The Common Law

"All!"

"Yes."

"Then—perhaps you scarcely expected me to call up to-night. Did you?"

"No."

"Suppose I had not done so."

He shivered slightly, but remained mute.

"Answer me, Louis?"

"It would have been—better."

"For you?"

"For—both."

"Do you believe it?"

"Yes."

"Then—have I any choice except to say—good-night?"

"No choice. Good-night."

"Good-night."

He crept, shaking, into his bed-room, sat down, resting his hands on his knees and staring at vacancy.

Valerie, in her room, hung up the receiver, buried her face in her hands for a moment, then quietly turned, lowering her hands from her face, and looked down at the delicate, intimate garments spread in order on the counterpane beside her. There was a new summer gown there, too—a light, dainty, fragile affair on which she had worked while away. Beside it lay a big summer hat of white straw and white lilacs.

She stood for a moment, reflecting; then she knelt down beside the bed and covered her eyes again while she said whatever prayer she had in mind.

It was not a very short petition, because it concerned Neville. She asked nothing for herself except as it regarded him or might matter to his peace of mind. Otherwise what she said, asked, and offered, related wholly to Neville.

Presently she rose and went lightly and silently about her ablutions; and afterward she dressed herself in the fragile snowy garments ranged so methodically upon the white counterpane, each in its proper place.

She was longer over her hair, letting it fall in a dark lustrous cloud to her waist, then combing and gathering it and bringing it under discipline.

She put on her gown, managing somehow to fasten it, her lithe young body and slender arms aiding her to achieve the impossible between neck and shoulders. Afterward she pinned on her big white hat.

At the door she paused for a second; took a last look at the quiet, white little room tranquil and silent in the lamplight; then she turned off the light and went out, softly, holding in her hands a key which fitted no door of her own.

One o'clock sounded heavily from Saint Hilda's as she left her house; the half hour was striking as she stooped in the dark hallway outside the studio and fitted the key she held—the key that was to unlock for her the mystery of the world.

He had not heard her. She groped her way into the unlighted studio, touched with caressing finger-tips the vague familiar shapes that the starlight, falling through the glass above, revealed to her as she passed.

In the little inner room she paused. There was a light through the passageway beyond, but she stood here a moment, looking around her while memories of the place deepened the colour in her cheeks.

Then she went forward, timidly, and stood at his closed door, listening.

A sudden fright seized her; one hand flew to her breast, her throat—covered her eyes for a moment—and fell limp by her side.

"Louis!" she faltered. She heard him spring to his feet and stand as though transfixed.

"Louis," she said, "it is I. Will you open your door to me?"

The sudden flood of electric light dazzled her; then she saw him standing there, one hand still resting on the door knob.

"I've come," she said, with a faint smile.

"Valerie! My God!"

She stood, half smiling, half fearful, her dark eyes meeting his, two friendly little hands outstretched. Then, as his own caught them, almost crushed them:

"Oh, it was your letter that ended all for me, Louis! It settled every doubt I had. I knew then—you darling!"

She bent and touched his hands with her lips, then lifted her sweet, untroubled gaze to his:

"I had been away from you so long, so long. And the time was approaching for me to decide, and I didn't know what was best for us, any more than when I went away. And then!—your letter came!"

She shook her head, slowly:

"I don't know what I might have decided if you never had written that letter to me; probably I would have come back to you anyway. I think so; I can't think of my doing anything else: though I might have decided—against myself. But as soon as I read your letter I knew, Louis…. And I am here."

He said with drawn lips quivering:

"Did you read in that letter one single word of cowardly appeal?—one infamous word of self? If you did, I wrote in vain."

"It was because I read nothing in it of self that I made up my mind, Louis." She stepped nearer. "Why are you so dreadfully pale and worn? Your face is so haggard—so terrible—"

She laid one hand on his shoulder, looking up at him; then she smoothed his forehead and hair, lightly.

"As though I could ever live without you," she said under her breath. Then she laughed, releasing her hands, and went over to the dresser where there was a mirror.

"I have come, at one in the morning, to pay you a call," she said, withdrawing the long pins from her hat and taking it off. "Later I should like a cup of chocolate, please…. Oh, there is Gladys! You sweet thing!" she cried softly, kneeling to embrace the cat who came silently into the room, tail waving aloft in gentle greeting.

The girl lifted Gladys onto the bed and rolled her over into a fluffy ball and rubbed her cheeks and her ears until her furry toes curled, and her loud and grateful purring filled the room.

Valerie, seated sideways on the edge of the bed, looked up at Neville, laughing:

"I must tell you about Sam and Hélène," she said. "They are too funny! Hélène was furious because Sam wrote her a letter saying that he intended to marry her but had not the courage to notify her, personally, of his decision; and Hélène was wild, and wrote him that he might save himself further trouble in the matter. And they've been telephoning to each other at intervals all day, and Sam is so afraid of her that he dare not go to see her; and Hélène was in tears when I saw her—and I think it was because she was afraid Sam wouldn't come and resume the quarrel where she could manage it and him more satisfactorily."

She threw back her head and laughed at the recollection, stroking Gladys the while:

"It will come out all right, of course," she added, her eyes full of laughter; "she's been in love with Sam ever since he broke a Ming jar and almost died of fright. But isn't it funny, Louis?—the way people fall in love, and their various manners of informing each other!"