That was a long night for Cora Madison,
and the morning found her yellow. She made a
poor breakfast, and returned from the table to her
own room, but after a time descended restlessly and
wandered from one room to another, staring out of
the windows. Laura had gone out; Mrs. Madison
was with her husband, whom she seldom left; Hedrick
had departed ostensibly for school; and the house was
as still as a farm in winter an intolerable
condition of things for an effervescent young woman
whose diet was excitement. Cora, drumming with
her fingers upon a window in the owl-haunted cell,
made noises with her throat, her breath and her lips
not unsuggestive of a sputtering fuse. She was
heavily charged.
“Now what in thunder do you
want?” she inquired of an elderly man who turned
in from the sidewalk and with serious steps approached
the house.
Pryor, having rung, found himself
confronted with the lady he had come to seek.
Ensued the moment of strangers meeting: invisible
antennæ extended and touched; at the contact,
Cora’s drew in, and she looked upon him without
graciousness.
“I just called,” he said
placatively, smiling as if some humour lurked in his
intention, “to ask how your father is. I
heard downtown he wasn’t getting along quite
so well.”
“He’s better this morning,
thanks,” said Cora, preparing to close the door.
“I thought I’d just stop
and ask about him. I heard he’d had another
bad spell kind of a second stroke.”
“That was night before last.
The doctor thinks he’s improved very much since
then.”
The door was closing; he coughed hastily,
and detained it by speaking again. “I’ve
called several times to inquire about him, but I believe
it’s the first time I’ve had the pleasure
of speaking to you, Miss Madison. I’m Mr.
Pryor.” She appeared to find no comment
necessary, and he continued: “Your father
did a little business for me, several years ago, and
when I was here on my vacation, this summer, I was
mighty sorry to hear of his sickness. I’ve
had a nice bit of luck lately and got a second furlough,
so I came out to spend a couple of weeks and Thanksgiving
with my married daughter.”
Cora supposed that it must be very pleasant.
“Yes,” he returned.
“But I was mighty sorry to hear your father
wasn’t much better than when I left. The
truth is, I wanted to have a talk with him, and I’ve
been reproaching myself a good deal that I didn’t
go ahead with it last summer, when he was well, only
I thought then it mightn’t be necessary might
be disturbing things without much reason.”
“I’m afraid you can’t
have a talk with him now,” she said. “The
doctor says ”
“I know, I know,” said
Pryor, “of course. I wonder” he
hesitated, smiling faintly “I wonder
if I could have it with you instead.”
“Me?”
“Oh, it isn’t business,”
he laughed, observing her expression. “That
is, not exactly.” His manner became very
serious. “It’s about a friend of
mine at least, a man I know pretty well.
Miss Madison, I saw you driving out through the park
with him, yesterday noon, in an automobile. Valentine
Corliss.”
Cora stared at him. Honesty,
friendliness, and grave concern were disclosed to
her scrutiny. There was no mistaking him:
he was a good man. Her mouth opened, and her
eyelids flickered as from a too sudden invasion of
light the look of one perceiving the close
approach of a vital crisis. But there was no surprise
in her face.
“Come in,” she said.
. . . . When Corliss arrived,
at about eleven o’clock that morning, Sarah
brought him to the library, where he found Cora waiting
for him. He had the air of a man determined to
be cheerful under adverse conditions: he came
in briskly, and Cora closed the door behind him.
“Keep away from me,” she
said, pushing him back sharply, the next instant.
“I’ve had enough of that for a while I
believe.”
He sank into a chair, affecting desolation.
“Caresses blighted in the bud! Cora, one
would think us really married.”
She walked across the floor to a window,
turned there, with her back to the light, and stood
facing him, her arms folded.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed,
noting this attitude. “Is it the trial
scene from a faded melodrama?” She looked steadily
at him without replying. “What’s
it all about to-day?” he asked lightly.
“I’ll try to give you the proper cues if
you’ll indicate the general nature of the scene,
Cora mine.”
She continued to look at him in silence.
“It’s very effective,”
he observed. “Brings out the figure, too.
Do forgive me if you’re serious, dear lady, but
never in my life was I able to take the folded-arms
business seriously. It was used on the stage
of all countries so much that I believe most new-school
actors have dropped it. They think it lacks genuineness.”
Cora waited a moment longer, then
spoke. “How much chance have I to get Richard
Lindley’s money back from you?”
He was astounded. “Oh, I say!”
“I had a caller, this morning,”
she said, slowly. “He talked about you quite
a lot! He’s told me several things about
you.”
“Mr. Vilas?” he asked,
with a sting in his quick smile.
“No,” she answered coolly. “Much
older.”
At that he jumped up, stepped quickly
close to her, and swept her with an intense and brilliant
scrutiny.
“Pryor, by God!” he cried.
“He knows you pretty well,” she said.
“So do I now!”
He swung away from her, back to his
chair, dropped into it and began to laugh. “Old
Pryor! Doddering old Pryor! Doddering old
ass of a Pryor! So he did! Blood of an angel!
what a stew, what a stew!” He rose again, mirthless.
“Well, what did he say?”
She had begun to tremble, not with fear. “He
said a good deal.”
“Well, what was it? What did he tell you?”
“I think you’ll find it plenty!”
“Come on!”
“You!” She pointed at him.
“Let’s have it.”
“He told me” she
burst out furiously “he said you were
a professional sharper!”
“Oh, no. Old Pryor doesn’t talk like
that.”
She came toward him. “He
told me you were notorious over half of Europe,”
she cried vehemently. “He said he’d
arrested you himself, once, in Rotterdam, for smuggling
jewels, and that you were guilty, but managed to squirm
out of it. He said the police had put you out
of Germany and you’d be arrested if you ever
tried to go back. He said there were other places
you didn’t dare set foot in, and he said he
could have you arrested in this country any time he
wanted to, and that he was going to do it if he found
you’d been doing anything wrong. Oh, yes,
he told me a few things!”
He caught her by the shoulder.
“See here, Cora, do you believe all this tommy-rot?”
She shook his hand off instantly.
“Believe it? I know it! There isn’t
a straight line in your whole soul and mind: you’re
crooked all over. You’ve been crooked with
me from the start. The moment that man
began to speak, I knew every word of it was true.
He came to me because he thought it was right:
he hasn’t anything against you on his own account;
he said he liked you! I knew it
was true, I tell you.”
He tried to put his hand on her shoulder
again, beginning to speak remonstratingly, but she
cried out in a rage, broke away from him, and ran
to the other end of the room.
“Keep away! Do you suppose
I like you to touch me? He told me you always
had been a wonder with women! Said you were famous
for `handling them the right way’ using
them! Ah, that was pleasant information for me,
wasn’t it! Yes, I could have confirmed him
on that point. He wanted to know if I thought
you’d been doing anything of that sort here.
What he meant was: Had you been using me?”
“What did you tell him?”
The question rang sharply on the instant.
“Ha! That gets into you,
does it?” she returned bitterly. “You
can’t overdo your fear of that man, I think,
but I didn’t tell him anything.
I just listened and thanked him for the warning, and
said I’d have nothing more to do with you.
How could I tell him? Wasn’t it
I that made papa lend you his name, and got Richard
to hand over his money? Where does that put me?”
She choked; sobs broke her voice. “Every every
soul in town would point me out as a laughing-stock the
easiest fool out of the asylum! Do you suppose
I want you arrested and the whole thing in the
papers? What I want is Richard’s money
back, and I’m going to have it!”
“Can you be quiet for a moment
and listen?” he asked gravely.
“If you’ll tell me what
chance I have to get it back.”
“Cora,” he said, “you don’t
want it back.”
“Oh? Don’t I?”
“No.” He smiled faintly,
and went on. “Now, all this nonsense of
old Pryor’s isn’t worth denying. I
have met him abroad; that much is true and
I suppose I have rather a gay reputation ”
She uttered a jeering shout.
“Wait!” he said.
“I told you I’d cut quite a swathe, when
I first talked to you about myself. Let it go
for the present and come down to this question of
Lindley’s investment ”
“Yes. That’s what I want you to come
down to.”
“As soon as Lindley paid in
his check I gave him his stock certificates, and cabled
the money to be used at once in the development of
the oil-fields ”
“What! That man told me
you’d `promoted’ a South American rubber
company once, among people of the American colony in
Paris. The details he gave me sounded strangely
familiar!”
“You’d as well be patient,
Cora. Now, that money has probably been partially
spent, by this time, on tools and labour and ”
“What are you trying to ”
“I’ll show you. But
first I’d like you to understand that nothing
can be done to me. There’s nothing `on’
me! I’ve acted in good faith, and if the
venture in oil is unsuccessful, and the money lost,
I can’t be held legally responsible, nor can
any one prove that I am. I could bring forty
witnesses from Naples to swear they have helped to
bore the wells. I’m safe as your stubborn
friend, Mr. Trumble, himself. But now then, suppose
that old Pryor is right as of course he
isn’t suppose it, merely for a moment,
because it will aid me to convey something to your
mind. If I were the kind of man he says I am,
and, being such a man, had planted the money out of
reach, for my own use, what on earth would induce
me to give it back?”
“I knew it!” she groaned. “I
knew you wouldn’t!”
“You see,” he said quietly,
“it would be impossible. We must go on
supposing for a moment: if I had put that money
away, I might be contemplating a departure ”
“You’d better!”
she cried fiercely. “He’s going to
find out everything you’ve been doing.
He said so. He’s heard a rumour that you
were trying to raise money here; he told me so, and
said he’d soon ”
“The better reason for not delaying,
perhaps. Cora, see here!” He moved nearer
her. “Wouldn’t I need a lot of money
if I expected to have a beautiful lady to care for,
and ”
“You idiot!” she screamed.
“Do you think I’m going with you?”
He flushed heavily. “Well,
aren’t you?” He paused, to stare at her,
as she wrung her hands and sobbed with hysterical laughter.
“I thought,” he went on, slowly, “that
you would possibly even insist on that.”
“Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord!”
She stamped her foot, and with both hands threw the
tears from her eyes in wide and furious gestures.
“He told me you were married ”
“Did you let him think you hadn’t
known that?” demanded Corliss.
“I tell you I didn’t let
him think anything! He said you would
never be able to get a divorce: that your wife
hates you too much to get one from you, and that she’ll
never ”
“See here, Cora,” he said
harshly, “I told you I’d been married;
I told you before I ever kissed you. You understood
perfectly ”
“I did not! You said you
had been. You laughed about it. You
made me think it was something that had happened a
long time ago. I thought of course you’d
been divorced ”
“But I told you ”
“You told me after! And
then you made me think you could easily get one that
it was only a matter of form and ”
“Cora,” he interrupted,
“you’re the most elaborate little self-deceiver
I ever knew. I don’t believe you’ve
ever faced yourself for an honest moment in ”
“Honest! you talk about
`honest’! You use that word and face me?”
He came closer, meeting her distraught
eyes squarely. “You love to fool yourself,
Cora, but the rôle of betrayed virtue doesn’t
suit you very well. You’re young, but you’re
a pretty experienced woman for all that, and you haven’t
done anything you didn’t want to. You’ve
had both eyes open every minute, and we both know it.
You are just as wise as ”
“You’re lying and you
know it! What did I want to make Richard
go into your scheme for? You made a fool of me.”
“I’m not speaking of the
money now,” he returned quickly. “You’d
better keep your mind on the subject. Are you
coming away with me?”
“What for?” she asked.
“What for?” he
echoed incredulously. “I want to know if
you’re coming. I promise you I’ll
get a divorce as soon as it’s possible ”
“Val,” she said, in a
tone lower than she had used since he entered the
room; “Val, do you want me to come?”
“Yes.”
“Much?” She looked at him eagerly.
“Yes, I do.” His answer sounded quite
genuine.
“Will it hurt you if I don’t?”
“Of course it will.”
“Thank heaven for that,” she said quietly.
“You honestly mean you won’t?”
“It makes me sick with laughing
just to imagine it! I’ve done some hard
little thinking, lately, my friend particularly
last night, and still more particularly this morning
since that man was here. I’d cut my throat
before I’d go with you. If you had your
divorce I wouldn’t marry you not
if you were the last man on earth!”
“Cora,” he cried, aghast,
“what’s the matter with you? You’re
too many for me sometimes. I thought I understood
a few kinds of women! Now listen: I’ve
offered to take you, and you can’t say ”
“Offered!” It was she
who came toward him now. She came swiftly, shaking
with rage, and struck him upon the breast. “`Offered’!
Do you think I want to go trailing around Europe with
you while Dick Lindley’s money lasts? What
kind of a life are you `offering’ me? Do
you suppose I’m going to have everybody saying
Cora Madison ran away with a jail-bird? Do you
think I’m going to dodge decent people in hotels
and steamers, and leave a name in this town that Oh,
get out! I don’t want any help from you!
I can take care of myself, I tell you; and I don’t
have to marry you! I’d kill you
if I could you made a fool of me!”
Her voice rose shrilly. “You made a fool
of me!”
“Cora ” he began, imploringly.
“You made a fool of me!” She struck him
again.
“Strike me,” he said. “I love
you!”
“Actor!”
“Cora, I want you. I want you more than
I ever ”
She screamed with hysterical laughter.
“Liar, liar, liar! The same old guff.
Don’t you even see it’s too late for the
old rotten tricks?”
“Cora, I want you to come.”
“You poor, conceited fool,”
she cried, “do you think you’re the only
man I can marry?”
“Cora,” he gasped, “you wouldn’t
do that!”
“Oh, get out! Get out now!
I’m tired of you. I never want to hear
you speak again.”
“Cora,” he begged. “For the
last time ”
“No! You made a
fool of me!” She beat him upon the breast, striking
again and again, with all her strength. “Get
out, I tell you! I’m through with you!”
He tried to make her listen, to hold
her wrists: he could do neither.
“Get out get out!”
she screamed. She pushed and dragged him toward
the door, and threw it open. Her voice thickened;
she choked and coughed, but kept on screaming:
“Get out, I tell you! Get out, get out,
damn you! Damn you, damn you! get out!”
Still continuing to strike him with
all her strength, she forced him out of the door.