What Will People Say? A Novel
either to go away with me or to stay here without me."
"You've got to stay here and help me fight."
"I tell you I won't fight such a battle. It isn't fighting; it's
cowardice, it's treachery. Decide now, once for all. Give me up or free
yourself from Enslee and become my wife. You advised Alice to run away;
you can't go back on your own advice."
"Oh, but the elopement of a young unmarried couple is a pretty romance;
ours would be a hideous scandal."
"But we're all smothered in scandal now. Everybody is talking about
us--everybody. The only way to make our love right is to come out before
the world and proclaim it."
"And even now, when I should be thinking of you, all I can think of is
what they'll be saying of me to-morrow."
"If we do the best we can what difference does it make what people say?
Persis, I'd rather die than endure another hour of this underhand life.
But I can't give you up. I can't leave you here to the mercy of these
people and the evil influences around you. I offer you happiness. We
shall be together always. You can't refuse."
"You're right, of course. I've got to decide. I'm afraid to be alone.
I'll go with you. Give me just one moment to get my cloak. I--I can't
very well go like this, though, can I--in an opera-gown and tiara? I
must change to a traveling-suit. And Willie expects me to go to the
opera."
The little things, the little briery things of life were holding her
fast, tripping her headlong desires. She grew more irresolute with
delay. "It's a terrible step, and it means the end of me. Everybody will
cut me dead on the street. My own father will never speak to me again.
The newspapers will be full of it. They'll only remember the scandal
when they see us. It will follow us everywhere, and come between us and
turn even you against me."
Then she shivered and sank into a chair helpless.
"I can't go, Harvey, I just can't go. I'm afraid of what people will
say."
That was the acid phrase that turned his love to hate, his adoration to
disgust. He broke the vials of his wrath upon her head.
"What will people say?" he sneered. "Is that all you can think of? Why,
that has become your religion, Persis. You can stand the lying--the
sneaking--the treachery--can't you? You've courage enough for the
crimes, but when it comes to consequences, you're a coward, eh? But I'm
not afraid of the consequences. I'm afraid of the crimes. I'm not afraid
of the gossips, but of giving them cause. I offered you protection,
devotion. I wanted to rescue our honor. But you--what do you care for
me--for love--for honor? You care only for yourself and for what people
will say--well, you'll soon know. But I won't help you to ruin your
life. I won't let you ruin mine. I'm sorry I ever saw you. Before God,
I'll never see you again!"
He turned to go. A cry of anguish broke from her. She rushed in pursuit
of him, flung her arms about him, sobbing: "No, no, I won't let you!
You've no right to leave me. I've given up everything for you. I've
been everything to you. You can't leave me! Don't, don't, don't!"
He was too deeply embittered to have mercy. Her panic only angered him
the more. He ripped her hands from his shoulders, jeering at her: "Agh,
you're faithless to your duty to your husband, faithless to your love of
me, faithless to everybody--everything."
"Don't say that, Harvey," she pleaded, brokenly. "Take that back."
"You've killed my trust," he raged. "You've killed my love. I hate the
sight of you."
She put her hand over his cruel mouth to silence it. "Don't let me hear
that from you--pity me, pity me!"
He tried to break her intolerable clasp, but she fought back to him.
Abruptly she ceased to resist. She just stared past him. Startled, he
looked where she stared. She whispered:
"Some one is behind that curtain--listening!"
The curtain trembled, and she gasped again: "Look!"
A shudder of uneasiness shook him, but he muttered: "It's only a draught
from somewhere."
"Perhaps it is," she answered, weakly. "I feel all cold." And then she
stared again and whispered: "No! See! There's a hand there in the
curtain!"
And Forbes could descry the muffled outlines of fingers clutching the
heavy fabric. He hesitated a moment, then he moved forward.
She put out her arm and stayed him, and spoke with abrupt
self-possession. "No, it is my place." Then she called, hoarsely:
"Crofts, is that you? Crofts!" There was no answer, but the talons
seemed to grip the shivering arras tighter. She called again: "Nichette!
Dobbs! Who's there?"
There was no answer.
"It's none of the servants," she whispered. Then, after a pause of
tremulous hesitation, she strode to the curtain and hurled it back with
a clash of rings. It disclosed Willie Enslee cowering in ambush. He held
a silver-handled revolver in his hand.
CHAPTER LXVI
A little groan of dismay broke from Persis' lips as she rushed between
Forbes and the danger, interposing her body to protect his. Forbes
seized her and thrust her away and leaped toward Enslee.
But Enslee darted aside and, running behind a great carved table,
covered Forbes with the revolver, and cried, in a quivering voice,
"Don't you move or I'll fire!"
Forbes smiled grimly at the plight, and spoke with the calm of the
doomed. "All right, if you want to. It's your privilege. But I wouldn't
if I were you. In the first place, I'm sure you'd miss; you don't hold
your revolver like a marksman."
"The first shot might miss," Enslee admitted; "but there are five
others."
"You'd never pull the trigger a second time," said Forbes, icily. "And
there's not one chance in a thousand of that toy stopping me. I've got
two bullets in me now--from real guns. And I'm not dead yet. If you
should wing me, though, I'm afraid you'd never shoot a second time, for
I'd have you by the wrist and by the throat--and I'd strangle you to
death before I realized what I was doing."
