The Coast of Chance

E >> Esther Chamberlain >> The Coast of Chance

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This denouement, this climax to her somber expectations, struck Flora as
something wildly and indecently ridiculous. "Why, but it's impossible!"
she protested, and began helplessly to laugh.

"Well, I'd like to know why?" Ella snapped. "I'm sure papa is twice as
rich as old Britton was, and twice as easy." She went off into sobs
behind her handkerchief.

"Oh, don't, Ella, don't cry!" Flora begged, petting the large expanse of
heaving shoulders. "I didn't mean anything. I was just silly. Of course
it may be that she wants to marry him. But she never has before--at
least, I mean, I don't believe she wants to now. What makes you think
she does? What has she done?"

"Well," Ella burst out, "why is she coming here all the time, when she
never used to, and petting papa? Why does she bother to be so agreeable
to me when she never was before? Why does she make me ask her to
dinner, when I don't want to?"

Each question knocked on Flora's brain to the accompaniment of Ella's
furious rocking. She could not answer them, and Ella's explanation,
absurd as it seemed, coming on top of her high expectations, wasn't
impossible. It was like Clara to have more than one iron in the fire;
but when Flora remembered the passionate intentness with which Clara had
demolished the order of her room, she couldn't believe that Clara would
pause in the midst of such pursuit to pounce on Judge Buller.

"Oh, Ella," Flora sympathetically urged, "I don't believe there's really
any danger. And surely, even if she meant it, Judge Buller wouldn't
be--"

"Oh, yes, he would," Ella cut her short. "Why, when she came yesterday
he was just going out, and she went for him and made him stop to tea.
Think of it--papa stopping to tea! And he was as pleased as Punch to
have her make up to him. He hasn't the least idea of what she's after.
Papa isn't used to ladies. He's always just lived with me."

This astonishing statement looking at Flora through Ella's unsuspecting
eyes had nevertheless a pathos of its own. It conjured up a long vista
of harmonious existence which the two, the daughter and the father, had
made out of their mutual simplicity, and their mutual gusto for the
material comforts which came comfortably.

"But I'll tell you one thing," Ella ended, still rocking vigorously; "if
she comes here to-night to dinner when she knows I don't want her I
shall tell her what I think of her, before she leaves this house! See if
I don't."

"Don't do that, Ella," Flora entreated, "that would be awful." She was
certain that such an interview would only end in Clara's making Ella
more ridiculous than she was already. "Let me speak to her. I don't mind
at all," she declared bravely, and in a manner truly, though she was
fully aware that speaking to Clara would be anything but a treat.

"Oh, would you?" said Ella eagerly. "I really would be awfully obliged.
I hated to ask you, Flora, but I thought perhaps you might be able
to--to, well, perhaps be able to do something," she ended vaguely. "Do
you think you could?"

"I'll speak to Clara to-night," said Flora heroically, "or to-morrow,"
she added; "I'm afraid I won't see her to-night."

"Well, I'll let you know if it makes any difference," said Ella
hopefully.

Flora knew that nothing either of them could say would make any
difference to Clara, or turn her from the thing she was pursuing; but by
speaking she might at least find out if Judge Buller himself were really
her object. And Ella's wail of assured calamity, "Papa has always been
so happy with me," touched her with its absurd pathos.

She kissed Ella's misty cheek at parting. It wasn't fair, she thought
remorsefully, for people like the Bullers to be at large on the same
planet with people like Clara--and herself--and--and like--Her thoughts
ran off into the fog. At least, thank heaven, it was the judge Clara
was trailing and not Kerr.

The bells and whistles of one o'clock were making clangor as she ran up
the steps of her house again. In the hall Shima presented her with a
card. She looked at it with a quickening pulse. "Is he waiting?"

"No, madam. Mr. Kerr has gone. He waited half an hour."

Down went her spirits again. Yet surely after their last interview she
ought not to be eager to meet him again. "In the morning," she thought,
"and waited half an hour. How he must have wanted to see me!" She didn't
know whether she liked that or not. "When did he come?"

"At eleven o'clock."

At this she was frightened; he had missed Harry by less than half an
hour.

"He waited all that time alone?"

"No. Mr. Cressy came."

Flora felt a cold thrill in her nerves. Then Harry had come back! What
had he come for?

"He also would wait," the Japanese explained.

Flora gasped. "They waited together!"

The Japanese shook his head. "They went away together."

