The Danger Mark

"By whom?"

"All the mess that goes to make up this compost heap we call society.... I think she also would expect it."

Dysart nodded.

"If you could make her happy it would square a great many things, Dysart."

The other looked up: "You?"

"I—don't know. Yes, in many ways; in that way at all events—if you made her happy."

Dysart stepped forward: "Would you be nice to her if I did? No other soul in the world knows except you. Other people would be nice to her. Would you? And would you have the woman you marry receive her?"

"Yes."

"That is square of you, Mallett.... I meant to do it, anyway.... Thank you.... Good-night."

"Good-night," said Duane in a low voice.

He returned to the house late that night, and found a letter from Geraldine awaiting him; the first in three days. Seated at the library table he opened the letter and saw at once that the red-pencilled cross at the top was missing.

Minutes passed; the first line blurred under his vacant gaze, for his eyes travelled no farther. Then the letter fell to the table; he dropped his head in his arms.

It was a curiously calm letter when he found courage to read it:

"I've lost a battle after many victories. It went against me after a hard fight here alone at Roya-Neh. I think you had better come up. The fight was on again the next night—that is, night before last, but I've held fast so far and expect to. Only I wish you'd come.

"It is no reproach to you if I say that, had you been here, I might have made a better fight. You couldn't be here; the shame of defeat is all my own.

"Duane, it was not a disastrous defeat in one way. I held out for four days, and thought I had won out. I was stupefied by loss of sleep, I think; this is not in excuse, only the facts which I lay bare for your consideration.

"The defeat was in a way a concession—a half-dazed compromise—merely a parody on a real victory for the enemy; because it roused in me a horror that left the enemy almost no consolation, no comfort, even no physical relief. The enemy is I myself, you understand—that other self we know about.

"She was perfectly furious, Duane; she wrestled with me, fought to make me yield more than I had—which was almost nothing—begged me, brutalised me, pleaded, tormented, cajoled. I was nearly dead when the sun rose; but I had gone through it.

"I wish you could come. She is still watching me. It's an armed truce, but I know she'll break it if the chance comes. There is no honour in her, Duane, no faith, no reason, no mercy. I know her.

"Can you not come? I won't ask it if your father needs you. Only if he does not, I think you had better come very soon.

"When may I restore the red cross to the top of my letters to you? I suppose I had better place it on the next letter, because if I do not you might think that another battle had gone against me.

"Don't reproach me. I couldn't stand it just now. Because I am a very tired girl, Duane, and what has happened is heavy in my heart—heavy on my head and shoulders like that monster Sindbad bore.

"Can you come and free me? One word—your arms around me—and I am safe.

    "G.S."

As he finished, a maid came bearing a telegram on a salver.

"Tell him to wait," said Duane, tearing open the white night-message:

"Your father is ill at San Antonio and wishes you to come at once. Notify your mother but do not alarm her. Your father's condition is favorable, but the outcome is uncertain.

    "Wells, Secretary."

Duane took three telegram blanks from the note-paper rack and wrote:

"My father is ill at San Antonio. They have just wired me, and I shall take the first train. Stand by me now. Win out for my sake. I put you on your honour until I can reach you."

And to his father:

"I leave on first train for San Antonio. It's going to be all right, father."

And to his mother:

"Am leaving for San Antonio because I don't think father is well enough to travel alone. I'll write you and wire you. Love to you and Naïda."

He gave the maid the money, turned, and unhooking the receiver of the telephone, called up the Grand Central Station.

CHAPTER XVI

THROUGH THE WOODS

The autumn quiet at Roya-Neh was intensely agreeable to Scott Seagrave. No social demands interfered with a calm and dignified contemplation of the Rose-beetle, Melolontha subspinosa, and his scandalous "Life History"; there was no chatter of girls from hall and stairway to distract the loftier inspirations that possessed him, no intermittent soprano noises emitted by fluttering feminine fashion, no calflike barytones from masculine adolescence to drive him to the woods, where it was always rather difficult for him to focus his attention on printed pages. The balm of heavenly silence pervaded the house, and in its beneficent atmosphere he worked in his undershirt, inhaling inspiration and the aroma of whale-oil, soap, and carbolic solutions.

Neither Kathleen nor his sister being present to limit his operations, the entire house was becoming a vast mess. Living-rooms, library, halls, billiard-room, were obstructed with "scientific" paraphernalia; hundreds of glass fruit jars, filled with earth containing the whitish, globular eggs of the Rose-beetle, encumbered mantel and furniture; glass aquariums half full of earth, sod, and youthful larvæ of the same sinful beetle lent pleasing variety to the monotony of Scott's interior decorative effects. Microscopes, phials, shallow trays bristling with sprouting seeds, watering-cans, note-books, buckets of tepid water, jars brimming with chemical solutions, blockaded the legitimate and natural runways of chamber-maid, parlour-maid, and housekeeper; a loud scream now and then punctured the scientific silence, recording the Hibernian discovery of some large, green caterpillar travelling casually somewhere in the house.

"Mr. Seagrave, sir," stammered Lang, the second man, perspiring horror, "your bedroom is full of humming birds and bats, sir, and I can't stand it no more!"

But it was only a wholesale hatching of huge hawk-moths that came whizzing around Lang when he turned on the electric lights; and which, escaping, swarmed throughout the house, filling it with their loud, feathery humming, and the shrieks of Milesian domestics.

And it was into these lively household conditions that Kathleen and Geraldine unexpectedly arrived from the Berkshires, worn out with their round of fashionable visits, anxious for the quiet and comfort that is supposed to be found only under one's own roof-tree. This is what they found:

In Geraldine's bath-tub a colony of water-lilies were attempting to take root for the benefit of several species of water-beetles. The formidable larvæ of dragon-flies occupied Kathleen's bath; turtles peered at them from vantage points under the modern plumbing; an enormous frog regarded Kathleen solemnly from the wet, tiled floor. "Oh, dear," she said as Scott greeted her rapturously, "have I got to move all these horrid creatures?"

"For Heaven's sake don't touch a thing," protested Scott, welcoming his sister with a perfunctory kiss; "I'll find places for them in a minute."

"How could you, Scott!" exclaimed Geraldine, backing hastily away from a branch of green leaves on which several gigantic horned caterpillars were feeding. "I don't feel like ever sleeping in this room again," she added, exasperated.

"Why, Sis," he explained mildly, "those are the caterpillars of the magnificent Regal moth! They're perfectly harmless, and it's jolly to watch them tuck away walnut leaves. You'll like to have them here in your room when you understand how to weigh them on these bully little scales I've just had sent up from Tiffany's."

But his sister was too annoyed and too tired to speak. She stood limply leaning against Kathleen while her brother disposed of his uncanny menagerie, talking away very cheerfully all the while absorbed in his grewsome pets.

But it was not to his sister, it was to Kathleen that his pride in his achievements was naïvely displayed; his running accompaniment of chatter was for Kathleen's benefit, his appeals were to her sympathy and understanding, not to his sister's.

Geraldine watched him in silence. Tired, not physically very well, this home-coming meant something to her. She had looked forward to it, and to her brother, unconsciously wistful for the protection of home and kin. For the day had been a hard one; she was able to affix the red-cross mark to her letter to Duane that morning, but it had been a bad day for her, very bad.

And now as she stood there, white, nerveless, fatigued, an ache grew in her breast, a dull desire for somebody of her own kin to lean on; and, following it, a slow realisation of how far apart from her brother she had drifted since the old days of cordial understanding in the schoolroom—the days of loyal sympathy through calm and stress, in predatory alliance or in the frank conflicts of the squared circle.