The Silent Battle
Two months had passed since that day in the woods when he had lost her, but there wasn’t a day of that time when he had not hoped that some miracle would bring them together again. In Canada he had made inquiries at the camps he had passed, and poor Joe Keegón, who had spent a day with her guides, had come in for his share of recrimination. The party had come from the eastward, and had made a permanent camp; there were many people and many guides, but no names had passed. Joe Keegón was not in the habit of asking needless questions.
One thing alone that had belonged to her remained to Gallatin—a small gold flask which bore, upon its surface in delicate script, the letters J.L. On the day that they had broken camp Joe Keegón had silently handed it to him, his face more masklike than ever. Gallatin had thrust it into his coat-pocket with an air of indifference he was far from feeling, and had brought it southward to New York, where it now stood upon the desk in the room of his boyhood, so that he could see it each day, the token of a great happiness—the symbol of an ineffable disgrace.
It seemed now that Gallatin had not needed that reminder, for since he had been back in the city he had been working hard. It surprised him what few avenues of escape were open to him, for when he went abroad and did the things he had always done, there at his elbow was the Bowl. But his resolution was still unshaken, and difficult as he found the task, he went the round of his clubs at the usual hours and joined perfunctorily in the conversation. Always companionable, his fellows now found him reticent, more reserved and less prone to make engagements. Bridge he had foresworn and the card room at the Cosmos saw him no more. He stopped in at the club on the way home as he had done to-day, sometimes leaving his associates with an abruptness which caused comment.
But already he was finding the trial he had set for himself less difficult; and as the habit of resistance grew on him, he realized that little by little he was drifting away from the associations which had always meant so much to him. He had not given up the hope of finding Jane. From a chance phrase, which he had treasured, he knew that New York was familiar to her and that some day he would see her. He was as sure of that as though Jane herself had promised it to him. She owed him nothing, of course, for in the hour of his madness he had thrown away the small claims he had upon her gratitude, and the only memory she could have of him was that which had been expressed in the look of fear and loathing he had last seen in her eyes. To her, of course, time and distance had only magnified that horror and he knew that when he met her, there was little to expect from her generosity, little that he would even dare ask of it except that she would listen while he told her of the enemy in his house and of the battle that was still raging in his heart. He wanted her to know about that. It was his right to tell her, not so much to clear himself of blame, as to justify her for the liberality of her confidence before the tide of battle had turned against him—against them both.
Time and distance had played strange tricks with Jane’s image and at times it seemed very difficult for Gallatin to reconstruct the picture which he had destroyed. Sometimes she appeared a Dryad, as when he had first seen her, running frightened through the wood, sometimes the forlorn child with the injured ankle, sometimes the cliff-woman; but most often he pictured her as when he had seen her last, running in terror and dismay from the sight of him. And the other Jane, the Jane that he knew best, was hidden behind the eyes of terror. The memory was so vague that he sometimes wondered whether he would even know her if he met her dressed in the mode of the city. Somehow he could not associate her with the thought of fashionable clothes. She had worn no hat nor had she needed one. She belonged to the deep woods, where dress means only warmth and art means only artificiality. He always thought of her hatless, in her tattered shirtwaist and skirt, and upon Fifth Avenue was as much at a loss as to the kind of figure he must look for as though he were in the land of the great Cham.
Yes, he would know her, her slender figure, her straight carriage, the poise of her head, her brown hair, her deep blue eyes. No fripperies could conceal them. These were Jane. He would know them anywhere.
VIII
CHICOT, THE JESTER
Philip Gallatin had been mistaken. He did not know Jane when he saw her. For, ten minutes later, he met her face to face in one of the paths of the Park—looked her in the face and passed on unknowing. Like the hound in the fable, he was so intent upon the reflection in the pool that he let slip the substance. He was conscious that a girl had passed him going in the opposite direction, a girl dressed in a dark gray tailor-made suit, with a fur at her neck and a dark muff swinging in one hand—a slender girl beside whom two French poodles frisked and scampered, a handsome girl in fashionable attire, taking her dogs for an airing. He walked on and sat down on a bench which overlooked the lake. The sun had fallen below the Jersey hills and only the tops of the tall buildings to the eastward held its dying glow. The lawns were swathed in shadow and the branches of the trees, already half denuded of their foliage, emerged in solemn silhouette like a pattern of Irish lace against the purpling sky. A hush had suddenly fallen on the distant traffic and Gallatin was alone.