She didn't believe her ears. "Mr. Kerr went away with Mr. Cressy?"

The Japanese seemed to revolve the problem of mastery. "No, Mr. Cressy
accompanied Mr. Kerr." He had made a delicate oriental distinction. It
put the whole thing before her in a moment. Harry had been the
resistant, and the other with his brilliant initiative attacking, always
attacking when he should have been hiding, had carried him off. "What
had he done, and how had he managed, when Harry must have had such
pressing reasons for wanting to stay?" Ah, she knew only too well Kerr's
exquisite knowledge of managing; but why must he make such a reckless
exposure of himself? Did he suppose Harry was to be managed? Had he no
idea where Harry stood in this affair? In pity's name, didn't he know
that Harry had seen him before--had seen him under circumstances of
which Harry wouldn't talk? They were circumstances of which she knew
nothing, and yet from that very fact there was left a horrible
impression in her mind that they had been of a questionable character.

XV

A LADY IN DISTRESS

She had returned, ready for pitched battle with Clara, and on the
threshold there had met her the very turn in the affair that she had
dreaded all along--the setting of Kerr and Harry upon each other.

These were two whom she had kept apart even in her mind--the man to whom
she was pledged, with whom she had supposed herself in love, and the man
for whom she was flying in the face of all her traditions. She had not
scrutinized the reason of her extraordinary behavior; not since that
dreadful day when the vanishing mystery had taken positive form in him
had she dared to think how she felt about Kerr. She had only acted,
acted; only asked herself what to do next, and never why; only taken his
cause upon herself and made it her own, as if that was her natural
right. She could hardly believe that it was she who had let herself go
to this extent. All her life she had been docile to public opinion,
buxom to conventions, respectful of those legal and moral rules laid
down by some rigid material spirit lurking in mankind. But now when the
moment had come, when the responsibility had descended upon her, she
found that these things had in no way persuaded her. They were not vital
enough for her proposition. They had no meaning now--no more than proper
parlor furniture for a castaway on a desert island.

Then this was herself, a creature too much concerned with the primal
harmonies of life to be impressed by the modulations her decade set upon
them. This was that self which she had obscurely cherished as no more
real than a fairy; but at Kerr's acclamation it had proclaimed itself
more real than flesh and blood, and Kerr himself the most real thing in
all her life.

Then what was Harry? The bland implacable pronouncement of Shima had
summoned him up to stand beside Kerr more clearly than her own eyes
could have shown him. Surely she was giving to Kerr what belonged to
Harry, or else she had already given to Harry what ought to have been
Kerr's. That was her last conclusion. It was horrible, it was hopeless,
but it was not untrue. It had crept upon her so softly that it had taken
her unawares. She was appalled at the unreason of passion. Unsought by
him, unclaimed, in every common sense a stranger to him--how could she
belong to him? And yet of that she was sure by the way he had unveiled
her the first night, by the way he had quickened her dreaming into life.
As many times as she had fancied what love was like she had never
dreamed it could be like this. It was mockery that she could be
concerned for one who only wanted of her--plunder. Yet it was so. She
was as tremblingly concerned for his fate as if she owned his whole
devotion; and his fate at this moment, she was convinced, was in Harry's
hands.

Kerr, with his brilliant initiative, might carry him off, but Kerr was
still the quarry. For had not Harry, from the very beginning, known
something about him? Hadn't he at first denied having seen him before,
and then admitted it? Hadn't he dropped hints and innuendoes without
ever an explanation? She remembered the singular fact of the Embassy
ball, twice mentioned, each time with that singular name of Farrell
Wand. And to know--if that _was_ what Harry knew--that a man of such
fame was in a community where a ring of such fame had disappeared--what
further proof was wanted?

Then why didn't Harry speak? And what was going on on his side of the
affair? Harry's side would have been her side a few days before. Now,
unaccountably, it was not. Nor was Kerr's side hers either. She was
standing between the two--standing hesitating between her love of one
and her loyalty to the other and what he represented. The power might be
hers to tip the scales Harry held, either to Kerr's undoing, or to his
protection. At least she thought she might protect him, if she could
discover Harry's secret. Her special, authorized relation to him--her
right to see him often, question him freely--even cajole--should make
that easy. But she shrank from what seemed like betrayal, even though
she did not betray him to Kerr by name.

