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Page 64
Breitmann continued to speak lowly to Laura. He was evidently amusing,
for she smiled frequently. Nevertheless, she smiled as often upon
Fitzgerald. Never a glance toward the woman who held his fortunes, as
they both believed, in the hollow of her hand. Breitmann appeared to
have forgotten her existence.
When the rubber was finished Cathewe came into the breach by suggesting
that they two, he and his partner, should take the air for a while; and
Hildegarde thanked him with her eyes. They tramped the port side,
saying nothing but thinking much. His arm was under hers to steady
her, and he could feel the catch each time she breathed, as when one
stifles sobs that are tearless. Ah, to hold her close and to shield
her; but a thousand arms may not intervene between the heart and the
pain that stabs it. He knew; he knew all about it, and there was
murder in his thought whenever his thought was of Breitmann. To be
alone with him somewhere, and to fight it out with their bare hands.
She had been schooled in the art of acting, but not in the art of
dissimulation; she had been of the world without having been worldly;
and sometimes she was as frank and simple as a child. And worldliness
makes a buffer in times like these. Cathewe thanked God for his own
shell, toughened as it had been in the war of life.
"Look!" he exclaimed, thankful for the diversion. "There goes a big
liner for Sandy Hook. How cheerful she looks with all her lights!
Everybody's busy there. There will be greetings to-morrow, among the
sundry curses of those who have not declared their Parisian models."
They paused by the rail and followed the great ship till all the lights
had narrowed and melted into one; and then, almost at once, the
limitless circle of pitching black water seemed tenanted by themselves
alone.
Without warning she bent swiftly and kissed the hand which lay upon the
rail. "How kind you are to me!"
"Oh, pshaw!" But the touch of her lips shook his soul.
Cathewe was one of those sure, quiet men, a staff to lean on, that a
woman may find once in a life-time. They are, as a usual thing, always
loving deeply and without success, but always invariably cheerful and
buoyant, genuine philosophers. They are not given much to writing
sonnets or posing; and they can stand aside with a brave heart as the
other man takes the dream out of their lives. This is not to affirm
that they do not fight stoutly to hold this dream; simply, that they
accept defeat like good soldiers. There are many heroes who have never
heard war's alarms. He knew that the whole heart of Hildegarde von
Mitter had yielded to another. But it had been thrown, as it were,
against a wall; there was this one hope, dimly burning, that some day
he might catch it on the rebound.
"Why are not all men like you?" she asked.
"The world would not be half so interesting. Some men shall be
fortunate and others shall not; everything has to balance in some way.
I am necessary to one side of the scales, as a weight." He spoke with
a levity he by no means felt.
"You are always making sport of yourself."
"Would it be wise to weep? Not at all. I laugh because I enjoy it,
just the same as I enjoy hunting or going on voyages of discovery."
"To have met _you_!" childishly.
"Don't talk like that. It always makes me less sad than furious. And
how do you know? If it had been written that you should care for me,
would any one else have mattered? No. It just is, that's all. So
we'll go on as we have done in the past, good friends. Call me when
you need me, and wherever I am I shall come."
"How pitifully weak I must seem to you!"
"You would be no happier if you wore a mask. Hildegarde, what has
happened? What power has this adventurer over you? I can not
understand. He was man enough to say that you were guiltless of any
wrong."
"He said that?" turning upon him sharply. She could forgive much.
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