CHAPTER XVII.
Sprague was on his feet, looking down into her face. By the uncertain light of the hotel window, it was the same as when he had last seen it by the moonlight at the cove, and for a moment his eyes drank their fill of her, while his mind—that worker of miracles—leaped back over the past seven months as if they had never been, For an infinitesimal passage of time his world was again complete; and then, like a sleeper awakened suddenly from a dream, he saw the grossness of its fallacies, and the sweet illusion was dispelled.
“What brought you back?” she was saying, and Sprague laughed.
“Don't ask me that,” he said. “It's the first question my father puts to me when I go home.”
“You've grown a beard,” she added, after a pause.
“I've grown a lot of funny things in the last seven months,” Sprague answered
“Won't you tell me about them?”
She was still a child, he decided, as they walked mechanically toward the rink—a child robbed of its birthright. Her face had been molded for laughter, but now, as they stood beside an oil flare, looking with unseeing eyes at the skaters who skimmed the glassy surface of the lake, he saw that in repose her features were touched with an all-pervading sadness.
For some time they stood thus, by side, and in silence unbroken for the musical ring of steel on ice.
“Well?” said Meg presently, without looking up; and then Sprague told her of his hopes and his doubts and his despairs, and where they had led him.
“The big things are evidently not for me,” he ended; “and, having the advantage over some people of knowing it, I ought to be content with the small—the very small—ones.”
“But you're not,” said Meg.
“I was—until to-night,” Sprague answered.
“To-night?” She looked up suddenly with something of her old vivaciousness in tone and gesture.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “to-night. It sounds rather absurd, but it was just as if some one had called me, and I had to obey. Perhaps I'm quietly going mad; at any rate, that is why I came to the hotel to-night.”
Meg was staring out across the lake.
“Perhaps you heard me,” she said.
For a full minute Sprague was bereft of speech. It seemed that the blood had rushed to his throat and was choking him.
“Isn't he kind to you?” he demanded hoarsely.
For answer Meg looked down on Robert, who sat between them, apparently engrossed in the gyrations of a figure skater.
“He did that,” she said.
“How?” Sprague's hands were clenched at his sides.
“A kick; he was drunk. Oh, he doesn't do that sort of thing to me,” she added hastily, and with a ghost of a smile when she saw the effect of her words on the man beside her. “He's jealous, that's all.”
“And you've called me before?”
“Often.”
“And I never heard!”
“I'm glad you didn't; it was no good—I knew it was no good, but I—just—couldn't—help—it. You see, I have no one now.”
“Your father?”
“Dad died a week after we were married.”
So the victim had submitted herself to life torture for a cause that had been lost seven days later. The irony of it forced a strange sound from Sprague's lips. Through a mental haze he became aware that Meg was still speaking.
“I can't tell you any more. I believe we're trying to get into some sort of society. He's up in the lounge now, playing bridge with some people who say they know the governor general—I think they're Jews. Then he rides two hours a day for his liver, and” Suddenly she turned and looked up at him, her face radiant. “If you only knew how good it is to see you again!” she said, and unconsciously her hand rested on his arm.
Sprague shrank from the contact as if he had been stung.
“You mustn't do that,” he said harshly; then, noting the pain reflected in her face, went on more gently: “I don't think you understand, Meg. No man can do anything—least of all I. We must part to-night, and never see each other again; can't you understand—don't you see why?”
He spoke as if to a child, and as a child, still awaiting the consummation of love, she listened. Sprague saw that to her it was as if her marriage had never been, and he watched the dawning comprehension in her face with the hopelessness of a man forced to kindle a fire that it may be extinguished.
“Yes,” she said presently, “I see why—now. When did you first know?”
The woman's question! It seemed the sex entire reached womanhood by rote. It exasperated Sprague; man-like, he forgot that this was so—that there are many paths to manhood, but to womanhood but one.
“God knows!” he burst out. “I hate to think of it. Can't you see that it drives me mad to think of it? I've been a fool—a purblind, unmitigated fool! I went fifteen thousand miles in search of my precious destiny, when it was there on the beach at Manly—and that you—you should pay for my folly—that that beast” He broke off suddenly, shutting his teeth on the words that itched to be uttered. What right had he to cavil at another—man or beast—who had taken what he had left?
“There's the writing,” said Meg gently.
She was thinking of him now; heavens, was it possible to make a woman understand?
“Writing! Save the mark!” he muttered savagely. “It's a disease. I wish the stuff would come out on me like a rash, and let me be. I must go,” he ended abruptly. “Good-by!” And before she realized it, he had turned from her and passed up the beaten track to the hotel.