Out of the half-light an inky figure came bounding up to him and sniffed eagerly at his knees. It was a black poodle. Gallatin patted the dog encouragingly, upon which it whined, put its paws on his lap and looked up into his face.
“Too bad, old man,” he said. “Lost, aren’t you?” Then, as the memory came to him, “By George, your mistress will be hunting. I wonder if we can find her.” He turned the nickel collar in his fingers and examined the name-plate. There in script was the name of the owner, and an address. Gallatin thrust the crook of his stick through the dog’s collar and rose. He must find Miss Jane Loring or return the animal to its home. Jane Loring? Jane—?
He stopped, bent over the excited dog and looked at the name plate again. Jane Loring—“J. L.” Why—it was Jane’s dog! He had passed her a moment ago—here—in the park. More perturbed even than the wriggling poodle, he rose and hurried along the path down which he had come. There could be no mistake. Of course, it was Jane! There was no possible doubt about it! That blessed poodle!
“Hi! there! Let up, will you?” he cried, as the dog twisted and squirmed away from him. A whistle had sounded shrilly upon Gallatin’s left and before he knew it the dog had escaped him and was dashing hotfoot through the leaves toward the spot where a dark figure with another dog on a leash was rapidly moving.
Gallatin followed briskly and came up a moment later, in the midst of the excitement of reunion and reconciliation.
“Down, Chicot, down, I say,” the girl was commanding. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to be giving so much trouble!” And as Gallatin approached, breathlessly, hat in hand, “I’m ever so much obliged. I ought to have had him in leash. He’s only a puppy and—” She stopped, mouth open, eyes wide as she recognized him. He saw the look she gave him and bowed his head.
“Jane!” he said, humbly. “Jane!”
The dogs were leaping around them both and Chicot was biting joyously at his gloved hand, but Miss Loring had drawn back.
“You!” she said.
“Yes,” softly. “I—I’m so glad to see you.”
He held his hand before him as though to parry an expected blow.
“Don’t,” he muttered. “Give me a chance. There’s so much I’ve got to say,—so much–”
“There’s nothing for you to say,” she said decisively. “If you’ll excuse me—I—I must be going at once.”
She turned away quickly, but the dogs were putting her dignity in jeopardy for the puppy still nosed Gallatin’s hand and showed a determination to linger for his caress.
“You’ve got to listen,” he murmured. “I’m not going to lose you again–”
“Come, Chicot,” said the girl in a voice which was meant to be peremptory, but which sounded curiously ineffective. Chicot would not go until Gallatin caught him by the collar and followed.
“You see,” he laughed, “you’ve got to stand for me—or lose the puppy.”
But Miss Loring had turned abruptly and was moving rapidly toward the distant Avenue. Gallatin put on his hat and walked at her side.
“I want you to know—how it all happened to me—up there in the woods,” he muttered, through set lips. “It’s only justice to me—and to you.”
“Will you please leave me!” she said, in a stifled voice, her head stiffly set, her eyes looking straight down the path before her.
“No,” he replied, more calmly. “I’m not going to leave you.”
“Oh, that you would dare!”
“Don’t, Jane!” he pleaded. “Can’t you see that I’ve got to go with you whether–”
“My name is Loring,” she interrupted coldly, strongly accenting the word.
“Won’t you listen to me?”
“I’m entirely at your mercy—unfortunately. I’ve always thought that a girl was safe from intrusion here in the Park.”
“Don’t call it that. I’ll go in a moment, if you’ll only hear what I’ve got to say.”
“You’d offer an apology for—for that!” She could not find a tone that suited her scorn of him.
“No—not apology,” he said steadily. “One doesn’t apologize for the things beyond one’s power to prevent. It’s the miserere, Jane—the de profundis——”
“It comes too late,” she said, but she stole a glance at him in spite of herself. His head bent slightly forward, he was gazing, under lowered brows directly before him into the falling dusk. She remembered that look. He had worn it when he had sat by their camp-fire the night they had heard the voices.
“Yes, I know,” he went on slowly. “Too late for you to understand—too late to help, and yet–”
“I beg that you will not go on,” she broke in quickly. “It can do no good.”
“I must go on. I’ve got so much to say and such a little time to say it in. Perhaps, I won’t see you again. At least I won’t see you unless you wish it.”
“Then you’ll not see me again.”
He turned his head and examined her soberly.
“That, of course, is your privilege. Don’t be too hard, if you can help it. Try and remember me, if you can, as I was before–”
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