The Danger Mark

"I think I have," whispered Kathleen, turning white and halting. "Geraldine, you will have to listen. Scott has told me that he loves me–"

"Is this the first time?"

"No.... It is the first time I have listened. I can't think clearly; I scarcely know yet what I've said and done. What must you think?… But won't you be a little gentle with me—a little forbearing—in memory of what I have been to you—to him—so long?"

"What do you wish me to think?" asked the girl in a hard voice. "My brother is of age; he will do what he pleases, I suppose. I—I don't know what to think; this has astounded me. I never dreamed such a thing possible–"

"Nor I—until this spring. I know it is all wrong; this is making me more fearfully unhappy every minute I live. There is nothing but peril in it; the discrepancy in our ages makes it hazardous—his youth, his overwhelming fortune, my position and means—the world will surely, surely misinterpret, misunderstand—I think even you, his sister, may be led to credit—what, in your own heart, you must know to be utterly and cruelly untrue."

"I don't know what to say or think," repeated Geraldine in a dull voice. "I can't realise it; I thought that our affection for you was so—so utterly different."

She stared curiously at Kathleen, trying to reconcile what she had always known of her with what she now had to reckon with—strove to find some alteration in the familiar features, something that she had never before noticed, some new, unsuspected splendour of beauty and charm, some undetected and subtle allure. She saw only a wholesome, young, and lovely woman, fresh-skinned, slender, sweet, and graceful—the same companion she had always known and, as she remembered, unchanged in any way since the years of childhood, when Kathleen was twenty and she and her brother were ten.

"I suppose," she said, "that if Scott is in love with you, there is only one thing to do."

"There are several," said Kathleen in a low voice.

"Will you not marry him?"

"I don't know; I think not."

"Are you not in love with him?"

"Does that matter?" asked Kathleen steadily. "Scott's happiness is what is important."

"But his happiness, apparently, depends on you."

Kathleen flushed and looked at her curiously.

"Dear, if I knew that was so, I would give myself to him. Neither you nor he have ever asked anything of me in vain. Even if I did not love him—as I do—and he needed me, I would give myself to him. You and he have been all there was in life for me. But I am afraid that I may not always be all that life holds for him. He is young; he has had no chance yet; he has had little experience with women. I think he ought to have his chance."

She might have said the same thing of herself. A bride at her husband's death-bed, widowed before she had ever been a wife, what experience had she? All her life so far had been devoted to the girl who stood there confronting her, and to the brother. What did she know of men?—of whether she might be capable of loving some man more suitable? She had not given herself the chance. She never would, now.

There was no selfishness in Kathleen Severn. But there was much in the Seagrave twins. The very method of their bringing up inculcated it; they had never had any chance to be otherwise. The "cultiwation of the indiwidool" had driven it into them, taught them the deification of self, forced them to consider their own importance above anything else in the world.

And it was of that importance that Geraldine was now thinking as she sat on the edge of her bed, darkly considering these new problems that chance was laying before her one by one.

If Scott was going to be unhappy without Kathleen, it followed, as a matter of course, that he must have Kathleen. The chances Kathleen might take, what she might have to endure of the world's malice and gossip and criticism, never entered Geraldine's mind at all.

"If he is in love with you," she repeated, "it settles it, I think. What else is there to do but marry him?"

Kathleen shook her head. "I shall do what is best for him—whatever that may be."

"You won't make him unhappy, I suppose?" inquired Geraldine, astonished.

"Dear, a woman may be truer to the man she loves—and kinder—by refusing him. Is not that what you have done—for Duane's sake?"

Geraldine sprang to her feet, face white, mouth distorted with anger:

"I made a god of Duane!" she broke out breathlessly. "Everything that was in me—everything that was decent and unselfish and pure-minded dominated me when I found I loved him. So I would not listen to my own desire for him, I would not let him risk a terrible unhappiness until I could go to him as clean and well and straight and unafraid as he could wish!" She laughed bitterly, and laid her hands on her breast. "Look at me, Kathleen! I am quite as decent as this god of mine. Why should I worry over the chances he takes when I have chances enough to take in marrying him? I was stupid to be so conscientious—I behaved like a hysterical schoolgirl—or a silly communicant—making him my confessor! A girl is a perfect fool to make a god out of a man. I made one out of Duane; and he acted like one. It nearly ended me, but, after all, he is no worse than I. Whoever it was who said that decency is only depravity afraid, is right. I am depraved; I am afraid. I'm afraid that I cannot control myself, for one thing; and I'm afraid of being unhappy for life if I don't marry Duane. And I'm going to, and let him take his chances!"