Then, on the other hand, she doubted how much she could do with Harry.
She wasn't sure how far she was prepared to try him after that scene of
theirs. She had no desire to pique him further by seeing too much of
Kerr. On her own account she wanted for the present to avoid Kerr. He
roused a feeling in her that she feared--a feeling intoxicating to the
senses, dazzling to the mind, unknitting to the will. How could she
tell, if they were left alone together for a long enough space of time,
that she might not take the jewel from her neck, at his request, and
hand it to him--and damn them both? If only she could escape seeing him
altogether until she could find out what Harry was doing, and what she
must do!

Meanwhile, there was her promise to Ella. She recalled it with
difficulty. It seemed a vague thing in the light of her latest
discovery, though she could never meet Clara in disagreement without a
qualm. But she made the plunge that evening, before Clara left for the
Bullers', while she was at her dressing-table in the half-disarray which
brings out all the softness and the disarming physical charm of women.
From her low chair Flora spoke laughingly of Ella's perturbation. Clara
paused, with the powder puff in her hand, while she listened to Flora's
explanation of how Ella feared that some one might, after all these
years, be going to marry Judge Buller. Who this might be she did not
even hint at. She left it ever so sketchy. But the little stare with
which Clara met it, the amusement, the surprise, and then the shortest
possible little laugh, were guarantee that Clara had seen it all. She
had filled out Flora's sketch to the full outline, and pronounced it, as
Flora had, an absurdity. But though Clara had laughed she had gone away
with her delicate brows a little drawn together, as if she'd really
found more than a laugh, something worth considering, in Ella's state of
mind.

Flora was left with the uneasy feeling that perhaps she had unwittingly
delivered Ella into Clara's hands; that Ella, too, was in danger of
becoming part of Clara's schemes. Danger seemed to be spreading like
contagion. It was borne in upon her that from this time forward dangers
would multiply. That nothing was going to be easier, but everything
infinitely harder, to the end; and now was the time to act if ever she
hoped to make way through the tangle.

She heard the wheels of Clara's departing conveyance. Now was her chance
for an interview with Harry. She spent twenty minutes putting together
three sentences that would not arouse his suspicions. She made two
copies, and sent them by separate messengers, one to his rooms, one to
the club, with orders they be brought back if he was not there to
receive them. Then--the miserable business of waiting in the large
house full of echoes and the round ghostly globes of electric lights,
with that thing around her neck for which--did they but know of it--half
the town would break in her windows and doors.

The wind traveled the streets without, and shook the window-casings. She
cowered over the library fire, listening. The leaping flames set her
shadow dancing like a goblin. A bell rang, and the shadow and the flame
gave a higher leap as if in welcome of what had arrived. She went to the
library door. In the glooms and lights outside Shima was standing, and
two messengers. It was odd that both should arrive at once. She stepped
back and stood waiting with a quicker pulse. Shima entered with two
letters upon his tray. She had a moment's anxiety lest both her notes
had been brought back to her, but no--the envelope which lay on top
showed Harry's writing. She tore it open hastily. Harry wrote that he
would be delighted, and might he bring a friend with him; a bully fellow
whom he wanted her to meet? He added she might send over for some girl
and they could have a jolly little party.

Flora looked at this communication blankly. Was Harry, who had always
jumped at the chance of a tete-a-tete, dodging her? In her astonishment
she let the other envelope fall. She stooped, and then for a moment
remained thus, bent above it. The superscription was not hers. The note
was not addressed to Harry, but to her, and in a handwriting she had
never seen before!

Again the peal of the electric bell. Shima appeared with a third
envelope. This time it was her own note returned to her. With the
feeling she was bewitched she took up the mysterious letter from the
floor and opened it. She read the strange handwriting:

May I see you, anywhere, at any time, to-night?
ROBERT KERR.

It was as if Kerr himself had entered the room, masked and muffled
beyond recognition, and then, face to face with her, let fall his
disguise. She gazed at the words, at the signature, thrilled and
frightened. She looked at Harry's note, hesitated; caught a glimpse
between the half-open doors of the two messengers waiting stolidly in
the hall. Waiting for answers! Answers to such communications! She made
a dash for the table where were pens and ink and on one sheet scrawled:

"Certainly. Bring him," appending her initials; on the other the word
"Impossible," and her full name. Then she hurried the letters into
Shima's hands, lest her courage should fail her--lest she should regret
her choice.

"Anywhere, at any time, to-night," she repeated softly. Why, the man
must be mad! Yet she permitted herself a moment of imagining what might
have been if her answers had been reversed.

But no, she dared not meet Kerr's impetuous attacks yet. First she must
get at Harry. And how was that to be managed if he insisted on
surrounding himself with "a jolly little party?"

She found a moment that evening in which to ask him to walk out to the
Presidio with her the next morning. But he was going to Burlingame on
the early train. He was woefully sorry. It was ages since he had had a
moment with her alone, but at least he would see her that evening. She
had not forgotten? They were going to that dinner--and then the
reception afterward? Her suspicion that he was deliberately dodging
wavered before his boyish, cheerful, unconscious face. And yet,
following on the heels of his tendency to question and coerce her, this
reticence was amazing. The next day would be lost with Harry beyond
reach--twelve hours while Kerr was at the mercy of chance, and she was
at the mercy of Kerr.

His tactics did not leave her breathing space. She felt as the lilies
wavering just beyond his reach. She remembered his ingenuity. She
thought of the blows of his cane. Lucky for her she was not rooted like
the lilies! The only safety was in keeping beyond his reach.

Yet when his card was brought up to her the next morning she looked at
the printed name as wistfully as if it had been his face. It cost an
effort to send down the cold fiction that she was not at home, and she
could not deny herself the consolation of leaning on the baluster of the
second landing, and listening for his step in the hall below. But there
was no movement. Could it be possible he was waiting for her to come in?
Hush! That was the drawing-room door. But instead of Kerr, Shima
emerged. He was heading for the stair with his little silver tray and
upon it--a note. Oh, impudence! How dared he give her the lie, by the
hand of her own butler! She stood her ground, and Shima delivered the
missive as if it were most usual to find one's mistress beflounced in
peignoir and petticoats, hanging breathless over the baluster.

"Take that back," she said coldly, "and tell him that I am out; and,
Shima,"--she addressed the man's intelligence--"make him understand it."

She watched the note departing. How she longed to call Shima back and
open it! There was a pause--then Kerr emerged from the drawing-room. As
he crossed the hall he glanced up at the stair and as much as was
visible of the landing. He hadn't taken Shima's word for it, after all!

The vestibule door closed noiselessly after him, the outer door shut
with a heavy sound. Yet before that sound had ceased to vibrate, she
heard it shut again. Was he coming back? There was a presence in the
vestibule very vaguely seen through the glass and lace of the inner
door. Her heart beat with apprehension. The door opened upon Clara.

Flora precipitately retreated. She was more disturbed than relieved by
the unexpected appearance. For Clara must have seen Kerr leave the
house. Three times now within three days he had been found with her or
waiting for her. She wondered if Clara would ask her awkward questions.
But Clara, when she entered Flora's dressing-room a few moments later
with the shopping-list, instead of a question, offered a statement.

"I don't like that man," she announced.

"Who?"

"That Kerr. I met him just now on the steps. Don't you feel there is
something wrong about him?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Flora vaguely.

Clara gave her a bright glance.

"But you weren't at home to him."

"I'm not at home to any one this morning," Flora answered evasively,
feeling the probe of Clara's eyes. "I'm feeling ill. I'm not going out
this evening either. I think I'll ring up Burlingame and tell Harry." It
was in her mind that she might manage to make him stay with her while
Clara went on to the reception.

"Burlingame! Harry!" Clara echoed in surprise. "Why, he's in town. I saw
him just now as I was coming up."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. He was walking up Clay from Kearney. I was in the car."

"Why that--that is--" Flora stammered in her surprise. "Then something
must have kept him," she altered her sentence quickly. But though this
seemed the probable explanation she did not believe it. Harry walking
toward Chinatown, when he had told her distinctly he would be in
Burlingame! She thought of the goldsmith shop and there returned to her
the memory of how Harry and the blue-eyed Chinaman had looked when she
had turned from the window and seen them standing together in the back
of the shop.

"You do look ill," Clara remarked. "Why don't you stay in bed, and not
try to see any one?"

Flora murmured that that was her intention, but she was far from
speaking the truth. She only waited to make sure of Clara's being in her
own rooms to get out of the house and telephone to Harry.

