The Fighting Chance

“What do you mean?” he said fiercely, under his breath. The colour had left his face, too, and in his eyes Leila saw for the first time an expression that she had never before surprised in any eyes except her husband’s. It was the expression of fright; she recognised it. But Sylvia stared, unenlightened, at an altered visage she scarcely knew for Quarrier’s.

“What do I mean?” repeated Leila; “I mean what I say; and if you don’t understand it you can find the key to it, I fancy. Nor shall I answer to you for my guests. I invite whom I choose. Mr. Siward is one, Mr. Plank is another. Sylvia, if you care to come I shall be delighted.”

“I do care to come,” said Sylvia. Her heart was beating violently, her eyes were on Quarrier.

“If you go,” said Quarrier, showing the glimmering edge of teeth under his beard, “you will answer to me for it.”

“I will answer you now, Howard; I am going with Mrs. Mortimer. What have you to say?”

“I’ll say it to-morrow,” he replied, contemplating her in a dull, impassive manner as though absorbed in other things.

“Say what there is to be said now!” she insisted, the hot colour staining her cheeks again. “Do you desire me to free you? Is that all? I will if you wish.”

“No. And I shall not free you, Sylvia. This—all this can be adjusted in time.”

“As you please,” she said slowly.

“In time,” he repeated, his passionless voice now under perfect control. He turned and looked at Leila; all the wickedness of his anger was concentrated in his gaze. Then he took his leave of them as formally, as precisely as though he had forgotten the whole scene; and a minute later the big Mercedes ran out into a half-circle, backed, wheeled, and rolled away through the thickening dusk, the glare of the acetylenes sweeping the deserted street.

Into the twilight sped Quarrier, head bent, but his soft, dark-lashed eyes of a woman fixed steadily ahead. Every energy, every thought was now bent to this newest phase of the same question which he and Fate were finding simpler to solve every minute. Of all the luxuries he permitted himself openly or furtively, one—the rarest of them all—his self-denial had practically eliminated from the list: the luxury of punishing where no end was served save that of mere personal satisfaction. The temptation of this luxury now presented itself; and the means of gratification were so simple, so secret, so easy to command, that the temptation became almost a duty.

Siward he had not turned out of his way to injure; Siward had been in the way, that was all, and his ruin was to have been merely an agreeable coincidence with the purposed ruin of Amalgamated Electric before Inter-County absorbed the fragments. But here was a new phase; Mrs. Mortimer, whom he had expected to use, and if necessary sacrifice, had suddenly turned vicious. And he now hated her as coldly as he hated Major Belwether for betraying suspicions of a similar nature. As for Plank, fear and hatred of him was becoming hatred and contempt. He had the means of checking Plank if Mortimer did not drop dead before midnight. There remained Sylvia, whom he had selected as the fittest object attainable to transmit his name. Long ago, whatever of liking, of affection, of passion he had ever entertained for her had quieted to indifference and the unemotional contemplation of a future methodically arranged for. Now of a sudden, this young girl he had bought—he knowing what she sold and what he was paying for—had become exposed to the infection of a suspicion concerning himself and another woman; a woman unmarried, and of his own caste, and numbered among her own friends.

And he knew enough of Sylvia to know that if anybody could once arouse her suspicion nothing on earth could induce her to look into his face again. Suppose Leila should do so this evening?

Certainly Quarrier had several matters to ponder over and provide for; and first and foremost of all to provide for his own security and the vital necessity of preserving his name and his character untainted. In this he had to deal with that miserable judge who had betrayed him; with Mortimer, who had once black-mailed him and who now was temporarily in his service; with Mrs. Mortimer, who—God knew how, when, or where—had become suspicious of Agatha and himself; with Major Belwether, who had deserted him before he could sacrifice the major, and whom he now hated and feared for having stumbled over suspicions similar to Mrs. Mortimer’s. He had to deal with Sylvia herself, and with Siward—reckon with Siward’s knowledge of matters which it were best that Sylvia should not know.

But first of all, and most important of all, he had to deal with Beverly Plank. And he was going to do it in a manner that Plank could not have foreseen; he was going to stop Plank where he stood, and to do this he was deliberately using his knowledge of the man and paying Plank the compliment of counting on his sense of honour to defeat him.

For he had suddenly found the opportunity to defend himself; he had discovered the joint in Plank’s old-fashioned armour—the armour of the old paladins—who placed a woman’s honour before all else in the world. Now, through his creature, Mortimer, he could menace Plank with a threat to involve him and Leila in a vile publicity; now he was in a position to demand a hearing and a compromise through his new ambassador, Mortimer, knowing that he could at last halt Plank by threatening Leila with this shameful danger. Plank must sign the truce or face with Leila an action for damages and divorce.

