The Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure
ways, her pretty face, her ready wit, had completely vanquished him,
and not alone did she satisfy him mentally, she also attracted him
physically.
He realized it now as he held her tight against his breast. Her head
had fallen on his shoulder. Her face with its pale, delicate profile
was turned toward him, the eyes half closed. The mouth, arched like
Cupid's bow and partly open, disclosing the white, moistened teeth, and
red and luscious like some rare exotic fruit, was tempting enough to
madden a saint. Kenneth was only human. Unable to resist, he lowered
his head until his mouth grazed hers and then with a wild, almost
savage exclamation of joy, the exultant cry of lust awakened and
gratified, his lips met hers and lingered.
To Helen it seemed as though she was in a dream of untold ecstasy.
Always a shrinking, modest girl, especially in the company of the
opposite sex, in any calmer moment she would have been shocked beyond
expression at this momentary abandonment she permitted herself. As she
lay in this man's arms and felt his warm kisses on her lips, there came
over her a strange sensation she had never known before. She grew
dizzy and for a moment thought she would faint. All at once he
released her. Almost apologetically, he murmured:
"Forgive me--I lost control over myself--I want you Helen--I want you
for my wife. Will you marry me?"
She drew away and turned away her head, so he might not see her burning
cheeks.
He persisted.
"Will you marry me?"
She hesitated a moment before replying. Then, very simply, she
answered:
"Yes, Kenneth."
That was three years ago.
CHAPTER II
In a certain set Helen Traynor was not popular. Some people thought
her old fashioned, strait-laced, prudish. They resented her having no
taste for their frivolous, decadent amusements. They called her proud
and condescending whereas, as a matter of fact, she merely asked to be
let alone. Of course, it was only people whose opinions were worthless
that criticized her. All who were admitted to her intimacy knew that
there was no friend more loyal, no woman more womanly and charming.
In one respect she might be called old fashioned. Her views on life
had certainly little in common with those held by most present-day
women. She had no taste for bridge, she refused to adopt freak
fashions in dress, she discouraged the looseness of tone in speech and
manner so much affected by other women of her acquaintance--in a word
she was in society but not of it. Naturally, she had more
acquaintances than friends, yet she was not unpopular among her
intimates. While secretly they laughed at what they termed her
puritanical notions, they were shrewd enough to realize that they could
hardly afford to snub a woman whose husband occupied so prominent a
position in the world of affairs. Besides, was it not to their
interest to cultivate her? Who gave more delightful dinners, who could
on occasion be a more charming hostess? An accomplished musician, a
clever talker, she easily dominated in whatever salon she happened to
be, and the men were always found crowding eagerly around her.
Like most women of her temperament, sure of themselves and in whose
mind never enters even a thought of disloyalty to her marriage vows,
she made no concealment of her preference for the masculine sex. With
those men who were attracted by her unusual mentality,--she was
gracious, and affable, discussing with politicians, jurists,
financiers, economic and sociological questions with a brilliancy and
insight that fairly astonished them. With literary men and musicians,
she chatted intelligently of the latest novels and pictures and operas
with the facility and expertness of a connoisseur. Other men, drawn by
her exceptional beauty, fascinated by the spell of her soulful eyes,
her tall graceful figure, and delicate classic face, framed in Grecian
head dress, made violent love to her, their heated imaginations and
jaded senses conceiving a conquest compared with which the criminal
passion of Paolo for Francesca should pale. These would-be Lotharios
might as well have tried to set an iceberg on fire. Quietly, but
firmly and in unmistakable terms, she let them understand that they
were wasting their time and their ardor thus quenched, one by one they
dropped away and left her in peace. Only Signor Keralio had persisted.
She had snubbed him, insulted him, time after time, yet wherever she
turned she found him at her elbow. Society soon resigned itself to
considering her as one apart--a beautiful, chaste Juno whose ideals all
must respect. Indeed, the only thing with which she could be
reproached was that she was in love with her husband--the unpardonable
sin in society's eyes--but seeing who it was and despairing of ever
changing her point of view, society forgave her.
It never occurred to Helen that she was different in any way from other
women. She did not see how it was possible for a woman to be untrue to
the man whose name she bore and still retain her self-respect. The day
she ceased to love her husband she would leave him forever. To her way
of thinking, it was shocking to go on living with a man merely because
it suited one's convenience and comfort. She knew married women who
did not care for their husbands, some actually detested the men they
had married, and had always held in horror the intimate relation which
marriage sanctioned. She felt sorry for such women, but secretly she
despised them. They alone were to blame. Had they not married knowing
well that there was no real affection in their hearts for the men to
whom they gave themselves? The cynicism and effrontery of young girls
regarding marriage particularly revolted her. Eager for wealth and
social position, they offered themselves with brazen effrontery in the
matrimonial market, immodestly displaying their charms to the
lecherous, covetous eyes of blase, degenerate men. Any question of
attachment, love, affection was never for a moment considered. The
idea that a man could be even considered unless he were able to provide
a fine establishment was laughed to scorn. The girls were all men
hunters but they hunted only rich men. They called the feeling they
experienced for the man they caught in their toils "love." They meant
something quite different. To a girl of Helen's ideas, such manoeuvers
were shocking. To her the marriage tie was something sacred, a
relation not to be entered into lightly. Kenneth was rich, it was
true, but she would have loved him none the less had he been one of his
own fifteen dollar a week clerks. When they were married and the
romance was over, he stopped playing the lover to devote himself to the
more serious business of making money, but with her, time, instead of
dimming the flame, only caused it to burn the brighter. This man whom
she had married was her only thought. In him centered every interest
of her life.
