The Law-bringers/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
"THE THIEF ON THE LEFT"
"Dick!"
Tempest called from his bed-room; the little room behind the little sitting room which Dick had seldom entered. But Dick came to the door now, standing still, with his lips drawn into a peculiar smile.
"Well?" he said, and Tempest turned from the dressing-table.
"Come in, and shut the door, old man," he said. And Dick came in. His chance to explain this matter, convincingly and pleasantly, was for now.
Except for a square of black plaster above the sun-burnt line across his temple, Tempest showed no signs of last night's happenings. His voice was warm and strong, and his eyes smiled.
"You've had a busy day," he said. "But I haven't been idle, either. About half a dozen fellows have come in for moral support of some kind."
"Yes? You will always find plenty who will tie up to you for repairs."
"Except you." Tempest shifted the brushes on the dressing-table slowly. "You've gone your own pernicious way, you old sinner, while—if you'd had the honesty to speak to me, there'd have been no need—for all this."
Even the cynicism ingrained in him could not help Dick just now. He loved Tempest too well.
"I had forgotten that men expected honesty from me," he said. "What is it?"
"Andree has told me," said Tempest quietly. "That was enough. And I saw those paintings of yours if I had needed more proof. I would have wished you hadn't done them. But you probably didn't guess that they would be made public. She's not mine to give up, now. But I want you to know that if she was I could give her up to you, Dick. Only—for God's sake take care of her, for she doesn't know the meaning of life yet."
His voice was low and steady. The ring of it told Dick that Tempest had turned his face to the heights again, and that it was for himself to call the man back into a hell which he did not care to think of.
"You've put up a good fight," said Tempest, and he suddenly lifted his eyes and smiled. "Don't think I haven't noticed what you've looked like lately. But nature has been too strong for you both—and all a man in my position can do is to give way gracefully. I hope I can do that. I've got my work—and I've got my friend. So you can go into action with a clear conscience, old man," he added, and held his hand out.
Dick did not take it. He backed away with his face white.
"You're all wrong," he said slowly. "I don't want her."
Tempest's eyes were shining and over his whole body glowed that something which made Dick remember the idiotic girl and the Sun-treader.
"There's no need of lies between you and I, Dick," he said gently.
"It is not a lie." Dick moistened his lips and flung out the words savagely. "She was ruining your life and she had to come out of it. So I took her out of it. You'll never get her again. But I don't want her. I never did want her. But she was ruining you."
The bald brutality of each word struck him as he spoke it. But the thing had to be said, and no words conceived by man could soften it. And therefore he did not try. Tempest looked at him. His face was blank, like that of a man in sleep.
"Will you please say that again—all of it?" he said slowly.
Dick said it again. He said it in the same words because they seemed to ring in the air yet. And besides, there were no others. Tempest gave a little sigh. His hand strayed among the brushes on the dressing-table.
"I'm afraid I don't understand," he said. "There's no need for this. I have told you that I don't mean to be a barrier to your marriage."
"I am not going to marry her," said Dick.
The life came back to Tempest's face in one white terrible flash.
"What do you mean by that?" he said.
"What I say. She is not fit for you. I told you so long ago. Now I have proved it."
"Proved it?"
"She is—nothing," said Dick. "I could do what I liked with her. So could any man who took the trouble to flatter her. She is—just that!"
He snapped his fingers, looking straight at the man opposite. This was not at all the way in which he had meant to speak. But softer words were too foreign to him. They would not come.
"You say you have proved it." Tempest's mind travelled slowly through this blinding fire. "How have you proved it?"
"Before God, Tempest"
"Leave God out. How have you proved it?"
"I have flattered her. That was bait enough to take her from you. She never loved you, and she doesn't love me. She loves nothing but her own selfish body—she hasn't got a soul."
"You said you could do what you liked with her. What have you liked to do?"
The tone was perfectly level, but there was a thread in it which thrilled Dick. Had he saved this soul for which he had soiled his own, or were they both going down presently together into the night?
"I have kissed her," said Dick. "That is all. I didn't care to do more or I could have done it."
"You didn't care to do more." Tempest looked away at the glass; did not seem to recognise the face reflected there, and looked away again. "Why did you not care to do more?" he asked.
Dick's self-control was breaking.
