The Forbidden Way

"Don't be annoyed, Camilla," he whispered. "Jeff is worried. You understand, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, I understand," she replied wearily. "Don't mind me."

As the door closed behind him she stood irresolute for a moment, then suddenly realized she had been up since dawn and was very tired. Her body ached, and her muscles were sore, but the weariness in her mind was greater than these. The closing of the dining-room door had robbed her of the refuge she most needed. She wanted to talk – to hear them talk – anything that would banish her own thoughts – anything that would straighten out the disorderly tangle of her late impressions of the new life and the people she had met in it. She had never thought of Jeff as sanctuary before, and yet she now realized, when the support of his strength was denied her, that in her heart she had always more or less depended upon him for guidance.

And yet she feared him, too. A while ago she had been filled with horror at his share in the "Lone Tree" affair, and since that time the knowledge had haunted her. But she had not dared to speak of it to him. She felt instinctively that this was one of the matters upon the other side of the gulf that had always yawned with more or less imminence between them. Their relations were none too stable to risk a chance of further discord. The difference in his manner which she had noticed a week or more ago had become more marked, and to-night at the dinner table he had troubled less than usual to disguise his lack of interest in her opinions. The image of Cort was ever in her mind, and the danger that threatened her seemed no less distant than before, and yet she still hoped, as she had always done, that something would happen – some miracle, some psychological crisis which would show her husband and herself the way to unity. Since she had seen Cortland Bent, she had lost some faith in herself, gained some fear of Jeff, whose present attitude she was at a loss to understand, but she still clung desperately to the tattered shreds of their strange union, though lately even those seemed less tangible. To-night, when she had asked him to take her West with him, he had refused her impatiently – almost brusquely.

She went into her own rooms slowly and undressed. As she sat before her mirror, the sight of the scratch on her face recalled the incidents of the day. Mrs. Cheyne! Her lips drew together, her brows tangled in thought, and she dismissed her maid, who had come in to brush her hair. What right had Jeff to ignore her as he had done? No matter what her own shortcomings, in public, at least, she had always shown him a proper respect and had never in her heart dishonored him by an unworthy thought. For one brief moment in Cortland Bent's arms she had been swept from the shallows into deeper water, but even then she had known, as she knew now, that loyalty to Jeff had always been uppermost in her thoughts. They must have an understanding before he went away. She would not be left here in New York alone. She had learned to distrust herself, to distrust Jeff, Cort, and all the charming irresponsible people of the gay set into which they had been introduced.

In her dressing gown she sat before her fire and listened to the murmur of voices in the drawing room, from which she had been banished. She could hear Jeff's steps as he rose and paced the floor, his voice louder and more insistent than Larry's. There was a coming and going of pages delivering and receiving telegrams, and she felt the undercurrent of a big crisis in Jeff's career – the nature of which she had only been permitted to surmise. His attitude had wounded her pride. It hurt her that Larry should see her placed in the position of a petitioner. Her one comfort was the assurance that she did not care what Jeff himself thought of her, that it was her pride which insisted on a public readjustment of their relations.

Camilla got up, slowly, thoughtfully, and at last moved to the bell determinedly.

To her maid she said, "Tell Mr. Wray I'd like to see him before he goes out."

When Wray entered the room later, a frown on his face, the cloud of business worry in his eyes, he found Camilla asleep on the divan under a lamp, a magazine on the rug beside her, where it had fallen from her fingers. His lips had been set for short words, but when he saw her he closed the door noiselessly behind him. Even sleep could not diminish the proud curve of the nostrils, or change the firmly modeled chin and the high, clearly penciled brows. Jeff looked at her a moment, his face showing some of the old reverence – the old awe of her beauty.

And while he looked, she stirred uneasily and murmured a name. He started so violently that a chair beside him scraped the floor and awoke her.

"I must have – oh – it's you, Jeff – "

"You wanted to see me?" he asked harshly.

"Yes – I – " She sat up languidly. "I did want to see you. There are some things I want to talk about – some things I want explained. Sit down, won't you?"

"I – I haven't much time."

"I won't keep you long. You've decided to go West – without me?"

"Yes, next week. Perhaps sooner if – "

"I want you to change your mind about taking me with you."

"Why?"

"I want to go."

Jeff laughed disagreeably. "You women are funny. For a year you've been telling me that the only thing you wanted was a visit to New York. Now you're here, you want to go back. I've told you to get all the clothes you need, hired you an apartment in the best hotel, given you some swell friends, bought you jewelry – "

"I don't want jewelry, or clothes, or friends," she insisted. "I want to go back and watch them build 'Glen Irwin.'"

"They've stopped working on 'Glen Irwin.' I wanted the money that was going into that."

"Oh!"

"I've a big fight on, and I need all the capital I can swing. 'Glen Irwin' will have to wait," he finished grimly.

"Of course – I didn't understand. But it makes no difference. I can stay at the hotel or at Mrs. Brennan's."

"After all this? Oh, no, you'd be miserable. Besides, I have other plans."

"You don't want me?"

"No. I'll be very busy."

"No busier than you were before we came here."

Jeff paced the length of the room and returned before he answered her.

"See here, Camilla. You ought to know, by this time that when I say a thing I mean it. I'm going West alone to do some fence-building. You're to stay here and do the same thing – socially. I need these people in my business, and I want you to keep on good terms with them."

She gazed thoughtfully at the fire. "Don't you believe me when I say I want to go with you?"

Jeff made an abrupt movement. "Well – hardly. We've always got along pretty well, so long as each of us followed our own pursuits. But I think you might as well acknowledge that you don't need me – haven't needed me now or at any other time."

"I do need you, Jeff. I want to try and take a greater interest in your affairs – to help you if I can, socially if necessary, but I'd rather do it with you than alone."

"I may not be gone long – perhaps only a week or so. In the meanwhile, you're your own mistress."

"You've always let me be that. But I have reasons for wanting to leave New York."

Wray turned and stared at her blankly. "Reasons?"

"Yes. I – I'm a little tired. The life here is so gay. I'm unused to it. It bewilders me."

"I think I understand," he said slowly. "But it can't be helped. I want you to cultivate the McIntyres, the Warringtons, and the Rumsens. Larry will stay here in the hotel for a while. You can call on him."

She fingered the pages of a book beside her. "Then this is final?" she asked.

"Yes – you must do as I say."

He had never before used that tone with her. The warm impulse that had sought this interview was dried at its source. "Very well – I'll stay," she said coldly, "no matter what happens."

He examined her shrewdly.

"You're afraid?" he asked. "That's too bad. I thought I was doing you a service."

"What do you mean?"

"Cort Bent. That's what I mean. Cort Bent. He's yours. I give him to you."

"Jeff!"

She rose and faced him, trembling, and her eyes flickered like a guttering candle, as she tried to return his look. "How could you?" she stammered. "How could you speak to me so?"

But he was merciless. "Oh, I'm not blind, and I'm not deaf, either. I've seen and I've heard. But I didn't need to see or to hear. Don't you suppose I've always known you married me out of spite – out of pique, because Cort Bent wouldn't marry you. I knew it then just as I know it now, but I hoped I could win you back and that things would be the same as they were before he came meddling in my affairs. Well, you know what happened better than I do. Our marriage has been a failure. I was a fool – so were you. We've made the best of a bad job, but that don't make it a good job. I let you go your own way. I've been good to you because I knew I'd been as big a fool as you were. What I didn't know was that you'd met Cort Bent behind my back – "

"That is not true," she broke in. "That day he called here – "