The Fighting Chance

“What is it?” she faltered, catching his eye; “why do you—why are you so white?”

But he only smiled, as though he had misunderstood, saying:

“The survival of the fittest; that is the only test, after all. The man who makes good doesn’t whine for justice. There’s enough of it in the world to go round, and he who misses it gets all that’s due him just the same.”

Later, at cards, the aromatic odour from Alderdene’s decanter roused him to fierce desire, but he fought it down until only the deadened, tearing ache remained to shake and loosen every nerve. And when Ferrall, finishing his usual batch of business letters, arrived to cut in if needed, Siward dropped his cards with a shudder, and rose so utterly unnerved that Captain Voucher, noticing his drawn face, asked him if he were not ill.

He was leaving on an earlier train than the others, having decided to pass through Boston and Deptford, at which latter place he meant to leave Sagamore for the winter in care of the manager of his mother’s farm. So he took a quiet leave of those to whom the civility might not prove an interruption—a word to Alderdene and Voucher as he passed out, a quick clasp for Ferrall and for Grace, a carefully and cordially formal parting from the Page boys, which pleased them ineffably.

Eileen and Rena, who had never had half a chance at him, took it now, delighted to discipline their faithful Pages; and he submitted in his own engagingly agreeable way, and so skilfully that both Eileen and Rena felt sorry that they had not earlier understood how civilly anxious he had been to devote himself to them alone. And they looked at the Pages, exasperated.

In the big hall he passed Marion, and stopped to take his leave.

No, he would do no hunting this season either at Carysford or with the two trial packs at Eastwood. Possibly at Warrenton later, but probably not; business threatened to detain him in town more or less.... Of course he’d come to see her when she returned to town.... And it had been a jolly party, and it was a shame to sound “lights out” so soon! Good-bye. …Good night. And that was all.

And that was all, unless he disturbed Sylvia, seated at cards with Quarrier and Major Belwether and Leila Mortimer—and very intent on the dummy, very still, and a trifle pallid with the pallor of concentration.

So—that was all, then.

Ascending the stairs, a servant handed him a letter bearing the crest of the Lenox Club. He pocketed it unopened and continued his way.

In the darkness of his own room he sat down, the devil’s own clutch on his shrinking nerves, a deathly desire tearing at his very vitals, and every vein a tiny trail of fire run riot. He had been too long without it, too long to endure the craving aroused by that gay draught from Quarrier’s loving-cup.

The awakened fury of his desire appalled him, and for a while that occupied him, enabling him to endure. But fear and dismay soon passed in the purely physical distress; he walked the floor, haggard, the sweat starting on his face; he lay with clenched hands, stiffened out across the bed, deafened by the riotous clamour of his pulses, conscious that he was holding out, unconscious how long he could hold out.

Crisis after crisis swept him; sometimes he found his feet and moved blindly about the room.

Strange periods of calm intervened; sensation seemed deadened; and he stood as a man who listens, scarcely daring to breathe lest the enemy awake and seize him.

He turned on the light, later, to look for his pipe, and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. It was a sick man who stared back at him out of hollow eyes, and the physical revulsion shocked him into something resembling self-command.

“Damn you!” he said fiercely, setting his teeth and staring back at his reflected face, “I’ll kill you yet before I’ve finished with you!”

Then he filled his pipe, and opening his bedroom window, sat down, resting his arm on the sill. A splendid moon silvered the sea; through the intense stillness he heard the surf, magnificently dissonant among the reefs, and he listened, fascinated, loathing the tides as he feared and loathed the inexorable tides that surged and ebbed with his accursed desire.

Once he said to himself, weakly—for he was deadly tired—“What am I making the fight for, anyway?” And “Who are you making the fight for?” echoed his heavy pulses.

He had asked that question and received that answer before. After all, it had been for his mother’s sake alone. And now—and now?—his heart beat out another answer; and before his eyes two other eyes seemed to open, fearlessly, sweetly, divinely tender. But they were no longer his mother’s grave, gray eyes.

After the second pipe he remembered his letter. It gave him something to do, so he opened it and tried to read it, but for a long while, in his confused physical and mental condition, he could make no sense of it.

Little by little he began to comprehend its purport that his resignation was regretfully requested by the governors of the Lenox Club for reasons unassigned.

