Books: The One Woman
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Thomas Dixon >> The One Woman
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After several hours of silence, as they sped back toward New York,
Kate looked at him curiously and laughed.
"You're not quite so handsome, Frank, in those trousers that stop
at the top of your shoes and that coat that pauses just below your
elbow."
He held up his long, powerful arms and said, meditatively:
"No. Gestures arrayed like that could hardly move an audience."
The shadows fell across the blue eyes again and they swept him with
a critical expression.
"I didn't tell you that Ruth saved my life."
Gordon turned suddenly.
"Yes, and it was a shock to me I'll never get over. I don't know
whether I could have done as much for her under similar circumstances,
with two children clinging to me and life depending on a moment's
time perhaps. But she did it, swiftly and beautifully. To tell you
the truth, I've quite fallen in love with her. She is a wonderful
little woman. I've been sitting here for hours wondering at the
meanness of a man who could desert her. Those great soulful eyes
of hers! When I looked up into them, crying like a poor coward for
life--I, who had robbed her of what she held dearer than life--I
saw only a tender mother's soul looking down at me. Frank, I fear
your spell over me is broken. You're a poor piece of clay. The blaze
in that car lit up some corners of my soul I never saw before. I
think I'll despise all men and love all women after to-day. What
fools and puppets we are!"
The man made no reply. He only looked out the window at the flying
landscape and saw the sweet face of a little girl.
CHAPTER XXVII
VENUS VICTRIX
The flames of those burning cars, leaping into the skies above the
tops of the storm-tossed trees, had lighted some dark places in
Gordon's soul, and he was sobered by the revelation.
The clasp of Ruth's arms about his neck, the warm touch of her
plump figure, the pressure of her lips on his, and the passionate
murmur of the low contralto voice in his ears, "My own dear love!"
thrilled him with tenderest memories.
He sat by Kate's side brooding over the days and nights of their
married life. Baffled and puzzled, his mind would come back with
everlasting persistence to the strange feeling that held him to
Ruth--a subtle and sweet mystery, the most intimate relation the
soul and body can ever bear on earth, the union in love in the
morning of life and its tender blossoming into a living babe.
He began to ask himself had not their being mingled somehow
in essence? Had they not been really united by that vital process
which sometimes makes married people grow to look alike, and often
to die on the same day?
Intimately he knew this little woman, to her deepest soul secrets,
and yet she had still eluded him, and now revealed subtle spiritual
and physical charms he had never seen nor felt before.
He was conscious at the same time of a new feeling of repulsion on
Kate's part, and the thought filled him with nervous foreboding.
Whatever change her disillusion had brought, his own physical
infatuation for her was, if possible, deeper and more unreasonable.
She could not make him quarrel, but he would sit doggedly gloating
over her beauty, his gray eyes flashing and gleaming with the fever
for possession that is the soul of murder.
He was not long left in doubt as to the turn her thoughts had taken
from the crisis through which she had passed. Her drawing-room was
crowded. These receptions were protracted until long past midnight,
and he had never seen her so gay or reckless in manner.
She dressed with a splendour never affected before, and received the
attentions of Overman with a favour so marked it could not escape
the eye of the most casual observer. She made not the slightest
effort to conceal it, and her manner was so plain a challenge to
Gordon he was stunned by its audacity.
Overman felt this challenge in her mood, and, alarmed, withdrew from
the scene. He did not return to the house during the week, and on
Saturday he received a dainty perfumed note from her by messenger.
It was the first missive he had ever received from a woman.
He turned it over in his broad hand, touched it nervously, and
opened it with his fingers trembling as he recognised her handwriting.
"My Dear Mr. Overman: I have been sorely disappointed in not seeing
you again this week. I write to command your presence Sunday morning
at ten o'clock to accompany me to the Temple, if I choose to go,
and to dine with me. Sincerely, KATE RANSOM GORDON."
He wrote an answer accepting and then sat holding this note in his
hand as though it were something alive. For an hour he paced back
and forth in his office alone, screening his eye behind his bushy
brows, wrinkling his forehead, twisting his mouth, and now and then
thrusting his hand into his collar and tugging at it, as though he
were choking.
Gordon's new study was in the dome of the Temple commanding a
wonderful view of the great city, its rivers and bays, and the long
dim line of the open sea beyond the towers of Coney Island. It was
his habit to take an early breakfast on Sunday mornings and spend
the three hours before his services there.
When Overman reached the house at ten o'clock, clouds had obscured
the sun, The air was wet and penetrating, and charged with the
premonition of storm. He felt nervous, excited and irritable.
