The Common Law

Neither he nor she referred to his recent call; he was perfectly self-possessed, entirely amiable with that serene and level good-humour which sometimes masks a defiance almost contemptuous.

But Rita's engagements required her to leave very shortly after his advent; and before she went out she deliberately waited to catch Valerie's eye; and Valerie coloured deeply under her silent message.

Then Rita went away with a scarcely perceptible nod to Querida; and when, by the clock, she had been gone twenty minutes, Querida, without reason, without preparation, and perfectly aware of his moment's insanity, yielded to a second's flash of caprice—the second that comes once in the lives of all women—and now, in the ordered symmetry of his life, had come to him.

"Valerie," he said, "I love you. Will you marry me?"

She had been leaning sideways on the back of her chair, one hand supporting her cheek, gazing almost listlessly out of the open window.

She did not stir, nor did her face alter, but, very quietly she turned her head and looked at him.

He spoke, breathlessly, eloquently, persuasively, and well; the perfect machinery was imitating for him a single-minded, ardent, honourable young man, intelligent enough to know his own mind, manly enough to speak it. The facsimile was flawless.

He had finished and was waiting, long fingers gripping the arms of his chair; and her face had altered only to soften divinely, and her eyes were very sweet and untroubled.

"I am glad you have spoken this way to me, José. Something has been said about you—in connection with Mr. Cardemon—which disturbed me and made me very sad and miserable, although I would not permit myself to believe it…. And now I know it was a mistake—because you have asked me to be your wife."

She sat looking at him, the sadness in her eyes emphasised by the troubled smile curving her lips:

"I couldn't marry you, José, because I am not in love with you. If I were I would do it…. But I do not care for you that way."

For an instant some inner flare of madness blinded his brain and vision. There was, in his face, something so terrible that Valerie unconsciously rose to her feet, bewildered, almost stunned.

"I want you," he said slowly.

"José! What in the world—"

His dry lips moved, but no articulate sound came from them. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, and out of his twisted, distorted mouth poured a torrent of passion, of reproach, of half-crazed pleading—incoherency tumbling over incoherency, deafening her, beating in upon her, till she swayed where she stood, holding her arms up as though to shield herself.

The next instant she was straining, twisting in his arms, striving to cry out, to wrench herself free to keep her feet amid the crash of the overturned table and a falling chair.

"José! Are you insane?" she panted, tearing herself free and springing toward the door. Suddenly she halted, uttered a cry as he jumped back to block her way. The low window-ledge caught him under both knees; he clutched at nothing, reeled backward and outward and fell into space.

For a second she covered her white face with both hands, then turned, dragged herself to the open window, forced herself to look out.

He lay on his back on the grass in the rear yard, and the janitor was already bending over him. And when she reached the yard Querida had opened both eyes.

Later the ambulance came, and with its surgeon came a policeman.

Querida, lying with his head on her lap, opened his eyes again:

"I was—seated—on the window-ledge," he said with difficulty—"and overbalanced myself…. Caught the table—but it fell over…. That's all."

The eyes in his ghastly face closed wearily, then fluttered:

"Awfully sorry, Valerie—make such a mess—in your house."

"Oh-h—José," she sobbed.

After that they took him away to the Presbyterian Hospital; and nobody seemed to find very much the matter with him except that he'd been badly shocked.

But the next day all sensation ceased in his body from the neck downward.

And they told Valerie why.

For ten days he lay there, perfectly conscious, patient, good-humored, and his almond-shaped and hollow eyes rested on Valerie and Rita with a fatalistic serenity subtly tinged with irony.

John Burleson came to see him, and cried. After he left, Querida said to Valerie:

"John and I are destined to remain near neighbours; his grief is well meant, but a trifle premature."

"You are not going to die, José!" she said gently.

But he only smiled.

Ogilvy came, Annan came, the Countess Hélène, and even Mrs. Hind-Willet. He inspected them all with his shadowy and mysterious smile, answered them gently deep in his sunken eyes a sombre amusement seemed to dwell. But there was in it no bitterness.

Then Neville came. Valerie and Rita were absent that day but their roses filled the private ward-room with a hint of the coming summer.

Querida lay looking at Neville, the half smile resting on his pallid face like a slight shadow that faintly waxed and waned with every breath he drew.

"Well," he said quietly, "you are the man I wished to see."

"Querida," he said, deeply affected, "this thing isn't going to be permanent—"

"No; not permanent. It won't last, Neville. Nothing does last…. unless you can tell me whether my pictures are going to endure. Are they? I know that you will be as honest with me as I was—dishonest with you. I will believe what you say. Is my work destined to be permanent?"

"Don't you know it is?"

"I thought so…. But you know. Because, Neville, you are the man who is coming into what was mine, and what will be your own;—and you are coming into more than that, Neville, more than I ever could have attained. Now answer me; will my work live?"

"Always," said Neville simply.

Querida smiled:

"The rest doesn't matter then…. Even Valerie doesn't matter…. But you may hand me one of her roses…. No, a bud, if you don't mind—unopened."

When it was time for Neville to go Querida's smile had faded and the pink rose-bud lay wilted in his fingers.

"It is just as well, Neville," he said. "I couldn't have endured your advent. Somebody has to be first; I was—as long as I lived…. It is curious how acquiescent a man's mind becomes—when he's like this. I never believed it possible that a man really could die without regret, without some shadow of a desire to live. Yet it is that way, Neville…. But a man must lie dying before he can understand it."

* * * * *

A highly tinted uncle from Oporto arrived in New York just in time to see Querida alive. He brought with him a parrot.

"Send it to Mrs. Hind-Willet," whispered Querida with stiffening lips; "uno lavanta la caça y otro la nata."

A few minutes later he died, and his highly coloured uncle from Oporto sent the bird to Mrs. Hind-Willet and made the thriftiest arrangement possible to transport what was mortal of a great artist to Oporto—where a certain kind of parrot comes from.