Ainslee's Magazine/The Great Discovery/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
The conversation at Peter's dinner table had turned to criminology. A murderer had been pardoned on account of extenuating circumstances, and a banker on Mrs. de Warren's left had expressed himself gratified by the home secretary's decision.
“We are growing more humane,” he said, sipping at his hock with critical satisfaction.
Wilfred Otway, on the other side of the table, looked up.
“You are quite satisfied that our humanity is really humane?” he asked quietly. It was almost the first time he had joined in a general conversation, and his vis-à-vis regarded him with a good-natured condescension.
“I scarcely understand you, doctor,” he said. “A member of your profession must surely be always on the side of mercy.”
“Mercy, yes—sentimentality, no. The deliberate conservation of a useless and even dangerous life does not appeal to me as humane.”
The financier stared, aghast, and Peter leaned across from his end of the table.
“Then you approve—you would encourage capital punishment?” he asked.
“No; that is a waste of life.”
There was a general, if scarcely perceptible, movement of impatience. Only Peter remained quietly, intensely absorbed.
“Doesn't that want explaining?”
“A doctor would understand me,” was the curt answer. “To men of our profession, life, diseased and healthy, is of the utmost value. We have always been hampered by the belief that to experiment with it is to offend against its sacredness. I venture to say that were the great discoverers and investigators of our time allowed to test their experiments on half a dozen men who had proved themselves otherwise valueless to their fellow creatures, millions would be relieved of unthinkable suffering; the next generation would be relieved of a dozen scourges.” He threw back his massive head, and a new light of enthusiasm flashed out of his deep-set eyes. “Let me suppose a case.
“In every hundred there is at least one man whom I will call an 'odd' life. Let me suppose further that a young doctor has made a discovery—say, In the matter of infectious diseases—which needs one dangerous, perhaps fatal, experiment before it can be perfected. Of what incalculable value would it be if the 'odd' life might be sacrificed in the cause of humanity!”
The banker emitted an angry exclamation:
“'Pon my word, what theories!”
“I don't think you would make a nice family doctor,” commented his wife, with a playful shake of the finger.
A faint smile softened the rugged severity of Otway's face.
“You need have no fear. I am the last person to risk my neck by experimenting without permission. And with permission”—he laughed—“I do not suppose there is a single man who realizes that he is either useless or an impediment, or who, having realized it, would sacrifice himself for the sake of others.”
It was by the merest chance, perhaps, that his eyes fastened themselves on Peter's, and for an instant the two men remained motionless, as though paralyzed by the recognition of their antagonism. It was the angry financier who broke the silence.
“Pray, are you the great investigator?” he asked sarcastically. “Have you got a diphtheria serum up your sleeve?”
Otway did not look at him.
“I have,” he said simply. “But an unproved discovery is worthless. I cannot experiment on myself, and I have not the wealth to buy myself a subject.”
“Good heavens, sir! Do you mean that if you could buy a man to consent you would experiment with his existence?”
“Yes,” was the deliberate answer. “For the sake of the other millions.”
Enid Warren rose to her feet. She had grown deadly pale, and when she passed through the door which Otway held open for her she turned her head away from him as though to avoid his eyes. The banker gulped down a mouthful of wine.
“You doctors oughtn't to be allowed in society,” he said. “Didn't you see how upset Mrs. de Warren was?”
“Perhaps my wife was moved—by a train of thought,” said Peter de Warren, with his eyes on the tablecloth.
Half an hour later the three men entered the drawing-room. It seemed a mere chance that Mrs. de Warren was standing near the curtained doorway which led into her boudoir. It was with an apparently careless friendliness that she beckoned Otway to her side,
“I have some old memories to show you,” she said, smiling, “old pictures. Would you care to see them?”
He bowed and followed her. In the daintily furnished room, with its pink-shaded lights, his tall figure in the threadbare evening dress looked out of place. His face, hard and defiant, was almost incongruous. She stood opposite him, the little table with the photos between, and looked at him with a tense eagerness, as though striving to satisfy some desperate hunger. He returned the gaze, but without a trace of softening in his set features.
“You ought to have spared me this,” he said between his clenched teeth. “I came here because you claimed the right to see me. Your dinner was excellent, but I am not starving. Your friends are all that is delightful, but I am out of my element among them. As it is, I have disturbed the placid waters of their self-content. I suppose I have helped to feed your vanity. May I go?”
“Have you really the right to speak like that?” she said gravely.
He shrugged his shoulders
“I have the right to spare myself unnecessary suffering.”
“I also.” She held her head with a new courage. “I have suffered a year, and now I have the right to demand peace. I have the right to explain—to atone.”