A muffled outburst of profanity from Kenneth aroused her from her
reveries.
"That's always the way when one's in a hurry," he exclaimed petulantly.
"Ring for Francois. Why the devil isn't he here?"
Quickly, Helen sprang up from the trunk and touched an electric button.
"What's the matter, dear?" she asked.
She approached her husband who, at the far end of the room, was red in
the face from the unusual exertion of trying to coax the buckle of a
strap into a hole obviously out of reach. He pulled and strained till
the muscles stood out on his neck and brawny arms like whipcord, and
still the obstinate buckle declined to be coerced. The more it
resisted, the more determined he was to make it obey. Go in it must,
if sheer strength would do it. The vice-president of the
Americo-African Mining Company was no weakling. A six-foot athlete and
captain of the Varsity football team in his college days, his muscles
had been toughened in a thousand lively scrimmages and in later life
plenty of golf, rowing and other out-of-door sports had kept him in
condition. When he pulled hard something had to give way. It did in
this instance. There was a tearing, rending sound and the strap broke
off short. With a gesture of despair he turned to his wife as men are
wont to do when in trouble.
"Wouldn't that jar you?" he cried, as he threw the broken strap away.
"What the deuce am I going to do now?"
"Why don't you let Francois attend to such things?" answered his wife
calmly. "He understands packing so much better than you. You're so
strong, you break everything."
She looked fondly at her husband's tall, athletic figure. He turned to
her with a smile.
"I guess you're right," he said. "But where the devil is Francois?"
"I don't know. I sent him downstairs to tell the cook to have some
nice sandwiches ready when you come home after the director's meeting
tonight, but that's an hour ago----"
His ill humor gone, Kenneth looked up and smiled at her. Putting his
arm about her, fondly he said:
"Dear little wife. You're always thinking of the comfort of others.
You're the most unselfish, the most adorable, the most----"
"Stop, Kenneth, don't be foolish or I shall believe you----"
His face red from his recent exertions, he sat down on the arm of a
chair to rest a little. Full of the coming journey, he had already
forgotten his wife's anxiety. The great business schemes he had in
mind dwarfed for the time being every other consideration. He could
think and talk of nothing but diamonds. Huge crystals, worth untold
millions as big as a fist, flashed at him from every corner of the
room. Fabulous fortunes had been made in the diamond mines of South
Africa. Why should he not be as successful as others? The romance of
the Cullinan might be repeated, even surpassed. Well he recalled how
he had been thrilled by the sensational story of the discovery of that
colossal gem, more than three times the size of the Excelsior, the
wonder of the modern world. In imagination, he saw it now. An
old-fashioned Boer farm, transformed into a modern mining camp. A
moonlight night. A man strolling idly along the rugged, desolate
veldt, chances to look down. His eye suddenly catches a gleam in the
rough face of the jagged slope. He stoops and picks up what looks like
a piece of ice. Quickly he returns to his office and hands it to his
chief. The men look at each other in silence. To all parts of the
world goes the message that a diamond has been found four times bigger
than the largest gem in the world. A stone weighing over 3,000 carats
and worth four million dollars. He could already imagine himself far
from civilization among the barren mountains of South Africa,
prospecting in wide stretches of stone and gravel, picking up the
brilliant dazzling stones by the handful.
"Have you any idea," he said, "what the mines have produced?"
She shook her head indifferently.
"No, and I don't want to know. I don't want you to go--that's all."
"Their output in the last ten years is estimated at no less than
$400,000,000. Just think of it. Four hundred millions! Well, dear, I
and a few others want some of it, and we're going to get it."
"But aren't we rich enough already?" she demanded petulantly. "Why
this fever to get richer and richer? We are happy with what we have.
Why run the risks to gain what after all will only be a surplus? We
can't possibly spend it."
Her husband's eyes flashed. The lines about his mouth tightened as he
retorted:
"One never has enough! You women don't understand. As long as you
have all the amusement you crave, all the frocks you want, all the
jewelry you covet, you think that is all there is to life."
She looked up at him reproachfully and seemed about to protest when he
added hurriedly: