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A People's Man, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 25 |
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_ CHAPTER XXV The sound of traffic outside had died away. The silence became almost unnaturally prolonged. Only the echo of Julia's last words seemed, somehow or other, to remain, words which inspired Maraton with a curious and indefinable emotion, a pity which he could not altogether analyse. Twice he had turned softly as though to leave the room, and twice he had returned. He stood now upon the hearthrug, looking down at her, perplexed, himself in some degree agitated. She was not weeping, although every now and then her bosom rose and fell as though with some suppressed storm. It was simply a paroxysm of sensitiveness. She was afraid to look up, afraid to break a silence which to her was full of consolation. Maraton, a little ashamed of the scene in which he had been an unwilling participator, bitterly self-accusing, still found his thoughts diverted from his own humiliation as he watched the girl--a long, slim figure bent in one strangely graceful curve, her beautiful hair gleaming in the soft light, her face still half hidden by her strong, capable fingers--a figure exquisitely symbolic, full of pathos. Her elbows rested upon her knees; she was crouched a little forward. "Julia!" he ventured at last. She looked up, without undue haste but without hesitation. She had obviously been waiting for speech from him. He saw then that his impression had been a true one. There were no traces of tears in her eyes, which sought his at once--sought his with a look which warned him suddenly of his danger. Her cheeks were burning; she was still shaking with some internal passion. "After all," he said soothingly, "there are such people in the world. One can't ignore the fact of their existence. They don't really count." Her eyes flashed. "It is terrible that they should be allowed to live." He smiled at her sympathetically. Speech seemed somehow to lessen the tension between them. "My dear Julia," he declared, "I am suffering just as much as you. I have the feeling that I have descended to the level of a common brawler. Yet what was I to do? he needed the lesson very badly indeed." "I only hope that it will last him all his life. I only hope that he will not come near either of us again." "Very doubtful whether he will want to, I should think," Maraton remarked, leaning against the table. "You certainly didn't mince your words." "If I could have thought of harsher ones, I would have used them," she asserted. "What a waste of time it has been this evening!" He sighed, as his fingers turned over the pile of letters by his side. "What with Mr. Peter Dale and his little deputation, and this idiotic person Graveling, I have scarcely done a thing since I got home." "There's nothing that you need do until to-morrow," she told him softly. There was another brief pause. She was sitting up now--leaning back in her chair, indeed--trembling no longer, although the colour still flamed in her cheeks. Her eyes, which seldom left his face, were strangely, almost liquidly soft. Maraton moved restlessly in his place. Perhaps he had been unwise not to have stolen out of the room during the first few moments. Julia, as he very well knew, was no ordinary person, and he felt a sense of growing uneasiness. The tension of silence became ominous and he spoke simply to dissipate it. "I hope I really didn't hurt the fellow." "If you had killed him," she replied, "he deserved it!" "He was an insulting beast, of course," Maraton continued. "After all, though, one mustn't bring oneself down to the level of these creatures. He saw with his eyes, and what is seen from that point of view isn't of any account. Perhaps it isn't his fault that he hasn't learnt to govern himself. If I were you, Julia, I wouldn't bother about it any more, really." "It wasn't altogether what he said," she whispered. "It wasn't altogether that." He looked at her enquiringly. "You mean?" She shook her head. "Tell me?" he begged. Once more he saw that little quiver pass through her frame. Her lips were parted and closed again. Maraton was puzzled, but did his best to follow her line of thought. "The only way to treat such a person," he continued, "is to treat him as a lunatic. That is what he really is. I scarcely heard what he said; already I have forgotten every word." "But I can't! I never can!" He shrugged his shoulders. "My dear Julia," he protested, "I appeal to your common sense!" She looked at him almost angrily. Her foot beat upon the floor. "What has common sense to do with it!" she exclaimed. "Of course, it was a foolish thing to say. He didn't even believe it--I am sure of that. It was simply mad, insensate jealousy; a vicious attempt to make me suffer. That isn't where he hurt. It was because--shall I tell you?" A sudden instinct warned him. He held out his hand. "It will only distress you. No, I don't want to hear." The momentary silence seemed endowed with peculiar qualities. They heard the little clock ticking upon the mantelpiece, the tinkle of a hansom bell outside, the muffled sound of motor horns in the distance. Very slowly her head drooped back once more to the shelter of her hands. "You don't understand," she said simply. "Why should you? I wasn't even angry--that is the terrible part of it. I wished--I found myself wishing--that it were true!" Maraton's hands suddenly gripped the edge of the table against which he was leaning. Her face was still concealed; once more her long, slim body was shaken with quivering sobs. "The shame of it!" she moaned. "That is where he hurt. The shame of hearing it and knowing it wasn't true and of wanting it to be true! I haven't ever thought of any one like that--he knows that well enough. He used to call me sexless. There isn't any man in the world has ever dared to touch my lips--he knows it." Maraton left his place and quietly approached her. She heard him coming, and the trembling gradually ceased. He sat on the arm of her chair, and his hand rested gently upon her shoulder. "Dear Julia," he said, "I am glad that you have been honest. Life is always full of these emotions, you know, especially for highly-strung people, and sometimes the atmosphere gets a little overcharged and they blaze out as they have done this evening, and perhaps one is the better for it." She remained quite motionless during his brief pause. One hand had moved from before her face and had gripped his. "There's our work, you know, Julia," he went on. "There isn't anything in the world must interfere with that. We can't divide our lives, can we? We ought not to want to. If I could make you understand--can I, I wonder?--how splendid it is to have some one here by my side who understands. It seems to me that I am going to be a little lonely. I shall have to stand on my own feet a good deal. I rely so much upon you, Julia. You are a woman, aren't you--I mean a real woman? I need you." Very slowly she raised her head. Her eyes met his freely. There was something of the childlike adoration of an instinctive and triumphant purity in the smile which parted her lips. Maraton understood at once that the danger was past. The thunder had left the air. "You know that I am your slave," she murmured. "Don't be afraid that I am becoming neurotic. You see, this was all a little new to me, and for a moment I felt that I wanted to go and hide myself. That has all passed now. I am not even ashamed. I suppose one gets terrified with receiving so much, and wants to give. It's a very natural feminine impulse, isn't it? And I shall give--my fingers, my brain--all I possess." She rose suddenly to her feet and glanced at the clock. "What a day you must have had!" she exclaimed. "You are not going to look at my Sheffield figures, even, before the morning. Oh, you'll be surprised when you see them! You've a wonderful case. Some of the fortunes that have been made there--that are being made there now--are barbaric. I mustn't talk about it, or I shall get angry. Listen, there's Aaron." They heard the sound of his latch-key. A moment later he entered the room. He looked anxiously at Maraton; Julia he scarcely noticed. "I took him home," he announced. "He never spoke a word the whole way; seemed stupid. I shouldn't be surprised if he hadn't got a little concussion. "Did you send for a doctor?" Maraton asked. "His landlady was going to do that," Aaron continued. "It was all I could do to sit in the cab by his side. I wish--yes, I almost wish that he'd never got up from that carpet." "Thanks," Maraton replied. "I didn't come over here to fill the inside of an English prison!" "Prison!" Aaron's expression of contempt was sublime. "There's nothing they could have done to you, sir. All the same, I only wish that your blow had killed him." "Why?" Aaron dropped his voice for a minute. "Because wherever we go or move," he said, "there will always be the snake in the grass. He will be filled forever with a poisonous hatred for you. He will never dare to raise his hand against you to your face--he isn't that sort of man--but he'll have his stab before he's finished. He was born a sneak." Maraton smiled carelessly as he bade them good night. "The one thing in the world," he reminded them, "worse than having no friends, is to have no enemies." _ |
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