It was not far to the nearest booth, a block or two down the
cross-street. She rang, first, the office. The word came back promptly
in his partner's voice. He had gone to Burlingame by the early train. It
was the same at the club. He must be in town, then, on secret business.
She left the apothecary's and, with serious face, walked on down the
street, away from her house. She was thinking that now she knew Harry
had lied to her. And it was the second time. But perhaps it was just
because he thought her innocent that he was keeping her so in the dark.
Suppose she should tell him flatly what she had found out about him
to-day?

She walked rapidly, in her excitement, turning the troubling question
over in her mind. She did not realize how far she had gone until some
girl she knew, passing and nodding to her, called her out of her
reverie. She was almost in front of the University Club. A few blocks
more and she would be in the shopping district. She hesitated, then
decided that it would be better to walk a little further and take a
cross-town car.

A group of men was leaving the club. Two lingered on the steps, the
other coming quickly out. At sight of him, she averted her face, and,
hurrying, turned the corner and walked down a block. Her heart was
beating rapidly. What if he had seen her! She looked about--there was no
cab in sight--the best thing to do was to slip into one of the crowded
shops, full of women, and wait until the danger had passed. Once inside
the door of the nearest, she felt herself, with relief, only one of a
horde of pricers, lookers and buyers. She felt as if she had lost her
identity. She went to the nearest counter and asked for veils. Partly
concealed behind the bulk of the woman next her, she kept her eye on the
door. She saw Kerr come in. How absurd to think that she could escape
him! She turned her back and waited a moment or two, still hoping he
might pass her by. Then, she heard his voice behind her:

"Well, this is luck!"

She was conscious of giving him a limp hand. He sat down on the vacant
stool next her, laughing.

"You are a most remarkably fast walker," he observed.

"I had to buy a veil," Flora murmured.

"Has it taken you all the morning?"

She could see she had not fooled him.

"I had a great many other things to do." She was resolved not to admit
anything.

"No doubt, but I wanted to see you very much last night, and again this
morning. I may see you this evening, perhaps?" He was grave now. She saw
that he awaited her answer in anxiety.

"But--" she hesitated just a moment too long before she added, "I'm
going out this evening."

She started nervously to rise.

"Wait," he said in a voice that was audible to the shop-girl, "your
package has not come."

She looked at him helplessly, so attractive and so inimical to her. He
swung around, back to the counter, and lowered his voice. "Did you know
I called upon you yesterday morning, also?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Mr. Cressy and I waited for you together. Did he mention it to you?"

"No." Her lips let the word out slowly.

"That's a reticent friend of yours!" The exclamation, and the truth of
it, put her on her guard.

"I can't discuss him with you," she said coldly.

"Yet no doubt you have discussed me with him?"

"Never!"

"You haven't told him anything?" The incredulity, the amazement of his
face put before her, for the first time, how extraordinary her conduct
must seem. What could he think of her? What construction would he put
upon it? She blushed, neck to forehead, and her voice was scarcely
audible as she answered "No."

But at that small word his whole mood warmed to her. "Why, then," he
began eagerly, "if Cressy doesn't know--"

"Oh, but he--" Flora stopped in terror of herself. "I can't talk of him,
I must not. Don't ask me!" she implored, "and please, please don't come
to my house again!"

He gave his head a puzzled, impatient shake. "Then where _am_ I to see
you?"

"In a few days--perhaps to-morrow--I will let you know." She rose. She
had her package now. She was getting back her courage. There was no
further way of keeping her.

But he followed her closely through the crowd to the door. "Yes," he
said quickly under his breath, "in a few days, perhaps to-morrow, as
soon as you get rid of it, you won't mind meeting me! What are you
afraid of? Surely not me?"

She was, but hotly denied it.

"I am not afraid of you. I am afraid of them!"

"Of them!" He peered at her. "What are you talking about now?"

Ah, she had said too much! She bit her lip. They had reached the corner,
and the gliding cable car was approaching. She turned to him with a last
appeal.

"Don't ask me anything! Don't come with me! Don't follow me!"

Not until she was safely inside the car did she dare look back at him.
He was still on the corner, and he raised his hat and smiled so
reassuringly that she was half-way home before she realized that, in
spite of all she had urged upon him, he had not committed himself to any
promise. And yet, she thought in dismay, he had almost made her give
away Harry's confidence. She was seeing more and more clearly that this
was the danger of meeting him. He always got something out of her and
never, by chance, gave her anything in return. If he should seek her
to-night she dared not be at home! Any place would be safer than her own
house. It would be better to fulfil her engagement and go to the
reception with Clara and Harry. That was a house Kerr did not know.

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