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Precipice, The

<h2>X</h2> He had taken her home and was leaving, when a carriage passed him. He could hear the voices of the occupants--the brisk accents of Mrs. Barsaloux, and the slow, honey-rich tones of Marna. He had never dreamed that he could do such a thing, but he ran forward with an almost frantic desire to rest his eyes upon the girl's face, and he was beside the curb when the carriage drew up at the door of the house where Mrs. Barsaloux and Marna lodged. He flung open the door in spite of the protests of the driver, who was not sure of his right to offer such a service, and held out his hand to Mrs. Barsaloux. That lady accepted his politeness graciously, and, weary and abstracted, moved at once toward the house-steps, searching meantime for her key. Fitzgerald had fifteen seconds alone with Marna. She stood half-poised upon the carriage-steps, her hand in his, their eyes almost on a level. Then he said an impossible and insane thing. It was wrung out of his misery, out of his knowledge of her loveliness. "I've lost you!" he whispered. "Do you know that to-night ended my happiness?" Mama's lips parted delicately; her eyes widened; her swift Celtic spirit encompassed his grief. "Oh!" she breathed. "Don't speak so! Don't spoil my beautiful time!" "Not I," he retorted sharply, speaking aloud this time. "Far be it from me! Good-bye." Mrs. Barsaloux heard him vaguely above the jangling of coins and keys and the rushing of a distant train. "You're not going to leave town, are you, Dr. Fitzgerald?" she inquired casually. "I thought your good-bye had a final accent to it." She was laughing in her easy way, quite unconscious of what was taking place. She had made an art of laughing, and it carried her and others over many difficult places. But for once it was powerless to lessen the emotional strain. Mysteriously, Fitzgerald and Marna were experiencing a sweet torment in their parting. It was not that she loved him or had thought of him in that way at all. She had seen him often and had liked his hearty ways, his gay spirits, and his fine upstanding figure, but he had been as one who passed by with salutations. Now, suddenly, she was conscious that he was a man to be desired. She saw his wistful eyes, his avid lips, his great shoulders. The woman in her awoke to a knowledge of her needs. Upon such a shoulder might a woman weep, from such eyes might a woman gather dreams; to allay such torment as his might a woman give all she had to give. It was incoherent, mad, but not unmeaning. It had, indeed, the ultimate meaning. He said nothing more; she spoke no word. Each knew they would meet on the morrow. The next night, Kate Barrington, making her way swiftly down the Midway in a misty gloom, saw the little figure of Marna Cartan fluttering before her. It was too early for dinner, and Kate guessed that Marna was on her way to pay her a visit--a not rare occurrence these last few weeks. She called to her, and Marna waited, turning her face for a moment to the mist-bearing wind. "I was going to you," she said breathlessly. "So I imagined, bright one." "Are you tired, Kate, mavourneen?" "A little. It's been a hard day. I don't see why my heart isn't broken, considering the things I see and hear, Marna! I don't so much mind about the grown-ups. If they succeed in making a mess of things, why, they can take the consequences. But the kiddies--they're the ones that torment me. Try as I can to harden myself, and to say that after I've done my utmost my responsibility ends, I can't get them off my mind. But what's on your mind, bright one?" "Oh, Kate, so much! But wait till we get to the house. It's not a thing to shriek out here on the street." The wind swept around the corner, buffeting them, and Kate drew Marna's arm in her own and fairly bore the little creature along with her. They entered the silent house, groped through the darkened hall and up the stairs to Kate's own room. "Honora isn't home, I fancy," she said, in apology for the pervading desolation. "She stays late at the laboratory these nights. She says she's on the verge of a wonderful discovery. It's something she and David have been working out together, but she's been making some experiments in secret, with which she means to surprise David. Of course she'll give all the credit to him--that's her policy. She's his helpmate, she says, nothing more." "But the babies?" asked Marna with that naïveté characteristic of her. "Where are they?" "Up in the nursery at the top of the house. It will be light and warm there, I think. Honora had a fireplace put in so that it would be cheerful. I always feel sure it's pleasant up there, however forbidding the rest of the house may look." "Mary has made a great difference with it since she came, hasn't she? Of course Honora couldn't do the wonderful things she's doing and be fussing around the house all the time. Still, she might train her servants, mightn't she?" "Well, there aren't really any to train," said Kate. "There's Mrs. Hays, the nurse, a very good woman, but as we take our meals out, and are all so independent, there's no one else required, except occasionally. Honora wouldn't think of such an extravagance as a parlor maid. We're a community of working folk, you see." Marna had been lighting the candles which Kate usually kept for company; and, moreover, since there was kindling at hand, she laid a fire and touched a match to it. "I must have it look homey, Kate--for reasons." "Do whatever it suits you to do, child." "But can I tell you what it suits me to do, Kate?" "How do I know? Are you referring to visible things or talking in parables? There's something very eerie about you to-night, Marna. Your eyes look phosphorescent. What's been happening to you? Is it the glory of last night that's over you yet?" "No, not that. It's--it's a new glory, Kate." "A new glory, is it? Since last night? Tell me, then." Kate flung her long body into a Morris chair and prepared to listen. Marna looked about her as if seeking a chair to satisfy her whim, and, finding none, sank upon the floor before the blaze. She leaned back, resting on one slight arm, and turned her dream-haunted face glowing amid its dark maze of hair, till her eyes could hold those