Kathleen, very pale, said: "That is selfishness—if you do it."

"Are not men selfish? He will not tell me as much of his life as I have told him of mine. I have told him everything. How do I know what risk I run? Yes—I do know; I take the risk of marrying a man notorious for his facility with women. And he lets me take that risk. Why should I not let him risk something?"

The girl seemed strangely excited; her quick breathing and bright, unsteady eyes betrayed the nervous tension of the last few days. She said feverishly:

"There is a lot of nonsense talked about self-sacrifice and love; about the beauties of abnegation and martyrdom, but, Kathleen, if I shall ever need him at all, I need him now. I'm afraid to be alone any longer; I'm frightened at the chances against me. Do you know what these days of horror have been to me, locked in here—all alone—in the depths of degradation for what—what I did that night—in distress and shame unutterable–"

"My darling–"

"Wait! I had more to endure—I had to endure the results of my education in the study of man! I had to realise that I loved one of them who has done enough to annihilate in me anything except love. I had to learn that he couldn't kill that—that I want him in spite of it, that I need him, that my heart is sick with dread; that he can have me when he will—Oh, Kathleen, I have learned to care less for him than when I denied him for his own sake—more for him than I did before he held me in his arms! And that is not a high type of love—I know it—but oh, if I could only have his arms around me—if I could rest there for a while—and not feel so frightened, so utterly alone!—I might win out; I might kill what is menacing me, with God's help—and his!"

She lay shivering on Kathleen's breast now, dry-eyed, twisting her ringless fingers in dumb anguish.

"Darling, darling," murmured Kathleen, "you cannot do this thing. You cannot let him assume a burden that is yours alone."

"Why not? What is one's lover for?"

"Not to use; not to hazard; not to be made responsible for a sick mind and a will already demoralised. Is it fair to ask him—to let him begin life with such a burden—such a handicap? Is it not braver, fairer, to fight it out alone, eradicate what threatens you—oh, my own darling! my little Geraldine!—is it not fairer to the man you love? Is he not worth striving for, suffering for? Have you no courage to endure if he is to be the reward? Is a little selfish weakness, a miserable self-indulgence to stand between you and life-long happiness?"

Geraldine looked up; her face was very white:

"Have you ever been tempted?"

"Have I not been to-night?"

"I mean by—something ignoble?"

"No."

"Do you know how it hurts?"

"To—to deny yourself?"

"Yes.... It is so—difficult—it makes me wretchedly weak.... I only thought he might help me.... You are right, Kathleen.... I must be terribly demoralised to have wished it. I—I will not marry him, now. I don't think I ever will.... You are right. I have got to be fair to him, no matter what he has been to me.... He has been fearfully unfair. After all, he is only a man.... I couldn't really love a god."

CHAPTER XIII

AMBITIONS AND LETTERS

Rosalie had departed; Grandcourt followed suit next day; Sylvia's brother, Stuyvesant, had at last found a sober moment at his disposal and had appeared at Roya-Neh and taken his sister away. Duane was all ready to go to New York to find out whether his father was worrying over anything, as the tone of his letters indicated.

The day he left, Kathleen and Geraldine started on a round of August house parties, ranging from Lenox to Long Island, including tiresome week ends and duty visits to some very unpretentious but highly intellectual relatives of Mrs. Severn. So Scott remained in solitary possession of Roya-Neh, with its forests, gardens, pastures, lakes and streams, and a staggering payroll and all the multiplicity of problems that such responsibility entails. Which pleased him immensely, except for the departure of Kathleen.

To play the intellectual country squire had been all he desired on earth except Kathleen. From the beginning White's "Selborne" had remained his model for all books, Kathleen for all women. He was satisfied with these two components of perfect happiness, and with himself, as he was, for the third ingredient in a contented and symmetrical existence.

He had accepted his answer from her with more philosophy than she quite expected or was prepared for, saying that if she made a particular point of it he would go about next winter and give himself a chance to meet as many desirable young girls as she thought best; that it was merely wasting time, but if it made her any happier, he'd wait and endeavour to return to their relations of unsentimental comradeship until she was satisfied he knew his mind.