"Because I'm not such a brute as you try to make me out," he said. "I meant to save you. That's why."
"To save me?" Tempest's laugh was a queer little catch in the throat. "To save me!"
"She has broken up other men before she ever saw you, and she will keep on doing it. Once you're free of her and see her as other men see her"
"You mean as men like you have caused other men to see her!"
The white flame leapt out in Tempest's voice for an instant. Then it died. Dick breathed unevenly. Tempest said:
"What had she done to you?"
"I tell you she was spoiling your"
"That was my affair. What had the child done to you that you should do this to her?"
The ring of pain in the words turned Dick weak for a breath. This man was treading where he could never follow. The insult to himself; the cold brutality of deed and word; the reason which now seemed no more than impertinent interference—Tempest had passed them all by in his protecting thought for Andree.
"I have done nothing to her." Dick's voice was low. "One could not hurt her except physically."
For a little space Tempest was silent. But Dick felt the force gathering behind that silence. He looked at the photographs of Tempest's mother and sisters on the wall, and at the picture of Tempest's old home in Ontario where he had spent so many holidays in his boyhood.
"She loves you," said Tempest at last. "Won't you take that into account, and remember her needs?"
"Your own love has blinded you there, Tempest. She does not love me. She is incapable of love. And she does not matter. It is only you who matter."
"She loves you. And you have taken the guarding of her life out of my hands into your own. There is no god nor devil can make you anything but responsible for that. At the first I think she could have cared—but perhaps you were at work even then. What are you going to do about it now?"
Dick moistened his lips. Fury, such as was common to most men occasionally, which could expend itself in word and movement, was an infinitely lesser thing than this terrible stillness.
"I am not going to do anything. There is nothing to do. I have done too much, and I am not here to excuse myself. But it was necessary"
"She has no one. And she loves you. Do you think I could mistake there? Won't you have mercy on her because of that?"
He was pleading for a soul dearer to him than his own. Dick knew it; and knew too how that proud self which Tempest was now trampling in the dust would wake presently to recognise its hurt.
"I can have no more mercy on her than to leave her alone. I give you my word that I will do that. But I can't do more. If I could make you understand that it had to be done you were ruining your life"
Tempest's face was rigid, even to the eyes.
"What is that to you?" he said. "You who ruined your own life long ago? What has my life to do with you? How dared you interfere with my life?"
"Because I cared for you"
"You liar!" Tempest's low level tones did not change. "You did it because you cared for your own amusement. You did it because, as I was your friend, you knew that you could have your fun and I would never suspect. You did it because you do not know how to live an honest and honourable life. And then you shield yourself behind me. What has my life to do with you? I am responsible to my God for it—not to you."
He stood very still, with his hand on the table, and his eyes never left Dick's face. Dick was whiter than Tempest, because there was no anger in him to harden him; only a deep grief for himself and for this man.
"Your life means a great deal to me, Tempest. And to Canada"
"Ah? To Canada also?" The little sneer was not like Tempest. "That is complimentary, perhaps, but not convincing."
"Upon my honour"
"Again complimentary, but not convincing," said Tempest.
This stung Dick into action. He moved forward a step, and the colour came back to his face.
"Whether you like or don't like," he said, "you shall hear me now. You shall hear what I've got to say, and, by God, you won't forget it. For I'm speaking truth, and you will know it's truth. I have never taken the stand among men that you have. I did not want to, if I could have done it. But you have chosen to stand where you do stand in the eyes of the world. You have chosen to be known in the Force and far beyond it as a man whose judgment and whose word and whose advice should be trusted. You have chosen that men should know your opinions and should know that you walked by them. You were not afraid of being judged. Perhaps you sometimes invited judgment. Can you deny that?"
Tempest did not attempt to. His face had not changed.
"And do you see what you are doing now? You who allowed yourself to be considered as an example? Do you see what you have done now that you have put your name in the mouth of every man as the name of one who is eager and willing to sink all his ideals, all the weight of his influence, all his power for the gratification of what he knows to be the lower—the lowest part of his nature."
Tempest's lips moved, but no sound came from them. His face was changing now.
