat.
Bellingham's plot was clear to her mind, as well as certain elements ofhis craft to obviate every possibility of failure. He had doubtless seenher enter the house, and timed his control to dethrone her volition asshe reached her rooms. Since the elevator-man would not have taken himup, without word from her, Bellingham had hastened in and started up thestairs when the car was called from the main floor. His shock at findingher in the second-hall was extraordinary, since he was doubtlessstruggling with the entire force of his concentration, to hold her inthe higher apartment and to prepare her mind for his own reception. Itwas that moment that the elevator-man had saved her; yet, she could notforget how the voice of Quentin Charter had broken the magician's powera moment before; and it occurred to her now how wonderfully throughouther whole Bellingham experience, something of the Westerner's spirit hadsustained her in the crises--Quentin Charter's book that first night inPrismatic Hall; Quentin Charter's letter to which she had clung duringthe dreadful interview in the Park....
As for Quentin Charter rushing immediately to the woman of lawlessattractions, because he had not received the hoped-for note at the_Granville_--in this appeared a wantonness almost beyond belief. Wearilyshe tried to put the man and his base action entirely out of mind. AndSelma Cross, whose animation had been so noticeable when informed ofCharter's coming, had fallen beneath the reach of Paula's emotions....She could pity--with what a torrential outpouring--could she pity "thatfinest, lowest head!"
She stepped out on deck. The April night was inky-black. All day therehad been a misty rain from which the chill of winter was gone. Thedampness was sweet to breathe and fresh upon her face. The smell ofocean brought up from the subconscious, a thought already in tangibleformation there. The round clock in the cabin forward had indicatednine-forty-five. It seemed more like another day, than only an hour anda half ago, that she h
ad caught the Eighth Avenue car at Cathedral Way.The ferry was nearing the Staten slip. In a half-hour more, she wouldreach Reifferscheid's house. Her heart warmed with gratitude for afriend to whom she could say as little or as much as she pleased, yetfind him, heart and home, at her service. One must be terrified and knowthe need of a refuge in the night to test such values. A few hoursbefore, she had rejected the thought of going, because a slightformality had not been attended to. Hard pressed now, she was seekinghim in the midst of the night.... At the mention of the big man's name,the conductor on the Silver Lake car took her in charge, helped her offat the right road, and pointed out the Reifferscheid light. Thus shefelt her friend's kindness long before she heard the big elms whisperingover his cottage. The front-window was frankly uncurtained, and theeditor sat within, soft-shirted and eminently comfortable beside agreen-shaded reading-lamp. She even saw him drop his book at her stepupon the walk. A moment later, she blinked at him laughingly, as hestood in the light of the wide open doorway.
"Properly 'Driven From Home,' I suppose I should be tear-stained and inshawl and apron," she began.
He laughed delightedly, and exclaimed: "How could Father be soobdurate--alas, a-a-las! Lemme see, this is a fisherman's hut on themoors, or a gardener's lodge on the shore. Anyway, it's good to have youhere.... Annie!"
He took her hat and raincoat, wriggling meanwhile into a coat of hisown, arranged a big chair before the grate, then removed her rubbers.Not a question did he ask, and Sister Annie's greeting presently, fromher chair, was quite the same--as if the visit and the hour were exactlyin order.
"You'll stay a day or two, won't you?" he asked. "Honestly, I don't likethe way they treat you up there beyond the Park.... It will be fineto-morrow. This soft rain will make Mother Earth turn over and take aneye-opener----"
"The truth is, I want to stay until there's a ship for the Antilles,"she told him, "and I don't know when the first one goes."
"I hope it's a week at least," he said briskly. "The morning papers arehere with all the sailings. A sea-voyage will do you a world of good,and Europe doesn't compare with a trip to the Caribbean."
"Just you two--and one other--are to know," Paula added nervously.