First of all he went to the Lenox Club and dressed. Then he dined sparingly and alone. The Mercedes was waiting when he came out ready to run down to the great Hotel Corona, whither the Japanese steward had conducted Mortimer. Mortimer had dined heavily, but his disorganised physical condition was such that it had scarcely affected him at all.

Again Quarrier went over patiently and carefully the very simple part he had reserved for Mortimer that evening, explaining exactly what to say to Leila and what to say to Plank in case of insolent interruption. Then he told Mortimer to be ready at nine o’clock, turned on his heel with a curt word to the Japanese, descended to the street, entered his motor-car again, and sped away to the Hotel Santa Regina.

Miss Caithness was at home, came the message in exchange for his cards for Agatha and Mrs. Vendenning. He entered the gilded elevator, stepped out on the sixth floor into a tiny, rococo, public reception-room. Nobody was there besides himself; Agatha’s maid came presently, and he turned and followed her into the large and very handsome parlour belonging to the suite which Agatha was occupying with Mrs. Vendenning for the few days that they were to stop in town.

“Hello,” she said serenely, sauntering in, her long, pale hands bracketed on her narrow hips, her lips disclosing her teeth in a smile so like that nervous muscular recession which passed for a smile on Quarrier’s visage that for one moment he recognised it and thought she was mocking him. But she strolled up to him, meeting his eye calmly, and lifted her slim neck, lips passive under his impetuous kiss.

“Is Mrs. Vendenning out?” he asked, laying his hands on the bare shoulders of the tall, pallid girl—tall as he, and as pallid.

“No, Mrs. Ven. is in, Howard.”

“Now? You mean she is coming in to interrupt—”

“Oh no; she isn’t fond of you, Howard.”

“You said—” he began almost angrily, but she laid her fingers across his lips.

“I said a very foolish thing, Howard. I said that I’d manage to dispense with Mrs. Ven. this evening.”

“You mean that you couldn’t manage it?”

“Not at all; I could easily have managed it. But—I didn’t care to.”

She looked at him calmly at close range as he held her embraced, lifted her arms and, with slender, white fingers patted her hair into place where his arm around her head had disarranged it, watching him all the while out of her pale, haunted eyes.

“You promised me,” he said, “that you—”

“Oh Howard! Do men still believe in promises?”

Quarrier’s face had colour enough now; his voice, too, had lost its passionless, monotonous precision. Whatever was in the man of emotion was astir; his impatient voice, his lack of poise, the almost human lack of caution in his speech betrayed him in a new and interesting light.

“Look here, Agatha, how long is this going to last? Are you trying to make a fool of me? What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?”

“Wrong? Oh dear no! How could there be anything wrong between you and me—”

“Agatha, what is the matter! Look here; let’s settle this thing now and settle it one way or the other! I won’t stand it; I—I can’t!”

“Very well,” she said, releasing herself from his tightening arms and stepping back with another glance at the mirror and another light touch of her finger-tips on her burnished hair. “Very well,” she repeated, gazing again into the mirror; “what am I to understand, Howard?”

“You know what to understand,” he said in a low voice; “you know what we both understood when—when—”

“When what?”

“When I—when you—”

“Oh what, Howard?” she prompted indolently; and he answered in brutal exasperation, and for the first time so plainly that a hint of rose tinted her strange, pale beauty and between her lips the breath came less regularly as she stood there looking at the dull, silvery rug under her feet.

“Did you ever misunderstand me?” he demanded hotly. “Did I give you any chance to? Were you ignorant of what that meant,” with a gesture toward the splendid crescent of flashing gems, scintillating where the low, lace bodice met the silky lustre of her skin. “Did you misinterpret the collar? Or the sudden change of fortune in your own family’s concerns? Answer me, Agatha, once for all. But you need not answer after all: I know you have never misunderstood me!”

“I misunderstood nothing,” she said; “you are quite right.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Do?” she asked in slow surprise. “What am I to do, Howard?”

“You have said that you loved me.”

“I said the truth, I think.”

“Then—”

“Well?”

“How long are you going to keep me at arm’s length?” he asked violently.

“That lies with you,” she said, smiling. She looked at him for a moment, then, resting her hands on her hips, she began to pace the floor, to and fro, to and fro, and at every turn she raised her head to look at him. All the strange grace of her became insolent provocation—her pale eyes, clear, limpid, harbouring no delusions, haunted with the mockery of wisdom, challenged and checked him. “Howard,” she said, “why should I be the fool you want me to be because I love you? Why should I be even if I wished to be? You desire an understanding? Voilà! You have it. I love you; I never misunderstood you from the first; I could not afford to. You know what I am; you know what you arouse in me?”