The shock of the thing came to him after a while, like a distant, dull report long after the flash of the explosion. Well, the affair, bad enough at first, was turning worse, that was all. How much of that sort of discredit could a man stand and keep his balance?… And what would his mother say?

Confused from his own physical suffering, the blow had fallen with a deadened force on nerves already numbed; but his half-stupefied acquiescence had suddenly become a painful recoil when he remembered where the brunt of the disgrace would fall—where the centre of suffering must always be, and the keenest grief concentrated. Roused, appalled, almost totally unnerved, he stood staring at the letter, beginning to realise what it would mean to his mother. A passion of remorse and resentment swept him. She must be spared that! There must be some way—some punishment for his offence that could not strike her through him! It was wicked, it was contemptible, insane, to strike her! What were the governors of the Lenox about—a lot of snivelling hypocrites, pandering to the horrified snobbery at the Patroons! Who were they, anyway, to discipline him! Scarce one in fifty among the members of the two clubs was qualified to sit in judgment on a Siward!

But that tempest of passion and mortification passed, too, leaving him standing there, dumb, desperate, staring at the letter crushed in his shaking hand.

He must see somebody, some member of the Lenox, and do something—something! Ferrall! Was that Ferrall’s step on the landing?

He sprang to the door and opened it. Quarrier, passing the corridor, turned an expressionless visage toward him, and passed on with a nod almost imperceptible.

“Quarrier!” he called, swept by a sudden impulse.

Quarrier halted and turned.

“Could you give me a moment—here in my room? I won’t detain you.”

The faint trace of surprise faded from Quarrier’s face; he quietly retraced his steps, and, entering Siward’s room, stood silently confronting its pallid tenant.

“Will you sit down a moment?”

Quarrier seated himself in the arm-chair by the window, and Siward found a chair opposite.

“Quarrier,” said the younger man, turning a tensely miserable face on his visitor, “I want to ask you something. I’ll not mince matters. You know that the Patroons have dropped me, and you know what for.”

“Yes, I know.”

“When I was called before the Board of Governors to explain the matter, if I could, you were sitting on that Board.”

“Yes.”

“I denied the charge, but refused to explain.... You remember?”

Quarrier nodded coldly.

“And I was dropped by the club!”

A slight inclination of Quarrier’s symmetrical head corroborated him.

“Now,” said Siward, slowly and very distinctly, “I shall tell you unofficially what I refused to tell the other governors officially.” And, as he began speaking, Quarrier’s face flushed, then the features became immobile, set, and inert, and his eyes grew duller and duller, as though, under a smooth surface the soul inside of him was shrinking back into some dark corner, silent, watchful, suspicious, and perhaps defiant.

“Mr. Quarrier,” said Siward quietly, “I did not take that girl to the Patroons Club—and you know it.”

Quarrier was all surface now; he had drawn away internally so far that even his eyes seemed to recede until they scarcely glimmered through the slits in his colourless mask. And Siward went on:

“I knew perfectly well what sort of women I was to meet at that fool supper Billy Fleetwood gave; and you must have, too, for the girl you took in was no stranger to you.... Her name is Lydia Vyse, I believe.”

The slightest possible glimmer in the elder man’s eyes was all the answer he granted.

“What happened,” said Siward calmly, “was this: She bet me she could so disguise herself that I could safely take her into any club in New York. I bet her she couldn’t. I never dreamed of trying. Besides, she was your—dinner partner,” he added with a shrug.

His concentrated gaze seemed at length to pierce the expressionless surface of the other man, who moved slightly in his chair and moistened his thin lips under the glossy beard.

“Quarrier,” said Siward earnestly, “What happened in the club lobby I don’t exactly know, because I was not in a condition to know. I admit it; that was the trouble with me. When I left Fleetwood’s rooms I left with a half dozen men. I remember crossing Fifth Avenue with them; and the next thing I remember distinctly was loud talking in the club lobby, and a number of men there, and a slim young fellow in Inverness and top hat in the centre of a crowd, whose face was the face of that girl, Lydia Vyse. And that is absolutely all. But I couldn’t do more than deny that I took her there unless I told what I knew; and of course that was not possible, even in self-defence. But it was for you to admit that I was right. And you did not. You dared not! You let another man blunder into your private affairs and fall a victim to circumstantial evidence which you could have refuted; and it was up to you to say something! And you did not!… And now—what are you going to do? The Lenox Club has taken this thing up. A man can’t stand too much of that sort of thing. What am I to do? I can’t defend myself by betraying my accidental knowledge of your petty, private affairs. So I leave it to you. I ask you what are you going to do?”