"You do know it!" Dick hurled the words at him. "And you shall surely know what you have done. You are committing one of the deadliest of sins, because you can't fall without dragging down all those whom you have allowed to believe in you. You can't fall without defiling all that truth and honour and virtue which you have chosen to make yourself the exponent of. You chose to take a high place—I don't say you were not fit for it. You were. But you can't leave that place without disgrace to more than yourself. You have chosen to wield a great influence, and now you are choosing to betray it. You say you are responsible to your God. What is your God going to say about it? The virtues that you are making a bonfire of are popularly supposed to belong to Him in the first place, aren't they?"
He stopped, but Tempest made no sound, no movement. He was not looking at Dick now. His eves went straight part to the window, but Dick knew that he was looking at himself. A wave of remorse swept over Dick. He was never hart by the roughest handling. But Tempest was of such different material.
"Tempest"
Tempest's glance brushed across his for a moment. There was no expression in it.
"You can go," he said.
"Tempest, for God's sake don't"
"Leave God out," said Tempest. "I told you that before. And go. I told you that too."
Dick went. He was scarcely through the door when he heard Tempest spring to it and lock it. And then there came no other sound at all, although he listened for a long, long while.
Tempest had dropped into a chair, folding his arms on the back, and his face was hidden on his arm. No part of him seemed alive but his brain, and that was making vivid blazing realities which seemed to fill up earth and sky. It was true. All that Dick had said to him was true. He had that influence. He was wielding it daily. He could not lose it. What was he doing with it? God in Heaven, what was he doing with it? What was he doing with that gospel of work and religion and duty which he had called men to hear him preach? What was he doing with it—he who stood for the high standard which he had set; for the moral and physical power by which men knew him: he who had not hesitated to stand in his own small corner for Canada herself?
He knew what he was doing with it. Now that Dick had told him he knew, and the sweat came out on his body as he recognised it. In so far as the human can do it he was making a mock of God Himself. He—Tempest! And now God and love and truth had made a mock of him. He cowered lower over his chair, and he stayed there, scarcely moving, until the sounds of day came into the world beyond the door again.
That night was an uneasy one for Dick also. He rose early and went down to the yard where a half-packed sled stood with the dog-harness slung across it. Silently he hauled his little tent from where it hung in the wood-shed and beat and folded it into shape for packing. There was a stern-chase on a week-old trail before him, and he was glad of it. From all the troubles of his life heretofore he had been able to escape down the windy trails of the world. But this time he would not leave all which he had done behind him.
The sure, sturdy note of winter was sounding along the land when he and the young breed pulled out that day, heading straight into space, with only a few tangled clues to guide them. The keen air tingled the blood of the forest-men; making them restless with the fret of it; restless for the cry of the trapped animal and for the snow-laid trails and the bite of the forest on their faces. The young breed opened his nostrils to the snow-tang as he swung along, and his bright eyes roved. Even as to the other man these wild rimless woods were his home; and he laughed and swore cheerfully as he fed the thawed fish to the dogs for their evening meal, and came back to the fire, grinning still, and rubbing his hands.
"Voila," he said gaily. "Mais dat vilain Poley kip dem sharp set. Dey do wolf deir viande."
"Nothing works well when it is too fat. I shall have to thin you down, Passpartout, I think."
"Donc! It is to laugh mak' me fat." He threw out a great bellow from his chest. "No one can help dat," he said.
"Don't try," advised Dick. "Everything in this world really is funny, isn't it? Even those things which a man might not think could be funny."
"Eh, bien! Good enough. Dere is tonjours de fun an' dere is tou jours de nouvelle. When a man tire of one ting, dere is de nex' place to trap, an' de nex' girl to like, an' de nex' man to hit if so he wan' to hit. Dere is plenty tout le temps."
"Ah! That is a very good philosophy, Passepartout." Dick looked up at the bulky grinning young fellow in the firelight. "All things are new so long as the man himself is new. But what happens when he gets stale?"
"Je na sais pas. Him like bad fish, I s'pose. Feed him to de dog."
"Oh! Feed him to the dog?" Dick revolved this in silence for a minute. "I fancy you have hit a greater truth than you think, Passpartout. Throw some more wood on, and rake those smoking branches in. And then you can go to sleep as soon as you like."
