The Danger Mark

"Hasn't your husband made similar observations?" he replied, laughing.

"It isn't for him to make them."

"Hasn't he objected?"

"He has suddenly and unaccountably become disagreeable enough to make me wish he had some real grounds for his excitement!" she said coolly, and closed her teeth with a little click. She added, between them: "I'm inclined to give him something real to howl about."

He said: "You're adrift. Do you know it?"

"Certainly I know it. Are you prepared to offer salvage? I'm past the need of a pilot."

He smiled. "You haven't drifted very far yet—only as far as Mallett Harbour. That's usually the first port—for derelicts. Anchors are dropped rather frequently there—but, Rosalie, there's no safe mooring except in the home port."

Her pretty, flushed face grew very serious as she looked up questioningly.

"Isn't there an anchorage near you, Duane? Are you quite sure?"

"Why, no, dear, I'm not sure. But let me tell you something: it isn't in me to love again. And that isn't square to you."

After a silence she repeated: "Again? Have you been in love?"

"Yes."

"Are you embittered? I thought only callow fledglings moped."

"If I were embittered I'd offer free anchorage to all comers. That's the fledgling idea—when blighted—be a 'deevil among the weemin,'" he said, laughing.

"You have that hospitable reputation now," she persisted, unsmiling.

"Have I? Judge for yourself then—because no woman I ever knew cares anything for me now."

"You mean that if any of them had anything intimate to remember they'd never remain indifferent?"

"Well—yes."

"They'd either hate you or remember you with a certain tenderness."

"Is that what happens?" he asked, amused.

"I think so," she said thoughtfully.... "As for what you said, you are right, Duane; I am adrift.... You—or a man like you could easily board me—take me in tow. I'm quite sure that something about me signals a pilot; and that keen eyes and bitter tongues have noted it. And I don't care. Nor do I know yet what my capabilities for evil are.... Do you care to—find out?"

"It wouldn't be a square deal to you, Rosalie."

"And—if I don't care whether it's a square deal or not?"

"Why, dear," he said, covering her nervous, pretty hand with both of his, "I'd break your heart in a week."

He laughed, dropped her fingers, stepped back to the door, and, laying his hand on the knob, said evenly:

"That husband of yours is not the sort of man I particularly take to, but I believe he's about the average if you'd care to make him so."

She coloured with surprise. Then something in her scornful eyes inspired him with sudden intuition.

"As a matter of fact," he said lightly, "you care for him still."

"I can very easily prove the contrary," she said, walking slowly up to him, close, closer, until the slight tremor of contact halted her and her soft, irregular breath touched his face.

"What a girl like you needs," he laughed, taking her into his arms, "is a man to hold her this way—every now and then, and"—he kissed her—"tell her she is incomparable—which I cannot truthfully tell you, dear." He released her at arms' length.

"I don't know whose fault it is," he went on: "I don't know whether he still really cares for you in spite of his weak peregrinations to other shrines; but you still care for him. And it's up to you to make him what he can be—the average husband. There are only two kinds, Rosalie, the average and the bad."

She looked straight into his eyes, but the deep, mantling colour belied her audacity.

"Do you know," she said, "that we haven't—lived together for two years?"

"I don't want to know such things," he said gently.

"Well, you do know now. I—am—very much alone. You see I have already become capable of saying anything—and of doing it, too."

There came a reckless glimmer into her eyes; she set her teeth—a trick of hers; the fresh lips parted slightly under her rapid breathing.

"Do you think," she said unevenly, "that I'm going on all my life like this—without anything more than the passing friendship of men to balance the example he sets me?"

"No, I think something is bound to happen, Rosalie. May I suggest what ought to happen?"

She nodded thoughtfully; only the quiver of her lower lip betrayed the tension of self-control.

"Take him back," he said.

"I no longer care for him."

"You are mistaken."

After a moment she said: "I don't think so; truly I don't. All consideration for him has died in me. His conduct doesn't matter—doesn't hurt me any more–"

"Yes, it does. He's just a plain ass—an average ass—ownerless, and, like all asses, convinced that he can take care of himself. Go and put the halter on him again."

"Go—and—what do you mean?"

"Tether him. You did once. It's up to you; it's usually up to a woman when a man wanders untethered. What one woman, or a dozen, can do with a man his wife can do in the same fashion! What won him in the beginning always holds good until he thinks he has won you. Then the average man flourishes his heels. He is doing it. What won him was not you alone, or love, alone; it was his uncertainty of both that fascinated him. That's what charms him in others; uncertainty. Many men are that way. It's a sporting streak in us. If you care for him now—if you could ever care for him, take him as you took him first.... Do you want him again?"

She stood leaning against the door, looking down. Much of her colour had died out.

"I don't know," she said.

"I do."

"Well—do I?"