The maid showed him into the spacious library, where a cheerful
fire of red-hot coals glowed, and his spirits rose.
He stood before the fire without removing his top coat, and the
maid said:
"Mrs. Gordon says to make yourself comfortable. The day is so raw
she will not go out. She will be down in a moment."
He removed his coat, sank into an easy chair, and began to wonder
what could be the meaning of that note. He knew intuitively that
he was approaching a crisis in his life.
He felt a sense of anxiety and discomfort at the idea of spending
the morning alone with his friend's wife. Yet he told himself he
had no choice--it was fate. A woman had arranged it.
When Kate entered the room, he sprang to his feet with a cry of
amazement at the vision of radiant beauty sweeping with sinuous
step to meet him. He had never seen her so conscious of power or
with better reason for it.
She was dressed in a gown of pink-and-white filmy stuff, which
clung to her form, revealing its beautiful lines from the rounded
shoulders to the tips of her dainty slippers. The sleeves were open
to the elbow, showing the magnificent bare arms. From the shoulders,
soft diaphanous draperies hung straight down the length of her
figure, revealing by contrast more sharply the graceful curves of
the body. The throat was bare, and her smooth ivory neck glowed in
round fulness against the background of her hair falling in waves
of fiery splendour.
Around her shapely waist hung a double cord of silver, knotted low
in front and drawn below the knee by heavy tassels.
The effect of the dress was simplicity itself. There was not a
superfluous ruffle or ribbon. Its sole design was not to attract
attention to itself, but to reveal the superb charms of the woman
who wore it, with every breath she breathed, every step, and every
gesture.
The rhythmic music of her walk--quick, strong, luxurious--breathed
an excess of vitality. The full lips were smiling and her cheeks
aflame with pleasure at his admiration.
Her eyes spoke straight into his with a candour that was unmistakable.
They knew what they desired and said so aloud. They had thrown
scruples to the winds, and in untamed, primeval strength gazed on
life with daring freedom.
Overman stammered and cleared his throat, bowed, and blushed.
She took both his hands cordially and smiled into his face.
"Why didn't you come back to see me this week?"
He hesitated, disconcerted.
"I know," she went on rapidly, leading him to a lounge by the fire.
"You saw the jealousy in Frank's big baby face and you stayed
away--now, honestly!"
He pulled nervously at his moustache and his eye twinkled.
"That's about the size of it."
"Well, I'm not a child and you are not. We are both full grown.
I am thirty-one years old. I am not Frank Gordon's slave, nor his
property. I am a free woman by his own words. And I am going to be
free."
Overman glanced at the door.
"Oh! You needn't try to run," she laughed. "I've got you to-day.
You can't get away, and I'm going to tell you something. Can you
guess what it is?"
The banker began to tremble.
Kate paused, leaned back in the easy chair she had drawn close in
front of him, placed both of her dazzling arms behind her head,
burying them in the mass of auburn hair, a picture of lazy tenderness
and dreamy languor.
"Can't you guess?" she repeated.
"I'm not so bold as to dare," he answered, gravely.
"I will dare," she said, eagerly leaning forward and bending so
close he caught the perfume of her hair.
The blood rushed in surging tumult to his face.
"When I found myself caught in that wreck," she began in slow,
mellow tones, "it flashed over me that I had been leading a sham
life. I, who profess freedom, had been living a slave to form. One
desire, the most intense, the most passionate, the most wilful I
had ever known was ungratified. Do you know the one thing I asked
when the past and present and future flashed before me in a moment?"
She paused, caught her breath, and gave him a look of passionate
intensity.
"I only asked for one hour face to face with a great masterful
man I know, that I might say the unsaid things, dare, and live the
utmost reach of my heart's desire."
Her voice wavered and hesitated. Then, with calm, laughing audacity,
she said in sweet, sensuous tones:
"I love you, and you love me--loved me from the first moment you
looked into my eyes! Is it not so?"
Overman rose awkwardly, pale as death, his great breast heaving
with emotion, and looked again helplessly toward the door.
Kate leaped forward with a laugh, seized his hand, and felt it
tremble in her grasp.
"Is it not so?" she repeated, beneath her breath.
He looked down into her shining eyes, sighed, and suddenly swept
her to his heart. Her arms circled his massive neck and their lips
met.
"Kiss me again," she whispered. "Again! Crush me--kill me if you
like! I could die in your arms! Tell me that you love me!"