Passpartout retired into his wolf-skin robe even as Dick retired into his thoughts and smoked. And those thoughts were not entirely bitter. He was too much of a born tramp, a born rover, not to feel the exhilaration of his surroundings; of the widespread brooding hush of the forest; the heavy dark branches against the stars; the crisp, white snow about him and the smell of the resinous burning wood. He had turned many pages of Life's book in his time, and he was not tired of turning them yet. The impossibility of turning more, even though they had all been for evil, would have been the only thing which could have really broken the restless heart in him.
Almost at the moment when he gave that stunning blow to Tempest it had interested him to find out how the man would stand under it. It had interested him to find that he himself could speak so clearly and convincingly on a matter which had no personal meaning for him except in so far as it affected Tempest. It interested him now to wonder if there was any truth in Tempest's idea that Andree loved him, and it interested him quite a good deal to wonder what he should do if there was. To examine and observe and dissect everything, even his own soul and the souls of those he loved best—this was what had come to him out of his desire to see life clearly. But because he had to examine them all through the lens of his own mind what he saw was necessarily distorted.
His very love and reverence for Jennifer were spoiled by the belief that she would give way in the end. Her creeds would not be proof against her love, any more than Tempest's had been. By and by she would let his hand break the thing which she said was herself—the self he loved. And fiercely though he wanted her now, how did he know that he would always want her? Change was the only thing which never tired him; the new was the only mate he always met with gladness; the elusive and the uncertain were the only loves he had ever wanted to hold and kiss. This wild creed which he had taught himself had done him no good. But he could not fling it aside. It did not seem possible now that Tempest could ever give way to a newer friend; Jennifer to a newer love. And yet such things had been his experience all through life. Constancy is more an ingrained habit than a natural virtue, and Dick had never cultivated habits.
He kicked the fire together, and re-lit his pipe. Okimow, lying near his feet, looked up, then buried his nose in his paws again with a snort of comfort. That half-smile in the man's eyes had meant nothing to him. Because he had no soul he could not laugh at the fears and aspirations of that soul.
And yet Dick was not altogether indifferent concerning the uniform he wore and the country which he served. After all, it was the land which had bred him; the land which his gay, daring forefathers had won for him, paying lightly and unregretfully with the price of their lives. And this work which he was doing would have appealed to them too. This work of guarding a young and empty land into which alien races were constantly pouring: races which knew strange gods and practised strange customs; races which became naturalised by a swift system which they understood in the letter only, and which accepted responsibilities which they many times had neither the wit nor the knowledge to understand.
He realised quite certainly that it was for the men born of Canada to help her aliens through with their unhandy fingering of a life that was new and strange. And, in chief, it was for those men on whom had been laid the charge of bearing the law of the English across and across the solitudes; sowing the loneliness thick with it, so that, wherever the feet of the new-come wanderer might tread, there he should find it waiting him. Waiting on the river sands where the prospector bores for oil among the spores of the wolf and the bear. Waiting on the blowing blue-joint grass-lands where the coyote wakes the far hollow echoes, and in the settler's little log shack the business of life and of death goes forward. Waiting for the communities which bunch together on the selections, and weaning them from their unlawful ways, so that they should not breed up plague-spots to inoculate East and West.
And it waits for the lonely Indian, that law; guarding him along his silent trails; for the breed, weakened and demoralised by his contact with the white man who recognises no duty towards his brother; for the new lives yet to be: the strange, wonderful medley of lives out of which is to be fused the still untabulated race which will produce the Canadian of the future. It waits for them all; held grimly, firmly in its place by the untiring hands and the unflagging souls of the few, the very few, who prove worthy of their trust until the end.
Dick felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought that he had given Tempest back to that service. For, as he had not broken Tempest outwardly, so he could not believe that he had broken him inwardly. At seeing the bare future before him another man might fling himself into despairing sin. But not Tempest. The training of a whole life could not fail when once the man's eyes were open. It surely could not fail. But even as he said it Dick felt the doubt come. Dared man say that anything was sure? And if it was, what made it so? Not the shifting sand of man's own heart; not the vagrant wind-puffs of his desires; not the trembling marsh-flames of his beliefs. Then, since there was nothing beyond or above man, it followed that nothing was sure. Tempest might fall into a deeper pit than that from which Dick had pulled him. Jennifer might give the lips which she had denied him to another man. For, since man's stability was the author and the core of all the virtues, how could he, a man, say that they were sure?