“Do you mean”—Quarrier’s voice was not his own, and he brought it harshly under command—“do you mean that you think it necessary for me to say I knew her? What object would be attained by that? I did not take her to the Patroons’.”

“Nor did I. Ask her how she got there. Learn the truth from her, man!”

“What proof is there that I ever met her before I took her into supper at Fleetwood’s?”

“Proof! Are you mad? All I ask of you is to say to the governors what I cannot say without using your name.”

“You wish me,” asked Quarrier icily, “to deny that you made that wager? I can do that.”

“You can’t do it! I did make that bet.”

“Oh! Then, what is it you wish me to say?”

“Tell them the truth. Tell them you know I did not take her to the club. You need not tell them why you know it. You need not tell them how much you know about her, whose brougham she drove home in. I can’t defend myself at your expense—intrench myself behind your dirty little romance. What could I say? I denied taking her to the club. Then Major Belwether confronted me with my wager. Then I shut up. And so did you, Quarrier—so did you, seated there among the governors, between Leroy Mortimer and Belwether. It was up to you, and you did not stir!”

“Stir!” echoed the other man, exasperated. “Of course I did not stir. What did I know about it? Do you think I care to give a man like Mortimer a hold on me by admitting I knew anything?—or Belwether—do you think I care to have that man know anything about my private and personal business? Did you expect me to say that I was in a position to prove anything one way or another? And,” he added with increasing harshness, “how do you know what I might or might not prove? If she went to the Patroons Club, I did not go with her; I did not see her; I don’t know whether or not you took her.”

“I have already told you that I did not take her,” said Siward, turning whiter.

“You told that to the governors, too. Tell them again, if you like. I decline to discuss this matter with you. I decline to countenance your unwarranted intrusion into what you pretend to believe are my private affairs. I decline to confer with Belwether or Mortimer. It’s enough that you are inclined to meddle—” His cold anger was stirring. He rose to his full, muscular height, slow, menacing, his long, pale fingers twisting his silky beard. “It’s enough that you meddle!” he repeated. “As for the matter in question, a dozen men, including myself, heard you make a wager; and later I myself was a witness that the terms of that wager had been carried out to the letter. I know absolutely nothing except that, Mr. Siward; nor, it appears, do you, for you were drunk at the time, and you have admitted it to me.”

“I have asked you,” said Siward, rising, and very grave, “I have asked you to do the right thing. Are you going to do it?”

“Is that a threat?” inquired Quarrier, showing the edges of his well-kept teeth. “Is this intimidation, Mr. Siward? Do I understand that you are proposing to bespatter others with scandal unless I am frightened into going to the governors with the flimsy excuse you attempt to offer me? In other words, Mr. Siward, are you bent on making me pay for what you believe you know of my private life? Is it really intimidation?”

And still Siward stared into his half-veiled, sneering eyes, speechless.

“There is only one name used for this kind of thing,” added Quarrier, taking a quick involuntary step backward to the door as the blaze of fury broke out in Siward’s eyes.

“Good God! Quarrier,” whispered Siward with dry lips, “what a cur you are! What a cur!”

And long after Quarrier had passed the door and disappeared in the corridor, Siward stood there, frozen motionless under the icy waves of rage that swept him.

He had never before had an enemy worth the name; he knew he had one now. He had never before hated; he now understood something of that, too. The purely physical craving to take this man and crush him into eternal quiescence had given place to a more terrible mental desire to punish. His brain surged and surged under the first flood of a mortal hatred. That the hatred was sterile made it the more intense, and, blinded by it, he stood there or paced the room minute after minute, hearing nothing but the wild clamour in his brain, seeing nothing but the smooth, expressionless face of the man whom he could not reach.

Toward midnight, seated in his chair by the window, a deathly lassitude weighing his heart, he heard the steps of people on the stairway, the click of the ascending elevator, gay voices calling good night, a ripple of laughter, the silken swish of skirts in the corridor, doors opening and closing; then silence creeping throughout the house on the receding heels of departure—a stillness that settled like a mist through hall and corridor, accented for a few moments by distant sounds, then absolute, echoless silence. And for a long while he sat there listening.