"I've loved you always," he said slowly. "But why did you do this
thing? Frank is my best friend. I would have died sooner than betray
him."
"Yes, I know," she cried, impetuously; "that's why I told you. I
have no scruples. I am free. It is our compact. I'm done with his
maudlin sentiment. I have chosen you. You are my master, my king.
I am yours."
"Tragedy to me as it is," he said, with a smile, "it seems too
sweet and wonderful to be true, that the most beautiful woman on
this earth should love a gnarled brute like me. How is it possible?"
She smoothed his rugged face with her soft hand, drew his head down
and kissed tenderly the sightless eye that had caused him so many
bitter hours of anguish in life.
The strong man's body for the first time shook with sobs. And the
woman soothed him as a child.
"You are my soul's mate," she cried, in a transport of tenderness.
"Frank Gordon is no longer my husband. You are my beloved, my chosen
one. I will never recognise him again. We will separate from this
hour. I am yours and you are mine."
Overman took her hand and, still trembling, said:
"Do you know what that means?"
"Yes," she answered, eagerly. "I know you will be my lord and
master, and I desire it. I am sick of sentimentalism."
"It means exactly that," he said, with emphasis. "Out of this bog
of fool's dreams I will lift you forever, my own, the one priceless
treasure around which I will draw the circle of life and death."
"Yes, yes, I know," she cried, in a glow of ecstatic feeling.
"I desire it so. I wish you to be my master. Your service will be
sweet; your savage strength will be my joy."
And while they sat planning their future life, Gordon's footstep
echoed in the hall.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE GROWL OF THE ANIMAL
When Gordon entered the library he glanced uneasily at his wife
and she smiled in insolent composure.
Overman rose hastily.
"Sorry the weather was so threatening I couldn't persuade your wife
to go to the Temple, Frank."
"Yes, the rain is pouring in torrents and it's getting colder," he
answered, rubbing his hands before the fire.
"I'll not stay to dinner; I've an engagement at my club," the banker
said, briskly.
The one eye ran from the man to the woman in embarrassment at the
threatening silence. Kate walked with him to the door.
"You will return at seven o'clock," she said, in even tones.
"If you command it," he coolly answered.
"I do. We will have our parting this afternoon. He can remove to
his old quarters at the hotel. I will receive you alone, and we
will arrange for the divorce and our marriage."
"Promptly at seven," he said, crushing her hand in his parting
grasp.
Gordon ate his dinner in obstinate quiet, now and then looking at
his wife's dazzling beauty with fevered yearning in his eyes.
When she rose from the table he said:
"I wish to speak with you in the library, my dear."
"Very well, I'll be down directly," she carelessly replied.
He paced the floor for half an hour, and rang for the maid.
"Tell your mistress I am waiting," he said, abruptly.
The maid did not return, and his anger grew with each lengthening
minute.
At the end of an hour, Kate appeared.
He fixed her with a look of angry amazement.
"Well, what is it?" she asked, impatiently.
"Why did you keep your maid and send no answer to me?"
"I was writing a letter. Are you a king? What is it?" she repeated,
coldly.
"I wish to say something of the utmost importance both to you and
to me, and to another man," he said slowly, in a voice pulsing with
a storm of emotion.
The violet eyes danced and laughed in his face.
"So tragic?" she asked, mockingly.
He locked his big hands nervously behind him, stood before the
fire, and a scowl settled over his face.
"Yes," he said, with quiet force. "More than you understand, I
fear. I have had enough of Mark Overman in this house."
The fair face flushed with excitement. She walked quickly up to
him, paused, and slowly pointed to the door.
"Very well. This is my house. You know the way to the hotel, or
shall I ring for my maid to show you?"
He stared at her in a stupor, and a sense of sickening terror choked
him.
"Kate, are you crazy?" he stammered.
"Never was more myself than in this moment of perfect freedom,"
she replied, defiantly.
His great jaws snapped in silent ferocity, and his hairy hands
closed slowly like the claws of a bear. He planted his big feet
apart, and the sparks flew from the gray eyes that seemed to crouch
now behind his brows.
"What do you mean?" he sullenly asked.
The woman drew back with uncertainty, chilled by the tone of his
voice.
"Just what I said," she answered, with returning courage. "This
is my house. I am a free woman. I mean to do what I please. Permit
me to repeat your own words from the ceremony of Emancipation, and
lest I shock you later, announce that I love Mr. Overman--"
"Kate!" he cried, in bitter reproach.