Reifferscheid had gathered up a bundle of papers, and was turning pagesswiftly. "There isn't a reason in the world why everybody should know,"he remarked lightly, "only you'd better be Lottie or DaisyWhats-her-name, as the cabin lists of all outgoing ships are availableto any one who looks."
"Tim will be delighted to make everything easy for you," Sister Annieput in.
Thus mountains dissolved. The soulful accord and the instant sympathywhich sprang to meet her every word, and the valor behind it all, sosolid as to need no explanation--were more than Paula could bear....Reifferscheid looked up from his papers, finding that she did not speak,started with embarrassment, and darted to the buffet. A moment later hehad given her a glass of wine and vanished from the room with an armfulof newspapers. The door had no sooner closed upon him than Pauladiscovered the outstretched arms of Sister Annie. In the several momentswhich followed her heart was healed and soothed through a half-forgottenluxury....
"The twin-screw liner, _Fruitlands_,--do you really want the first?"Reifferscheid interrupted himself, when he was permitted to enter later.
"Yes."
"Well, it sails in forty-eight hours, or a little less--Savannah,Santiago de Cuba, San Juan de Porto Rico--and down to the littleAntilles--Tuesday night at ten o'clock at the foot of Manhattan."
"That will do very well," Paula said, "and I'd like to go straight tothe ship from here--if you'll----"
"Berth--transportation--trunks--and sub-let your flat, if you like,"Reifferscheid said as gleefully as a boy invited for a week's hunt."Why, Miss Linster, I am the original arrangement committee."
"You have always been wonderful to me," Paula could not help saying,though it shattered his ease. "This one other who must know is MadameNestor. She'll take care of my flat and pack things for me--if you'llget a message to her in the morning when you go over. I don't expect tobe gone so long that it will be advisable to sub-let."
"Which is emphatically glad tidings," Reifferscheid remarked hastily.
"You'll want all your summer clothes," said Sister Annie. "Tim will seeto your trunks."
"Sometime, I'll make it all plain," Paula tried to say steadily. "It'sjust been life to me--this coming here--and knowing that I could comehere----"
"Miss Linster," Reifferscheid broke in, "I don't want to have todisappear again. The little things you need done, I'd do for any one inthe office. Please bear in mind that Sister Annie and I would behurt--if you didn't let us do them. Why, we belong--in a case like this.Incidentally, you are doing a bully thing--to take a sail down past thattoy-archipelago. They say you can hear the parakeets screeching out fromthe palm-trees on the shore, and each island has a different smell ofspice. It will be great for you--rig you out with a new set of wings.You must take Hearn along. I've got his volume here on the West Indies.He'll tell you the color of the water your ship churns. Each day farthersouth it's a different blue----"
So he jockeyed her into laughing, and she slept long and dreamlesslythat night, as she had done once before in the same room.... The secondnight following, Reifferscheid put her aboard the _Fruitlands_.
"It's good you thought of taking your cabin under a borrowed name,Miss--er--Wyndam--Miss Laura Wyndam," he said in a low voice, for thepassengers were moving about. "I'll write you all about it. You havefamous friends. Selma Cross, who is playing at the _Herriot_, wanted toknow where you were. I thought for a minute she was going to throw medown and take it away from me. Quentin Charter, by the way, is in townand asked about you. Seemed depressed when I told him you were out oftown, and hadn't sent your address to me yet. I told him and Miss Crossthat mail for you sent to _The States_ would get to you eventually. Bothsaid they would write--so you'll hear from them on the ship that followsthis." He glanced at her queerly for a second, and added, "Good-by, anda blessed voyage to you, Tired Lady. Write us how the isles bewitch you,and I'll send you a package of books every ship or two----"
"Good-by--my first of friends!"
Two hours afterward Paula took a last turn on deck. The spray swept ingusts over the _Fruitlands's_ dipping prow. The bare masts, tipped withlights, swung with a giant sweep from port to starboard and back to portagain, fingering the black heavens for the blown-out stars. She waslonely, but not altogether miserable, out there on the tossing floor ofthe Atlantic....