Dry powdery flakes of snow drifted down through the dark canopy, hissing softly on the fire, and Dick rolled into his tent, forgetting past certainties and future possibilities in sleep. And after that he thrust, day by 'day, further into the forest which made a mighty sounding- board for the least noise, and a mighty haven for his restless spirit. It was a long chase and a hard one, and seven weeks and over had gone by before he brought his man back; a little leaner, perhaps, a little harder in the muscles, and a very great deal lighter of heart. For the straight, honest work had done for him what it is intended to do for all men, it had drawn the restless evil out of him and it had given him back sanity and peace and an honest contentment. He was strong enough now to stand up to the battle that life might hold for him at Grey Wolf. He was strong enough to meet its temptations.
He told himself that even if Andree had not forgotten him for a newer lover she could not trouble him now. Even if Tempest had not forgiven he could yield Tempest obedience and love again. The great hand of discipline, hourly bodily discipline, had been heavy on him through these six weeks, and he felt the benefit of it. He found a merry satisfaction in being ruled by his own choice; this man who could not rule himself.
Tempest heard them coming down the street one afternoon, with Passpartout singing at the top of his sturdy lungs that tenderest and best-known little love-song of the voyageur-men, and he leaned from the window, listening.
"A la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener,
J'ai trouver l' eau si belle
Que je me suis baigne,"
sang Passpartout, ending with a wild "H-r-r-r-mp," as he swung his dogs into the yard. Dick followed with the handsome, sullen Greek beside him. The man had evidently shown fight, for he was handcuffed to a strap on Dick's belt. Tempest smiled as Dick halted the Greek in the yard and spoke to him with that half-idle levity which nevertheless masked a sharp cunning equal to that of his namesake, the wolverine. The Greek was not fully awake to it yet, for he made an abortive attempt to escape; and then Tempest saw how, quick as light, Dick caught the man by the elbows, ran him across the yard, and twisted him into a cell. After that he pulled down his tunic, and Tempest saw him nod and laugh as Kennedy came out and spoke to him.
Tempest drew back nervously. Dick would be coming in to make his report directly. He was coming now, and Tempest's heart beat unevenly as Dick followed his knock into the room, and gave his report succinctly, coldly erect and official as Tempest himself. There was a little pause when he had done. There was a moment when both men desired to break the barrier down. But the moment passed; killed by the strength of that desire, and Dick went out, leaving Tempest to settle back to his work.
These seven weeks had been harder for Tempest than for Dick. But they had done him good, too. No word of removal had come for him yet; and here, where he had fallen, he had to take his stand again with all the spirit and the force that were left to him. Meals in Grange's big dining-room with Andree to wait on him were one of the hardest things to face. Yet he faced them from the first, showing himself no more mercy than Dick had shown him. But the eager glow on Andree's skin when Dick's name was spoken was a thing which he could not steel himself against. He knew that she was counting the hours when this new-found love of hers could claim its own. And he knew, too, that it would be known all along the rivers that Dick had taken Andree from him, and that the speculations would be many regarding what the inspector would do. This last was torment to his sensitive soul, and at first he winced from every new pair of eyes that met his. But that also was conquered as time went by.
And then he began to realise what he owed the man who had turned him back to his duty again; who, even in this suffering and struggle, had given him back a peace which he had missed during those months when he ceased to struggle. He recognised that he had had no right to impute an unworthy motive to this thing which Dick had done. Dick was too weak in many ways and too strong in others. He had been ill-judged, cruel, selfish; but he was not a liar. With Tempest's help it might happen that this matter would not fall so heavily on Andree as he had feared. Love can be overcome; was he not learning that for himself? And the old friendship could be retained, if God willed.
When Dick had left him he sat for a little, looking on the papers which Dick had brought. The very ring of the man's step, the very sound of his voice had been pain. But there was love mixed with the pain. Bonds formed in early heat of manhood are not easily broken, and those bonds had been many once. He smiled, taking up his pen. He was dining with the Leigh's to-night; but when he came back he would speak to Dick, and he believed that there was something in Dick's eyes which told that he would be glad of what Tempest had to say.
Dick went to sleep in the big chair in the mess-room that night, and he waked to the sound of soft sobbing and the feel of something wet on his hands and face. Drowsily he opened his eyes, and as he did so Grange's Andree ceased her tears and kisses where she knelt at his knee, and gathered up his right hand against her breast.