Enslee quaked with terror, less of Forbes than of his own fatal
opportunities and his own weapon; Forbes began to edge imperceptibly
closer and closer as he reasoned with the wretch, who, having lost the
momentum of his frenzy, was a prey to reason.
"After all, what good would it do to shed a lot of blood?" Forbes urged,
gently, as to a child. "It would only publish your disgrace. Besides,
people don't indulge in pistol-play any more. It's out of style, man.
That ought to appeal to you, if nothing else will. And then it's so
unjust. Why kill a man because your wife preferred him to you? It's a
free country, isn't it? What does a man want with a wife who doesn't
want him? The days of slavery are over, aren't they? If she doesn't love
you enough to--" There was such a pitiful sag of Enslee's head at this
stab that Forbes spared him more, and went on soothingly: "Better let
this whole affair just drop. I was going away. She wouldn't go with me.
She didn't love me enough, either. She preferred to stay with you. I'll
never see her again. I promise that."
He put his right hand out appealingly. "Come, let's make the best of it
and cheat the gossips."
One quick motion and he had struck Enslee's wrist aside and down, and
clamped it to the table with his left hand. It was hardly necessary to
press his thumb between Enslee's knuckles to force his inert fingers
open. Forbes picked up the revolver, pressed the catch to the safety,
and dropped it into his pocket. Then he breathed a deep sigh, less of
relief than regret, and turned to go. He almost stumbled over the body
of Persis. She had swooned to the floor when he thrust her off, and had
lain unnoticed while the males fought through their feud on her account.
Forbes stared down at her. Shame and anger had so burned him out that he
had no love left for her and no mercy. She seemed an utter stranger to
him. He did not even stoop and lift her to a chair. He shook his head,
smiled bitterly, and went out.
Enslee hung across the table in a stupor of imbecility. The noise of the
outer door, as Forbes closed it, shocked him back to life. He peered
about the room and understood. He dropped into a chair and hid his face
in his hands.
By and by Persis gradually returned to consciousness. She rose to her
elbow in a daze, striving to collect her senses. With a sudden start she
recalled everything, got to her knees, and hobbled with all awkwardness
toward Enslee, whispering, haggardly: "Have you killed him? Where is
he?"
"Gone!"
"Gone! No, no! No, no!" She raised herself to her feet to set out in
pursuit of him, but just as she reached the door she was confronted by
Crofts, who bowed once and walked away.
Persis' training and her heart fought a duel in her quivering frame.
Then she gained her self-control, turned to Willie, and murmured:
"Dinner."
The marvelously inappropriate word sent through him a shudder of nausea.
Persis appealed to his other self. "Must we take the servants into our
confidence?"
"I think you may trust my breeding," he answered, frigidly. He stalked
woodenly to the door, held back the curtain, and bowed with mechanical
gallantry.
"Thank you!" she sighed. She wavered a moment and clutched at her
throat. Then she flung her head high in that thoroughbred way of hers
and walked steadily from the room.
And Willie followed in excellent form.
CHAPTER LXVII
In the famous Enslee dining-room, where brilliant companies had gathered
for a generation, giving and taking distinctions, and where Persis in
her brief reign had mustered cohorts of pleasure that outgleamed them
all, only two chairs were drawn up to the table; and that was contracted
to its smallest circle. All the other chairs were aligned along the
white marble walls with a solemn look as of envious, uninvited ghosts
sitting with hands on knees and brooding. The walls were broken with
dark columns like giant servants, and between them hung tapestries as
big as sails. The tapestries told in a woven serial the story of
"Tristram and La Beale Isoud."
Only three servants waited now: Roake and Chedsey--in the somber Enslee
livery, whispering together as they straightened a rose stem or balanced
a group of silver--and Crofts, eternally bent in an attitude of
deference, standing near the door--the great golden portal ripped from
the Spanish castle of one of the senior Mrs. Enslee's ancestors.
For all their listening the servants had been unable to learn the
details of the immediate wrangle, though they knew that war was in the
air.
Crofts had kept them at their tasks and at a distance, and Crofts either
had not heard or would not have told if one of them had presumed to ask
him.
He had lived through so many family tragedies that he rather celebrated
in his heart a day of good spirits than remarked a period of stress. And
of all times, he felt, a good servant shows his quality best when the
atmosphere is sultry with quarrel and a precarious truce is declared in
the dining-room. To Crofts that was a temple for peace and perfect
ceremony. There flourished the genius for self-effacement and the
invisible, inaudible provision of whatever might be needed, that made
service a high art, a priesthood.
Crofts, in his plain black, slightly obsolete evening dress, looking
rather like a poor relation than a servant, had been in his day an
aristocrat among servants. To-night he was old and alarmed. He had seen,
when he announced the dinner, that he broke in upon some unusually
desperate conflict, and his old heart fluttered with terror. He had
heard so much gossip at the servants' table, such ribald comment and
interchange of eavesdroppings, that he wondered what new stain
threatened the old glory of Enslee.
He loved the new Mrs. Enslee. All the servants did--as much as they