The Branding Iron
CHAPTER X
THE SPIDER
"Hullo. Is this Mrs. Morena?"
Betty held the receiver languidly. Her face had grown very thin andher eyes were patient. They were staring now absently through thefront window of Woodward Kane's sitting-room at a day of driving Aprilrain.
"Yes. This is Mrs. Morena."
The next speech changed her into a flushed and palpitating girl.
"Mr. Gael wishes to know, madam,"--the man-servant recited his lessonautomatically,--"if you have seen the exhibition of Foster'swater-colors, Fifty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue. He wants to knowif you will be there this afternoon at five o'clock. No. 88 in theinner room is the picture he would especially like you to notice,madam."
Betty's hand and voice were trembling.
"No. I haven't seen it." She hesitated, looking at the downpour. "Tellhim, please, that I will be there."
Her voice trailed off doubtfully.
The man at the other end clipped out a "Very well, madam," and hungup.
Betty was puzzled. Why had Prosper sent her this message, made thisappointment by his servant? Perhaps because he was afraid that, in herexaggerated caution, she might refuse to meet him if she could explainto him the reason for her refusal, or gauge the importance of hisrequest. With a servant she could do neither, and the very uncertaintywould force her to accept. It was a dreadful day. Nobody would be out,certainly not at the tea-hour, to look at Foster's pictures--aninsignificant exhibition. Betty felt triumphant. At last, this far tooacquiescent lover had rebelled against her decree of silence andseparation.
At five o'clock she stepped out of her taxicab, made a run forshelter, and found herself in the empty exhibition rooms. She checkedher wrap and her umbrella, took a catalogue from the little table,chatted for a moment with the man in charge, then moved about, lookingcarelessly at the pictures. No. 88 in the inner room! Her heart wasbeating violently, the hand in her muff was cold. She went slowlytoward the inner room and saw at once that, under a small canvas atits far end, Prosper stood waiting for her.
He waited even after he had seen her smile and quickening step, andwhen he did come forward, it was with obvious reluctance. Betty'ssmile faded. His face was haggard and grim, unlike itself; his eyeslack-luster as she had never seen them. This was not the face of animpatient lover. It was--she would not name it, but she was consciousof a feeling of angry sickness.
He took her hand and forced a smile.
"Betty, I thought you disapproved of this kind of thing. I think,myself, it's rather imprudent to arrange a meeting through your maid."
Betty jerked away her hand, drew a sharp breath. "What do you mean? Ididn't arrange this meeting. It was you--your man."
They became simultaneously aware of a trap. It had sprung upon them.With the look of trapped things, they stared at each other, and Bettyinstinctively looked back over her shoulder. There stood Jasper in thedoorway of the room. He looked like the most casual of visitors to anart-gallery, he carried a catalogue in his hand. When he saw that hewas seen he smiled easily and came over to them.
"You will have to forgive me," he murmured pleasantly; "you see, itwas necessary to see you both together and Betty is not willing toallow me an interview. I am sorry to have chosen a public place and tohave used a trick to get you here, but I could not think of any otherplan. This is really private enough. I have arranged this exhibitionfor Foster and it is closed to the public to-day. We got in by specialpermit--a fact you probably missed. And, after all, civilized peopleought to be able to talk about anything without excitement."
Betty's eyes glared at him. "I will not stay! This is insufferable!"
But he put out his hand and something in his gesture compelled her.She sat down on the round, plush seat in the middle of the room andlooked up at the two men helplessly. Joan had once leaned in adoorway, silent and unconsulted, while two men, her father and Pierre,settled their property rights in her. Betty was, after all, in nobetter case. She listened, whiter and whiter, till at the last sheslowly raised her muff and pressed it against her twisted mouth.
Morena stood with his hand resting on the high back of the circular seatalmost directly above Betty's head. It seemed to hold her there like abar. But it was at Prosper he looked, to Prosper he spoke. "My friend,"he began, and the accentuation of the Hebraic quality of his voice hadan instantaneous effect upon his two listeners. Both Prosper and Bettyknew he was master of some intense agitation. They were conscious of anincreasing rapidity of their pulses. "My friend, I thought that I knewyou fairly well, as one man knows another, but I find that there havebeen certain limits to my knowledge. How extraordinary it is! This innerworld of our own lives which we keep closely to ourselves! I have afriend, yes, a very good friend, a very dear friend,"--the ironicinsistence upon this word gave Prosper the shock of a repeatedblow,--"and I fancy, in the ignorance of my conceit, that this friend'slife is sufficiently open to my understanding. I see him leave college,I see him go out on various adventures. I share with him, by letters andconfidences, the excitement of these adventures. I know with regret thathe suffers from ill-health and goes West, and there, with a great dealof sympathy, I imagine him living, drearily enough, in some small,health-giving Western town, writing his book and later his play which hehas so generously allowed me to produce."
"What the devil are you after, Jasper?"
"But I do my friend an injustice," went on the manager, undiverted."His career is infinitely more romantic. He has built himself a littlelog house amongst the mountains, and he has decorated it and laid in asupply of dainty and exquisite stuffs. I believe that there is even anouting suit, small and narrow--"
"My God!" said Prosper, very low.
There was a silence. Jasper moved slightly, and Prosper started, butthe Jew stayed in his former place, only that he bent his head alittle, half-closed his eyes, and marked time with the hand that wasnot buried in the plush above Betty's head. He recited in a heavyvoice, and it was here that Betty raised her muff!
Jasper is dying. By the time you get this letter he will be dead. If you can forgive me for having failed in courage last year, come back. What I have been to you before, I will be to you again, only this time we can love openly. Come back.
"I am going mad!" said Prosper harshly, and indeed his face had apinched, half-crazy look.
The Jew waved his hand. "Oh, no, no, no. It is only that you aremaking a discovery. Letters should be burnt, my friend, not torn andthrown away, but burnt." He stood up to his stateliest height and hemade a curious and rather terrible gesture of breaking somethingbetween his two hands. "I have this letter and I hold you andBetty--so!" he said softly--"so!"
Betty spoke. "I might have told you that I loved him, that I haveloved him for years, Jasper. If you use this evidence, if you bringthis counter-suit, it will bring about the same, the very same,result. Prosper and I--" She broke off choking.
"Of course. Betty and I will be married at once, as soon as she getsher divorce, or you get yours." But Prosper's voice was hollow andstrained.
"You will be married, Betty," went on Jasper as calmly as before;"you, branded in the eyes of the world as an unfaithful wife, will bemarried to a man who has ceased to love you."
"That is not true," said Betty.
"Look at his face, my dear. Look at it carefully. Now, watch itclosely. Prosper Gael, if I should tell that with a little patience, alittle skill, a little unselfishness, you could win a certain womanwho once loved you--eh?--a certain Jane West, could you bring yourselfto marry this discarded wife of mine?"
Betty sprang up and caught Prosper's arm in her small hand.
"He is tired of you, Betty. He loves Jane West." Jasper laughedshortly, looking at the tableau they made: Prosper white, caught inthe teeth of honor, his face set to hide its secret, Betty reading hiseyes, his soul.
"I am entirely yours, in your hands," said Prosper Gael.
Betty shook his arm and let it go. "You are lying. You love the woman.Do you think
I can't see?"
"It will be a very strange divorce suit," went on Jasper. "Yourlawyers, Betty, will perhaps prove your case. My lawyers willcertainly prove mine, and, when we find ourselves free, our--ourlovers will then unite in holy matrimony--rather an original outcome."
"Will you go, Prosper?" asked Betty. It was a command.
He saw that, at that moment, his presence was intolerable to her.
"Of course. If you wish it. Jasper, you know where to find me, and,Betty,"--he turned to her with a weary tenderness,--"forgive me andmake use of me, if you will, as you will."
He went out quickly, feeling himself a coward to leave her, knowingthat he would be a coward to stay to watch the anguish of her brokenheart and pride. For an instant he did hesitate and look back. Theywere standing together, calmly, man and wife. What could he do to helpthem, he that had broken their lives?
Betty turned to Jasper, still with the muff before her mouth, lookingat him above it with her wide, childlike, desperate eyes.
"What do you get out of this, Jasper? I will go to Woodward. I willnever come back to you.... Is it revenge?"
"If so," said Jasper, "it isn't yet complete. Betty, you have beenrash to pit yourself against me. You must have known that I wouldbreak you utterly. I will break you, my dear, and I will have youback, and I will be your master instead of your servant, and I willlove you--"
"You must be mad. I'm afraid of you. Please let me go."
"In a moment, when you have learned what home you have to go to. Thismorning I had an interview with your brother in his office, and hewrote this letter that I have in my pocket and asked me to give it toyou."
Betty laid down her muff, showing at last the pale and twisted mouth.Jasper watched her read her brother's letter, and his eyes were aspatient and observant as the eyes of a skillful doctor who has given adangerous but necessary draught.
Betty read the small, sharp, careful writing, very familiar to her.
I have instructed your maid to pack your things and to return at once to your husband's house. He is a much too merciful man. You have treated him shamelessly. I can find no excuse for you. My house is definitely closed to you. I will send you no money, allow you no support, countenance you in no way. This is final. You have only one course, to return humbly and with penitence to your husband, submit yourself to him, and learn to love and honor and obey him as he deserves. The evidence of your guilt is incontrovertible. I utterly disbelieve your story against him. It is part of your sin, and it is easily to be explained in the light of my present knowledge of your real character. Whether you return to Morena or not, I emphatically reassert that I will not see you or speak to you again. You are to my mind a woman of shameless life, such a woman as I should feel justified in turning out of any decent household.
Woodward Kane
The room turned giddily about Betty. She saw the whole roaring cityturn about her, and she knew that there was no home in it for her. Shecould go to Prosper Gael, but at what horrible sacrifice of pride,and, if Jasper now refused to bring suit, could she ask this man, whono longer loved her, to keep her as his mistress? What could she do?Where could she turn? How could she keep herself alive? For the firsttime, life, stripped of everything but its hard and ugly bones, facedher. She had always been sheltered, been dependent, been loved. Oncebefore she had lost courage and had failed to venture beyond thefamiliar shelter of custom and convention. Now, she was again mosthorribly afraid. Anything was better than this feeling of being lost,alone. She looked at Jasper. At that moment he was nothing but aprotector, a means of life, and he knew it.
"Will you come home with me now?" he asked her bitterly.
Betty forced the twisted mouth to speech. "What else is there for meto do?" she said.