of her friend. "Oh, Kate!" she breathed, and made her great confession in those two words. "A man!" cried Kate, alarmed. "Now!" "Now! Last night. And to-day. It was like lightning out of a clear sky. I've seen him often, and now I remember it always warmed me to see him, and made me feel that I wasn't alone. For a long time, I believe, I've been counting him in, and being happier because he was near. But I didn't realize it at all--till last night." "You saw him after the opera?" "Only for half a minute, at the door of my house. We only said a word or two. He whispered he had lost me--that I had killed him. Oh, I don't remember what he said. But we looked straight at each other. I didn't sleep all night, and when I lay awake I tried to think of the wonderful fact that I had made my debut, and that it wasn't a failure, at any rate. But I couldn't think about that, or about my career. I couldn't hold to anything but the look in his eyes and the fact that I was to see him to-day. Not that he said so. But we both knew. Why, we couldn't have lived if we hadn't seen each other to-day." "And you did?" "Oh, we did. He called me up on the telephone about two o'clock, and said he had waited as long as he could, and that he'd been walking the floor, not daring to ring till he was sure that I'd rested enough after last night. So I told him to come, and he must have been just around the corner, for he was there in a minute. I wanted him to come in and sit down, but he said he didn't believe a house could hold such audacity as his. So we went out on the street. It was cold and bleak. The Midway was a long, gray blankness. I felt afraid of it, actually. All the world looked forbidding to me--except just the little place where I walked with him. It was as if there were a little warm beautiful radius in which we could keep together, and live for each other, and comfort each other, and keep harm away." "Oh, Marna! And you, with a career before you! What do you mean to do?" "I don't know what to do. We don't either of us know what to do. He says he'll go mad with me on the stage, wearing myself out, the object of the jealousy of other women and of love-making from the men. He--says it's a profanation. I tried to tell him it couldn't be a profanation to serve art; but, Kate, he didn't seem to know what I meant. He has such different standards. He wanted to know what I was going to do when I was old. He said I'd have no real home, and no haven of love; and that I'd better be the queen of his home as long as I lived than to rule it a little while there on the stage and then--be forgotten. Oh, it isn't what he said that counts. All that sounds flat enough as I repeat it. It's the wonder of being with some one that loves you like that and of feeling that there are two of you who belong--" "How do you know you belong?" asked Kate with sharp good sense. "Why, bright one, you've been swept off your feet by mere--forgive me--by mere sex." That glint of the eyes which Kate called Celtic flashed from Marna. "Mere sex!" she repeated. "Mere sex! You're not trying to belittle that, are you? Why, Kate, that's the beginning and the end of things. What I've always liked about you is that you look big facts in the face and aren't afraid of truth. Sex! Why, that's home and happiness and all a woman really cares for, isn't it?" "No, it isn't all she cares for," declared Kate valiantly. "She cares for a great many other things. And when I said mere sex I was trying to put it politely. Is it really home and lifelong devotion that you two are thinking about, or are you just drunk with youth and--well, with infatuation?" Marna turned from her to the fire. "Kate," she said, "I don't know what you call it, but when I looked in his eyes I felt as if I had just seen the world for the first time. I have liked to live, of course, and to study, and it was tremendously stirring, singing there before all those people. But, honestly, I can see it would lead nowhere. A few years of faint celebrity, an empty heart, a homeless life--then weariness. Oh, I know it. I have a trick of seeing things. Oh, he's the man for me, Kate. I realized it the moment he pointed it out. We could not be mistaken. I shall love him forever and he'll love me just as I love him." "By the way," said Kate, "who is he? Someone from the opera company?" "Who is he? Why, he's George Fitzgerald, of course." "Mrs. Dennison's nephew?" "Certainly. Who else should it be?" "Why, he's a pleasant enough young man--very cheerful and quite intelligent--but, Marna--" Marna leaped to her feet. "You're not in a position to pass judgment upon him, Kate. How can you know what a wonderful soul he has? Why, there's no one so brave, or so humble, or so sweet, or with such a worship for women--" "For you, you mean." "Of course I mean for me. You don't suppose I'd endure it to have him worshiping anybody else, do you? Oh, it's no use protesting. I only hope that Mrs. Barsaloux won't." "Yes, doesn't that give you pause? Think of all Mrs. Barsaloux has done for you; and she did it with the understanding that you were to go on the stage. She was going to get her reward in the contribution you made to art." Marna burst into rippling laughter. "I'll give her something better than art, Kate Crosspatch. I'll give her a home--and I'll name my first girl after her." "Marna!" gasped Kate. "You do go pretty fast for a little thing." "Oh, I'm Irish," laughed Marna. "We Irish are a very old people. We always knew that if you loved a man, you had to have him or die, and that if you had him, you'd love to see the look of him coming out in your sons and daughters." Suddenly the look of almost infantile blitheness left her face. The sadness which is inherent in the Irish countenance spread over it, like sudden mist over a landscape. The ancient brooding aspect of the Celts was upon her. "Yes," she repeated, "we Irish are very old, and there is nothing about life--or death--that we do not know." Kate was not quite sure what she meant, but with a sudden impulse she held out her arms to the girl, who, with a low cry, fled to them. Then her bright bravery melted in a torrent of tears. <hr style="width: 35%;"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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