第117章

At ten o'clock Theron, loitering near the bookstall in the corridor, saw Father Forbes come downstairs, pass out through the big front doors, get into a carriage, and drive away.

This relieved him of a certain sense of responsibility, and he retired to a corner sofa and sat down.

The detective side of him being off duty, so to speak, there was leisure at last for reflection upon the other aspects of his mission.Yes; it was high time for him to consider what he should do next.

It was easier to recognize this fact, however, than to act upon it.His mind was full of tricksy devices for eluding this task of serious thought which he sought to impose upon it.It seemed so much pleasanter not to think at all--but just to drift.He found himself watching with envy the men who, as they came out from their breakfast, walked over to the bookstall, and bought cigars from the row of boxes nestling there among the newspaper piles.

They had such evident delight in the work of selection;they took off the ends of the cigars so carefully, and lighted them with such meditative attention,--he could see that he was wofully handicapped by not knowing how to smoke.He had had the most wonderful breakfast of his life, but even in the consciousness of comfortable repletion which pervaded his being, there was an obstinate sense of something lacking.

No doubt a good cigar was the thing needed to round out the perfection of such a breakfast.He half rose once, fired by a sudden resolution to go over and get one.

But of course that was nonsense; it would only make him sick.He sat down, and determinedly set himself to thinking.

The effort finally brought fruit--and of a kind which gave him a very unhappy quarter of an hour.The lover part of him was uppermost now, insistently exposing all its raw surfaces to the stings and scalds of jealousy.

Up to this moment, his brain had always evaded the direct question of how he and the priest relatively stood in Celia's estimation.It forced itself remorselessly upon him now; and his thoughts, so far from shirking the subject, seemed to rise up to meet it.It was extremely unpleasant, all this.

But then a calmer view asserted itself.Why go out of his way to invent anguish for himself? The relations between Celia and the priest, whatever they might be, were certainly of old standing.They had begun before his time.His own romance was a more recent affair, and must take its place, of course, subject to existing conditions.

It was all right for him to come to New York, and satisfy his legitimate curiosity as to the exact character and scope of these conditions.But it was foolish to pretend to be amazed or dismayed at the discovery of their existence.

They were a part of the situation which he, with his eyes wide open, had accepted.It was his function to triumph over them, to supplant them, to rear the edifice of his own victorious passion upon their ruins.

It was to this that Celia's kiss had invited him.

It was for this that he had come to New York.To let his purpose be hampered or thwarted now by childish doubts and jealousies would be ridiculous.

He rose, and holding himself very erect, walked with measured deliberation across the corridor and up the broad staircase.

There was an elevator near at hand, he had noticed, but he preferred the stairs.One or two of the colored boys clustered about the foot of the stairs looked at him, and he had a moment of dreadful apprehension lest they should stop his progress.Nothing was said, and he went on.

The numbers on the first floor were not what he wanted, and after some wandering about he ascended to the next, and then to the third.Every now and then he encountered attendants, but intuitively he bore himself with an air of knowing what he was about which protected him from inquiry.

Finally he came upon the hall-way he sought.Passing along, he found the doors bearing the numbers he had memorized so well.They were quite close together, and there was nothing to help him guess which belonged to the parlor.

He hesitated, gazing wistfully from one to the other.

In the instant of indecision, even while his alert ear caught the sound of feet coming along toward the passage in which he stood, a thought came to quicken his resolve.

It became apparent to him that his discovery gave him a certain new measure of freedom with Celia, a sort of right to take things more for granted than heretofore.

He chose a door at random, and rapped distinctly on the panel.

"Come!"

The voice he knew for Celia's.The single word, however, recalled the usage of Father Forbes, which he had noted more than once at the pastorate, when Maggie had knocked.

He straightened his shoulders, took his hat off, and pushed open the door.It WAS the parlor--a room of sofas, pianos, big easy-chairs, and luxurious bric-a-brac.A tall woman was walking up and down in it, with bowed head.

Her back was at the moment toward him; and he looked at her, saying to himself that this was the lady of his dreams, the enchantress of the kiss, the woman who loved him--but somehow it did not seem to his senses to be Celia.

She turned, and moved a step or two in his direction before she mechanically lifted her eyes and saw who was standing in her doorway.She stopped short, and regarded him.

Her face was in the shadow, and he could make out nothing of its expression, save that there was a general effect of gravity about it.

"I cannot receive you," she said."You must go away.

You have no business to come like this without sending up your card."Theron smiled at her.The notion of taking in earnest her inhospitable words did not at all occur to him.

He could see now that her face had vexed and saddened lines upon it, and the sharpness of her tone remained in his ears.

But he smiled again gently, to reassure her.