"Dick," she said. "Dick."
Just that, and her voice was very low. But Dick, looking into those wet wild-animal eyes of hers, knew that Tempest had spoken truth. By some mockery of the Devil he himself had brought to Andree the gift of a soul—that she might love him with it. For the moment he did not move. He watched her as she knelt there with her face upturned and her curls gathered into the nape of her neck, and he wondered idly what Tempest and some other men would have given to see that light in Andree's eyes. Her fur coat and cap lay on the floor, and the glow of the outside cold was on her skin. She drew his hand across her heart, and her voice shook a little.
"I did think it would stop, moi," she said. "It was si longtemps to wait."
He did not move his eyes from her. He knew too much to doubt the look in her eyes or the leap of her heart under his hand. There was bitterness and there was anger in the faint smile on his lips. This was not fair. Why should this girl who might have loved plenty of men, Heaven knew, choose him? He was not even flattered. The thing had been too simple. He was injured. Fate seldom neglected to make him pay promptly for his sins—and this had not been all his own fault. He sat up, pushing her gently back.
"Come, Andree," he said. "You have no right here, you know."
"Comment donc!" said Andree, and laughed softly. "I have the right to come to you." She brought her warm, brilliant-tinted face close. "Make not coquette contre moi to-night, Dick," she said. "Leave that so small thing for a woman."
Dick winced involuntarily. This thing which he would have to do was so pitiably small that it was going to take him all his powers to go through with it. For Grange's Andree would not be bound by any of the ordinary conventions which rule women. She was leaning on him, laughing, and holding his hand against her with those two long slender ones of hers. And her dark eyes held the light of all the stars.
"I did kiss you and kiss you till I did kiss you awake," she said gleefully. "I did never think it so nice to kiss before—except Moosta's babies. But you are much more better than Moosta's babies, Dick."
Dick would have known how to meet other women in like case. It was possible that he had had practise. But he was unsure with Grange's Andree.
"Thank you, Andree. But you must not kiss me any more."
"Pourquoi?"
"Because—well, because we have finished the game we were playing, my dear. It was just un petit brin de cour, Andree. Didn't you know that?"
She hated him to use French to her. It reminded her of her breedlike limitation, and he knew it.
"A flirtation," she said slowly. "A flirtation. Bien! C'est bon assez. Kiss me, Dick."
She put her lips up, but he did not meet them. While those kisses meant nothing to her he had not considered that they mattered. He looked at her with his eyes dark, and something woke in him that had not troubled him for years. He fought it impatiently for a moment. Then he obeyed it.
"No," he said, and pushed "his chair back, and stood up. "I shall never kiss you any more, Andree. Get up and go home."
She came to her feet in one little movement, standing still with her hands hanging.
"I do not understand," she said. "You did make my pictures. And you did say 'je t'aime,' and you did kiss me—so many times." She paused, with her straight brows knotted. She was moved beyond her English, and yet she dimly felt that it brought her more to the level of the man. "Since you did go—I think I have perhaps not make very happy. I feel I want you come back. I think of you tout le—all times. I not want to be touch. I slap Jimmy when he put his arm round me. He say, 'Why you slap?' I say, 'I not know,' It is you would know, I s'pose. You make it so."
She stood very still, looking at him with innocent, appealing eyes. He walked through the little room restlessly. Yes, he knew. But that did not seem likely to simplify the matter in the very least. Then he turned to her, making his first cowardly step of retreat.
"You must understand that it is not customary for a girl to come and talk like this to a man, my dear," he said. "It was faire jouer only. You have no right to think more of it."
"But I have all the right," said Andree gravely. "I feel it here—in my coeur—my—my top 'tomick."
"Then I had no right to give you the right. Forget it."
"Mais—what do that mean?"
His face looked drawn and dark. The slight smile on his lips was bitter. He hated himself for the part he must play. And yet there was no way out but the one. If he could rouse the wild animal fury in her it would be easier to meet than this attitude which stirred his pity. But he hesitated before open brutality to a woman. Then he said:
"It means that I am tired of you. It means that I have treated you as you have treated plenty of men, Grange's Andree."
"Then—what make me feel—so—for you?" she asked.
"The Devil knows. He has had a fairly large share in this business all through."