"Yes, and he loves me. I announce to you this unity of our Eves.
For months it has made us one. May I repeat your ceremony? I have
memorised it perfectly. 'Human life incarnates God. Words can add
nothing to the sublime fact of the union of two souls. This is the
supreme sacrament of human experience. It proclaims its inherent
divinity. There is no yesterday or to-day in the harmony and rhythm
of two such souls. Love holds all the years that have been and are
to be.'"
She paused, smiled, and went on:
"'This is a day of joy--overflowing, unsullied, serene; a day of
hope, a day of faith. It is a day of courage and of cheer, and to
the world it speaks a gospel of freedom and fellowship. It proclaims
the dawn of a higher life for all, the sanctity and omnipotence of
love. It asserts the elemental rights of man,' With joy I announce
to you my approaching marriage to your friend and schoolmate, Mark
Overman, a man in whose strength I glory, whom I shall delight to
call my lord and master."
Trembling from head to foot, the veins on his neck and hands standing
out like steel cords, Gordon said in a hoarse whisper:
"Kate, darling, this is a cruel joke! You are teasing me."
Again she laughed, sat down lazily, and threw her arms behind her
head.
"I never was more serious in my life," she quietly replied.
He hesitated a moment, his eyes devouring her beauty, stepped
quickly to her side, knelt and took her hand.
She snatched it roughly, pushed him from her, and cried angrily:
"Don't touch me!"
He attempted to take her hand and place his arm about her.
She sprang up, repulsing him with rage.
"It is all over between us. You are not my husband. I love another."
He arose, walked back to the fireplace and leaned his elbow on
the mantel. A wave of agony and blind rage swept him. And then the
memory of the hour he spent in such a scene with Ruth caught him
by the throat. He could feel the soft touch of her tapering fingers
on his big foot as she lay prostrate on the floor before him.
He turned with a shiver toward Kate, who was still gazing at him
with insolent languor.
Again his eyes swept the lines of her superb form with the wild
thirst for possession that means murder. Two bright red spots
appeared on his cheeks.
With slow vehemence he said:
"And do you think the man lives who will dare to take you from me?"
"Dare? I will dare to turn you out of this house. I have chosen
the man, and made love to him as his equal. His scruples as your
friend bound him. They do not bind me. Thank yourself if this means
a tragedy. You challenged the world in your strength. You proclaimed
freedom in comradeship. Under the old laws of life, this man would
have cut his right arm off rather than betray you. You invited him
here. Has he no rights--have I no rights you must respect under
such conditions?"
He ignored her question and continued to look at her in stubborn,
curious silence.
"Do you know what you are saying?" he asked, brusquely.
"Certainly. Repeating to you the secrets you have taught me."
"Well, I'll teach you something more before this drama has ended,
young woman," he said, with a touch of ice in his tones.
She gave an angry toss of her head and cried with sneering emphasis:
"Indeed!"
"Yes. I'll show you, if you push me to it, what a return to the
freedom of nature really means. I, too, have had some illuminations
in the past months."
She laughed again.
"Ah, Frank, you are a born preacher, and your threats are scarcely
melodramatic; they are merely idiotic."
The gray eyes grew somber. He drew his right arm up until its
muscles stood a huge twisted knot, fairly bursting through his
sleeve, seized her hand roughly and held it with iron violence on
his arm.
"It's worth your while to take note of that," he said, steadily
disregarding her angry effort to withdraw her hand. "It's made
out of threads of steel--that muscle. Few men are my equal. I am
talking to you in the insolence of physical strength that proclaims
me a king--a savage viking, if you like, but none the less a king."
She attempted again to free her arm from his brutal grip.
"Be still," he growled. "I feel throbbing in my veins to-day the
blood of a thousand savage ancestors who made love to their women
with a club and dragged them to their caves by the hair--yes, and
more, the beat of impulses that surged there with wild power before
man became a man."
With a sob of rage, she tore herself from his grasp.
"Oh, you brute!" she cried, stiffening her figure to its full
height, her dark-red hair falling in ruffling ringlets about her
ears and neck, as she rubbed her arm where his hand had left the
blue finger-prints.
"I warn you," he said, his voice sinking lower and lower into a
mere growl. "I am your husband. You are my wife. Whatever may have
been my dreams, I'm awake now. Man once aroused is an animal with
teeth and claws and Titanic impulses, huge and fateful forces
that crush and kill all that comes between him and his two fierce
elemental desires, hunger and love."