“What is there to explain?” he asked coldly. “Do you imagine that atonement is so easy?”
“Wait! Wilfred, we have only a few minutes together—perhaps for the last time; you must listen. A year ago you went away without a word. I wrote to you; you returned my letters unread.”
He burst into a rough laugh.
“I'm sorry; I wasn't in the mood for feminine explanations, dainty prettinesses, varnished lies. It was for your father's sake, no doubt. I believe that is the correct excuse, is it not? Forgive me; I accept in advance everything you want to tell me, but I do not want to hear it. The matter is closed.”
The tears rushed to her eves, and for an instant she stretched out her hand with such silent pleading that he hesitated, looking at her with sullen, bitter eyes.
“Oh, Wilfred! Are men so forgetful? Is a year long enough to bring forgetfulness?”
“No, unluckily.” The response broke from him against his will, and he clenched his fists in a movement of impotent resentment. “Why do you force all this from me? Is it a satisfaction to you to know that you put the finishing stroke to my misery—a misery that I can't shake off—that haunts me—paralyzes me? You have your husband, your wealth, your pleasure. You sold yourself for these things.”
“Are you sure?”
“Or for your father's sake. What do I care? It was not for me.”
“Are you sure?” He swung round, startled by the intensity of her question.
“I don't understand”
“Hasn't it ever struck you I might have 'sold' myself for something greater—for the sake of something dearer to you than even I was?”
“Enid, before Heaven, I loved no one but you—I love no one but you!”
“Not even your work?”
He started back a step like a man who has been blinded by a sudden flash of light.
“My work? Yes, my work stands above every earthly consideration. Yes, that's true; it must do if I am to succeed.”
“And do you imagine I did not think of that when the great choice was put before me?”
“Enid!”
“Don't you think that I realized all my refusal—my acceptance—meant to you?” she went on passionately. “If I refused, you might after many years have won a wife who would have hung like a millstone about your neck. If I accepted, I made it possible to make good, to help you to your end. There!” She took a sealed packet from the table, and laid it before him. “That is mine to give you; that is the price for which I 'sold' myself; that is what I have saved from the pleasures which you think I hold so dear. Take it—if, indeed, your work is above all earthly consideration.”
“Enid, I can't! Do you think I have no—self-respect?”
“If you refuse, then you love your pride more than you loved me—or your duty.”
He stood silent, the sealed package in his hand, his brows knitted with the violence of the conflict, and she went on with a regained calm:
“Not even your pride need feel offended. The world knows that I have dedicated myself to the cause of suffering. There are half a dozen research funds which are more to me than I need tell you. If I help you I help my fellow creatures through you. I shall tell my husband to-night of what I have done.”
He drew a deep, shuddering sigh, as though relieved from some frightful inward suspense.
“You are right,” he said slowly. “I must accept. Neither your feelings or mine must weigh in the balance. With—this—I should have opportunities—which I have waited for—of immeasurable value—at one bound, perhaps.” He spoke like a man calculating to himself aloud. He was even smiling a little, a tight-lipped smile of a soldier who sees victory after long battle; and the woman beside him was forgotten. Suddenly, by the merest chance, his roving eyes encountered her face, and in an instant he was at her side, grasping her wrist with a reckless passion. “Enid, do you think I am satisfied? Do you think I am going my way—even to my work—without you? Do you think I don't see what you've paid? Make your gift complete! What is he to you—a poor, puny coward?”
She wrenched herself free. A wave of hot color brought the ebbing life back to her cheeks.
“He is my husband!” she said clearly. “And that is his money. Don't you understand? If I were disloyal I couldn't do it. It is only because it is all over between us that I have the right.” Her voice broke, and she stretched out her hand with a little, unsteady smile. “Oh, Wilfred, don't take the consolation from me that I have helped you. Go away—forget me—fulfill your destiny. That will be happiness enough for us both.”
He shook his head.
“Not for me. I'll go ahead, because I'm not the sort that lets themselves be stamped out; but I've been cheated of the one happiness that made my life worth while to myself, and, by God, if ever I find the man who has made us suffer”
He stopped short, and as she saw his drawn, gray face, her own hardened.
“If it was, indeed, done purposely, then even I would not spare him,” she said.
And it was at that moment that Peter pushed aside the curtains.
“Enid” he began, and then stood still, looking from one to the other.
They, too, looked at him in that tense moment of suppressed emotion with a conscious antagonism touched with contempt. He seemed to feel it. The smile died from his small face.
“Won't you come and sing to us a little?” he asked mechanically.
She laughed, and the sound rang ugly in the heavy quiet.
“Of course I will sing—as much as ever you like,” she said, and led the way. The two men followed her in silence.