"But," cried Andree, in the tone of one suddenly awakened. "But I want you. That make you want me because I want you."
"Not by chalks. How about Tempest?"
"But—it is me—me who want you," insisted Andree; and then Dick laughed, laying his arms on the back of the big chair, and looking at her with tired, wise eyes.
"It takes a woman to get down to the personal view," he said. "You're primitive, Andree. I always said so. But I didn't guess at this when I started out. I would beg your pardon; but I know better than to try to pay my debts with a five-cent bit. Let it go at that. If I've hurt you I assure you that you've got the goods on me right now."
She drew a long breath through her teeth.
"Is it like when I would go from Tempest and I was afraid?" she asked.
"Ab-solutely."
"And when Robison said about love, and I did nearly hit him, and did not hit just because?"
"Oh, Lord. Yes!"
"And—and like when Ogil"
"Andree, I fancy you know enough. We are neither making our maiden attempt, are we? Let up on me, Andree, and watch out for another fellow who's looking for trouble. I give you the whole world so long as you leave Tempest alone."
"But," said Andree convincingly, "it is not like any of these, because it is I who love you. Do you see?"
Dick shrugged his shoulders.
"If a man pays his debts fully here there is a reasonable hope that he may go free hereafter," he said. "Andree, it is exactly like them all because I don't love you any more than you loved them."
That went home. He saw her wince. But still she could not believe.
"But—qu'est-ce que I have done to you?" she asked.
Dick knew that she had not the wit to follow a line of reasoning out. She just sought the why as a beaten dog might have done. But that did not ease matters. He evaded direct answer.
"To-night you have done a good deal," he said. "I give you my word that a man does not enjoy feeling as you have made me feel to-night."
"But what have I done to you?" Suddenly she flung herself into the chair-seat, reaching up her hands to his shoulders. Her eyes were frightened, but wistful with their great love. "What have I done to you?" she said again. "Tell me, et si vous faché centre moi I will undo it."
"I am not angry. But you can't undo it, and neither can I."
The cynical smile twitched his lips again. "The trouble began when you were made a woman and I was made a man, Andree."
"But I did not mean to be," she said, not understanding.
"No." He looked at her with his eyes half-closed as when he was painting her. "No; it would have been better not to be, wouldn't it? The Power which created you will owe you a good deal at settling-up time, Grange's Andree."
"Ah!" she said impatiently. "I do not understand. Kiss me, Dick. You did not never wait so long before."
"You hit very straight for a woman, my dear girl. But I am not going to kiss you any more, Andree, because, having hurt you quite considerably I have to keep on hurting you in order to gain my self-respect. Does that sound funny to you? It sounds equally funny to me. Very nearly funny enough to make one laugh. But I can assure you that it is according to the ordinary rules of the game."
"Dieu! You make so much talk! And I do not understand." She pushed her face close to his. "Put your hands on my face and kiss me, Dick. That I do understand."
"Yes, you do, Heaven help you. We have made sure of that."
He freed himself from her clutching hands and picked up her cap and coat.
"Put these on and go home, Andree," he said. "It's getting late."
She sprang upright in one bound; her hands gripped up, her eyes blazing.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned to meet her.
"Now we are going to have it," he said.
A moment she stood so; battling with the great sobs that were shaking her. Then she hurled herself forward on her knees with her arms round him in what would have been melodrama in another woman but was pure natural abandonment in Grange's Andree.
"Put your hand on to me," she sobbed. "Put your hand—an' say you love me. Dick! Dick! Not to make me go like this. Not to be cruel—all in one togezzer. Dick—it make me kill some place inside."
Apart from the real pity and shame in him his natural instinct for analysis was awake. He had not dreamed that there was anything in the girl which could suffer like this. She clung to him, hiding her face against him, and she shook them both with her wild sobbing. He drew a hard breath, standing quite still, and looking at this thing as his mind showed it.
It was inevitable that he should break Andree here, because Andree stood for the primitive, the savage; for the primal thing which has to be done away with before the march of progress. She was the Canada of the unformed, the undisciplined, the uncivilised. And, being so, she had to make way for the needs and desires of the white man who peoples the world in the place of the native-born. For always, over the face of the earth, go the white men; fulfilling their destiny; destroying the lesser within or without the law; taking that which they can never replace; but obeying, even as the lesser animal obeys, that great merciless inscrutable Power which has made of the white race rulers, founders, destroyers; the builders-up of new dynasties; the devourers of the old.