The cool wind from the ocean blew his curtains far into the room, where they bellied out, fluttering, floating, subsiding, only to rise again in the freshening breeze. He sat watching their silken convolutions, stupidly, for a while, then rose and closed his window, and raised the window on the south for purposes of air.

As he turned to adjust his transom, something white thrust under the door caught his eye, and he walked over and drew it across the sill. It was a sealed note. He opened it, reading it as he walked back to the drop-light burning beside his bed:

“Did you not mean to say good-bye? Because it is to be good-bye for a long, long time—for all our lives—as long as we live—as long as the world lasts, and longer.... Good-bye—unless you care to say it to me.”

He stood studying the note for a while; presently, lighting a match, he set fire to it and carried it blazing to the grate and flung it in, watching the blackened ashes curl up, glow, whiten, and fall in flakes to the hearth. Then he went out into the corridor, and traversed the hall to the passage which led to the bay-window. There was nobody there. The stars looked in on him, twinkling with a frosty light; beneath, the shadowy fronds of palms traced a pale pattern on the glass roof of the swimming pool. He waited a moment, turned, retraced his steps to his own door and stood listening. Then, moving swiftly, he walked the length of the corridor, and, halting at her door, knocked once.

After a moment the door swung open. He stepped forward into the room, closing the door behind him, and confronted the tall girl standing there silhouetted against the lamp behind her.

“You are insane to do this!” she whispered. “I let you in for fear you’d knock again!”

“I went to the bay-window,” he said.

“You went too late. I was there an hour ago. I waited. Do you know what time it is?”

“Come to the bay-window,” he said, “if you fear me here.”

“Do you know it is nearly three o’clock?” she repeated. “And you leave at six.

“Shall we say good-bye here?” he asked coolly.

“Certainly. I dare not go out. And you—do you know the chances we are running? You must be perfectly mad to come to my room. Do you think anybody could have seen—heard you—”

“No. Good night.” He offered his hand; she laid both of hers in it. He could scarcely distinguish her features where she stood dark against the brilliant light behind her.

“Good-bye,” he whispered, kissing her hands where they lay in his.

“Good-bye.” Her fingers closed convulsively, retaining his hands. “I hope—I think that—you—” Her head was drooping; she could not control her voice.

“Good-bye, Sylvia,” he said again.

It was quite useless, she could not speak; and when he took her in his arms she clung to him, quivering; and he kissed the wet lashes, and the hot, trembling lips, and the smooth little hands crushed to his breast.

“We have a year yet,” she gasped. “Dear, take me by force before it ends. I—I simply cannot endure this. I told you to take me—to tear me from myself. Will you do it? I will love you—truly, truly! Oh, my darling, my darling! Don’t—don’t give me up! Can’t you do something for us? Can’t you—”

“Will you come with me now?”

“How can—”

“Will you?”

A sudden sound broke out in the night—the distant pealing of the lodge-gate bell. Startled, she shrank back; somebody in the adjoining room had sprung to the floor and was opening the window.

“What is it?” she motioned with whitening lips. “Quick! oh, quick, before you are seen! Grace may come! I—I beg of you to go!”

As he stepped into the corridor he heard, below, a sound at the great door, and the stirring of the night watchman on post. At his own door he turned, listening to the movement and whispering. Ferrall, in dressing-gown and slippers, stepped into the corridor; below, the chains were rattling as the wicket swung open. There was a brief parley at the door, sounds of retreating steps on the gravel outside, sounds of approaching steps on the stairway.

“What’s that? A telegram?” said Ferrall sharply. “Here, give it to me.... Wait! It isn’t for me. It’s for Mr Siward!”

Siward, standing at his open door, swayed slightly. A thrill of pure fear struck him through and through. He laid one hand on the door to steady himself, and stepped forward as Ferrall came up.

“Oh! You’re awake, Stephen. Here’s a telegram.” He extended his hand. Siward took the yellow envelope, fumbled it, tore it open.

“Good God!” whispered Ferrall; “is it bad?”

And Siward’s glazed eyes stared and stared at the scrawled and inky message:

“YOUR MOTHER IS VERY ILL. COME AT ONCE.”

The signature was the name of their family physician, Grisby.