The splendid form of the woman shook with anger. Her eyes ablaze,
her cheeks scarlet, her voice sobbing and breaking with wrath, she
said:
"And did you call it that when you threw your little wife into
the street for me? Is this your boasted freedom--freedom for man's
desires alone?"
"I warn you," he repeated, ignoring her question. "You will bring
that man into this house again at the peril of his life and yours."
"Yes, you are talking to a woman now," she hissed. "Babbler,
preacher, parson, coward! Why did you not say this to him?"
"I'll say it in due time," he answered, deliberately folding his
arms. "In the meantime, I will inform you, as you are in search of
a master, that I am your master and the master of this house."
With a stamp of her foot, she swept from the room, throwing over
her shoulder the challenge:
"We shall see!"
CHAPTER XXIX
BULLDOG AND MASTIFF
Gordon remained in the house during the entire afternoon.
Kate called a boy and sent two messages. One of them summoned her
lawyer, the same polite gentleman who had brought the wonderful
message from that house a few years before.
At 6:30 Gordon went to his study. The wind had risen steadily and
was blowing now a gale from the northwest, and he could feel the
cut of hail mixed with the raindrops. It was fearful under foot,
and he knew his crowd would be small.
His mind was in a whirl of nervous rage.
"Bah! It's this infernal storm in the air," he cried, in disgust.
A feeling of suffocation at last mastered him. He turned the service
over to an assistant, left the Temple, and returned to Gramercy
Park with feverish step.
Overman was in the library in earnest consultation with Kate.
They both sprang to their feet as he hurriedly entered, and he
could see that Kate was trembling with excitement and dread.
The banker was cool and insolent.
Gordon walked quickly to Kate's side and spoke in icy tones of
command.
"Go to your room. I have something to say to this gentleman it will
not be necessary for you to hear."
She hesitated and glanced inquiringly at Overman.
"Certainly; it's best," came his low, quick answer.
The hesitation and appeal to the new master were not lost on Gordon.
He squared his gigantic shoulders, and wet his lips as if to cool
them.
"Very well," she said, facing Gordon. "Before I go I wish to
announce to you that it will not be convenient for you to spend
another night in this house. If you do not go, I will."
He bowed politely and waved her away with a graceful gesture.
"That will do. I do not care to hear any more."
Kate turned and quickly left the room.
"Won't you sit down?" Gordon said, offering Overman a chair with
excessive courtesy.
"Thanks; I prefer to stand," he answered, gruffly.
The single eye was fixed on the man opposite in a steady blaze,
following every step and every movement in silence.
Gordon took his place by Overman's side, thrust his big thumbs into
his vest at the armpits, and looked off into space.
"It's no use, Mark, for us to mince words," he began, in even,
clear tones. "I understand the situation perfectly."
"Then the solution should be easy under your code," the banker
dryly remarked.
"All I ask of you now," Gordon continued, quietly, "as my best
friend, is to let my wife alone. Is that a reasonable request?"
"No," was the emphatic answer. "Did I seek your wife? Yet nothing
could have wrung from me the secret of my love had you not flung
the challenge in my face again and again; and even then my love
for you sealed my lips until she broke the spell to-day with words
that cannot be unsaid."
Gordon's face and voice softened.
"Granted, Mark, I've been a fool. I know better now. I appeal to
your sense of honour and our long friendship. Let this scene end
it. Let us return to the old life and its standards."
The big neck straightened.
"Then go back," he flashed, in tones that cut like steel, "to the
wife of your youth and the mother of your children!"
Gordon's fist clenched; he was still a moment, and when he spoke
his voice was like velvet.
"It's useless to bandy epithets, or to argue, Mark. I don't reason
about this thing. I only feel. My passion is very simple, very
elemental. It flouts logic and reason. This woman is mine. I have
paid the price, and I will kill the man who dares to take her. Do
you understand?"
The banker gave a sneering laugh, and twisted the muscles of his
mouth.
"Yes, I understand, and I'm not fainting with alarm. You will be
a preacher and a poser to the end."
"I have appealed to your principles and your sense of honour first,"
Gordon repeated, in a subdued voice.
The one eye was closed with a smile.
"Principles! Sense of honour! What principles? What sense of honour?
I agree that, under the old view of marriage as a divine sacrament
and a great social ordinance, sacrifice of one's desires for the
sake of humanity might be noble. But in this paradise into which
you have thrust me, with an invitation on your own door for all
the world to enter and contest your position, and with you yourself
shouting from the housetop freedom and fellowship---Sense of honour?
Rubbish!"
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