Tempest stood for the new dynasty; for the race of the future; for a link in the long chain wherewith the white man buckles the earth to himself. And Andree stood for the old dynasty; the thing which must die; the thing to be trodden hard that the roots of the new-planted tree should stand firm in it. This was the law of life; the law of eternity. It was the ever-mutable. Now out of which the Future is shaped. All mankind were governed alike by that law. There was no escape. But, with those young arms gripped about him, Dick did not feel competent to lay the whole blame on the natural evolution of destiny.
Andree drew herself up against him; lifting her quivering lips.
"Not to love me, perhaps," she said. "But to let me stay. To put your hand on me. Not to stand—so. Dick, make your eyes kind to me again."
He took her arms and lifted her away resolutely.
"My dear girl," he said, "don't you think we've had enough of this? You don't expect me to change my mind once I've said a thing, do you?"
Then the savage roused in her. She charged him, with head down and hands clawing and white teeth snapping. The onslaught all but upset him, for he was unprepared, and for a few moments he needed to put out all his strength to master her. He had her by the wrists at last, and they faced each other; tall, straight and breathless, with white passionate faces and shut lips. Then, quite suddenly, Andree laughed.
"Dieu," she said. "You are the strong man. I think you might kill me."
"I wish I could," said Dick sincerely. Andree laughed again.
"I did never have done like you do to me," she said. "Even Robison he say, 'Cherie Andree. Bonne Andree.' Mais vous—! Viola! C'est tout le même devil in we two."
"Then you ought to know how to respect it. Will you go home?"
"Peste! I do not know." She looked at him in frank appreciation. At the brown, lean face—hard-fleshed, well-shaped, wind-tanned; at the set of the lips and the slightly-twitching thin nostrils; at the level eyes whence the pity was driven back. He was so entirely the man and the master that the animal simplicity in her obeyed him with actual pleasure in the obedience.
"Bien," she said, and glanced down at her wrists where his grip drove the colour from her skin. "Bien," she said again, and glanced up daringly to his face. "Kiss me now, Dick, and I will go."
She brought her mouth near. Her breath was sweet and milky as a cow's, and her red lips were parted like a child's. The storm had passed for the moment, but electricity was in the air yet. Dick felt it. And felt as he had felt before the intoxication of her beauty. And he let his lips stoop down to hers.
And then she flung her arms round his neck and so held him. And he did not hear when Tempest, coming back from the Leighs' evening party, walked down the passage, and opened the mess-room door. It was Andree who heard and saw and pulled free with a little cry. Dick did not look at Tempest. He put the girl into her cap and coat; pulled wide the outer door, and gave her good-night on the step. Then he turned coolly back into the room, with a simulation of indifference on him. His luck was surely surpassing itself to-night. Tempest's head was bare. But he still wore his fur coat, and his hands were gloved. Dick wondered for a moment if the man would hit him. But Tempest only said, very quietly:
"If she was not good enough for me, can it be possible that you consider her good enough for yourself, my friend?"
The words bit like acid, but Dick did not wince. His mouth drew down at the corners in the slight smile Tempest had always hated to see. There was no defence for this case, and he was not going to make any. Tempest's face changed. His eyes blazed suddenly, and he drew himself up to his full height: cold ringing steel, like the sword of justice unsheathed.
"I hold you responsible for her," he said. "I hold you responsible for her till the end of time."
Out of the miserable consciousness of his treachery Dick answered him.
"By what right?" he asked, and the sneer twisted his lips.
A moment more Tempest stood, unmoving. Then he seemed to crumble and weaken. He put his hand up to his face suddenly; turned, and stumbled out, and Dick saw his shoulders heaving. The door shut, and Dick sought in his pockets for his pipe; tried to fill it, and found that his hands would not serve him. He stood still, staring straight at the wall. There was no palliation for what he had done, and not for an instant did he attempt to find any. Vaguely, at the back of his head, two lines of some profane song were ringing:
"And the thief on the left said never a word,
For the son of a gun had sand."
"He will never forgive himself for that," he said. "He will never forgive himself because he let me see him crying."