In Secret

"You know what's the matter with me, Miss Erith," he insisted in the same low, unsteady voice.

"Please," she said: and laid one small gloved hand lightly on his arm.

So he entered the car; the chauffeur drew the robe over them, and stood awaiting orders.

"Home," said Miss Erith faintly.

If McKay was astonished he did not betray it. Neither said anything more for a while. The man rested an elbow on the sill, his troubled, haggard face on his hand; the girl kept her gaze steadily in front of her with a partly resolute, partly scared expression. The car went up Park Avenue and then turned westward.

When it stopped the girl said: "You will give me a few moments in my library with you, won't you?"

The visage he turned to her was one of physical anguish. They sat confronting each other in silence for an instant; then he rose with a visible effort and descended, and she followed.

"Be at the garage at two, Wayland," she said, and ascended the snowy stoop beside McKay.

The butler admitted them. "Luncheon for two," she said, and mounted the stairs without pausing.

McKay remained in the hall until he had been separated from hat and coat; then he slowly ascended the stairway. She was waiting on the landing and she took him directly into the library where a wood fire was burning.

"Just a moment," she said, "to make myself as—as persuasive as I can."

"You are perfectly equipped, Miss Erith—"

"Oh, no, I must do better than I have done. This is the great moment of our careers, Mr. McKay." Her smile, brightly forced, left his grim features unresponsive. The undertone in her voice warned him of her determination to have her way.

He took an involuntary step toward the door like a caged thing that sees a loophole, halted as she barred his way, turned his marred young visage and glared at her. There was something terrible in his intent gaze—a pale flare flickering in his eyes like the uncanny light in the orbs of a cornered beast.

"You'll wait, won't you?" she asked, secretly frightened now.

After a long interval, "Yes," his lips motioned.

"Thank you. Because it is the supreme moment of our lives. It involves life or death…. Be patient with me. Will you?"

"But you must be brief," he muttered restlessly. "You know what I need. I am sick, I tell you!"

So she went away—not to arrange her beauty more convincingly, but to fling coat and hat to her maid and drop down on the chair by her desk and take up the telephone:

"Dr. Langford's Hospital?"

"Yes."

"Miss Erith wishes to speak to Dr. Langford. … Is that you, Doctor?… Oh, yes, I'm perfectly well…. Tell me, how soon can you cure a man of—of dipsomania?… Of course…. It was a stupid question. But I'm so worried and unhappy… Yes…. Yes, it's a man I know…. It wasn't his fault, poor fellow. If I can only get him to you and persuade him to tell you the history of his case… I don't know whether he'll go. I'm doing my best. He's here in my library…. Oh, no, he isn't intoxicated now, but he was yesterday. And oh, Doctor! He is so shaky and he seems so ill—I mean in mind and spirit more than in body…. Yes, he says he needs something…. What?… Give him some whisky if he wants it?… Do you mean a highball?… How many?… Oh… Yes… Yes, I understand … I'll do my very best…. Thank you. … At three o'clock?… Thank you so much, Doctor Langford. Good-bye!"

She hung up the receiver, took a look at herself in the dressing-glass, and saw reflected there a yellow-haired hazel-eyed girl who looked a trifle scared. But she forced a smile, made a hasty toilette and rang for the butler, gave her orders, and then walked leisurely into the library. McKay lifted his tragic face from his hands where he stood before the fire, his elbows resting on the mantel.

"Come," she said in her pretty, resolute way, "you and I are perfectly human. Let's face this thing together and find out what really is in it."

She took one armchair, he the other, and she noticed that all his frame was quivering now—his hands always in restless, groping movement, as though with palsy. A moment later the butler came with a decanter, ice, mineral water and a tall glass. There was also a box of cigars on the silver tray.

"You'll fix your own highball," she said carelessly, nodding dismissal to the butler. But she looked only once at McKay, then turned away—pretence of picking up her knitting—so terrible it was to her to see in his eyes the very glimmer of hell itself as he poured out what he "needed."

Minute after minute she sat there by the fire knitting tranquilly, scarcely ever even lifting her calm young eyes to the man. Twice again he poured out what he "needed" for himself before the agony in his sickened brain and body became endurable—before the tortured nerves had been sufficiently drugged once more and the indescribable torment had subsided. He looked at her once or twice where she sat knitting and apparently quite oblivious to what he had been about, but his glance was no longer furtive; he unconsciously squared his shoulders, and his head straightened up.

Without lifting her eyes she said: "I thought we'd talk over our plans when you feel better."

He glanced sideways at the decanter: "I am all right," he said.

She had not yet lifted her eyes; she continued to knit while speaking:

"First of all," she said, "I shall place your testimony and my report in the hands of my superior, Mr. Vaux. Does that meet with your approval?"

"Yes."

She knitted in silence a few moments. He kept his eyes on her. Presently—and still without looking up—she said: "Are you within the draft age?"

"No. I am thirty-two."

"Will you volunteer?"

"No."

"Would you tell me why?"

"Yes, I'll tell you why. I shall not volunteer because of my habits."

"You mean your temporary infirmity," she said calmly. But her cheeks reddened and she bent lower over her work. A dull colour stained his face, too, but he merely shrugged his comment.

She said in a low voice: "I want you to volunteer with me for overseas service in the Army Intelligence Department…. You and I, together…. To prove what you have surmised concerning the German operations beyond Mount Terrible…. And first I want you to go with me to Dr. Langford's hospital …. I want you to go this afternoon with me. … And face the situation. And see it through. And come out cured." She lifted her head and looked at him. "Will you?" And in his altering gaze she saw the flicker of half-senseless anger intensified suddenly to a flare of hatred.

"Don't ask anything like that of me," he said. She had grown quite white.

"I do ask it…. Will you?"

"If I wanted to I couldn't, and I don't want to. I prefer this hell to the other."

"Won't you make a fight for it?"

"No!" he said brutally.

The girl bent her head again over her knitting. But her white fingers remained idle. After a long while, staring at her intently, he saw her lip quiver.

"Don't do that!" he broke out harshly. "What the devil do you care?"

Then she lifted her tragic white face. And he had his answer.

"My God!" he faltered, springing to his feet. "What's the matter with you? Why do you care? You can't care! What is it to you that a drunken beast slinks back into hell again? Do you think you are Samaritan enough to follow him and try to drag him out by the ears?… A man whose very brain is already cracking with it all—a burnt-out thing with neither mind nor manhood left—"

She got to her feet, trembling and deathly white.