The Fighting Chance

“Yes. You are so cruelly literal when you wish to punish me.... You are interrupting me, too. I owe that wretched Kemp Ferrall a lot of money, and I’m trying to find out how much seven and nine are, to close accounts with Marion Page.”

Siward turned and continued his writing. And when the little sheaf of cheques was ready he counted them, laid them aside, and, drawing a flat packet of fresh bank-notes from his portfolio, counted out the tips expected of him below stairs. These arranged for, he straightened up and glanced over his shoulder at Sylvia, but she was apparently absorbed in counting something on the ends of her fingers, so he turned smilingly to his desk and wrote a long letter to his mother—the same tender, affectionately boyish letter he had always written her, full of confidences, full of humour, gaily anticipating his own return to her on the heels of the letter.

In his first letter to her from Shotover he had spoken casually of a Miss Landis. It seemed the name was familiar enough to his mother, who asked about her; and he had replied in another letter or two, a trifle emphatic in his praise of her, because from his mother’s letters it was quite evident that she knew a good deal concerning the very unconventional affairs of Sylvia’s family.

Of his swift and somewhat equivocal courtship he had had nothing to say in his letters; in fact recently he had nothing to say about Sylvia at all, reserving that vital confidence for the clear sympathy and understanding which he looked forward to when he should see her, and which, through dark days and bitter aftermaths, through struggle and defeat by his master-vice, had never failed him yet, never faltered for an instant.

So he brought his letter to a close with a tender and uneasy inquiry concerning her health, which, she had intimated, was not exactly satisfactory, and for that reason she had opened the house in town in order to be near Dr. Grisby, their family doctor.

Sealing and directing the letter, he looked up to see Sylvia standing at his elbow. She dropped a light hand on his shoulder for a second, barely touching him—a fugitive caress, delicate as the smile hovering on her lips, as the shy tenderness in her eyes.

“More letters to your sweetheart?” she asked, abandoning her hand to him.

“One more—the last before I see her.... I wish you could see her, Sylvia.”

“I wish so, too,” she answered simply, seating herself on the arm of his chair as though it were a side-saddle.

They sat there very silent for a few moments, curiously oblivious to the chance curiosity of any one who might enter or pass.

“Would she—care for me—do you think?” asked the girl in a low voice.

“I think so,—for your real self.”

“I know. She could only feel contempt for me—as I am.”

“She is old-fashioned,” he said reverently.

“That means all that is best in a woman.... The old fashion of truth and faith; the old fashion of honour, and faith in honour; the old, old fashion of—love.... All that is best, Stephen; all that is worth the love of a man.... Some day somebody will revive those fashions.”

“Will you?”

“Dear, they would not become me,” she said, the tenderness in her eyes deepening a little; and she touched his head lightly in humourous caress.

“What shall we do with the waning daylight?” she asked. “It is my last day with you. I told Howard it was my last day with you, and I did not care to be disturbed.”

“You probably didn’t say it that way,” he commented, amused.

“I did.”

“How much of that sort of thing is he prepared to stand?” asked Siward curiously.

“How much? I don’t know. I don’t believe he cares. It is my uncle, Major Belwether, who is making things unpleasant for me. I had to tell Howard, you know.”

“What!” exclaimed Siward incredulously.

“Certainly. Do you think my conduct has passed without protest?”

“You told Quarrier!” he repeated.

“Did you imagine I could do otherwise?” she asked coolly. “I have that much decency left. Certainly I told him. Do you suppose that, after what we did—what I admitted to you—that I could meet him as usual? Do you think I am afraid of him?”

“I thought you were afraid of losing him,” muttered Siward.

“I was, dreadfully. And the morning after you and I had been imprudent enough to sit up until nearly daylight—and do what we did—I made him take a long walk with me, and I told him plainly that I cared for you, that I was too selfish and cowardly to marry you, and that if he couldn’t endure the news he was at liberty to terminate the engagement without notice.”

“What did he say?” stammered Siward.

“A number of practical things.”

“You mean to say he stands it!”

“It appears so. What else is there for him to do, unless he breaks the engagement?”

“And he—hasn’t?”

“No. I was informed that he held me strictly and precisely to my promise; that he would never release me voluntarily, though I was, of course, at liberty to do what I chose.... My poor friend, he cares no more for love than do I. I happen to be the one woman in New York whom he considers absolutely suitable for him; by race, by breeding, by virtue of appearance and presence, eminently fitted to complete the material portion of his fortune and estate.”

Her voice had hardened as she spoke; now it rang a little at the end, and she laughed unpleasantly.

“It appears that I was a little truer to myself than you gave me credit for—a little truer to you—a little less treacherous, less shameless, than you must have thought me. But I have gone to my limit of decency; …and, were I ten times more in love with you than I am, I could not put away the position and power offered me. But I will not lie for it, nor betray for it.... Do you remember, once you asked me for what reasons I dropped men from my list? And I told you, because of any falsehood or treachery, any betrayal of trust—and for no other reason. You remember? And did you suppose that elemental standard of decency did not include women—even such a woman as I?”

She dropped one arm on the back of his chair and rested her chin on it, staring at space across his shoulders.

“That’s how it had to be, you see, when I found that I cared for you. There was nothing to do but to tell him. I was quite certain that it was all off; but I found that I didn’t know the man. I knew he was sensitive, but I didn’t know he was sensitive to personal ridicule only, and to nothing else in all the world that I can discover. I—I suppose, from my frankness to him, he has concluded that no ridicule could ever touch him through me. I mean, he trusts me enough to marry me.... He will be safe enough, as far as my personal conduct is concerned,” she added naively. “It seems that I am capable of love; but I am incapable of its degradation.”

Siward, leaning heavily forward over his desk, rested his head in both hands; and she stooped from her perch on the arm of the chair, pressing her hot cheeks against his hands—a moment only; then slipping to her feet, she curled up in a great arm-chair by the fire, head tipped back, blue gaze concentrated on him.

“The thing for you to do,” she said, “is to ambush me some night, and throw me into a hansom, and drive us both to the parson’s. I’d hate you for it as much as I’d love you, but I’d make you an interesting wife.”

“I may do that yet,” he said, lifting his head from his hands.

“You’ve a year to do it in,” she observed.... “By the way, you’re to take me in to dinner, as you did the first night. Do you remember? I asked Grace Ferrall then. I asked her again to-day. Heigho! It was years ago, wasn’t it, that I drove up to the station and saw a very attractive and perplexed young man looking anxiously about for somebody to take him to Shotover. Ahem! the notorious Mr. Siward! Dear,… I didn’t mean to hurt you! You know it, silly! Mayn’t I have my little joke about your badness—your redoubtable badness of reputation? There! You had just better smile.... How dare you frighten me by making me think I had hurt you!… Besides, you are probably unrepentant.”

She watched him closely for a moment or two, then, “Are you unrepentant?”

“About what?”

“About your general wickedness? About—” she hesitated—“about that girl, for example.”

“What girl?” he asked coldly.

“That reminds me that you have told me absolutely nothing about her.”

“There is nothing to tell,” he said, in a tone so utterly new to her in its finality that she sat up as though listening to an unknown voice.

Tone and words so completely excluded her from the new intimacy into which she had imperceptibly drifted that both suddenly developed a significance from sheer contrast. Who was this girl, then, of whom he had absolutely nothing to say? What was she to him? What could she be to him—an actress, a woman of common antecedents?

She had sometimes idly speculated in an indefinitely innocent way as to just what a well-born man could find to interest him in such women; what he could have to talk about to persons of that sort, where community of tastes and traditions must be so absolutely lacking.